Government wants to cut online opioid sales at the registry level.
Remember when the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) amended its contract with Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) for running .com and its statement mentioned content?
Amendment 35 confirms that Verisign will operate the .com registry in a content neutral manner with a commitment to participate in ICANN processes. To that end, NTIA looks forward to working with Verisign and other ICANN stakeholders in the coming year on trusted notifier programs to provide transparency and accountability in the .com top level domain.
It’s a contradictory paragraph. The first sentence says Verisign will operate .com content-neutral manner. The second one talks about Trusted Notifier programs in which domains are suspended on the basis of their content.
Well here’s the first look at that. The NTIA announced some activity around working with registries to take down sites offering opioids.
Neustar, which runs .US, is already on board with a method for taking down such sites. Neustar operates .US on behalf of the U.S. government.
It’s this paragraph in the NTIA’s statement that is interesting:
FDA and NTIA are working with other key entities that have a role in the registration of domain names, including Verisign, which oversees .com, and Public Interest Registry, which manages .org, on a framework focused on reducing the availability of opioids illegally offered for sale online. It also will help increase transparency and accountability in the domain name system and inform future conversations about “trusted notifier” programs expected to take place at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
That’s not exactly content-neutral. It’s hard to tell if this means they are just talking to the registries about how to work these programs through ICANN or if it is applying pressure on them.
Charles Christopher says
>are suspended on the basis of their content.
Domains are suspended on the basis of “trusted” third party’s OPINIONS of the content, not on the basis of the content.
Trust does not necessarily mean accountable.
Zerohedge just had a great story on this:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-03/real-reasons-why-facebooks-zuckerberg-wants-more-government-regulation
“As FTC commissioner Brendan Carr put it, Facebook’s proposed regulatory agenda would allow it to “outsource[e] censorship.” Not only would this put the federal government in a position to be directly determining which opinions and ideas ought to be eliminated from tech platforms, it would also allow Facebook to pretend to be an innocent third party: “Don’t blame us for deleting your posts [domains],” Facebook could then say. “The government made us do it!”
Nothing new, under the sun ….
Charles Christopher says
One of my favorites:
“DEAR GOVERNMENT,
After a 47 year “war on drugs” you can’t keep drugs of the streets, you can’t keep drugs out of elementary schools, you can’t even keep drugs out of federal prisons.
Yet, you want me to disarm myself [censorship] and trust that you can keep guns [domains] from criminals?”
https://www.reddit.com/r/progun/comments/a5xrmr/dear_government/
(I do wish they’d picked an actor that demonstrated finger discipline)
John says
Andrew, will videos show up nice and large the way they do at Elliot’s and Konstantinos’s place? If so I would add a link for “The End” by the Doors.
But we have to get here sooner or later so might as well start now, ay: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+13%3A16-17&version=NASB.
Joseph Peterson says
This fit perfectly with a discussion I was having today about the role / responsibility of registrars, registries, and law enforcement agencies to police web content.
Some believe the registrar should suspend a domain. Why? Because it can. And because the public is more aware of registrars (which run Super Bowl commercials) than of registries (of which no consumer is directly a customer).
To me, the focus on registrars (by those who want to remove content of some variety) makes no sense. Enforcement can be done more efficiently and comprehensively at the registry level.
Whether it should or not, and when and how, is open to debate. There’s a slippery slope argument, of course. And “Trusted Notifiers” might not always be trustworthy.
But I will say this: Insofar as registries or registrars are expected to police web content, then I would like those expectations to be routed through elected lawmakers and appointed law enforcement agencies. Let them stipulate requirements for registries and registrars. If those policies turn out to be bad, well, at least there was a consistent policy. And the government that made the policy is answerable to the citizens, who can change the policy.
Government action is (in a sense) preferable to having some segment of the population or some special interest group attempt to force registrars to suspend domains they find objectionable. Focusing on 1 registrar at a time simply causes a domain to transfer from that registrar to another. And without consistent policies from registries, ICANN, or governments, registrars will never respond consistently to pressure from any group of people. Public pressure doesn’t necessarily reflect the will of the people, and there is little opportunity for civic debate when the mob shows up with the torches.
So I’d much rather see such debate focus on lawmakers or ICANN, both of which are (however imperfectly) answerable to the public. If the public wants greater policing of content (which can be a good thing) or even outright censorship, let them ask for it through legitimate channels. By “legitimate” I mean those that depend on consensus and debate policy before it is implemented, as ICANN or democracies should do. Let those entities craft a formal policy, which all registries or registrars can apply to domains.
Those who want registrars to police the web but who are not advocating for policy at the registry level or ICANN level or government level – perhaps their anti-democratic impulses should not carry the day. Government action may seem bad to individualists, but it is better than haphazard action in response to whatever segment of the population (large or tiny) applies pressure to suspend a domain based on content it doesn’t like. Governments, unlike mobs or lobbyists, can be made to be careful and fair.
Charles Christopher says
>Government action is (in a sense) preferable
>And without consistent policies
Will ALL trusted notifiers be treated as equal? …. If so …. Will the Chinese government notifiers have the same view on right and wrong as the US government or the Saudi Government?
Will a North Korean “trusted notifier” when faced with a gun in their face while submitting a complaint, be treated with the same “trust” that a notifier in another country will be?
Will government officials call in favors of their peers in other countries to “handle” sites they want gone but can’t do it because of their own laws? You scratch my back, I scratch yours ….
How is it that the entire PLANET caved into unelected bureaucrats in the EU feeling that the EU had the power to apply its ADMINISTRATIVE LAWS outside the EU?
GDPR …..
Perhaps we need a one world government … Right where we are headed. As history has shown, when we get there there will be no consistent policies nor accountability. There will be local thiefdoms paying their extortion fees to keep from being Arkancided.
John says
We’re headed towards a one world government, ay? Then you should like my comment above. 🙂
John says
Joseph, I worked in government before myself, as I’ve mentioned briefly in the blogs before, and working in Uncle Sam’s house was one of the great patriotic privileges of my life among other things.
That said, however, government is full of corruption, evil, psychopaths, and sociopaths, who also tend to dominate regardless of the more decent people around. I also spent some time with regional government as well, which can be far worse. We cannot trust government for this. It’s great that we have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but they are also constantly under threat and assault from within, most especially and particularly by those who are within government itself. We cannot trust registries or registrars either, and I think we have seen for many years now how it is not easy by any means for the public to change anything or hold anyone to account, assuming they have even been properly, fully and honestly informed about anything by “the media” to begin with. You certainly know that well yourself, and you even moved out of the country because of what “the people” recently did no less.
Someone obviously has to make such decisions, however, so my “vote” would certainly be for simply as much transparency, due process and objective fact based action and policy as possible, with especial emphasis on the rights and principles expressed in the Bill of Rights this country was however imperfectly founded upon when it comes to matters here at home. So far that appears to be what Epik is doing, for example, but that is only as good as and can only occur when the actual people involved possess and practice such principles. But it should definitely not be government, and definitely not ICANN either. What imperfect government should have done, however, was create regulation that would have made it impossible for Go Daddy to do what it did regarding Gab to begin with, which started this recent wave of focus on such important issues. That would also have given Go Daddy “cover” in the face of social pressure. Government is sometimes good at creating useful standards, but not at keeping or preserving them. Rob has sometimes spoken of the registrar as a “utility,” and I could not agree more, just like telephone service in many and important ways.
Some people are not going to care about people like this because they disapprove of their lifestyle and consider it to be wrong or evil regardless of circumstances, for instance, but look at the counterproductive and saddening consequences to life and death of one recent action by government when it comes to free speech and Internet media: https://thecrimereport.org/2018/06/04/the-deadly-consequences-of-the-anti-sex-trafficking-law/. People have even died because of that. This phenomenon also ties in with some of what Charles wrote here as well.
Charles Christopher says
This is not directed at you John, it is an issue you touched on that I’d like to expand.
>but that is only as good as and can only occur
>when the actual people involved possess and
>practice such principles.
Personal responsibility, which can never be outsourced … Things break anytime outsourcing is attempted.
The Native American Indian “Code Talkers” offer a great lesson here.
I tried to find a link on this but could not, I think it was a Native American would gave me this history. I just called a Native American friend, who is also a Pastor, and he confirm my memory and the point I would like to make. He said he has only ever heard this history from his elders.
Native American Indians did not have a written language, until settlers dissected their languages and started to produce a written form. Given their history, why was there no written language?
When divisions occurred in a tribe, the tribe would separate both in terms of language and location. An entirely new language would be created by the group that leaves thus “book ending” the difference to make it very permanent. The separate is “complete”.
Native American Indians are tremendously advanced (and have a rich 10,000+ year history) but not the way the average person defines value today.
They understood the value of personal responsibility, but also sovereignty. People MUST have the ability to think differently, even if it means the tribe separates. And that is where this connects to this thread.
Many thousands of years of human history made clear you can’t make people all think the same, things “break” when you try that.
Opioids are a problem, and if one digs in one finds that the government created the conditions for it to happen.
https://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/sl-oklahoma-johnson-and-johnson-opioids.html
“Our Legislature, Governor, policymakers and doctors need to know the truth about how one particular company, J&J, inserted itself into our State and sought to influence every opioid-related decision the State made or considered—from scheduling to swallowing,” attorneys for Oklahoma wrote.”
Sadly, that was the first link I found, the issue is just so obvious that its hard to miss when your research it. Patrick Byrne labeled it “Deep Capture” (DeepCapture.com) which is his way to point to exactly what I was pointing to in my first post.
So we have an obvious “bricks and mortar world” problem in the US regarding Opioids. That is our personal responsibility here in the US. To share what we learn about the problem with other countries is great lets do it! But we don’t get tell others what to do, nor do they tell us what to do.
What we see going on, and I think most people see it now, is the internet is being used to “harmonize” humanity. Unlike the Indians who recognized the important of differences to the point of separating from the tribe and creating entirely new languages, we are now trying to setup conditions where the internet “defines truth” that we are all to agree on and submit to. We are trying to impose the REVERSE.
No.
That has been tried many times in human history and it does not work and never will work. People are individuals, and that must always be respected.
The US has “bricks and mortar” laws, enforce them, leave domain names alone. If the government makes its case, then based on the court do what is needed with the domain AFTER the root cause of the problem has been addressed. Same with other countries, they get to define what happens in their borders, that is their personal responsibility, that is how they wish to live and must be allowed to do so. Never force that on someone else.
The Native American Indian “Code Talkers” provided “communications encryption” encryption because they thought differently. Because in history, they were able to “leave” others and form their own language and ways of living and thinking. Precisely what the US constitution and bill of rights was design to protect INSIDE a single border.
“There are ample followers of each cult, that of the rugged individualist trying to be an island and that of mystical adsorption. Either may be philosophical-religious or practical-secular. All totalitarianism, e.g., sacrifices the individual to the state; and the naive capitalist thinks that he can build his own little isolationist world and live within it, gathering about himself wealth and “security” in the midst of poverty. Scripture rejects both illusions—that one can live alone or that he must lose his identity.
Scripture [written expression of truth] keeps us in the tension of individuality without which we are lost and community without which we are equally lost.”
– Frank Stagg, Polarities of Man’s Existance.
After separation, the tribes still interacted and worked together ….
Deal with the root cause. The moment “trusted notifiers” are raised to priests [someone who artfully places them self between you and truth] we are all in trouble and beholding to satisfy THEIR definition of truth, which is in fact belief NOT truth ….
John says
One more thought, Joseph: I’ve been quite pleasantly impressed by much of your posts lately, though I have certainly not always agreed with everything, such as regarding Rob. I also loved how exquisitely you handled that “Jason” guy when he came to attack Rob and Epik re Gab at TheDomains, like nothing less than Bruce Lee himself, and I said so there and later at another blog as well. But I do want to say that on a few points you genuinely surprised me at NamePros. Not just surprised, but shocked. I’m referring specifically to your sentiments and mention of things like “distrust of the mainstream media” and “distrust of government.” As a former “fed” myself, you can see here now that I have plenty of the latter, and you can bet your belief in free speech I have plenty of the former too. And I am far from alone.
The reason why I was so surprised is because distrust of the mainstream media and government is not even within a hundred million miles of being predominately characteristic of the “right” or “conservatives” or anything of the sort. The true “left” and true “progressives” are no less awake, aware, and distrustful of both government and the msm than anyone alive, and rightly so. I also pointed out under another blog post recently something many appear to not even be aware of, i.e. how it is entirely possible, or perhaps even probable, that quantitatively speaking the great wave of censorship, deplatforming and suppression currently underway has been far more against the true left and true progressives than against the right and conservatives. It has merely been most famous and made the biggest splash with the right, conservatives and Alex Jones.
If you want to see the above for yourself, as one who is a self-identified “progressive” yourself, then just subscribe to the truth channel of what is probably the greatest truth teller of them all from the genuine left and genuine progressives right now, who often addresses these very issues, a man named Jimmy Dore of “The Jimmy Dore Show” on YouTube. And while you’re at it, definitely do the same with the work of Abby Martin and a channel called “Empire Files.”
So just as you were wondering in one of the threads on NP how a certain guy whose initials are JB could be saying certain things in light of how intelligent we all know that he is (for which there was definitely an answer imho), I was also truly wondering how your “world view about government and the media” could mention “distrust of the mainstream media” and “distrust of government” the way that you did given your own background and how smart you certainly are. And I certainly also wish you the best going forward.
John says
Also for the record and for posterity, Joseph, it is no longer merely about “distrust” now. Those days are long gone, and it is pure common knowledge what “government” and the “mainstream media” have done to prove the reasons for distrust a million times over and continue to do. A person would even have to be in huge denial otherwise. Much of that has not only even been acknowledged and admitted, but it’s become so brazen they don’t even really try to hide it anymore now. These realities certainly never ended in the 70’s with the Church committee hearings, or when Phila Donahue was fired by MSNBC for telling the truth about the Iraq war, propaganda even upon the American public is now literally the law of the land to boot, but if you have any doubts then i can also show you a country named Venezuela that we only want to liberate from tyranny and dictatorship to save and protect the people and restore democracy and install the real and rightful president there. Both the mainstream pseudo “left” and pseudo “progressives” and the “right” can show you that too, and hopefully you’ll buy it.
Charles Christopher says
>but it’s become so brazen they don’t even
>really try to hide it anymore now.
As the “old fart” that I am, it is tempting to see hope in that, that people will wake up.
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.’
– Vladimir Lenin, Head of Russia from 1917-1924 & 1922-1924
So long as public education is run by government, it trains children to trust government, never look behind the curtain, and be resistant to stepping out of Plato’s Cave.
This is precisely why we are now seeing suggestions lowering the voting age to 16:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/19/politics/oregon-voting-age-16-trnd/index.html
https://vote16usa.org/5-reasons-for-lowing-voting-age-16/
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/434115-pelosi-says-she-backs-lowering-voting-age-to-16
Get the vote when the illusion, the deception, is most strong, and the voters are still under more direct influence. Vote before they see the reality of the world you have created for them and thus have truth on which to base their decisions.
Its why people were killed at age 30 in Login’s run, need to avoid dealing with people who get closer to stepping out of Plato’s Cave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YsTKL7L6-o
Notice the symbolism of the scene, they are walking INTO Plato’s Cave. In western culture, the young do not listen to the wisdom spoken by the old. That is our fault NOT the government …. Our founders warned us of this:
“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
– Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
Others can place a breadcrumb trail, but you are never freed from Plato’s Cave, you can only ever choose to escape it [unobservable truth, AKA Faith] … On your own … That is called the gift of free will. What will you choose to do with your free will? Stay in the cave, or break your chains …
– The parable of the wineskin
John says
Well Charles, I was a bit taken aback by some of your comments which make me look positively pithy by comparison, but I’m starting to warm up to you. 🙂
Looks like Joseph is either just not seeing what I’ve been saying about the true equal opportunity nature of the censorhip issue or just doubling down on conveying the idea that it is primarily just a fear and fixation of the right wing even when real examples exist:
https://www.namepros.com/posts/7181814/.
Charles Christopher says
I think you are right John. The more people work together the less they need government. That is personal responsibility.
The key is that people must be able to disagree with each other, without it coming from a point of ego. That is people seeing their value come from a lie of self.
Government thrives on conflict.The cold war ended, so we needed a conflict. Into the middle east we went, eventually the Marines helped the farmers in Afganistan grow poppies which the “Taliban” had eliminated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUATfLDiwVA
How many billions did we spend on the military, and all we needed to do was pay off the farmers debt? Hmmm …
Back to opium, back to the OP of this thread.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/11/21/afghanistans-opium-production-is-through-the-roof-why-washington-shouldnt-overreact/
But if the trusted notifiers can delete the right domains it will all go away …
John says
I’m not in favor of eliminating government, Charles. We need government in my opinion, and I’m not an ideological anarchist by any means. What we don’t need is all the super abundant evil, darkness, corruption and corporatism. Not to mention all the accompanying propaganda involving a largely controlled and complicit mainstream media for controlling both the left and the right.
Charles Christopher says
I find it very difficult to find examples of laws being broken on the internet, without some corresponding law being broken in the bricks and mortar world. The opioid crisis is a great example.
So the question comes up, with the internet giving us visibility to the transactions, why would we want to deny ourselves such data?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qrlDGhoI1Q
Such data is very useful in finding the seller and the buyers. Leave the transaction path intact so you have the evidence you need in the bricks and mortar world.
Let me offer an answer as to why you would not want this data, why you shut the sites down:
Politics
So long as your constituents see the illegal activity on the internet, they are aware of the problem. Law enforcement looks bad, people show up to city council meetings, Mayors and councilman get scolded. Get rid of the sites and the population thinks there is no problem. Out of “site”, out of mind. Government also benefits from making the problem harder (eliminating useful data) and thus gets to raise taxes to demand more money to solve the problem. The problem is made worse by eliminating useful data, a managers dream way of raising budgets ….
Leaving the sites up and running lets the world know the government is not doing its job, your constituents scream at you in person on the phone and via email, hiding the activity creates the illusion you are doing your job and most complaints go away ….
No domain should be allowed to be deleted. If it is hard to track down a site controller then lets pay taxes to create better technologies to find them (*), rather than pay to overcome the information that is now lost because the site is gone. No modern politician is likely to ever choose that, it is simply too easy to make the site go away and claim they solved the problem … Then to it becomes harder to hold the politician accountable as the proof of the problem is also denied to those trying to hold law enforcement accountable.
This is why Gab.com should never have gone through what it did, if it is truly a den of evil, GREAT! Yes i said GREAT! Keep that den of evil open and metaphorically stand at the entrance with SWAT and hand cuffs! …. Take full advantage of it placing criminals into a “barrel” so to speak. If you really care about catching evil people, you’d never deny yourself such a wonderful service!
In Salt Lake City recently, staggering sums were paid to “clean up” a drug problem in the city, that the city caused … The problem went away from Salt Lake City, and then move to the surrounding citys that did not have the budgets to deal with the problem …. But Salt Lake City residents were happy the problem was gone for them! Even though the problem DID NOT go away, it just moved out of “site”.
I have friends in military intelligence. They have told me its amazing how people think they can post what they do on Facebook with impunity. These friends get all kinds of useful information from Facebook. When they get the bad guys the bad guys say “How did you know?!”
Answer: “Facebook”
Q.E.D.
(*) Yet another reason people should be questioning GDPR when privacy whois was working just fine.
Frank Michlick says
Christopher: GDPR is far more encompassing than just for whois. I still believe whois should have never been public in the first place.
This aside, I don’t think registrars and registries should place themselves in a position to police content, aside from the fact that they often don’t even host the content of the domains registered through them. Once they start pro-actively monitoring the content of domains and enforcing laws, they become potentially liable for the things that slip by them. This is what a lawyer once told me with regards to user generated content… ultimately the “upload filter” in the EU goes in this direction.
I agree that we have existing laws that can be applied to most of the cases and registrars will generally follow a court order that is valid in their jurisdiction.
Jack says
There is and has been an unhealthy obsession over controlling others maybe due to belief oriented thinking, as opposed to critical (objective) thinking, using the intellect to rationalise information, and slowly discover truths which can never be given, but need to be learned and lived by the individual themselves. Anything short of that is an abandonment of self responsibility. Children need to learn critical thinking, and apply it to every situation in everyday life so it becomes a habit.
As John noted in a post above, from what I have learned myself is that it’s no joke that a high proportion of individuals in government (and corporate sphere) have genuine psychopathic traits. The UN should make an immediate recommendation that all those in responsible positions be tested for psychopathic traits and never allowed to be in a leadership position.
But politics never has and never will work. It forces sides, and the best outcome results in democratically elected dictators. True democracy is and can only ever be a direct democracy, where every law, decree, rule, action, which impact the society, is brought to a vote after facts are verified and listed without the smallest sense of bias for the individual to process and make an informed opinion. Until a responsible, reality oriented, populace is established, true civilisation is only a dream.
Getting back to the internet, a decentralisation is inevitable, and attempts to censor material unfairly will bring a democratic internet into existence much sooner. That of course comes with troubles, which really could be solved if every individual was given the proper care an attention from childhood and into adulthood so that they are able to control themselves and not become victim to baseless opinion, emotion, and coercion. That’s a long path, and in the meantime I think it may be feasible to implement a democratic censoring of content, but until, and as mentioned above, a reality oriented truth driven populace is established, there will be biases. In such situations and current times, balanced consideration, modesty, compromise, and just being a reasonable person and not becoming a partisan and living in extremes is a good start. There is nobility, grace, compassion, fairness, etc. when we can say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can learn’ or ‘I am in control of my destiny’ or ‘Life is what we make it’.
Charles Christopher says
No doubt these will be the metrics “trusted notifiers” will be trusted to render their decision about:
https://www.cnet.com/news/uk-to-keep-social-networks-in-check-with-internet-safety-regulator/
“The spread of disinformation and fake news”
Not surprisingly, the word disinformation does not appear in Noah Websters 1828 English dictionary.
Charles Christopher says
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-04-08/government-unveils-plans-for-tough-new-online-safety-laws/
“It also calls for powers to be given to a regulator to force internet firms to publish annual transparency reports on the harmful content on their platforms and how they are addressing it.”
Just what small business needs, more busy work to “pay” for the crimes of those actually causing problems.
This of course ignores that “safety” and “harm” are in no ways universally understood terms … But their use does create divides as people hearing the words ASSuME those around them share their definition of what those words really mean.
“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”
– Benjamin Franklin, U.S. Founding Father
This is about censorship, helping people is not the goal here. Human history gives us no end of such examples.
Charles Christopher says
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-11/im-going-back-selling-drugs-backpage-seizure-forces-sex-traffickers-back-legitimate
“Anaheim Police Sergeant Juan Reveles of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force in Southern California said the closure of Backpage represented a double edged sword for law-enforcement. He stated: “If we spend the time and effort to shut down one website, another one will pop up, and our resources are finite.”