Parminder, I would modify that slightly to "Ideally the state is formed by the (no doubt fictional but meaningful) social contract whereby individuals agree to give up some of their liberties for the sake of collective social living."  Unfortunately, there are numerous cases where the state was formed by whoever could bring to bear enough power to force other individuals to accept the "leaders".  

As you note, this presupposes a particular form of government.  But, for the moment, not one which is anything like universal.  Therefore, what constitutes Karl's "public harm" is subject to being defined locally by a very small group which is not at all representative of the population.  Thus, as a practical matter, we should have something fairly specific as to what constitutes a public harm -- something that cannot be readily modified to mean "inconvenient to the existing government." 

Bill Jouris



On Friday, March 10, 2023 at 03:53:00 AM PST, parminder via At-Large <at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> wrote:



The state is formed by the (no doubt fictional but meaningful) social
contract whereby individuals agree to give up some of their liberties
for the sake of collective social living. The collective decisions
needed for such living are enforced by the state which has a monopoly
over use of legitimate coercive force in this regard. Constitutions
based on fundamental rights are supposed to ensure that any such
curtailing of liberties for collective sake is justified by cannons of
legitimacy, necessity, proportionality,  and minimalism (tested on the
ground that no other less intrusive mean was available towards the same
end) .

Karl is stating more or less the same in terms of the internet and law....

Which is a great starting principle, and already presupposed in
constitutional democracies, but the real problems all lie downstream in
interpretations and implementation, by law makers, courts, executive,
and so on ..

parminder

On 10/03/23 15:36, christian de larrinaga via At-Large wrote:
> Sympathetic to this Karl. But ...
>
> Check the UK's Online Safety Bill. For "public detriment" we should now read
> the use of the terms "harms" and "safety". Both are subjectively assessed and at high risk of
> politicisation. They are also being bandied about to be used for
> prevention of harms. This is at the root of argument to make use of
> encryption too risky on communications providers bottom lines.
>
> C
>
>
>
> Karl Auerbach via At-Large <at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> writes:
>
>> With regard to principles, I like to start with a foundation, vague
>> and ambiguous as it may be, to set a general direction.
>>
>> Below is what I have been proposing for a long time...
>>
>> (By-the-way, this formulation finds its distant ancestor in the US
>> "Hush-a-Phone" case, a rather significant, and somewhat amusing, case
>> that was the start of a sequence that led to the opening of telco
>> circuits to other sues, such as the ARPAnet and Internet.)
>>
>> First Law of the Internet
>>
>> + Every person shall be free to use the Internet in any way
>>    that is privately beneficial without being publicly
>>    detrimental.
>>
>>     - The burden of demonstrating public detriment shall
>>       be on those who wish to prevent the private use.
>>
>>         - Such a demonstration shall require clear and
>>           convincing evidence of public detriment.
>>
>>     - The public detriment must be of such degree and extent
>>       as to justify the suppression of the private activity.
>>
>> https://www.cavebear.com/old_cbblog/000059.html
>>
>> The general shape of this principle is that one has a freedom to use
>> the net as they please.  But that pleasure is subject to the rather
>> cloudy boundary of "public detriment".  However, the principle places
>> the burden of proving that "public detriment" on those who complain.
>> And the level and evidence of that proof has to be high, not merely a
>> bald assertion.
>>
>>          --karl--
>>
>>
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