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WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! In other news, ICANN 67 was… “muted”

Kevin Murphy, March 13, 2020, 16:49:49 (UTC), Domain Policy

Without wishing to scaremonger about Covid-19, I don’t mind admitting that I’ve never been so terrified of anything as much in my adult life.
I have relatives in their nineties or with existing lung conditions, and I’m generally a pretty unhealthy middle-aged bloke myself. In the last few days, I’ve become increasingly concerned that not every member of the clan is going to make it out of 2020 alive.
I’m sure many readers are feeling the same way right now.
The UK government’s response may or may not be scientifically sound, but it seems to me the underlying strategy is not to prevent people from getting the disease, which may well no longer be possible, but rather to spread out infections over as long a period as possible, so as to reduce the peak strain on the National Health Service.
My feeling, which I don’t think is particularly paranoid, is that Boris Johnson, in apparent contrast to other world leaders, has made the call to throw a generation of British grannies under the bus in the name of herd immunity.
We’re living in dark times, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
I hope all my readers stay safe. And, in all seriousness, keep washing those hands and stay at home if you start coughing!
Awkward segue incoming.
There was little doubt in my mind that ICANN made the correct decision three weeks ago when it cancelled the in-person Cancun public meeting and quickly organized a much-truncated online-only ICANN 67 instead. There seemed a possibility that it was acting through an over-abundance of caution.
But, given the developments in the coronavirus pandemic since ICANN pulled the plug on Cancun, all such doubt has surely been eliminated. ICANN made entirely the right call.
That’s not to say that 67 was a roaring success. It suffered from the entirely predictable and unavoidable limitations of online conferencing.
When I say it was “muted”, I mean that in two senses of the word.
Watching the American late-night talk show hosts last night performing to empty audiences this morning was a surreal experience. Like watching survivors of the zombie apocalypse broadcasting a plaintive SOS into an eerily silent ether.
I kinda felt the same listening to ICANN 67.
While I’m no stranger to remote participation — that’s how I experience most ICANN meetings — there’s usually a detectable sense of place, of a jostling community on the other side of the Zoom room. I hesitate to use a word as strong as “vibrancy”, but you probably know what I’m getting at.
There was none of that at 67, which largely played out in much the same way as a regular policy working group call.
And that’s when we get to the other sense of the word “muted” — I lost count of the amount of time squandered to technical issues such as dropped or laggy connections, background noise, and, most commonly, people not realizing that they have to unmute their lines before speaking.
I don’t think a single session I attended was not plagued by periods of uncomfortable silence.
As I said, this was entirely predictable and largely unavoidable. I don’t think the fact that each session’s Zoom room appeared to be configured differently helped, but it’s probably a problem that will be mitigated as people become more accustomed to the Zoom platform.
The next ICANN meeting, numbered 68, is currently still scheduled to take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from June 22, but I think that it’s almost inevitable that we’ll be looking at another online-only session.
Malaysia currently has 158 confirmed cases of coronavirus, suggesting that it’s still in the relatively early stages of the pandemic compared to, say, Europe.
With UK experts predicting peak infections here around late May, it’s entirely possible ICANN 68 would take place while Malaysia’s problem is significantly worse than it is today.

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Comments (3)

  1. Michael says:
    March 13, 2020 at 5:41 pm

    I am sure ICANN will increase prices before we all die.

    Reply
  2. Jean Guillon says:
    March 13, 2020 at 5:46 pm

    For the first time ever, I see people wearing masks in the Paris’ tube. It happened in the past to see tourists wearing them but there are more today. This situation starts to suck in Paris so I’ll go for a Corona tonight. Fuck the virus, Corona is a great beer 😉

    Reply
  3. Leo says:
    March 13, 2020 at 8:16 pm

    ICANN67 was a successful learning experience. There technology basically worked well on the sessions I attended. There are a few tweaks that the ICANN team could make to help make them more engaging at a future online only meeting. But it is good that the work only needs to go into that and not into the technical fundamentals, which were strong.

    Reply

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