Robert Guerra, Senior Advisor to the Citizen Lab, in collaboration with Paul Vixie and ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) will be organizing a workshop at the 2014 United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) that will be held September 2-5, 2014 in Istanbul, Turkey.

The workshop session in this year’s IGF, titled “Internet blocking: When well intentioned measures go too far” will explore the state of play in third party Internet blockades and boycotts by non-state actors such as Internet reputation systems, whether commercially motivated or not. Examples of collateral damage will be drawn from the record, including the impact of SPAMHAUS’s blockade of Sweden in early 2014. The workshop will engage leading experts from both the technology and policy arenas to debate and discuss questions like “at what limit does a blockade or boycott do more harm than good to the organizer’s own values, due to foreseeable collateral damage, lack of care, or lack of investigatory resources?”

The panel hopes to reach a common understanding and brief set of recommendations for those who might organize Internet blockades and boycotts, for those who might participate in such events – perhaps by subscribing to an Internet reputation system, for those who might be targeted by such moves, and also for policy makers and shapers who need to know the powers and risks of collective third party action in cyberspace.

For more information about the 2014 IGF, please click here.