I am particularly concerned that it is described as a purely technical move with no effect on censorship capabilities as if those are mutually exclusive.
What is the goal here? What problem is this solving?
"It will signal that the U.S. has changed its position and no longer believes in a private-sector led internet and that governments will play a primary role in making the final decision. Russia, China, and others will welcome such a decision."
(https://www.icann.org/iana-stewardship-questions)
ICANN and others are afraid that certain, mostly authoritarian governments will want to break away from the global DNS and/or IP allocation system to form alternative, walled systems under the pretext that the US government 'controls the internet'.
So ICANN and others want to take away any argument, however feeble, that supports this position.
I really don't see any upside to this, as a US citizen strongly in favor of free speech. There very well may be no downside, but I've seen no strong case for this that doesn't come down to global politics to appease other nations with far less stringent free speech protections.