UN member states want to give themselves a new roadmap for Internet and digital policy at a future summit in September. Nearly 40 long-standing, prominent developers from the Internet Engineering Task Force and the W3C today issued a warning Letter to the United Nations Secretary General The development of rules for the Internet is facing a tendency towards centralization. They fear that political decisions can have a detrimental effect at the infrastructure level.
Advertisement
Last week, negotiators from Sweden and Zambia approved a new version of the planned Global Digital Compact (GDC) published, the global community’s digital policy roadmap for the next decade. The second draft recognizes the need for governments to collaborate with tech developers in companies, social media platforms and civil society groups.
The EU Commission has more questions for Microsoft, OpenAI as well as Google and SamsungMore state supervision for networks?
But the devil is in the details and there is concern among technology experts that the GDC, which was eventually passed by UN member states, could replace the cooperation of various “stakeholders” with multilateral – that is, fully intergovernmental – digital policy forms of supervision. In the recently published draft, governments emphasized the coexistence of multilateral and multi-stakeholder oversight structures for the Internet.
The signatories of the open letter, which include several former IETF chairs and W3C working group heads, warn against emphasizing state and centralized governance structures over self-governance. On the one hand, some proposals from countries still raise the idea of ​​relying more on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for Internet governance. On the other hand, entirely new supervisory bodies are also being discussed, especially for the topic of AI.
Collaboration against negative events on the network
Internet experts say it is assumed that governments take seriously the responsibility to protect their citizens. As online threats become more evident, governments will see it as their responsibility to intervene through regulation and legislation. Technology can influence use, “but it alone cannot solve abuse, misinformation, inequality or many other problems.” At the same time, there are fears that excessive regulation could limit or even destroy openness and interoperability on the Internet.
“I think there is a lurking concern that governments, in their understandable desire to prevent abusive behavior, will choose policy solutions that have a direct and detrimental impact on the infrastructure layer of the Internet,” explains Vint Cerf, one of the lead developers of the original TCP-IP standards and a co-signer of the letter on the request.
Cerf believes the shift toward more government oversight is almost inevitable. Ultimately, the GDC directly calls on states to adopt rules in a variety of areas. The list ranges from protecting users and especially minors, to more equal rights in network access and when mining data gold, promoting open source and an AI that is hopefully committed to the common good.
But Cerf says it is important for the signatories of the letter to ensure that the processes set in motion do not accidentally destroy global connectivity and the free flow of information.
Implementation is key
Ultimately, the decisive factor is the implementation of the GDC’s follow-up procedures, which will be adopted by states in September, Cerf says. Will new global AI committees be selected by the secretary-general as before? Are purely multilateral processes on the internet being opened up by states to include users and technologists on an equal basis at the UN? Will the Internet Governance Forum eventually be better equipped as a global digital policy platform?
In any case, the idea of ​​creating a completely new UN body to implement the GDC is hardly feasible, assures WZB researcher Janet Hoffman. She was one of the panelists at the recent event organized by Brazil NETMUNDIAL+10 Conferencewhich has adopted an appeal for more rather than fewer interest groups, particularly at the UN. According to Hoffman, neither the US government nor the EU has much interest in new committees in the field of Internet governance.
(MKI)
Agreement with China: Car data agreement causes cabinet controversy
