Month: July 2024

By Peixi Xu.

Despite the removal of considerable parts of contents which are regarded as controversial in the second version of the Global Digital Compact (GDC), the third version of GDC is now being challenged by member states who chose to break the silence procedure.

However, this moment should not be understood as a setback of this prominent process, but as a moment to recognize the complex, encompassing, evolutionary, and interwoven nature of digital issues, where governance issues as diverse as Internet technical resources, data, online content, and most recently AI, are mixing altogether.

The initial framework about GDC used to describe global digital governance in 7 topics: (1) connectivity, (2) avoiding Internet fragmentation, (3) data protection, (4) applying human rights online, (5) accountability for online content, (6) regulating AI, and (7) digital commons. After rounds of consultations and talks, the third version of GDC now combine and integrate the 7 topics into 5 areas: (1) digital divide, (2) digital economy, (3) human rights, (4) data, and (5) AI. A renegotiation process perhaps will not bring the document back to the 7-topic framework but may be used to enhance some achievements on the one hand and address some disputes on the other. The following is some observations and comments regarding the third version of GDC based on a leaked text online.

Continue reading “UN Global Digital Compact Talks at a New Moment”

By Jordan Carter.

This article was first published in Intermedia on 20 June 2024.

In 2025, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly will make decisions on the future of a vital but little-known set of technology governance processes that will shape the evolution and development of the internet. This UN work comes about from a review of progress since the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) concluded in 2005. Next year marks twenty years since the summit and the review, and associated decision-making, has been dubbed ‘WSIS+20’.

Much has moved on in the technology world since 2005, a time before smartphones, high speed wireless connectivity, the marvels of nascent AI technologies and more. Yet the framework developed at WSIS has in many respects proved flexible and adaptable enough to support progress towards the vision agreed in the summit’s first phase (2003), to ‘build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilise and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life’.

Continue reading “How much influence should governments have over the internet?”