The Narrative: EU-US data flows; Twitter’s descent; Tiktok Extinction Event; AI-Attribution; e-Rupee

December 15, 2022 US-EU Data Privacy Framework Moves Forward The European Commission published a “draft adequacy decision,” about the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. In a largely unheralded but highly consequential decision, the US committed itself to privacy protections for European citizens in an October Executive Order from the Biden administration....

The Narrative: IGF, PIR, Ophelia, Digital Cold War, and FTX

UN IGF meets in Addis Ababa The UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) convened this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, using a fully hybrid format. Avoiding Internet fragmentation and digital sovereignty are two of the most popular topics, along with a somewhat contradictory combination of calls for controlling & regulating AI...

Verification and Polarization: The Politics of the Twitter Acquisition

At first, there was a reason to feel optimistic about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Mr Musk seemed to be interested in disrupting a cross-firm, collusive, and overly restrictive equilibrium on the standards and norms of social media content moderation. While I understand that the scope and value of “free...

The Great Reframing, in Text

For those of you who prefer text to videos, and the enhanced possibilities of editing for clarity and conciseness, we now make available edited transcripts of two riveting discussions on the definition of the field from our conference in The Hague. This includes the initial panel discussion featuring Tatiana Tropina,...

The Narrative: A new Chief Twit; India wants you to complain; KSA hurls a BRIC

November 1, 2022 The Twitter Acquisition Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, by threatening to upset the social media status quo, has kicked off a rambunctious but mostly healthy controversy in the US about the role of content moderation in the ”public square.” In a separate blog post, Milton Mueller explains...

Who Controls the Tweets?

Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter last week. This process was accompanied by a fascinating public process, which reveals how politicized and polarized American social media have become. We have two factions competing for power; one has captured the Democratic party, the other has captured the Republican Party. The...

The Great Reframing: IG2DPE

So, is it still “Internet governance” that we do, or is it going to be re-framed as “digital political economy”? IG or DPE? Our conference in The Hague hosted fascinating discussions on this question.   The answer to the re-framing question can be summarized as “Yes, but...” Yes, re-framing IG issues around...