Backgrounder: WSIS and the UN institutional landscape

As we approach the 20th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Lillestrøm, Norway, a pivotal question looms: how will the United Nations system reconcile two competing efforts to shape global digital governance—the legacy of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the newly adopted Global Digital Compact (GDC)? Behind...

Industrial Policy vs. Digital Reality: How Data, Not Labor, Is Rebuilding the Rust Belt

This Palantir advertisement, displayed at the Detroit airport—a symbolic and literal hub of U.S. industrial manufacturing—makes a highly strategic and ideologically charged claim: “Palantir is Reindustrializing America’s Manufacturing.” The ad visually juxtaposes sleek, robotic car manufacturing lines with logos of firms heavily invested in AI, defense tech, and automation (e.g.,...

Mandated Interoperability/ Cybersecurity: The Fateful Tradeoff Underlying the Crowdstrike Incident

We’ve learned a lot in the last ten days about the software update from Crowdstrike that crashed approximately 8.5 million Windows-based PCs. In retrospect, 8.5 million is a fairly small portion of the global Windows environment, 7 or 8% (according to MSFT less than 1% of Windows machines were impacted),...

The U.S. FCC’s intrusion into routing security: A comment

The Internet Governance Project (IGP) has submitted comments in response to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Matter of Reporting on Border Gateway Protocol Risk Mitigation Progress, FCC 24-146 and Secure Internet Routing, FCC-24-62. Internet routing was for many years left network operators to...

IGP to present at National Academies Workshop on Countering Disinformation

Disinformation online, and how it might be addressed, remains a persistent challenge for civil society, firms, and states. Tomorrow, April 10, the National Academies of Sciences will begin a workshop on Evolving Technological, Legal and Social Solutions to Counter Disinformation in Social Media. The workshop will feature two days of...
Image representing the conceptual shift in platform governance and market dynamics from the Apple App Store to the OpenAI GPT Store.

OpenAI’s GPT Store: New Competition in the Global Digital Economy

OpenAI's recently launched GPT store potentially marks a significant shift in the global digital economy landscape, presenting a viable competitive threat to established platforms like Apple's App Store. Competition in the global digital economy is all about creating platforms that bring different sides of a market together to create value....

From Black to White: Dissecting Propaganda in Nuclear Emergencies, Finding Governance Solutions  

Disinformation during emergencies (DiE) can critically undermine government efforts to mitigate socioeconomic harm and damage the relationship between the state and citizens. With the production of nuclear power growing in multiple countries and widespread concern over generative-AI-fueled disinformation online, we are researching the impact of DiE on transnational nuclear emergency responses....

The Narrative: November 1, 2023

Dispatches from the evolving digital political economy AI Governance: Empty Gestures? The US government released an AI Executive Order October 31. The Halloween release comes after a year-long FUD campaign, backed partly by businessmen with a vested interest in AI, that frames AI as a frightening new technology that poses...