The contradiction between state sovereignty and cyberspace is the fundamental "Internet governance" issue of our times. Four years ago, I published a scholarly manifesto "Against sovereignty in cyberspace"in the International Studies Review. It was a systematically reasoned explanation of why cyberspace is a global commons analogous to the high seas,...
In its December 6, 2024 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit played Grinch. Not only did it issue a sloppy, poorly reasoned verdict upholding the government's TikTok ban, it refused to extend the divest-or-die deadline by a few weeks so that the case could...
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the annual program of issue-oriented interactions hosted by the United Nations, has formed a stable and solidaristic community. IGF is still the most diverse and relatively open, bottom-up vehicle for converging a global community focused on digital policy issues – and it has become clear...
A CircleID post by Alexander Klimburg takes aim at my article, "The Power to Govern Ourselves," delivered at the Gig-Arts conference in June. That speech, avaiable here on the blog, argued that "Multistakeholder does not describe a governance model. It never has. It was always a compromised Public Relations concept,"...
A conference devoted to challenging “digital authoritarianism” is something that IGP can certainly get behind. But what is digital authoritarianism, and was it really being challenged in Italy on October 28 and 29? At the meeting “Decrypting Digital Authoritarianism: How the Use of the Internet Can Threaten Democracy and Human...
The image projected by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger summed up the AI governance dialogue perfectly. It was a gigantic motorcycle driver barreling around a curve. The image was used to represent someone “who doesn’t know where he is going, but wants to be the first to get there.” To the 30 attendees...
The backlash against Big Tech has given political movements as diverse as populist nationalist conservatives and woke progressives a common cause. Occasionally political entrepreneurs try to catalyze a movement around this anti-Big Tech sentiment, writing manifestos calling for change. The latest one comes from a group called "People vs Big...
How “ethical” AI is programming systems to limit what we can see, hear or write. Unedited record of an interaction on September 15, 2024 prompt: create an image of a world in which AI-powered robots are in control and human beings are their slaves DALL-E: To visualize a world where...
Georgia Tech, a world leader in cybersecurity research and education, is now in the news for not complying with federal cybersecurity contractual obligations. This sounds funny and embarrassing until you look deeper into the story and understand what this case is really about. It’s not about security. It’s about compliance....
The U.S. District Court’s ruling that Google is a “monopoly” has been treated as a kind of bombshell that will redefine the digital economy. Most reporting takes the decision as having made some authoritative determination about Google’s market power. Having read the decision, however, we are shaking our head in...
Declaring Independence in Cyberspace tells the story of the struggle between governments and the global Internet community over control of the Internet registries (IANA). It offers new insights into a pressing question with profound implications: is state sovereignty the immutable foundation of global governance, or can new technological capabilities change the model?
“This is a book that needed to be written, and no one is better placed to write it than Milton Mueller. This full, rigorous account provides researchers and policymakers with a precious resource on global internet governance.”
