Here’s why 2023 wasn’t a Happy New Year

The year 2023 was a notable one in digital governance. A retrograde tendency by nation-states to pursue “digital sovereignty” peaked in Europe, China and the U.S., leading to numerous governmental barriers and restrictions on data, networks, computing devices and software applications. Meanwhile, breakthroughs in natural language AI applications convinced the...

Workshop Overview: What is ‘national’ security in a globally connected economy?

Diverse Experts challenge national security rationales underlying US digital governance Since 2016, the United States has abruptly reversed its liberal policies governing the Internet, global trade and regulation in the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector. This sea change in ICT policy rests on sweeping and largely untested claims about...

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...

The Narrative: October 16, 2023

Dispatches from the evolving digital political economy NETmundial's 10th Anniversary: Inspiration or Nostalgia? At the Kyoto Internet Governance Forum, we learned that Brazil's CGI is thinking about holding an event to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the NETmundial event in April 2014. Netmundial was a transformative moment in global internet...

UN Cybercrime negotiations: No outcome may be the best outcome

The first day of September this year marked the end of the sixth round of negotiations of the UN Ad Hoc Committee (AHC) on Cybercrime. The two weeks of debates and informal consultations concluded with applause. Despite all the efforts of the AHC chair and many delegations to bridge the...

The Narrative: TikTok hearing; Chinese Drones; Stablecoins

March 31, 2023 The Tiktok hearing backfires As expected, Congress tried to turn its cross-examination of Tiktok CEO Shou Chew into a public stoning. Committee members (helped along by Meta lobbying) came in with their minds made up, refused to listen to anything he said, and repeatedly interrupted him. The...

The Narrative: TikTok threat debunked; search disrupted; digital currency problematized

January 16, 2022 IGP paper on TikTok makes waves On January 9 IGP released a threat analysis of TikTok that debunked claims that the popular short video app is a national security threat. Until now, the “ban TikTok” debate has never been subjected to critical scrutiny, and no one has...

The Narrative: Lots of stuff happening!

September 30, 2022 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is having its Plenipotentiary meeting in Bucharest. These four-year events are always redolent with claims that Russia and China will somehow use the ITU to “take over the internet” (despite the fact that the ITU has no power over...