Global Internet Governance & Democracy

Internet governance (IG) is the need to make sure that every part can work together in the digital space. Since the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) had lasting effects in building peace of global governance and upheld a crucial step in the development of tolerance and secularization across world politics. However, in the digital world in the digital age, about sovereignty and national interests transforms into such basic things like assigning IP addresses, assigning domain names, and managing the protocols that govern the Internet. The idea of a centralized government is the very aspect of all time that the Internet founders have been always thinking about.

Currently, numbers of Internet institutions and organizations have promptly participated in the IG  known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), United Nations (UN), World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Internet Governance Forum (IGF), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Whether or not these establishments will help to transform and shape the current IG order, especially to remain upholding and defending our democracy, this writing will discuss some spectrums that the current IG has achieved to save our democracy by investigating aspects of the multi-stakeholderism (decentralising the power into one) – its flaw and flawless in strengthening the democratic governance to bolster human development in relation with the power elite of transnational IG and general policy intervention.

Multi-stakeholderism: the flawless

The current global pandemic of Coronavirus (Covid19) has been a vast demonstrator for us to learn about the value of “advancing digital inclusion and narrowing digital divides” (IGF, 2020). It galvanizes the idea of empowering multi-stakeholderism – the platform model where it can gather the private sector, the public sector, and the civil society into the chain of the IG. Carr (2015, p. 640) asserted that this is “the dominant approach” in organizing the tumultuous issues of the offline’s politics, by which the US and EU see this helpful to the future of the Internet where some ‘post-states’ problems can shift and deal via this platform. This is a starting point in building democracy in the IG.

Further, Klaus Schwab – Founder of the World Economic Forum (2008) favoured the multi-stakeholder style in managing, organizing, adapting the global markets, and reflected that “companies not only must be engaged with their shareholders but are themselves stakeholders alongside government and civil society”. This also helps to redefine “the international system as constituting a wider, multifaceted system of global cooperation in which intergovernmental legal frameworks and institutions are embedded as a core but not the sole and sometimes not the most crucial, component” (WEF, 2010, p. 24) This can be taken as economic multi-stakeholder favouritism in the age of the IG.

Multi-stakeholderism: the flaw

Firstly, according to Malcolm (2017, para. 1) pointed out an angle of the heterogenous issue at which cyberspace is chiefly government-organized, ICANN being primarily private-organized, and the IGF by and large in between, that is still exclusively ominous to what this multi-stakeholder model really represents. Even it is recognised that the achievement in building the ICANN has put tremendous efforts in its architecture joining in the IG. Secondly, multi-stakeholder models bring up decision-making processes involved in a wide consultation of all interested parties. Due to this argument, Hill (2016, p. 176) claimed that “it should not be used as a model for other aspects of internet governance.” This claim is understandable neither attacking the effort of the multi-stakeholder models nor the US government and other authoritative officials. It better understands the complex or even messes by not only the theory but also the working issues when it comes to traditions of geopolitical politics. Therefore, issues related to coordinating management are real obstacles. 

While the nation and/or stakeholder respect one and another sovereignty and security, it problematizes over shared space and/or resources in the digital platform. How things should work? The fundamental processes lay in the architecture of collaboration. For instance, categorising domains and allowing similar IP addresses can engage in an interactive process, using shared rules, norms, and structures, to act or decide on issues related to that domain. (Hill, 2016, p. 177) However, it will limit people from sharing, transferring, finding and leaning knowledge from each other. If one uses English to search, an English search engine will allow functioning its results, same in French, Italian or other languages. It blocks people from learning. If so, it is not democratic.

For example, the translation of the 2006 version was introduced by Google partly carried a mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (Mayer-Schönberger & Cukier, 2013, p. 38). Since then, from translating only two languages, it currently translates over 100 languages throughout the type, talk, snap, see, write, and offline (Google Translate, 2020). This aspect is small, but it means a global idea in empowering democracy through letting people access to their own language when using Google. It helps the exercise of language translation, interpretation, and daily usage easier and more democratic. 

Therefore, the international governance of the Internet should foresee the catastrophe that the current world of machines is and will put danger to our human living inhabitance, where our democracy should never be a pessimistic light to be compromised with machines. It indeed envisages the complexities of itself to a much wider variety of political, social, and scientific systems governing human society. 

An example of Facebook

Facebook is a typical example. The central location of the data storage is based in Prineville, Oregon, and other data facility centres in Forest City, North Carolina, Lulea, Sweden, Altoona, Iowa, Fort Worth, Texas, Clonee, Ireland, and Los Lunas, New Mexico. But none of them is outside the US border. Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg (2019, para. 42) wrote in his Facebook’s brief note: “Storing data in more countries also establishes a precedent that emboldens other governments to seek greater access to their citizen’s data and therefore weakens privacy and security protections for people around the world. I think it’s important for the future of the internet and privacy that our industry continues to hold firm against storing people’s data in places where it won’t be secure.”

Throughout this provision, Facebook plays a power elite in the IG, multi-stakeholders are countries of this division in terms of data storage. The complexities in this setting are clearly seen. There has not been a decree of protecting the privacy and respecting to human rights signed amongst parties. This doubts a huge uncertainty about countries’ political regime and touches on a sensitive political spectrum due to Facebook company is under the law control of the US. 

The Vietnam case

Another example shows in Vietnam’s case. The Vietnamese government in 2018 set tough enforcement in the cybersecurity law. It, therefore, asked Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook, and other big technology companies to comply with the dimension of this law in order to protect the legal rights in accessing their people’s data. Inside of Vietnam, this event happened despite being met with strong objections from both private and public sectors while other Western governments including the United States, “who said the measure would undermine economic development, digital innovation and further stifle political dissent.” (Nguyen, para. 2) Although it had been gauged by an avalanche of opposing comments over the government act, a reminder brings out a legal authority for the government in this spectrum stated in Article 3, section 3 of the Declaration on the Right to Development 1986 that “States have the duty to co-operate with each other in ensuring development and eliminating obstacles to development. States should realize their rights and fulfil their duties in such a manner as to promote a new international economic order based on sovereign equality, interdependence, mutual interest and co-operation among all States, as well as to encourage the observance and realization of human rights.”

What is the right thing to do? A struggle from between human rights and democracy to between securing people’s data and national security 

Accordingly, the huge overlap of elements shared between different kinds of stakeholder overtly showcases the superimposition among state and intrastate and non-state actors under legal actions and new law enforcement. The multi-stakeholder model has achieved a mission in terms of promoting democracy and securing Internet freedom. However, they and the IG are, eventually, sitting on the fence. As they are ‘ruled makers’ and ‘rule takers’ in global Internet governance (GIG) and “are bound together by a shared understanding of a particular political ideology and set of normative claims about what the Internet ‘should’ be.” (Carr, 2015, p. 642)

They are right. Both government officials and Mark Zuckerberg is right. Human rights play an essential leap in the building democracy, where the people have rights to know, to take part in, and to scrutinize what is going on around them. Some countries’ profile with weakened democracy and tightened authoritarian level have no clue on what the peoples will be impacted if their privacy is controlled by someone, not them.

They are wrong. Both government officials and Mark Zuckerberg is wrong. As stated in the Tunis Commitment (WSIS, 2005) that “We shall work together, with all stakeholders, to put in place the necessary policy, legal and regulatory frameworks that foster entrepreneurship, particularly for Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises  (SMMEs).” Thus, any prevention or postponement should never be a case due partly to any party’s beneficiaries. The one they must think first is the people and the users.

However, the current and coming digital space are struggling to protect users from data theft, online harassment, hackers hacking their inter-accounts linked via social media with bank cards, housing issues and even terrorism. Therefore, protecting people from these attacks is a need for governing the surf of people’s networks. The only question that should be concerned for democracy to uphold is how the redline works to limit access from parties, such as multi-stakeholders and governments, with respect to users’ private data. 

Conclusion

The computer revolution is a term which we live as human beings could not and cannot put an exact prediction of what it will look like in the future, albeit we are the inventor. The doable thing is upholding our governance of the zeitgeist throughout the digital age, as now in 2020 of the 21st century. Along with many technological advancements, unfortunately, the current Internet governance is being obstructed between offline and online, and who controls and/or set the rules. Correlated issues within democracy must be upheld in looking at the current international governance of the Internet. A decision is to clarify whether one institution organisation should be able to build their own local infrastructure or the participation of multi-stakeholder. The future of government and democracy should hinge upon successful adaptation within an increasingly networked environment both digitally and socially.

References

Carr, M. (2015). Power Plays in Global Internet Governance. Millennium, 43(2), 640–659. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829814562655

Declaration on the Right to Development. (2020). United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner. Retrieved from: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/RightToDevelopment.aspx

Everybody’s Business: Strengthening International Cooperation in a More Interdependent World. Report of the Global Redesign Initiative. (2010). WEF (World Economic Forum). Retrieved from: https://www.weforum.org/reports/everybody-s-business-strengthening-international-cooperation-in-a-more-interdependent-world-4a682681-8da0-4bc2-9b70-0e17cea1e865

Google Translate. (2020). Languages. Retrieved from: https://translate.google.com/about/languages/

IGF 2020 Closing Press Release (2020). IGF (Internet Governance Forum). Retrieved from: http://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/

Malcolm, J. (2017). Is Multi-Stakeholder Internet Governance Dying? Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved from: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/12/multi-stakeholder-internet-governance-dying

Mayer-Schönberger, V., & Cukier, K. (2013) Big Data: The essential guide to work, life and learning in the age of insight. John Murray. P. 38.

Nguyen, M. (2018). Exclusive: Vietnam cyber law set for tough enforcement despite Google, Facebook pleas. Reuters. Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-socialmedia-exclusive-idUSKCN1MK1HL

Schwab, K. (2008). Global Corporate Citizenship: Working with Business and Society. Foreign Affairs. Retrieved from: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2008-01-01/global-corporate-citizenship

Tunis Commitment. (2005). WSIS. Retrieved from: https://www.itu.int/net/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/7.html

Zuckerburg, M. (2019). A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking. Facebook. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-privacy-focused-vision-for-social-networking/10156700570096634/