Internet fragmentation and the UN Global Digital Compact | IGF 2023 Town Hall #74

Annaliese Williams

The analysis explores the importance of the technical community’s involvement in policy discussions and decision-making processes. Annaliese Williams, a government representative with extensive experience, actively participates in technical discussions and observes a common tendency among technical stakeholders to separate technical and policy issues. However, she believes that these issues are closely linked.

Williams argues that the technical community should have a more active role in policy discussions. She highlights that the Global Digital Compact, a comprehensive collaborative framework for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), does not necessarily prioritize technical stakeholders. This lack of representation poses a risk of marginalizing their unique perspective in policy-making processes.

Additionally, Williams emphasizes the significant expertise within the technical community. This expertise is crucial in facilitating conversations and decision-making processes related to technology, especially as the landscape rapidly evolves. The increasing reliance on the internet has also transformed the identity of the technical community, making their involvement even more valuable.

Peter, along with Williams, stresses the need for discussions on the role of the technical community. Both agree that engaging with governments and understanding the problems they seek to solve is crucial for effectively implementing technology. Williams emphasizes that establishing dialogues and building relationships with governments can provide technologists with a deeper understanding of the challenges they aim to address.

The analysis also highlights the importance of collaboration among technical stakeholders to improve coordination and governance. It underscores the need for greater collaboration among existing internet institutions to ensure effective coordination.

Governments play a significant role in the analysis. It emphasizes that governments are not adversaries but are responsible for protecting citizens. Their involvement in policy discussions and decision-making processes is vital for ensuring public security and maintaining peace and justice.

Furthermore, the analysis suggests that technical stakeholders should consider and coordinate their contributions to public policy processes. Even if they choose not to engage, policy conversations will still occur, and it is crucial for them to participate in order to make informed decisions.

Lastly, the analysis mentions that OUTA, an organization focused on internet governance, has recently published an internet governance roadmap. This roadmap serves as evidence of the growing need for collaboration among technical stakeholders to effectively address the complexities of internet governance.

In conclusion, the analysis underscores the significance of active engagement from the technical community in policy discussions and decision-making processes. It highlights the close link between technical and policy issues and the potential risk of marginalizing the voice of technical stakeholders. The expertise within the technical community, the evolving identity due to increased reliance on the internet, and cooperation with governments play crucial roles in achieving effective technology implementation. The involvement of technical stakeholders in public policy processes is essential for informed decision-making and improved governance.

Michael Kende

The Global Digital Compact, proposed by the UN, is an initiative aimed at addressing key issues in the digital space, including connecting the unconnected, data governance, human rights online, artificial intelligence, and preventing fragmentation of the Internet. This compact promotes a collaborative and inclusive approach to digital cooperation.

However, there is ongoing discussion regarding the role of the technical community within this compact and internet governance as a whole. The technical community, including stakeholders such as ICANN, IETF, and the IGF, plays a crucial role in ensuring an unfragmented and interoperable Internet. Questions have been raised about how to ensure the technical community’s involvement in negotiations and the future of internet governance. It is argued that the technical community must ensure its active participation in these processes to safeguard its interests and expertise.

One concern raised is that the original definition of multi-stakeholder governance does not explicitly mention the technical community. This exclusion has prompted calls for a more inclusive approach that recognizes the importance of the technical community in shaping internet governance frameworks. It is suggested that historical oversights or laziness in considering the role of the technical community should not lead to its subsuming within civil society.

Michael Kende, a prominent figure in the discussion, emphasizes the need for the technical community to take a proactive approach in addressing potential risks related to the internet. He argues that rather than being reactive, the technical community should anticipate and discuss potential risks in a timely manner. Kende proposes the concept of “forensics,” which involves examining what is said and by whom. He highlights the importance of addressing potential threats before they materialize.

Furthermore, Kende advocates for a comprehensive and proactive approach to internet governance. He suggests that the technical community should engage on a broader range of issues, such as protecting citizens and human rights, in addition to fulfilling its own role. By adopting this approach, Kende believes that the technical community can contribute to the development of an interoperable internet and help prevent fragmentation.

In conclusion, the Global Digital Compact proposed by the UN aims to address various topics related to the digital space. The role of the technical community within this compact and internet governance as a whole is under discussion. There are calls for the technical community to ensure its active participation in negotiations and the future of internet governance. Additionally, concerns have been raised about the exclusion of the technical community in the original definition of multi-stakeholder governance. Michael Kende highlights the importance of a proactive approach in addressing potential risks and suggests a comprehensive engagement on a broader range of issues. By doing so, he believes that the technical community can contribute to avoiding internet fragmentation and promoting an interoperable internet.

Audience

Jean-François expresses significant concern about the proposed merger of the technical community with another community. He questions the reasons behind specifically targeting the technical community for this change. His argument highlights the negative sentiment towards this proposed change, stating that the technical community should not be treated in this manner. Additionally, Jean-François enquires about the experiences of other communities who have undergone similar changes, suggesting that their perspectives could provide valuable insights.

Peter Koch emphasizes the critical role played by the technical community in internet governance. He asserts that there should be better understanding and recognition of their contributions. Koch suggests that instead of investing time and energy into the forensics of events, it would be more beneficial to focus on explaining the importance and contribution of the technical community. This positive sentiment stresses the need for greater appreciation of the technical community’s involvement in internet governance.

The analysis also reveals that the line between different stakeholder groups in internet governance is blurry, as noted by Peter Koch. The technical community’s ability to identify and explain potential side effects of regulations is crucial. This highlights the valuable insights that the technical community can provide in shaping effective and balanced internet regulations.

The analysis further shows that the demographics of negotiators for foreign ministries have changed significantly since 2005. There is a deficit of direct interaction between the technical community and their counterparts in the foreign ministry, indicating a need for closer collaboration and communication between these groups.

Overall, it is clear that there is a strong argument for increased collaboration between the technical community and policymakers. The analysis supports the notion that policymakers and the technical community should reach out to each other for more effective collaboration, as this will lead to better understanding and mutual benefit in achieving objectives in digital and technical sectors.

The analysis also highlights the importance of including technologists in policy discussions about technology. Technologists are the ones who ultimately implement the policies, making their inclusion critical for effective policy design and implementation. Examples from healthcare and architecture demonstrate the successful integration of professionals into relevant policy discussions, further reinforcing the argument for involving technologists in technology-related policy discussions.

Moreover, the technical community’s presence and involvement in every conversation involving internet regulation is strongly advocated. This includes the need for a different approach in conveying their message, focusing on equipping governments with a clear narrative that enables them to defend the internet.

In conclusion, the analysis underscores the importance of recognising the essential role played by the technical community in areas such as internet governance and technology policy-making. Collaboration, communication, and a deeper understanding between the technical community and other stakeholders are crucial for achieving effective policy outcomes and better internet governance.

Danko Jevtovic

The internet is a network of networks, defined by IETF-developed protocols such as IPv4 and IPv6. It is not fragmented, as the core technical layer remains intact and functional. The internet is defined by IP addresses assigned by regional Internet registries and the BGP routing. Trust in the root server system is essential to avoid internet fragmentation. The DNS system, managed by IANA, defines the internet for end users and must be trusted to maintain its continuity and interoperability. Protecting the mid-layer of the internet is crucial for content and ensuring the smooth flow of information. The mid-layer is critical for maintaining the interoperability and accessibility of the internet, and this should be acknowledged in discussions about a global digital compact. The technical community plays a critical role in preserving the freedom of open protocols and ensuring interoperability. Their concerns should not be overlooked in policy discussions. Attempting to regulate content through the mid-layer could lead to fragmentation and more issues. ICANN actively engages with governments to advise and influence public policy related to the internet. Collaboration between ICANN and governments is vital for well-informed policies. ICANN, along with other technical communities, is preparing for the VISIS plus 20 review to update and synchronize with the evolving world. ICANN takes measures to tackle DNS abuse and maintain communication with governments. Fragmentation of the internet could have significant consequences, especially for developing countries. The internet is crucial for their participation in the global world. It is essential to celebrate and protect the successes of the internet for all citizens of the world. Having one internet for one world allows countries to participate actively in global affairs, share culture and knowledge, and achieve common goals through partnerships.

Bruna Martins Dos Santos

The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the discussions around internet governance and digital cooperation, offering insights into the viewpoints and arguments of different stakeholders.

One key point is the potential complementarity of fragmentation and diversity in internet governance discussions. Different perspectives and approaches resulting from fragmentation and diversity can contribute to a deeper understanding of challenges and opportunities in the field.

However, concerns arise about the tendency to bundle all stakeholders together without considering their individual contributions. This approach may disregard valuable discussions and problems from individual communities. The recent suggestion that civil society should engage with member states as part of delegations raises concerns about multi-stakeholderism.

Apprehensions surround the proposed Digital Cooperation Forum due to its potential exclusivity and costliness. The forum could amplify existing disparities and restrict participation for those with limited access or knowledge. Ensuring accessibility and inclusivity is crucial for any digital cooperation initiatives.

There are also concerns about excluding the technical community from decision-making processes. The shift towards an intergovernmental process in the Global Digital Cooperation (GDC) sidelines their expertise and input, which is vital for effective governance and coordination.

Including corporations in tech regulation discussions is seen as necessary to address issues concerning information integrity and content moderation. The creation of a Code of Conduct for Information Integrity and involving social media companies and other content-related corporations highlight their importance in such discussions.

The abandonment of the multi-stakeholder model in tech regulation disappoints civil society and technical communities. The move away from a model that promised improvements in participation spaces and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is considered a setback, leading to frustration among stakeholders.

Transparency is a significant concern in the GDC process. Unanswered questions, limited stakeholder dialogue, and unequal speaking opportunities highlight the need for a more transparent and inclusive approach.

In conclusion, the analysis stresses the importance of inclusive and transparent discussions among the technical community, civil society, and other stakeholders in internet governance. Recognizing the value of fragmentation and diversity while ensuring the active participation of relevant parties will lead to more effective and inclusive digital cooperation.

Moderator

The analysis explored various aspects of internet governance, with a particular focus on the involvement of the technical community. One of the key challenges discussed was network fragmentation, which has been an issue since the inception of the internet. The primary aim of the internet was to enable separate and fragmented networks to collaborate effectively. Resilience and scalability were identified as the main objectives in the early stages of the internet’s development.

To address the problem of fragmentation, it was stressed that unified protocols, shared management of technical resources, and collaborative governance are essential for the proper functioning of the internet. Efforts have been made to further unify network protocols, such as through the ITU’s Network 2030 initiative. Furthermore, the speakers underscored the significance of the technical community in achieving policy objectives, highlighting the importance of effective cooperation between the technical community and governments.

The analysis also explored the role of the technical community in shaping the internet. The internet is defined by the IP addresses assigned by the Regional Internet Registry, as well as the trust placed in the root server system by end-users. While different countries may have varied user experiences, it was noted that fragmentation and diversity can coexist as long as the middle technical layer functions effectively.

In addition, it was emphasized that the technical community should actively engage with policy stakeholders and governments instead of remaining passive observers. Their expertise and perspectives should be heard and considered in policy discussions to prevent the potential fragmentation of the internet. The analysis also highlighted the importance of the technical community’s involvement in discussing the possible consequences of policy decisions relating to internet regulation.

The analysis further touched upon the changing demographics of negotiators since 2005, with a call for increased engagement and collaboration between the technical community and foreign ministries. It also emphasized the need for timely preparation for upcoming negotiations, the impact of language barriers and different perspectives in interactions between the technical community and policy makers, and the importance of coordinated stakeholder responses to public policy processes.

Overall, the analysis underlined the critical role of the technical community in internet governance. It highlighted the necessity for their active engagement with policy stakeholders and governments, as well as their contribution to discussions on potential policy consequences. The pursuit of unified protocols, shared governance, and collective action from diverse stakeholders were identified as crucial for the preservation and functionality of the internet.

Moderator:
and the technical community and in the context of the GDC. We have four speakers today. So my name is David Abikassis. I’ll be moderating this session. I work with a company called Analysis Mason and we do quite a bit of work in this space. To my left, Dan Koyakowicz, the vice chair of the ICANN board. To my right, Ann-Lise Williams from .au and Bruna Martin-Santos from Digital Action. And online we have Michael Kendi, who’s my colleague from Analysis Mason and also works independently on a lot of these topics. The idea in this meeting, I know there’s quite a lot of scheduling conflicts, so it’s a few of us, but hopefully we can make it interactive and informative. Please don’t hesitate to come and sit around the table if you’d like to speak during the session. What we will do is have each one of the speakers spend about four or five minutes setting the scenes in their own areas and then we’ll open the floor to questions and discussions. And hopefully it can be interactive and we can agree or disagree in a constructive manner. So perhaps just to set the scene very briefly, we’ve been talking about fragmentation over the last couple of days. There were a number of meetings and town halls and workshops yesterday. I think Jean was in one yesterday. And one of the questions that came up is the types of fragmentation. And today we want to talk about the role of the technical community, but we can’t abstract this from the various types of fragmentation we’ve been talking about. The internet was built effectively from the start as a way to ensure that separate and fragmented networks could work together, could communicate. And the main objective in the origins of the internet was resilience and scalability, versatility ended up very much as sort of side effects of that resilience. But that’s what makes the value of the internet today. So the fragmentation of networks was an issue from the start and it was necessary to define unified protocols, shared technical resource management, and to some extent a degree of shared governance to ensure that the internet worked. There have been examples where there’s been attempts to unify networks, network protocols further. And for example the Network 2030 initiative of the ITU, there were some proposals for a new IP framework that would really fundamentally change the way the network protocols work. And that did not work, I think it’s fair to say, and we can explore why it fits of interest to people in this panel. So it’s important not to talk about fragmentation in the abstract, but in the context of specific aspects of the internet, including this middle layer of technical resources and technical standards, and in the context of specific policy objectives. The link with a global digital compact I think is really there in terms of the link with the policy objectives that we want to pursue. And the questions that I want to ask today are, what is the role of the technical community as sort of unified in some ways and fragmented in other ways that we can see today in pursuing those roles and in responding to the policy objectives set out in the GDC and more broadly by policymakers and governments, and how governments and the technical community can talk together in a more effective way is also a theme that we want to address. So I’ll stop there and I’ll hand over to Michael Kendi for a retrospective of how we got here. Great, well good morning from Geneva,

Michael Kende:
glad to be here at least virtually. Can you hear me? Yes we can. So as David said, the purpose of this town hall is to identify how the technical community can best represent itself within the UN global digital compact process on the topic of avoiding technical fragmentation, and that’s broadened out a bit as I’ll explain in a minute to more broadly the role of the technical community within the internet governance in general. So I’ll just give a brief background on the GDC, the global digital compact process and the role of the technical community. After a few years of discussions and reports on digital cooperation, the idea for the compact was proposed by the UN Secretary General in 2021 in a report called Our Common Agenda as a way to outline shared principles for an open, free, and secure digital future for all. And according to the report, the compact could cover a number of topics including connecting the unconnected, data governance, human rights online, artificial intelligence, and specifically avoiding fragmentation of the internet. And sometimes it’s kind of hard to get a handle on what is actually meant by what is the global digital compact going to be, and I think that’s still to be resolved, but a good quote that I found kind of explaining it comes from the Geneva Internet Platform saying, quote, that the GDC is the latest step in a lengthy policy journey to have at the very least a shared understanding of key digital principles globally and at most common rules that will guide the development of our digital future along the lines of the topics that I just mentioned. And the goal is to have this global digital compact agreed just under a year from now at the Summit of the Future in September 2024 in New York at the General Assembly meetings. As a way of gathering information, there were a number of consultations. Many people submitted their views on the various topics into the consultation. And then the two countries that are co-facilitating the development of the compact are Sweden and Rwanda, and they organized a number of thematic deep dives earlier this year in the spring on eight of the topics, including connectivity, data protection, etc., and slightly shifted from avoiding fragmentation of the Internet to more broadly Internet governance. But among the questions that were asked, it was definitely still in relation to fragmentation. The questions to be raised during the deep dive included how to ensure an unfragmented Internet, how to make sure it’s interoperable, and specifically the role of ICANN, IETF, and the IGF in supporting Internet governance. So even if Internet fragmentation may not be explicit anymore, the role of the technical community still is going to be addressed and should be addressed. And this definition of multi-stakeholder governance was developed and adopted actually starting here in Geneva in 2003 and then in the Tunis Agenda of 2005 at the World Summit on the Information Society, which itself was an intergovernmental meeting that allowed input from stakeholders, including the academic community, technical community, civil society, and the private sector. And this technical community was specifically highlighted as a stakeholder contributing to the work of government, private sector, and civil society. But recently a blog came out by the heads of ICANN, APNIC, and ARIN, that kind of started to say maybe that there’s a new tripartite view of digital cooperation, where the three players are the private sector, government, and civil society, and that the technical community is subsumed within civil society, which was not the case before and arguably is not relevant or should not be the case now. And I’ll drop the link to that into the chat for those of you who have access to it. But the question that I think we wanted to raise in this session was, do governments really understand the role of the technical community? How can one best get it across? How should the technical community ensure that there’s a role in the negotiations that are coming up later this year and in the spring? How to ensure a role in the summit of the future and to ensure a role in the global digital compact itself? So I’ll leave it there with those questions. I look forward to the discussion

Moderator:
that will follow. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. I’ll pass it on to Danko for a few remarks on, I guess, both the role of ICANN in that space. And Michael raised the question of whether the technical community should be a more unified stakeholder in the multi-stakeholder model, so if you have any thoughts on that. Thank you. Okay, we can hear that.

Danko Jevtovic:
So, well, what has been said in your introductions, and I think I agree with that, but let’s just try to take one step back when we discuss about the role of the technical community and sitting here at the Internet Governance Forum, maybe we should sometimes ask ourselves, what is the Internet? And from the technical point of view, Internet is a network of networks, obviously, but something that is defined by the IETF developed protocols, so we have IPv4 and IPv6 overlaid over each other, and the Internet is defined by the IP addresses that are assigned by the regional Internet registry and by the BGP routing that is connecting those IP addresses. But also for the end users’ point of view, Internet is defined by the DNS system. It’s defined by the root zone that is managed by IANA, and the key to that, I think, is that all of that actually depends on the trust of end users into the root server system in those 11 IP addresses that define the location of the root servers. So when we look at the fragmentation, I think we should ask ourselves, what are we discussing about? So we are actually discussing the system of trust that is rooted in the root server system, and that is all that is defined. So it is important, if you want to avoid the fragmentation, to continue to have the trust in that system, and that system is the mid-layer that is overlaid on the telecommunication networks and below the applications and the content of users, but this mid-layer is critical for the content. So I think I would agree that in fragmentation, we always had a different user experience in different countries, and, for example, in order to get to the content of Facebook, you have to log on. If you want to go to the website of a car manufacturer, usually you go to something.com and that moves you to your local country code domain name where you see content in your own language. So you have different experiences in different countries, but in my mind, this is not the fragmentation because the mid-technical layer is still there and still functions. So I would say that today, internet is not fragmented in that sense, and I would say that we are fine, but going into discussions about global digital compact, we have to think how we will protect this middle layer in this interoperability that is built on that trust into the whole system and the root servers, and this brings us back to this discussion, what is the role of the technical community and how, especially in the UN environment, it is basically multilateral and the global digital compact will be a contract of countries, how best to have the role of the technical community, and I think it is very important that it is well-defined and that it is a keeper of the future freedom of these open protocols and interoperability and a basis for the trust in the system.

Moderator:
Thank you, Nanko. You made a very important point here around the fact that fragmentation and diversity don’t need to be in opposition to one another and actually can complement each other. So if we avoid fragmentation at the right level, we will keep diversity where it matters. And perhaps, Bruna, if I can hand over to you to talk a little bit about the work that you’re doing with the Policy Network on Internet Fragmentation and also the perspective of the civil society, perhaps you can take a view on whether or not the technical community should be part of civil society or not. Deep and hard question, right? But starting with the PNIF,

Bruna Martins Dos Santos:
Policy Network on Internet Fragmentation is one of the intersectional work for the IGF currently, we are just in our second year, and we started with this perception that it was very often that some of the discussions about internet fragmentation went to a rather technical discussion or even excluding at times because it would be debates surrounding basically the technical layers or the technical aspects, and then a lot of people’s perceptions, questions about what happened to the user experience were kind of left in the middle of the way. So if you spoke with the folks at ICANN, ICANN community, they would maybe mention and bring some of the things that Duncan just brought up about like DNS or whether managing IP numbers, that would be related to this, if they failed, it would be related to fragmentation. But when you speak to civil society or even activists, some people very often brought up cases like internet shutdowns as examples. So what we did in the PNIF in the end of the day was to divide this debate into three baskets, the first one being the technical fragmentation of the technical layer, so classical discussions on this space. Second one would be the fragmentation of the user experience, so the interventions that might occur to the net or to the user experience in the general way, and that would affect their own perception or their own experience, like shutdowns or even court orders in asking for content to be geo-blocked or even blocking of applications on the internet. These are some of the examples we bring up. And the last one is the one that relates to the GDC, that is the fragmentation of internet governance and coordination, and it goes, it starts with an analysis that a lot of these forums that we have been engaging and discussing, they stopped to communicate with each other at some point. And the GDC process was the most concerning one, because it is placed from a member state’s perspective, but it felt like something that would go along the lines of the IGF, because at the very beginning of this process, it did discuss the IGF plus and how we would improve this space, right, but at some point these discussions were dropped from it. And then recently we had the suggestion of the digital cooperation forum, so what the PNIF does within this discussion is to say we should avoid duplication, we should make sure people have the time and the space and the knowledge to engage in these spaces, and last but not least, all of the digital cooperation discussions and governance, they should be leveraging from the IGF’s collective intelligence. So that is a little bit of some of the things we have been discussing, and on the discussion paper the PNIF just put out, they do highlight some concerns about the digital cooperation forum that was suggested within one of the policy briefs, mostly because it will be yet another expensive and excluding process. It’s not everybody that gets to go to New York, it’s not everybody that knows how to navigate UNGA or something like that, and to know that just now the tech envoy mentioned that civil society or any other stakeholder should engage with member states, should be part of the delegations, is something that hints, right, that multi-stakeholderism might not be a tool in that way, and it’s indeed concerning if the GDC continues to touch upon a lot of the topics and discussions we have here. So I think just to say that, and about the technical community, civil society, I do think it’s a misunderstanding to be honest, or it might be just from a very kind of policymaker perspective that doesn’t really dive into the multi-stakeholderism debate and divisions that we did in the WSIS and the Tunis process, right, so they might look at all of us as civil society in the broader way, but when we put everybody in the same box, we miss a lot of the relevant discussions, right, like a lot of the activism, a lot of the problems that each of our spaces can discuss. So I do think that bundling everybody up might be a little

Moderator:
bit problematic, but I’ll stop there. Thank you, Bruna. So there’s a couple of things that you’ve just said that I think resonate and that hopefully analysts can comment on as well. I think one is the fact that some of the discussions can be overly technical and excluding, so obviously I guess your perspective is from the perspective of civil society. but can it be excluding also for government stakeholders that may not have the expertise, and that resonates in your last comment around the misunderstanding that you highlight. Now, I think perhaps one thing that we can discuss around this table is the extent to which the technical community can make its own fate from that perspective by maybe putting together a more unified or a more coordinated front to be more visible to policymakers. Annelies, do you want to say a few words from your perspective as a member of the technical community, but also as a former government official? Thanks, David. My name is Annelies

Annaliese Williams:
Williams. I’m with the .au domain administration, Australia’s CCTLD, and as David has just referred to, I am relatively new to the technical community. I’ve been with OUDA for about two and a half years, but before that, for about 14 years, I was with the Australian government, including as Australia’s representative in ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee and Australia’s representative to the ITU. So I have been involved in these discussions for quite some time from a government perspective, and it is wonderful to be here today to be at the Internet Governance Forum. I did want to just really make the point that as wonderful as it is to come to these multi-stakeholder meetings, they’re very interesting, the point of the multi-stakeholder governance system itself is because preserving the open, free, secure and globally interoperable Internet is best done when we have all of the relevant stakeholders as participating in the discussions and the decision-making processes. So the Global Digital Compact is an intergovernmental process. It doesn’t necessarily have a seat at the table for the technical stakeholders, so my challenge, I guess, to the technical community is to involve yourselves in these conversations. There is a tendency I have observed over the years among many technical stakeholders to say, well, consider the technical and the policy issues to be separate, but they’re not separate. They are very closely linked and there does need to be more engagement between the policy stakeholders and the technical stakeholders. As David has just said, engaging with governments and helping them to understand the technical aspects of policy issues or the technical implications of potential policy issues is a really important role that the technical community can play. I think it is important that we do engage as a technical community. We need to lean into the conversation, engage with governments, listen to their concerns, instead of just saying that’s not my problem. It is our problem. It’s everybody’s problem to get together and have these conversations collectively. It’s everybody’s business to get engaged. The technical community is uniquely placed to be involved in these conversations. There is significant expertise in the technical community. My view is that the technical community needs to step up and lean into these conversations, or there is a risk that as a distinct stakeholder group, that voice will be lost. I think Bruna alluded to it before, but the Secretary-General yesterday in his speech referred to the business community, the civil society and governments in relation to the global digital compact, but there was no mention of the technical community. I think it is important to get engaged. It’s not enough to just sit on the sidelines and let somebody else do the discussions. My request and my invitation to the technical stakeholders is to lean in and engage with governments in these discussions. Thanks, David.

Moderator:
Thank you, Anneliese. We’re about the halfway mark, so what I would suggest we do is to open the floor to questions, discussions, recommendations. I would ask all of you to not hesitate to put forward strong views.

Audience:
Hi, thank you. Jean-François from the AI Foundation for the Record. I got a few questions here that I would like to look into. I don’t know exactly who will be willing to answer, and I don’t know if we have the answers in the room. So why are they asking this change specifically to the technical community? That’s something that is kind of surprising me. And how are they justifying that particular change? Which other communities have been merged in this same fashion? Has any other community been requested to be merged with civil society or with any other thing? Who has been consulted for this decision? And what is the technical community going to do to avoid being removed from the equation?

Bruna Martins Dos Santos:
Just to step in on some of the aspects, I think the exclusion comes from the perspective, right? If the GDC is going to be moving forward as a solely intergovernmental process, then everything that’s not governmental is going to be bundled up, right? And that’s why the tech envoy has just said right now that we should be asking for inclusion within delegations. So I think they’re mostly basically looking at everybody in the same way. I don’t understand whether… I know that there was one statement from him that was rather critical on the engagement of technical community and so on, and that’s also why on the civil society gathering we had this week, we had more or less of a general consensus in the room that none of this conversation should be moving forward without the technical community as well, because otherwise it would lose some of the aspects. But I just wanted to maybe weigh in on that. I think it’s mostly from the perspective of the intergovernmental and anything that’s not there should be left.

Audience:
Correct me if I’m wrong. From my memory, the statement was mentioned about a new tripartite model which will have governments cooperate in civil society. And so all of a sudden, corporations are not the government. So it’s not only governmental, but the only ones that seem to be merged somewhere is the technical community. So I’m very curious about why that particular move and under which circumstances and who has been consulted prior to that, if anyone.

Michael Kende:
I can answer a bit of that. David? Yes, go ahead, Michael. Sorry. So I think some of it might just be historic. I mean, if you… Hi, Konstantinos. Some of it may be historical, that the original definition of multi-stakeholder governance, the one that’s always quoted, talks about the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society and their respective roles of shared principles, etc. So the technical community was never mentioned specifically there. It’s the same three that are being talked about now. But then if you dig into the Tunis agenda and everything, the technical community is discussed specifically. The other one I think that’s not mentioned now is the academic community, which I don’t think even is mentioned at all. So some of it may just be historical, just taking the same three. But I think that just highlights all the more the need for the technical community, for everyone to be specific and ensure a specific role so that it just doesn’t get subsumed out of historical, I don’t want to say laziness, but just looking back at the overview definition and not what went behind it. And I think that was… I put that blog in the chat if you have access to it. But I think that’s really important that people delve into the history a little bit and make sure that everyone knows that the technical community

Moderator:
was represented from the beginning. Thanks, Michael. And did you want to add something to this? No, same point. Thank you very much. Does somebody else want to weigh in, ask a question? Don’t be shy. Go ahead.

Audience:
Better? Yes. Good morning. My name is Peter Koch. I work for DINI, the German Top-Level Domain Registry, undoubtedly technical community. And I would respectfully suggest that we are allowing to be forced into a wrong discussion here. I did hear the SecGen mention the technical community explicitly, obviously in response to some concerns that were raised, in, again, response to a statement made by the ambassador at the time. And I think that’s a good way to start. In, again, response to a statement made by the ambassador at the EuroDIG meeting, already later corrected or amended at his appearance at the Caribbean IGF, if I recall correctly. So I would not suggest that this is all not necessary or not important. But I do think instead of investing energy in the forensics of these events, we might do ourselves and everybody else, because we are important, we might do ourselves a favor into looking into better explaining what the importance and the contribution of the technical community is. Which also might include the question, who is the technical community actually, given that the internet governance is evolving into digital, so that might include others. And of course, all the quote-unquote boundaries between these different stakeholder groups, none of these are very sharp or very thin, right? It’s always floating. So instead having the forensics going on, what is the contribution? And I do think that the contribution today is probably more important than 20 years ago, when it was all about names and numbers and so on and so forth, which still is important. But we see more and more regulation coming up and more and more demands for regulation that completely lose out of sight these unintended side effects that the technical community is probably well prepared to identify and explain. The further away we go from that technical layer, the more tempting the regulation appears to be these days, but the more unintended the side effects might be. And that’s something that I suggest we focus on.

Moderator:
Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Does someone want, maybe Danko, or does someone want to weigh in on I guess these two questions, who is the technical community and how should it engage? Which are the points that Peter raised. Okay, I have a bit of comment on that. So first on the

Danko Jevtovic:
forensics, UN Secretary General, in his opening speech, he mentioned technical community, but part of the IGF and WSIS process. And later on, when he speak about global digital compact, it was a different stakeholder group. So in a way, for me, that was a kind of message. And I think this is important why we want to emphasize the importance of the technical community. Obviously, because we should not talk about the model, we should talk about the success of internet that was brought by this open standard and everything. But I think the key, as you said, are the consequences. So we in the technical community often, we don’t make legislation, we have to observe the regulations of any country, but we are there to discuss with the countries and to help them understand the consequences of possible policy discussions. So for example, in the ICANN, there is obviously government advisory committee, and also we have a global stakeholder engagement and government engagement in trying to do all those things. But looking back on those discussions and how the things will turn out, I think it’s not very logical that, so there is a risk that things might turn out in a way that some of the concerns of the technical community in future will not be fully taken in account. And on your question, where it is coming from, I don’t think it’s kind of a decision that was made by someone. I think it’s a trend that is also resulting of what is happening on the internet now. So I was sitting as a MAG member for three years, a couple of years ago, and most of the discussions are not anymore about the names and numbers that seems to be kind of solved there, but most of the discussions are about the content, the abuses on the internet, negative consequences, crime, hate speech, and all that. And the importance of the technical community, names and numbers going back, is that that mid-layer is very convenient for some of the possible regulation to find a magical key that will solve the content problem. And we understand that that magical key actually does not work and can create all sorts of different problems. So I think this is the reason why we are trying to use this IGF to bring back this discussion about possible fragmentation and the roles that must be there to avoid, I think trying to quote Vint, to avoid that internet might end up where we deserve

Moderator:
it to be. Thank you, Danko. Alice, did you want to comment on this? No? Just to echo that, I don’t, and what Peter said, I don’t think it was

Annaliese Williams:
a deliberate decision. And I think Peter is absolutely right, we need to be having some conversations about what it is that the technical community can contribute to these conversations. And also, who is the technical community these days? I think the internet and the use of the internet and our reliance on the internet has changed significantly since the Tunis Agenda was written and the roles and definitions of stakeholders

Moderator:
was enshrined in those early documents. Thank you. I mean, it seems to me that one of the outcomes that’s possible from that, to kind of maybe square what the two of you said and what Danko just said, is that the technical community becomes just subsumed under the corporate side of things, also because corporations are the entities that are most easily regulated. And so, you know, is that something that’s desirable or not? I don’t know, perhaps that’s a question, too. You’re shaking your head. Does somebody else want to, Bruna, do you want to comment?

Bruna Martins Dos Santos:
Just about the inclusion of corporations in the whole thing. There is one part that will come at some point, that is member states, the UN, needing to ensure the buy-in from companies. Summit of the Future, the Summit of the Future is a broader process, right? It’s not just the GDC. It will also entail some discussions on the Code of Conduct for Information Integrity. And that touches upon a lot of these corporations, right? So that will talk about, like, social media companies, it will talk about some other, like, content-related corporations as well. So I think that by addressing them from the very beginning might be an initial attempt to get some level of a buy-in from these stakeholders in general. But at the same time, like, as civil society, like, we have been very critical of the whole process in general. And I think a lot of this conversation, both the technical community and civil society one, is kind of this shared consensus about some level of frustration for abandoning the multi-stakeholder model along the way in a process that started with this promise of improving the IGF, re-discussing the spaces, and re-discussing participation. So just to add this to the conversation as well.

Moderator:
Thank you, Bruna. Perhaps just behind you. Yeah, there was a question there. If you can say who you are, just briefly.

Audience:
Is that better? Okay. Good morning. We are morning still, yes. David Fairchild from the Canadian Mission in Geneva. I jumped in a bit late, but I think there’s something that we wanted to convey, which is we, the foreign ministries, which is the demographics of who’s doing the negotiating has changed significantly since 2005. And I think the challenge is that the people that you want to interact with are not the same people anymore. And it’s a challenge that I think is accelerating, but who in the technical community has actually met their foreign ministry counterparts in order to engage and educate? And we are running out of time. The GDC negotiations probably will begin shortly in the new year. We have two and a half months to prepare ourselves. There is no zero draft to work from as far as we understand. So it’s an empty canvas. And I think the challenge is different member states are at different levels of cooperation and collaboration internally. But I think for many of the technical community, it’s a new demographic that they’re not used to talking to. And so I just put that out as a challenge that’s, I think, on both sides of the floor. It’s a language we don’t speak, so there is a lost in translation aspect to this, but it behooves us as policymakers to seek out the technical community. But it also works the other way. I think that’s just an important point I think I

Moderator:
wanted to flag. Thank you, David. I think that’s very similar to what Anne-Lise said, so this talking the same language, engaging productively. I mean, I guess one of the questions that we’re grappling with is also who’s doing that engaging, and how are they speaking from one voice, are they speaking from many different voices, and how does that come across on the other side to those counterparts that you’re describing?

Audience:
Yeah, I just wanted to make a reflection. I would like a bit of an opinion about this cognitive dissonance that I seem to observe quite often when it comes to technology, as if technologies would be something nebulous. Imagine that we’re having this conversation in terms of health care, and we will have policies about how to manage health care, but we don’t recognize that doctors are the ones who are going to be applying all of that, or that you have the same conversations about codes for buildings, case scrapers, and you don’t talk with the architects, and you just put them into, oh, civil society will talk for them, or they will bundle them with corporates because they are the ones who are building the buildings. We are in this room because someone came up with the idea of building the internet, and that was a technologist. And no matter the resolutions that we have in these rooms, in the end, when it comes to technical application and technical implementations, it’s going to come from a technologist as well. So if we keep talking to them in language that they don’t understand, we don’t talk to them in ways that they’re going to be able to implement, I don’t see how we can remove them from the equation without considering having them in the room as an actual participant. It doesn’t compute to me, so maybe I’m missing something, if anyone can give me an argument about that.

Annaliese Williams:
I don’t think anybody here is suggesting that these conversations should be happening without the technical community. This is kind of the purpose of this session, is how can we engage in these processes? What have we got to say? What have we got to contribute? So yeah, I don’t think anybody here would argue that the technical community, the technical stakeholders shouldn’t be part of the conversation. But the fact is that these are intergovernmental processes, and the best way of engaging is to engage with governments and foster relationships and dialogues and help them to understand. And for the technical community to try and understand where they’re coming from and what problems the governments are trying to solve. I’m seeing Konstantinos

Audience:
wants to speak. Thanks. Yes, very quickly on this. You said exactly what I was about to say about the need to involve the technical community. I think the difference is how the technical community involves and what sort of message it conveys. And I think that this is what is different in many ways. 20 and 30 years ago, governments were not really invested or knew a lot of things about the internet. We were all celebrating the internet because it hadn’t been used yet as a weapon of any sort, whether it was misinformation or for cyber attacks or cyber whatever it was. So everyone was really behind it. There was little governmental interest, but right now we are at a place where governments, for better or worse, they’re interested. And they are stakeholders. That’s the whole part of the multi-stakeholder model, right? No one leads necessarily in the multi-stakeholder model in the sense that what I’m saying needs to go because I happen to know better. That’s not the way it works. So the technical community needs to be involved, but also the technical community, and I sort of leave aside what we mean by technical community for the time being, needs to understand that things have changed. And also, and it is important to provide a narrative that equips governments to defend the internet rather than give them very abstract notions of openness and global reach and interoperability. No, you need to tell governments how they can achieve this. We have the infrastructure that supports these things. That infrastructure will always, always exist. The question is, how can we make, how can we use this infrastructure to its fullest potential?

Moderator:
Thank you, Konstantinos.

Annaliese Williams:
Sorry, just to come back. I’m sorry, I’m not sure of this gentleman’s name, but I did want to just flag that OUTA has recently published an internet governance roadmap, which you can find on our website. And one of the actions that we’re calling for there is for greater collaboration among the technical stakeholders, the technical community, you know, to ensure better coordination amongst the existing internet institutions and, you know, strengthen collaboration between the policy and the technical stakeholders. So I just wanted to draw your attention to that.

Moderator:
Thank you, Anlis. Danko, you wanted to add something? Maybe Danko first, and then Michael

Danko Jevtovic:
can go ahead. I just wanted to thank to both of you on these comments. I think it is very true. And speaking of ICANN, I think we got the message. So first of all, traditionally, of course, ICANN has the Government Advisory Committee, and we are working with the country representatives, they advise ICANN board on the public policies, but we also have a lot of rotation there. So it’s continuous work. And we have a government engagement team that is also very much present here. So one of the engagements we are doing here. But also, as we have three large ICANN meetings throughout the world, in June next year, we will have a big meeting in Africa and Rwanda, that is not only for African region, but it’s global. And in connection to that, we will have a high-level ministerial meeting. And one of the things that ICANN is doing is trying to engage the governments to send high-level representatives to that meeting. So I think we get the message, and we are doing that. But also, very importantly, I think it’s not only about ICANN. ICANN has the resources to do those things, so that’s why we are doing it. But it’s also all the technical community coming together, and not only through the ICANN, but through different things. And of course, with ISOC, with country code registries, with the regional government, with ISOC, with country code registries, with the regional IP registries. And all together, we have to prepare ourselves for the VISIS plus 20 review that will probably move the things to be more in sync with the importance of the current world. And as you said, the governments see the importance of the Internet now. They see also negative consequences. They are very important with them. We have, for example, bilateral with the UK minister who said the most important increasing crime is online. So for the UK government, it’s important topic. And of course, ICANN is doing something. We are very active in the DNS abuse area. Our limit is quite narrow, but we take the importance of all these messages and communicate with governments very strongly. And I think this is something that shows the results.

Moderator:
Thank you, Danko. Michael, did you want to come in?

Michael Kende:
Yeah, I just wanted to go back actually to something that you had said in your introduction. You mentioned the new IP proposal. And there, there was kind of a, I guess, a clear and present danger that was presented. And along with a number of other people, the technical community responded. I think it was a paper from Olaf at ISOC. There was one from ICANN. I’m sure ITF was pushing back because it was tangible and it was clearly a technical issue where the technical community could respond and discuss how this would impact the Internet and fragment it in some ways completely. But as David Fairchild mentioned, there may not be a zero draft that could be responded to. So we end up, as Peter said, talking about forensics. What was said by the tech envoy? How was it said? Where did the technical community come up? And then the risk is that we end up kind of reacting too late when there’s finally something on paper and there’s a risk to be discussed. So I think one thing that would be interesting is how do we come up with examples or, you know, Peter mentioned some, you know, where there’s demands for regulation, where the technical community clearly can discuss the side effects. So one way I think to do it is to kind of look forward and talk about, you know, the kinds of risks that could come up and how the technical community has been addressing them all along. As with many of the things the new IP was aimed at addressing, they were already being addressed at ITF and elsewhere. So I think that’s something that we should think about so we don’t end up in February, March, April seeing the first draft and then in some ways it may be too late to react when we can finally see some tangible threats. Thank you, Michael. We can take one last

Moderator:
question. Yeah, go ahead. And then we’ll spend maybe just five minutes going through concluding

Audience:
remarks from anyone who wants. Thank you. First of all, really great to have this session at the IGF and really appreciate you putting this together. It’s a shame that not more people are there but I see that it’s being recorded so hopefully more people can benefit from it. I’m Eva Gnatyshenko. I work in the UK Government Department for Science, Innovation and Tech and listening to this conversation, I’m sort of disappointed that we’re making such a strong contrast between the technical community and a government as if those are two separate communities that somehow are antagonistic to each other. I’m a firm believer working on digital technical standards. I have a team of technical experts that is very much part of the technical community and is engaging actively in ICANN, in the ITF and other technical bodies. And for me, the really big question, and I’m wondering whether I can address that in the closing statements, is around the right mechanisms. I definitely echo David’s point on how many of you from the technical community are engaging with foreign ministries and UK foreign offices actually trying to get a lot more technical expertise into their missions and they are bringing experts in and I think this is a really great move. Same for us, we are trying to think about how we have a sustainable flow of talent into government that will never pay as well as the corporations do. But when I looked at the GDC consultation, and there was an open process, I agree with the concerns. We are very concerned about multistakeholder participation from here, but there was a chance to feed in and the participation and the contributions from private sector and from the technical community were very limited. We’re very disappointed to see that because there was a chance to feed in and I’m wondering whether that’s because it was so high level that it was hard to see those technical problems that might come further down the line. But there needs to be a mechanism to allow for that engagement and I do think we have a lot of good practice in the UK, how that’s working, but how do we do that on a global level beyond sort of fora like this and how do we speak the same language? That’s what I found. We spend a lot of time teaching our policy experts to speak technical and our technical experts to speak policy, but it’s not just a one-way street. We’re working with the IETF in particular to build that trust that governments are a stakeholder, as Konstantinos pointed out, and not see ourselves as enemies, but actually trying to achieve the same objectives and how can we kind of understand the means and where we might go wrong. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thank you, Eva. I think we can close here, just perhaps on my side, just to rebound on what you just said and perhaps a point to Jean. I think in your remarks it sounded to me as if you were saying that government needs to come to you and I fear that this is not, that wasn’t your point. Okay, you can tell me afterwards. All right, do you want to say a few words to conclude? Maybe Danko first?

Danko Jevtovic:
Thank you. So first, thank you for these comments. I think true, governments have technical experts and of course we have to work together and I think this is a very good message. But for a conclusion, thinking back about the fragmentation, I wanted also to, I’m coming from Serbia, it’s a small developing country in Europe, not part of European Union, and in such developing countries the internet is the key to be part of the global world. And I think the risks of the fragmentation of internet are real, but the possible consequences of those risks are especially significant for developing countries, because this is the, having one internet for one world is the way for a country to be part of that world, for people to export their services, to be part of the global workforce, to learn, to work, and you know, share culture. So I think this internet thing is actually kind of a world peace project and we often discuss now possible negative consequences, but we have to celebrate the successes of internet and we have to protect it for the citizens of the world, but also very much also for the developing part of the world. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thank you, Danko. Annelise, do you want to go next?

Annaliese Williams:
Thanks, David. I’d just like to thank you for your intervention. I think that’s a really important point that you’ve made and I do want to reiterate that we shouldn’t be seeing governments as the opposition, as the enemy. Governments aren’t just trying to stop everybody having a good time, they’re trying to protect their citizens and that’s the job of the government. So, you know, I would like to just, you know, encourage the technical stakeholders in the room to, you know, I think we do need to have a coordinated response into some of these public policy processes that are happening and these conversations will be happening whether we engage with them or not. So I would like the technical stakeholders to sort of, you know, give some real consideration to what it is that we can contribute and to some coordination amongst ourselves to provide that input to these processes. Thanks, David.

Moderator:
Thank you, Annelise. Bruna?

Bruna Martins Dos Santos:
Thanks. Just about the comments on the process of the GDC. I do think it was rather open and it was welcome to have consultations and so on, but there were some problems along the way. And speaking as part of like a group of CSOs that engaged on it from the very beginning, the first question we asked was what would be the modalities? This is still an unanswered question, like two years after. Yeah. And the whole like debate about the deep dives as well, right? Like when the deep dives were cut up in half right at the end of it, not allowing any other stakeholder to speak for more than three minutes or only allowing the ones present in New York to speak on those consultations, it kind of highlights that it’s not a governmental problem, but it highlights the excluding side of the conversation, right? So that’s when we criticize all of those spaces and so on. And maybe my last remark about that is that we need to do more things together, right? So maybe now it’s the moment for the technical community to advocate for more participation together with civil society and other stakeholders on this process that still lacks transparency, that still lacks defining a little better its scope and what will be the next step. So maybe it’s definitely time for collective action on that. So thanks a lot.

Moderator:
Thank you, Bruna. Michael, do you want to say a few words on your side?

Michael Kende:
Yeah. No, I just want to kind of also second the idea of the two-way engagement that’s been mentioned a few times and just maybe point out that there’s a long list of issues, not just avoiding fragmentation of the internet, but there’s a lot of other legitimate concerns of governments and one of the incentives for or one of the reasons that there’s discussions of fragmentation and the kind that Bruna is talking about, not just technical but other kinds, is because of concerns about protecting citizens, you know, the human rights issues and others. So maybe the way to engage is to engage on the other topics as well and show that the technical community is not just protecting its own role, which is of course important and needs to be understood for developing an interoperable internet, but for helping to address some of the other issues on the list and having a proactive approach rather than maybe a more defensive one. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thank you, Michael, and thank you very much for getting up at two o’clock in the morning to be with us. It’s much appreciated. Thank you. I suggest we close it here. Thank you all so much for contributing and for the discussion, and don’t hesitate to, I guess, interconnect after this session. Thank you. Thank you.