Deutsche Welle and ZEIT Online publish GPPi op-eds on Internet governance

In commentaries published by Deutsche Welle and ZEIT Online, on December 3 and 7 respectively, GPPi Director Thorsten Benner argues that while the US and EU are right to oppose China and Russia’s push for more state control over the Internet, they need to think about upgrading the entire system of Internet governance. The pieces appeared in light of the World Conference on International Telecommunications, convened by the International Telecommunications (ITU) from December 3 – 14 in Dubai.

China and Russia want to wrestle away control of the Internet from multi-stakeholder networks such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to the intergovernmental ITU. According to Benner, this risks stifling the Internet, which has thrived on being an open system where innovators do not need to ask governments for permission and where different stakeholders are involved in rule-making. However, argues Benner, just because Russia and China are prescribing the wrong cure does not mean that the current system does not have serious shortcomings.

First, the current system is very much dominated by Western actors. The US is seen as wielding a particularly outsize influence.

What’s more, the US and Europe must tend to some of the less discussed but real dangers to a free and open Internet. Scottish journalist Ryan Gallagher in Slate points to the ​“increasingly centralized and homogenized international surveillance infrastructure, with more sophisticated attempts to monitor online communications and closer cooperation between states when it comes to retaining data and tracking down suspects.”

Furthermore, the EU and the US should support checks and balances of digital behemoths such as Facebook in terms of privacy and user rights.

Google’s vice president Vint Cerf recently declared the efforts by Russia and others at the ITU conference as hopeless. ​“These persistent attempts are just evidence that this breed of dinosaurs, with their pea-sized brains, hasn’t figured out that they are dead yet, because the signal hasn’t traveled up their long necks.” Rather than focusing on the supposedly inferior brainpower of a species and its arguments that are allegedly doomed for extinction, supporters of a free and open Internet should invest their brainpower into upgrading the existing system of Internet governance.