The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> WIM DEGEZELLE: Hi, good morning and welcome to this session. It's the last day of the IGF. It's early in the morning, but still great to see you.
I would like to welcome first co-facilitators of this Best Practice Forum. Bruna and normally we have Tereza and Sheetal online.
I don't know if you want to say hi to everyone.
>> BRUNA: Hi, everyone. Welcome for being here this early. Hopefully last day, last rush until the end of the IGF. Also thank Tereza and Sheetal for being online with us.
>> WIM DEGEZELLE: Yes. Hi, Sheetal, we didn't see each other for some time.
Thank you for joining here and online to the Policy Network on Internet fragmentation. It's one of the intersessional activities of the IGF.
It is -- it was started two years, three years ago as an initiative taken by the community to raise awareness about fragmentation, to raise awareness about actions that make discussions, issues, that may cause Internet fragmentation. And also with the purpose of facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue about Internet fragmentation.
The Policy Network has been around for three years. The first two years we focused on exploring the field and that led us to developing framework to discuss Internet fragmentation.
If you can show the first slides, slide Number 1, there you can see on the screen the framework we developed. A little explanation and background about this.
When we started discussion about Internet fragmentation, automatically the first thing you do is to try to come up with the definition to say this is what we're talking about, this is what we want to discuss. But very quickly we discovered focusing too much on defining what Internet fragmentation is and what it is not brings us to endless discussions, endless yes, no, you should talk about this, this you cannot talk about.
That led to us develop a framework that is intended to facilitate the discussion, not really to define Internet fragmentation, but to facilitate helping people that want to discuss fragmentation to indicate what they are talking about.
And that tremendously helped us I think within the PNIF, but we've seen it being picked up elsewhere to kind of guide the discussion -- the discussions.
So what's in the framework? We identified three different baskets of Internet fragmentation. When people talk about fragmentation, they either, we discovered, talked about from a perspective of the user experience. Or they were talking about Internet Governance and coordination. Or they were talking about the technical layer, the Internet technical layer.
Let's start with the last one. When they talk about fragmentation of the Internet technical layer, they're basically talking about the infrastructure that underpins the working of the Internet, of the global Internet, and fragmenting -- Internet fragmentation in that context would mean anything that can challenge the interoperability of the -- of the Internet as we know it today.
The second basket, Internet fragmentation of Internet governance and coordination is actually linked in a way to discussions we have here at the Internet Governance Forum, but also discussions going on in other fora, decision fora, also at the other organizations.
And pointing at the fact that if there are too many discussions going on about Internet in different fora in parallel without those institutions or organizations and platforms talk to each other, this might lead to fragmenting the Internet.
The last basket is fragmentation from the user perspective. It's basically the idea of the Internet is that if you connect to the Internet wherever you are on the network, wherever you are in the world, you can have or you have the same expectations. You will be -- you expect that it can do the same, that it can connect to the same services, the same content.
We all know that this is not the case today. When two users -- it can be somebody sitting here, it can be somebody sitting on the other side of the world. It can be me going online, Bruna going online and trying to do the same and getting different result.
That is also a form of fragmentation from the user perspective. It is not said that all these forms of fragmentation are problematic. Some are, some are not.
So this is the basic framework. It helps us to -- when there are discussions that people can flag while we see ourselves in these baskets. Very important is also to understand that there is a relation, there's a huge overlap between the baskets, and they also interact, influence each other.
There are elements of the framework and that's what's the gray box outside the framework is there are a lot of measures, technical, legal, also decisions that may influence fragmentation in the three sets, the three boxes.
Although this is a framework and we showed already at the IGF last year, we discussed the year before, but we keep repeating -- we keep showing it because we notice that it really helps to facilitate the discussion.
That's -- I think I would like to keep it there as an introduction, and then move over to the session today. And Sheetal, the co-facilitator will take you through the plans for today, the plans for this year, and Sheetal, the floor is yours.
>> SHEETAL KUMAR: Thank you so much. It's great to see you all on stage. Super fresh for the last day of the IGF and the first session in the morning.
And I hope you've been enjoying it so far and all the long sunshine days that I hear you get in that part of the world at this time of year.
I'm calling in from London, and it's great to be here for this session because as you've explained, we have come a long way with the framework, with the Policy Network in supporting and understanding of Internet fragmentation and a basis to work from -- on this issue.
And so with this session, we wanted to launch the work of the Policy Network for the coming year and be able to use the -- the -- this as a platform for discussion, for inclusive dialogue on what is happening with regards to Internet fragmentation to strengthen the dialogue.
To be able to use this space to continue to monitor trends and discuss developments, and raise awareness of what is happening and really educate the community and ourselves so that we can act with awareness.
And all of this grounded in a commitment that's in the Global Digital Compact very specifically, you will know it, Paragraph 29C which commits to promoting international cooperation among all stakeholders to prevent identified addressed risks or fragmentation of the Internet in a timely manner.
I think there's a slide, Slide 2, if I can ask the tech team to display it. Wim you had asked me to remember that and I forgot. So if Slide 2 is available, you could have that on the screen.
But that just shows the specific commitment within the compact to promote information cooperation on this particular issue. It's very clear, it's there, it's also accompanied by Paragraph D which commits to refraining from Internet shutdowns and connects this commitment around fragmentation to Sustainable Development Goal 16 which is all about promoting inclusive societies and peaceful institutions.
And an open and secure Internet is so essential for.
So we want to start, of course, at the beginning which will lead me back to giving you the mic on the stage. It's always good to start in the beginning where we want to ask what has actually been happening with regards to the status of this commitment?
What international cooperation efforts have begun?
Are there any gaps?
What can we bring to the table?
Where have we begun with regards to this commitment and what can we do as a networking community to continue to monitor it?
So back to you and looking forward to the discussion and to hearing from all of you both there in Norway and, of course, online.
Thanks.
>> BRUNA: Thanks, Sheetal. We have a very interesting and diverse set of speakers for this session. Sorry for my voice, last day. I'll take a moment and introducing you all. I have Joyce by my side, senior adviser in strategic engagement in academic APNIC.
We have Naim, state secretary in Montenegro. We have Michel Lambert who I hope joins us very soon. He's the general manager for eQualitie. We have Dhruv at the end of the table, let's say the non-table, from the Internet Architecture Board representing them here.
And also colleague Marilia Maciel, director of digital trade and economic security at [?] foundation.
As Sheetal was saying, I think we can start with an initial set of interventions about the GDC commitment. We had a thorough discussion of the Global Digital Compact, what it would mean for society, also a lot of commitments on some social media platforms, information integrity, and spanning out across the boards from many things around Internet Governance.
And to be fair, unfortunately we're having a session just know with the co-facilitators with WSIS+20 for a lot of implications for the new framework are also being suggested.
But maybe I'll start with Marilia if that's okay, starting with our remote speakers. If you can start us off with ideas and comments on how does this commitment, you know, could be shaped and we know that there's still a lot of efforts being implemented in terms of mapping of the GDC commitment.
But at some point until now at least we haven't heard much from the Internet fragmentation as we assume it's part of an ongoing mapping as well. I'll pass the floor to you.
>> MARILIA MACIEL: Thank you, very much, Bruna. I trust you can hear me well.
>> BRUNA: Yes.
>> MARILIA MACIEL: Thanks to the organizers of the session, it's a pleasure to be here today. Since we don't have much time, let me just speak one angle of the discussion and explore it and then make some suggestions that were proposed to us that I think will be addressed in the upcoming report.
The drivers of fragmentation can be of the different types, as we have discussed, technical, political, commercial. But one of the elements that have strengthened fragmentation trends, eased the cross-border nature of the Internet and territorially grounded political and legal systems.
But in the present geopolitical context of rising tensions, there's multipressure towards reinforcing territorialization. Borders are becoming ever more important as we can see in several examples today, such as the application of unilateral tariffs on digital key products such as semiconductors. The potential end of the moratorium on customs duties.
On electronic transmissions at the WTO, which would mean that we pay more for fumes and music that would not be exempt from tariffs imposed at the border anymore.
Adoption of investment screenings mechanisms for inbound and outbound investment that touch upon investment in key digital sectors, including developing countries.
So there are these general ongoing trends. And when the GDIP was first introduced, the headlines talked about the return of the state's digital policy.
But what is happening today is different from attempts to strengthen territory of the state in order for it to protect individual rights and promote competition online.
Today I think particularly in developed countries which are the front runners of digital technology, reterritorialization and digital sovereignty have been invoked to strengthen the state itself especially when these expressions are associated with national security concerns and protectionist world views.
But there's a growing entanglement between national security and economic security and digital technologies cutting across both.
In this context, countries are usually pushing for a double strategy. On the one hand, they're exploiting existing digital interdependencies to achieve their geopolitical goals. While on other hand they're seeking autonomy for themselves in key digital areas, even if this means we define in networks of global production of goods and services.
I think it's important that the network looks at how states are promoting fragmentation by acting upon this mentally reorganizing the digital economy, along geopolitical goals and along ideological fault lines.
And how this might affect global access to technology, technology diffusion, including when it comes to hardware, software, data, algorithms, and model weights.
So what I am proposing in practice, and maybe we can think about reflecting that in the report, is that first we should add another dimension of our working notion of fragmentation. Which would consider fragmentation in the global economy while governments are acting upon markets and introducing elements of fragmentation.
They do that by reducing previously agreed openness of digital markets and openness of value chains that produce and distribute ICT goods and services.
Many times for closing these value chains to normalize for countries that are considered nonreliable, many are them are located in the Global South.
Secondly, I think it's important to broaden the scope of fragmentation in order to consider not only individual end user experience, but also the fragmentation that's affecting intermediary users which can also be companies that employ ICT goods and services to produce their own products and services.
Third, while we tweak this scope of our understanding of fragmentation, special attention should be given to developing countries and how this fragmentation could impact their access to technology and their access to investment as well in digital sectors.
So what collaboration efforts have been put in place when it comes to this particular understanding of fragmentation?
Not many that I'm aware of. So there's definitely a gap there, something that we can do.
But some organizations have worked independently and have tried to map these effect. The WTO was one of the first to ring alarm bells about fragmentation of value chains. A digital policy alert from the University of Sengali has introduced studies on fragmentation from a regulatory perspective and also from a tariff perspective.
The OECD has recently produced studies on the need to find balance between free data flows and the existence of legal frameworks and have economically quantified the sweet spot between both.
But most important of all, I think we need to mobilise companies, because they're the ones who hold the main pieces of the puzzle to understand what's going on. The Geneva Internet platform has developed an initiative that fosters collaboration among companies when it comes to discussing responsible behavior in cyberspace. And this dialogue could serve as a blueprint to bring together companies from different digital sectors to discuss this.
I think to conclude that the Policy Network is well placed to convene multi-stakeholder discussion and to kick start some very interesting projects with the end goal of the 2027 deadline. But the IGF itself has, by and large, refrained from discussing the issues related to the digital, political economy.
In fact, I think that the IGF has not really responded over the last ten years to the significant migration of digital policy discussion, data flows, algorithms, privacy, AI, to digital trade negotiations and agreements. Which are not transparent, not accountable, not multi-stakeholder.
So in itself, this migration is a fragmentation of Internet Governance. Perhaps there's an opportunity now for us to kill two birds with one stone and address the ongoing fragmentation of Internet Governance, digital governance, through fragmentation trends that we can see in the digital economy today.
I think I'll stop here. Over to you.
>> BRUNA: Thank you for Marilia, and thanks a lot for reminding us of the social-political tensions, right, not just seen in policy making, but also throughout these venues and foras.
I do think some aspects of it we try to bring into fragmentation coordination, but it's true and in fact that we didn't really address the economic aspect of the whole discussion. Thanks a lot for reminding us of that.
I'll bring the conversation to you, Naim, especially for the policymaking part. I enjoy the prep meetings for these sessions because I think we dive into the debate before. But I do think -- both conversations bridge very well.
And just maybe to hear from you, looking at these commitments and looking at what the GDC has meant for the discussion on Internet fragmentation, how do you think you're putting back those commitments and how do you think you could contribute from a government perspective into this debate?
Thanks.
>> NAIM GJOKAJ: Thank you and good morning. Always great to be here and talk about this topic. And thanks to IGF that putting this topic on at all.
Also thanks for the Host Country, Norway, for the [?]
Fragmentation from this point of view of governmental point of view, I know that we won't go too much on the technical details, but I have to focus on the political fragmentation and what a government can do to continue this commitment that you already mentioned. Also commitments of GDC.
So I will start and say how Montenegro works on this. So we -- officially we don't have any fragmentations on Internet. But of course, we do some activities that they indirectly support evidenting the risk of fragmentations.
As a company that is look tock part of the EU, we're looking for a single market and all the economic activities, we work on strategic plans that indirectly stops fragmentations through having same directives with the EU members. Not only EU, but we as a region of West Balkans, we're trying to have the same digital strategies and all activities starting also from the legal -- legal framework. This is important, starting with the legal.
And after that, of course, implementing -- implementing that. For us, this is very important topic. Unfortunately, not only Montenegro, but even in other countries. We don't have legal, something that will define fragmentation stops this. And of course, all stakeholders.
I always love to put in one table always about these important topics, even government organizations. But also universities, private sector, NGOs that can also give a huge effect to this and other topics, especially in part of digitization because it's a live system and changes a lot.
And of course representatives of groups that we cannot see too much, those are youth and also representatives of regions from globally that they are not too much active on these topics.
So we have to have all these elements at the table and start working on a legal part to stop fragmentation.
Also I told that -- I said that we did a lot on part of stopping fragmentation indirectly, but there are factors that can affect Montenegro in having some fragmentations. Not only Montenegro, that can be also active in other countries.
So as mostly we know that three years ago in Montenegro we had a huge cyberattacks, so this can also happen to we as a government stop and look our position and to say our information, government information, but also citizen information. So we have -- maybe we are -- we have start with this, even if we are not that side.
The second point that is a factor of opening the fragmentation, I already mentioned the legal framework.
And the third of course is that gap, even Norwegian, Western Balkans we did really great job of connectivity to Internet. So this also, that gap that is still there between parts in our country, especially rural parts that they cannot catch too much of services and connectivity to Internet can help. And indirectly and be a factor of fragmentation.
But still, I think that starting from the positions of IM and all the other persons working in the government should really start more and bring this topic to higher level.
So even from the legal and other -- and other activities. So I think that for the beginning would be -- would be this from my side. But still these activities, maybe I always say even inside our country when we wait for some results, maybe we don't get that as we wanted that communication beside all actors and stakeholders.
So that would be my point that the communication starting from regions, then continent, then global should really be direct and better communication. So maybe that would be how to improve these commits of GDC that we makes a roadmap. Like see the activities, what stakeholders are doing on this topic and to see and to have the common roadmap, but not just roadmap that is written, but what really to be that all stakeholders should respect that and really work on achieving some results of stopping and of fragmentation.
Thank you.
>> BRUNA: Thank you. I think from the intervention, I would highlight the need for commitment -- not just commitment, more aligned conversation of what fragmentation could mean, what states should be doing for that. EU, as you were saying, has already a lot of initiatives in that sense, but there are some gaps, right, with the accessing states and also some regions of the content as well that might be lacking or might not be as represented in this debate.
But it's also a conversation for the rest of the world, right, and where we -- and we're very well highlighting we should include more and more voices.
I will maybe bring it to another of our remote speakers, Michel. I don't know if you can hear us -- can you hear us well and are you ready to speak? I'm not sure if you can unmute yourself, but if technical can help us. Yes.
>> MICHEL LAMBERT: Can you hear me?
>> BRUNA: Yes, we can. Thanks for joining us, Michel. You told us you would like to address the gaps and the gaps specifically in fragmentation and also knowing you're part of the splinter [?] community, I would -- we're all anxious to hear you speaking about the gaps in this conversation. The floor is yours.
>> MICHEL LAMBERT: I was trying to open my camera but it doesn't work. But we have the sound.
Thank you first for the invitation. I'll take just a few seconds to mention that I'm working for a group called eQualitie, the Canadian that.
For profit corporation, we develop on source technologies to support digital resilience affected by censorship. We bring together researchers, developers, technologies, entrepreneurs, Internet freedom to look at all the issues of fragmentation and go around.
We work with communities that would filtering or targeting Internet repression. From our own perspective, there are two urgent gaps in our community.
We all the first one the political [?] of network control. It's a big word, tools of censorship, civilians and fragmentation are no longer exceptional.
They are becoming normalized instruments of governance. We're witnessing a global shift when Internet control is increasingly with state power. It's not happening at the margin, it's happening at scale.
And yet even in this week of high-level discussion on [?] Governance, censorship is down -- a bit on the agenda. We discuss a lot about AI, but these emergencies seem a bit overlooked. For instance, I maybe have missed, but I seen no formal discussion on Iran resentful-scale shutdown affecting nearly 90 million people these last ten days as we were speaking.
Very little engagement with ongoing 2G networks. It's persisted for years. This is just two example, but they're not isolated events. They're part of a global pattern that will continue unless we act now.
Much more efforts like the Best Practice Forum and protecting [?] are welcome. I think that happened yesterday. And we intend to support them. But we must scale this effort and this discussion should be more integrated not only on the policy integration, but more included in the whole IGF process.
If we want to leave no one behind, I mean I heard that mantra a lot there all week, we must apply then when government decide to shut down the Internet for political purposes.
In this context, the GDC framed as it is, as a roadmap for [?] governance, risks [?] fragmentation by enriching sovereignty over domestic Internet. It may give cover to state shutdowns and [?]. Human rights is more than rhetorical. We need mechanism to make it more difficult, more costly for government to shut down the Internet.
If I may, I'd like to spend a few minutes just to look at the Iran's control fragmentation that we've seen this week. In the last ten days, Iran has demonstrated a new level of [?] and state control network fragmentation.
It's been like four times since 2009, and each time the regime learned. And now after 16 days of trial and error, they can manage it successfully. Their national information network made sure that domestic accesses throughout the local services, bank, Internet messaging was working normally. But anything from outside to inside could not reach the servers.
This is really full fragmentation in course. It's happening right now. There has been a few tools which manage to work without going into details of such tools, you know, I can mention like a satellite base forecasting system which managed to send a lot more content during those days.
The browser that we created appeared to be a tool using bit torrent continued to distribute compute, server work, but all of these tools are a bit marginal in the context and they need to be promoted before shutdown happens. You need a lot of investment before, a lot of preparedness, and continuous innovation of these tools because the sensors are becoming more and more, you know, performant. So the tool need to be also updated all the time.
And that takes me to my second gap here, and it really is the collapse of funding for Internet freedom tools like this.
It is no secret that the United States has been the primary funder of global Internet freedom efforts since a few years now, contributing in nearly 250 million annually.
Now there is an estimate that suggests up to 80% of this funding is being cut for this year and the year beyond. That will leave a massive gap at the worst possible time. Without immediate action from other governments, Canada, EU Member States and other allies, we risk losing essential infrastructure, tools and network that allow people to stay online and safe.
In short-term, that means we need to stabilize funding for critical tools before they disappear. We need to support local [?] training hub, version of censorships and convention tools.
We need mapping impact of the funding cost to guide smart, emergency [?] decision in the next six months. This is no moment for bureaucratic delays. And on the long term, really we need to treat digital resilience as an essential infrastructure.
We should open -- we should support open and -- sorry, and [?] and sovereign alternatives to Big Tech. We need to mainstream encryption and privacy fundamental rights.
Digital shutdowns are no longer rare or extreme, they're part of the digital playbook. If we fail to take them seriously, we'll continue to see vulnerable communities [?] in silence and left behind. Thank you.
>> BRUNA: Thank you for outlining, I think it was the main point that came across when we were starting the framework rights, not the tools, but the abuse of usage of Internet shutdowns first in the context of elections and then in different contexts as well as the ones you highlighted.
Thanks for bringing that into the conversation and the points on the current crisis in the development sector. I do believe that some of those things, they might affect in the longer run the decisions we have. They do affect the participation of Civil Society organizations and many other stakeholders here. But it's also important to highlight -- I mean, I feel the obligation to highlight here as well that we do have had -- we did have in the past years many ally governments to the digital freedoms agenda as well, right.
And we had spaces like the freedom online coalition and many other collectives or governmental coalitions that have been trying to counter react to the usage of these tools or try to get across with a more concrete message.
But thanks a lot for highlighting those points and as a fellow Civil Society member I appreciate the points made.
I'll bring the conversation to you to talk a bit more about technical fragmentation, right? I think it was the first point that was brought up to us when we started this off and we often heard there's no technical fragmentation. Where are you starting this work. What extra things or what new things are you going to discuss.
So maybe if you had any thoughts or ideas on how we could work together on the GDC commitment and making sure that the core aspect of the Internet and the critical infrastructure of it is being well kept and the commitment around it.
So yeah, thanks.
>> DHRUV DHODY: Thank you. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to be on the panel and bring out where the technical community is coming from. I'm on the Internet Architecture Board which is part of our Internet engineering task force. We do all the Internet standards. Everything that we use, IB, BNS, email, all the protocols that we see on the vet today were standardized at IGF. These are global standards, they're implemented everywhere.
The fear from the technical community that always comes is at the technical layer, as you were highlighting in your PNIF framework, that lead to interoperable solutions where Internet data is fully connect where'd we can communicate from any part of the world to any other networks, we end up into regional or isolated networks that no longer work with each other.
That can be also a technical layer. The thing that we worry the most is in that cases, as standards organizations and IGF and others continue to develop new standards. We add more extensions and privacies and other things. There are sometimes regulations which comes in which has an impact not just on the country where the regulation is coming from, but on the global Internet.
So there is a huge fear that we have, especially in the terms of digital sovereignty and governance focusing on having more regulation and control over Internet.
But at the same time realizing it's very hard to regulate something that's completely global. Internet is without borders, but the digital sovereignty is within borders. So we have to be always mindful.
We realize that the governments have a reason to regulate, they are doing something. But at the same time Internet is unique in its own way. So when they try to regulate anything, always keeping the fear of what is the bigger impact on the Internet architecture, infrastructure, the whole technical layer has to be always kept in the back of the mind.
So when you ask what could be the next step, I hope when these regulations come in that we can rely on their expertise, they have developed this, they're real and genuine operational realities out there that needs to work on what is coming in.
There could be more collaboration, more understanding from each of us point of view. That's the hope that the technical community would have and something also that I personally care for. Thank you.
>> BRUNA: Lovely. Thanks so much. We did hear this many times across this years, right, the relevance of coordination, the relevance of, like, bringing the experts back into the room, right, because it's really interesting that we come from all of these for as, IBD, ICAIN, IGF itself, and we preach about multi-stakeholderism all the time.
But when these come to exist, we don't really have the time sometimes to include all experts at the table because we're mainly focusing on giving efficient, quick answers to those problems and answers that might protect users, might make sure that the crises, they don't go further. But it's one of the main points that we do at least have a point or more points for the technical community. Just so we do do those things and those types of measures and so on.
I'm going to bring it to you, Joyce, as well. Because in the last two or three years, we also saw an even growing movement for coordination of the technical community, especially in light of the said exclusion you guys had from the Global Digital Compact process. Or the lack of acknowledgement, let's say it like that in a more diplomatic way.
But maybe if you can just enlighten us on the coordination efforts that have been done recently and also [?] one of the core organizations in this space, IAB and many other colleagues. Thanks.
>> JOYCE CHEN: Thank you so much, Bruna. And thank you to Wim and Sheetal for the very kind invitation to speak in this very important session.
I'll first begin by talking about the WSIS elements paper I think that's been on everybody's mind in the past week.
And the elements paper highlighted the risk of Internet fragmentation as a core issue to be addressed. This shows how important and critical it is that we continue to look at this issue seriously.
So I thank the PNIF for your wonderful work in this regard. You have helped us over the years to articulate what Internet fragmentation is or could be. I think the real risk to Internet fragmentation and here I'm quoting -- I believe it's one of the ICAIN papers over the past few months where they said the real risk to Internet fragmentation is misalignment and the breakdown of coordination.
And in this regard, APNIC as part of the Internet technical community and the larger multi-stakeholder Internet Governance community has always supported strong and inclusive coordination and cooperation amongst all stakeholders.
One way to mitigate fragmentation is continuous capacity building. Both technical and nontechnical. At APNIC we are constantly building awareness around how the Internet works and sound technical network deployment ensures that there are no breakages in the functioning of the Internet.
If we look at the IGF, the IGF itself is a capacity-building, confidence-building forum where the Internet community can gather and talk exactly about these issues. The Internet and the use of the Internet are constantly evolving, and the IGF is the space for us to frame and set the agenda for discussions on fragmentation as the evolution takes place.
I want to highlight that coordination is not often visible, but if fragmentation would happen, it would take the invisible and make it visible. It would mean that the Internet has points of failure.
And so here I want to talk a bit about the current ICP 2 or what we call the Internet coordination policy 2 review that's taking place.
The ICAIN address organization or ASO is reviewing this fundamental document which we call the IIR document. This talks about the establishment and the derecognition of the IRRs. The original document was in 2001. So it predates the IGF. But it was instrumental in setting up the core organization such as APNIC and others.
Why did I bring this up? This is an example of where the technical coordination is clearly laid out in the document, and if we don't do this well, there is potential for systemic failure.
We've had extensive community consultations on the draft IRR governance so far. If you're interested or curious what's going on, I encourage you to look at this document as well because it concerns the fundamental governance of the IRRs.
Another example I want to give of coordination within the technical community is the technical community coalition on multi-stakeholderism or TCCM. I think I've spoken about the TCCM across several panels, but I think they're work is relevant to us as we're talking about Internet fragmentation.
The TCCM is where technical operators of the Internet gather to discuss core policy issues and we started our work during the GDC and you are now continuing on into the WSIS+20 review process.
It's a different kind of capacity building. It's not so much about technical coordination as such, but it is a form of policy coordination amongst technical operators. And I think it is a much-needed one.
We're fighting Internet fragmentation by building bridges between the technical and the nontechnical realms. I wanted to address a remark made by Michel, and I'm so thankful that you brought this up regarding the severe cuts in funding and how that has affected a lot of the Civil Society, nongovernmental organizations that are doing very, very good work in trying to mitigate Internet fragmentation.
And I want to bring up another example where such severe funding cuts have affected, especially the Pacific community. It's, to me, not just a vacuum of influence in a time of strange geopolitical tensions, but more importantly, such severe funding cuts have really hampered the Pacific community which is far away enough from everyone in their Internet development efforts and having them, you know, be able to access the Internet.
So this, to me, is a really important topic. I hope that we could, perhaps, have a little discussion around that. And so just, you know, in summary, I think the PNIF is in a great position to continue this work on Internet fragmentation and to develop recommendations for GDC implementation, because we have not really seen much work in this area, as to do with the implementation itself.
I think it's also crucial that the PNIF includes your voice in the WSIS+20 review process.
Thank you.
>> BRUNA: Thanks. Thanks, Joyce, in reminding of the high-level event in less than ten days now, right? And hoping to see a lot of us in Geneva as well discussing some of the same topics and some of the same need for coordination and so on.
I think now we open for questions from the audience, right?
I'm not sure if we -- how do we do the microphones, but we should have one here. And if folks would like to make a question, feel free to just jump -- do we have --
>> VANESIUS: Hi. My name is Vanesius. I work at Google. I'm the engineering lead. And I just wanted to highlight that on the topic of digital sovereignty it's almost like incompatible with Internet as a whole because they all depend on other people anymore. So why we just keep communicating.
I think really the key here is the interdependency. So we need to make sure that we highlight the need for this interdependency. What are the benefits and demonstrate that it's more effective. We can be more efficient we depending on others.
You see examples like China, for example, like they -- they became independent pretty much and they don't depend on external service. So they're able to [?] like Google, Wikipedia and many other services because they reproduced it. You've seen that with Iran too.
And things like sanctions make it worse because it kinda like forces the country to become sovereign in a way.
And so we need also to, like, remove the sanctions that are hurting, really, this -- and accelerating the separation of Iran.
So I think it's also a reflection of a bigger trend. We see this polarization and distrust. I think distrust is really what's pushing countries to also distrust each other and separate. So I think there's this fundamental kind of question that needs to be addressed too.
>> BRUNA: Thank you.
>> JUAN: I'm a PhD candidate in the University of Southern California. Perhaps I go on what the previous speaker mentioned, it was interesting to see how the GDC speaks in terms of protecting against Internet fragmentation without really addressing the root causes of it.
And I was wondering who you think is going to be the champion of, you know, this interdependence now that the U.S. doesn't seem to be interested in doing that.
Europe with the sovereignty agenda, perhaps isn't as interested. I think some of the companies used to be, but now that we have these Big Tech companies, they don't necessarily need to interoperate anymore, right?
Many of them are less interested in making their services interoperable. Who is left for this agenda or is it not something we're going to be discussing in two, three years because the term fragmentation is over?
>> BRUNA: Thanks, Juan. I think we have a question for remote but I'll give you guys a chance to answer our address it. I don't know if the remote speakers -- and I know Joyce is here to address it. You can go ahead if you want.
>> JOYCE CHEN: So thanks very much. I can't see anymore where the -- okay. Thank you very much I think you've raised very critical issues, both the gentlemen who spoke. One was on increasing isolationism and protectionism, you know, in an environment where there's a lot of distrust.
And I think, you know, Dhruv spoke so eloquently about how we are trying to build trust off the technical community to be able to continue functioning and doing our work. And I completely agree that there is a complete disconnect between this idea of digital sovereignty which has become sort of the buzzword for a lot of nations to talk about or relative frame the way that they think about the Internet and how they feel the citizens should use the Internet.
And that does rather disturb me, because a lot of the times where digital sovereignty is raised is often code word for something else. Right? And I'll leave it to your imagination what they mean when they say that.
I think that goes against the idea of a borderless, you know, Internet where we celebrate permissionless innovation. And how do we sort of transmit these values from the technical community and bridge the gap of understanding from governments and nation states to understand why do we do work in this way and why is this important to us in making sure that the Internet is global, it is single, it continues to be interoperable.
So this is a lot of the work that we are continuing to do. And I'll use this to segue into the other gentleman that talked about who's the champion of interdependency. It's not the technical community. I'm going to put it right out there, right.
We have spent many years talking about the values of the Internet and why we have to maintain it as it is. And I think our voice is sort of dropped into a bucket of pool of water and it -- you know, where does it go, right?
So my answer is you to is it's very cliché, but I think the champions are us. All of us collectively in the multi-stakeholder community, because we amplify each other's voices.
The technical community can't always be, you know, kind of raising the banner and, you know, we keep talking and talking about the same things with the diplomats and the governments. But if these messages are not carried across with other stakeholder groups, it becomes difficult. We are like the sole voice just keep talking about this.
So it is the responsibility of the multi-stakeholder community, I do strongly feel that we should demonstrate why we are this multi-stakeholder community. And be able to, you know, bolster each other this way.
>> BRUNA: Thanks, Joyce.
I will take the remote question and I don't know who wants to read it or if it was already addressed in the chat. Just let me check.
>> WIM DEGEZELLE: Sheetal or --
>> BRUNA: Yeah.
>> WIM DEGEZELLE: If you could go to the remote moderators.
>> SHEETAL KUMAR: Okay. Thank you so much, let me just navigate to the question which -- okay.
So the question is most of global trade and transactions happens directly or indirectly through the Internet.
If there are geographies of Internet barriers do we go back to post and telephones or establish interregional treaties and bilateral treaties to be able to send an email across geographies?
I suppose this is about what kind of legal regulatory solutions could we see? Is the solution in treaties or in something else, perhaps?
Hopefully you understood that and related it you clearly.
>> BRUNA: I'll take this question as well and then we can see who from our panelist would like to address them. You have the floor.
>> PETER: I work for the CCTLD.
Following up on one of the previous speakers here at the microphone and maybe also on the response, somebody said that the notion of fragmentation is kind of losing a meaning. I'm wondering whether it is not the notion of Internet that is confused here a bit.
This goes into the direction of governance on and governance off. We were talking about the sovereignty, which is often control of the content that reaches my population. Where that line is and whether there might be confusion actually what they mean when they say Internet versus what the technical community means when we say what the Internet is.
Thank you.
>> BRUNA: Thank you.
Any takers, commenters on the questions? Not sure Marilia if you'd like to say anything about this. Using brat -- the Brazilian privilege here.
>> MARILIA MACIEL: Let me say a few words about digital sovereignty before I move to the question. I think the association between digital sovereignty as a [?] and the fragmentation is not necessarily true. One thing does not necessarily lead to the other.
If we see why the discussions on digital sovereignty appeared in Internet Governance, they stem from the fact that we had more than a decade of liberal digital economy which has made sure that the Internet became global, which has lowered the prices of ICTs and service and brought as many benefits.
But that's brought us many flip sides which were negative. Such as the erosion of our rights online and more equality in the context of digital economy.
The promises that the digital economy would bring wealth to everybody were just not fulfilled. We had more concentration in the context of the digital economy.
So in order to redress these imbalances, several countries have started to formulate requests for more autonomy, autonomy to deal with tradeoffs, policy tradeoffs that were being created in the context of the Internet.
And I think that many of these requests for more autonomy and self-determination, they are legitimate. Whether they should be framed as sovereignty is a different story. But we ignore them for far too long. One thing doesn't lead to the other. We need to pay attention to countries and other actors who are formulating the right to balance. Whether this is through a digital sovereignty or not.
Let me go through the question because I think it's an interesting and provocative one, because it is important to define fragmentation, but it's also important to try to define its flip side.
So if we don't want fragmentation, what do we want to see? What is the Internet that we want? Sometimes it's easier to fight for something we want than to try to defend ourselves from what we do not want to see.
I think a very good word to define this flip side is Internet openness. Which in the IGF has been understood as interoperability, open standards, a flows of data packets, content, and open governance. But openness is never a binary concept. We cannot have full openness and closedness if we have no openness at all the Internet would collapse. I think it's clear we don't want to go back to the telephone or the telegraph as was suggested.
So what are the solutions that we need to put in place in order to see an Internet that does not fragment to the point in which it becomes useless to societies and so the economy.
I think that a scenario that you mentioned which seems more plausible than going back to the telephone is to have regional Internets. Not because there's a technical fragmentation, there's a market fragmentation. If you live in Switzerland and have a Huawei phone, you can't update completely. I have friends who have Huawei for life because they just like the phone. But they're switching because they can't use this hardware anymore because although it's built on open source software, they can't have updates being offered from Google anymore and apps are not offered to run on Huawei phones.
We are already fragmented in a way. Fragmentation from the standpoint of hardware. It has effects upstream. We need to car that as well when we're discussing fragmentation. And it's important to bring this aspect of how much we are fragmenting value chains to the picture.
>> BRUNA: Thank you, Marilia. I think we're seeing very concrete, different perspectives on the discussion. And it's very interesting that this panel is diving into it. One side is -- sovereignty is a positive thing that states might be able or introduce it at some point. But at some point the sovereignty measures might result in different points and so on.
I'll hand it to Wim, because I think we want a concrete -- maybe dive into these more concrete aspects or concrete suggestions kind of areas. And just noting that maybe perhaps this differentiation between fragmentation and sovereignty can be one first thing that we start or one first thing that the report can address this.
I'll stop talking and give the floor back you to.
>> WIM DEGEZELLE: Thank you. As you can easily see, this is a very interesting discussion with a lot of facets and we -- I'm pretty sure we could fill full active week just talking about Internet fragmentation, hearing all views and opinions.
But I would like to ask a very concrete question to each of the panelists, also to online panelist and the audience.
We, like I said, we work as an intersession activity and usually we work between the IGF and the IGF is our endpoint this year. And thanks to the different scheduling, we have the opportunity to kickoff most of our work at the IGF with an interesting discussion and then work in the months after the IGF.
The aim is that we have our report ready by the first of November. So the concrete question to each of the panelists, also the audience for me is what can we do if you have one short discussion, this is something you can do in the next months, and report on -- by the first of November. This would be helpful for the discussion.
So maybe let's start with Joyce.
>> JOYCE CHEN: There --
>> BRUNA: It can also be [?] if you want.
>> JOYCE CHEN: I think it's important to look at the PNIF for things that have been done or might be beginning. I think it's hard to find things that are attacking the Internet fragmentation, but there's work going on around this type of work that's happening. If the report could present some of the efforts that are already being done, I think that would really enrich your report.
>> WIM DEGEZELLE: Okay, thank you.
>> NAIM GJOKAJ: I would in short mention especially coming from the government, what fragmentation means and one element that I didn't mention, the effects totally transparency in the system. So if you want strong institutions, we have to stop and really talk more about this. And especially supporting, because in my country, we support a lot of start-ups.
So if you want to start continuous supporting, that's on digital network, you should talk about this. So what next, I think that we really starting from the political level, more operational should start working on gaps. I think that there are not too much gaps, but gaps exist.
And of course support more capacity building, but local level. So people local level understand how fragmentation can affect their everyday work, especially in digital -- in digital plan.
And of course at the end, the PNIF just continues its work. Thank you.
>> WIM DEGEZELLE: Thank you. What should we start to work on mandate?
>> DHRUV DHODY: From my point of view, I think what would be nice to include is explain a little bit more what would be in the fragmented areas. It's such a bottom, that's why we came up with the framework. But in my mind it's the highest, at least where I sit. And that would have I feel the biggest impact. But that's not very clear to the other folks. Maybe the technical community understands this, but maybe we haven't articulated that well. So I hope via this report we can make that more clear, why does the technical community and the technical layer focuses on fragmentation at that level so much.
Why when the loss comes in and why sometimes they ask for conflicting things for the bet architecture itself, because it's not like the various governments have the same philosophies, they don't have the same requirement. But we have one Internet and we have to make sure it remains one Internet. And for that point we need to articulate a little bit better. I hope we can partner on that and do something.
>> WIM DEGEZELLE: Thank you. Let's move to the online panel list. Marilia.
>> MARILIA MACIEL: Thank you. I think that listening to discussions today, it becomes clear how the pallet of topics under fragmentation are diverse. This may be a little bit paralyzing.
If I were to suggest somebody to the Policy Network, it would be to prioritize which type of fragmentation the network wants to tackle in terms of topic in each work cycle.
The GDC talks about risks. I think this is an important word. Perhaps it would be time to consult the IGF community with, I don't know, a questionnaire or something that they can reply to today looking at the state of the world, which are the main risks being brought by fragmentation. Is it technical? Is it commercial? Is it censorship?
And to focus on the work cycle on these particular risks. I think it would be easier like this to bring actors together to identify them and have a discussion that becomes more focused and constructive in which we can have complete outcomes.
>> WIM DEGEZELLE: Thank you. And Michel, last. Give us some concrete work to do.
>> MICHEL LAMBERT: Well, last word I would say that we often oppose sovereignty and fragmentation. Maybe my own definition here in Canada where I'm from, people are a lot talking about being sovereign and being sovereign Internet is completely technical. They would like that, you know, our country depends less on other countries for its own infrastructure based on data.
For them to be, you know, more controlled by us. So this is -- this is okay, and this is sovereignty.
Now fragmentation is totally political. Of course, we use the technical layer to make it happen. But it's still totally political. Somebody somewhere decide that some user does not have access to some content. We need to understand that and that discussion needs to be at a political level to make it not happening anymore.
>> WIM DEGEZELLE: Okay, thank you.
Looking also at the audience, would like, if you have ideas, very practical ideas of what we suppose the Policy Network Zhou, first of all, subscribe to the mailing list of the Policy Network. You'll find data’s on the website.
The second thing, please contact me, Bruna, she Stahl, or Teresa, she didn't hear her but she was a co-facilitator. We would be happy to hear.
We have four minutes left, I'd like go back to Sheetal who has been following taking notes and make a wrap-up of today's session. Back to you, Sheetal.
>> SHEETAL KUMAR: Wonderful. Thank you so much.
I want to attempt to summarize the different areas of discussion by looking at three areas where I found there was confluence and it was interesting to hear all of the different perspectives to some extent coalesce around problems that we see when it comes to addressing Internet fragmentation, examples of some good practice, and then recommendations which you just ended on there, Wim, by asking everyone for their recommendations for the PNIF.
So those three areas, if we start with the problems that you discussed, we obviously heard from remote and in-person participants on this. Some of the problems that were brought up were included, still a lack of common understanding or the use of different terminologies when we're talking about this issue.
But also attempts -- increasing attempts at territorialization and the use of sovereignty concepts that have been really about strengthening the state itself, the entanglement of economic and national security, and the political normalization of network control.
There was a discussion of the need to address that perhaps by bringing in discussions of -- or knowledge the broader digital political economy.
And so another problem, perhaps connected to that is the disconnect between regulators and the technical community, lack of understanding perhaps between the different communities. Misalignment and breakdown of coordination and cooperation between different stakeholder communities is also referenced. Linking to that.
And there was also a lack of funding for actors who are working to address Internet fragmentation and digital repression and distrust between different countries and communities.
So considering all of that, there were also examples of good practice to address such problems. We heard about in Montenegro working to promote economic and political arrangements that align with the broader EU frameworks. We heard about with the IAB the development of course the global standards that promote interoperable data flows. We heard about the work of Civil Society and others to address digital oppression by developing technical open source solutions. In we heard about the IRR report which is setting out what cooperation can happen and what expectations are. And we heard about an example of coordination and information sharing.
So for recommendations and where we're going to launch the PNIF work and invite you to be continue to be part of this discussion. I think it was Joyce you mentioned that the IGF is a confidence and capacity-building space, so we want to continue to use that. There was recommendations that we develop more collaboration between the technical community and regulators and other stakeholders. So that there's increased understanding of the impacts of regulation on the globality of the Internet.
It was suggested we consider discussion and connections to the political economy, so the -- so these discussions are not happening in a vacuum, but the broader trends there, mobilise companies perhaps as part of that. Focus on a few risks to the Internet.
We had the TTCM, but other ones perhaps that we seek ways to support actors and increase resourcing for addressing or figure out recommendations for increasing resourcing for addressing network control, that we engage with the WSIS+20 process and perhaps development implementation recommendations for that cooperation in the Global Digital Compact.
I'm going to hand back you to ending with that call for everyone to remain engaged in this discussion. We had so many recommendations coming at the end about what we can practically do and I look forward to working with you all together on taking those forward.
Back to you, Wim.
>> BRUNA: Perfect timing.
I with like to thank everyone for attending this session, thank our panelists for this discussion. This is just the [?] IGF, and we hope you participate as part of the IGF community. Thanks a lot.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.
(Applause)
