[governance] Conflicts in Internet Governance

[Kerry Brown]

> The Internet is a collection of routers, cables and peering agreements.

This is the heart of many debates on Internet governance. If you ask a technologist "What is the Internet?" the above is often their answer. If you ask an Internet user you will probably get a very different answer. It will often be their ISP, the web, Google, Facebook, or something similar. The technology aspect of how the Internet works is rarely considered by them. Many government officials have a poor understanding of the issues and are often in the unsophisticated Internet user category and react accordingly. This causes a lot of problems because when people talk about Internet governance they rarely have the same definition of the Internet. This guarantees there will be conflicts. Managing those conflicts is what the multi-stakeholder model is all about. Governments have a hard time grasping this concept as they are used to being in charge and don't understand they are merely one party at the table.

Kerry Brown

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