[governance] my statement at the opening session

Tue Dec 6 20:23:10 EST 2016

Statement by Anita Gurumurthy, at the IGF Opening Session, Guadalajara

6^th Dec 2016

Respected colleagues and dear friends,

Most of us who come back to the IGF, year after year, share a dream; a 
dream that the internet - as a cherished innovation, can make possible a 
society that is free and equal.

With ten IGFs behind us, we need to ask ourselves, how well we have 
done. Let’s take access. Over 40% of the 7.5 billion people on this 
planet are connected. However, we are told that connectivity rates are 
slowing down.

But this may not be a cause for worry. The network will get to the last 
woman, anyway. Never mind if it is rudimentary and of poor quality; 
never mind if it is zero rated. A global, immersive, invisible, 
networked computing environment built through the marvels of the cloud, 
massive data centres and proliferation of smart everythings, will soon 
be upon us. The world will be connected, by 2025.

My submission, as we begin our deliberations on inclusive and 
sustainable growth at this IGF is that since 2005, when the Tunis agenda 
gave us the mandate of the IGF, we have been caught in the trees and 
woods problem. As we have harped on freedoms online, busying ourselves 
to bring access to all, a mission creep has overtaken us. A totalising 
net of surveillance has annexed the planet, rapidly enfolding society 
and sociality.

The unfreedoms of the internet are not just about exclusion, but the 
despotism of a tireless net that enslaves us as subjects of a datafied 
world. There was a time when those who could manipulate media 
manipulated elections; now algorithms are taking over electoral 
processes and the media.

Welcome to post-truth on the post-human planet.

The primary problem before us is not a problem of trust as we are told 
in every other internet report, but that of greed. In digital 
capitalism, it is cheaper to give access to people than leave them 
alone. And so, as we stand by watching, the Internet is becoming a 
rapacious instrument of capture. It is the basis of networked 
individualism, the motor of a consumptive society, where the race for 
big data coopts us as willing slaves of limitless goodies.

 From a predatory internet, the path downhill can only be a society that 
self-cannibalises.

The second problem is that we have forfeited the opportunity that the 
digital revolution brought us to build a technology of memory that can 
radically change the power structures of society. The history of every 
civilization is about its technology of memory. As social memory and 
cognition are increasingly centralised through the data bases and 
algorithms of state and corporate surveillance, we see a crisis of 
extreme alienation and unprecedented inequality.

A world that is fully networked – as things stand – can neither be 
sustainable nor inclusive. 2025 is unlikely to be raceless, genderless, 
classless or casteless.

This brings us to the third problem - the digital phenomenon is 
invariably cast as post-political; as an autonomous force that is best 
left alone, untarnished by human intent. But inclusion presupposes the 
rule of law. As the Internet redefines institutions globally and 
locally, it dislocates the boundaries of existing jurisprudence. To pass 
the test of equality and inclusion, the network-data structures 
scaffolding all institutions need a new philosophy and science of law 
and justice.

The current paralysis of global internet governance is unsustainable.

As the global network finds its way into reality, augmenting it through 
embedded code and remote control, there is a huge loss of local 
autonomy. The Internet’s logic is inherently irreverential of 
territorial jurisdiction.

So,who should develop the standards for these global public policy 
issues? The absence of a democratic international platform to address 
public interest in times of algorithmic tyranny reflects a monumental 
crisis of governance. A private platform floated by the top six digital 
corporations, named “Partnership on AI 
<https://www.partnershiponai.org/>– To Benefit People and Society 
<https://www.partnershiponai.org/>” is all set to formulate best 
practices on AI technologies. Industry standards do indeed have a role 
to play. But an internet that can be individually empowering, 
collectively enriching and ecologically restorative is possible only 
through a democratic rule of law that can guarantee the mechanisms of 
accountability, in global governance.

It is time we move in this direction, of forging a global digital compact.

The dialogic space of IGF is indeed a unique venue for public 
deliberation. But to complement the IGF, we need a robust political 
process to develop global norms and policies for the Internet, as 
required by the Tunis agenda.

The task for civil society is cut out. Unless social movements can come 
together to reimagine an alternative internet, one that promotes diverse 
universes, another internet will not be possible.

Our wisdom is getting colonised. It is time for a new politics of 
internet governance.

At the risk of sounding techno-deterministic, I would like to say to you 
all, if we can save the internet, we may perhaps be able to save the 
planet.

Now, let us look to our neighbour and begin a conversation; do they know 
there is a question here? Do they understand the now-or-never imperative?

Friends, before I say thank you, I would like to lend my voice of 
support to the statement 
<http://www.enjambre.net/en/content/mexican-civil-society-organizations-igf-2016-denounces-human-rights-violations> 
issued by my Mexican civil society colleagues during the IGF, about 
their human rights concerns. The Internet, I believe must be protected 
as a bastion of democracy. It cannot become an instrument that 
undermines human rights.

-- 
- no title specified

Anita Gurumurthy

Executive Director
IT for Change
In special consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC
www.ITforChange.net <http://www.itforchange.net/> Phone: 91-80-26654134 
| T: 00-91-80 2653 6890

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