Specific Issues for Discussion:
Internet governance has come a long way since the second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis almost two decades ago, when governments first brought policymaking for the Internet on the table. These days, many of the decisions that affect the Internet are being made at the local and regional levels, and a growing number threaten to unwittingly fragment the global Internet. In Asia-Pacific, these include directives to shut down parts of the Internet or popular applications (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam), and efforts to centralise control of Internet operations and resources: from national border gateways (Cambodia, China, Nepal) that give governments power to dictate how Internet traffic should be routed; to cost-sharing rules (South Korea) that require Internet service providers to pay each other to exchange traffic.
These mandates diverge sharply from the core principles of open, decentralized, bottom-up and collaborative Internet governance. Top-down, centralised points of control are both single points of failure and targets of attack, while arbitrary disruptions to access make the Internet unreliable – overall undermining its resilience. As a grassroots community of Internet champions, civil society organisations are best positioned to scrutinize local proposals that could erode the open, globally connected and secure Internet, and ensure that national and regional policies uphold the multistakeholder approach to governing this valuable public resource.
Using case studies, exercises and the Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit, this workshop will orient civil society groups in Asia-Pacific on the types of policy and business decisions that could cause the Internet to fragment, and equip them with tools and skills to identify, monitor, analyse and respond to these threats. The workshop aims to outline clear and concrete actions for civil society organisations to foster Internet resilience in the region.
