The Digital Deciders and The Future of Internet

Recently, the nonpartisan think tank New America published a report called “The Digital Deciders” or “how a group of often overlooked countries could hold the keys to the future of the global Internet.” The authors of the report are Robert Morgus, Jocelyn Woolbright and Justin Sherman.

The purpose of this thorough and comprehensive report is to survey how nations around the world approach internet governance and is a seminal guide for designing international cyber strategies and shaping diplomatic conversations. It includes a data visualization tool through which you can create your own rankings showing how countries view/behave toward the Internet.

Questioned about the report, Justin Sherman, Cybersecurity Policy Fellow at New America and co-author of the report, noted via email:

Using data points from social media use to internet penetration to assorted freedom indexes, we studied nation-states around the world and organized them into three groups: global and open, sovereign and closed and the ‘digital deciders.’ The first group of countries, global and open, is comprised of the likes of Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, while the second group, sovereign and controlled, is comprised of the likes of the UAE, Turkey, Qatar, China, Russia and Iran. These countries have already taken decisive actions one way or the other, whether throttling traffic from foreign news sites or defending free speech on the internet. It’s the third group, the ‘digital deciders,’ who have yet to make key decisions about things like internet censorship, net neutrality and online surveillance—and may therefore hold important sway over the future of the global network. Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia are just some of the often-overlooked countries in this group.”

Is the “global and open” internet free?

Reading the report, one question came into my mind: is the Internet really free (Read more...)