THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

 

THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

Who controls the Internet after the Russo-Ukrainian war? asks Sonny Aragba-Akpore

When the war in Ukraine ends, a bigger war is expected to be fought. That war will determine who controls the information superhighway, the Internet.

It will determine the extent of the Cold War between Russia and the United States of America (USA).The victory either way will determine how people could deploy the Internet for their purposes.

Russia wants state-controlled Internet while the USA thinks differently. Open communication is the inalienable rights of the individuals, America reasons. Open communication is the reason why we see what is going on in the Ukraine, so the Internet should be left open.

This battle will be determined in September 2022 at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Plenipotentiary Conference in Bucharest, Romania.

The ITU is the UNO specialized body for the Internet, telecommunication and broadcasting.

The elections for new leadership for the ITU hold every four years for the Secretary General/CEO among others. The 193 members representing various regions will determine the fate of the leaders.

The current Secretary General, Houlin Zhao from China was elected in 2014 and serves out his two term of four years each by September.

The two major contestants for the Secretary General position are Ms Doreen Bogdan-Martin from the USA running against Mr.Rashid Ismailov of Russia. Bogdan-Martin has worked at the ITU for over 30 years and this is why U.S. officials are stepping up a campaign to defeat a Russian candidate for this UN agency that could determine how much control governments have over the internet.

Russia’s designs on the little-known agency raise the stakes for what the Russian government’s vision of the internet could mean for the rest of the world, especially following its invasion of Ukraine.

“You don’t have to look very far to understand, in this current day and age of geopolitics, how important it is to have the right kinds of open communications networks,” Alan Davidson, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, explained in agency reports.

“Part of why we’re able to see what we’re seeing on the ground [in Ukraine] is because we have open communications.”

The U.S. is running a candidate to lead the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the telecommunications agency of the UN.

If elected, Doreen Bogdan-Martin would be the first female secretary-general of the ITU, and the first U.S. leader since the 1960s. She is competing against Rashid Ismailov, who previously worked for the Russian government and Huawei, as well as Nokia and Ericsson. Federal Communications Commission chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is campaigning for Bogdan-Martin during a trip to Europe recently at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly in Geneva.

Rosenworcel met with delegations from Asia, Latin America and Europe to push the U.S. candidate, according to FCC officials.

There’s a battle brewing over how much of a role the ITU and governments should have over internet standards and protocols, with China and Russia advocating for the ITU to have more control over how the internet operates.

China and Russia’s vision would “encourage governments to have greater control over who’s allowed to use the internet, how it’s allowed to be used and whether or not there should be free flow of information,” David Gross, a former ambassador for international communications policy, said.

That’s in contrast with the Western “bottom-up approach” of technologists, civil society groups and others determining internet standards and protocols.

The nonprofit organization Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) coordinates the internet’s address system and other technical operations.

But Russia and China leaders have said the ITU should be the place for negotiations over the way the internet would operate.

That “multilateral approach” would mean that “the government should be the ones making these decisions,” Gross said.

The vote will be held by secret ballot this fall at the ITU’s Conference in Bucharest. Each country gets one vote.

Bogdan-Martin has worked for the ITU for nearly 30 years, lives in Europe and is seen as a global citizen — a boon for an American candidate taking on an international role.

“Things are largely done on consensus at the ITU, so she knows how to bring around that consensus,” Susan Ness, a former FCC commissioner and a visiting distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund, further explained. “But make no mistake, control of the internet is a critical question.”

The Russian and Chinese vision of greater government control and insight into internet operations could appeal to other member countries as well.

ICANN’s roots as an American organization have long led many other nations to argue that the UN should assume more of its functions. “We are deeply concerned about the direction that the ITU might move in under that kind of direction from somebody who comes from a much more authoritarian view of communications,” FCC said, adding: “We think there’s actually a much more high stakes election than you would normally find in a standard body. That’s why the U.S. government is putting a lot of energy into supporting this historic candidate.”

The Plenipotentiary Conference elects the Secretary-General, the Deputy Secretary-General, the Directors of the Bureaux of the Radiocommunication Sector (BR), the Telecommunication Standardization Sector (TSB), and the Telecommunication Development Sector (BDT), and the 12 members of the Radio Regulations Board (RRB) as captured in Nos 55 and 56 and Nos 62 and 63 of the ITU Constitution.

The Plenipotentiary Conference also elects the 48 Member States that will constitute the next ITU Council (see No. 54 and No. 61 of the Constitution).

Time-limits and procedures: In accordance with No. 170 of the General Rules of Conferences, Assemblies and Meetings of the Union, candidatures must reach the Secretary-General not later than 23:59 hours (Geneva time) the 28th day prior to the Conference, i.e. Monday, August 29,2022

Right to vote: In order to be able to exercise their sovereign rights in full at the Plenipotentiary Conference, member states must ensure that they have maintained the right to vote in accordance with Nos 169 and 210 of the Constitution and that the delegations representing them at the Plenipotentiary Conference 2022 are duly accredited in accordance with Nos 325 and 327 to 331 of the Convention.