[NNagain] Polarized world threatens open internet: ICANN (AFP)

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After 25 years of keeping the internet strong and stable, the nonprofit
ICANN -- responsible for its technical infrastructure -- is warning that
increasingly polarized geopolitics could start cracking the foundations of
the online world.

"It's super important to differentiate between what countries decide to do
with controlling content, as opposed to the technical infrastructure," the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' interim chief
executive Sally Costerton told AFP in a recent interview.

"The risk of fragmentation at the technical level is enormous. The
foundation crumbles and game over."

ICANN has managed the technical underpinnings of the internet since the
group was established in Los Angeles in 1998, and for the past seven years
it has operated under an international model that has all "stakeholders"
work collaboratively.
"That has worked really well," Costerton said of the approach.

ICANN is best known for its work maintaining and expanding the internet
address system to new "domains" and languages from its early ".com" days
only employing the Roman alphabet.

But as online abuses -- from misinformation to hateful content -- have
grown more insidious, interest has heightened in giving governments more
control of the internet, including aspects that have previously been
covered by ICANN.

Shifting control of the internet's infrastructure to governments and trade
groups, and shutting out the technical community, could crack its
foundation, Costerton warned.

But proposals have been circulating in the United Nations to give
governments and trade groups such clout, and such discussions are expected
to come to a head in 2025, according to ICANN.

"You start to damage the foundation by changing the way that internet
governance model works," Costerton said.

"It looks like a magic trick, but it's the product of hundreds of thousands
of people building trust in the technologies and each other."

While ICANN keeps the infrastructure on which the internet operates sound,
it has nothing to do with any digital content it supports, the executive
noted.

"I can't actually remove something from the internet," the ICANN chief said.

"The other thing is that ICANN is politically neutral, we can't take sides."

Costerton worries that mindset would shift if governments had more control
of the internet infrastructure.

She also sees a threat from the unintended consequences of regulation in
countries intending to safeguard citizens from what is deemed undesirable
online content there.

"The internet was not designed on national borders, it's a global
resource," Costerton said.

"The minute you start to decentralize it, you're going to start to create
digital islands."

Essentially, the internet could be splintered as countries control what
people see online.

"We are living in an increasingly nationalistic, polarized world,"
Costerton said.

"If you want all that wonderful content, and you want the magic trick to
carry on, you must maintain the current trust-based model."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/polarized-world-threatens-open-internet-icann/ar-AA1kjXU2

-- 
Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com
living as The Truth is True

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