In 2014 the internet governance landscape featured zero-rated internet services, post-Snowden distrust in five-eyes governments' ability to steward the internet, and the IANA transition from US government to ICANN community control. Among these was an affirmation of global South leadership and that multistakeholder process and protocols thrive outside of

The annual Real World Crypto conference took place in Toronto recently. I was sad to miss it and if you are, too, I put together a short list of talks from their stellar agenda that you can now watch online: * Better privacy tracking of unwanted Apple Airtags https://www.youtube.

Center for Democracy and Technology hosted a working group on tech standards and human rights We brought in an array of civil society experts to talk about what they’re doing to build the field of public interest technologists shaping standards and internet governance processes. Public interest technologists play a

Last week I attended an event convened by Jigsaw on AI and the Public Square. It was an incredible agenda led by implementers and activists who are embracing democracy in all of its flaws, while also doing something about the at-scale effects of the rather disputatious online experience. Two papers

This week's newsletter catches you up on the last three months in internet standards. The Star Monitor is a cooperative effort between Global Partners Digital and the Center for Democracy and Technology. Its aim is to help civil society organisations track discussions at internet standards bodies on a

It's been long enough for civil society, academics and reporters to collect the receipts on what rolling back net neutrality protections has cost US Americans. By failing to classify ISPs as common carriers, disparities in internet quality, access and affordability are inevitable. Privacy violations and emergency response gaps

IETF 119 wraps up in Brisbane Check out the best of IETF 119 (on 1.5x speed, obviously): * IAB Open session featured a talk on why perceptual hashing in end-to-end encryption, eg client-side scanning, isn't good enough and never will be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDYF_

What you shouldn't miss whether you're online or in Brisbane for the upcoming IETF 119: * Check out the full meeting agenda, where you can usually download slides in advance as well as view draft minutes and video recordings shortly after sessions complete: https://datatracker.ietf.org/

This week I attended the Whistleblower Infrastructure Workshop that was hosted by the new Applied Social Media Lab at Harvard. It was a hybrid, one-day program to imagine new technology for supporting whistleblowers. There's certainly important and ongoing work to amplify for the public and potential whistleblowers alike,

The development of a Global Digital Compact (GDC) as part of the UN's Summit of the Future has the potential to shape the governance of digital technologies for years to come through a high-level expression of contributions by countries. This week there is a Stakeholders Informal Consultation in