4. Why it is harmful to make the UN the Boogeyman

The most annoying thing about the ICANN-ARIN-APNIC missive, however, is its apparent attempt to revive the old “UN is trying to take over the Internet” meme. This boogeyman has been used by the technical community and the US government to haunt the children of the global multistakeholder community since 2002. When the threat was real, or even real but exaggerated, this was OK. But 7 years after the ICANN transition there is no excuse for it. We have already explained why the UN lacks the power to take over any key Internet governance functions. We have already noted that their only systematic attempt to do that, at WSIS in 2005, totally failed.

Reviving this threat narrative, however, does real damage to the public discourse on IG, because it diverts attention from the real threats to the multistakeholder model.

We live in a digital environment that is fragmenting along jurisdictional lines. The Europeans are pursuing Digital Sovereignty, as are the Indians and Chinese. The Americans are weaponizing semiconductors, undersea cables, investment capital in ICT, and actively considering blocking Chinese apps; the UK is considering banning end to end encryption, leading to the possible exit of key applications and services from the UK market. Tech nationalism is on the rise everywhere. What we must understand in this context is that the threats to a global Internet come from conflicts between and regulations from sovereign states, not from the UN, a weak intergovernmental institution that can only act when these states all agree.

Our advice to Costerton, Curran and Wilson: take a deep breath. Calmly consider what powers the multistakeholder community – which consists of a largely undifferentiated mass of techies, civil society, academics and business – already have in Internet governance. Try to do an accurate accounting of the threats to that governance model. Devote your attention and efforts to those threats. Don’t try to drive the community into pointless battles with ghosts.