Mark,

good point re the definition of stakeholders. You may know that I was in the WGIG (as a few others in this list.) WGIG was the Working Group on Internet Governance created by the first phase of WSIS in 2003, charged with producing a report with a definition of Internet Governance and some proposals to move forward, for the second phase in 2005. The definition of stakeholder groupings was a major issue then and we settled into government, business ("private sector" has different meanings in the US and elsewhere), civil society and the technical community. Unfortunately we couldn't get the final documents to list the technical community as a separate stakeholder, not the least because at the same time it was recognized that the people in the technical community may have their jobs indistinctly in government (say, research laboratories, computing, IT and telecommunications departments in government, standards organizations, even universities if they are public), industry both large and small, and organizations classified as civil society (their techies among others.) Later on the IGF in practice has always listed the technical community separately. The differentiated presence of the technical community is indispensable and it cuts two ways - sometimes it has to say "no,, that thing you are imagining is not technically possible, or it is unreasonable, or it breaks the Internet" and sometimes it says to other parties "we can actually do better than you are thinking and maybe already are" - and sometimes, very often rather, we have to tell people, especiallly in governments, "no, it doesn' work that way" and enter long explanations.

Now picking on the second part of your statement: with fuzzy borders, we can say that one thing is the definition of the stakeholder groupings, as above, and another, complementary one, is the assignment of specific individuals to stakeholder groups at a given point in time. Also especially in developing countries we do continue to find that a small number of people fulfill many roles at the same time and thus can be simultaneously ascribed to more than one stakeholder group. Someone working in business (or even owining one) may come to Internet governance with that knowledge but acting through an organization like an NGO oriented to education or development or community networks, and or sit on an advisory committee to a telecoms or competition regulator. We have made progress in the last 20 years towards clearer roles and against conflicts of interest but this fluidity remains and also is very valuable.

We should convey this clearly to the skeptics and also know that it is a facetious argument invoked with ill intent while fully knowing the above.

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

On Wed, Feb 5, 2025 at 7:53 PM Mark W. Datysgeld via wsis20 <wsis20@icann.org> wrote:

One idea presented by the document that cannot just be waved away is that "stakeholder roles remain undefined". They do. I understand Pari's relevant answer to that point, but it does not address the fact that stakeholder identity is incredibly liquid. Take any set of IGF applications and you are likely to quickly find the same speaker submitted as 3 different stakeholders in different applications.

This is a subject that cannot be put aside in the upcoming discussion and the High-Level Event itself, because it is a weakness of our multistakeholder models that can and will be used against us by governments in their bid for increased control.

Regards,

On 5 Feb 2025 07:03, Pari Esfandiari via wsis20 wrote:
This review of the RCC’s submission in the lead-up to the WSIS+20 examines its call for a state-led approach to Internet governance and its implications for the multistakeholder model. It explores how the RCC frames its arguments around digital sovereignty, interoperability, and regulatory frameworks while assessing the potential impact on global Internet governance structures, innovation, and access. Additionally, the article considers the broader geopolitical context of the submission and its alignment—or divergence—with international efforts to maintain an open, inclusive, and secure digital environment.

https://circleid.com/posts/rcc-pushes-for-state-led-internet-governance-ahead-of-wsis20-review

Cheers,

Pari

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Pari Esfandiari
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Global TechnoPolitics Forum

Pario - Architects of Ideas

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Mark W. Datysgeld
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