13 May 2025 MD 2025-2 Editorial

The much anticipated World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) takes place in Geneva, Switzerland, 7-11 July 2025. WSIS+20 is the second review of the outcomes of the original WSIS, which had two phases: Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005. At that time, WACC held the secretariat for the Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) Campaign, which was instrumental in bringing perspectives from low and middle-income countries to the WSIS negotiating table – albeit with varying degrees of success.

According to Global Partners Digital, the scope of WSIS+20 is likely to be broad:

“Given the significantly changed landscape and set of challenges – ranging from new, disruptive technologies, corresponding questions of how to regulate them, and shifting geopolitical dynamics – a number of topics could be brought to the table. At the very least, we anticipate discussions will cover the intersection of ICTs and development (the Sustainable Development Goals in particular), the Internet and digital technology governance, and the norms, structures and values that underpin it. These norms include multistakeholderism and human rights, while the structures include the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and question of its mandate renewal, and synergies with the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and the new structures evolving from it.”

Following a convoluted series of multistakeholder consultations (in which much of the exchange was highly technical and replete with jargon), and in the light of the UN’s Summit of the Future, its Pact for the Future, and its Global Digital Compact, many analysts believe that WSIS+20 offers:

“A rare opportunity to develop a global progressive digital vision and movement and to stake its claim to influence political decisions. Such an opportunity may not come again for a long time. The vision we create must be structural and holistic, addressing all aspects of the digital landscape – media, digital platforms, data, and AI – as well as their governance, architecture, design, and applications. It’s essential that all sectors are involved, working alongside digital specialists and progressive techies. This emerging vision should be ambitious, anticipating future developments over decades, while also being specific enough to directly address current issues, such as the need for a new UN institution dedicated to Communication Rights and digital matters.”

Others believe that such a claim is based on a myopic view of what is really going on. Tim Unwin, specialist in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), summarized his views as follows:

• “The Global Digital Compact is a result of the ways in which the ideologies and practices of digital tech companies have come to dominate UN rhetoric around digital tech;
• The issues it addresses, the questions it asks, and the ways in which the consultation is constructed, largely serve the interests of those companies, rather than those of the world’s poorest and most marginalised individuals and communities; and
• It fails to address the most significant issues pertaining to the role of digital tech and the science underlying it, notably the future relationships between machines and humans, the environmental harms caused by the design and use of digital tech, and the increasing enslavement (loss of freedoms) of the majority of the world’s people through and by the activities of digital tech companies of all sizes.”

It has become clear that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the world’s communication challenges, whose complexities defy simple analysis and are complicated by the sheer rapidity of technological change – including Artificial Intelligence (AI). Some 70% of the global population today has the opportunity to access the Internet, and yet high-speed services are biased in favour of high income countries. In many low income countries, the majority of people remain either unconnected or lack meaningful connectivity. Affordability and Internet stability are two further obstacles. Barriers to Internet access such as high data costs and digital literacy tend to mirror social inequalities, disproportionately impacting the poor and marginalized, especially women and those living in rural areas.

Beyond digitalisation with its widespread societal impacts, the governance frameworks for digital technologies and the Internet – and now AI – have multiplied and become inextricably intertwined. And extreme far right and/or populist politics have made it increasingly difficult for ordinary people and the communities they represent to make their voices heard, with overt and covert attacks on freedom of opinion and expression.

Commenting on the Global Expression Report 2024, Quinn McKew, Executive Director of Article 19, rang alarm bells:

“At no point in the last 20 years have so many people been denied the benefits of open societies, like the ability to voice opinions, access a free media or participate in free and open elections… Violations of freedoms happen every day and around the world, as leaders degrade our freedoms one by one. Many do so through subtle policy changes presented in the name of ‘public safety’, ‘morality’ or ‘national security’ – tightening the net until there is no room left to breathe.”

McKew pinpointed what needs to happen next, underlining the relevance and importance of WSIS+20: “This politics of convenience and obsessive narrative control must be replaced by a politics of possibility and diversity, one which recognises that our collective future depends on more voices being able to debate freely.”

Even with the expansion of digital technologies and social media platforms, government bodies and corporate entities still effectively control access to information and communication infrastructure and governance. The vision of open access has been dispelled by the use of digital platforms to spread disinformation and hate speech and to undermine democratic processes, the rule of law, and human rights. While digital platforms seem to provide greater opportunities for freedom of expression, digital technology monopolies limit a diversity of voices and perspectives, algorithms perpetuate colonialisation, racism, and systemic power imbalances, and surveillance and militarization have become existential threats.

Last chance for communication justice?

For all these reasons and despite inherent flaws, WSIS+20 still offers the possibility of “a new more just and efficient world information and communication order” – the mantra of the 1980 MacBride Report that led to calls for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), the Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) Campaign, and the first World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

Wolfgang Kleinwächter, currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, a pioneer of the WSIS process and a specialist in Internet governance, notes that regardless of all the political, economic, and technological changes since 2003-5, the basic WSIS message remains highly relevant:

“To build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life.”

With that in mind, he argues:

“There is no need for WSIS+20 to reinvent the wheel. There is no need to develop a new strategy or to establish new institutions. What is needed is to identify the barriers that hinder the full implementation of the eleven WSIS action lines. Innovative solutions are needed on how to bridge the digital divide, how to promote digital public infrastructure, how to enhance cybersecurity, how to safeguard human rights, how to avoid Internet fragmentation and how to make sure that the AI revolution does not move out of human control.”

WSIS+20 may be the last chance to establish a lasting and meaningful rights-based framework for global communications which is effective and which enables people everywhere to be seen and heard. A peaceful and just future for all depends on it.