Internet Infrastructure under Attack

While content and data may seem to flow across borders, the supporting internet infrastructure — servers and networking and interoperability standards, such as domain names — operate within regional and domestic jurisdictions.

CIGI’s series on the four domains of global platform governance concludes with infrastructure, an important domain for regulators to consider both as a target of disinformation and cyberattacks and as a tool for upholding domestic laws regarding online free speech and safety.

Read the essays by Hong Shen, Iginio Gagliardone, Samantha Bradshaw and Laura DeNardis, and Lilly Irani, and watch the video featuring Laura DeNardis and Samantha Bradshaw.

In this new policy brief, Michel Girard provides an update on key legislative and policy developments framing trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI). He sketches possible approaches for the certification, verification and validation of AI embedded in products and in services, and looks at recent proposals regarding the creation of a new chartered profession to deliver assurance services to achieve trustworthy AI.

Information disorder in West Africa is threatening the social fabric of multi-ethnic societies across the region. While the problem is not new, Idayat Hassan explains that the scope of the manipulation, the ease with which disinformation can be shared, the many techniques used and the proliferation of actors — individuals, state actors, foreign governments and specialist firms — make its current phase particularly challenging.

Many governments around the world have quietly abandoned consensus as an approach to digital regulation. Mark MacCarthy writes that as national governments draft or adopt their own centralized regulations to govern digital industries, technical and industry experts, as well as knowledgeable, independent civil society organizations representing underserved voices, can and should provide guidance to regulators on new rules.

On June 27, CIGI welcomed Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino for a discussion with Aaron Shull and Mai Mavinkurve on Canada’s national security. If you weren’t free to join us on the day, you can now watch the full event online.