Today, President Macron threw down the gauntlet to President Trump and the US administration on Multistakeholderism.
In his welcome address to IGF 2018 Paris a few hours ago, President Macron challenged IGF to become more relevant by reinventing itself in factoring in multilateralism into IGF's non-decision-making body and to move beyond the mere talk-ship lip service it has been for the last 13 years.
Macron stated that he (and France) will support a new direction by IGF under the direction of the UN Secretary General, if it decides to factor in multilateralism. He argued that with the new global cyber threat landscape requiring regulation and legislation, such a step is inevitable if IGF is to remain relevant.
Was Macron reminding his "ami" in the White House that his nationalistic divisive stance towards the world and Europe and the actions of previous administrations have not been forgotten, and that they carry a very high price?
Today was the 2nd time US domination of the Internet through Multistakeholderism has been challenged by Europe. Only a few months ago, the 1st challenge came in the form of the EU's GDPR, when it became law on May 25, 2018. The GDPR has been a serious challenge to ICANN and its core role and mission, on many fronts.
What effect will the Macron speech have on the new religion of Multistakeholderism? It remains to be seen how this doctrine, created by the US back during the UN WSIS days (2001-2005), will fare.
Multistakeholderism's goal, for the record, has always been to promote internet self-regulation, and to keep all barriers to the internet around the world very low. This all under the banner of "openness" and "freedom of speech". Governments who legislated (or even considered) the blocking or monitoring content deemed inappropriate, including porn or worse, were often criticized and labelled as oppressors of freedom and democracy. This happened while American tech giants continued to grow at an unprecedented pace, and dominate the Internet. Just recently the world saw its two 1st ever trillion-dollar companies which happen to be American: Amazon and Apple. Meanwhile, no European company is in the top 10 world ranking.
Was Macron paying the US back for PRISM and the Snowden revelations that exposed to the world the unprecedented and illegal mass surveillance by the US security agencies? Not to mention similar abuses by UK's GCHQ, in snooping on Americans and the world under the banner of fighting terrorism?
Macron did state in his speech that France and Germany (who is next year's IGF host) are on the same page. So was he stepping up to support the German leader Merkel, herself one of the targets of PRISM when the U.S. snooped on their friends, allies and enemies alike?
It will be interesting to start reading and observing the usual devout voices of Multistakeholderism when they begin calling on IGF to resist Macron's sacrilegious call and to keep IGF a talk-shop that cannot conclude or make decisions.
Yes, we do live in interesting and unprecedented times. It is entertaining to watch smart politicians fire at each other, with different ammunition at different targets and on different battlegrounds while continuing to sound like collegial, friendly and cooperative.
Seems to me like Macron just hit back at Trump on his disparagement of the NATO Budget, the Iran Nuclear deal, and the Paris climate change accord. Now, this is making IGF more interesting.
Let's see if Trump is smart enough to realize by himself that his 'ami' Macron just fired a shot across his bow that ruffled his hair.
Written by Khaled Fattal, Group Chairman, Multilingual Internet Group & Producer "Era of the Unprecedented