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   The UN just made a significant decision on who governs the Internet   
      
   Date:   
   Thu, 18 Dec 2025 11:30:00 +0000   
      
   Description:   
   The UN's Internet Governance Forum has gone from being an annual meeting to   
   being a permanent UN body.   
      
   FULL STORY   
      
   The UN General Assembly has reached a consensus on who should govern the   
   Internet, and it's good news for censorship, with a multi-stakeholder model   
   coming out on top.    
      
   Under this governance, "Governments, the private sector, civil society,   
   international organizations, the technical and academic communities and other   
   stakeholders" will all have a say, which remains in line with the vision set   
   out at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2003 for a   
   people-centered Internet.    
      
   "We reaffirm our commitment to the vision of the World Summit on the   
   Information Society to build a people-centred, inclusive and   
   development-oriented information society, where everyone can create, access,   
   utilize and share information and knowledge," the UN wrote in its outcome   
   document .   
      
   UN: no one single body should govern the Internet    
      
   In its December 16, 2025, document, the UN acknowledged that a number of   
   developing countries still face barriers not just in terms of access to the   
   Internet, but also stakeholder participation in governance issues.   
   International cooperation, funding and private-public partnerships were   
   highlighted as some key solutions.    
      
   The UN is also concerned about affordability and access to the Internet;   
   gender divides; the exclusion of vulnerable groups like older people,   
   Indigenous Peoples and migrants; human rights violations; the misuse of   
   digital technologies for things like cybercrime, surveillance and child   
   exploitation; misinformation and disinformation; and the environmental    
   impacts of digitalization.    
      
   The document, submitted by the President of the General Assembly and German   
   politician Annalena Baerbock, even has a whole section dedicated to    
   artificial intelligence, in which the UN both acknowledges the tech's    
   benefits for humanity and highlights unknown risks associated with    
   development speed, scale and autonomy.    
      
   Among the human-centric resolutions are demands for more education and   
   training, open-sourced models, accessible training data and broader access to   
   high-performance compute infrastructure.    
      
   The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has now become a permanent UN body,   
   whereas previously it was just an annual meeting.    
      
   The next review is set for 2035, when the UN urges all stakeholders to get   
   involved across all stages of the process to "identify areas of continued   
   focus."    
      
   ======================================================================   
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.techradar.com/pro/the-un-just-made-a-significant-decision-on-who-g   
   overns-the-internet   
      
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