IGF 2023; The Iranian side of the story
The 18th annual meeting of Internet Governance Forume (IGF) in Japan has been the main drive to invite the participating team of the Iranian Government to share their experiences with experts and the public. This event was organized by the Data for Governance Lab, and in collaboration with The ICT Research Institute on November 29th, 2023. This meeting had Ehsan Amini as the moderator and a member of Data 4 Governance Lab, and panelists around him on stage were Dr.Hossein Mirzapour the advisor to the Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Iran, Dr. Abolfazl Amoee the member of the Foreign Policy and National Security Commission of the Islamic Parliament of Iran, Dr.Khaansaari the Deputy Minister of ICT of Iran, and Director of Iran’s Information Technology Organization, and finally Dr.Mojtaba Rezahah a representative of The Islamic Parliament of Iran and also the head of administrative council of Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).
Ehsan Amini, the panel host, and expert on cyber diplomacy at Data for Governance Lab, started this meeting by introducing guests and giving a quick view of IGF and its role in internet governance. In this vein, Dr.Khaansari as the Deputy Minister of ICT of Iran talked about the history of IGF; that this forum is a product of World Summit on Information Technology (WSIS), and that despite its motto of being a multi-stakeholder event, you can find the shadow of Western states, and the pursuit of their interests through this scheme when digital platforms and other non-governmental organizations share their concerns. As with the interesting topics that this IGF had, Dr.Khaansaari referred to AI, online protection of children, and WSIS. Meeting with one member of the Japanese cabinet, and two deputy ministers was another experience that Dr.Khaansaari shared with others in his visit to Japan.
Dr.Hossein Mirzapour the advisor to the Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Iran was the next speaker and mentioned his points on this multistakeholder scheme. He believed that such a scheme is far from the initial idea of cooperation between different stakeholders since the United States has been the main impediment to that aim, giving no space to other states and The UN with ICANN which is registered in California. Moreover, Dr.Mirzapour opined that the lesson to be learned here is that with the rise of emerging technologies especially AI, governments must have a greater role in setting the agenda on a global scale before it’s too late. Therefore, it’s not that surprising that notions like Enhanced Cooperation cannot work properly, and IGF is far from the functionality it could have.
Finally, The 18th IGF meeting in Japan witnessed a twist of events, according to Dr.Mirzapour since many countries, especially those like the US, have completely understood the rise of China as the new AI superpower, and the ‘AI Summit’ held a few weeks ago in London proved so; Kamala Harris as the Vice President of the United States, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and other governmental figures were invited, but China could not be left out, so it took part in this summit with governmental and private representatives. Maybe it was the presence of China at this summit that led Kamala Harris to hold a parallel meeting at the embassy of the United States in London with the representatives of other governments without inviting China. These are the trends that make the incoming IGFs very interesting according to Dr.Mirzapour.
The next figure who captured the spotlight was Dr. Abolfazl Amoee a member of the Foreign Policy and National Security Commission of the Islamic Parliament of Iran. He started sharing his experience by mentioning the connections that have been established between IPU and IGF such as a series of workshops on different subjects including strategies of trust-building in governance, and the services that AI could provide policymakers with in this matter. To Dr.Amooee, it is of cardinal importance to highlight again the role that governments could play in rejuvenating the impaired trust that people have concerning online content. Dr.Amooee also believed that IGF 2023’s concentration on AI, and the G7 summit’s ‘Hiroshima Process’, both of which were held in Japan, had a direct, and intentional relationship in that the former worked somehow as an input for the latter. To shed more light on the importance of AI to politicians, Dr.Amooee talked about the willingness of China and developing countries to regulate AI under an abiding agreement or convention. Added to this, Dr.Amooee added, there are political economy concerns when one is focused on the hardware aspects of AI. The conflicts that occurred in Afghanistan and Bolivia regarding their Lithium mines could also happen in Central Africa where it hosts the raw materials needed to make GPUs which are very important inputs for the AI industry.
Another topic that was touched on by Dr.Amooee was the ‘fragmentation of the internet’; if the internet is supposed to reach the promised goal of a free and open network, then how is it possible to interpret the restrictive policy of many countries with respect to the cross-border flow of data? To him, such a policy is inevitable by governments since they are responsible for protecting their citizens against platforms’ thirst for user data, seeking money from the Big Data they have access to.
The last guest who took the floor was Dr.Mojtaba Rezahah a representative of The Islamic Parliament of Iran and also the head of the administrative council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). In this event, Dr.Rezakhah highlighted the importance of regulation and the role the parliaments could play nationally and internationally, especially with day-by-day advances in the AI industry and its practice in every aspect of human life. A prominent example, in IGF2023, as Rezakhad said, was a topic about the effect of AI on energy distribution in Europe, which he believed to be biased towards the interests of European countries since it was not concerned about the equitable distribution of technology and innovation, and only reflected their agenda. Obviously, these discussions must be counterbalanced with the active participation of other countries including Iran, or in the end only regulations and standards that best fit the European concerns will emerge, according to Dr.Rezakhah.