Inside the digital society

This week some thoughts on this year’s iteration of one of WSIS’ major outcomes, the Internet Governance Forum or IGF.

Twenty years ago, some of us old-timers were beginning to gear up for what became the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

Yes, we’ve been able to substitute digital ways of doing things for the ways we’ve previously done them across much of our lives – or, at least, some of us have. But it’s proved more partial and less universal than some expected, which poses questions for the future.

Realism’s been gaining ground, but anyone who reads the literature knows that hype’s still hot in digital discourse. Education’s been one of the battlegrounds, and coronavirus has brought it to the fore again.

In the digital society, how do we measure well-being?

Technology enables governments to do things more efficiently and more effectively than would otherwise have been the case, for good or bad. This week, I’ll take a look at that through the prism of social welfare or protection

What does good government mean in principle? How is it altered by the digital society? How should government and the digital world respond?

A crisis like the present shows the importance of thinking issues like privacy through beforehand rather than trying to fix them after the event.