At the end of the 20th century, Manuel Castells gave an outlook into the “Network Society” of the 21st century. One of his forecasts was that the world would move from “bordered places” (sovereign nation-states) to “unbordered spaces” (global networks).

A quarter of a century later, we see that he was right and wrong. We do now have “unbordered spaces.” We can communicate around the globe anytime with anybody, regardless of frontiers. But the “bordered places” did not disappear. More and more states are insisting on their “digital sovereignty.”

The “One world, one Internet” philosophy, as well as the reality of 193 different national jurisdictions, create both endless communication opportunities and a clash of norms, rules and cultures. This dichotomy will continue in 2025 when issues such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, the digital divide or the distribution of controversial content will be discussed by summit meetings and expert conferences.

WSIS+20

One of the main places for the Internet Governance discussion in 2025 will be the United Nations. 20 years ago, the UN finished a three-year-long “World Summit on the Information Society” (WSIS) with the adoption of the Tunis Agenda in 2005. Now it’s time to review, to learn the lessons and to draw conclusions for the next decade.

Re-reading the Tunis Agenda is an interesting eye-opener: On the one hand, the world has changed dramatically since 2005. On the other hand, the problems ahead of us are more or less the same: Bridging the digital divide, protecting human rights, strengthening cybersecurity and fighting cybercrime, managing new emerging technologies and the distribution of controversial content in the online world.

In 2005, there were no smartphones, no social networks, and Google was still the small nice company with a “don’t be evil” slogan. The Internet had less than 500 million users, and Internet governance was primarily a technical issue with some political implications. Today, the world is a digital world. “Big Tech” and social networks are playing a growing role in global policy-making and everybody’s daily life. We do have a new infrastructure with 5G, undersea cables and GEO satellites. AI is everywhere. And the number of Internet users has grown beyond the five billion lines. “Governance in the Digital Age” is now part of the geo-political battle among superpowers in a multipolar world.

But regardless of all the political, economic and technological changes, the basic WSIS message is today as relevant as it was 20 years ago. The general aim of the WSIS Geneva Declaration of Principles is “to build a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life, premised on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and respecting fully and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” remains on the table for the coming years. Also, the proposed governance principle on how to build such an information society remains relevant for the future: All stakeholders—governments, businesses, civil society, technical community and others - must be involved in digital policy development and decision-making in their respective roles.

In other words, There is no need for WSIS+20 to reinvent the wheel. There is no need to develop a new strategy or to establish new institutions. What is needed is to identify the barriers that hinder the full implementation of the eleven WSIS action lines. Innovative solutions are needed on how to bridge the digital divide, how to promote digital public infrastructure, how to enhance cybersecurity, how to safeguard human rights, how to avoid internet fragmentation and how to make sure that the AI revolution does not move out of human control.

And there is time to bring the WSIS Action Lines in closer cooperation with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was a big mistake in 2015 to ignore the “digital dimension” when the UN reviewed the “Millennium Development Goals” (MDGs) from 2000 and agreed on the SDGs. Both SDG and WSIS are under the umbrella of the UN, but SDGs is a New York-based process, and WSIS is based in Geneva. The two UN places have developed different cultures over the years. However, the digital challenges of the future, as outlined in the Global Digital Compact (GDC), call now for a comprehensive approach. WSIS+20 should open the door for closer coordination. In 2030, when the SDGs have to be reviewed, the world will be a digital world. New sustainable development goals will have to be “Digital Development Goals” (DDGs).

The GDC was adopted in September 2024 by the 193 UN member states as part of the “UN Pact for the Future.” It is recognized that the future of mankind is digital. “Digital technologies are dramatically transforming our world. They offer immense potential benefits for the well-being and advancement of people and societies and for our planet. They hold out the promise of accelerating the achievement of the SDGs. We can only achieve this through strengthened international cooperation that closes all digital divides between and within countries,” says the GDC in its first two articles.

WSIS+20 will have to deal with the SDGs as well as with the GDC recommendations. It will be a big challenge but a great opportunity for WSIS+20 to pool all the various work streams - SDGs, GDC, WSIS Action Lines and the IGF—into a decentralized but coordinated effort for the next decade towards WSIS+30.

WSIS+20 will keep the global Internet Governance community busy for the whole year. It starts with a number of high-level conferences in Geneva (UNCSTD, WIPO and ITU), Paris (UNESCO) and Oslo (IGF) and will continue in September 2025 in New York. The final WSIS+20 resolution will be adopted in December 2025 by the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

The UN Resolution 79/194 “ICT for Sustainable Development”, adopted at December 19, 2024, defined the roadmap for WSIS+20. The modalities for the whole process should be clear by the end of March 2025. Two co-facilitators will convene open intergovernmental consultations “involving the input and participation of all stakeholders in the review process, including in the preparatory process.” (paragraph 62). Final negotiations will take place within the 80th UNGA.

This call for the inclusion of “all stakeholders” both in the preparatory and the review process is an important procedural decision. But it remains to be seen how this will work in practice. Experiences from the GDC have shown, that it is not enough to have “multistakeholder consultations” with two minutes speaking slots for everybody without a procedure in place, how to deal with this input in the final negotiations. It would be good if the two co-facilitators would study the “Sao Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines” (SPMGs), which were adopted in April 2024 at NetMundial+10. The SPMGs were too late for the GDC, but they could be used now for the WSIS+20 process.

Internet Governance Forum

Part of WSIS+20 will be the renewal of the IGF mandate. The GDC did recognize the IGF as “the primary multistakeholder platform for discussing Internet governance issues.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres referred to this GDC language when he addressed the 19th IGF in Riyadh in December 2024. The IGF Parliamentarian Track said in its final document that the IGF is “a key venue for multistakeholder dialogue on digital policy.” After 19 IGF editions, an immense intersessional work done by Dynamic Coalitions (DC), Policy Networks (PN) and Best Practice Forum (BPF), and with a global network of 175 national and regional IGFs (NRI), the IGF is seen as a unique success story. The IGF mandate, which is defined in Article 72 of the Tunis Agenda, has been remarkably flexible and allowed the IGF community in the last 20 years to react to new developments. Today’s IGF framework is stable, recognized and future-proof.

However, despite the successful IGF 2024, there is still criticism of its effectiveness and relevance. The IGF is hardly noticed by the wider political public. It is virtually absent from the world news. The quantity and quality of IGF output is not visible outside the IGF community. Making the IGF messages more politically effective and transporting them into intergovernmental negotiation spaces or into the board rooms of Internet companies only works marginally, despite some efforts by the Leadership Panel (LP). The LP document “The Internet We Want”, which has been under discussion since the 18th IGF in Kyoto, is still a work in progress. Not all recommendations of the UNCSTD Working Group on IGF Improvement (2012) and the IGF Expert Group Meeting (EGM) in New York (2022) have already been implemented. The IGF “to do list” is rather long.

A lot of the IGF’s weaknesses have to do with its limited budget. If WSIS+20 wants to improve the IGF, the first thing should be to find innovative financial mechanisms. It is important to keep the IGF financial mechanism diversified to avoid that “somebody can buy” the IGF. But as said in my article on the IGF in Riyadh, it is a shame that the big Internet corporations, which are now defined in the EU context as “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPS), such as TikTok, Meta, Google, Apple, Alibaba, Microsoft etc. contribute only with minimal checks to the IGF budget. VLOPS are big beneficiaries of a safe and stable technical and political Internet environment. It should be part of their “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR) to support the IGF.

Insofar, the renewal of the IGF should not be a big problem. To extend the existing mandate with a “to do list” as an Annex would be enough. To reopen a debate about the details of the Tunis mandate would lead to unproductive and time-wasting discussions. The IGF is too valuable to get misused as a bargaining chip in geo-politcal power battles between big powers. The victim would be the global Internet community.

This would also be the case if the mysterious “enhanced cooperation” would be used in the WSIS+20 negotiations to reopen another box of pandora. It is confusing that the UN-Resolution 79/194 (paragraph 40) “recognizes the importance of enhanced cooperation in the future, to enable Governments, on an equal footing, to carry out their roles and responsibilities in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, and notes the need for continued dialogue and work on the implementation of enhanced cooperation as envisioned in the Tunis Agenda.”

“Enhanced cooperation” is coded language. In the Tunis Agenda, it bridged the 2005 controversy between proposals for the establishment of an “Intergovernmental Internet Council” and “private sector leadership.” Part of the controversy was the special oversight role of the US government over the DNS A-Root Server, which is managed by ICANN. Some countries did see this special role of the US government as a violation of the UN principle of sovereign equality of states. The Tunis compromise proposed that the problem should be solved in “a process”. Whether the process should lead to a “Status Quo Plus” (an intergovernmental oversight body) or a “Status Quo Minus” (the removal of the US stewardship role) remained open. This was reflected in Article 68 of the Tunis Agenda, which “recognizes that all governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance.”

After the IANA transition in 2016, when the US government handed over the oversight of the A-Root Server to the “empowered community” of ICANN, the basic problem around “equal footing” was settled. Each government in ICANN is now on “equal footing.” The US government has just one vote in ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) as all the other 170 GAC members.

However, even after 2016, some governments have still not been satisfied with the present arrangements. Just recently, at the 19th session of the ITU CWG Internet (Geneva, October 2024), the Russian Federation tabled a paper that called for the establishment of a “distinct intergovernmental political platform designed for discussing and making decisions on international Internet governance within the UN.”

WSIS+20 will have to deal with enhanced cooperation. However, the efforts should go towards enhanced communication, coordination, and collaboration among all stakeholders and not into the establishment of new intergovernmental bodies.

Artifical Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be the top issue in 2025. The AI calendar is already fully packed. In February 2025, France will host the 3rd AI Summit as part of the Bletchley Process. In March 2025, informal consultations on autonomous weapons systems will take place in New York. The G7 will evaluate the progress of the G7 AI Hiroshima Process at their summit in Kananaskis, Canada, in June 2025. The UN will clarify the modalities for the AI Panel and the AI Dialogue by the summer of 2025. In July 2025, the ITU will hold its “AI for Good Summit” in Geneva. The presidency of OECD’s “Global Partnership on AI” (GPAI) will go from Serbia to Slovakia with another ministerial AI meeting in Bratislava in the summer of 2025. The Global Commission on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain (GC REAIM), supported by the Netherlands, will have several meetings, including on the fringes of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in February 2025 and the NATO summit in The Hague in June 2025. And AI will be one of the main topics at the 80th UNGA starting in September 2025.

Against the background of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the military aspects of AI are moving more and more at the center of the discussion. The 79th UNGA adopted two relevant resolutions: UN Resolution 79/62, initiated by Austria, on “Lethal autonomous weapons systems” and UN Resolution 78/239, initiated by the Netherlands and Korea, on “Artificial intelligence in the military domain and its implications for international peace and security.” The Austrian resolution calls on the Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (GGE LAWS) to conclude the negotiations that have been ongoing for ten years under the umbrella of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) by December 2025, thus creating the conditions for the conclusion of an international treaty in 2026, as called for by UN Secretary-General Guterres. The Korean and Dutch resolution calls on the UN Secretary-General to submit a report on the role of AI in the military domain to the 80th UNGA in 2025.

Another UN Resolution 79/23 “Role of science and technology in the context of international security and disarmament”, introduced by India, called on UN states to create greater public awareness of the role of AI in the question of war and peace. The resolution “encourages Member States to organize events such as conferences, seminars, workshops and exhibitions, at the national, regional and international levels, on the role of science and technology in the context of international security and disarmament, in order to facilitate multilateral dialogue, as well as dialogue among relevant stakeholders, on current developments in science and technology and their potential impact on international security and disarmament efforts”;

AI isn’t any more a “nice to have “; it is now a top priority in the power struggle among digital empires. Even the UN Security Council (UNSC) discussed it on December 19, 2024. US Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who chaired the UNSC in December 2024, invited three experts - Fei Fei Li from Stanford University, Yann LeCun from Meta and Jacob T. Schwartz from New York University - who spoke about the risks and opportunities of AI for solving world problems. Blinken himself pointed out that AI can help implement 80% of the SDGs, but “it can also be deployed for destructive and hard-to-trace cyberattacks.” He referred to the emerging network of “AI Safety Institutes” as part of the Bletchley Process, launched by the British government in 2023.

Yann LeCun from Meta responded to accusations that his company was using unfair practices: “Governments and the private sector must work together to ensure this global network of infrastructure exists to support AI development in a way that enables people all over the world to participate in the creation of a common resource. International cooperation must focus on two initiatives: collecting cultural material, providing AI-focused supercomputers in multiple regions around the world and establishing a modus operandi for the distributed training of a free and open universal foundation model and unifying the regulatory landscape so that the development and deployment of open-source foundation models is not hindered. Meta has taken a leading role in producing and distributing free and open-source foundation models.” And he said about AI-generated disinformation: “There is no evidence that current forms of AI present any existential risk or even significantly increased threats over traditional technology such as search engines and textbooks.”

The UNSC session was mainly used by the AI superpowers to position themselves for the upcoming discussions. China’s Ambassador Fu Cong said: “AI technology is not a cake for a small group of people, nor should its global governance be determined by just a small number of countries. China firmly opposes the practice of imposing on others the rules formulated by a small number of countries.” Russia offered technical assistance to the global South and called for AI algorithms to be developed on the basis of cultural and national specifics of different civilizations. Algeria warned on behalf of African states against a North-South AI divide and the military use of AI. “The time has come for a binding framework that prevents the misuse of military AI. The growing AI divide is not about machines and algorithms - it is about sovereignty itself, as AI-powered, border-proof attacks can damage societies and manipulated information can poison minds. Africa’s Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy and Digital Compact are the continent’s vision for AI for peace. We need an inclusive international mechanism where developing countries are equal architects for our shared future”.

At the opening, UN Secretary-General Guterres said: “Recent conflicts have become testing grounds for AI military application. Algorithms, from intelligence-based assessments to target selection, have reportedly been used in making life-and-death decisions. Artificial intelligence without human oversight would leave the world blind… The integration of AI with nuclear weapons must be avoided at all costs. ... We must never allow AI to stand for ‘Advancing Inequality’”.

Cybersecurity

Another key issue will be cybersecurity. In the UN, there are two different but interlinked processes. National cybersecurity is discussed in the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG). The discussion around cybercrime took place in an “Ad Hoc Committee” (AHC), which produced a new UN Convention against Cybercrime. The new UN Cybercrime Convention was formally adopted by the UNGA (UN-Resolution 79/243) on December, 24, 2024.

It was and is a controversial issue. The final approval by the Western states was justified by the growing cybercrime, which required a global response. Western states preferred to strengthen the Budapest Convention against Cybercrime in 2001. This convention was negotiated under the Council of Europe, but it is open to all UN member states. However, as many states from the global South would prefer a UN instrument, the alternative of a Western refusal would have been a split within the UN and would have contributed to growing legal uncertainty. Western governments pointed out that in the AHC negotiations it was agreed that there was no fundamental contradiction to the Budapest Convention and that signatories to the UN Convention were free to join the Budapest Convention, whose definitions and protection mechanisms are more precise.

Non-governmental representatives from business and civil society reiterated their negative attitude even after the adoption of the UN Convention on December 24, 2024. Definitions of criminal offenses in cyberspace are too vague, protective mechanisms for respecting human rights such as freedom of expression and privacy are too weak and the procedures for cross-border prosecution are an invitation to abuse. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF) specified its reservations in a statement on 16 December 2024: “We expressed grave concerns that the treaty facilitates requests for user data that will enable cross-border spying and the targeting and harassment of those, for example, who expose and work against government corruption and abuse.”. The Tech Accord, which represents over 140 large private companies, expressed a similar view. Netzpolitik.org in Germany had called on European governments not to sign the convention already in November 2024.

However, Council of Europe expert Alexander Seger, one of the fathers of the Budapest Convention, who had accompanied the UN negotiations from the outset, argued that any treaty could be abused. The UN Convention would not solve all problems but would lead to a consolidation of legal rules in the fight against cybercrime in the global arena. Interpol’s Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza argued similarly: “Cybercrime is a uniquely borderless threat that is increasing at a dramatic rate. Cyber attacks destroy businesses, undermine public institutions, and endanger lives. Only by moving forward together in lockstep can countries effectively combat cybercrime. The UN cybercrime convention provides a basis for a new cross-sector level of international cooperation we desperately need.”

The formal signing ceremony will take place now in Hanoi in the first quarter of 2025. Signatory states must then submit the Convention to their parliaments for ratification. The treaty will enter into force 30 days after the 40th instrument of ratification has been deposited with the UN. Parallel to this, negotiations on an additional protocol will begin in 2025. These negotiations will cover all those issues that were excluded from the Convention, including the dissemination of illegal content such as terrorism and incitement to hatred on the internet.

In some Western countries, a debate has begun on whether to sign the treaty or not. The EU Commission negotiated on behalf of the members of the European Union. However, it is now up to the governments of the individual EU member states to decide on the signature. In the USA, voices have already been raised advising the new government not to sign the treaty. It is also quite unlikely that the UN convention will receive a majority in both chambers of the US Congress.

A New Permanent Cybersecurity Mechanism in the UN

Whether we will see a similar constellation in the debate on national cybersecurity remains to be seen. The mandate of the OEWG terminates in December 2025. There is a basic agreement that there should be a “regular institutional dialogue” on cybersecurity issues within the UN beyond 2025.

Key elements of such a new “permanent mechanism” have been tabled by the Chair of the OEWG, Singapore’s Ambassador Burhan Gafoor, in his 3rd Annual Progress Report (APR). But the details are still under discussion. A new paper will be discussed in a Town Hall Meeting before the next fomal OEWG meeting in February 2025 in New York. This last OEWG meeting will have a long agenda with many controversial issues, such as the implementation of the eleven cybersecurity principles from 2015, the elaboration of new principles, the idea of a new UN Cybersecurity Convention and the role of non-state actors in the future UN cybersecurity discussions and negotiations.

The fact that OEWG was able to produce two concrete results in the fields of confidence and capacity building - the creation of a “Points of Contact” (PoC) mechanism to avoid misunderstandings on cyberattacks and a “Global Portal on Cooperation and Capacity-Building” to strengthen cyber resilience, in particular in developing countries—are encouraging signals that consensus is possible. But there is a long way to go in 2025 to find compromises on the design of the new permanent mechanism.

Digital Empires

When Ann Bradford published her book “Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology” in 2023, she identified three empires: US, EU and China. However, in the multipolar world of 2025, there are more emerging digital empires: India, Brazil, Russia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and others. And every empire is on its way to strengthening its national digital sovereignty.

Soon, we will see what the regime change in Washington will mean for the global Internet Governance debate. The Biden administration launched the “Declaration of the Future of the Internet.” it supported global initiatives to create policy and regulatory frameworks for AI and supported the multistakeholder approach for governance in the digital age. It tried to find a common language with the EU via the Joint Trade and Technology Council, and it was looking for new partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region with Australia, India, Korea and Japan. The Biden administration adopted a new cybersecurity strategy and an international digital strategy based on the principle of “Digital Solidarity.” It was critical against China’s Internet policies, challenged TikTok and Huawei, and invested a lot into a new generation of AI-based weapon systems.

Now, it will be interesting to see what will change and what will continue under the Trump administration. First moves and nominations indicate that “Big Tech” will play a crucial role in “Making America Great Again” (MAGA). This could lead to new confrontations with the EU, to controversial debates within the G7, to ignorance of what happens in the UN and to deeper conflicts with China. It will be interesting to see whether the Trump administration will accept the OECD/G20 BEPS agreement, which includes rules for digital taxation or the digital trade treaty, which was negotiated in 2024 by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). On the other hand, Trump presents himself as a “deal maker.” And there are a lot of opportunities for “deals” in the AI age.

And the EU? There is a new commissioner in Brussels. The former Finish minister Henna Virkkunen has substituted Margarete Vestager, the strong Danish lady, which ordered fine after fine against the big US tech companies for non-compliance with EU rules. In 2021, the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, wanted to see the EU as a “digital rule maker” and not as a “rule taker”. The problem now is that the EU has indeed a voluminous digital rulebook but is still missing competitors in the global market, which can compete with “Big Tech” from the US and China. The “Brussels Effect”, which started with EU regulations on privacy and security (GDPR & NIS) after 2015 when many countries just copied EU legislation, has lost its attraction with the complexity of the thousands of pages of EU’s digital rulebook: EU AI Act, Digital Service Act (DAS), Digital Market Act (DMA), Digital Resilience Act (DRA), NIS2, Data Governance Act (DGA), Media Freedom Act (MFA) and many more. It is not easy to understand and difficult to implement.

When Madame Virkkunen testified in the European Parliament, she promised not to add more regulation but to simplify it. It’s time for implementation, she said. But she was also grilled by the MEPs who wanted to know what the EU would do to ensure that US tech companies in Europe would follow all the new rules. When Meta’s Marc Zuckerberg announced in January 2025 that he would remove the established system of content moderation in the US, the first question in Brussels was: And what about Europe, DSA and DMA? Will the US-EU Trade and Technology Council continue? What about a common approach to developing a joint regulatory framework for AI? Will the start of a new beginning on both sides of the Atlantic lead to new transatlantic controversies?

Also, China’s priority will be to look, first of all, inwards and to strengthen its own Internet economy. And in the national strategy for 2030, AI is the number one issue. China has launched a number of initiatives in the UN related to AI capacity building and data governance. It presents itself as a supporter and friend of the Global South, which can help to reduce the new emerging “AI divide.” In the 2024 UN negotiations on cybersecurity and the GDC, China took a more moderate position. It did not support the Russian proposal for a new Internet body in the ITU, neither did it reject the multistakeholder language in the GDC, as Russia did. China is now a supporter of the IGF. For the second time, China hosted a big social event during the IGF in Riyadh. And the Cyber Administration of China (CAC) organized a high-level IGF workshop. Ten years ago, when China launched its Wuzhen “World Internet Conference” (WIC), it was seen by some observers as an effort to create a Chinese alternative to the IGF. This has changed. WIC still exists, but it is no anymore a “world conference.” It is a trade show mainly for China’s Internet business. And now comes the Trump Challenge. Will the cards be reshuffled?

What will be the consequences of a digital trade war between the US and China for the other smaller digital empires? Brazil has overtaken the BRICS presidency in 2025. It chaired the G20 in 2024 and organized the NetMundial+10 conference in Sao Paulo. President Lula’s Internet policy is oriented toward Brazil’s national interests. As the battle between Brazilian courts and Elon Musk’s “X” has shown, it is “Brazil first,” that will also guide Brazil’s BRICS chairmanship. The same can be said for India and South Africa. South Africa chairs the G20 in 2025. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has taken remarkable steps towards the digitalization of the whole society. And Saudi Arabia will use the success of the IGF in Riyadh to make the next big jump into the IT and AI territory. But with digitalization also comes surveillance and control. The economic success is the main driving force. Human rights considerations are secondary criteria.

And what about Russia? In December 2024, Roskomnadzor tested, in three Russian regions, how to disconnect from the global Internet. For Russian president Wladimir Putin, the Internet is a western cable to undermine Russian society. But he wants to be a leader in AI. In October 2024, he said at an AI conference in Moskau, organized by Sberbank: “Breakthroughs in the field of artificial intelligence have tremendous significance. With the fierce rivalry between countries, Russia’s place in the world, our sovereignty, security and viability depend on the results we achieve”. For Russia, as for the US, the Ukraine war is also an opportunity to test a new generation of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS).

Looking forward

It is difficult to make any forecasts of what will prevail in 2025: Will efforts to build global policy frameworks for moving forward into the digital future have success, or will we pull into a new wave of digital wars? We will probably have both. The dichotomy of “bordered places and “unbordered spaces” will produce contradictions, which, in the best case, can become a driver for development. In the worst case, we will have a splinternet where human rights are ignored, the rule of the jungle dominates, and the stronger will win.