The growing access of Africa’s and Asia’s populations has far-reaching consequences for governing the Internet and cyber security. Professor Ronald Deibert and his team at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto approached this development with a workshop at the Internet Governance Forum in Bali last year.
The provenance of the next billion users can be tracked with the help of a simple equation: as of 2013, 77% of the developed world’s population was online, while the developing world’s penetration rate reached only 31%. Therefore, the biggest growth potential lies in states that fail to provide their citizens with sustainable economic opportunities and effective governance. Consequently, the next billion users will come from the Global South, including the world’s poorest countries.
With 2.7 billion people being online in 2013, the next billion from Africa and Asia will significantly contribute to the evolution of the Internet. These users will advance cyberspace as much as they will benefit from being connected.
Based on these considerations, Deibert points out the need to include the Global South’s public and private organizations, as well as civil societies as relevant stakeholders of Internet governance. Acknowledging these countries’ right to say will be key to cope with the challenges of integrating millions of economically disadvantaged user’s from countries with lacking law enforcement capabilities, who may take advantage of their access to the Internet with cyber crimes targeting rich users and institutions in developed countries.
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