Panel 1: Algorithmic Politics, Digital Sovereignty, and Competing Governance Models Chair/Discussant: Riccardo Nanni
Algorithmic Electability: Generative AI, Gendered Political Bias, and LGBTQ Candidates Zachary Baum
Digital sovereignty as situated co-creation: upcycling digital commons for collective autonomy Ksenia Ermoshina, Francesca Musiani
Contested Digital Empires: Public Support for Competing Models of AI Governance Dennis Redeker, Chiara Spiniello, Fee Cohausz, Ingmar Sturm, Imane El Qochairi, Adio Dinika
13:45– 14:15
Break
14:15– 15:45
Panel 2: Platform Governance and Content Moderation: Regulation, Compliance, and Accountability Chair/Discussant: Maysa Amer
Compliance in Form, Evasion in Practice: Platform Content Moderation Strategy under China’s Primary Responsibility Model Kaiman Zhan, Juan Li
The Invisible Governance Hand: Rethinking the Intermediary Paradigm in the Age of Foundation Models Argyro Karanasiou
Platform Governance Vacuums and the Securitization of Anti-Ukrainian Disinformation in Poland: Case Study of Telegram Artur Koldomasov
Panel 3: IGF and Global Internet Governance Chair/Discussant: Jamal Shahin
A Quantum Governance Forum? Twenty Years of the IGF and the Timing of Institutional Design Matthias C. Kettemann, Raphael Wibmer
Conceptualizing Digital Sovereignty in the Internet Governance Forum: A Computational Content Analysis, 2019-2025 Grace X. Yang, Mauro Santaniello
Non-State Actors as Strategic Policy Brokers in Digital Governance Subsystems: The IANA Transition and the Global-Domestic Linkage Strategy of Transnational IT Corporations Shi Young Chang
08:45– 09:15
Break
09:15– 10:45
Panel 4: Authoritarianism, Conflict and Digital Sovereignty Chair/Discussant: Berna Akcali Gur
A Weapon of the Weak: A Political-Economy of Internet Fragmentation Riccardo Nanni, Louis Pétiniaud
Digital Sovereignty and Internet Governance during Armed Conflict: Governing Cross-Border Electronic Evidence through Public-Private Cooperation. Mykhaylo Gutsalyuk
The Political Economy of Digital Authoritarianism in Pakistan Fahad Nabeel
Online Book Discussion|21 September 2026 | 17:00 CEST / 11:00 EDT
As geopolitical competition and questions of power increasingly shape the digital landscape, Internet governance stands at a critical juncture. This book discussion brings together Benjamin Farrand and Igor Calzada to discuss their recent books and what they reveal about the changing politics of Internet governance and the future of digital governance more broadly. The conversation will be moderated by Min Jiang.
Featured Books
Geopolitical Union: Europe’s Attempt to Take Back Control of Technology Regulation Benjamin Farrand | Cambridge University Press, 2026
Geopolitical Union focuses on the changes to law and policy-making as a result of geopolitical instability and increased conflict in the international system. Central to many of these conflicts is technology – who produces it, where it is produced, and who controls it. The European Commission’s pursuit of digital/technological sovereignty is Europe’s attempt to regain control of technology regulation. Focusing on topics such as technological standards, ensuring access to microchips, and securing rules for industrial data and AI, this book explores the EU’s approach; increased regulatory oversight and promotion of industrial policy at home, while exporting its rules abroad.
Datafied Democracies & AI Economics Unplugged: Technopolitics in Smart Cities and Datafied Network States Igor Calzada | Springer, 2025 Datafied Democracies & AI Economics Unplugged examines how AI, datafication, platform power and Web3 decentralised technologies are reshaping democracy, governance and economic life. Moving across smart cities and datafied network states, it asks whether these transformations can enable democratic renewal and anticipatory governance or deepen inequality, technocratic control and geopolitical fragmentation. The book connects AI economics with data sovereignty, data cooperatives, Web3 and digital citizenship, offering a civic and institutional framework for inclusive, accountable digital futures. For the GigaNet community, it broadens global Internet governance debates beyond infrastructure towards the political economy, territorial consequences and democratic oversight of AI-driven digital systems.
The event is organized by Giganet in partnership with the Communication Law & Policy Division of the International Communication Association (ICA).
Speakers
Benjamin Farrand is Professor of Law and Emerging Technologies at Newcastle University, UK. His research focuses on the intersections between geopolitics and technology governance, and he published Geopolitical Union: Europe’s Attempt to Take Back Control of Technology Regulation with Cambridge University Press. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the International Affairsand the Journal of European Public Policy. He is Regulation and Governance lead at the Newcastle University Centre of Research Excellence in Cybersecurity and Resilience, and a member of the CRANE cybersecurity research network.
Igor Calzada is Professor of AI Economics, Public Governance and Urban Economy at the University of the Basque Country (EHU) and Principal Investigator at Ikerbasque, the Basque Foundation for Science. His research examines how AI-driven datafication and platform power are restructuring Internet governance, digital sovereignty, democratic representation and citizenship across cities, regions and emerging network states, with particular attention to AI economics, data cooperatives and anticipatory AI governance. His international career includes research and policy appointments over the last 20 years at the University of Oxford, Cardiff University, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and the United Nations (UN-Habitat), alongside a US–UK Fulbright Scholar award in California. More recently, he has been just selected as an expert member of the European Commission’s Frontier AI Expert Forum and AI Act Advisory Forum. His book, Datafied Democracies & AI Economics Unplugged (Springer, 2025), advances this agenda by examining the geopolitical struggle over digital infrastructures and its consequences for democracy. His forthcoming books include Understanding AI Economics (Edward Elgar, 2026), Anticipatory AI Governance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2027), and Benchmarking City-Regions (Routledge, 2027).
Moderator
Min Jiang, Professor of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Non-Resident Scholar at New America. She is a Secretariat member of the Chinese Internet Research Conference (CIRC) and Vice Chair of the Communication Law and Policy Division of the International Communication Association (ICA). Her work lies at the intersections of digital technology, geopolitics and policy with a focus on China and the Global South. She co-edited four special journal issues and published over 40 journal articles and chapters. She is lead editor of Digital Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries (Cambridge University Press, 2025, open access) and US-China Power Play(Michigan State University Press, forthcoming).
This year the IGF restored GigaNet’s annual symposium to its former glory, providing a full day (6 and a half hours) in a choice conference room. The GigaNet Steering Committee and its Program Chair have finalized the program for 2025. You can see the full program here.
The Symposium will be held at the Nova Spektrum conference center, Lillestrøm, Norway, June 23, 2025. GigaNet will be in Workshop Room 6.
The program features a panel of European scholars on Low Earth Orbiting Satellites (LEOs), another panel of Europeans on multilateralism and global technology governance, three individually selected “frontier” research papers from GigaNet members, a panel discussion/debate on “Should WSIS End?” and an open mic session with the elected GigaNet steering committee members.
Attendance at the GigaNet Symposium, as always, will require registration for the UN Internet Governance Forum. Register here: https://indico.un.org/event/1016806/
The online version of Giganet’s 2024 Annual Symposium will be held in 2025! The event, which includes 12 papers on four panels, is on February 18 and 20. The full program is shown below. All times CET (UTC-1)
Yuchao Zhao: Technopreneurial coalition vs. state-sponsored dependency: A comparison of two scenarios of digital governance in local China
Liudmila Sivetc: The Evolution of Governance by Internet Infrastructure in Russia Before and After February 2022: New Generations of Controls and Their Effects on New-School Regulation Theory
Ana Lucia Taboada, Fabiana Alvarado: Towards a genuine governance of Internet? The case of the Quechua-speaking population in Peru
Discussant: Trisha Meyer
Panel 4: 10:00 – 11:30
Chair: Jamal Shahin
Moderator: Roxana Radu
Matthias Kettemann: Uploading Tuvalu: “The Internet Governance Dimension of Virtualizing Cultural Heritage in Times of Climate Change”
Riccardo Nanni: “The shrinking online space of civil society: withstanding social control by infrastructure in war zones. The Palestine case”
Mark W. Datysgeld, Jaqueline Trevisan Pigatto, Laura Gabrieli Pereira da Silva: “Reframing Internet Governance: The Struggle of Multistakeholderism in the Face of Multilateralism”
GigaNet will soon be launching a new round of elections for the four positions in the Steering Committee which will become available starting from next year:
* Chair (position currently held by Roxana Radu) * Chair of the Program Committee (position currently held by Jamal Shahin) * Chair of the Membership Committee (position currently held by Berna Akcali Gur) * Secretary (position currently held by Clément Perarnaud).
