Toward a More Global GNI Membership by Nikki Bourassa
In 2010 the Global Network Initiative’s founding Executive Director Susan Morgan wrote in our inaugural report, “GNI is a collaborative effort, and the diversity of its membership is its greatest strength.”
True in GNI’s early days as different stakeholders united around the GNI Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy, this orientation remains true now as we work together to protect freedom of expression and privacy rights. And amid an increasingly complex global legal landscape, the need for a geographically diverse membership becomes even more imperative.
From the start, GNI has worked hard to recruit new members from all over the world. Early policy work in India contributed to the subsequent GNI membership of the Center for Communications Governance at National Law University Delhi and the Centre for Internet & Society. An early fellowship program led by our member Internews initiated the GNI membership of Fundación Karisma, Paradigm Initiative, and Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales.
We used these past experiences to launch a membership program, now in its second year, that introduces civil society organizations to GNI and engages them in our policy and learning activities. Last year we welcomed six GNI-Internews Fellows from Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. Fellows worked with peer mentors and staff from Internews and GNI to build strong relationships with members. They also learned how to use the GNI network to advance their organizational goals.
By the program’s end, fellows had traveled to London, Washington, and Tunis where they:
- Participated in GNI Board meetings and helped develop GNI’s regional policy strategies;
- Built new relationships with our company members and industry groups;
- Presented their research at the Oxford Internet Institute; and
- Shared their policy perspectives with US and UK government officials.
As a result, fellows formed connections that led to new opportunities, collaborated with each other at subsequent conferences, and conducted new research on issues important to them.
The fellows — and all members — infuse a diversity of thought and perspective into the GNI community that improves our policy advocacy, sharing and learning activities, corporate responsibility framework, and accountability. Unfortunately, many governments have continued to make our work relevant. In the last few years:
- Severe criminal penalties for ICT users accused of spreading online hate speech and disinformation have been enacted by Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Singapore, and Sri Lanka, among others.
- Australia, France, Germany, India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Singapore have sought to reconfigure long-established intermediary liability regimes.
- Authoritarian governments have implemented new social and technological systems to trounce free expression and violate privacy rights.
- Spyware has become increasingly sophisticated and available, and governments continue to use this technology to target human rights defenders and journalists.
- Whole or partial network disruptions have increased for four consecutive years; 75 were registered in 2016, and over 200 occurred in 2019.
Fellows and members guide GNI’s policy responses to these and other threats. They highlight the intended and unintended impacts of such measures. They provide important insight into local contexts and cultural nuances. They identify advocacy targets and collaborators. When we speak our voice is louder, amplified by our consensus — a position stronger because of our diversity.
GNI’s other core pillars of work — facilitating learning and knowledge sharing, providing a framework of responsible ICT company behavior, and holding ICT company members accountable to that framework — also rely on a globally diverse membership to be maximally effective. Members identify new and concerning trends and bring them to the GNI forum for deliberation, often before such issues become international news. They contribute important case studies to GNI’s assessment process, helping to ensure that our company members act responsibly when facing government demands wherever they operate.
When we speak our voice is louder, amplified by our consensus — a position stronger because of our diversity.
So indeed global diversity is key to our success. Today, GNI has over 60 members from 23 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, and the Middle East, and soon over 50% of GNI’s non-company members will be based in countries outside of North America and Europe. For an organization that started with just over 20 members based mostly in the US and Western Europe, this marks a significant milestone in our efforts to become a truly global organization.
This year another six exceptional digital rights organizations will participate in a second iteration of the fellowship program. We welcome you to meet the 2020 GNI-Internews Fellows, and we encourage you to follow their work — and ours! — throughout the year.
To learn more about GNI membership, see the “Join GNI” section of our website.
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Nikki Bourassa is Program & Policy Officer at the Global Network Initiative.
