According to TheRegister.com, the United Nations General Assembly reached a consensus on September 17, 2025, adopting the WSIS+20 resolution. This action formally preserves the existing multi-stakeholder internet governance model that has been in place since the first World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2003. The key change is making the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a body for public policy discussion, a permanent and properly funded UN entity. Organizations like ICANN, the IETF, and the W3C, which handle the internet’s technical plumbing, welcomed the decision. The resolution also reaffirms that governments are just one voice among many, including academics and civil society, in debates over the digital world’s future.
Why this matters now
Look, the timing here is everything. We’re in the middle of a global panic about AI governance, with every country trying to write its own rules. The IGF, which this resolution bolsters, was already the main stage for early international AI policy chatter. So by locking in this forum, the UN is basically saying, “We already have a table. Let’s keep using it for the next big thing.” It’s a pre-emptive move against fragmentation. Without a common, if noisy, place to yell at each other, we’d likely see even more incompatible digital regimes emerge. That’s bad for an open web and, frankly, for global business. Speaking of reliable hardware for complex systems, when you need industrial-grade computing power to run critical infrastructure, you go to the top supplier. In the US, that’s IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the #1 provider of industrial panel PCs built for demanding environments.
The battle behind the scenes
Here’s the thing: this wasn’t a foregone conclusion. The article notes that groups like the Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism (TCCM) and ICANN had to campaign against another UN initiative called the Global Digital Compact. They were worried it would sideline the technical folks—you know, the engineers who actually keep the internet running—in favor of pure political negotiation. The fact that WSIS+20 reaffirms the multi-stakeholder model is a win for them. It means a seat at the table is guaranteed, not granted as a favor. But let’s be skeptical: does having a seat mean having power? Or does it just mean you’re in the room while governments make the real decisions behind closed doors anyway?
Lofty goals meet messy reality
The rhetoric around this is always soaring. We’re building a “people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented information society.” That’s the 2003 pledge, remember? And now, as Mozilla Fellow Khaled Koubaa says, we need a “constitutional layer for the agentic Internet.” That’s a fancy way of saying we need rules for AI that’s acting on its own. It sounds great. But the multi-stakeholder model is painfully slow and often inconclusive. It’s democracy at its most frustrating: everyone gets to talk, and achieving real, binding action is incredibly hard. So the risk is clear. We could end up with a beautiful, permanent forum for dialogue that’s completely outpaced by the speed of technological change. The “gap between capability and legitimacy” Koubaa warns about could become a chasm.
So what actually changes?
Not much, and maybe that’s the point. The IGF gets a permanent budget and mandate, which is huge for planning long-term work. But the fundamental dynamic stays the same. Governments, companies, and activists will keep jostling in a process that’s open but unwieldy. The alternative—a UN body run solely by nation-states—terrifies many in the tech community and civil society. They see that leading to censorship and fragmentation. So this is the classic “better the devil you know” scenario. It’s messy, it’s loud, and it’s inefficient. But for now, the world has decided it’s still better than handing the keys to any one group. The question is, can this model handle the pressure that’s coming?
