Patent Politics, Internet Governance -- Talking Tech w/ Shobita Parthasarathy, CIMA, Article 19
Host Brian Wesolowski sits down with author and professor Shobita Parthasarathy about intellectual property. She breaks down how different approaches to patents in the United States and Europe can lead to very different policy outcomes, especially around controversial issues such as patenting life forms.<br><br>Then Brian brings in a crowd – Daniel O'Maley of the Center for International Media Assistance, as well as Corinne Cath, Mehwish Ansari, & Niels ten Oever of Article 19 – to chat about why global media development professionals should be engaging in the many internet governance bodies. Think about it – if you care about a vibrant media sector in developing nations, don't you want to make sure you have a voice in how the the internet functions?<br><br>Shobita's book, "Patent Politics:" http://bit.ly/cdtshpp<br>More on Shobita: http://bit.ly/shobitaumich<br>CIMA + Article 19 report: http://bit.ly/2nPLC0X<br><br>More info on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian<br><br>Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.
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Transcript
Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye.
CT. Tea.
Welcome to CDT's Tech Talk, where we dish on tech and Internet policy while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. I'm Brian Wasilowski, and it's time to talk tech. In this episode, we talk about patent politics. Yes, intellectual property is incredibly political. And today, we find out how different approaches to patents in The United States and Europe can lead to very different policy outcomes, especially around controversial issues such as patenting life forms. And we'll be talking about why global media development professionals should be engaging in the many Internet government bot governance bodies. Yes. If you care about a vibrant media sector in developing nations, you're going to wanna make sure you have a voice on how the greatest distributor of news, the Internet, functions. Intellectual property rights have always had a political component to them, whether they are being negotiated in secret as part of trade deals or high powered lobbyist groups are duking it out over how long the terms terms of a copyright should last. Patents are certainly among the most political forms of IP and perhaps the most valuable. If you've watched an episode of Shark Tank, you know just how important having a patent is to those investors. In her new book, Patent Politics, Shobhita Partha Sarathi explores the social and political influences on patent policy and law in both The US and Europe. She looks at some of the biggest controversies around patents, such as attempts to patent life forms and details how different approaches to policy in The US and EU lead to starkly different outcomes. Shobita, who was in fact my professor, I'll do a plug here, at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, joins us on Tech Talk to share some insights from her book. Welcome, Shobita. Thanks, Brian. So good to hear you're doing so well. Oh, thank you. And, of course, I'm sure I was one of your favorite students, and not just because I'm interviewing you, but, why not? So Sure. Kind of sure. So congratulations congratulations on the book. It's wonderful. Love the cover too. Tell us a bit about it. What motivated you to research this, topic and write about it?
Sure. Thanks. So, you know, I've actually been kind of weirdly obsessed with patents for for a really long time since I was in graduate school. I came to graduate school with a scientific background. I have a bachelor's degree in biology. And at the time when I was first learning about I've taken classes in biotech policy and biotech in society and I got really fascinated by the idea that the law could distinguish between unpatentable nature on the one hand and patentable technology on the other, between unpatentable discovery on the one hand and patents were necessary to stimulate innovation and ultimately to benefit society. So that was sort of my initial I had a lot of questions, but patents then became centrally important actually in my first book, which was published in 2007 by MIT Press. It's called Building Genetic Medicine. And that was about the development of genetic testing for breast and ovarian cancer in The US and Britain. And human gene patents actually played a big role in, genetic testing and the availability of genetic therapies. And as I told that story and in the course of doing research for that book, I discovered that The US and Europe seem to approach biotech patents really differently. And so I I wanted to find out why that was the case, especially when we're talking about patent systems that seem to be highly technical and also bound by multiple international legal agreements. So those kernels were kind of set then, and then it sort of led to a long
odyssey as, of doing research for this book. Very fun. So you already touched on this a little bit, but, your book certainly focuses on the differences in how patents are approached both in The EU and US. And you note that in The US, it's mostly a legal or technological lens. And in Europe, they have much more of a social and moral view. Tell us a little bit more about that and what sort of impact it has on the outcomes in both places.
Sure. So there are are a few major differences that I highlight throughout the book. And I and I sort of, as you say, there are these big differences in terms of The US thinking about patents as techno legal and and European thinking about them as socioeconomic and moral. Tied to those differences are a bunch of really interesting differences in terms of, the logics of how the systems work and how they think about the public interest. So for example, I argue in the book that in The US context, we tend to think about the public interest as being synonymous with the inventor's interest, whereas in the European context, it's evolved to, not necessarily assume that the public interest and inventors interest are the same and that the role of government is to engage in some kind of balancing. And alongside of that, you have a number of sort of cascading differences in terms of governance and policy. So in The U. S, we tend to think about the patent system, partially because it's tech we see it as technical and highly legal as a really narrow administrative law domain that's separate from the regulatory apparatus. But in the European context, the patent system is more integrated into the governance of science and technology. So the European Patent Office doesn't just see itself as a place where patent applications are processed. It sees its role as a policy organization that has to be aware of and part of policy discussions around science and technology, and its and its, implications and its future. Alongside that, then you have differences that are associated in terms of how the two systems think about knowledge and expertise. So given what I've already said, you know, it's not surprising then that The US tends to see only scientific and legal expertise as relevant and only certain kinds of scientific and legal expertise that is to sort of prove whether something is novel or non obvious, for example. Whereas in the European system, they take more account of social scientific and humanistic work and analysis. And then finally, there are differences in terms of how whether the public has a role, whether there are easy avenues to participate. So, in The US, we because the public interest is seen as the same as the inventors interest, the people that are invited to participate in the domain tend to be those who are stakeholders, patent applicants, and the people who represent them. Whereas in the European context, not only is the scope wider for average citizens and civil society groups, there are actually institutionalized spaces for average citizens to to play a role and to influence the system.
So, I mean, as you describe that, I I'm really totally bought into the European system. Does does that lead to better outcomes in your perspective when you engage the public, engage different types of perspectives? Are they are they get if you if we all agree that, you know, patents should have benefit to the inventor but also to the broader society. Is Europe doing a better job of, for lack of better words, striking a balance between these two motives? You ask a question that I tend to shy away from,
because so so much of the book is about how the system two systems are really legitimately trying to achieve different goals. But I and they would so, therefore, they would define a better outcome differently in some important ways. But because you're my former student and because I've been in a lot of times better than that, and say, okay, so what do I mean when I say that the two places are thinking differently about a better outcome? So in The US system, they tend to privilege efficiency. They tend They tend to privilege efficiency. They tend to privilege objectivity and transparency and adhering to procedures, and they tend to privilege the issuance of more patents. So the idea is that sort of we you know, the patent office will issue more patents. Any relevant concerns will get litigated. And there's a real focus on efficiency, as I said, and sort of technical governance. By contrast, the pan European system tends to privilege higher quality patents. That's language that you tend to hear a lot, in the European context. And they, by that, they mean that they tend to get, they're less likely to be challenged in later legal proceedings and that they're narrower. But I wouldn't say that they're as efficient as The US system. The other thing, obviously, and you mentioned this, is that they also tend to privilege public responsiveness and even I'd argue consideration of public concern. I'd say that in The US system, and this is something that I get at quite a bit throughout the book, the, you know, because the system in The US context is seen as fundamentally apolitical, responsiveness to public concern is seen as somehow polluting, I would argue. Whereas in the European context, the argument is this is a policy domain. This is not an apolitical domain, and therefore, we need to consider public concerns in a different way. So so so it is really that they're that they're, trying to achieve different goals. But then as to whether or not we we like one system over the other, it's best on some level, it depends on on what kind of governance approach we like. Okay. Well, there we that was a a very good answer
that was not a non answer. So you you did a nice job, and I appreciate that. So let's go to some examples. I mean, your book is really packed with some great examples, and I thought it was fascinating the way you really focused on, life forms and patents and and, you know, how controversial they are. Can you walk us through maybe one or two of those examples in your book where you really, you know, delve into the different systems and the way patents play out, especially when it comes to life forms?
Sure. So patents overall are incredibly controversial, and they've only become increasingly controversial over the last, I'd say, twenty, twenty five years. What's interesting So, you So if you take this sort of whole swath of issues, there's a growing concern that patents might stifle innovation sometimes. And we've heard that Elon Musk famously gives up his patent rights to electronic cars. There's a broad concern about whether patents are leading to increased costs for life saving technologies, and we hear about that in the context of access to so called essential medicines and whether people are being priced out of buying medicines that they need to survive. And then there's this broad concern about increasing privatization of the public domain, and we hear that concern when we're talking about traditional or indigenous knowledge, for example. What's interesting to me and something that I just demonstrate throughout the book is that while you see that whole swath of concerns coming up around lifeform patents, they each have different valences in the two places. So let me give you the example of human embryonic stem cells that I talk about in the book. So in The US context, the human embryonic stem cell debate pretty quickly focuses on questions around the right to research and stifling innovation. And that's particularly weird because, of course, we know that the human embryonic stem cell debate raises all these questions about the moral status of embryos and doing research at all. But when it comes to the patent system, the only question that's deemed relevant is a question about cycling innovation. Whereas in the European context, there's kind of a mixed set of worries that arises around, rights, partially to research, although that's been addressed actually a little bit already through law in the European context, but rights to life saving technologies and specifically whether or not patents on human embryonic stem cells will lead to the commodification of human embryos, of human life. And it isn't just pro life groups in the European context who are making this argument. In fact, you know, some Greenpeace is making that argument as well. So so one of the things that's really interesting to me is that the world kind of world of the patent system looks pretty different in these two places. There are different groups involved. There are different issues involved. I suggested before, to me, that's important. But what's even more important is that the two systems are developing very different ways of thinking about the questions that I think have reverberations, much more broadly than biotech.
Sure. So how about I, approach you a little bit here and say you've now looked at both of these systems, not which one is better, but if you had to reform patents patent policy, you know, globally, what are some things that would be good patent policy or good patent systems?
So I started I I mentioned this a little bit before, but I kinda wanna, return to this point about, you know, the idea that patents are not apolitical. And one of the reasons that I harp on that is that, you know, if we treat patents as apolitical, then we tend to think it's exceptional. We don't think it should be subject to the same kinds of, democratic scrutiny that other forms of governance do. And what I've tried to do throughout the book, both through historical and comparative work, is to say no. These systems are deeply political. They're shaped by culture, by political culture, by ideology, by history. And so and they are involving different kinds of calculations and values, in these two places. And if we sort of remove the idea that the patent system on the other, especially in democratic context. And now, you know, the the interesting thing about that is that there are, in fact, this is a perennial problem, for policy institutions, not just science technology policy institutions. Yeah. But science and technology policy institutions. Not just science and technology policy institutions. Yep. But science and technology policy institutions, other institutions have tended to do a better job than the patent system. They wrestle with this question too. But there are more institutional spaces for public concern. In some countries, they have found ways to kind of bureaucratize ethics conversations and ethical analysis. So those are the things that I think we need to think about in the context of the patent system in particular. The second thing I would say is that there's a really pervasive argument that patent systems are just not the place to deal with these kinds of socio economic and moral issues, or sort of a weaker version of that argument. It's just too difficult to rethink patent systems in the ways that, I'm suggesting. So in that case, what I would argue is that we need to take seriously the fact that science and technology benefit us, but they can also have these kinds of negative socioeconomic and moral implications. And we do need to find places to have these conversations and to come up with policy solutions. This is a real weakness, I would argue, in contemporary governance. And I don't think we can just say that science and technology are always new and they always are posing new problems and we don't know how to deal with, you know, the fact that thanks to, you know, our, patent and pricing apparatus. Drugs are really expensive. You know, we have a long history of experiencing and analyzing science and technology. And I think we can do a better job of predicting, assessing, and addressing these issues better than we think we can. And as I said, there are these sort of isolated examples of places that we can draw some, ideas from. That's what, you know, it I'm always, as I suggested, a little bit reluctant to say, oh, well, we can take these ideas from a little bit reluctant to say, oh, well, we can take these ideas from Europe and drop it into the West or vice versa. But there but those kinds of analyses do give us a little bit of, at least they give us ideas to think about and to think through because we are in a situation I think now not only is the patent system under increased scrutiny, science and technology policy institutions are under increased scrutiny. I would argue that elite and technocratic governance is, under, greater concern and scrutiny. And so we I think it's certainly from my perspective, it's partially my job to think through how we can do a better job of valuing expert knowledge and expertise on the one hand, while still making sure that there is a space, to consider broader, public concern.
Well, it sounds like you should be partnering with the Center for Democracy and Technology more. I mean, what you just described, we are the center of those conversations. So we'll have to bring patents in here. Right? Sounds
Sounds great.
Alright, Savita. Well, we are out of time, but I do want to, of course, plug your book one more time. It's called Patent Politics. Be sure to pick up a copy. I did just check Amazon this morning, and it actually had one of those notes that said just a few copies left. So it must be a hot ticket. Congratulations on that. And we'll have to have you back on as you do more work on on this issue or other ones.
I definitely will. Take care.
A vibrant and independent media sector is without question a key underpinning of democracy. And there are a number of incredible groups out there working to promote and support the development of this sector in developing countries worldwide. One of these organizations, the Center for International Media Assistance, has just released a new guidebook that they developed with article 19, and it encourages media development professionals to extend their work and start engaging in the somewhat complicated world of Internet governance. I have a whole crew of collaborators here who developed the report, Corinne Kath, Niels Tenevore, Daniel O'Malley, and Mevesh and sorry. Get those alright? These are the most guests we've had, so that that was a tough one for me. So they're all gonna join us today, talk about the report, tell us a little bit about their organizations, and also share some experience about, how they've been rolling it out. So welcome all. Thank you. First, there we go. That's an enthusiastic group. So first, very I thought it was a wonderful report, and I really think that folks that are just interested in Internet governance in general should read it. Or people who have no clue what Internet governance is, not just media professionals, media media development professionals. Right? Alright. So I'm gonna start first with you. Tell me a bit about, your organization, CEMA, the acronym. We love acronyms on the show. What you guys do and why you were interested in Internet governance?
The Center for International Media Assistance is a media development think tank that's based at the National Endowment for Democracy. And a lot of people ask, what is media development? What does that mean? Right? I asked that. Yeah. Yes. You did. And what we're talking about is how do we build healthy, sustainable media ecosystems, especially in developing countries, so that people can get access to high quality news and information. So it's really about making sure that citizens have the the kind of knowledge tools that they need to be well informed to participate in democratic societies. So that's, kind of what what we're the the broad goal. Sima is a think tank that looks at trying to build best practices on how to approach this in different places. So our interest in Internet governance comes from the fact that increasingly, all forms of media are converging on the Internet. So, you know, whether it's television, radio, or online outlets, it depends on how the Internet, develops going forward, how it's governed. So, you know, in many countries around the world, the only way you can actually access independent media is through the Internet. And this is especially true in in closed societies where there is a, government monopoly on media. So that's where our interest comes, in engaging Internet governance. We think it's something that the media development community should be more involved in. That's great. That's great. So article 19, folks. We've got Corinne and Nils,
and Mavis. Why do Mavis. Sorry. Screwed that up. I keep messing it up. So so many names. It's hard for me to keep them straight. Go ahead and tell me why you guys wanted to work with media development professionals and what you brought to this guidebook that you developed.
I think we wanted to work with media professionals for the same reasons that Dan just indicated. That it's really important for a more broad group of people to get involved. Because right now the people you see involved in Internet governance are pretty diverse. So you have states, you have businesses, you have civil society people. But in the end, considering how important the Internet is to media, it's necessary for those debates to be influenced by the actual case studies of what is going on in certain countries with the media. And the only way to do that is by starting to make clear, like, why this is an issue that is relevant for everybody and also because of some of the reasons that you mentioned earlier, like this place is an acronym soup. It is not easy to get involved if you don't know where to start. So what we wanted to do is, like, provide a very clear road map of like these are five, important Internet governance bodies, these are five important topics as related to media development, and here are a bunch of strategies and a bunch of concrete ways that you can get involved. That's great. So, so speaking of the acronym soup in this the report the guidebook
you list five of them you have ICAN IGF ITU IEEEF or IEEE and IETF so that's that's a lot of acronyms a lot of i's, a lot of e's. You all have participated in some of these or all of these at some point. Are any of them you know, I'd love to hear your experiences on them. But are any of them, do you think, more important for media development professionals, ones that they should really be thinking about engaging in?
Sure. I think what is really interesting about Internet governance is that you can't see it as individual organizations. Like, it's an ecosystem. So, what happens in one space is going to have an influence in the other. So unfortunately I'm going to have to give you the answer of you have to go to all of them. Oh gosh I'm tired already. And it really helps to understand how all the different technical stuff that happens there relates to each other. But once you do figure that out and that's another thing that we try to sort of show in this guide is like this is how this relates to that and there it all comes together in one spot. Once you figure that out you can be extremely effective.
So, I'm gonna pivot to Mavis. You just came back from Dubai, right, or Abu Dhabi? Which one was it? It was Dubai. Yes. Dubai. This morning. And that was the ITU one? What was that like? And what's what sort of reaction did you get as you shared this there? Yeah.
The the ITU is an interesting space, particularly when you see the other, Internet governance bodies that we talk about in the report. When you look at the IETF and ICANN, you see that these are robust multi stakeholder bodies where, you have a lot of different groups participating and coming together, with with similar objectives in mind, if not the same. The ITU is a UN specialized agency, and it really lives up to that title in the sense that it In a good way. Right? Well, I mean, it's different. Right? So, when we're talking about diplomatic. Yeah. Good for the ITU. It is multilateral, which means that member states rule. And, when we're talking about, national government delegations coming together and talking about standards development, that really changes the way that media developers need to understand how to engage. Right? So instead of directly participating, understanding the national delegations that they want to get involved in, and and seeing what the makeup is of those particular delegations. Some countries are very interested in having, multi stakeholder makeup. They want different sectors involved, helping them, cultivate positions on standards development. And, others have open consultation processes. And so really understanding where the positions are what what different nation states have with their their their positions within the ITU, seeing where that can be leveraged, and that that's about that's just as important as understanding the
Okay. Now let's talk about the other ones. And I mean, ITU is probably the one who the fingers were pointed at the most when, folks were screaming that we're giving the internet away to Russia, right, or something like Russia and China. Not the case, right? The other bodies, you both, Niels, Corinne, tell me about them. Like, what are the ones, what are the different experiences? Mavis brought up multi stakeholder, holder, which is just that word, multi stakeholderism. Is it something we even talk about here? You know, they embody it. A lot of people want to model that. I think it's a fairly good form of governance. And that's the fact that they have that is the reason that the media development professionals can actually engage in these. So tell me about one of them. Pick your favorite.
Well, the interesting thing is that there is not so much something like the multi stakeholder model. There are many different multi stakeholder models. Yeah. And all these, organizations, fora, have their different, institutional configuration, which have different affordances. So they stimulate certain kind of behavior and they make other things more different. I'm not saying one is worse or better or we that's maybe up for historians to decide. But for now, we just need to work with them. And, as friends of the podcast will know, they will have followed the Ayanna transition. Yes. Last year, where it was really the first time where a sovereign state, namely The United States Of America, gave away stewardship over such a key resource, such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or actually the coordination mechanism for names and numbers, the IANA functions. And as part of that transition, we ensured that a core value was embedded in ICANN's bylaws. We managed to make that happen, but that bylaw would only be activated once we had a framework of interpretation for the bylaw developed. So that it's really clear what was meant with the bylaw. Currently, we're working hard on that. I just came back from the ICANN meeting number fifty eight in Copenhagen where we worked hard on coming up with, with that framework of interpretation so that once that has been improved, we can go full, continue, and then embed, this respecting human rights in all policies and operations in ICANN. That's great.
Corinne, did you have anything you wanted to add in terms of Sure. I think another really interesting thing that's coming up right now is the Internet Engineering Task Force meeting in Chicago starting this, Sunday. And what is, something that we're really looking forward in participating is on Wednesday, they have their plenary meeting, which is, like, one of the biggest, moments in the in the week long meeting. And this will be the first time that they will focus that meeting on discussing human rights. That's awesome. Which is very, very exciting. It's been something that we've been working on for a long time with, our work within the Internet Research Task Force, which is the research subsidiary of the IETF, where, Niels co chairs the Human Rights Protocol Considerations Group. We recently published a long, long document there that sort of gives, engineers a guideline of how to check if their protocols has an impact on human rights, and if so, what kind of an impact. And that whole discourse has really caught on, and that's a very, exciting thing to see.
Great. And IETF, Alyssa Cooper, a CDT alum, has just taken over the the leadership of it. Whoo. She's amazing. Boom. You know, we have great people, and she is incredible. So congrats. I hope she listens to our podcast. I'm not sure she does. She at least follows me on Twitter, though, so I feel good about that. I'll take that. Daniel, you were gonna chime in. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I was just gonna say that, you know, I'm headed to RightsCon next week, which isn't an Internet Ditto. I'll see you there. Yeah, there we go. I'll have to hang out. Excellent. And, you know, it's not an Internet governance body, but it's a meeting where many people who are in the digital rights field, people who are interested in Internet governance come together, and we're excited about sharing this report there as well. And I think going back to your original question about, you know, which body is it do we want to, you know, pay attention to? And one of the things that we try to do in this report is identify different bodies kind of what the topics that they focus on so that other people can decide and prioritize because you know as Corinne, Niels, Mevesh know it takes a lot of resources to be really fully engaged and so we might need to do more strategy at events like RightsCon among civil society activists to think how are we going to tackle this together because we can't all do everything. Right. So we need to divide up forces and luckily the folks at Article nineteen, my colleagues here, have been doing some amazing work on human rights at ICANN, at IETF. And so we need to try and figure out how we can get more people involved in those efforts.
Fantastic.
Does it go ahead.
Yeah. So something that we're seeing is that companies are excellent at forum shopping. So they're finding the right place to push their idea. And if it doesn't work in one place, then they'll go to the other. So water will always flow to the lowest point. So for us, it's crucial that we are at all those places because it's never clear where that lowest point will be. And, we've seen this in the civil society sphere. We've seen things move from, from standards bodies to bilateral treaties, to, trade agreements, to Internet governance bodies. And I think it's very crucial for civil society to build that capacity and understanding of who is present where. And indeed, we also have our own fora and channels where we can coordinate and, which will allow us to ensure that the Internet, but also the world outside the Internet, is actually a human rights enabling place.
Fantastic.
No. Well, I think sort of going back to also the the underlying question of why does this matter, because that's obviously a question that we very often get, is that as Dan had mentioned, the Internet is increasingly becoming important to the media sphere. But also the infrastructure that underlies that is what fundamentally defines what kind of discussions are possible, what kind of human rights are protected and which aren't, what kind of practices are enabled and which are not. And that is sort of the greater point that we're trying to cross get across in this guide is people should get involved because even if you don't feel it now, what the infrastructure of the Internet looks like is going to matter to you at some point. And it's better to get involved now when that is not a negative kind of influence you're perceiving, but when you still feel that you have something to add to that debate.
Great point. I realized I never actually said the name of this, wonderful paper and report you did. Media development in the digital age, five ways to engage in Internet governance. Where can folks find this? Is it online?
Yeah. People, can find it online on CIMA's website at cima.net.org.
And CIMA is C I M A. C I M I. C I M A. See, there we go. We got
what? No one dislikes reading. No. But you're listening to a podcast. That's a good point. So you might wanna watch a film we made about, human rights and Internet protocols. And you can check that out at hrpc.io.
Fantastic. So everyone has some reading, some listening, and now some viewing to do. That's fantastic. Any last thoughts before I let you go and continue your visit, for the folks visiting and Daniel who lives here? Get on with your tour of this wonderful guidebook. I mean,
I if there's anything that I would like to say is that I would hope for people to read this and get involved because we really need more good qualified people, especially from the civil society, to get engaged. Read the guide. Look at the websites we just mentioned. Reach out to us. Like, you can always reach us and we can get back to you, but
do it because, like, if you're not going to, then somebody else will and they might not have your best interest in mind. That's perfect. So be sure to check out article, oops sorry did you want to please? Yeah we got so many final wisdom. I like more wisdom. You never want to cut off a last word of wisdom. No. It's it's a supplement to what Corinne was making. Oh, perfect. I I think the guide is is more I mean, if you're interested in Internet governance at all, it's a great introduction.
You don't have to be in media development in order to find, a lot of, a lot of ways to get involved in in Internet governance if, like we said, the the alphabet soup is, is inundated. So just to be able to look through the guide and see the mapping and how these issues intersect across these different forums, it helps kind of put the put things into broader perspective. Awesome. Well, I guess And what is really cool is that
there are two great reasons to get into internet governance. And one is that the people working in and on Internet governance are extremely gifted individual individuals over over all stakeholder groups. So your enemies will be powerful, and your allies will be smart. So it is, it is, it is, it's a great place. Sounds like Game of Thrones. I'm like, goodness. It's not that bad, is it? It's better. Better. Okay. You don't get that dirty. Okay.
That's
the, and the next thing is is, like, the Internet will be what we want it to be. Like, we had times where the Internet was our big dream of of of of escaping. And now it's been a a place of dystopia. But the internet is pretty much the place that we want it to be, and we can shape it. The shaping happens here. So if you wanna shape the Internet,
join the Internet governance. Oh, wow. That is the best pitch for Internet governance I've ever heard that's fantastic so it's a great report everyone check it out we'll make sure the links are and everywhere so you can find it. Mavis, Shneels, Corinne and Daniel thank you so much for joining us it's been wonderful having you. That's it for this episode of Tech Talk. Shobita's book is a great read as is the Internet governance guidebook. Be sure to check them out both. We have links in our podcast recap at cdt.org. And if you love Tech Tech Talk, which I'm sure you all do, let your friends know and post some comments on SoundCloud, iTunes, or Google Play. I'm Brian Wasilowski. Thanks for listening.
