Civil society and internet governance | Photo by suxsie.q
It’s almost impossible to give a comprehensive overview of all the civil society actors and activities; too much is happening and going on. A few good starting points for globally active civil society organisations, groups and initiatives are:
- the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), defending freedoms in the networked world. The foundation works on issues such as free spech, intellectual property, privacy and transparency;
- the Internet Society (ISOC), one of the leading nonprofit organisation on internet related standards, education and policy;
- the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organisation for the web;
- the Internet Governance Caucus of Civil Society Organizations (IGC), striving for internet governance to become inclusive, people centered and development oriented;
- the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (IRP), an initiative formed to establish an Internet Governance regime founded upon human rights;
- La Quadrature du Net, a collective and advocacy group promoting the rights and freedoms of citizens on the Internet that starts from the assumption that net neutrality means that the internet has no gatekeeper;
- Reporters Without Borders (RWB), advocating and fighting for the freedom of the press, on- and offline;
- the Open Rights Group (ORG), striving to preserve and promote citizens’ rights in the digital age;
- the combined effort of the pirate party movement to bring the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) out into the open at www.stopp-acta.info;
- the Creative Commons Network, working towards the vision of universal access to research and education and full participation;
- the European Digital Rights Initiative (EDRI), founded to defend civil rights in the information society and working, among other issues, on privacy, governance and freedom of speech;
- the International Modern Media Institute (IMMI), a foundation working to reopen the discussion about how free speech is defined and how it is to be protected for and in the digital age.
- and, last but not least, and of course, WikiLeaks.
Feel free to add organisations, groups and initiatives in the comments!