Breaking the Internet Monopoly through Interoperability

At the 2024 United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Saudi Arabia, our talk examined tech exceptionalism and the “dependency theory” underpinning the Global North’s dominance over technology ecosystems. We challenged the myth of tech leaders as solitary geniuses, arguing that figures like Zuckerberg, Jobs, Bezos, and Gates built their empires not through unrivaled brilliance, but by exploiting decades of weakened antitrust enforcement. Their monopolistic control—enabled by acquiring competitors, constructing vertical monopolies, and trapping users in closed ecosystems—exposes systemic regulatory failures. Central to our discussion was redefining interoperability beyond mere technical compatibility. We emphasised that true interoperability demands social, legal, and political frameworks to succeed—especially in regions like the Arab World, which have been historically marginalised in global tech governance. Without these structures, interoperability risks becoming a superficial solution, leaving communities exposed to centralized platforms’ exploitation through surveillance, manipulation, and price-gouging. We framed interoperability as a tool for equity, highlighting its benefits: - Decentralization and agency for users and smaller economies, - Protection for the Peripher (e.g., Arab nations) against extractive practices, - Mitigation of harms such as algorithmic bias and monopolistic control. To illustrate grassroots innovation, we spotlighted examples like GBWhatsApp—a modified WhatsApp alternative thriving in the Global South—and Indonesia’s tuyul apps, which empower communities to bypass platform restrictions. These adaptations reveal how marginalized groups reengineer technology to meet local needs when frameworks permit. Yet we stressed that such ingenuity remains vulnerable without legal and social safeguards. We also addressed persistent challenges: - Legal and contractual barriers, including anti-circumvention clauses in corporate Terms of Service, - The urgent need to revive antitrust laws globally to dismantle monopolies, - Combating digital imperialism, where dominant platforms replicate colonial power dynamics by imposing terms on weaker economies. A call to all participants to reimagine internet governance as a shared, inclusive endeavour that can dismantle dependency structures and empower historically excluded regions. The Arab World, can lead this shift—not as passive adopters of technology, but as co-architects of equitable systems that center local agency and resilience.