- UN says multiple stakeholders are necessary to create a human-centric Internet
- Concerns still exist around access, misuse and the environment
- AI also had an entire section devoted to its risks
The UN General Assembly has reached a consensus on who should govern the Internet, and it’s good news for censorship, with a multi-stakeholder model coming out on top.
Under this governance, “Governments, the private sector, civil society, international organizations, the technical and academic communities and other stakeholders” will all have a say, which remains in line with the vision set out at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2003 for a people-centered Internet.
“We reaffirm our commitment to the vision of the World Summit on the Information Society to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented information society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge,” the UN wrote in its outcome document.
UN: no one single body should govern the Internet
In its December 16, 2025, document, the UN acknowledged that a number of developing countries still face barriers not just in terms of access to the Internet, but also stakeholder participation in governance issues. International cooperation, funding and private-public partnerships were highlighted as some key solutions.
The UN is also concerned about affordability and access to the Internet; gender divides; the exclusion of vulnerable groups like older people, Indigenous Peoples and migrants; human rights violations; the misuse of digital technologies for things like cybercrime, surveillance and child exploitation; misinformation and disinformation; and the environmental impacts of digitalization.
The document, submitted by the President of the General Assembly and German politician Annalena Baerbock, even has a whole section dedicated to artificial intelligence, in which the UN both acknowledges the tech’s benefits for humanity and highlights unknown risks associated with development speed, scale and autonomy.
Among the human-centric resolutions are demands for more education and training, open-sourced models, accessible training data and broader access to high-performance compute infrastructure.
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has now become a permanent UN body, whereas previously it was just an annual meeting.
The next review is set for 2035, when the UN urges all stakeholders to get involved across all stages of the process to “identify areas of continued focus.”
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