Reframing the Digital Society: Civil Society Perspectives on the WSIS Legacy

• A special edition of Global Information Society Watch reviews the 20-year legacy of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) through the lens of civil society.
• The report critiques current corporate and institutional hegemonies, advocating for a shift toward human-centric, democratic digital governance.

Challenges in the Digital Age

• The vision of a "people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society" established two decades ago remains largely unfulfilled.
• The current digital landscape is described as "capitalism on steroids," where digital tools empower the wealthy while disenfranchising the majority.
• State authoritarianism and corporate power have created a democratic deficit, hindering the potential for digital technology to foster peace, pluralism, and human flourishing.

Call for Digital Justice

• The report demands the dismantling of structures that prioritize the powerful, calling for a new "grammar of solidarity" among diverse social movements.
• It aims to influence key global processes such as the Global Digital Compact, the Summit of the Future, and NETmundial+10 by centering digital justice.
• The publication serves as a resource for revitalizing the original WSIS vision, offering analytical contributions that address how collaboration can reshape the future of digitality for coming generations.