Interview with researcher Niels ten Oever

As a society, we trust digital infrastructures. The standards that these structures must satisfy to be able to cooperate with each other are almost invisible. It is often incorrectly assumed that standards are neutral. Postdoc researcher Niels ten Oever (University of Amsterdam) contributes to the project “Making the hidden visible: Co-designing for public values in standards-making and governance”. The leader of this project is Stefania Milan. In the project, the researchers are studying exactly how the development of standards works and how governments and citizens can gain more control over this.

Niels ten Oever

Ten Oever has an interesting background. ‘I’m a sort of interdisciplinary Frankenstein’s monster: a philosopher and political scientist specialised in media studies with a considerable knowledge about computers. I therefore sometimes refer to myself as a “code ethnographer”: I try to discover which ideology and values lie hidden behind and in ICT infrastructure. It is important to make those transparent because just like we shape our tools, the tools also shape us. And that technology is not value-free.’

From telegraph to the Internet of Things
The oldest and still working international organisation, and also the oldest United Nations’ body, is a so-called “standards body”, says Ten Oever. ‘The International Telegraph Union was established in 1865. This has since become the International Telecommunication Union, but the objective is still the same. Government organisations in different countries work together in this organisation to ensure that everybody can use the same infrastructure for telecommunication. Originally, that started with the telegraph, then came telephony and radio and after that came the internet. Now this body is mainly concerned with 5G that furthers the development of the Internet of Things. The question around standardisation of ICT is always about where the control over the infrastructure must lie: only at the endpoints or also in the actual networks?’

The power is shifting
We can see communication networks as an extension of power, explains Ten Oever. ‘The more we shift towards networks like 5G, the more power comes to rest in the hands of the actual networks. Internet used to be a “stupid” network and only existed for the transport of data between computers. But what makes 5G or the Internet of Things different is that the networks are becoming more and more “intelligent”, while the endpoints are becoming more stupid and sometimes merely consist of sensors. A wide range of devices from our homes, offices and hospitals send data via the internet, whereas we have far less understanding of and increasingly less control over everything that takes place there. Effectively, those devices are no longer ours, but belong to the parties that control the data traffic.’

The pipeline
With the emergence of the internet, the International Telecommunication Union had a progressively smaller say over the networks. Ten Oever: ‘Initially, it was mainly the government that took decisions about networks, but with the arrival of the internet, it has increasingly become a public-private governance process. With the merging of telecommunication networks and the internet, the state has once again been accorded a larger role, but the standards are concocted brewed by the companies. This gives rise to a sort of “pipeline” in which the standards are developed that governments only participate in at a later stage. With our project, we want to gain an insight into how that pipeline works exactly. We will analyse email traffic about standardisation to see how the decision-making in the standards bodies comes about. We will also study the standards, patents, software and hardware in this area, as well as the actual technology. Our study will now mainly focus on 5G technology, and this also means that we will produce 5G networks ourselves because we want to acquire in-depth knowledge of how different configurations work.’

Technology shapes our life
The research into how standardisation works exactly is important. ‘What is agreed upon there influences the daily life of all of us. In their internet use, many people focus on what they can see. You can decide to leave Facebook if you don’t like it, but it is not as easy to get rid of the underlying technology. This is used by our governments, educational institutions, and the medical world. At the same time, we ourselves have increasingly less influence on the technology that shapes our daily lives. In the 1980s, almost nobody saw the purpose of mobile telephony. Who could have thought back then that the current smartphone would become such a decisive element in our everyday lives? As long as our daily technology “simply works”, we do not ask any questions about it as users. We simply accept what our devices can and cannot do; exerting an influence on this does not seem possible. But what is or is not possible is devised for us by parties who do have an influence. We try to make clear how precisely those parties shape that technology.’

Differences in values and rules
How values and ideology can differ can be seen, for example, in where technology comes from. Ten Oever: ‘GSM originally comes from Europe, internet from the USA, and 5G from China and Korea. Previously, we used to say to Asian countries: just stop copying our technology! Now, these countries have developed the technology themselves, and “the West” is angry because different rules apply there than what the West is used to, and people refer to the use of Huawei technology, for example, as a “security risk”. That seems ironic to me because, in fact, a number of scandals about the tapping of data via the secret opening of back doors in software have taken place at Western companies. We’ve yet to see anything on a similar scale among Asian companies.’

‘Internetisation’ of the communication
However, further research into 5G is very urgent, says Ten Oever. ‘The difference between 5G and the previous Gs is considerable. With new antennae, routers, processers and software, it is becoming increasingly easier to reconfigure communication networks and optimise these algorithms. However, the question is: what is the purpose of this? Who still knows what’s going on? Even the telecom companies no longer understand exactly how it works. They hire in expertise from Huawei, for instance, to lease part of that equipment from them and to let them maintain it because Huawei manages significant parts of the network. Therefore, the communication network is effectively no longer in public hands but in private hands. The development that we are experiencing at present is the so-called “internetisation” of communication. You could say that communication is influenced by the technology it uses. Now different – and programming! – parties are in control than was previously the case.’

From citizen to consumer
Another observation: ‘We have also examined how 5G is talked about on social media. Companies that sell devices and network operators consistently talk about the users as consumers. “Our product is now even better, faster and handier.” However, nothing is said about the actual technique and its added societal value. Yet, when the internet and social media emerged, for example, these were talked about in very different terms: there would be no more war, we would be free to communicate with each other, an educational revolution would take place.’ Since this big societal story is now no longer told, people have begun making up their own stories, concludes Ten Oever. ‘Some people infer that if 5G products allow surgeons to operate remotely, then their DNA could perhaps be influenced remotely by 5G as well. That is how a wide range of conspiracy theories arise, building directly upon the marketing language used by the industry. There is little engagement with people who express these sorts of concerns and who are normally not that susceptible for conspiracy theories.’

''Experimenting with data telecommunication networks ' Photo: Niels ten Oever.

Dialogue about what we want
However, that engagement is very necessary, says Ten Oever. ‘We need to find better ways to involve people with knowledge and information about how technology works. We need to begin a dialogue about the type of technology we want based on the question as to what sort of society we want. After all, that technological infrastructure makes that society possible and shapes it too. Now the technology mainly seems to be aimed at passing on advertisements with as little difficulty as possible. Is that what we want? Which alternative technology vision can we develop? Fortunately, our project affords us three more years to find an answer to this question.’

Niels ten Oever (University of Amsterdam) is a postdoc researcher in the project 'Making the hidden visible: Co-designing for public values in standard-making and governance';

project leader is Stefania Milan. The project is part of the programme 'Responsible Innovation. Designing for Public Values in a Digital World'.

More information about the project can be found at https://in-sight.it/

More information about Niels ten Oever can be found at https://nielstenoever.net/