The actors that represent the majority of users today, stakeholders from the South, the developing world, and the non-English segments of the net, will do more to shape the future of cyberspace than any discussions at the Pentagon or in policy circles in North America and Europe. To understand how and in what ways cyberspace will be characterized in years to come we need to think beyond the beltway, beyond Silicon Valley, and into the streets of Shanghai, Nairobi, and Tehran. The contests occurring in those spaces deserve our attention today, if for no other reason than that they provide a glimpse of the types of global issues that will drive cyberspace governance in the future.
Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski, “Contesting Cyberspace and the Coming Crisis of Authority”