Who Rules Cyberspace? The Microsoft Approach to Cyber Diplomacy

Throughout this series, we have explored what cyber statecraft looks like from many angles – from the concepts that underpin it, to how countries in the Global South are navigating an increasingly contested cyberspace. But there is one key actor that requires further attention: the private sector.

So, for this final instalment, we go straight to the source.

In this video commentary, Dr Louise Marie Hurel, Senior Research Fellow, Cyber and Tech at RUSI, speaks to John Hering, Director, Cybersecurity Policy & Diplomacy at Microsoft, to ask some direct questions: how do major tech companies like Microsoft operate across jurisdictions and influence cyber policy decisions? How do they maintain credibility and neutrality while serving multiple countries with competing interests? And when a company operates across nearly every jurisdiction on earth, builds the systems governments depend on, and speaks with authority in rooms where new rules are being written – what is it really doing? Is it supporting statecraft, performing it, or something we do not quite have a name for yet?