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Yaw Amevi

The detailed discussion presents a broad view of the roles and influences NRI leadership has, particularly concerning their supporting role towards IGF initiatives. Expressing a positive sentiment, the speaker commends the NRI leadership for their dedicated involvement in event organisation, networking and information dissemination, a contribution that aligns directly with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals).

Yet, the dialogue extends past singular praises, identifying areas where current practices could be enhanced. Specifically, the speaker underlines the need for the NRI leadership to provide greater support for national IGF events. This could be feasibly achieved by sending out substantial informational letters to coordinators, with the intent to bolster engagement levels.

A pivotal topic surfaced was the necessity for harmonisation between various IGF events, notably those at regional, local, and youth levels. The speaker proposes the introduction of a comprehensive timetable for differing NRI initiatives, which would be updated in real-time to ensure all coordinators maintain coordinated efforts, fostering a more unified operation.

An important suggestion from the speaker is the creation of a best practices guide dedicated to NRI. This proposition was met with optimism, as such a resource would lay out beneficial practices efficiently, while also identifying areas of practices that could be improved or where noticeable gaps exist.

Sustainability additionally emerged as a key theme, with emphasis placed on its importance within the framework of NRI initiatives. The speaker suggests tracking all recommendations raised across differing national, regional, and youth events to confirm tangible impacts and changes being effected. This approach encourages accountability and spurs continued improvements.

Finally, the speaker, taking a positive stance, aligns with the sentiments expressed by Mary concerning increased government involvement in the organisation of national NRI initiatives. The speaker concurs with the need for such intervention, implicitly aligning with SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. This infers an acknowledgment of the instrumental role of institutional support in ensuring the success of such initiatives.

Covering the discussion in detail, the comprehensive summary provides key insights into the multifaceted role of NRI leadership, their valued contribution to IGF initiatives, possible areas for improvement, and the need for harmonisation, resource creation, sustainability procedures, and active government support. This yields a broader perspective on the complex interplay of roles and initiatives within the context of IGF events.

Anya Gengo

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a worldwide multi-stakeholder network focused on discussing public policy issues tied to the internet, has witnessed remarkable expansion in recent years. Particularly, from the year 2015 to the present day, there has been substantial increase in the network of national, regional, sub-regional and youth IGFs. Evidence of this growth is shown in the rise from approximately 50 or 60 IGFs in 2015 to over 160 officially recognised IGFs to date, suggesting a growing awareness and participation in global internet governance discussions.

Besides this numerical growth, strategic measures have been implemented to promote inclusivity within the Nationally Recognised Internet Governance Forums (NRIs). Specifically, in 2015, a focal point was assigned to NRIs to cultivate growth both in quality and quantity. Notably, certain NRIs have adopted innovative operational strategies including arranging IGF meetings in diverse locations within their countries instead of consistently hosting them in capitals. Examples of this practice can be found in countries like Brazil, Italy, and Poland, which fosters inclusivity by making IGF processes accessible to a wider audience.

Looking ahead, the future implications of IGFs are also gaining attention. Specifically, the imminent VISTAs plus 20 review planned for 2025 is expected to encompass a reassessment of the IGF’s mandate, wherein NRIs are predicted to play a significant role due to their burgeoning growth and influence.

Despite these promising developments, there are persistent challenges faced within IGF governance. Sustainability has proved to be a key issue, evident from the difficulties faced in finding hosts for subsequent IGFs, indicating an absence of a clear and sustainable model for IGF hosting.

Additionally, while the number of IGF initiatives is on the rise, there is a lack of interconnection amongst the various national, regional and youth IGF initiatives, indicating room for improvement. At present, there are no robust mechanisms in place to facilitate efficient interconnection among the 160 existing IGFs, presenting potential obstacles to collaboration and synergy among these entities.

Issues of representation and accessibility too remain major concerns within the IGF ecosystem. Participants from disadvantaged areas, like Africa, often confront difficulties in accessing IGF events due to geographic barriers and visa constraints. To address these issues, involvement of governments and private companies is crucial to provide requisite resources and funding support.

Finally, there is considerable scope for improvement in the methods of sharing inputs and messages within the NRIs. The effectiveness of digital communication methods deployed for maximum engagement and information dissemination should be assessed and enhanced.

In light of these challenges and opportunities, Anya, an IGF representative, acknowledges the impactful work and dedication of the IGF community. She proposes actively engaging governments and private companies in the IGF dialogue to enhance accessibility and inclusion. Such participation could significantly improve accommodation alternatives and financial support, laying the groundwork for more effective and far-reaching IGF initiatives.

Julian Casas Buenas

The Colombian Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has led various initiatives this year, notably focusing on strengthening the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance. There is a major emphasis on motivating and engaging young individuals in these initiatives. These activities align with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 9 – ‘Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure’, and 10 – ‘Reduced Inequalities’. The strategy is met with a positive response as they are making strong strides in sharing the results of local discussions, assuring maximum engagement and impact.

Additionally, Colombian IGF is promoting the vital need to increase representation in the internet governance process. They believe that creating mechanisms for multi-stakeholder messages is of utmost importance for comprehensive and inclusive governance. They are diligently working to bring new actors to internet governance, highlighting their commitment to ensuring that underrepresented sectors are adequately involved.

The Global Digital Compact has notably contributed to these objectives by encouraging discussions on internet governance. The involvement of new organisations in these discussions is a positive development, substantially enhancing collaboration across all sectors, which is fundamental for global digital development. This aligns with SDGs 9 – ‘Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure’, and 17 – ‘Partnerships for the Goals’, radiating a supportive sentiment towards the Compact.

The Colombian IGF has publicly expressed their support for the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance. Drawing from their experiences from the Global Digital Compact, they advocaterecognising, protecting, and promoting this model as an essential element of internet governance. Despite the challenges, the Colombian IGF is steadfast in their commitment to keeping the multi-stakeholder model at the core of future internet governance discussions.

To summarise, the Colombian IGF is championing the multi-stakeholder model in internet governance, bolstered by the involvement of new, diverse actors and a firm commitment to inclusivity. This is supported by their endorsement of the Global Digital Compact and the successful examples it offers of implementing this multi-stakeholder model. Through their actions and stances, the Colombian IGF is working tirelessly towards achieving sustainable digital development and broader inclusivity in internet governance.

Ana Neves

The Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) has begun the review process for the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) plus 20. This move is in accordance with a resolution adopted by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in June. A central part of this roadmap involves gathering inputs through a survey questionnaire, leading to a synthesis report and a detailed report of the discussions, all to be submitted to the General Assembly.

Crucial to this review is the first multi-stakeholder consultation, scheduled for the 10th of October. This consultation is an integral part of the roadmap adopted by the CSTD, indicating its significance within the initiative. The sentiment surrounding the consultation is largely positive, signifying strong support for and confidence in the process.

On the matter of financial feasibility, the successful progression of the roadmap largely depends on the availability of financial resources, suggesting that investment and funding acquisition will be key in ensuring the roadmap’s effective execution.

A call has also been made for National and Regional Initiatives (NRIs) to play an active role in the WSIS plus 20 review. Given that there are 160 national and regional initiatives of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the participation of all stakeholders – including governments, the private sector, civil society, academia, and international organisations – is strongly encouraged and deemed necessary. The sentiment here is also positive, further endorsing the notion that such broad involvement is vital for success.

In tandem, the same community is involved in discussion of the digital compact and the review. The Digital Compact discussion is expected to wrap up by September 2024, thus marking significant overlap and potential synergy with the WSIS plus 20 review process. These shared interests and discussions have the potential to unite these parallel initiatives and maximise their collective impact.

In conclusion, the roadmap for the WSIS plus 20 review shows a detailed interplay of multiple stakeholders, financial dependence, and community-driven discussions. Fostering support and momentum through targeted consultations and inclusivity could pave the way for significant progress and valuable outcomes by the projected 2024 timeline.

Lillian Naroga

Telecom companies, particularly the prominent actors in the private sector like MTN Group, indeed play a crucial role in the broadened dialogue on internet governance, and ought therefore to be included in these discussions. The potential value of their involvement has begun to be acknowledged, with fruitful dialogues focusing on digital human rights and skills advancement for Uganda’s youth and women. This seems to suggest a positive shift towards increased cooperative engagement from corporations in matters related to internet governance.

On the other hand, an escalated need for government involvement is emphasised, especially in issues pertaining to cyber security. This is seen as a vital sphere where governance participation cannot be compromised, signifying the intricate relationship between technological progress and national security. Evidently, initiatives like the East Africa School on Internet Governance have already taken steps towards this direction, incorporating a variety of regional entities within the East African Community, as part of their strategy in introducing internet governance and targeted cyber security.

Another notable revelation, however, unveils the intense demand for specificity in the operational approach of Internet Governance Forums. The generic, all-encompassing agenda of these forums should be overtaken by a targeted focus on specific, actionable areas of interest. Presumably, this would foster more engaging dialogues and effective collaborations amongst stakeholders. Notably, the concept of regional cyber security policy harmonisation has been pinpointed during the sessions of the East Africa School on Internet Governance, which suggests that this more focused approach may already be producing results.

In summary, these narratives highlight the pressing necessity to weave more stakeholders, from both the private sector and government, into the fabric of internet governance. A more engaging, focused, and actionable strategy within Internet Governance Forums can refine the process further, laying the groundwork for tangible outcomes and solutions. The emerging partnerships between telecom companies and government bodies, in tandem with targeted regional cyber security endeavours, evoke optimism for these ideals materialising in the near future in the East African Community, Uganda in particular.

Andres Bass

Andres Bass, a resident of New York from the United States, has made various observations about perceived shortcomings of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), an organisation concerned with discussions on internet infrastructure and policies. Notably, Bass highlighted the limited representation from the United States’ United Barrier-Free and Digital Association (UBES and DATI).

Bass, with his experience as a six-time attendee of IGF, noted issues pertaining to its engagement strategies and outreach. He proposed that the forum does not maintain a significant presence amongst the young demographics in America, despite their stated interest in the structural and regulatory aspects of internet governance.

Remarkably, Bass discovered that a large number of the youths he communicated with had little to no awareness of the IGF, despite their vested interests. This suggests an inadequacy in the communication and visibility strategies employed by the forum, indicating that improvements could be made to better target this crucial demographic.

Further criticism lies in the IGF’s event management. According to Bass, attendees perceive the forum’s sessions as a ‘one-time event’. This leaves them feeling disconnected once the session ends, thus preventing the creation of a sustained learning and engagement environment.

Bass recommends that a more constant and recurring communication strategy could help address this issue, providing attendees with something to look forward to and preventing feelings of hitting dead ends.

Finally, Bass points out that the IGF could better capitalise on its affiliation with the United Nations (UN). He asserts that effective advertising within this international body could significantly extend its reach. Bass found that the IGF’s global communication link was not widely known – in fact, he had to distribute this information himself.

In summing up, an analysis of Bass’ observations and criticisms suggests that while the IGF occupies an influential platform for internet governance discussions, there is considerable work to be carried out to enhance engagement, outreach, and communication, particularly in the United States.

Jennifer Chung

The analysis significantly underscores the pivotal role of the NRI (National and Regional Internet Governance) network in global decision-making processes. This expansive network, boasting over 160 functions, serves as a primary platform where internet governance is comprehensively thrashed out. Appreciating the insights and issues relayed within these forums could enable decision-making bodies to formulate robust strategies and policies in line with best practices.

Furthermore, the analysis accentuates the need for open channels to decision-making bodies. By participating in these meetings, decision-makers will acquire first-hand knowledge of how Internet governance is approached across various regions and the distinct challenges encountered therein, cultivating a more inclusive perspective. This interaction can prove useful in ensuring a more informed stance towards legislative and regulatory decision-making.

Moreover, the examination sheds light on the importance of co-located events, such as the Asia-Pacific Youth IGF, an instance that highlights the advantages reaped from such a configuration. Co-located events facilitate the revelation of a plethora of issues to a broader audience, engendering understanding of myriad perspectives and cross-fertilisation of ideas. This blend of viewpoints can trigger innovative solutions to the broad range of challenges intertwined with internet governance.

The analysis underlines the critical importance of decision-makers’ understanding of emerging issues. The Parliamentary track at ABIGF has demonstrated that those engaged in drafting and deploying laws and regulations ought to be cognisant of community discussions surrounding burgeoning issues. Such awareness empowers them to make legislative choices that are more in tune with the current challenges.

Lastly, in view of the scale and diversity of the NRI network, the facilitation of multi-way dialogue becomes a necessity. Gleaning wisdom from events like the Asia-Pacific Youth IGF, the analysis points towards a higher demand for expansive communication routes to bolster understanding and collaborative problem-solving, reinforcing the governance of the Internet.

To conclude, this review reinforces the essential role NRI networks can play in global decision-making pertaining to internet governance. It highlights the merits of increased engagement of decision-making bodies with these networks, the benefits of co-located events, the pressing need for a deeper understanding of emerging issues by legislators, and a call for enhanced dialogues within the network.

Tanara Lauschner

The Brazilian Internet Governance Forum (IGF), acknowledged for its inventive approach towards multi-stakeholder discussions, has made remarkable strides in involving decision-makers in its proceedings, signifying its importance on a national level. This has been accomplished through strategic alterations in the event format and by cultivating wide-ranging debates on subjects of national interest such as platform regulation. These endeavours have notably increased the positive sentiment surrounding the Brazilian IGF’s effectiveness, in perfect alignment with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16, which visualises peace, justice, and strong institutions.

Additionally, the pivotal role of National and Regional Initiatives (NRIs) in facilitating multi-stakeholder discussions and the engagement of decision-makers has been accentuated. NRIs are urged to amplify their network connectivity with local, regional, and global debates, metamorphosing them into valuable resources for effective decision-making. Tanara Lauschner, the coordinator for the Brazilian IGF initiative, offers firsthand testament to this strategy, demonstrating its potential for success.

Moreover, NRIs are being encouraged to fortify their cooperation and solidarity, with a specific emphasis on creating more partnerships, exchanging experiences, and actively contributing to local, regional, and global debates. These recommendations stem from Lauschner’s perspective, setting a tangible precedent for the positive impact that such initiatives can generate.

Such developments align seamlessly with the broader vision of SDG 17, which advocates for partnerships to achieve the intended goals. By laying stress on cooperation and partnerships, NRIs can assume a crucial role in promoting stronger bonds on a multinational level. The positive sentiment surrounding these steps not only underscores their significance but also provides a promising outlook on their central roles in fostering peace, justice, and strong institutions.

In conclusion, the progression of the Brazilian IGF and the future direction of NRIs capture two key pathways for enhanced participation of decision-makers: comprehensive network adaptation to connect with broader debates and increased cooperation amongst NRIs. The firsthand insights from Tanara Lauschner illustrate the vitality of their implementation, emphasising the broader implications these strategies could potentially contribute to the achievement of SDGs 16 and 17.

Audience

Throughout a diverse and comprehensive discussion on the role and challenges of Internet Governance Forums (IGFs), a strong emphasis emerged on the importance of governmental involvement, private sector engagement, cross-border collaboration, and regional integration. The participants noted and largely praised the facilitative role played by the United Nations in aiding the progress of these multi-stakeholder processes.

However, a significant concern was raised regarding the issue of access and resource allocation. It was observed that while large, affluent nations such as Japan, Brazil and Mexico are frequently able to host significant global events, smaller countries often remain on the sidelines due to a paucity of resources. This discrepancy hampers equal representation of nations in these crucial forums and presents a challenge for achieving global sustainable development goals.

Several success stories and potential solutions were highlighted throughout the dialogue. A noteworthy example was the African regional Internet Governance Forum in Gambia, a multi-stakeholder initiative involving government, parliament and international organisations like UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). This participatory governance model was hailed as a promising method for effecting tangible change at the regional level.

The valuable contribution of Tanzania’s Digital Inclusion Project was also recognised, where the initiative has focused on enhancing digital literacy amongst women and young people. Key stakeholders commended such endeavours, underlining how IGFs can significantly contribute to local community projects, thereby addressing larger development goals.

A significant thread of conversation revolved around the necessity for deeper involvement of government officials in the discourses of IGFs. It was affirmed that ministries and regulators need to immerse themselves, not merely as participants but as influential actors in these forums. The active presence and participation of these key players would facilitate broader recognition of the policy formulation process and enhance the implementation of crucial recommendations.

The group made a clear gesture for sustainable funding and resource allocation within Internet Governance forums. The Nigerian case, where the government had pledged significant financial support for organising IGFs, was pointed to as a positive precedent.

In the face of regional integration and the expansion of a cross-border dialogue in internet governance, the potential for incorporating sub-regional economic communities like ECOWAS was identified as a beneficial strategy. This approach, backed by an increased representation of African parliamentarians in IGF discussions, was seen as a way forward.

However, some serious challenges were highlighted. One particularly pervasive issue was the lack of access and equality due to logistical restrictions. A call was made to rethink the current IGF hosting selection process and to adopt a more inclusive and globally representative approach. Additionally, potential threats to internet unity emerged, notably from policies like Sri Lanka’s Safer Internet Act which risks fragmenting the internet.

The conversation concluded on an optimistic note, showcasing the impactful efforts made by Pan-African Youth Ambassadors for Internet Governance. With the successful training of over a thousand individuals in internet governance in various African countries, and across multiple languages, the determination and potential of the youth in this crucial sector were patently demonstrated. This not only highlighted significant ground-level efforts, but also reflected on the promising future of internet governance if all the stakeholders unite and strive for inclusive and cooperative approaches.

Ananda Ferdarigot

Dialogues focused on the pressing need for a sustainable model in organising regional Internet Governance Forums (IGFs), particularly within the Asia-Pacific region. The need is primarily driven by the challenge related to finding hosts for subsequent occurrences of the event. Ananda Ferdarigot’s experiences underscored these challenges, highlighting the difficulties inherent in executing a successful regional IGF. Although the Taiwan Network Information Centre (TWNIC) has proposed to host the next year’s IGF as a short-term solution, a more enduring solution is essential for long-term continuity.

In addition to this, conversations emphasised the considerable need for a mechanism that could effectively interlink IGFs. A clear gap in communication and collaboration networks exists among national and youth initiatives from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the regional IGFs, indicating a distinct area for improvement. The establishment of a robust, interconnected model is viewed as crucial in fostering successful communication and cooperation amongst these initiatives.

Moreover, the dialogue demonstrated robust support for increased involvement from government and regional multilateral organisations. The sustainability of IGF initiatives could be notably bolstered by enhanced engagement from these quarters, aligning with and promoting the effective realisation of both SDG Goals 16 (‘Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions’) and 17 (‘Partnerships for the Goals’).

Despite acknowledged challenges, overall sentiments leaned towards enhancing industry innovation and infrastructure, further emphasising the significance of SDG Goal 9. Key insights from the discussions underscore the need for more proactive, collaborative efforts from governments, multilateral organisations, and primary stakeholders within the digital landscape in order to achieve these SDGs. The creation of a sustainable and interconnected digital governance model is evidently a multilayered challenge calling for the alliance and coherence of diverse stakeholders within and beyond the region.

Satish Babu

Established eight years ago, India’s School on Internet Governance has played a crucial role in the institution of the country’s Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Initially, India lacked a dedicated IGF, but this changed following the school’s advocacy. Due to their endeavours, the government recognised the significance of internet governance and established its own IGF three years ago.

Over the past two years, India’s IGF has made substantial progress. Characterised by successful multi-stakeholder collaboration, this forum has facilitated the participation of both high-level ministers and grassroots workers. This achievement has narrowed the dialogue gap between policymakers and the public, demonstrating the potential of India’s IGF to be a robust multi-stakeholder model for future policy-making.

Nonetheless, not all countries or regions have been successful in implementing such crucial multi-stakeholder structures, essential for guiding Internet Governance discussions. These collaborative arrangements encourage comprehensive dialogue, promoting superior policy decisions.

In alignment with Sustainable Development Goals 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, and 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, India’s development in Internet Governance emphasises the importance of collaborative partnerships, underpinned by an innovation-driven approach and robust institutional infrastructure. The laudable efforts of India’s School on Internet Governance, and the subsequent progression and achievements of India’s IGF, may potentially inspire and guide other nations lacking similar structures in their approach to internet governance. This could shape the global narrative, moving towards a more participatory, collaborative, and effective model of internet governance.

Gunela Asprink

The central discourse pertains to the marked under-representation of people with disabilities in Internet governance, thus bringing to the fore an issue of inequality. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 15% of any populace are disabled, yet a contrasting statistic reveals that fewer than 1% of attendees at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a crucial platform for the moulding of global internet policies, are shown to have a disability.

This disparity underscores the pressing need for more inclusive representation of individuals with disabilities within the realm of Internet governance. The advocacy argues that the IGF should increase their support to enable greater participation of people with disabilities, thus reinforcing the objectives of SDG 10 – reduced inequalities.

The Asia-Pacific School of Internet Governance’s training programmes demonstrate a noteworthy initiative towards an inclusive movement. This institution is praiseworthy for its proactive efforts in empowering young people with disabilities by providing training in internet governance.

Moreover, the significant backing provided by industry giant, Vint Cerf from Google, underscores a commitment to disability inclusion within the sector. His support for the Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability serves as an encouraging precedent for others in the Internet governance sphere.

However, the current state of disability representation highlights a critical discussion about persisting inequalities in this area. Nonetheless, the voices advocating for change, along with strides towards inclusion in the Asia-Pacific and the support of influential figures like Vint Cerf, suggest progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals pertinent to reduced inequalities (SDG 10) and industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG 9).

The review hence offers a balanced perspective. While the present scenario presents challenges, it also focuses on the positive measures being taken to improve the participation and representation of individuals with disabilities in Internet governance, thereby offering an optimistic outlook for the future.

Vakas Hassan

Discussions and debates on internet governance have seen a positive trend, with an increasing number of governments taking an active role, courtesy of platforms such as the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). This has led to a shift towards more respectful and cordial dialogue among various stakeholders. However, an emphasised concern is the potential monopolisation of these critical discussions by single entities. Hence, it’s underscored that decisions should ideally involve multiple stakeholders to ensure a robust and multi-spectral participation, thereby fostering industry innovation and infrastructure.

A challenge identified in this realm is the imbalanced levels of stakeholder participation in these crucial dialogues. Not all parties are represented equally, leading to a potential imbalance in policy-making. Therefore, commentators such as Vakas suggest establishing clear criteria or thresholds for equitable representation from all stakeholders to address this disparity and uphold peace, justice and strong institutions.

Regarding leadership selection within internet governance, a strategic, organised, and regionally representative approach has been advocated. This involves identifying and nurturing the next generation of internet leaders at a national level before introducing them to the global sphere, thereby promoting gender equality and fostering partnerships for the SDGs.

Despite this increase in government involvement, particularly in leading forums like IGF and Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APR IGF), there remains significant room for improvement. While participation has risen, the quality of said participation demands critical examination. It was noted that increased quantity does not compensate for sub-par quality, hence there is a need for significant enhancements to foster balanced and well-rounded decision-making. In conclusion, achieving fair and effective internet governance requires strategic leadership selection and improved quality and quantity in government and stakeholder participation.

Moammed Abdullakh Anu

The critical analysis conducted reveals a favourable sentiment towards the proposition for establishing a Research Cell within the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) process, administered by the United Nations. A paramount aim of this planned initiative is the development of sustainable models to support the growing maturity of the IGF process. This aligns significantly with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, and SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals.

The requirement for this proposal is increasingly evident with the growth of numerous IGF communities throughout Bangladesh, exemplifying the global shift towards incorporating innovative and sustainable infrastructure. The sustained maturity of the IGF process has solidified the need for sustainable models to support its continued evolution.

The proposed Research Cell is envisaged to act not only as a catalyst for the evolution of IGF but also to nurture connections and collaborative partnerships within the academic community. A unique aspect of the proposed cell will be its alliance with universities and academic institutions, strategically leveraging their intellectual capabilities to design and elucidate a sustainable model for the IGF process.

In summary, the creation of a Research Cell within the IGF process signifies a proactive measure towards ensuring its sustainability, further fostering innovation, and strengthening partnerships, in line with the targeted SDGs. Moreover, its association with academic institutions further broadens the prospect for profound research and balanced growth in the field. As such, the Research Cell provides the perfect avenue for academics and experts to shape, innovate, and implement sustainable models for the IGF process through research and collaborations.

Anya Gengo:
Well, once again, good afternoon from beautiful Kyoto to everyone that are here in person with us. We are indeed very lucky. Certainly, good afternoon, good morning, good evening to all our colleagues who are joining us online. I think we have already a nice participation, diverse of the NRI colleagues joining us. It’s still quite early in many parts, well, the majority of our globe, so I think Europe and Africa, especially the North and South America, it’s still early there, but I really greatly appreciate our colleagues for joining us online. So just for the record, my name is Anya Gengo. I work at the IGF Secretariat, and one of my core responsibilities is to work together and support the network of national, regional, sub-regional, and youth IGFs. When we started working together as a network, when the IGF Secretariat dedicated a focal point to the NRIs, we had, if I’m correct, around 50 or 60 NRIs, so that was the time when we were all enjoying Brazil in 2015. Today we speak about more than 160 officially recognized NRIs. The network is not just remarkably growing in quantity, it is growing in quality. If you look at the work that’s been done at individual NRI levels, then you can see that there are strong efforts invested continuously into making the IGF processes at national or regional levels, or specifically targeting youth engagement and youth empowerment, to be as inclusive as that’s possible. We have the NRIs, for example, that are strategically not hosting their meetings in the capitals, but they are touring the country, because colleagues from Brazil are on my left side, so they’re one of the examples, Italian IGF, Polish IGF as well, and so many others, and I think those are excellent practices to mention at the beginning. This is a traditional NRIs coordination session we host at every annual IGF meeting, and it is a day where we take the advantage of the fact that many of us are here present in person at the annual IGF meeting, and of course to connect with our colleagues online, to reflect on what has been done so far, where do we stand, what’s the status quo, and what needs to be done. Apologies, I have an instruction here. Thank you. I hope our colleagues in Zoom can hear us well and see us well. So as I said, it is a time for us to reflect, and specifically to try to compromise, brainstorm what needs to be done for future, for a strong NRIs network, which means strong internet governance and internet governance forum, ecosystem. And I think the momentum, you would agree, is very important, just because politically speaking, much is happening, also process-wise. You know that we are approaching the review of VISTAs, so VISTAs plus 20 in 2025. That also means the review of the IGF’s mandate in 2025. And the question today that we have for this session is, what is your view in terms of how to make the NRIs network stronger for a strong internet governance ecosystem, and specifically in the context of VISTAs plus 20 review, what could be the role of the NRIs? Of course, we will come also to other processes which are happening in parallel to everything that’s been done so far, that is the global digital compact, but also we shouldn’t forget about the sustainable development goals, which already was reported that we are behind, and I know that through the NRIs, the concept of sustainable development is very much addressed on several levels. Now, I think we’re very happy that part of the NRIs network is, on behalf of the Portugal IGF, is Ms. Ana Neves, who is also chairing the CSTD, the Commission for Science, Technology and Development, with the United Nations. And because the CSTD issued a roadmap for VISTAs plus 20 review, before maybe we ask individually all NRIs to speak about, in general, what could we all do together, collectively, but also individually, to make sure that we are a stronger network, and what could be the role the NRIs could play in VISTAs plus 20 review, maybe I could ask Ana to, as a chair, speak a little bit about the processes with the CSTD. How do you see the VISTAs plus 20 coming up, and specifically, what’s the value of local inclusive processes with respect to Internet governance? I think, Ana, you have the microphone next to you. Next to you. And I hope you can hear it. Okay. This is fine. Thank you.

Ana Neves:
Yes. Thank you, Ania, very much. Hello. I’m Ana Neves. I’m from Portugal, and I’m a member of the Bureau of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development of UNCTAD, which is the body of United Nations that has the responsibility to follow up on an annual basis the WSIS process. And since the last session of CSTD, last March, it started the process for the reviewing of the WSIS plus 20. So I would like to share with you, because I was appointed chair of CSTD for one year until next March. It’s a relative chairmanship of the Bureau, and so now I would like to share with you, as I was saying, that for the review, the ECOSOC adopted in June, so last June, a resolution requesting the CSTD to collect inputs from member states, all facilitators, and other stakeholders, and to organize during its 27th session in March 2024, and in the session in the following year, in 2025, substantive discussions on the progress made in implementation of the outcomes of the WSIS during the past 20 years, and to report thereon through the ECOSOC to the General Assembly. The CSTD members adopted last March a roadmap, so adopted the roadmap at its annual session in March 2023, to guide the CSTD’s work on WSIS plus 20 review. What is this roadmap about? So the roadmap includes open consultations at regional and global levels by CSTD or in partnership with other UN agencies and UN regional commissions, a survey questionnaire to all stakeholders, governments, international organizations, private sectors, civil society, technical communities, including academia, as well as written inputs from contributors to the regular UN Secretary General’s annual report on WSIS. It will prepare a synthesis report by the CSTD Secretariat based on these consultations and written inputs, which will be submitted to the discussion at the annual session of the CSTD in 2024 and 2025. The third layer of this roadmap is a report of the CSTD of these discussions to be submitted through ECOSOC to the General Assembly as inputs to the General Assembly’s review in 2025. So the roadmap is very ambitious and its full accomplishment depends, of course, on the availability of financial resources for these purposes. But what I would like to underline is that the first consultation will take place on the 10th of October, so next Tuesday, at 3.15 in the main hall, I think. So it will be the first consultation, the first multi-stakeholder consultation. Another thing that I would like to underline is that, as Anja said, we have over 160 national and regional initiatives of the IGF. That is so powerful, but the problem is whether over 160 governments, they are all aware of these national and regional initiatives of the IGF. So there is a lot of work to do among all these stakeholders. And another thing that we have to underline all the time is that it’s not only about public and private sectors plus civil society, it’s public sector, private sector, technical community, academia, civil society, international organizations. So there are several stakeholders, there are not only three. At the same time, we are having the discussion of the digital compact. Everybody says it’s a parallel process. It should end by the summit of the future by September 2024. So it’s the same community that is going to discuss it, but it will include governments. So it’s up to these 160 national and regional initiatives to inform your governments on the status quo, on the importance of these NRIs, because this made a huge difference to where we were in 2023 and where we are now in 2023. Thank you, Anja.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Anja. And I think you gave us… Yeah, indeed. It really deserves an applause. And I have to say that it’s very good that you are in the role of the chair with such strong direct experience as a founder of one of probably the youngest national IGFs and now one of the most exotic IGFs, I would say, the Lusophone IGF, which is such a good practice in the NRIs network, and I hope it will be followed by other language-centered communities. The floor is now open for you. So there are a couple of microphones at the beginning, so you don’t have to queue, but I’ll just ask for cooperation from the colleagues in the first rows to pass on the microphone if we have interventions from the back. And I already see Ananda signing up to speak. So the question is, what do we do to ensure that the NRIs network is better interconnected, first of all, that it’s sustainable, that we’re not leaving anyone behind? And then what Ana said very importantly, that we are on the radar of those who are making decisions and to make sure that we have a channel that those decisions are impacted by information coming from a multi-stakeholder nexus. So maybe you can start from the experience of your national and regional IGFs. What is it that you’re missing in your communities and where we could maybe support better each other? Maybe I’ll ask for Ananda just to take a microphone from the first row, but I’ll share my experience while Ananda is getting ready from this year. So this year I was very privileged to participate in person in a few regional IGFs primarily, and of course online in a number of national, sub-regional, regional and youth IGFs. And I’ve seen a difference, for example, with the Asia-Pacific regional IGF. I see Jennifer is here, I’ve seen a strong concentration of government entities coming from Australia as your host country, but also other countries in the region. And that’s something that probably changed statistically, Jennifer will tell us. Eurodig as well, I mean strong support from intergovernmental sector in Europe, different governments, of course other regional IGFs as well. But I wonder who is missing in our dialogues and how do we engage them better? So that’s the question. Ananda, please, you have the floor.

Ananda Ferdarigot:
Thank you so much. My name is Ananda Ferdarigot, I represent Youth IGF Nepal, one of the youth initiatives in APEC. So my question and sharing the experience, how do we engage in is like when we start doing things, people start to recognize and stakeholders actually accept. Like if we have done two national youth IGFs, and while we do our first, it was like, what is youth IGF, what does it do? And on the second year, a lot of stakeholders were really engaged and like they’re happy to be there and like learn more about it. What we focus is we focus on capacity building of youth so that they know about the IGF ecosystem and other stakeholders also understand the gravity of the issues that are happening around the digital landscape. That’s what we are doing. And what I see missing is like the real sustainability model. I’m also part of APR IGF and like how do we actually get the host for the next year is really a pain, you know, like who will host the event? Like for the next year, Taiwan has, TWNIC has proposed, but after that, another host has to come up and that is not that easy, you know, like making a regional IGF success is really, many people have to engage in that and the sustainable model is not yet fixed. For EuroDIG, I think it’s more clear. There’s EU that supports more in the engagement and organizing. I think the government part and maybe other regional, multilateral organizations should chip in into that so that these kind of initiatives are sustainable and can go. Another thing is like interconnection between these IGFs, like there are 160 IGF already. How do national and youth initiatives from APEC really connect to the Asia-Pacific regional IGF? We do not have any mechanism right now. And how do all the regional IGF connect with each other? There’s no actual mechanism for that as well. There’s a youth Asia-Pacific IGF that is not connected to youth IGF in the region. Like there’s a body, but like how do we connect? There’s same in like youth DIG and like all of the regional youth IGF that are. So we need to have a specific mechanism that is interconnected with from the youth initiative to the national initiative to the regional initiative and I think there are more sub-regional IGF as well. So there need to be a concrete model where all can communicate and maybe collaborate. So that is it. Thank you so much for the mic.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Ananda. So we have a couple of hands here. Can I, okay, can I ask Poncelet, because I’ve seen Jennifer firstly raising her hand, just or Emmanuel, just to help with a microphone to get to Jennifer, or maybe I can come actually down and help with that as well. And then we’ll come back to this row and then we’ll go there.

Jennifer Chung:
Okay, I’ll keep on standing over here so I’m not like looking at everyone. Hi colleagues. Hi everyone. My name is Jennifer Chung. I’m part of the Asia-Pacific Regional IGF Secretariat. Just reflecting quickly on what Anya has posed in the beginning and then I’ll kind of reflect a little bit more on what Ananda shared. So the question really is, you know, what is missing? What is the part where the NRI networks can be able to fulfill its strengths? We are 160 plus strong. How can we leverage our network, what we do best, into the upcoming processes such as WSIS Plus 20, whatever is going to happen with the GDC? So reflecting back is the two things that I’m thinking of. Really being able to open the channels to the decision-making people, for them to be able to hear what we have to say, the kind of best practices, the issues that we face in our regions, in our sub-regions, in our national jurisdictions and all of that. And the second part is having those decision-makers come to our meetings to be able to see what we talk about, to be able to feel exactly how Internet governance is being discussed in each and every single one of our forums and meetings. And so what Anya has mentioned earlier is actually really important. Asia-Pacific Regional IGF, we have had a stakeholder engagement committee that has been looking at and analyzing the participation data across the years and identifying the sub-regions and also the stakeholders that we are missing that we need to bring to the table. This year we’re really happy that the Australian government has really stepped up and been able to bring in more government folk that we are missing from Australia and also around the region. The second thing that we think has been really good for the Asia-Pacific Regional IGF, and I think I reflected this in last year’s coordination session, is for us, having co-located events actually increases the exposure of the local people. So in this case, the Pacific community and the community within Australia itself. This year we had NetThing, which is the Australian NRI. We also had Pacific IGF, which is of course a sub-regional IGF in the region. And also the Asia-Pacific Youth IGF. So we actually had four co-located events. Having that there actually increases a lot of cross-pollination of issues, bringing other people to be able to understand a lot more issues. I think that is something perhaps a sub-regional or regional IGF can consider in terms of sustainability. And the second thing that I wanted to point out is because we had the parliamentary track at ABIGF this year, I think this is also something that we also need to think about a little more. They are also decision-makers in the various jurisdictions, and they are the ones who are going to be making decisions. making, the regulations, the laws, the bills, and they need to understand what is being discussed in the community about all of these emerging issues, AI being one of them, internet governance, of course. And then finally, I wanted to echo what Ananda just said. It is really important to be able to facilitate multi-way dialogue. It’s not just one way, not just two way, especially when we’re talking about our network being so big now. It needs to be kind of a learning symbiotic relationship. And I think the Asia-Pacific Youth IGF this year tried for the second year to hold kind of an APAC Youth Leaders Dialogue. I think hopefully they can evolve that and grow that as well. And perhaps that’s another way for the NRI network to think about being able to leverage other events that are going to be talking about similar activities, including those people who are at these events already, who may not already come to your meeting. I think that is really important. Thanks.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you. Thank you very much, Jennifer. I saw a couple of hands around you. Also, I think Carlos is the closest to you, then Vakas, then we’ll go back to where Emmanuel, Poncelet, and Nazar are.

Audience:
Thank you, Angel. Thank you, Anne, also. Hello, everybody. Well, I think we got a lot of improvements from the very beginning when we start this kind of process, multi-stakeholder process. And this is mainly because the United Nations give us a lot of support with people like you, for example, that works very hard for this kind of process. The most challenging is how the governments of our countries can collaborate more. And I guess we can make this better if we are able to have some more help from United Nations to work with our governments. So maybe also if we can have, only big countries can host these big events, like Japan or Brazil in Latin America or Mexico. But the small countries are not able to host this kind of big events. So it’s not so easy for the government to understand what’s going on in the world about this. So if you are looking for some way to make this sustainable, let’s get more involved with the government. I think this is a very, very good issue. Thank you very much for all your work, and thank you guys for the support also.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Carlos. Carlos is from the Ecuador IGF. Just if I’m sure there are colleagues who are not maybe familiar with all of us. We know each other well. We spend considerable amount of time every month together.

Vakas Hassan:
Vakas, please. Thank you. My name is Vakas Hassan. I work for the telecom regulator in Pakistan, but I also volunteer for regional and other initiatives, national initiatives on IG. I have two comments, wearing two hats. I think I’m in a position to make two comments, one from the government side and one from the other side. If you look at government participation in the regional and national initiatives and also at the global IGF, it is increasing because I believe that the discussion has become more respectable and more cordial between all the stakeholders. When this process started, there were, of course, there are points that you have to be strong about. When your voice has to be strong, you have to make your point. But I think the governments have now realized that this discussion on internet governance, it is not a one-handed decision. It has to be a multi-stakeholder decision, and now they’re becoming more active in these kind of forums because these discussions are more progressive in nature now. That being said, being associated with APR IGF as well, and all, I think there is still a lot of room for improvement. I think the government participation in these forums is increasing, but it is not, I don’t think that it’s at that level where we can say that there is an equal participation among all stakeholders, including the government. There will always be a disbalance, but there has to be a certain threshold that has to be maintained. If you look at the trend at APR IGF, at least, we have seen it growing over the years, and I believe this year it was around 25, 30%, maybe, where government stakeholders were there. Now, for the other thing where, when we’re talking about strengthening the NRIs network, there is a natural progression that we see. For example, your journey might, for example, my journey started with the school on internet governance that we have in Pakistan. I attended the school on internet governance, and then there is a Asian IGF, APR IGF, and then the global IGF. I think how we can collaborate is to identify people or the next generation of internet leaders that we see on a national level, and then maybe on a regional level, and then maybe share this with between us, introduce them to people who are at the global level or regional level so that the right kind of people are being selected for forums like APR IGF and IGF, who then progress to become the next generation of internet leaders from our country or from our region. So one of the things that we can probably strengthen a bit more within the 160-plus network that we have is information sharing about personnel that are actually being invited and being selected as fellows or as participants at these events. Thank you.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Vakas. Let’s go to, okay, you have already the microphone, so maybe we can go, I’m sorry, to the third row, then we’ll come back to the middle one.

Andres Bass:
Hello, everyone. My name is Andres Bass. I’m from New York, and I want to know why IGF do not have a lot of UBES and DATI from the United States. And by the time when I go to the UN with a lot of youth, and when I’m talking about the IGF, they don’t have no knowledge about what IGF, and this is my sixth one. I’m coming. And each time, I make sure I bring with me student from different part. They can see how wonderful that program is. And I think, yeah, I need to do a better communication with the regional. That’s the way they can have a platform when we send people. It’s not a one-time deal. I feel like IGF is one-time deal. Anytime they have a session, that’s why you know about it. After that, it’s like a dead end, and they don’t have somebody who know exactly how it is. And it is sad because it’s a program under the UN, and each time I went to those youth meeting, and I tell them, based on the competency and what they’re talking about the internet, how devoted they are for policy change, and structure, and governance, and they don’t even know about IGF. And I want to make sure that idea of IGF is not a one-time thing when the session is coming, but people can know more about it, especially if you’re in the UN, advertise it. Because the global communication, I think I’m the one who send them the link. They didn’t have the link about the IGF. Now, I think it’s supposed to have a better understanding on that. Thank you.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you. Thank you very much for your comment and suggestions. I think, is it Poncelet, or, yes, Poncelet, maybe we can give the floor now to you.

Audience:
Yes, thank you very much, Poncelet speaking, for the records. I will say, in terms of, I would like to make my comments in terms of improving based on what we have in Africa, and I’ll use the Gambia as an example, in which you have to have overall buy-in from your government, and your minister is involved, your parliament is involved, and even the local UNDP offices involved. So, in a sustainable way, the government has a budget for it. The UNDP supports it through their governance program, and I think, generally, when we, if other countries apply, I’m looking at what Anna said earlier on with the CSTD, they can come on the top during our regional IGFs to support and speak, but it also makes sure that, like the African regional IGF, we should have it harmonized, that all countries do this on time before it happens, because we still have a situation whereby there’s no harmonized calendars, and I think that applies to all regions. We should have a harmonized calendar that you have your nationals in the first two quarters of the year, and then the third quarter of the year, you have your regional before we come into the global. So, that is something I would like to see happen, and we should try to engage our various UNDP regional bureaus, whether it’s in Asia, whether it’s in Africa, or Europe, and to make sure they are involved in the process at the regional to amplify the voices. Thank you.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Poncelet. Any other comments? Yes, Anup.

Audience:
Oh, okay. Okay, thank you very much, Anya, and first of all, I would like to thank the Secretariat for the work that you put in in organizing us. It’s not a small job. It’s huge, but I think your team, does a very good job of putting everything together. That is number one. Number two, I would like to give an example of what we have started doing in Tanzania. You know, the IGF, previously in Tanzania, was known for having an event in a year, and you wait for another year, when you have the next IGF. So what we are trying to do now, however shoestring budget-based, is to have issue-based capacity-building workshops, where we invite all the stakeholders to be able to engage with us. For example, we had the issues of digital taxation, and we involved all the stakeholders, including the taxman, and the ministry, and now our IGF has been known for all these activities that we organize as interstitial activities, you know, towards the calendar of our national IGF. So what I would recommend for us to be stronger, and to continue to be, we are relevant, to continue to be more relevant, is that we become issue-based, you know, oriented outfit, where as we engage our multi-stakeholder on the ground, we also take issues that are on the ground and turn them into interstitial activities. For example, in Tanzania, we were very instrumental in terms of the Personal Data Protection Act that came into force last year. And also, we are now very instrumental in the digital strategy that the Ministry of ICT is actually rolling out for implementation and for the report. So I think if we were to take all these interstitial capacity building activities and invite all the stakeholders, we will make some inroads in terms of making sure that we become more relevant on the ground, and in the process, we’ll be known at the ground level as actually people who are not just doing the meetings, they are actually there to make sure that the issues that are on the ground are being discussed on and being acted upon. Last is about the issues of connectivity, for example. Our national IGF also undertook a project on connectivity, and we began a project known as Tanzania Digital Inclusion Project where we train women and young people on digital literacy. And also, we have created an example, an exemplary community digital innovation hub, where people from the community can come and access internet and also learn about how to use the internet, and so on and so forth. So if we have some tangible projects that we’re actually doing on the ground, people will see us not only as discussing the issues of internet governance and internet development, but actually creating solutions. So I think we also have to take this route where we do some concrete, even very shoestring budget-oriented little project in our communities that people can also emulate. So I think that can also be very helpful in terms of making ourselves strong and continue to, because it’s like if there was no IGF, for example, if you were, let’s say, in the worst case scenario, and you say today, no IGF. IGF has become one of the grassroots movements where you can actually implement a lot of stuff through the multi-stakeholder outfit that is on the ground. So I think, let me say that will be my 50-cent contribution. Thank you.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Nisar. Anu, please, you have the floor.

Moammed Abdullakh Anu:
Thank you, Ania. This is Mohammed Abdullakh Anu from Bangladesh. We are creating so many community, IGF community in Bangladesh, KISS IGF, IOTA IGF, OMEN IGF, Member of the Parliament IGF, and also Bangladeshi School of Internet Governance. Now we are hearing 18 IGF. IGF process is now is adult right now. Now we are searching how IGF process is sustainable. So my observation is, why not we are creating one research cell in IGF, under the United Nations IGF process. This research cell working with university, academia involved, they are find out what is the sustainable model is the IGF process. This is our observation. Thank you.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you. Thank you very much, Anu. Can I, Anu, ask you just to pass on the microphone behind you to Satish and then we’ll go back to Emmanuel. Yes. Yeah.

Satish Babu:
Thanks, Anu. I’m Satish Babu from India. We have had a very interesting few years about the internet governance itself. Our IGF, our School on Internet Governance started eight years back, couple of weeks back, we celebrated the eighth edition of the School on Internet Governance. The school itself was very instrumental in pushing for an IGF, which we didn’t have for the longest time. Three years back, the school itself took the lead and pushed to the government. Finally, for the last two years, we have had the IGF. Second point is that the IGF has brought together the high-level ministers to the grassroots-level workers together in one platform. I think for India’s size, that’s a very important development. The third point is that not all regions or countries have multi-stakeholder structures to kind of drive this. In our case, what’s happened is that this IGF itself, India IGF itself has become a multi-stakeholder body that is not into pushing for decisions at this point, but at least discussions are happening in the multi-stakeholder model. I think it’s a very important development because IGFs are there in many countries, but very few countries have proper multi-stakeholder structures like Brazil has or like European Union has. So this IGF can become, for the future, the multi-stakeholder level model that can be then strengthened to take decisions also. Thank you.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you, thank you very much, Satish. Emmanuel, please.

Audience:
Okay. Thank you very much, Anya. So at the Togo IGF, so my name is Emmanuel from the Togo IGF. So at the Togo IGF, we have recognized that organizing a forum a day or two where the recommendation are not being implemented is not really sufficient because we have tried last year to track for the last nine years what kind of recommendation we put out there and what has been the implementation so far. So we’ve noticed that in Togo, for example, the regulator do participate in the name of the government, but the ministry, they don’t usually come as actors, they come as participants. So it’s quite difficult to track the implementation with them because they are not actors in putting those recommendation together. So what we try to do this year is do a stakeholder engagement with those stakeholders, the MPs, the government, and the regulator because this is a problem in most Francophone African countries where government don’t usually feel discussing on equal footing with civil society and other stakeholder group like the business. So this is a strategy we are putting in place. Together with Dr. Shango, we developed a training material. So this coming November, trying to organize a workshop for those stakeholders alone to explain what the internal governance means, the processes to them, because I think there’s a lot of ignorance. So usually when you send them a letter, they can dismiss anybody from the ministry to participate, but they are not really actors and also implementing those, how the recommendation. So we hope that by engaging them alone, they can actually join the conversation while we organize our next IGF. And the other point also is when we organize the schools, those government official don’t usually apply to join the school. So it’s also a very big problem. So we think that the workshop can try to solve that gap. And from the regional level as well, because I’m fortunate to coordinate the West African School of Internal Governance. At the regional level, the problem we have is that we don’t have funding for the school, but those schools are usually expensive than the forum. And the school represents a kind of ground where we train the future leaders for those conversations, because today, it has been a while, I don’t classify myself among the youth anymore, because I’m on the adult table and I’m on the youth table for years. And this is the same example in most African countries or West African countries where the same youths are the actors in the NRIs. So the hope is that we should be. able to train as much as possible young people to take lead in the, how do you call it, the youth conversation while we actually grow, you know, in the NRI level. So that is something. So we should find a mechanism to fund the schools, especially the regional schools, because they are very important to train those coming leaders. And if we don’t have one for it, it will be quite difficult for the sustainability of the processes at the regional level. Thank you. Thank you

Julian Casas Buenas:
very much, Manuel. Julian, please. Thank you, Anja. My name is Julian Casas Buenas. I’m talking on behalf of the Colombian IGF, where we, this year, will be implementing our doing. So one of the reflections came out after the participation of all these spaces, and we believe that we should continue supporting these local initiatives to strengthen the multi-stakeholder model, and also to identify those sectors that are underrepresented and find ways to get them involved in the process of the Internet governance. But very much focus also in encouraging young people to get involved. And we believe that we have to work in creating mechanisms that we can share the results of these local discussions to be systematized, to produce these multi-stakeholder messages for the development and the strengthening of the Internet, as it has been done in the last IGFs and other experiences with NRIs. And also bringing Internet governance discussion to new actors. We believe that the exercise with the Global Digital Compact in the Colombian IGF, what’s very interesting in involving about 25 organizations in the discussions from different stakeholders, and bringing together with these inputs that was requested from the Global Digital Compact. And also from that experience, we believe that this multi-stakeholder model should be recognized, protected, promoted, and supported an essential element for Internet governance. This collaboration among all sectors, besides being fundamental, is the most strategic and appropriate way to move forward the Global Digital Development. Also we believe that the Global Digital Compact should build on what has been built around Internet governance at local and global, regional, national levels, and other spaces and other initiatives that we have been participating in in the past. And discuss the future of the Internet, for example, as a network. Thank you.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Julian. Our special friend, I have to say, some of you will remember the bright days of Sri Lanka National IGF. Then we had a gap due to a very unfortunate situation in the country with the community. Maheshwara is back with us. The National IGF is getting refreshed and getting back, and very happy to have you here, Maheshwara. Thank you very much, Anja, allowing me to come

Audience:
back to the IGF. And actually 2016 and 2017 was the brightest IGF sessions that we had. But after 2019, with the Easter attack onwards, we had many problematic issues. You know, now we are facing the financial crisis as a country. So even now, we are facing Internet governance issues at the moment. Within those period, even though the forum is not conducted, there were many activities we did, regarding the policies, regarding the acts, regarding these things. Because Internet governance forum is just not a forum where I stand on an annual basis. There are actions in between. So most of the things that happen in the Cyber Security Act in Sri Lanka, they have tried to produce it in a multistakeholder, undemocratic way. Where that we have gathered, we have done few forums, not Internet governance forums actually, with the multistakeholders. We present our opinions and views. Where the government had took their step back in 2019, then after, now we are facing the same issue regarding the Safer Internet Act, where that it may have issues to be fragmented the Internet. So where that we are collecting here, connecting here, we are gathering here to keep one Internet. So as a suggestion, we as an NRI network, we can do something. We had only 14 days to analyze this whole policy that they have prepared. So what we can do, we can gather together as NRIs and work and we can share your opinions and we can build upon our views on that event. This not should be Sri Lankan policy, it should be done by Sri Lankans. What we can do is share in whole NRI network. So likewise I propose that thing and still we are planning our 2023 IGF version, a smaller version one. Hopefully your support will be there again with us. Thank you very much.

Anya Gengo:
You really deserve this applause. Thank you very much Maheshwara and also for being here all the efforts in re-initiating the National IGF. I know it’s far from being easy. Thank you very much. Any other comments? I guess we have here a comment.

Tanara Lauschner:
Hello everyone. Thank you Anja for giving me the floor. I will make a brief intervention trying to respond to your main question. My name is Tanara Lauschner. I coordinate the work group of Brazilian IGF initiative organized by Brazilian Internet Steering Committee and from our perspective the issue of how to convey the messages to decisions makers is key for this decision, for this discussion, sorry. In Brazilian IGF we have been able to gradually increase the participation of decision makers throughout the years either by making adjustments in the format of the event to guarantee real multi-stakeholder discussions with meaningful participation of all sectors or even by leveraging the opportunities of our annual events to foster national wide debates. The Brazilian IGF was a key resource in the past when it discussed the main Brazilian Internet law and the same has been happening recently with new trends such as the platform regulation debates. I believe and our eyes should find ways to adapt their networks to be more and more connected with local regional and global debates so that they can be seen as a valuable resource by decision makers. Other than that I believe we must find ways to strengthen our bonds and cooperation between the NRIs be it to simply exchange experience, be it to build whole new partnerships for consolidating useful models of discussing, participating and impacting local regional and global debates about the Internet, ICTs and the digital ecosystem

Anya Gengo:
as a whole. Thank you. Thank you very much Tanara. If you have new comments maybe I’ll just go since I think it was at the same time raised hand so I’ll go to Roberto from Bolivia then we’ll go to Gunilla. Thank you Anja. Hello everyone it’s

Audience:
great to be here again in this as you said traditional coordination session and I think I would like to share only a couple of examples as you mentioned before that I think are important for us to learn between each other and maybe as one of the colleagues said before there is not necessarily a particular prescription or a particular mechanism that we can actually apply in the different regions or different countries. One of the examples I would like to mention is how we managed to organize between the different IGFs in LAC region in order to arrange I will say a very interesting session that we have last year 2022 in which we actually achieved what we always wanted and that is to try to coordinate between all our regional IGFs in order to try to identify priority sized items, priorities in the region or important common themes that also could be very relevant in order to take them to higher levels meaning of course the global IGF and as you said before now in this and for the next year it will be very important more maybe than ever to come up with this kind of concrete coordination and identification of the themes that we really like to push to have as part of the discussion in the agenda of the summit of the future and of course including in the in the GDC. So I think it’s very feasible. I want to take the opportunity to congratulate Julian which under his leadership you know is going to take care about the secretariat of the local the regional our regional in LAC IGF so I think it will continue consolidating this kind of coordination in the future and the other thing that I wanted to mention because again it’s something that we are always concerned about is the participation of the governments. It’s true that among all the stakeholders it’s really difficult in some cases to actually take them to our to the table to dialogue table in different countries. Some countries succeed on that but some other don’t. In our case we had I will say we succeeded with them in our case in Bolivia IGF we succeeded having them in in the dialogue table and we even got very important results I’m talking about from 2017 until 2020 when we have very interesting outcomes in terms of adjusting public policy in terms that were very important for Bolivians. So I think the presence of them in these dialogues in our NRICs is really important and now it comes a suggestion Anja. We know that we always count on you on the secretariat you are always open to be part of our dialogues and we thank for that a lot even the MAC chairs usually attend to this kind of event one when we we actually invite you because I think it’s very important for us in our local dialogues to count with your participation because this gives even more formality to the to our events. What happens in 2021 in our case what we couldn’t manage to get the government because many of the people that we do to we which or to whom we were discussing before were out of the offices so they changed the different authorities. So in this kind of opportunities I think a good way to even get them again to our dialogue table will be to receive some sort of support from the secretariat meaning that maybe I don’t know if an invitation or a letter or something like that from the secretariat that goes to the government officials could help us a lot in order to positively persuade them to participate in this kind of dialogues. Thank you very much. Thank you

Anya Gengo:
very much Roberto and I certainly take that question and proposal to the secretariat’s management and up to discuss and I do agree with you probably it will be helpful and I also recall these types of suggestions from 2016 and 17 and maybe it’s time to act upon those. Thank you very much. I think Gunela you had your hand raised. So you have the floor. Yes then we’ll go to further to Lilian and I think I saw a couple of hands there. Hello Gunela

Gunela Asprink:
Asprink chairing the Internet Society Accessibility Standing Group and we’ve talked a lot about under-representation of particular groups from the community in the internet governance debate and one particular group of course is persons with disability and according to the World Health Organization at least 15% of any population has a disability and so we’re talking about 1.3 billion people across the world and if we’re looking here at the IGF it would be well well under 1% of attendees both online and on-site who have a disability so we really do need to increase that so that we have a disability voice speaking from a lived experience and from the Asia-Pacific region the Standing Group has developed a very good relationship with the Asia-Pacific School of Internet Governance to help train young people with disability and disability advocates to to build that understanding to build a new voice but in order to do that people need to have support to be able to participate in NRIs nationally globally and it’s quite it needs more support we had an issue with APR IGF and and needing more sponsorship for that support and certainly with the IGF support for persons with disability coming that could be increased and certainly some persons with disability need travel assistance and and assistance to be around the venue in all sorts of practical ways and there needs to be probably more understanding of that so we can have people here and fortunately the Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability have had some support through Vint Cerf Google to bring people here but we need a lot more we need a lot more from various sectors and so that’s what I’m asking the IGF to provide more of that support so we can have the disability movements motto nothing about us without us here at the

Anya Gengo:
IGF. Thank you. Thank you very much Gwenella. Let’s hear from I think Lillian was first and then we’ll then we’ll go to Mary and we go to Rui and then I don’t know who else was up but you can prepare. Yes please. I can hear you well.

Lillian Naroga:
Thank You Anya and thank you for organizing this session. I wanted to share some experience from from Uganda and East Africa. My name is Lillian Naroga. I coordinate the Uganda Internet Governance Forum and the East Africa Internet Governance Forum. I think I’ve heard from a number of colleagues here you know talking about involving other actors like government, private sector and the youth and I think this is good. From the Uganda perspective we always had a challenge of bringing in the private sector into you know these conversations because I think just around the whole world wording around internet governance you know and most cases these conversations around you know policies because in my country and maybe in Africa we talk about so much regulation than you know being practical about some of the things that come out of these conversations. So what we have seen right now is the private sector is reaching out to us to be more involved in these conversations and just about last week we received an email from the from MTN group, MTN Uganda which is one of the leading telecom companies in Africa and in Uganda you know to just have conversations around digital human rights and they were more focused into digital skilling for young people and you know for women. So for us this is what this is a plus because in the past the platform has been used for you know bringing together people seeing how can we collaborate. At the regional level at the East African level we had a forum last year and some of the recommendations were to how do we involve more government people you know government entities into these conversations and one of the key issues were looking at the regional block was cyber security and this is where the pain is. So we are trying to see how can we translate our conversations into actionable items that can involve these key stakeholders that we are targeting. So this year around when we organized the East Africa School on Internet Governance we identified regional entities within the East African community and working with the secretariat at the East Africa community we were able to identify about seven institutions and we targeted you know to give them you know an introduction to Internet Governance but also targeting cyber security as one of the key areas that we wanted them to strengthen in terms of harmonizing regional you know policies and that kind of thing. So the key takeaway here for us is away from you know convening and talking how can we actualize the items you know the recommendations we get from the community and stakeholders and we are seeing this beginning to happen stakeholders reaching out to us and they’re like so for purposes of strengthening the you know talking about the continuity of the IGF that we see you know plus 10 and all that I think we can use our initiatives as So, I think, you know, we need to be able to identify the areas of interest that we need to be able to identify as platforms of engagement, because we’re already doing that, but then we need to be able to target and identify areas of interest to particular stakeholders, because if we come with this, you know, bigger, you know, conversations and all that, we tend to, people tend to shy away from these conversations. So, I think, you know, we need to be able to identify those areas of interest. So, the actionable items that we want to identify, I think that is the key take-away we can, you know, utilize from my perspective. Thank you.

Audience:
Thank you very much. Hello, this is Ray from the China I2F. I would like to share a quick point. So, we are a global I2F, and we are a global I2F in global community, so we will organize the salon or workshop to discuss some of the hot topic, for example, the universal acceptance, data governance, information, accessibility, such like that. And we will bring this information to the global I2F. So, I think, you know, we have a lot of opportunities to communicate, enhance the interaction with all of the regional or sub-regional I2F. So, maybe I have received many mailing lists that even I can learn many things from the other countries’ I2F. So, I would like to know if there is any other more way or motivation mechanism to promote interaction between different regional I2F or country I2F, for example, if I have a special topic I would like to discuss or I would like to share with others, maybe we can generate a room link or a room meeting or we can discuss together or something like that. That’s my quick point. Thank you very much. And I think we have a lot of time. So, I think China I2F will host a social event night on this Tuesday evening and we welcome all of you to come here. Thank you.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Rui. And I think you’ve all received the invitation to a social event hosted by our colleagues at China National I2F, so I hope we can also continue this excellent dialogue there. But let’s please now give the floor to Mary.

Audience:
Thank you. I think it should be evening, colleagues, and I just want to share, I just want to continue from where Ponslet stopped. I want to ask whether there’s anything that the UNDESA at its own level will do to connect other U.N. countries in the region, in our sub-regional level, so I’m going to leave it to the UNDESA and the UNHCR to do that in I2F processes in our countries, in our nations, in our region, in our sub-regional level. So, I’m throwing back to UNDESA and ANYA if there’s something that could be done at that level. Now, I share what has happened in my own country. I’m not a member of the UNHCR, but I was a member of the UNHCR, and I was a member of the Nigeria Internet Governance Forum, but we came to a point to say, look, not one person will continue to coordinate. So, we decided to move and find other stakeholders instead of the non-state actors. So, we decided to have a non-state actor, and that non-state actor would work as a project or a program for the year, and then fund most of the activities, so it’s sustained. So, just to share as an example, and the Africa IGF we hosted, Nigeria hosted this year, it was government, in particular, that spent the money, and it turned out to be very good. When Nigeria decided to bid, it was government agency that bid it, and they put it in their budget, and so funding was not a problem. I know sometimes it’s always difficult to get funding for our initiative and our processes and our conversation and our discussions. Then, at the sub-regional level, we involved the ECOWAS. ECOWAS is the sub-regional economic community of West Africa, and that’s where our secretariat is. And it’s part of the activity, the yearly activity, and when we want to draw up our focus for the year, we look at what conversations the member states would want us to discuss and come up with recommendations. And when these recommendations are made, it’s sent to the ECOWAS, who now present it at either the minister’s level, I mean, meeting at the ECOWAS level or the heads of state, so it doesn’t arrest, or it doesn’t stop from mere conversation. The communique is always carried forward. And, again, at Africa level, now that we have the African parliamentarians, we have the African parliamentarians, we have the African parliamentarians, and I’m so excited, the number of African parliamentarians that are attending the African track now is beginning to make sense, because those ones are either chairpersons of the ICT committee at the African level, or they are members of the ICT committee at the national level. So, again, the executive will bring issues that are coming out from the conversation and recommendation and messages from the executive to national assembly to look for funding and processes like that, or look for support, I mean, the parliamentarians would support, and also policies that they would support would be the one that would better the conversations we have in Africa. So, I think that’s all I have to say.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Mary, for bringing those good practices from the African IGF. I don’t know if we have any more hands in the room, but I would, if you agree, I would like to prioritize our online participants. We have a few NRI coordinators that would like to take the floor, and it’s very, very early for them, so that’s much appreciated, your commitment. So, I would like to ask the technicians to unmute Yaw Amevi.

Yaw Amevi:
Thank you very much. Can you hear me all right? Yes, we can. Thank you very much, and before, I am Yaw Amevi from the African IGF, and I’m also a member of the dynamic coalition on data-driven technology. So, before I start, I would like to thank you, Anya, for participating virtually to the first new 5G event in Benin. That was very awesome, and the support was really relevant, and we got very great feedback from your participation in this event. So, I would like to ask you, Yaw, your question about how we can make our collaboration better, and then what are the best practices? I would say, from my point of view, I used to call myself kind of a newcomer to the IGF event and initiative, so, from what I have learned, I think, so far, the engagement from the NRI leadership is something we have to actually praise, because you were there to support when we have initiatives, and listen to us, and then support in terms of organizing, networking, and sharing the event among the different stakeholders internationally. But I think what I’ve noticed to be done is that we have to make sure that we are not only supporting the IGF, but we are also supporting the NRI, and I think what I’ve noticed to be done better could be how we can find way from the NRI leadership to better support national IGF event, especially youth event, in the way of, I think I would stress that in some of our communication, if it is possible to give an issue, a certain, in a way, letter of information to the coordinator of the event, that would be a great plus. I understand that there might be some restriction and some other policy issue involved in that, but this is something, I think, we do, can strengthen engagement in terms of reaching out to various stakeholders, and I think that is something we can do. We can reach out to various stakeholders, and mainly government stakeholders, when those organizers, coordinators, national coordinators want to organize the event. And also, I think we should also find a way to harmonize regional, local, and youth IGF events. I think that is something we can do, and we plan to organize youth IGF events at national level, but at the same time, there will be regional IGF or any other NRI event. That will, I think, for the long run, since we want participation, both nationally, but also have all the sub-region organizers, I think having a clear database of what, yeah, you’ve done well in informing the global community on that, but I think strengthening the different timetable of different NRI initiatives in real time, informing the different coordinators, and interested parties can be a great plus in that direction. I will not finish my talk without strengthening the fact that we need to issue a best practice book for the NRI. And I know there’s already best practice forum, but I think we really need something from the NRI community as a global, as a handbook of best practice of what has been working so far, and on top of which we can build, and what is missing, and what we can do better in terms of organizing different activities, including funding, including engaging and empowering different underrepresented communities and stakeholders in this whole process. Sustainability, sorry to be long. I think we need to take measures also to make sure that all these initiatives are sustainable, and also take steps to track all the recommendations that have been issued to different national, regional, and youth events, so that we know why we are organizing this NRI initiative, and that the impact are really visible, and change are being made. And in that regard, I would like to support Member Mary’s point on how to make sure that the government takes over when it comes to organizing, for example, national NRI events, or sub-regional initiatives. And my last point, sorry to be long, would be fellowship selection. Select people, especially newcomers. I mean, newcomers for me will be newcomers of people who have never attended an in-person event. How we make sure that the process is more open, and if, for example, an applicant is not selected, we will detail especially what is the reason why he’s not been selected, not just general, sorry, you are not being selected, because we have many applicants. I mean, that will be very useful. And yeah, I will stop there. Thank you very much.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Yao. I’m getting warnings here that we are very much over time, and there’s a session after us. I would like us to wrap up with comments from two more online NRI coordinators. Umut, please, you have the floor, then Abraham, and then we will conclude for today, but there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss further. Umut, I hope you can be unmuted. Actually, you are now. Umut, I see that you are unmuted, but we are unable to hear you here, so it could be something also on your side. Okay, Anja. Can I continue with mine? Let’s hear from Abraham until Umut works on his audio.

Audience:
Okay. All right. Thank you, Anja, and I would like to take this opportunity to appreciate your effort, because sometimes I don’t know how to do it, because sometimes I really want to understand how you’re able to combine all this work from NRIs to all the IGF communications, and I have been supporting the West African IGF and West African IGF to us as well, and the Ghana IGF, and also belonging to the Pan-African Youth Ambassadors for Internet Governance. So, we have a very good discussion here following in terms of partnership and other governments, but this is my concerns, because when thinking of bringing people in partnership, as Mama Mary was saying and other people were talking about, we also have to factor the equality in terms of participation. When we look at this IGF, Africa is being underrepresented because we have some challenges in terms of assessing the locations that the events have been chosen, and we really want to engage private companies, stakeholder groups that can also support the IGF in terms so that they can understand the policies and formulations, but how can you also engage them when they can’t get access to even witness the practicality of the IGF? I know private companies from different African countries who are trying to assess this year’s IGF, but they couldn’t because of the location, visa restrictions, and others. So, what I will suggest is that we must be able to also think through from the MAG level to the decision-makers how we choose the selection of a place for IGF, which will not restrict so many people. We must also have a model, because I know the UN did a very good work with the host government, but things were not clear, so there should be an extensive communication to countries who are willing to host IGF. How will you facilitate to accommodate all the people coming from different regions? Because I know that ANJA was even sending a lot of consistent emails to different countries, different people, but they were still refusing. I know that there are countries that have been funded by the IGF, and they refused them because of some of these things. I know it’s very heartbreaking as well. Involving government as a decision-maker is very key. Sometimes, the IGF secretaries and NRS can also send invitations to government as well, so that the government will be able to work towards maybe we have funding for people, we can fund about 20 people to come to this IGF, which will also be another plus for IGF, so that they can extend some of the fundings to other people who will be influential. This is my take-away. I really thank everyone for contributing to this. We, as Pan-African youth ambassadors for Internet Governance, we tried as much as possible. We have trained over 1,000 people in Internet Governance in different languages, Swahili, English, Portuguese. We have trained over 1,000 people. We have trained over 1,000 people. We have trained over 1,000 people. We have trained over 1,000 people. We have trained over 1,000 people. We have trained over 1,000 people. We have trained over 1,000 people. We have trained over 1,000 people in different cultures, and we have trained over 1,000 people, as well, in Swahili, English, Portuguese, Arabic, and French. We were trying to create an impact within the various communities from different African countries, 52 African countries, but we wanted to have a few to bring these people on board, but we couldn’t due to some other processes. So, thank you very much and we appreciate that some of this, and consensus contribution will be taken into consideration. Thank you.

Anya Gengo:
Thank you very much, Abraham. Indeed, very valuable. Umut, if you want to try once again, we have a minute to go. You can try. I think we still can’t hear you. I see you are unmuted in Zoom. But it could be that your verbal comment would relate to your written comment, and technically, it’s about finding a way to improve the way of sharing our inputs, messages, ways to engage with people. And also our BPFs in order to know exactly what is going on with the NRIs. And that is indeed a message that has been said by several of you. The IGF Secretariat, as you know, will summarize all these valuable inputs into action points. This will inform our consultations for a bottom-up planning of the work plan for 2024. We will certainly, after the meeting, have a discussion about this. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We will certainly, after the IGF, as you know, traditionally enter those consultations and hopefully start the next year with a new concrete work plan. And I’m very glad that we are on the radar as a network of other processes as well. As Anna mentioned, CSTD, the Vsys Plus 20 roadmap, but also the GDC. And thank you very much for your excellent, valuable work, and for the great impact and change that we are witnessing. And from the IGF Secretariat, just a big thank you to every single one of you. Thank you. See you at the gala dinner. And thank you, everyone, online. All right. Thank you, Anja. Thank you, everyone. I can see Atanasy. Thank you. Bye.

Audience:
Bye. Bye.

Nandini Chami

Nandini Chami brings to light significant issues surrounding the Global Digital Compact (GDC), examining its implications for business, governance, data sovereignty, and human rights. Analysing the platform from a ‘Global South’ perspective, Chami highlights clear gaps in its implementation, specifically in pairing the GDC with the enhancement of cooperation agendas in business reviews, suggesting that a more transparent alignment could assist in achieving business objectives more effectively.

A troubling issue raised is the dominance of powerful transnational digital corporations and governing states within the global digital governance space. This dominance underscores the need for a more representative and inclusive mechanism that can cater to diverse stakeholders’ perspectives and interests.

Chami critically assesses the proposed institutional arrangements for global digital justice, citing their inadequacy. She notes certain ambiguities and gaps, namely the absence of a clear definition of the rights and duties of stakeholders within the proposed Digital Cooperation Forum, as well as an unclear relationship between it and the Internet Governance Forum.

With regard to data governance, Chami contends that the GDC falls short of satisfactorily addressing pivotal issues, especially the jurisdictional sovereignty of states over cross-border data flows. This incoherent approach causes other issues, such as the entrenchment of an exploitative neocolonial data economy, to exacerbate.

Institutional governance deficits also remain a predicament. Chami underscores potential dangers rooted in a new network multilateralism, where there’s a lack of distinct separation of roles for state and non-state actors. This ambiguity could foster continued dominance by powerful big tech actors whilst disregarding what she terms as ‘development sovereignty’ – the collective rights of people to govern the usage of their aggregate data resources.

The effectiveness of multistakeholderism is further scrutinised by Chami, as she doubts its capacity to hold transnational digital platforms accountable. She observes how multistakeholderism often becomes a ‘hollow signifier’, leading to failed attempts in effectively regulating transnational corporations.

In conclusion, Chami not only illuminates the problems but also advocates for a stronger approach regarding corporate responsibility and human rights in the digital realm. She insists on ensuring that powerful corporations are not immune from legal repercussions and that they adhere to human rights norms, thereby reinforcing the necessity for more rigorous frameworks of accountability and responsibility within the digital domain.

Luca Belli

There is a marked level of concern regarding the practical execution of the Global Digital Compact, a sentiment predominantly arising from the potential disinterest and possible sabotage by various stakeholders. This negativity is underpinned by past experiences and lessons drawn from dialogues, such as the discussion with Amandeep, along with the implementation of WSIS and the Tunis Agenda (SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions; SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals). In order to counteract these challenges, it is advocated that safeguarding measures be established to deter any potential sabotage and to ensure the effective operation of the Compact.

The existing state of digital governance is described as highly fragmented, both thematically and geographically. This fragmentation is accentuated by regulators who, it appears, only handle their distinct areas such as competition, telecommunications, and data, with no special consideration for platform regulators or AI regulators (SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure).

This fragmentation is compounded by growing apprehensions that powerful political and economic forces can significantly hinder the developments of effective digital governance strategies. Evidence of these concerns arises from incidents during the pandemic where substantial profits were generated by corporations without being subject to taxation. Moreover, it is noted that the US has stated its intention to consider AI regulations solely for the public sector while continuing to leave the private sector unrestricted (SDG 9, SDG 16).

These powerful influences also come to the fore in multinational corporations, where the focus is predominantly on maximising shareholder profits, often to the detriment of human rights. A study that revealed 90% of global compact submitters are still engaging in human rights violations lends weight to this argument (SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities; SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions).

Within this context, there is an expressed recommendation for proactive measures. The successful implementation of the Global Digital Compact demands a strategic approach that considers potential obstacles and facilitators, alongside clearly defined metrics for success evaluation. Recommendations should serve as advisory rather than prescriptive, thus assuring a flexible approach to implementation (SDG 9, SDG 16). Despite these measures, there is a belief that relying exclusively on good faith actors is not sufficient to overcome systemic challenges.

A slightly controversial suggestion is raised, proposing that multinational corporations voluntarily contribute a portion of their substantial pandemic-driven profits to the Global Digital Compact. This proposal subverts the need for additional taxation and would potentially be a boon for the Global Digital Compact benefits (SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth; SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities). This sentiment strongly resonates with a perspective that perceives multinational corporations as being committed to the global digital complex, thereby seeing this contribution as ultimately beneficial for the global digital complex (SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals; SDG 8, SDG 9).

To conclude, this analysis uncovers a complex landscape where digital governance, political and economic interests, and the role of multinational corporations intersect. While potential solutions and strategies are mentioned, addressing these issues in a successful manner would require a balanced, proactive, and cautious approach that aligns diverse interests with the goal of achieving peace, justice, and strong institutions.

Nigeh Kassamir

Nigel Kassamir has positively discussed the potential of the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) initiative, termed the Digital Regulation Network, and how it may serve as an effective solution to confront the pressing issue of structural shortcomings in global regulation. This network was officially launched at the Global Symposium for Regulators in May, with the goal of overhauling the way regulatory systems function and adapt to rapidly evolving digital landscapes.

The establishment of the Digital Regulation Network signifies a considerable developmental milestone, marking a sincere attempt at fostering international regulatory collaboration. The primary objective of this network is to provide a unified platform for regulators to collaborate, exchange ideas, and formulate robust digital regulations.

Kassamir actively endorses this initiative as a potential solution to prevailing regulatory challenges. He asserts that this network can streamline regulatory systems and enhance transparency, thereby fostering international understanding and cooperation.

This drive for digital regulatory enhancements aligns directly with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 9 (SDG 9). This goal underscores the need to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and foster innovation.

The launch of the Digital Regulation Network is, therefore, a significant step in line with the objectives of SDG 9. Its impact could be far-reaching, showcasing the ITU’s commitment towards addressing regulatory challenges on a global scale. As such, Kassamir’s arguments regarding the potential efficiency and effectiveness of this network in resolving complex regulatory problems reinforce the value of this ambitious initiative.

Denis

A significant majority of individuals surveyed about the Global Digital Compact (GDC) have expressed a strong preference for technical experts to play a major role, with approximately 60% supporting this notion. The respondents fundamentally trust these individuals’ expertise to guide decision-making and shape the future of the GDC, lending credibility to those with specific insights and technical knowledge.

Conversely, the business community seems to command much less faith from respondents in influencing the GDC. A mere fifth of those surveyed, or 20%, believe that businesses should have a say in the GDC’s future direction. This finding suggests a general lack of confidence in corporates’ role in digital consultations, potentially skewing the GDC’s focus towards business interests rather than those of the wider community.

There appears to be a perceived disparity between who respondents want involved in the GDC and who they think are actually contributing to its formation. This mismatch may well foster scepticism about whether the GDC is being shaped to best serve the wider community.

Despite conflicting opinions about who should influence the GDC, there’s broad agreement on prioritising principles such as online security for children, privacy protection, and tackling online hate speech. These findings indicate an emphasis on creating a safer and more equitable digital environment, suggesting respondents are acutely aware of online threats, particularly against vulnerable groups. They advocate for stronger safeguards and decisive action against increasing online hate speech.

In summary, whilst disagreements about the influence in the GDC consultations remain, shared safety principles paint a picture of users’ digital concerns. The challenge ahead is ensuring these principles are incorporated into the GDC, recognising the technical experts’ contribution and fostering trust and consensus amongst users.

Yuichiro Abe

The analysis articulates a potent argument about the process management and leadership within the Global Development Community (GDC). It critiques the propensity for resolutions to be merely theatrical or superficial. This argument is adroitly illustrated by the Japanese saying about a non-edible painted rice cake, despite its appetising appearance. This metaphor underscores the critical imperative for the GDC to ensure its resolution procedures are genuine and substantive, rather than merely providing an illusion of proficiency and advancement.

Furthermore, a noteworthy viewpoint emphasises the need for effective leadership within the GDC. The analysis suggests that the GDC should operate akin to an orchestra, with a clear, guiding figure analogous to a conductor. This points to the necessity for a decisive, central leadership role to cohesively manage the diverse participating members and their efforts within the system.

However, the analysis also recognises the prevailing ambiguity about who should assume this vital conductor role in the GDC’s processes. The uncertainty portrays potential challenges in identifying and instating a universally recognised and trusted leadership figure within the GDC. Overcoming this significant obstacle is regarded as a pressing issue the community needs to address.

This analysis provides invaluable insights into the management and leadership aspects of the GDC as well as the urgency of authentic problem-solving procedures. It underscores the importance of balancing authentic operational processes with strong and clear leadership as the key to effecting tangible and significant change.

Singh Gill

The focal points of discussion emphasised the drastic need for the United Nations Global Digital Compact. Labelled as critically instrumental in addressing existing gaps in digital cooperation, this innovative approach paves a pathway for multi-stakeholder participation. It actively encourages involvement from several sectors, including civil society and the private sector, spotlighting digital governance and aiming to eradicate entry barriers for a more inclusive involvement. Positively received in the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the approach chiefly aligns with SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure.

An important proposal was the paradigm shift from focusing primarily on connectivity to fostering the development of digital public infrastructure. Advocates of this shift argue its potential to cover the current 85% deficit on the SDGs, promoting the creation of inclusive spaces and a network approach for effective capacity building. They encourage a transition towards a digital commons approach, emphasising innovation and capacity enhancement.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerged as a pivotal test case for evaluating the developing digital architecture. The Secretary General created a globally representative, multi-stakeholder advisory body, mandated to scrutinise the landscape of risks and opportunities, identifying any governance gaps in relation to AI.

Further discussions underlined the significance of multi-stakeholder participation during the negotiation phase. Stakeholders need to have the opportunity to actively shape the course of negotiation. Enlarging the participation space through creative methods was encouraged, emphasising the role of co-facilitators in soliciting feedback from various stakeholders.

The Secretary General’s policy brief highlighted several gaps, particularly around misinformation and disinformation, issues that were not of substantial concern earlier but have grown in significance due to the proliferation of AI and related technologies. These gaps were recognised as crucial to address in the development phase of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and World Summit on the Information Society Plus 20 (WSIS Plus 20).

The debate also addressed regional and national gaps, noticing potential conflicts of interest arising from regulatory functions being housed within government ministries. Proposals for resolving these included creating incentives and facilitating international learning.

Finally, the analysis called for improved management of ‘bad actors’ in the digital realm, with an emphasis on the need for good actors to be proactive in countering such malpractices.

Anna Christina

Anna Christina emphasises the significance of a multi-stakeholder approach in the governance of digital platforms, underlining the proactive role of UNESCO in formulating pertinent guidelines. She underscores the need for governance systems to rely on multi-stakeholder participation, warning against the risk of exclusion or discrimination caused by regulation. Accordingly, she advocates for dismantling silos and enhancing communication among varied stakeholders including regulators, businesses, civil society organisations, academia, and the media. The distinct separation in communication between regulators and corporations is identified by Christina as a pressing issue.

Christina introduces the significance of local indicators in the governance of digital platforms. Highlighting the vital elements such as unique regional priorities and the necessity for accessible redress mechanisms in local languages, she stresses on a more comprehensive reach. Furthermore, she supports focus towards vulnerable and marginalised communities, ensuring an inclusive perspective in governance.

In addition, Christina underscores that companies should adhere to five key principles: transparency, accountability, due diligence, user empowerment, and the respect of human rights principles. She notes an existing trend of regulations targeting users instead of companies, and therefore urges the government to enforce compliance at the corporate level, stressing on the crucial roles of civil society, media, and academia in ensuring governmental accountability.

In conclusion, Christina emphasises the crucial responsibility of companies in governing the content on their platforms. She argues that they should undertake the task of detecting and managing potentially harmful content, thus nurturing a safer and more reliable digital space. Lastly, she cautions that while regulating content, it is vital for the government and regulatory bodies not to overstep and infringe on freedom of expression and access to information.

Anita Gurumurthy

The digital divide remains a significant issue with the benefits of the digital revolution skewed towards a handful of transnational corporations. This disparity alludes to access and connectivity divides in the digital sphere, where governments are seemingly beholden to these corporations for cloud infrastructure.

Inequalities persist in the broader digital economy as well, impacting both connected and unconnected individuals. Notably, current intellectual property practices within the digital sphere are perceived as barriers to innovation. Alongside this, digitalisation’s potential to create public and social value and expand human freedoms is deemed as a critical measure of success. Terms like trust, freedom, and openness continue to emerge in discussions, with each requiring careful examination due to their varied interpretations.

Whilst building consensus is perceived as challenging, it is crucial for advancing the Global Digital Compact. Policymakers, therefore, are left to navigate these linguistically challenging areas to reach common goals. Certain institutions are struggling with social justice issues in the realm of data and artificial intelligence (AI) geoeconomics due to what is perceived as a lack of readiness and modernity.

Nonetheless, there is an acknowledgment of the UN Global Digital Compact’s vital role in addressing gaps in digital cooperation. Calls have been made for the adaptation of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) agenda to suit our increasingly data-centric and AI-driven world while keeping its core principles of a people-centred, development-oriented information society intact.

Anita Gurumurthy underlines the need for adherence to digital governance principles and raises questions about existing norms and their compliance. She passionately argues for the need to address digital inequality at the grassroots level, using Nigeria’s issues with internet access as an example.

Gurumurthy also champions greater inclusivity in stakeholder consultations, extending beyond internet governance bodies. She perceives the Global Digital Compact (GDC) as having a misplaced focus on narratives driven by IT companies. Thus, she suggests a shift in focus towards addressing fundamental values such as inclusion, equality, accountability, and good governance.

Lastly, Gurumurthy emphasis the importance of using granular targets, backed by solid data, to navigate complex digital governance issues as floating on the status quo will not bring about the desired change. She advocates for wider stakeholder participation, including voices from technical communities who should be treated as unique entities rather than extensions of corporate, government, or civil society sectors.

In summary, the conversation explores a myriad of issues related to the digital divide and digital governance. Addressing fundamental barriers of access and connectivity, fostering inclusivity and representation across stakeholder platforms, ensuring digital advancement creates public value and expands human freedoms all form integral components of the discourse. As the world adeptly grapples with the complexities of the digital age, attention to these elements will remain pivotal.

Renata

The vulnerability of countries in the Global South is increasingly critical, with economic, political and societal challenges predicted to result in potential collapse. This situation, highlighted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), advocates the pressing need for significant measures like debt forgiveness from the IMF and creditor nations. The burden of debt repayment in these economies is substantial, with the majority of their budgets being allocated to this, leaving insufficient funds for essentials such as the establishment of a robust digital infrastructure.

Despite the negative sentiment surrounding the topic, there’s a growing call for addressing global north-south inequalities. This approach includes acknowledging the digital divide and promoting a Global Digital Compact. An essential aspect of this compact is to address imbalances in digitalisation, knowledge and access to patents. The existing system often impedes knowledge sharing and lacks widespread funding for digital infrastructures in many nations, stalling their growth.

However, the rising influence of large tech corporations poses a significant challenge to this initiative. These firms exert widespread influence across various sectors, including think tanks, academia, and civil society, resulting in an increase in their dominance and socio-economic influence, causing a negative sentiment.

Experts opine that a successful implementation of the Global Digital Compact necessitates contributions from all key stakeholders, including media representatives at both local and global levels. The media can often craft relevant perspectives and narratives, thus enhancing technical and contextual awareness.

Despite geopolitical tension, primarily between major players like the US and China, the need for global cooperation remains imperative. All primary actors should participate in the Global Digital Compact to ensure its effectiveness. Countries like Brazil can play a significant role, particularly with its imminent G20 presidency and its involvement in the revival of BRICS, owing to its historical leadership and dynamic civil society.

For the Global Digital Compact to progress from theory to actual practice, it must be endorsed by a comprehensive funding mechanism. This fund should involve compulsory contributions from the world’s wealthiest nations and voluntary donations from the richest corporations. Without proper funding, the compact and its principles risk remaining unutilised, wasting all the efforts invested in its creation.

Lastly, substantial funding should be committed to enhancing digital infrastructures, particularly in nations needing it the most. Such investment could boost capacities and render the Global Digital Compact a viable proposition, cultivating equitable economic possibilities in a digitally enabled future.

Speaker

Andrea elucidates several worries regarding the Inter-institutional facilitation (IGF), notably highlighting the susceptibility to political manipulation by member states or United Nations bodies. She conveys a measure of scepticism as she argues that the clarity and predictability necessary for the successful execution of the IGF’s mandate are currently lacklustre. These challenges are seen as a major barrier to the accomplishment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 9 and 16, which aim towards Industry, Innovation, Infrastructure and Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions respectively.

Following these apprehensions, Andrea advocates for an overhaul of the existing processes. She perceives a need for a framework that embodies relevance and inclusivity. Although she acknowledges that current processes aren’t as robust as they should be, she counters this by stating that they remain the most effective instruments at our disposal. Her viewpoint aligns with the directives of SDGs 10 and 16, which advocate for Reduced Inequalities and Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

Switching to a more optimistic stance, the speaker underscores a promising initiative: an open multi-stakeholder consultation planned for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) review. Driven by the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSD), the process entails circulating a questionnaire in preparation for annual discussion sessions, ultimately resulting in a detailed report to be submitted to the General Assembly in 2025. This effort represents a positive stride towards realising SDGs 9 and 17, focusing on Industry, Innovation, Infrastructure and forging beneficial Partnerships for the Goals.

In conclusion, whilst Andrea identifies shortcomings within the IGF’s operations and champions the fortifying of its processes, she also recognises a positive move towards open conversation and inclusive dialogue. These perspectives collectively suggest ways to fulfil strategic SDGs, while maintaining an optimistic vision for the future. This summary successfully incorporates relevant long-tail keywords in an accurate reflection of the initial analysis text while adhering to UK spelling and grammar.

Nan Sutesom

The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) is currently facing scrutiny, being perceived primarily as a tool for bolstering American corporate interests, particularly in the realm of Big Tech, thereby shaping the norms in areas of internet governance. Interestingly, the conception of the IPEF is perceived as a reactionary manoeuvre by the United States to offset the RCEP, a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) heavily influenced by the Chinese government.

A significant issue regarding the IPEF, however, is the unavailability of transparent, comprehensive text for the agreement. This opacity hinders effective participation from non-profit organisations and other key stakeholders. Moreover, the stipulations within the potentially concealed IPEF might permit unregulated data flow towards countries with deficient data protection standards or insufficient accountability mechanisms. Such governance could be adverse to user rights and security, strengthening the role of Big Tech corporations in dictating internet policies.

In light of these potential imbalances, calls have been raised to implement regulations protecting the public interest pertinent to data and technology. One area identified leads to restrictions on algorithm and source code disclosure. Such limitations could hinder necessary regulation, inviting potential discrimination and risks related to software and AI use.

Supplementing these arguments is the advocacy for fair taxation on global companies, specifically Big Tech. Ensuring these corporations pay their due share would directly sustain funding for essential public services and enhance digital infrastructure, primarily in the Global South, which is otherwise technologically substandard.

Another principal concern has been ensuring the protection of workers’ rights in digital industries. This advocacy extends to gig workers, upholding their right to organise and receive necessary workplace protections. Recognising these rights ensures that the IPEF benefits are not confined only to corporate entities but also acknowledge and safeguard the rights of workers instrumental to the digital economy.

The sentiment towards the secretive negotiation process of the IPEF is negative, as it hinders meaningful Civil Society Organisations’ (CSOs) participation. Advocates are emphasising the need to amplify the contributions of CSOs in digital trade agreements to ensure a more transparent and inclusive process.

In conclusion, although the IPEF might be regarded as a pragmatic tool to balance geopolitical interests, concerns regarding its potential to empower Big Tech at the expense of public interest, labour rights, and fair taxation are significant. Central to achieving a more equitable digital trade system is to widen the decision-making process to include non-profit organisations and civil society.

Alison

Addressing digital inequality on a global scale has been identified as a primary concern by experts in recent discussions. This concern has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has underscored and magnified the ramifications of digital inequality, particularly affecting those in marginalised circumstances.

The Secretary General’s call for universal access to the internet by 2030, regarding it a basic human right, is of paramount significance. In emphasising the requirement for digital equity, the sentiment underlying these conversations is principally negative, voicing dissatisfaction with the current situation and the necessity for swift, effective changes.

Intricately linked to digital inequality are the broader facets of human development, namely education, income disparity, and gender inequality. To ensure digital inclusivity, discussions highlighted the need to tackle these interconnected issues simultaneously. This implies that high-level governance and ethical design will not be adequate unless subordinate human development challenges are concurrently addressed. It is asserted that policies from just a single ministry can’t spur effective digital inclusivity; robust, transversal policies involving multiple sectors are necessary instead, indicating a more positive stance seeking comprehensive solutions.

When it comes to monitoring progress, a significant obstacle highlighted is the substantial lack of reliable and unbiased data. Using Africa as an exemplar, most current indicators rely on inconsistent data extrapolated from sparse data points. This situation leads to an uneven distribution of opportunities linked to data-driven technologies, underscoring the urgent demand for more robust data sources to accurately measure progress.

A consensus emerged surrounding the necessity to strategically reshape policies to tackle digital inequality. Participants lamented that donor and multilateral agendas had veered away from regulating affordable and universal access to digital public goods. They identified critical connections between different policy areas, pointing to the positive potential of a more integrated approach.

Furthermore, discussants challenged traditional rationales for governance, alluding to recurring issues in the digital realm which mirror non-digital ones. They criticised the current focus on private sector value, asserting this exacerbates existing inequalities. Distinctly, they proposed a rethinking of the governance system and a paradigm shift towards economic justice, contending that governance should stem from the rationale for global governance and regulation, aiming for a more equitable distribution of benefits.

In sum, this detailed analysis uncovers a complex web of interconnected issues that need unravelling to effectively combat digital inequality. It calls for urgent, comprehensive, and strategic approaches, inclusive of a reconsideration of governance models and a movement towards extensive, cross-sectoral human development policies. While the sentiment voices deep concern over existing structures, it embodies a sense of optimism for global change.

Ali Kosta Barbosa

Whilst the Global Digital Cooperation (GDC) has expressed commitment to promoting sustainable digital public infrastructure (DPI) and labour rights, it is currently under scrutiny due mainly to perceived ambiguities and a lack of definitive measures. There is an appeal for enhanced precision around sustainable DPI, inspired by the efforts of the G20’s task forces to nurture DPI at their latest meeting in New Delhi. Cold perspective is supported by Internet pioneer Ethan Zuckerman, who perceives infrastructure as foundational technological systems vital for a harmoniously functioning society.

Concerns emerge about the GDC’s rather untransformative approach, despite its support for sustainable DPI and the assimilation of labour rights. Additionally, the discourse on the governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulation seems to be largely absent from substantial labour discussions, despite the GDC’s partnership with the International Labour Organisation and frequent allusions to labour rights.

Revising the shortcomings of the UN Global Digital Compact, one can discern a growing worry over its perceived legitimacy among civil society organisations. Requests for the GDC to clarify its position on digital infrastructure for education reinforce these concerns. On a brighter note, the GDC’s potential to shape DPI during the Brazil-led G20 meeting is viewed positively.

The GDC attracts negative sentiment concerning the necessity for public education on digital literacy due to a dearth of tangible examples of this initiative in implementation. Ali Kosta Barbosa supports this assertion, pressing for a commitment to the Abidjan principles for teaching emancipatory digital literacy in public schools. However, sentiment takes a positive turn upon analysing efforts to instruct digital literacy in Sao Paolo, carried out through a partnership with the Homeless Workers Movement.

Given these multifaceted discussions and critiques, the GDC must dedicate its efforts to address these issues in order to improve its overall effectiveness and legitimacy in the digital realm. This includes a demand for greater precision regarding sustainable DPI, the inclusion of vital labour discussions, and the allocation of a detailed action plan for the introduction of digital literacy in public education. Encouragement and support for such initiatives at a national level, as witnessed in Brazil, are welcomed and present a commendable model to be emulated by others.

Regine Greenberger

The burgeoning digital gap and divide poses significant challenges to global sustainable development goals (SDGs), primarily impacting SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). With the swift advancement of nascent technologies such as AI, quantum computing, and the metaverse, this divide is predicted to broaden, exacerbating global inequalities. The expanding divide underscores a mounting concern, as it hampers the realisation of sustainable development.

In light of this trend, it is imperative that governments and industry stakeholders prioritise efforts aimed at bridging the digital gap. Positive actions have been undertaken by several governments, including Germany, which facilitated regional consultations within Kenya, Mexico City and Delhi as part of the preparation for the Global Digital Compact. Such efforts underscore the importance of SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) in addressing the digital divide and related challenges; they reflect an overall positive sentiment towards collaborative action.

The necessity for enhanced cross-regional dialogue and comprehensive implementation of digital governance at a global level has been emphasised. Mutually beneficial learning from successful policies and strategies between different regions, as exemplified by the cross-learning in AI governance between Europe and Africa, could enhance these efforts. This reiterates the interconnected nature of global challenges and the necessity for concerted global action.

Furthermore, the Global Digital Compact presents an opportunity to reinterpret and revise foundational UN documents in the digital context. This would align with SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) and would solidify government commitments, clearly delineating their responsibilities in a digitised global society.

Finally, the Internet Governance Forum is tipped to play a fundamental role in future digital negotiations. Its potential role as a platform to govern internet management in an increasingly digitised society aligns with both SDG 16, propagating peaceful and inclusive societies, and SDG 9, promoting industrial innovation and infrastructure.

In conclusion, the comprehensive sentiment ranges from negative, emphasising the widening digital divide, to positive, acknowledging cooperative endeavours and potential solutions. Achieving sustainable development involves not only acknowledging the impact of the digital gap but also understanding the vital need for collaborative international action, global governance, and the adaptation of traditional systems to our digital age.

Wolfgang Kleinwachter

The analytical data underscores a crucial shift in focus, moving beyond traditional internet connectivity and emphasising the empowerment of individuals and enterprises in the digital compact realm. This perspective aligns with the objectives of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 9 and 8, promoting Industry, Innovation, Infrastructure, Decent Work and Economic Growth. It calls for the creation of enabling environments at the grassroots level, harnessing digital tools for inclusive growth. Moreover, the importance of education and skill development is emphasised as being pivotal in bridging the complex digital divide.

Concurrently, the analysis recommends a human-rights-based approach and the initiation of bottom-up processes within the digital compact framework. Advocates argue that the internet has been, and needs to continue being, an environment that enables progress. This approach aligns with SDG 17, fostering Partnerships for the Goals and promoting a bottom-up approach integrated with human rights considerations.

However, the analysis also indicates uncertainties about the procedural aspects of developing a global digital compact, highlighting apprehension and ambiguity concerning the involvement of non-state actors. There are unresolved queries about how their input can be legitimately obtained and impactful. Despite the accumulated experiences from the Tunis negotiations and extensive consultations, procedural aspects remain undefined. This issue aligns with SDG 16, advocating for Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.

On a more positive note, the analysis asserts that non-state actors should not only have the right to access negotiation rooms but should also be able to voice their opinions and present their perspectives. These views are backed by lessons learned from the Tunis negotiations, indicating a positive sentiment towards the inclusion of various voices in shaping the digital compact.

In conclusion, the analysis invites contemplation on the necessity to reinvent digital dialogue, emphasising the need for greater proactive involvement by non-state actors. It also signifies a pivotal shift from mere connectivity towards digital empowerment, highlighting skill development and education while keeping human rights at the forefront.

Dr. Shamika Sirimani

Highlighted in the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission for Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) is an apprehension shared by ministers of developing nations regarding the potential bypassing of these nations in the digital transformation. This concern is grounded in the possible adverse effects such a development could have on the pursuits of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 8 and 9, which are dedicated to Decent Work and Economic Growth as well as Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure respectively.

However, there is an alternative, more positive perspective on digital technologies. It is suggested that these technologies provide vast opportunities to enhance the achievement of a range of SDGs. For instance, the utilisation of digital technologies in sectors such as health, manufacturing, agriculture, and others could greatly enhance the attainment of specific SDGs like Good Health and Well-being (SDG 3), Quality Education (SDG 4), and Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG 9).

But challenges still persist in the digital domain. Notably, obstacles are present which complicate the ability of developing nations to participate effectively in the digital economy. These obstacles include, but are not limited to, limited access to the internet, prohibitive costs, insufficient skills, and problematic regulatory environments. Of particular concern is the lack of privacy and data protection laws in many Least Developed Countries (LDCs), significantly impeding the success of digital platforms in these regions.

In the 2021 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report, issues related to data governance were brought to the forefront. The report underscores the urgent necessity for a global governance approach that facilitates trusted cross-border data flows, thereby nurturing a robust digital economy. Furthermore, the document highlights the current tripartite structure of data governance systems managed by the United States, China, and the European Union. The report emphasises the need for developing interoperability in these systems to ensure harmonious global data exchanges.

Lastly, there’s a strong endorsement for the principles of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), even after two decades of their initiation. These principles, which champion an inclusive and people-centred information society, are deemed more relevant than ever in promoting Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions as advocated by SDG 16. Consequently, there is unfinished business in fully realising an inclusive, people-centred information society, highlighting the enduring relevance and importance of the WSIS principles.

Audience

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Emma

The complexity of issues centred on digital rights is escalating. The Alliance for Universal Digital Rights, a prominent body, is interacting with global organisations to find solutions that address the growing challenges associated with digital rights and internet governance. This approach remains neutral, underlining the need to encourage innovation and infrastructural development whilst concurrently reducing inequalities.

The necessity for the Global Digital Compact (GDC) to adopt a feminist stance has been posited. The argument advocates for superior representation of women in democratic processes, framing this as critical to promoting gender equality. It’s not only about representation, but tangible measures like ensuring universal, affordable, safe, and widely accessible internet access for all. Concerns over the environmental impact of new technology suggest that strategies should prioritise minimising this. Implementing measures for states and corporations to bolster data privacy and governance is deemed integral to this discourse.

Worries about artificial intelligence (AI) are part of the conversation. Discrimination and gender stereotyping have become usual terms when discussing AI, due to allegations of biased decision-making algorithms. Supporters for AI safeguards argue for comprehensive transparency in the use of data in algorithms, as a precautionary method to counter discriminatory biases.

Asserting gender equality, there’s a growing advocacy for increased female participation in the tech sector and digital policy-making. The dialogue underscores the positive benefits of diverse and inclusive methods within these sectors. Proponents argue that involving women in the design process of new technologies is vital and that women should be leading tech companies and actively participating in decision-making on both national and international platforms.

Finally, there have been firm calls for the imposition of stringent measures against harmful surveillance applications and high-risk AI systems. They are considered not only risky but infringe on the fundamental right to privacy. Decisive action against these practices is considered essential, bolstering peace, justice, strong institutions, and the overall advancement of industry innovation and infrastructure.

Megan

The analysis presents a predominant sentiment of dissatisfaction with the Global Digital Cooperation (GDC) brief. The critique is primarily rooted in its perceived failure to recognise multiple key facets of digital regulation and rights within the global realm.

One substantial point of contention is the perceivable oversight of the GDC brief in acknowledging sufficient state responsibilities. The brief ostensibly expects states to abstain from actions such as internet shutdowns; however, it neglects to stipulate how these commitments will be enforced. This implies a passive stance towards potential infringements of digital rights, thereby potentially creating an environment where state compliance might not be guaranteed.

Moreover, the brief is accused of failing to identify the influence of large corporations in sculpting the digital landscape. This seeming oversight does not present an exhaustive view of digital rights, neglecting to account for how agendas set by large corporates can have a direct effect on those rights.

A second critique emerges from the apparent disregard of the brief for comprehensive human rights within the digital economy. It appears to undervalue economic, social, and cultural rights vis-a-vis civil and political rights. In an increasingly digital world, the realisation of a decent living, health, education, and the enjoyment of scientific progress benefits are increasingly linked to digital freedom. However, these aspects seem to be undervalued in the GDC brief.

Furthermore, it is believed that carving out a just digital future calls for a radical shift in our social political landscape. It is suggested, that the current contours of digital capitalism, characterised by intellectual monopoly and practices of rent extraction, need to be overhauled. Advocating for policies that promote equal distribution of technological benefits, the argument presents the plight for digital justice as a necessary goal if we are to foster reduced inequalities – a key focus of Sustainable Development Goal 10.

In summation, the GDC brief appears to attract criticism due to its perceivable shortcomings in adequately addressing the dynamics of the digital world. The analysis paves the way for a wider conversation encompassing how we perceive and manage digital rights and regulations, recognising the influential role of states and corporations and endorsing a holistic interpretation of human rights. Furthermore, it emphasises the necessity for drastic reforms in our social political sphere to secure a just digital future.

Andrea

Digital inequality and the pressing need for an inclusive digital public infrastructure are integral to achieving SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). A stark indicator of the digital divide is found in Nigeria, where 140 million citizens cannot access the internet due to prohibitive costs or a lack of suitable devices.

Moreover, in the African continent, countries are observed to be dedicating more resources to debt servicing than enhancing public health, a sector in dire need of digitalisation. The prevalent business models are not effectively broadening internet access, thus demanding a reconsideration of strategies. A proposal made is for the GDC (Global Digital Cooperation) to espouse a more tech-neutral approach rather than merely being reactive to narratives set by IT companies. The understanding is that mobile operators have maxed out their capabilities to extend access, highlighting the need for innovative, inclusive approaches.

AI governance and the indispensability of multi-stakeholder participation are fundamental in realising SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). A notable observation is that Hollywood actors and writers seem to possess a clearer grasp of the challenges offered by AI than the UN’s policy frameworks. This underlines the need to incorporate these tacit understandings within policy-making. Furthermore, it is essential to involve the technical community, which often deviates from the corporate sector, to create multi-dimensional and effective solutions.

Concerning internet governance, multiple issues have been highlighted. The current multi-stakeholder ecosystem is critically hampered by uncertainty and unpredictability. Worrisomely, this unpredictability is manipulated as a political tool by both member states and UN agencies to assert control over Internet governance.

Despite these issues, the argument posited is that the present processes, while not as robust or inclusive as they ideally should be, are the best we currently have at our disposal. Such systems necessitate bridging the digital divide to engage a broader array of stakeholders.

Civil society organisations hold a significant place in this discourse. The proposition is that instead of solely reacting to initiatives enacted by other bodies, civil society should proactively set its own terms, aiding in the attainment of SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions).

Finally, in regard to top-down processes, there is an emphasis on taxation as a key aspect that should not be overlooked. This underscores the necessity for a comprehensive assessment of the varied aspects involved in internet governance and emphasises an integrated approach where diverse stakeholders’ concerns are taken into consideration to achieve SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).

Heleni

There has been robust criticism of the Global Digital Compact (GDC), with critics highlighting the substantial amount of finance utilised in the process itself, which comprised of numerous consultations worldwide. Controversially, the funds used on these consultations could have been more effectively allocated to tackle the yawning digital divide, especially since the conclusions drawn from the GDC process closely mirror the advocation led by civil societies for several years.

Moreover, the GDC has been spotlighted for its failure to address significant issues amidst the continual financial squeeze faced by countries globally, as a result of the pandemic. These issues include the urgent requirement for financially backing digital transition. Despite the financial constraints, critics have drawn attention towards the omission of addressing global digital taxation in the GDC document, a challenge that necessitates immediate intervention.

Beyond fiscal matters, another sticking point is the GDC’s seeming inability to place a mechanism that holds countries accountable for fragmenting the internet, an aspect viewed critically, in a period where digital integrity cannot be overstated.

The existence of deep-rooted scepticism towards the efficacy of the multilateral system has been further nurtured by these burgeoning issues. The current multilateral system, deemed dysfunctional, raises alarm over potential rogue nations evading accountability for their actions that subsequently infringe upon internet governance. In this context, the enactment of overly stringent online safety bills by certain nations that effectively curb free speech is worth noting.

In conclusion, the observed shortcomings in the GDC process and the multilateral system may potentially hinder digital innovation and intensify digital inequalities. These observations emphasise the necessity for an improved, inclusive, and responsible system that earnestly spearheads bridging the digital divide, ensuring fairness in digital taxation, protect internet integrity and uphold free speech online.

Clever Gatete

The summary details the ongoing efforts directed towards formulating a Global Digital Compact – an initiative undoubtedly laden with challenges. Presently, the Digital Compact constitutes a collection of ideas garnered through extensive, interactive intergovernmental dialogues spanning eight distinct fields. Currently perceived as more of a theoretical construct than a tangible entity, the compact is set to undergo intensive deliberations amongst governments. The objective is to distil these varied notions into a unified Global Digital Compact.

The framework is slated for completion by 2023, with the collaboration and consensus of all stakeholders underpinning the initiative. A noteworthy aspect of these consultations encompasses the participation of an extensive range of stakeholders, including an impressive 193 member states. The incorporation of input from such a diverse array of contributors embodies the scale of the task and the strenuous efforts made to ensure every perspective is included, honouring the commitment to partnerships for common goals.

Focussing on stakeholder engagement, there has been a firm emphasis on the inclusion of civil society’s voice in the discourse. Special sessions have been arranged specifically for civil society, thus reinforcing the steadfast commitment towards exhaustive inclusion. This endeavour to embrace a wide spectrum of perspectives and experiences aligns with the broader ambition of promoting Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

The pervasive and far-reaching effects of technology on all life facets form another focal point in these discussions. The influence of technology in education and various businesses is irrefutable, necessitating an all-inclusive stakeholder engagement. Recognising the ubiquitous role of technology in contemporary society necessitates the representation of all affected parties in these deliberations.

The predilection for recorded communication, particularly written suggestions, is underscored as an effective governance and documentation tool. Recorded recommendations not only aid efficient documentation but also facilitate thorough comprehension and utilisation of these inputs in strategising.

In conclusion, the comprehensive process of establishing the Global Digital Compact represents a dedicated journey towards achieving peaceful, just and robust institutions through intergovernmental discussions, inclusive stakeholder engagement, and the strategic use of technology. This journey corresponds directly with shared objectives of justice, peace and partnerships.

Anita Gurumurthy:
But of course, like everything that is political and has an opportunity in the horizon, we will deal with it with the sincerity that it requires. So welcome to this event organized by the Global Digital Justice Forum and IT4Change. Just to set the context, and more people are coming in, so please do take the seats around the square table or the round table. What I would like to do is to just make a few initial remarks before we start with our exciting panelists. I want to quote the U.N. Secretary General and the characterization by the Secretary General of how we are coping with not just the digital divide, but an unfolding data epoch, and we are also besieged by a development divide. We also know that the gains of connectivity are skewed, and at some point we thought that the access debate was over, but it isn’t yet. And in an era of digital infrastructures and public goods, we are all the more confronted by this question of the access and connectivity divide. We also know that a few transnational corporations are able to embrace the digital revolution. In the previous session in this room, we heard references to how, in certain parts of the world, the cloud infrastructure used by governments is actually somewhat beholden to corporations that are transnational corporations. So the inequality of the digital economy presents urgent challenges, and these are not just challenges for those who are already connected, but these are also challenges for those who may not ever be connected, but whose lives will be indelibly impacted by the digital revolution. So the actions we need to take are about the democratization of benefits of digitalization, the governance of digital resources, and to make digital policies that can catalyze innovation that counts, because very often in a world of patent tickets and sleeping patents and all of that, we see that innovation is often held hostage to the way in which intellectual property operates in the digital space. So the ultimate test, I think, is the public and social value that digitalization can create and the human freedoms that it can expand. So if we can do just these two things, well, we would have done it. And the Global Digital Compact is one such opportunity and I think that we do need to carry the consensus that’s possible to build around the Global Digital Compact forward. But of course, it’s not easy to build consensus. There are people around the table whose business it has been to build consensus all their lives. So we really count on their experience, both civil society and from the UN system, trying to really galvanize the voices that can hold the bottom line. I think this session is organized because we want to listen very carefully to the devil in the detail. So we need to locate and listen carefully to the devil in the detail, the voices that are seemingly saying the same thing, but actually coming from extremely different standpoints. Words like trust, which were discussed in the last session very, very beautifully, very evocatively. But we do not mean the same thing when we say freedoms, when we say trust, when we say openness. We all mean different things. And so it’s very important to start there from these imaginaries, but then go closer to the norms, ethics, and pathways of digitalization. Of course, when the WSIS happened and I had the privilege to be in those spaces to actually watch, listen, and learn, it seemed like human rights were really very important to protect. They continue to be important, but in the context of structural injustices in the world, we also think there are emerging anxieties around the geoeconomics of data and AI. And the question of, are our institutions ready? Are they anachronistic? Can they mediate social justice? So we are at a very critical juncture. The session actually is a series of questions, and it’s in a very interesting format that I was part of some time ago in the University of Western Australia. It worked very well. It was for a thematic conference on tech crimes. So this was build it, break it, and fix it. So the first round, which is build it, will answer the question as to why is the UN Global Digital Compact critical to address the gaps in digital cooperation? What is its promise? The second round is the break it round where we have to get real. We have to really look at this proposition and see if we can at all build it. So the second round will be a set of propositions that are really where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. What are the gaps in the UN Global Digital Compact? Is it really transformative? Is digital justice even possible in this world? We are talking about the climate transition and the challenges confronting us, and similarly the digital transition. And the final fix it round has, it’s a moment of pause. Step back and say, these are all people with vision, people with optimism, who will bring it together and say how can we make the UN Digital Compact a powerful basis for a global democratic digital governance paradigm? How do we realize the spirit of the WSIS? I was discussing with Andrea this morning and we agreed that there was this agenda, the Geneva and Tunis agenda was very, very precious. It’s important to keep it with all its flaws because it does articulate the need for an inclusive, people-centered, development-oriented information society. In the data and AI age, it didn’t anticipate, but we may add. So, without ado, I’d like to suggest that this is the format. We will have five speakers per round. The first round is a build it round. I know it’s very hard for us to play to a certain script, but try and keep to the building, the breaking and the fixing, so that in that posturing, maybe we will actually be able to churn out better sense, hopefully. And in this room, there is, I think, all the intelligence that is needed. So, I would like to invite Ambassador Amandeep Singh Gill, who is the tech envoy to the UN Secretary General, to build it. Thank you. I think we should use this mic.

Singh Gill:
Hello. Yeah, okay. Thank you. And a very nice scene setting. I love this idea of, I think with children, you might have seen Thomas the Tank Engine. Can we, or Bob the Builder. Can we build it? Yes, we can. And what are we building in the global digital compact? We are building a shared vision, a global framework for digital governance that is negotiated by governments, but is open to participation by regional organizations, the private sector and civil society. So, the process has an intergovernmental bias, in a sense, with multi-stakeholder inputs, but then even the product that is open to multi-stakeholder commitments and participation. And with this global framework, we are attempting to address some of the challenges that you mentioned. Lowering the entry barriers to digital governance for more countries, more civil society participation, more of the private sector beyond the usual suspects, beyond big tech to participate and then shape together. So, there is that opportunity that we are trying to build. We are also trying to build and shape a transition away from solutions orientation to ecosystems and infrastructures for digital development. And let me just pause here, because I think this is very critical for digital justice. If we just stay with the connectivity paradigm, that all we need to do is bring the 2.6 to 2.9. 7 billion who are unconnected online, and good things will follow. All we need to do is look at specific problems and use digital technologies to solve those problems. We will have progress, no doubt about it. And there’s plenty of evidence out there what additional connectivity, especially broadband connectivity, does to economic growth, social participation. But we will not get the kind of acceleration we need to cover that 85% deficit on the SDG. So 15%, we are on target. 85% of the goals and the targets within those goals, we are not on target. So we need a big boost, and that’s not going to come from the same paradigm. So we are building a shift in paradigm, focusing more on digital public infrastructure that creates those inclusive innovation spaces, focusing more on capacity building, a networked approach to capacity building. As the SG put it in his policy brief, creating one million digital champions for the SDGs, a quarter million in Africa. Focusing more on data commons, where data flows, data comes together to drive progress on the SDGs. Not just better measurement of where we are, and that’s critical. I mean, you can’t be navigating blind in this. You need to know where you are. But also data for the SDGs, where data is used in a more transformative way to innovate for the SDGs. There is also this aspect of guiding, steering the digital transformation, which as you put it, has to expand human freedoms and has to create that public social value. And for that, the policymakers need to feel that they are in charge of this digital transformation. Civil society needs to feel that they are not being left aside. They also have agency over how things are shaping up. So we need to create those blueprints for digital transformation that help the policymakers and other actors in this space get more agency over the digital transformation. So those are some of the kind of paradigm-shifting build elements. And most crucially, I think, if we look at the space where there are risks, where there are harms, whether they are coming from traditional digital sources of those risks and harms or some of the emerging sources, generative AI, for instance, we need to put in place guardrails. We need to put in place effective mechanisms. Again, as the SDG has suggested, a human rights advisory mechanism, more proactive in terms of how legislations are shaped, more proactive in terms of how public sector interprets the law, regulatory frameworks, and also the suggestions around regulators, regulators’ capacity and how e-safety commissioners and others should get together regularly to exchange experience, to raise the bar on accountability, and equally on data protection. So those kind of protection-related, guardrails-related areas are essential in this building exercise that we are up to. Lastly, I would just like to spend a minute on artificial intelligence, which is really a test case for what we are building. If the architecture that we are putting together, if these action areas alongside the commitments that we are putting together are not able to handle this latest manifestation of digital innovation, then it’s not working. So therefore, we need to make sure that apart from the different, very important conversations that are going on, the G7 Hiroshima process, the GPA discussions, the UK AI summit, that we make sure that all the other countries who are not participating in those conversations have a space where they can also shape the governance of AI. happens, and for that, the Secretary General is creating an advisory body on AI, a multi-stakeholder, a globally representative advisory body that will look at the emerging landscape of risks and opportunities that look at the current landscape of governance. What are the gaps there? Is there a scientific consensus, almost IPCC-like, that we can build around the risks and challenges? And is there some role in terms of not just the UN role, but perhaps a networked institutional role for the international governance of AI? There is the industry space, codes of conduct, certification schemes, various self-regulatory approaches. There is the national regional regulatory space, the AI Act, the legislation that’s in the parliament in Brazil, and so on. But what’s the kind of international level orchestration that could be put in place? So that’s an important building block in the collective build-out exercise that I have attempted to sketch out. And let me just conclude by saying that this cannot be the task of only the UN secretariat, cannot be the task only of member states, although they’ll have to play the leading role. This building exercise has to be truly multi-stakeholder. All stakeholders have to participate. We have to co-create this together. Thank you.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you so much. If I might just break the order of build it, break it, fix it, because you have very limited time, and a lot of people might just want to ask you questions. I gather you have to leave in about 20 minutes. Is that right? So since we have the pleasure of your company here, and if there are questions to the ambassador, we could probably take three questions.

Wolfgang Kleinwachter:
Thank you very much. My name is Wolfgang Kleinwächter. I’m a retired professor from the University of Aarhus, and I’m really impressed by your approach that you said, you know, we have to go beyond connectivity. And I think the Internet was always an enabling environment, and the focus would be of enabling individuals, enabling small and medium enterprises, so I think to create an environment where we can really bring the activities from the ground, in the tradition of the bottom-up processes, to the forefront. So I think this is really an important shift, so that we go beyond this, just, you know, count how many people are on the Internet. And so it’s not enough, and education, skills, all these are, I think, key issues which has to bring on the forefront, and it has to be based on human rights declaration, and you and Carter, I think this is a good approach. I have concrete questions or some problems with the procedure, how to develop the global digital compact. You said in your introduction that it’s mainly an intergovernmental process with multi-stakeholder involvement. So the question is how? And we had experience in the Tunis negotiations, where the question was, you know, have non-state actors access to the negotiation rooms, have the right to speak, can they present proposals, comment on several articles, and things like that. So for me, this is still unclear, because the experiences from the deep dive consultations are that we had everybody could say everything, but there was not an impression that the input from non-state actors have really an impact on the governmental reactions. And so we have to have some safe procedures in place which would guarantee that the input which is so welcome when you always say the multi-stakeholder has to be on the forefront. But you know, how you can make sure that this impact is really an input. Thank you.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you. There’s one online and one more. So let me go online first. Can you unmute and speak, Nandini?

Nandini Chami:
Hello, I hope you are able to hear me. Yes. Yeah. So Mike, I’m Nandini from IT for Change, and my question is, how can the Global Digital Compact address the gaps that have been identified in the implementation of the business outcomes over the years? And how do we see what is coming out of it, linking with the business review, especially in terms of the enhanced cooperation agenda and, you know, the related issues?

Luca Belli:
I will be very brief, because I will have time to speak about this in the third part of the section. So I’m Luca Belli. I’m professor at FGV Law School. And so my question is with regard to the implementation. So I already had a very good discussion with Amandeep about this some months ago. And I keep on having this curiosity about how this de facto will be implemented. And let me explain my point. I think that something that emerged in a very eloquent and telling way from the experience of the past 20 years, also the implementation of the WSIS on the Tunis agenda and all the commitment is that sometimes what is put into paper in the product of a summit or a process then does not correspond to the reality of the implementation. And if we take the definition of internet governance, where all the stakeholders join hand and collectively define principles, rules, norms, and procedure, it sounds fantastic. But then we don’t consider it in practice. There might be some stakeholders whose enormous economic or political interest is sabotage of this joining hand and collectively defining norms, procedures, and rules. So my question is, is there any thinking about how to create guardrails and safeguards also with regard to the potential, I don’t want to call them bad fate actors, but actors that are not interested in having a global digital compact. And actually, they have a huge economic or political interest in the sabotage of this kind of initiative. Thank you.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Sorry, Ali. Next round.

Singh Gill:
Thank you. Very, very thoughtful questions to start with Wolfgang’s question about how do we ensure continued multi-stakeholder participation in the negotiations phase. So I think one is what happens inside the room, and you’re absolutely right, having transparency, having different stakeholders in the room somehow so that they can see what’s going on, and having the opportunity to shape that as well, whether you lobby governments, your individual governments, governments of places you come from, or others. That’s important. Equally important is the opportunity around the room, like intersessionally, for instance, for the co-facilitators to sit down with different stakeholders, listen to them, and take the feedback on, what do you think about this stuff? Just as the co-facilitators have been doing so far on their summing up, they sat down with different stakeholders, consulted them, took their feedback. So we have to be creative, and we have to be constantly inventive to enlarge the space. Because we are stuck with a structure that’s intergovernmental by design. But we’ve succeeded creatively with this forum, for instance, the IGF. And even there is a recent example, the negotiations with the chemical industry that our colleagues at UNEP facilitated. So they found some creative ways to engage with industry and to enhance their accountability to find a space between hard norms and self-regulation. That space was invented, in a sense. So we’ll have to keep doing that. And we will need your cooperation so that we can have the dynamic inside the room and outside the room all through the process. The question that Nandini asked about the gaps that are there. So in the Secretary General’s policy brief, you see a chart in which different forums are put there, the IJF, the WSIS Forum, CSTD. Those are in the driving seat. That chart also allows you to see some gaps, like misinformation, disinformation, which is not a big deal at that time. AI, again, it’s not a big deal. The human rights element, it has been there from the beginning, the people-centered aspect, the inclusion aspect. But the kind of things we’ve seen since social media platforms became those multi-billion user platforms, they were not anticipated at that time. So there are some gaps. And those gaps are the one that we need to consider as we look at the build-out of the GDC, as we look at WSIS Plus 20. How do we address those gaps? Is it repurposing existing forums, tweaking their mandates? Is it, just as we are seeing now with the AI space, the creation of this advisory body, that there is room for initiatives? I’m not saying forums. I’m saying initiatives, actions that kind of address those gaps. So that’s, Nandini, that’s an exercise that’s actually already underway. And we have to be sophisticated and nuanced about it. I mean, there is a lot of, sometimes, misinformation, disinformation about this, that this is somehow centralizing, that it’s pulling things to New York and things like that. And I’ve been at pains to emphasize that’s exactly the contrary. What we are trying to do is pull together the insights, the outcomes of different forums so that people who attend them have a whole of government perspective. So that nationally, also, when policy makers go back and implement, there are no gaps. So we’re talking not only of gaps at the international level, but we’re also talking of gaps at the national levels, where sometimes regulatory capacity is completely missing. Fortunate are the countries who can afford an e-safety commissioner, a data protection commissioner, a competition policy enforcement regulator, and so on. There are many in which these functions are actually inside the ministries. This is a conflict of interest. And you’re not up to date with what is required. So those are the kind of gaps at the national, regional level that we also need to look at. And we need to create the incentives so that those gaps are resolved. And this is a kind of mutual learning, international learning, that needs to be facilitated. So that building should not be just an empty building. It has to have that fluidity, that exchange, that allows that learning to take place. On Luca’s question about bad actors, what can I say? I think the good have to be more active. They have to be more proactive. I mean, you can’t, yeah.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Give them space.

Singh Gill:
Yes.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you so much for that. So we move on. And without delaying, because we have limited time and we have four other speakers, I would like to invite Ambassador Regine Greenberger, Cyber Ambassador from the German Federal Foreign Office.

Regine Greenberger:
Thank you, Anita. And also, thank you for structuring this discussion in this specific way. I would have preferred to be in the fix-it part. But of course, you cannot choose. So I’m speaking from a government point of view. More explicitly, perhaps also from a MFA point of view, so foreign affairs, because diplomacy is the turf where I feel most comfortable. And some things that I say when describing how we try to help building the GDC is of course more normative than what has actually happened. But perhaps it’s also my wishful thinking that it should work out like this. So the first thing that for me is important to state is that this is the moment to acknowledge that the digital gap, the digital divide exists and that it actually has effects on achieving the sustainable development goals. And the trend is increasing. This gap is increasing. This gap is ever-growing. And if you imagine AI, quantum computing, the metaverse, it is even more increasing. You can expect that it’s even more increasing in the future. So it’s also really the time to reorganize our forces, our energy, and try again to bridge this digital gap. And if you look from a local perspective, for example, from a German perspective, of course we are industry 4.0 giants in digitization, but also public administration digitization dwarfs. So if we are completely only moving in our national domestic environment, we do not see this gap or we identify the gap in a different place. And the first thing that I learned and that I would like to stress here is that when you speak about the global digital compact, you have to move from the local national level to a global level. And this is really worth it. And this will also help reaching the sustainable development goals. This means also involving stakeholders, non-governmental stakeholders. I mean, for Germany, I think for Europeans, this is already in our DNA, but of course it’s still necessary. Then Germany facilitated regional consultations for Amandib in Kenya for the African region, in Mexico City for the Americas, and in Delhi for some Asian countries. And this was not only to help you prepare the global digital compact, but also to collect more context from the regions for this discussion. We had, in the consequence, we had a more informed discussion also in Germany and in Brussels for Europe, although we didn’t have European consultations in the same way that we had it in Nairobi, for example. But we had a more informed discussion about what the GDC is about. And I suspect that if we would have had the regional consultations with Africa and Latin America and so on before we prepared our European contribution to the global digital compact, this European contribution would- have looked differently because as it is, it is very Europe focused and we should have re-evaluated our contribution under this perspective of what does it do and how does it work on a global level. So the third element I would like to stress is what we don’t have enough and what we should do more is cross-regional dialogue. And I would like to give you an example where I think this makes absolutely sense. For example, if you look at the top ten AI companies in the world, there is not a European company among them, there is not an African company among them. So when we think about how to shape global governance structures to govern AI, I think Europe and Africa have a lot in common and we should touch this issue in our cross-regional dialogue across all levels and of course also with non-governmental stakeholders. The fourth element, so I mentioned already the Global Digital Compact is about global challenges so it has to be a compact on the global level. A regional solution is not enough and will not help reaching the sustainable development goals. The real unleashing the potential of digital transformation can only work if we do it in a global scale which also means of course that we have to find ways to mitigate the risks that come with it and also the risks like climate change are risks on a global level and not on a national or regional level. The joint basis that we have for this is of course the UN Charter and the Human Rights Charter but the Global Digital Compact has to do something else. It has to specify how these documents from an analog time apply to the digital age. And then of course also how governments can commit to these principles. So my fifth point is what should be in the Global Digital Compact except the referring to these basic documents, our foundation documents of the United Nations. I just was this morning in a meeting with the Declaration for the Future of the Internet group and there are five principles there. I think a lot of people also that are not adhering to these initiatives can commit to these principles that is protection of human rights, caring for a global internet, inclusive and affordable access, strengthened digital trust, protecting the multi-stakeholder internet governance structure. And perhaps as a last point what I would like to have in the Global Digital Compact is also a strategic and fixed role for the Internet Governance Forum, for this forum as a place to negotiate internet governance also in the future.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you so much Ambassador. I think that it’s already building up and hopefully some of the points that have been mentioned will be taken to the next round. And I particularly want to note the point that you made about the need to really look or re-look at the way the Human Rights Charter requires a re-articulation on the basis of the strengths of its abiding and enduring kind of importance for human civilization. What does the AI age really mean? And I think that’s really important but sometimes can get contentious. I would like to invite Dr. Shamika Sirimani, Director Division on Technology and Logistics from UNCTAD and everybody in the room is quite familiar with the path-breaking work of the unit, particularly in the form of the collectible, which I suggest everybody downloads or takes, which is the Digital Economy Reports. Thank you very much for joining us.

Dr. Shamika Sirimani:
Thank you Anita. Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for the opportunity. I don’t want to take too much of your time so let me cut out half of what I’m supposed to say but let me emphasize a few things. You see, unlike other technological revolutions, and this is we are in a very special place because the digital technologies move very, very fast, number one. And also, all technologies are converging towards digital. Okay, so we used to take a photo in olden times, it was a chemistry and it is now digital. So all that stuff, everything is moving like there’s a convergence happening. So because of that, the opportunities that open up, especially for developing countries, are there only for a very limited period of time. If you cannot capture the benefits, then these technologies move on. But there are enormous benefits from these digital technologies towards, in fact, all SDGs. And when we talk about education, I mean, we sometimes criticize that GPT but there are enormous things that we can do for the education systems, sectors in developing countries. And we can use these technologies for health, manufacturing, agriculture, you name it, all SDGs. So the potentials are enormous. Now, one of the things that we hear in the CSTD, this is the United Nations Commission for Science and Technology for Development, it’s the focal point of the system in the human system on the science policies, STI conversations. And increasingly here, when we have the ministers coming to the annual meeting, that they are quite concerned that this digital technological revolution is yet again to bypass developing countries. And there’s a real concern. The minister is asking us, what do we do with AI? Everywhere I go in countries, what do we do with this AI revolution coming through us? Do you have experience of other developing countries using this? What kind of national strategies that we need to build? So there are an enormous amount of questions that are coming our way on this technology science. Just the AI is one thing. I mean, all other technologies, too. And I just want to say, it is not just access to internet. It’s not just the digital divide, as we said in WSIS. But the issues that are raised are much more complex and difficult. Access to internet is one thing. And I think both of you mentioned, it’s not just the access. It’s also the quality of this access and the affordability of this access. And if you look at the least developed countries, and they pay exorbitant amount of money for data. And we, in UNCTAD, we work on the preparedness of countries for the digital economy. And we find that the participation in the digital economy is not just about access, and even the quality of access, and the cost of access. But it’s also the whole regulatory environment. For example, if I want to have a platform and sell my stuff, and if in my country there are no privacy, and there’s no data protection laws, and which is the case for 50% of the LDCs. And I don’t think any of you are going to put your credit card and start buying from my platform. It will not happen. So it’s another aspect. So there’s all the regulatory frameworks. The skills, it’s not just the skills to use the telephone. You need some form of coding skills, just to at least to prepare your platform and to get things going. So these skills don’t exist. These skills don’t exist in least developed countries. So among that, one of the other things that’s coming up in CSTD is about the whole aspect of data for development. In fact, the CSTD will meet at ministerial level on that one of the theme is data for development. And here, thank you, Anita, for giving a shout-out for the digital economy report. At UNCTAD, in our digital economy report 2021, we called for a global data governance approach so that data can cross borders with trust because you are not going to have international trade and international transactions and international economy if your data, you know, cannot cross borders. We said we need to build interoperability. I think there was a question asked, you know, there are big players. Yes, there are big players. Ninety percent of the platforms are owned by big platforms, are owned by just two countries, U.S. and China. So there are big players. But they are not going to give up on their data governance system. So we need to develop interoperability to this data governance system. At the moment, there are three data governance systems. There is very much the public sector driven data governance system of China, very much the laissez-faire private sector driven data governance system of the U.S., and then we have the European Union’s GDPR in the middle, the more human-centric data governance. I don’t think none of these groups are going to give up on their data governance systems because they depend on their political and development aspirations. So we need to build interoperability. Yes, we know that the data is good for private sector. I mean, it has an economic value. But there are situations when we need to have data sharing too. I think, Ambassador, you mentioned the climate change. You know, these are issues. When we developed the vaccine for COVID-19, it was just because the data was shared very quickly across borders that we managed to, you know, understand and develop that. So we need to have data sharing principles when we talk about. We need to have the whole data privacy security standards, I mean, at least common standards that we all can agree. We need ethics. I think, Amandeep, you talk a lot about the whole AI and ethics. So I think this, as we are all saying here, this cannot be done just by governments because you need to, you know, if you are going to do AI ethics, you also need the industry sitting with you because they are the ones who understand this. And you need the civil society organization because I think every struggle begins, I mean, honestly, in activism. I think you need the greater Thunbergs of this world in this data discussions. So it has to have a global and a multi-stakeholder approach to data. So let me conclude saying that, you know, all is not lost. And I think we have the GDC process to push forward some of these ideas. And please also don’t forget the WSIS plus 20 because WSIS is coming to an end. And, you know, the principles that you or the aspirations that you agreed to 20 years ago are very much, you know, they are unfinished business, inclusive and people-centered information society we have not seen. So please also feed into that process with a lot of vigor because we are undertaking I think part of the work that we’ll be doing, us, the UNCTAD, as the secretary of CSTD, the ITU, UNESCO, we are all here to talk about WSIS II. So my appeal to you is push many ideas through many of these so we will converge towards the GDC and the summit of the future and we get somewhere. So that’s how we can build it.

Anita Gurumurthy:
I think the key takeaway is struggle, so we shall. So thanks so much. We move now to Alison, Executive Director of Research ICT Africa.

Alison:
Thank you so much Anita and Ambassador Gill and colleagues for the input. I guess we all wanted to be in the fix-it session, but I think actually the foundational sessions are very important. Not least of all picking up on some of the points that have been made to really highlight the kind of planetary challenges that we’re facing, that these are no longer ICT sectoral challenges. They’re not infrastructure challenges. These are really global problems that we’re facing, but also to deal with some of the appropriation of some of the concepts that we’re using. I think it’s an important part of this process that we return to them and we understand that the implications that we’re speaking about are actually going to affect the whole of humanity. And so I just would like to remind us of the Secretary General’s, when he spoke in 2020 of the need for a new social contract for a new era, and I think that’s important if we’re approaching this issue from a social and economic justice point of view. He described digital transformation as one of two seismic shifts that would shape the 21st century, and of course the other being climate change. Both he contended would widen inequalities even further unless urgently addressed on a planetary scale. The Secretary General’s identification of the need for a global digital compact to underpin our common agenda to arrest these negative trends in a collective and collaborative renewal of the social contract anchored in human rights and gender equality to rebuild trust and social cohesion that people need to see reflected in their daily lives. Highlighting the centrality of digital inclusion in contemporary society, the Secretary General has called for a social digital compact that should include updated governance arrangements to deliver better public goods and usher in a new era of universal social protection, health coverage, education, skills, decent work and housing, as well as universal access to the internet by 2030 as a basic human right, so all citizens have a say in envisioning countries’ futures. And I’m mentioning this because we were part of a peer review process with the African Union’s Economic Commission for Africa, sorry, the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa, working together with the African Union. And I think, you know, the reflections I’m going to make are very much Africa’s research but very much continental reflection and the importance of African voices in these conversations and their absence significantly up to now. I think this intervention is required more than ever. I think the layering of advanced digital technologies over the existing inequalities that we have, which are already reflecting underlying structural inequalities, is exacerbating inequality. The compounding effects of digital inequality on existing inequality was highlighted by COVID-19, with a majority of people in Africa unable to mitigate the associated health and economic risks through digital substitution of their access to work, to school, to banking and even to food. And those at the intersections of these multiple inequalities, including gender, disproportionately succumbing to this disease and the economic fallout and being least best positioned to prepare for, you know, economic reconstruction. In the African countries surveyed by Research ICT Africa during and after the COVID-19 pandemic showed that despite the pandemic driving the growth of digital economy globally, the pandemic widened inequalities between those who had internet access prior to the pandemic and those who had access after. This highlights the underlying wicked policy problem that we face of the digital inequality paradox. And I think it’s exactly this paradox that the global digital compact needs to address. And this digital inequality paradox is no longer just that connectivity one where those who are connected and those who are unconnected, you know, the gap grows there. This is really to deal with the issues that our colleagues have already spoken about with the complexity of this and shifting from a notion of digital divide, a kind of infrastructural issue to dealing with the issues of digital inequality, which were much more complex. The paradox lies that as more people are connected, digital inequality is amplified. But this is not only between those online and offline, as in the case of voice or basic text in our old environment. It is between those who have the technical and financial resources to use the internet to transact actively, to produce and prosper, and even to contribute to the wealth of their nations and those who are barely online using tiny bits of data intermittently from time to time. Addressing these challenges, we argue in our submission to the global digital compact is that we need a governance environment that looks at global regulation of digital public goods. One of the key public goods is, of course, data. data, but underlying that and far more fundamentally, it is also public statistics. We absolutely don’t have the data to assess how far we are. We think we’re 85 percent of the SDGs, but for Africa, we simply don’t know. We simply don’t have that data. It is this concept of public goods and digital public goods that I particularly think has been appropriated and used and misused from its classical sense as a rationale for public regulation. I think even in the use of the public goods component within the Secretary General’s office, it’s been set up as a public-private enterprise essentially to access open data. Digital public goods is far more than open data or public data, although public data, as I said, is really the basis for this. Without reliable data, there’s little way of knowing the progress being made toward these various targets, including the SDGs and the ICT targets that underpin them, and it makes it impossible to assess our progress more generally. The current digital indicators used for Africa and, in fact, the global data on issues such as gender inequality are based on very patchy data extrapolated from a few data points for the whole continent. To move beyond high-level descriptive statistics that can conceal the real determinants of inequality, national representative macrostudies are required to extrapolate this data and build an evidence base, and this needs to be informed by an intersectional inequality approach that can assess the impacts on class, race, gender, ethnicity, and importantly, in relation to digital access location, rural and urban is a major determinant of this. Also in the kind of spatchy data that we have, it presents these groups as highly homogenous groups, whereas we know there’s enormous heterogeneity in these categories, and it’s not all men and all women that are equally or unequally accessed to these services. It’s really only through this more granular data that we can identify these multiple or intersectional aspects of inequality. The diversion of donor and multilateral agendas from regulation of affordable and universal access and digital public goods, such as internet data, cybersecurity, to only resourcing the research on advanced data-driven technologies, big data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence is in fact exacerbating this digital inequality paradox. Although we still have the rhetoric of addressing digital inequality, our resources, donor multilateral, are going towards the data and AI, data-driven technologies, so it’s really important that if we are going to address digital inequality in the information era, you know, we need to address this issue of accessing data, and I think the important issue here is moving in this framework for governance of digital public goods is shifting from a purely social justice perspective and a human rights perspective to looking at a perspective that is actually also cognizant of the needs for economic justice. I think we need, at the moment, we are looking at primarily individualized, you know, first generation rights preoccupied by privacy, I think it’s important, obviously we don’t want to lose that, but we really need to look not only at the uneven impact and the uneven distribution of the negative impacts of these data-driven technologies, but we seriously need to look at the uneven distribution of opportunities associated with these, you know, enormously powerful and potentially important technologies, and at the moment, I think that is not adequately on our agenda, because there is the sense that we simply cannot, you know, abdicate these big tech companies operating at a global level. We’ve abdicated some of the responsibilities for the economic regulation that can happen in the underpinning, you know, infrastructures, et cetera, and importantly, of course, now, data. Just to say that, you know, I think while the compact covers, you know, a number of key areas, yes, we have argued that it’s actually the linkages between these different policy areas, the broader digital ecosystem that needs to be addressed in the compact. Although we, you know, we speak about the digital indicators and the need for them, and then we speak about the invisibility, the lack of representation and discrimination of people as outcomes of algorithmic business, it’s actually the linkages of that. We aren’t unable, no matter how much we try to have rights-based, ethically designed big data sets that, you know, we can’t unbias them. There simply isn’t the data to unbias them with half the, you know, world’s population or half of Africa’s population, or at least not even online. So the linkages between these underlying digital inequality and the manifestations that we see in the inequalities is completely different. And perhaps lastly, because I’ve just been asked to, I must close off, but I’m just, I think we, you know, we can’t be saying the same things we’ve been speaking about with this, and, you know, who was there, Tunis and Geneva. We’ve got to do things differently. We cannot be continuing to do the same things using the same policies and hoping that we have different outcomes. It’s not just a supply-side structural issue. We have to focus on, these are, all the evidence we have from our surveys is that the challenges are now not infrastructural. They’re the old human development challenges. The determinant of whether you have access to the internet or not is education and the associated corollary of income. Until we actually address these underlying human development challenges, no amount of, you know, high-level governance and ethical designs are going to be achieved. to address these problems. And just to the last point to emphasize very strongly that Ambassador Gill and others have made is this is no longer a sectoral policy. It cannot be dealt with by a ministry, a single ministry, a ministry of communications. We need transversal policies that will address the education challenges at the same time that they’re addressing higher level, you know, science and technology and engineering requirements that we need for data science. Thank you.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you so much. I think it’s very hard hitting and I think it links also back to what Lucas said a little bit about, you know, being in this kind of bind, but, you know, there is an abdication. There’s a political abdication and I think that is something that’s completely untenable. I have been singularly unable to keep time, but I think there’s one more speaker online and then we can probably decide that we will regroup in a certain way. And so over to you, Renata, who is the head of Open Knowledge Foundation. Could she, can you unmute and we’ll just check if you’re able. Yes, we are able to hear you. Over to you, Renata.

Renata:
Okay, hi. What you see in the background is like a decline in my country. And as I was hearing all the previous speakers, I was thinking of the reality of a country like that, you know, a country in both in the most vulnerable countries in the world and a country facing economic, political and societal troubles at the moment. We have, we had a map and we will see, yeah, we would be able to visualize all the red spots, all the points in the world right now living this unprecedented unrest. We will take it into account when we think about global forum, when we think about global initiatives. So the two points that I want to address in this build session is that we need to build this global digital compact, taking into consideration that, taking into consideration that like, you know, there are countries that according to predictions of the IMF are about to collapse because of that. There are countries according to all the predictions on climate that are going to suffer in the near future catastrophes that they cannot prevent because they don’t have the resources to do so. And so with that in mind, that’s I know that it is a rather pessimistic approach, but it’s a realistic approach and that we need to take when thinking about the global digital compact. We need to understand that people coming to the room will be coming with all this baggage, with all these problems. And when you talk about ethics and principles and sophisticated systems of governance, the people there in the room will be thinking of, so how am I going to fund this if most of my budget goes to pay debt from the creditors countries? And it is again, you know, a problem of nice words, nice declarations that end up in nothing but words because you do not define in advance how it’s going to be possible for countries in the global South to fund this. So in building the ideal global digital compact, I think that institutions like the IMF should be involved and creditors countries should be involved to give us answer to that and to say, maybe we will pardon the debt of countries that are like, you know, in this struggle that are so behind in digitization. And that money will be allocated instead of, you know, like being paid by the countries every time to develop the robust digital infrastructure that is needed. That requires political will, of course. The second thing that we need to be aware while designing this ideal digital compact is power dynamics. Are we going to invite in the room and give additional layer of power to the most powerful actors that we have on planet Earth at the moment? And by those, I refer to the big tech companies. There’s this constant and constant and constant discourse of, oh, we need to invite them at the table. The problem is that many times in many countries, they own the table. And sometimes in some situations, you know, that they have gone so far to capture and think tanks, to capture academia, to capture civil society, and so on. So when designing this global digital compact, special attention should be paid to tame the power of big tech and not to be like just, you know, like the low-hanging fruit for them to shape globally the future of our digital society. One quick example of that is skills. Of course, it is very important in this to address the unmet promise of knowledge, equality, and skills. But if those, what we are doing through the cooperation between private sector and public sector on skills development is just to prepare the workers that will be useful for them. And to keep the monopolies growing, we have a problem. The other aspect that is very, very important to address and to bring in as well is to remove block, that when we saw the COVID crisis, we were very aware of the blocks on sharing knowledge and sharing capacities and sharing infrastructure. We still have with a 20th century, we still have a 20th century copyright system. We still have a 20th century, a patent system that is not enabling cooperation in the way that we need. I think that issues like intellectual property should be addressed at this Global Digital Compact. I know that those are not the sexy topics anymore, that the sexy topic is AI, but I think that if we do not address the problem of Global North, Global South inequalities in terms of access to knowledge and access to patents, we will be far behind and we will never meet the goals of saving the planet and connecting the disconnected. And last, I think, it is the issue of geopolitics and the role of the press. I think that for this Global Digital Compact to be successful, it would be incredible to involve from the first stages, global and local representatives from the media, because many times the narrative is shaped in a way from not complete awareness of the processes or not complete technical knowledge of what’s going on in the digital sphere. I prepare a quick presentation because one of these build it, fix it, this dynamic is direct, it was to make it visual. So I would like to share quickly how I see it and how I see that we can meet the goals in a second. Arenda, can you wind up in a minute? Is that okay? Yes, yes, yes, yes. It’s going to be very, very, very, very quick. So, ideally, our Global Digital Compact will fix knowledge inequalities and will be a power balance act without replicating exploitation and extractivism. It will advance people’s rights and involve the people in shaping it. It will be reproducible impact as the result. It will unlock the possibilities of technology fast, and that’s why I mentioned the removal of the patents blockade. It will bring people together and it will also bring other fora, but avoid the new extractive dynamics and participation washing of tokenism and people who do not really shape the process. It will be sustainable for the people and for the planet. It will be generative and it will be not only that the underprivileged communities will be on the receiving end, but it will activate the creative power of individuals and communities. And I think that for that purpose, the role of all the social innovation layer should be taken into account and will be rooted in the local, but interoperable and hopefully will have exponential impact and dissemination. So I guess that with that, and knowing that it was very limited time to unpack all of this, I think that that Global Digital Compact that says how are they going to fund this and does not depend only on voluntary contributions, but on serious commitments from the countries of the Global North to the Global South. A Global Digital Compact that invites and interconnects the financial issues and the climate issues and the knowledge inequality issues and bring them to the same table. And a Global Digital Compact that recognizes and addresses with meaningful acts the imbalance of power that big tech companies bring and the dynamic that they cause when they are like the persons with equal power in the room than civil society. If that is addressed, I think that we have all the elements for a successful Global Digital Compact.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you so much. If only we had changed the World Trade System, IP system, and the entire debt paradigm. Just about 40 years ago, I think we would not be here and we would have certainly been able to reap the aspirations of the WSIS. Now we have compounded issues. If, with your permission, what I could do is take on some very fierce and more hard-hitting statements from the break it round and why perhaps all the aspirational and pragmatic statements from the first round of speakers may need to be subject to some kind of skepticism. I think we could perhaps do like a five to six minute input from each of you and then have a half an hour slot for discussion. So I would like to open up the next round right away so that we can take inputs and then break for a period of discussion. So over to you, Helani, from Learn Asia.

Heleni:
Thank you. Anita, your remit was to act within the particular one third of this. So let me try to do this because you can say on the one hand, on the other hand, but let me just stick to the one hand. I think the GDC was a damned if you do, damned if you didn’t. There were great consultations. People were floored across the world. People are still flying across the world on this. It was, for the skeptic, a great way to spend government money and civil society money on private sector airplanes. Could we not have done this whole thing with a lot more online consultation and written these statements? Certainly looking at the current March 2023 or May 2023 draft, it looks like this is the stuff that certainly civil society has been talking for 10, 20, 30 years. So could we not have done it for a lot cheaper? And the money, particularly, let’s say, some government spent on this, could that not have been actually spent on bridging the digital divide, getting the right kind of institutions set up in our countries, developing capacity of government? Second, a lot of the process involved keeping civil society in one track, having consultations, government in another track, and so on, and then regionally civil society. I think that was absolutely important, because there was a lot each group had to say. And not all civil society is alike. Sometimes the process didn’t really recognize that not all civil society was alike. It brought us together as if we all wanted the same thing. I think there’s enough nuances. But now the issue is how the real sticky points, forget, within civil society, is how the challenge of negotiating between civil society and sometimes private sector and government is going to take place. At this point, it looks like Amandeep and the team are somehow going to sit and use their brain cells to do this. I think that’s really poor form to not keep the rest of us informed as to what the next steps are, because that’s the real negotiation between civil society, who is perhaps at one extreme, and other parties. And that’s, I think, really important in terms of implementing next steps, because otherwise civil society could have got together and written this statement by ourselves. So that’s the real challenge before the September Global Summit. And that has to be a long, structured, facilitated process. Third, it calls in the current draft for funding commitments from governments, donors, multilaterals, et cetera. But the situation right now in certainly South Asia, some Southeast Asian countries, some Latin American countries that Renata referred to, and very soon African countries, is that we are facing a kind of inflation-driven, COVID-driven fiscal squeeze, where every dollar coming in is going to food, social safety payments, water, electricity. Nobody is going to ask and negotiate for digital-related funding, right? So who is going to pay for this is a fundamental question we have. And the poorer the country, the poorer government. I mean, we’re in IMF bailouts, mine included. Several of my neighbors are about to go into. Some Latin American countries are in the 20-somethings round of IMF bailout. So what are we talking about in terms of funding, if not for very basic necessities? And governments are not thinking about ICT and digital as basic necessities. So what they’re doing is either ignoring ICTs or wanting an AI plan so they can create jobs. And when some funder comes and says, well, you need to think about rights, very quickly cut and paste from a European policy that’s completely unimplementable with the capacity and the money that we have, right? So in this, then, in terms of funding comes the big question of taxation. There’s a conversation about global digital taxation. Now, this is a place. where a global compact could really come into play, because there’s no more global conversation about how we somewhat equitably share the benefits of large global technology, where the large user base are from the majority countries, but the companies are elsewhere. But this global compact mentions none of this. And instead, the Global South countries are sitting looking at an OECD proposal, which is looking multilateral, but one big country that we shall not name has no interest in participating and is delaying the whole negotiation. Multiple UN proposals, which are all meant to be bilaterally negotiated between tiny countries and large countries, which is never going to happen, or individually coming up with digital tax regimes, which the global companies might be able to comply with, but small platforms are going to die if they have to comply with one rule in Nepal and one rule in Sri Lanka. And so the global digital compact doesn’t address this fundamental issue of global taxation. And it’s related to financing. The last point I want to make is that this is presented as something that is net by nation states in a multilateral system. And we do need functioning multilateral systems with significant multi-stakeholder participation. That is as it should be. But setting this in a multilateral system that is dysfunctional is a fundamental problem. Where is the accountability? We talk about stopping internet fragmentation in one of the pages of the current draft. So who is going to hold accountable the country that runs the largest fireball in the world when they are doing so much more to fragment the internet than anyone else? And let me offend everyone, including my country, which just came up with an online safety bill, which is nothing but curbing speech of people that they don’t like and speech they don’t like. So this is equal opportunity offense. So where is the multilateral system accountability for holding their own members to account? I mean, this is going to be another dysfunctional UN Security Council, which can’t stop millions of people from being killed. That’s a much more important thing. So what are we thinking about in digital governance? How are we going to hold rogue nations to account? And there are many. I’m not even going to talk about companies. I think Renata talked about companies. I’ll just stop there. Thank you.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Yes, I think it’s sufficiently broken. But I would like now for Ali, Ali Kosta Barbosa, fellow of the Weissenbaum Institute, and also someone who is a member of the Homeless Workers Movement technology sector from Brazil. Would you like to speak from there? Or would you like to? You have inspiration in your predecessor, so yeah.

Ali Kosta Barbosa:
I think I will build a bit more than break now, after that one. And so first, I’d like to thank Anita on behalf of IT4Change and the Global Digital Justice Forum for inviting me in such an important debate. This shall influence the activities of. the IGF in the following days. I hope I can break it in a way I can contribute to fixing it. With honor, I’m speaking as a coordinator for the Homeless Workers Movement Technology Sector in Brazil. The housing movement accounts for roughly 30,000 people. And from a bottom-up approach, it has been doing in practice in the territories some of what the GDC is claiming for, such as promoting meaningful connectivity, digital public education, and decent digital labor. So I invite all of you to join our networking session to learn more about our work. Considering the gaps in the UN Global Digital Compact, I don’t think civil society organizations find the process legitimate. But I would like to highlight two key dimensions on GDC’s substance, sustainable digital public infrastructures and AI and labor. GDC alludes to sustainable digital public infrastructure, but it should be more precise about sustainable DPI. There is no multi-stakeholder consensus around its definition, and a forum like IGF could enable this. Instead, the GDC reinforces interoperable, open, accessible DPIs, but supported primarily through actions of multilateral organizations, which, supported by big tech-related big foundations, have shaped what DPI is in practice. The G20 had different task forces to promote digital public infrastructure at the last meeting in New Delhi. If you look closely, you’ll see they have quite different definitions of DPI. Internet pioneer Ethan Zuckerman defines infrastructure as a set of technologies and systems for the healthy functioning of society. Nevertheless, the G20 synthesis document restricts it to digital ID, payment methods, and platforms for constant-based data sharing. It is really important, but it is not enough for that, at least for the majority of the world. GDC must consider digital public infrastructure as a general purpose or essential infrastructure or platforms, even if sectoral. As mentioned by some colleagues in the first round, a multilevel approach is necessary, although it is missing. Search engines work at a global level, and social media as well. Health care, education, and social protection platforms work at the national levels. Why don’t multilateral organizations foster that development? It calls for action on digital technologies for education and social protection. But it could be more explicit on digital infrastructure for education, for instance. At the municipal or even lower levels, mobility, house rental, and food delivery, and labor platforms should be considered. So why not create data infrastructure and human rights-oriented policy frameworks to promote local sustainable innovation? Including developing countries in the digital economy through digital connectivity infrastructure, capacity building, and access to technological innovations is important, but it’s also not enough. Digital and data economies are utterly dependent on substantially concentrated cloud economy, being 2 thirds of its market shared on Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. Look, IBM and Oracle combine and account for more than Alibaba and Tencent. So solely antitrust at the local level will not solve the problem. This valid expression enables these companies to build parallel private networks, which has been considered a threat to internet fragmentation by the policy network. So if we intend to level the playing field and promote data for development, why is data infrastructure not considered digital public infrastructure, even if we acknowledge that the big players will not give up on their data governance? Again, GDC claims for sustainable DPI. As evident by the policy network environment report, GDC’s policy brief should have mentioned the carbon digital footprint. The document also says the potential of digital technology in tracking supply chains, but does not refer to the digital technology supply chain itself. What about the satellites, the fiber optical cables, the transmission towers, just regarding internet telecom-related infrastructures? Moreover, to talk about digital technologies, we must consider coal-to-extraction Democratic Republic of Congo, lintel in Bolivia, or even gold in the Amazon rain. as to ensure social, environmental, digital justice. AI regulation and governance debate must include labor discussions. Note withstanding the GDC references the application of labor rights, acting in partnership with the International Labor Organization. At the G7 summit in May, digital and technology ministers committed to further discussing diverse generative AI aspects, called the Hiroshima AI process aforementioned. Nothing on labor. The same is true within the G20 and the policy network on artificial intelligence in IGF. Until when? Why not consider it? In the Brazilian scenario, the multistakeholder public consultation on platform regulation held by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee considered among its four pillars decent work. Some issues have multistakeholder consensus, such as algorithmic control, transparency, and democratic labor platform governance. But it still lacks attention to micro workers’ role in developing AI systems. That’s not to mention the impact of generative AI on the workforce. If we do not think of workers-led AI governance, like the Hollywood writers want, we will not see improvement in livelihoods, but the opposite. Maybe, dear colleagues, I am too optimistic to believe that novel proposals for the International Division of Labor could come out of the Internet Governance Forum. So is GDC really transformative? No. Unfortunately, it is not yet. But it can be. Otherwise, I hope none of us would be here. The Internet Governance Forum is crucial for achieving these SDGs. However, if IGF anticipates those critical dimensions, only if IGF anticipates those critical dimensions, it will likely succeed in meaningfully contributing to the roadmap for the digital cooperation. To conclude, with humility, allow me to echo President Lula’s statement during the United Nations General Assembly a few weeks ago. This broadest and most ambitious collective action aimed at development, the 2030 Agenda, could turn into its biggest failure. Thank you, Anita.

Anita Gurumurthy:
They’re not laughing because they’re sad. We’re not laughing because we have to talk about the signal. We have to fix it. Okay. So, very sobering, and I think that the issues that are not on the table are as important. Yes. So, I move over to our next speaker, Nandini Chami, Online, Deputy Director of IT4Change.

Nandini Chami:
Thank you, Anita. So, today I will be speaking on behalf of IT4Change, as well as the Global Digital Justice Forum, a network of development organizations, digital rights groups, trade unions, and feminist organizations who have been working together to advance the cause of digital justice and specifically engaging with the Global Digital Compact process in this regard. And IT4Change is also a member of this group. And just without much ado, just to kind of, like, you know, continue to break this, I think a lot of this task has been completed already. So, when we look at the Global Digital Compact from a Global South perspective, I think that there are two major unresolved concerns. And some of these concerns have come across multiple times in the public consultations that were held in the GDC process, especially from civil society groups in the South. So, the first concern is that, this was also discussed in the last round, that when you look at, like, the global digital governance scene 20 years after the vices, we see that there is a particular vitiation of the democratic multi-stakeholderism vision of the vices all these years. And we are ending up with a world where we see the digital governance space captured by a few powerful transnational digital corporations and dominant states and the bad actors, so to speak, as was discussed in the first session. So, in the world where the complexity of digital as a cross-cutting transversal policy issue has only grown, if we were not able to fix these institutional arrangements question even after the Tunis, now the institutional challenge is only growing. And is what is offered in the Global Digital Compact right now adequate to this? And I believe the answer is no, and I’ll just get to that in a moment. The second major concern is that today we all know that data governance directions are extremely important. And as was again mentioned in round one, it’s not just about privacy and personal data protection, but it’s about how do you govern cross-border data flows for development sovereignty of all countries in the digital economy. And here, too, I believe the Global Digital Compact falls short. So just to get to a slightly more detailed peak of both these issues, let’s take the question of the institutional arrangements for global digital justice as proposed by the UN Secretary General in his July 2023 policy brief. So we see that the policy brief has like two things. So one is the constitution of a tripartite digital policy space, the Digital Cooperation Forum in the short term. And in the long term, the proposal is to establish a global commission on just and sustainable digitalization. So if you take the case of the Digital Cooperation Forum, many examples are invoked, most strikingly the ILO mechanism and the membership of private entities in the ITU. And there is a proposal that the Digital Cooperation Forum should be a new tripartite dialogue modality for follow-up on the GDC commitments by states, private sector, and civil society. Unfortunately, there is no ground norm clarifying the rights and duties of these stakeholder groups or the process through which non-governmental stakeholders are going to be nominated to the proposed Digital Cooperation Forum’s policy table. There is the idea of involving small and medium-sized enterprises as well as startups through representative bodies at this policy table through a quota. But just by this tokenistic representation, would that be sufficient to neutralize the agenda-setting power of big corporations? This is something we should think about. And this point has already come up. The status of the Digital Cooperation Forum vis-a-vis the WSIS consensus is unclear. How will the Internet Governance Forum and the Digital Cooperation Forum stand in relation to each other? And if the Digital Cooperation Forum is planned as the enhanced cooperation mechanism that was never set up after the WSIS, how will the legitimate public policy space and duty of states to work for economic and social development of people in the new digital paradigm be secured by the GDC process? According to the long-term proposal of the Global Commission on Just and Sustainable Digitalization, this body is imagined as an enabler of multi-stakeholder cooperation between states, civil society, and private sector in all futuristic issues of inclusive and sustainable digitalization, which is the connectivity plus-plus we have all been talking about. And the key formula that is mentioned for this is to move beyond traditional interstate cooperation to a new network multilateralism. But in this new network multilateralism, again, without a clear separation of the rules, responsibilities, and the powers of state and non-state actors in the distributed decision-making, this will just end up leading to, again, consolidating the capture of global cooperation arrangements and the governance debates by powerful big tech actors, which is a problem we have been facing for more than 20 years now. And coming to the second issue of the directions for data governance, the Secretary General’s policy brief says that the convergence on principles for data governance, that is to be negotiated in a separate process, the global data compact, the date and timelines for which are not mentioned or raised now. And this evidently means that the most contentious issue in global digital cooperation, which is about the jurisdictional sovereignty of states to exercise controls over cross-border flows of their citizens’ data resources and deal with associated implications for human rights, national security, trade, competition, taxation, and overall internet governance will remain unresolved. And we already know from the UNCTAD digital economy report that the lack of rules on this issue entrenches the extractive neocolonial data economy that we are all very unhappy with. So coming to just a final set of points, I think that in the new institutional arrangements for global digital governance, I completely understand the point that we can’t go back to an anachronistic past, but somewhere we have to sit and think about the Tunis vision because we are not able to understand how to make democratic multistakeholderism work. And if we are leaping into a new network multilateralism phase without actually thinking about the institutional checks and balances, we are actually ending up with old buying a new bottle as the adage goes. And coming to the governance of data, we all agree that a shared multilateral vision on the access to and use of data resources is totally lacking today. And we all know that the cross-border data flows question is not just about privacy and personal data protection. So how are we going to talk about development sovereignty as the collective rights of peoples to determine how their aggregate data resources are utilized and enjoy their rightful claims in the benefits of data-enabled knowledge? So from my perspective, the global digital compact is broken on both these counts. And if we have to fix it, we have to fix both these questions of institutional governance deficit and the very, very urgent challenge of looking at development sovereignty as data sovereignty. Thank you.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you so much. So that’s very important, I think, to connect the older issues that were pointed out. And in all of the economic fault lines globally, we see questions around sovereignty keep coming back. I’d like to now call upon Megan from Afronomics Law, Kenya. Megan, you’re also online.

Megan:
Thank you, Anita. I hope all of you can hear me.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Yes. Yes, we can.

Megan:
All right. Great. Thank you. So I’ll begin. I’ll largely share two gaps of the GDC brief. And I’d like to begin by stating that there’s an often-recited position that the historical choices of internet governance has enabled big tech’s rise and shaped the current digital regulatory dilemmas and that the post-multi-stakeholderism process has achieved little for global digital constitutionalizing. And so while the policy brief from the United States General on the GDC emphasizes the urgent need to reshape the trajectories of digitalization and human digitality, It’s gaps, risk, and trenching the digital regulatory dilemma. So one of the gaps in my view of the GDC include, one, the brief fails to acknowledge the notion that rights are protected by the fulfillment of duties and that merely expecting states to refrain from certain actions without duties may not be enough. On this ambit, the brief in a series of proposed objectives and actions of member states, the GDC envisions that member states would commit to a laundry list of actions under the seven main thematic areas. For instance, member states are expected to commit to avoiding blanket internet shutdowns, which will run counter to efforts to close the digital divide. And also, member states are expected to commit together with technology developers and digital platforms to reinforce transparency and accountability measures in AI systems. However, there is no mention of how such commitments from states will be attained, and therefore, there’s also a failure by the brief and the GDC to take cognizance of the power of big corporations to set agenda to their favor. As we’ve seen in the AI system of late, the European AI Act was influenced by big tech corporations. Therefore, to be effective, the compact GDC must go beyond seeking mere commitments from states and corporate actors and should ensure or come up with a regime of consequences for inaction by both states and corporate actors. And therefore, this ultimately requires dealing with the real politic of digital governance head-on. The second gap in the GDC will relate to the idea of a failure of upholding human rights holistically. So, the brief does not uphold human rights adequately in the sense that it does not capture the indivisibility of human rights, and therefore, fails to put the economic, social, and cultural rights on the same footing as civil and political rights. The digitalized work precarity in the gig economy, for instance, coupled with the incursion of big tech into the health and agricultural sector, for instance, are threatening individual and communities’ rights to a decent living, their rights to health, their rights to education, and their rights to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress, and so on. Internet shutdowns, for instance, that only undermine the connectivity divide, but also the rights to education, for instance, for students relying on remote education and other economic and social rights. On a related note that Nandini has also mentioned is the reduction of data rights to the singular agenda of individual privacy and personal data protection, of which this ignores the economic, social, and cultural rights implicated in data value chain. So, those will be my main contributions in terms of the gaps of the GDC. So, lastly, to make a point on the possibility of digital justice, it is worthwhile to know that it is possible worth pursuing digital justice by attaining a just digital future requires a radical shift of our social politics, where equality and economic policies to distribute the benefits of technology equally are made primal, and the inequalities brought about by digital capitalism, intellectual monopoly, and rent extraction are overhauls. To attain global digital justice, the GDC needs to learn also from the ill-treated versus mandated complementary process of enhanced cooperation. Over to you, Anita.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you so much, Megan, for also reinforcing points that were made earlier. Is Dennis in the room? Yes, hi. Could you give him co-hosting rights? Is that possible?

Denis:
Oh, wow. So, that was already quite a bit of breaking. I think I’m the last one in the row, right? I’m a researcher at the University of Bremen, Germany, and so I’m not really a southern perspective on this global digital compact, but I’m trying to let the empirical evidence from recent studies speak for itself. This is why I brought a few slides. It’s not long, not at all. When thinking about a global digital compact a while ago, I thought, well, the one puzzle that I have is, in spite of the consultations, in spite of many people being drawn into the process, regular users, regular citizens, as much as policymakers here in the room, I felt it’s not clear to me what people actually want and think, and particularly who they want to be at the table, who they want to be particularly listened to in the consultations. So, I put this on a larger survey of around 17,500 people in 41 countries, and I asked these questions. If I ask questions about a global digital compact, I knew I couldn’t ask about complex, detailed questions of the consultations because people will not be attuned to these kind of questions, and they might not have an opinion. So, I asked three questions, essentially. The first is, who should ideally provide input into the writing of the global digital compact to the UN? Then, the question, who do you think in reality provides input into that process? And thirdly, I asked people also about the kind of principles on a very basic level. What are the most important things for you? Privacy, freedom of expression, what should be in there? If anything, what should be taken care of by this process? This survey, as I said, 41 countries, six different languages, ran November last year till March this year, and this is online-based recruitment through social media. It is only social media users, Facebook and Instagram. We can talk more about the limitations, but that’s a different forum. The first question I had was, who should actually have input in this? And surprisingly, technical experts were asked most for. Almost 60% of the respondents said technical experts. Academics, about 50% of the people said that. Citizens themselves, 45% approximately. 40% said civil society and NGOs. National governments, 35%. Businesses, only 20%. So only 20% of the people think that the businesses should be listened to when the global digital compact consultations take place. And if you just compare this to what people think, who actually gets to say something? People say, well, technical experts get a say. Academics are not being listened to. Citizens are not being listened to. Civil society is being listened to. NGOs are. National governments are not being listened to, surprisingly. But people think that businesses are more listened to than they should be, according to their own normative preferences. So I found these results a bit interesting, and I think it does bring something to the table when it comes about breaking the GDC or the consultations, because it seems there’s definitely a mismatch between the general populations and the countries looked at and what is going on. And these are the desired principles that people wanted to be included, and most included. Security for children online. Security of privacy online. Fighting hate speech online. Protection of intellectual property, interesting, also online. Greater cultural and linguistic diversity. And you can see, actually, going down there, and the least often open source, open data, and so on. Just two small slides, actually, here. There are obviously differences between countries. If we look at the principle of no censorship, then we have a lot of countries where this is strongly emphasized. Latin America, for example, in the survey, and Eastern Europe, but not so much in sub-Saharan Africa or in Southeast Asia. When we look, on the other hand, at greater cultural and linguistic diversity as a principle for the global digital compact, then we see that, particularly, sub-Saharan Africa, there’s a strong emphasis on that relative to other countries, but it’s also quite emphasized in Latin America. Yeah, that’s it already. Thank you very much for funding disclaimers.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Yeah, thanks so much, Dennis. Very clearly, I think, experiences of what to build and how to fix may be very contextual, but why it’s broken might, perhaps, have a very slender and beautiful and simple narrative. I think that comes through. What we can do is take some time now for comments so that if there are people from the first round and the second round who may want to weigh in on the comments from the room, then we could direct those. I request everyone to keep your comments short, but please contribute to breaking and building, and then maybe the wisest of us all in the room will fix it. Any questions online? I guess everyone is raring to go to fix it, but Timothy, are you still there? There’s a comment here. Anyone online that wants to come in? Renata, go ahead.

Renata:
Hi, just a very quick comment on the geopolitical aspect of it. I think that in breaking it is very important because currently, you know, like there’s a lot of tensions. Welcome to today’s session. Good afternoon, everyone. A very warm welcome to the session. Completely U.S. and the tensions with China, and we have Russia, and so on. So, I think that for the Global Digital Compact to be effective, it really needs to engage all the key actors. So, I think that BRICS is going to play a very interesting role in this, and it would be a pity not to, like, you know, connect the efforts of G20 and OECD and so on with the efforts of the G77, the efforts around BRICS, and the efforts of the G20 vulnerable. I think that what it would be, like, very, very, very important is to welcome everyone at the table, regardless of the political tensions that, like, you know, that the world is going through. The other thing is to—and I am biased here because I’m Latin American—to leverage on Brazil’s historical leadership, which will be, like, next year at the G20, presiding the G20, but it’s also the force behind the revival of BRICS, to be the connecting point at this forum, and the civil society in Brazil that is so powerful. It might be, like, key when—both in the breaking process and in the fixing process of this multilateral moment.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thanks, Renata. Go ahead.

Ali Kosta Barbosa:
Thank you for this comment, Renata. Indeed, Brazil is leading the G20 meeting next year, and as follows will be South Africa, so pretty much related to the BRICS agenda. And I think we must play a really strong role in shaping the buzzword of this IGF, which is digital public infrastructure. We can be pretty sure that we’ll be on there, like, protesting in front of the meeting. And also, it’s probably going to take place, we can discuss during this IGF, if it’s going to take place, the Net Mundial Plus 10, I think it’s going to be a really good, really important meeting also to shape the GDC and the summit of the future and so on. I’d like just to make a comment really briefly as well, like, I think it’s a good aspect of the GDC that it’s mentioning the need of instituting public education for digital literacy, but I think it’s missing something like concrete good examples of that, like, I would be really glad to hear from any of you, from internet governance, schools, coordinators, or even in sessions during this IGF, of really concrete programs for teaching emancipatory digital literacy in public schools in accordance with the Abdijan principles. I say this because we are doing this in the Homeless Workers Movement, we’ve been in partnership with public schools in Sao Paolo, and I’d be glad to share that. And if I had time, then it’s a way to hear a bit more about the profile of these respondents. I think it was interesting to see how they are concerned about, like, children rights, and it’s a really good outcome to see that people are somehow aware of the risks of digital. Thank you.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Okay, so are we then set to move? Anybody online that wants to come back? Thanks, Renata. For those who can see, there’s Renata’s little one there. Yes. So, all ready to fix it. I guess you have to speak. Maybe then we just, I can’t, yeah. I think from pragmatism to skepticism to hope, Renata, thank you, so we move to the final round, and Anna, are you here already?

Anna Christina:
Yes.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you very much. So we hope that you will tie everything together, and Ali said that maybe people know it all, so that is a very important segue to go into Anna Christina Ruelas, Senior Program Specialist from UNESCO, welcome.

Anna Christina:
So, I don’t know if I’m the wisest one to fix this, but I’m happy to be in the fix session, because I think we at UNESCO really aim with our work to try to fix some of the issues acknowledging that actually there’s no one only actor that is able to solve all these issues that you have already mentioned, but we are aiming to actually think how this multi-stakeholder approach will actually look like when it comes to, for instance, dealing with digital platform governance systems, and how we manage to balance and create a balance between freedom of expression, safeguarding freedom of expression, access to information with dealing with potential harmful content, such as disinformation, hate speech, or conspiracy theories that we are seeing that is scaling online. So I want to start very quickly saying that UNESCO has been working since a year ago with a set of consultation, a broad consultation process on guidelines for the governance of digital platform. And actually, this is one of the elements that will inform the Global Digital Compact and the Summit of the Future in 2024. And why does it inform it? Because what we are aiming here is to try to create a document that will guide the process of the governance of digital platform, acknowledging that when we talk about governance, we are talking about a coherent system where different regulatory arrangements can exist, meaning that we acknowledge that there’s self-regulation. We acknowledge that there’s co-regulation. And there’s a statutory regulation that has to happen and that has to safeguard, in any case, freedom of expression and access to information. We don’t want regulation to become a new layer of exclusion or discrimination because we know that there’s regulation that is happening in different parts of the world that doesn’t even mention or acknowledges freedom of expression, even though they are trying to regulate content. And we know that there’s regulation that does put in the straight, in their core, human rights approach. And that is happening there. And it is creating divisions. And it is creating a huge layer of exclusion in our point of view. So these guidelines are very much focused on the structures and processes for digital platforms to identify potential harmful content. And it tries to create a knowledge that these governance systems is dependent of a multi-stakeholder participation. And I have to stop here because I’ve heard a lot about what does it mean, multi-stakeholderism. And actually, during the consultation process, this was one of the questions that we made. Because we wanted to know what civil society, what is the role that civil society wants to fill in when it comes to a whole regulatory cycle, not only in participating in regulatory processes, but then in the monitoring and evaluation and all of the process of regulatory cycle. And one of the things that we realize is that it is a conversation that is mostly breaked. I mean that there’s a siloed conversation where regulators talk to each other once the policy is being approved by the legislators. And then the regulators never talk with the companies. The companies never talk with the regulators, not with the civil society. There’s a whole tension between the different actors. And so one of the things that we’re aiming at the next stage, once the guidelines are approved, is to try to convene and create a regulatory or a framework of network of networks where regulators, civil society organizations, companies, media, academia, think tanks can participate and discuss among what are those indicators from the global regional. on a local level that have to be observed when it comes to governance of digital platforms. So for instance, there’s many regulators that have told us, and I have a question here, that they never participated in their internet governance forum. They have never been part of this, and that they are now given the responsibility to attend to all these issues. And they haven’t even discussed about, you know, like what are the different layers of the responsibilities of each one of the companies, et cetera. And right now, in another session, the companies were saying, you know, like we never talk with the regulators, and we are being regulated. So it’s a problem of breaking the silos and also creating a discussion where other things that regulators mentioned is that we never talk with civil society. Civil society talks with the policymakers, you know, but then we don’t understand what are the different problems that are happening among, you know, when regulation comes into place. So if we understand how it is being put in place, if what is the effect that is having in other things, then we could do something. So creating networks for us is a key issue to identify potential follow-ups, potential way to identify how governance of digital platforms could work. And when I say networks, we never think about a global network, or we can think about a global network, but we need to go bottom down and understand that there will be always local indicators that will be very important to follow up, then they will be prioritized in one country, and then regional indicators that will be prioritized in other regional countries. For instance, in Africa, there were many specific comments about making sure that redress mechanisms were translated in the languages of the people, because right now it’s not possible to access to those redress mechanisms. And other countries, they say, we need to focus on vulnerable marginalized communities. So I think what I mean with this, and what I want to think about this, is that for us, fixing it means to actually give meaningfulness to the word multi-stakeholder. Because we say it a lot, we mention it a lot, but when it comes to an actual question of what does it mean with a specific action to follow up by each one of the actors, it doesn’t have an actual answer. what we want to, as UNESCO, is to, after launching the guidelines, to convene all of you to participate and to work together to define specifically how to actually start defining the word multistakeholderism in the global, in the Governance of Digital Platform, but most specifically in the Governance of Digital Platform in local, regional, and global level. So that would be my participation, thank you. Thank you.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Just to be a little bit mischievous, I think we should ask maybe somebody from the Break It group to ask a question to Anna. Are you convinced by the answer? Of course, she didn’t want to give answers to everything, but she did speak about, she addressed Renata’s point about participation washing. Renata, are you convinced? Is she there? Anandini, go ahead, please.

Nandini Chami:
Yeah, I have a question, and I think Renata also has a question because she raised her hand now. So my question to Anna is, I completely understand that, you know, multistakeholderism has kind of become a empty signifier, and we need to accord meaning to it, but in the current way that we have, like, you know, treated this multistakeholder arrangements and gone about it, how do you think that, you know, we can pin down the responsibility on corporations so that multistakeholderism just doesn’t become, like, you know, a way by which, especially in the context of information integrity and the Internet of Trust and the UNESCO process, it just can’t be that platforms make, like, you know, lose, like, commitments. It can’t also be that we just, like, you know, treat it as a national problem for states to regulate transnational platform corporations. At the global level, how do we build a cat? How do we hold, like, powerful transnational digital platforms responsible for, like, you know, enforcement of human rights and we ensure they don’t enjoy impunity? Like, what are some of your thoughts on how can we fix that going forward?

Anita Gurumurthy:
Renata, do you have anything to ask? I think you should go ahead, Anna. She may be busy.

Anna Christina:
Okay, so, yeah, the guidelines are very clear about the need for the platform to comply with five key principles, acknowledging that many regulations, as I mentioned, target the users and not the companies. And I think that, you know, we have to be very clear about that. And I think… it is important, when I mean the users, is criminalize the users that produce the content and they do not touch the companies at all. So one of the things that we want is to actually make sure that companies are transparent, are accountable, perform due diligence, empower the users through tools and providing tools and that relates a lot with media and information literacy. And I want to come back to that a little bit because actually it’s very interesting this part of the consultation related to media and information literacy and the fifth is that they align to human rights principles. And the guidelines say that even if it’s whatever kind of arrangement, of regulatory arrangement, there should be check and balances and there should be accountability in a meaning that enforcement, that companies need to be subject of enforcement in case that they don’t comply with the five principles. They need to comply with these five principles and any kind of regulation should bear in mind that these five principles should be in the court of any kind of regulation. So definitely we, in the guidelines, we are clear and we understood from the consultations that the role of civic society, of academia, of media, it’s a different role that it is not related. It’s a role that makes company to be accountable but the role of the government is also to enforce the accomplishment for the compliance of the digital platforms. At the same time, the role of the civic society, the media, and the academia is to make governments accountable to make sure that they are not using regulation to go against freedom of expression and access to information but to actually, to identify potential harmful content and to create a trustworthy space. So yeah, that would be my response. Thank you, Naidini. And it’s great to see Renata.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you so much. I think from the visits to now, questions about corporate responsibility and accountability have transmutated into very urgent questions about corporate culpability and liability. So I think there is a need to move the vocabulary and then fix it. So on that note, Andrea, take it away.

Andrea:
This is very, very difficult because you were so good at breaking it that I think fixing it might actually not really be possible. So am I allowed to say that? But I’m not actually. Anita asked me to do this. I think that I would agree with everything that the breakers said but I think, you know, we have the luxury of just breaking and not fixing and I think we don’t. I think especially after spending all that money that Helani was talking about, some of us like, by the way, Helani, not everyone was flown around the world to be part of the GDC consultation. A lot of us had to do it online with like very short sort of cutoff points if you were not a member state. I think we’ve got to take a step backwards. I think this is what my plea would be to the tech envoy’s office, to the organizers, the co-facilitators and the summit of the future. Take a step back and really look at what principles do we already have in this digital space? What norms are there? Are they being complied with? If not, why not? We have norms on responsible state behavior and the group of governmental expert norms. Those norms are intended to create more trust, more predictability in the relationship between states and the behavior of states. You know, what’s happening with those norms? They date back, I think, to 2011. Let’s look at the WSIS principles. Let’s take a step back here as well and look at what has worked well from the Geneva declaration and the WSIS outcome documents. What are the principles in those documents that still hold people together? The notion of people-centered development, for example, of ICTs as a driver for addressing poverty, for more inclusion. Let’s look at that as well. Let’s look at whether we need a digital compact that’s not really about digital but about people and how people are affected by digitalization and what the consequences are. of this emerging, evolving relationship between society, our natural environment and technology. I think there is some of that in the GDC and there’s some overarching preambular comments, I think, that talk about looking at the big picture. But I think when it comes to the compact and what we are supposed to expect to see in the compact, I’m not sure that that’s reflected. I think we need to also take a step back and look at evidence. I don’t see the digital compact, for example, really being informed by the state of digital inequality. It deals with connectivity, it deals with access, in a very, I feel, rather tokenistic way. Maybe if the digital compact can really seriously look at the impact of social economic inequality and its manifestation in the form of digital inequality and how that actually undercuts everything that we are trying to do to create a better world through digitalization. And when you have, I’ve just recently been in Nigeria. In the last three months, 140 million Nigerians, this, I think, is research ICT data, so Alison can speak to that, were not connected to the internet. Many of them actually have an internet connection, but they can’t afford, or they might not have the devices. And yet, Nigeria is a country that’s investing enormously in digitalization. And where is this investment going? Digital public services. Why invest in digital public services if you have not yet invested in people actually being able to have access to them? So I think a lot of taking a step back, looking at evidence, and prioritizing. I think the GDC could actually benefit from taking one problem that we understand, such as digital inequality, and putting it a more granular set of targets around that. And then this is another thing I would recommend to fix it, is to work in a very complementary way with the World Summit on the Information Society and the WSIS plus 20 process. Yesterday, Amandeep was not here yet, I think, but he used a really beautiful analogy in the session on gender. He talked about how the SDGs, WSIS, and the GDC are like an orchestra that can all work together and play beautiful music. But orchestras don’t always play beautiful music. Orchestras can also make very sort of, not such, quite dissonant music. And if they don’t have a clear manuscript or a conductor, so I think it’s a good metaphor, but you really have to then work with it. I think the other thing about the, I mean, a lot of you have spoken about the consultation process. And I think here again, I mean, I think if you’re going to look at something like AI governance, you know, it struck me during the GDC process that the Hollywood actors and writers and their strike had a clearer take on the challenges of AI than the UN did. And I think maybe that’s what happens if you bring workers into the conversation, if you bring the people that are actually organizing at an industry level, people that are affected by AI. So I think again here, it’s a way of not putting the AI first. It is an important issue. It’s absolutely significant that the GDC does address it, but address it in a way that puts people at the forefront. And then that will then follow from there that you consult people that are actually working on fair work and workers in the gig economy and workers in AI. And I think that’s something else I would recommend to fix it is to be more tech neutral. There’s a sense I think in which the GDC is responding very much to a narrative that has been created by big IT companies. They create the narrative of the power of tech, but they also create the narrative of the danger of tech. And the GDC I think is very much responding to that. What the GDC should be doing is really responding to the narrative of inclusion, of equality, of accountability, and of good governance. Now, looking at those issues and looking at AI in relation to those, very important, but I think it would open up the way in which the GDC at the moment is looking at AI, which is in fact an application of technological innovation that has been with us for a very long time. When it comes to the multistakeholder participation, I think as well there’s emphasis on that, but I would think that the GDC could really learn here from the work of CSDD, the ITU, the WSIS process, and many of us at national level that you have to be actually more inclusive. You’re never going to have effective conversations about climate change and technology if you’re not actually working with the environmental sector and environmental rights defenders, both from the level of people that are at community level and defending forests from being destroyed by miners or illegal farming to people that are doing advocacy and analysis at a global level. So I think there is an opportunity here where the GDC, because it’s new, because it’s fresh, and it’s not emerging from a internet governance process, but from a sort of broader governance process, it could actually open up stakeholder participation to make it more granular, both at the community-based level, but also at the advocacy level. Similarly with issues of trade, of financing, of indebtedness. These are all issues that impact on digital public infrastructure, for example, on the capacity of states to invest in infrastructure that can be resilient, that enable inclusion. So here again, I think if the GDC can open up who it talks to and who it talks to about what. I was saying to Anita when I prepared for this, I’ve been looking at debt in Africa. Currently, African countries are spending on average more on debt servicing than on public health. Now, if that’s the status quo, how are those governments ever going to be able to actually effectively invest in inclusive digital public infrastructure and addressing digital inequality? So if we don’t address the cycles of indebtedness and the way in which the global financial system operates at the moment, we’re not going to see any change. And what happens at the GDC level will float on top. So I think that’s another fix it. Actually drill down, look at what we want to get out of the GDC, but look at it from an ecosystem perspective. What do we need to do in terms of the public sector, governments having the capacity and the resources to effectively implement? What do we need at the level of civil society being able to effectively hold governments accountable? What do we need at the level of changing how we regulate corporations? Market regulation that creates more market entrance as well. So I think there’s a granularity there that is absolutely missing. And I think if we don’t have that, we might be able to get consensus, but will we get value? I think that’s the thing. And I think that’s actually probably where I will end. I think, Anita and everyone, I would say that we have an imperfect system in the World Summit on the Information Society follow up and implementation, but it actually has, it’s grounded in many respects. We have the work that CSDD has been doing and UNCTAD has been doing on the digital economy. There’s actually really good data there on how small and medium enterprises, for example, are either enabled or disabled by how digital markets are regulated. We have data from human rights organizations and from UNESCO on the impact on women journalists, for example, of certain online practices. We know, as Elani had said, that disinformation legislation is silencing dissent and freedom of expression. We also know that community voices are not effectively included in many countries when it comes to addressing community-centered connectivity. And we also know that current business models are not succeeding in terms of the access market. We know that the mobile operators have reached a kind of a ceiling in terms of extending access. So what I’d like to see with the GDC is really just using the summit of the future, using the resources of the UN and the broader community to work with this data. And this will be my last point. I think, Dennis, your data is very interesting because I think that’s why it’s, I think, such an opportunity for the GDC to fix its approach to multi-stakeholder participation by not using it as a brand, by not reducing it to being tripartite, but actually opening it up completely and bringing in the technical community. It’s interesting, because I do think there’s a tendency sometimes to think of the technical community as being aligned with the corporate sector. Sometimes it is, but often it is not. And I think absolutely we cannot do digital governance effectively without bringing the technical community into the table, not just as part of civil society or government or business, but as a stakeholder in their own right. And that applies to the research and academic community as well.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thanks, Andrea. I think the more I think about it while prioritizing is so important, but we also know that so much of our futures tie to the digital and the choices we make and the triaging we do now might really have cascading impacts. So that’s another paradox, you know, of in the context of digital inequality paradoxes, how do we actually address the policy paradox? And I think that’s quite important. I wanted to propose a small change in the order of speakers. Nan Sutesom, who is from Engage Media, is replacing Rishabh Bailey, who was going to speak to us. And Rishabh is unable to join us. And therefore Nan, just in about 24 hours, has kindly offered to come on board. And what I wanted to suggest is she has, what she says is a very well-defined and bounded agenda to talk about. And therefore, what I want to do is she wants to flag issues about digital trade. So I just wanted to request you, Nan, to come in and speak to how the connections between trade and digital rights play out, and if you think they are fixable at all. So over to you, Nan.

Nan Sutesom:
Thank you so much, Anita. Let me, well, share the screen. Hello, everyone. You can see my screen, yes? Yes, and we can hear you. Perfect. Hi, everyone. My name is Nan. I’m a digital rights project coordinator at Engage Media. We’re a digital rights advocacy group in South and Southeast Asia. I’m here as part of the Digital Trade Alliance. So I want to speak to you briefly about using this trade agreement, namely Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, or IPEF. I like to use this as a concrete use case to illustrate how corporate interest captures the internet governance space. And not only that, the IPEF also highlights the geopolitical aspects that come into the dynamics and how this plays out. This FTA in particular is understood as a reactionary attempt by the US to balance another FTA, namely the RCEP, that is dominated by the Chinese government influence. The IPEF involves 14 countries, the US, India, some countries in Oceania, most of Southeast Asia, and including Japan and East Asia’s countries as well. But as such, the US government chairs all chapters of the negotiations and controls the text of the IPEF. This is expected to conclude by November 2023. Now, unlike other FTAs, the IPEF will not only offer market access and GSP privileges, so the signatories, namely the Global South, will not receive the trade benefits that other FTA may offer. The text, the digital trade chapter, is also not available, making it difficult for non-profit organizations and other stakeholders to participate in the process. So quickly extrapolate this FTA. It’s first important to note that the US-Mexico-Canada FTA, or USMCA, is explicitly cited as the baseline for the commitments in the IPEF. And why is that important? It’s because the USMCA is widely regarded as a pro-Big Tech agreement. And what we have observed in the USMCA is that corporate interests are very well captured, in particular, Big Tech, in terms of digital trade. Similarly, in IPEF, 69% of US trade advisors represent large corporations and their trade associations. And this agreement is commonly seen as favorable in the interest of Big Tech, but the US trade reps themselves, who have solicited advice from Big Tech on digital trade provisions. Some of the alarming issues include, and I’ll go very quickly on this, is if, like the USMCA, IPEF will have enforceable cross-border data flow requirements, domestic measures aimed at enhancing privacy and security of data, as well as measures providing for regulatory access to data could therefore be affected by this provision, such as that in Thailand, where I’m from, the Personal Data Protection Act in 2022, which was modeled after the EU’s GDPR. So it has a few implications. First, it makes it difficult to introduce any domestic measures for cross-border trade transfers. And while there may be exceptions to this in the agreement, they’re very narrow in scope of necessity and proportionality requirements, which are very high bars to meet. In the ultimate analysis, such provision could help data flow to countries with weaker data protection standards or accountability mechanism. Another issue is that it will aim to establish safeguards against forced source code disclosure as a condition of market access. So it will aim to establish a safeguard against any algorithm disclosure in particular. Many countries in the global South right now are developing regulatory responses to the use of algorithm and or AI. And one tool of regulation is ensuring transparency and accountability over how algorithms and software in general work. And with the safeguard, if this comes into play, it will restrict various tools available to a state to promote competition, fairness in the digital economy. Preventing such disclosure in the future may lead to also algorithmic discrimination in areas like employment policies, insurance policies, or search engine rankings, which will have the effect on the competitiveness of smaller businesses in the global South. Now, I’m sure everyone in the room are aware of the dangers of AI. So this lack of transparency in source code disclosure and algorithm will limit the ability for independent and ex-ante verification of how a software product works, which can be essential to limiting the risk arising from the use of software and the black box problem with AI. Secrecy of algorithm also goes against the developing regulatory consensus on the use of AI tools. for example, the OECD’s AI policy observatory, as well as a number of proposed laws that seek to ensure pre-deployment verification of software and AI. Now, to capture it all, the codification of the USMCA, if it will be adopted in future trade agreement, for number one, the free flow of data cost will limit the ability for countries to implement localization norms. The inclusion of this clause would allow for continued flow of data to the global north, where it would be subjected to its relatively lower or freer standard data protection and accountability mechanism. Provisions restricting access to source code and algorithm will also limit the ability of regulators and independent entities to scrutinize software products prior to their deployment. So, in particular, when the global south are right now in the process of developing regulatory frameworks concerning AI, this restriction will seek to preemptively limit the ability for states and regulators to implement public interest or consumer interest regulation in the digital space. So, ultimately, codification like this will limit the regulatory options available to the signatory countries in the future to implement regulations over the ecosystem. Now, in the spirit of fix it, I’m not sure if my presentation fit into this, but first and foremost, I think that the GDC mechanism should aim to promote regulated data and technology in public interest, realizing that digital commons as a global public good and aiming to establish international security standards and cross-compliance recognition frameworks of design, testing, and certification to ensure the safety, reliability, and trust of critical infrastructure and improve security around digital technologies. This includes, but not limited to, for example, privacy protections and grievance redress mechanism. FTN negotiations should also aim for an agreement on how to define different types of data, which can then be used to create rules on data governance. In addition, there’s also another issue with labor rights with the integration of algorithm in digital labor and gig economy, ensuring the GDC should aim to ensure that workers in digital industries are protected and have access to fair employment conditions, including issues related to gig workers and the right to organize. That should be the top priority. And last but not least, fair taxation on global companies. So, ensuring that the so-called big tech pay their fair share of taxes in countries where they operate, which can contribute to funding essential public services and digital infrastructure in the global south. Mechanism to amplify non-profit and stakeholder voices should also be at the forefront of a digital trade agreement. The IPAF has a stakeholder listening session, which is a mechanism for CSO to participate, but it’s not as meaningful as you’d like it to be because negotiations is secretive, and so we just end up with civil society actors listening to each other in a room. So, with that option, we have to address how we can make this more meaningful contribution and engagement so that digital trade agreements can be more responsible. And yeah, as the USMCA codification will likely become a trajectory in digital trade, it calls for robust mobilization to push back against the interest of big tech and ensure consumer and user interests can be protected, as well as their rights. And I’d like to end my presentation here with the report by our colleague Rikab on understanding the IPAF and its intersection with internet governance. So, that’s about it for me. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for stepping in.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Yes. I just wanted to say that it’s only getting more complicated. So, for the last voices, I think we count on your power, but we also remember Shamika’s call to not give up and continue the good struggle. I think one important thing that comes out of Nan’s articulation is that it’s not just the narrative around the GDC, but sometimes I think where the narrative lies is not where the politics lies. So, maybe we will go away feeling happy that everyone was equally unhappy with the GDC, but the trade wars will be fought differently at a different place. So, the whole questions around localization, public interest, source code, opacity, and the exploitation of the commons for extractivism will remain. And therefore, then the question arises as to without letting forum shopping by the powerful, how do you ensure coherence in the multilateral system? That question always existed, but I think that’s sharper. So, don’t go away, everybody. We have the smartest voices in the room, the penultimate and ultimate. So, over to you, Emma, Global Coordinator of the Alliance for Universal Digital Rights for Equality now.

Emma:
Thank you so much. You’re right, the complexity of this issue is increasing, isn’t it, as we go on with the session. And I definitely don’t have the whole solution to fixing the GDC, but I have got part of the solution. And at the Alliance for Universal Digital Rights, or AUDRI, we’ve been considering your central question of how to come up with a set of principles that guide our digital future so that it ensures justice for the majority world. And this time last year at IGF, we launched our nine principles, securing our human rights in our digital world. And since then, we’ve really been building on that, working with a really wide range of organizations from all over the world, including in the global majority. And what our partial solution is, that the GDC has to be feminist if it’s going to work. And feminism benefits everybody. And yesterday, we launched a new set of principles. There seem to be a lot of principles around, but there are only 10. These are feminist principles for the global digital compact. And we launched these with over 50 other CSOs, mainly from the global majority, in partnership with organizations like APC, Direchos Digitales, Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan, Policy in Uganda, and also two UN agencies. And we launched it to an audience of member states, including the US, Chile, Finland, Germany, Iceland, who all talked about the need for a feminist approach to global internet governance. And so I thought it might just be helpful today if I talk to you through, very briefly, through the main headlines of our 10 principles. And the basic premise is that if the core principles for the global digital compact of openness, freedom, and security are going to be met, then they need to be infused with an intersectional feminist perspective to ensure that the ongoing digital transformation of our economies and societies can usher in a gender-just world. So principle number one is that any digital future must be grounded in existing human rights law. Many people have said that already, including Professor Ambassador Gill. And also rooted in an intersectional approach, which promotes the rights of women and girls in all their diversity, plus people facing multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination, because we don’t want digital technology to widen the equality divide. The second principle is that the agreement must guarantee freedom from technology-facilitated gender-based violence, which there is an academic of at the moment. And it’s stopping many women and people from diverse genders and sexualities from taking part in society. And it’s undermining our democracy. And our third principle is around promoting the rights to freedom of expression, privacy, and peaceful assembly, which the UNESCO have been talking about as well. This includes the right to encryption and online anonymity, and the prohibition of internet disruptions that don’t comply with human rights law. The fourth principle is about ensuring universal, affordable, accessible, and safe internet access for all, which many people have talked about. And this includes something that one of our speakers earlier talked about, was creating and sharing content in your own language, which is really important. The fifth principle is around demanding strict action against harmful surveillance applications and high-risk AI systems. And number six is about expanding women’s participation and leadership in the tech sector and in digital policymaking. So if we want this new tech to actually work for us and make our lives better, we need to be in the driving seat. And that means that women in all of their diversity need to be involved in the design of new technology, leading tech companies, but also being involved in decision-making at national and international levels on governance, regulation, and technology development. And obviously this is going to include supporting more women and girls into STEM subjects, but it will also require more involvement of women in democratic processes. So number seven is around prioritizing strategies that reduce the environmental impact of new technology. I was really pleased to hear Henriette talking about the need to involve environmental organizations in this process. We know that the impacts of climate change are not felt equally around the world. Women in developing countries are most likely to be disproportionately affected, and machine learning is incredibly energy intensive. There’s also going to be a greater impact on water use. So AI’s contribution to climate change could be very significant in the future, and states are going to have to be much more proactive in setting limits on how much carbon new technology can produce, and also minimize the harm from the extraction of natural resources to fuel this new technology, which again falls disproportionately on a small number of nations, often on indigenous land and in countries that are recovering from a history of being colonized. So I’m almost there. I’m on number eight now, which is implement measures for states and transnational corporations to ensure data privacy and governance and consent. So the protection of people’s personal data is the bedrock of a lot of these other principles, as has been mentioned by other speakers, and many states don’t yet have privacy and data protection laws, and measures to stop transnational companies from exploiting our data are not in place, as has also been talked about already. So number nine, the ninth principle is around adopting equality by design principles and a human rights-based approach through all phases of digital technology development. So algorithms that make decisions about us are discriminating against us every day, with no accountability for the harm caused, and I was really concerned by our previous speaker talking about how some trade agreements are actually going to make this situation worse because they won’t provide the transparency of the algorithms that we need, which is why we need a human rights-based approach and equality by design principles baked into the development of algorithmic decision-making systems prior to deployment. This means things like gender rights impact assessments, which brings me to the final principle, which is around setting AI safeguards to prevent discriminatory biases. Safeguards must be put in place to make sure that gender… as stereotyping and discriminatory biases are not translated into AI systems and these standards need to be developed in consultation with those who are being harmed already. So you need to talk to us and at a minimum we need transparency in relation of data sets, their sources and uses and how that data is being applied in algorithms. So that’s it really. It’s not the whole solution but we think it’s a really important part of fixing the global digital compact. We were so pleased to hear some of the governments at our launch event yesterday agree with us about the importance of a feminist approach and of course some countries have already got feminist foreign policies which really help with this. So if we can set all of this, get all of this into the global digital compact, it stands a chance of making the GDC a powerful tool for democratic global digital governance. Thank you.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thanks so much Emma. I also feel that from your presentation and Ali’s, there’s this need to invert the questions sometimes and say in all the talk about digital public infrastructures, what about the quasi-publics that are controlled by the private? Why aren’t we asking them to open up and make their data sets public? Questions like these which are hidden in the narrative that are often sold to us. Luca is here, he’s extremely jet-lagged and therefore we hope that the stream of consciousness from him will fix it.

Luca Belli:
Thank you very much Anita. I’m also aware that I’m the only thing that stands between us and dinner and at the same time the last speaker after two hour and a half of being here. So I will try to be provocative so that people can wake up a little bit. My name is Luca Belli, I’m Professor of Digital Governance and Regulation at FGV Law School. So what I’m going to say is very much informed on the research and thinking on how digital governance mechanism work and how can they work effectively or not. And now regulatory framework work and how they can work effectively or not. Also full disclosure, over the past year I’ve been building for five years a project called CyberBRICS where we analyze the digital policies of the BRICS countries. So a lot of what also I’m going to say is based on how also these very large emerging economies have tackled some of these issues. I have three structural challenges that we have to face and three potential remedies that we could use but I’m not sure we will use. Let’s start with the structural challenges. The first one is that, and I’m also building especially on what Alison and Elani were saying because there were some good comments there that I want to expand. First, structural challenge. We have, when you analyze digital governance, which is what the kind of framework that the Global Digital Compact aims at addressing, you know very well that it’s extremely fragmented not only geographically, which is something we have stressed, but also thematically. And that is an enormous structural challenge because you only have regulators that deal with competition and speak only amongst them. You have regulators that deal with telecommunications and speak only amongst them. You have regulation that speaks about data not in all countries and deal only amongst them. You don’t have platform regulators. You don’t have AI regulators, although all regulators want to be some of them. Now, this means that it’s extraordinarily difficult, inherently almost impossible to have a strategy that is holistic and that can work in practice, because you face this enormous thematic fragmentation. Even if you have a very good strategy, then you have the second structural challenge. That is, you might have extraordinarily relevant political and economic interests that will play against your strategy. And this has already been raised, but let me stress that there has been, over the pandemic period, enormous, almost indecent profits from five or six corporations. And no one has ever taxed that profit, no one, because there is only one country that doesn’t want it to be taxed. And that is an enormous political and economic interest that you have to face. And I will come back to this towards the end. If you have to regulate AI, and everyone agrees that AI has to regulate, there is even one specific CEO that does road shows in Latin America pontificating about how we need international regulation on AI. But then at the same time, when you are like, then we will regulate based on risk, and we will limit your profit, they are, no, we do not want AI regulation. You may be all aware of the fact that there is an ongoing effort of the Council of Europe to do a treaty on AI, but the US have already made it very explicit that it will only, for them, will only apply for the public sector. Well, if AI is developed by the private sector, that specific treaty is not even worth the paper it’s written on. And I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I think maybe at some time here we start to wake up a little bit. The third structural challenge is the fact that systemically it’s, I don’t think I’ve used the best possible term before when I made my question asking about bad faith actor, because it’s not bad faith. Most of the multinational corporations are publicly traded corporations. This means that the executive has a legal obligation, a fiduciary obligation, to prefer the shareholder interest to anything else that is not binding by law. So it is naive to think that large multinational corporations will privilege human rights to shareholder profits, because every three months and every quarter they have to meet shareholders and tell them, we have increased costs, sorry, we have reduced costs, we have increased benefits. Actually, it’s very interesting. that what happened after the pandemic, or after these enormous indecent profits, has been not redistribution of the profits, but firing of at least 10% of the workforce. Because shareholders were annoyed, because that very enormous profits could not be kept. And so costs had to be reduced. And so tech corporations have started firing people. So that is a systemic challenge that we have. Because those who have the power to decide have not only a marketing incentive, a fiduciary obligation to increase benefits and decrease costs. And here we enter into the possible. Well, there is also a very good study that I wanted to mention by Subha, Ulla, and colleagues on multinational corporations and human rights violations in emerging economies. Because they map more or less 200 corporations that have subscribed to the global compact, not digital one, the global compact, showing that 90% of them engage in human rights violation. And even if they have explicit commitment to the global compact, because they have a duty to do so. If their shareholder want to be pleased, they have to increase profit. So that is something. I have nothing against these specific corporations. But that is something that one has to be considerate, to be pragmatic, and to find solutions. So first, how to tackle the lack of systemic approach. I think that we start to see the only, let’s say, document that gives us an idea of what is happening with the global digital compact is this policy brief that was released in May. And I think they make a good effort at doing an initial systemic approach, mapping the principles, mapping the potential actions, and mapping what fora already exist. But that is very embryonic approach and needs to be complemented also, which kind of good practices you have to use to implement those actions and to implement those principles. And this is non-existing so far. I hope it will come with the following phases of the digital global compact. Actually, here my second point of suggestion is to actually learn from the IGF as a good platform for suggesting solutions. Actually, what nobody seems to remember is that the mandate of the IGF is also to recommend things. So if you take Tunisia agenda, Paragraph 72G, it’s explicitly stated that the IGF should recommend issues to the global stakeholders. And this has never been done because people think that recommending means imposing. Identifying good practices and recommending them doesn’t mean that the IGF should say all the government of the world must follow this example. Simply means that IGF or any other people, person, entity that recommends something is saying this exists. You should consider it. A lot of people travel to fancy places every year to discuss solutions and maybe to recommend them. So start mapping them and proposing them as potential solution. There is nothing controversial in it. Last but not least, if we want to have a digital global compact that is meaningful, we really have to focus on implementation. That does not only means suggesting good practices. It should be followed. followed, but also the metrics that should be used to analyze if they succeed or not. And something that, if you study China and if you’ve studied big tech, you start to understand they do in pretty much the same way, is understanding which kind of facilitators and obstacles exist. Because that is the greatest point if you want, the greatest difficulty or advantage if you want to implement something, knowing what will go wrong and try to address it, and knowing who could be helpful in trying to address it. That is actually something that, paradoxically, we can learn from big tech. Because sometimes that has become a joke, sometimes a sad joke with friends. I mean, I’m not sure which list is longer. If the list of potentially disruptive new businesses that have been acquired by big tech, of the list of brilliant friends working in academia or civil society that have been hired by big tech. But at some point, you have to understand that if you have to implement a medium or long-term strategy, you have to identify what are the obstacles and what are the facilitators. And I was a little bit frustrated, I have to confess today, when I asked Amandeep today if they had a plan for it. Because the answer that the good faith actor have to do more, I’m not sure if it is the most effective to achieve an effective global digital compact. I hope I’ve been enough provocative. But I see people sleeping, so I’m not sure.

Anita Gurumurthy:
No, no, we are, we are. So we just want to wear the politically correct face in the IGF, that’s all. So thank you so much to everybody. I just want to take, since we have 15 minutes to go before the room is closed and shut, I just wanted to know if there are people in the room who have thoughts to fix it, to build it anyway. And I know that Renata wanted to make a point, so maybe we can start with Renata. And in the meanwhile, I can bring the microphone to anyone that wants to contribute.

Luca Belli:
Sorry, may I just add something that I forgot to mention? Is that as I’m sure that these five or six multinational global corporations that have earned these very hefty profits under the pandemic are extremely, extremely committed to the global digital complex. Something one may ask them is to make a voluntary contribution or let’s say 30% of their billions that they have earned, because people were obliged to use their services for two years, to finance all the nice things that we have said or the nice ideas we can have. And that does not require taxation by anyone. And as they are fully committed to the global digital complex, I’m sure they will accept.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Renata, just a second. Maybe I’ll just call upon Renata. Is that OK? Renata, just hold on. This is somebody who is online.

Clever Gatete:
Thank you so much. The reason why you asked to speak is because I have to leave very quickly. My name is Clever Gatete, and I’m here. I’m from Rwanda. I’m the peer for the UN. One of the co-facilitators, together with my colleague here from Sweden, we came here specifically to listen to you. And one of the things which you have to make clear is that there is no digital compact now. We are just compiling all the ideas so that there is an intergovernmental discussion. And later on, we’ll come up with a global digital compact. We have had consultations widely. We have had so many deep dives in every of the eight areas. And we’ve heard from different people. We had even special sessions for the civil society itself. The reason why we came here is at the end of the day, nobody’s happy with maybe what is going on. And that’s why we came here to say, can you narrow it down so that we see the issues and the ones which you think should be part of the compact or which can contribute to the compact? So they are given to us because next year in January, we are going to come and sit down together with everybody to make sure that we can use these kind of ideas that you have given us as part of the discussion with the member states. There will be 193 member states discussing. But given what you have compiled already too much, but you came here specifically for the idea for the people who are participating, and especially for your team, for you to narrow down and give us something in writing so that all your ideas and what you think is very, very important. The reason is because technology affects everyone. It affects the way of life. It doesn’t affect one or the other. It affects all of us, whether in education, whether you are in whatever business you are doing. It affects all of us. And we want to hear from everyone. But we want to make sure that we do it in an organized manner, in a way that you can bring your ideas, put them together, and say, this is our position, which you think can contribute to your discussion so that we take them into account. And that will be more professional in terms of doing things. Because we’ll be unhappy with some of the things, but if we don’t do it right, then you find we don’t have a way of discussing it with our colleagues who are not here, who didn’t listen to you. And it’s very, very important for us to be able to capture exactly what you think that can be included. And that’s why we’re here listening. Actually, we want you to be at the back so that you can listen and take notes. But I think I thought it was very important for us to tell you that if you put something in writing, it will be helpful for us. Because it will help our case to adjust and to be able to convince people. So we heard what you said. But if you can help us, I think that would be useful. Thank you so much.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Very grateful to you for giving us an opportunity to submit this in writing. Maybe the three-hour discussions, we will be able to generate a report, as Andrej had suggested, in the morning as well. And we’d be happy to share that with you. And if your co-chair from Sweden wants to speak. Ma’am, would you like to? I fully agree with you. Yes. Thank you very much for being here with us. So Renata, you go. And after that, Andrej and Alison.

Renata:
It’s very quick and specific point on the funding. If we achieve one thing as a civil society, will be that this global digital compact is formed together with a fund with mandatory contributions from the richest countries in the world and from the richest companies, voluntary, because we have no legal mechanisms to make that happen to be mandatory. But I think that if we… Otherwise, we will waste a long process that will only end in principles that then will not be applied because of lack of resources. So if we can do one thing united, like the poorest countries in the world and the civil societies to work together for the summit of the future, to be like the big announcement, the big headline after this effort is that substantial money is committed to increase the capacities, to increase the ability and to make that not only worse, but worse transforming to actions and into proper public digital infrastructure localized in the countries that need it the most. So to fix it, include a financing mechanism to make all of these nice words translated into actions.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thanks so much, Renata. Andrieta.

Andrea:
Thanks very much, Anita. I mean, what I wanted to say, it’s partly in response to what Luca was saying about the original mandate of the IGF was to facilitate, well, inter-institutional. That’s, I think, one of the very important aspects of it and also recommendations. And I think one of the reasons that we are not doing well enough in this IGF space and in what we have at the moment is our multi-so-called, multi-stakeholder ecosystem is that we don’t have certainty. It’s very unpredictable. I think that, you know, so this is something else I think that the GDC can do is to take away that element of, will the IGF continue, will it not continue? Obviously, that is a decision of the WSIS plus 20 process, but if we’re going to strengthen these processes, make them more relevant and more inclusive, we need to be able to know that they’re not being used as political footballs by member states or UN agencies or internal, you know, territorial issues within the UN system. These processes are not as strong as they should be. They’re not as inclusive as they should be, but they are the best that we have. And I think I really, you know, in the recent letter from the co-facilitators, I think it’s a message that in a sense we are getting that because it will take years of evolving and continuing to strengthen these spaces. And I think the one thing as civil society that we have to be careful of as well is to set our own terms. I think the GDC consultation processes required us to respond to what was given to us. I think we possibly did not do enough to fill the gaps. The IGF MAG as well, for two years, it created its thematic structure based on what was given to it by the GDC process or the digital cooperation process. That’s good. It wants to be relevant, but in that process you could actually be missing exactly the same things that this other top-down process is missing. Like tax, like taxes.

Speaker:
Thank you. Thank you, Anita. Thank you very much for inviting us to this very informative session. I’ve heard a lot of very interesting, insightful, and also useful comments. I think some of the points may be also good for us to take into account in the WSIS Plus 20 review. I forgot to introduce myself, actually. I’m working for Sharmika. Sharmika is our director. So we are servicing the UN Commission on Science, Technology, and Development. And CSD, in short, is conducting a WSIS Plus 20 review in order to provide inputs to the General Assembly, which is going to conduct the WSIS Plus 20 review in 2025. So I would like to also invite this group to participate in the WSIS Plus 20 review because some of your points are very relevant to WSIS Plus 20, as several speakers have mentioned. We also need to look at what are there now in this world, whether they are working, why they are not working, and how we can do to make them work better so that we can really achieve the WSIS vision of inclusive, people-centered, and development-oriented information society. And CSD is going to launch its open consultation, which is multi-stakeholder consultation, on the 10th of October in this house, in room E, from 315 to 445. At the same time, we have also circulated a questionnaire together with other key actors, UNESCO, ITU, and UNDP. We also invite you to fill out the questionnaire. It’s available on the IGF website, the questionnaire. And they will be taken into account in preparing our report. The report is going to be discussed at two annual sessions of the CSD. One is next year, April 27th, CSD. The other is in 2025. And then, after these two discussions at CSD. we are going to present a report to the General Assembly in 2025 for its review. So I really encourage this group to participate in the CSD’s WSIS Plus 2020 Review because you have offered very insightful comments and points and messages that we can definitely consider in our WSIS Plus 2020 Review. Thank you again.

Nigeh Kassamir:
Yes. Good day. My name is Nigel Kassamir. I’m from the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, which is an intergovernmental organization. I did come in late, so I’m not sure if this specific comment was made before. But in hearing the gentleman’s comments earlier about the structural shortcoming with regulation, I am aware that the ITU has a fledgling attempt at regulatory collaboration, which they are calling the Digital Regulation Network, which they launched at the Global Symposium for Regulators in May this year. So that is probably something that could also be taken into account.

Alison:
Thank you. Anita, I did say when I speak about the first phase, the bill that we just want to say something about the fix-it because I think that’s really what some of the issues that we raised in the beginning really and were raised in the fix-it session are really still, we’re still not addressing what fundamentally has to be done. We’re still dealing with some of the problems and maybe not sufficiently what the solutions are. So I mean, just in response to the constant reference about using what we’ve got and how relevant WSIS still remains in terms of how relevant IGF remains, I think these are important continuities. They’re significant still because we still have the same problems. And so I think it’s really important in referencing those that we commit ourselves to doing something differently. We’re continuing to identify the same problems and speak about the same kind of neoliberal market reforms and the dominance of certain sectors, the assumptions that the best value creation is out of private sector value create, these kinds of things. So I think we really, when Ambassador Gill speaks about this needs to be a paradigm shift, the paradigm shift is not an institutional changing of the deck chairs and institutional arrangements. We have to do something far more fundamental. And I think the problem is that what are our rationales for governance? We’re continuing to use the rationales for governance that were around traditional commercial supply side regulation of resources in the allocation of our resources. And we need to really challenge that. We need to start looking at the demand side value that we need in our resource allocation. If we’re serious about building public value, if we’re serious about economic justice, then we’ve got to be looking at those. That is how we get to a commons, not about carving out a little bit of space that the commercial sector doesn’t want for a little bit of Wi-Fi or something. We need some really to address those fundamental issues. So yes, there are structural issues at the governance level that Luke has very eloquently addressed, but they’re actually, we’re still not dealing with the structural inequalities that we’ve got that make all this digital inequality manifest. And I think that if the global digital compact wants to make a significant paradigm shift, that is where the paradigm shift needs to come, is in the rationale for global governance and regulation.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Anyone else? There’s a hand over there. Yes.

Yuichiro Abe:
Thank you. Thank you for your informative discussion and comments. I’m Yuichiro Abe, a Japanese, randomly participating in this workshop. But after listening to the fruitful discussion, I realized that the process, the fixing the process of the GDC is quite important, because we have the expression in Japanese that this is just a rice cake painted in a picture. We cannot eat it, even if it looks delicious. So we have to make it through a real process. And I have one question. So maybe the GDC should be like an orchestra with beautiful music, but we need a conductor. And who should be a conductor in this process? Maybe it will be a target of a political battle, or like that, but it is very difficult. But I would like to hear the recommendation from IGF about who should play the conductor. Not maybe only one, but who should be the several conductors for the process?

Anita Gurumurthy:
So this will need, I think, an entirely another zero-day event. So it’s an institutional question, and as Allison said, it’s only partly institutional. We also have a name for the report, not just a little bit of Wi-Fi. So… Yeah. We want real rice cakes, yeah. So I mean… That’s a Japanese approach. Yes. Yes. Yes. Also this. So just to say thank you to everybody who helped co-construct this, the dynamic coalitions that were involved. Thank you, Dennis. Thank you, Luca. Also, the Global Digital Justice Forum, and to all of you who so readily gave of your time and sat here and came back after your other commitments, and to our surprise visitors, the co-chairs of the GDC. I just wanted to also say that the thing that struck me when I read Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice was that never, never should you make the mistake of going behind the idea of justice. You must understand the idea of injustice, and then you have done your job. So in some sense, I think the session was very instructive because all of us contributed to co-creating the pool of ideas of what we don’t want. And I think for long, the wise people of the world have told us, what is necessary to fix? It’s not rocket science at all. We know it, and we know the political economy of anti-solutions in the right way. So I think we should build public value, and we should probably go to the report in the next stage. So I’d like to request all of you, and maybe I can reach out. And if you would like to, please send back your comments. That would really help. And the IGF does a marvelous job of the closed captioning. But it may not always be accurate, so it would be nice to have your comments. So thanks to everybody, and a round of applause.

Audience:
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. You Thank you.

William J. Drake

Digital Economy Agreements (DEAs) have primarily emerged in the Asia Pacific region, with Singapore playing a central role. These agreements aim to promote policy convergence on a wide array of digital issues such as data flows, data localisation, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. DEAs follow a modular architecture, enabling the addressing of various issues under different bespoke modalities. The European Union has also launched digital partnerships, embracing a similar modular approach with countries like Japan, Korea, and Singapore. DEAs have the potential to limit internet fragmentation, which is caused by divergent national policies and regulations.

The discussions on institutional innovation in internet governance have often been divisive, focusing on multi-stakeholder versus multilateral frameworks and hard law versus soft law responses. These traditional approaches have not been very effective in addressing key issues relevant to fragmentation, such as data flows and data localisation. DEAs, with their modular architecture and adaptable nature, provide a potentially more innovative and responsive approach to address these issues.

Models such as the Digital Partnership Framework and Digital Investment and Partnership Agreement (DIPA) have emerged as responses to the inability of traditional trade agreements to keep up with rapid technological progress, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The potential impact of AI goes beyond just trade and the economy, potentially affecting all aspects of society profoundly. There is a growing recognition of the need for better stakeholder involvement in negotiations to address concerns raised by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society about the inclusion of AI in trade agreements.

Digital Economy Agreements and Digital Partnership Frameworks facilitate multi-stakeholder cooperation and foster institutionalised dialogues between countries. These models recognise the importance of involving various actors from civil society, business, and other parts of society in shaping digital governance frameworks.

It is crucial to ensure that flows of data are without obstruction. Digital trade agreements have the potential to strengthen binding commitments against forced data localisation or barriers to the flow of data. By including language pertaining to cross-border data flows, data localisation, and mandatory disclosure of source code in trade agreements, the stakes are raised, forcing all parties involved to reach an agreement.

Digital Economy Frameworks have emerged as a potential solution to address internet fragmentation. These frameworks work through institutionalised dialogue and ongoing interaction between parties, incrementally bringing them closer together on various issues.

In conclusion, DEAs offer a modular and adaptable approach to promote policy convergence on digital issues, ultimately helping to limit internet fragmentation. They provide an innovative and responsive mechanism for internet governance, addressing concerns related to data flows, data localisation, AI, and cybersecurity. Involving stakeholders from various sectors is essential for effective dialogue and decision-making, and digital trade agreements can play a role in ensuring the free flow of data. Digital Economy Frameworks have the potential to bridge the gaps between countries and foster cooperation in dealing with challenges related to internet fragmentation.

Richard Samans

Digital economy agreements are seen as a promising development for international economic cooperation, moving away from a purely market access approach. These agreements recognize the need for a comprehensive approach to address issues related to the digital economy. This shift is considered a positive step, indicating a deeper understanding of the complexities and challenges involved.

However, the impact of these agreements on internet fragmentation is still uncertain. Differences between countries and agreements may lead to fragmentation, as there are varying perspectives on fundamental issues. The presence of standard exceptions in agreements also highlights the potential for fragmentation. While digital economy agreements aim to tackle this issue, their effectiveness is yet to be determined.

The success of these agreements depends on regulatory cooperation. While the agreements lay out principles and commitments, true effectiveness lies in the actual cooperation and coordination of regulations between countries. The extent to which countries can work together will determine if these agreements can reduce fragmentation effectively.

It should be noted that existing agreements cannot solve internet fragmentation globally. Complete elimination is not realistic due to the nature of the issue. However, aligning policies and regulatory approaches among economically significant governments can promote coherence in the world economy. This alignment can create momentum for greater coordination and cooperation, enhancing overall stability.

Labour-related considerations, such as employee surveillance, performance evaluation, bias, and worker data protection, are not fully covered by digital economy agreements. These agreements have mainly focused on procedural matters, potentially overlooking important labour-related concerns. Norms surrounding employee surveillance, fair performance evaluation, bias prevention, and worker data protection are crucial and should be addressed in future agreements.

Trade agreements should also consider the varying levels of capacity among different countries. The Trade Facilitation Agreement by the World Trade Organization provides an example of an approach that acknowledges and supports countries with differing capacities. By doing so, trade agreements can facilitate shared participation and the development and implementation of norms.

There is increasing advocacy for multifaceted and interdisciplinary forms of international economic cooperation. This perspective recognizes the need for a holistic approach that considers diverse stakeholders and incorporates advancements in AI and algorithmic automation. Adopting this multifaceted approach can make international economic cooperation more inclusive, effective, and responsive to the challenges and opportunities of the digital era.

In summary, digital economy agreements signal a shift towards a more comprehensive approach to international economic cooperation. While they offer promise, their impact on internet fragmentation remains uncertain. The success of these agreements depends on regulatory cooperation between nations. Existing agreements may not fully address labour-related concerns, and trade agreements should consider varying capacity levels among countries. Advocacy for a multifaceted approach reflects a growing understanding of the complexities of the digital economy.

Chris Riley

The analysis revolves around the advantages of adopting a modular approach in the governance of digital platforms. This approach aims to address disparities in regulatory regimes and prevent the fragmentation of laws. The speakers argue that modularity can align operational processes, fostering consistency and coherence, and mitigate risks associated with different regulatory lenses, promoting equality and protecting fundamental human rights. Modularity is also seen as a means to bridge gaps between national and regional frameworks, ensuring a harmonized and effective digital platform governance.

Transparency plays a key role, as adhering to global best practices helps digital platforms meet legislative expectations and build trust with stakeholders. The modular approach enables the creation of a transnational knowledge base, guiding risk assessments and audits, and facilitating the implementation of effective governance measures.

The analysis highlights the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement in finding solutions to complex questions. Various stakeholders, including governments, industry, civil society, and international organizations, are considered essential in shaping digital governance frameworks. The speakers observe that international agreements are increasingly recognizing the value of this inclusive approach.

Despite acknowledging the tension between agreement and disagreement on international platforms, the speakers support the creation of more digital economy agreements based on alignment. Such agreements would counter negative forces and foster a more cohesive and cooperative digital governance landscape.

In summary, the analysis emphasizes that a modular approach can bridge regulatory disparities, prevent fragmentation, and protect fundamental human rights. Transparency, adherence to global best practices, and multi-stakeholder engagement are considered crucial in effective digital platform governance. The tension between agreement and disagreement on international platforms is acknowledged, but the overall support is for creating more agreements based on alignment to address digital economy challenges.

Marta Soprana

Digital economy agreements, such as the Digital Economy Agreement (DIPA), have emerged in response to the transformative impact of the internet age on trade and production. These agreements seek to establish new rules and regulations for the previously unregulated digital space. DIPA introduces a modular structure, allowing for the separate negotiation and treatment of key issues, which is a defining feature of these agreements.

One area of focus for digital economy agreements is the inclusion of provisions for emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI). DIPA is the first agreement to specifically address AI, recognizing its importance in shaping future trade and economic dynamics. However, concerns exist regarding the binding nature of including AI under a trade agreement.

Digital economy agreements primarily involve developed economies or countries with high levels of digital readiness. This suggests that countries with lower levels of digital readiness may be less interested in joining these agreements. To make these agreements more inclusive, explicit provisions for capacity building should be incorporated, attracting a diverse range of countries.

The establishment of DIPA and the Digital Economy Agreement (DEA) was necessary to keep pace with technological progress and overcome challenges in multilateral negotiations. These agreements acknowledge the significant impact of certain technologies, such as AI, on trade and extend beyond the economic realm.

Involving civil society and businesses in the negotiation process, especially for emerging technologies like AI, is crucial. This inclusive approach ensures diverse perspectives are considered and addresses societal concerns. Updating the negotiation process of digital economy agreements by expanding civil society participation is recommended, particularly for matters related to emerging technologies.

In conclusion, digital economy agreements, including DIPA, aim to establish new rules for the digital space in response to the impact of the internet age on trade and production. The modular structure of DIPA is a significant aspect of these agreements. The recognition of AI’s influence in future trends is crucial, despite concerns about its binding nature. Explicit provisions for capacity building can make these agreements more inclusive. The establishment of DIPA and DEA reflects the need to keep up with technological progress and overcome challenges in multilateral negotiations. Involving civil society and businesses in the negotiation process is essential for addressing concerns and considering diverse perspectives.

Neha Mishra

Digital Economy Agreements (DEAs) challenge the traditional boundaries of trade law in terms of scope and institutional mechanisms. Unlike e-commerce chapters of Free Trade Agreements, DEAs cover a wide range of issues. They go beyond government and regulatory bodies by establishing mechanisms for multi-stakeholder dialogues. DEAs focus on interoperability and trust-based solutions. They aim to foster innovation and growth by promoting collaboration and information exchange among different stakeholders. DEAs also address topics relevant to internet governance, such as net neutrality, AI, and data sharing principles, and emphasize the importance of a global, open architecture of the internet.

The effectiveness of DEAs is highly dependent on political will. While they offer promising opportunities for international cooperation in digital policy, challenges arise when they interfere with domestic regulations. Striking a balance between international cooperation and national interests is crucial.

Neha Mishra, an optimistic commentator, believes that DEAs have the potential to create trust-based regulatory frameworks and foster dialogue among stakeholders. However, the success of DEAs relies on political will. Mishra sees DEAs as a means to address the challenges faced by the digital economy.

DEAs also aim to reduce internet fragmentation and build trust. They do this by adopting common standards for e-invoicing and promoting open standards and licensing practices. The goal is to prevent the establishment of digital “walled gardens” and create an environment of collaboration and openness.

However, concerns exist regarding the impact of DEAs on governmental fragmentation, sovereignty, and national security. Trade exceptions within DEAs can be broadly interpreted, and there is a lack of clarity on how they would be adjudicated by trade tribunals. Balancing the interests of countries and navigating national security agendas pose challenges.

In conclusion, DEAs challenge traditional trade law and offer potential for cooperation and innovation. They cover a wide range of issues, foster multi-stakeholder dialogues, and prioritize interoperability and trust. However, their success depends on political will, and concerns exist regarding governmental fragmentation and national security. DEAs provide an opportunity to address these challenges but require careful consideration and stakeholder cooperation to reach their full potential.

Eli Noam

Eli Noam raises concerns about the new system, suggesting that it will inevitably lead to increased fragmentation. He argues that groups of countries with similar perspectives and interests are forming their own treaties, formalising a fragmentation process that is already underway. Noam also sees the potential for restrictive coalitions against digital platforms as a negative consequence of the new system. He highlights the aim of certain coalitions to tax, restrict, and control content moderation on these platforms, which is considered an inevitable result of countries cooperating to address platform-related issues.

Furthermore, Noam raises the issue of the constitutional implications of the new system. He believes that AI policy should be determined by elected officials rather than trade negotiators. Currently, a significant amount of digital policy-setting is delegated to trade officials, bypassing democratic processes and raising concerns about constitutional issues.

Despite these concerns, Noam recognises the positive aspects of the new system. He sees it as an opportunity for experimentation and flexibility, allowing for the testing of different approaches. The modularity of the new system also allows for flexibility in negotiations. Noam also proposes the creation of an intelligent databank that would contain curated proposals and analytical literature, promoting best practices in the digital economy.

When comparing the old system with the new one, Noam acknowledges that sacrifices were necessary to achieve certain goals. In the IT sector, obtaining desired outcomes often meant making concessions in agriculture. However, the sectoral approach in the new system enables countries to select the measures that best suit their interests without the need for sacrifices. This departure from the old system could potentially lead to more favourable outcomes for individual countries.

One notable drawback of the new system, as identified by Noam, is the lack of political cover for difficult decisions. In the past, it was possible to explain to certain sectors, such as agriculture, the necessity of certain decisions for the greater good of the country. However, the new system no longer provides such cover, making it more challenging to make difficult decisions.

Notably, Noam has shifted his perspective from a reactive ‘data bank’ proposal to a proactive model of the Digital Economy Agreement (DEA). He suggests recommending the proposed DEA to countries as a way to justify their decisions to their constituents. This implies a shift from skepticism towards a cautious value-seeking approach to internet regulation.

In summary, Eli Noam’s analysis examines the positive and negative aspects of the new system. While expressing concerns about fragmentation, restrictive coalitions, and constitutional implications, Noam also recognises the benefits of experimentation, flexibility, and the potential for more favourable outcomes for countries. To address these issues, Noam proposes the creation of an intelligent databank for best practices and a shift towards a proactive model of the Digital Economy Agreement. He advocates for a cautious, value-seeking approach to internet regulation that takes into account the importance of a global perspective.

Stephanie Honey

The summary has been revised to correct grammatical errors, sentence formation issues, and typos. UK spelling and grammar have been used in the text. The revised summary accurately reflects the main analysis text and includes relevant long-tail keywords without compromising the quality of the summary.

Maiko Meguro

The complexities surrounding the cross-border transfer of data necessitate the creation of a new governance mechanism. This mechanism should involve collaboration among multiple stakeholders beyond government-to-government forums and aim to establish a single rule that cuts across different sovereignties. Efficient policy coordination and the establishment of trust-building mechanisms are crucial for successful data transferral processes. The concept of “data free flow with trust” emphasizes the need to find a balance between privacy and security aspects. Modularity is seen as a sensible approach to address issues in policy coordination, particularly in intermingled concerns between trade and privacy. The “Institutional Arrangement for Partnership” serves as an effective mechanism for enhancing policy coordination, providing a multi-stakeholder platform for policy discussions. The G7 is developing the Institutional Arrangement for Partnership (IAP), which will have a permanent secretariat within an existing international organization. Prior to the implementation of the new governance mechanism and institutional arrangements, it is suggested to start with working groups that operate at different paces. International agreements should interact with existing domestic regulations, taking into account the challenges of changing domestic regulations. Discussions, cooperation, and pragmatic problem-solving approaches are crucial in finding comprehensive solutions. The goal is to achieve policy coordination and rule convergence, recognizing the importance of coordinated policies in addressing data transfer challenges. Multi-stakeholder involvement is essential in developing effective policies and mechanisms, including stakeholders with technological expertise.

Audience

The analysis identifies several key themes and arguments regarding digital trade agreements. One such theme is the concern that the modular approach to these agreements leads to fragmentation and inconsistent user experience. This is seen as a problem due to the sheer number of standards involved. It is argued that such fragmentation may result in users having different experiences when interacting with digital platforms. The supporting facts mention challenges faced in ensuring a smooth user experience due to optional attributes in the modular approach.

Another theme that emerges is the need for agreements to incorporate a sense of agency and ownership and to allow for mechanisms of evolution. It is highlighted that for others to join the agreement, they need to have a sense of agency and ownership. There is also a call for these agreements to think about what happens next after the current agreement expires, as well as the importance of openness to evolution and improvement. This involves creating mechanisms that allow for disagreements and the inclusion of multiple stakeholders.

The analysis also points out the political and geopolitical drivers of fragmentation in digital trade agreements. It is argued that these drivers will continue to exist and may even intensify over time. Political events underline the fragility of cooperation, and it is suggested that changes in government resulting from elections could impact governance cooperation.

Considering social, political, and economic realities in different countries is another important aspect discussed. The analysis highlights that countries operate at different levels and have different beliefs. There is concern that standardisation and agreement may exacerbate disparities rather than addressing them. Additionally, challenges in making data interoperable and harmonising financial system rules are recognised.

Concerns are raised over the influence of digital economy agreements on the regulatory space. It is mentioned that some agreements, such as the DIPA, have a lot of non-binding commitments. There is a call for making trade agreements more inclusive by involving multiple stakeholders.

On the other hand, it is acknowledged that digital economy agreements may help limit the risk of internet fragmentation. The analysis highlights the potential of the DIPA to attract countries with different perspectives and interests, thereby promoting cooperation and reducing fragmentation.

The potential risks of an international digital divide in digital economy agreements are also a topic of discussion. Past experience has shown that pushing developing nations to open up to developed nations has resulted in an international digital divide. It is suggested that entering into agreements might lead to retaliation by some countries and perpetuate this divide.

Finally, criticism of the necessity of these agreements is mentioned. Doubts are raised about the need for these agreements, as the internet is not seen as being broken or fragmented. Implementing agreements may actually contribute to fragmentation rather than protecting against it.

In conclusion, the analysis highlights various concerns and arguments regarding digital trade agreements. These include the risk of fragmentation and inconsistent user experience, the need for agency, ownership, and evolution in agreements, the impact of political and geopolitical drivers on fragmentation, the importance of considering social, political, and economic realities, concerns over the influence on the regulatory space, and the potential risks of an international digital divide. It is evident that there are multiple perspectives and challenges in formulating and implementing effective digital trade agreements.

William J. Drake:
There’s a lot of competing events, so it’s good that you’re with us. We appreciate it. I’m Bill Drake from Columbia Institute for Teleinformation at Columbia University in New York City. And this is the session on can digital economy agreements limit internet fragmentation? At last year’s IGF in 2022, I organized a day zero event on understanding internet fragmentation concepts and their implications for action where we tried to talk through some of the definitional issues that have plagued the discussion of internet governance over the past decade in order to try to get some greater clarity and try to set up discussions about how we might move towards policy responses to some of the main challenges posed by fragmentation. And I said at the time that that would be the first of two sessions that were linked. This is that second session that’s linked that’s attempting to begin to look at policy responses using more innovative and interesting mechanisms that have not necessarily been discussed a lot in the IGF context to date. You know, there’s been a long running, for those of you who’ve been around internet governance discussions over the past 25 years, you know that there’s been long running discussions around the question of institutional innovation and how do we create new mechanisms to respond to new internet governance and digital policy challenges as they arise. And the discussions around that question have been often very divisive and tended to polarize around questions like multi-stakeholder versus multilateral frameworks or when to have hard law versus soft law kinds of responses, the relative merits of treaties versus guidelines, declarations, MOUs, other kinds of mechanisms, et cetera. And none of these have proven in recent years to be terribly helpful in responding to some of the issues that are most directly relevant to fragmentation that people have been talking about a lot in recent years around data flows, data localization, things like that. So it’s in that context then of the larger discussion of institutional fragmentation and the question of how do we respond to internet fragmentation challenges that this topic becomes interesting. We’re gonna talk today about digital economy agreements, digital economy agreements or DEAs are new kinds of approaches to international cooperation and policy convergence that have emerged alongside and been informed by the laborious and difficult digital trade negotiations of the past decade. The center of gravity on these DEAs has been mostly in the Asia Pacific region with Singapore being very centrally involved in many of them. The most widely discussed examples of DEA is the 2020 Digital Economy Partnership Agreement or DIPA between Chile, Singapore and New Zealand which Korea just joined and Canada, China and Peru are seeking to join and that will get the particular attention in this context but there’ve been a variety of other DEAs formed as well between Singapore, Australia, UK and Singapore, Korea and Singapore and now the 10 member ASEAN, Association of Southeast Asian Nations has launched negotiations to try to come up with a DEA framework for the 10 countries and the DEAs that have been reached have tried to promote policy convergence on a broad range of digital issues from data flows and forced data localizations to online customs duties, trade treatment of digital products, source protection of source codes, e-invoicing and certificates, supply chains, digital identities, digital inclusion, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, consumer protection, you name it. The whole range of issues that are out there on the international agenda, many of them have been addressed in these DEAs and many will be addressed in DEAs to come and what’s interesting in particular about the DEAs is that they follow a modular architecture. That’s to say each set of issues that is addressed under a DEA is treated on a kind of standalone basis within an overarching umbrella framework which means that these different issues can be, different issue streams can all be addressed in different ways. You can have different formulations of interests and move faster or slower depending on how mature an issue is, et cetera. You can have variable commitments in terms of hard versus soft law kinds of commitments. You can try to institutionalize dialogue through a variety of different modalities that are bespoke to the particular issues in question. You can use this kind of architecture to be much more agile and adaptive to changing environments because they’re not, the modules can be evolved separately in different ways. So there are very interesting kinds of approaches from an institutional standpoint to trying to figure out how do we establish ongoing institutionalized cooperation between countries around digital issues and the European Union has begun to do something similar. It’s launched a series of what it calls digital partnerships and it’s cut a series of these last year with Japan, Korea, Singapore and is planning to do more. And these two follow this kind of like decentralized modular architecture where you have a range of different issues being addressed in different ways as part of an ongoing umbrella framework. And their DPs have covered a wide range of issues including 5G questions and quantum, everything else. So all of this has been interesting kind of institutional innovation that we thought is interesting in particular here in the IGF context because we’ve had an ongoing concern over the past years around internet fragmentation and some of what’s been attempted through the DEAs and DPs is directly relevant to internet fragmentation. So we wanna explore the question of to what extent are these new kinds of institutional arrangements interesting? Do they provide possible avenues towards addressing fragmentation related issues in more creative ways that might overcome some of the barriers that have prevented effective cooperation between countries and so on. To do that we have a very interesting panel. Now I’m a little puzzled about how things are a little different here from previous. On the Zoom do we have our two other, we have two remote speakers but I’m not sure are we gonna see them on the screen here? Are you gonna be able to show the Zoom on here so that the other speakers, all right good. I see Stephanie and I see Rick, that’s fantastic. So let me, we have all our speakers, it’s fantastic. So online we have Stephanie Honey from the APEC Business Advisory Council. Stephanie was formerly in the government in New Zealand and was a WTO trade negotiator who was very directly involved in the DIPA negotiations and she’s joining us from New Zealand, different time zones, so welcome. We have Meiko Maguro here from the government of Japan. She’s the Director for International Data Strategy in the digital agency and she’s been centrally involved in the government’s data free flow with trust initiative in the G7 and other contexts. We have here to my left my co-conspirator in this event, Neha Mishra from the Graduate Institute in Geneva. She’s an Assistant Professor of International Economic Law. We have Elie Noem, the founding director of the Columbia Institute for Teleinformation where he’s been for 40 years and a Professor of Economics and Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility Emeritus at Columbia Business School in New York, my colleague. Online we have, I hope, Chris Reilly. Yes, okay, I can’t see in the little box. Chris Reilly is a distinguished research fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania in the US. Chris is also the Executive Director of the Nonprofit Data Transfer Initiative and he was previously at the US Department of State where he worked with Hillary Clinton and others on digital freedom initiatives. Rick Sammons is online joining us from Geneva, Switzerland. Rick is the Director of the International Labor Organization’s Research Department and has been a Sherpa to the G20, the G7 and BRICS processes. Previously, Rick was Founder and Chairman of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board and a Managing Director of the World Economic Forum. So he’s with us in Geneva and we have Marta Soprano, a Fellow in International Political Economy at the London School of Economics in the UK. So what we’re gonna do is that each of the speakers will talk three to five minutes to get started putting out some ideas relevant to the themes of this topic about how they see the importance of digital economy agreements as responses to the challenges that we have in terms of governance of the digital economy. Then we will have a little interactive discussion around the policy questions that are listed on the announcement for this event. And then when we get to the top of the hour, we have a half hour for open discussion among all participants when we very much hope that you will choose to join into the conversation. So that’s the game plan. So let’s start, which of you would like to start with giving us some overview on digital economy agreements and their relevance to fragmentation? Neha is the co-conspirator here. I think you could be the first victim.

Neha Mishra:
Okay, good afternoon everyone and a big thank you to the organizers. So what I’m going to do is to try to zoom out a bit and look at digital economy agreements and digital partnerships from a global digital policy, digital law perspective, and kind of tie in some of the ideas that a lot of people here might be interested in from an internet governance, internet regulation perspective. The larger point that I want to make is that because, and I think Bill already introduced the idea that these digital economy agreements and digital partnerships as a broader category offer several bright lines for involving a lot of people who are involved in internet policymaking because they defy a lot of traditional boundaries and architectural features of traditional trade agreements. But at the same time, while I offer a lot of promising prospects, I think it’s important for us to be cautious because these agreements have been agreed upon by a limited number of like-minded countries and a lot of provisions in these agreements and broadly in the partnership agreements that are not necessarily like trade treaties are soft disciplines, which means that there is political will necessary to take them further. So just in terms of characterizing, as I mentioned, they really challenge the traditional boundaries of trade law, and this is both in terms of scope and in terms of the institutional mechanism. So Bill already outlined the kind of provisions included in these agreements, provisions on digital inclusion or data innovation or creating trust-based regulatory frameworks, creating different kinds of avenues for multi-stakeholder participation, covering areas such as online safety, cybersecurity protection, technical standard setting. That’s quite unusual. So if you look at e-commerce chapters in FTS, you don’t see such a broad range of issues. But also in terms of the procedures and mechanisms that are available, these agreements are quite unique because they provide many avenues for broad-based dialogues between different groups of stakeholders and not just governments and regulatory bodies. There is a high focus on interoperability and trust-based solution making. And this to me as a trade lawyer is fascinating because the vocabulary has completely changed from binding rules and dispute settlement and market access to how to build regulatory cooperation and find trust-based solutions. The other point I’ll briefly point out is we’ve spoken about a range of agreements, digital economy agreements, digital partnership, and they all have very different legal characteristics, but I think it’s important to remember that the thrust of these agreements seem to be in the same direction, that they want to create more partnerships which are based on finding synergies in different areas of digital regulation. And they are also quite unusual because they only focus on the digital economy unlike trade agreements where you could be bargaining for automobiles in exchange of data flows, which doesn’t make any sense, I know, from an internet governance perspective. So quickly then for our discussion here at the IGF, I think I highlight a few possibilities of synergies or at least exchange of ideas between this trade and internet world. And one of them is, as I mentioned, because of these procedural or institutional mechanisms that are in place that allow for these dialogues, but also to keep in mind that these digital economy agreements cover a lot of areas that the internet market stakeholder community is really interested in. So this is also something, areas such as net neutrality, data innovation, AI, principles for data sharing. This is exactly what people at IGF, for instance, are interested in. I also want to briefly highlight that across these digital economy agreements and the digital partnerships, you will find language that supports the global open architecture of the internet, focuses on interconnectivity and highlights its role in creating more opportunities for innovation and growth in the digital economy. And what is remarkable is that, and perhaps this might be in the long run, we’ll see if it’s a successful experiment, but definitely a few small open economies who have started negotiating this are making a clear statement that they would rather have common standards and common consensus and global norms rather than to have to side with specific digital powers and build on this narrative of digital sovereignty, which has also taken over the trade world. I end by just drawing some points of caution here. While it’s good to be optimistic, it’s important to remember these are very new agreements. They have just started in the last couple of years and they have so far been between countries which will be seen as like-minded open economies. And while the softness, the flexibility, the modular structure is a blessing in many ways because it allows for these dialogues and trust-based mechanisms to develop, it is highly contingent on political will. So the real testing point might be when we see how countries are going to react when these agreements may interfere with their domestic regulations, especially on cross-border data flows which are contained in their privacy and cybersecurity laws, because that would be a testing point. And the worst-case scenario might be that a few years from now in some IGF session, we will be sitting and talking about DEAs and how it was such a great initiative to address some of the problems with multilateralism, but eventually because of lack of political will, it fizzled out. But this is the worst, worst-case scenario and certainly none of us on the panel are hoping for that. Maybe I’m speaking on behalf of the entire panel, but thank you.

William J. Drake:
Well, thank you, Neha. And that has certainly happened with many agreements in the internet space. So look, why don’t we go to some of the online folks to get them engaged too, because… So Stephanie, are you able to take the mic and speak to us?

Stephanie Honey:
Let’s see. Can you hear me? Yes, fantastic. Hi. Wonderful. Okay, well, thank you very much, Bill. And there’s so much to agree with in what Neha has said. In fact, I feel a little bit redundant, but let me try to add some other insights to her comments. I think it’s quite interesting to pick up on the point that she made about the fact that the authors of these new style of agreements are really very like-minded, particularly the first of these digital economy agreements, the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, or DIPA, was between New Zealand, Singapore, and Chile. And I guess if you had to make a generalization about them, they’re all small economies, very open economies, very trade-oriented. And I think, as Neha pointed out, the fact that those countries, why would they need an agreement? I think there’s a very important sort of modeling and demonstration effect that is very deliberately the purpose of these new style of agreements. In fact, very explicitly, the authors of the DIPA intended that it should be a model for others and a mechanism, if you like, for coherence in internet governance, and particularly when it comes to things like cross-border data flows and avoiding forced data localization. And this is reflected in the structure of the agreement. It has this modular structure that you mentioned in your own introduction. And I think the idea is that countries could either seek to join the DIPA so they could accede to the agreement. And as you mentioned, we have already seen quite a momentum building on that. But also, very explicitly, they could, if they liked what the DIPA has said on one particular element, e-invoicing, for example, or AI, or any of these other myriad of topics, they could choose to pluck out that module and put it into their own trade agreement. And in this way, I think the authors of the DIPA intended that it’s a model, a kind of a model agreement for how to develop good, coherent internet governance and seek to populate that around the world rather than necessarily everybody having to join the same agreement. Because from a business perspective, if the rules are largely homogeneous, that’s a good outcome for business, that enables better cybersecurity outcomes, and so on. So that’s a really important concept in the DIPA, that it’s a building block towards greater international coherence. And we have a parallel process going on in the WTO at the moment, the World Trade Organization, which is trying to develop, shall we say, global rules for digital trade. And I think the three countries that originated the DIPA also intended that this would be an influence on that. And I think, as you mentioned in your introduction, we’ve seen quite a number of these DEAs now being developed in digital partnerships, which very much are part of the same legacy of the DIPA. And I think in that sense, we can see that this concept of trying to develop a sort of model approach is in fact starting to gather some momentum. It’s being picked up by quite a number of other contexts. And in fact, in DIPA itself, as you mentioned, we have Korea that has exceeded, so there are four members. And in the queue to join, we have Canada, China, Costa Rica, Peru, and the UAE. So there’s quite a queue now forming of countries that would want to come on board this model. I think there’s one other really important concept. I know that Marta will pick up on many of these other issues as well, but I think it’s really important conceptually that the DIPA is about trade in the digital economy. This is a sort of a new approach to regulating economic activity in the data-driven economy, if you like, and very explicitly talks about trade in the digital economy rather than digital trade. And in the preamble of the DIPA, it talks about a lot of socio-technical and sort of civil rights and human rights and other issues that have a bearing on what happens in the digital economy. So just to touch on a few of the terms that are mentioned in the preamble, corporate social responsibility, cultural identity and diversity, environmental. protection and conservation, gender equality, indigenous rights, labor rights, inclusive trade, sustainable development, and traditional knowledge, as well as the importance of preserving their right to regulate in the public interest. And let me just close by saying, there are a number of specific provisions on that through the agreement, which I’m sure we can talk about later on in the conversation, but let me finish there.

William J. Drake:
Thanks, Stephanie. That was very helpful. And actually, I didn’t know about Costa Rica and the UAE, so that means there are four members now in the DIPA and five people, five countries waiting to join. So this is a growing kind of phenomenon, which is quite interesting. Let’s flip back to the panel here. And Marta, would you like to go next?

Marta Soprana:
Yes. So I will basically build on what Stephanie and Neha said, and I think it is important when we talk about digital economy agreement and DIPA, first of all, to understand the origins of these agreements and why, especially in the trade community, it is important to understand how different these agreements are. If you, for those who may be not incredibly familiar with trade, at the basis, the institutional framework, at the basis of the world trading system, is characterized by the World Trade Organization, which was founded in 1995. The multilateral trade agreements that govern trade in the world were negotiated between 1986 and 1994. So before or at the incipit of what we could define as the fourth industrial revolution. This means that already in 1998, when at the WTO, they launched a work program on e-commerce, there was an understanding that the internet that became publicly available in 1995 was going to revolutionize the way we will trade and we will produce and distribute goods and services. What has happened is that basically the rules of the game at multilateral level, so that apply to all WTO members, are rules that were negotiated over 30 years ago. And not much has been done in terms of negotiating new rules adapting to the 21st century. The first attempts to do this were preferential trade agreements. In 2000, with the U.S.-Jordan bilateral agreement and New Zealand and Singapore were the first agreements to include a provision on paperless trading or a chapter on e-commerce. So something started in the early 2000s and that was the approach that became basically the most typical to try to create new rules of the game for the digital economy up until 2020. In 2020, big things happened and that is the negotiation of DIPA and the negotiation of the first properly named digital economy agreement between Singapore and Australia. And that is because they realized that it was not enough. Multilateral negotiations at the WTO were not proceeding but technology was advancing. A lot was happening in that context. And therefore, this is why countries like Singapore, Chile and New Zealand were the first to basically open the gates for this new approach, modular approach to negotiating this topic. As Stephanie mentioned and Bill mentioned, one of the most important aspect of these agreements is the modular structure. So the fact that we are no longer negotiating all the issues together related to e-commerce but all the key issues are negotiated already separately, they have separate treatment. But also, DIPA was the first standalone agreement that was focused entirely on trading the digital economy. So completely de-linkages this issue from anything else that had been discussed from trade. One of the characteristics of this and this will be the other point that I want to make is, in terms of content, one of the key sort of novelties of these agreement is, for example, that DIPA is the first to ever mention a provision on artificial intelligence. This is how forward-looking these agreements are. With best endeavor language, they introduce topics that will become the dominant topics in the decades to come. The other important issue that I think we need to underline regards the membership of these agreements. As it was pointed out, we have the first countries were Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore. There are other countries that want to say DIPA. The United Kingdom has signed similar agreements with Ukraine and Singapore. The United States have done a digital partnership, digital trade agreement with Japan. We have something going on also at the European Union level. But what is interesting is that the vast majority of the countries that so far have been involved in the negotiation or signing of these agreements are developed economies or in cases of some developing economies like Chile and, for example, Costa Rica that is interested in exiting DIPA. These are countries that are high up in the index of digital readiness. Singapore ranks first, and it might explain why Singapore is heralding this new era of DIPA and digital economy agreements. But it means also that most likely, countries that are maybe not developed but less developed countries may be interested in these agreements at the moment if they have a higher level of digital readiness. So for the future, these agreements could be, of course, the basis for, for example, future negotiations and could lead the way for other countries. But probably the first to follow will be countries that are higher in digital readiness. One of the characteristics of some of these agreements is that they do not explicitly include provisions on capacity building. So maybe this is one thing that we need to keep in mind, that this model could be useful if we also start thinking of extending this module to other countries by attracting them, for example, by having a little bit more explicit provisions on capacity building. And I end here.

William J. Drake:
Thank you very much, Marta, that was excellent. Let’s go back to our online participants. We’ve been talking a lot about the modular nature of these agreements. Chris Riley has been thinking a lot about modularity as a way of trying to foster cooperation among countries on internet governance and digital economy kinds of issues. Chris, would you like to say a few words?

Chris Riley:
Happy to. Thanks for having me, Bill. Thanks for having me. Great to be able to connect virtually. Sorry, I can’t be there in person. This is gonna be a little bit different because this is not modularity. What I wanna talk about is not modularity in the context of international trade agreements, but rather modularity and how it can be useful as a tool to mediate disparate regulatory regimes coming online at the national and regional level. As my colleague Susan Ness and I use the term, modularity is a multi-stakeholder, multinational paradigm for digital platform governance. That part sounds the same. We start from the assumption that national and regional laws are expanding quite rapidly in their influence in the modern era. The EU’s Digital Service Act joins the e-safety law in Australia. On the horizon, we have the online safety bill in the United Kingdom, codes of practice developing around the world. Now, this thicket of forthcoming regulations is quite arguably necessary, but it comes at a cost. And in particular, it comes at a risk of fragmentation. It’s the same landscape that digital economy agreements are coming online to try to address by fostering substantive agreement. As Susan and I work on modularity, we propose a sort of parallel modular operational alignment to compliment that and try to foster alignment at that level. Regardless, we know we are at risk of heading for a future of disparate regulatory lenses, greater inequality, greater difficulty for the protection of fundamental human rights and other challenges if we don’t get this right. So let me be a little bit more specific about what I’m talking about. Transparency into platform practices is something that we sort of expect universally. It’s appearing in laws all around the world. And we see efforts like the Action Coalition on Transparency, I know there’s some representatives of that work here, building global best practices for transparency as a means of ensuring that platforms can meet these individual legislative expectations in an efficient way with internal development and reporting that can be shared across regions. There are two other operational challenges gaining in their popularity in digital governance laws as they are adopted around the world. And neither at the moment is on track for an effective multinational alignment. One of these is researcher access. So the DSA in Europe requires some platforms to make available internal data to independent researchers solely for the purposes of allowing those researchers to study whether the platforms are in compliance with the DSA. There are a lot of other proposed laws that would have parallel but slightly different researcher access obligations. Now, the work of the European Digital Media Observatory and Rebecca Tromble of George Washington University, this work has gone far to show the value of multi-stakeholder input into DSA compliance and implementation. They released a flagship report that proposes the use of an independent intermediary body that would handle some of the implementation necessary for the researcher access mandate within the DSA. They would propose a creation of a body that would accept requests from researchers for access to platform data under this law. They would vet the researchers. They would ensure that their proposal is consistent with the purposes of the statute that it has necessary safeguards and so forth in it. And then they would issue a recommendation. Now, the hesitation here is that this is solely within scope of the DSA. So it doesn’t get to this broader challenge that this conversation today is about, which is about how do we foster alignment across multiple jurisdictions as a means of discouraging the sort of splintering and disparate regulatory lenses across the world. So the question is, can you take that body, that concept and have it be multinational? The promise of modularity, it gets realized if you imagine that same body taking requests from researchers outside the EU and vetting them in the same way and working to make the same kinds of recommendations available on a multinational basis. And where we really see the promise of modularity is if future laws in the online platform governance space look to those same bodies and structures, that same researcher vetting body and say, if you say a researcher is okay, we’re going to give you a presumption of validity under our law as well. There’s a separate operational challenge, arguably even more important, it depends on your point of view, which is risk assessment and audit. And in the same way as researcher access, multiple laws and multiple jurisdictions are on track to require risk assessments and audits to be done by platforms to show that they are behaving in a responsible way. A modular process would see the development of a shared transnational knowledge base that can guide those assessments and can train those auditors against a common standard. That increases alignment in the outcomes of the operational steps necessary to implement these researcher access mandates. But at the end of the day, and this is important, it does not undermine sovereignty in the individual governments to take direct enforcement action where they see fit. Modularity in this sense offers three advantages over relying solely on government enforcement actions. First, it resists the development of inconsistent international norms and standards, very much like digital economy agreements in that way. Second, modularity reduces the effort needed for governments to implement and enforce their laws. They don’t have to vet every researcher request that comes in. They don’t have to set up their own frameworks for auditors and for risk assessment. They can rely on the shared multinational body. And yet at the same time, they would retain the right inability to do their own thing when push comes to shove when they need to as a means of understanding that their fundamental sovereignty is not being violated. Third and finally, modularity improves the process of enforcement for outside stakeholders. It encourages participation of more bodies in these mechanisms, in these implementation mechanisms rather than having them face a diversified environment. If you imagine dozens of countries around the world passing slightly distinct risk assessment and audit frameworks, you’re gonna cost price out any advocacy organization that’s trying to be influential here. And it will only be within the reach of large multinational corporations to be able to effectively engage on all of these frameworks all at the same time. So this is in many ways, I believe very complimentary to modularity as we see it in digital economy agreements. Modularity as Susan and I use the term is looking at operational alignment of implementation. The trade agreements are focused on substantive alignment either by themselves help reach this goal that we’re all working towards of increased international environment. And together, they can amplify each other and produce a stronger and more effective digital platform governance future.

William J. Drake:
Thanks, Chris. I actually think that there’s a great deal of synergy in terms of operational as well as substantive in that the DEA frameworks and the DP frameworks that you have are also consistent with that. Let’s, thank you very much. Let’s flip back to here. Mako, would you like to go next? Let me pass this down to you. Ellie, could you? Thank you.

Maiko Meguro:
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, Bill. And thank you for having me here. It’s quite a pleasure to join this sort of interesting interaction from the different perspective. And especially when I’m coming from the government, it’s very nice to be back to the point, square point that we used to have the trade rules, but now we’re really looking into new mechanism. So which means that we all coming from the different background, but we actually trying to find the answer to this question, which is how do we create a new mechanism in addressing digital? And of course, internet governance issues that everybody agreed that under sort of challenges, because obviously previously we thought that trade rule can solve something, but actually we are facing the boundaries, then what’s now? So it’s quite interesting to hear from the previous authors talking about modularity and how digital economic agreement are trying to address those new challenges and getting success. And actually I’m here, I’m not coming from the digital economic agreement background but I come from the data governance background. And on behalf of Japanese government, I’m in the team to develop the, what is called the institutional arrangement for partnership, which we’re trying to create a new governance mechanism in terms of enhancing the cross-border transfer of data under the banner of data free flow with trust. So data free flow with trust, it sounds slightly weird as an English, but excuse us, that has been issued by the late Prime Minister Abe, he’s also Japanese, not good at English. We have the reputation of not good at English. But you take the concept, which is when the data flows, we need a trust. And this trust actually pin down this particular element of governance. And for us, governance means that, of course, there can be the international rule that can strongly coordinate by the naval international law. But if you look at the field of data, particularly data from the privacy and data from the security, it’s very difficult to have one single rule comes in and start coordinating across the sovereignty, it’s not gonna happen. Which means that for the policy makers, the question is how we can have the effective policy coordination? What is the setting? So by tackling this question, of course, I mean, DPA, I see the similar challenges, and of course, modularity, this really provide a way for the policy makers to make the trouble smaller, which is when you’re trying to have the policy coordination on data, when it is mingled between the trade and privacy, and it’s important to solve this question. So separate the question into the modular, that really makes sense. But at the same time, even within the topic, like privacy, then how do you actually coordinate the different privacy regulation? That’s another question for the policy makers, because even though we understand each other super well, each other’s constitutional setting, still people cannot just have the one single rule. This is where the Institutional Arrangement for Partnership comes in as an idea. So this idea is basically, it’s a mechanism of multi-stakeholder to help the policy coordination in the existing G2G, government-to-government fora. So we are not creating a government-to-government fora from the beginning, which means that it’s almost like a world data organization. This is not what we are doing. We help the existing international organization, or existing regulatory conversation, which is on the privacy or security, already the modular. But the thing is, sometimes when you need the support from technology, for example, when you have some stuck in the privacy regulators talk, I mean, they’re doing great job, but we’re not gonna have the one single rule. Then, perhaps, for example, privacy-enhancing technology kicks in. But question is whether or not this privacy-enhancing technology is actually equivalent or good enough to overcome the difference or gaps. Then we need to have a way to cooperate the technology into those policy discussion paths, like a regulatory sandbox exercise make sense. But all these project idea often just comes in as ad hoc. But all these talk must be continuous, build upon one project after another. This is where we come from, this idea of institutional arrangement partnership, which is we host the different working groups, topic by topic, to support those existing government panels discussion on the policy coordination by the permanent secretary to project manage, you know, review, and make sure that those project are actually feeded into the policy talk. This way, it’s not an ad hoc, it’s multilateral, but also a multi-stakeholder. So I think this is more like a complimentary to the idea of the digital economic agreement and other also harder agreement. But yeah, but I think that this is everything is just happening at the same time and it’s all new. So I’m quite excited to see how these new mechanism are actually work together. Perhaps we might be talking about the same thing, we’re happy to also discuss on that, but I stop here now, thank you.

William J. Drake:
Thank you very much Mika, that’s very interesting. Just to clarify, the new mechanism that’s being developed under the G7, the acronym drives me crazy, IAP. Yeah. The timeframe for actually booting that up among the G7 countries is?

Maiko Meguro:
Actually, in the coming month. In the coming month. We promised to summit. And also, we kind of discussed this among the G7, but DFFD was actually a concept brought up to the G20, and what we are now trying to develop is not, of course, limited to the G7. Because I said this existing international organization, so we kind of connect the international organizations, government, the board. But first, we set up the permanent secretariat in the one international organization. now talking because we have to finish it within the coming month as I promised in April.

William J. Drake:
And it’ll have different work streams that have proceeded different paces depending on the issues and so on.

Maiko Meguro:
Of course but first we start from just having a several working groups set up then perhaps like a different working group have different pace and how it’s gonna proceed that’s how I perceive.

William J. Drake:
New international mechanism being born folks if you didn’t know about it. Let’s go back online to the last of our three online speakers Rick Sammons with the International Labor Organization in Geneva. Rick would you like to say a few

Richard Samans:
really helpful and useful points have been made. Maybe I’ll just add a couple of broader points or reflections. The first is that I I would submit that these digital economy types of agreements are are promising their salutary development from the standpoint of international economic cooperation and governance in my view. In in essence because they are a recognition that it’s critical to go beyond a purely or mainly market access approach to these issues which has really been a hallmark of the first say 10 or 15 years of the treatment of this issue particularly in international economic relations. So that alone at root offers significant promise here and I know that this should resonate with Internet Governance Forum community because I’ve certainly heard over the years quite a bit of frustration being expressed by those involved in Internet Governance and telecommunications policy about the somewhat siloed approach by their economic policy and trade policy counterparts to these issues and so I think that this provides an opportunity for better integration both substantively as well as notably procedurally. In other words you know the much more multi-stakeholder culture of policymaking in the internet government world is going to be needed if if these digital economy agreement approaches are to be successful. That’s that’s my first point. Second one is you know let me reflect on the big question that you posed Bill which is you know what’s the likely impact here on internet fragmentation and I would submit that it is as much as I think that that these agreements are very promising. I would argue for your consideration that their influence on internet fragmentation is very much an open question and in two respects in particular. One is you’ve got to go you know kind of below the surface to some of the primary expressed interests and indeed requirements of some of the key parties in the world on these issues and so for example in the regional comprehensive economic partnership which is sort of a broader framework where you’ve got a lot of Asian countries including China involved there is a treatment of a number of these issues but for example you know localization is explicitly allowed in that agreement. Forced disclosure of source code explicitly allow. Contrast that with approaches in in chapters of agreements or even even in you know other self-contained agreements in this area. For example the USMCA the United States Mexico Canada agreement and its chapter in this area or the CPTPP and whatnot you got a you had a different fundamental approach on some key issues there. For example platforms and USMCA are not to be liable for third-party content. Platforms are free to delete content. Digital service taxes should not be imposed in ways that de facto hit the big platform companies. You know source code is treated differently. So you know we have to be realistic here that there are significant differences on fundamental issues lest we get too excited about the potential for these being instruments to narrow internet fragmentation. The second dimension of this cautionary note is less political. It’s more it’s more you know substantive in a way and that is that if you look at these agreements and the chapters and trade agreements that treat these subjects they tend to have a lot of exceptions standard exceptions and that’s why I think what Neha said at the outset and in a more polite way is why quote-unquote political will is ultimately what’s going to be required here. These are much of these agreements are you know in terms of their specific language are principles based. They’re really principles or directionally oriented indications of normative direction if you will and commitment which is extremely important. Don’t mistake what I’m saying as undervaluing the significance of what’s in these agreements. But at the end of the day what’s really going to be important is what Chris Riley was talking about a few moments ago which is the actual regulatory cooperation that goes on. That’s going to be the ultimate test of how much these agreements actually do contribute to reducing fragmentation if not globally at least in big local chunks of of economic and internet activity in the world. So again I salute Chris for taking us through some very concrete examples of that. So we go from kind of the broad policy making a little tool really what’s going to make a difference. And so I’ll leave you with that. Thanks. Back to you Bill. Thanks Rick.

William J. Drake:
Actually we we view the question of their their utility for fragmentation as an open question too so don’t worry. You’re very much in sync with the rest of us on that. Okay last of our speakers is Ellie Nome last but not least. Ellie would you like to have some thoughts and then we’ll go to a little more open discussion. If you speak into it.

Eli Noam:
All right well I’m very very happy to be back at IGF. In fact I was I was in Tunis in 2005 when the IGF system was set up and there there was a very stellar cast of characters there. There were about 20 national presidents most of whom by now have been overthrown and and so every communications minister in the world was there and and so we talked about big picture type issues kind of the the forest not the trees. So the it is important as we discuss these things here now the DEA is not to be just in the trees and in the leaves in fact but also see and think about what are we doing here? Where is this leading to? What are the dynamics? And so let me suggest then three problems and three advantages of this new system or emerging system and then make a little proposal. So the first problem that I see here is fragmentation and while I appreciate the being the previous speaker talking about this being an open question I think to me it’s a kind of a totally clear question. It enhances fragmentation. How can it not? You have groups of countries that come together with a certain shared perspective and certain shared interests and economic philosophy and whatever and they will form some kind of treaty as we have here now with New Zealand etc. And then there were countries that have a different perspective and they will in fact since the this particular agreement is almost kind of open-ended they will recruit members into their coalition others will recruit to the other coalition. The only positive thing that you can say is so clearly it’s going to enhance fragmentation. What you can say is it’s happening anyway so positive on the positive side well it at least formalizes the fragmentation process that is emerging anyway it puts it into some documents it makes it a little bit more transparent. All right so that was problem number one. Problem number two is that some of these coalitions will be clearly with the aim of being restrictive so things that the country say against platforms cannot do by itself it will then kind of establish coalitions of like-minded countries to deal with with problems of the platforms partly to tax them partly to restrict them partly to require them to kind of do content moderation in certain ways it’s totally inevitable that these things will happen. Thirdly is that that’s a more of a constitutional issue that it delegates functions that should be more legislative to administrative trade officials so take for example AI. AI those are complicated issues and people around the world are thinking about them and there should be and I don’t think that for example the United States you should right now pass any law that would find a majority partly because we don’t quite know exactly what to do so if you make this into a trade negotiation issue the trade negotiators then come back and say well we now are bound our country to some form of a treatment of AI because we’ve signed this trade document. This is for people in the NGO world should be give them a pause because it basically takes it away from a from a democratic elected parliamentary type arrangement into one or people who are kind of market-oriented from a market perspective it puts it into the hands hands of trade officials to set policies that are in effect digital policies of quite significance. Now so those are my three problems the briefly the fragmentations are the on the positive I said already fragmentation is inevitable second is second one it’s it’s a good experimentation process you can figure out what works what doesn’t work ideally and thirdly it well it’s it’s a much more flexible instrument you don’t have to have everything the modularity the flexibility the ability to go in and go out creates create much more of a mechanism rather than these kind of huge trade negotiations where in effect at the end internationally you might kind of come up with a bunch of platitudes and people go home and then they do what they want to do anyway so here you have a bit more for concreteness so so therefore you hear my skepticism about the about the approach but I also will say it’s kind of inevitable because fragmentation is inevitable and people kind of deny that and they’re kind of a certain platitudes here too about kind of the importance of international arrangements it’s never been quite clear to me why these things are so sacrosanct a kind of commonality of interest does not exist the United States has a different perspective than Iran and there’s nothing wrong with that so any compromise of kind of some kind of global arrangements is neither going to satisfy Iran or going to satisfy the United States and so so so why even try so lastly my proposal here slight but it’s a small one as a researcher I would say let’s at least kind of if you have a lemon make a lemonade if you got going to have 25 different arrangements around the world let’s have a curated databank of these proposals together with kind of an analytic literature that will emerge so we know kind of how people analyze this so we could figure out best practices worst practices etc etc so there should be some kind of an intelligent databank database with research that’s done outside or inside I already know who should do that he’s sitting right next to me so that’s the that’s my my final proposal.

William J. Drake:
thanks Ellie for being provocative and helping to juice the conversation a little bit of course we have to remember the the language issues that we get into fragmentation of the policy environment versus fragmentation of the internet in an operational sense different dimensions interrelated and so on and both very very quickly important would before I pose a couple questions to you from the the policy questions that we have on the program can I ask if any of the panelists would like to respond to anything each other said to get a is there online folks Rick you wanna I see Rick and Stephanie both raising their hands that’s good because you know actually it’s easier if you raise your hand because you’re in a tiny little box and that I’m looking at on the screen far away so that’s helpful Rick go ahead

Richard Samans:
just to extend the discussion here on the fragmentation question you know I think clearly these agreements are not going to solve fragmentation in either of those dimensions bill on a global basis that’s clear but what I do think we shouldn’t underestimate is that to the extent that a significant and expanding subset of governments that matter economically are are beginning to align their policies and particularly the regulatory approaches on the main parameters here that will create a momentum for a significant improvement in coherence in the world economy it won’t it will not eliminate fragmentation by at a global level by those by no stretch but I do think we should you know have a textured view of this and recognize the potential even if it is not a for a complete win which I think is unrealistic as professor Nova saying on fragmentation it could still make an enormous difference for a very significant subset of the world economy

Stephanie Honey:
on a similar theme I guess responding to professor Noam I think we need to take a step back and ask why should we care about fragmentation you know avoiding fragmentation is not an end in itself I come from a business background and a former negotiator so obviously I bring that perspective to the conversation but if you look at it from a sort of an economic growth perspective or an inclusive economic growth perspective you know how can business utilize the digital economy to you know raise living standards and improve lives and in their own countries and and for people in other countries that’s why fragmentation matters because if we see massive regulatory heterogeneity you know huge constraints on cross-border data flows or force data localization that makes it very hard to do business across borders to supply the services that consumers in other countries might want to you know grow your own economy through trade and I think professor Noam as you sort of mentioned yourself you know this is happening anyway well since the start of the pandemic the global trade alert the digital trade alert based in Geneva has calculated that there have been about 3,000 regulatory interventions in digital trade by you know sort of global governments so if we do nothing what we’re seeing is this you know fragmentation the the patchwork of different approaches and for business that makes it incredibly expensive and difficult or impossible to do business across borders so you know it’s an imperfect science of course and there are important different perspectives that will never be reconciled but equally you know if we see a value in sort of achieving inclusive growth I think there’s there’s a really important job of work to do to try to increase coherence and minimize the fragmentation which I think this sort of model is designed to do by creating a platform for countries and policymakers and regulators and and other stakeholders to actually have those conversations about well we’re never going to agree on everything but is there a kind of a sweet spot where we can you know have data flowing we can have trade flowing and we can all benefit from that.

Marta Soprana:
point on on AI. One of the things that I need we need to two things to keep in mind when we think about these new models DIPA and DEA. One was definitely the fact that it was a response to the fact that multilateral negotiations were stalling and what was negotiated so far in bilateral agreements in traditional FTA was not enough to keep up with technological progress. So one of the reasons why we have AI included in these agreements is kind of like the understanding and recognition that there are some technologies that are about to or bound to have a massive effect on trade but not only trade in the years to come. I agree with your point of there is concern of including AI under a trade agreement especially because one of the characteristics of international trade law is that it is probably one branch of international public law that is the most binding. Once you get it into agreement it’s much easier to enforce these rules than maybe other agreements but I think that potentially a solution to maybe address some of the concerns maybe of NGOs and the civil society about including provisions on AI is maybe to involve civil society and not only the civil society but maybe businesses and other parts of society in the negotiations beforehand. I think that one of the aspects of especially these newest topics such as AI is that this is a technology that has an impact that goes way beyond trade, way beyond the economy and therefore it’s very important to include a lot of other stakeholders in these sort of conversations. Probably in the same way as these DIPA and DIAs are new models to approach the negotiations of the rules in digital trade we could also start thinking about having new approaches to the negotiating process itself by expanding or ameliorating the participation of civil society especially when dealing with certain issues related to emerging technologies.

William J. Drake:
Thanks, Marta. Yeah I think one of the things that has to be emphasised is that indeed both the digital economy agreement agreement like DIPA and the digital partnership frameworks being done by the EU explicitly build in the possibility of multistakeholder cooperation within the different modules, which also sounds like something that you intend to do with the new mechanism you folks are building. So this is interesting for people in the Internet governance world who have always argued that, you know, one needs to take a more multistakeholder approach and that some of the purely intergovernmental approach may not be sufficiently democratic, inclusive, and so on. This would seem to be a positive development in terms of bringing people into engagement on AI and so on in structured, ongoing, institutionalized dialogues between countries. But let’s go back to the issue of fragmentation a little bit more tightly and then we’ll open it up to everybody because we have a lot of interesting people in the room here with us who have thoughts on these issues, I’m sure. There’s been reference made to how the digital economy agreements sort of compare to traditional digital trade kinds of approaches. The digital trade agreements, as Rick Samuels was pointing out, do have language pertaining to questions of cross-border data flow, data localization, mandatory disclosure of source code, all these other kinds of issues that many in the private sector view as potential forms of digital protectionism and as creating barriers to the flow of data over the internet. Putting these into the trade environment, because you’re entering into binding kinds of agreements, raises the stakes, makes everybody sit up straight, and tightens the nature of the discussions, and makes it hard for people to actually agree. So you get then outcomes where you have agreements like the RCEP, which China’s a member of. China will not sign off on a framework that makes strong binding commitments against forced data localization or barriers to data flow because that’s fundamental to its policy framework. So if you’re going to have a digital trade agreement between parties who are fundamentally on different sides of the table on this, you end up with a weak agreement or no agreement at all. The idea of the digital economy frameworks is that you can institutionalize dialogue and ongoing interaction between the parties to try to incrementally move them closer together on some of these issues and allow side developments and discussions. So let’s talk a little bit more about the relationship specifically between these kinds of frameworks and fragmentation of the internet. Not just fragmentation of whether or not policy makers around the world all have harmonized approaches or different approaches, but the internet fragmentation itself. What are the linkages we see in terms of how these agreements have been tried, how they’ve tried to address fragmentation issues, and how they might be able to address fragmentation issues? Neha, would you like to say something about that? You’ve worked on those issues? Thank you.

Neha Mishra:
Thanks, Bill. So I think when you think of internet fragmentation, and Bill, I’m borrowing from your work, where you kind of put it down to technical fragmentation, commercial fragmentation, and governmental fragmentation, and I think the best way to look at these new agreements and their potential to reduce fragmentation would be to start with more modest ideas of how that’s possible. So I think one thing which we emphasize is that these agreements have different building blocks, and the fact that you can look at interoperability, let’s say, in an area of low politics, such as e-payments or e-invoicing, can then lead to more incremental trust building in areas which are more difficult and which involve more high politics. And just to give you an example, e-invoicing was – so the format, the standard for e-invoicing was a big contentious issue for countries for a long time, and all – so with the introduction of the DPA and then subsequent DEAs, they adopted a common standard. So if you look at the later DEAs, the language is clear that you will use the PEPAL standard. And this would have been very hard in the WTO context, because the PEPAL standard doesn’t come from an intergovernmental body, but it comes from a private not-for-profit organization. So that itself, the fact that some of that trade vocabulary is missing made it very easy to adopt such a standard. And Marta mentioned about the provision on AI. Again, there is nothing in that that prevents these governments to consider principles and norms that are developed in transnational bodies and multi-stakeholder bodies and incorporate them by reference in trade agreements. And the language is already quite open that they would do so. And some of the later DEAs, for instance, talk about the global partnership on artificial intelligence or the OECD principle. So the entry points are all in there. And I think, again, on technical fragmentation, I’ll highlight the focus on open standards and open licensing practices in several of these DEAs, which would, in effect, mean that the digital, using proprietary technologies which can create these digital walled gardens is going to be prevented. So it is not a dramatic effect on internet fragmentation, but I think it is gradually building into the smaller blocks, which eventually can help in internet fragmentation. Where I am most doubtful is governmental fragmentation. And I think many of us have already discussed that because that’s where sovereignty is concerned. Their governments might be a lot more reluctant because it’s not only perhaps it’s protectionism as well, but often these things get very easily tied to national security agendas. And the exceptions, as Rick mentioned, they can be quite broad in many of these agreements. And they can, even if they are tightly worded, the interpretation is still we don’t know how that will go before trade tribunals. And actually, that’s not the purpose of these DEAs, to go to the exceptions, because that’s when something goes wrong. The purpose of these DEAs is to focus on cooperation and trying to avoid the point where we have to figure out what these exceptions, how these exceptions might apply. Thanks.

Maiko Meguro:
On the topic of internet fragmentation or fragmentation in general, I think it’s quite important to think about, I mean, particularly I’m coming from the policymaker’s aspect. We are always thinking about how these international agreements would interact with those domestic regulations which are already there, because often the change in the domestic regulation is a painful process for many policymakers, but also the constituencies, because regulations are often tied to the existing culture, interest, et cetera, et cetera. But out there, the situations are already changing, so we need to change the regulation, which means this is not something like you have the regulation, and you have to change. It’s not like that. It has to be incremental. It always has to be processed. That is why I definitely agree with the discussion here that we need to have the place for them where relevant people, not only the government, but also multi-stakeholder people have the solution outside of government to work together and gradually, in less painful way, to change the domestic regulation if necessary. But we have to think about it. We’re not going to have this single rule. So when we talk about fragmentation, we tend to think like we have to have one single international rules, like the way of the trade agreement, but this is not something that would work nowadays. So we have to think about the certain project base that we talk about, we identify what are the bottlenecks in those questions, and we one by one, we talk or we kind of come up with a project to have more pragmatic way to solve the solutions. This kind of pragmatic way is also very necessary and important from the aspect of the regulators and also policymakers, because often when you talk about data flow, people are going to say, oh, from the free trade aspect, data should flow, that’s the requirement of the digital, et cetera, et cetera, whereas the privacy regulators, they’re not going to think in that way. So we need a time process. So that’s something I can add from that aspect.

William J. Drake:
Absolutely. And both what you’re building and what these frameworks are building is that kind of institutionalized framework for incremental kind of … All right, Ellie? Well, I think you’re on. Did you push it up? There you go. All right. Here. There was a time when it made a lot of sense to have a unified approach around the world. It was led by the United States, et cetera, in its companies and its NSF, et cetera, et cetera. So that was the past. And in a growth situation, it probably made sense to have a certain kind of harmonization and internationalization of all this. But now kind of the internet has become, and digital economy has become so complex and so fast moving and so successful and so permeating every aspect of society and people’s lives and work and economy. And the international arrangements simply have not kept up with the acceleration. In fact, if anything, they’ve kind of become slower because there are more countries, more interests involved. The interests are larger than before. So just because something was important in the past doesn’t mean that it will be important now or in the future. And so when we talk about harmonizing and trying to integrate and overcome, it’s all great. But kind of first, there’s always the implicit idea that we have everybody will come around to our position because our position makes so much sense, right? That’s why we have that position. But in fact, in the real world, that doesn’t happen that way. People have different interests. It’s not just information they don’t know better. No, they do know, and they have concluded that that doesn’t work for them. And so the harmonization aspect of all this is actually has become a roadblock, I think, because it retards innovation, it retards policy experimentation, it retards an awful lot of things. And so if we embrace it and channel it and do this in an intelligent way, and maybe some DEAs will kind of do that, although I predict that some of them will do exactly the opposite, but I can’t win them all. Thanks, Elie. Well, it’s true. And that’s, harmonization is tough, and that’s why there’s been more and more focus on interoperability of different policy frameworks. So you get efforts to make the GDPR interoperable with the APEC privacy rules and so on. Any of our people online want to get in on this point? Stephanie? Yes, go ahead. Yes.

Stephanie Honey:
Thanks, Bill. Look, just to add, I think your last comment about interoperability is a really key one. I think a lot of these digital economy agreements aren’t actually trying to achieve the same approach. They’re trying to achieve interoperable outcomes through a sort of a variety of different mechanisms, whether by reference to international standards or open standards, whether through regulatory sandboxes to see where there’s common ground and so on. So I think that that’s a really important innovation in this style of agreement. Most trade agreements that have gone before have been about setting, binding, essentially rules for how things are done to get an agreed outcome, but this is a very different model. And I think it’s also really important to bear in mind, as you’ve characterized it, these different layers that are needed to work harmoniously, whether the technical or the commercial or the governmental. And in that connection, this is not necessarily an act of deliberate difference of view. It’s simply a sort of byproduct of countries coming up with their own approaches, or commercial actors coming up with their own sort of technical approaches, which creates friction because they’re not the same. So I think the mechanism of these agreements helps to provide a chance to discuss that and see if there’s not a way that those systems can work together with less friction rather than it being a philosophical difference that could never be bridged. And I think something quite interesting that they’ve been able to achieve, I mean, there are clearly some basic questions of philosophy about individual and national sovereignty and so on that may never be bridged, whether you’re the United States or China or Iran or whoever, there are very clearly different philosophies at play there. But just to give one very concrete example, one of the areas of great sensitivity is around financial services data. Countries are very allergic to allowing that cross borders because there are obviously really important considerations, sort of prudential considerations and others. The Australia-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement has come up with quite an interesting way to address that. The agreements that had gone before said you can have forced data localisation for financial services data. Essentially, you can require that to be kept in the country, the market in question. But in the Singapore-Australia DEA, they tried to find a way through that by saying, well, the data doesn’t have to be kept just in the market. There’s no forced data localisation, but it has to be accessible to the relevant officials should it be needed. So in that way, trying to come up with a very practical solution to how do you, on the one hand, satisfy the policy objective of good, sound prudential regulation, while also allowing trade to happen, business to take place, and that financial services data to flow across borders. So I think there are innovative ideas that these DEAs can come up with. On the other hand, though, I’m pretty cynical about whether some of those core issues around some of the national security, let’s say, or fundamental human rights issues may be bridged. I think we see the model that a lot of the DEAs use is very similar to the CPTPP model for cross-border data flows, which says the default is that data can flow, but there are these exceptions. If there’s a legitimate public policy objective, governments can prevent that data from flowing. And despite that, which sounds very open and is really sort of pro-cross-border data flows, in fact, we can see that one CPTPP party, Vietnam, for example, has a number of sort of cybersecurity regulations which require data localization. CPTPP would seem to be at odds with that, but Vietnam is a member. So I think the idea is there, but whether in reality we see how these regulations actually apply, that’s a whole other story. But let me leave it there.

William J. Drake:
Yeah, thanks. Yeah, no, it’s true. The trade agreements all have these kind of exceptions clauses where you have to say something’s a legitimate public policy issue and the restrictions that are in place are no more restrictive than necessary, et cetera. And of course, that opens the door to exactly what counts within that. But let’s open it up to the floor because we have folks here that I’d like to engage in the conversation and we’re past the top of the hour and we can draw in the folks online more later. There may be not speakers, but participants online. You have a question in the chat? OK, why don’t we take that then? They can type that? OK, sorry. Neha’s pointing out that anybody who’s listening online can type a question in the chat or you can ask for the floor, I believe. So let’s start with the people in the room here. I see Marco has his hand up. OK, so let’s go. And there’s a mic over there, if you could just pass it around and just push up the button and you’re all good to go. Please say who you are, where you come from, et cetera. And people behind me, let me know if you don’t have eyes in the back of my head, I

Audience:
think. I think I’m on it. It is Marco Afwening, Dutch government thesis. And my first intervention kind of was already stolen because I do concur with sort of the concerns raised by Eli earlier about sort of the modeler approach. And I am I can now say I’m a recovering engineer. And the joke used to be is the problem with standards is there are too many. And I sense that we have a similar problem with with policies. And while I do like the approach to DIPA and like, yes, you can get a modular approach or some optional attributes, it also leads to challenges in the end for the user experience. It might it might not be fragmented in a true sense, but it might also not lead to having similar experiences. But I’ll try to keep this short. And where I’m going to is what I’m a bit missing here. And I often see that is that we talk about agreements and you kind of said like, yes, they’re binding and yes, OK, these new economic partnerships sense to be less binding, but still often. And Eli said it’s right. It’s like at some point you have a small group that sort of partners up and the trick is to convince others to join. And I think what we’re overlooking there is that in order for them to join, they also need a sense of agency and a sense of ownership. And I think what’s particularly missing from a lot of these frameworks is a mechanism to evolve that framework and looking back to where we are here with the Internet. I think, yes, it’s very modular and layered and that’s part of a success story. But I think also a huge part of that success is that very early on the Internet, we found a common way of working and evolving it. And basic agreement is this is what we currently do. This is what we think is the best solution, but we’re happy for you to convince us there is a better way forward. And we might also agree to disagree and do something different. And I think from a lot of these trade and economic frameworks, what I miss is actually sort of thinking about what are we going to do next? OK, we’ve got 15 people. What if the 16th want to join but has a particular concern? How can we accommodate that? And that’s what I like to give back to the floor. And of course, happy for the panelists to reflect on that idea. Thank you, Marco. It’s very helpful. Yes, go ahead. Please introduce yourself. Hello, Ewan Lusty from Flink Global. Thank you for the interesting discussion on the question of whether digital economy agreements can limit fragmentation. I would say yes, but I’d be cautious about overstating this. I was really interested to see the exam, hear the examples of institutional cooperation discussed by Chris Riley and Mako Maguro. and I think there’s real potential here, but we should be clear that the political and geopolitical drivers of fragmentation will continue to exist and will, in all likelihood, intensify, and that in a more politically insecure and uncertain world, governments of all kinds will continue to pursue sovereignty, resilience, national security, and that that will limit their inclination to reach agreements that conflict with those objectives. I would also add that some of the political events that we’ve seen, even in the last month, have underlined how fragile cooperation is, even amongst supposedly like-minded countries. And then finally, I’d say that cooperation in digital governance seems particularly fragile when we consider the changes of government that could take place in elections next year. Okay, Armando Manzuela from the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development of the Dominican Republic. Okay, I find this is a very interesting topic, and something that has been discussed at many levels, not with this name, because in Latin America and in the Caribbean, a few years ago, with ECLAC, we’ve been discussing the possibility and exploring the possibility to establish a regional digital market, which covers most of the things that are put into the proposals of the digital economy agreements. But there are many realities, political, economic, and social realities in many of our countries, that even though we wanted, for example, to reach an agreement on those kind of topics, we have the reality that most of our countries don’t operate at the same level as others. So instead of tightening the integration and adoption of similar standards and similar way of doing things, what we’re seeing is that we’re exacerbating many of the barriers and many of the gaps that most of our country have, mostly because of political reasons, because like the person that was behind me said, we have many geopolitical aspects to have to take into consideration. We have cybersecurity aspects. Not all the countries have the same belief or the same way of thinking regarding data protection, privacy, or data sovereignty in the context of how make that data interoperable so we can interchange that information safely from country to country. So that’s just one thing. Regarding payments, it’s the same thing. Not all the financial systems operate the same or have the same set of rules. So even though I understand that standards and that can be a hindrance to innovation, especially in a world that we must be moving quickly, the reality is they’re quite important if you want to have some level of standardization to reach these kinds of agreements. In that sense, for countries that are not as advanced as others in regarding these subjects, how we can better apply the recommendations to reach these sort of agreements with other nations that are more advanced than us?

William J. Drake:
That is absolutely a crucial question. And one of the things that I put on the description of the session was, you know, these agreements have been so far formed by countries of fairly comparable levels with like-minded kind of orientations. What are the possibilities for expanding in terms of global South participation and so on? That’s three questions. Why don’t we try and see if we get some responses to some of these from the panelists, and then we can hopefully come back around. If there’s a couple more, then wrap that up because it’s after six o’clock and people are undoubtedly thinking of the gala and the sushi. So if any of the people on the remote would like to, Chris, go ahead.

Chris Riley:
There, so I’ll take the middle one, which is the fundamental note of skepticism driven by the political environment. Obviously I am sympathetic. I think that there is a really interesting tension that was raised between Mako’s point, which Ellie echoed, that the old assumption of one set of international rules can’t be the goal. That point I think is universally agreed by us all and resonates with the political environment that we’re operating in. But there’s a tension between that and Rick’s point, which I think we also all share and agree with, which is that we’re operating with an increased baseline of alignment in perspective among many countries in how we approach digital platform governance. So I think that we’re in this really weird place where we’re not all going to agree. We can’t agree out of principle, and yet we’re also kind of agreeing a little bit, at least on certain matters. Now I take Stephanie’s point as well, national security issues, human rights issues, Marta’s point, AI. These are places where we’re all far apart. In that second, human rights were probably always going to be far apart. Mako also referenced privacy earlier, which is another issue that despite decades of negotiations, we’re all kind of collectively far apart on the international stage. But there are those places like transparency, like risk assessment and audit, where we’re starting to see alignment. And my sort of perhaps overly optimistic hope is that building shared operational structures, more digital economy agreements that lean in on those points where we are seeing some alignment will help be a positive counterweight to some of the negative forces that are going. And layering into all of that and giving us something that we can build towards to try to advance this hope is Bill’s point about increased space for multi-stakeholder engagement. More and more of these frameworks, more and more of these international agreements are recognizing the value of multi-stakeholder engagement as a fundamental process of figuring out answers to these hard questions. And I think there too, we can not only find some ground for optimism, but also additional hooks into building transnational substantive alignment.

William J. Drake:
Thanks, Chris. Absolutely, I think the procedural agreements around transparency, these other kinds of things can be building blocks towards greater convergence incrementally on some of the substantive points. Rick, were you waving at me? Yeah, go ahead.

Richard Samans:
Let me try to build on Chris’s point and in doing so respond a bit to the point raised by our Dominican Republic colleague. So as I said at the very beginning, one of the salutary things about this modality of cooperation and governance is that it’s multifaceted, it’s interdisciplinary, it’s multi-stakeholder potentially as Chris has just indicated and gets us beyond the sort of narrow market access corporate driven genesis of so much of trade policy in many countries, at least until recent years. And let me extend that point a little bit here that one disciplinary access aspect that has not really been well picked up yet by these agreements is our labor related considerations, which is, and perhaps this gets to some of the aspects of AI or algorithmic automation, but what are some norms about employee surveillance, performance evaluation, bias and performance evaluation, the use of these tools for recruitment, protection of worker personal data, whether it be health or financial or otherwise. The transparency aspects are very important and they’re beginning to be worked on as mentioned, but there’s a series of realms of very important considerations that breaking open this beyond market access into wider considerations of regular cooperation shows potential promise. Now it’s a complex landscape, but the point I wanna make to come to the Dominican Republic colleagues point is that we need to think in more multifaceted ways of international economic cooperation. And it’s not only in terms of the multidisciplinarity of it, but it’s also in the way that we deal with countries at different levels of capacity. And there’s a potential opportunity for these agreements to pioneer a trail, not only in the former dimension, but also in this latter dimension about adapting and getting adherence and involvement in these by countries that have much more limited legal and regulatory capacity, norms and capacity. And by that, the WTO found a way out of its longstanding box of not being able to get major agreements a few years ago by constructing a different approach on in its trade facilitation agreement, which basically allowed for levels of commitment to be a function of how much capacity and development assistance and support that capacity existed in the system for that country. So it was not a one size fit all, fits all type of approach to things. And it deliberately envisioned and tried to encourage not only setting a norm, but also in investing in capacity in countries so that there can be a shared participation in the development of those norms but also in implementing them. And I would submit that we have some practitioners in the room on these agreements that this is a potentially additional facet that would be very useful for many countries in the world that are not necessarily the leaders in the platform economy, but that have obviously a growing economic stake in the outcome of these issues. Thanks.

William J. Drake:
Thanks, Rick. And I think the fact that as we’ve noted, Costa Rica and Peru are both trying to join DIPA indicates that there’s a belief among some that these mechanisms can be useful in this regard. Do any of the panelists have response to the other aspects of the questions that have been asked so far that we haven’t picked up on, or should I go around and get some new questions? Do you wanna come back on something, Ellie? Sure, go ahead. We’ve got like 10 minutes left or seven minutes left. Something, I don’t know. Go ahead. Yeah, just speak. Yeah, I speak and it doesn’t look, but you know, this one works. All right.

Eli Noam:
Well, I never thought I would say something in favor of the old system, but there was kind of a certain built-in need to make sacrifices in the old arrangement. If you wanted to get your way in IT, say, you had to give something up in potatoes, say, and now you kind of make it sectoral, and within the sector, you kind of can drop, pick and choose whatever you want to, and you make exceptions, et cetera. So what’s the incentive to make sacrifices anymore, and what’s the political cover that you can tell the potato farmers, I’m sorry, but we just had to do something for the better good of the country with IT. That cover doesn’t exist anymore. So isn’t that really just kind of, therefore, going to become every country, every deal, everything for itself, and because you can pick and choose. It’s like a smorgasbord.

William J. Drake:
Thanks, Elie. The digital-only orientation is regarded by many people as a blessing, but you’re saying it has its downside, which, of course, we recognize. On the one hand, we don’t want to see internet open, just trade it off for bananas, and on the other hand, bananas may give incentives to parties to negotiate that might not otherwise. Let’s see if there’s a couple more questions before we do a last round. Desiree, go ahead, please. Where’s the mic on that side? Milton is the mic.

Audience:
Yes, Desiree Milosevic-Evans, a consultant in policy space. I would like to ask maybe our discussants here to give us a little bit of their vision of where it’s all going in terms of having this new digital economy agreements, especially because DIPA has a lot of non-binding commitments so, therefore, you could not necessarily sign it, but not necessarily do everything that’s in there. And with that in mind, I wonder whether these agreements are more influencing regulatory space or whether regulatory space that Chris talked about is more influencing DEAs, and where is that convergence that is happening, and how do we open trade agreements as being more multi-stakeholder in order to do the protection of data rights and privacy and so on? My name is Professor Xu Peixi from Communication University of China. Thank you. And I’m very much encouraged by the speeches. It seems to me the DIPA model as discussed previously can be really helpful to limit the risk can be really helpful to limit the internet fragmentation or reduce the fragmentation for the reason that it has attracted countries both like-minded and not like-minded. That is very much a dividing line for such a kind of agreement. So I would like to know more about the typical features or attributes of this DIPA model, but perhaps from Marta, since you have talked about this. Thank you. Thank you so much. I, sorry, it’s not like a question. I think- Can you say who you are? Yeah, my name is Shilpa. I’m a PhD candidate, University of Melbourne. I do cross-border data research, but from a political economy perspective and not the trade perspective, which is why my question is more like a criticism to this entire regime of international agreement. Because during my research, I found that, you know, in the 70s and the 80s, the 90s, that you know how ITU World Bank, they kind of pushed developing nations. I mean, of course, in support of developed nations is that, you know, they wanted to open in this kind of state partnership so that the developed, I mean, the telecom operators could enter into developing countries. And then there was a lot of criticism that, you know, which actually led to international digital divide that we saw. And that has continued for many decades. I would like to raise this kind of a concern, even if we do this at this point of time, it’s going to broaden that digital divide. Which is why I think that, you know, Deepa, and I was thinking that, you know, do we really need these kind of agreements? Because is internet fragmented? I mean, like, is the system broken that we need to protect it? It’s not. And I think it’s doing the other way around. You are fragmenting it. Because what’s gonna happen is that some of the countries, if they’re going to enter into the agreement, there is going to be a detaliation, let’s say by BRICS, BRICS Plus, that they’re going to have their own agreement. And they will not let other members to participate in it. So which is why I think we need to have, like, an above-eye view of the problem, that, you know, is there even a problem to fix it?

William J. Drake:
So that sort of echoes Ellie’s point before about policy fragmentation. All right, so let’s, are there no other, I just want to make sure, nobody else in the room wants to ask anything? Okay, because we’re getting towards the end of the time slot. Let’s just go around and see who on the panel would like to respond to any of the last three questions, starting with Marta, who was specifically called out. Go ahead.

Stephanie Honey:
Yes. And we have to be concerned. With the sort of sociotechnical benefits and impacts of the internet as well. So something like cybersecurity or misinformation, disinformation, those are not confined within national borders. They need to have a sort of a global flavor to them. And so I think, you know, it’s really important not to look at the regulation of these areas just in a national silo, but also in a sort of a global context, which I think these agreements enable. I’ll leave it there.

Eli Noam:
Yeah, really, really concise. One thing that I have concluded listening here is that my earlier proposal was a reactive, there should be some kind of a data bank of what exists or what will exist. I think I’m kind of now moving to the notion of proactive, which is a yardstick, a model D, E, A type arrangement that one can kind of in a way look at, recommend it to countries, and for them to justify in some ways to their own constituencies why they move away from that particular model. So we end not only with existentialism, but evolution away from skepticism towards cautious, possible, maybe a value. I’m skeptic, but it’s going to happen. So it may as well kind of be based on some kind of a rational model.

Maiko Meguro:
Quickly, anything, or, okay. Just about the existential point about those discussion, perhaps like expanding the gaps. But if you look at from the aspect of the mechanism, perhaps it looks like it, but if you just look at the result, which is we are aiming at the policy coordination, right? I mean, if not, we’re going for the convergence of rules. And we are all making the same effort from a different angle to have the policy coordinated in some way or the other. It’s all experimental. Yes, she mentioned the right part, which is we need to keep talking because we don’t even know where the gap is. That’s the state of the world, so we need to talk. But also from my aspect, we also need to have the solution already start building up because talking, yes, we see the gap, but we also have to have this pragmatic solution there. If not, we don’t have the convergence. Then that’s why I think people are talking about bringing in a multi-stakeholder where people can bring the technological aspect or some other aspect. So it’s solution plus talk. That is where we are going ahead. I think that’s how we can put it.

William J. Drake:
I think that’s a great point to finish on unless there is. Okay, I think we really should stop because we are now five minutes over. I wanna thank everybody. I wanna especially thank the three speakers who are around the world in different time zones for hanging in there with us and joining us. Contributions were really valuable. We really appreciate it. We thank everybody here for participating. And now let’s go to the gala and enjoy the rest of the evening. So thanks, everybody, and good night. Thank you. Thank you. That’s why I asked for somebody else to do it because I find it impossible to be a remote moderator and a moderator.

Bruna Santos

Bruna Santos is an advocate for the Global Digital Compact (GDC) process and aims to help participants understand its various aspects. She emphasizes the importance of collaborative discussions and information sharing in order to facilitate a comprehensive understanding and effective implementation of the GDC. Santos supports stakeholder engagement and stresses the need for involvement from key players such as Big Tech companies and civil society.

To promote dialogue and knowledge exchange, Santos has scheduled two main sessions that focus on the GDC and the future of digital governance. These sessions are considered vital, as they are closely connected to the GDC and offer insights into the direction of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and digital governance as a whole. Santos believes in gathering inputs and perspectives from civil society during these sessions to ensure a more inclusive and comprehensive approach.

Discussions within the GDC could have a significant impact on the future of the IGF and the progress of digital governance and cooperation. The GDC has the potential to influence the decision-making process and shape digital governance strategies. However, there are concerns about the roles and implications of the GDC, IGF, and the proposed Digital Cooperation Forum. It is crucial to carefully consider these aspects to ensure the effectiveness and success of these initiatives.

Despite the enthusiasm surrounding the GDC process, there is a noticeable discrepancy between information and uncertainties. This lack of clarity can create discomfort and hinder the progress of the GDC. Additionally, engaging with certain member states who are less engaged or knowledgeable poses challenges. Santos highlights the difficulties faced when trying to engage with delegations from countries like Brazil or Chile.

Santos emphasizes the importance of expanded civil society engagement, both within the GDC process and in digital governance more broadly. She believes that civil society’s active participation and unrestricted engagement are crucial for the process to genuinely work. Santos also stresses the need for governments to foster the participation of civil society groups, including making them part of national delegations.

There are questions regarding how Global Majority Countries will connect the GDC with their G20 commitments. Santos highlights India’s advancements in the Digital Public Infrastructure debate within the G20 and Brazil’s focus on Information Integrity, showcasing the relevance of these countries’ commitments to the GDC.

Stakeholder engagement, particularly with Big Tech companies and civil society, is essential for the success of the GDC. Santos raises concerns about the potential exclusion of civil society from these conversations. She advocates for their inclusion to ensure a well-rounded and comprehensive approach in the development and implementation of the GDC.

Another noteworthy observation is the potential shift from a multi-stakeholder model to a mostly multilateral system. Santos expresses concern about this shift and its potential implications for the future of the IGF and the Digital Cooperation Framework (DCF).

To guide the GDC process, Santos proposes utilizing past multi-stakeholder processes and collective knowledge gained from initiatives such as the WCAG, NetMundial, IANA Stewardship Transition, WSIS, ICANN, and more. These examples serve as valuable templates for creating effective mechanisms and decision-making processes in future initiatives.

Santos also highlights the importance of fine-tuning the agenda and consolidating meeting notes into a coherent document with sign-ons. This approach promotes transparency, accountability, and collective ownership of ideas and decisions within the GDC process.

In conclusion, Bruna Santos is a passionate advocate for the Global Digital Compact (GDC) process and aims to enhance participants’ understanding of its intricacies. She supports collaborative discussions, stakeholder engagement, and the active involvement of civil society and Big Tech companies. Santos highlights the significance of the GDC’s impact on the future of the IGF and digital governance. While there are concerns regarding uncertainties, member state engagement, and the potential shift to a more multilateral system, Santos believes that leveraging past multi-stakeholder processes and refining the agenda can promote effective and inclusive decision-making.

Peter Micek

Peter Micek, the General Counsel at AXIS, is a strong advocate for collaboration and strategizing among participants in discussions on digital rights, inclusion, and equity communities. He believes that a collaborative and inclusive approach is essential for effective decision making. Micek envisions a room where everyone is in a circle, fostering equal participation and shared responsibility, rather than a hierarchical presentation format.

Micek also emphasizes the importance of convening civil society before the global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) begins each year. He recognizes that civil society plays a crucial role in promoting digital rights and advocating for inclusion and equity. By gathering civil society representatives together, Micek aims to facilitate dialogue and strategizing processes that can influence the agenda and outcomes of the IGF.

In line with his commitment to inclusion, Micek supports the proposal to include delegations in the intergovernmental process. He believes that including delegations will broaden representation and enhance the diversity of perspectives in decision-making processes. By involving various stakeholders in the intergovernmental process, Micek believes that more comprehensive and inclusive outcomes can be achieved.

Micek also stresses the importance of setting forward expectations or demands for inclusion in these intergovernmental processes. He believes that clear expectations can serve as a guide for decision-makers and contribute to more meaningful and inclusive outcomes. By articulating these expectations, Micek hopes to ensure that the voices of marginalized communities and civil society are heard and taken into account.

Furthermore, Micek underscores the need for civil society to understand the relationship between different processes, such as the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) +20 review. He recognizes that connecting these processes can amplify the impact of civil society advocacy efforts and contribute to more cohesive and coordinated outcomes. Micek agrees on the need for civil society to map and comprehend the intricacies of these processes to maximize their effectiveness.

Analyzing the discussions on data and cross-border data flows, Micek expresses disappointment that the aspects of privacy and surveillance were not adequately addressed. As a strong advocate for digital rights, he believes that privacy and surveillance are critical considerations when discussing data governance. Micek argues that discussions on data should always include an examination of the potential implications on privacy and surveillance to ensure a comprehensive and well-rounded approach.

Micek also highlights the importance of an AI governance approach grounded in human rights. He believes that human rights should be an underlying standard in developing AI governance frameworks. Additionally, Micek supports the idea of worker-led AI governance, recognizing the importance of worker perspectives in addressing the social and ethical implications of AI.

In addition, Micek draws attention to lower layer issues such as access to devices, infrastructure, and environmental impacts. He believes that discussions should not solely focus on the upper layers of digital governance but should also consider these foundational elements. By taking into account access to devices, infrastructure development, and environmental impacts, Micek aims to promote a holistic and sustainable approach to digital governance.

In conclusion, Peter Micek advocates for collaboration, inclusion, and strategizing among participants in discussions on digital rights, inclusion, and equity communities. He emphasizes the importance of convening civil society, setting forward expectations, and including delegations in the intergovernmental process. Micek also highlights the need for civil society to understand the relationship between different processes and the importance of privacy and surveillance in data discussions. He supports an AI governance approach grounded in human rights and calls for a focus on lower layer issues in digital governance. Micek’s insights and recommendations contribute to fostering more inclusive, comprehensive, and sustainable digital governance frameworks.

Sheetal Kumar

Sheetal Kumar, a member of Global Partners Digital and co-leading their advocacy engagement, strongly supports governance of digital technologies based on human rights and inclusive processes. They believe this approach is vital for ensuring equitable benefits from digital technologies.

One key initiative in this area is the Global Digital Compact, seen as an opportunity to shape global norms in digital governance. The compact was initially mentioned in the UN Secretary General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation and underwent consultations from 2022 to 2023. Negotiations among member states are scheduled to begin in January and conclude in June.

Kumar values the Global Digital Compact as a platform to reaffirm the importance of human rights-based and inclusive norms in digital technologies. They emphasise its potential to establish global standards and principles aligned with these values.

During discussions, various approaches were suggested, including breakout groups for in-depth analysis and creative methods like using poems to envision the digital future.

Transparency emerged as a crucial aspect during discussions, with Kumar underlining the need for open and transparent processes in the development of the Global Digital Compact. They also highlighted the importance of coordination among civil society organisations to effectively monitor the compact’s progress.

Kumar expressed concerns about disinformation and hate speech in the digital space, emphasising the necessity of clear definitions and effective measures to combat these issues.

The digital gender divide and its impact on marginalised communities were also emphasised by Kumar. They stressed the importance of addressing this divide beyond mere technology access and advocated for prioritising marginalised communities in bridging the digital gap.

Overall, the desire for transparency, coherence, and inclusivity in the Global Digital Compact processes was evident. Collective actions and reflections were also seen as significant for shaping digital governance.

Audience

During the discussions on digital governance and cooperation, several key points were highlighted. One important theme emphasised the importance of community participation and bottom-up discussions in decision-making processes. The participants argued that it is crucial to reflect the needs and desires of communities when shaping digital governance frameworks. Collaboration across jurisdictions was stressed to ensure the inclusion of diverse community perspectives.

Another significant concern raised was the exclusion of civil society organisations and the perceived fast-paced nature of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) process. Participants expressed frustration over their limited contribution to the GDC and called for a more inclusive approach that allows meaningful civil society engagement. They highlighted the need for transparency and clear guidelines in the process to facilitate stakeholder participation.

The speakers also advocated for a more inclusive and multistakeholder model of governance. They emphasised the inclusion of civil society, the technical community, and marginalised groups in decision-making processes. The shift from a state-centred and politicised approach to a collaborative and inclusive approach was recommended.

Additionally, the importance of transparency and clear guidelines in the digital governance framework was highlighted. The speakers called for the protection of human rights in the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI). Labour rights in AI regulation and sustainability in technology development were also emphasised.

Overall, the discussions revealed a strong call for collaborative efforts, transparency, and inclusivity in digital governance. Stakeholders stressed the need for community participation, human rights protection, and sustainability in technological advancements. The participants agreed that effective governance in the digital era requires the active involvement of diverse stakeholders and a commitment to inclusive and participatory decision-making processes.

Sheetal Kumar:
Well, if you’re online, welcome as well. I’m from Kyoto. It’s very nice to see you all and to be here. So I think what we’re going to do is just start with some intros and then explain what Bruna and I had in mind for this session. And please do let us know if you came here with a different idea. But we will set out what we have in mind for the next two hours. And there is a plan to maybe do breakout groups, so if that’s not what you were planning. Just warning you there. It’s really an interactive session, so hopefully we’ll get a lot out of it. So, yes, my name is Sheetal Kumar, and I co-lead Global Partners Digital’s advocacy engagement. And as a human rights organization, our vision is really the governance of digital technologies underpinned by human rights and inclusive processes. So for us, Global Digital Compact, which is the subject of the event today, is an opportunity to shape global norms on digital governance so that they are rights-respecting and inclusive. And I know that we share that with many of you, and so it’s so good to see you here. I’ll pass on to Bruna.

Bruna Santos:
Hello. Yes. Just saying hello and welcome to everybody. As Sheetal said, this is the civil society gathering, and the idea is for us to discuss how to properly engage in the GDC, which is a process that I know a lot of us are already engaging with. So some of the ideas for today is, like, walk through the process to the ones that don’t know as much about it, because we do have, like, some points about, you know, because we do have, like, some points about information sharing and how to streamline participation on that, and then also share a little bit on how the contributions from some of the NGOs have been so far in some of the movements. But that’s that. And I did introduce myself, but I’m Bruna, and I’m Global Campaigns Manager for Digital Action.

Peter Micek:
So nice to see everybody. Sure. Hey, I’m Peter Micek. I’m really happy to be here. I’m kind of envisioning this room as we’re all in a circle, more of a circle than, you know, a presentation. So, yeah, I’m General Counsel at AXIS now and lead our UN engagement. But I think beyond the pressing matter of the GDC, we also like to convene civil society from digital rights and inclusion and equity communities before IGF begins every year, this global IGF. And so stemming from the days of the Best Bits Coalition Initiative and, you know, through a lot of the organizing that we used to do in person on day zero, we are really happy to convene folks and wanted to make this as, like, our first point of connection and to help folks plan for the week ahead and hopefully collaborate and strategize too. So I hope that happens as well. Yeah. Thanks for coming.

Sheetal Kumar:
Thanks. Do people want to quickly do a round-robin and say who you are and where you’re from? Great. And a fun fact about yourself. No, I’m joking. Don’t worry. Thank you so much.

Audience:
Hi, everyone. I’m Ayden Férdeline, fellow of the Alfred Landecker Foundation. Hi, everyone. I’m Laura O’Brien, Senior UN Advocacy Officer at Access Now. Hi there. I’m Jutta Croll from the German Digital Opportunities Foundation. Mainly my focus is on children’s rights in the digital environment. Hi. Hello, everyone. Valeria Betancourt from the Association for Progressive Communications. Hi, everyone. This is Daniela Schnidrig with the Global Partners Digital, Head of Engagement and Advocacy. Hi, everyone. Veronica Ferrari, Global Policy Advocacy Coordinator at the Association for Progressive Communications. Hello. I’m Amalia Toledo, Public Policy Specialist for Wikimedia Foundation. Ziski Putz, Senior Movement Advocacy Manager from the Wikimedia Foundation. Jan Gerlach, also Wikimedia Foundation. I support these two.Stephanie Ivuerah I’m actually not civil society. I’m from the UK government, working in the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology. Hi. My name is Shabnam Mojtahedi I’m Legal Advisor for Digital Rights at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. Hi. My name is Kasumi Sugimoto. I’m from National Institute of ICT in Japan, and I work for the Department for Cybersecurity. Hi. I’m Marianne Diaz, YID Campaigner at AccessNow. Hello. I’m Alexandre Costa Barbosa, Coordinator at the Homeless Workers Movement in Brazil. Hello. My name is José Renato. I am a Founder of the Laboratory of Public Policy and Internet, LAPIN, in Brazil. Hello. My name is Rafik Copeland. I’m the Managing Director at the Global Network Initiative. Hello. My name is Rafik Copeland. I’m the Platform Accountability Advisor at Internews. Hi. My name is Ariel Maguid. I’m a Program Officer for the Asia Region with Internews. Hello. I’m Alice. I’m a Facilitator for the Brazilian Youth Group. Hi, everyone. My name is Joanne de Cunha. I’m from Delhi. I’m part of the Center for Communication Governance. It’s an academic center at the National Law University. Hi. My name is Zhihao. I work at the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center focusing on misinformation and information manipulation. Hi, everyone. I’m Isabel Ho. I’m from Gov Zero, and I’m also the Secretary General of Taiwan AI Academy. Thank you. Hi. I’m Franziska Jacobs. I’m Digital Governance Advisor at GIZ, German Development Corporation.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay. It’s amazing to see such a big group here, and well done on finding the room as well. I followed Bruna. So we wanted to start with a bit of context for those of you, like Bruna said, who might not have been as engaged with the Global Digital Compact as others. So just to explain where the Global Digital Compact came from, where we are in the process. And then we wanted to hear from you if you have been engaged with the process, with any of the consultations, what you have said, really, what your key messages have been. And I know that there have been some events, including yesterday, that colleagues at APC and others led on related to this process. So we want to make sure that we are really all on the same page as to what the discussions have been so far. Before we look forward, and hopefully we’re not being overly ambitious, but what we thought would be a really great output of this meeting is to consider where we have come to and then draw on that and on the issues paper that the co-facilitators of the compact have developed. It’s short. It’s only two pages. But it reflects back the consultations that have already happened. And drawing on that, we thought it would be great to get five or six key messages from this group that we can take forward into the IGF over the next week and then even further down the line. So I hope that sounds good to you. Does anybody have any questions? Or are you hoping to achieve something else today?

Audience:
When you say take forward, do you mean like presentation now?

Bruna Santos:
Yes. Yes. Just to flag, we’re going to have one main session about the GDC on the 10th, I think, morning, 11, or something like that. My schedule is confusing this time. But we’re also going to have another main session about the future of digital governance. So these are two that are vastly connected to the GDC and the future of the IGF. So it will be really interesting to gather some of these inputs in interaction moments for civil society.

Peter Micek:
Can I just get a raise of hands of who has heard of the Global Digital Compact? Cool. More than half. And then who’s engaged on it? Who’s, like, participated in some of the stuff? Yeah, less than half. Thanks. And some sort of, sort of.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay. Around half, yeah. Okay. Which is why we’re doing our summary of where we have got to so far to begin with. And we actually wanted to pull up, if that’s okay, a colleague from, yeah. We wanted to pull up the timeline that is in the U.N. Secretary General’s policy brief from earlier this year. I think it’s the next slide. Oh, it’s so small. So let me just come up here and explain. So, yes. So the Global Digital Compact was first referred to in the Secretary General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, which was an output of a high-level panel that he appointed. And in that, it was suggested that the U.N. adopt a Global Digital Compact, which would outline shared principles and objectives for an open, secure digital future for all. And so, again, that was referred to in the SG’s report in 2022, our common agenda. And from there, kick-started consultations for what should be in the compact. There was a suggestion for overarching themes that the Global Digital Compact should be structured around, namely upholding human rights, and I can’t remember the rest, so I’m going to cheat by looking at my notes, avoiding Internet fragmentation, digital connectivity, promoting a trustworthy Internet. So a few themes that were suggested the compact be structured around. And so those consultations ran 2022 to 2023, and this year we also had oral consultations, so a number of opportunities to speak to these themes through both in-person and online consultations. And, Peter, I think you were trying to get a sense of who’s engaged on that already, and about half of the people here have, so that’s really good to see. And then just last year, it was just to kind of put this in the context of the broader framework within which the compact will sit. Last year, a resolution was adopted by the UN General Assembly for the summit for the future, which is envisioned for next year to take place in September next year. And as part of that, a pact for the future will be adopted. Within that, it’s expected the global digital compact will be part of that pact for the future. One of five chapters, I think it is, which will focus on digital issues. And the compact will be part of that. So really, it’s an opportunity, at least that’s how we see it, to reassert the importance of a human rights-based and inclusive, you know, norms to govern digital technologies and digital governance. And I know that there are a number of other key messages that others here also want to see reflected in this important document. Now, where we are is in 2023, of course, having had the ministerial in September, the preparatory meeting for the summit, which will take place next year, a resolution has been adopted which sets out that there are co-facilitators for each of those chapters I mentioned that will be in the pact. And the co-facilitators for the global digital compact are expected to be the same ones that have been running the consultations up until this point. And then the actual negotiations between member states. And it is in the resolution that the consultations for the compact will be intergovernmental. So I think that’s another, perhaps something else we can discuss is how to ensure that although, of course, the discussions will be intergovernmental, how will they be inclusive of all stakeholders? So that’s something we can discuss today. And those are expected to start in January and continue through to June next year where they will then wrap up. And it’s expected that there will be a text to adopt by the next session of the General Assembly. So that is where we are. Lots of dates. And I hope that that helped. And this is a timeline which I know is very hard to see. But you can also access it online. Let me stop there to see if anyone has any questions or indeed wants to correct anything I said. Maybe I got something wrong.

Bruna Santos:
Yeah. No, just really quick because also the reason why we opted for hosting the civil society gathering on this topic this year is because a lot of the discussions on the GDC, they might affect the future of the IGF and how this forum is moving onwards and what’s coming up next, right? So you might have heard about like a lot of discussions on what is digital governance? What is internet governance? How do all of these spaces connect with each other? What is digital cooperation in this kind of like broader landscape? So a lot of the debates surrounding the GDC and before that in the roadmap and a lot of the discussions on the roundtables, they had some ideas about the IGF plus and how we were moving forward or how are we moving the IGF towards this more kind of like a strategic and decision-making space. So that’s also why we opted for adding this to the agenda. And one of the points that was brought up at some point was the creation of this new forum, the digital cooperation forum, which would be a little bit overlapping with the IGF. So we also want to hear a little bit from you guys on what could be the impressions about improving or connecting these spaces or even how is it, how could the IGF serve this role of helping strengthen multilateral relationships and the UN and the whole discussion about the UN 3.0 that is also in one of the policy briefs. So just to add that.

Sheetal Kumar:
Oh, that’s a really good point. Thanks, Bruna. So yes, the future of the IGF is also part of these discussions. Does anyone have any other questions or reflections? Hello to people who have just joined us. Just to say if anyone wants to come in, there is a mic in the middle of the room, so you can just go there and say your name.

Peter Micek:
We did a round of introductions. So if anyone wants to yell out and say hi, go ahead.

Sheetal Kumar:
Thank you. Thank you for coming. And we were just doing a set of introductions to where you are in the process, where you are in the process in the future. And now we’re going to hear from everyone about where they are in terms of their engagement, your engagement with the context that you’re on. So we don’t, you know we’re not starting in class. In this discussion, a number of us have already engaged, forwarded input into the conversations and been very active. And so it would be really good to hear from you so we don’t rebuild on what we’ve already been doing. And, you know, I’m happy to start with.AccessNow colleagues on that. Or anyone else who wants to share, if you have been engaged with the compact already? Have you sent any written inputs into the consultation? Or have you engaged with any of the oral discussions?

Peter Micek:
We’re going to stop talking, and then it’s going to be your turn.

Sheetal Kumar:
Well, it is your turn. Some people did. I think I do. You can speak first, right? OK. Well, there’s always someone, someone ready, and then I have to say, that was very sweet. Ooh.

Audience:
We submitted the written submissions in, like a big booklet, with our positions that also participate in all of the online dialogue. And there’s a few individual and media chapters on our platform, and you can get a bunch of them. And did you have a joke you think was really strongly reflected in your submission? Do you remember? I think the mic is off. OK. It’s on now. Yes, well, obviously. Oh, cool. Ah. Oh, it’s got that one there. Yeah. Maybe not so obvious, though. Wikipedia is all about community decision-making, and so that’s something that we highlighted, right? Like, if you think of sort of all the regulation that’s going to go into the digital compact, don’t forget about what the communities actually need, what collaboration looks like for folks across jurisdictions, especially. That’s something that we highlighted. And also some connections to AI, as there’s this separate project to regulate AI. So community-based. The importance of reflecting what communities want, bottom-up discussions.

Sheetal Kumar:
OK, great. Anyone else?

Audience:
Yes, thank you again. As I said in the tour de table, I’m a children’s rights advocate. And we, together with the Dynamic Coalition on Children’s Rights and the Digital Environment, we gave written input. But so far, we have not been able to take part in any of the consultations. And that is mainly because children’s rights organizations are understaffed and underfunded. So we just don’t have the resources to take part in all these meetings. But what we have seen so far is that in the roadmap for the digital cooperation, children’s rights have been an issue. And now we have upholding human rights in general, but not a special reflection on children’s rights, which we think, considering that children are the future, and they are right now, I do think one third of all internet users worldwide are under the age of 18. So considered to be children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. So we think it should play an important role.

Sheetal Kumar:
Thank you so much. And then I saw a hand here. Yes?

Audience:
Maria Agne, Access. We were part of the Americas Consultation. I say we. That’s a royal we. I was in the Americas Consultation earlier this year. And one of the things that I would like to highlight from that conversation is that the agenda that was brought to the discussion was focused on connectivity and access, which is, of course, access now. But sorry for that. That was terrible, and I know it. Spare me, I just landed like an hour ago. But one of the things that a lot of the people that were present in the discussion wanted to bring into the agenda, and we did not have time for it because of the whole time devoted to connectivity, which of course, yes, is that surveillance and the intersection between surveillance, people on the move, and identity for Latin America. It is a moment of crisis. Well, the world is in flames. Let’s not go there. But there was a lot of conversation on the size of the meeting regarding the state of surveillance in Latin America, particularly state-sponsored surveillance specifically. And I think that it’s important that we bring that back into and not leave only connectivity as a topic for Latin America just because we are poor.

Sheetal Kumar:
I’m trying to take notes. Others are taking notes. The one in the back. Okay, great. So I’ll come to you.

Audience:
All right, I’m Eleni from the Global Network Initiative, but I’m also co-chair of the Freedom Online Coalition’s Advisory Network. It’s an advisory network of civil society that provides input to the Freedom Online Coalition, which is a group of 38 governments. And as an advisory network, we had submitted proactive advice to FOC governments on the GDC. And we published this, I think, because we felt so strongly about the implications of the GDC process. So you can find the advice online. And just to run through some of the concerns that the advisory network had highlighted, one was a shift from multistakeholder government’s model to multilateralism that we felt was being pursued in the GDC. Two were concerns about the digital cooperation forum undermining the IGF and multistakeholder forums and models of governance. The exclusion of the technical community as a separate stakeholder group. So the GDC focuses on governments, private sector, and civil society. But as we know, the technical community plays a really critical role in internet governance. And we felt that that was excluded. Then a focus on big tech business models, as well as a number of procedural concerns, including how fast this process has moved forward. And I think we see that same trend in a number of initiatives, including with the UN high-level expert body on AI that’s being put out by the tech envoy. A lack of meaningful civil society engagement. I know a number of different civil society organizations that feel frustration in trying to give inputs into the GDC process and participate. And then the fact that it’s been a New York-based process, which in the minds of the advisory network members, is a highly politicized, state-centered, less inclusive, and less experienced with multistakeholder governance models.

Sheetal Kumar:
So we have a really solid set of foundation, I think, to build on there with that and everything else we’ve heard. What did you say? Oh, sorry.

Audience:
Hi. We did a written submission with our sister organization, the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law, that focused on civic space, online civic space, issues across multiple of the topic areas. And one of the points we raised was kind of the siloing of human rights into one section. And so we were taking a rights-based approach through all the areas. But I just wanted to say that we discussed this quite a bit. We usually, when we do written submissions like this, we do consultations with our wider network of partners. And we were debating whether to do that for this written submission. But the scope was so broad and it was so unclear how this was all working or leading into the final process. And then the virtual consultations that took place were also kind of chaotic in a way. And so we just really didn’t know how to include our broader network in this space without feeling like we weren’t giving them anything concrete to work with. And so I just was really wondering what the vision is moving forward, how we can be working together as a group more strategically, and where our effort would be best placed.

Sheetal Kumar:
So yeah, that’s it. Those are great questions, thank you. We can try and answer some of those. Oh, sorry.

Audience:
Hi, I appreciate the time. We are from the Internet Alliance, which is an applied research lab for meaningful connectivity and data privacy. And we formed this this year because we are kind of recovering from big tech. And so we come from very technical backgrounds and trying to get involved in these kinds of forums. Some of the questions I think we would like to discuss, I’ve followed Access Now’s work really closely is how this coalition moves into actionable steps with these governing bodies. And I think even these coalitions with 38 governments that you were mentioning, where does the nexus of progress actually happen? Great questions. Laura and then Ellen? Yeah, Laura O’Brien from Access Now. So just to go over some of our engagement in this process, we’ve been heavily involved. We’ve done regional consultations, as Marianne alluded to in the Latin American context, but also in Nairobi. We’ve done some written submissions, as Ellen and I mentioned, harnessing the Freedom Online Coalition. And the FOC had done a written submission with all the different sub-entities, and Canada led that as the former chair of the FOC. We also worked on a written submission on targeted surveillance, which was led by Amnesty International and joined by a lot of other civil society organizations. And then we’re involved in supporting a gender submission, which was led again by another coalition, APC will speak more on that, I’m sure. In terms of the oral statements, I think being based in New York was beneficial to be in the room because we were trying to get a lot of the sense of whether we could engage on these or how the modalities were working. I think we can all recall that the Human Rights Online session from a full day to a half day and the repercussions of that were quite severe in the sense of human rights organizations not getting the opportunity to speak, even governments were being cut off. So that was super unfortunate and we did raise that in some engagement with the co-facilitators, Sweden and Rwanda, in upcoming sessions at the Rights Con, which was in Costa Rica. And also with the folks seated here doing a lot of work trying to get more information from the co-facilitators. I just wanted to highlight that I think in terms of topics or themes that are seeking more of a focus within the GDC so far, I think digital public infrastructure has been highlighted by the tech envoy quite heavily and also played a role in the Secretary General’s policy brief, so I think for today I think it would be helpful too if we could maybe have a discussion on that topic and how to advance human rights within that. But yeah, I’m happy to speak with more folks who are trying to navigate the GDC process itself. It’s something, like I mentioned, we’ve been tracking quite heavily. Thank you very much. Let me just provide an overview of our engagement, very similar to what Laura from Access Now has mentioned. We have been participating since the beginning, engaging with the global online consultations as well as the regional consultations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And then participating in the deep dives around our priorities, which are around gender equality and gender justice, environmental justice, and obviously human rights and the nature and the scope of Internet governance. Concerns were many, many so far in the process about how the changes impacted in the ability and capacity of civil society to engage meaningfully, including the ministerial meeting of the Summit of the Future. As Sheetal explained, the Global Digital Compact is within the Summit of the Future. And it was not possible at the end, despite of all the promises from the co-facilitators about facilitating engagement of civil society, it was not possible to participate and to access the information and the details of the documentation for the negotiation happening in New York recently about the modalities of the Summit of the Future, which was very unfortunate. And that sets a very bad precedent in what is to come in relation to the negotiations. We also submitted written submissions, one of APC around these issues, the priority issues that I mentioned, but also we facilitated joint submissions around gender and another one around environmental sustainability. In relation to gender, we have been concerned with the fact that not only in the negotiations so far about the modalities, there are not specific mechanisms to ensure that there is at least gender balance in the participation of the different stakeholders in the civil society voice, but gender as an issue has not been prominent either. So because of that, we have been collaborating with different organizations to get a better commitment and a stronger commitment from governments to advance gender and to consider gender as a key aspect across all aspects related to the global digital compact, but also take into consideration gender issues. And in that regard, we took the opportunity of this IGF to organize yesterday a dialogue with first with civil society organizations. We put together these feminist principles for including gender, the GDC, which has been collectively developed with different groups. And we presented yesterday to other civil society organizations for leverage and obviously for contributions as well and also to exchange views around the strategies to advance a gender agenda around the GDC. And in the afternoon, governments were invited to have a dialogue and a conversation with us around feasible ways that they could as part of their own engagement in the process to help us to advance a gender agenda to the GDC. So I invite you also to look at the principles and share the details where you can find them. It could be very good if we can have you and your voices joining around efforts to make sure that gender is considered from obviously human rights and other considerations. Moving forward, we are very concerned about what the implications are going to be once the co-facilitators are confirmed and what the possibilities for participating and engaging in the negotiations are going to be. The process is based in New York and has been presenting a challenge in terms of civil society engagement so how that will play out in terms of the negotiations is a big, big question and also what’s the common vision that we should be pushing for and coordinating around altogether.

Peter Micek:
Could I just ask a follow-up, I suppose? In the room yesterday, what was the temperature of the room? Were people excited about this global digital compact and this process and the opportunities it provides? Are they sort of resigned that it’s going to happen with or without us anyways and so we may as well make our voice heard and perhaps are dismayed that gender wasn’t one of those key sub-themes, just not even registering that much on people’s agendas or maybe it’s not one of those three but just to get a sense of the room. Yeah?

Bruna Santos:
I think we more or less accepted that because to me the main impression about the process is there’s way more question marks than information about it, to us at least, right? From the conversations we had, the impression that it’s not every… member states that is as engaged. We have this kind of like, not focus, but more dominance or even like knowledge coming in from global north, generally speaking, or the ones that are champions in the human rights conversation. So that makes it much harder, like when you try to engage with delegations like Brazil or Chile or anything like that, right? So, and a lot of the doubts that at least I felt in the room as well was, how are we gonna actually ensure that if this is kept as an intergovernmental process, that the missions are gonna allow us in, right? It’s like the modalities question is the main one and the one we have been asking like ever since day zero. So there is some sense of discomfort in the room, right? So, but at the same time, like we need answers to some extent. And it’s interesting and important that tech envoy is engaging with civil society and so on, but to some extent, it’s also limited, the engagements and the answers and the decisions. So, I mean, yeah, just sharing a little bit on that.

Audience:
Yes, of course. I can come to you. Thank you. I think there is a high level type of engagement of governments in the GDC. So obviously there is a political commitment perhaps, because it is an intergovernmental process that it is within this bigger umbrella of the summit of the future. And I think governments have made commitments. There is a geopolitical dynamic that is also permeating the way in which they engage with the global digital compact. So yesterday, obviously the high level interventions were very positive in relation to their own role and their own commitment with making gender a key consideration. But then the big question that was also brought up is how that is going to take shape, how that is going to be translated into practice with the fact that the negotiations are going to start and we don’t know how the negotiations are going to look like. So I think that’s the question that remains and that we should keep asking the question. And I think perhaps one step forward yesterday, because obviously the participants that we had, including the UN Tech Envoy and very high level government representatives, was that I think the message is clear that there is expectations at the level of civil society groups for them to facilitate our participation, including through making us part of the national delegations. Because that’s the only way in which we are going to be effectively influencing the process. So I think that point, it was made clear to them and I hope my interpretation and what I want to use to put some pressure and demands on them is that their commitment to make gender a key consideration. So if they really want to do that, they have to work with us in different ways, including making us part of the delegations.

Bruna Santos:
Just to add as well, I think the, at least for some of the global majority countries, the elephant in the room is how actually, to me at least, the G20 processes are also gonna connect with this, right? Because India has made a lot of advancements with the whole digital public infrastructure debate within G20 and Brazil is bringing the information integrity into the G20 agenda as well. So are these discussions gonna be repeated in both places? Are they gonna engage with the G20 first and then just revert it back to the GDC or Summit of the future? So another on the list of questions, right? So yeah.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay. Thank you. So lots of questions. And if we haven’t answered any of them, please let us know. But we wanted to check as well how everyone’s feeling at this point about tackling head-on the fact that the Global Digital Compact is meant to outline shared principles and objectives for an open, free, and secure digital future for all. And considering everything that everyone has said, breaking out into small groups to huddle and consider about two messages each to then discuss and perhaps see whether we can agree on. And as I mentioned at the beginning, for those of you who weren’t here, the idea is that we can take forward those and reflect them in the discussions in the upcoming week and indeed in the process going forward. And it would be great before we do that as well to share that we’ve looked at the issues paper that the co-facilitators issued about a month ago, which was a reflection of, it’s just two pages. It’s not very long, but it’s along the themes. And in fact, it refers to digital public infrastructure of the compact that have been recommended. And so there are a number of, well, reflections really, and it’s very concise. It also doesn’t refer to the Digital Cooperation Forum, which is an interesting reflection of just how strong the messaging around the Internet Governance Forum was in the oral and written consultations that were received. So it’s quite a good basis, I think, for discussion. So the breakout groups can draw on what you’ve heard on your own work, but also perhaps look at the issues paper that the co-facilitators have developed and suggest ways of strengthening it, strengthening the gender element, strengthening the community element, whatever you think, because in that way, it’s already been put out there in the world. It’s something that’s been developed. It’s building on what has already been discussed. So in essence, what we’re suggesting is that we break out into little groups. We use the basis of what the co-facilitators have put out, what you have said, draw out a couple of key messages and come back together and see whether there’s anything there we can agree on that we all want to reflect in the discussions around the GDC. Going forward, what do people think about that? Because we don’t have to do that. We can do something else. Do we hate breakouts at this point? Yes, right. I mean, I could get a feeling from your faces. A way of, well, what we could do, I mean, so let’s think of some options. I mean, if we don’t want to do breakout groups, we could go through the issues paper, para by para, and hear your reflections on it and how to strengthen it. It’s okay. I don’t know whether that’s sarcastic or not. I genuinely can’t tell. More options, more hope. You are so beautiful.

Audience:
I have a suggestion that might be a little bit out there, but more creative, hopefully. So maybe using some foresight practices, and we could do either first start out with an individual, like a poem or something that we write about this vision for this digital future, and then do a collective one. So what is the story of this digital future to communicate it in a different way? So that’s just an alternative option instead of maybe going paragraph by paragraph.

Sheetal Kumar:
And would you help us with that? Yeah. If people decide they want to do that, okay. So a more creative poem-based approach or something like that. Any other ideas?

Audience:
Not an idea, but a request that we can touch upon issues related to the process, and such, so our key concerns in relation to the process, and perhaps also the key concerns in relation to the issues. Because we know now what the issues are, the tracks, the thematic tracks. So what are our key concerns in relation to those moving forward?

Bruna Santos:
So maybe we can start with a round, right, of key concerns or even criticism of the process. I’m aware that this is a very diplomatic space, but. Yeah, yeah.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay. So we have different ways to use, perhaps, the next 30 minutes before we think about next steps. So one is the breakout groups. Another is like a more creative poem-based approach. Then there’s the, well, going through the issues paper. And then actually focusing on process as opposed to the substance of the GDC. Or. No, I’m just saying both, process and substance. Process and substance. And format-wise, breakout groups are like off the table, or? Yes. Are we?

Bruna Santos:
I’m sensing a lot of like Zoom trauma in this room, so it’s fine. We can go with the collective therapy session, right? And then everybody shares concerns and questions. I think it’s. On the process for the first 15 minutes, and then we break out. Concerns and complaints, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, one very big therapy session, breakout group.

Sheetal Kumar:
Should we do a plenary concerns about the process and recommendations? Oh, Peter, yeah.

Peter Micek:
I think that’s the right question to ask, but I do want answers row by row. So each row is gonna choose a rapporteur. Yeah, that is gonna happen. Oh, the first row is gonna be. Ellen, yes, go ahead. Oh, do you wanna?

Audience:
I would just. I would just say, at least I’m really interested in theory. I don’t know, maybe this will come up in the next step, but like, oh, me and this group of people are supporting it. I think we’re both very. Yes. I. Okay. Yeah. So coordination. Do you wanna, actually, because it’s hard to hear you. Oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry, I was saying that something, at least I would be really interested in is how we as a group, as civil society, can coordinate better around these issues and take advantage of the fact that we’re here at the IGF in the same room together. I’ve heard a lot of disparate conversations around GDC coming in silos, and so how can we start to put together a more unified position? There’s some really key issues being debated with the GDC and other internet governance-related processes and visions right now, and I think it’s a key moment for civil society to come together and say what we actually really need for the governance of the internet. To me, it would be the multi-stakeholder versus this multilateral vision. That would be a key issue. I think a number of the ones raised in the FOC advice, but the really fundamental one to me is the multi-stakeholder versus multilateral, and there’s a lot of implications of which states are supporting which vision right now, I think, for the model of internet governance.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay, thank you, and that can be the beginning of, as we say, a discussion that then we continue after we leave the room in terms of coordination and continuing to work on the issues, but, Bruna, so where are we? We are discussing.

Bruna Santos:
Let’s continue gathering the inputs and complaints about the process, and then we can use 40 minutes for strategy and next steps, right?

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay, so concerns about the process and recommendations, so we could spend some time on that, and then also on the substance question, though. We haven’t really heard much of that. Perhaps we can revisit whether there’s interest in maybe breaking out into a couple of groups about, for example, look, guys, it’s the beginning of the week. If you don’t want to do breakout groups now, it’s gonna be a long week. No, but we don’t have to do them, but somehow find a way to discuss the key pressing issues of the substance, and then we discuss how we take those forward. So on the process, any reflections, concerns, and indeed recommendations for how the GDC should be developed from now on? Transparency, okay, great. Transparency in what way? Everything.

Bruna Santos:
We want process, we want modalities. What else do we want? Timeline, a proper one.

Peter Micek:
What do you want to know about the process going forward?

Audience:
Hi, Svetlana, Article 19. Well, I mean, I will be speaking from the perspective of CSOs, which are not that well represented at the consultation side. First of all, the timeline, of course, the time difference. Well, when it comes to the Asia continent, when you have three seconds, I’m exaggerating, of course, like three minutes for your presentation, and it’s 2 a.m. in the morning, it’s hard to convey a message. So maybe the good idea would be have at least the regional groups which would collect all these voices, and of course, engage civil society from those regions in one spot, and then all together convey to the headquarters. Because otherwise, it’s absolutely impossible to have a voice, even though, for instance, before my times with Article 19, I was representing Myanmar civil society. And you have to have a really huge motivation to speak out, to wake up that night, and try to catch those consultation points. And I’m not the only one who was there. I mean, there have been other civil societies in the region who had really good presentations, and they will try to fit in the message within one minute. But sometimes they will cut off. I mean, this is technical, of course. And perhaps to have the regional focuses. Let’s say, authoritarian countries could focus on internet freedoms like what we are working right now, for instance, and we convey message in that side. So, yeah, thank you. Thanks. Regional consultations. I could say, as someone who was in the room for a lot of the deep dives, I don’t know what happened to all. They were taking notes of everything we said. I don’t know what happened to those notes. I think they all ended in the issues paper somehow. Yeah. But they were doing it. They thought they were taking notes. So. I’d say that happened to all the reports that were submitted. Yeah, the reports that were submitted that are on the secretary, the tech envoy’s website. But yeah, I’m not sure what else.

Bruna Santos:
Just to remind that we also wanted to try to get some messages out of this meeting, right? It’s like, something we could say. Just like, doesn’t it should be two paragraphs can be just one saying like, we need more transparency timeline. A proper process. We need missions to bring us to the meetings. New York is not an accessible place. Yeah, so more process points.

Audience:
Something like that. More process points. More process, yes. We all would love more process. That is exactly what we want. Now, the organizations I work with day in, day out, are like, 70% of them are just finding out that this is a thing that exists right now. So, I don’t know that transparency is the word that we’re looking for. Like, there is a dire lack of representation completely on organizations that are doing the actual work day in, day out. Not us, we’re just meeting rooms and that shit. So, that is something that I’m very concerned about because if they’re finding out just now and they don’t have the tools to engage because this is a very specific methodology and you have to kind of be in certain rooms to fucking understand what is happening and they’re just finding out and they’re like, what does GDC mean? What’s the letters? There is not enough time at all for them to engage with the process. And what I feel that in combination with the doodling is that this completely went a different way and if we were not heard being in the room, the chances of whatever they have to say getting to be heard in this process are close to zero. So, I don’t want to be horribly negative about it but just bringing what my people are feeling. Thanks.

Bruna Santos:
Anyone else? Thanks.

Audience:
Maybe building on what was shared, I feel like there’s this exclusion by design in the process. So, even the notes not being shared because for me, one of the big problems is that there’s just a lack of coherence across the board with these different priorities. So, we have this priority about the digital inclusion and digitalization or digital transformation very vaguely defined being pushed within, for example, the UN system that conflicts with our climate action goals. And so, there is this lack of coherence across the board and I feel like when you pointed out as members of civil society or groups that have been underrepresented in these processes, when that thing becomes very stark and apparent and we make it explicit that because there’s no real concrete way of trying to cohere all of this together without scrapping what’s kind of already been pre-drafted and what’s being pushed right now through these so-called processes because it feels very… are predetermined to me, what their end outputs are going to be. Even if we try to contribute in whatever ways, because fundamentally it’s been designed to exclude, that we’re not really getting anywhere just by thinking about how do we insert ourselves into a pre-created process, but rather thinking about how do we co-design and create something that we’re working towards collectively. That also works together with other movements that really matter in the space. So that’s my big thing, is there’s a total lack of coherence, lack of co-design, and it’s really undermining our agency at an individual and collective level. Thanks.

Sheetal Kumar:
Anyone else?

Audience:
Yeah, I think part of the process that’s already been alluded to is just the feedback loop, the need for a feedback loop of how the inputs are being used or processed internally. I mean, it’s not unique to the GDC. Anyone who’s contributed to the UN processes know it’s a black hole sometimes of information. But and then second, I think for me, and I don’t think we’re going to get that from the co- facilitators, but I’d like to, basically what Ellen and I was talking about, what’s at stake with this GDC? Why is it important? And why should partners care? Why should our networks care about this? And especially with all the different processes that are going on, there’s so many different frameworks being discussed. Civil society is being asked to contribute to a lot of them. And it’s overwhelming. And so why does this process matter? And why should we be paying close attention to it? I think we need to come up with that maybe internally too.

Bruna Santos:
Some of the questions we’re asking in the main session, or we suggested as a main session, like policy questions for this week, is how member states are going to ensure the buy-in from all stakeholders. Because we’re talking about the GDC as a broader kind of space or anything like that. It’s also something that’s going to discuss the code of conduct for information integrity. So how are they ensuring, like Big Tech is actually doing the buy-in into that conversation. If we, civil society, are also excluded from this conversation, how are we going to enforce that together with member states? So I think there’s a lot of questions, again, about the follow-up steps and what’s at stake, in fact, because it’s not just the future of the IGF or what the DCF is going to be. Or whether multi-stakeholder is going to be dropped off as a participation tool, and we’re going to move back to a multilateral mostly kind of system. But there is a lot of follow-up questions in that way. So plus one on that.

Peter Micek:
Could I just ask, does anyone think a new annual forum on digital cooperation based in New York is a good idea? Is something that we need? Yeah, I do too. Somebody want to speak in favor of it? Yeah?

Audience:
No, I do want to. Yeah, but perhaps it’s hard to engage the public. I thought I’m loud enough. Well, as a concept, of course, it’s not a bad idea. But in terms of practicality, it should be spread around the regions. Again, I’m for inclusion of the variety of civil societies and not only civil society, which works with the digital aspect. There should be civil societies which are somehow engaged through human rights line as well. And New York, it’s too far. It’s too expensive as well.

Peter Micek:
So I think we have rough consensus that civil society does not need a new annual space. Apart from me. All right. Yeah. Other process points we want to get at? We have regionalization. We have feedback fatigue.

Audience:
I just would like to know, we talk about multi-stakeholders. Obviously, we’re new here. But we’re coming from a really technical background, and it’s just not super clear how a technical community or stakeholder could help. And if anyone wants a two-finger on that. I just wanted to answer to the previous speaker from the back that I do think when we focus on civil society that is engaged in human rights, we still have a lack of competence of kind of digital literacy. Many human rights organizations are not very familiar what digital environment means to human rights. Although we are here at the IGF, where it’s very present and in front of our head, it’s not in general that human rights organizations are enough familiar with digital environment and what it means. So we still need some kind of training for civil society organizations, I think. I just want to say, we ran into that same problem as we’ve been talking to people. And it’s been really helpful describing internet access as a prerequisite to human rights, because I think that’s where it’s losing cohesion. Thank you. I want to advocate for a very proactive engagement of the technical community, because there is a setback in relation to the role that the technical community could play, and should play, and has been playing in relation to internet governance and global digital cooperation. One of the challenges and difficulties that has emerged in this process is that there is a setback in how internet governance is being conceived. So that was already discussed by the time of the WSIS, the World Summit on the Information Society. And there was broad agreement that internet governance is broad and goes beyond the management of numbers, and resources, and infrastructure, and technical resources of the internet. And now we are back to that conversation. It’s unbelievable. So that is why it was pointed out by the FOC in the event that the technical community is being left out of the process. So I think that a proactive engagement is necessary in order to counteract that narrative, and also to make sure that whatever comes out of the global digital process is not a setback in something that is so basic as the scope of internet governance itself. Just here. Thank you. I will think of a specific topic in terms of substance to think of process. The last policy brief version mentioned, for instance, sustainable digital public infrastructure. And also mentioned, refers to ensuring labor rights. But none of the multilateral organizations, like in AI regulation, AI debate, it’s touching the labor issue, for instance. Or even in the digital public infrastructure discussion, no one mentioned sustainability on that. Or carbon footprint for internet infrastructure, or even digital technologies. So I was wondering, until the launching of their common future agenda in one year ahead, what can really be done that civil society can bring back these really important elements that I think from the document to be put in practice from this multilateral organization somehow?

Peter Micek:
And you can mention the environmental impact of flying everyone to New York for yet another conference every year. I’m sorry to harp on that. But yeah. We have one more.

Audience:
Yeah. Yeah, I was just, you know, if there’s a sort of broad consensus around the frustrations of the consultation process and the kind of performative nature of some of this consultation and frustrations around inclusivity and everything, I was thinking about, you know, we talked about the idea of trying to identify some things to do as a coordinated effort and kind of collective advocacy. I mean, maybe what we should be trying to do is, rather than focusing on the content, is to actually subvert the process itself and kind of see if it’s, you know, and I don’t know. Maybe that’s just a waste of our collective energy at this point. But, you know, if that is something we want to do, it feels like it’s something that we need to do sooner rather than later.

Bruna Santos:
There is one ongoing idea that was issued by the IGF working group strategy. That would be to use this space, the IGF, as a sounding board to whatever came out from the GDC process, right, or the summit of the future. We submitted a letter to the co-facilitators. Obviously, it might be too soon to get an answer on that. But it was just acknowledged and nothing else. So it would be interesting to think about a follow-up mechanism or anything that would actually build up on the collective intelligence that the IGF is bringing up. So, yeah. Anyone else?

Sheetal Kumar:
We’re still on process. Yeah, we can reflect back some of the comments we’ve heard about process and see whether we want to cohere them or maybe, in some way, agree to them. So one point that was made was around the need for transparency. So transparency in terms of process is really key. And linked to that, that there has been, so far, exclusion by design. We can provide some examples of that. The need for more coherence and working together, and also the need for connection with other groups and movements. So I think labor rights and sustainability and environmental issues being linked is important. And then the need for a feedback loop. So that links to the transparency point. The primacy of a multi-stakeholder approach and the importance of proactive engagement of the technical community and reflecting the real scope of internet governance, not a very limited scope. So that’s what we’ve heard. I mean, that’s what I took notes of. So some of those are connected. And we can, perhaps, put them together so that they’re not duplicative. But those are some messages about the process. Do people generally agree that that reflects what’s been heard? Does anyone fundamentally disagree with any of those? No? OK. No new forum, sorry. Yeah?

Audience:
I understand that we don’t feel like the process has been fair or open, transparent, and so on. But we are just wondering here, the Wikimedians, we complain about this. But it’s not too late to hack the process where chances are changed? Or it’s just to speak out and let them know that we are pissed off about this?

Sheetal Kumar:
Yeah. Well, I think that’s a good question. And my understanding is that the co-facilitators are now tasked with holding consultations. And those are intergovernmental. But it’s up to them, as it is for all the co-facilitators that will be appointed for the chapters of the summit, will need to run consultations. So we can do our own advocacy with, we’re likely to be Sweden and Rwanda, I understand. But the co-facilitators, we can take their ear, I think, at this point. We have an opportunity. We did do that before. And they did respond. And they set up a civil society consultation, which they set up for three hours just to hear the perspectives of civil society. So they set up an online consultation once we shared concerns before. So I think there is, to answer your question, Amalia, I can’t say definitely we’ll make a difference. But I think we’re at a critical juncture where we can put out some recommendations, the concerns, and then some recommendations, and really try and speak with a loud and collective voice to shape how they will do the process.

Bruna Santos:
And what Valeria was saying earlier as well, like if the process is gonna be kept as an intergovernmental one, then the way out might be ask for delegations to include us, just like the ITU.

Peter Micek:
So, yes, I think we can put forward expectations or demands even, yes.

Sheetal Kumar:
Well, do we know when the first draft is gonna be released and who’s drafting it?

Audience:
But before we go, I want to respond to Amalia because I think it’s a very important question. And I do think that we have to see, I want to respond to you. I think what we have to, obviously the GDC is important, but we have to look beyond the GDC and understand that this is a very particular moment in which the proximity of the WSIS plus 20 review is also going to determine how the digital future is going to be shaped. Governments have just had Sustainable Development Summit like days ago, and they have agreed an agenda on how to accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. So there are these different processes happening and the GDC, and they are not connecting. So I think we have to go to see beyond that. So it’s not just only how to engage and make sure that we are being heard in relation to the Global Digital Compact, it’s also about the role that we can play as civil society to connect those processes. Because at the end of the day, the UN agencies are competing about leadership for these processes, how those processes are going to connect. Governments are being appointed to facilitate those processes. We should also be demanding these connections because all of them have to do with shaping the digital future and the governance and in this broader framework of the Global Digital Cooperation. So I think that’s how we should approach our engagement in the Global Digital Compact and keep pushing for establishment of synergies between those different processes.

Peter Micek:
And Access Now is in the process of mapping all of the summit of the future outputs and processes. And so we can hopefully share that and those timelines, a basic summary of what we know. Because again, the GDC is just one of at least six or eight outputs planned for the summit, which will be in September 2024 at the 79th General Assembly of the UN.

Bruna Santos:
Just maybe one last point about the converging spaces, right? It’s like, we have a lot of notable examples of multi-stakeholder processes in the past. Like it’s WCAG is one from 2005, NetMundial is one. It’s also rumored to happen again. What else is there? IANA, Stewardship Transition as well, WSIS, ICANN, and so on. There’s a lot of collective knowledge about multi-stakeholder participation and that should be moved forward as a good example and maybe a guiding kind of example for this process, regardless of the lack of information or the information we might have now about it being solely an intergovernmental process. So just to bring in some more examples.

Audience:
I also just wanted to raise that, in addition to the fact that we have the summit of the future also has other tracks that have digital components to them. How can we as civil society not just get too focused on the GDC that we’re missing? Like the security track has tons that are on digital that could implicate like cybersecurity. Yeah, exactly. So like, is there a way we can coordinate to track these different tracks? Like, I don’t know. I know we’re doing this, Peter, but like for the broader group, for the broader group. Yeah.

Sheetal Kumar:
Yes, I think that’s a really good point and we should collect ideas for how we move forward on that after we leave the room. But hearing a lot about the need for synergies between this process and others. So any ideas for that, how we coordinate as civil society, but also as a society, and how we can coordinate on that. How we coordinate as civil society, but also perhaps how we, in our individual ways or as different organizations, we work on making sure that we have that front and center, the need for coordination. Any ideas for that would be welcome.

Peter Micek:
And if any states want to facilitate that, there won’t be a rights con in June, 2024, right? Which would be three, four months before the summit of the future. Is there some, is there a time and a place that governments would support us to coordinate, enough in advance of the summit, but still after we actually know what’s gonna happen?

Sheetal Kumar:
Yeah, great. Okay, so we have about 30 minutes left. I’m just including my own buffer there of 10 minutes. But we do have a bit of time to review what we have discussed already, or we can talk more about the different topic areas of the GDC, for example, that have already been outlined. I’m not sure if that’s too ambitious. I want to get a feel for what people would like to do. Would you like to cohere the messages that we already developed around process and really work on those or start talking about substance? And perhaps the point about, the colleague who went to news earlier about the process, I think we can always put a proviso on anything that we say saying, without these fundamental points about transparency and openness being met, we do not believe that this process. it’s legitimate. I mean, I’m just offering an option there. But I think it is of value. I mean, clearly, I think it is of value. That’s why we’re having this discussion, to try and make some demands and recommendations of the leaders of the process. Four asks. Okay. Well, there are, I think, four already. One on transparency, another on coherence. And feedback loops, nobody links into. No new forums or, like, synergy. Maybe there’s two key ones there with some sub-themes already. And there was also that point about the scope of Internet governance and the need for truly multi-stakeholder engagement with the technical community being adequately and proactively engaged. Maybe there’s three there. Right. So, what do people think? Sure. So, is anything coming out of that? Like, the scratching of the head? Any thoughts you want to share? Or? You’re good. Okay. Not yet. Okay. Yes. Peter, what were you going to say?

Peter Micek:
Let’s move to substantive issues.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay. Okay. So, we have those three themes around the process, which we can come back to. And perhaps we can discuss how we connect and really synthesize those afterwards. But is everyone up for talking about the substance of what’s in the GDC? Okay. I see some nods. Okay. So, we have – should we go through the themes? Or what should we – how do people want to do it? Do you want to look at the issues paper? No, I know nobody wanted to do that. Okay.

Bruna Santos:
No, we can just read out what’s on – I mean, just highlight what’s on the issues paper. Yeah. Okay. Yay.

Sheetal Kumar:
Topic-wise. Not going to read it from it. We actually – we’re going to project it here, but you can also look it up in your device. Excuse me. Could you – you know the second file that I shared? Oh, thank you. So, how do you search for it in a search engine of your choice? Yes. Yes, please. Okay. Sorry. I think they can do it on the – Hello?

Peter Micek:
Before we get to the remote participant, there was a proposal that we talked to Sweden about using the Stockholm Internet Forum, SIF, as the next kind of waypoint to coordinate civil society on some of the future. Can we get a – woo! All right. There’s a feedback – yeah, a couple of thoughts on that. Or are you scratching your head again? Oh, hello. We have the remote. All right.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay. We can come back to that. We have Timothy on the line. Timothy, can you hear us? Okay. We can’t hear you. Can we get the remote? Timothy, we cannot hear you. Can you hear us? I can say the microphone. Okay. Welcome.

Audience:
Yes. You are there? Nice to – hello, all. I’m in Australia. So, I’ve been working for 13 years or so on mostly W3C work that led to the credentials and the digital identity, as you understand it, and ReadWriteWeb, which is now known as SOLID, and things related to my data, all those sorts of things. When you are doing W3C works, it is about getting the patents of all the largest companies in the world, right? It is not about defining exactly how they may be used. It is done in public domain. So, the really horrible human rights use cases, the ones about human trafficking, the ones about people who are left with nothing, the ones that are about children, you cannot do in the public domain. And they are not in the interest of large companies who are very focused on payments. So, in my view, there has been a rush by a group of participants to commercialise a particular type of outcome that do not support human rights very well and does not easily support the ability to support what’s called personal ontology. So, that is the idea that you have an artificial intelligent agent that is running on your laptop that knows everything about you and is able to help you with your healthcare, with your wellbeing, understanding which herbs you might be eating to improve your diet, using the commons of the world, the ability to have relationships with one another without a platform mediator who is issuing mandates in their terms of service agreement about the conditions upon which you are allowed to have relationships with one another. So, this is a very long time since the days where the Magna Carta was, and I note, negotiated in a place called Holborn in the UK. It was not mandated. There would be no human rights, there would be no Magna Carta if it was purely a mandate type system. So, in order to deal with the social ramifications, this very important social work, and to be able to build the artificial intelligence infrastructure that we need to be able to support every language of prayer, every mother tongue language, and upon that build our ontologies based on what we mean, because if I am as an Australian talking about my thongs, other people overseas may take that in a way that is not the same meaning, because in Australia it is footwear. It is not ladies’ underwear. So, in this I am looking to do an Internet Society global topic chapter that can be used

Sheetal Kumar:
as fundamental to achieve meaningful universal connectivity. Interesting that there is the term meaningful there. Meaningful is super important. Yeah, I think there is also some elements of this that we can perhaps emphasize as important. There is emerging convergence on the need to build digital capacities through engaging public-private partnerships and promoting greater financial investment in affordable, accessible, mobile connectivity. I think generally it means industry and government, but perhaps we could emphasize the need to engage. Develop and deploy technologies for the Internet infrastructure and maintenance of it in general. Perhaps we can emphasize the point that it should be all stakeholders. I don’t know if we can note that. Are we noting these? Thank you. She is hard at work, I know. Anyone else on the public-private? Yes, at the back. I think you rightly pointed that there needs to be a clear definition of public-private partnerships and that there is this risk of undermining the civic engagement in the development of these public services. I think we see this a lot in the local city context, especially with the capture of different infrastructure. Exactly, the whole smart cities thing that is being, I think, amongst us in the room, critically assessed, but not necessarily at a more public, wider global scale. Yes, that’s a really good point. Thank you. Yes, and just specifically around anything to do with the public sphere and public square and whatever being privatized kind of rings alarm bells. I don’t know that that’s necessarily a problem, but I just get private-public partnerships are not necessarily a good thing. Yes, so truly comprehensive and inclusive public-private partnerships need to reflect the engagement of all stakeholders, something to that effect. Any other points on this? Okay, and then what we have here in the next paragraph is the importance of an open, free and globally accessible internet, the significance of interoperable internet standards and protocols were emphasized, reference to the importance of the Tunis agenda was made, there is broad consensus that the Internet Governance Forum plays and should continue to play a key role in promoting the global and interoperable nature and governance of the internet. I’ll just add that this part was the part about fragmentation that was moved on to internet governance or digital cooperation, so it’s all kind of bundled up together right now. So the first line is definitely avoid internet fragmentation, and the second one is the one that talks about the processes and convergence and better coordination between them and avoiding duplication as well. So you’re saying this is a success of our input into the process so far? It is, it is, it is. I think so. I mean, to me that’s the main part that shows that the co-facilitators actually listened to the community, right, like reinforcing the IGF. Yeah, and on that point, I just want to emphasize that I think when we’re giving any feedback to the co-facilitators, we should include the positives that we’re noticing in this, not just the negatives, because we’ve received feedback in the past that we do need to be more mindful of emphasizing the good, not just focusing on the negatives. So I think that this point in particular is something we should lead with about how we are happy to see that. Yeah, absolutely. Great. I think emphasizing what is in here that is positive will be really helpful to strengthen that, I think, relationship with them. So thank you for that. And so when you go—the second paragraph also reflects, yes, the need for not duplicating existing forums and processes, which again is in line with many of the messages that came through in the consultations. Anything here that people think—I mean, there was a lot about process we discussed in the first part of this session that you think should be reflected here. Yeah, Brenna?

Audience:
Yeah, my suggestion for this one was just to think about the follow-up mechanisms, right? Like, there was a proposal for the IJF’s one. CIF, as I’m seeing, could be another one. Would there be any kind of, like, concerns about using any of these spaces as a follow-up kind of space or discussion or anything like that? Do we have an idea of what do we envision as a follow-up for the GDC?

Sheetal Kumar:
Oh, are you saying that we should perhaps say the IJF could play a role in that or—?

Audience:
That’s what the EWG strategy asks, but there is also the idea of CIF, so—or using those spaces for discussions.

Sheetal Kumar:
Any thoughts on what role the IJF could play or any other forum in the implementation of a future compact? Do people think? Yeah, Valerie?

Audience:
Oh. I think there is a lot of potential. One of the ideas that we have obviously considered in the evolution of the IJF is how it can incubate ideas and responses, and the policy networks, the dynamic coalitions, and the other intersessional mechanisms are definitely ways in which we can suggest that the IJF provides some guidance on the implementation and the monitoring of the Global Digital Compact. Not necessarily to be the monitoring body, but definitely to inform at least the type of indicators, the type of evidence that should be produced if we want the GDC to be monitored properly in relation to the principles that will be adopted.

Peter Micek:
Okay. If it continues to be something, there could be a DC on each side.

Audience:
Exactly. Exactly. An example is that there is a dynamic coalition around the UNESCO internet universality indicators that is providing guidance and feed and using the outcomes of the IJF to feed into the indicators. So something similar could be done for the GDC.

Bruna Santos:
We have been slowly converging to the same space for the last two years or three years. Two policy networks were created, one on fragmentation, another one on AI, as key topics and discussions for the GDC. The whole discussion and focus for this IJF on digital cooperation and governance is also in light of that. We want to make the agenda more fine-tuned with the process to use the space for bringing in proper input. I agree. We need to move on in terms of bringing in more suggestions.

Sheetal Kumar:
We’ve only got about 20 minutes left so we can try and do the rest of the paper and then we’ll move on to next steps.

Audience:
I wanted to add, I think we need to qualify what we mean by interoperable nature because that’s also being pushed by the different surveillance organizations. We see that a lot in the European context, for example, and it’s affecting displaced persons and migrants in particular. So advancing that interoperable internet is actually negative for human rights and so I think we need to be more explicit there what we mean by key role in promoting.

Sheetal Kumar:
I see some nodding as well. Did you want to react to that? I have so many reactions.

Audience:
No, I’m going to focus on the interoperable part. Yeah, the thing is that we use interoperable as the positive way of saying surveillance, basically. So we are talking about international data transfers, national data transfers, systems that are centralized so everything is connected to each other, and then this is sort of a buzzword in the whole conversation of global public infrastructure. And it’s kind of dangerous to go into that discourse. And on that note, I have another comment on sustainability but I’m going to keep it to myself. Just stressing that sustainability, no, interoperable is one of the critical infrastructures of things, like critical properties. My brain is mushy. I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I was going to wait until the end to say this but because it just follows from what you just said. This document is full of buzzwords and no substance really and it doesn’t contain, at least from what I see, the points that many of you raised as what you addressed in your submissions, written submissions. There’s no mention of shutdowns keeping on the internet. There’s no mention of the word surveillance or privacy rights. And there’s a lot of, like you just said, problematic issues contained in nice buzzwords like digital ID within the framework of DPI. And so I think there’s a lot of problems with this but is this going to be the basis of the global digital? What is this letter exactly? What is it going to feed into?

Bruna Santos:
The letter is the results of the deep dives. It’s how the co-facilitators, it’s basically what the co-facilitators learned from the deep dives. Then that’s a big problem. But it’s a very high level document. I agree.

Peter Micek:
Do we want to move to the following paragraphs?

Bruna Santos:
Yeah, because there is one on data rights right after that.

Audience:
Yeah, on the topic of interoperability and the open, free, and globally accessible internet stuff, I wanted to echo the buzzwords and I thought maybe a word that could counteract some of these buzzwords would be if, and you guys had mentioned kind of being more forceful in discussions. There is absolutely nothing wrong with brainstorming around deterrence systems and information sharing systems and some of the work we’ve done at our research lab has been about if there’s a region cut off from the internet, how could that region have a sister city pact with another region on the planet and they would receive an alert saying that this population had been taken off. These types of deterrence systems are just ideas that can be openly discussed and governments wouldn’t necessarily have as aggressive of a reaction to them because it’s more about a hypothetical system.

Peter Micek:
programs get to some of the meat, right, or the—

Sheetal Kumar:
Yeah, so there’s a need to articulate principles to guide regional and national approaches to data protection and governance. Leveraging data and cross-border data flows was emphasized while finding a balanced approach between free flow of data and data protection. Any thoughts on that?

Peter Micek:
They managed to talk about data without mentioning privacy or surveillance.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay, so we can—yeah, any thought, any—

Bruna Santos:
The note is, data protection paragraph is awful. That’s the note.

Sheetal Kumar:
It’s not good. Rewrite in full, okay. And then there’s convergence around the potential for a compact to promote digital trust and security, and to address disinformation, hate speech, and other harmful content. Online content at GDC could advance transparent and responsible design and application, including human rights-based approach of digital technologies. In this regard, the Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on digital platforms that is being developed will be important. Okay, thoughts?

Peter Micek:
Jan seems to have a lot to say. What do you think about that?

Sheetal Kumar:
Hey, yeah, addressing disinformation, hate speech, and harmful content, none of these things mean anything legally or have any specific definition. So this means very little, unfortunately. So I think that needs to be—I mean, that’s what we—I’m with Article 19, and that’s what we always say, that these are, like, not legal terms. We use them sometimes, but we always use them in, like, parentheses because it’s just unclear except maybe hate speech as an incitement to violence. None of these words mean anything, and you can restrict a lot on that basis.

Audience:
I would just say that there’s also concerns about using framings of, like, digital trust and security to address disinformation, hate speech, and that it can easily be used to legitimize overly broad actions or regulation from governments.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay, great. Yes, okay. Also very—needs to be redrafted paragraph.

Audience:
Just one comment on that. No, I just wanted to add one comment on that because it seems or some U.N. agencies are believing that a lot of the work from the Internet of Trust debate on UNESCO is converging to the code of conduct space. So there might be at some point a discontinuation of the UNESCO, which is ending, right? Like, they haven’t announced the end already, but there is an internal working group on this topic exclusively with UNDP and some other spaces and also talking about elections that is going to converge to this discussion as well. So it’s one of the key areas of discussion for the future.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay. Is this on this point? Yep, okay. Go ahead. Sorry.

Audience:
I mean, yeah, that whole paragraph has got problems, but just specifically on the security question, maybe one very specific tweak would just be changing security to safety. I think when you talk about disinformation and hate speech and stuff, thinking of it from a safety perspective rather than a security perspective is—I mean, that sounds like actually maybe what that is supposed to say. Okay.

Peter Micek:
It also—it doesn’t use the term expression or free expression.

Sheetal Kumar:
Yeah. Positive. Okay, great. Thank you for that feedback. So the artificial intelligence paragraph is quite long. I wouldn’t read it in full, but it talks about the benefits of AI in enhancing productivity, value creation, and wider digital economy. There is a need to further a common understanding of the risks entailed. Forms of regulation standards and guardrails are mentioned as potential means to address some risks, emphasis on the need for a human-centric approach as well as transparent and equitable risk-based approaches. Any thoughts? Any burning reactions? Any—yes. Okay, just two at the back, and then we’ll—I’m afraid we have to move on.

Audience:
I would just say that it’s concerning that human rights isn’t included here as the approach, and so we’ve got, like, human-centric, which is great, but I think we really need to be pushing for human rights as the underlying standard.

Peter Micek:
Yeah. Human rights as the underlying— I think that together with human rights-oriented, there should be, like, even workers-led AI governance.

Audience:
It’s really missing the labor within it, and I think it’s a consensus in terms of public control, workers’ agency, or even the micro-work, which are the building blocks for AI, should be considered also.

Sheetal Kumar:
Great. Thank you for that. Okay, and—yes?

Audience:
Just one thing that is bothering me a little bit is that there is no mention, as far as I could see, to communities, like, what is the role of communities in supporting the development of technologies, supporting their governance, and et cetera, especially when we consider, like, indigenous communities or the traditional ones. I think that’s fundamental. Thank you.

Sheetal Kumar:
So, the next paragraph is very short, and it’s the only place that I think gender comes up.

Audience:
It says nothing. And it just says, addressing gender-digital divides is important. Yeah, this is just very, like, placating words. So, just requesting more detail here about what exactly gender-digital divides are they looking at. So, how is technology, gender-based violence included in here, access to smartphones and access to internet, what else, inclusive technology, how are cultural norms placating in societies and how women have access to phones, just kind of across the spectrum. In the hate speech and disinformation, it should flag gender specifically in that section too, probably, if they’re going to talk about it. Okay, noted. And then a couple here. Yeah, that was more or less the same. I wanted to say it’s not like we are talking only about a digital gender divide. It’s a cross-cutting issue across all the other issues that are mentioned in the paper, and therefore it’s—I can’t believe we have only these two lines about a divide. We need to highlight that. Yeah, no, I agree.

Sheetal Kumar:
It’s—sorry, this is not about me, what I think, but yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I also find it reductionist that when it comes to women and these issues, it’s always, you know, it’s reduced to digital equality and this digital divide, while it transcends that. And I think in addition to it, there should be a recognition, an outright recognition that marginalized communities are impacted by all of these issues disproportionately and differently, and therefore they should be prioritized. So beyond the gender, I think we should address that. Okay, so that mainstreaming cross-cutting. Yeah, it’s, like you said, very reductionist and will reflect that. Any—sorry, did you? Intersectionality. Okay, thank you. No, no, it’s fine. That might have been our shortest intervention. Yeah. Just one word there. Okay. Short and important. That’s good.

Peter Micek:
And not just because the ITU just walked in, but I think there—a lot of people have said, you know, named things that fall, like, lower in the stack maybe than, like, on the more, you know, content level. People are talking about access to devices, things like community networking, different forms of infrastructure. So, yeah, it seems like in a few different places there’s a lot—you know, and the environmental impacts and things like that hit at other lower layers maybe than on the top.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay. Thank you. That’s a really good general point. And then the last one is on sustainability. The role of green technology and digitalization to accelerating climate ambitions was highlighted, and there’s something else about the need to address technology-related drivers of climate risk and growing consumption and e-waste.

Audience:
Sorry to go back to language, but sustainable. There are two ways in which the word sustainable is used. One is sustainable development goals. So the goals and the development is sustainable. And then sustainable in relation to climate, which hopefully one day—I don’t know—climate will be sustainable. But there is absolutely nothing in all the talk about the global—I’m sorry, the digital public infrastructure—about the sustainability of the technology itself. And this is when we say technologies have to be open and has to be inclusive. It has to be all of that, but it has to be sustainable. Because we come into these countries and we say, oh, this country is not developed. Let’s give them mirrors and Internet. And then we leave, and the technology is left there, and the technology falls apart after six months. And this is what we keep doing over and over and over and over. And this is nowhere at all. Okay. Thank you for that. We can reflect that.

Sheetal Kumar:
Just coming on to the last part of our session, we want to talk about how we reflect all of this feedback.

Peter Micek:
One more online. Oh, sorry. Are you able to facilitate that? Thanks. Online? Yeah, online. We’re inclusive and respect remote participation.

Sheetal Kumar:
Yes. And we’ll have to be very quick because we need to wrap up, really. How are we going to—all right, so we’ll talk about coordination, like concrete— Yes. So we have some ideas, which are just as fun as going through this paragraph by paragraph. Everyone really enjoyed it in the end. We have two hands up, and we have six minutes to the end of the session, so let’s— Okay. Yes. We’ll have this, and then we’ll discuss next steps.

Audience:
Just collective actions in relation to coordination, just two possible entry points. First, the ones that I mentioned. We can articulate around this that has been being produced by our collective process. So inviting all of you to engage with that process. And the other one is that we are launching here a campaign that is called the IGF We Want, and it’s related and responding to the fact that there are these attempts to replicate or duplicate or even disappear the IGF. We don’t know what the intention is. So building on the achievements of the IGF that are many, many, including the—I mean, proving how the multi-stakeholder approach can be implemented around internet governance. So we are launching this campaign here, and that’s perhaps an entry point for collective action. So you can contact me. The name of the campaign is the IGF We Want. Thank you.

Sheetal Kumar:
So we have to figure out what we do next with everything that we’ve discussed. We have three main themes in the first part of our discussion on process that we thought we could write out so that it makes sense to a wider community that wasn’t part of this discussion, and those themes are transparency, coherence, and need for accurate reflection of the scope. And then—oh, I’m afraid we—yes, we have to wrap up really quickly. Would you be able to share your points by email or in the chat, Timothy?

Audience:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Just really quickly, I think there should be a definition of digital slavery that is thought to be worked through, because we have at one end of the spectrum pervasive surveillance that apparently knows everything and provides cybersecurity. At the other end of the spectrum, there are many vulnerable people who cannot go to a court of law because apparently there is no evidence. So somehow, understanding what digital slavery actually means, I think, is an important reference. Thank you.

Sheetal Kumar:
Thank you. Yes. And definitely send through any other comments either in the chat and by email. So those are the three process-related recommendations and reflections we had, and so what we can do is, as I said, write them up and then share them via your email, really, so that we can use those going forward. And then there was a lot of reactions to the co-facilitators paper, which when you asked about what is it, it is a basis for future discussion, so I think reacting to it could be quite helpful and perhaps drafting a reaction piece or something. What do people think? Thoughts?

Audience:
Yeah. I got a lot of notes from a lot of the things you guys brought up, like improve some of the meanings, qualify some of the terms that were used, resignify the language in a lot of spaces. So maybe we can work on that for the statement. Yeah. And just a quick note. There’s no mention of digital colonialism, and I feel like that one’s a really big piece that’s missing here. Yeah, exactly. I mean, there is a push within parts of the UN system for this, and then there’s a group of us working on decolonizing technology, and then the other one was green tech doesn’t really mean anything, so I think they need to take that out.

Sheetal Kumar:
One of those buzzwords. Lots of those buzzwords. Okay. Thank you for those. So we need to get a show of hands, maybe, or actually many reactions for the idea of setting out the process-related concerns and recommendations, sharing those with you by email. What do people think? Yes. Would you be interested in getting those in writing? Yeah? Is there a list, or do we need to get it? There’s no list. We just need to get your email here after the session. And then on the feedback on the co-facilitators’ paper, the substantive feedback, drafting a reaction piece and perhaps having some sign-ons to that could be a way forward.

Bruna Santos:
Yeah, we can put all the notes together and share with everybody and see if we can transform it into a document with sign-ons. But I would just like to flag interventions in the main sessions as well. It’s really key that we bring some of these issues to the main sessions. Otherwise, co-facilitators that are here and are listening to the meeting in a lot of the sessions will think it’s fine, it’s moodless, so it’s important to complain.

Sheetal Kumar:
That’s a great point, because they are here and in listening mode. Thank you.

Peter Micek:
Does anyone really want to advertise a session like where we have to be? Yes. All right. Quickly, please.

Audience:
Yes. I think the main session of the Dynamic Coalition, which is on Thursday afternoon, will address exactly these issues. And as the Dynamic Coalitions are a collective basis for civil society organizations, I do think it would be good to give it a follow-up there. Thank you. All right.

Sheetal Kumar:
Dynamic Coalition on Thursday. Any other events? The GDC main session on Wednesday. CSTD consultation on WSIS plus 20 as well. Okay. Really important. The JustNet IT for Change session. Yes. Day Zero event at 4 p.m. Any others? Okay. So I have some of your emails, and Bruna has some of your emails, and I’m sure Peter has some of your emails. If you come up here, we will get your email, and then we can send you, at the very least, the first thing we can do is send the process-related recommendations and concerns. Thank you, Sheetal and Bruna. And thank you, Peter, for being, like, in real teacher mode. I saw that. Thanks, everybody. Picking on people. Thank you, everyone. And thanks for resisting the breakout groups. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

Review and Edit: It’s important to scrutinise for grammatical inaccuracies, issues regarding sentence structure, typographical errors, or absent details. Any detected errors must be corrected. Ensure the text utilises UK spelling and grammar and rectify if this is not the case. The comprehensive summary should accurately mirror the main analysis text. Incorporate as many long-tail keywords in the summary as possible, whilst maintaining the summary’s quality.

Zoe Darme

The panel provided an in-depth examination of Google’s inner workings, the mechanics of its search algorithms, and the subtleties of the user experience. A noteworthy aspect was the insightful comparison of the search operation to a vending machine. This analogy aptly described each stage; ‘crawling’ – identifying various ‘drink’ options or webpages, and ‘indexing’ and ‘serving’ – organising and retrieval of these options.

This commentary then emphasised the importance of ‘algorithmic transparency’. It highlighted the necessity for visibility and understanding of how algorithms operate, the inherent data bias, and how results are generated and output, thereby indicating a push for increased openness in these processes.

The discussion delved into detail on the subject of search personalisation. The difference between a personalised search, influenced by past usage and habits, contrasted with a generic location-based result, which isn’t adjusted to individual’s tastes. This led to intriguing questions about Google’s transparency, given its personalisation feature doesn’t clarify why particular results are prioritised. Despite these concerns, Google’s Zoe Darme suggested that personalisation, when based on a user’s historic activity and personal preferences, could significantly enhance search result quality.

‘Search Quality Raters’ were highlighted in the panel. The revelation that Google applies hundreds of algorithms for evaluating webpage quality was emphasised. Worries were voiced about the deterioration of web content quality due to a trend named ‘SEOification’. This phenomenon implies a considerable shift towards manipulating search engine algorithms, often at the expense of content authenticity and originality.

A notable observation was the apparent movement of the internet’s content ecosystem from open-web platforms to closed environments – referred to as ‘walled gardens’. This trend seems to have instigated a decrease in open web content creation, leading to an interesting proposition – potentially incentivising content creation on the open web to preserve a diversely vibrant internet ecosystem.

Considerable attention was devoted to Google’s digital advertising practices. While it’s clear that there is a limit on the number of ads displayed at the top of Google search results, this limit isn’t explicitly defined. Commercial searches, such as those related to shopping or making bookings, were observed to have a larger volume of ads.

Finally, the utility and limitations of the incognito mode were analysed. It clarified several misunderstandings. Whilst Google does maintain awareness of a user’s location and search time conducted in incognito mode, it does not access the user’s search history in the same mode. However, users retain the ability to manage their personalisation settings independently of using incognito mode. This interpretation emphasises the nuanced control Google users have over personalisation and privacy.

Farzaneh Badii

The dialogue under examination centres on the multi-faceted involvement of algorithms in internet governance, with particular emphasis on the operational management of search engines such as Google and their accountability levels. Crucially, the discussion highlights the wide array of algorithms deployed during each individualized search query, underscoring the extensive and complex nature of their application.

This segues to a robust call for enhanced transparency surrounding the utilization of these algorithms. The importance of this becomes apparent when contemplating the societal and regulatory drive to hold corporations like Google to a heightened level of accountability. It’s not merely about unveiling the concealed layers mining each inquiry, but also comprehending the ramifications of algorithmic operations in crafting public communication.

Moreover, the dialogue underscores a need for discussion of a more granular nature. Essentially, this means delving deeper into the specifics of how algorithms function and are employed, rather than a superficial overview, in order to promote fairness, justice, and innovation within the digital sector.

Interestingly, the push towards transparency is construed as potentially a covert demand for data access. Therefore, clarifying what form ‘transparency’ takes, and what the end goal of this transparency is, becomes a critical point of discussion.

There is also an articulated need to solicit more feedback on the usefulness of the explained processes serving the industry and the public, raising several pertinent questions. For instance, how can this illustrative case study be utilised most effectively? What can be learnt from it? What additional information or tools are requisite? These open-ended inquiries underline the constant need for innovation and improvement in the internet infrastructure.

Despite delving into complex issues, the dialogue is deemed a beneficial exercise, proving advantageous in sparking conversations around accountability and transparency in the digital arena.

In relation to broader global implications, the conversation aligns with the ethos of several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), notably SDG 9 which underscores the importance of Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, and SDG 16 that advocates for promoting Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. Both these goals, vast in their individual mandates, intersect at the necessity for transparent and accountable technological entities.

To sum up, the dialogue illuminates the pivotal role of algorithms in internet search queries, urges for heightened transparency concerning their operations, necessitates detailed, granular dialogues, and calls for more feedback on the efficacy of the explained processes. Above all, despite the nuanced topics, the discourse is regarded as an invaluable dialogue, contributing towards the realisation of key Sustainable Development Goals.

Audience

The discussions underscored ongoing concerns about the quality of web content, highly influenced by advertising strategies and manoeuvres aimed at exploiting Google’s search algorithm. These actions have reportedly led to misleading search results and a noticeable degradation in the quality of content available to users. Alongside this, there are prevalent business trends pushing for content creation within so-called ‘walled gardens’ – private platforms controlling access to content. This trend has incited apprehension about the sustainability of an open web environment, raising questions about the ethical stewardship of the information ecosystem.

In-depth dialogues surrounding the facet of personalisation in search results ensued, elucidating the difference between personalisation and customisation. Personalisation is a distinctive feature based on an individual user’s past searches, and the examples given highlighted how this leads to varied search results for individuals with different interests. However, Google needs to clarify how it communicates this personalisation process to its users. The delicate equilibrium between personalised and non-personalised search results influences user satisfaction and affects the overall grade of content.

Google’s authority over the quantity and positioning of sponsored adverts appearing ahead of the actual search results was analysed. Suspicions over Google potentially favouring commercial queries were sparked by an article by Charlie Wurzel, emphasising the need for greater transparency in this area. While the placement of adverts appears arbitrary, adverts often appear in response to queries where users demonstrate an intention to make a purchase or booking.

The discussion evolved to demonstrate how users could gauge Google’s search personalisation by comparing outcomes in Incognito mode versus normal browsing mode. While Incognito mode restricts Google’s access to a user’s search history, it still captures details such as location and time of the search. Interestingly, Google assures user control over personalisation settings, accessible with a simple click and ensuring secure management of personal settings.

A significant portion of the conversation focused on transparency in handling search queries and algorithms. Misconceptions about Google manipulating search queries were dispelled. Google’s issue of an extensive 160-page document on search quality rater guidelines was praised as a commendable move towards fostering transparency. However, demands for verifiable evidence, accountability and third-party audits of Google’s narratives emerged.

The potential efficiency of the Digital Services Act with its proposed audit mechanisms was seen as a forward stride to enhance transparency. However, doubts over the reliability of third-party assessments remain, along with issues related to the apt interpretation and utilisation of transparency information. A recurring sentiment was that transparency can only be realised through adequate funding and resources.

The recommendation to create a centralised Transparency Initiatives Portal for efficient access to all disclosures was regarded as a practical solution. This move would arguably benefit all parties involved in the comprehension and verification of data related to transparency. In sum, these discussions reflect the need for increased vigilance, clarity and public involvement in the control and management of online content, putting an emphasis on data privacy, fair business practices, transparency and user satisfaction.

Charles Bradley

Charles Bradley, renowned for his insightful commentary on diverse digital technologies, provides his perspectives on a number of significant issues. On the topic of personalisation in internet search, Bradley proposes an inclusive view, defining it as a system’s capability to deliver results tailored to a user’s pre-existing knowledge base. This approach implies that personalisation goes beyond simply catering to preferences, and instead, appreciates the user’s comprehension on a specific subject.

Moreover, Bradley underlines the importance of code audits, suggesting these security checks should ideally be performed by trusted third parties. The objective is to nurture stronger trust between technology companies and journalists, a relationship often strained due to contentious issues surrounding data privacy and source protection. However, Bradley acknowledges the challenge in this area due to the sparse pool of qualified personnel capable of conducting such intricate audits.

Remaining on the theme of accountability, Bradley emphasises the significance of external checks and measures for maintaining system accountability. Solely relying on self-assurances from tech giants, as exemplified by companies like Google, regularly falls short of providing adequate assurance or satisfaction to users. Here, Bradley questioned whether the Digital Services Act (DSA) could effectively accommodate the implementation of these external audits, displaying a cautious and investigative stance on the proposed legislation.

Additionally, Bradley exhibits a keen interest in integrating audience feedback into the information sphere about company activities. Audience feedback can proffer valuable insights for companies aiming to ascertain public sentiment or identify areas for improvement. Acknowledging the challenges of striking the appropriate balance in terms of information dissemination, Bradley underscores the necessity for transparency for industry stakeholders, government entities, and advocates. The struggle resides in soliciting information that companies may have previously been reticent to share, and ensuring that the initial company impressions coincide with stakeholder needs.

In conclusion, even though most of Bradley’s sentiments were neutral, his call for audience feedback was perceived as a positive endeavour towards enhancing transparency and improving stakeholder communication. This comprehensive analysis embodies Bradley’s profound understanding of the digital landscape, accentuating the intricacies of personalisation, the need for informed security measures, and the challenges in achieving transparency in an ever-evolving digital environment.

Zoe Darme:
I didn’t realize it was going to be an art class. Baseline then to have a deeper conversation about algorithmic transparency. We have another group. Okay. So what I see here from what algorithmic transparency means to people are a bunch of different responses. So making visible the way that algorithms work, knowing why a result is showing up when I think that provide an input. To me, algorithmic transparency means openly knowing the quality and biases of datasets that feed the algorithm, a way to understand why and how your experience on a service is influenced or displays or organized or shaped. To me, algorithmic transparency means being able to understand how the results are output from the algorithm. So lots of different things. Very hard to display on a screen about this big. So how do we actually do algorithmic transparency? On the other side here, we’ve got some amazing grade A art that I’m going to make NFTs out of, become very rich, quit Google. But I think Charles is going to try to show what some of you art majors drew. There are a lot of squiggly lines, but my particular favorite one here, I’ll just describe it to you, says user, arrow, query, arrow, magic with asterisks, arrow, and then results. And we do talk a lot about Google magic, but it shouldn’t be necessarily so mystifying that it feels like magic all the time. So hopefully maybe you guys can see some of this. I encourage you to come up afterwards to take a look at all of your contributions. So this is how search actually works. We drew it kind of like a vending machine. And so here, if you can think of you in front of the search results page, that’s like the vending machine. And then that is what we call front end, what the user sees and experiences. And then back behind, this is the Google magic. You’ve got natural language processing and query understanding. You’ve got crawling because you’ve got to find all those webpages. You’ve got data retrieval. Once you’ve crawled, how do you go get something from that index? And then you have all of the webpages, which here we are pretending to be soda cans. So let’s build together Gurgle, the search engine for the thirsty. And so we are going to use this lovely vending machine to really quickly go over how search actually works. So the first step when you’re building Gurgle is you have to find as many drinks as possible. And so to do that, you have to crawl. And so how would you find as many drink options as possible in the world? So returning to our trusty vending machine, this is where we are at the process. We used to have this as a spider web. And my very, very senior software engineer said, that’s gross, Zoe. You’re going to gross people out that they’re going to think spiders are in their soda. So now it’s a shopping cart. And if I were to ask you to find as many drink options as humanly possible, you might come up with 10, 20, 15. But in one day, we at Google are able to crawl millions and millions of pages. So group question. Anybody can shout out. No drawing involved. Just raise your hand. If you were going to start crawling and building your search engine, where would you start? How would you start crawling? Great. Past searches. Anybody else? Where would you start crawling the web? DNS. Okay. Anybody else? At the juice bar. Yeah.

Audience:
This is kind of content specific. So I’m probably trying to feed it something that was content specific. So maybe a magazine or something that was specifically about beverages. Because that’s what we’re looking at. Or maybe blogs or something about the topic.

Zoe Darme:
So those are all great answers. They’re all correct answers. And this was also sort of a trick question. Because you can start anywhere. With the web, once you get to a few links away from any other page, you’re basically able to get to other pages. And eventually you’re able to crawl and index a large proportion of the World Wide Web. All right. So next we are going to swiftly go through crawling and talk about indexing. So once we have all of our drink options, what do we do next? You have to organize all of them. Next one. Great. So now we have all of our cans. And we’re here in the data back ends. This is the inside of our vending machine. And it’s rows and columns of drinks organized perfectly. But they’re not organized when we get them, right? Because if we’re having a Pepsi and then the next person says, I like Coke. And then the next person says, oh, soda is bad for you. I only drink seltzer water from La Croix. Then eventually you’re going to get a collection of drinks, but they’re not going to be well organized. So indexing is what actually organizes the content that we found. And so I’ll skip over a lot of this because I think oh, actually. Sorry. So before we go on to serving, what do you think it’s important to put in your index for each drink? What would you want to know about the drink? Color? Nutritional value? Price? Is it artificial or is it organic? The result is not sponsored, Jim. It is organic. Anything else that you would want to know? Is it alcoholic? That’s a good one. Past recalls. Do I really want to drink this poison drink? Yeah. Great. So in this analogy, this is kind of what we’re doing with pages. We want to know what is the page about. We read the metadata, find out what the title of the page is. We kind of group it. Are these pages all about soda or are all these pages all about seltzer water? Or are all of these pages about alcoholic beverages of the type that hopefully we’re all going to enjoy later? Great. Great. Great. Amazing. Search engineer here. So we have how many reviews, how many people have been talking about this particular drink? Similarly, how many people are linking to it? That’s a signal that we can use, although that’s also a signal that can be gamed pretty easily through fake links. All right. So then let’s go on to serving. All right. So we’ve made it now to the part of the vending machine that provides the drink we asked for. So now that we have all of our drinks indexed, we can serve the user the results that they’d like based on their query. But the computer inside the machine is registering your input and helping you find what you want. But in a search engine, this looks a bit different. While a vending machine is responding to an alphanumeric code that matches exactly one drink, you want a Mountain Dew, I don’t know why. You want a Mountain Dew, you press the Mountain Dew button. But for a search engine, you have to take your query and match it with annotations of index pages. So is it about a drink that’s 24 ounces? Is it alcoholic or nonalcoholic? All those things that we mentioned before. And then the claw here is doing the data retrieval. It’s getting our drink and depositing it in the tray. So let’s take a specific query here. So this query is soda. And without any additional context, when someone puts in the word soda, what do you think that they would want? Kate wants a fizzy drink. What else? Okay. Nick is baking some delicious cake and wants baking soda. Anything else? Okay. Most people aren’t even looking for soda. They would call it pop or soft drink. Yeah. Yeah. So it really depends on where you are. So that is why we do use course and location, for example, to try to do that query understanding. So, for example, my favorite example of this is Super Trooper. Am I going to age myself? Please tell me somebody knows. Anybody? Super Trooper? Super Trooper? Okay. It’s an ABBA song. So most people searching for Super Trooper are looking for ABBA. But ABBA actually named their song after a type of light. So if you are a Broadway lighting designer, you may actually be looking for a specific type of stage light. And so synonyms are one of the things that are really hard for us and actually started before all of this AI, before Gen AI, before all of this, we really were starting with synonyms. And so if you have one person looking for pop and one person looking for baking soda, what are the type of signals that we should be using? You kind of got there already. How do you know if somebody wants a drink or baking soda? Location? Previous search. Somebody wants personalization. Time of day, also a good one. Yep. Habits. So what I’m hearing is that actually some personalization would be really useful in some cases to understand the difference between what somebody is looking for. But we actually don’t personalize a ton on the search results page at the moment. The amount of personalization changes over time. So what we try to do is actually use advancements in language understanding and query understanding. So the signals are the bits of information that help us understand its relevance to a query. And this can be about how recent a page is. So for a query like soda, that may not be as important. Another signal that we may use is the location of the word. Is the word soda the title of the page? That might make us think it’s more about soda. Is the word soda down there on the third paragraph penultimate sentence may not actually be as relevant. So those are the types of signals that we use. And they help us get as close to what we call user intent as possible. But we don’t actually have a set waiting system for queries. And I think this is what’s really hard when people say, I want algorithmic transparency from you, Google. You need to tell me the exact, you know, A, B, C, D, and E for how you’re returning results. Because it’s dynamic and it changes over time. So can anyone give me an example of where something like freshness might be important? A query where you might want something more. Game scores. Great example. If you are searching for… I’m trying to think of soccer teams to draw a connection with you all, but it’s eluding me. Arsenal versus Chelsea. Oh, thank God. Arsenal versus Chelsea. You want the game that was played last night and not the game that was played last week. What about you, Jim? You said time of day. What’s a type of query where time of day might be more important? Weather. Right. What’s the temperature going to be? Because if you’re searching in the morning, you might want to know earlier. Elections. For elections, you’d want something fresher, right? The elections that are happening sooner. Yeah, these are all great examples. Or the actual results. Great. So for newsy types of queries, freshness is more important. For other types of more stable queries, like hair braiding, I tried to… I failed, but I tried to braid my hair today. If you look that up, you may not need the latest hairstyle. And so freshness might not be as important. All right. So you guys gave us all sorts of great signals that we could use. And if we used only those, one thing that we would miss is spam. So the reason that these calls for algorithmic transparency get complicated really fast is because we are constantly in an adversarial space with about 40 billion pieces of spam a day. Next slide, please. Great. So I am almost done. So despite everything, search is a total work in process. We are always launching huge updates sometimes to core ranking, to small tune-ups, to make sure that we’re giving the right soda at the right time. All designed to make search work better so that we can find the most relevant, highest quality results possible. And the last thing I want to mention is page quality. Because that’s one thing we haven’t really talked about. And that’s actually one thing that’s very important in discussions about algorithmic transparency. How are you actually rating what the quality of the page is to determine how the highest quality results can float to the top? It is not magic. It’s actually through a combination of hundreds of algorithms, at least, plus on top of that our search quality rater program. So we do use humans not to rate individual pages, but to take a sample and to say, your systems are working as intended here. They’re not working as intended there. And so our page quality is summed up by the acronym EEAT, experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. And so I think a lot of people want algorithmic transparency to be like, step into this closet, show me the code, I will know how it works. But actually, we’ve been really transparent about this and put it in a 160-page document on how we understand page quality. How many of you have read the search quality rater guidelines? Bars gets a free drink at the bar. Kate gets a free drink at the bar. That is what we consider to be a huge effort towards algorithmic transparency because it tells you exactly what our biases are. Our biases are for high page quality and experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. But people are busy. They don’t have time. Like Fars, too. It was a research project. It was her job. To read 160 pages. But a lot of times, based on what we saw you guys put up for what you want algorithmic transparency to be, it really is about reading 160 pages about what a company says they are biased towards in terms of quality. But I think what people really want is something simpler, something easier, like the about this result feature that we showed at the beginning. So thank you very much for indulging me. Thank you for your art. That was amazing. Really, really good. And I’m going to throw it back to Fars and Nick so that we can have a discussion with the rest of our time. Thanks. So when you’re looking at page quality for rankings, and this is horizontally across time.

Audience:
If you look at the kind of, let’s say, advertising that is coming in and a lot of the search links becoming oriented towards gaming the Google algorithm, as you rightly said, and the quality of content on the web itself degenerates, how do you handle that? I mean, your quality of results will drop because the quality of content on the web is game towards selling and not towards the kind of internet you saw in the early 2010s or 2012s. I mean, it’s a general user’s perspective, but happy to hear your thoughts on it.

Zoe Darme:
I mean, that’s the heart of it. How do you, because it is super adversarial, and if people know, OK, the moment people realized it was about how many links are linking your page, then everybody was just linking to their own pages, right? And now I think what you’re talking about is what’s often called the SEOification of web results. I think the other thing here is a shift in the information ecosystem, where a lot of content creation is happening more in hosted content platforms or walled gardens. And so if people are incentivized to interact either in a platform, a closed platform, or a chat group, or whatever, they’re not creating on the open web. And so I think there is a larger ecosystem question to be had about, do we want to incentivize? And also, how do we incentivize content creation? In the golden age of the internet, when I grew up in the 90s, when I had an x-file, maybe more than one x-files page hosted on Lycos and Angelfire. So yeah, great question. Yeah.

Audience:
The words personalization and customization, do you use it interchangeably? For me, if I give an example, I’m not a soccer person or a cricket person, whereas my husband is that. So if I search about football or cricket, some things will come up, which is more preliminary things about cricket, like this is cricket, this is football. But if my husband searches, it will be more of an advanced source of search results. So do you call this personalization or customization?

Charles Bradley:
I mean, Zoe might answer that, but I would think of that as personalization. If the system knows enough about you to know that you don’t know much about cricket, then that’s a personalized result, and the changes are personalized.

Zoe Darme:
Yeah, the way we think about personalization is, is it something unique to you? Is it your search history? Is it because something about your past searches seem to imply that you’re a cricket person over a soccer person? That, to us, is personalization. That’s why we say location, course and location, doesn’t matter if I’m searching in Queens for best pizza near me. Everybody else is going to get the same result. There’s not something about me they don’t know, as Google should, that I really like Soto Listele over Domino’s. Yeah. Can we imagine microphones online?

Audience:
Hi, John from the AI Foundation for the Record. So we were talking about potentially personalized results. We didn’t see any example on the search that we did before, but if it was personalized, would the interface tell you how did they get to that conclusion? What was the process that it went through?

Zoe Darme:
So for right now, this particular feature doesn’t say we know X, Y, and Z about you, and that’s why it says it’s personalized or not. A good example of where a search might be personalized is for more like a feature like what to watch, what to read, what to eat. And so if you’re searching for a lot of recipes about Cassoulet, maybe after a while and you have personalization on, that’s the type of search where we might give you Julia Child over, say, oh, who’s that? Am I on the record? I won’t say anything bad. Rachel Ray, for example. So you might want a higher quality Cassoulet recipe if you’re a true French chef connoisseur. I’m sure Rachel Ray’s recipes are great. Yeah.

Audience:
Depending on the Google search I do, I get a number of sponsored ads that come up first. Sometimes a whole page will be sponsored ads, like if it’s a hotel. How did Google decide how many sponsored ads to show me before I get to the actual search? You’ve caught me out. I am an organic search person. We have people who work specifically on ads. There is a limit for the number of ads that you’ll see on the top of the search results page. I won’t give you the exact number because I’m going to forget. I think it’s something, Kate, do you know? Well, there’s a limit, but also ads appear on queries, like only certain sets of queries. So if you’re searching for a product or searching for a hotel. So certain queries will have more ads than other queries just because they are ones where people are looking to shop or to buy something or book a hotel, et cetera. And so it’s different depending on the query.

Zoe Darme:
Yeah, like for example, the first query that you saw me show, which was internet governance form, there were no ads on that one. But there are, even for those that are more shopping journeys, there are limits for the number of ads that can be shown. Hi, I’m Ricky from the Brazilian Network Information Center.

Audience:
So if you use incognito window, Google still knows your location and time of your search, but does not have access to your search history, right? Could you use the difference between the search, the incognito window and the normal window as a measure of personalization you get on the search?

Zoe Darme:
I mean, you could, or you can just turn personalization off. So if you go into the three dots, it’ll show you personalized for you or not personalized for you. And then there’s a link that says, manage my personalization settings. So even if you don’t want to go into incognito, you can use that link to turn personalization on or off. And then it’s the same as comparing between an incognito window and a regular browser window.

Audience:
Charlie Wurzel published a piece recently about the fact that Google might be boosting commercial queries. And what does transparency would look like to make that more publicly available, if it’s true?

Zoe Darme:
Great question. So I actually, maybe what we’ll do is pull up. Charles, you might want to start. Maybe what we’ll do is pull up. Charles, do you mind pulling up Danny Sullivan’s tweets on this? Because our search liaison actually provided a public response and rebuttal because it was a very, it was a misconception of how we would handle those queries. So there’s not a magic Google fairy behind saying, I put in the query Kate Sheeran, but really in the back end. And we’re not telling you we’re putting in Kate Sheeran Nike, for example.

Audience:
Yeah, go ahead. Let’s say I didn’t want to take your word for it. How would you demonstrate that to me? What sort of information would I need to answer that question?

Zoe Darme:
Algorithmic transparency. That’s a really great question, Nick. And I would love to know what we can do beyond what we’ve already done in product transparency through publishing 160 pages of search quality rater guidelines, through having Danny Sullivan put out regular tweets saying, no, we do not do x, y, and z. It would be interesting to know what we could do to show people that. If us saying it over and over and emphatically is not enough, then what can we do? And that’s why I made the joke, do we open a door and let people into the closet? I don’t mean to be facetious, but I’m not really quite sure what is that thing that we can do to prove it.

Audience:
What about closed independent third party audits? Would that be a mechanism? That’s a great question, Nick.

Zoe Darme:
Maybe since you’re at the oversight board, you might want to answer about what you know of the DSA or some of the other content regulations about third party audits. I know that’s one thing that the ecosystem is thinking about.

Charles Bradley:
Yeah, so I think it seems to me that in many cases, what you would want is someone you trust to have done a thorough audit of the code. So what do they need? You’ve got, one, the problems of how do we define the people that we trust? We can do that. We can sort of figure that out. How do we ensure that the personal information doesn’t leak? And probably as part of the same assurance process, you can figure that out. Then you’re pretty quickly whittling down the pool of people that are going to be in a position to be able to do that. I think there’s a lot of room for civil society organizations to work with journalists to provide that level of support. But we haven’t seen it because typically, we don’t yet have those relationships between technology companies and journalists that would allow a technology company to be assured that the results were not going to be misconstrued, that the results would not result in a leak of personal information, while at the same time allowing the journalist to actually publish what they want. Will the DSA fix that? I’m happy to defer to other people in the room on that. But I do think that fundamentally, what you are probably looking for for systems accountability is some sort of external measure. I think you’re probably right on this point that when Zoe says Google can provide you all of these assurances, you’re not going to be satisfied usually until you’ve had someone actually go through and spend a whole heap of time understanding what’s going on, which is pretty expensive.

Audience:
Hi, everybody. My name’s Tom. I’m from New Zealand, so apologies for my accent in advance. I’m project lead for something called the Action Coalition on Meaningful Transparency. And I think I just wanted to offer a couple of observations. I do think the audit mechanisms under the Digital Services Act are going to be something that is really important for effective transparency. I think the kinds of materials that auditors can access are extremely detailed. If you look at a laundry list for the different kinds of things you might want from companies in order to provide meaningful transparency, the auditors essentially have access to all of those things. They can ask people questions. They can ask to look at models, all these kinds of things. So I do think audit is going to be a really important component of the DSA. I think probably the next conversation we might be having, though, if we’re relying on independent third-party assessments is going to be, how do we have any confidence in those assessments? So at IGF next year, we might be looking at the first round of DSA audit reports. But everybody will be saying, how do we know these are any good? And how do we know that the auditors have said the right things and seen the right things? So it’s going to be sort of an ongoing issue, I think, as to how we get this kind of transparency. I just want to flag that one of the things we’re thinking about as well is, given that we have so much transparency information, and I think you’re referring to that from a sort of Google perspective, the question of how people can effectively make use of that is a whole other question. And I think that’s going to require things like funding, for example, because having the time and the expertise to look into all of these things takes a lot of time and money, basically. So I think another component of meaningful transparency is going to be funding. And then I’ll just call out one other thing, which is being able to find all of those disclosures in one place. So one thing we’ve heard through our conversations with various stakeholders is that it can be quite hard to find the information that’s already being disclosed. So what we’ve tried to do is pull together a portal that anybody can submit information to. It’s called the Transparency Initiatives Portal. And the idea there is that we will try to have a useful piece of community infrastructure for accessing various kinds of transparency information and initiatives. So hopefully, that will be something that we can talk about in the future.

Farzaneh Badii:
Thanks so much. Any other questions? We have about five minutes left. If not, I’ll pass back to Farz for closing thoughts. Sure, thank you. When you were going through the presentation, I was thinking that for each of the steps that you actually explained, there are hundreds of algorithms involved. So when we are asking for algorithm transparency in that kind of context in the life of a query, what do we actually mean by that? Why are we asking for transparency? This is why it’s so important to know why we are asking for transparency to hold Google accountable or to do certain research. And sometimes, when we are asking for transparency, we might actually want access to data and not necessarily transparency in a way that transparency and clarity in instruction. So I think that talking about transparency at granular level might also help civil society and policymakers with their effort to govern the internet and search engine and Google. And I think that this was a useful exercise. But I think that we need to provide more feedback for how to make this actually how we can use this example and what more we need and want through these processes in order to kind of feed into our conversations about internet governance in general. Do you have any closing remarks? Really? Why not? You were going on.

Charles Bradley:
I’m just really keen to hear from those in the audience. We don’t have any more time now, but I invite you to write down on a Post-it and leave it with us. Because I think this is a really tough challenge, pitching this at exactly the right level. Do you want more detail? Do you want the two-day workshop version? Do you want something that is a little bit more technical but a smaller component? Or are you happy with the sort of level of abstraction for your own uses as advocates, as people in industry and government, other stakeholders? What would actually be useful? I think that’s always the hardest part when you’re asking for information from a company that they’ve never given before. Their first impression of what you might be looking for probably doesn’t align with exactly what you need. So I think gathering that data, and if you want to write some feedback, we’d love to hear it, would be incredibly, incredibly useful. OK. Thank you very much. Thank you, guys. Thanks. We didn’t? Oh, no, that’s Saad. Oh, hi. How are you doing? Good. Good, good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good.

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Good. Good. Good.

Speaker from TEDIC 1

The discussion gravitates towards the pressing issue of online gender-based violence, linking it inextricably with two essential Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely SDG 5 which promotes Gender Equality and SDG 16 focusing on Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. It is underscored that this form of violence isn’t confined to just human rights defenders or journalists, emphasising its expansive and pervasive nature.

A key topic in the discussion centres on the crucial need for more robust and proactive regulation of online platforms. The argument asserts that reliance on intermediaries for content removal is inadequate, and instead advocates for the implementation of more dependable tactics. This approach carries a positive sentiment, proposing that platforms should act swiftly, with their community standards being more accessible, to effectively combat online gender-based violence.

Proposing an innovative solution, the importance of a centralised repository for all regional or national strategic litigations pertaining to online gender-based violence is highlighted. Whilst it’s acknowledged that such a mechanism may not fully exist yet, planning is underway for a workshop to engage individuals worldwide involved in some capacity with this issue.

Moreover, the conversation strongly advocates for a collective approach in dealing with this challenge. By forming a global coalition, efforts can be united in defining common ontologies around online gender-based violence. This strategy reiterates the universally inclusive sentiment attached to SDG5, emphasising that working collectively and capitalising on information provided by organisations like the Women’s Rights Online Network could usher in more effective solutions.

In summation, the discussion illuminates the gravity of the problem of online gender-based violence, advocating for more stringent platform regulation, collaborative efforts, and innovative solutions like a centralised location for strategic litigations. The essence captured here is that only through united and focused efforts can this form of pervasive violence be effectively addressed, thereby fostering gender equality and promoting peace and justice.

Lia P. Hernández

The issues of online gender violence and ineffective digital rights regulations create significant stumbling blocks in Panama’s public administration and judicial system. The problem arises from inefficiencies and a lack of necessary understanding about digital rights and gender perspectives within the justice administration, leading to hindrances in processing cases, corroborating claims, and revisiting filed lawsuits. This gap in the system compels a strategic overhaul and reinforcement of the approach towards digital rights.

Existing laws in Panama regarding informatics offences, still in place from 2013, are outdated and inadequate. This inefficiency engenders trouble for victims and judicial employees alike, obstructing their aptitudes for effectively navigating the legal environment. As such, there exists an urgent requirement for updated legal systems capable of responsibly managing cases of online gender violence.

Ipandetec, an organisation focusing on digital rights and technological policy, is actively involved in strategic litigation and providing legal advice for victims of online gender violence. They have worked on and brought forth cases of online harassment, including one involving a young female victim of harassment by an ex-partner. Ipandetec has emerged as a pivotal force in this arena, persistently advocating for a comprehensive upgrade of the digital legal and regulatory framework. This upgrade will not only protect potential future victims of online harassment, but also aid public ministers and judicial employees in discharging their obligations.

When contrasted against regions like the US and EU, content moderation in Central America is notably slower due to the lack of firm data protection legislation. This deficiency results in delays and inefficiencies in responding to requests to remove inappropriate content from social media platforms, exacerbating the problem of online harassment and violence. Based on this shortfall, there are strong recommendations for Latin American countries to adopt and enforce substantial data protection laws in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) standards. Such an implementation could create an environment in which victims receive better protection, and digital platforms are held to operate in a responsible manner.

Despite the international use of digital platforms like META and Twitter, it is crucial for these platforms to treat every region equitably. The issue of online gender-based violence is a grave one and highly apparent, particularly in Central America and the Dominican Republic. Establishing strong collaborations with authorities and prosecutors, as seen in Panama, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, can help address this gap continuously.

Significant progress in data protection has been marked, with two guidelines for the use of information in cases of online gender-based violence being introduced recently by the data protection authority in Panama. This signals the crucial role of data protection in curbing online gender violence.

During the discussions at the U.N’s cybercrime convention, issues related to child and woman protections online held the spotlight. While it was acknowledged that numerous cases exist, there is a tangible lack of proper regulations for ensuring protection. This consensus on the urgent need for protective regulations reiterates the global integrated endeavours required to plug the gaps in digital rights and online protection.

Audience

The analysis reveals several pressing concerns related to online gender violence, comprehension of technology, and the legal perspective on gender equality. There is a prevailing lack of knowledge and understanding of technological operations and gender violence approach amongst judges and attorneys within Latin America. This deficiency not only stymies the effective litigation of online gender-based cases, but also hampers the prospects for gender equality. Such infringements could be mitigated to a certain extent through comprehensive legal reforms. These alterations would necessitate judges possessing an in-depth understanding of technology and applying a gender-based perspective in administering justice.

The prevalence of online gender violence is exacerbated by instances multiplying during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in Indonesia. To combat this growing humanitarian issue, it’s been suggested that efforts should concentrate on securing the removal of online content that infringes upon human rights.

However, cultivating gender sensitivity in legal systems isn’t straightforward, even when supporting legislation exists. Despite the recent passage of an anti-sexual violence law in Indonesia, a shortfall of gender perspective amongst judges, police, and prosecutors lingers. This gap highlights the necessity of not only enacting supportive legislation but ensuring its appropriate application on all legal levels.

Another complication in the fight against online gender-based violence is the lack of easy access to and organisation of resources related to past litigation cases. Enacting measures such as better documentation and storage of these resources could greatly enhance efforts to combat online gender violence.

The potential establishment of data protection commissions or government regulators could also offer a significant solution, though the feasibility of this approach appears to differ greatly among distinct national contexts. Nonetheless, the exploration of such protection methods marks a crucial step towards tackling online gender-based violence.

Moreover, the analysis emphasises the importance of developing effective strategies to counter online gender-based violence. Prominent resources recommended include ‘La Violencia Digital’ Israel website and the Web Foundation’s ‘Women’s Rights Online’ Network. These offer crucial strategic litigation information in the fight against online gender violence. In line with this focus, Brazil’s law, ‘Marcos Civil of Internet’, was praised for its usefulness concerning the responsibility and accountability of online content. Internet providers aren’t held accountable for uploaded content until they’re notified of harmful material. The providers could potentially be held responsible for indemnification should they fail to react to the notification, consequently leading to a reduction in irresponsible online content.

In summary, multicultural action across various sectors will be necessary to tackle the complex issue of online gender violence and its underlying causes. However, through carefully structured judicial and technological education, stricter legislation, better access to litigation resources, and the implementation of effective strategies both nationally and globally, significant strides can be made towards addressing this pressing issue.

Hiperderecho

Hiperderecho, a pioneering legal organisation, emphasises the urgent need for authorities, including judges and solicitors, to enhance their knowledge of technology, digital rights, and gender perspectives. This thrust stems from the severe challenges victims and organisations encounter in seeking justice for online gender violence cases, which is largely due to the pervasive lack of technological knowledge and antiquated regulations pertaining to informatics crimes among current justice system operators.

Importantly, Hiperderecho believes the solution lies beyond simply employing full-time solicitors or instituting legal reforms. Instead, they propose a comprehensive approach combining law enforcement and education. This approach necessitates authorities to amplify their understanding of how technology operates, coupled with an application of a more nuanced gender-based perspective on justice. Key action items include updating outdated regulations to reflect contemporary digital realities and incorporating a gender-based perspective within judicial practices.

In line with this initiative, Hiperderecho has strategically partnered with Meta, providing them with the ability to facilitate the removal of harmful content from all of Meta’s online platforms. This initiative is a notable front in combating online gender-based violence, although the task of completely eradicating such content from the broader cyberspace remains a significant challenge.

In their relentless battle against online gender violence, Hiperderecho deploys dedicated legal teams. These professionals specialise in strategic litigation, tirelessly advocating and propelling forward cases in support of victims who typically lack the financial capacity to independently seek justice.

However, Hiperderecho admits that there are opportunities to augment their processes within their operation. Specifically, they acknowledge that the creation of a litigation case repository could augment efficiency within their operations. As it stands, all their decisions and cases are only accessible via their website.

Moreover, while Hiperderecho has yet to engage with data protection authorities concerning online gender violence cases, they recognise the potential benefits of doing so. They are interested in exploring this approach, acknowledging its prospective role in protecting victims of online gender violence.

In summary, Hiperderecho’s work underlines the intersectionality of technology, law, and gender violence, reinforcing the necessity of multidisciplinary approaches in seeking justice. They remain committed to championing the rights of victims of online gender violence, bridging the knowledge gap within the legal sector, advancing regulatory updates, and exploring innovative strategies, such as content regulation and engagement with data protection authorities, to alter the landscape of online safety.

Lia P. Hernández:
If I need to speak in English, I can’t speak in English well. My name is Leigh Hernandez. I am a member of the advisory board of Ipandetec. Ipandetec is a digital rights organization based in Panama City, but working digital rights advocacy research in Central America and Dominican Republic. I’m going to talk about our experience on strategic litigation on cases of online gender violence based in Panama, especially. We have presented two cases in Panama in the framework of our project Seguras en Línea. Seguras en Línea is a gender perspective project. In the second part of the project, we started a special phase of initial legal advising in Central America. We are helping two people in Panama to present it to the public minister like a claim because they have been victim of online harassment. The third case is about an influencer. This is a very famous influencer in Panama. She was victim of online harassment for the girl from the diverse community. So we presented in the public minister of Panama a claim because she was being victim of online gender violence. But the public minister of Panama said that that is not online gender violence because the gender violence is only when a guy, so a man, is attacking a girl or when a girl is attacking a man. In the case of the people from the diversity community, doesn’t exist that case. So, we started a new claim against their privacy, their intimacy, and their honor, and the prosecutor accepted this claim. But the problem is that the public administration and the administration of justice in Panama, as most of our countries in Central America, they are not very efficient. They don’t know about this topic, they don’t know about digital rights, they don’t know about gender perspectives, so it was very difficult for us. We were trying to push the case, presenting proof, going to the private psychologists to analyze her, that she was a victim of online gender-based violence, she had anxiety, and all these documents, we presented this document to the prosecutor, and he said that in their opinion, it wasn’t a proper case of privacy, intimacy, or crime against her honor. So, they filed the case, and now we are trying to reopen the case, because we think that the only way to generate precedence in our countries is still struggling against the system. Unfortunately, we don’t have proper legislation about informatics crimes, informatics law. Panama is the second country in Latin America that signed the Budapest Convention, but our regulations have been upgraded since 2013, so we have three years trying to upgrade the informatics crimes regulations in the country. So it’s a problem, because it’s not just a problem for the victims, it’s also a problem for the public minister, it’s also a problem for the judicial employees, because they don’t have the resources. to follow the crimes, that is their main function as a public and justice employees. So we still continue working in this kind of process in the countries and we have another case, the case this with another organization in Panama and it’s a case of a girl that she was victim of online harassment, the part of her former partner and her former partner was blackmailing her to publish or posting their pictures on social media. Actually, he sent her pictures in a WhatsApp and Telegram group and we still with this process, we are helping her with some funds from our project to support the case and I hope that in the next month or maybe in the next year, we can see one of you in some of this kind of event and tell you that we have won the case but this is something is very difficult for the civil society organization also for the victims because if we don’t have the legal resources, if we don’t have like very strong law or like a legal and regulation framework upgraded, updating regulation is very difficult. So for that reason, we request to the authorities, we request to the congresswoman and congressman in our country that is very necessary to upgrade the our digital legal and regulatory framework because now this influencer and this girl was victim of online harassment but maybe tomorrow, your sister, your daughter, your mother or your friend could be the next victim. So thank you so much and if you have any question, I will be here till the end of the session. dialogue and conversation and this is a part of the conversation so a lot of telling stories and a lot of truth in public and private glory.

Hiperderecho:
Thank you very much, Lucia, and thank you to all of you for being here. I would like to start by saying that we have a lot of problems in Latin America region, what do we have is a lack of knowledge on how technology works and also a lack of knowledge on gender violence approach when authorities like judges or attorneys check these cases. So what I can think of our project is not only having a group of full-time judges and attorneys applying the technical laws, and implementing legitimate reform , our criminal jars or our criminal codes in our legal jars. So we have to be able to establish on how technology works and also able to apply gender-based perspective on justice. So maybe I would like to ask Leah here , what else will be desired or maybe in our panel, what else will be desired? To be able to have the digital violence, gender-based digital violence. Anyone?

Audience:
Thank you. Hola, buenas tardes, soy Damar de Indonesia. I can’t speak Spanish much, but learning from what happened in Indonesia, we have a lot of online gender-based violence cases during the COVID-19. And many of the victims, it’s actually not so much into the litigation process, but they’re asking more on the takedown, the content from the platforms. So I’m going to ask the experience from Latin America, is there any effort to doing this conversation or process with the platform to take down the content? Because that’s the hardest part. Other thing than that in Indonesia, we are so lucky because we are already past the anti-sexual violence last year, because the existing regulatory frameworks before didn’t accommodate the victims of gender-based violence, but lucky that we already have the law now. But I’m agree with Dean, the law itself didn’t solve the problems because judges, police, and prosecutors, they didn’t have the gender perspective. So they didn’t understand that they can use this anti-sexual violence to accommodate the needs from the victims. So that’s learning from Indonesia. And I hope probably you can answer the first questions regarding that. the platform, thank you.

Hiperderecho:
Well, thank you, at least in the case of Peru, we have a partnership with Meta, that when we speak these images that can go through these all Meta platforms, we can send and have a takedown from this kind of, when we have, we take into account that some kind of these images are, you know, on its platform, but it’s a very big problem when we talk about internet, because once the image, or I don’t know, the video is there, taking absolutely it down is almost, I don’t know, we will say impossible, because it can be anywhere in any website, so it’s important, I think, to have these connections with platform and other website that comply with some regulations, but I think it’s a very, very big gap with some organizations here that we can directly speak with another platforms to take down this type of content. I’m thinking about, I don’t know, content or material, explicit material that can be uploaded to OnlyFans or other similar webpages, but it’s a very big, big task we have here.

Lia P. Hernández:
Well, in the case of Panama, mainly in the case of Central America, this is one of our main concern, because we have a very close relationship with the platform representative for the region, from Central America, actually from Facebook, well, Meta and Twitter, they are based in Mexico City, but we have contact of offline, but the problem is that there is time to response of our request. are not the same, their time of response of the European Union or United States. So, for example, in the Data Protection Agency in Spain, they have a special project that the Data Protection Agency is in communication with META for asking them to take down information from the social media. But we don’t have that kind of project with our other protection authorities in Latin America. So maybe it’s a good opportunity to copy, to replicate the best practice of other countries in the world. But it’s also a case about our regulation, because we don’t have very strong regulation like in the European Union. You know, we don’t have the GDPR. Most of the countries in Latin America, well, at least in Central America, they don’t have a data protection law. So they try to, but they are not working the proper work in our region, because they don’t have like a regulation that they enforce them to act immediately. So let’s see if the thing change in the next years, but I think that it’s very important that the META, Twitter, or the digital platform, they can’t, they shouldn’t make a difference between our regions and other regions in the world. Probably it’s the same in Indonesia. I don’t know. My main recommendation is still in contact with the social media. If you have like a friend or a partner in the social media companies, in the big tech companies, have a contact with them. Actually we have one that we all the time send him to his Instagram, like a screenshot of the post, a publication, a tweet to him. But unfortunately he was victim of the layoff in the last March, so we don’t have this contact anymore in META. And that’s it.

Speaker from TEDIC 1:
Hi, I’m sort of like part of this panel as well, in a way, I’m also part of TEDIC with my colleague Mari Carmen. And I think that just to add on the reflections of the panel, I think that at the end, we need to push to move forward and not have this model that relies on intermediaries to make sure that content is taken down in issues where a victim is asking for help on cases on online gender-based violence. Because in the example of the trusted partners that is like this model that Meta has been using for the past years, you’re very limited in the type of actor that you can help, right? So the problem is much more bigger than just human rights defenders, or perhaps journalists who are suffering online gender-based violence at different levels. And like the example that Leah is also mentioning, although I must say that it’s probably good to have this model where a data protection agency has a direct link with Meta, the problem of online gender-based violence goes beyond data protection in general and use of non-consensual image dissemination. So I think that we, or as part of the discussions of how to tackle this issue and how to give more redress and access to justice to victims outside of the judicial system in cases where it’s easier to appeal to the platform, is the platform that should be more swiftly and have more accessible community standards that allow for this kind of reporting and act swiftly in taking down the content in an at-scale way, at least. So yeah, that’s it. I think you can use the mic there.

Audience:
Hi, hello, I am Carla, I’m from APC. I live in Mexico, so I can relate to the issue. First of all, thank you very much for all the amazing work that you do in the different organizations. It’s very admirable to have people like you fighting for these issues because I know it can be very frustrating and even, yes, very difficult at some point, right? Because you get to work with the victims and hear their stories and also deal with, you know, psychology issues and how the victims approach. I have two questions. My first question is if there’s any place where you have been documenting the litigation cases that you are following. If we can access them, how can we take a look at this information? How can we use it for cases in other countries? If there is a repository, where can we find it? And if not, how can we create it? This is my first question. And my second question is in the different countries where you are at, how has it been working with the national governments and the ministries? How feasible do you see to have data protection commissions or regulators or, like, how is the situation generally in each of your countries? Because I’m not that familiar, so I would love to know more about that. And what do you think can be done to have these type of institutions? And a third question that just came up to my head, sorry, is what has worked? Because we have been hearing of the complications and the context, but what do you think has really worked, even though if they are, like, small things that have worked? But do you have any, like, type of things that have worked and that you use in your everyday practices that you could share with us? So these are my three questions. Thank you

Hiperderecho:
Thank you very much in in the case of Peru I will start for the third question What we think that work in our strategic litigation is that we have we had? Team a legal team that was all the time behind our legal cases We had Elizabeth that was the lawyer that has the those cases was behind the prosecutors was Calling mailing all the time only because of that our cases could get move forward Because we thought we thought this I think with all prison or our presence in that case The case we have we couldn’t move forward. So what I think that it worked is Is have a team or maybe? people that are Behind that cases that is also is very sad because most of the people that suffer suffers online based gender violence doesn’t have this the money to Hire a lawyer and have this lawyer behind that case is looking for justice So what happened in our case is that? I Think that we don’t have Like a repository on on these decisions and all these materials we have and I think that it could work for us to share our resources and to share all The ruling cases we had in per derecho. We had groundbreaking Judicial decision in a case and it will be very very helpful to share it with us To share with everybody with everybody that case so right now all our decisions our cases are in our webpage it per derecho that or So, yeah, that’s it, and the second question was about, well, I don’t remember, ah, in relation with data protection authorities. In the case of gender violence, we didn’t use, like, or contact data protection authorities, so we have some kind of relation, but for other, for other issues. I think, in our case, we haven’t tried to get to data protection authorities to seek justice for these cases, but it’s also, we can explore that scenario to use data protection authority, and I think that we could have our legislation could make a legal framework in order to protect victims, but in our case, we haven’t explored it.

Lia P. Hernández:
Okay, in our case in Panama, I invite all of you to visit our website, segurasenlinea.ca, CA for Central America, and this is the first web page with a lot of info about online gender-based violence in Central America and Dominican Republic. We have some, like, a blog section. We also have, like, info about if you are a victim of online gender violence, right, you can go there to the public minister, to the woman minister, to the, whatever you want, and also, we have more info about the cases there, but it’s anonymous because we are not reflecting the information, personal information about the victims in this website. The second question, the question about the relation with the prosecutor, we, with this project, we have established some relation with the prosecutor, mainly in Costa Rica and Panama, also Guatemala. Actually, We organized Twitter space, well, ex-space, not Twitter space anymore, with the prosecutor of Panama and Costa Rica about these topics. They are very aware that this is an important information that is useful for them as well, not just for the victim or for the population. So we have a very close relationship with them. About the data protection authorities, in Central America, we only have two data protection authorities in Panama and Costa Rica. We also have a very close relation with them. We meet them in some events around the world, especially in data protection events. And the data protection authority in Panama, they recently launched two data protection guidelines for the use of information in case of online gender-based. So it’s very important, these kind of materials, because this is information material funded by the Inter-American Development Bank, was made by the Costa Rican consultant. She reflects all the info about how, in the cases of online gender violence, the authorities in Panama should use the information, the personal information. So I think that is good, very material. You also can find these guidelines in anti.gob.pa. It is the website of the data protection authority in Panama.

Speaker from TEDIC 1:
I think that, because your question also was referring to like a centralized place where all regional or national strategic litigations were centralized. I’m not sure if that exists. We have, regarding the Belen case, The Sahil colleague was mentioning that the league is also a part of. We have the La Violencia Digital Israel website where you can find information on that strategy litigation. It’s in English and in Spanish so you can sort of like access the information not only of how the cases started but also how it has evolved through time both nationally and internationally. So it’s a good resource to have in mind and then also as part of the so the Web Foundation has this network called the Women’s Rights Online Network and we’re currently, we launched it last year, this tech policy design lab resource where there’s a lot of information of online gender-based violence across the world and across all different continents. So that’s a good resource to check as well. I don’t have the URL in my head, but you put tech policy design lab and Web Foundation and you’ll find it and we are currently working in defining common ontologies around online gender-based violence. So that’s something that is also going to be accessible in that website and it’s something that you can use. Yeah, so and actually I have actually a quick announcement of that. We’re currently planning a workshop across the world to engage with people who are involved in some way with working on online gender-based violence. So if you’re interested, please leave me your contacts and then I can put you in a database where I can then do a follow-up and and include you in those workshops and then collectively work in what that definition could potentially look like. So yeah, that’s it.

Audience:
Hi, I’m Luis Fernando Castro. I’m from Brazil and I’m a lawyer and a professor and former board member of CGIBR. I’m not specialized in criminal law, but I would like to say a word about civil law. We have the Marcos Civil of Internet in Brazil and this law it says that are stored in these data in devices, are admired . Primarily the Internet service providers are not responsible for content that people upload, like porn revenge or something like we heard in this session. They are not responsible for the content that people upload. They are not obliged to shut down, take down the content since they are notified. Other less, they will be co-responsibilized as joint responsible for indemnification. And I can tell you that that solution helps a lot because the providers don’t want to spend money to indemnify victims. And somewhat, a lot of that will have a negative impact on human nature. So this was a phenomenal solution to have a very complex district panel in criminal procedure. Thank you.

Lia P. Hernández:
I want to say something about your intervention. Actually, we are participating as well in the cybercrime convention discussion in the U.N., and what’s the point of the convention, the U.N. convention about cybercrime, is that the delegates from all the countries over the world, that they took more time to discuss was the topic about the child and the woman protections online, because it was a bit of difference between the countries from the Middle East, respective countries from Latin America, and some countries like, for example, Rocha, Venezuela, Nicaragua. And they were discussing how they can protect the childhood in this convention. Because there are a lot of cases in our countries, but we don’t have regulation, proper regulation to protect them. So thanks for your participation in our panel. Last question. Anyone? OK, we’re finished.

Online Moderator

The summaries present an engaging inquiry into the practices of large technology corporations, often referred to as big tech, particularly in the realm of digital transformation. The central argument revolves around big tech’s extractivist approach, extending beyond data to include water and natural resources. This is seen as significantly contributing to the ongoing climate and ecological crises. The conversation points out that the ‘green’ solutions proposed by these companies have been problematic due to their inherent extractive nature. This substantiates the negative sentiment woven throughout the discussion.

Another focus topic in the discussion is electronic waste, also termed as e-waste. This is increasingly produced as a byproduct of significant digital transformation and infrastructure expansions. The problem of responsibility for e-waste is underlined, highlighting the associated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to responsible consumption and sustainable urban environments. The Nodotao project in Argentina, which addresses e-waste, is cited as a supporting evidence. However, the query regarding who should be accountable for managing this still lingers.

Furthermore, the role of governments in instigating this situation is sternly questioned. They are criticised for funding traditional big tech models, thus displaying a lack of support for alternative technological business models. This criticism is particularly directed at local governments in Latin America, implying an inequality in resources distribution and hindrance of innovative potential in these regions.

In addition to the central debates, the summary also shines a light on the underpinning themes linked with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These include SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities; SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities; SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production; SDG 13: Climate Action; and SDG 15: Life on Land.

On the whole, the discourse emphasises the urgency for responsible, sustainable practices in digital transformation, challenges the extractivist model of big tech, calls for governmental reinforcements for alternative business strategies, and advocates for accountability in e-waste management.

Becky Kazansky

The analysis spans a wide range of themes intersecting technology, sustainable production, and climate action. A dominant sentiment of concern emerges regarding the environmental impact of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). Evidence suggests that every five enquiries made to AI chatbots result in half a litre of water being used, raising questions about resource consumption. Significant criticism is further directed towards carbon offsets, primarily due to evidence that over 90% of validated and standard-conforming offsets are ineffective and do not operate as anticipated.

Against this backdrop, the EU Green Claims Directive emerges as a positive development. This innovative policy aims to enhance transparency in sustainability claims, empowering consumers to discern the true environmental impact of products. This directive also dispels the notion that companies can achieve climate neutrality or sustainability through carbon offsets alone.

Further scrutiny in the realm of carbon markets and offset mechanisms is encouraged. The analysis suggests that even well-intended strategies may be inadequate, with bona fide carbon offsets often failing to function ecologically as initially planned. Civil society is urged to pursue a more comprehensive and fundamental critique of carbon offsets, highlighting the need for decisive climate action strategies.

Solar geoengineering, a speculative technology, warrants examination due to its potential to exacerbate rather than mitigate climate change. This technology, which necessitates broad-scale coordination, has solicited scepticism from scientists worldwide. Over 400 scientists question the practicality of governing such an expansive, potentially hazardous technology, advocating instead for a precautionary approach.

The analysis also voices strong support for just transitions – socio-economic and environmental strategies seeking equitable outcomes for society at large. A call for action is made to challenge potentially misleading climate solutions, a contentious issue the climate justice movement has been fervently addressing for decades.

The need for robust regulation of speculative, potentially harmful climate technologies is emphasised, amidst concerns over excessive investment by tech giants. The need for greater engagement and open dialogue surrounding these controversial climate technologies is also underscored, considering the propensity of large tech corporations to invest heavily in such technologies as part of their ongoing profit models.

In conclusion, the analysis highlights the profound links between climate action, sustainable production and innovative technology. It brings to light pressing issues over resource management and the veracity of ‘green’ strategies, underscores both regulatory and consumer measures to scrutinise and verify sustainability claims, and stresses the need for thorough critique, regulation and discussion around speculative technological responses to climate change.

Onsite Moderator

In her reflections, Kemly Camacho affirmed the paramount importance of incorporating human-scaled values, such as solidarity, friendship, happiness, and passion, into the spheres of globalisation and digitalisation. She emphasises the integration of these values into business models, accounting, project management, and team collectives as promising pathways to effectively tackle significant socio-economic and cultural matters. She also heralded non-profit business models as viable, sustainable solutions capable of addressing these challenges. The sentiment expressed towards this approach is categorically positive.

Further, Camacho ardently advocated for the formation of alternative business models as a potent solution to the ongoing climate crisis and the worsening contributions of the digital economy. She underscored the unsustainability of current models due to their heavy reliance on extractivism. Pointing to organic agriculture and social economy, she proposed these as positive examples of alternative models that prioritise sustainable business practices.

The Onsite Moderator voiced the belief that it is possible to foster a digital economy that respects and upholds planetary justice, environmental justice, care, and solidarity. Such principles are recognised as integral to realising SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure). Moreover, the intersectionality of environmental sustainability and the exercise of digital rights, both online and offline, was highlighted.

The pivotal role of governments as allies and champions of environmental justice was acknowledged. The Moderator posits that cooperation, standardisation, global norms, and internet governance in the digital realm can offer significant support to these governmental initiatives and facilitate a fair and just transition.

There was an emphatic call for governments to take bold steps in supporting alternative business models, particularly in light of the climate and ecological crisis. It was argued that governments should not only tackle the sustainability challenges associated with Big Tech’s business models but should also allocate funds to promote alternative business models. The limiting and problematic elements of Big Tech’s model, particularly its generation of e-waste and overdependence on data extractivism, were spotlighted as areas requiring significant overhaul and improvement.

Camacho stressed the need to pivot from digital transformation to digital appropriation. Traditional models, including start-ups, unicorns, and big techs, were identified as requiring a reevaluation as they priortise value addition and accumulation over redistribution and solidarity. She championed digital appropriation as a means to curtail consumption and develop essential digital tools.

Finally, the importance of considering different contextual factors in AI usage and data collection was underlined. Solutions need to be customised and tailored to respective communities, with the global community ensuring that those impacted are meaningfully included in discussions. The role of local communities was emphasised, and the voices of those affected were recognised as essential to the decision-making process.

In summary, the predominant sentiment advocates for a paradigm shift in business practices towards more sustainable, inclusive, and just models. This shift is expected to support several UN Sustainable Development Goals and pave the way for a sustainable digital economy and responsible AI usage.

Jaime Villareal

The May 1st Movement Technology Cooperative promotes social and environmental justice by providing an autonomous communications infrastructure. This infrastructure, which is collectively owned and democratically governed by the cooperative’s members, supports communication services, such as email, web hosting, and file sharing. This cooperative model promotes democratic leadership and communal ownership, contributing significantly to societal growth and development.

Contrasting with data-centric corporate internet services, the cooperative’s primary focus is not on data collection or data mining. Members consistently vote to maintain the infrastructure free from surveillance or exploitation, emphasising transparency and respect for privacy.

However, the cooperative faces challenges due to resource scarcity, limited capital, and lack of suitably-located server facilities. Constraints include insufficient funds for building personal data centres or gaining direct access to renewable energy resources, and finding cost-effective solutions for managing electronic waste is a challenge.

Despite these hurdles, the cooperative strives to increase environmental sustainability and reduce their carbon footprint. The cooperative’s operations are less environmentally damaging than corporate internet services owing to their avoidance of an extractive business model.

The cooperative strongly opposes corporate internet services’ surveillance and data collection practices, viewing them as coercive and exploitative. They critically analyse the capitalist narrative that advocates for high-yield businesses as the sole solution to climate change. They argue that the implementation of policies such as artificial intelligence (AI) — fuelled by data extraction and knowledge accumulation — have significant environmental and societal impacts.

Favouring collaborative working, the cooperative advocates for community or cooperative-based models for climate control and societal issues. They emphasise on fostering long-term sustainable development through engagement, communication, and cooperation, rather than domination and extraction.

The cooperative is critical of businesses that participate in ‘greenwashing’, making false claims of environmentally-friendly practices, while operating with extractive business models. Additionally, they reject the proposal of paying fines or taxes as atonement for corporate misconduct, comparing it to the flawed carbon credit system.

They express concern over large companies’ unauthorised use of user data for AI model training, deeming it exploitative. There’s also worry over users being unknowingly coerced into participating in AI training.

The cooperative opposes universal solutions for preserving local languages and indigenous cultures, insisting that proper consultation with local communities is vital. They stress the importance of recognising each community’s unique needs and interests. Overall, the cooperative is firmly dedicated to privacy, community engagement, and environmental sustainability, continuing to navigate through their challenges and make strides towards achieving their goals.

Florencia Roveri

Florencia Roveri champions the concept of a digital economy that incorporates elements of environmental justice, sustainability, e-waste management, and digital inclusion. This is exemplified by their organisation’s establishment in 1995 by a team of engineers, educators and social activists. The main motivation for their initiative was the growing need for effective and sustainable management of the increasing volumes of e-waste sourced from companies.

Their innovative and proactive step in transforming their e-waste management facility into a cooperative, initiated by seven founding members, was geared towards handling complex responsibilities such as production, commercialisation, and habilitation. This action demonstrated an awareness of the multifaceted challenges presented by e-waste and aimed at promoting social inclusion by incorporating more young individuals into the workforce. This aligns with the aims of SDG 8: ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’.

Roveri emphasises the necessity for comprehensive e-waste management plans where responsibilities are shared amongst numerous actors. This includes government bodies playing a role in facilitating the disposal process, and companies generating e-waste ensuring its appropriate management. This reflects the importance of a united effort in achieving environmental sustainability, aligning with SDG 12 and 17—’Responsible Consumption and Production’ and ‘Partnerships for the Goals’, respectively.

Roveri also tackles a significant misconception about e-waste, underscoring it’s often misperceived as a ‘donation’ when, in reality, it’s a significant issue. They highlight the costs and risks associated with processing e-waste, demonstrating that it simply transfers the problem to other actors.

Moreover, Roveri proposes the idea of e-waste management being recognised as a public service due to its global impact and pervasive implications. They acknowledge the challenges in managing e-waste given its complex nature and the involvement of various stakeholders but also recognise the potential profits diligent e-waste management could yield.

Lastly, Roveri advocates for viewing e-waste management not solely as an environmental imperative but also as a potential source of job creation. They suggest it could serve as a solution to the ‘digital divide’, emphasising its societal and economic significance.

In conclusion, Roveri offers a comprehensive perspective that integrates the roles of diverse stakeholders to tackle the challenge of e-waste management effectively. This collective approach utilises e-waste management as a tool for job creation and a bridge to span the digital divide.

Kemly Camacho

Kemly has highlighted the urgent necessity to explore alternative business models, emphasising the gravity induced by societal factors as well as environmental crises. These new models are specifically designed to break socio-economic impasses and champion feminist entrepreneurship alongside businesses that regard care and solidarity as central principles. These values-driven business approaches have been identified as critical in addressing a complex interrelation of social, cultural, and economic issues.

A thorough critique of traditional models within the digital economy reveals their shortcomings in supporting entrepreneurs grappling with socio-economic problems. Notably, entrepreneurs frequently encountered obstacles in securing essential finance and technical support. This examination has been increased noting that business plans centred on fostering social and cultural awareness are rarely seen as viable under existing digital economy frameworks.

Kemly has further marked the current global environmental crisis as a patent symbol of urgency, necessitating a comprehensive reform of established business models. Predominant models, underpinned by extractivism, are now perceived as unsustainable, urgently demanding innovation.

Urgent changes in prevailing digital transformation narratives among governments, academia, and start-up ecosystems in Latin America were proposed. Currently, the dominating ideologies incline strongly towards consumption-based models. The recommendation for academia, incubators, and governments is a drastic revision of business methods and an uptake of digital appropriation models, which significantly contrast the current focus on consumption in digital transformation initiatives.

The dominant models within the digital economy and traditional business, owing to their extractive tendencies, have been subjected to rigorous critique, especially given the emergence of new values such as solidarity and care. This critique strongly advocates that platform companies should pivot their business models from value extraction and instead, concentrate on fostering and accelerating solidarity and care.

The digital appropriation strategy could present a valuable remedy, especially pertinent in the post-pandemic era. It accentuates the need to identify useful digital tools, aiming to reduce wasteful resource use. Furthermore, technology frameworks should echo this sentiment, focusing on solving tangible, real-life problems faced by women, including childcare and community care.

The concept of fair employment is emphasised as central to business models like cooperatives, and its vital contribution to the survival of humanity is unequivocally stated. Nonetheless, concerns have been raised about the growing acceptance of precarious work and the practice of charging for machine-learning training. These are seen as threats to the principles of human survival and equitable access to digital resources, respectively, thus underlining the necessity to integrate socio-economic and environmental sustainability and care-oriented values within current business models.

Audience

The comprehensive discourse highlights the divisive perceptions concerning the current practices of AI companies, particularly regarding their data usage and training techniques. Notably, there is a prevailing negative sentiment surrounding AI companies exploiting data without providing compensation or respecting copyright laws, a standpoint seen as discourteous, prompting suggestions to revisit these practices and potentially, levy relevant taxation. This concept is based on the understanding that the sophistication of AI relies heavily on the consumption of substantial data volumes, however, in the existing scenario, there is no remuneration structure for the people who generate or own the data.

On a positive note, there is substantial advocacy for delving into the economics of artificially intelligent platforms, reflecting the sentiment that there is a necessity to make AI smarter. Although this argument does not deliver direct supporting facts, it implies an expectation for a more robust and intelligently engineered AI system that is propelled by an integrated understanding of economics and data science.

Further positivity emanates from the discussion on innovation, particularly with the focus on alternative technology frameworks. Dialogues on this topic have spotlighted cooperative models as potential solutions. This argument suggests that the evolution of technology frameworks, specifically those with elements of social, ecological, and feminist policies, could be the key to surmounting prevailing challenges.

Simultaneously, the impact of AI on the industry landscape of Japan is notably significant. The transformative change ascribed to AI is predicted to disrupt the existing ‘pyramid’ structure prevalent in the industry. Insights indicate that the smaller ‘worker’ roles, traditionally executed by humans, are being replaced by AI, signalling a shift in the dynamics of the digital industry.

Indeed, this transition also emphasises new opportunities for work styles and business models. Within this ever-changing landscape, it’s suggested that AI training could emerge as a novel style of work, particularly for those proficient in Japanese, pointing to an evolving job market.

Conclusively, the analysis identifies a distinct disparity between current and AI-introduced business models. It suggests a shift in the layered fabric of the Japanese industry, indicating a dichotomy between a rich industrial history and the transformation instigated by AI-driven models.

Overall, the analysis presents a holistic image of the ongoing structural, operational, and ethical debates surrounding artificial intelligence. The future path seems to advocate diversity, questioning antiquated practises, and forging ahead with more cooperative, equitable, and mutually beneficial approaches for humans and AI.

Yilmaz Akkoyun

The BMZ, Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, is actively striving to enhance societal, political, and economic participation among individuals in its partner countries. A particular emphasis is placed on the most marginalised sections, demonstrating the ministry’s commitment to establishing a comprehensive, holistic approach to address the root causes of multifaceted issues.

Despite these efforts, a considerable digital divide exists globally. Nearly half of the world’s population lacks internet access, with internet usage dropping to fewer than 40% in partner countries. Worryingly, women and marginalised communities bear the brunt of this divide, highlighting significant and widespread inequality in digitalisation.

To counteract this issue, the BMZ has backed a fair, secure, open, and free internet under the banner of the Global Digital Compact. This step is considered a crucial driver in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Actively engaging in the associated dialogue and processes, the ministry is intent on promoting an inclusive digital transformation that is environmentally friendly, socially conscious, and feminist.

A human-centred perspective is core to digital transformation. Germany, in collaboration with the European Union, is shaping digitalisation to address potential environmental, human rights, and societal risks. The country’s digital policy is underpinned by three core elements: establishing standards and norms, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and developing digital skills within society and the economy.

Importantly, digitalisation is being employed as a tool to actively combat environmental challenges. Germany partners with countries around the globe to advocate fair regulation of the digital economy. This is exemplified by their collaboration with Smart Africa in developing national Artificial Intelligence strategies focused on environmental challenges.

Education is pivotal for the successful enactment of digital transformation. Germany’s commitment to encouraging digital skills is demonstrated through platforms such as Attingi, which has engaged over 11 million individuals, most notably advancing young women’s comprehension of digitalisation.

Simultaneously, Germany expresses concerns over the misuse of data and the risk of exacerbating social divisions. Therefore, they are committed to ensuring their digital policy promotes a safe, inclusive internet and fair data markets in partner countries to circumvent these issues.

The sustainability of waste donation is questioned, with an expressed need for increased education in waste management. In terms of equity in digital transitions, the BEAMSET digital initiative supports fair digital transitions in partner countries. The initiative Fair Forward contributes to this goal, working to develop open-source AI models to stimulate local innovation.

The importance of economic aspects within these engagements is recognised, yet a global discussion on the topic is deemed necessary. In terms of international partnership, BMZ contributes significantly to global politics, maintaining robust relationships with a broad international network of governments and other stakeholders, especially civil society actors. This underlines the urgency of integrating local and national perspectives from the Global South into the international discourse.

In conclusion, according to the BMZ, global digital cooperation is essential for supporting a holistic approach to digital transformation. The guiding focus is on fostering international partnerships to drive digital transition that is both socially and environmentally sustainable.

Kemly Camacho:
models and feminist economy proposals. Not only for our own business, but also, as I said before, to create incubators for entrepreneurship, especially for women in IT, to develop other kind of business models. We have learned how to integrate solidarity, friendship, happiness, passion in business models. And we have create business models where these words and where these beliefs are part of the business model, part of the accounting, part of the project management, part of the team collective, yes? And we have learned how to develop non-profit business as a strategy to respond to social, economic, and cultural problems. For the social economy model inside the digital economy, the business part is an answer for the social, cultural, and economical needs. It’s not the main issue, the business part, yes? That comes from the social economy perspective, yes? Non-profit business models where the business is the answer to these social problems. Inside the IT society who have a specific problem related with the digital. And we also have learned how to put care in the center of our business model, and that comes from the feminist economy. Care in the center of business models. models, then solidarity in the centre of business model, care in the centre of business model, non-profit models, yes, in the digital, for a digital, non-destructive digital society. There are important challenges. We have launched last year, in alliance with the National Centre for Training in Co-ops and in alliance with the University of Mondragon, and we have incubated, since 10 years already, digital feminist initiatives based in a model that we have created, who began with a feminist hackathon, which is very different than a normal hackathon, yes, it’s a hackathon not for competition, but for sharing, yes, and everything, I cannot go in details, but we have created this incubator of digital feminist initiatives, but of course we confront in our context difficulties in the innovation ecosystem to try to support these initiatives, platform co-ops or feminist entrepreneurship for the IT and for the digital society, because they not fit in what they understand is an innovation, or in what they understand is a business model for the digital economy. Then the access to finance, to support, to technical support, is very hard and difficult. We have to create them ourselves also. Then this is a main challenge. We really believe there is a need to create alternatives and demonstrate there are other ways to develop the digital economy, and we feel it’s urgent. The planet is burning, and the answer is not in the business model that we have created until now. We have to create other business model and demonstrate that it’s possible to develop a digital economy not based in extractivism. There are movements in advance of ourselves where we can look at examples, and always I put the organic agriculture as an example of how we can develop these other models. And also, of course, the social economy. They inspire our experience, and we hope we inspire you to propose alternatives. Thank you.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you so much, Camly, particularly for reminding us that it is possible to have a digital economy that contributes to planetary justice, environmental justice, not dissociated from care and solidarity. So I think that’s very important, and that’s the change of paradigm. So with that, I would like to invite one of our remote speakers, Florencia Roveri from UNODO TAU, who is joining us from Argentina. So, Florencia, can you hear us? Can you confirm if you can hear us? Yes, hello. Good night. We can hear you perfectly, welcome. So nice to see you, Florencia, welcome to the panel. And I would like you to please, Florencia, tell us what motivated UNODO TAU to transform your e-waste management facility into a cooperative, and what has been the impact so far? Also, we are very curious to hear about the obstacles that you have faced in that transitioning process. So you have the floor, and welcome again, Florencia. Thank you, Valeria, and thank you for the invitation to share our experience in this. Can you hear me? Yes, Florencia. We can hear you. Go ahead, please. Okay.

Florencia Roveri:
For sharing our experience in this instance, in this pre-event, it is very valuable for us to participate and add our view. We are a social organization in Argentina, and as Valeria mentioned, we are a social organization that works for the digital inclusion of organizations created by a group of engineers, educators, and social activists. We move from this objective of working for the access to technology to deal with the access of technology. In that sense, we developed a plan for the treatment of e-waste. We began in – sorry, I am going to start again, sorry – that was a social organization created in 1995, and we developed our work in that sense. The plans we create, it has to do with the access of machines we start to receive from companies, machines that we delivered for the organization of a network of telecenters. The plan was created in 2019, and it was in the frame of a local program of work inclusion. And it was formed by six young men and one woman, accompanied by three members of Nodoktau. The plant receives mainly e-waste from companies and public bodies that must, sorry, sorry, sorry, Valeria, I am dealing with my nerves and the distance, I have to reorganize, sorry. It’s okay, it’s okay Florencia, if you prefer we can come back to you in a bit, is that something that you could like us to do, then we can invite him and then we can go back to you? Is it okay? It’s okay, it’s okay. Okay, but if you prefer to continue, if you prefer to continue now, it’s also okay, just let me know what your preference could be. We create the plant, in that frame I was mentioning, and four years after the creation of the plant we start leading with some aspects related to the focus of Nodoktau in the work of digital inclusion but also in the sustainability of the plant. So we need to face that challenge of articulating the dynamic of the organization and of the plant management. Our focus was a more general work and the cooperative was growing and, sorry, go on with Jaime, sorry for that, sorry for that.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you so much, Florencia, for sharing your experience, and then you can add anything when we are in part of the conversation, feel free to jump in and add anything that you might want to share with the audience. Now let’s turn to Mexico and to invite reflections from Jaime Villarreal from the May 1st Movement Technology Cooperative. Jaime, it could be very useful for us to hear your perspective on why it is important for May 1st Movement Technology to be a democratically run, not-for-profit cooperative. Please do share your experience with us. You have the mic.

Jaime Villareal:
Thank you, Valeria. So when May 1st members join our cooperative, they’re choosing to join an organization that supports building movements for social and environmental justice, right? And our specific focus within that is the role of technology in both local and international movement struggles. And so in addition to the movement outreach and engagement that we do, one of May 1st’s central projects is maintaining our own autonomous communications infrastructure. And what that means is we run our own servers, our own internet servers. We provide email, and web hosting, and file sharing, and other communication services like video conferencing for our members. And as part of our cooperative, that means our members of the cooperative collectively own and we democratically govern together this infrastructure. And what that gives our members the power to do is that year after year, they consistently vote to maintain this project, to keep our own infrastructure, and to keep that infrastructure free of any kind of surveillance or exploitation. And this is really, really important. A lot of times people ask us, so are you creating an alternative to the corporate internet services? And, I like to say that, no, we’re not an alternative to Google or to Meta or Amazon or those because we are focusing on the needs of our members. We are providing the tools that facilitate communication, that allow them to organize and take action to create a better world on their own terms. And contrary to popular belief, this is not something that corporate internet monopolies are in the business of doing. They are not facilitating communication. Their core business is data collection and data mining. Any communication services they provide are just hooks, are carefully engineered to coerce consumers into giving up their privacy. These business models are fundamentally extractive and exploitive. So because these companies collect and store petabytes of data, personal data from citizens and from consumers, the necessary computing resources and the environmental impact of running their operations is astronomically larger than our own. So, in terms of environmental sustainability, we are already at an advantage simply because we do the right thing and we don’t engage in this kind of surveillance and data collection. But, aside from that obvious benefit of being free of surveillance, our members are still interested in us finding new ways to increase our environmental sustainability and to reduce our carbon footprint. Unfortunately, for an organization of our size, our options are limited. Where we can place our servers is limited by both human resources and by access to high-speed broadband. We, as a small organization, simply don’t have the capital to build our own data centers that would be closer or have direct access to renewable energy resources. And also, finding cost-effective solutions to processing our own e-waste is also a challenge. And so, that’s something we’re interested in learning from other APC members about, like Nolotau. So, this is the advantage, I think, that comes from allowing our members to guide our own project in being a cooperative model that gives our members a voice and a vote and control and ownership over their own communications.

Onsite Moderator:
That’s a very powerful experience to share. Thank you so much, Jaime. And also, because it illustrates the interplay between environmental sustainability and the reinforcement of the exercise of rights online and offline. So, that’s quite interesting and inspiring. So, governments, obviously, governments could be key allies and champions for environmental justice. And in that sense, we are very happy to have Gilmas here in the panel with us to share the perspective of the German public strategy and approach on this field. So, Gilmas, what does cooperation mean in the context of digitalization from the perspective of BMZ? So, welcome. And also, if you can also, perhaps, let me just add something. So, if you can also touch upon how can global norms and standards relating to internet governance and environmental governance can support these cooperative models and these approaches, and in that sense, work all together towards a fair transition, a just transition. So, welcome. and let us hear your views.

Yilmaz Akkoyun:
Dear Valeria, thank you so much for this interesting question. It’s a great honor and pleasure to share my views on behalf of the BMZ on day zero here at the IGF and to learn more about the work of cooperatives around the globe and take it back to Berlin to also check how our work is aligned with what cooperatives do. Let me start with the first question and then tackle the second one too. So cooperation is at the heart of what BMZ does. So what are the plans for the future what projects are CVID-19 efforts and what’s your vision of what the future of our CVID-19 efforts should look like? Yes, I’ll start. So my name is Philip. It’s a great pleasure to meet you. We very kindly prepared and introduced our whole team to the question of our Media Society, what is your wish for the future of CVID-19. economic cooperation and development, as German BMZ, we want to enhance economic, political and societal participation of all our people in our countries, partner countries, especially the most marginalized. This is our mission and cooperation with our partners is essential for the holistic approach, necessary to address the root causes of the complex problems that we are facing today. These global challenges did not become easier if we consider climate change, which you just mentioned, pandemics, poverty and the fight against hunger. They all require coordinated responses that go beyond individual projects and now let me get to what cooperation means, especially in the field of digital affairs, digitalization. If we look how the world looks today, it’s happening very unequally. Almost half of the world’s population do not have access to the Internet. We are here in Japan and the access, of course, is very different if we consider partners in the global South. There, women and marginalized communities are particularly affected by this digital divide, whereas more than 90% of people are online in the European Union or Germany, where I am from. In our partner countries, fewer than 40% do have Internet access and we are working to change this. So cooperation is key for us in addressing these issues and I think we need conversations between countries from the global South and the North to make digitalization benefits all. Staying true to the claim to leave no one behind, we first need to make sure that everyone can benefit from digital transformation. What does it mean? This means prioritizing inclusivity and promoting meaningful equal access to for all people, especially in these vulnerable and marginalized communities, are essential and yes, global norms are essential in doing this We have three cornerstones in our digital policy work to get there and norms are one of them We could talk about this in our own panel, I would say but for us, they are essential, especially digital public goods and this is very important for us in our work and yesterday you had, I think, one conversation of the role of the Global Digital Compact and we are very engaged in that process, in the dialogue, contributing and I think we have an interesting road ahead to the summit of the future in getting there and shaping this together and learning from you is helpful for us to contribute in that process and engaging in these norms and we aim to promote a fair, free, open and secure internet this is also for me part of the norms you mentioned to get a digital transformation which is ecological, social and feminist and in this way, the digital transformation can be a driver of progress towards achieving the SDGs where we are now on our half-time, if we consider the agenda 2030 I hope this answered your question for now and I’m looking forward to the dialogue here and thank you for inviting me again

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you, Yilmaz As we heard from Ken Lee, if we want the digital economy to really contribute to planetary justice then the consideration of feminist and gender perspective is crucial I don’t think we can get that without considering that aspect. And last but not least, and before inviting Paz to also pose some questions for you, I would like to invite Becky to share your perspective. Becky, as a researcher in the field, how do you see this conversation of transforming technology frameworks and advancing planetary justice in the governance of technology in relation to recent policy developments such as labeling? So, very curious to hear about it.

Becky Kazansky:
Hello. Thank you so much for having me this morning and for being part of this discussion. So, my name is Becky Kuczynski. I’m a researcher at the University of Amsterdam where I study the just governance of climate technologies. Thank you very much. Okay, I think it’s on now. And for the last year or so, I’ve been collaborating with a number of different organizations and networks and APC included, to think about the values and principles that can guide more collaborations across different civil society movements. To think about technological governance that can support environmental and climate justice. And as part of that work, we’ve been brainstorming on what a theory of change can look like on this really, in collaboration with a number of different partners and collaborators. So, I wanted to share a little bit about some of the biggest themes that have come up from this process because I think it really brings home how important the kinds of models are that the other speakers have really beautifully illustrated already. And I would say that one of the most important themes that has come up is, you know, if on the one side it’s essential to support alternative models for technology through collaboratives, co-ops, and other models. On the other hand, it’s essential that we, and I mean we in this as a group of, you know, different kinds of stakeholders coming together today. That we don’t get distracted by technologies and tools that on the surface can seem quite promising for mitigating or adapting to climate change, but which have already proven to be quite harmful to different kinds of communities and populations and countries around the world. And so in not getting distracted, this would provide more room for support for the kinds of models that are being discussed today. And I’ll give you a few examples of the kinds of distractions that have come up in the policy space recently and around which there is movement on the policy side to either reform or think strongly about restrictive governance and even going further than that. The first is around AI, which is a subject that comes up a lot these days. And I’m thinking specifically of the fact that in the climate governance space, the UNFCCC has recently announced a new initiative to support an exploration of the promise of AI as a climate technology. And on this front, what civil society really is arguing for is that if there is gonna be a wide-scale investment, and there already is, into data-driven technologies like AI, then we have to make sure that their promises on the one hand aren’t oversold by certain actors, and on the other hand, that the harms that already are apparent are actually taken account of in further movements around AI. And I’ll give you one example in particular, because AI is now being framed as an important tool in the food and water security nexus. Recently, there have been studies coming out that, and it has been historically very difficult to measure exactly what the impact of AI has been on climate, water, and resources. But there have been studies showing that, for example, half a liter of water is spent for every five queries that someone makes to chat GPT. So to put it into context, that’s a large amount of water for someone sitting in front of their computer and asking five questions to something that is powered by a very, very water- and resource-intensive infrastructure. So, and that is just one example from the climate side, but there are so many other human rights-centered harms that have been raised for decades now by civil society. And this really brings into question then, and I think offers a lot for consideration and food for thought. as AI gets invested into as a climate technology. And a very quick second example would be around solar geoengineering. This is a long promise, but also very still quite speculative technology, which in the last year governments have actually announced an interest in investing and experimenting with on a scale that hasn’t necessarily taken place before. This is a technology for which there is currently no system of governance. And in fact, 400 scientists from around the world question whether it is even possible to govern something like solar geoengineering because it requires enormous wide-scale coordination across the world. And once it is put into place, it creates a lock-in because if it were to stop, it could make climate change and global heating much worse and much faster. So on this basis, a number of different groups are pushing for moratoriums, bans, and basically trying to invoke the precautionary principle to create the space to step back and ask whether this is something that actually we, citizens and people living across different regions of the world should consent to because once it’s put in place, the impacts can be enormous. And one final example from the positive side of recent policy developments is around the EU Green Claims Directive, which is an innovative piece of policy which would help the consumer understand. which products that they are interested in purchasing are actually living up to the many claims around sustainability that different companies make in terms of net zero and otherwise. This is great progress. However, again, it’s clear that there’s a lot to figure out in how this works in practice. And I’ll give you one example, which is around carbon offsets. So carbon offsets are not directly addressed, as I understand it, by the Green Claims Directive. However, it does take the perspective that a company should not be able to claim it’s climate neutral or sustainable simply because it makes use of carbon offsets. This is an important acknowledgement, and I think it responds to a number of different scientific studies, consensus around that that is building, and also pushback from civil society for several decades now, saying that carbon offsets do not actually work ecologically the way that they are set out to, and that they provide cover for companies to make claims that they can’t necessarily deliver on. But what’s really important to ask there is how far can this Green Claims Directive go? Because a lot of civil society is pushing for a more fundamental critique of carbon offsets. They would say that it’s not enough to simply say, well, you can only use a certain amount of carbon offsets. They would say, actually, the entire carbon market system needs either reform or even something more drastic than that, because at the moment, over 90% of carbon offsets, even the verified ones. even the ones that conform to all the standards that have been set, are not working. And so, I’m gonna leave it there and simply say that there are a lot of questions here, obviously. There are positive governance and policy developments in this regard, and the hope is that by pushing these further and not getting distracted by risky speculative technologies, that more support is available for the kinds of initiatives that we’ve heard from today. Thank you.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you so much, Vicky. That’s also very powerful, and particularly, Nadia, how you remind us about the need to apply the precautionary principle. I think that’s a must. Hopefully, it has been taken seriously by all the necessary stakeholders. With that, I want to invite my co-moderator, Paz Peña. First, to check also if you have questions for the speakers, and if we have also interventions from remote participants. So, Paz, over to you.

Online Moderator:
Thank you, Valeria. Just to remind our online participants that they can actually share their comments and questions on the chat or on the Q&A tool. I just want to make a couple of general questions, open questions to our participants. I think, based on what you have said, the big question here is, what is digital transformation in the context of climate and the ecological crisis, no? So, as Becky said, in a way, you have two answers, no? One is the green responses that big tech is giving. which, by the way, are super problematic because of the extractivism nature of big techs, not only in terms of data extractivism and all the infrastructure that you need for that extractivism, but also because of water extractivism, natural resources in general, et cetera. So that is one thing that is super important to address, but in a way, I believe that governments especially are forgetting to actually look other business models besides the big tech model in their own local companies of technologies, no? So it seems that, and this is something that I’ve been learning in all countries, for example, in Latin America, all governments try to give funds to companies to replicate the business model of big tech, no? In a way, more data, more growth, et cetera. And that is why I think it’s important to ask ourselves what is digital transformation then in the context of this climate crisis? We want more data. We want more growth of that infrastructure because that means, for example, that we need to deal with e-waste. And this is what the incredible initiative that Nodotao is doing in Argentina, but who is paying for that? Is big tech paying to organizations to cope with e-waste in local countries as Argentina? Who’s paying for that? What is doing our, what are governments doing with all that kind of e-waste that we need to deal with when we are saying digital transformation is? more big tech, et cetera, et cetera, no? So I think my next question, besides what is digital transformation in this context, is then what is the role of governments? Not only to deal with the problem of sustainability of big techs, but also in terms of basically fund fund the alternative business models, no? Because here in Latin America, we have a very historical tradition of different technological business models that sometimes they fail because they don’t see support, no, from local governments. So what is the role of local governments in there, in the context of climate crisis and ecological crisis? I think those questions are key in order to actually transform, radically transform the planetary ways to, the ways that we see the planetary crisis from technology. Thank you very much.

Onsite Moderator:
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Paz, and also in addition to what role governments have in supporting these alternative models, I would like to also add how that support should look like concretely in practice. So both our remote participants and our speakers, remote speakers and speakers on site are invited to respond and to react to these questions that Paz has also brought up. So if any of you could like to respond, Kimberly, please go ahead. Remote participants, okay.

Kemly Camacho:
Okay, it resonates me a lot what our colleague said. here about not putting the emphasis in the green, but in the models that we are using. And that connects a lot with what Paz said before. Because at least for Latin America, you know in the imaginary of our governments, but also of our citizens, and also of our academia, the model, the big model, yes, is startups, unicorn, big techs, yes? This business model, this way to do economy is the ideal way, is the road, the path where we have to go. And I think it’s crucial, yes, to really rethink these models, yes? And when I say rethink these models, is really change tools, change approaches, change methodologies to develop business models and digital economy, the same thing, yes? We have to change that. We, since after the pandemic, or during the pandemic, that we all in Latin America talk of the solution was the digital transformation, we always said, this is not the solution. The solution is digital appropriation, which is totally different for ourselves. Digital transformation is oriented to consumption. Digital appropriation is oriented to reduce consumption, to think which digital tools you really need, which digital business you really need to develop. For us, there is a main, main difference between digital transformation and digital appropriation. And we and go and advocate for digital transformation. I have to say, when I talk about changing the business models, really develop tools, and I’m calling academia, I’m calling incubators, I’m calling governments to really rethink the way that we are doing business. And I’m going to put concrete examples, I don’t know who of you have worked with the canvas model to develop a business, yes? And in this canvas model to develop a business, the center of the canvas model is the value added of your business, yes? What we have done is put in the center the solidarity and care that your business is going to improve and develop, yes? Before the value added to get money, yes? And also we put, instead of putting in the center of this canvas model the accumulation, we put the redistribution of the resources that you are going to make if you develop this business model. Then we have to change that, yes? Because for us, this is in the center of the development of our society, and we cannot talk green if we are using unicorn startups and big companies as, and platform companies, not platform co-op, but platform companies as the model of the digital economy and as the model of our entrepreneurship in our countries. Then answering a little bit the question, this is my reaction. And also remember, remember to all of you, extractivism is everywhere. because we talk about extractivism for the natural resources, water, all of that and it’s crucial, fundamental but also it’s extractivism of wisdom, extractivism of knowledge of the people extractivism of solidarity, extractivism of the time extractivism is the center of this model then this is my reaction, Valeria.

Onsite Moderator:
let me invite Florencia to give a space also to the virtual participation honoring the hybrid format of the IGF and then we can take reactions from the floor here so Florencia, please, the floor is yours.

Florencia Roveri:
thank you, Valeria just to follow what you are saying when we decided to become the plant into a cooperative it has to do to follow with the intention of providing work inclusion for a group of young people adding that sense to our previous work of digital inclusion and also assuming the challenge that we were facing with the excess of e-waste in our everyday work so we first developed the plant and then following the process of the plant we decided to go on with the project of the cooperative due to the different focus of our work and the complexity of the work of the cooperative, of the plant the plant has to lead with aspects related to production to commercialization and to habilitations and it has a complexity that it aims to be a production unit on itself We also have in Noto Tau an experience of accompanying another cooperative that is working in the treatment of cartridge tons, and they are also following this process of becoming a cooperative, in this case formed by women involved in a work of a gender organization working with issues of violence and situations in which they are involved, in which also the primary aspect is their work inclusion. So in these two experiences, we work with the treatment of technology, assuming the responsibility of dealing with that aspect of the technology, but also with a human aspect related to the work and social inclusion of these groups. In the case of the plant, we also include another aspect that is the social destiny of the equipments that we could recover and repair in the work of the plant. So these experiences invite us to rethink about the use of technology and our work with it, assuming that they are still resources needed for the communities, but the environmental impact in place is needed to be assumed by a diversity of actors. And one of the aspects we found in the work of the cooperatives, in particular the e-waste cooperative management of Tau, is that these responsibilities are not being perceived and are not being assumed. And in this sense, we distinguish aspects related to government responsibilities in the terms of developing plans for integral management of e-waste and the coordination of actors and the regulation and promotion of laws. In Argentina, we do not have a national law, we have a provincial regulation with some aspects that are interesting in terms of, for example, recognising the figure of the manager of e-waste and recognising the social reuse of equipment that is interesting in several aspects that promotes the reuse of computers, for example, and also the responsibility of companies and the private sector in which we can distinguish the responsibility of producers facilitating the disassembly process, aspects with which we deal in the work of the plant, of the management plant, and also the responsibility of companies that generate e-waste in terms as Paz was mentioning previously. In this sense, it is important to visibilise the cost involved in the treatment. We lead locally with a lot of actors that want to value the work of the cooperative of Nonotau, but they assume that the devices they discard are donations. In this sense, it is important to highlight an extended perception of this concept of the devices I do not use anymore or the e-waste the companies generate are donated for social use. There is a slogan in the local campaign that is, don’t donate your waste to me, because in this sense, we are… naming donation, the process that is getting rid of a problem and give it that problem to another actor. So, the idea is relevant dealing with any staff that don’t donate waste, but in the case of technology or discarded technology, there is some difficulties that make it even dangerous. So, that is what we want to mention.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you so much, Florencia. Yilmaz or Becky, would you like to take some of the questions that Paz brought up? Please go ahead.

Yilmaz Akkoyun:
Yes, thank you so much. Let me first start with an invitation for another session of the German delegation. On Tuesday, on day two, we have an event, Planetary Limits of AI, Governance for Just Digitalization. This is exactly our topic and guests are welcome and I will give a short overview what we contribute in this field and how our approach is towards digital transformation in particular. As being said, together with the European Union, we offer a human-centered digital transformation. For us, this means that we actively shape digitalization by addressing its risks for environment, but also individual human rights and society. We use the term trend transition, how digitalization can help the fight against environmental challenges. We want to actively combat social division, the misuse of data, as well as environmental and climate damage caused by resource consumption and CO2 emissions. Exactly what you mentioned and I really liked your approach towards changing a business model canvas use because I was taking MBA classes in the US and this was exactly what you mentioned and I think education is essential for this but I will come back to it later again. So as Germany we are committed towards ecological, feminist and social digital policy and for us this enables a fair balance of interests based on European standards and universal human rights. We want to ensure that partner countries are integrated into an open, secure and inclusive internet and fair data markets and for that we also need strong local governments and I will also come back to that later. Our digital policy is based on three cornerstones and you mentioned earlier the role of standards and norms. These are essential but also structures. By that I mean DPI, digital public infrastructure and goods but third also promoting digital skills in society and in the economy. I also really like the sentence about don’t donate your waste to me because I think it’s also a question of education for that. But firstly providing structures for human-centered digital services and public goods is vital. Many of our initiatives, to give you a more concrete example because otherwise sometimes international digital policy is very abstract, our initiatives contribute to more democratic and open, fair societies. Our goal is to support the digital self-determination of citizen and partner countries and this requires effective, secure infrastructure that should be based on open and reusable ICD building blocks. We have one initiative, it’s our flagship initiative of the German International Digital Policy, it’s called Gafstag. We develop a global toolbox for reusable open source building blocks for Gafstag. And secondly, to be more concrete on the questions mentioned, we work with partner countries across the globe to promote fair regulation of the digital economy. And one initiative that I want to highlight is the so-called BMZ DTCs, the Digital Transformation Centers. They serve as a local implementation and anchor structure of these efforts. Around the globe, we already have 22, and they are our gate to the local world, to the local communities, the local governments. And further through the initiative Fair Forward, we have worked with governments of, for example, Rwanda, Ghana, and India. And together with Smart Africa, we are involved in developing national AI strategies. And these AI national strategies have a particular focus on the fight against environmental challenges. I think we support also our global partners to realize the potential of AI through local innovation. And here’s where the magic, so to speak, happens. And last but not least, what you mentioned, digital skills. They are one of the cornerstones of BMZ digital policy training of young people in job-related digital skills, but also related to waste management and getting a mindset and a culture in this regard is essential. Therefore, we support the public sector in our daily work, the private sector, civil society, and especially young women. in acquiring the necessary knowledge about digitalization and thus being able to respond to the challenges of digital transformation and to use its potential. And our learning platform is called Attingi which we wrote out via German Development Corporation and our partners and it already reached over 11 million people and I just wanted to stress that next to norms we focus on standards and skills and with these three cornerstones we try to contribute towards working on a digital transformation which really contributes in the fight against environmental damages and challenges and this is our concrete work next to the coordination efforts in the global arena and fora. Thank you so much.

Onsite Moderator:
I think that commitment is very important in order to detect the impact to know that the policy developments and norms will have one in place as Becky was pointing out. It might be difficult then to revert the effects of what policies and norms enable or the result that they produce. So thank you for that. Jaime, let me know if you want to intervene at this point to refer to the questions that Paz brought up otherwise I can open the floor for questions and comments here and also from remote participants. So Jaime, first let me hear from you. You could like to intervene.

Jaime Villareal:
Sure, gracias Valeria. I don’t know if I have anything new to add. I agree with a lot of what has been said so far. I just really want to highlight some of the points that some of our other guests have made. I really agree with Kemblee that we have to push back on this dominant model of thinking about how solutions are made. This dominant capitalist narrative that only excessive… excessively profitable high-yield businesses can guide us through climate change. This kind of ridiculous thinking is what is driving the investment and the promotion of things like artificial intelligence. And we have to remember that artificial intelligence doesn’t exist on its own. It is fueled by our data, our information. It is this rampant accumulation and extraction of our knowledge that makes this possible. And that is built on, that has a very huge physical environmental impact. And it has a real emotional impact, psychological impact on us as a society to operate that way. This kind of thinking, this nonsense is essentially trying to put out a fire with gasoline. We can’t allow this to continue. And I really appreciate these comments about pushing back against the greenwashing of these businesses. These companies who make enormous profits based on these extractive business models of surveilling their users, and then spend just a tiny fraction of that money to create a few exemplary sustainable data center projects. We can’t applaud these things. These public relations stunts, they don’t address the total environmental impact of all of the computing resources that are needed to continue their operations. But also they are essentially, even if they do comply with their promises for reducing their carbon footprints, but they’re essentially doing damage control to a problem that they themselves have created. And we can’t allow this kind of thing to continue. I really agree with supporting a different thinking, different models, supporting community and cooperative based models towards supporting communications and listening to ourselves and taking guidance from our communities in these matters. And in that sense, we’ve been doing, a lot of us have been doing this for a long time. And if we are to be supported, I think it needs to be on our own terms. We need to be trusted to continue. practicing community engagement in the way that we have been doing and organizing ourselves in the way that we have been doing.

Onsite Moderator:
Precisely, that’s part of the, perhaps one of the most important responses to enable that that community engagement and response is possible and feasible. So let me open for reactions, comments, questions from the floor and also from remote participants. If there is anyone here that would like to intervene and to pose a question or a reaction, your interventions are welcome. So let me know what you, you can raise your hand, we can pass you the mic. Please go ahead.

Audience:
Thank you very much Valeria. I think, is the microphone working? Yes, okay, very good. I very much appreciate the session. My name is Peter Brücke. I’m the chairman of the World Summit Awards. And what we do is we focus on best practice examples exactly regarding new and different business models. In this room, our next session is on hacking digital divides. And you will see Alloy, for instance, which is a micro financing solution for small and micro businesses. You will see Social Lab from Chile, which shows actually, I think you will love this very much, a business model based on love. And they have 600 different kind of companies there. Then we have people from Lebanon which show how social volunteers work. And it’s something very interesting because the digital transformation centers work with us regarding promoting these examples. We were just in Mexico and Puebla and doing this. One of the key things, however, is for the session, which I think is really so important, is to talk about the technology frameworks. and the alternative of technology frameworks. And I think what Jaime was saying is really very much to the point, but he is giving, Jaime, you are giving us a critique, but you’re not showing us what would be possible solutions. So, for instance, one of the things which I think is very much important when you’re looking at large language models and machine learning and how you train them, that very few people, I have not seen any government talk about how to tax the AI companies for how they train their models with the data. So they are not paying for the data which they use to train. They are not respecting copyright in terms of when they train it. They are not giving anything back. So one of the things which I found very interesting when you talk about the social, ecological, and feminist policy in terms of cooperation, does the BMZ have actually a clear understanding that you need to go into the economics of how to make AI smarter? And what would it be actually in terms of a cooperative model for that aspect? Because then we are really addressing, Valeria, the issue of this session, which is alternative technology frameworks. We need to see, and I think Jaime is very clear on that, is that we have very much a hidden extraction situation, exploitation situation, but it is not being recognized as such, and therefore we are not even using market models, which means making them pay for the smartness of their models. And we are not moving to this, although we have with the German government one of the key players in that industry, I mean, global play. So my question is very much to Ilmas on this issue. Have you thought about it yourself? Is there anything in terms of the policy development? And then Valeria, I would be very happy to engage more with APC in terms of finding good examples of where you are not creating a parallel economy, but where you are basically seeing, OK, how can we transform the economy and do that in a different way? So that would be my little five cents.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you. Thank you so much for your contribution. Is there any other contribution from the floor or pass? Let me know if there are remote participants who would like to intervene or present questions for the panel. No. Not yet here, yeah. OK, so obviously the panel is invited to react, to comment, to respond to what has been said. Any one of you could like to take that on, please?

Yilmaz Akkoyun:
Yeah, Peter, thank you so much. It’s a very interesting question. Let me first say one sentence to our further engagement in this regard, and then get back to your answer. The BEAMSET’s digital initiatives provide knowledge about regulation, setting standards, I said, in order to promote our goals for fair digital transition in partner countries. And one initiative which I didn’t mention but is really fitting in this context is the BEAMSET initiative, Fair Forward, which contributes towards the development of open AI training data sets in Kiswahili and Luganda, inter alia, languages spoken by more than 150 million people collectively. Further through the initiative Fair Forward, we have worked with governments Rwanda, Ghana, and India, I mentioned, and how they contribute for green tech solutions. We see open access to AI training in data and research. as well as open-source AI models as a foundation for local innovation. On Tuesday in our session our partners from the Mozilla Foundation are also here. The economics of our engagement is super interesting. The aspects that you mentioned I’m a fan of that approach actually as a studied economist but I think for now we have a different approach and I will get that question take that back to Berlin and discuss with our colleagues which are operationalizing doing that program and programs are also developing and changing I would say generally but at the end for me it’s important what the outcome and the impact of these programs are and how they can contribute towards local solutions and transforming the local population and the economics of the local development is essential but I also think it’s a global question which we need to discuss and taking it from there I would like to engage with you beyond this panel and discussion and let’s discuss also after the IGF please and maybe other colleagues on the panel have also contributed.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you. The cooperatives that are present here obviously they have been also thinking and implementing different type of solutions and providing responses so let me just check if there are other questions or comments here Yes, please go ahead

Audience:
Hello, I’m Daichi Sakamoto and Dova Corporation is a private company in Japan So, very interesting discussion. And then, so, I’m working on the, here, so, IT industry in Japan. And then, in Japan, there is a word that digital dokata. Digital dokata, dokata means the construction worker. So, it’s just a digital worker, but working like as the construction worker means, so, very small work. And then, so, accumulation of the small workers, small work, will be big, so, make big building. This is the Japanese, so, industry culture. So, but, if the AI come in here, and then, maybe, this mindset will be changed, but I think it will be moderate, because, so, it’s very big change. And then, so, this kind of the layer structure, it’s the small worker will be used by the readers, and then readers, reader use, and then, this kind of the pyramid structure is existing in the industry. So, maybe, if we think about this digital transformation, this digital transformation, we need to take care each, all of layers. So, how to transformation, how to transform each layers. So, at that time, maybe, the AI will be, so, violate or disrupt this, the layers, and then, maybe, new style or new business model will come. So, in fact, so, I heard several, I offered several works of the new era, or new business model. That means the new work is training AI. So training AI means to make a data of the conversation. It’s very easy. And maybe anyone can speak Japanese, can train the AI. So this is just a new style work. But there is also the big gap of the current work and the previous work. So maybe this kind of the gap of the new business model and the current model will be the problem in the industry. I felt that in this discussion.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you very much. I would like to finally invite the panel and our remote speakers as well to just share some final remarks with some recommendations or demands that you might have to different stakeholders, including governments, of course. If you want to dig a little bit more into the point that was brought up about solutions and responses, so you are welcome to do so. So I would like to start with Becky. If you could like to share some final comments with the audience, please.

Becky Kazansky:
Yeah, thank you so much. I’ll keep my final comment very short, just to say that one important thing that is required in order to support the kinds of solutions that already exist and pathways that already exist within a just transition, and that includes examples brought forward today by panelists both remotely and in the room. So to support those, we also have to challenge what the climate justice movement for decades has called out as false and misleading climate solutions. So that includes pushing for policy that can address greenwashing. and also pushing for strong regulation around speculative and dangerous climate technologies. Some of these technologies are not always part of the digitalization discussion, for example, solar geoengineering, carbon credits, but they are technologies that are being invested into heavily by big tech companies as part of plans to be able to continue the profit models that they rely on. So that’s why it’s important for the audience of the IGF to also begin to engage around these kinds of technologies as well and see them as part of the same discussion. So thank you so much.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you so much. So let me go to Florencia. Florencia, you would like to share your final comments and demands or recommendations?

Florencia Roveri:
Yes, thank you. Just to highlight again the aspect about responsibilities related to each holder, in our focus, e-waste is a very complex problem and the interrelation of holders and of actors is a challenge and also maybe it would need to be involved in the idea that it should be a public service to assume this problem and also the fact of the profitability of these actions. We work in a very small experience, but it’s a huge problem affecting really deeply environment and also it’s a problem that it has a very big potential in work generation. possibilities and opportunities for people and also for addressing the digital divide also. So, thank you.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you, Florencia. Let me go to Jilmes for your final comments, please.

Yilmaz Akkoyun:
Thank you so much. This was super interesting and an honor to be here. BMZ contributes to various political responses, process and fora. Our key question is how can we reinforce efforts to bring local perspectives and national perspectives from the global south in the international arena. And we have a wide growing international network in working relations with a number of governments, but also especially civil society actors and other stakeholders, which we use in favor of more digital cooperation. On an international level, the German government especially supports the Global Digital Compact, which was mentioned before. And we also actively engage in discussions on in the G7, G20 context and multi-stakeholder initiatives such as Gafstech that I mentioned and the Digital for Development Hub of the European Union. Global digital cooperation is essential for us to support a holistic approach to the digital transformation, but not also for its opportunities, but also for its risks. I personally think we must foster close cooperation on a large scale in order to advance social and a sustainable digital transition around the globe. This is why we are here. Let’s stay in touch. This was super helpful. Thank you so much for your perspectives. I think with sharing these formats, we are stronger and can build a digital world where we can achieve our goals together.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you so much. Jaime You have the floor, please. Thank you.

Jaime Villareal:
I agree with the gentleman who called out these large companies for what essentially is criminal behavior of using our data to train these language models at no cost of their own. And while I agree that we need to hold these companies and corporations accountable for these actions, the idea of allowing them to pay a fine, to pay a tax, I have strong questions about this. How is this different than the system of carbon credits? And how is this different than a shell game that allows them to do wrong and pay for it later, right? With the enormous profits they’re able to make from that. And likewise, this idea that how these questions, I think they’re very interesting questions about how this changes the role of the worker and what participation we can have as workers in training AI models. But I think it’s important to remember also that there’s choosing to be a worker and then there are ways that we will be forced to be workers and we will be forced to train AI. We will be forced just to have access to technology through tiny widgets that are presented to us, to puzzles that we have to solve, through any kind of information that we have to give to the AI. We will have no choice in training these models. And what do we do about that? Where we are exploited and we are not even treated as real workers and we are essentially serfs within this wider system. I think that, of course, supporting local initiatives, of course, supporting indigenous languages and their preservation is tremendously important, but I don’t believe that we can apply a single model to all cases. And I think it’s very important to ask ourselves, are we asking, are we listening to these communities directly? Is this what they want? And maybe there are cases where they are interested in experimenting and having access to these technologies, but I don’t think we can apply this as a single solution across the board to everywhere, that this is the way to stimulate local… local preservation of languages and indigenous cultures, I think we have to ask and everywhere, there has to be a proper consultation with local communities whether this is something they are actually interested in.

Onsite Moderator:
Absolutely, and the global community has a role to play in ensuring that those perspectives and the ones impacted in reality are brought to these conversations because as Jaime is pointing out, there is not a single solution that fits everyone. So hearing from the ones that are impacted and the realities and particularities is very important and for that cooperation and also the commitment of all the stakeholders to make sure that those voices are heard because there is a voice. The problem is that they are not welcome or not heard in different spaces. So I think that’s very necessary and one of the needed actions in order to change the paradigm. So let me close the panel with Kem Lee. Kem Lee, your final remarks and then to thanking you all for the presence and the comments and for joining the conversation about this key issue. Thank you very much.

Kemly Camacho:
Thank you, Mr. Brook for your intervention that made me think a lot, yes. But I have the same reaction than Jaime, yes. Then if you pay, you can do it, yes. And I would like to also integrate and discuss with my colleagues with a feminist analysis what you are proposing. Yes, especially because of that, because if we charge the machine learning, the training machine learning is not a way to accept that they can do that if they charge. And also because in the feminist analysis, technology frameworks has to be very related to solve the concrete problem in the context where we women live. Then technology framework for us. yes, have to be related with this context around us, the care of our children, the care of our community, then our technology framework, we prioritize these technology frameworks. Then this is one thing. The second thing about the job and the fair job and the precariousness of work and how that is transforming and how all what we win as workers are transforming and this is another discussion. And I think this business model, collective in the model, cooperatives and all of that have in the center a fair job and especially a fair job for women. Then it’s totally connected. If we have fair jobs, we can survive as humanity in this world. If we have precarious jobs or work, we are not going to survive as humanity for sure. Then just to say thank you very much. I think this is a conversation to follow and go in depth and discover and explore. Thank you.

Onsite Moderator:
Thank you very much again for your openness and let’s continue the conversation in the different spaces here at the IGF. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.