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Summary

This panel discussion focused on how digital platforms, particularly TikTok, can be used to promote information integrity and combat misinformation. The session was moderated by Maurice Turner from TikTok’s public policy team and featured panelists from various organizations including a medical professional, representatives from humanitarian agencies, and advocacy groups. Dr. Ahmed Ezzat, a surgeon who creates medical content on TikTok, shared how he transitioned from casual content creation to serious public health communication after one of his posts about childhood infections reached 4.5 million views. He emphasized the importance of accountability and evidence-based practice for healthcare professionals on social media platforms.

Representatives from UNHCR, the Red Cross, and the Internet Society discussed their strategies for creating trustworthy content while facing significant challenges from misinformation campaigns. Gisela Lomax from UNHCR highlighted how misinformation directly harms refugee communities and can even contribute to forced displacement, citing the Myanmar crisis as an example. The panelists emphasized that effective content creation requires extensive expertise, collaboration across multiple disciplines, and significant time investment despite appearing simple to audiences. They stressed the importance of building trust over time rather than focusing solely on metrics like followers or views.

Key challenges identified included operating in polarized environments, competing against well-resourced misinformation campaigns, and balancing the need for quick responses with thorough fact-checking. The discussion concluded with recommendations for increased partnerships between humanitarian organizations, tech companies, and civil society groups to address information integrity challenges more effectively. The panelists agreed that while the battle against misinformation is complex and ongoing, strategic collaboration and maintaining high standards for content creation remain essential for success.

Keypoints

**Major Discussion Points:**

– **Platform strategies for promoting credible information**: Panelists shared how their organizations (TikTok, medical professionals, UNHCR, Red Cross, Internet Society) use digital platforms to disseminate trustworthy content, including partnerships with fact-checkers, creator networks, and evidence-based messaging to reach large audiences quickly and effectively.

– **Challenges in combating misinformation and disinformation**: Discussion covered the difficulties of fighting organized misinformation campaigns, including well-resourced disinformation “farms,” the polarized nature of online discourse especially in conflict zones, and the challenge of responding to false information once it spreads.

– **Building trust and credibility online**: Panelists emphasized the importance of accountability, transparency, using real names/credentials, engaging authentically with audiences, and building long-term relationships rather than focusing solely on metrics like views or followers.

– **Resource constraints and timing challenges**: A key tension emerged around balancing speed versus accuracy – the need to respond quickly to misinformation while taking time to verify information, assess risks, and coordinate with experts across multidisciplinary teams.

– **Collaborative approaches and partnerships**: Strong emphasis on the necessity of partnerships between humanitarian organizations, tech companies, civil society, academics, and content creators to effectively address information integrity challenges, especially given limited resources.

**Overall Purpose:**

The discussion aimed to explore how digital platforms, particularly TikTok, can be leveraged by credible organizations and creators to promote information integrity, share best practices for combating misinformation, and foster collaboration between different stakeholders in the information ecosystem.

**Overall Tone:**

The tone was professional yet conversational, with panelists sharing practical experiences and honest challenges. It remained consistently collaborative and solution-oriented throughout, with speakers building on each other’s points and emphasizing the shared nature of information integrity challenges. The discussion maintained an optimistic outlook about the potential for positive impact through digital platforms while acknowledging the serious difficulties involved.

Speakers

– **Maurice Turner**: Public policy team at TikTok, panel moderator

– **Dr. Ahmed Ezzat**: Surgeon in training doing general and breast oncoplastic surgery in London, creates clinical content and health news on TikTok

– **Eeva Moore**: Works at the Internet Society, focuses on educational content, advocacy, and community stories to help connect the remaining third of the world that’s not online

– **Gisella Lomax**: Leads UNHCR’s capacity on information integrity, works with the UN’s humanitarian agency protecting refugees, forcibly displaced persons, and asylum seekers

– **Ghaleb Cabbabe**: Marketing and advocacy manager of the IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies), based in Geneva

– **Audience**: Includes Bia Barbosa, a journalist from Brazil and civil society representative at the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee

Additional speakers:

None identified beyond those in the speakers names list.

# Digital Platforms and Information Integrity: A Multi-Stakeholder Perspective on Combating Misinformation

## Executive Summary

This panel discussion, moderated by Maurice Turner from TikTok’s public policy team, brought together representatives from healthcare, humanitarian organisations, and civil society to examine how digital platforms can promote information integrity and combat misinformation. The session featured Dr. Ahmed Ezzat, a surgeon creating medical content on TikTok; Gisella Lomax from UNHCR’s information integrity team; Ghalib Cabbabe from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; and Eeva Moore from the Internet Society. The discussion highlighted both the transformative potential of digital platforms for credible information dissemination and the complex challenges organisations face when combating well-resourced misinformation campaigns.

## Key Themes and Discussions

### Platform Reach and Impact

Maurice Turner opened by highlighting TikTok’s partnerships with fact-checking organisations and media literacy programmes designed to empower users. The panellists demonstrated the unprecedented reach that digital platforms offer for credible information dissemination. Dr. Ahmed Ezzat provided a compelling example, describing how one of his posts about childhood infections reached four and a half million views and was shared 156,000 times within 24 hours at zero cost, illustrating the massive public health potential of these platforms.

Gisella Lomax emphasised that UNHCR was “the first UN agency to create a TikTok account” and noted the vital importance of digital platforms for their work with displaced populations globally. She explained that these platforms are essential for providing lifesaving protection information. Ghalib Cabbabe outlined how the Red Cross utilises digital platforms for brand awareness, crisis communication, information sharing, and fundraising campaigns, citing recent examples including the Myanmar earthquake, Gaza, and Iran. Eeva Moore added that platforms serve a crucial role in connecting communities through educational content and stories.

### Content Creation and Trust Building

Dr. Ahmed Ezzat, who is part of the Clinical Creator Network in the UK, emphasised the importance of accountability for healthcare professionals, advocating for the use of real names and avoiding commercial endorsements that could damage credibility. He made a particularly insightful observation about public intelligence: “Actually, members of the public, regardless of what their understanding is, bearing in mind in the UK the reading age is about six or seven, the maths age is about three to four, they are phenomenally intuitive. They can sniff out right from wrong. You just need to be able to explain that information in an easy and simple way.”

Gisella Lomax outlined UNHCR’s approach to successful content creation, which requires creativity, partnerships with influencers, uplifting community voices, and making facts entertaining whilst remaining educational. She stressed the importance of building partnerships with tech companies, academic institutions, and civil society organisations.

Eeva Moore provided crucial insight into the hidden complexity of content creation, noting that expertise must be “baked into” the production process with multiple layers of review. She explained that whilst content should appear simple to audiences, it requires extensive behind-the-scenes work. Ghalib Cabbabe reinforced this point, emphasising that organisations must rely on field experts rather than just marketing teams and prepare proactive strategies including scenario planning.

### The Challenge of Misinformation

A central theme emerged around the asymmetric nature of the battle against misinformation. Dr. Ahmed Ezzat described how misinformation creates an unfair defensive position where evidence-based voices must defend against accusations whilst being constrained by factual accuracy.

Gisella Lomax connected online misinformation to devastating real-world consequences: “Information risks such as hate speech and misinformation are directly and indirectly causing real world harm. And I mean violence, killings, persecution. It can even be a factor in forced displacement, in causing refugees… as we saw in Myanmar back in 2016, 2017, when hate speech… had a decisive role in the displacement, I think, of 700,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh who are still there today.”

Ghalib Cabbabe highlighted the resource disparity, noting that organisations face opponents with significant resources including state actors and misinformation farms operating in highly polarised environments.

### Time as the Fundamental Challenge

Eeva Moore identified time as the core challenge: “You could boil the challenge down perhaps to one word, and that’s time. If you’re in the business of trying to disrupt or break something, you get to move at a much faster pace than if you’re on the other side of that equation.”

This time constraint creates tension between speed and accuracy. Ghalib Cabbabe advocated for balancing speed with thoroughness by assessing risks before communicating, sometimes taking time to understand how misinformation evolves rather than rushing responses. Eeva Moore emphasised the need for creative solutions and pre-prepared resources to overcome these constraints.

### Platform Responsibility and Resource Concerns

Gisella Lomax raised concerns about platform responsibility, particularly regarding content moderation in less common languages: “We have seen, to our dismay, a weakening of these capacities and perhaps less resourcing from some companies. And I would extend that, for example, to content moderation in less common languages… Are you adequately providing content moderation in less common languages in these very volatile contexts where you don’t actually have a business argument?”

This exposed a critical gap in platform safety measures for vulnerable populations who communicate in languages that aren’t commercially viable for platforms.

## Areas of Consensus and Strategic Differences

The panellists agreed that digital platforms provide unprecedented reach for information dissemination and that content creation requires multi-layered expertise across organisations. All speakers recognised that misinformation poses serious real-world threats requiring proactive, systematic responses.

However, some tactical differences emerged around response strategies. Dr. Ahmed Ezzat emphasised the defensive disadvantage of being constrained by evidence, whilst Ghalib Cabbabe advocated for strategic patience. Eeva Moore focused on speed through creative solutions and pre-preparation.

## Audience Engagement and Future Collaboration

The discussion included audience participation, with Brazilian journalist Bia Barbosa asking questions about platform engagement. Gisella Lomax actively invited collaboration from academics, tech companies, and NGOs, specifically mentioning a Wednesday 2 PM event showcasing UNHCR’s South Africa pre-bunking project and referencing “Katie in the pink jacket” for those interested in UNHCR’s information integrity toolkit.

The panellists recommended examining comment sections on Red Cross digital platforms to understand the complexity of misinformation challenges firsthand.

## Key Recommendations

Strategic recommendations included:

– Focusing on quality of engagement rather than vanity metrics

– Building partnerships to share resource burdens

– Preparing proactive content strategies rather than only reactive responses

– Collaborating across organisations rather than building all capabilities internally

– Developing scenario planning and pre-prepared responses

## Unresolved Challenges

Several challenges remained unresolved, including how to adequately resource content moderation in less common languages, addressing weakening trust and safety capacities from some platforms, and overcoming the fundamental time asymmetry between misinformation creators and fact-based responders.

## Conclusion

Maurice Turner’s closing remarks emphasised the tensions revealed in the discussion and the key takeaways about collaboration and resource sharing. The panel demonstrated that effective information integrity work requires sophisticated understanding of platform dynamics, audience psychology, and collaborative resource management.

As Eeva Moore noted, this work “should be labour-intensive” and should “look like a light lift, but actually, in fact, be a pretty heavy one.” The discussion revealed that information integrity is not merely a technical challenge but a humanitarian imperative with life-and-death consequences, requiring sustained collaboration between humanitarian organisations, tech companies, civil society, and academic institutions.

Maurice Turner: Welcome to the folks in the audience here in person as well as online. We’re going to be discussing using digital platforms to promote information integrity. My name is Maurice Turner and I’m on the public policy team at TikTok. Hello, hello. Welcome everyone who’s here in person as well as online. Welcome everyone who is here in person and online. My name is Maurice Turner. My name is Maurice Turner and we’re going to be discussing using digital platforms to promote information integrity. Again, I want to welcome everyone here in person and online. And for our panel discussion, we’re going to be talking about using digital platforms to promote information integrity. I have several panelists here and I’d like to start off with a brief introduction to how we’re facing this challenge at TikTok. And then I will get into introductions for our panelists. And we will jump right in to a back and forth that will also include Q&A from the audience. So if you have questions, please do make a note of them during this panel discussion. And towards the end, we will have microphones on both sides of the table so that you can get up and ask your questions. I’m also encouraging questions from our audience online. So if you have any questions, feel free to go ahead and type those in. And we have someone monitoring that online discussion. So your question can be asked toward the end of the session. At TikTok, we believe this conversation is important because information integrity itself is important, both to inspire our creators to promote credible information, but also to ensure that organizations are doing important work to amplify their own messages. We look forward to hearing more about organizations doing that work in our discussion later on today. At TikTok, we remain committed to using fact-checking to make sure that the content on our platform is free from misinformation. We partner with more than 20 accredited fact-checking organizations across 60 different markets. We do this work continuously to ensure that we are making sure that our platform is as free from misinformation as possible. And we also empower our users through media literacy programs to give them resources to recognize misinformation, assess content critically, and report any violative content. And now for our panelists. I’d like to go ahead and start off with introductions. Dr. Ahmed, he’s a creator that produces content. We also have Eva from the Information Society, as well as Gisela from the UNHCR. As an icebreaker, let’s go ahead and start off with the introduction. Dr. Ahmed, how would you like to introduce yourself and talk about how you produce content on TikTok?

Dr. Ahmed Ezzat: Thank you very much for the introduction. So I’m Dr. Ahmed Izzat. I’m a surgeon in training doing general and breast oncoplastic surgery in London. I create clinical content and my focus is health news. And I also do lots of content strategy and campaigns. And one of the draws to being on a platform like TikTok is the force of good it can portray in the way that it’s quite sensationalist, that if you get the balance right from a public health perspective, for instance, in the UK, there’s been a heat wave. You can reach a million people, half a million people within less than 24 hours at zero cost, essentially, which is a massive gain, I find. So I think there’s a massive power of good if it’s harnessed well using evidence-based information.

Maurice Turner: And Eva, how do you use the platform?

Eeva Moore: At the Internet Society, we are really focused on a couple types of content. Educational. We work to help connect the remaining third of the world that’s not online. And that can look like building infrastructure in one of the 181 countries where we have chapters. So a lot of it is educational. There’s a lot of advocacy. And then there’s a lot of community stories. How do we demonstrate the impact that we’re having in the world without making ourselves the center of the story itself? Thanks.

Gisella Lomax: Hi, everyone. My name is Gisela Lomax, and I lead UNHCR’s capacity on information integrity. For anyone not familiar with UNHCR, and you might not be familiar because certainly this is my first time at the IGF, we’re one of the UN’s largest humanitarian agencies tasked with protecting the world’s refugees, forcibly displaced, asylum seekers. That’s 123 million people now across, I think, 133 countries. So we’re using social media in many sophisticated and extensive ways. It’s vital. As Dr. Ahmed said, the reach is massive. One, to provide vital, lifesaving protection information to communities, both in emergency context, protracted context. And the other is to inform the general public as well as specific audiences and stakeholders, including government partners, civil society, the private sector, about our work. To lift up the voices of our refugee partners as well, and amplify communities, and to inspire. And I would say as a kind of a little unknown fact is that we were the first UN agency to create a TikTok account quite a few years ago now. And I think it’s very interesting the way TikTok really seeks to make important information fun and entertaining. Although that also comes with challenges, but I think we’ll come to that.

Maurice Turner: We’re also joined online by our panelist, Ghalib from the Red Cross. Would you please go ahead and introduce yourself and let us know how you are using TikTok?

Ghaleb Cabbabe: Sure. First, apologies for making this panel hybrid again. And it’s nice to connect even online. And hi, everyone. So I’m Ghalib. I’m the marketing and advocacy manager of the IFRC, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, based in Geneva. How do we use digital platforms? Because we’re also tackling different fields, different topics. So depending on the situation, it would be, let’s say, different platforms. But usually the main use is, of course, for brand awareness to make sure that people know what we do, how we do it. We also use digital platforms. And this is a big part of the work in crisis mode sometimes when, for example, we have a disaster, an earthquake, let’s say, lately in Myanmar or the situation also in Gaza or Iran. So this is more in crisis mode. Sometimes it’s to share information. Sometimes it’s to try not to have misinformation. I think we’ll open also this topic more in detail in the next coming minutes. And sometimes we also use digital platforms for direct or indirect fundraising campaigns. So we’re happy to be on TikTok. And I can recall working with the Red Cross that was maybe back in 2017, where it was, we can say, the beginning of the platform. And to see where it is today, I think that’s quite a great achievement. Thank you.

Maurice Turner: I’m going to go ahead and start us off with a specific question for Dr. Ahmed. How did you get your start on TikTok? And what are some of the ways that you achieve your goal of making sure that you are getting content out on the platform and out to an audience specifically related to STEM inequality?

Dr. Ahmed Ezzat: So I think I’ll share my journey because I think it’s representative and it’s an honest one. So when I first started my journey on TikTok as a medical professional and academic surgeon, I wanted to set up my content for actually very different reasons, which is trying to do stuff that’s seemingly for fun, lighthearted. But then I absolutely did not want to be that cliche medic who’s creating content on medicine. But then it was too difficult to resist because there was such a need. And we are quite fortunate in the UK. There’s a very nice and well-organizing climate of clinicians that create content. And then I had my first bit of content, which went viral and it hit four and a half million views. And this was on infections in childhood. At the time, there was an outbreak. And then this was shared 156 times. 6,000 times. And I thought, well, the UK population is, you know, in the in the in the 60 plus million four and a half million is phenomenal. So from that point on, I actually really started to look into tick tock in a very different way, because the impact is so phenomenal. So that if there were outbreaks on say, food poisoning, I’ve had agencies give me information, but say, well, we can’t disclose it publicly just to try and govern misinformation to try and help information. And so I shifted from a name that I had to begin with, which was a nickname, to actually moving on to using my real name on tick tock, which is to celebrate the whole and leverage the whole point of the fact that you should be held accountable for the medical the medical information that you say. And I really do also see a massive shift in healthcare professionals and colleagues of mine, who to begin with, used to look at social media, tick tock, you know, as a as a as a as a vanity project. But then now, government have been in, you know, been working with us, you know, institutions that are verified, you know, political organizations to charities to esteemed companies, because they see the value and the reach that you can have just by creating this content. But the really important bit, which is going to your point, how do you go about achieving your goals? tick tock, for example, has been fantastic in trying to balance freedom of information against integrity of information. And so we work together to set up the clinical creator network in the United Kingdom. And it’s through having some, you know, microclimate of clinicians that are really there to do a force of good, but also using evidence based practice in the same way that they would be accountable to the General Medical Council or whichever organization they’re at wherever in the world. I think that’s the most important thing. Because as a healthcare professional, you’re not a lifestyle creator, meaning that if I was to buy a brand of jeans tomorrow and put it on my posts, no one would care. But if I was to suddenly pick up a brand deal to try and promote weight loss medicines, for example, which is an allure that we get every day, then this would absolutely decimate credibility. And so you really have to carry the responsibility extremely carefully as a clinic, as a clinician.

Maurice Turner: Now, a question that I get pretty regularly is how do I make content that’s popular on the platform? And I’m not the expert in that. So I’ll leave it to others. But I think a related question is, what are some of the strategies that might be used to push out content that is actually trustworthy and credible, so that people on the platform are getting the information that they’re looking for? Gisela, do you have any sort of a response for that?

Gisella Lomax: Yeah, definitely. Well, I was going to add to how we use our strategies for social media platforms and digital channels. And I think first on the communication side, that’s very much being creative. It’s partnering with influencers and brands, uplifting refugee-led storytelling, using the facts, but trying to put them across in an entertaining, educative way. So all of this good stuff to amplify refugee voices, spark empathy, drive action offline, as well as online. However, the challenge, of course, is this is increasingly undermined and threatened by the growth of misinformation, disinformation, hate speech, these types of information risks. And so my role, and I used to work more on the communication side, and now I pay tribute to our communications colleagues and the social media team at UNHCR and at countries who do a fantastic job. My work now is on addressing these risks. So at UNHCR, we have this information integrity capacity, and then field-based projects around the world in around nine countries, basically developing a humanitarian response to mis- disinformation and hate speech. We recently launched a toolkit. If you Google UNHCR information integrity, you’ll find it, which has got practical tools, guidance, common standards on all of this quite technical stuff, such as assessing the problem and then different types of responses. And we really have tested a plethora of responses, and I can highlight just a couple, given the time. Obviously, there’s continuing to fill the feeds with proactive, trusted, reliable, credible, accessible, multilingual, the list goes on, content and information. And working with technical, with digital platforms, including TikTok, to try and get this content uplifted, because it often naturally isn’t the sort of content that rises to the top of algorithms. And so those partnerships are key. But the other aspects are how do we deal with a spread of, say, hate speech that’s inciting violence, disinformation that’s undermining humanitarian action, misinformation that’s making people feel, you know, more hostile or mistrustful of communities. And I’d like to highlight one quite exciting response. And if I may, a little plug, we have a really interesting project in South Africa, testing the notion of pre-bunking. This is the inoculation theory of trying to help societies and communities become more resilient to hate and lies in partnership with Norway, South Africa. But we’ve also benefited from some technical support from TikTok and from Google and from others as well. And we have an event where we’ll be showcasing this on Wednesday at two o’clock, and my colleague Katie there in the pink jacket can tell you more. So that’s a really positive example. But as you can see, it really runs the gamut, and I’m happy to go into a bit more detail on some of those.

Maurice Turner: Ghaleb, I’ll pass it over to you. As marketing manager, what are some of the strategies that you use to get out that trustworthy information?

Ghaleb Cabbabe: It’s a very, let’s say, timely question. It’s an important one, not an easy one, because unfortunately, we don’t have today all the tools. Because if we look today at the environment of misinformation, let’s face it, we have sometimes companies, farms in some places where their only goal is to produce misinformation. And usually, it’s very hard to fight against these in terms of resources, in terms of means, in terms of targets. So what we do, of course, internally, is always check, double check, and check again, the information we want to share, the information sometimes we want to react on, we want to comment on. I’ll give you an example. It’s been unfortunately the case in the past few weeks and months with the killing of PRCS, Palestinian Red Crescent colleagues in Gaza, for example, in Iran lately as well, where we had the Iranian Red Crescent colleagues killed in the latest attacks. So first, checking the information, rechecking at local, at regional level is, of course, something that has to be done. We also rely on the experts in their own fields. Of course, we’re the marketing, we’re the social media team. But it’s not us who make sometimes the call to a certain line, to a certain reactive line or key messages that we want to share. So relying on experts is really essential. And also the monitoring part, making sure that we try as much as possible to anticipate what could go wrong, to anticipate information that’s going out, and that could lead to a misinformation situation. So the monitoring part is also important. And also, we are always trying to be, trying to be again, because it’s not an easy battle, a step ahead in terms of being proactive. This would be, for example, by preparing reactive lines, by also trying to identify the different potential scenarios and be ready if and when it happens. So these are strategies that we put in place. Again, it’s not an easy file. It’s a very essential one. And we’re putting resources, we’re also as much as possible trying to train staff internally, to avoid situations like this, because sometimes also, this type of misinformation is triggered by a certain, let’s say, tweet or information or post, be it on TikTok or other platforms that could also trigger a reaction, a comment that can cascade. So being proactive, training also staff is part of the different strategies. And let’s not forget that the main objective of our communication is, of course, to be as impactful as possible. And we see this information as a threat, not only to the communication that we share on social media, but also sometimes to the credibility of the organization.

Maurice Turner: Thank you. Those were quite interesting strategies. Eva, what about you?

Eeva Moore: Kind of building on that, I think I think you have to bake expertise into the production process. Anything that you see on the social media platforms should be easily digestible, but it should be built on top of multiple layers of expertise and conversations and trust that we have across our community. We do advocacy efforts in countries that I may never have visited, which means I’m not the person to create that. And so it should be labor-intensive. I mean, dealing with these types of issues when we’re creating them, when we want to be accurate, should look like a light lift, but actually, in fact, be a pretty heavy one. And that takes, I think, just incredible amounts of conversation and listening and being very online and seeing what others are saying. I mean, you have to be consuming a lot of information. Sadly, that includes coming across the disinformation, if you’re going to understand it and to understand how it’s navigating the space. And the expertise also has to be credible, because your audience doesn’t want to be spoken down to. So when I say expertise, that is legal, that is technical, but it’s also the people who are impacted by the – I mean, you touched upon refugee communities. For us, it’s about the credibility of people. We can all be led down a disinformation path, but I think people have a pretty keen sense of whether or not they want to listen to somebody, and credibility is built into that. So I think relationships, it’s sort of the world that you inhabit in real life, how it manifests online is, I think, reflected into that work. So you just have to bake it in, and you have to have your work reviewed, and you have to be willing to produce things that maybe don’t make it out into the world. You also have to be just willing to see – to do your best and listen to others and make sure that by the time it gets out there, it’s accurate.

Maurice Turner: I think that’s so key in that it takes the consumption of so much information and the recognition that not one single person or even one organization has all the expertise. There’s a reliance on other folks in the community in building those relationships so that you can get that information, distill it, and at the end of the day put out a product that looks like it was easy to make because it was actually easy to understand, and there’s quite a bit of work that goes into that. I’m sure all of us, not only on stage and online as well as in the audience, have come across challenges in information integrity. So I’d like to shift the conversation to hear more about some of those challenges that we face specifically, and then also how we were able to overcome those challenges. Dr. Oppenman, can you share a challenge that you faced and how you were able to overcome that in terms of information integrity and maybe even an example where you weren’t necessarily able to overcome it?

Dr. Ahmed Ezzat: Yeah, absolutely, and some fantastic points here. I think just to reiterate, one of the strong points of social media, especially short-form social media, is that it can really reach those with lived experiences, and you are very much there, very much accessible, and very much accountable to the hundreds of comments you get. But of course, disinformation sometimes is difficult to combat. Once it’s out, it’s very difficult, but you’re almost on the defense, almost trying to defend an accusation, and sometimes it is an unfair footing because you can’t go outside of descriptive evidence. But I remember when I, and this was working after a call by a Labour MP, who now they’re in government, who had called out for a, oh, why wouldn’t it be perfect to do a campaign on the MMR vaccine, because there was a rise, and TikTok responded and said, oh, well, we’ll do it. And then I fronted that campaign, and I remember we filmed up in the Midlands of England, in London, in different demographics of different ethnicities, backgrounds, etc. And I actually remember the disconnect between the reality, which was that many people were believing in the vaccination importance, but then this was after the backdrop of the COVID vaccination saga, where first of all, there was a time where these medicines were tested in Africa. That created catastrophes in terms of bringing back lots of bad memories around it, historical memories. But then you had lots of top-down suited and booted officials telling people what to do, and that made things even worse. And the result was that the public health message has transformed forever, in that people really don’t want to be expected to listen to officials telling them what to do. And this is where social media had risen. But then I received a massive backlash when I did the content on the MMR vaccine, and with very, very, very loud voices who are a very, very, very small minority spreading disinformation. And I think going back to what you’ve said, that if you build trust and people know that you are doing your best and understand your values over a period of time, as opposed to just a one-off hit, then that tone starts to soften. And the other thing I would just say is, and I’ve had this conversation with very senior officials from another part of the world, who said, well, you may say that your group of viewers are intuitive, but ours aren’t. And this is another well-developed nation, one of the most well-developed and one of the richest. And I was actually saying it’s exactly this mindset which sets us back. Actually, members of the public, regardless of what their understanding is, bearing in mind in the UK the reading age is about six or seven, the maths age is about three to four, they are phenomenally intuitive. They can sniff out right from wrong. You just need to be able to explain that information in an easy and simple way. And the last thing I’d say, so I don’t take up too much time, when you’re looking at content quality, please don’t look at followership. Don’t look at likes. Look at engagement and quality of engagement in the comments and the type of content. Because if the content is high quality, it will deliver on engagement. I wouldn’t worry too much about the followerships and the millions of views. It’s about the quality of engagement.

Maurice Turner: Ghaleb, can you share a particular challenge that you’ve faced and maybe offer some recommendations to the audience about how you were able to overcome them in this particular space?

Ghaleb Cabbabe: Sure, actually. To give us maybe an indication on the situation that we’re dealing with and that sometimes we have to face. I believe and maybe I invite also people in the audience to maybe go on our digital platforms and also the digital platforms of maybe also other Red Cross and Red Crescent movement partners like the ICRC and check the comments section. And this is where you would see how complex this environment is. Because today, unfortunately, we are moving, working, reacting, engaging in a very, very polarized world. And this is even more present because we are talking and our work is in war zones, conflict zones. So this is even more polarized. So misinformation is even more present here. So I think the challenge here is really the nature of what we’re facing when we talk about misinformation. As I was saying previously, there are people whose work is only to create this type of misinformation and to feed it and to make it grow online. So sometimes the battle is not an easy one because the opponent, if we can call it so, of misinformation is an opponent with sometimes many resources. You have sometimes states behind it. So I think the challenge comes from here, the very polarized context and also the people who could be behind this misinformation. How we’re trying to deal with this, again, is by sharing, cross-checking, and checking again the information before sharing it, making sure sometimes also in very sensitive context to anticipate what could be the risk. This is really very important to assess the risk before communicating. And although we are in a world on digital platforms, not only TikTok, where you have to be prompt, you have to be really fast in terms of reaction, one of my recommendations would be that sometimes it’s better not to rush. You have to be prompt, of course. You have to be fast, reactive. But sometimes by taking the time to assess, to see how maybe a certain piece of misinformation is evolving online, the direction it’s taking, it gives you maybe a better understanding of the situation and a better way to tackle it. So, yes, being prompt and fast, but do not rush. It’s a daily work. It’s an ongoing work. It starts, actually, before the misinformation it shares. It starts with what we plan to produce, what we plan to communicate on in our statements, in our press release, in our interviews with the press. And again, it was mentioned in the panel, it’s not only a social media team work. It’s the work of the whole team in terms of expert on the legal side, on the media side, on the different expertise. So it’s an ongoing work, a daily work. And again, it’s a complex one, and it’s not an easy battle.

Maurice Turner: Thank you. And it seems that not only doing the work beforehand to prepare and have a process, but also having the confidence and the patience to be able to understand what you’re going to be responding to is part of the strategy in responding to that challenge. Gisela, do you have a particular challenge related to information integrity that you’d be able to share with us and maybe some recommendations for how you’re able to respond to that?

Gisella Lomax: Thank you. And I like you say a particular challenge. There are many, but perhaps I could just highlight three, but then there are some recommendations I can make as well. I think building off the points thatGhaleb Cabbabe just shared, the first is to say this is… Sorry, this is a very jargonistic term. This is multifunctional work. This is not just communications. This is protection, policy, operational, governance and communications. And so really it’s getting that message across and then making sure these multifunctional teams are resourced. That’s more of an internal challenge for how we address it. But I would say, I mean, there’s three very distinct challenges. And one is that protection challenge. Information risks such as hate speech and misinformation are directly and indirectly causing real world harm. And I mean violence, killings, persecution. It can even be a factor in forced displacement, in causing refugees. In fact, as we saw in Myanmar back in 2016, 2017, when hate speech, which had already been circulating for some time, really exploded and had a decisive role in the displacement, I think, of 700,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh who are still there today. And then also on communities, it’s normalising hostility towards refugees and migrants. So the problem, the harms over time, the very direct harms, that’s on the community, the refugee side, on the operational side. It’s increasingly hampering humanitarians from doing their job around the world in conflicts in Sudan, for example, or other places, disinformation narratives about humanitarians perhaps politicising their work can also erode people’s trust. And, you know, trust is everything. And we know that trust can take years or decades to build and can be destroyed very, very quickly. And I think I recognise the importance of individual voices and I think I celebrate what you’re doing, Dr Ahmed, and people like you, but let’s not forget that we also need to help institutions remain trusted as well. If people can’t trust public health bodies or UN entities, then we also have a challenge. And then a third, very more specific one, is that of trust and safety capacities from digital platforms and tech companies. We have seen, to our dismay, a weakening of these capacities and perhaps less resourcing from some companies. And I would extend that, for example, to content moderation in less common languages. You know, I think this is always a question I ask to all tech companies. Are you adequately providing content moderation in less common languages in these very volatile contexts where you don’t actually have a business argument? You’re not selling ads or making money, but your platforms are still delivering fundamental information. So there are three challenges. But on to a recommendation. I think we’re sat here at an event designed to create international cooperation to solve these problems, so it’s partnerships. And I think speaking as a humanitarian, for us, it’s increasingly building partnerships with tech, with digital, digital rights organisations, civil society NGOs that bring in the skillset, expertise and knowledge that we don’t have, and given a very dramatic and grave financial situation for the humanitarian sector, we’re not going to have more capacity. So how can we partner, collaborate to bring in that knowledge, to test these responses, innovative, long over time, like digital literacy, more immediate for these kind of quite acute harms and conflicts? So my recommendation is to please talk to us. If you’re academic, there are many research gaps and we can help give you access to try and fill those. Then we can take that research to inform strategies and policies. If you’re a tech company, I’ve already mentioned some of the ways that we can help each other. If you’re a digital rights, an NGO, I think there’s many more. So that’s both a recommendation and a plea from us, and that’s what brings me here to Oslo this week.

Maurice Turner: Eva, I’d like to hear more about maybe more of the technical side of the challenges. What are some of the challenges that you’re hearing about from the folks that you’re working with and how they’re trying to tackle information integrity, and what are some of those recommendations that seem to have surfaced to the top?

Eeva Moore: You could boil the challenge down perhaps to one word, and that’s time. If you’re in the business of trying to disrupt or break something, you get to move at a much faster pace than if you’re on the other side of that equation. So from a purely practical standpoint, that means, as comms people, leaning into the creative side of it. So how can we tell a compelling story on a timeline that mirrors, say, a news cycle? We did that with the proposed TikTok ban in the United States. That was a timeline for which this long period of review did not lend itself well to. But we have the experts. They had already done the work. So my very qualified, fantastic colleague Celia went in and just plucked headlines from a blog post, designed it within seconds, and put it out there. Not seconds, perhaps minutes. So it’s knowing what resources are already there that you can act on, because I agree with what Gallup said, is that sometimes you have to wait, but there’s also the aspect of it where sometimes you can’t afford to, right? So the creative side of it, which is in and of itself interactive, but that’s one way around time. The other way is simply doing the heavy lifting for your community, remembering that if you’re the person whose job it is to create these things, you are not asking somebody. We work with volunteers, essentially, around the world, right? These are people with lives, with families, with jobs, often in challenging circumstances as well as less challenging circumstances. It’s my job, it’s my team’s job, to try to ask as little of them so that then when we do ask, they’re able to actually jump in and help. But time, it’s labor intensive. It’s not something that people are swimming in.

Maurice Turner: It seems like that’s a poignant point to wrap up that part of discussion, time. It’s a resource that no one quite has enough of, and as we heard earlier, there needs to be a balance of when do you find that right time do you do it fast, do you wait to be more thorough and what’s appropriate for the response that you need given that particular situation. At this time, I’d like to go ahead and open up the time for questions from the audience. Again, we have microphones, so if you have a question, feel free to step up to the microphones on the side. If you’re a little bit shy, that’s okay too. You can just raise your hand, maybe pass a note to someone who might have a question, and if you’re online, please do type in a question there and we’ll have that moderated as well.

Audience: May I? Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the panel. My name is Bia Barbosa. I’m a journalist from Brazil. I’m also a civil society representative at the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee. Thank you for all the sharing of your experience producing content for TikTok, specifically if I got it, or for social media in general. And how you face these challenges regarding information integrity for us as a journalist perspective is something that is in our most… This is one of the most important preoccupations at this time. And I would like to hear from you because regarding the challenges, I didn’t see, besides Gisela mentioning, the resources. Thank you very much.

Maurice Turner: Do we have any other questions from the audience? Feel free to step up to the microphone if you have one. Any questions from the online audience? Excellent. Well, what I’ll go ahead and do is wrap us up. Feel free to engage with our panelists as we exit the stage and close out the session, or if not now, then go ahead and find them throughout the week. I think we had an interesting discussion in hearing about how these organizations that you all represent utilize the platform or utilize digital platforms to put out information to push back against some of that misinformation that’s out there. We also heard about some strategies for attacking the safety issue regarding information integrity, and we also heard some of the recommendations that came through as well. I particularly enjoyed hearing about those tensions that naturally take place between having to be viewed as experts, recognizing that you also rely on a network of expertise, so it’s not just one individual or one sole organization. And also that tension between balancing that limited resource of time, so being very prompt, but also allowing time for that situation to evolve to better understand how best to respond to it in a way that is not only authentic, but in a way that is also prompt, so that even when attentions might be shortened, that message can get out effectively. So again, please do join me in thanking the panel, and I’d also like to thank you all for joining this discussion, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your week at the conference. Thank you. Thank you.

Agreement points

Digital platforms provide unprecedented reach and impact for information dissemination

Speakers

– Maurice Turner
– Dr. Ahmed Ezzat
– Gisella Lomax
– Ghaleb Cabbabe
– Eeva Moore

Arguments

TikTok partners with over 20 fact-checking organizations across 60 markets and empowers users through media literacy programs

Medical professionals can reach millions of people within 24 hours at zero cost using evidence-based information, representing massive public health potential

Digital platforms are vital for providing lifesaving protection information to 123 million displaced people across 133 countries

Digital platforms serve multiple purposes including brand awareness, crisis communication, information sharing, and fundraising campaigns

Platforms help connect the remaining third of the world that’s not online through educational content and community stories

Summary

All speakers agreed that digital platforms, particularly TikTok, offer massive reach and potential for positive impact when used strategically for information dissemination, whether for health information, humanitarian aid, or global connectivity.

Topics

Sociocultural | Development | Human rights

Content creation requires multi-layered expertise and cannot be done by single individuals or departments alone

Speakers

– Dr. Ahmed Ezzat
– Gisella Lomax
– Ghaleb Cabbabe
– Eeva Moore

Arguments

Healthcare professionals must maintain accountability and use real names to build credibility, avoiding commercial endorsements that could damage trust

Build partnerships with tech companies, academic institutions, and civil society organizations to leverage expertise and resources that humanitarian organizations lack

Organizations must rely on field experts rather than just marketing teams, and prepare proactive strategies including reactive lines and scenario planning

Expertise must be baked into the production process with multiple layers of review, making content appear simple while requiring heavy behind-the-scenes work

Summary

All speakers emphasized that effective content creation requires collaboration across multiple expertise areas, from medical professionals to legal experts to field specialists, rather than relying on single individuals or departments.

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Misinformation poses serious real-world threats that require proactive, systematic responses

Speakers

– Dr. Ahmed Ezzat
– Gisella Lomax
– Ghaleb Cabbabe

Arguments

Misinformation creates an unfair defensive position where evidence-based voices must defend against accusations while being constrained by factual accuracy

Information risks directly cause real-world harm including violence, killings, and forced displacement, as seen with Rohingya refugees in Myanmar

Organizations face opponents with significant resources including state actors and misinformation farms operating in highly polarized environments

Summary

Speakers agreed that misinformation is not just a communications challenge but poses direct threats to safety, security, and organizational credibility, requiring systematic and proactive responses.

Topics

Human rights | Cybersecurity | Legal and regulatory

Time constraints create fundamental challenges in responding to misinformation effectively

Speakers

– Ghaleb Cabbabe
– Eeva Moore

Arguments

Balance speed with thoroughness by assessing risks before communicating, sometimes taking time to understand how misinformation evolves rather than rushing responses

Time constraints create fundamental challenges since disruption moves faster than constructive response, requiring creative solutions and pre-prepared resources

Summary

Both speakers identified time as a critical constraint, noting that while misinformation spreads quickly, effective responses require careful preparation and strategic timing rather than rushed reactions.

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Similar viewpoints

Both emphasized that successful content strategy should prioritize meaningful engagement and authentic community connections over vanity metrics, focusing on quality interactions and creative approaches to make factual information accessible and engaging.

Speakers

– Dr. Ahmed Ezzat
– Gisella Lomax

Arguments

Focus on quality of engagement and comments rather than follower counts or view numbers when measuring content success

Successful content requires being creative, partnering with influencers, uplifting community voices, and making facts entertaining while remaining educational

Topics

Sociocultural | Human rights

Both humanitarian organizations recognized that they operate in highly polarized, conflict-affected environments where misinformation has direct, severe consequences including violence and displacement, and where they face well-resourced opposition.

Speakers

– Gisella Lomax
– Ghaleb Cabbabe

Arguments

Information risks directly cause real-world harm including violence, killings, and forced displacement, as seen with Rohingya refugees in Myanmar

Organizations face opponents with significant resources including state actors and misinformation farms operating in highly polarized environments

Topics

Human rights | Cybersecurity

Both emphasized the intensive, multi-layered verification and review processes required to ensure information accuracy, particularly in sensitive contexts, while making the final product appear accessible and simple to audiences.

Speakers

– Ghaleb Cabbabe
– Eeva Moore

Arguments

Information verification requires multiple levels of checking and cross-checking, especially when dealing with sensitive situations involving colleague safety

Expertise must be baked into the production process with multiple layers of review, making content appear simple while requiring heavy behind-the-scenes work

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Unexpected consensus

Strategic patience in responding to misinformation rather than immediate reaction

Speakers

– Ghaleb Cabbabe
– Eeva Moore

Arguments

Balance speed with thoroughness by assessing risks before communicating, sometimes taking time to understand how misinformation evolves rather than rushing responses

Time constraints create fundamental challenges since disruption moves faster than constructive response, requiring creative solutions and pre-prepared resources

Explanation

Despite the fast-paced nature of social media and the pressure to respond quickly to misinformation, both speakers advocated for strategic patience and thorough preparation over immediate reactions. This is unexpected given the common assumption that social media requires instant responses.

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

The need for institutional trust alongside individual credibility

Speakers

– Dr. Ahmed Ezzat
– Gisella Lomax

Arguments

Healthcare professionals must maintain accountability and use real names to build credibility, avoiding commercial endorsements that could damage trust

Build partnerships with tech companies, academic institutions, and civil society organizations to leverage expertise and resources that humanitarian organizations lack

Explanation

While much discussion around social media focuses on individual influencers and personal branding, both speakers emphasized the continued importance of institutional credibility and partnerships, suggesting that individual and institutional trust must work together rather than compete.

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated strong consensus on the transformative potential of digital platforms for positive information dissemination, the serious nature of misinformation threats, and the need for multi-stakeholder, expertise-driven approaches to content creation and verification.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with complementary perspectives rather than conflicting viewpoints. The agreement spans across different sectors (healthcare, humanitarian, technology, civil society) suggesting broad applicability of these principles. This consensus indicates that despite different organizational contexts, there are shared challenges and effective strategies that can be applied across sectors for information integrity.

Different viewpoints

Speed vs. Thoroughness in Response Strategy

Speakers

– Dr. Ahmed Ezzat
– Ghaleb Cabbabe
– Eeva Moore

Arguments

Misinformation creates an unfair defensive position where evidence-based voices must defend against accusations while being constrained by factual accuracy

Balance speed with thoroughness by assessing risks before communicating, sometimes taking time to understand how misinformation evolves rather than rushing responses

Time constraints create fundamental challenges since disruption moves faster than constructive response, requiring creative solutions and pre-prepared resources

Summary

Dr. Ahmed emphasizes the defensive disadvantage of being constrained by evidence when responding to misinformation, while Ghaleb advocates for strategic patience and taking time to assess situations. Eeva focuses on the need for speed through creative solutions and pre-preparation, representing different approaches to the time-versus-accuracy dilemma.

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected differences

Platform Algorithm Engagement Strategy

Speakers

– Dr. Ahmed Ezzat
– Gisella Lomax

Arguments

Focus on quality of engagement and comments rather than follower counts or view numbers when measuring content success

Successful content requires being creative, partnering with influencers, uplifting community voices, and making facts entertaining while remaining educational

Explanation

While both work on the same platform (TikTok), Dr. Ahmed advocates for focusing on engagement quality over metrics, while Gisella emphasizes creative partnerships and entertainment value. This represents different philosophies about how to effectively use social media algorithms – organic engagement versus strategic content optimization.

Topics

Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The panel showed remarkable consensus on core challenges and goals, with disagreements primarily centered on tactical approaches rather than fundamental principles. Main areas of difference included response timing strategies and platform engagement methods.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. The speakers demonstrated strong alignment on identifying challenges (misinformation threats, resource constraints, need for expertise) and broad goals (information integrity, community protection, credible content creation). Disagreements were primarily tactical and complementary rather than contradictory, suggesting different but potentially compatible approaches to shared challenges. This level of agreement is significant as it indicates a mature understanding of the field where practitioners can focus on refining methods rather than debating fundamental approaches.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both emphasized that successful content strategy should prioritize meaningful engagement and authentic community connections over vanity metrics, focusing on quality interactions and creative approaches to make factual information accessible and engaging.

Speakers

– Dr. Ahmed Ezzat
– Gisella Lomax

Arguments

Focus on quality of engagement and comments rather than follower counts or view numbers when measuring content success

Successful content requires being creative, partnering with influencers, uplifting community voices, and making facts entertaining while remaining educational

Topics

Sociocultural | Human rights

Both humanitarian organizations recognized that they operate in highly polarized, conflict-affected environments where misinformation has direct, severe consequences including violence and displacement, and where they face well-resourced opposition.

Speakers

– Gisella Lomax
– Ghaleb Cabbabe

Arguments

Information risks directly cause real-world harm including violence, killings, and forced displacement, as seen with Rohingya refugees in Myanmar

Organizations face opponents with significant resources including state actors and misinformation farms operating in highly polarized environments

Topics

Human rights | Cybersecurity

Both emphasized the intensive, multi-layered verification and review processes required to ensure information accuracy, particularly in sensitive contexts, while making the final product appear accessible and simple to audiences.

Speakers

– Ghaleb Cabbabe
– Eeva Moore

Arguments

Information verification requires multiple levels of checking and cross-checking, especially when dealing with sensitive situations involving colleague safety

Expertise must be baked into the production process with multiple layers of review, making content appear simple while requiring heavy behind-the-scenes work

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Key takeaways

Digital platforms like TikTok offer unprecedented reach for credible information – medical professionals can reach millions within 24 hours at zero cost, making them powerful tools for public health and humanitarian communication

Trust and credibility are built over time through consistent, accountable content creation – healthcare professionals must use real names and avoid commercial endorsements that could damage credibility

Effective content creation requires extensive behind-the-scenes work – multiple layers of expertise, fact-checking, and community input must be ‘baked into’ the production process to make content appear simple

Misinformation creates asymmetric warfare where bad actors with significant resources (including state actors) can move faster than those trying to provide accurate information

Quality of engagement matters more than follower counts – focus should be on meaningful comments and interactions rather than vanity metrics

Information risks cause real-world harm including violence, displacement, and erosion of trust in institutions, as demonstrated by the Myanmar Rohingya crisis

Partnerships are essential – humanitarian organizations, tech companies, academic institutions, and civil society must collaborate to leverage complementary expertise and resources

Time is the fundamental challenge – balancing the need for prompt response with thorough fact-checking and risk assessment

Resolutions and action items

UNHCR invited collaboration from academics, tech companies, and NGOs, specifically requesting partnerships to fill research gaps and develop strategies

Gisella Lomax promoted a Wednesday 2 PM event showcasing their South Africa pre-bunking project testing inoculation theory

Recommendation to check UNHCR’s information integrity toolkit by Googling ‘UNHCR information integrity’

Suggestion for audience members to examine comment sections on Red Cross digital platforms to understand the complexity of misinformation challenges

Unresolved issues

How to adequately resource content moderation in less common languages, especially in volatile contexts where platforms don’t have business incentives

The ongoing challenge of weakening trust and safety capacities from some digital platforms and tech companies

How to effectively combat well-resourced misinformation operations including state actors and misinformation farms

The fundamental time asymmetry between those creating misinformation and those trying to counter it with factual information

How to maintain institutional trust while individual voices gain prominence in information sharing

Balancing the need for speed in digital communication with thorough fact-checking and risk assessment processes

Suggested compromises

Balance speed with thoroughness by preparing reactive strategies and scenario planning in advance, allowing for quick but informed responses

Focus on proactive content creation to fill information voids rather than only reactive responses to misinformation

Leverage partnerships to share the resource burden – organizations should collaborate rather than trying to build all capabilities internally

Accept that sometimes it’s better to wait and assess how misinformation evolves rather than rushing to respond immediately

Combine individual creator authenticity with institutional expertise – use real names and personal accountability while maintaining organizational standards

Actually, members of the public, regardless of what their understanding is, bearing in mind in the UK the reading age is about six or seven, the maths age is about three to four, they are phenomenally intuitive. They can sniff out right from wrong. You just need to be able to explain that information in an easy and simple way.

Speaker

Dr. Ahmed Ezzat

Reason

This comment challenges the condescending assumption that the public lacks intelligence or intuition about information quality. It reframes the problem from ‘people are gullible’ to ‘experts need to communicate better,’ which is a fundamental shift in perspective about information integrity challenges.

Impact

This comment shifted the discussion from focusing on platform mechanics to emphasizing the importance of respectful, accessible communication. It influenced the later emphasis on building trust through authentic engagement rather than top-down messaging.

Information risks such as hate speech and misinformation are directly and indirectly causing real world harm. And I mean violence, killings, persecution. It can even be a factor in forced displacement, in causing refugees… as we saw in Myanmar back in 2016, 2017, when hate speech… had a decisive role in the displacement, I think, of 700,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh who are still there today.

Speaker

Gisella Lomax

Reason

This comment elevated the stakes of the discussion by connecting online misinformation to concrete, devastating real-world consequences. It moved beyond abstract concerns about ‘information integrity’ to demonstrate how digital platform content can literally displace populations and cause humanitarian crises.

Impact

This dramatically shifted the tone and urgency of the conversation. It transformed the discussion from a technical/marketing challenge to a humanitarian imperative, influencing subsequent speakers to emphasize the life-or-death importance of their work and the need for stronger partnerships and resources.

You could boil the challenge down perhaps to one word, and that’s time. If you’re in the business of trying to disrupt or break something, you get to move at a much faster pace than if you’re on the other side of that equation.

Speaker

Eeva Moore

Reason

This insight crystallizes a fundamental asymmetry in information warfare – that destructive actors have inherent speed advantages over those trying to build trust and provide accurate information. It’s a profound observation about the structural challenges facing legitimate information providers.

Impact

This comment provided a unifying framework for understanding the challenges all panelists had described. It led to the moderator’s closing reflection on the ‘tension between balancing that limited resource of time’ and influenced the final discussion about strategic timing in responses.

We have seen, to our dismay, a weakening of these capacities and perhaps less resourcing from some companies. And I would extend that, for example, to content moderation in less common languages… Are you adequately providing content moderation in less common languages in these very volatile contexts where you don’t actually have a business argument?

Speaker

Gisella Lomax

Reason

This comment exposed a critical gap in platform responsibility – the tendency to under-resource content moderation in markets that aren’t profitable, even when those markets may be experiencing the most severe consequences of misinformation. It challenges the business model underlying content moderation.

Impact

This introduced a more critical perspective on platform responsibility that hadn’t been present earlier in the discussion, adding complexity to what had been a more collaborative tone between content creators and platforms.

It should be labor-intensive. I mean, dealing with these types of issues when we’re creating them, when we want to be accurate, should look like a light lift, but actually, in fact, be a pretty heavy one… you have to be consuming a lot of information. Sadly, that includes coming across the disinformation, if you’re going to understand it and to understand how it’s navigating the space.

Speaker

Eeva Moore

Reason

This comment reveals the hidden complexity behind seemingly simple social media content and acknowledges the psychological toll of constantly engaging with misinformation. It challenges the expectation that good content should be quick and easy to produce.

Impact

This deepened the discussion about resource allocation and the true cost of maintaining information integrity, supporting other panelists’ calls for more institutional support and partnership approaches.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally elevated and reframed the discussion from a tactical conversation about social media best practices to a strategic dialogue about asymmetric information warfare and humanitarian responsibility. Dr. Ahmed’s insight about public intuition shifted the focus from platform mechanics to communication respect and accessibility. Gisella’s Myanmar example transformed the stakes from abstract ‘information integrity’ to concrete life-and-death consequences, while her critique of platform resource allocation introduced necessary tension about corporate responsibility. Eva’s ‘time’ framework provided a unifying theory for understanding the structural disadvantages faced by legitimate information providers. Together, these comments created a progression from individual content creation strategies to systemic analysis of power imbalances, resource constraints, and humanitarian imperatives in the digital information ecosystem. The discussion evolved from ‘how to create good content’ to ‘how to address fundamental inequities in information warfare while serving vulnerable populations.’

How can digital platforms adequately provide content moderation in less common languages in volatile contexts where there’s no business argument?

Speaker

Gisella Lomax

Explanation

This addresses a critical gap in platform safety measures for vulnerable populations who communicate in languages that aren’t commercially viable for platforms but still need protection from harmful content

What are the research gaps in addressing information integrity challenges in humanitarian contexts?

Speaker

Gisella Lomax

Explanation

Academic research is needed to inform strategies and policies for combating misinformation and hate speech that directly harms refugee and displaced populations

How can the effectiveness of ‘pre-bunking’ or inoculation theory be measured in building community resilience against hate speech and misinformation?

Speaker

Gisella Lomax

Explanation

UNHCR is testing this approach in South Africa but more research is needed to understand its effectiveness and scalability across different contexts

What metrics should be prioritized when evaluating content quality beyond traditional engagement metrics like followers and likes?

Speaker

Dr. Ahmed Ezzat

Explanation

Understanding how to measure meaningful engagement and content impact is crucial for organizations trying to combat misinformation effectively

How can institutions maintain public trust in an era where people increasingly distrust official sources?

Speaker

Gisella Lomax

Explanation

This addresses the broader challenge of institutional credibility when individual voices are often more trusted than official organizations

What are the resource implications and funding challenges for organizations trying to combat misinformation?

Speaker

Bia Barbosa (audience member)

Explanation

The question was cut off in the transcript but relates to the resource constraints mentioned by multiple panelists in fighting well-funded misinformation campaigns

How can partnerships between humanitarian organizations, tech companies, and civil society be structured to effectively address information integrity challenges?

Speaker

Gisella Lomax

Explanation

Given the multifunctional nature of this work and limited resources, understanding effective partnership models is crucial for scaling solutions

Summary

This discussion centered on the Freedom Online Coalition’s updated Joint Statement on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights for 2025, presented during a session on shaping global AI governance through multi-stakeholder action. The panel featured representatives from Estonia, the Netherlands, Germany, Ghana, and Microsoft, highlighting the collaborative effort to address AI’s impact on human rights.

Ambassador Ernst Noorman from the Netherlands emphasized that human rights and security are interconnected, noting that when rights are eroded, societies become more unstable rather than safer. He stressed that AI risks are no longer theoretical, citing examples of AI being used to suppress dissent, distort public discourse, and facilitate gender-based violence. The Netherlands learned this lesson through their painful experience with biased automated welfare systems that deepened injustice for citizens.

The panelists identified surveillance, disinformation, and suppression of democratic participation as the most urgent human rights risks posed by AI, particularly when embedded in government structures without transparency or accountability. Dr. Erika Moret from Microsoft outlined the private sector’s responsibilities, emphasizing adherence to UN guiding principles on business and human rights, embedding human rights considerations from design through deployment, and ensuring fairness and inclusivity in AI systems.

Several binding frameworks were discussed as important next steps, including the EU AI Act, the Council of Europe’s AI Framework Convention, and the Global Digital Compact. The panelists emphasized the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration, procurement policies that prioritize human rights-compliant AI systems, and the need for transparency and accountability in high-impact AI applications. The statement, endorsed by 21 countries at the time of the session, remains open for additional endorsements and represents a principled vision for human-centric AI governance grounded in international human rights law.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Launch of the Freedom Online Coalition’s Joint Statement on AI and Human Rights 2025**: The primary focus was presenting an updated statement led by the Netherlands and Germany that establishes human rights as the foundation for AI governance, with 21 countries endorsing it and more expected to follow.

– **Urgent Human Rights Risks from AI**: Key concerns identified include arbitrary surveillance and monitoring by governments, use of AI for disinformation and suppression of democratic participation, bias and discrimination against marginalized groups (especially women and girls), and concentration of power in both state and private sector hands without adequate oversight.

– **Multi-stakeholder Responsibilities and Collaboration**: Discussion emphasized that addressing AI governance requires coordinated action from governments (through regulation and procurement policies), private sector (through human rights due diligence and ethical AI principles), and civil society, with Microsoft presenting their comprehensive approach as an example.

– **Binding International Frameworks and Next Steps**: Panelists highlighted several key governance mechanisms including the EU AI Act, Council of Europe’s AI Framework Convention, UN Global Digital Compact, and various UN processes, emphasizing the need for broader adoption and implementation of these frameworks.

– **Practical Implementation Challenges**: The discussion addressed real-world complexities of protecting human rights in repressive regimes, balancing innovation with rights protection, and the need for transparency while protecting privacy, with examples from the Netherlands’ own failures in automated welfare systems.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to launch and promote the Freedom Online Coalition’s updated joint statement on AI and human rights, while building consensus among governments, private sector, and civil society on the urgent need for human rights-centered AI governance and identifying concrete next steps for implementation.

## Overall Tone:

The tone was consistently collaborative and constructive throughout, with speakers demonstrating shared commitment to human rights principles. There was a sense of urgency about AI risks but also optimism about multilateral cooperation. The discussion maintained a diplomatic yet determined quality, with participants acknowledging challenges while emphasizing collective action and practical solutions. The tone became slightly more interactive and engaging during the Q&A portion, with audience questions adding practical perspectives from different regions and sectors.

Speakers

– **Zach Lampell** – Senior Legal Advisor and Coordinator for Digital Rights at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law; Co-chair of the Freedom Online Coalition’s Task Force on AI and Human Rights

– **Rasmus Lumi** – Director General for International Organizations and Human Rights with the Government of Estonia; Chair of the Freedom Online Coalition in 2025

– **Ernst Noorman** – Cyber Ambassador for the Netherlands

– **Maria Adebahr** – Cyber Ambassador of Germany; Co-chair of the Task Force on AI and Human Rights

– **Devine Salese Agbeti** – Director General of the Cyber Security Authority of Ghana

– **Erika Moret** – Director with UN and international organizations at Microsoft

– **Audience** – Multiple audience members who asked questions during the Q&A session

**Additional speakers:**

– **Svetlana Zenz** – Works on Asia region, focusing on bridging civil society and tech/telecoms in Asia

– **Carlos Vera** – From IGF Ecuador

# Freedom Online Coalition’s Joint Statement on AI and Human Rights 2025: A Multi-Stakeholder Discussion on Global AI Governance

## Executive Summary

This session focused on the launch of the Freedom Online Coalition’s updated Joint Statement on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights for 2025, an update to the coalition’s original 2020 statement. The panel brought together representatives from Estonia, the Netherlands, Germany, Ghana, and Microsoft to discuss the statement and broader challenges in AI governance. At the time of the session, the statement had been endorsed by 21 countries, with expectations for additional endorsements from both FOC and non-FOC members.

The discussion centered on how AI systems pose risks to fundamental human rights including freedom of expression, right to privacy, freedom of association, and freedom of assembly. Speakers addressed the need for human rights to be embedded in AI development from the design phase, the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration, and the role of international frameworks in governing AI systems.

## Key Participants and Their Contributions

**Rasmus Lumi**, Director General for International Organizations and Human Rights with the Government of Estonia and Chair of the Freedom Online Coalition in 2025, opened the session with remarks about AI-generated notes, noting humorously that the AI “did say all the right things” regarding human rights, which led him to wonder about AI’s understanding of these concepts.

**Ernst Noorman**, Cyber Ambassador for the Netherlands and co-chair of the FOC Task Force on AI and Human Rights, shared his country’s experience with automated welfare systems, stating: “In the Netherlands, we have learned this the hard way. The use of strongly biased automated systems in welfare administration, designed to combat fraud, has led to one of our most painful domestic human rights failures.” He emphasized that “Innovation without trust is short-lived. Respect for rights is not a constraint, it’s a condition for sustainable, inclusive progress.”

**Maria Adebahr**, Cyber Ambassador of Germany and co-chair of the FOC Task Force on AI and Human Rights, highlighted transnational repression as a key concern, noting: “AI unfortunately is also a tool for transnational repression… in terms of digital and AI, we are reaching here new levels, unfortunately.” She announced that Germany had doubled its funding for the Freedom Online Coalition to support this work.

**Devine Salese Agbeti**, Director General of the Cyber Security Authority of Ghana, provided perspective on bidirectional AI misuse, observing: “I have seen how citizens have used AI to manipulate online content, to lie against government, to even create cryptocurrency pages in the name of the president, etc. So it works both ways.” He identified surveillance, disinformation, and suppression of democratic participation as key concerns.

**Dr. Erika Moret**, Director with UN and international organisations at Microsoft, outlined private sector responsibilities, emphasizing that companies must adhere to UN guiding principles on business and human rights and embed human rights considerations throughout the AI development lifecycle.

**Zach Lampell**, co-chair of the FOC Task Force on AI and Human Rights, facilitated the discussion and emphasized that the statement remains open for additional endorsements, representing a principled vision for human-centric AI governance.

## Key Themes and Areas of Discussion

### Human Rights as Foundation for AI Governance

All speakers agreed that human rights should serve as the foundation for AI governance rather than being treated as secondary considerations. The discussion emphasized the need to put humans at the center of AI development and ensure compliance with international human rights law.

### Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration

Participants stressed that effective AI governance requires collaboration between governments, civil society, private sector, academia, and affected communities. Speakers noted that no single sector can address AI challenges alone.

### International Frameworks and Standards

The discussion covered several key governance mechanisms:

– **EU AI Act**: Referenced as creating predictability and protecting citizens, with potential for global influence

– **Council of Europe AI Framework Convention**: Presented as providing a globally accessible binding framework

– **UN Global Digital Compact**: Noted as representing the first time all UN member states agreed on an AI governance path

– **Hamburg Declaration on Responsible AI for the SDGs**: Mentioned as another relevant framework

– **UNESCO AI Ethics Recommendation**: Referenced in the context of global standards

### Urgent Human Rights Risks

Speakers identified several critical areas where AI poses immediate threats:

– Arbitrary surveillance and monitoring by governments

– Use of AI for disinformation campaigns and suppression of democratic participation

– Transnational repression using AI tools

– Bias and discrimination against marginalized groups

– Concentration of power without adequate oversight

### Private Sector Responsibilities

Dr. Moret outlined comprehensive responsibilities for companies, including:

– Adhering to UN guiding principles on business and human rights

– Embedding human rights considerations from design through deployment

– Conducting ongoing human rights impact assessments

– Ensuring transparency and accountability in AI systems

– Engaging in multi-stakeholder collaboration

## Practical Implementation Approaches

### Government Procurement

Ernst Noorman highlighted procurement as a practical tool, stating: “We have to use procurement as a tool also to force companies to deliver products which are respecting human rights, which have human rights as a core in their design of their products.”

### Coalition Building

Speakers discussed using smaller coalitions to achieve broader global adoption, with Noorman referencing the “oil spill effect” where regional frameworks like the Budapest Convention eventually gain wider acceptance.

### Diplomatic Engagement

The discussion emphasized combining formal diplomatic engagement with informal discussions to promote human rights principles in AI governance globally.

## Audience Questions and Broader Participation

The Q&A session included questions from both in-person and online participants. Carlos Vera from IGF Ecuador asked about how civil society organizations and non-FOC members can provide comments and support for the declaration. Svetlana Zenz raised questions about how risks can be diminished when tech companies work with oppressive governments and what practical actions civil society can take.

Online participants contributed questions about improving transparency in AI decision-making while protecting sensitive data, and identifying global frameworks with binding obligations on states for responsible AI governance.

## The FOC Joint Statement: Content and Next Steps

The statement addresses threats to fundamental freedoms including freedom of expression, right to privacy, freedom of association, and freedom of assembly. It provides actionable recommendations for governments, civil society, and private sector actors, addressing commercial interests, environmental impact, and threats to fundamental freedoms.

Several concrete next steps emerged from the discussion:

– The Task Force on AI and Human Rights committed to meeting to discuss creating space for civil society comments and support

– FOC members agreed to continue diplomatic engagement with non-member governments

– Continued work on promoting the statement’s principles through both formal and informal channels

## Implementation Challenges

The discussion acknowledged several ongoing challenges:

– Balancing transparency in AI decision-making with protection of sensitive data and privacy rights

– Addressing both government and citizen misuse of AI systems

– Ensuring meaningful participation of Global South countries and marginalized communities

– Protecting human rights in AI systems operating under repressive regimes

## Conclusion

The session demonstrated broad agreement among diverse stakeholders on the need for human rights-based AI governance. The FOC Joint Statement on AI and Human Rights 2025 provides a framework for coordinated international action, with concrete recommendations for implementation across sectors. The discussion emphasized practical approaches including government procurement policies, multi-stakeholder engagement, and diplomatic outreach to promote these principles globally.

The collaborative approach demonstrated in the session, combined with specific commitments to follow-up actions and broader engagement, positions the Freedom Online Coalition’s initiative as a significant contribution to global AI governance discussions. The success of this approach will depend on sustained commitment to implementation and continued collaboration across sectors and borders.

Zach Lampell: Welcome to the session, Shaping Global AI Governance Through Multi-Stakeholder Action, where we are pleased to present the Freedom Online Coalition’s Joint Statement on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights 2025. My name is Zach Lampell. I’m Senior Legal Advisor and Coordinator for Digital Rights at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. I’m also pleased to be a co-chair of the Freedom Online Coalition’s Task Force on AI and Human Rights with the Government of the Netherlands and the Government of Germany. I want to welcome Mr. Rasmus Lumi, Director General for International Organizations and Human Rights with the Government of Estonia and the Chair of the Freedom Online Coalition in 2025.

Rasmus Lumi: Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. It is a great honor for me to be here today to welcome you all to this session on the issue of how we feel or are deceived by the extremely smart artificial intelligence. When I read through the notes that it offered me, it did say all the right things, which is totally understandable. The question is, did it do it on purpose, maybe, maliciously, trying to deceive us into thinking that AI also believes in human rights? So we’ll have to take care of this. And this joint statement that we have developed under the leadership of the Netherlands is exactly one step in the way of doing this, putting humans in the center of AI development. So I would like to take this opportunity to very much thank the Netherlands for leading this discussion, this preparation in the Freedom Online Coalition, and I hope that the coalition and also elsewhere, this work will continue in order to make sure that humans and human rights will remain in the focus of all technological development. Thank you very much.

Zach Lampell: Thank you. I now turn the floor to Ambassador Ernst. Noorman, the Cyber Ambassador for the Netherlands.

Ernst Noorman: Thank you very much, Zach, and thank you, Rasmus, for your words. While leaders at this moment gather in The Hague to discuss defence and security, we are here to address a different but equally urgent task, protecting human rights in the age of AI. These are not separate. Human rights and security are, or should be, two sides of the same coin. When rights are eroded, when civic space shrinks, when surveillance escapes oversight, when information is manipulated, societies don’t become safer. They become more unstable, more fragile. Since the original FOC statement on AI and human rights in 2020, a lot has happened. I only have to mention the introduction of Chad Gipetit, just referred to by Rasmus, in November 2022, and how different AI tools are evolving every single day. It is shaping governance, policy, and daily life. Its benefits are real, but so are the risks. And those risks are no longer theoretical. We now see AI used to represent dissent, distort public discourse, and facilitate gender-based violence. In some countries, these practices are becoming embedded in state systems, with few checks and less or no transparency. At the same time, only a handful of private actors shape what we see. They influence democratic debate, and dominate key markets, without meaningful oversight. This double concentration of power threatens both public trust and democratic resilience. That’s why the Netherlands, together with Germany, and the International Centre for Not-for-Profit Law, has led the update of the Freedom on the Line Coalition’s joint statement on artificial intelligence and human rights. I’m grateful to all of you, governments, civil society, private sector, experts, for the thoughtful contributions that shaped it. This updated statement of our joint response to the present reality of AI sets out a principled and practiced vision. Vision for a human-centric AI, governed with care, grounded in human rights, and shaped through inclusive multi-stakeholder processes. It recognizes that risks arise across the AI lifecycle, not only through misuse, but from design to deployment. And the statement calls for clear obligations for both states and private sector, strong safeguards for those most at risk, especially women and girls. It calls for transparency and accountability in high-impact systems, and for cultural and linguistic inclusion, and attention should be given to the environmental and geopolitical dimensions of AI. Some claim that raising these issues could hinder innovation. We disagree. Innovation without trust is short-lived. Respect for rights is not a constraint, it’s a condition for sustainable, inclusive progress. In the Netherlands, we have learned this the hard way. The use of strongly biased automated systems in welfare administration, designed to combat fraud, has led to one of our most painful domestic human rights failures. It showed how algorithms, if not designed and deployed correctly, can deepen injustice. And it takes already years trying to correct the personal harm it caused. In response, we have strengthened our approach to avoid similar accidents, by applying human rights impact assessments, by applying readiness assessment methodology for AI human rights with the UNESCO, and by launching a national algorithm registry, with now more than a thousand algorithms being registered. But no country can solve this alone. All AI transcends borders. So must be our response. As of today, right now, 21 countries have endorsed this joint statement, and we expect more in the days ahead. The text will be published after this session, and remain open for further endorsements, including from non-FOC countries. Let us not stand idly by while others define the rules. Let us lead, clearly, collectively, and with conviction. Human rights must not be an afterthought in AI governance. They must be the foundation. Thank you very much.

Zach Lampell: Thank you, Ambassador Noorman. I think you’re absolutely right. Human rights needs to be the foundation of AI governance, and that was precisely what TFAIR, the Task Force on AI and Human Rights within the FOC, wanted to do with this joint statement. We wanted to build on previous statements and also make sure that there is a strong foundation for governance principles now with actionable, clear recommendations for governments, civil society, and the private sector. We’re really, really pleased with the joint statement and again want to thank the Netherlands and Germany for their co-leadership with ICNL and all of the TFAIR members and Freedom Online Coalition members for their support and input to the statement. We have an amazing, excellent panel today. I want to briefly introduce them and then we’ll get into questions. So joining us virtually is Maria Adebar, Cyber Ambassador of Germany, again co-chair of the Task Force on AI and Human Rights. To my right, Mr. Devine Salese-Agbeti, Director General of the Cyber Security Authority of Ghana. And next to him is Dr. Erika Moray, Director with UN and international organizations at Microsoft. So the first question, and this is directed at Devine. What is, in your view, the most urgent human rights risks posed by AI that this statement addresses?

Devine Salese Agbeti: Thank you very much. Firstly, I would like to thank the government of the Netherlands and also the FOC support unit for extending an invitation. Thank you for the invitation to Ghana for, or to participate in such an important conversation. In my view, I think the most urgent human risk, or the most urgent human right risk posed by AI is the arbitrary use of AI for monitoring or surveillance and also the use of AI for disinformation purposes and also for the suppression of democratic participation, particularly when such is embedded in a government structure and within law enforcement systems without any transparency and accountability. Those two are very important. When we look at these concerns, I think the broader fear is that when this is unchecked and also when they are governed by commercial interests, then what happens is that they erode fundamental freedoms or fundamental human rights, such as the freedom of speech and also privacy. And I think these are the key human right concerns when it comes to artificial intelligence.

Zach Lampell: Great, thank you. And several of those are specifically addressed within the statement, including commercial interests, the environmental impact of artificial intelligence, as well as the direct threats to fundamental human rights, such as the freedom of expression, the right to privacy, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and others. Ambassador Adebar, thank you so much for joining us. What convinced you and the government of Germany to support this statement and what do you hope it will achieve?

Maria Adebahr: Hey, hello everybody over there. I hope you can hear me very well. Thanks for having me today. It’s a wonderful occasion to present and introduce our joint statement on artificial intelligence and human rights together. Thank you for the opening remarks and thank you Ernst together as a T-Fair co-chair. I really would like to thank you all for coming and joining us in this open forum session. So having you all here, I think it’s a really important sign of commitment for human rights and the broad multi-stakeholder participation these days. And that is even to become more important and let me explain why in doing this. Sometimes it helps to really go back to ask ourselves why do we do this and what led the government of Germany to support the statement. And this is the very essence that AI stands out as one of the most, if not the most transformative innovation and challenge and technological thing that we have to confront. And it will, it already does, change the way we live, work, express and inform ourselves. And it will change the way how we form our opinion and exercise our democratic rights. And as already Ernst said, in times of global uncertainty it offers a lot of promise but also a lot of risks to people on the planet. And that is why we as countries joining T-Fair and other forum have to answer the question in what kind of a digital future we want to live in. And I have to say, that’s really the essence of a human-centered world with a non-negotiable respect for human rights is what we have to strive for. And this is the essence that the statement gives us. And let me quote, it is a world firmly rooted in and in compliance with international law, including international human rights law, not shaped by authoritarian interests or solely by commercial priorities. And only with a wise international governance, we can harness the promise that the technologies as AI give to us and hold the horn at bay. And therefore, it is essential to us to support the statement and to support its principles, because we must stand with a strong focus on human rights and a commitment to a human-centric, safe, secure and trustworthy approach to technology. And as we all know, this is not a given yet, not anywhere in the world. So we hope to convince countries, civil societies and stakeholders to strive in every part of the world for our approach. This is crucial and this is very much the essence of what we have to do. And I’m also, as Ernst just said, very happy to have now 21 states on board. This is, I think, the majority and this gives our position even more weight. And also, let me mention the right of women and girls and all their diversity belong to groups posed to more vulnerability by AI. This is a strong commitment that we really clearly harnessed and wanted to see in there. So let me close by, yeah, I’m looking forward to questions and answers, obviously, but let me close by saying that I’m also very happy to announce that Germany is able to double its funding for the Freedom Online Coalition with the double amount compared to last year. We work through our budgets negotiations here in Germany, and so we were able to double the amount. And this is also something that makes me very happy and my colleagues. And hopefully we will make good use of our support for the Freedom Online Coalition. And with that heavy note, I get back over to you.

Zach Lampell: Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador, and thank you for doubling the funding for the Freedom Online Coalition. I can speak, I’m also a member of the Freedom Online Coalition’s advisory network, and I can say that we all believe that the FOC is a true driving force and leading vehicle to promote and protect fundamental freedoms and digital rights. And without the FOC, the governance structures that we have today, we believe, would be much weaker. So we look forward to continuing to work with you, Ambassador, as well as the government of the Netherlands, as TFAIR, as well as all of the 42 other member states of the Freedom Online Coalition, to continue our important work. And we welcome your leadership, and as civil society, we look forward to working with you to achieve these aims for everyone. Dr. Moret, if I could turn to you. You mentioned the commercial interest, and that is indeed something that is noted in the joint statement. What responsibility do private tech companies have to prevent AI from undermining human rights?

Erika Moret: Thank you very much. Well, thank you, first of all, to the government of the Netherlands, to the FOC, Excellencies, Ambassadors. It’s a real pleasure to be here today. I’m currently working at Microsoft, but in my past life I was an academic and working at the UN, including on various issues in relating to human rights and international humanitarian law, and it’s a real honor to be here. So as the tech industry representative on the panel, I’d like to address how private sector companies like Microsoft view responsibilities in ensuring AI respects and protects human rights. We are very lucky at Microsoft to have a series of teams and experts working on these areas across the company that fall under the newly created Trusted Technology Group, and this includes the Office of Responsible AI, the Technology for Fundamental Rights Group, and the Privacy, Safety, and Regulatory Affairs Group. So I’ll try and represent some of our collective work here in this area. In brief, we recognize that we must be proactive and diligent at every step in AI use, from design to deployment and beyond, to prevent AI from being used to violate human rights. The first is adherence to international standards. Microsoft and many peers explicitly commit to the UN guiding principles on business and human rights as a baseline for their conduct across global operations. For us and other companies, this involves a policy commitment to respect human rights and an ongoing human rights due diligence process that enables to identify and remedy related human rights harms. These principles make clear that while states must protect human rights, companies have an independent responsibility to respect fundamental rights. The next step is to embed human rights from the very beginning. We have a responsibility to integrate human rights considerations into the design and development of AI systems and really paying attention to areas like has already been highlighted in relation to women and girls and other particularly vulnerable groups. By performing human rights assessments and monitoring, this enables us to identify risks and address them. The establishment and enforcement of ethical AI principles is a third very important area. At Microsoft, we have a clearly defined responsible AI principles which encompass fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency and accountability which guide all of our AI development and our teams must follow our responsible AI standards which is a company-wide policy that translates these principles into specific requirements. Beyond human rights due diligence that I’ve already mentioned, we also work on protecting privacy and data security. Safeguarding users’ data is a non-negotiable responsibility for our company and also for our peers. AI often involves big data so companies must implement privacy by design, minimizing data collection, securing data storage and ensuring compliance with privacy laws. The sixth area I’d like to highlight here is the vital importance of fairness and inclusivity. Tech firms have the responsibility for ensuring that their AI does not perpetuate bias and discrimination and through working with partners at the FOC and then across civil society, we can put into measure active safeguards and ongoing work to tackle challenges in this area. Again, I’d like to highlight the important note in the FOC statement that AI harms are especially pronounced for marginalized groups. Groups. Ensuring transparency and explainability would be my seventh point of what we should be taking into consideration here, so that people understand how decisions are made and can I identify potential challenges, but then also mitigation approaches. The final area I’d like to emphasize here is the need for collaboration. We’re of course facing a fragile moment in terms of multilateralism and geopolitical tensions around the world and collaboration across borders and across sectors has never been more important. Engaging through multistakeholderism in AI governance, AI regulation developments is as much our responsibility as anyone else’s. I think the more the private sector can be working with civil society and with academia to improve its own work in these areas and to contribute as well through things like red teaming and other types of reporting. This is a really important next step, I believe, in our collective work. Thank you very much.

Zach Lampell: Thank you, Dr. Murray. I think the holistic approach from Microsoft is a fantastic model that I hope other companies will adopt or model their systems and internal standards after, and I really do appreciate the final point on collaboration and next steps. With that, Ambassador Norman, what are the most important next steps to ensure AI systems promote human rights and development while avoiding harm?

Ernst Noorman: Well, thank you. There are a number of issues we can do as governments, as international community, but first and foremost, I think the importance of good, strong regulation. We know, of course, there’s an international discussion on that. There are different views across the ocean about that, but at the same time, you create a level playing field. It’s predictability that’s important. As long as companies also know what the rules are, what the guardrails are, you protect the citizens in Europe and create trust, and then also in the products. So I think with the EU AI Act, that’s a good example, and we put rights, transparency, and accountability at the core. It’s risk-based, not blocking innovation, and I think that’s a crucial step, and you see that also a lot of countries outside the European Union look with great interest to the EU regulations and see how they can adapt it. At the same time, we have to continue to work at multilateral level. The discussion of how to implement oversight, to organize oversight, and to to ensure a safe implementation of AI. We have the Council of Europe’s AI Framework Convention, which is the next step, just like we had before on Cybercrime, the Budapest Convention. And I think it’s very important to really support the UN’s work on human rights, especially the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. It’s important to keep on supporting them. They have important initiatives, which are in BTEC, which also promote human rights in the private sector. So these are important steps we have to continue. And as Eric from Microsoft already mentioned, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is an important tool also for the private sector to be used. And finally, as an important step too, we as governments play an important role with procurement. So we have to use procurement as a tool also to force companies to deliver products which are respecting human rights, which have human rights as a core in their design of their products, and ensure that they provide safe products to the governments which are used broadly in the society. And I think that’s a very concrete step we can use as governments. Thank you very much.

Zach Lampell: Thank you, Ambassador. I think procurement is a really great final point to mention. Ambassador Adebar, same question to you. What are the most important next steps that we can take to ensure AI systems promote human rights and development while avoiding harm?

Maria Adebahr: Thank you. Yeah, thank you for the question. Ernst just answered it, I think. So we fully can agree with that Ernst just said. It is moving forward on a lot of fronts and different fora. That starts with the EU-AI Act and its implementation and the promotion of its principles. We know certain aspects are being discussed, especially by industries and worldwide, and this is totally okay and this is rightfully so. But we can start and have a discussion on things like risk management and so on and so forth. But what the EU-AI Act really sparks is a discussion on how we want to manage and govern ourselves with AI and with a good and human-centric AI accessible for everybody. So this is one part. As EU member states, UNESCO recommendations of 2021 are another one, and we are looking forward also to the results of the Third Global Forum on the Ethics of AI, Health and Banking. at this very moment. And also we would invite all FOC members and interest actors to join the Hamburg Declaration on Responsible AI for the SDGs, recently stated. And in implementation of the Global Digital Compact we’re currently discussing modalities resolution and modalities for implementing working groups, a panel and a worldwide dialogue on AI. This is very much important to us. And one final point, AI unfortunately is also a tool for transnational repression. And transnational repression is a phenomenon, let me put it like that, that we as German governments really want to focus more on. Because it’s a fairly not a new phenomenon, it’s very, very old. But in terms of digital and AI, we are reaching here new levels, unfortunately. And so this is also a subject we want to discuss more and bring it in international forward and on the international human rights agenda. Thank you.

Zach Lampell: Thank you, Ambassador. And Director Agbedi, same question to you. What are the most important next steps to ensure AI systems promote human rights and development?

Devine Salese Agbeti: Thank you. Firstly, we have to align AI with international human rights standards. In that, for example, currently the Cyber Security Authority is working with the Data Protection Commission in Ghana to actually explore redress for this. Secondly, we can look at the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. The ICCPR can underpin national, regional and international efforts to redress global AI governance in that aspect. And we can also look at the multi-stakeholder participation, which is foundational to this. The ecosystem must include civil society to amplify marginal voices, technical communities to bring transparency into algorithms, and academia to provide evidence-based insights, a private sector to ensure responsible innovation, as well as youth and indigenous voices to reflect world diversity. I think these are the ways to do so.

Zach Lampell: Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for again very comprehensive ideas from both ambassadors and Director Getty. Now we would like to open up the floor to all of you. We have some time for questions and answers. We have a microphone over to my left, your right. We welcome questions on the joint statement and how best to promote human rights and artificial intelligence.

Audience: Hello. It works. All right. Sorry. It’s like to handle all these devices. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for such a great panel. And I’m super happy that Freedom Online Coalition together with the private sector is coming up with some, not all, I mean, I would not call it solutions, but at least some recommendations. My name is Svetlana Zenz, and I’m working on Asia region. And, I mean, basically my work is actually to bring the bridge between civil society and tech and telecoms in Asia. And also they’ve been mentioned today, BTAC project, which is also a great project and was like one of the start of many other initiatives in the sector. I really hope that all of that kind of initiatives will get together. But my question will be actually to FOC members, representatives, and to the private sector. So, for a start, I mean, we know that Microsoft works, I mean, known as a company which works closely with many governments because you have products which provide the operability of those governments. And in some countries as well. especially with oppressive laws and oppressive regimes, it’s hard to make sure that the human rights of users are protected. So do you have any vision how to diminish those risks? Maybe there should be more civil society action on that side, like being more practical on that side. For the OFOC side, we’ve been working with FOC members for several years starting from Myanmar where we were one of the first who engaged FOC members in this statement on internet shutdowns. FOC, what can you do in the side of, I mean, of course statement is great, but like in practical way, how we can make sure that human rights are protected on the physical world? Thank you.

Zach Lampell: Thank you so much, I think we’ll take one more question and then we’ll answer, and then if there’s time and additional questions, we’ll go back. So please, sir.

Audience: Thank you, good day. My name is Carlos Vera from IGF Ecuador. I read the declaration in the FOC website. It would be nice if we can have some space to comment on the declaration outside the FOC members and even to sign our support for that declaration. Some government even doesn’t know that the FOC exists, so maybe we can also create some warning in the civil society space. Thank you very much for the great work. Thank you.

Zach Lampell: Thank you so much. I think that’s a great suggestion and we actually have a meeting with the Task Force on AI and Human Rights tomorrow, and I will raise this very point and see what we can do to have wider adoption, especially from civil society support. So back to the first question, it’s really a question on how we, whether FOC governments, the private sector and potentially civil society can protect human rights. regarding AI systems, especially in repressive regimes. I hope I got that question correct. Okay, thank you. So anybody who would like to start us off?

Ernst Noorman: Maybe just to kick off, but I’m sure that others also want to contribute. This is online and offline dilemma. It’s not a specific, the fact that there are tools, of course, also by big tech companies like Microsoft, of course, gives them a responsibility to look at the guardrails of their tools. But at the same time, platforms are being used for human rights violations and to threaten people, but it happens offline as well. But the point is, as an FOC, wherever I go as a cyber ambassador, and I’m sure that Maria is doing the same, we discuss the role of FOC. So also with governments who are not a logical member of the FOC, we always explain what the agenda is of the FOC. Why is the FOC there? What are we doing? And why is it important, the topic on the agenda? You mentioned internet shutdowns. I can assure you I’ve been discussing that with many countries who use this tool as politically. And it’s inside the rooms. You can have more open discussion than if you do it only online with statements, et cetera. So it’s also important to have it inside rooms, closed-door sessions. Now, why are you using these tools? Can’t you do it, can’t you avoid this? Because you harm also a lot of civil services. You harm the role of journalists, which are crucial. So it’s one of the topics, just as an example, which I often mention, but also bringing up then, why is the FOC there? And the FOC is already since 2011. So it’s known by many governments, but also for new colleagues or new people working in the governments. We always stress the important role of it and also explain why it’s there and why it’s important to respect human rights online as it is important to do it offline.

Zach Lampell: Thank you, Ambassador. Ambassador Adelbardi, do you want to come in as well?

Maria Adebahr: Thank you so much. I can only underline what Ernst just said. It’s important, and we do our work and spreading the word and have those discussions formally, but also informally in a four-eye setting, politely, diplomatically sometimes, and other times really straightforward and forcefully is the way to go. And the FOC is a very, very important forum for doing this and a reference point for everybody of us, I think. Thank you.

Zach Lampell: Thank you, Ambassador. And maybe Dr. Moray, if I, oh, sorry. Director Gbedi, please.

Devine Salese Agbeti: All right, thank you. I think that as much as we are advocating for FOC members to ensure the human rights online, especially when it comes to AI, I think FOC should. We’ve been working on the Cyber Security Authority, I have seen how citizens have used AI to manipulate online content, to lie against government, to even create cryptocurrency pages in the name of the president, etc. So it works both ways. I think FOC should be advocating for responsible use of citizens, and at the same time when this is being advocated, then FOC can engage with government also to ensure that the citizens actually have the right to use these systems and use it freely without the fear of arrest or the fear of intimidation. Thank you.

Zach Lampell: Thank you. Dr. Moray.

Erika Moret: Thank you. It’s quite hard to build on these excellent points already. So just to add a few extra points on what has already been said. I would say that from the private sector perspective and from Microsoft viewpoint, we take a principled and proactive approach to this particular question, including due diligence before entering high-risk markets, which is guided by the UN guiding principles. We limit or decline services like facial recognition where misuse is likely. We also resist over-broad government data requests and publish transparency reports where misuse is likely, and to hold ourselves accountable, we offer tools like AccountGuard to protect civil society journalists and human rights defenders from cyber threats. And we also advocate globally for responsible AI and digital use, including through a very important process like the Global Digital Compact and also, of course, in fora such as the IGF and WSIS and so on. Also just to say I’d really like to highlight here the really important developments that have been going on in terms of AI data-driven tools to protect against human rights abuses under authoritarian regimes, and many tech companies are working proactively with the human rights community for this. We personally are very actively engaged with the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights across numerous different projects in terms of monitoring human rights abuses and helping to detect risks, and also in areas like capacity building and AI training in order to properly harness the tools and also come up with new solutions where needs are identified.

Zach Lampell: Thank you. Great answers to what is a very tough question and a really never-ending battle to prevent abuses or misuse of AI. We have a couple questions from our colleagues joining us online. The first is, what are any global frameworks with binding obligations on states for the responsible use and governance of AI? And the second question is, how can transparency in AI decision-making be improved without exposing sensitive data, particularly to ensure that the right to privacy is protected under international human rights law is indeed protected? So would any of the panellists like to jump in on either of those two questions? We have about five minutes left. Please, Dr. Murray.

Erika Moret: Okay, well, maybe I’ll just kick it off talking about the importance of the GDC that I already mentioned, the Global Digital Compact, and I’m sure everybody in the room knows about it already. It was launched back for the future at the last UN General Assembly, the first time every UN member state in the world came together to agree a path on AI governance, and I think it’s incredibly important. There are two new bodies that are being developed right now, Dialogue and the Panel, and Microsoft has been engaged at every step of the process, sitting at the table, and we’ve been very grateful to have a voice there. And I think the more private sector, but also, of course, civil society, particularly those without the usual access to these types of processes is incredibly vital, but not just to have a seat at the table, but to actually have a voice at the table. So the more we can find inclusive, fair, transparent, participatory ways that those, particularly in the global majority, can have a meaningful way of engaging in these very, very important developments through this multi-stakeholder model is to be encouraged in my view. Thanks.

Zach Lampell: Thank you. Anybody else? Ambassador?

Ernst Noorman: I would first give the floor to Marie-Anne before I take away.

Zach Lampell: Apologies.

Maria Adebahr: Oh, that’s kind, Ant. I would use this opportunity to, again, put your attention to the Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI and Human Rights, because really this is something that was hardly negotiated. It’s global, and we would strive for more member states to join. And it’s open for all. It’s a globally open convention. You don’t have to be a member of the Council of Europe. So please have a look or tell your state representatives, respectively, to have a look and join. You can always approach, I think, any of EU member states for more information. The second internationally binding or hopefully really to be implemented thing is the Global Digital Compact already mentioned. And it is important, I think, because our headcount, in our headcount, we came to the conclusion that this is really the only truly global forum to discuss AI. And if we wouldn’t do it there, then about more than 100 states worldwide would not be present at any important table to discuss AI governance, because those states are probably not a member of the G7, G20, UNESCO, OSCE, or not able, in terms of resources, to join those discussions in depth. So this makes the Global Digital Compact even more important. The EU-AI Act has, by its nature, aspects of AI governance and principles inherent. So this would be the third framework I would like to mention here. Thank you.

Ernst Noorman: And now I can just add a few points on what Maria said. What the EU-AI Act can have is what we call the Brussels effect. Maria mentioned already the Council of Europe’s AI Framework Convention. If we would strive for a binding framework within the whole UN, it’s going to be very difficult. But if you see these more smaller coalitions, I mentioned the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, what we have seen, just during the negotiations on the UN Cybercrime Treaty, that more and more members from other regions decided to join the Budapest Convention. From the Pacific, from Africa, from other regions, they decided, well, we want to be part of the Budapest Convention, which is very effective, very concrete cooperation on this topic. So I think that’s also a good example of how we can work in smaller coalitions with the oil spill effect to conquer the world and with good, strong legislation as well for other countries.

Devine Salese Agbeti: Thank you. Excellent points made by everyone here so far on this. And I would just like to add the Palma process also, which promotes the responsible use of these emerging technologies, which includes the artificial intelligence and it requires members. So we encourage other states to sign up as well to it and also member states to implement the convention so that we can all encourage responsible use of these technologies. Thank you.

Zach Lampell: Thank you. There are some very important, very significant binding governance mechanisms, like the Convention on AI from the Council of Europe, and that really can mimic the Budapest Convention, which has become the leading authority for combating and preventing cybercrimes. So this is a bit of a call to action from civil society. Let us, the FOC member states and FOC advisory network, help you inform your governments on these processes, and let us be able to help you advocate for them to adopt, sign and enact them. So it’s been a fantastic panel so far. Ambassador Noorman, please, some closing remarks from you.

Ernst Noorman: Thank you very much, Zach, for moderating also this panel. First of all, the statement is online right now, so go to the website Freedom Online Coalition and just copy the statement, put it on the social media, spread the word. So that’s already important, and I would really like to thank everyone who had been involved in drafting the statement, both from the members of the Freedom Online Coalition as the advisory network, who played an extremely important and meaningful role in strengthening the statement. We had the in-person meetings, one of the first ones in the Rights Conference in February this year, and we had a number of online coalitions, so a lot of work has been put in drafting and strengthening the statement. So I would really like to thank already the countries who have decided to sign on on the statement, and I’m confident that many more will follow in the days and weeks to come. And finally, I really would like to thank, on behalf, I think, of Maria and her team, and Zach and your team, and my team from the Netherlands, to thank all of you, first of all, to be present, and those who had been involved in drafting the statement for your dedication, your work, and your shared purpose on this important topic. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

Agreement points

Human rights must be foundational to AI governance

Speakers

– Rasmus Lumi
– Ernst Noorman
– Maria Adebahr
– Devine Salese Agbeti

Arguments

Need for human-centric AI development that puts humans at the center of technological advancement

Human rights must be the foundation of AI governance, not an afterthought

Germany supports human-centered world with non-negotiable respect for human rights over authoritarian or commercial interests

AI systems must align with international human rights standards including ICCPR and UN guiding principles

Summary

All government representatives agree that human rights should be the central organizing principle for AI governance, not treated as secondary considerations. They emphasize putting humans at the center of AI development and ensuring compliance with international human rights law.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Multi-stakeholder approach is essential for AI governance

Speakers

– Ernst Noorman
– Devine Salese Agbeti
– Erika Moret

Arguments

AI governance requires principled vision grounded in human rights and shaped through inclusive multi-stakeholder processes

Multi-stakeholder participation must include civil society, technical communities, academia, private sector and marginalized voices

Collaboration across sectors through multistakeholder engagement is essential responsibility

Summary

Speakers agree that effective AI governance requires inclusive participation from governments, civil society, private sector, academia, and marginalized communities. They emphasize that no single sector can address AI challenges alone.

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

International frameworks and standards are crucial for AI governance

Speakers

– Ernst Noorman
– Maria Adebahr
– Devine Salese Agbeti
– Erika Moret

Arguments

Strong regulation like EU AI Act creates level playing field and predictability while protecting citizens

Need to promote EU AI Act principles and UNESCO recommendations globally

AI systems must align with international human rights standards including ICCPR and UN guiding principles

Global Digital Compact represents first time all UN member states agreed on AI governance path

Summary

All speakers support the development and implementation of international frameworks for AI governance, including the EU AI Act, Council of Europe Convention, UN frameworks, and other binding international agreements.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

AI poses urgent risks to democratic processes and human rights

Speakers

– Ernst Noorman
– Maria Adebahr
– Devine Salese Agbeti

Arguments

AI is used to repress dissent, distort public discourse, and facilitate gender-based violence

AI can be a tool for transnational repression reaching new levels through digital means

Most urgent risks are arbitrary AI surveillance and use for disinformation to suppress democratic participation

Summary

Government representatives agree that AI systems are being actively misused to undermine democratic institutions, suppress dissent, and violate human rights, particularly through surveillance and disinformation campaigns.

Topics

Human rights | Cybersecurity

Similar viewpoints

Both European representatives see EU AI regulation as a model that should influence global AI governance standards and be promoted internationally.

Speakers

– Ernst Noorman
– Maria Adebahr

Arguments

EU AI Act can have Brussels effect influencing global standards

Need to promote EU AI Act principles and UNESCO recommendations globally

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Both emphasize the importance of embedding human rights considerations into AI systems from the design phase and using economic incentives to promote responsible AI development.

Speakers

– Ernst Noorman
– Erika Moret

Arguments

Government procurement should be used as tool to force companies to deliver human rights-respecting products

Companies must be proactive at every step from design to deployment to prevent human rights violations

Topics

Human rights | Economic

Both promote specific international frameworks that are open to global participation and provide binding commitments for responsible AI governance.

Speakers

– Maria Adebahr
– Devine Salese Agbeti

Arguments

Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI provides globally open binding framework

Palma process promotes responsible use of emerging technologies including AI

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Unexpected consensus

Private sector proactive responsibility for human rights

Speakers

– Ernst Noorman
– Erika Moret

Arguments

Government procurement should be used as tool to force companies to deliver human rights-respecting products

Companies must be proactive at every step from design to deployment to prevent human rights violations

Explanation

There is unexpected alignment between government and private sector perspectives on corporate responsibility, with both agreeing that companies should proactively embed human rights protections rather than waiting for government mandates.

Topics

Human rights | Economic

Citizens’ role in AI misuse

Speakers

– Devine Salese Agbeti
– Ernst Noorman

Arguments

Citizens misuse AI to manipulate content and create fraudulent materials, requiring responsible use advocacy

FOC members should engage governments through formal and informal diplomatic discussions

Explanation

There is consensus that AI governance challenges come not only from governments and corporations but also from individual citizens, requiring education and advocacy for responsible use by all stakeholders.

Topics

Human rights | Cybersecurity

Overall assessment

Summary

There is strong consensus among all speakers on core principles: human rights as foundation of AI governance, need for multi-stakeholder approaches, importance of international frameworks, and recognition of urgent AI-related threats to democracy and human rights.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with remarkable alignment across government, private sector, and civil society representatives. This suggests strong potential for coordinated international action on AI governance, with the FOC joint statement serving as a foundation for broader cooperation. The consensus spans both principles and practical implementation approaches, indicating mature understanding of AI governance challenges.

Different viewpoints

Unexpected differences

Scope of AI misuse concerns

Speakers

– Devine Salese Agbeti
– Other speakers

Arguments

Citizens misuse AI to manipulate content and create fraudulent materials, requiring responsible use advocacy

Explanation

While most speakers focused on government and corporate misuse of AI, Agbeti uniquely highlighted citizen misuse as a significant concern, arguing that FOC should advocate for responsible use by individuals rather than only focusing on state and corporate actors. This represents an unexpected broadening of the discussion beyond the typical focus on institutional actors

Topics

Human rights | Cybersecurity

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkably high consensus among speakers on fundamental principles and goals for AI governance, with only minor differences in emphasis and approach rather than substantive disagreements

Disagreement level

Very low disagreement level. The speakers demonstrated strong alignment on core issues including the need for human rights-centered AI governance, multi-stakeholder approaches, and international cooperation. The few differences that emerged were primarily about tactical approaches (domestic vs. global focus, government vs. citizen responsibility) rather than fundamental disagreements about principles or goals. This high level of consensus likely reflects the collaborative nature of developing the FOC joint statement and suggests strong potential for coordinated action on AI governance among these stakeholders.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both European representatives see EU AI regulation as a model that should influence global AI governance standards and be promoted internationally.

Speakers

– Ernst Noorman
– Maria Adebahr

Arguments

EU AI Act can have Brussels effect influencing global standards

Need to promote EU AI Act principles and UNESCO recommendations globally

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Both emphasize the importance of embedding human rights considerations into AI systems from the design phase and using economic incentives to promote responsible AI development.

Speakers

– Ernst Noorman
– Erika Moret

Arguments

Government procurement should be used as tool to force companies to deliver human rights-respecting products

Companies must be proactive at every step from design to deployment to prevent human rights violations

Topics

Human rights | Economic

Both promote specific international frameworks that are open to global participation and provide binding commitments for responsible AI governance.

Speakers

– Maria Adebahr
– Devine Salese Agbeti

Arguments

Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI provides globally open binding framework

Palma process promotes responsible use of emerging technologies including AI

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Key takeaways

Human rights must be the foundation of AI governance, not an afterthought, requiring a human-centric approach that puts people at the center of technological development

The most urgent AI human rights risks include arbitrary surveillance, disinformation campaigns, suppression of democratic participation, and the concentration of power in few private actors

Private sector companies have independent responsibility to respect human rights through proactive measures from design to deployment, including adherence to UN guiding principles on business and human rights

Multi-stakeholder collaboration involving governments, civil society, private sector, academia, and marginalized communities is essential for effective AI governance

The FOC Joint Statement on AI and Human Rights 2025 has been endorsed by 21 countries and provides actionable recommendations for all stakeholders

Strong regulatory frameworks like the EU AI Act, Council of Europe AI Framework Convention, and Global Digital Compact provide important binding and non-binding governance mechanisms

Government procurement can be used as a powerful tool to ensure AI systems respect human rights by requiring companies to deliver compliant products

Resolutions and action items

The FOC Joint Statement on AI and Human Rights 2025 is now published online and remains open for additional endorsements from both FOC and non-FOC countries

Germany announced doubling its funding for the Freedom Online Coalition to support AI and human rights work

Task Force on AI and Human Rights will meet to discuss creating space for civil society comments and support for the declaration beyond FOC members

FOC members committed to continue diplomatic engagement with non-member governments through formal and informal discussions to promote human rights in AI

Participants agreed to spread awareness of the statement through social media and other channels

Promotion of existing binding frameworks like the Council of Europe AI Framework Convention and Global Digital Compact implementation

Unresolved issues

How to effectively protect human rights in AI systems operating under repressive regimes while companies maintain government contracts

Balancing transparency in AI decision-making with protection of sensitive data and privacy rights

Addressing the dual challenge of preventing both government misuse of AI and citizen misuse of AI for fraudulent purposes

Ensuring meaningful participation of Global South countries and marginalized communities in AI governance processes

Creating truly global binding frameworks for AI governance given the difficulty of achieving consensus among all UN member states

Determining optimal mechanisms for civil society engagement and support for AI governance initiatives beyond government-led processes

Suggested compromises

Using smaller coalitions and regional frameworks (like Council of Europe Convention) to achieve ‘Brussels effect’ or ‘oil spill effect’ for broader global adoption rather than waiting for universal UN consensus

Leveraging government procurement policies as a practical middle-ground approach to enforce human rights standards without requiring new legislation

Balancing innovation promotion with rights protection through risk-based regulatory approaches that don’t block technological advancement

Combining formal diplomatic engagement with informal discussions to address AI human rights concerns with non-compliant governments

Using existing frameworks like UN guiding principles on business and human rights as baseline standards while developing more specific AI governance mechanisms

When I read through the notes that it offered me, it did say all the right things, which is totally understandable. The question is, did it do it on purpose, maybe, maliciously, trying to deceive us into thinking that AI also believes in human rights?

Speaker

Rasmus Lumi

Reason

This opening comment immediately established a critical and philosophical tone by questioning AI’s apparent alignment with human values. It introduced the concept of AI deception and whether AI systems might manipulate human perception of their intentions, which is a sophisticated concern beyond basic functionality issues.

Impact

This comment set the stage for deeper philosophical discussions throughout the session about AI’s relationship with human values and the need for human-centered governance. It moved the conversation beyond technical implementation to fundamental questions about AI’s nature and trustworthiness.

Innovation without trust is short-lived. Respect for rights is not a constraint, it’s a condition for sustainable, inclusive progress.

Speaker

Ernst Noorman

Reason

This reframes the common narrative that human rights protections hinder technological innovation. Instead, it positions human rights as essential infrastructure for sustainable technological development, challenging the false dichotomy between innovation and rights protection.

Impact

This comment shifted the discussion from defensive justifications of human rights to a proactive business case for rights-based AI development. It influenced subsequent speakers to discuss practical implementation rather than theoretical benefits.

In the Netherlands, we have learned this the hard way. The use of strongly biased automated systems in welfare administration, designed to combat fraud, has led to one of our most painful domestic human rights failures.

Speaker

Ernst Noorman

Reason

This vulnerable admission of failure from a leading democratic nation provided concrete evidence of how AI systems can cause real harm even with good intentions. It demonstrated intellectual honesty and showed that human rights violations through AI are not just theoretical concerns or problems of authoritarian regimes.

Impact

This personal example grounded the entire discussion in reality and gave credibility to the urgency of the human rights framework. It influenced other speakers to focus on practical safeguards and accountability mechanisms rather than abstract principles.

AI unfortunately is also a tool for transnational repression. And transnational repression is a phenomenon… that we as German governments really want to focus more on. Because it’s a fairly not a new phenomenon, it’s very, very old. But in terms of digital and AI, we are reaching here new levels, unfortunately.

Speaker

Maria Adebahr

Reason

This comment introduced a geopolitical dimension that expanded the scope beyond domestic AI governance to international security concerns. It highlighted how AI amplifies existing authoritarian tactics across borders, making it a global security issue requiring international coordination.

Impact

This broadened the conversation from individual rights protection to collective security, influencing the discussion toward international cooperation mechanisms and the need for coordinated responses to AI-enabled authoritarianism.

I have seen how citizens have used AI to manipulate online content, to lie against government, to even create cryptocurrency pages in the name of the president, etc. So it works both ways. I think FOC should be advocating for responsible use of citizens, and at the same time when this is being advocated, then FOC can engage with government also to ensure that the citizens actually have the right to use these systems and use it freely without the fear of arrest or the fear of intimidation.

Speaker

Devine Salese Agbeti

Reason

This comment introduced crucial nuance by acknowledging that AI misuse is not unidirectional – citizens can also misuse AI against governments. It challenged the implicit assumption that only governments and corporations pose AI-related threats, while maintaining the importance of protecting legitimate citizen rights.

Impact

This balanced perspective shifted the conversation toward more sophisticated governance approaches that address multiple threat vectors while preserving democratic freedoms. It influenced the discussion to consider comprehensive frameworks rather than one-sided protections.

We have to use procurement as a tool also to force companies to deliver products which are respecting human rights, which have human rights as a core in their design of their products, and ensure that they provide safe products to the governments which are used broadly in the society.

Speaker

Ernst Noorman

Reason

This identified government procurement as a powerful but underutilized lever for enforcing human rights standards in AI development. It provided a concrete, actionable mechanism that governments can implement immediately without waiting for comprehensive international agreements.

Impact

This practical suggestion energized the discussion around immediate actionable steps, moving from abstract principles to concrete implementation strategies that other speakers could build upon.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by establishing it as a sophisticated, multi-dimensional conversation rather than a simple advocacy session. Lumi’s opening philosophical challenge set an intellectually rigorous tone, while Noorman’s admission of Dutch failures provided credibility and urgency. The comments collectively moved the discussion through several important transitions: from theoretical to practical (through concrete examples), from defensive to proactive (reframing rights as enabling innovation), from domestic to international (through transnational repression), and from one-sided to nuanced (acknowledging citizen misuse). These interventions prevented the session from becoming a simple endorsement of the joint statement and instead created a substantive dialogue about the complex realities of AI governance, ultimately strengthening the case for the human rights framework by acknowledging and addressing its challenges.

How can transparency in AI decision-making be improved without exposing sensitive data, particularly to ensure that the right to privacy is protected under international human rights law?

Speaker

Online participant

Explanation

This question addresses the critical balance between AI transparency requirements and privacy protection, which is fundamental to human rights compliance in AI systems

How can civil society organizations and non-FOC members provide comments and support for the FOC AI and Human Rights declaration?

Speaker

Carlos Vera from IGF Ecuador

Explanation

This highlights the need for broader participation and engagement mechanisms beyond FOC members, including creating awareness about FOC’s existence among governments and civil society

How can risks be diminished when tech companies like Microsoft work with oppressive governments, and what practical actions can civil society take?

Speaker

Svetlana Zenz

Explanation

This addresses the practical challenges of protecting human rights when technology companies operate in countries with repressive regimes and the role of civil society in mitigation

How can the FOC engage with governments to ensure citizens have the right to use AI systems freely while also advocating for responsible citizen use of AI?

Speaker

Devine Salese-Agbeti

Explanation

This explores the dual challenge of preventing both government overreach and citizen misuse of AI technologies, requiring balanced advocacy approaches

What are the global frameworks with binding obligations on states for the responsible use and governance of AI?

Speaker

Online participant

Explanation

This seeks to identify existing legally binding international mechanisms for AI governance, which is crucial for understanding the current regulatory landscape

How can the ‘Brussels effect’ of the EU AI Act be leveraged to influence global AI governance standards?

Speaker

Ernst Noorman (implied)

Explanation

This explores how regional regulations like the EU AI Act can create spillover effects to influence global standards, similar to the Budapest Convention’s expansion

How can transnational repression through AI tools be better addressed on the international human rights agenda?

Speaker

Maria Adebahr

Explanation

This identifies the need for focused attention on how AI is being used as a tool for transnational repression, which represents a new dimension of human rights violations

Summary

This panel discussion focused on privacy preservation within the Fediverse, also known as the open social web, which enables interoperability between different social media platforms through protocols like ActivityPub. The session was moderated by Mallory Knodel from the Social Web Foundation and featured panelists from various organizations including the Data Transfer Initiative, Meta, and academic researchers specializing in digital competition law.

The discussion explored fundamental challenges in maintaining user privacy when data flows between interconnected but independently operated platforms. A key technical issue highlighted was that when users delete posts on one platform, those deletions may not propagate across all federated services that have already received the content. This creates complications for compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR, which grants users rights to delete their personal data.

Panelists examined how existing privacy laws apply to decentralized systems, noting that current regulations were designed for centralized platforms and may need adaptation for federated environments. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act was discussed as potentially expanding interoperability requirements from messaging services to social media platforms in future reviews.

The conversation addressed governance challenges in distributed systems, emphasizing the need for shared standards and trust mechanisms across multiple platforms and instances. Speakers highlighted the importance of user education about how federated systems work, as many users may not understand that their posts can travel beyond their original platform.

The panel concluded that while the Fediverse offers promising opportunities for user agency and platform choice, realizing privacy-preserving interoperability requires ongoing collaboration between platforms, standards bodies, regulators, and civil society to develop appropriate technical and governance frameworks.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Privacy challenges in interoperable social media systems**: The panel explored how federated platforms like the Fediverse can preserve user privacy while enabling cross-platform interaction, including technical issues like post deletion across multiple instances and the complexity of maintaining user control over data that flows between different services.

– **Regulatory frameworks and compliance in decentralized environments**: Discussion focused on how existing privacy laws like GDPR and emerging regulations like the Digital Markets Act apply to interoperable social media, with particular attention to the challenges of enforcing data subject rights (deletion, portability, access) across distributed networks.

– **Technical implementation and standardization of interoperability**: The conversation addressed the practical aspects of building interoperable systems, including the role of standards bodies like W3C and IETF, the importance of shared governance models, and the need for trust mechanisms between different platforms and instances.

– **User experience and education in federated systems**: Panelists discussed the challenge of making complex interoperable systems accessible to average users, including onboarding processes, setting appropriate defaults, and helping users understand what happens to their data when it crosses platform boundaries.

– **Governance and responsibility distribution across diverse stakeholders**: The panel examined how to manage a decentralized ecosystem involving thousands of instances and platforms, including the development of shared norms, trust registries, and coordination mechanisms that don’t centralize control but provide necessary oversight.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to explore how privacy can be preserved and user rights protected in interoperable social media environments, particularly the Fediverse, while addressing the technical, legal, and governance challenges that arise when data and interactions flow across multiple platforms and instances.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a collaborative and constructive tone throughout, with panelists building on each other’s points rather than debating. The conversation was technical but accessible, with speakers acknowledging the complexity of the issues while expressing cautious optimism about solutions. The tone became more interactive and engaged during the Q&A portion, with audience questions adding practical perspectives and real-world concerns to the theoretical framework established by the panel.

Speakers

– **Mallory Knodel** – Executive Director and co-founder of the Social Web Foundation, focused on building a multipolar Fediverse with emphasis on human rights and community building

– **Chris Riley** – Academic/Professor, co-author of “Regulating Code” book, works on interoperability and digital policy issues, currently based in Melbourne, Australia

– **Delara Derakhshani** – Director of Policy and Partnerships at the Data Transfer Initiative (DTI), focused on data portability and user agency in data transfers

– **Ian Brown** – Technologist and academic, security and privacy expert, co-author of “Regulating Code,” works on digital competition law reform and interoperability, particularly with EU Digital Markets Act

– **Audience** – Various audience members who asked questions during the Q&A session

– **Melinda Claybaugh** – Director of AI and Privacy Policy at Meta, working on Threads product and Fediverse interoperability

**Additional speakers:**

– **Edmund Chung** – From .Asia organization

– **Dominique Zelmercier** – From W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)

– **Caspian** – Audience member who asked about 10-year vision

– **Winston Xu** – From One Power Foundation in Hong Kong

– **Gabriel** – Audience member who asked about trust between instances

– Various other unnamed audience members who asked questions

# Privacy Preservation in the Fediverse: Panel Discussion Report

## Introduction and Panel Setup

This panel discussion was moderated by Mallory Knodel from the Social Web Foundation as part of an Internet Governance Forum (IGF) session examining privacy challenges in federated social media systems. The session brought together experts to discuss how user privacy can be maintained when data flows between independently operated but interconnected platforms using protocols like ActivityPub.

The panelists included:

– Ian Brown, discussing regulatory frameworks and interoperability requirements

– Melinda Claybaugh from Meta, representing industry perspectives on federated systems (her full introduction was cut off in the recording)

– Dominique Zelmercier from the W3C, bringing standards body expertise

– Delara Derakhshani from the Data Transfer Initiative, focusing on user data portability

– Chris Riley, contributing insights on user experience and interoperability myths

The discussion emerged against the backdrop of growing interest in decentralised social media alternatives, particularly following user migrations from centralised platforms, with Chris Riley noting people “noisy quitting X” and subsequently “quiet quitting Mastodon.”

## Core Technical Challenges

### Data Deletion and Cross-Platform Propagation

Mallory Knodel highlighted a fundamental technical problem: when users delete posts on one platform, those deletion requests may not effectively propagate across all federated instances that have already received the content. This creates complications for privacy regulation compliance, particularly with GDPR requirements for data deletion.

Ian Brown provided a concrete example of this challenge, describing a scenario where a user sets their Mastodon posts to auto-delete after two months but uses a bridge service (Bridgyfed) to share content with BlueSky. The user’s privacy preferences from Mastodon do not automatically transfer to BlueSky, creating gaps in privacy protection across the federated network.

### Bridge Services and Privacy Preferences

The discussion revealed significant challenges with bridge services that connect different federated platforms. Ian Brown noted that Bridgyfed, which bridges content between platforms, doesn’t currently recognise or apply user privacy preferences across different systems. This technical limitation demonstrates the gap between user expectations and current implementation reality.

### Standards and Implementation Complexity

Dominique Zelmercier from the W3C raised concerns about the granularity of privacy controls in standardised systems. They observed that standardisation processes typically produce simple binary signals—”do or do not”—which may be inadequately coarse for the complexity of social media interactions where users want nuanced control over their digital presence.

## User Experience and Understanding

### User Comprehension Challenges

Melinda Claybaugh emphasised that many users may not understand what it means to post content on federated platforms or comprehend how their content might be shared across networks. She noted that users posting on Threads, for instance, may not realise their content could be shared with other services in the federation.

The discussion revealed that different user types—power users, technical users, and average users—require different levels of explanation and control options. Claybaugh stressed the importance of meeting people where they are and designing systems that accommodate varying levels of technical literacy.

### The “Myth of the Superuser”

Chris Riley made a significant intervention challenging what he called the “myth of the superuser.” He argued that the goal should be making interoperability invisible to users rather than requiring them to become technical experts. Riley emphasised that most users want good defaults rather than complex configuration options, creating tension between user education approaches and user experience simplicity.

## Regulatory Framework Discussion

### Existing Privacy Laws and Federation

Ian Brown discussed how existing privacy regulations like GDPR apply to decentralised systems, noting these laws provide important legal backstops against bad actors who ignore user data preferences. However, he acknowledged that current regulations were designed with centralised platforms in mind.

Brown referenced GDPR Article 22 (though noting he was speaking from memory and would need to verify) regarding automated decision-making, highlighting how existing legal frameworks need fresh implementation approaches for federated environments.

### Digital Markets Act Implications

Ian Brown provided insights into the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which currently includes messaging interoperability requirements for designated gatekeepers. He presented slides showing the complexity of regulatory requirements, which he acknowledged were “too complicated” and “impossible to read,” illustrating the challenge of implementing nuanced regulatory frameworks.

Brown suggested that regulatory frameworks are evolving to require dominant firms to enable interoperability, representing a shift from traditional competition law approaches.

## Governance and Instance-Level Management

### Defederation as Governance Tool

Mallory Knodel highlighted defederation—where instances disconnect from others—as a mechanism for protecting users from bad actors whilst maintaining overall system openness. This represents a form of distributed governance that allows communities to maintain their safety standards without requiring centralised oversight.

### Government and Institutional Roles

Knodel made a specific policy recommendation, suggesting that “maybe governments should have instances where they’re the source of truth that’s verified.” This reflects broader discussions about how institutional actors might participate in federated systems whilst maintaining credibility and user trust.

Ian Brown supported this direction, arguing that governments should share information across multiple platforms rather than forcing citizens to use single platforms for accessing public services.

## Audience Questions and Key Responses

### Digital Identity and Democratic Institutions

An audience member raised questions about digital identity ownership and its relationship to democratic institutions. The panelists discussed how federated systems might support more democratic approaches to digital identity management, though specific solutions remained largely theoretical.

### Technical Standards Bodies Role

Questions about the role of standards organisations like W3C and IETF revealed their crucial function in developing interoperability standards and verification processes. The discussion highlighted both the importance of these bodies and the limitations of current standardisation approaches for complex social media interactions.

### Youth and Internet Interoperability

An audience question about youth involvement in internet interoperability prompted discussion about generational differences in approaching federated systems and the importance of including diverse perspectives in governance discussions.

### Cultural Context and Platform Migration

A significant audience question addressed how cultural context changes when content moves between platforms with different community norms. This highlighted that interoperability involves not just technical challenges but also social and cultural considerations that affect user safety and community dynamics.

### Trust and Security Between Instances

Questions about trust between instances and security concerns revealed ongoing challenges in federated systems. The panelists acknowledged that security vulnerabilities, particularly around direct messages and encrypted content, require continued attention as federation scales.

## Data Portability and User Migration

### Beyond Technical Transfer

Delara Derakhshani provided crucial insights into the complexity of platform migration, noting that it involves not just data transfer but joining new communities with different safety considerations. For marginalised groups particularly, the safety of the destination platform matters as much as the ability to bring content.

This reframed interoperability from a purely technical challenge to a human-centred one, highlighting that data portability is fundamentally about community safety and user agency.

### Trust Registries and Verification

Derakhshani emphasised the need for trust registries and verification processes to reduce duplication and streamline onboarding across platforms. These mechanisms could provide coordination without centralising control, addressing fundamental challenges of distributed governance.

## Future Vision and Ongoing Challenges

### Long-term Interoperability Goals

Mallory Knodel described a future where users never have to sign up for new services whilst still being able to follow people across platforms. Ian Brown envisioned social media becoming as configurable and flexible as the internet at the IP layer.

### Persistent Technical Issues

Several technical challenges remain unresolved, including:

– Propagation of deletion requests across federated networks

– Security vulnerabilities in direct messages and encrypted content

– Maintaining consistent user experiences across platforms with varying capabilities

– Handling privacy controls and auto-deletion features across different systems

### Scaling Governance

As federated systems potentially scale to thousands of instances, new coordination mechanisms will be needed to maintain trust and shared standards. The panelists acknowledged that current approaches may not be adequate for the scale of federation envisioned.

## Key Takeaways

The discussion revealed both the promise and complexity of building privacy-preserving federated social media systems. While technical solutions for basic interoperability exist, significant challenges remain in:

1. **Privacy Preservation**: Ensuring user privacy preferences and deletion requests propagate effectively across federated networks

2. **User Understanding**: Helping users comprehend the implications of posting in federated environments without overwhelming them with technical complexity

3. **Governance at Scale**: Developing coordination mechanisms that maintain standards and user protections across distributed systems

4. **Regulatory Adaptation**: Implementing existing privacy laws in federated contexts while potentially developing new regulatory approaches

The panelists emphasised that solving these challenges requires sustained collaboration between platforms, standards bodies, regulators, and civil society organisations. Success depends not just on technical innovation but on creating governance structures and user experiences that serve diverse communities while maintaining the openness and user agency that make federation attractive.

As Mallory Knodel noted with humour, the discussion completed her “bingo card” of IGF topics, reflecting how federated social media intersects with many core internet governance challenges that the community continues to address.

Mallory Knodel: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the session. I want to first start with a short bit of housekeeping, which is that if you’ve joined us in person, we’re so grateful, and we also have loads of seats up here at the roundtable that we would invite you to occupy if you’d like to. It means you get a microphone that’s always on, so you could ask questions directly. Otherwise, we’ll take questions towards the end, and there are mics also out in the audience, so it’s your choice. We’re also monitoring, for those of you who’ve joined online, we’ll be monitoring the questions that you drop in there as well. So welcome. We’re talking today about the Fediverse, also known as the open social web. By design, imagine this as the openness means that there’s an interoperability element that’s very critical, and we are curious in this panel about a lot of things, but particularly about the ways in which privacy can be preserved in these interoperable environments. So you’re all internet experts. You understand interoperability, and you’re here because you’re excited about the web, and we are too. So this is the panel up before you. We don’t have any remote panelists. I’m going to allow the panelists to really present this idea to you in stages. So if you’re not sure what the Fediverse is, if you’re not sure about what privacy and interoperability have to do with each other, I’m confident that the questions that we’ve posed to one another are going to help build that narrative for you, and of course come with your questions. As well, I’m going to ask the panelists, please, the first time they speak, if they can just give a brief intro into where they work, their interest in the topic. And so that way, I don’t have to read bios aloud to you all. But I should start with myself, actually, right? So they’re all switched on all the time. You have to wear a headset, though. OK, OK, that would help. So yeah, I’m Mallory Knodel. I am the executive director, one of the founders of the Social Web Foundation, which sees itself really as a steward of a multipolar Fediverse. And so that does have elements of protocol. There’s the ActivityPub protocol. There are other open protocols that are hopefully, towards the future, interoperable with each other. It also has this very strong element of community building that we all can build and construct the communities we want online, move them around, subscribe, follow one another without having impediments to that. It’s a really great vision. And I think one of the crucial pieces for me, as someone who’s been in this space with you all for many years, is this element of human rights and of we’re building a Fediverse, or we’re building an open internet, but for what? And so human rights and that sort of thing brings me to this work. So that’s me. I wanted to pose the initial question to the panel, where each person can introduce themselves. Just what do you think we need to know as a level set for this issue of privacy interoperability? It can be a short intervention, but just to try to introduce the audience and the participants to what are the edges of this issue, and why are we sort of here today, what do we care about? So keep the very first initial question maybe two minutes, when the rest of our questions will be maybe around more four or five minutes. So Delara, can I start with you, please?

Delara Derakhshani: Yes, absolutely. Thank you all so much for being here. here and for having me. So my name is Dilara Derekshani. I serve as Director of Policy and Partnerships at the Data Transfer Initiative. Our entire mission is to empower users with regard to data portability. I think it’s helpful to give just a little bit of context about what we do and you’ll see how it’s connected to our work in the Fediverse. When we’re talking about data portability in this context, it essentially means at the user’s request, companies should move bulk transfers of user’s personal data from one platform or service to another. Our work at DTI is centered on translating legal principles into real world practice. On the product side, we are building open source tools with private sector companies. And on the policy side where I sit, we work closely with regulators and policymakers to serve both as a resource and help implement portability solutions that are both meaningful and workable in practice. Ultimately, our goal is an ecosystem that promotes user agency, competition and innovation. And I am heartened to see so many folks at the table today because a lot of these issues are absolutely relevant to the Fediverse and looking forward to diving in deeper.

Mallory Knodel: Great, awesome. Let’s go to you next, please.

Melinda Claybaugh: Hi, thanks for having me and it’s a pleasure to be here. I’m Melinda Claybaugh. I’m a Director of AI and Privacy Policy at Meta. And I’m here today, our interest in the Fediverse and interoperability has really crystallized around our product we launched a couple years ago called Threads, which most people are familiar with Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, all of those apps. Threads is our newest app and it is…

Ian Brown: I’ve been working on since 2008 with my co-author, who just happens to be sitting over there, Professor Chris Marsden. We wrote a book in 2013 called Regulating Code, where we talked about interoperability as a solution to a number of difficult policy trade-offs and issues. And I’m really delighted to see it so high on the radar of many regulators. I spent a lot of the last five years talking to EU policymakers because they have actually put it into a law called the Digital Markets Act, which passed a couple of years ago. And I’m going to show you later a couple of tables. I’m not going to talk through them I’m not going to do death by PowerPoint. Don’t worry, but just just point us to a lot more information If you want detailed technical background, I’m a technologist I’ve written a lot about it at my website. You can see it on my website Ian Brown tech I should disclose that earlier this year Metta commissioned from me an independent assessment and it was independent of Of certain aspects of how the digital markets interoperability obligation is being applied to iOS and to iPad OS and the privacy and security Implications of that. I’m actually a security and privacy person by background Although I’ve done a lot in competition digital competition law reform the last five years and I should also disclose that I’m about to fingers crossed start consulting for the UK Competition and Markets Authority on precisely this topic

Mallory Knodel: Yeah, so you can see the spread we’ve got an awesome panel I can tell also from the audience We’ve got some really important stakeholders in this room that know a lot about this topic So I’m counting on you to come in later on with your questions and there are mics there There are a whole bunch of mics up here if you want to sit and take one you are welcome But let me get on with it. So in my view, this is an obvious question, right and we see it a lot There’s an intuition that users have so the the same kinds of users that are excited about using open social protocols for You know consuming Content articles sharing pictures and so on are the same users that are going to care a lot about their privacy and so when this comes into play there, you know if we have more of a permissionless ecosystem Where different entities are now not just maybe in business relationships, which is something I think we’re attuned to in the old social media, but in the new social media, it’s more of you know instances Allowing allow listing block listing that sort of thing. I think there’s an intuition that some users have that and Chris Riley. We’re going to start with a question from a questioner. They said they might take those actions at the instance level maybe because of privacy concerns or maybe because they don’t want to be in relationship with or associate with other corners of this very open interoperable ecosystem. So that’s the sort of general reason why I think we’ve gathered today and hopefully we’ve started out strong by explaining why each of us are here and why we care about that. So first to Dilara, so and I have Ian, I want you to respond also to this question, but first, how can interoperable systems respect user privacy and give users control over their data?

Delara Derakhshani: So I’ve thought about this question a lot, and one of the things I want to start with is what I think, what success would look like in an ideal world, and I think at its core it starts at user agency. Users should know what’s being shared, when, with whom. And why, and interoperability shouldn’t necessarily mean default exposure. You know, there are technical design issues, real-time post visibility across services, activity portability, and, you know, social graph portability as well. I mean, I think there’s an education component that could be furthered to the benefit of all in the ecosystem. But maybe most important is, you know, the idea of, you know, what is the best way to share data? What is the best way to share data? But maybe most important is actually a cultural question, a commitment to shared governance and iterative collaboration. Working in the open is a start, but true privacy-respecting interoperability demands an ongoing habit of listening, engaging with standard bodies, with respect and stay within the space of a secure dialogue that reaches out to everyone at public IoT and later implemented in Azure remote control. And these all strike me as sort of some of the ideals that we should have, I will also note there are at its core a set of smart There are some challenges that come with interoperability. I mean, it’s all about freedom of movement, enabling users to take their posts, profiles, and relationships across platforms. It challenges lock-in, a goal the Fedverse aspires to, but some may argue has not fully delivered on yet. And of course, interoperability is not without its challenges. For example, people may be able to want to move from one server to another and bring all of their content and relationships with them. That may not always be possible. I can speak later to some of the solutions that we’re looking at at DTI. And something that you’ve touched on earlier, and I think it’s relevant to human rights. You know, there’s another challenge, and that’s that decentralized systems like the Fedverse can empower users to find and build communities. But inevitably, that introduces friction. Different services have different norms, policies, controls. It can lead to inconsistent experiences. But beyond that, migration is not just about exporting and importing data. It’s about joining new communities. We’ve heard repeatedly in my experience and our work at DTI that for many users, particularly marginalized groups, the safety of the destination matters just as much as the ability to bring the content. So trust-building tools must also not just address privacy, but also moderation, consent, and survivability. And in recognition of time, I’ll stop there. I’m happy to expand further on any of those points down the line.

Mallory Knodel: Yeah, especially if there are questions from the audience about that. Ian, I want you to respond, but because you’re a technologist, I’m going to ask you if you can slightly explain, maybe for folks who don’t know, that like on ActivityPub, for example, if you delete a post, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s deleted everywhere. And you could maybe try to hook in some of the actual ways in which these… and I’m going to talk about how these things work and the limits there for privacy and so on. But whatever you were going to say, I’ll do that too.

Ian Brown: That’s good. That’s a challenging question, but I like challenging questions. So, let me say, could our technical friends at the back, I wonder if you could put my first image up on screen, the XKCD cartoon. I’ll just leave you to look at it at your convenience. So, interoperability, I think, first of all, it sounds, to people who aren’t deep in the weeds of this, it sounds a very abstract, weird, geeky, techy notion, and it’s not an end in itself. It’s a means to greater competition, greater user choice, diversity of services, ability of people to talk across communities. I love that idea. It helps people join new communities, try out new communities. You can see this. I wonder if we could have an element of audience interactivity, as we always are told to do in universities to make sure all the students are awake. Put your hands up if you’re on Blue Sky. Yeah, a lot of people. I thought in this IGF community that would be the case. Via a bridge. Well, I was going to come to that. That’s good. That’s also good. Who’s also or differently on Mastodon or another part of the Fediverse? And still quite a few people, which, again, I imagine, I’m not going to go and ask people individually. More of the technical community are on Mastodon for various reasons. More of the policy community on Blue Sky. As Mallory said, there are services now called bridges, which let people, I think the opt-in approach is absolutely right. People who want to can choose to say, OK, from my Mastodon account, I want people on Blue Sky to be able to follow me on Blue Sky and to like my posts and to repost them and to reply to me. So I’ll see them on Mastodon and vice versa. Mallory got straight to one of the one of the important technical questions, which I think this XKCD cartoon, which someone in a tech company just sent me yesterday evening, knowing I was talking on this panel today, the details are very important for human rights, for protecting privacy, for enabling freedom of expression and opinion. for making sure people don’t get harassed by being exposed to communities they might not want to. So to give you another example, there are bridges between X, X Twitter, and some of these other services and I quite understand why many people on Blue Sky and Mastodon would not want people on X to be able to interact with them because there’s a lot of harassment that goes on on that service sadly and I deleted my own account a month or two ago. The very specific question Mallory asked, okay you might be on one service, so on Mastodon for example I know because I do it myself, you can set your posts to auto delete after X weeks or months and I do after two months because I want it to be a conversational medium, not a medium of record. I don’t write social media posts with the care that I write academic articles or submissions to parliamentary inquiries and so on. I want to talk to people, I want to share ideas, I want to be able to make mistakes. That’s a key thing that privacy enables. You can try new things out. It’s actually one of the really critical elements of children growing up, those of you who are parents or have nephews, nieces or are familiar with educational psychology, that people can make mistakes. That’s how we learn. You don’t want people to think if I make a mistake it’s going to be imprinted forevermore on my permanent record and employers, universities, governments, when I enter the United States for example, might be checking my social media posts as is the current US government policy. So that very specific question Mallory asked I think is a really good one because I think it gets to the crux of some of these issues. If say Mallory has, let’s use me as the example, so I delete my Mastodon posts after two months. I use a bridge, it’s called Bridgyfed, I love the name, which lets people on BlueSky read my Mastodon posts. BlueSky is not necessarily currently going to, you know, I have a BlueSky account but BlueSky currently does not have an option to auto delete all my posts. that I type myself into Blue Sky, nor does Bridgyfed currently pick up my preference from Mastodon to auto-delete everything after two months and then apply that on the other side of the bridge. It could, from a technical perspective it’s relatively straightforward. Also from a legal perspective I should mention in Europe at least and in the many other countries, so up to 130 other countries now who have implemented GDPR-like privacy laws and included in the GDPR, I think it’s article 22 but I’d have to check from memory, GDPR says if an organisation publishes your information in some way, if it shares it like a bridge, like a social media service and then you withdraw your consent for the use of that data, the company has to stop using it but also the company has to make best efforts to tell other organisations it’s shared your personal data with, that they should stop using it as well and I think that’s a good legal way of dealing with this issue Mallory.

Mallory Knodel: Good, well and so you set us up really nicely. I think the other, before I move on to the GDPR question, I wanted to just say I think our intuition around how social media works is clearly evolving and I think that while we rely a lot in the privacy realm and the security realm for that matter on how users think about their own data, how users think about their own experience when there’s an absence of regulation, I think this is really really critical and I think why we have to have this conversation now because the new social media is introducing so many different dimensions, it’s introducing so many ways to interact. So let’s talk about regulation because even with the existing regulation we have, even in a sort of old social media regime, there’s still these questions. So Melinda, can you tell us about what challenges you face regarding compliance with national and regional privacy regulations like GDPR and how in a decentralized environment how those challenges can either be exacerbated, alleviated, but you know essentially you know how should Fediverse platforms In instances better aligned with privacy laws in general.

Melinda Claybaugh: Yeah, it’s a really great question. And I guess this is a perfect tee up from you before me And so I think you know these cut these fundamental concepts that are enshrined in GDPR and now in many many many other laws around the world are ones that around your your data subject rights your rights to access information that you’ve shared your right to correct and To transfer and to delete I mean these are these have been enshrined for a long time now and people have come to Expect them and rely on them and operate accordingly And that works really well for things like you know if you post something on Instagram, and then you want to delete it. It’s deleted It works less well In this kind of Fediverse concept so if you post something on threads And then you delete it we will send that request along the chain to wherever you know to Mastodon or wherever it may have also flowed But we don’t have a mechanism for ensuring that that that post is deleted Down the chain, and I think this is where it’s so important That we need to take a fresh look at the existing You know data protection regimes not to say that those rights are aren’t important They should they’re important, and they should stay but the implementation I think is where we need to come together also to Dilara’s earlier point come together with some norms and expectations Within industry around how this should work equally. I think there’s a real challenge as this new social media Proliferates, I think you know it’s those in the tech community are already well-versed in in these communities But to your average user who maybe is starting on threads or starting on blue sky or you know wherever people went after Twitter You know they may not understand this network. They may not understand really what it means to be posting something on threads and then have it go to other services. And so that’s where I think the user education piece and really understanding user expectations, importantly, is going to be really critical. So at Threads, what we do is when you’re first onboarded onto Threads, we you know, kind of explain with pictures what the Fediverse is and what it means for what you’re posting and what happens when you delete. And so I think we have to really meet people where they are and understand kind of who’s a power user, who’s a tech user, and then who’s just your average user who maybe is poking around and trying out new things online, which is great. So I think the the collision of the legal regimes is one that needs to be, I guess the collision of the the new social media and the legal regime is one that needs to be worked out in the regulatory space, in the industry space among companies, and then at the user experience level as well.

Mallory Knodel: Absolutely. And thank you. Yeah, thanks for that. Hopefully there are questions from the audience about that. I think one thing I wanted to just point out is one part of how the ecosystem is evolving now, although it could always change because it’s interoperable and open and, you know, who knows what can happen, is that it feels like a lot of there are kind of two ways to get on the Fediverse. Like maybe you join a new platform for the first time because you want to try it out, like maybe Pixel Fed seems cool. And so you’re new there and you get on boarded there or you’re on already a platform that you’ve been on for a while and that platform may decide to start adopting open protocols. And so the onboarding process and that movement process looks different. And that’s kind of the beauty is that it’s it’s very diverse in how people arrive in this space. And we’re still trying to develop and communicate with end users about how that works. I’m going to move over to another regulation that you’ve already mentioned, Ian. This one’s to you. And then, Melinda, I’d love you. to respond as well. So what are the opportunities to influence the Digital Markets Act? I mean, it’s out, it’s baked, but we want to see if there’s a possibility to define or enforce interoperability requirements for the existing social media platforms. That’s, as far as I know, not part of how the DMA is structured now, but there could be some opportunities and it sounds like you’ve been working on that. So tell us.

Ian Brown: I’ve been working endlessly on that for the last five years. I must have bored all my friends to tears by now on that subject. So the DMA has a messaging interoperability requirement. So that currently applies to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger and actually Meta, and again, to emphasise, we didn’t practise this before, we did not line up questions, we’ve never met before and my assessment ended at the end of February. But actually, I’m not always positive about Meta, but actually what Meta has done on WhatsApp privacy and interoperability is really interesting and great. I think a lot of user research in fine tuning in the same way Melinda has talked about the Threads experience, exactly the same with WhatsApp, and I think the rest of the industry could really, it would be great if Meta shares that as much as possible with other industry players and open source projects, so they can all take advantage of that great research Meta has done in that area. Civil Society groups got this close to also requiring social media, the biggest, so the DMA only applies to the very, very largest companies, which the DMA calls gatekeepers, there are only seven companies it applies to, the obvious, you can probably guess which they are, I can read the list out later if you care, but Meta is one, Apple is another, Microsoft is a third, ByteDance, TikTok is covered. Civil Society got this close to saying social media from the very, very largest companies must also be interoperable in the way that Threads is. I mean, I’m not using, actually, I am using Threads currently, but mainly I follow people on Threads from Mastodon, not from Threads, I follow Jan Le Coon, for example, who’s Meta’s chief AI scientist. because he says very interesting, quite independent-minded stuff. I’m sure Zuckerberg sometimes rolls his eyes at, you know, things like LeCun says, and that’s a good sign of independence, I would say. What can we do? You know, did civil society miss its chance? Because it persuaded the European Parliament, but it couldn’t persuade the member states, and therefore the final legislation includes it for messaging, but not for social networking services. But this is the cliffhanger. Next year, and actually every three years, every three years the European Commission has to review the operation of the legislation. That’s very standard in European law, and they have to very specifically every three years consider should Article 7, which is the messaging interoperability obligation for gatekeepers, be extended to gatekeeper social media services. And they, you know, we can say pretty much what they would be, probably, because you can look at who are the designated gatekeepers. I already said META is one. You know what social media, they’re called online social networking services in the DMA. You know what online social networking services with 45 million users in the EU, 10,000 small business users, those are the two criteria. You could figure that out for yourself if you wanted to. If the DMA, if the Commission recommended this and the European Parliament chose to act on the European Commission’s recommendation, the DMA could be extended, so that would become a legal obligation for these very largest social media companies in the way it already is for messaging. And for those of you who are not European, don’t worry, I can sort of feel you rolling your eyes that, you know, these Europeans are, you know, they love passing their baroque regulatory regimes, but what relevance does this have to us? Actually, like the GDPR, many other countries around the world are already putting these kind of principles into their own national competition laws and related laws. And I think also another trend we see is traditional competition law is very rapidly moving into this space. So though, if you want to look it up, I’ll just say one sentence about this. There was a European Court of Justice decision very recently called Android Auto, which basically says dominant firms must enable interoperability for their services full stop. Otherwise, it’s an abuse of dominance if they don’t. And I think that could have enormous effects around the world.

Mallory Knodel: I mean, you bring up this idea of jurisdiction, right? So Europe might have done GDPR, has the DMA, the DSA, etc. But I can’t even really picture how this would work if it only applied to Europeans, right? Because I mean, it seems to me, and this is maybe Melinda, I’m sure you have a response here, but to add on to it, you know, how could a company like only be interoperable in one jurisdiction rather than like, technically speaking, it would seem to me to be if you’re interoperable in one place, you’d be sort of interoperable for everyone. But anyway, that’s just my small minded thoughts on that. But tell us your reaction.

Melinda Claybaugh: I mean, I don’t have a specific answer to the jurisdiction question. But I mean, I think it does lead to a larger question around what is interoperability? What are we talking about here, right? Because you can talk about, it’s one thing to talk about, you know, text-based posts, kind of all, you know, that services are being built on a certain protocol, and it’s easier to build that from scratch, right? So something like threads and being able to federate your posts, that makes sense. Messaging, you know, is analogous to email, we kind of all understand that you should, you know, there are benefits to being able to send messages in different ways. But it’s very complicated when you start to get into encryption and encrypted messaging, you kind of start to run into the privacy and security issues. The issues then moving to a social media interoperability, writ large, right, of everything that happens in social media, is a whole other can of worms. And so I think that beyond the technical challenges, and I’m not a competition lawyer, so with the caveat, but what are we trying to accomplish here and how would this actually operate? Is this what people want? But we can leave that for another day in European discussions.

Mallory Knodel: Yeah, I do think that’s relevant, like what do people want? Because I mean, one answer to interoperability all the time on the open web is RSS. I mean, that’s a pretty basic way to just like get content out there in a way that can be consumed in any way. But I think what ActivityPub does and what other protocols are aiming to do is make it that you can push content out there, you can consume content, but you can also interact with it, comment on it, share it, re-blog it. So there’s a lot of different and more all the time, right? Wonderful thing about sort of interoperable permissionless ecosystems is it really creates new ways of interacting with content that didn’t even previously exist before. I mean, we kind of are stuck a little bit in an old school social media thing where it’s like you can click the heart, you can click the little swirly arrow thing, and you can like click the back arrow to make a comment. I mean, there’s a really, really basic ways. There are probably more, right? So Dilara, I want to round out the panel by asking you about, you know, how governance and responsibilities can be distributed so that we can steward all of this together. We’ve talked about this like very diverse and very complicated ecosystem where you can do all manner of things, but then how do we manage this together as it hopefully continues to proliferate, right? Across both existing platforms out there, right? If you run a social media platform and you’re interested or curious about interoperable platforms or interoperable protocols, we want to talk to you, but then also about brand new folks who come into this space and do things. So tell us your thoughts on that.

Delara Derakhshani: Absolutely. You know, earlier I set out a number of challenges and then I didn’t actually bother to explain any of the solutions that we were working on at DTI to address these problems. So I’m going to do that, but you know, I mean, the first thing I’ll say is that it’s pretty clear to all of us that these issues are bigger than just a single company or entity. So you know, federated ecosystems are by design distributed, but that distribution inherently obviously comes with fragmentation. We’ve talked about this already. But what DTI is doing is we’re focused on creating a sort of a shared governance infrastructure, not to centralize control, but to really provide coordination mechanisms that align responsibilities across diverse players. We’ve done this in two ways. The first is we’ve developed a trust model informed by real world use cases and with the input of a great deal of multistakeholder actors on how to establish trust during data transfers. And so, you know, this issue goes beyond just the Fediverse. We see the parallels in the broader online environment. But as I think someone referenced, you know, the Digital Markets Act, which mandates user initiated data transfers for those seven designated gatekeepers, which we can all rattle off who quickly off the top of our head. But you know, it’s silent about trust building mechanisms, and it leaves it up to each gatekeeper. And so to sort of reduce duplication and streamline onboarding across platforms, we’ve launched a trust registry now in pilot. And it allows developers to complete a verification process that, you know, doesn’t have to be duplicated and leads to harmonization and efficiency. There’s also growing recognition that trust infrastructure must scale down, not just up. , we have to recognize that they don’t always have the same resources. And then I think the only other thing I’d like to point out is that with that problem of, you know, I think it would be a good thing to improve portability. And one way we’re doing that is through initiative that we’re calling Lola, which will help users migrate safely. We’re creating shared guardrails and our work is about turning interoperability into a system that users can trust, because otherwise they won’t use it. And where community control and privacy travel together. And I think that’s a good place to stop. At the beginning of a conversation.

Mallory Knodel: Exactly. I like the idea that community control and privacy travel together. I think that’s a good place to stop. I think in a lot, you’ll hear, and I already have so far, like many of you, heard a lot of discussion still about content moderation, social media issues, and so on. And I can’t help but always think, like, right now that we have to sort of advocate and lobby, as human rights activists have done this for many years, just a few companies, right? If you just get like a few of them to like get on board with whatever current issue there is, then you can solve the problem. And in the world that we’re talking about and envisioning and hoping comes to pass, you will have thousands. And so how can you possibly imagine governing or dealing with that complex ecosystem? I think it’s exactly what you’re saying, Dilara. It’s like we now can create efficiencies actually and cross-platform institutions that have the trust that you need that then can hook in and interoperate across the whole ecosystem. So it isn’t about one platform making a decision. It’s about how have we all made the decision and how can it easily replicate across.

Melinda Claybaugh: Exactly.

Ian Brown: Just for 30 seconds, could our technical support put my second image up on screen? I’m not going to talk through it, I’m just going to point it out if you’re interested. You can see I’m not going to talk through it, but this image, and let me just flick to the third, all I want to do is make you aware they exist in the report, the independent report that Meta commissioned, which is on my website, ianbrown.tech. If you want to look at the detail, interoperability, as XKCD and many other people said, you need to get the details right, number one. Number two, it’s great that private firms like Meta and associations like DTI are doing all this research already to figure out, as Mallory said, in a shared space, and I’m very much looking forward to all your contributions the rest of this workshop, figuring out what can we learn together. I promise you, because I’ve done a lot of work for data protection authorities in Europe and the European Commission as well, regulators don’t want to regulate. They don’t have the resources to regulate at this level of complexity and get it right very often. That’s what regulation is for, to give incentives to private firms to do a good job themselves, and as Chris puts it, co-regulation is great, where you can have the private firms and civil society do the detailed work, and the regulators are only there as backstops to make sure that the public interest as well as the private interest is being genuinely represented. The reason these two slides are too complicated, you don’t have to read them now. If you’re interested, download the report, the end of the report. I’m just going to flick backwards and forwards, because they took me so long to do. I want you to enjoy the complexity of these two slides, because this is the level of complexity you have to go into when regulators do have to step in, and regulators don’t want to do this very often.

Mallory Knodel: It’s very instructive, actually. It’s impossible to read, which is maybe what you’re illustrating. Right, so I, as a moderator, am going to pat myself on the back for giving us 20… We have 51 whole minutes for the Q&A. We are not cutting this short because I really, really do want to hear from the audience. I want your questions. We would love to be able to respond. So you can make your way to the mics if you’re sitting out there, and I’ll just try to figure out a cue. If you’re up here already, your mic is actually on. Maybe I should have told you that. Your mic is on, and you can just, like, raise your hand and lean in and get yourself on the list. Yeah, please. If you could introduce yourself, that would be helpful.

Audience: Edmund Chung from .Asia. Very interesting panel. Thank you for bringing the topic in. I have actually two or three questions. One on more social political side, and one on more of the technical side. The first one, well, first of all, I just find the fire chat with the celebrity star Joseph very interesting, because he emphasized on your digital you belongs to you, and this is exactly what we want to talk about. So my first question is, especially to Ian, probably, besides privacy as one aspect, what about the ability to choose, you know, a choice for curation of information, and how that relates to our democratic institutions and processes and so on, because that is a big topic in my mind. In your research, does that, you know, does it help? This is my first question. The second question, related to the deletion part, that’s really interesting. I was just thinking about it. Even email doesn’t resolve that perfectly yet. But something like time-based encryption might be useful. But the issue here seems to be the forum or the standards body that the different players and providers are willing to and Chris Riley. So, it’s a question of whether or not we have a forum that we can abide by. ActivityPub is I think with W3C. Is that going forward? Is W3C the right place? Is IETF, is it a forum, does it need a forum to allow interoperability to really happen?

Mallory Knodel: ≫ I mean, maybe I can answer in reverse.

Ian Brown: ≫ I was going to say you’re more of an expert on question 1.

Mallory Knodel: ≫ Yeah, I think it’s a good question.

Ian Brown: I think it’s a good question.

Mallory Knodel: I think we’re still continuing to standardize extensions, which is exactly what you need to build on this as it grows. So, that still happens, and I think you’re right to point it out as an important piece. As far as like how you ensure different platforms are implementing it correctly and doing things like delete, you know, if requested, that’s something that standards bodies have to do. And I think that’s something that’s important to address, and I think that’s something that’s important to address.

Ian Brown: ≫ And on that issue, I would say the IETF, the internet engineering task force, which I’m much more familiar with than W3C, certainly organizes, I forget what they call them, bake-offs maybe, interoperability testing, making sure that software that is following IETF standards, first of all, deletes the part of the database where misuse happens, so you can counteract corruption at from of an explosive point of view, can drop a number of accounts on that sort that is very potentially a criminal life letter, right? Those are some of the ways that we’re somehow providing sense to other platforms. right approach to sharing their content with other platforms, but then one of those platforms went rogue, you know, started allowing people on that platform to harass them. Well, META can block the harassment, you know, crossing over onto threads, but it can’t enforce against a bad faith actor. Technically, the data still has crossed, you know, it’s on the other side. What could happen then, if necessary, if this was happening on a large scale in particular, META and all the individuals affected could actually take legal action in the 160 countries, including the EU member states that have GDPR-like privacy laws to say, hey, bad faith actor, you’re clearly ignoring my clearly stated limits on processing of my personal data. It’s often going to be sensitive personal data in GDPR terms about your political opinions, your health, a range of other very sensitive topics. And then if your data protection regulators are doing their job, or if your courts are doing their job, they can legally go after the bad faith actors.

Delara Derakhshani: I’d love to quickly respond to something as well, if that’s okay. Your digital you belongs to you. I think that’s an incredibly powerful statement, especially as increasingly our lives are online or increasingly personalization of, for example, AI systems is driving our lives. But I do want to just note that this is the very heart of why portability matters and why you should have control of your data. And with regard to your deletion point, for whatever it’s worth, those conversations are constantly happening, both at the state and increasingly at the federal level. And so I’m looking forward to seeing where those conversations go as well.

Audience: Just quickly, you need to attribute to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, not me.

Delara Derakhshani: I’m so upset that I missed him. I didn’t know he was here.

Ian Brown: He was tremendous.

Mallory Knodel: Yeah, very focused on personal data. It’s really right up your street, Dilara. But it’s recorded, no doubt. You can catch it. We have a question here. Anyone else at the table? Okay, we’ll come to you next. Go ahead.

Audience: Dominique Zelmercier, WCC. So just to quickly react on the interop question, the same way the ITF runs interop tests, WCC has also a very thorough interoperability testing process as part of our recommendation process, which could include indeed testing whether the implementation, implement deletion, whether the service does, is a separate question. I guess a specific question to the panel. So my experience from previous privacy interoperability work in WCC is that it’s really, really hard to define privacy to a level of granularity that matches the complexity of how people want their digital selves to be presented. And so what we’ve seen overall is that what gets through the standardization process is very simple signals like do or do not typically. In a world of social media, that feels way too coarse to actually express something users care about. So I don’t know how you see disentangling this problem of managing the complexity of the way people understand their social self and the need to bring interoperability in exchanging this social media content, in particular in the context of portability or other type of interoperability.

Mallory Knodel: Yeah, good question. Would you like to respond to it? Okay, after. Yeah, okay. Anyone else on the panel want to respond?

Ian Brown: I’m happy to, yeah.

Mallory Knodel: Go ahead.

Ian Brown: That’s a really great point, an important point. And I think one response to that is to emphasize what Mallory and our other two speakers already said about the importance of shared governance and building these norms together collectively, because that’s going to be much more effective than and Chris Riley. I’m going to start with you, Chris. I think the biggest challenge is that we’re seeing big platforms building 10 different versions. With the best will in the world and with very large resources as big platforms have, if they can work together, that’s going to be much better for their users than if they define them slightly differently because that’s going to confuse users. It’s going to lead to things happening that users don’t want because they might have set a privacy control based on their understanding of one thing, but they don’t want to do it because they don’t want to be a part of it.

Mallory Knodel: I think that’s a big challenge. I keep thinking of this instance layer. In the old social media, you have platform, you have users. But now we have users, instances, platforms, and multiple different iterations thereof. So this idea that the instance level can also be a place where default settings are set, where actions can be taken. I think that’s a big challenge. I think there’s a lot of work to do to make sure that your instance could choose to de-fed rate with your instance if you’re not acting in good faith, if you’re not respecting what my users want, if my users actually just want me to do that. There’s a good report that Samantha Lye and Yale Roth at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace put out about de-fed ration and the politics of that. What does that really look like? I think that’s a big challenge.

Melinda Claybaugh: I think there’s a lot of work to do to make sure that we can customize some of the experiences that we think people will want or make as similar as possible across the federated universe. At the same time, we want to preserve the uniqueness of each of the communities. I think you made a point about algorithms earlier. Maybe you post something on threads and it goes elsewhere and it’s going to be surfaced differently or maybe not like what we were talking earlier. We take over once each community says no than it will harm you. That’s the beauty of it, in a way. You know that you have different types of community armies that can do that really. It’s harming benefits and that kind of thing. I think most of us would think that that’s not so. on different services. So it’s really this fine balance of what are the core things that we want to make sure are protected and actioned across the Fediverse, but what can we leave to to be variable and unique?

Mallory Knodel: Yeah, that’s great. Question down here. Go ahead and introduce yourself and please ask.

Audience: Hi, my name is Caspian. So what are your visions for a privacy-preserving, interoperable internet in 10 years? And what steps should we take to ensure that it exists? Maybe the ideas in 10 years.

Mallory Knodel: I love the idea. We can think backwards to what 10 years ago was like. Very proto of what we have now. And yeah, what’s next in 10 years? I think it’s a good question. Thank you for asking it. Anybody have a response?

Ian Brown: I do. If the other two don’t want to go first. Okay. I was reminded walking in the wonderful display at the entrance by the organizers of how Norway was a real pioneer in bringing the internet to Europe. And I know that in particular because I was looking for a photo of my PhD supervisor who was part of that process. Actually, he was in London and he worked with the Norwegians who are in those photos at the entrance to bring the internet from the United States. I think there were only four sites in the original ARPANET and it was very soon after that that Norway and my supervisor Peter Kirstein brought that over to Europe. So that’s going back to the 70s. So that’s a very long, that’s 50 years ago. I’m not going to even try and remember 10 years ago because it seems all a blur, but thinking 10 years forward is a great horizon. I would say I’m very optimistic what’s happening really quickly. So way before 10 years, actually, I think what’s happening with several of the projects we’ve already talked about today, with Free Our Feets, and I see Robin at the front there, is another great example of stuff that’s bringing this into reality much faster than I expected. software tools. So I’d recommend to you just because I use them personally. I have no financial interest to be clear. One is called Open Vibe that lets you, it’s a social media platform that lets you look at your Mastodon, Blue Sky threads and Nostra accounts all in one timeline. You can customize the timeline. You can adopt different recommendation algorithms as Blue Sky also lets you do. So that point is a really important one Melinda raised. We don’t want to standardize everything. That’s often a criticism of interoperability. You’re standardizing and therefore homogenizing everything. And absolutely we want to avoid that. We want to leave space for different services to compete and develop and do a better job for their users. And that includes the type of communities that they focus on, but we want to give users choice. So if a user on a service, you know, whether it’s threads, Blue Sky, Mastodon, any of these services want to say, look, I’m saying, because a lot of people on Mastodon, for example, are very, very privacy protective for a very good reason. And nothing is requiring them to open up even beyond their own instance if they choose to. And as Mallory said, defederation is the sort of nuclear option if that’s not working properly. So I think one of the things are happening really quickly. I think things are moving so fast here that it’s very, you know, I’ve done these kind of futures exercises before for the European Commission and things are moving so fast. I’m not sure what they will look like in 10 years. As a super nerd, I would say I hope social media looks like the internet at the IP layer, that it’s that configurable and flexible, you know, that it provides a layer in the middle. And then all of the stuff we’ve talked about, you know, the famous hourglass model going up to the, you know, the extra two layers at the top, the ITF t-shirt famously says financial and political, you know, all that stuff is being coordinated by some of these organizations and other people in the room, legal interoperability. So Luca Belli, my colleague from Fundus Audio Tullio Vargas is in the front and has done a lot of work on that. You need all this stuff working together. So this wasn’t this, I didn’t intend this to be a plea for the IGF to continue, but I know it’s been. potentially may not, and I think this is an example of how the IGF can add a lot of value to these debates.

Mallory Knodel: Well, you helped me complete my bingo cards. No, that’s great. And Chris, you had also a question I want to get in. We still have 10 minutes left. So for folks, I see a couple more questions that we should be able to take those as well. Go ahead.

Chris Riley: But the danger of putting the prof in front of a microphone that he didn’t know was already on. So thank you for that. And fantastic panel. Thank you for organizing it as well. I think that often when you look at this question of trying to predict forward 10 years, you also have to look back. And Ian and I worked on the Towards a Future Internet project 16 or so years ago. I remember teaching about interoperability to Melinda’s colleague, Marcus Reinisch, back at Warwick in the last century, the last millennium. And I think that one of the really important lessons that we learned back there, and to mention somebody who probably hasn’t been mentioned for a few IGFs, Lawrence Lessig talked about machine-readable code, lawyer-readable code, and human-readable code. And I had a great conversation last night. One of the reasons why IGF should continue is that you can have great conversations with government officials and engineers and lawyers and policymakers about these things. And one of the fascinating conversations was engineers who had started studying law said, wow, the legal elements of this are really quite straightforward by comparison with what we do. The DMA is very straightforward compared to what we do when we’re working on standards committees. So we don’t find this difficult at all. But the difficulty, of course, is users simply go for defaults. And so one thing I would hope would happen in 10 years’ time, going to Ian’s straw poll of the audience, is that people would find some kind of form of Fediverse that they are comfortable with using in a way where the interoperability is invisible to the user. So Ian and I often cited in the regulating code, but we cited the wonderful Paul Ohm article, the myth of the superuser, the danger of giving people not too many choices, but too many defaults which they find difficult to actually make into a privacy-preserving element. So I guess my question is for everybody, given the last year has been a great experiment in people quiet quitting Mastodon, having noisy quitted X, they’ve quiet quit Mastodon and moved to Blue Sky and a couple of other things, and thank you Ian for turning me on to OpenVibe and learning how I could actually quiet quit in a much more usable way, is how do people see the user out there who doesn’t have, you know, machine readable or lawyer readable abilities to understand these things, how do we make it easier for them to avoid the same problems which occurred, you know, we’re in the middle of a national, a natural experiment, right, where X has become something that almost everybody wants to avoid, except seemingly government official pronouncements which is a very weird thing. So making it more usable for the user, so that in 10 years time users aren’t stuck in this position of having to do more research than they ever want to do, and if I could just mention one thing, I’m now based in Melbourne, Australia, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has just issued their final digital platforms report, it’s their 10th over six years, so that has some ideas in it as well I hope.

Mallory Knodel: Yeah, good question, I mean for me I would answer kind of both these questions with, I don’t want to have to sign up for another service ever again, and thank you, I just want to be able to follow all the new people that that service has brought to the internet. But in the interest of time, if I could just maybe suggest that we take, I think we can only maybe take three of these questions, because we have five minutes if they’re quick, and then we’ll see if Dilara, Melinda and Erin have closing remarks, if that works.

Ian Brown: Can you do four, because there are only four people at the moment.

Mallory Knodel: Okay, let’s do, if you can all promise to make it really succinct, like we think we can manage four questions, three responses in five minutes, that math totally works out.

Audience: Yeah, go ahead. So hello, I’m Winston Xu, and I’m from One Power Foundation in Hong Kong, and I’m here, I want to ask a question as now that I’m Many users of the internet are like children. So is there anything that youth can do in the interoperability and fairness of the internet?

Mallory Knodel: Awesome question. Thank you, Wilson. Go ahead.

Audience: I wanted to ask a bit of an open-ended question about more the cultures of each platform and how taking things into a different platform may change the context and remove maybe some the culture from the first platform. I’m thinking of maybe like link sharing and screenshot sharing and how that can very easily spiral out of control. Yeah, how can that be done ethically in a interoperable system?

Mallory Knodel: That’s great. I like that one, too. Thank you for bringing it up. And back over to this side.

Audience: Hello, my name is Gabriel. So the Fediverse being decentralized, you have to deal with lots of different instances, probably hundreds. How do you ensure trust between them? I read a while ago it was found out that, for example, direct messages through Mastodon could be read through if someone was misusing the protocol. So how do you ensure that other instances that are interfaced with can be trusted? Thank you for bringing up direct messages. That’s a good one, especially for a privacy panel. Awesome. And then our last question, please. Good afternoon. Thank you. Perhaps as a question, a reflection, what takes a foot off the toes from the private sector that hopefully, now we talk about interoperability, can be shared? Resilience is about sharing of learnings of what went wrong or what went right. What will you share to the public sector? For instance, in public services, enhancing the services for portable health or for the municipalities, for the social welfare of children or families. What can be shared? For both the good and bad, I’m not focusing only on standards because they are waiting on standards only.

Ian Brown: Thank you. Thanks so much. Let’s go in this order. Ian, if you want to start, just respond to any of that that you can and then we’ll work our way down. Thank you. Incredibly briefly, and let’s keep the conversation going online afterwards. Let me pick out two, the great one from my right, your left, and the last question. So, I think mentioning uncontrolled sharing of screenshots, I think that’s a great way to think about how ActivityPub and at Proto, Blue Skies Protocol and other protocols like it, can help do controlled sharing. So, making sure opt-in, starting point, protocol features that make sure that users’ wishes as far as good faith actors interpret them technically are followed and legal backstops for bad faith actors that choose not to. So, uncontrolled sharing via screenshots is something that’s never going to go away because you can’t stop people screenshotting. That was the dream of the digital rights people in the 90s and the early 2000s. And from a technical perspective, I had a start-up doing it. I promise you, it doesn’t work. That’s a bad idea. Mallory’s way is the way. Mallory and Friends is the way. And the very last question, very simple point, and actually picks up what Chris said as well. One thing governments can do is, for goodness sake, share all your information on multiple platforms, not only on X. Don’t have politicians rail on the one hand about X and then force all your citizens to join X if they want to get information from the government.

Mallory Knodel: Hey, maybe governments should have instances where they’re the source of truth that’s verified.

Melinda Claybaugh: I think what we see is that we’re at the very beginning of this journey. And so I would just encourage, you know, meta is learning as we go. We just last week announced an in-threads feed that pulls, you know, posts from whatever else you’re connected to. That was at the response of users who wanted that. So you know, keep pushing for what you want in this Fediverse, and that will help drive the conversation.

Delara Derakhshani: Yeah, and I’ll finish by saying that a lot of DTI’s work is focused on this. I would really encourage you all to reach out to continue these conversations. The issue of trust during transfers, if a user wants to move their account or content from one service to another, how do we know that the service will respect expectations or that it was actually authorized? How do we confirm identity and integrity and making sure that the message was not lost or maliciously changed? But crucially, you know, these are things that we’re working on, and I really hope that you all reach out for further conversations.

Mallory Knodel: Thanks so much for coming. Thank you for your questions. Thank you to the panelists who spent their time thinking about these issues in depth at the Social Web Foundation and with all of you, right? We are actually really trying to have these conversations together. Like Melinda said, this is only the beginning, so hopefully we can stay engaged. Hopefully we can share learnings and make this space more robust and better. Great.

Agreement points

User agency and control over data sharing

Speakers

– Delara Derakhshani
– Melinda Claybaugh
– Ian Brown

Arguments

User agency requires knowing what’s being shared, when, with whom, and why – interoperability shouldn’t mean default exposure

Users should have rights to access, correct, transfer, and delete their data, but implementation in decentralized systems is challenging

Bridges between platforms require opt-in approaches to respect user consent and prevent unwanted exposure

Summary

All speakers agree that users must have meaningful control over their data and how it’s shared across federated systems, with opt-in mechanisms being preferred over default exposure

Topics

Human rights | Infrastructure

Need for user education and clear communication

Speakers

– Delara Derakhshani
– Melinda Claybaugh
– Chris Riley

Arguments

Privacy-respecting interoperability demands ongoing collaboration with standards bodies and shared governance

Users need clear understanding of what it means to post content that may be shared across multiple services

The goal should be making interoperability invisible to users while preserving choice and community uniqueness

Summary

Speakers consensus that users need better education about federated systems while the complexity should be hidden through good design and clear communication

Topics

Sociocultural | Human rights

Technical challenges require collaborative solutions

Speakers

– Delara Derakhshani
– Melinda Claybaugh
– Ian Brown

Arguments

Federated ecosystems require coordination mechanisms that align responsibilities across diverse players without centralizing control

Existing data protection regimes need fresh implementation approaches for decentralized systems

Different platforms have varying capabilities for features like auto-deletion, creating inconsistent user experiences

Summary

All speakers acknowledge that technical challenges in federated systems require new collaborative approaches and cannot be solved by individual platforms alone

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers see the need for institutional mechanisms (trust registries and legal frameworks) to create accountability and efficiency in federated systems

Speakers

– Delara Derakhshani
– Ian Brown

Arguments

Trust registries and verification processes can reduce duplication and streamline onboarding across platforms

GDPR and similar privacy laws provide legal backstops against bad faith actors who ignore user data preferences

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Both speakers emphasize the importance of designing systems that accommodate different user sophistication levels and allow for experimentation without permanent consequences

Speakers

– Melinda Claybaugh
– Ian Brown

Arguments

Different user types (power users vs. average users) require different levels of explanation and control options

Technical design must enable user mistakes and experimentation while protecting privacy, such as auto-deletion features

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Both speakers recognize that federated systems involve complex community dynamics and governance structures beyond simple technical interoperability

Speakers

– Delara Derakhshani
– Mallory Knodel

Arguments

Migration between platforms involves not just data transfer but joining new communities with different safety considerations

Instance-level governance provides a middle layer between platforms and users for setting defaults and managing relationships

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

Legal frameworks as enablers rather than barriers

Speakers

– Ian Brown
– Melinda Claybaugh
– Delara Derakhshani

Arguments

GDPR and similar privacy laws provide legal backstops against bad faith actors who ignore user data preferences

Existing data protection regimes need fresh implementation approaches for decentralized systems

Trust registries and verification processes can reduce duplication and streamline onboarding across platforms

Explanation

Despite representing different perspectives (academic, industry, and advocacy), all speakers view existing and emerging legal frameworks as supportive of interoperability goals rather than obstacles, which is unexpected given typical industry-regulation tensions

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Complexity should be hidden from users

Speakers

– Chris Riley
– Melinda Claybaugh
– Ian Brown

Arguments

The goal should be making interoperability invisible to users while preserving choice and community uniqueness

Different user types (power users vs. average users) require different levels of explanation and control options

The vision includes users never having to sign up for new services while still being able to follow people across platforms

Explanation

There’s unexpected consensus that despite the technical complexity of federated systems, the goal should be to make interoperability transparent to users rather than educating them about technical details, which contrasts with typical tech community emphasis on user understanding

Topics

Sociocultural | Infrastructure

Overall assessment

Summary

Strong consensus exists around user agency, the need for collaborative governance, and making complex systems user-friendly. Speakers agree on fundamental principles while acknowledging implementation challenges.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on principles with constructive disagreement on implementation details. This suggests a mature field where stakeholders share common goals but are working through practical challenges, which bodes well for collaborative solutions in federated social media development.

Different viewpoints

Implementation approach for privacy rights in federated systems

Speakers

– Melinda Claybaugh
– Delara Derakhshani

Arguments

Existing data protection regimes need fresh implementation approaches for decentralized systems

Privacy-respecting interoperability demands ongoing collaboration with standards bodies and shared governance

Summary

Claybaugh focuses on adapting existing legal frameworks like GDPR for federated environments, while Derakhshani emphasizes building new collaborative governance structures and standards-based approaches from the ground up.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Scope and complexity of interoperability requirements

Speakers

– Ian Brown
– Melinda Claybaugh

Arguments

The Digital Markets Act includes messaging interoperability requirements for gatekeepers, with potential extension to social media services under review

Users should have rights to access, correct, transfer, and delete their data, but implementation in decentralized systems is challenging

Summary

Brown advocates for expanding regulatory interoperability requirements to social media platforms, while Claybaugh emphasizes the technical challenges and complexity of implementing such requirements, particularly questioning what interoperability should encompass beyond basic messaging.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Balance between user control and system complexity

Speakers

– Audience
– Ian Brown

Arguments

The complexity of privacy controls often results in overly simple ‘do or do not’ options that don’t match user needs

Technical design must enable user mistakes and experimentation while protecting privacy, such as auto-deletion features

Summary

The audience member argues that current privacy controls are too simplistic for complex social interactions, while Brown advocates for features like auto-deletion that prioritize user experimentation over granular control.

Topics

Human rights | Infrastructure

Unexpected differences

Role of government communication in federated systems

Speakers

– Ian Brown

Arguments

Governments should share information across multiple platforms rather than forcing citizens to use single platforms

Explanation

This was an unexpected policy recommendation that emerged during the discussion, with Brown advocating for multi-platform government communication strategies. No other speakers directly addressed this issue, making it a unique position that wasn’t debated but represents a significant policy implication.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Technical impossibility of preventing screenshot sharing

Speakers

– Ian Brown

Arguments

The focus should be on building tools that allow controlled sharing while preventing uncontrolled screenshot-based sharing

Explanation

Brown’s assertion that preventing screenshot sharing is technically impossible and that efforts should focus on controlled sharing mechanisms was unexpected and not challenged by other speakers, despite its significant implications for privacy protection strategies.

Topics

Infrastructure | Human rights

Overall assessment

Summary

The main areas of disagreement centered on implementation approaches for privacy rights in federated systems, the appropriate scope of regulatory interoperability requirements, and the balance between user control complexity and system usability.

Disagreement level

The level of disagreement was moderate and constructive, with speakers generally sharing similar goals but differing on methods and priorities. The disagreements reflect different professional perspectives (policy, technical, regulatory) rather than fundamental philosophical differences, suggesting that collaborative solutions are achievable through continued dialogue and experimentation.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers see the need for institutional mechanisms (trust registries and legal frameworks) to create accountability and efficiency in federated systems

Speakers

– Delara Derakhshani
– Ian Brown

Arguments

Trust registries and verification processes can reduce duplication and streamline onboarding across platforms

GDPR and similar privacy laws provide legal backstops against bad faith actors who ignore user data preferences

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Both speakers emphasize the importance of designing systems that accommodate different user sophistication levels and allow for experimentation without permanent consequences

Speakers

– Melinda Claybaugh
– Ian Brown

Arguments

Different user types (power users vs. average users) require different levels of explanation and control options

Technical design must enable user mistakes and experimentation while protecting privacy, such as auto-deletion features

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Both speakers recognize that federated systems involve complex community dynamics and governance structures beyond simple technical interoperability

Speakers

– Delara Derakhshani
– Mallory Knodel

Arguments

Migration between platforms involves not just data transfer but joining new communities with different safety considerations

Instance-level governance provides a middle layer between platforms and users for setting defaults and managing relationships

Topics

Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Key takeaways

Privacy-preserving interoperability requires user agency – users must know what’s being shared, when, with whom, and why, with interoperability not meaning default exposure

Technical challenges exist in federated systems, particularly around data deletion propagation across instances and maintaining consistent user experiences

Existing regulatory frameworks like GDPR provide legal backstops, but need fresh implementation approaches for decentralized systems

The Digital Markets Act’s messaging interoperability requirements may be extended to social media services in upcoming reviews

Shared governance infrastructure is needed to coordinate responsibilities across diverse players without centralizing control

User education is critical as different user types require different levels of explanation and control options

Standards bodies (W3C, IETF) provide essential forums for developing and testing interoperability standards

The future vision involves making interoperability invisible to users while preserving choice and community uniqueness

Resolutions and action items

Continue conversations through the Social Web Foundation and Data Transfer Initiative for ongoing collaboration

Develop trust registries and verification processes to reduce duplication across platforms

Create shared guardrails through initiatives like DTI’s ‘Lola’ project to help users migrate safely

Governments should share information across multiple platforms rather than forcing citizens to use single platforms

Keep pushing for desired features in the Fediverse to drive platform development

Reach out to panelists and organizations for further conversations on trust during transfers and implementation

Unresolved issues

How to effectively propagate deletion requests across all federated instances

Managing the complexity of privacy controls that currently result in overly simple options

Ensuring trust between hundreds of different instances in decentralized systems

Balancing standardization with preserving unique community cultures across platforms

Addressing security vulnerabilities in direct messages and encrypted content in federated environments

Determining what level of interoperability users actually want versus what technologists envision

How to handle cultural context changes when content moves between platforms with different norms

Suggested compromises

Use opt-in approaches for bridges between platforms to respect user consent while enabling interoperability

Implement instance-level governance as a middle layer between platforms and users for managing relationships and defaults

Develop co-regulation approaches where private firms and civil society do detailed work with regulators as backstops

Create shared technical standards while allowing platforms to compete on community focus and user experience

Balance core privacy protections that should be universal across the Fediverse with features that can remain unique to individual communities

Use defederation as a nuclear option mechanism for instances to protect users while maintaining overall system openness

Users should know what’s being shared, when, with whom. And why, and interoperability shouldn’t necessarily mean default exposure… migration is not just about exporting and importing data. It’s about joining new communities… for many users, particularly marginalized groups, the safety of the destination matters just as much as the ability to bring the content.

Speaker

Delara Derakhshani

Reason

This comment reframes interoperability from a purely technical challenge to a human-centered one, highlighting that data portability is fundamentally about community safety and user agency rather than just technical capability. It introduces the crucial insight that marginalized users face unique risks in federated systems.

Impact

This shifted the discussion from technical implementation details to user experience and safety considerations. It established the framework for later discussions about trust, governance, and the need for shared standards that prioritize user protection over technical convenience.

If say Mallory has… I delete my Mastodon posts after two months. I use a bridge… BlueSky currently does not have an option to auto delete all my posts… nor does Bridgyfed currently pick up my preference from Mastodon to auto-delete everything after two months and then apply that on the other side of the bridge.

Speaker

Ian Brown

Reason

This concrete example brilliantly illustrates the complexity of privacy preservation across federated systems. It demonstrates how user privacy preferences don’t automatically translate across platforms, revealing a fundamental gap between user expectations and technical reality.

Impact

This technical example grounded the abstract discussion in reality and led to deeper exploration of GDPR compliance challenges. It prompted Melinda’s response about the collision between new social media and existing legal frameworks, fundamentally shifting the conversation toward regulatory compliance.

I think there’s a real challenge as this new social media proliferates… they may not understand this network. They may not understand really what it means to be posting something on threads and then have it go to other services… we have to really meet people where they are and understand kind of who’s a power user, who’s a tech user, and then who’s just your average user.

Speaker

Melinda Claybaugh

Reason

This comment identifies a critical user experience challenge that could determine the success or failure of federated systems. It acknowledges that most users don’t have the technical literacy to understand the implications of interoperability, which has profound privacy and safety implications.

Impact

This observation redirected the conversation from technical solutions to user education and interface design. It influenced later discussions about defaults, user agency, and the need for systems that work invisibly for non-technical users while preserving privacy.

My experience from previous privacy interoperability work in W3C is that it’s really, really hard to define privacy to a level of granularity that matches the complexity of how people want their digital selves to be presented… what gets through the standardization process is very simple signals like do or do not typically. In a world of social media, that feels way too coarse.

Speaker

Dominique (audience member)

Reason

This comment exposes a fundamental tension between the complexity of human social behavior and the binary nature of technical standards. It challenges the panel to consider whether current approaches to privacy in federated systems are adequate for real human needs.

Impact

This question forced the panel to confront the limitations of technical solutions and led to discussions about shared governance, the role of instances as intermediaries, and the need for more sophisticated approaches to privacy that go beyond simple on/off switches.

The danger of giving people not too many choices, but too many defaults which they find difficult to actually make into a privacy-preserving element… how do we make it easier for them to avoid the same problems which occurred… where X has become something that almost everybody wants to avoid.

Speaker

Chris Riley

Reason

This comment introduces the paradox of choice in privacy settings and connects it to the real-world exodus from Twitter/X. It challenges the assumption that more user control automatically leads to better privacy outcomes, referencing the ‘myth of the superuser.’

Impact

This observation tied together multiple threads of the discussion – user education, defaults, and the practical challenges of federated systems. It prompted reflection on how to make interoperability ‘invisible’ to users while maintaining privacy, influencing the final discussions about usability and adoption.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by moving it beyond technical implementation details to address the human and social dimensions of federated systems. Delara’s focus on marginalized users and community safety established a human rights framework that influenced the entire conversation. Ian’s concrete example of auto-deletion across platforms grounded abstract privacy concerns in technical reality, while Melinda’s emphasis on user education highlighted the gap between technical capability and user understanding. The audience questions, particularly about the granularity of privacy controls, challenged the panel to confront the limitations of current approaches. Together, these comments transformed what could have been a purely technical discussion into a nuanced exploration of how to build federated systems that serve real human needs while preserving privacy and safety. The discussion evolved from ‘how do we build interoperable systems?’ to ‘how do we build interoperable systems that people can actually use safely and effectively?’

How can we better educate users about what interoperability means and what happens to their data when they post across federated services?

Speaker

Melinda Claybaugh

Explanation

This is crucial because average users may not understand the network effects of posting on federated platforms and what happens when they delete content across multiple services

How can we develop technical solutions for ensuring deletion requests are honored across the entire federated network?

Speaker

Ian Brown and Mallory Knodel

Explanation

This addresses a fundamental privacy challenge where deleting a post on one platform doesn’t guarantee deletion across all federated instances that received the content

What governance mechanisms can ensure trust and coordination across thousands of diverse federated instances?

Speaker

Delara Derakhshani

Explanation

As the ecosystem scales from a few large platforms to potentially thousands of instances, new coordination mechanisms are needed to maintain trust and shared standards

How can we balance standardization for interoperability with preserving the unique characteristics of different communities and platforms?

Speaker

Melinda Claybaugh and Dominique Zelmercier

Explanation

There’s tension between creating common standards that work across platforms and allowing communities to maintain their distinct cultures and features

How can privacy controls be made granular enough to match the complexity of how people want to present their digital selves?

Speaker

Dominique Zelmercier

Explanation

Current standardization processes tend to produce simple ‘do or do not’ signals, which may be too coarse for complex social media privacy preferences

What can be learned from Meta’s user research on WhatsApp interoperability that could benefit the broader ecosystem?

Speaker

Ian Brown

Explanation

Meta has done significant user research on privacy and interoperability for WhatsApp that could inform best practices across the industry

How can we make federated social media as invisible and user-friendly as email interoperability?

Speaker

Chris Riley

Explanation

The goal is to make interoperability seamless for users who don’t want to become technical experts to use these systems effectively

How can we address the security vulnerabilities in federated systems, such as the ability to read direct messages across instances?

Speaker

Gabriel (audience member)

Explanation

Trust and security between instances is crucial, especially given reports of protocol misuse allowing unauthorized access to private communications

How can context and cultural norms be preserved when content moves between platforms with different communities?

Speaker

Audience member

Explanation

Content sharing across platforms can remove important cultural context and lead to misunderstandings or harassment

What role can young people play in shaping interoperability and internet fairness?

Speaker

Winston Xu

Explanation

Understanding how to engage youth in these technical and policy discussions is important for the future of these systems

What lessons from private sector interoperability work can be applied to public sector services like healthcare and social welfare?

Speaker

Audience member

Explanation

There may be valuable learnings that can improve public services through better data portability and interoperability

How will the European Commission’s review of the Digital Markets Act in the next year affect social media interoperability requirements?

Speaker

Ian Brown

Explanation

The DMA review could extend interoperability requirements from messaging to social media platforms, with global implications

Summary

This roundtable discussion at the Internet Governance Forum 2025 focused on gender mainstreaming in digital connectivity strategies, addressing the significant barriers that prevent women from accessing digital opportunities. Moderated by Rispa Arose from Tenda Community Network in Kenya, the session brought together experts from civil society, regulatory bodies, and community organizations to examine why 2.6 billion people remain offline, with women disproportionately affected by the digital divide.

Mathangi Mohan presented research from the Association for Progressive Communication on integrating gender into community-centered connectivity models, emphasizing that community networks are not automatically inclusive despite being locally driven. The research revealed that women remain underrepresented in community network governance and proposed policy recommendations including gender impact assessments during licensing processes and quotas for women in network leadership roles. Lilian Chamorro from Latin America highlighted specific challenges women face in building connectivity infrastructure, including care work responsibilities, low self-confidence with technology, and limited access to technological devices.

From a regulatory perspective, Dr. Emma Otieno from Kenya and Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu from Ghana emphasized the economic consequences of excluding women from digital strategies. Waqas Hassan shared Pakistan’s success story, where a dedicated national strategy reduced the gender gap from 38% to 25% through whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches. The discussion revealed that connectivity strategies often focus primarily on infrastructure expansion while assuming equal access, without addressing inherent barriers like affordability, skills gaps, and societal norms.

Key recommendations emerged around the need for intentional measurement and tracking of gender inclusion outcomes, cross-sectoral collaboration beyond ICT ministries, and recognition of digital caretaking as legitimate labor. The panelists stressed that bridging the digital divide requires moving beyond gender-neutral policies to actively address the specific needs and barriers faced by women and marginalized groups in accessing and benefiting from digital connectivity.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Gender gaps in digital connectivity strategies**: Despite global frameworks like SDG 5 and the Global Digital Compact advocating for digital inclusion, gender is explicitly referenced in only half of national ICT policies, leaving 2.6 billion people offline with women facing disproportionate barriers to accessing digital resources.

– **Community networks as solutions with inherent challenges**: While community-centered connectivity models offer locally-driven alternatives to traditional telecom infrastructure, they are not automatically inclusive – women remain underrepresented in governance due to care work responsibilities, low technical confidence, limited access to devices, and restricted participation in decision-making.

– **Policy implementation gaps versus policy existence**: Many countries have gender-inclusive digital policies on paper but lack intentional implementation, meaningful measurement, and disaggregated data collection to track outcomes and impact, resulting in continued exclusion despite regulatory frameworks.

– **Economic consequences of digital gender exclusion**: The exclusion of women from the digital economy has caused approximately $1 trillion in GDP loss over the last decade in developing countries, with potential for another $500 billion loss over the next five years if current trends continue.

– **Cross-sectoral collaboration as essential solution**: Effective gender mainstreaming requires moving beyond ICT ministry silos to involve education, finance, health, and gender ministries in a “whole of government” approach, supported by multi-stakeholder partnerships including civil society, private sector, and community representatives.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to explore how to effectively mainstream gender considerations into digital connectivity strategies, moving from global policy commitments to practical local implementation. The session sought to identify barriers preventing women’s participation in digital infrastructure development and propose actionable solutions for creating more inclusive connectivity models, particularly through community networks.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a professional, collaborative, and solution-oriented tone throughout. It began with a serious acknowledgment of the scale of digital exclusion challenges, evolved into detailed problem analysis with speakers sharing candid experiences about implementation gaps, and concluded on an optimistic note with concrete recommendations and successful examples like Pakistan’s gender strategy. The tone remained constructive and forward-looking, emphasizing shared responsibility and the urgency of action while celebrating incremental progress and best practices.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Rispa Arose** – Works for Tenda Community Network based in Nairobi, Kenya; Session moderator focusing on grassroot-driven development by expanding access to connectivity and digital opportunities

– **Mathangi as Rispur** – Works at the intersection of gender technology and digital governance; leads programs in partnership of Data Currency, Artificial Intelligence; works with Self-Employed Women Association in India leading decentralized livelihood and digital upskilling program for women in the informal economy

– **Lillian Chamorro** – From Colnodo; supports community-centered connectivity in the Latin America region with focus on gender inclusion in grassroots community-centered connectivity initiatives

– **Dr. Emma Otieno** – Digital Inclusivity Champion; serves as Kenya country coordinator for REFEN (Réseau Internationale des Femmes Expertises du Numérique); previously served as Deputy Director for Universal Service Fund and Manager for Strategy Development and Fund Mobilization

– **Waqas Hassan** – Representative from Global Digital Partnership (GDIP); spearheads policy and advocacy engagement for Global Digital Inclusion Partnership in Asia; has background in inclusive policy development and gender responsive strategies

– **Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu** – Senior Manager, Regulatory Administrator with National Communication Authority in Ghana; ICT Development and Digital Inclusion Advocate; has experience in digital connectivity, internet development and ICT training

– **Josephine Miliza** – Works for Association for Progressive Communication as global policy coordinator; provides civil society perspective on integrating and mainstreaming gender in connectivity strategies

– **Kwaku Wanchi** – From Ghana IGF

**Additional speakers:**

– **Dr. Rhonda Zalesny-Green** – Co-founder and director at Panoply Digital; co-authored report on gender integration in policy and regulation for community-centered connectivity models (mentioned but did not speak directly)

# Gender Mainstreaming in Digital Connectivity Strategies: A Comprehensive Roundtable Analysis

## Executive Summary

This roundtable discussion at the Internet Governance Forum 2025 examined gender mainstreaming in digital connectivity strategies, addressing why 2.6 billion people remain offline with women disproportionately affected by the digital divide. Moderated by Rispa Arose from Tenda Community Network in Kenya, the session brought together experts from civil society organisations, regulatory bodies, and community networks across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The discussion revealed that whilst global frameworks advocate for digital inclusion, gender is explicitly referenced in only half of national ICT policies. More critically, even where policies exist, they often lack intentional implementation and meaningful measurement mechanisms. Speakers highlighted that gender exclusion from the digital economy has caused approximately $1 trillion in GDP loss over the last decade in developing countries, with potential for another $500 billion loss over the next five years if current trends continue.

## Key Themes and Findings

### The Infrastructure Fallacy in Digital Inclusion

A central theme emerged around the misconception that infrastructure development automatically translates to inclusive access. Waqas Hassan from the Global Digital Partnership explained: “The connectivity strategies are still primarily developed from an infrastructure mindset… that mindset is based on the assumption that if you provide access and expansion, coverage expansion, that is somehow synonymous with inclusion… infrastructure development does not mean equitable access.”

Mathangi Mohan from the Association for Progressive Communication reinforced this point: “If we don’t address or even consider the gendered digital divide, then you’re not really closing the gap, but more like building the infrastructure on top of the inequality and marginalisation that is already existing.”

### Community Networks: Opportunities and Barriers

The discussion examined community-centred connectivity models as potential solutions to traditional telecom limitations. However, speakers emphasized that community networks are not automatically inclusive despite being locally driven. Mathangi Mohan presented research findings showing that women remain underrepresented in community network governance structures due to multiple intersecting barriers.

Lillian Chamorro from Colnodo in Latin America identified specific barriers women face, including care work responsibilities, low self-confidence with technology, and limited access to technological devices. She noted that “women prefer to stay away from technical roles” due to these confidence issues and structural limitations.

### Regulatory Perspectives and Implementation Gaps

Dr. Emma Otieno from Kenya provided a candid assessment of policy failures: “We have not been intentional in terms of putting in these clauses in the policy regulation strategies, we are putting them in as aspects of satisfying the social or compliance aspects, but not meaningfully and intentionally putting them… What has lacked completely is measurement, the intentional and meaningful tracking.”

Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu from Ghana emphasized the need to move “from equality to equitable distribution,” using the metaphor: “You cannot give us the same level of a tree to climb or something. One of them will need a ladder to be able to climb the tree.”

Both regulatory experts identified the lack of gender-disaggregated data as a fundamental barrier to creating targeted policies and noted limited coordination across ministries responsible for gender, education, and health.

### Success Stories

Waqas Hassan shared Pakistan’s achievement in reducing the gender gap from 38% to 25% through a dedicated national gender strategy. This success was attributed to inclusive policymaking processes involving multiple stakeholders and adopting both whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, with formal institutional structures including high-level steering committees and official working groups.

## Areas of Consensus

### Intentional Design and Implementation

All speakers agreed that gender mainstreaming requires intentional design from inception rather than treating gender as an afterthought. This consensus emerged across different sectors and regions.

### Cross-Sectoral Collaboration

There was unanimous agreement on the need for whole-of-government approaches extending beyond ICT ministries, requiring coordination with education, finance, health, and gender ministries, supported by multi-stakeholder partnerships.

### Local Context and Cultural Sensitivity

Speakers agreed on the importance of respecting local contexts, languages, and cultural values whilst creating supportive spaces for women to engage with technology, including translating digital skills training into local languages.

### Economic Imperative

Speakers emphasized that gender digital inclusion represents both a social justice issue and a critical economic imperative with measurable financial consequences.

## Concrete Recommendations

### Regulatory and Policy Reforms

– Implement gender impact assessments during licensing processes for community networks

– Create financing funds with special conditions for women’s participation in technology access and training

– Accommodate informal women’s groups and non-registered collectives in licensing frameworks

– Establish meaningful measurement, tracking, and monitoring systems for gender inclusion policies

### Community-Level Interventions

– Create women’s circles for dialogue and expression whilst respecting community values

– Translate digital skills training into local languages using retired language teachers

– Support collaboration between community networks and community libraries or information centres

### Funding and Sustainability

– Create infrastructure funds with contributions from all sectors benefiting from ICTs, not just telecom operators

– Develop financing mechanisms that support women-led community networks at scale

## Outstanding Challenges

The discussion identified several unresolved issues requiring further attention:

– How to effectively redistribute care work responsibilities that prevent women’s participation

– Developing sustainable funding models for women-led connectivity initiatives

– Balancing respect for traditional community values with promoting women’s technical participation

– Creating standardized approaches for collecting gender-disaggregated data across different contexts

## Conclusion

The roundtable demonstrated both the complexity of gender mainstreaming in digital connectivity and the potential for coordinated action. The high level of consensus among speakers from different sectors and regions suggests significant potential for collaborative policy development and implementation.

The session established that bridging the digital divide requires moving beyond gender-neutral policies to actively address specific barriers faced by women and marginalized groups. This represents a fundamental shift from treating digital inclusion as a technical challenge to recognizing it as a complex social and economic issue requiring equity-focused approaches.

The path forward requires sustained commitment to intentional implementation, meaningful measurement, and collaborative action across sectors and stakeholders. As demonstrated by Pakistan’s success, the tools and knowledge exist to address these challenges effectively; what remains is the political will and institutional commitment to transform policy commitments into practical results for women and marginalized communities worldwide.

Rispa Arose: Hello everyone, and a warm welcome to this roundtable discussion. To our online audience, good morning, good evening, good afternoon from where you’re joining us from today. It has been an enriching and insightful week, participating at the Internet Governance Forum 2025 here in Norway. My name is Rispa Arose, I work for Tenda Community Network that is based in Nairobi, Kenya, where we work towards fostering grassroot-driven development by expanding access to connectivity and digital opportunities. We are honored for this opportunity and platform to bring our local voices on this global stage. Today I have the privilege of moderating our discussion on a topic that really lies at the heart of digital inclusion, gender mainstreaming in digital connectivity strategies. Many of you, if not all of you, are aware that we have 2.6 billion people that are still offline. That’s a huge number and that’s a big challenge. As we know, digital connectivity is no longer a luxury, it’s really a critical enabler of socio-economic participation. Despite global efforts to close this digital gender gap, women continue to face significant barriers in accessing financial, educational, social and health resources in this digital age. And while some governments have introduced policies to address this divide, gender mainstreaming in ICT policy and regulation remains limited or sometimes even absent. According to different frameworks, such as, according to the ITU, gender is explicitly referenced in only half of national ICT policies or master plans and the frameworks such as WSIS Action Plus 20, the Global Digital Compact and Sustainable Development Goal SDG No. 5 collectively advocate for an inclusive infrastructure and digital rights. However, without intentional gender mainstreaming in digital strategies, millions of women and girls will remain excluded from the benefits of the digital economy. So this session will explore how global commitments can translate into local actions by implementing gender responsive policies and regulations in the different frameworks as well as look into how to mainstream gender and digital connectivity strategies. I’m thrilled to have a distinguished panel of experts and practitioners with me, with us today, both here in person as well as online. Three are joining online and I’ll begin with the ones we have here. So I’ll start with Josephine Miliza who is here and works for the Association for Progressive Communication as their global policy coordinator and she will be really giving us insights from a civil society perspective on what it takes to integrate and mainstream gender in connectivity strategies. We also have Lilian Chamorro from Colnodo who is also part of supporting community-centered connectivity in the Latin America region and will also be really sharing from for her experience working with this community-centered connectivity, what it means to support women and ensure that there is gender inclusion in grassroots community-centered connectivity initiatives. Online, I’m joined with Dr. Emma Otieno, who is a Digital Inclusivity Champion and serves as a REFEN, which is Réseau Internationale des Femmes Expertises du Numérique, and she is the Kenya country coordinator championing for digital gender inclusivity and promoting women’s leadership in the digital technology space globally. Previously, she has served in other capacities as Deputy Director for the Universal Service Fund and also the Manager for Strategy Development and Fund Mobilization Manager. She will be sharing a lot from a regulator perspective around this topic. Then we have Waqas Hassan, who is a representative from the Global Digital Partnership, the GDIP. He spearheads the policy and advocacy engagement for Global Digital Inclusion Partnership in Asia. He has a strong background in inclusive policy development, especially the gender responsive strategies and program. He has also implemented connectivity and community empowerment projects, with particular focus on underserved areas. Then we have Ivy Tufor Hoytil, who is a Senior Manager, Regulatory Administrator, working with the National Communication Authority in Ghana. At this specific meeting, she will be… presenting in her own capacity as ICT Development and Digital Inclusion Advocate. She has done work, she has considerable experience in digital connectivity, internet development and ICT training as well as also has been responsible for monitoring radio spectrum bands, resolving maintenance frequency database and enforcing authorization conditions. Then last but not least, we have Mathangi Mohan, who works at the intersection of gender technology and digital governance. She currently leads programs in partnership of Data Currency, Artificial Intelligence where she designs global capacity building initiatives on responsible artificial intelligence and data governance across 80 countries. She is working now with the Self-Employed Women Association in India where she leads decentralized livelihood and digital upskilling program for women in the informal economy. So that’s our lineup of speakers and I’d like to get right into the session and now welcome Ms. Mathangi Mohan to give us a keynote presentation on a recent research conducted by the Association for Progressive Communication on integrating gender in policy and regulation for community-centered connectivity models. Ms. Mathangi Mohan, please, you can have the floor.

Mathangi as Rispur: Thank you, thank you, Rispur, and thank you to APC and also the Internet Governance Forum for the opportunity to be a part of this discussion. My name is Mathangi as Rispur just introduced me and I’m speaking on behalf of my colleague Dr. Rhonda Zalesny-Green. co-founder and director at Panoply Digital and she co-authored this report with Shivam and our colleagues, our team on the gender integration in policy and regulation for community-centered connectivity models. I work alongside Ronda at Panoply on gender technology and connectivity models and governance at both a grassroots level and also in the policy spaces. So today I’ll be sharing insights from the report while also drawing connections to the practice and lived experiences from my own experience as well. So we can start with, let me start with the basics. So what are community networks or CNs? While they are not new, but they’ve been gaining global attention for a good reason because these are internet networks that are built and managed by local communities themselves. They usually operate in places where large telecom companies don’t see a lot of commercial value like remote areas, informal settlements or underserved regions. But what makes them so powerful is not that they fill coverage gaps, but they are mostly locally driven and because of their cooperative spirit and also often they are non-profit, they allow communities to control and own their digital infrastructure, deciding how it is built, how it is maintained and who it benefits. In many ways these CNs represent a form of digital sovereignty as well because they can support local businesses, they can strengthen education and healthcare systems and even provide emergency communications when most national systems fail. And because they are rooted in community needs, they can adapt very quickly and responsibly in ways that traditional internet service providers and telecoms often cannot. And that is what our report was trying to lay bare, that these networks are not automatically inclusive just because they operate in this way and just because the network is community run. It does not mean that everyone in the community is equally represented and we have taken a gender angle. Women, especially in rural and low-income contexts, remain underrepresented in these CN governance. They are most often underpaid or most often offers a suite of policy recommendations. I would like to just highlight a few examples because we have tried to approach it from how do we tailor the recommendations for each ministry involved because we wanted to adopt a whole of government approach as well. So, one would be for the ministries of ICT in these countries and beyond should require a gender impact assessment during the licensing processes itself for the CNs or some kind of an incentive for women-led CNs and they can design more simpler license procedures to reduce the barriers for women to access the leadership roles in these cooperatives or in these networks. And when it comes to the gender ministries itself, they can introduce quotas for women in the CN governance, fund women-only training spaces when it comes to community networks or access cooperatives and also campaign against online gender-based violence because that is also a major deterrent which is keeping women offline. And to the finance ministries, they can of course offer subsidies for smartphones or for connectivity for low-income women or provide tax breaks, consider providing tax breaks to the CNs with a strong gender inclusion or women-led CNs. And finally, for education ministries to mandate that public ICT… and all the other researchers. And I just thought it’s really important to highlight what Risper earlier said, that we often want to say that we want to bridge the digital divide. But if we don’t address or even consider the gendered digital divide, then you’re not really closing the gap, but more like building the infrastructure on top of the inequality and marginalization that is already existing. And community networks are, they offer, they give us an opportunity to do things differently, to make things right. And we definitely need to take the opportunity up and design for it and regulate in it and invest more in these networks. And yeah, with that, I want to say thank you, and I look forward to the discussion as well.

Rispa Arose: Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Mathangi, for really giving us a grounding on what community networks are, what community networks bring towards bridging the digital divide, as well as speaking to some of the challenges that exist with regards to thinking of connectivity, not thinking of gender, when thinking about connectivity, having gender not as an afterthought, but thinking through it, even at the inception stage, at the design stage. And this is, as you’ve correctly said, is the opportunity that community. Thank you so much for joining us for this session. We’re going to be talking about the challenges that community networks bring in connectivity strategies. Now, this really gives us a good segue to the next speaker, who will touch on some of the challenges that women face when trying to build and sustain this community network infrastructure. So, I’m going to turn it over to you, Lillian, to talk a little bit about the challenges that women face when trying to build this network, but also supported the ecosystem, we’ll share her experience on what are some of the specific challenges that women face when trying to build this infrastructure, this community-centered connectivity infrastructure. Lillian, over to you.

Lillian Chamorro: Thank you so much for having me. I’m going to start with you, Emma, and then I’m going to turn it over to you, Lillian. Okay, from the experience of accompanying this type of initiative, we can mention some of the challenges for women. One of them is the care work that women must assume makes it difficult for them to participate in the different activities involved in the implementation, but also in the maintenance of the network. So, this is a challenge for women, especially in rural areas, where there is a lot of work that is done exclusively in women. Other challenges for some women, especially in rural areas, have low self-confidence, as they do not feel capable of appropriating technologies and technological knowledge, and access to the technological knowledge. So, they prefer to stay away from the internet, but also, in general, the developing countries, there are some and Dr. Josephine Miliza, Dr. Emma Otieno, Waqas Hassan, Ronda Zelezny-Green, Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu Hoetu. Also around the low participation in decision-making and leadership. Then positive actions are required, but also appropriate methodologies that provide women with confidence in approaching and appropriating these issues. All these result in more difficulty to be part of workshops or participate in training processes. And in many occasions, there are difficulties to leave the home and participate in these kind of spaces. Finally, I can mention lower access to technological devices, since other expenses are privileged and there are not appropriate technological tools to assume certain tasks. Thank you.

Rispa Arose: Thank you so much, Lilian, for sharing some of the challenges that women face when trying to build and sustain connectivity infrastructure. Being just working for TANDA community network, I totally relate with some of these challenges, starting from the low confidence level. It really takes a lot, especially because community-centered connectivity is very technical. There has to be some encouragement, some technical training, some sort of mentorship to even get women coming in to support the network infrastructure, be it of the connectivity or the community. This really helps to frame the challenge of this discussion today. What I would like to hear from the next speaker. Waqas, who’s joining us online, is what do you see as the core disconnect? Why gender is still largely missing from connectivity strategies? Why do we still have a huge gender gap within the different connectivity strategies? And yes, over to you, Waqas.

Waqas Hassan: Thank you. Thank you, Christopher. I hope I’m audible. So I think much of what you just asked was covered by Matangi as well. But if you see it from a holistic level, there are, of course, several factors which are dependent on geographical profile and the level of ICT development and things like that, and lack of data awareness capacity of the government itself to understand and then act on the problem. But from my own experience, from my previous life with the government, I think there are a few things that I have observed, and I think two of them stand out for me, which I would like to, of course, share with all of you. The first one is that the connectivity strategies are still primarily developed from an infrastructure mindset. And that mindset is based on the assumption that if you provide access and expansion, coverage expansion, that is somehow synonymous with inclusion. Now, I think that if a particular community is then provided with mobile connectivity or broadband or whatever they mean, there is now an equal opportunity for men and women to use the digital services. But I think what they need to realize is that irrespective of how much technological innovation we bring about, infrastructure development does not mean equitable access. There are inherent barriers of affordability, skills, societal norm, online safety, and security. These are the Thank you so much for joining us for this session of the Global Dialogues. I’m Ronda Zelezny-Green, and I’m here with Dr. Emma Otieno, Dr. Ronda Zelezny-Green, and Dr. Waqas Hassan, Dr. Emma Otieno, and Dr. Ronda Zelezny-Green. Thank you so much for joining us. And there is undeniable evidence around that. Our own research, GDIP’s research, it proves that the exclusion of women from the digital economy in the developing countries has caused about $1 trillion in the loss of GDP over the last decade. And if it continues, another $500 billion could be lost over the next five years. So I think this realization and this advocacy angle that we also pursue as GDIP when we talk to the governments is that it is not just a women empowerment issue or a social issue. It is actually an economic crisis that we want to work here, all of us together. I think I’ll just end with saying that this is the realization that needs to be propagated through our interactions with the governments, that they have to integrate gender in the connectivity policies and then take concrete actions on it, not just mention it like we see in many of the policies like the IT policies or the broadband policies, and there is some way of mentioning those kind of instruments, but never really the essence of those policies. So I’ll just stop there. And yeah, looking forward to the discussion. Thank you.

Rispa Arose: Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Waqas, and thank you for bringing in such heaviness on the consequences or the grief, loss that we face when we are not inclusive in our strategies, when we are, when the agenda is left behind in promoting or in, for example, connectivity strategies, then it means not only social loss, but it goes to even economic loss from a global perspective. With that in mind, I want to move to the next speakers, who are the regulators, Dr. Emma from Kenya and Ms. Ivy from Ghana. From a regulatory perspective, why is it important to integrate gender in digital connectivity strategies? And building on what Waqas has just mentioned, as some of the losses that we are having because of the gap, gender gap, what do you think is at stake if we don’t mainstream gender in these digital connectivity strategies? I’ll start with Dr. Emma, and then we’ll move to Ivy, Ms. Ivy.

Dr. Emma Otieno: Okay, thank you very much, Rispa, and I really want to thank the speakers who have gone before me. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, so I just want to start by looking at the question you’ve asked, why? Why should we really worry, or why should we really prioritize this subject of agenda inclusivity? And my simple answer would be that we have contracted both at the global level and at national levels, and agreed generally that we will not leave anyone behind. And we said we will not leave anyone behind because we want the world connected to the last person who’s under a cave, or if there’s another one under the sea, they must all be connected. So, for me, when I look, when I sit at the national level, that is the mantra of a digital transformation, leaving no one behind. When we go international, be it at the UN level, be it at the International Telecommunications Union level, be it at any other forums that we and any other place where the subject of digital transformation is being pursued, the agenda has been leaving no one behind. So, when we come with the eye of the regulator, because we’ve been actually been, why regulation exists is to create enabling environments so that the government can achieve the broader social economic development goals. So, for us to achieve that, leaving no one behind, which is very critical for the government’s social economic development, we must pursue goals, we must pursue regulations that

Rispa Arose: Thank you so much, Dr. Emma. Over to you, Ivy.

Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu: Yes, thank you. And am I audible? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, good morning from my location. So one of the blind spots I would touch on is most of the time we perceive technology as gender neutral and policies are made that technology will benefit everyone equally. But we have diverse needs. And so one thing we are lacking or is at our blind spots is equitable access and distribution of technology as against gender neutrality of technology. It is assumed that technology or digital policies are inherently gender neutral and will benefit everyone equally, which is not the case. Most of the time, the focus has been on overall connectivity metrics without disaggregating data or considering how societal gender inequalities translate into data disparities. And this is largely due to data deficiencies in gender disaggregated data on data access, usage patterns, and online experiences. Governments have been promoting gathering of ICT indicators and all that, but the in-country, the national, the countries, how often do we disaggregate this data? Even if we have to analyze them, do we analyze them based on the gender specific needs? And here, gender, I’m talking about going even beyond women. The gender definition cuts across children, the physically challenged, the elderly, and women, which most of these people are mostly underrepresented. And policies or regulations usually does not affect their specific needs. And it’s all because the data we collect or we gather, we collect them holistically without disaggregating them. So policies are made generally instead of maybe equitable basis. And it makes it difficult to identify these specific needs. So this is one of the blind spots that we are lacking. And I believe if it’s addressed holistically, it can address and target the needs of all these specific genders. Most of the time, yes, it’s women, but there are also even the elderly, we are saying inclusivity, connecting everyone everywhere, ISOC goal. But how can we reach out to these people if we don’t understand their specific needs? If we make regulations or laws equally, that whatever we have in place will benefit everyone equally. It cannot. My height, I am short. Someone is shorter or someone is taller. You cannot give us the same level of a tree to climb or something. One of them will need a ladder to be able to climb the tree. The other will not need a ladder. So we need to disaggregate the data we collect, make specific indicators based on the specific gender needs. And I believe it will address these blind spots. Thank you.

Rispa Arose: Thank you so much, Ms. Ivy. Thank you so much, Dr. Emma, for bringing in the regulatory perspective to this conversation. Before we move into the next segment, which we’ll be looking at now, we’ve talked about the challenges, we’ve talked about the problems, the gaps that exist, and what is at stake. Before we move to some of the solutions, I’d like to see if there’s any question or any comment online or in person. If you have any question, you can just move to the roundtable. We can take it. Yes. We can have that question and then move to the next segment.

Kwaku Wanchi: For your presentation, my name is Kwaku Wanchi from Ghana IGF. There’s something so organic of what you’re talking about in terms of community network, which is speaking about collaboration and being able to provide solutions to the problem. One of the things that I always see as being helpful in some of this is more I want to know more about what I would call our community businesses. And again, this is gender-based or women-led, especially in Africa. I don’t know about Lilian’s experience in Latin America and the rest. And what you would find, I think there was a report about a year or two ago from MasterCard Foundation, which found that most businesses in Africa are run by women and small, medium enterprises. That’s what I mean. And I think one of the things and the challenges and opportunities in thinking about how we go, I don’t know how the next conversation is going to be, is one, what I would like to call synthesizing or having organic technologies or solutions in terms of connectivity. Where you’d see that most of our local businesses or small, medium enterprises are small businesses, but how do we get them digital or being able to do it? An aspect about the work we do in community networks is about imparting digital skills. And I always give this keynote, coming from Africa, we are multilingual. And most of the things that we do need to be owned by the people who can be able to speak their own language or interpret it. So my point is this. The skills impartation and things that we do, we need to be able to translate into our local languages. And I’m giving this for free. I’ve been doing this for five years. Let’s try and translate things into our local languages. And the best people to be able to do that are language teachers or retired language teachers. That’s what I would say. That’s inclusivity in gender. Second part is including our medium-sized businesses to get them digital, to teach them the skills. And also give them their business experience and create that business environment which gives opportunities to give value to our community. And you’d be surprised. You probably might be getting financing from some of these local businesses. So that’s what I’d like to contribute. Thank you.

Rispa Arose: Thank you so much for that contribution. I believe it was just to add to the conversation. The speakers agree that diversity should go beyond just the gender, but also look at languages. Look at age. How can different age levels contribute to digital connectivity for different communities? This now will take us to the next question. I don’t know if there’s any question online.

Josephine Miliza: There’s no question, just a comment from Peter Balaba. He says, I do support the establishment of community networks approach in Kenya. However, collaboration with community libraries and information centers can help bridge the gaps. In Keseke Telecenter and Library, we are now focusing on empowering the youth and women in digital skills and we train them in the local language to enable them to understand the basics. So it’s just a comment and not a question. Thank you, Peter.

Rispa Arose: Thank you. Thank you, Josephine. To the next segment, which we will have another round of interventions from our speakers, we’ll be looking at what it will take to realize the gender inclusive connectivity. And now I’d like to go back to our first speaker that gave us the presentation remark, Ms. Mathangi and Lilian, if you can talk about what actions are necessary to better support the emergence and sustainability of women-led connectivity models. You’ve already mentioned what are some of the challenges and barriers for women to participate in community-centered connectivity models. Now, what are some of the actions that can be taken? For Mathangi, you can talk about some of the recommendations that that came out of the research that you’ve just presented. So I’ll start with Ms. Mathangi and then we can go to Lillian.

Mathangi as Rispur: All right, sure, thanks, Rizpal. And while also talking about the policy lens and recommendation from the report, I would also like to share something that I’ve seen in practice. Because while working with some of the self-help groups and particularly the Self-Employed Women’s Association here in India, I’ve seen where we supported some of these artisan-led cooperatives access digital markets, and that too, during the first and the second waves of the pandemic. And then what happened was something very interesting was that to address the connectivity gaps in one cluster, in several clusters of villages, actually, the women managed to have shared hotspot system, not like the community network, but also not very unlike the CNs that we spoke about earlier. And they used to train each other, watch tutorials, and figure out how do they ensure it gets to the online inventory and all of those, even troubleshooting the basic tech issues. They supported each other, but the catch was it was sustainable only because the initiative worked because it was under an umbrella like SEWA where they could step in to subsidize the hardware. They could, like one of our audience members pointed out, they coordinated all the training in their local language, Gujarati, and they anchored the work in existing self-help groups. So then what finding came out was very similar to what we also studied in the report that if you remove that scaffolding, that model would not have survived or it would not have been sustainable. So combining these two insights, just quickly summarizing three recommendations would be, first, the licensing frameworks for these CNs need to very explicitly accommodate non-registered collectives, informal women’s group, like some of them rightly pointed out that the MSMEs and SMEs, these are majorly owned by women. So supporting a more informal women’s group, that is also equally important because these are mostly cooperatives rooted in trust and solidarity and just assuming that it should be a registered entity and a technical documentation. So that’s also going to exclude a lot of groups. Secondly, there are a lot of already funding mechanisms, but one key insight is that the funds should also allow for experimentation and thereby allowing failure and more iteration to figure out what works and what does not work, because these community networks are not going to scale if you take a startup timeline and when we compare. And third, should be echoing Waqas’s thought on, this is not going to be a social inclusion or women’s empowerment work, but it’s going to be a socio-economic, it’s going to be an infrastructure work as well, and it’s time that we recognize that. And this could mean paying stipends to local women, managing their Wi-Fi and maintenance and doing all the operational ground level operations, recognizing the digital caretaking that involves, that entails as a form of labor, and also not leaving out individual champions when we look at the community networks, recognizing who is anchoring these and who is pulling this together. So it’s not just going to be what they are doing well or just if the access is there, but also go beyond it and see as an infrastructure work. So these are three recommendations that I would like to add.

Rispa Arose: Thank you so much. Lilian, anything to add?

Lillian Chamorro: Well, thank you, Jess. I have a few options that we think could improve women’s participation, and one of them is establish financing funds, both for technology, but also for training with special conditions for women’s participation. For example, in closing the gaps in the basic use of technological devices and technological literacy, and facilitate access to devices. Also, adapting methods. We are a team of epidemiologists that transcend the technical approach for the community networks and also consider other women’s interests and needs related to the care and the support of the community. This diversification of roles in technical, administrative and communicative areas. The communities should promote the participation of women in technical areas such as installation and support. Also men should be involved in the administrative and financial aspects of sustainability. Also promote the participation of women in leadership roles in the communities without neglecting the recognition of the importance of the care work. I think it’s important to recognize the importance because sometimes the women, for example in our case, when we were working on establishment of community networks, of antennas, of that kind of things, many women are caring of us, are working on the food, working on the care of the people. This work is not recognized and we need to recognize that. Promote the participation of women in discussion spaces. Make women in the field of technologies visible so that they can serve as reference for other adult and young women in traditional masculinized scenarios. Reflect on care and how to approach it, recognizing its value and establishing mechanisms for its redistribution. People who require some care should be assumed as a collective responsibility of the communities and if it is necessary, resources should be allocated within the spending structures for the care of these people. Create women’s circles. We think women’s circles are a very good methodology. where women can express their concerns, opportunities, difficulties, not only about technology, but also about their participation in the life of the community. In any case, the action should be respectful of the environment and the values of the community, since we often find ourselves in communities with very different visions of gender roles, and we are not looking to break with the local issue, but rather to seek spaces for dialogue and reflection on the opportunities and inequalities faced by the women and other populations. Finally, conversations on gender must be strengthened in the entities and organizations that accompany these processes, both in men and women. If these reflections have not been integrated in our own work, it would be difficult to integrate them in the processes of accompanying the communities and in the spaces that are generated from there.

Rispa Arose: Thank you so much Liliane, and what I like about the recommendations that you have brought in is that it’s coming from working at the community level, and you know what the challenges are, and what best practice can be adopted by community-centered connectivity strategies at the grassroots. And that really fits in also very well with what Mathangi has just presented, coming from a research report that she conducted in different countries within Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and together these are really strong actions that can be taken to support the emerging and sustainability of women-led connectivity models. Now I want to go back to you Akash.

Waqas Hassan: This was a public perception survey, there was an IVR survey from around 100,000 respondents using the help of the mobile operators. So when all of this that was put into context and then this strategy was being developed, it shaped up into the form of a strategy where there is at the top level, there is this high-level steering committee, which consists of the institutional heads and led by the IT minister. And under that steering committee are six working groups, groups like access, research and data, affordability, safety and security, digital literacy inclusion. And in between these groups, each of the group has its own chair, by the way, is the implementation body, which is PTA and now GDIP has joined PTA as the joint coordinators for the strategy implementation. So with this whole framework that you can see, you can see that there was this whole of government approach that was adopted, but for the implementation itself, it is now essentially a whole of society approach that has been adopted because all of the working groups have representation, not only from the public sector, from the private sector and also from civil society, from telecom operators, from national statistical organizations, you name it and you’ll find probably find a body in one of the working groups contributing to one of the working groups. And one unique feature about this strategy is the support it extends to community networks. The working group on access, it is mentioned in the strategy as one of the DORs of the access working group that it will adopt policies around community networks. And it also mandates the establishment of at least 15 community networks across Pakistan. So this is one of the unique features of the policy that I really like and very relevant to the discussion that we are having today. Now, in the. The latest report that has just been released by GSMA on mobile gender gap, Pakistan’s gender gap has actually reduced from 38% down to 25%. And this is the largest reduction in any of the surveyed countries, which are essentially the developing countries that GSMA has surveyed. So I think in terms of lessons for any policymakers out there, I think we would recommend that first of all, please follow the inclusive policymaking process. Make sure that all of the stakeholders are on board if you want to develop this kind of a strategy, and also take the best use of other use cases, like best practice examples. And a lot of organizations are also working in this space, including ourselves, including APC, GSMA, and others. So I think this is an example from a developing country in the South Asian region, a region having the widest gender gap in the world, along with sub-Saharan Africa, of trying to make a difference in the state of affairs and actually achieving it. Thank you.

Rispa Arose: Thank you so much, Waqas, for those great points. And really, it’s good to know that this can be done, and it has been done from Pakistan. And also thank you for sharing some of the things that we can be in consideration of when thinking about a dedicated gender strategy for digital inclusion. Now I’d want to go back to Dr. Emma and Ms. Ivy, who are online as well. If you could propose one policy or practice shift to improve gender integration in digital connectivity, what would that be, and why?

Dr. Emma Otieno: Okay, thank you very much, Rizpa. And I really thank Waqas, Madhanji and Lillian for the insights that they’ve provided, which really link very well to what I’ll provide as an answer. And I like the Pakistan example, and the way they have actually gone ahead. So if I would just make it short and say, which is this one thing that we can actually do, be it at policy or as an initiative to make this improve or work better. I will go back to this, the statement that Madhanji gave during the first session of the presentation and cited Kenya as even having a national gender policy, which is true. But we have the policy and the policy has been there for quite a number of years. And it also speaks about issues of digital inclusivity and matters gender. But why are we like looking at the report that Waqas has talked about, we’re still at about 39% gender inclusivity gap. We are aware that Pakistan was years ago. So it is because of something, I think, which we’re not doing. And that is what’s going to be my answer to your question, Rizpa, is that we have not been intentional in terms of putting in these clauses in the policy regulation strategies, we are putting them in as aspects of satisfying the social or compliance aspects, but not meaningfully and intentionally putting them. And after we have also inserted and we’ve ticked the box of, we have a policy, or we have a framework, we have a guideline. What has lacked completely is measurement, the intentional and meaningful tracking, measurement, so that we can see what are the outputs out of these policies, or this policy, a clause that we have put in to promote digital inclusivity. What is the outcome, what is the impact and then how can we sustain or how can we improve and which are the areas that are paining. So when we ask anybody even in the area of policy or in the area of regulation or in any other space, we don’t have that information and Ivy said it very well, lack of even having disaggregated data to the extent that we know exactly at the point to understand what is the pain point and how do we move from here to the next step. So for me in terms of just having frameworks, most African countries are doing well because we are really complying with issues of SDG 5 of equality in terms of having those policies, but meaningfully measuring them and looking at them as contributors to socio-economic development is what has been lacking. So to summarize that answer is that we must actually start to implement things like the gender intentional digital infrastructure designs in terms of intentionally measuring, tracking, monitoring impact and feeding back through so that we sustainably improve to ensure that we are going back to closing all the gaps and of course our first answer leaving no one behind. There’s also an aspect of how can this be supported. Somebody mentioned that as I think the gentleman from the audience. PPPs bring together partnerships and collaborations because we cannot achieve this as government alone or as regulators alone or as a private sector alone. We must bring on board the financials. We must bring on board the people who are volunteering to say that they can actually translate it to their local languages. We must bring along the people who can cause devices to be cheap, connectivity to be cheap, you know, access issues. So those partnerships become the base of ensuring that actually we are making the progress in this regard. So two things, measurement and collaboration and partnership so that we achieve these aspects. Thank you very much.

Rispa Arose: Thank you so much Dr Emma. Very, very important to consider. Well said on the two critical aspects that we could be incognizant of while thinking about genomic streaming. I’d like to now hand it over to Ivy, Ms. Ivy.

Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu: Yes, thank you. And picking up from where Dr. landed, it’s true we need the metrics and we need the data. And this point was also built from the blind spots I mentioned earlier. The first thing starts from here, from the IGF here. We need from here the communique to move or go with cross-sectoral collaboration. For the past five years, multi-stakeholder collaboration has been pushed. We are doing well and I believe we can do better to address these gender-specific needs. So, different sector regulators often operate in silos with limited coordination with ministries responsible for gender, education, health, social development, et cetera. This fragmentation prevents holistic approach to digital inclusion. Our focus now should shift from one specific ministry to handle digital connectivity at least. We have now known a lot of sectors, governments know that ICT has become an enabler to all sectors. So, we cannot sit as ICT ministry or policymakers and make ICT decisions without these sectors. So, we need all of them. What IGF has done well in recent past is to involve members of parliament who are key legislators and lawmakers. I believe as they were involved, they have come in to understand the specific issues of what IGF. and other leaders, and also the IGF address. And gradually, it’s making an impact, especially in my country, Ghana. In the next decade, we need to create this platform, expand it, extend invitations to educational ministries, finance ministries, task experts. To also come to the IGF, come to the table, we need to involve them. Closely involve them. Once they sit on the table with us, understand the issues. When they are formulating their sector-specific policies, they will maybe have budgets or targets for contributing to ICT. What we don’t usually have is an infrastructure fund. Usually, this fund is taxed or contributed by mobile network operators, the ICT sector. But ICT goes beyond just the communications ministry or the regulators. It’s affecting every sector. So if a fund is created, the contribution shouldn’t just be on the limited field, the operators. The contribution should come from each of these sectors who are benefiting from ICTs. And this can help to promote community networks establishment in underserved communities. Lastly, one other thing we can do in formulating ICT policies is that stakeholder engagement. Dr. mentioned that the ICT frameworks, they are there. They’ve been developed for years. It’s the lack of implementation. Yes, they may have been prepared or drafted without extensive consultation, but it’s not too late. As we leave from here, we should involve all these stakeholders, especially those that these women… focus activists, gender activists, consumer advocates, when we are developing or when we plan to implement them, we need to involve them because they represent this specific focus group and they understand the issues. So when we involve them and we understand their basic needs, that is when we can formulate these policies to target and address their needs specifically, not making it generally, but making it specifically or addressing their specific, sorry, their specific needs. And when we do that, we get to know their issues that are bothering them, that is a concern. Then it will enable policy formulators to implement or draft and develop the right policies that will address their specific gender needs. For instance, if it’s children, ensuring their protection online. We cannot make a general, broad ICT policy just that is going to address everything equally. It cannot. We are moving from equality to equitable distribution. We need to understand the specific needs and then target them specifically. So with online, with women, we have those who are educated, those who are not educated, those who work in various sectors, and we will prepare these regulations or policies to target and address these specific needs. And when we do that, it will encourage them to use the technologies, because now we’ve gone beyond access. Availability is there. There’s availability, it’s access that we are struggling to, someone mentioned meaningful connection and access, which is key. So To be able to address this and make it meaningful, we need to understand the issues. So cross-sectoral collaboration in terms of preparing ICT policy and regulation is key in addressing gender mainstreaming issues in digital connection. Thank you.

Rispa Arose: Very, very well said, Ivy. Thank you so much for those interventions. I wouldn’t want to dilute it further. We’ll just take this time to see if there’s any question on the floor. And online, we have less than five minutes for any question, any comments that you’d want to contribute to this conversation.

Josephine Miliza: There’s no question online. Also, just a comment that women are the backbone of every society. There are fewer women taking part in the digital connectivity strategy. All they need is motivation, guidance, and support to get a lot of them in the space to make better policy. And this is from the IGF Ghana Hub. Thank you.

Rispa Arose: Thank you, thank you so much. I would really want to extend gratitude to our panelists and speakers for your honesty, your clarity, as well as your valuable contribution to this discussion. I would say that we cannot tire to talk about inclusivity because it’s towards the goal of connecting the unconnected as well as bridging the digital gap.

Agreement points

Community networks are not automatically inclusive and require intentional gender integration

Speakers

– Mathangi as Rispur
– Lillian Chamorro

Arguments

Community networks are locally driven but not automatically inclusive, requiring intentional gender integration from design stage

Women face barriers including care work responsibilities, low self-confidence with technology, and limited access to devices

Summary

Both speakers agree that while community networks represent a promising approach to connectivity, they face significant challenges in achieving gender inclusion. Women encounter multiple barriers including care work responsibilities, confidence issues with technology, and structural exclusion from leadership roles.

Topics

Development | Gender rights online | Infrastructure

Need for whole-of-government and cross-sectoral collaboration

Speakers

– Waqas Hassan
– Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu
– Dr. Emma Otieno

Arguments

Pakistan’s dedicated gender strategy reduced gender gap from 38% to 25% through inclusive policymaking

Regulators operate in silos with limited coordination across ministries responsible for gender, education, and health

Need meaningful measurement, tracking, and monitoring of gender inclusion policies with public-private partnerships

Summary

All three speakers emphasize the critical importance of breaking down institutional silos and adopting comprehensive, multi-stakeholder approaches to digital gender inclusion, with Pakistan’s success story serving as a concrete example.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Gender rights online

Importance of local languages and community-centered approaches

Speakers

– Kwaku Wanchi
– Lillian Chamorro
– Josephine Miliza

Arguments

Support collaboration with community businesses and translate digital skills training into local languages

Create women’s circles for expression and dialogue while respecting community values and gender roles

Community libraries and information centers can bridge digital gaps through collaboration with community networks

Summary

Speakers agree that effective digital inclusion requires respecting local contexts, languages, and cultural values while creating supportive spaces for women to engage with technology in culturally appropriate ways.

Topics

Development | Multilingualism | Sociocultural

Economic imperative of gender inclusion in digital strategies

Speakers

– Waqas Hassan
– Dr. Emma Otieno

Arguments

Gender exclusion from digital economy has caused $1 trillion GDP loss over last decade in developing countries

Need meaningful measurement, tracking, and monitoring of gender inclusion policies with public-private partnerships

Summary

Both speakers emphasize that gender digital inclusion is not just a social justice issue but a critical economic imperative, with measurable financial consequences for countries that fail to address it.

Topics

Economic | Development | Gender rights online

Similar viewpoints

Both regulatory experts identify the gap between policy existence and effective implementation, emphasizing the critical need for better data collection, measurement, and monitoring systems to make gender inclusion policies meaningful and effective.

Speakers

– Dr. Emma Otieno
– Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu

Arguments

Policies exist but lack intentional implementation and meaningful measurement of gender inclusion outcomes

Lack of gender-disaggregated data makes it difficult to identify specific needs and create targeted policies

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Gender rights online | Development

Both speakers advocate for more flexible and supportive institutional frameworks that recognize the informal nature of many women-led initiatives and provide targeted financial and regulatory support to enable their participation in digital connectivity.

Speakers

– Mathangi as Rispur
– Lillian Chamorro

Arguments

Licensing frameworks should accommodate informal women’s groups and non-registered collectives

Establish financing funds with special conditions for women’s participation and technology access

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Gender rights online | Development

Both speakers critique the prevailing assumption that technological solutions are inherently neutral and equally beneficial, arguing instead for recognition of structural barriers and the need for differentiated, equity-focused approaches.

Speakers

– Waqas Hassan
– Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu

Arguments

Connectivity strategies are developed from infrastructure mindset assuming coverage equals inclusion, ignoring inherent barriers

Technology is perceived as gender neutral but policies fail to address diverse needs and equitable access

Topics

Infrastructure | Development | Gender rights online

Unexpected consensus

Recognition of care work as legitimate labor in digital infrastructure

Speakers

– Mathangi as Rispur
– Lillian Chamorro

Arguments

Implement gender impact assessments during licensing processes and provide incentives for women-led networks

Create women’s circles for expression and dialogue while respecting community values and gender roles

Explanation

There was unexpected consensus on recognizing and compensating care work and digital maintenance as legitimate forms of labor, moving beyond traditional technical roles to acknowledge the full spectrum of work required for sustainable community networks.

Topics

Development | Gender rights online | Economic

Community networks as infrastructure requiring formal policy support

Speakers

– Waqas Hassan
– Mathangi as Rispur

Arguments

Pakistan’s dedicated gender strategy reduced gender gap from 38% to 25% through inclusive policymaking

Community networks are locally driven but not automatically inclusive, requiring intentional gender integration from design stage

Explanation

Unexpected consensus emerged on treating community networks not just as grassroots initiatives but as legitimate infrastructure requiring formal government policy support and integration into national digital strategies.

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

Strong consensus exists around the need for intentional, measured, and collaborative approaches to gender mainstreaming in digital connectivity, with agreement on moving beyond infrastructure-focused solutions to address structural barriers and recognize diverse forms of participation.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with complementary perspectives rather than conflicting viewpoints. The speakers represent different sectors (civil society, government, academia, community organizations) but share fundamental agreement on core challenges and solution approaches. This strong consensus suggests significant potential for coordinated action and policy development, with the main challenge being implementation rather than conceptual disagreement.

Different viewpoints

Approach to accommodating informal vs formal structures in community networks

Speakers

– Mathangi as Rispur
– Waqas Hassan

Arguments

Licensing frameworks should accommodate informal women’s groups and non-registered collectives

Pakistan’s dedicated gender strategy reduced gender gap from 38% to 25% through inclusive policymaking

Summary

Mathangi advocates for accommodating informal, non-registered women’s collectives in licensing frameworks, emphasizing trust-based cooperatives. Waqas presents Pakistan’s success through formal institutional structures with high-level steering committees and official working groups, suggesting more structured approaches work better.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Gender rights online | Development

Unexpected differences

Role of traditional community structures in gender inclusion

Speakers

– Lillian Chamorro
– Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu

Arguments

Create women’s circles for expression and dialogue while respecting community values and gender roles

Technology is perceived as gender neutral but policies fail to address diverse needs and equitable access

Explanation

Unexpectedly, there’s a subtle disagreement on how to handle traditional gender roles. Lillian advocates for working within existing community values and not ‘breaking with local customs,’ while Ivy pushes for moving from equality to equity, which may require challenging traditional assumptions about gender neutrality.

Topics

Gender rights online | Sociocultural | Human rights principles

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion shows remarkable consensus on the problem (gender gaps in digital connectivity) and general solutions (better policies, data, and inclusion), with disagreements mainly on implementation approaches – formal vs informal structures, working within vs challenging traditional frameworks, and policy reform vs grassroots organizing.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. The speakers largely agree on goals and broad strategies, with differences primarily in methodology and emphasis. This suggests a mature field where practitioners have identified common challenges but are still developing best practices for implementation. The disagreements are constructive and complementary rather than conflicting, indicating potential for integrated approaches that combine different methodologies.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both regulatory experts identify the gap between policy existence and effective implementation, emphasizing the critical need for better data collection, measurement, and monitoring systems to make gender inclusion policies meaningful and effective.

Speakers

– Dr. Emma Otieno
– Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu

Arguments

Policies exist but lack intentional implementation and meaningful measurement of gender inclusion outcomes

Lack of gender-disaggregated data makes it difficult to identify specific needs and create targeted policies

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Gender rights online | Development

Both speakers advocate for more flexible and supportive institutional frameworks that recognize the informal nature of many women-led initiatives and provide targeted financial and regulatory support to enable their participation in digital connectivity.

Speakers

– Mathangi as Rispur
– Lillian Chamorro

Arguments

Licensing frameworks should accommodate informal women’s groups and non-registered collectives

Establish financing funds with special conditions for women’s participation and technology access

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Gender rights online | Development

Both speakers critique the prevailing assumption that technological solutions are inherently neutral and equally beneficial, arguing instead for recognition of structural barriers and the need for differentiated, equity-focused approaches.

Speakers

– Waqas Hassan
– Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu

Arguments

Connectivity strategies are developed from infrastructure mindset assuming coverage equals inclusion, ignoring inherent barriers

Technology is perceived as gender neutral but policies fail to address diverse needs and equitable access

Topics

Infrastructure | Development | Gender rights online

Key takeaways

Gender mainstreaming in digital connectivity strategies requires intentional design from inception rather than treating gender as an afterthought

Community networks, while locally driven, are not automatically inclusive and need deliberate gender integration policies

The exclusion of women from the digital economy has caused $1 trillion in GDP loss over the last decade in developing countries, making this an economic crisis rather than just a social issue

Technology is often perceived as gender neutral, but policies fail to address diverse needs and equitable access requirements

Successful gender inclusion requires a whole-of-government approach with cross-sectoral collaboration beyond just ICT ministries

Pakistan’s dedicated gender strategy successfully reduced the gender gap from 38% to 25% through inclusive policymaking processes

Women face multiple barriers including care work responsibilities, low technological self-confidence, limited device access, and exclusion from decision-making roles

Lack of gender-disaggregated data makes it difficult to identify specific needs and create targeted policies

Many countries have gender policies but lack intentional implementation and meaningful measurement of outcomes

Resolutions and action items

Implement gender impact assessments during licensing processes for community networks

Create financing funds with special conditions for women’s participation in technology access and training

Establish women’s circles for dialogue and expression while respecting community values

Accommodate informal women’s groups and non-registered collectives in licensing frameworks

Involve gender activists and consumer advocates in policy development processes

Translate digital skills training into local languages using retired language teachers

Create infrastructure funds with contributions from all sectors benefiting from ICTs, not just telecom operators

Establish meaningful measurement, tracking, and monitoring systems for gender inclusion policies

Promote cross-sectoral collaboration by inviting educational, finance, and health ministries to IGF discussions

Support collaboration between community networks and community libraries/information centers

Unresolved issues

How to effectively redistribute care work responsibilities that prevent women’s participation in technical roles

Specific mechanisms for ensuring sustainability of women-led connectivity models without external scaffolding

Methods for balancing respect for traditional community gender roles while promoting women’s technical participation

Standardized approaches for collecting and analyzing gender-disaggregated data across different countries and contexts

Concrete funding mechanisms and amounts needed to support women-led community networks at scale

How to address the technical complexity barrier that discourages women from participating in community network infrastructure

Suggested compromises

Diversify roles in community networks with women in technical areas and men in administrative/financial aspects while recognizing care work value

Adapt methodologies that transcend purely technical approaches to include women’s interests and community care needs

Seek dialogue and reflection spaces on gender opportunities rather than breaking with local cultural values

Move from equality to equitable distribution by understanding and targeting specific gender needs rather than general broad policies

Recognize digital caretaking as a form of labor deserving of compensation while maintaining community cooperative spirit

If we don’t address or even consider the gendered digital divide, then you’re not really closing the gap, but more like building the infrastructure on top of the inequality and marginalization that is already existing.

Speaker

Mathangi Mohan

Reason

This comment reframes the entire approach to digital infrastructure development by highlighting that gender-neutral solutions perpetuate existing inequalities rather than solving them. It challenges the common assumption that providing access equals inclusion.

Impact

This insight became a foundational theme that other speakers built upon throughout the discussion. It shifted the conversation from simply identifying problems to understanding the systemic nature of digital exclusion and influenced subsequent speakers to emphasize intentional, targeted approaches rather than broad connectivity strategies.

The connectivity strategies are still primarily developed from an infrastructure mindset… that mindset is based on the assumption that if you provide access and expansion, coverage expansion, that is somehow synonymous with inclusion… infrastructure development does not mean equitable access.

Speaker

Waqas Hassan

Reason

This comment identifies a fundamental flaw in policy thinking – the conflation of physical access with meaningful inclusion. It exposes the gap between technical solutions and social realities, backed by concrete economic data ($1 trillion GDP loss).

Impact

This observation prompted the regulatory speakers (Dr. Emma and Ivy) to acknowledge policy failures and led to deeper discussions about measurement, intentionality, and the need for whole-of-government approaches. It elevated the conversation from technical challenges to systemic policy critique.

We have not been intentional in terms of putting in these clauses in the policy regulation strategies, we are putting them in as aspects of satisfying the social or compliance aspects, but not meaningfully and intentionally putting them… What has lacked completely is measurement, the intentional and meaningful tracking.

Speaker

Dr. Emma Otieno

Reason

This is a remarkably honest admission from a regulatory perspective about the performative nature of gender inclusion in policies. It distinguishes between compliance-driven inclusion and genuine commitment, while identifying the critical gap in accountability mechanisms.

Impact

This candid assessment validated the concerns raised by civil society speakers and shifted the discussion toward concrete solutions. It led to more specific recommendations about cross-sectoral collaboration and stakeholder engagement, moving the conversation from problem identification to actionable solutions.

We are moving from equality to equitable distribution. We need to understand the specific needs and then target them specifically… You cannot give us the same level of a tree to climb or something. One of them will need a ladder to be able to climb the tree.

Speaker

Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu

Reason

This vivid metaphor crystallizes the difference between equal treatment and equitable outcomes, making complex policy concepts accessible. It challenges the one-size-fits-all approach to digital inclusion and emphasizes the need for differentiated solutions.

Impact

This analogy provided a clear framework that other speakers could reference and build upon. It helped consolidate the discussion around the need for targeted, differentiated approaches and influenced the final recommendations toward more nuanced, context-specific solutions.

The licensing frameworks for these CNs need to very explicitly accommodate non-registered collectives, informal women’s group… because these are mostly cooperatives rooted in trust and solidarity and just assuming that it should be a registered entity and a technical documentation… is also going to exclude a lot of groups.

Speaker

Mathangi Mohan

Reason

This comment reveals how formal regulatory requirements can inadvertently exclude the very communities they aim to serve. It highlights the tension between institutional frameworks and grassroots organizing, particularly for women-led initiatives.

Impact

This insight prompted deeper discussion about the need for flexible regulatory approaches and influenced recommendations about simplifying licensing procedures. It connected the technical aspects of community networks with the social realities of women’s organizing patterns.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally transformed the discussion from a surface-level exploration of gender gaps to a sophisticated analysis of systemic barriers and solutions. The conversation evolved through three distinct phases: first, establishing that gender-neutral approaches perpetuate inequality; second, diagnosing the infrastructure-focused mindset and compliance-driven policies as root causes; and third, developing concrete recommendations for intentional, measured, and equitable approaches. The most impactful comments came from speakers who challenged fundamental assumptions about digital inclusion, provided honest assessments of current failures, and offered clear conceptual frameworks for moving forward. The discussion’s strength lay in how speakers built upon each other’s insights, creating a comprehensive analysis that connected grassroots experiences with policy frameworks and regulatory realities.

How can community networks better integrate with existing community libraries and information centers to bridge digital gaps?

Speaker

Peter Balaba (online comment)

Explanation

This suggests exploring partnerships between community networks and established community institutions like libraries and telecenters to leverage existing infrastructure and trust relationships for more effective digital inclusion.

How can local languages be better integrated into digital skills training and community network operations?

Speaker

Kwaku Wanchi

Explanation

This addresses the need for multilingual approaches to digital inclusion, particularly involving retired language teachers and ensuring technology training is accessible in local languages rather than only dominant languages.

How can small and medium enterprises (SMEs) led by women be better integrated into community network ecosystems?

Speaker

Kwaku Wanchi

Explanation

This explores the potential for leveraging existing women-led businesses as anchor points for community networks, potentially providing both funding and local expertise for sustainable connectivity solutions.

What specific methodologies work best for building women’s confidence in technical roles within community networks?

Speaker

Lillian Chamorro (implied)

Explanation

While challenges around low self-confidence were identified, specific evidence-based approaches for addressing this barrier need further investigation and documentation.

How can licensing frameworks be redesigned to accommodate informal women’s groups and non-registered collectives in community network governance?

Speaker

Mathangi Mohan

Explanation

Current regulatory frameworks may exclude informal women’s cooperatives that operate on trust and solidarity rather than formal registration, requiring policy research on alternative licensing approaches.

What are the most effective models for recognizing and compensating digital care work performed by women in community networks?

Speaker

Mathangi Mohan and Lillian Chamorro

Explanation

Both speakers highlighted the need to recognize women’s unpaid labor in maintaining community networks, but specific compensation models and their sustainability need further research.

How can gender-disaggregated data collection be systematically implemented across different countries’ ICT policies?

Speaker

Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu and Dr. Emma Otieno

Explanation

Both regulators emphasized the lack of gender-disaggregated data as a major barrier, but specific methodologies for consistent data collection and analysis across different regulatory contexts need development.

What are the most effective cross-sectoral collaboration models for integrating gender considerations across different government ministries?

Speaker

Ivy Tuffuor Hoetu

Explanation

The need for collaboration beyond ICT ministries was identified, but specific frameworks for coordinating gender mainstreaming across education, finance, health, and other sectors require further research.

How can the Pakistan model of dedicated gender digital inclusion strategy be adapted to other developing country contexts?

Speaker

Waqas Hassan (implied)

Explanation

While Pakistan’s success in reducing the gender gap was highlighted, research is needed on how this whole-of-government approach can be contextualized for different political, economic, and social environments.

What are the most effective funding mechanisms that allow for experimentation and iteration in women-led community networks?

Speaker

Mathangi Mohan

Explanation

Traditional funding models may not accommodate the experimental nature of community networks, requiring research into alternative funding approaches that support learning and adaptation.

Summary

This discussion focused on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Plus 20 review process and how to strengthen the digital governance architecture beyond 2025. The panel, moderated by Isabelle Lois from the Swiss Federal Office of Communications, brought together diverse stakeholders to discuss a Swiss non-paper proposing improvements to the WSIS framework. The participants agreed that existing WSIS action lines remain flexible and comprehensive enough to address current digital challenges, but require updates to their implementation architecture rather than complete restructuring.

Key themes emerged around meaningful connectivity, artificial intelligence governance, data sovereignty, and the need for better coordination between WSIS and the Global Digital Compact (GDC) to avoid duplication. Panelists emphasized the critical importance of including Global South perspectives and ensuring equitable participation in digital governance processes. The discussion highlighted significant concerns about the absence of adequate public financing for WSIS implementation and the need for better metrics to measure progress on digital inclusion and equity.

Regarding the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), there was strong consensus on making it permanent with sustainable funding while expanding its role beyond internet governance to encompass broader digital policy issues. Participants debated whether to rebrand the IGF to reflect its evolved scope, though some argued the current name remains relevant as digital technologies are fundamentally internet-dependent. The conversation addressed architectural gaps in the current system and proposed better institutional linkages between the IGF, Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), WSIS Forum, and UN General Assembly.

The panel concluded with optimism about achieving a “fair deal for all” through the WSIS Plus 20 review, emphasizing the need for inclusive participation and meaningful stakeholder engagement in shaping the digital future.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **WSIS Plus 20 Review and Architecture Updates**: The panel discussed how to modernize the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) framework for post-2025, focusing on updating existing action lines rather than creating new ones, and addressing emerging issues like AI, data governance, and meaningful connectivity while maintaining the flexible, technology-agnostic approach.

– **IGF Evolution and Institutionalization**: Significant attention was given to strengthening the Internet Governance Forum’s role, including making it permanent with sustainable funding, expanding its mandate beyond just internet governance to cover broader digital governance issues, and improving its connection to decision-making processes through better institutional linkages.

– **Multi-stakeholder Inclusion and Global South Participation**: Panelists emphasized the critical need for meaningful inclusion of all stakeholders, particularly voices from the Global South, developing countries, and marginalized communities, while addressing gaps in participation and ensuring that diverse perspectives shape digital governance policies.

– **Coordination Between Digital Governance Processes**: The discussion focused on avoiding duplication and creating synergies between various UN processes, particularly WSIS and the Global Digital Compact (GDC), through joint implementation roadmaps and better coordination mechanisms between IGF, CSTD, WSIS Forum, and UN General Assembly.

– **Human Rights and Public Interest in Digital Governance**: Panelists stressed the importance of strengthening human rights language across the WSIS architecture, ensuring democratic ownership of digital public infrastructure, addressing issues like misinformation and hate speech, and prioritizing public interest over private interests in agenda-setting processes.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to gather multi-stakeholder input on how to strengthen and modernize the WSIS framework for the post-2025 period, with particular focus on making the architecture more inclusive, effective, and relevant to current digital governance challenges while avoiding duplication with other UN processes.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a constructive and collaborative tone throughout. Panelists were generally supportive of Switzerland’s non-paper and showed enthusiasm for finding positive solutions. The conversation was professional and solution-oriented, with participants building on each other’s ideas rather than engaging in conflict. The tone remained optimistic and forward-looking, with speakers expressing hope for achieving meaningful outcomes by the December 2025 deadline, despite acknowledging the challenging geopolitical environment and time constraints.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Jorge Cancio** – Co-director of international relations at the Swiss Federal Office of Communications

– **Min Jiang** – Works at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (participating online)

– **Oktavian Šofranski** – Works with the Council of Europe in Strasbourg

– **Anita Gurumurthy** – Executive director for IT4Change

– **Participant** – Multiple unidentified participants (roles/titles not specified)

– **Flavio Vagner** – Professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and technical consultant for CGI Brazil

– **Audience** – Multiple audience members (roles/titles not specified)

– **Anna Osserling** – From Article 19, an international human rights organization focusing on free speech

– **Juan Fernandez** – Senior advisor at the Ministry of Communications for the government of Cuba

– **Bertrand de la Chapelle** – Executive Director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network

– **Isabelle Lois** – Senior policy advisor at the Swiss Federal Office of Communications and vice chair of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) – served as moderator

– **Jacques Becklinger** – Speaking in support of the European IGF EuroDIG and president of the Swiss IGF Supporting Association

– **Maria Fernanda Garza** – Honorary chair of the International Chamber of Commerce and member of the Leadership Panel

**Additional speakers:**

– **Luisa Lendi** – Junior policy advisor at the Swiss Federal Office of Communication and online moderator

– **Eugenio V. Garcia** – Director of science, technology, innovation and intellectual property at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil

– **Olaf Kolfmann** – Works for Internet Technology Policy and Advocacy at ISOC

– **Kosi** – From the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Benin, also chair of an NGO called Women Be Free

– **Bruna** – Part of a civil society organization (full name and title not provided)

– **Mark Colwell** – Participated online (mentioned by Luisa reading his comment)

# WSIS Plus 20 Review and Digital Governance Architecture Discussion

## Executive Summary

This multi-stakeholder discussion, moderated by Isabelle Lois from the Swiss Federal Office of Communications, examined the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Plus 20 review process and approaches to strengthening digital governance architecture beyond 2025. The session brought together representatives from government, civil society, academia, international organisations, and the private sector to discuss a Swiss non-paper proposing improvements to the WSIS framework.

The conversation focused on practical approaches to updating the WSIS framework while maintaining its foundational principles. Participants generally agreed that existing WSIS action lines remain flexible enough to address contemporary digital challenges, with emphasis needed on improving implementation architecture and coordination mechanisms rather than wholesale restructuring. Key themes included strengthening the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), addressing participation gaps particularly for Global South countries, and better coordinating between various digital governance processes including the Global Digital Compact (GDC).

## Key Discussion Points

### WSIS Framework Evolution and Action Lines

Several speakers emphasized that the existing WSIS action lines provide sufficient flexibility for addressing contemporary challenges. Anita Gurumurthy from IT4Change stated: “We completely agree that the existing action lines in WSIS Tunis are flexible enough to encompass new challenges. And rather than introducing new action lines or deleting existing ones, updates should be made to the current implementation architecture.”

Flavio Vagner from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul reinforced this view, noting that “WSIS action lines are comprehensive and technology-agnostic, maintaining validity after 20 years but need emphasis on emerging issues.” He highlighted how artificial intelligence impacts multiple action lines as both an enabler and potential threat.

Maria Fernanda Garza from the International Chamber of Commerce provided a helpful framing: “The WSIS architecture provides a unique and inclusive distributed governance model… The most important question we need to ask ourselves is whether we have been using it effectively… we have a toolbox, but are we really using all of the tools?”

### Internet Governance Forum Development

The discussion revealed support for strengthening and institutionalizing the IGF after two decades of operation. Min Jiang from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, participating online, identified a key structural challenge: “IGF by mandate is a non-binding, deliberative structure… Unfortunately also, limited by its design, a lot of the great IGF discussions and outcomes do not necessarily land in decision-making fora.”

Juan Fernandez from Cuba’s Ministry of Communications provided context by quoting Vint Cerf: “IGF may not be the place to solve the problem, but it’s certainly the place to frame the problem.” He presented data showing participation gaps in AI governance processes, with a chart demonstrating that many countries, particularly from the Global South, cannot participate in multiple governance forums simultaneously.

Bertrand de la Chapelle from the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network suggested that “2026, with an impetus coming from the WSIS plus 20 review, should be about what is and should be the evolution and the revision of the mandate of the IGF to make it formally what it is supposed to be.”

### Addressing Participation Gaps and Inclusion

Multiple speakers emphasized the importance of meaningful participation from underrepresented groups. Fernandez’s presentation visually demonstrated how “most of the countries, and mostly of the South, cannot participate in all of them, or even in some of them,” referring to various digital governance processes.

Eugenio V. Garcia highlighted Brazil’s approach to inclusion, referencing their preparations for COP30 and the principle of “nothing about us without us.” He noted the challenging political environment while expressing optimism about the window of opportunity for progress.

Anna Osserling from Article 19 stressed the “importance of including underserved communities globally and addressing participation gaps,” while acknowledging that digital technologies can facilitate engagement through online environments and remote participation.

### Coordination Between Digital Governance Processes

Participants discussed the need for better coordination between WSIS Plus 20, the Global Digital Compact, and IGF processes. Gurumurthy advocated for “better linking needed between WSIS and GDC review tracks with IGF’s annual review process.”

Fernandez proposed institutional linkages between IGF, the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), WSIS Forum, and UN General Assembly to avoid duplication, emphasizing that “CSTD provides necessary intergovernmental space for government concerns and decision-making.”

Jacques Becklinger highlighted the role of National and Regional Internet Governance Initiatives (NRIs) as “ground operations” that need better integration into global processes.

## Stakeholder Perspectives

### Government Representatives

Government speakers emphasized the need for intergovernmental spaces while supporting multi-stakeholder approaches. Fernandez stressed the importance of the CSTD as a space for government decision-making, while Garcia highlighted the challenging political environment and the need for inclusive approaches.

### Civil Society Organizations

Civil society representatives focused on human rights protections and meaningful inclusion. Gurumurthy raised concerns about public financing gaps, while Osserling emphasized strengthening human rights language across the WSIS architecture.

### Academic Contributions

Academic participants provided analytical frameworks for understanding governance challenges. Jiang identified structural issues with translating IGF outcomes into decision-making, while Vagner emphasized the technology-agnostic nature of existing action lines.

### Private Sector Engagement

Garza emphasized the private sector’s readiness to contribute, noting that the “ICC ready to serve as bridge between businesses worldwide and UN implementation efforts” while stressing the importance of commercially viable and technically feasible policies.

### International Organizations

Representatives highlighted coordination challenges and opportunities. De la Chapelle focused on institutional evolution, while other speakers emphasized the need for better integration between existing mechanisms.

## Audience Participation and Additional Perspectives

The session included active audience participation with several important contributions:

– A representative from Benin questioned whether the IGF name should change to reflect its broader digital governance scope, arguing that “IGF now discusses many digital issues beyond just internet governance.”

– Questions were raised about business community engagement in global digital governance architecture.

– Participants discussed the balance between multi-stakeholder and multilateral approaches in different contexts.

## Practical Recommendations and Next Steps

Several concrete suggestions emerged from the discussion:

### Immediate Actions

– Provide feedback on the Swiss non-paper to support co-facilitators’ negotiations

– Develop structured follow-up mechanisms for IGF recommendations

– Create better integration between IGF and WSIS Forum processes

### Medium-term Developments

– Work toward making the IGF permanent with sustainable funding

– Develop joint implementation roadmaps between WSIS Plus 20 and GDC processes

– Strengthen participation mechanisms for Global South countries

### Long-term Vision

– Consider formal IGF mandate revision in 2026 based on 20 years of experience

– Develop better coordination mechanisms between various UN digital governance processes

– Address financing gaps that limit implementation effectiveness

## Timeline and Process Considerations

The discussion referenced several important upcoming milestones:

– Feedback period for the elements paper from co-facilitators

– Zero draft expected in August

– December timeline for key decisions

– Related processes including the WSIS Forum in Geneva and AI for Good summit

## Areas Requiring Further Development

While the discussion was generally collaborative, several issues require continued attention:

### Coordination Mechanisms

Participants agreed on the need for better coordination but proposed different specific approaches. The exact mechanisms for integrating WSIS Plus 20 and GDC processes need further development.

### IGF Evolution

While there was support for strengthening the IGF, questions remain about specific changes to its mandate, funding mechanisms, and relationship to other processes.

### Participation and Inclusion

Despite consensus on the importance of Global South participation, concrete mechanisms for addressing participation gaps require further elaboration.

## Conclusion

The discussion demonstrated the potential for constructive multi-stakeholder dialogue on digital governance issues. Participants showed general agreement on maintaining the flexibility of existing WSIS action lines while improving implementation and coordination mechanisms. The emphasis on addressing participation gaps and ensuring meaningful inclusion of all stakeholders, particularly from the Global South, emerged as a central priority.

The session’s collaborative tone and focus on practical solutions suggest positive prospects for the WSIS Plus 20 review process. While challenges remain around coordination mechanisms and implementation details, the discussion provided a solid foundation for continued engagement toward achieving more effective and inclusive digital governance architecture beyond 2025.

The moderator’s closing emphasis on ensuring “nobody is left behind in digital age with a fair deal for all stakeholders” captured the inclusive vision driving the review process and the commitment of participants to work toward meaningful outcomes despite challenging global circumstances.

Isabelle Lois: Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for attending and participating in this open forum. My name is Isabelle Lois, I’m a senior policy advisor at the Swiss Federal Office of Communications and I’m also vice chair of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development or the CSTD. We have, I think, a very interesting open forum for you today called Building Bridges for WSIS+, a multi-stakeholder dialogue. As you can see, we have a great panel here. Let me introduce maybe the panelists a bit. So on my right, we have Anita Gurumurthy, who is executive director for IT4Change. And then we have Flavio Reichtwagner, who is professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and also technical consultant for CGI Brazil. And then further on the right, we have Eugenio V. Garcia, who is director of science, technology, innovation and intellectual property at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil. And then on my left side, we have first Luisa Lendi, who’s a junior policy advisor at the Swiss Federal Office of Communication and she’s our online moderator. And then we have Juan Fernandez, who’s a senior advisor at the Ministry of Communications for the government of Cuba. And we then have Maria Fernanda Garcia, who’s honorary chair of the International Chamber of Commerce. And last but not least, in person, we have Olaf Kolfmann, who’s working for the Internet Technology Policy and Advocacy at ISOC. And online, we have Min Jiang, who’s working at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. So that’s our great panel and maybe before we start the discussion and the conversation I would like to give the floor to Jorge Cancio who’s co-director of international relations at the Swiss Federal Office of Communications. Jorge please share some words.

Jorge Cancio: So thank you so much Isabel. Hello everyone my name is Jorge Cancio from the Swiss government also working together with Isabel, with Risa and also with our colleagues Thomas and Remy who are here on site at the IGF. I won’t be long you know many of you know we have a non-paper that is advocating for WSIS plus and WSIS framework that is both up to speed for the digital needs of today’s world in terms of substance and in terms of how the UN system works together both internally and with all the interested stakeholders. So we are offering this non-paper as food for thought for the community and we look forward to a very substantive discussion at today’s forum with all the excellent panelists. I think only the IGF can bring together such a diverse group with so many different sensitivities and we really are very happy to have you here. Thank you so much.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you Jorge and thank you for sharing a bit a few thoughts on our non-paper. If anyone wants to have a copy or anything we can always share them with you and if anyone also wants to sit on the on the podium on the panel please come up and sit here don’t be shy. I think we can jump in straight into our questions and discussions. We all know what we’re talking about this is not the first session that discusses WSIS and what we want out of it so I think we will jump right in. I’m gonna turn to you Anita if that’s all right and maybe ask if you could share some of your thoughts on what specific changes you consider necessary to make the entire WSIS architecture fit for purpose beyond 2025 and how would you implement those changes and what changes should we see? Maybe you could share a bit on that.

Anita Gurumurthy: Thank you very much. I first want to compliment the government of Switzerland for having come out with such a thoughtful paper, non-paper paper. And I really gained a lot out of reading it, and also looking at the original WSIS and GDC texts. What I want to say is that we completely agree that the existing action lines in WSIS Tunis are flexible enough to encompass new challenges. And rather than introducing new action lines or deleting existing ones, updates should be made to the current implementation architecture. I think that’s a great starting point. And in fact, I can hazard a few hypotheses on how action lines can actually be redefined. For instance, the first one on the role of public governance authorities and stakeholders could actually be updated to include common standards for digital public goods, and emphasize democratic ownership and control, and transparency and accountability of digital public infrastructure. Similarly, action line three on access to information and knowledge could really encompass the need to tackle the risks to democratic integrity, especially because of misinformation, hate speech, et cetera. The line, which is the fourth, which speaks about capacity building could actually look at transformative public digital education, what unfortunately goes by the name of digital literacy for algorithmified or algorithmized public life, and so on and so forth. You could actually think about different updations and we, from the Global Digital Justice Forum, have a list of this kind of updation. But what is critical, I think, is that the architectural gaps in the first place also arise. because of one Achilles heel, which is the absence of the significance in all these documents around public financing. I think we know that ODA commitments are not being really respected, and therefore WSIS-related financing is in trouble, and therefore there are architectural gaps, and blended financing is not enough. So I think this is something for SDG’s implementation related to the WSIS we really have to look at front and center. I also think that a couple more points that I’d like to make, which have resonances in the non-paper, are to do with better linking the review of WSIS and now the GDC tracks, and the IGF’s annual review track of WSIS and GDC. How will we imagine this is, I think, very important. What will be the identified metrics across WSIS action lines and GDC tracks? How do we hold our governments to account? How do we know what progress is? And how do we define progress from the point of view of inclusion, diversity, equity, etc.? And how can it be better synergized with annual reviews, where national reviews will be presented? So finally, I’d also like to say that it’s really, really important that in the business of standard setting and going forward, we’re talking about AI, we know that many of the action line holders in the WSIS are really busy with sophisticated and committed groups looking at standard setting, but unfortunately, in all of this, developing country civil society and developing country governments are really absent, and I think that that’s something we do need to pay attention to, otherwise, I think, going forward from here, we’re not going to really have a robust post-WSIS Plus 20 review process. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Anita. I think you raised a lot of very important and very specific points that I took well note of. I like how you both gave some ideas on specific action lines where we could do better and also thinking on how How are we calculating progress? How are we celebrating what we have done, what we have achieved, and making sure that that is well recorded? And I will now maybe turn to you, Flavio. Could you share what specific maybe subject matter updates to go further than just the architecture? Would you believe are essential to make now so that WSIS is truly impactful beyond 2025? How could they be, if needed, integrated into the entire framework?

Flavio Vagner: So thank you, Isabel. Thank you for having me in the session and for the question, yeah. But first of all, let me also, as Nit, also congratulate the government of Switzerland for the non-paper, which makes very relevant and timely recommendations for the WSIS plus 20 review process and for the future of the WSIS architecture and processes. So the WSIS action lines are already very comprehensive and they cover all aspects of the information society and today’s digital transformation. They have been written in a technology agnostic way. I heard this expression this morning and I found it very, very useful, yeah. Such that the action lines did not lose their validity and strength after 20 years. However, of course, issues that were emerging trends in 2005 or even in 2015 during the WSIS plus 10 review are now a tangible reality and should be emphasized in the WSIS plus 20 review and in the follow-up of the WSIS processes. So first of all, meaningful connectivity. This is still a major challenge. Billions remain still offline, particularly in least developed countries and marginalized communities. Many with internet access still face barriers such as affordability, low digital literacy, lack of relevant content and services, for instance, in their native languages. A second issue is the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence everyone is talking about. Its impact both positive and negative continues to expand affecting labor, ethics, the environment and still deserve careful assessment by the society. So the action lines must be revised as AI acts both as an enabler but also as a threat across many areas, many action lines. Data governance, which is closely tied to AI, we now live in a data economy. Many in the global south raise concerns, serious concerns about data colonialism, advocate for data sovereignty. This cannot be neglected and must be a key focus of the WSIS Plus 20 review process. Social media and digital platforms, barely emerging 20 years ago, are now ubiquitous. They empower communication, content creation, SMEs, but also fuel disinformation and hate speech. Information integrity has become a critical issue requiring balanced solutions that at the same time protect empowerment while combating harmful content. Human rights must be protected online as offline, covering freedom of speech, gender equity, rights of marginalized groups, children’s rights, privacy and more. And this remains one of the most pressing concerns in today’s digital world. A growing issue in recent years is the energy consumption of ICTs. ICTs now account for an estimated 5 to 6% of global energy use, a figure which is rising very rapidly due to AI. And while action lines emphasize ICTs’ role in environmental protection, their growing energy impact requires now urgent attention to energy-efficient solutions. Finally, there is increasing demand for digital regulation and legislation. This is a different perspective, to combat disinformation, market concentration, labor disruptions and more, and also to assert digital sovereignty, which is claimed in many countries and jurisdictions. However, as regulation is a matter of national sovereignty, the WSIS Plus 20 review process should promote harmonized legislation that supports digital sovereignty without undermining the full potential of the Internet as a globally connected resource. And a final point, the integration of the WSIS action lines with the SDGs must be strengthened. As already mapped to the SDGs, the digitalization’s role in sustainable development needs clearer actionable connections, especially beyond 2030 and when the SDGs should be revised. So thank you for your attention and I look forward to the continuation of this discussion.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you, Flavio, for your very comprehensive and very important list of different subject matters that we need to consider now that we’re looking for the WSIS review and that we want to implement further this year. Maybe I will take the point to just remind everyone, we are many panelists, everybody’s an expert, so you have a lot to say, but try to keep your remarks as short as possible so that we can have a discussion. And I will turn to you, Maria Fernanda. WSIS has always highlighted the multi-stakeholder participation as a core principle. What would meaningful inclusion look like in the WSIS Plus 20 review and the implementation after this year, and what is missing today?

Maria Fernanda Garza: Thank you, Isabel. It is a pleasure to join you this afternoon, and thank you to the Swiss government. I’m Maria Fernanda Garza, Honorary Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce and member of the Leadership Panel. Since the WSIS was envisioned in 2005, ICC has been deeply engaged, lending the support of the global business community for a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society. And the outputs from this process, the Tunis Agenda and the Geneva Action Plan, focus on creating a truly global Internet where everyone can benefit from what it has to offer. Since 2003, the world around us has been evolving significantly, with new challenges on the governance of the Internet leading to fragmented policy responses that have also been influenced by the evolution of the digital technologies that are based on or go beyond the Internet. But WSIS set us out with a uniform vision and offered us a toolbox to cope with these challenges of technology. So while 20 years have passed since this toolbox was created, and new challenges have surfaced. The most important question we need to ask ourselves is whether we have been using it effectively. The WSIS architecture provides a unique and inclusive distributed governance model that promoting interoperability, multi-stakeholder collaboration to address the policy, regulatory, and legal space around the internet and digital technologies more broadly. Bringing all of these pieces together is why WSIS created the IGF. So at less than halfway to the WSIS Plus 20 review, we must rethink how to take the existing architecture into the future. And ICC shares the views presented in the Switzerland non-paper for WSIS Plus framework, which calls for strengthening existing structure addressing the architectural gaps of the WSIS process and enhancing the IGF. The WSIS Plus 20 process must not only think about inclusion, but operationalize it by integrating the implementation of the GDC as part of the WSIS Plus 20 outcomes to avoid duplications and resource strain, and by giving the IGF a permanent mandate through sustainable funding. So as a key convenor of bottom-up inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogue on digital policy issues, the IGF has demonstrated its value over the past 20 years, especially as technology has evolved and policy challenges become more complex. So when we talk about meaningful inclusion in the WSIS Plus 20 review and implementation, we mean ensuring meaningful opportunities for all stakeholders to deliver key digital policy questions. of the day. Participation and informed input from all stakeholder groups will ensure that the policies and regulations are commercially viable and technically feasible, and that privacy and human rights are protected. Leaving no one behind in the digital age means ensuring that everyone has a seat at the table, but also a voice and a power to shape the digital future. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Maria Fernanda. I really liked the point you made on the fact that we have a toolbox, but are we really using all of the tools? Are we using it in the best way? I think that’s a very good metaphor for us to think about, especially this year. And I will turn now to our online speaker, Min. Maybe you could share a bit on what you see as the main challenges or concerns that the academic community is raising now regarding the role of the IGF within the broader WSIS architecture.

Min Jiang: Thank for having me on this panel, and thanks, Jorge, Isabel, and Luisa, for the great non-paper. The academic community is an integral part of the multi-stakeholder model that underpins IGF and WSIS structures and processes. Besides a forum like this, the academic community often also works with other stakeholders in governmental, technical, business communities, and civil society to advance research, ideas, and well-being in our society. From an academic perspective, IGF faces some challenges within the broader WSIS and digital governance architecture. I will flag two issues for consideration. First is deliberation versus decision-making. IGF by mandate is a non-binding, deliberative structure under the auspice of UN that allows critical issues of Internet governance or digital governance to emerge from the confluence of diverse communities. Unfortunately also, limited by its design, a lot of the great IGF discussions and outcomes do not necessarily land in decision-making fora at the UN regional or national levels. Structurally, it seems a conveyor belt of some sorts needs to exist between IGF and the larger WSIS infrastructure, as well as between multi-stakeholder and multilateral processes to transmit and even integrate IGF outcomes more effectively into decision-making processes. Otherwise, we risk taking time away from making actual binding decisions to address critical issues and challenges. A second related issue is the limited visibility and capacity of IGF in the whole universe of WSIS and digital policy-making processes. processes. Without a permanent mandate, IGF is subject to periodical WSIS review. Also, as already mentioned by Maria Fernanda, without sustainable funding, IGF really risks its status as one of the most diverse digital governance fora based on multi-holder principles. Also with a proliferating number of organizations and processes now also including GDC, IGF faces a kind of existential question. Many see GDC’s multilateral process and IGF’s multi-stakeholder process as complementary rather than antithetical to each other. So there’s no reason why the two cannot collaborate under the same UN umbrella to address pressing issues more effectively. Thank you for your attention and look forward to more discussions.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Min. I think you raised many important points on what we’re looking for now at the IGF and how we can make it potentially stronger now with the WSIS Plus 20 review. I’m going to turn to you, Juan. There is a growing complexity in this digital governance question. So what form of coordination, roadmap, shared framework, joint mechanisms or anything in that sort of sense would you see linking the different processes? And I’m particularly thinking about WSIS and GDC, but maybe there’s other points you also want to raise. And we also have a slide that we’re sharing behind.

Juan Fernandez: Thank you, Sabelle. First of all, thank the organizer of this panel for having me. And the audience, can you be with me because I will present three slides because as they say a picture is worth a thousand words. So that way I have to speak less and we will have more time to get the interaction with you. That is what is our interest. My first slide is just to motivate. It’s taken from… from the book that’s there at the right, Governing AI for Humanity. By the way, I recommend the book. But this slide shows seven processes, not from UN, of course, related with AI. And it makes the list of which countries has participated in them. As you see with the yellow in the bottom, most of the countries, and mostly of the South, cannot participate in all of them, or even in some of them. So this raises the situation that, because, of course, I agree with the substantive issues that was said by my previous speakers. But in the end, work has to be done. And we have to do it through mechanisms, through something. And we cannot have too many of them. Because otherwise, it’s impossible, especially for a developing country, to be in all of them. In that sense, I agree with what is said in the document from the Swiss government, the non-paper paper, and also from what Garza just said, that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We can keep the processes that were established during WSIS, of course, perfecting them now that we have the experience of the years. And these four that are in the screen now, the IGF, that we are here now, the CSTD, the WSIS Forum, and also the UN General Assembly. And there’s some arrows in the middle that is not there only for the show. Those arrows mean that there needs to be some institutional linkage and some coordination between them to avoid duplication. In the Swiss document, they go into details. I’m not going to get into details. You can check. check it in the document that mentioned UNGIS, the United Nations Group of Information Society, that groups all the agencies in the US. But I just told the Undersecretary General that was in another meeting that beyond that, we need to have a more fluid, substantive linkages and liaisons between all of this. And just to finish the last slide, I will just briefly, of course, I opened to question and to, if you want me to go into more details, but just quickly to say why the essence of those three, four mechanism. Of course, first we have the IGF. And I put them first not by chance, because the IGF is an agenda setter. It’s where from bottom up, from the national and regional IGF, problems are presented. Problems that sometimes, and many times, they’re not heard at the global level. So it’s a natural channel to channel, by the way, to channel those problems to the UN at large and to the international community at large. As Vint Cerf says in the previous IGF, in one of his intermentions, he said, IGF may not be the place to solve the problem, but it’s certainly the place to frame the problem. So that’s a very important contribution of IGF, of SCORE, and of course, because it’s all the stakeholders, policy dialogue, and it’s part of the mandate. That does not have to be changed. There’s some perfection that can be done, but OK. Then we have the Commission of Science and Technology for Development. This may sound controversial for somebody, but we need an intergovernmental space. Actually, it’s happening in the CSDD, and it has the mandate of the yearly review of the outcomes of WSIS. We need that. Somebody is still calling the enhanced cooperation. If you want, I know the story very well. I was there in Tunis when all that discussion came out. But maybe that’s for another time. We don’t have time here. But we need an intergovernmental space. And it may be the CSTD. For instance, in CSTD was decided last year to create a group for the analysis of data governance because it’s important. Maybe next year they say we will need a group for the analysis of, I don’t know, AI governance or blockchain governance, whatever. We need a place where governments can also channel their own concerns and take decisions. Of course, we have the WSIS Forum. The WSIS Forum, the mandate, original mandate, is to have the accountability of the moderator, facilitator of the action lines, and to review the action lines. And here I underline the word action because in some other forum, here in the IGF policy dialogue, in CSTD, we take decisions. But that has to be translated into actions. And I am saying that all these processes can be clearinghouse. The IGF, as a matter of fact, is a clearinghouse for policy dialogue because everybody come here. But the action lines, I just mentioned in the previous slide, in the first slide, processes that are outside the United Nations, for instance, for artificial intelligence. We don’t have an action line for artificial intelligence, but maybe we may have one. But let me put the example of the action line for cybersecurity. We have many processes from cybersecurity. Even the London process that is outside of the UN, we have the open-ended working group in Commission 1 of UNGA. And all those many people cannot be in all those places but that could converge. The result of that in the action line of cybersecurity. That is already there, it can be kept as the place for a political. review of the outcomes of the wishes of the GDC on the future. I will leave it there. I know that you may want me to go deep into something, but if we have time, please ask.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Juan, first of all for your enthusiasm in the presentation and for all of the different points. Before I go to you, Olaf, I just want to say we shared the non-paper with our distinguished panelists. I’m very happy that you’re all commenting and agreeing with the points we did. I have not asked them to endorse it. You’re free to share your own position and opinions, and I’m happy you all like it, but just to make it clear, they were all free to say whatever they wanted about it. It was just to start the conversation. But Olaf, I will turn to you. Could you maybe share a few of your thoughts on how the IGF is evolving and how it could evolve as a space for discussion or maybe a strategic platform to shape the implementation and follow-up across the digital governance landscape? I will. Please try to be brief. We want a bit of a discussion.

Participant: Is this on?

Isabelle Lois: Yes, it is on.

Participant: I’ll try to do so briefly. First, thank you for sharing the non-paper. These papers are a brilliant contribution to the global brainstorm that is happening around this topic. Brainstorming ourselves a little bit a couple of years ago, we thought about what is actually the IGF and how can we create an atmosphere in which it’s a little bit more productive. Min was referring to this conveyor belt to decisions, and in order to have a conveyor belt of decisions, we need perhaps a little bit more structure. One of the things that we identified is that if you look at the various policy topics that enter the IGF, they are of various maturity. The new ones require storming, forming, and norming by their stakeholder groups. While a little bit more mature policy topics might only need coordination and sharing of experiences. And perhaps if you’re even more mature, you can deliver best practices. You can notice that I’m a sort of an engineer going at this as a solution-oriented approach. So if you think about that and you think about policy topics that might be interesting, organize those in verticals, in pillars. I could see internet governance as its internet infrastructure governance, as its own pillar. Digital public infrastructure as its own pillar, data governance as its own pillar, AI as its own pillar, digital literacy as its own pillar. And by identifying pillars in which there is sufficient scope to do work, you can basically design work programs. Is this really about coordination, maybe reporting to each other in the community, what the state of things are, where work is being done, what work is being done? Or is this about getting to what are the problems that are on the table? What are the actual dilemmas and the storming and the norming and the forming? Across that matrix, we now get the matrix, we have the horizontals. We have the horizontals of the global equalities, the human rights, the questions around climate, technical competency that needs to be in all of those pillars, and the academic community that needs to come out of those pillars. By making work programs within those pillars, you have a little bit of a continuity and a chance of producing outcome that will be picked up either by the communities in, say, their regional and national internet governance bodies, picked up by governance, or perhaps reported up to the food chain, as you just described it. And with that, that’s sort of the idea. The pitch.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much for the pitch. I really liked it. Short, sweet, and to the point. And without further ado, I will turn to our last panelist, Eugénie, please. If we’re zooming out maybe a bit, but considering the ongoing or starting discussions on WSIS Plus 20 review and the whole UN system, both in New York and in Geneva, how are you approaching this process from sort of a governmental perspective? What are the key issues that are being raised that you think should be raised throughout the different UN fora?

Participant: Thank you for the invitation to join this panel. I’m glad to be here. I think you know that the internet in Brazil is based on a multi-stakeholder model. The Internet Steering Committee, also known as CGI, I think most of you are familiar with what we have been doing. We are now celebrating 30 years of this Internet Steering Committee. And you also might be familiar with the São Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines that were adopted last year during the next Plus 10. And this is the foundation of our position. And I want to congratulate Switzerland for the non-paper. I fully recommend those in the audience to read this non-paper as food for thought, because it has some interesting ideas. One of them, for example, a joint implementation roadmap, because we always talk about avoiding duplication of efforts, avoiding creating new platforms. And it would perhaps make no sense that we have two different tracks dealing with the same subject matter. So we have the WSIS platform. plus 20 and also have the Global Digital Compact, the GDC. So the challenge is how can we integrate both processes? And in terms of negotiations in New York, you have probably read the elements paper by the co-facilitators of the WSIS process. Our assessment is that they have tried to make a comprehensive document highlighting the benefits of technology, but also the risks associated with digital technologies. But in terms of proposals, actually the co-facilitators were very cautious. They are promising for the zero draft coming by August, possibly, to come up with some concrete ideas in terms of how we can go forward for this process, which has a timeline for December in New York. But also these have ongoing negotiations on the GDC, especially the AI track. I think some of you may have read there is the third draft, which are the terms of reference and modalities for the AI scientific panel, the International Independent Scientific Panel on AI, but also the AI Global Dialogue that is both are coming from the GDC. And this draft was circulated to UN member states and the deadline is tomorrow. So there is a silence procedure and we don’t know exactly if delegations would break the silence. We have some major players, but also the G77 representing developing countries. I think they are having a meeting, a coordinated meeting today to decide what to do. So all of this is happening at the same time, but what we have is a challenging political environment, particularly this year, with growing polarization, geopolitical tensions, the ideological divide. Some people talk about the tech Cold War. So this is difficult, adding complexity to how we organize the global digital ecosystem. I say to my colleagues that we have a window of opportunity, but when we open this window, there is a storm outside. So bad timing, but this is something that we need to see how we can move forward despite these challenges. And to finish, three points on the future of IGF. First, that IGF should be made permanent. I think it doesn’t make any sense that we are discussing again and again renewing the mandate of the IGF, which has a very important role. And I see some consensus from delegations in New York about this. Maybe this is a low-hanging fruit that we can secure if we manage to have stable and predictable funding. But this is, of course, my second point. And the third is rebranding IGF. This is another suggestion in the Swiss non-paper, because what we see here, not only in Billiström, but also in previous IGFs, we don’t talk about it. the internet governance per se, we have AI, we have emerging technologies, several other issues, information integrity and so on. So this would acknowledge a reality that it’s, of course, we need to discuss if this is also feasible and the question, can we reach a compromise? So I’ll stop here and looking forward to the discussions.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Eugenio. Thank you. Thank you all for your very interesting and important thoughts. We have about half an hour for questions and comments from maybe the audience. I have a few questions if no one has something to say. I’m looking at you, dear listeners. Anyone want to ask something? Otherwise, I have a sort of overarching question that I think we can think about. And maybe if someone wants to come up and ask something, yes, please. The mics are on the side. In the meantime, whilst you walk over to the mic, I think we, I would like for us to think a bit on our perspective as different stakeholder groups and maybe think about the main challenges, concerns that we want to get out or that we think we could solve with the WSIS Plus 20 review this year and outcome. Please, Jacques, I see that you are first on the mic. Go ahead, ask your question or say your comments.

Jacques Becklinger: Well, first of all, I thank you, all the panel, for a wonderful contribution. And my name is Jacques Becklinger. I am here speaking in support of the European IGF EuroDIG and also president of the Swiss IGF Supporting Association. And with pleasure I read in the very good non-paper that also the role of the NRIs are addressed as the ground operation. So in business, we know all business is local. And the IGF is not just happening somewhere in New York or somewhere in cyberspace, but it’s actually happening on the ground. So I would just remind that. And in maybe future version 3, would be great to have even expanded a little bit on the role of what’s happening on the ground in… I think, 140 or something local IGFs.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Jacques. Bertrand, I will immediately take your question or comment.

Bertrand de la Chapelle: Anyway, my name is Bertrand de la Chapelle, I’m the Executive Director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network. I want to focus on one thing, the question of the renewal of the mandate of the IGF has been mentioned. I, of course, like many people, wholeheartedly support the extension and even making it permanent. However, it’s not enough. 20 years in, it’s time to take stock. I do not expect the WSIS plus 20 process by December to make decisions on how to improve the IGF further, how to revise its mandate, how to more formally institutionalize it, which I think is the right time, 20 years in. However, I take the example of what was achieved with the Working Group on Internet Governance in 2004 and 2005, which was one of the rare truly multi-stakeholder groupings that initiated not only the definition of Internet Governance, but also the concept of a forum that gave birth to the IGF. I strongly believe that 2026, with an impetus coming from the WSIS plus 20 review, should be about what is and should be the evolution and the revision of the mandate of the IGF to make it formally what it is supposed to be, an issue framing exercise and an agenda setting, as Juan said. And second, how to institutionalize it more coherently. in a charter of sorts that establishes the different powers and capacities of the existing building blocks that we have. So I think there is an articulation that we should take into account during the WSIS Plus 20 review to think about how to organize the discussion that has to take place in 2026. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much. Maybe we can continue, I see there’s two more people, Anna, please.

Anna Osserling: Thank you so much for this conversation. My name is Anna Osserling and I’m from Article 19, an international human rights organization focusing on free speech. I really would like to thank Switzerland for this non-paper, it’s really much appreciated. I speak on behalf of Article 19, we’re also a member of the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS, by the way. Two points I wanted to amplify in this paper and one question I wanted to put to you. The first point is really, and I’ve said this in so many sessions already so I feel like a broken record, but I do think it’s important. We need to strengthen the human rights language across the whole WSIS agenda, vision, architecture. This is absolutely crucial. The impact on the enjoyment of human rights, and I mean all human rights, so I’m talking about freedom of expression, of course, but equally labor, social, economic, etc. rights. The second point I want to make is about inclusion, and this is extremely important. At the moment in the Elements paper, that element is a little bit missing, and we would love to see this a little bit stronger. Also in this non-paper, it could be a little bit stronger. And when I talk about inclusion, I mean this in the broadest sense of the word. It’s really important to include all underserved communities across the globe, obviously within the global majority, but also across the globe that are communities that are not fully represented right now in the WSIS architecture and vision. And then thirdly, I fully agree with what you’re saying in terms of trying to integrate. There are so many processes going on. on, whether it’s on data governance, AI governance, etc., there’s a GDC, it’s becoming very confusing. So I really like your proposal for a joint implementation roadmap. So my question is, could you perhaps elaborate that a little bit more on how you see that in practice? Because we fully support the principle of it, the idea of it, but perhaps it’s good to hear your thinking a little bit about how you see that in practice. Thank you so much.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Anna, and I think we can get the last question. I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know your name, but please introduce yourself.

Audience: My name is Kosi, I’m a Sinoan, I come from Benin. I’m from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. I’m also chair of an NGO called Women Be Free. We all agree that IGF plays a good role today, but when we look at the agenda, we are talking about many things. It’s not only internet, we are not talking about only internet here. I don’t know if it makes sense to see if it’s possible today to change the name and look at something very different and will permit us to talk about all the things concerning digital space globally. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much. Please, sir.

Oktavian Šofranski: My name is Oktavian Šofranski, I’m with the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. I have in my hand the declaration of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the World Summit on the Information Society, plus 20 review, and the extension of its mandate, which certainly you maybe heard about, it supports this extension with many different recommendations. I will focus on one aspect, cooperation with technology companies that are so important for the building of the architecture of this digital world. The Council of Europe has set up some years ago… So, a partnership with digital companies and we have consultations, we have them as part of our committee works to develop corporate social responsibility, various ethical standards, ethics by design, etc. What can be done more to engage at the global level, to engage more the business community to forward our goals?

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much. And yes, I know about the statement, it’s actually a very good summary of what we could agree on at the Council of Europe. Bruna, please.

Audience: I forgot my headphones for some reason, sorry. No, just two points actually. I think we speak a lot about inclusion of stakeholders within the IGF and WSIS, but we often forgot to address what are the gaps and what are the problems around here, right? And as much as many of us, I’m part of a civil society organization, as part of civil society stakeholder within the IGF, but it seems that it’s growing, that we’re forgetting to address all of the gaps, we’re forgetting to address the differences in levels of participation and that’s, to me, one of the main points we need to tackle within this review and within the next steps and looking forward to what could be the next 20 years of the IGF. And just to quote an example, I think we had a rather good session this morning on the future of work in AI, where there was no perspective from civil society in that conversation, in a topic that’s so relevant, that’s going to be part of what’s going to come out of the WSIS review, and it’s really relevant that we, again, keep addressing those points and so on. Just jumping briefly into the AI conversation, it’s really relevant that we don’t just allow for the global north perspective to, not to win, but to be the dominant. And I think that’s a very important question. And I think that’s a very important question, and I think that’s a very important one within this conversation. We do have gaps, we do have problems, many countries in the world that are trying to tackle this question through different lenses. And it’s really important that when addressing the inclusion of AI within the WSIS framework, we do, there is some sort of evaluation or how we can balance the two, and we do that with the WSIS framework, and we do that with the WSIS framework, and we do that with the WSIS framework, and we do that with the relevant ones. It’s really good that we achieve some level of compromise or balance within that, just that. Thanks.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Bruna, and I truly agree with the point of working on how we can be more inclusive, on working for always better. The multistakeholder element of every session we have at IGF, of every part of the system, and to think about it. I am very excited to see the work that you are doing, and to think about the work that the WSIS framework is doing. This is a very good resource on how we can be and think deeply about multistakeholderism and how we can include it in every aspect of our work. Maybe I will open up to my panel around here. Is there anyone who wants to comment or say something on the different points that were raised from the floor? We had a lot of thoughts and ideas on the IGF, specifically, about how we can think about multistakeholderism and how we can include it in every aspect of our work. I’m looking around at all of you. Anyone who wants to take the floor? I’m sorry. Juan? You want to? Please, go ahead.

Juan Fernandez: Just only briefly to comment in the proposal that has been made several times of the change of name, of internet to digital. Earlier this morning, there was a presentation about the imagervation that was supposed to come, as well. It was an attack on the creative rainforest, and you know that’s an essential book. address that problem in depth, and think he is already distributing some notes. I think that in the note he explained, he even has a graphic with a pyramid of concepts. And of course, what’s in a name? We could name it the way we want, if we have the definition of what that means, a name. But he argues, and I agree with him, that the definition of internet as a concept, it encompasses many of the things that is happening today. Because what’s digital without internet nowadays? What is artificial intelligence without internet or networks based on the internet protocol? So of course, there can be arguments in pro and in con, but it’s not necessary to change name, if that’s the name that is already engraved in the minds of many people outside of this room and of these themes. Because that’s important. Sometimes we think that we are the only one around working on this, but it’s not the case. There are many people taking decisions that influence this that are not technical savvy or something like that. And it’s better to keep the things that works and not change it very much. That’s the same with name. Of course, if there’s a majority that changes name, they’re OK. It will be OK. But that’s the way I think that we should study what Jovan said. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Juan, for both the book recommendation and your thoughts on the name change. I think, Eugenio, you wanted to share your thoughts as well. Please go ahead.

Participant: Sure. Thank you. Yes, on the IGF, I think becoming more institutionalized or expanding the mandates. And I think the discussion here is if the IGF can become policy relevant, because right now we see as all these panels, they are great to have stakeholder engagement, but we are not really negotiating any outcome. And I think when we think about New York and the UN, some member states are clearly opposing any. We had the discussion on AI governance, the global dialogue that is being now considered, and some delegations are against any negotiated outcome. So this is a challenge that we need to face. But I want to go back to one of the questions on inclusion and diversity, because of course we need to ensure that the inclusion of women and girls, children and youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons, indigenous peoples and groups in vulnerable situations. Because I think you know that Brazil will be hosting the COP30 next November in Belém on climate change. It’s the first ever COP in the Amazon rainforest. Because the principle here is nothing about us without us. So we think about indigenous peoples. So please come, come to Belém and see how reality is in the Amazon, to meet people, engage with them. And we think that digital technologies can be a plus in terms of facilitating more engagement from these groups. So we are preparing like a metaverse for people to engage remotely. Because of course nobody can guarantee that we have all. These groups represent physically in Berlin, but we need to provide solutions. And I think online meetings and online environments would help us to do this. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Eugenio. And I know that Anita just wanted to say something, and I have Min online and then Olaf. So go ahead.

Anita Gurumurthy: Thank you. I think I have an overall reflection about the non-paper and, of course, the comments. One thing is that in getting the WSIS architecture right and making it fit for purpose, at least for the next 10 years, an important thing that needs to be done is to look at the evidence on the ground about the real politic of how negotiations take place. And, I mean, I think it’s too crude to say who wins. But what I really mean is how does public interest really get defined? You know, how does it materialize? And to that extent, I must say that Section 7.5, I was not completely convinced that you have thought it through. And I really like the approach that the Australian non-paper takes to, you know, to frame the issues, which it says is what is the evidence and what have we heard? And what is the evidence in the Australia non-paper? It’s really about studying documentation about what’s coming up on specific issues. To that extent, I’d really like to think about the CSTD’s role a little bit more carefully, because if we really want to bolster enhanced cooperation and also promote multi-stakeholder cooperation, I think it’s important to think about whether a CSTD that’s offering guidance, you know, to governments, or the way in which governments bring their thoughts to define issues in the… the digital arena will be benefited from private interests also defining the agenda. So for instance, in the WHO, there have been private philanthropists who have completely defined what illnesses should actually be prioritized in the world. And there is copious amounts of evidence to tell you that that has really not served the world. It has not served the cause of equity and certainly public health. So the public health of the digital certainly depends on the agenda to be set through democratic processes where people’s interest is put ahead. And I’m not sure if private interests get into the CSTD. We are going to be able to see agenda setting in quite the same way that will serve public interest. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Anita. And maybe before I give the floor to the next comments and we only have 15 minutes, I’m trying to be mindful of the time. I think the point we are trying to raise in the paper just so that it’s clear is not private interest coming into the spaces, but truly a multi-stakeholder element. So I just wanted to point that out, but we can discuss it further. Please, Olaf, I know that you wanted to say something and then we have Min online. I have not forgotten you.

Participant: It’s a bit of the name change that I wanted to get into. When I described the architecture, I consciously used the word internet infrastructure coordination. I do think that all these pieces, data governance, AI, need to be compacted in one forum. And the name internet governance forum is a nice one. I have no objections keeping them. But I want to tie it back a little bit to the elements paper. Because if you read the elements paper, the only place where multi-stakeholderism is being mentioned is in the internet governance section. While the other sections, the data governance sections and the AI sections have a much more multilateral tone. So I do think that we need to keep that, at least that’s the way that I read it. And I do think that that is something we need to keep in the back of our minds. If we talk about name changes or perhaps even entity changes that we take care that also those other topics would have global spanning effects where that flywheel of global IGF region regional IGF, national IGF and back and forth is actually relevant, stays in place as well.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much for your thoughts. Min online, I know you’ve been waiting for a bit and then we have Flavio and maybe also Maria Fernanda.

Min Jiang: Thank you. As emphasised already by other speakers on the panel and audience participants, WSIS 20 plus 20, IGF and GDC and many other digital governance processes would have to address the present challenge of AI and the role of the global south in policymaking processes. AI is currently a central galvanising issue that intersects with many other issues that you flagged in the NAM paper, including data governance, environmental impact, digital divide, information integrity, human rights, human rights not only in normative terms, but also in social economic terms and digital public infrastructure. And why don’t we talk about a global public option to AI? So the other piece is the participation of the global south and I deem it really critical. This is an old issue that can go back to the New World Information Communication Order, New Waco debate in the 1970s to address the power imbalances between the global north and global south. So there’s a historical legacy there, but more specifically at the time in the 1970s between the United States and the rest of the world. In a way, sort of the history really rhymes at the current moment, the US administration is trying to adopt to stop individual states from regulating AI in the next decade. So given the limited number of countries, particularly US and China, are really ahead of the rest in AI development, it is really critically important to be globally inclusive in our policymaking processes. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Min, and I agree on the essentialness of being inclusive. Flavio, I know you wanted to share your thoughts as well.

Flavio Vagner: Yeah, thank you. I would like to make a comment which is somewhat related to the issue raised by Bertrand and also addressed by Olaf, namely how the IJF should evolve in the future, and also to the question of the gaps on the WSIS architecture. We need, of course, a much better integration between the IJF and the WSIS Forum, and I think this is almost a low-hanging fruit for the WSIS plus 20 review process. One possible way to achieve this is through some concrete institutionalized multi-stakeholder coordination mechanism, and this is addressed in the Swiss non-paper. This may help fill gaps, avoid duplications, and create an effective exchange of outcomes in both directions, between the IJF and the WSIS Forum. And this would also help achieve one of the major improvements that is required for the IJF, and this has been said for many years, namely that its multiple outcomes, for instance from its many intersessional work streams, are conveyed to decision-makers in a more effective way. And as Juan very well stated, and others, the IJF has a role for agenda-setting and bring emerging issues, possible solutions, and even already reactions from the various stakeholder groups to those issues and solutions. And this is a powerful input to other processes or forums involving decision-makers, and there we have the WSIS Forum, while the IJF shall continue as a dialogue space, convening all the multi-stakeholder, all the stakeholder groups, the WSIS Forum has a tradition of attracting more representatives from governments and from UN agencies, they discuss the advancements along the WSIS action lines. So the inputs from the IJF should become concrete and important contributions to the WSIS Forums and to the assessment of the action lines.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Flavio. Maria Fernanda, I will give you the floor now.

Maria Fernanda Garza: Thank you very much. Going back to my early comments on the need to ensure meaningful regular avenues for stakeholders to deliberate digital policy, the International Chamber of Commerce stands ready to serve as a bridge between businesses around the world and UN efforts to implement and strengthen the WSIS architecture. We can channel the voices of companies, large and small, from every region, ensuring their experiences and concerns are heard, and through ICC business action to support information society. We are engaging with existing multi-stakeholder efforts to coordinate input into the WSIS Plus 20 review, and we are committed to continue our contributions to those to ensure that the input of the next phase of the liberations is truly representative and truly operational. I’m also pleased to have been able to respond to this task through my role at the IGF Leadership Panel. And on that point, I would urge you to consider that the paper that the Leadership Panel, with the support of the MAG, have put together, the outlook of the IGF, which can serve as an important complement in our broader campaign to strengthen the IGF’s role in the UN system, make the IGF a permanent structure supported by the regular UN budget, and ensure the viability of the multi-stakeholder model for the consideration of Internet governance and digital policy issues, and enable the IGF to adapt to future needs as the Internet and digital technologies continue to evolve. And to enable this, we need a solid strategic approach to communications that informs, educates, and elevates interest in the IGF among UN member countries. Our paper provides useful recommendations on developing clear communications, channels, and messages to demonstrate the influence of IGF discussions on international policy dialogues, including the G20, the G7, and UN bodies, and introducing structured follow-up mechanisms to track and report to the implementation and impact of IGF recommendations, making our contributions more visible and tangible. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much, Maria Fernanda. only highlight what you just said. It’s a very good document and I recommend if you have not read it to read the different points that are being raised there. Maybe I will use my privilege as moderator and share a few thoughts. I really like that I think all of you, or most if not all, have highlighted the importance of having an inclusive participation, of thinking of Global South, also priorities and perspectives for this WSIS plus 20 review and getting a fair, I think a fair deal for all. And I think this is something that Switzerland is very aligned with this idea of first of all engaging in the preparation for the review and the negotiations in a positive way of trying to find a positive some gain. We have the opportunity to get something really good, to agree on a document that we’re happy about, to next year when we’re starting the implementation of the WSIS plus 20 outcomes we’re happy with the result. And I think it shows here that there is a willingness to actively contribute to the negotiations, to actively contribute to the inputs on the elements paper and to find something that’s positive. And I think this IGF, at least so far from what I’ve attended, has really shown the beautiful impact it can have, how the questions that are raised, the sort of the agenda setting power that we’ve discussed here is really being used and will hopefully I think come out of a zero draft for the WSIS plus 20 and then the negotiations I’m sure as well. So I think this is something that’s that is very good and I wanted to highlight this sort of positive outtake that I’m getting from this conversation and reminding sort of everyone we we have time, there’s not much time until December, but we still have time to get something great and considering sort of a fair deal for Arl is something that’s a priority for us. I think we have four minutes left, maybe I could all give you, oh sorry there’s a comment online, apologies Louisa please.

Participant: Yeah maybe just allow me to read out a comment from Mark Colwell online who was talking about and adding up on what Chuck Beglinger said about importance of the NRIs and how actually as well it is wished to them to be included in the elements paper and to have a special mention. event about now I think 176 initiatives which are here so just about the whole ecosystem of the IGF with being taken into account and also yeah he was talking about that the outcomes of the IGF as well as the international intersessional activities over with the 30 dynamic coalitions that they need to be better communicated and their concrete outputs advocated both in the IJS as well as in the versus forum so yeah there’s just a comment to mention was that online

Isabelle Lois: Thank you so much Louisa for reading out the comment and for sharing that and sorry I should have been paying more attention to what is happening online and three minutes left maybe I could give you the opportunity to give a word or a sentence that you wish if you imagine yourself January 2026 we’ve finished the negotiations we have with this plus 20 review how do you feel what are you happy about may I ask you or genuine start and I’m sorry to put the spot

Participant: Yes thank you I think this is an ongoing conversation next we have the with this forum in Geneva next July and also the AI for good summits so the road to December is they’ll have many opportunities to go deeper into this discussion but it’s essential that we incorporate that the global South voice are on board fully on board because and I said about indigenous peoples nothing about us without us so that’s the same for developing countries because we first take the global majority as they say we are going nowhere if you don’t include them in this the outcome that we expect to achieve by December.

Isabelle Lois: Absolutely Flavio one word or one sentence 2026 what are you happy about.

Flavio Vagner: Yeah so I think the major challenge for the IGF is not the renewal of its mandate I think this will be certainly achieved in the WSIS Plus 20 review process, but its future role. So it must have a much more important role already within the WSIS architecture. So in January, I would be very happy, expecting that the IJF has been considered as one of the outcomes of the WSIS Plus 20 review process as the main discussion space for all digital governance issues, not only internet governance, also AI and all other emerging issues, and a focal point for the follow-up of both the GDC and the WSIS processes. Thank you. That would make me happy.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you. Anita?

Anita Gurumurthy: I think I would like to echo the sentiment of Eugenio, but I’d like to add that in harmonizing the architecture in relation to the WSIS, we shouldn’t forget that the WSIS architecture itself needs to be harmonized with the larger agenda of the multilateral system to be just and fair, which includes intersections of the digital agenda with fair trade, with fair intellectual property, with climate justice, gender equality, taxation, competition, and all of those issues that make the voices of the global South so special, so relevant and pertinent to the WSIS.

Isabelle Lois: Absolutely. Min, online, do you want to share your sentence or your word for?

Min Jiang: Thank you. I believe IJF, WSIS, and GDC share similar goals and aspirations under the same UN umbrella. There is a way for us to actually put public interest, global South, and also inclusive processes in the spotlight to make the joint architecture happen. Thank you.

Isabelle Lois: Thank you. Juan? What’s the question? Close your eyes. You’re in January 2026. Everything went well. And we are very happy about it. One word, one sentence.

Juan Fernandez: A lot of work.

Isabelle Lois: Maria Fernanda.

Maria Fernanda Garza: Well, that nobody is left behind in this digital age. And that means ensuring, as I said before, that everyone has a seat at the table, a voice, and the power in shaping the digital future. And that is the vision that embodies the IJF.

Isabelle Lois: It is. Olaf.

Participant: We wake up and we have strong commitments from all over the world to bridge that digital divide. And that begins with bringing the internet to the people who don’t have it now and want to have it.

Isabelle Lois: That is beautiful. Thank you so much. And maybe I would give my word, if I can. And I’m sorry, I know we’re over time. I think I would say that we have a fair deal for all. And on that note, I apologize for taking a bit extra of your time. Thank you so much, all of the panelists, for sharing your thoughts, and all of you for listening and sharing your concerns. Thank you.

Agreement points

Switzerland’s non-paper provides valuable framework for WSIS Plus 20 review

Speakers

– Anita Gurumurthy
– Flavio Vagner
– Maria Fernanda Garza
– Min Jiang
– Juan Fernandez
– Participant
– Anna Osserling

Arguments

Existing action lines are flexible enough to encompass new challenges, updates should focus on implementation architecture rather than creating new action lines

WSIS action lines are comprehensive and technology-agnostic, maintaining validity after 20 years but need emphasis on emerging issues

WSIS provides a unique distributed governance model that should be strengthened rather than replaced

Need for joint implementation roadmap to integrate WSIS Plus 20 and GDC processes to avoid duplication

Need for institutional linkages between IGF, CSTD, WSIS Forum, and UN General Assembly to avoid duplication

Switzerland’s non-paper offers thoughtful recommendations for strengthening existing structures

Summary

Multiple speakers praised Switzerland’s non-paper as providing thoughtful and valuable recommendations for the WSIS Plus 20 review process, emphasizing strengthening existing structures rather than creating new ones

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

IGF should be made permanent with sustainable funding

Speakers

– Maria Fernanda Garza
– Min Jiang
– Participant

Arguments

Need for sustainable funding mechanisms for IGF operations

IGF faces challenges in translating deliberative outcomes into decision-making processes, needs better conveyor belt to binding decisions

IGF should be made permanent with stable funding and potentially rebranded to reflect broader digital governance scope

Summary

Speakers agreed that the IGF has demonstrated its value over 20 years and should be made permanent with sustainable funding, rather than continuing periodic mandate renewals

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Need for better coordination and integration between WSIS, GDC, and IGF processes

Speakers

– Anita Gurumurthy
– Maria Fernanda Garza
– Min Jiang
– Juan Fernandez
– Flavio Vagner
– Participant

Arguments

Better linking needed between WSIS and GDC review tracks with IGF’s annual review process

WSIS provides a unique distributed governance model that should be strengthened rather than replaced

Need for global public option to AI and addressing power imbalances between Global North and South

Need for institutional linkages between IGF, CSTD, WSIS Forum, and UN General Assembly to avoid duplication

IGF needs better integration with WSIS Forum through institutionalized multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms

Need for joint implementation roadmap to integrate WSIS Plus 20 and GDC processes to avoid duplication

Summary

Speakers consistently emphasized the need to avoid duplication and create better coordination mechanisms between various digital governance processes, particularly WSIS, GDC, and IGF

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Critical importance of Global South inclusion and addressing participation gaps

Speakers

– Anita Gurumurthy
– Flavio Vagner
– Min Jiang
– Juan Fernandez
– Anna Osserling
– Participant
– Audience

Arguments

Need to strengthen participation from developing country civil society and governments in standard-setting processes

Data governance and concerns about data colonialism from Global South perspective need attention

Need for global public option to AI and addressing power imbalances between Global North and South

AI governance processes often exclude Global South countries, creating participation gaps

Importance of including underserved communities globally and addressing participation gaps

Digital technologies can facilitate engagement from vulnerable groups through online environments and remote participation

Need to prevent Global North dominance in AI governance and ensure balanced perspectives

Summary

Multiple speakers emphasized the critical need to address historical power imbalances and ensure meaningful participation from Global South countries and underserved communities in digital governance processes

Topics

Development | Human rights

IGF’s role as agenda setter and problem framer should be strengthened

Speakers

– Juan Fernandez
– Min Jiang
– Flavio Vagner
– Participant

Arguments

IGF serves as agenda setter and problem framer, channeling issues from bottom-up through national and regional IGFs

IGF faces challenges in translating deliberative outcomes into decision-making processes, needs better conveyor belt to binding decisions

IGF needs better integration with WSIS Forum through institutionalized multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms

IGF could benefit from structured work programs organized in policy pillars with different maturity levels

Summary

Speakers agreed that the IGF’s unique role in agenda-setting and problem-framing from bottom-up should be strengthened, with better mechanisms to translate outcomes into decision-making processes

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers agreed that the current WSIS action lines are sufficiently flexible and comprehensive to address new challenges without requiring fundamental restructuring, but need updates to emphasize emerging issues that have become tangible realities

Speakers

– Anita Gurumurthy
– Flavio Vagner

Arguments

Existing action lines are flexible enough to encompass new challenges, updates should focus on implementation architecture rather than creating new action lines

WSIS action lines are comprehensive and technology-agnostic, maintaining validity after 20 years but need emphasis on emerging issues

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

These speakers shared a vision of truly inclusive digital governance where all stakeholders, particularly from underserved communities and Global South, have not just participation but actual power to influence outcomes

Speakers

– Maria Fernanda Garza
– Min Jiang
– Participant

Arguments

Meaningful inclusion requires ensuring all stakeholders have seat at table, voice, and power to shape digital future

Need for global public option to AI and addressing power imbalances between Global North and South

Digital technologies can facilitate engagement from vulnerable groups through online environments and remote participation

Topics

Human rights | Development

Both speakers emphasized the need for concrete institutional mechanisms to better integrate IGF outcomes with other WSIS processes, particularly the WSIS Forum, to avoid duplication and improve effectiveness

Speakers

– Juan Fernandez
– Flavio Vagner

Arguments

Need for institutional linkages between IGF, CSTD, WSIS Forum, and UN General Assembly to avoid duplication

IGF needs better integration with WSIS Forum through institutionalized multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Unexpected consensus

Business community engagement in digital governance

Speakers

– Maria Fernanda Garza
– Oktavian Šofranski
– Audience

Arguments

ICC ready to serve as bridge between businesses worldwide and UN implementation efforts

Need for better engagement of business community in global digital governance architecture

Need for better engagement of business community in global digital governance through partnerships

Explanation

There was unexpected consensus across different stakeholder groups (business, intergovernmental organization, and audience) about the need for better business engagement in digital governance, suggesting recognition that private sector participation is essential rather than problematic

Topics

Economic | Legal and regulatory

Potential rebranding of IGF to reflect broader digital governance scope

Speakers

– Participant
– Audience
– Juan Fernandez

Arguments

IGF should be made permanent with stable funding and potentially rebranded to reflect broader digital governance scope

Need to change IGF name to reflect broader digital governance scope beyond just internet

CSTD provides necessary intergovernmental space for government concerns and decision-making

Explanation

There was unexpected openness from multiple speakers to consider rebranding the IGF to reflect its evolution beyond traditional internet governance, though Juan Fernandez provided a counterargument about keeping established terminology

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Recognition of CSTD’s important intergovernmental role

Speakers

– Juan Fernandez
– Anita Gurumurthy

Arguments

CSTD provides necessary intergovernmental space for government concerns and decision-making

WSIS architecture should harmonize with broader multilateral system for justice including trade, IP, climate, and gender equality

Explanation

Despite potential controversy, there was recognition from both speakers about the importance of intergovernmental spaces like CSTD, though Anita raised concerns about private interests potentially influencing agenda-setting in such spaces

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed strong consensus on key structural issues: strengthening existing WSIS architecture rather than creating new processes, making IGF permanent with sustainable funding, improving coordination between various digital governance processes, and ensuring meaningful Global South participation. There was also agreement on the value of Switzerland’s non-paper as a foundation for discussions.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on structural and procedural issues, with speakers from different stakeholder groups (civil society, academia, government, business) largely aligned on the need for institutional strengthening, better coordination, and inclusive participation. This strong consensus suggests good prospects for productive negotiations in the WSIS Plus 20 review process, though implementation details may require further discussion.

Different viewpoints

Role of private interests in intergovernmental spaces like CSTD

Speakers

– Anita Gurumurthy
– Isabelle Lois

Arguments

WSIS architecture should harmonize with broader multilateral system for justice including trade, IP, climate, and gender equality

Switzerland’s non-paper offers thoughtful recommendations for strengthening existing structures

Summary

Anita Gurumurthy expressed concerns about private interests getting into the CSTD, arguing that this could undermine democratic agenda-setting and public interest, citing WHO examples where private philanthropists defined illness priorities. Isabelle Lois clarified that the Swiss non-paper advocates for multi-stakeholder participation rather than private interest dominance, but the fundamental disagreement remains about the appropriate level of private sector involvement in intergovernmental decision-making spaces.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Economic

Whether to change IGF name to reflect broader digital governance scope

Speakers

– Juan Fernandez
– Audience

Arguments

IGF serves as agenda setter and problem framer, channeling issues from bottom-up through national and regional IGFs

Need to change IGF name to reflect broader digital governance scope beyond just internet

Summary

Juan Fernandez argued against changing the IGF name, stating that the internet concept already encompasses many current digital issues including AI, and that it’s better to keep things that work rather than change names that are already established in people’s minds. An audience member from Benin argued for changing the name since IGF now discusses many digital issues beyond just internet governance. This reflects a fundamental disagreement about whether the current branding adequately represents the forum’s evolved scope.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Unexpected differences

Scope of multi-stakeholder participation in intergovernmental processes

Speakers

– Anita Gurumurthy
– Isabelle Lois

Arguments

WSIS architecture should harmonize with broader multilateral system for justice including trade, IP, climate, and gender equality

Goal of ensuring nobody is left behind in digital age with fair deal for all stakeholders

Explanation

This disagreement was unexpected because both speakers generally supported multi-stakeholder approaches and strengthening WSIS architecture. However, Anita’s specific concern about private interests in CSTD revealed a fundamental tension about how to balance multi-stakeholder participation with protecting public interest in intergovernmental spaces. This suggests deeper philosophical differences about the appropriate boundaries of multi-stakeholder governance even among generally aligned participants.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Economic

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkably high levels of agreement on major goals and principles, with most disagreements being tactical rather than strategic. The main areas of disagreement centered on institutional design questions (private sector role in CSTD, IGF naming) and specific implementation mechanisms for shared goals like coordination and inclusion.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level with high consensus on fundamental principles. The disagreements that existed were primarily about implementation approaches rather than core objectives, suggesting strong potential for finding common ground. The unexpected disagreement about multi-stakeholder boundaries in intergovernmental spaces may require more careful navigation in future negotiations, but overall the discussion demonstrated substantial alignment among diverse stakeholders on WSIS Plus 20 priorities.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers agreed that the current WSIS action lines are sufficiently flexible and comprehensive to address new challenges without requiring fundamental restructuring, but need updates to emphasize emerging issues that have become tangible realities

Speakers

– Anita Gurumurthy
– Flavio Vagner

Arguments

Existing action lines are flexible enough to encompass new challenges, updates should focus on implementation architecture rather than creating new action lines

WSIS action lines are comprehensive and technology-agnostic, maintaining validity after 20 years but need emphasis on emerging issues

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

These speakers shared a vision of truly inclusive digital governance where all stakeholders, particularly from underserved communities and Global South, have not just participation but actual power to influence outcomes

Speakers

– Maria Fernanda Garza
– Min Jiang
– Participant

Arguments

Meaningful inclusion requires ensuring all stakeholders have seat at table, voice, and power to shape digital future

Need for global public option to AI and addressing power imbalances between Global North and South

Digital technologies can facilitate engagement from vulnerable groups through online environments and remote participation

Topics

Human rights | Development

Both speakers emphasized the need for concrete institutional mechanisms to better integrate IGF outcomes with other WSIS processes, particularly the WSIS Forum, to avoid duplication and improve effectiveness

Speakers

– Juan Fernandez
– Flavio Vagner

Arguments

Need for institutional linkages between IGF, CSTD, WSIS Forum, and UN General Assembly to avoid duplication

IGF needs better integration with WSIS Forum through institutionalized multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Key takeaways

The existing WSIS action lines are flexible and comprehensive enough to address new digital challenges without requiring complete restructuring, but need updates to implementation architecture

There is strong consensus that the IGF should be made permanent with stable funding and potentially rebranded to reflect broader digital governance beyond just internet governance

A joint implementation roadmap is needed to integrate WSIS Plus 20 and Global Digital Compact (GDC) processes to avoid duplication of efforts and resources

Meaningful inclusion of Global South countries and underserved communities is critical for the legitimacy and effectiveness of future digital governance architecture

The IGF serves effectively as an agenda-setter and problem-framer but needs better mechanisms to translate deliberative outcomes into binding decision-making processes

Emerging technologies like AI require careful integration across multiple WSIS action lines as both enablers and threats, with particular attention to Global South participation in standard-setting

Better institutional coordination is needed between IGF, CSTD, WSIS Forum, and UN General Assembly to create effective linkages and avoid fragmentation

Human rights language and protections need strengthening across the entire WSIS architecture, covering all dimensions of rights online and offline

Public financing gaps are creating architectural weaknesses in WSIS implementation, requiring attention to sustainable funding mechanisms

Resolutions and action items

Switzerland’s non-paper to serve as ‘food for thought’ for community input into WSIS Plus 20 review process

Participants encouraged to provide input on elements paper for WSIS Plus 20 negotiations by co-facilitators

IGF Leadership Panel paper on IGF outlook to be considered as complement to efforts strengthening IGF’s UN system role

National and Regional Internet Governance Initiatives (NRIs) outcomes to be better communicated and advocated in both IGF and WSIS Forum

Development of structured follow-up mechanisms to track and report implementation and impact of IGF recommendations

Creation of institutionalized multi-stakeholder coordination mechanism between IGF and WSIS Forum

Integration of intersessional work streams and dynamic coalition outputs into broader policy processes

Unresolved issues

Specific mechanisms for how joint implementation roadmap between WSIS Plus 20 and GDC would work in practice

Whether and how to change IGF name from ‘Internet Governance Forum’ to reflect broader digital governance scope

How to balance private sector participation in intergovernmental spaces like CSTD while maintaining public interest focus

Concrete metrics and accountability mechanisms for measuring progress across WSIS action lines and GDC tracks

How to address growing energy consumption of ICTs and environmental impact of digital technologies

Specific funding mechanisms and sources for sustainable IGF operations and broader WSIS implementation

How to ensure Global South meaningful participation in AI governance and standard-setting processes dominated by Global North

Integration of WSIS digital agenda with broader multilateral issues like trade, intellectual property, climate justice, and taxation

How to operationalize ‘enhanced cooperation’ concept from original WSIS framework in current context

Suggested compromises

Keep existing WSIS action lines but update implementation architecture rather than creating entirely new framework

Maintain IGF’s deliberative mandate while creating better conveyor belt mechanisms to decision-making processes

Integrate WSIS Plus 20 and GDC implementation to avoid duplication while respecting different stakeholder participation models

Strengthen human rights language across WSIS architecture while maintaining technology-agnostic approach of action lines

Make IGF permanent while allowing for mandate evolution and formal institutionalization process in 2026

Balance intergovernmental decision-making needs with multi-stakeholder input through better coordination mechanisms

Address AI governance through existing WSIS action lines rather than creating separate parallel processes

Enhance Global South participation through digital technologies and remote engagement while maintaining in-person representation

What I want to say is that we completely agree that the existing action lines in WSIS Tunis are flexible enough to encompass new challenges. And rather than introducing new action lines or deleting existing ones, updates should be made to the current implementation architecture… But what is critical, I think, is that the architectural gaps in the first place also arise because of one Achilles heel, which is the absence of the significance in all these documents around public financing.

Speaker

Anita Gurumurthy

Reason

This comment is insightful because it reframes the entire discussion from structural changes to implementation gaps, identifying public financing as the root cause of architectural failures. It shifts focus from what needs to be changed to why current structures aren’t working effectively.

Impact

This comment established a foundational perspective that influenced subsequent speakers to focus on implementation rather than wholesale restructuring. It introduced the critical lens of financing constraints that other panelists referenced throughout the discussion.

The WSIS architecture provides a unique and inclusive distributed governance model… The most important question we need to ask ourselves is whether we have been using it effectively… we have a toolbox, but are we really using all of the tools?

Speaker

Maria Fernanda Garza

Reason

This metaphor fundamentally reframed the problem from ‘what’s wrong with our tools’ to ‘are we using our tools properly.’ It’s a paradigm shift that suggests the issue isn’t the framework itself but our utilization of it.

Impact

This toolbox metaphor became a recurring reference point that shifted the conversation toward optimization rather than replacement. It influenced other speakers to focus on better coordination and implementation of existing mechanisms.

First is deliberation versus decision-making. IGF by mandate is a non-binding, deliberative structure… Unfortunately also, limited by its design, a lot of the great IGF discussions and outcomes do not necessarily land in decision-making fora… Structurally, it seems a conveyor belt of some sorts needs to exist between IGF and the larger WSIS infrastructure.

Speaker

Min Jiang

Reason

This comment identified a fundamental structural flaw in the current system – the disconnect between discussion and action. The ‘conveyor belt’ metaphor provided a concrete visualization of what’s missing in the architecture.

Impact

This observation sparked multiple responses from other panelists about institutionalizing IGF outcomes and creating better linkages between forums. It became a central theme that several speakers built upon, particularly regarding IGF’s future role.

As you see with the yellow in the bottom, most of the countries, and mostly of the South, cannot participate in all of them, or even in some of them. So this raises the situation that… we cannot have too many of them. Because otherwise, it’s impossible, especially for a developing country, to be in all of them.

Speaker

Juan Fernandez

Reason

Using visual evidence to demonstrate the participation gap, this comment provided concrete proof of exclusion in global digital governance. It moved the discussion from abstract concepts of inclusion to tangible evidence of systemic barriers.

Impact

This visual demonstration of exclusion reinforced the urgency around coordination and integration themes. It provided empirical backing for arguments about avoiding duplication and strengthening existing mechanisms rather than creating new ones.

IGF by mandate is a non-binding, deliberative structure under the auspice of UN that allows critical issues of Internet governance or digital governance to emerge from the confluence of diverse communities… As Vint Cerf says… ‘IGF may not be the place to solve the problem, but it’s certainly the place to frame the problem.’

Speaker

Juan Fernandez (quoting Vint Cerf)

Reason

This comment crystallized IGF’s unique value proposition in a memorable way, clarifying its role as an agenda-setter rather than decision-maker. It provided conceptual clarity about IGF’s purpose within the broader ecosystem.

Impact

This framing helped other speakers articulate how IGF fits into the larger architecture and influenced discussions about how to better connect IGF’s agenda-setting function to decision-making processes.

I strongly believe that 2026, with an impetus coming from the WSIS plus 20 review, should be about what is and should be the evolution and the revision of the mandate of the IGF to make it formally what it is supposed to be… And second, how to institutionalize it more coherently in a charter of sorts that establishes the different powers and capacities of the existing building blocks that we have.

Speaker

Bertrand de la Chapelle

Reason

This comment introduced a strategic timeline and concrete next steps, moving beyond the immediate WSIS+20 review to envision a structured evolution process. It provided actionable direction for long-term institutional development.

Impact

This intervention shifted the discussion toward concrete implementation timelines and formal institutionalization processes. It influenced other speakers to think beyond the December 2025 deadline toward longer-term structural improvements.

So for instance, in the WHO, there have been private philanthropists who have completely defined what illnesses should actually be prioritized in the world… So the public health of the digital certainly depends on the agenda to be set through democratic processes where people’s interest is put ahead.

Speaker

Anita Gurumurthy

Reason

This analogy to WHO governance provided a powerful cautionary example about private influence in global governance, introducing critical questions about democratic legitimacy in digital governance structures.

Impact

This comment introduced a note of caution about multi-stakeholder participation, prompting clarification from the moderator and adding complexity to discussions about inclusion and representation in governance structures.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by establishing several crucial frameworks: the shift from structural overhaul to implementation optimization (Gurumurthy’s financing focus and Garza’s toolbox metaphor), the identification of critical gaps in the deliberation-to-decision pipeline (Min’s conveyor belt concept), and the provision of concrete evidence for systemic exclusion (Juan’s visual demonstration). The discussion evolved from abstract policy concepts to concrete implementation challenges, with speakers building on each other’s frameworks to develop a more nuanced understanding of how to strengthen existing mechanisms rather than replace them. The comments also introduced important tensions around democratic legitimacy and private influence that added depth to the conversation about multi-stakeholder governance. Overall, these interventions transformed what could have been a routine policy discussion into a strategic conversation about institutional evolution and democratic governance in the digital age.

How can we better calculate and measure progress across WSIS action lines and GDC tracks, and what identified metrics should be used to hold governments accountable?

Speaker

Anita Gurumurthy

Explanation

This is essential for creating accountability mechanisms and understanding what constitutes progress from the perspective of inclusion, diversity, and equity in the post-WSIS Plus 20 review process.

How can a joint implementation roadmap between WSIS Plus 20 and GDC be operationalized in practice to avoid duplication and resource strain?

Speaker

Anna Osserling

Explanation

While the principle is supported, there’s a need for concrete details on how this integration would work practically to streamline multiple ongoing processes.

How can we create better institutional linkages and coordination between IGF, CSTD, WSIS Forum, and UN General Assembly to avoid duplication?

Speaker

Juan Fernandez

Explanation

There’s a need for more fluid, substantive linkages beyond existing mechanisms like UNGIS to ensure effective coordination across the WSIS architecture.

How can we create a conveyor belt mechanism to transmit IGF outcomes more effectively into decision-making processes at UN, regional, and national levels?

Speaker

Min Jiang

Explanation

The gap between IGF’s deliberative nature and actual decision-making forums needs to be bridged to make IGF discussions more impactful.

How can we design work programs within policy pillars (internet infrastructure governance, digital public infrastructure, data governance, AI, digital literacy) to create more structured and productive outcomes?

Speaker

Olaf Kolfmann

Explanation

This would help organize policy topics by maturity level and create continuity in IGF work, potentially leading to more concrete outcomes.

How should the IGF’s mandate be revised and institutionalized more formally after 20 years of operation?

Speaker

Bertrand de la Chapelle

Explanation

There’s a need for a comprehensive review of IGF’s role and formal institutionalization, similar to what was achieved with the Working Group on Internet Governance in 2004-2005.

How can we ensure meaningful participation from developing country civil society and governments in standard-setting processes, particularly for AI?

Speaker

Anita Gurumurthy

Explanation

Current standard-setting activities lack representation from the Global South, which could undermine the robustness of the post-WSIS Plus 20 review process.

How can we address the gaps in stakeholder participation levels and ensure more balanced representation across all stakeholder groups in IGF sessions?

Speaker

Bruna (audience member)

Explanation

There are observable gaps in participation, such as lack of civil society perspectives in relevant sessions, that need systematic addressing.

How can we balance Global North and Global South perspectives in AI governance integration within the WSIS framework?

Speaker

Bruna (audience member)

Explanation

It’s important to ensure that AI governance doesn’t become dominated by Global North perspectives and includes diverse approaches from different regions.

How can we engage technology companies more effectively at the global level to forward digital governance goals?

Speaker

Oktavian Šofranski

Explanation

There’s a need to explore better mechanisms for engaging the business community in building digital governance architecture beyond existing partnerships.

Should the Internet Governance Forum be renamed to reflect its broader digital governance scope, and what would be the implications of such a change?

Speaker

Kosi (audience member) and others

Explanation

The IGF now addresses many issues beyond internet governance, raising questions about whether the name should reflect this broader scope.

How can we ensure that private interests don’t inappropriately influence agenda-setting in intergovernmental spaces like CSTD while maintaining multi-stakeholder principles?

Speaker

Anita Gurumurthy

Explanation

There are concerns about how to balance multi-stakeholder participation with ensuring that public interest remains the priority in democratic processes.

How can online environments and digital technologies be leveraged to facilitate more inclusive participation from marginalized groups in global governance processes?

Speaker

Eugenio V. Garcia

Explanation

This explores practical solutions for including groups like indigenous peoples, women, youth, and persons with disabilities who may not be able to participate physically in global forums.

Summary

This workshop focused on developing action-oriented solutions to strengthen the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), featuring perspectives from various stakeholders including government, technical community, and youth representatives. The discussion was moderated by Everton Teles Rodriguez from NIC.br and included speakers from Canada, North Macedonia, and Ethiopia, both in-person and remote participants.

Allison O’Beirne from the Government of Canada emphasized three key recommendations: making the IGF mandate permanent to allow for more strategic long-term planning, better capturing and disseminating outcomes from national and regional initiatives (NRIs), and making the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) more inclusive with stronger representation from emerging economies and marginalized communities. She stressed that permanence would signal global confidence in the IGF and enable more agile responses to technological advances.

Marko Paloski, representing the youth perspective from North Macedonia, highlighted the critical importance of meaningful youth engagement beyond mere participation. He argued that young people bring fresh perspectives as digital natives who are not just users but also content creators, developers, and community builders. He emphasized that youth engagement helps the IGF stay relevant and adapt faster to technological changes.

Saba Tiku Beyene, coordinator of the Ethiopia Youth IGF and former MAG member, proposed three ways to improve accessibility and inclusivity: ensuring sessions are accessible through real-time captioning and multilingual support including widely-spoken regional languages, rethinking support for participants from underserved regions through long-term engagement and mentorship rather than one-time fellowships, and encouraging intergenerational dialogue and cross-regional learning experiences.

Byron Holland from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority addressed financial sustainability, proposing three key strategies: providing clearer and more accessible information about IGF costs and funding, diversifying the funding base across all stakeholder groups rather than relying on limited sources, and encouraging longer-term funding commitments such as five-year pledges to enable better planning and innovation. He emphasized that in a multistakeholder environment, funding should also be multistakeholder to avoid over-influence by any single group.

The discussion included interactive polling where participants ranked various proposed actions, with making the IGF permanent receiving the strongest support. Participants also emphasized the importance of connecting national and regional initiatives more effectively to the global IGF process and ensuring that private sector engagement is strengthened. The workshop concluded with recognition that strengthening the IGF requires coordinated action across multiple dimensions including governance, inclusivity, and financial sustainability to ensure its continued relevance in the evolving digital policy landscape.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Making the IGF Mandate Permanent**: Discussion focused on transitioning the Internet Governance Forum from its current renewable mandate structure to a permanent one, which would allow for more strategic long-term planning and send a strong signal of global multi-stakeholder confidence in the forum.

– **Youth Engagement and Inclusivity**: Extensive conversation about meaningful youth participation in IGF processes, emphasizing that young people bring fresh perspectives as digital natives who are not just users but also content creators, developers, and community builders in the digital space.

– **Financial Sustainability and Diversification**: Detailed examination of funding challenges facing the IGF, with proposals for diversifying funding sources beyond current structures, encouraging long-term financial commitments (like 5-year pledges), and improving transparency in financial reporting.

– **Strengthening National and Regional Initiatives (NRIs)**: Discussion of better integrating local and regional IGF initiatives with the global forum through improved communication channels, ensuring diverse regional perspectives feed into global agenda-setting, and using NRIs as entry points for broader participation.

– **Accessibility and Multilingual Support**: Conversation about expanding language accessibility beyond the six UN languages to include widely-spoken regional languages, improving real-time captioning, and creating more inclusive participation mechanisms for underserved regions.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to develop action-oriented solutions to strengthen the Internet Governance Forum in preparation for upcoming reviews (WSIS+20 and GDC implementation), focusing on practical improvements to mandate, funding, inclusivity, and operational effectiveness while preserving the IGF’s core value as an open multi-stakeholder dialogue platform.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a constructive and collaborative tone throughout, with participants demonstrating deep commitment to the IGF’s mission while acknowledging current limitations. The atmosphere was solution-focused rather than critical, with speakers building on each other’s ideas and showing genuine enthusiasm for improvement. The tone remained consistently professional and forward-looking, with participants expressing optimism about the IGF’s potential while being realistic about implementation challenges, particularly regarding funding and structural reforms.

Speakers

– **Everton Teles Rodriguez** – Responsible for TLD affairs at NIC.br, Workshop moderator

– **Byron Holland** – President and CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA)

– **Allison O’Beirne** – Director of International Telecommunications and Internet Policy at the Government of Canada

– **Marko Paloski** – System Engineer at NetCetera and Coordinator of IGF North Macedonia Initiative, member of the steering committee for Eastern Europe in the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance (participated remotely)

– **Saba Tiku Beyene** – Coordinator of the Ethiopia Youth IGF, former MAG member, Junior Advisor on AI at GIZ at the African Union

– **Ellen Taylor** – Policy Analyst of Internet Governance at the Government of Canada, Online moderator

– **Jordan Carter** – Works for the .au domain administration

– **Bertrand de la Chapelle** – Executive Director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network

**Additional speakers:**

– **Mark Cavell** – Participated via online chat/comments

# Strengthening the Internet Governance Forum: A Comprehensive Workshop Report

## Introduction and Context

This workshop (Workshop 173), moderated by Everton Teles Rodriguez from NIC.br, brought together diverse stakeholders to develop action-oriented solutions for strengthening the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The discussion featured perspectives from government representatives, technical community leaders, and youth advocates, both in-person in Norway and participating remotely. The timing of this workshop was particularly significant, occurring in preparation for upcoming reviews including WSIS+20 and Global Digital Compact (GDC) implementation, making the development of concrete recommendations for IGF improvement both timely and crucial.

The workshop maintained a constructive and collaborative tone throughout, with participants demonstrating deep commitment to the IGF’s mission whilst acknowledging current limitations. Rather than focusing on criticism, the atmosphere remained solution-focused, with speakers building upon each other’s ideas and expressing genuine enthusiasm for improvement. This forward-looking approach created an environment where participants could be both optimistic about the IGF’s potential and realistic about implementation challenges, particularly regarding funding and structural reforms.

*Note: The transcript appears to end abruptly with technical issues, cutting off mid-sentence during Allison O’Beirne’s concluding remarks. This summary reflects the portion of the workshop that was successfully recorded.*

## Key Recommendations and Proposals

### Making the IGF Mandate Permanent

Allison O’Beirne from the Government of Canada presented one of the most significant structural recommendations: transitioning the IGF from its current renewable mandate structure to a permanent one. She argued that this change would enable more strategic long-term planning and send a strong signal of global multi-stakeholder confidence in the forum. O’Beirne emphasized that permanence would allow the IGF to respond more agilely to technological advances and provide the stability necessary for sustained engagement from all stakeholder groups.

Crucially, O’Beirne highlighted that the IGF’s non-decisional nature represents a core strength rather than a weakness. She explained that this characteristic allows participants to approach discussions in a spirit of openness and collaboration, noting that government representatives, in particular, often arrive at other forums with predetermined positions. The IGF’s collaborative environment, free from the pressure to negotiate outcome documents, enables genuine learning and listening amongst stakeholders.

However, this recommendation encountered some complexity when Bertrand de la Chapelle, Executive Director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network, argued that comprehensive IGF reform could not be adequately addressed within the December WSIS+20 timeline. De la Chapelle advocated for a proper multi-stakeholder discussion in 2026 to address IGF evolution, suggesting that rushing changes through the WSIS review process might not serve the forum’s long-term interests.

### Strengthening National and Regional Initiatives Integration

A significant theme throughout the discussion was the need to better integrate National and Regional Initiatives (NRIs) – local and regional IGF processes – with the global IGF process. O’Beirne proposed developing formal mechanisms to channel NRI inputs into global IGF agenda-setting, arguing that this would strengthen multi-stakeholder representation and ensure that grassroots perspectives inform global discussions.

Jordan Carter, who works for the .au domain administration, offered a concrete proposal to address this disconnect. He suggested that appointees to the IGF’s Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) – the body that helps plan the annual IGF – should be required to be active in their NRI communities as a condition of appointment. This approach would help connect grassroots internet governance issues with global decision-making processes and ensure that MAG members remain sensitized to local needs and perspectives.

Saba Tiku Beyene, coordinator of the Ethiopia Youth IGF and former MAG member, reinforced this theme by proposing that NRIs should serve as entry points to the global IGF and be recognized as spaces where new leaders are developed. She emphasized the importance of creating pathways for sustained engagement that address structural barriers preventing meaningful long-term participation in IGF processes.

### Meaningful Youth Engagement

The discussion of youth participation revealed sophisticated thinking about the difference between tokenistic involvement and meaningful engagement. Marko Paloski, representing the youth perspective from North Macedonia and participating remotely, made a crucial distinction: “one thing is youth involvement and one thing is youth engagement because we have seen a lot of other conferences and stuff that they have youth and the participation but it’s not on the same level as engagement.”

Paloski argued that young people bring fresh perspectives as digital natives who are not merely users but also content creators, developers, and community builders. He emphasized that youth deserve representation at decision-making tables because they offer different viewpoints from traditional users and have first-hand experience growing up with technology. This framing moved the conversation beyond simply including youth to understanding their substantive contributions to internet governance discussions.

Beyene supported this perspective by proposing intergenerational dialogue and cross-regional learning opportunities to integrate youth voices into IGF agenda-setting. She advocated for transforming fellowship programmes from one-time experiences to long-term engagement opportunities with mentorship, recognizing that meaningful participation requires sustained support and development rather than brief exposure to IGF processes.

### Financial Sustainability and Diversification

Byron Holland, President and CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), addressed one of the IGF’s most persistent challenges: financial sustainability. He proposed three key strategies to strengthen the IGF’s funding base whilst preserving its multi-stakeholder character.

First, Holland called for clearer and more accessible information about IGF costs and funding flows across the entire ecosystem. He noted that the lack of transparent financial reporting makes it difficult for potential contributors to understand where their support would be most valuable and how it would be utilized. This transparency would support strategic engagement and help identify specific funding gaps.

Second, he advocated for diversifying the funding base across all stakeholder groups rather than relying on limited sources. Holland made a sophisticated argument connecting financial diversity to institutional values, arguing that in a multi-stakeholder forum, funding should also be multi-stakeholder to prevent over-influence by any single group whilst ensuring broad community investment.

Third, Holland proposed encouraging longer-term funding commitments, such as five-year pledges, to enable better planning and innovation. These commitments would signal community investment in the IGF’s future whilst providing the stability necessary for strategic development and programme innovation. He introduced the principle of “if we can, we should” regarding stakeholder contributions.

Holland also highlighted the concerning decline in private sector participation, noting that their re-engagement is crucial for both funding diversification and maintaining the IGF’s relevance to all stakeholder communities.

### Accessibility and Inclusivity Improvements

Beyene presented comprehensive recommendations for improving accessibility and inclusivity within IGF processes. She proposed three key areas for development: technical accessibility improvements, fellowship programme reform, and enhanced representation mechanisms.

For technical accessibility, Beyene advocated for real-time captioning and live translations extending beyond the six UN languages to include widely spoken regional languages. She specifically mentioned languages like Yoruba, noting that true inclusivity requires considering languages spoken by large populations rather than limiting translation services to official UN languages, despite acknowledging the financial constraints this would create.

Regarding fellowship programmes, Beyene argued for a fundamental shift from one-time experiences to long-term engagement with mentorship and post-engagement opportunities. This approach would address the current limitation where participants receive brief exposure to IGF processes but lack ongoing support to maintain their engagement or develop their contributions to internet governance discussions.

O’Beirne reinforced the inclusivity theme by calling for a more inclusive MAG with better representation from emerging economies, the Global South, and marginalized communities.

## Interactive Elements and Community Input

The workshop included multiple interactive Mentimeter polls facilitated by Ellen Taylor, who also monitored online interactions. Participants ranked various proposed actions across different categories, with making the IGF permanent receiving strong support among the options presented. The polling provided valuable insight into community priorities and helped validate the recommendations being discussed.

Mark Cavell participated through online comments, with Ellen reading his question about whether supplementary UN budget provision might enhance confidence amongst other potential investors and promote wider government participation. This input explored whether UN baseline funding could serve as a catalyst for attracting additional diverse funding sources and broader government engagement.

The moderator, Everton Teles Rodriguez, facilitated the discussion and managed the 60-minute time constraint, ensuring all speakers had opportunities to contribute their perspectives.

## Areas of Consensus and Emerging Themes

### Strong Consensus Areas

The discussion revealed remarkable consensus on several fundamental issues. Participants demonstrated strong agreement on the need for diversified funding from multiple stakeholder groups, with both Holland and O’Beirne emphasizing that sustainable funding must come from diverse sources including UN baseline funding, government support, and multi-stakeholder contributions.

There was also clear consensus on the need for better integration of National and Regional Initiatives with global IGF processes. O’Beirne, Carter, and Beyene all recognized that NRIs are valuable but currently underutilized, requiring better mechanisms to connect grassroots perspectives with global agenda-setting and leadership development.

Regarding youth engagement, Paloski, Beyene, and other participants agreed that meaningful participation requires moving beyond token involvement to recognize youth as active contributors rather than passive users.

Perhaps most significantly, speakers converged on preferring multi-stakeholder collaborative approaches over traditional intergovernmental processes, emphasizing the value of the IGF’s unique non-decisional character.

### Areas of Disagreement

The primary disagreements centered on timing and process rather than fundamental objectives. O’Beirne advocated for making the IGF mandate permanent through direct action, whilst de la Chapelle argued that comprehensive IGF reform could not be achieved by the December WSIS+20 deadline and should be properly discussed in a multi-stakeholder process in 2026.

Similarly, Carter suggested pursuing improvements through administrative changes and collaborative approaches, whilst de la Chapelle focused on establishing the proper framework and timeline for comprehensive mandate discussion.

## Unresolved Issues and Future Considerations

Despite the productive discussion, several significant issues remained unresolved. The question of how to re-engage private sector participation that has declined over the years requires further attention, as does the fundamental question of where to anchor discussions on IGF evolution—whether in the UN, Committee on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), or other structures.

The balance between pursuing IGF improvements through the WSIS+20 review versus administrative and collaborative means remains unclear, as does the question of how to balance host country burden with ensuring IGF accessibility for countries with varying capacities.

Participants identified the need for specific mechanisms to capture and disseminate outcomes from National and Regional Initiatives, as well as methods for measuring and reporting on the effectiveness of fellowship programmes and long-term engagement initiatives.

## Conclusion

This workshop demonstrated both the IGF community’s maturity in understanding current challenges and its commitment to collaborative solutions. The high level of consensus on fundamental issues, combined with healthy debate about implementation approaches, suggests strong potential for meaningful progress in strengthening the IGF.

The discussion revealed that strengthening the IGF requires coordinated action across multiple dimensions: governance structures, inclusivity mechanisms, financial sustainability, and operational effectiveness. Participants recognized that these elements are interconnected and that improvements in one area can support progress in others.

Most significantly, the workshop reinforced that the IGF’s core value as an open multi-stakeholder dialogue platform should be preserved whilst addressing practical challenges around mandate, funding, and inclusivity. The path forward appears to involve both immediate operational improvements and longer-term structural discussions, with the community demonstrating readiness to engage in both tracks simultaneously.

*Note: Due to the incomplete transcript ending during Allison O’Beirne’s concluding remarks, some speakers’ final thoughts and potential additional recommendations may not be reflected in this summary. The workshop may have continued beyond what was successfully recorded.*

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Okay, so good afternoon for those joining us in person here in Norway, and good time of the day for those who are watching us remotely or in any time in the future. I’m Everton Teles Rodriguez Teles Rodriguez, responsible for TLD affairs at NIC.br, and I have the pleasure of being the moderator for the workshop 173, Action-Oriented Solutions to Strengthen the IGF. As we only have 60 minutes, I’ll be very brief in my introduction, but I couldn’t be more grateful to the organizers of this session, especially to Ellen Taylor, which is the Policy Analyst of Internet Governance at IZ, the Government of Canada, who will also be moderating our online interactions. So I also would like to thank the local host, and especially also the IGF Secretariat and the MAG, who have worked under extremely challenging conditions to put up this event. So this edition is a living proof of the resilience of the IGF and of the strength of the global multistakeholder community, which supports the IGF. Our workshop will have two parts. For the first half of the session, speakers will provide their regional and stakeholder perspectives on their ideas and best multistakeholder engagement practices that can be used to strengthen the IGF. Then our workshop will become interactive in the second part of the session, as speakers and the audience members will be invited to engage in a creative brainstorming to develop action-oriented solutions to strengthen the IGF and support GDC and WSIS plus 20 output implementation. So to discuss that, I have the pleasure to have here with me Byron Holland, which is the President and CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, CIRA. I have here also Alessandro O’Beirne, Director of International Telecommunications and Internet Policy at the Government of Canada. Joining us remotely we have Marko Paloski, System Engineer at NetCetera and Coordinator of IGF North Macedonia Initiative. He’s joining us remotely online and here with us at the table we have Saba Tiku Beyene, Coordinator of the Ethiopia Youth IGF. She’s also a former MAG member and currently she serves as a Junior Advisor on AI at GIZ at the African Union. So, to start our discussion today, I would like to invite Alison to talk a little bit about the IGF mandate and permanence. So, Alison, what are some actions that we can take to strengthen the mandate of the IGF without losing its value as a key stakeholder forum for open discussion on Internet governance? Thanks for joining us.

Allison O’Beirne: Thanks, Everton Teles Rodriguez. Thank you for the question, it’s much appreciated. Hello everyone, thank you so much for joining the panel today. I’m very excited to be here and to be able to speak a little bit about some of the proposals from our various panelists about how to improve the IGF and how to really strengthen it as a forum for multi-stakeholder discussion. So, when we talk about strengthening the mandate of the IGF, I think the first thing that we want to recognize is that we’re talking about strengthening a mandate that has already really delivered enormously and is very well regarded, particularly by those who are kind of involved and who have attended the event. So, we’re looking at bringing success to something that’s already successful, looking at making a good thing even greater. When we’re starting from that premise, I think the first thing that we have to ask ourselves is what are the elements that make the IGF successful now? What are currently the things that really bring positivity to the forum? I think, first of all, it’s marvelous that it’s a forum for all stakeholders to come together and discuss in a very open manner the challenges that they’re facing, whether those are political, whether those are technical, whether those are policy changes, policy challenges that are… really able to be discussed in a venue that is open to a number of different viewpoints and a number of different types of collaboration and discussion as well. I think IGF’s non-decisional nature is also crucial to its success. It allows folks to come to the table in a spirit of openness and collaboration. I know from the government perspective particularly, we have a tendency to show up at some events with our positions all set and our decisions already made, and coming to IGF in a space where we’re not negotiating an outcomes document allows us to come in a spirit of collaboration and a spirit of learning and listening as well, which is really an element of IGF success. I would say that the last thing that’s really incredible to me about IGF is the strength of its national and regional initiatives. Those initiatives really make the IGF into a truly global ecosystem and really bring the community into the IGF space and vice versa. So with that foundation of those kind of strengths of the IGF already, I think recommendations then can focus on how to strengthen those pieces as well. The first recommendation that our team would have on the Government of Canada side is about the IGF mandate and just to make it permanent. I think folks are aware that the IGF, since it was established, was really renewed on an ongoing basis, which is good to have that kind of consistent demonstration of the value of it and of the value to stakeholders, but having a permanent mandate really allows the IGF to advance the way that it’s working in an increasingly strategic and an increasingly geopolitical space like digital policy. Having a permanent mandate not only sends that strong signal of the global multi-stakeholder confidence in IGF, it also allows the IGF itself to be more agile and more strategic in the way that it works, to think longer term, not to be kind of constantly chasing the next mandate, but instead to know that there is going to be this kind of permanence to it allows it to be better responsive and more thoughtfully responsive to advances in technology, to advances in stakeholder needs as well. I know Byron’s going to speak a little later to the financial aspects of that, so like usual as a government I will ask somebody else to figure out the financials for me. something that we can talk a little bit more about how that permanence can have a financial backing as well. The second recommendation that we would have is related back to the the national and regional initiatives and it’s really just about ensuring that we capture and disseminate the outcomes of those national and regional initiatives in a more kind of targeted and dedicated way. National and regional initiatives as I said really bring the kind of multi-stakeholder of nature of IGF into our communities and allow us to reflect the numerous different cultural socio-economic contexts that folks are working in as they’re thinking about digital and government and internet policies. But too often we’re finding that the really valuable insights that come from national and regional initiatives get communicated back to the IGF but often in a way that is siloed one region from the other and also siloed from the kind of central program of IGF. I think some kind of formal mechanism for channeling the inputs from those regional initiatives into the agenda setting for the broader IGF itself could really strengthen not only those regional initiatives and allow them to have a kind of raison d’etre and a way to feed into the IGF agenda, it also strengthens IGF itself again reflecting back to the multi-stakeholder nature. The third recommendation we would have is related to the IGF multi-stakeholder advisory group. I think a crucial group for setting the agenda here and making sure that it really reflects our multi-stakeholder values. The multi-stakeholder advisory group, the MAG, really plays a role in shaping the IGF’s agenda every year and I think there are a number of ways that we can ensure that as the IGF goes forward, if we’re able to secure a permanent mandate for it, that the MAG can continue to play that role in really defining the agenda for IGF. We can make the MAG more inclusive, ensure that voices from emerging economies from the global south are in the room and are as part of the discussion about the agenda setting and also voices from marginalized communities, whether it’s Indigenous folks, whether it’s women, whether it’s youth, are well represented within that group and feel that they have the ability to kind of…

Everton Teles Rodriguez: comprehensive set of recommendations and of course that we as a community as you said so all of us here in the room and those joining remotely we are just aiming at improving the IGF so of course that this is a process that has been taking place for many for two decades now and the internet is still being built by every single stakeholder and being built everywhere so every single input from those who have been joining the internet governance and the building of the internet for so long are all invited to keep improving not only the internet itself but also the IGF so thank you very much Alison for your comments now we are going to our second contribution comes from Marco so Marco I hope you’re able to join us here remotely I hope you’re hearing hearing me and listening to the conversation so as a young leader in the technical community as well as a member of the steering committee for Eastern Europe in the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance. Why is it meaningful youth engagement in spaces such as the IGF important and how do you think the engagement of young leaders in the IGF strengthen youth stakeholder internet governance and dialogue? Thanks for joining us. Just checking Marko. So let’s see. Can you just check if he can unmute himself? In the meantime so I will go to our next presenter in this while Marko can join us. So please Saba let’s go to our next question. So based on your previous experience. Oh right so he joined us just because it’s hard for us to listen and to listen to ourselves as well speaking but so if going back to Marko then then I’ll go to Saba. Marko hope you have heard the question?

Marko Paloski: Can you just repeat it once more?

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Of course. So you’re a young leader in the technical community as well as a member of the steering committee for Eastern Europe in the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance. So why is a meaningful youth engagement in spaces such as the IGF important and how do you think that the engagement of young leaders in the IGF strengthen youth stakeholder internet governance and dialogue? Thanks for joining us.

Marko Paloski: Yes thank you very much for the question and I want first to apologize for not being there. Last week I had some personal stuff and I needed to cancel everything but I should have been here in person. Yes thank you very much for the question. I think it’s a crucial one for the youth involvement and engagement. I mean not just involvement because there is I want also to point out that one thing is youth involvement and one thing is youth engagement because we have seen a lot of other how can I say conferences and stuff that they have youth and the participation but it’s It’s not on the same level as engagement. And I would add here that in the recent years, IGF was doing a lot to engage the youth. But of course, there are still more things to do. The most important thing that I will point out that why is youth engagement important for the IGF, for the mandate and for everything, I mean, in crucial stuff, is because it gives a new perspective. It brings also the youths which are growing up in the digital world. I mean, whenever you are youth in 15 years now, or 18 years, or 30 years, you somehow raised up with some kind of sort of technology and you’re growing up with the technology. So I would say it’s bringing the stuff, the experience, the issues, and all the stuff that youth are experiencing during these periods of their life. And it’s very important because the youths are having those, how can I say, first things experience. I will share a little thing that not every youth is digital literacy, but they have experience with the technology. And that makes very much difference because sometimes when you don’t have the knowledge or you didn’t go to those kind of stuff, maybe you think or see on a different way because you weren’t taught. You just click it, you scroll it, and you know on your way, which I don’t say that it’s wrong or right, but it’s good to have those perspective also on the table at the IGF. Another thing is that when we see youths, we don’t need to see them as just the users because currently in these days, they are also doing content creation. They are doing the developing, researching, community buildings. We can see a lot. I have a nephew that he is and his friends are doing YouTube and TikTok videos. Those people, I wouldn’t say they are influencers, but those people, those kids or youths create content online. So they are not just the users in this time that we are now especially living. So they are more than just the users. And I think it’s very much important to bring them also. to the table, and of course youth engagement to invite them to IGF and engage. Another thing that I would point out is that IGF in its core is a multi-stakeholder model, so it’s very important to also bring the youths, it will bring a balance in the whole model of the IGF. And what I also wanted to point out is that last year it was created a dynamic coalition on teens. What this means is that even the youth as a category is not enough to cover all the youths or maybe the needs of the youths. So that’s another point that it’s very crucial the youths to be involved because we can see now the age difference, for example, when we talk about youths 16, how they see and how they are using technology with, for example, me, I am currently 30. So that’s totally different point of views and totally different experiences. So I would say that youths are, if you ask me, it’s a must to be included in this, especially when it’s coming to the technology. And finally, I would say that by engaging them, the IGF can stay more relevant, can adapt faster and build this trust across different age groups, because how the technology is changing and the youths are more and more adapting. I mean, in the past, it was not, how can I say, usual for you to change, I don’t know, application or maybe even the device for a few years. I mean, until it’s broken or something doesn’t work, you change it. Now, in two or three years, we are changing the technology and how the application and the whole experience is going. I would point out again, Facebook is not the same like it was, I don’t know, even one year ago and not more than, I would say, more than the years. So I would say the youths are crucial part to be engaged. and be taken place on the table with the other seniors or other people that are on the IGF to discuss those issues and to bring some, I would say, maybe fresh perspective or different perspective from the people. I think I covered the question.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Thank you very much Marko and I just would like to emphasize how important the youth initiatives are. We have several of them all over the world, some of them are global, some of them are regional, some of them can be found locally and I really would like to urge those who would like to join just to look for one of those initiatives which can be found all over the world and that will help shaping the internet of today and tomorrow. So the internet is not a finished product, so we all have something to contribute and so thanks also to the youth program where we’re seeing the next generations of internet developers, leaders, users as well and everything related to the usage and to the present and future of the internet on youth representatives. Thank you very much for your participation Marko and stay tuned. So going to our next presenter Saba. Thank you very much Saba for joining us and based on your previous experiences on the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group, the MAG, as well as your experience as the coordinator of the Ethiopian Youth IGF, do you have three ways or three suggestions in which we can improve especially accessibility and inclusivity of the global IGF? So are there any other elements that we should consider when we are discussing this issue?

Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you very much for the question and it’s a pleasure to be here today. So based on my experience within the IGF ecosystem, it’s very much through that accessibility and Inclusion are the core pillars of the IGF. And in order to improve these two areas, it’s very much crucial for the future of the IGF as well. The first action is to ensure that the IGF sessions are accessible and this means, for example, using real-time captioning which we already have, live translations into multiple languages and here we also do have the live translation to six UN languages which is very much appreciated. But sometimes you also need to consider the languages being spoken by the majority of the people. For instance, in Africa, Yoruba language is one of the most widely spoken language being used by the majority of people, around 40 to 50 million. And in order to consider this, of course, we know sometimes the financial constraint is the issue. But we need to accommodate such diversity as well as making sure that it is a multilingual space. And second way is that we need to rethink how we support participants from underserved regions. For instance, when we talk about fellowships, they do not have to be a one-time experience but we need to build a long-term engagement, provide mentorship programs and also to give them post-engagement opportunities as well. And for this, for instance, we can take a look on how, you know, this can be integrated into the NRS ecosystem and this is engaging within the youths, IGFs, national IGFs, or regional IGFs and continue their engagement at the grassroots level. And you also need to see ways to have these reporting mechanisms in such cases in order to analyze their participation with that specific fellowship or other programs or opportunities within the IGF ecosystem. And my third recommendation would be inclusion. And this is, you know, from the overall youth perspective, should be very much encouraged. For instance, to have an intergenerational dialogue, for example, where the youth can have a conversation or an exchange or to have an experience sharing with policymakers. or having access to peer learning process or a cross-regional learning process as well. And here, for instance, I was one of the ISOCU’s ambassadors, and the peer learning process is very much appreciated. For example, U’s ambassador from the African region is sent to Europe to attend the EuroDIG, and U’s ambassador from the Asia-Pacific region was sent to Africa to attend African IGF. So these kind of pipelines, they need to be encouraged where I learn something different or learn from other experience of the other regions within the IGF ecosystem. And also again, speaking from the U’s perspective, we should also encourage U’s live sessions and have more fresh voices and ideas in order to be integrated into the whole IGF agenda. And one of the additional elements I can say to be considered when talking about these issues is we should see U’s IGFs and local initiatives as well as entry points into the global IGF. And these are not like a one-time event or an annual event, but rather they are one of the most powerful spaces where we can generate or where new leaders are being born. And so linking them to the global processes and ensure that the IGF stays relevant as well as very dynamic. And so generally speaking, if we really want the IGF to be fit for the future, accessibility and inclusion are one of the most important or the most core pillars. Thank you very much.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Thank you, Saba. And there is this interesting connection of what you were talking and then what Alison mentioned about the role of NRIs, because for example, it happens the same in Brazil. We have a… We have a huge community related to internet governance. Our Internet Governance Forum takes place mostly in Portuguese, which is the language of Brazil. And then we have a community, of course, that we may have some of them, some of the people who attend the Brazilian IGF and who also attend the global IGF, but that’s not a common link everywhere. So if you just speak the language of your country and then you move to the same discussion, which you’re already used to, but in a completely different language, that should be, of course, very much a question of a point of concern or a point of action of the whole community in order to provide the global IGF with the same level of discussions or to a great level of discussion as much as we have on national levels. So thank you very much. I saw this link between the two talks. Thank you very much. So going to now our next topic, our next presenter, which is last but not least, I should say, I would like to talk a little bit about financial sustainability, which is an ongoing issue for the IGF. So I would like to invite Byron. This has been a key topic in discussions about strengthening the IGF and especially pressing as we approach the WSIS Plus 20 review later this year, right after the IGF. So do you have any strategies or solutions that you have heard proposed to ensure that the IGF is financially sustainable in the long term? Thanks for joining us, Byron.

Byron Holland: Thanks for the question, Everton Teles Rodriguez. Like many people in this room, I wear a number of hats when I come to events like this, but today I’m definitely speaking. in my capacity as the CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority or CIRA. Most people will know us as the operator of the Canadian country code top level domain .ca, but we also serve as the secretariat for the Canadian Internet Governance Forum or the CIGF. What I would like to share with you today is some thoughts on money. That’s right, not internet governance, money. And what I’m going to suggest, it’s really not rocket science, but it is about the fuel to keep this, all of this, this entire enterprise of the IGF sustained and sustainable. And I’m sure many in this room and outside this room would agree, ensuring the long-term financial sustainability of the global IGF and the wider IGF ecosystem is essential if we’re to fully realize both its purpose and its value. Among other things, the IGF secretariat needs funding, not just to do these big events, but to engage its staff, to have staff, support meetings, and to communicate all of the messages and insights and information that come out of these IGF events. And this is no small feat, and it demands sustained and predictable resources. NRIs, too, require funding to convene events, foster local dialogues like we’ve just heard about, and feed national and regional perspectives into these global events. And today, I’d like to set out three key considerations, proposals that I believe are worthy of significant thought, and they relate to 1. Clearer and more accessible information on both funding and expenses related to the IGF 2. Diversification of IGF funding 3. Encouraging long-term financial commitments to the Forum So the first idea is to ensure that meaningful information about IGF costs and funding is clear, it’s accessible, it’s easy to consume, and it’s publicly available. From our vantage point, it’s not always easy to determine how much money flows into the IGF and its broader ecosystem, and what the associated costs are with the annual conference like this, the Secretariat, and the wider ecosystem’s initiatives and activities. And that’s not to say that important initiatives aren’t already underway. The IGF Support Association, or the IGFSA, for example, plays a valuable role in raising and distributing funding for IGF activities, including those regional and national initiatives and youth IGFs. It publishes annual reports and provides high-level information on projects funded by those associated allocations. But still, there is absolutely room for more complete and a more detailed picture of the financial landscape, one that draws from all the relevant sources, multiple sources, and shows how those resources are flowing across the IGF ecosystem. I think this would easily support more strategic engagement, enable stakeholders to identify key gaps, and strengthen efforts to sustain the process, all of these processes. and Marko Paloski, Saba Tiku Beyene. This approach reflects the Forum’s inclusive nature itself and its role as a key platform for dialogue on Internet governance and policy issues. And I think the diversity of funding sources will also help mitigate any risk of over-influence or capture by any one stakeholder group. We recognize, I certainly recognize, this is a challenging time for many in the community and that I’m very sensitive that different regions and stakeholders will have varying capacities to contribute. And naturally, those contributions should vary accordingly. You know, in my organization at CIRA, we often say, if we can, we should. And I think that that is a sentiment that is quite fitting here. It’s important to emphasize that this applies not only to global IGFs but to the wider ecosystem of national, regional and youth IGFs, the NRIs. And CIRA is certainly proud to serve both as the secretariat and the sponsor of the Canadian IGF, which plays, like many others, a key role in feeding Canadian perspectives into this event, into the global dialogue. And certainly, many of my CCTLD peers around the world also do the same in their respective countries. The third and final is building on ideas shared in ICANN’s I think there is a real opportunity, not just an opportunity, but a need to explore longer-term funding commitments. For example, 5-year pledges. If we had those, that would allow the IGF Secretariat to plan ahead, set priorities, and reduce the uncertainty of year-to-year funding cycles. Long-term support would also make it easier to pilot new initiatives in areas of emerging need, be they emerging technologies, continued capacity building, or other innovations. It would create space for experimentation and innovation. And importantly, it would signal to the broader community that the IGF is not just a forum worth preserving as it is, but one worth investing in, allowing to innovate for the long haul. So these reflections are, as I said, not rocket science. But if we advance these elements, clearer financial reporting, a broader diversity of funders, and some longer-term funding commitments, I’m confident that we can keep the IGF sustained, relevant, and innovating for many years to come. Thank you.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Thank you very much, Byron. And this is a topic which, regardless of our views of the IGF and of our different experiences of the IGF, the financial sustainability is definitely key for making the whole process happening, regardless of where and when. So in order for it to take place once a year in all over the world with the national and regional initiatives, the global IGF and everything. So the predictability of contributions should be a key topic for discussion and has been a key topic. So thank you very much. for what you’ve pointed out. So now that we have heard this first round of comments from our presenters, it’s the first opportunity that we will have to interact with our audience, both those joining us here in the room and also online. So Ellen, do we have any comments in the chat?

Ellen Taylor: Thanks, Everton Teles Rodriguez. We do have one comment in the chat. Someone has kindly posted some information about how to join the European Youth Initiative called YouthDIG. So that is in the chat if anyone is interested. I also do have a question here if we are, if we’re okay to start the Q&A portion.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Sure, sure, please. Okay, fantastic.

Ellen Taylor: So a question here in the chat for Byron. So this person asks, does diversification of funding include the UN budget as a source when you haven’t, that you haven’t mentioned?

Byron Holland: So yes, definitely. I think that some element, various elements of the UN absolutely have a role to play in funding. My point more was that in a multi-stakeholder environment, I think it’s important not only for people to participate in the multi-stakeholder space, but quite frankly, all of us in this room bear some responsibility, not just for participating and providing our thoughts and our inputs and our organization’s commitment. But if we want this space to continue to exist, those organizations that can should be participating in it. So I think that in a space like this, having a single source of funding, which I’m not sure if that’s exactly what the question was getting at, but potentially a single source of funding like the UN, I think would be a disservice to a multi-stakeholder environment. And that’s why I believe that broader diversity of funding is really critical to making this whole enterprise be sustainable over the long haul.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Thank you, Byron. Thank you, Alan. and well so contributions come not only from the microphones but also sometimes from financial contributions so this should be as well a source of contribution definitely thank you very much Byron. I see we have one comment from the microphone over here so Jordan thank you very much the floor is yours.

Jordan Carter: Thanks Everton Teles Rodriguez is this one on? Yes it is great yeah it’s weird when you don’t hear coming back. My name is Jordan Carter I work for the .au domain administration just offering a couple of personal comments here. An idea came up in a discussion earlier today I was part of about how to better connect the NRIs with the IGF process and it was to make sure that appointees to the IGF’s MAG as one of the sort of conditions of their appointment are people who are active in their NRI community to make sure that people in the MAG are already sensitized to the needs and the realities of grassroots issues and grassroots organizing on internet governance topics so instead of people who might be very detached from that process being part of the MAG community there would be a kind of a precondition it couldn’t be a universal one because of course some places don’t have NRIs but this might be a way to more strongly connect. The other point is an observation that in this context we have the WSIS review coming up at the end of the year I think we should be a little careful about how much we seek to see IGF improvement suggestions woven into the outcomes document of that review and agreed by an intergovernmental process versus things we can do for example like reviewing the terms of reference of the IGF’s MAG and things that we can do in a more administrative less politically sensitive way. and Saba Tiku Beyene are both working in a more collaborative, perhaps more multi-stakeholder fashion, to strengthen the institution as well. So I hope that people can think of things maybe that need to be done to strengthen the IGF in a really proactive, action-oriented way. They don’t all have to feed in just to the WSIS review, so I just encourage people to think a little bit outside the box, perhaps, about that. Thank you.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Thank you very much. Thank you, Jordan. For the first part of your comment, I think that one of the key aspects would be to look at ourselves as a community. So we have MAG members that may or may not be part of an NRI, considering the existence or not of that NRI, but if we just look to ourselves as a real community and those who should be appointed to the MAG as part of this community instead of people coming from who knows where. So this is definitely a good point. Thank you very much for pointing that out. We have one more comment from the floor. Bertrand. Thank you very much.

Bertrand de la Chapelle: Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Bertrand de la Chapelle. I’m the Executive Director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network. I’m glad to see all those sessions about the IGF and the evolution of the IGF, and I want to continue on the track that I’ve shared in various other sessions. And listening to Byron, I think it’s important to understand that the question of the funding of the IGF cannot be dissociated from the evolution of the IGF. The current state of the IGF is a very hybrid situation where there is a lack of clarity of what exactly people are expecting this organization to produce. I think there’s been a real interesting convergence in a few other sessions on the notion that the core function of the IGF is this framing phase, the bringing people together, the decision shaping. and not the decision-making. And as Jordan had mentioned in another session, it is a little bit difficult to raise money from companies, for instance, when it’s not a decision-making body. It’s one of the conundrums. However, I strongly believe that if we have a clear discussion on how to improve the IGF, revise its mandate, organize its structure more formally around exactly the components that we have today, but in a more structured manner, then the question of funding will be possible to be addressed. The second point is, and I’m very glad that Jordan made the comment before me, because we shouldn’t try to solve this question in the WSIS plus 20 process the way it is today. There’s no way we will achieve something that is sufficiently comprehensive by December. However, by December, we should have put on the table the question of who are we asking to steer this discussion? Where do we anchor this? Is it in the UN? Is it in the CSTD? Is it in the high-level panel? Is it in any other structure? How do we have a multi-stakeholder discussion in 2026 on the evolution of the mandate, the evolution of the funding, and the evolution of the structure of the IGF, and under whose auspices, with which partners around the table? But the question of the evolution of the IGF is the one that should be high on the agenda as an outcome of the WSIS plus 20 review. Thank you.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Thank you very much, Bertrand. Are there any reactions from our participants? Would you like to comment on what was shared with the audience? Any comments?

Byron Holland: As usual, Bertrand has a complex, multi-layered question slash comment, and I’m just going to pick up on one, unsurprisingly, the money part, because I think, you know, my comments were threefold about the different elements of funding it. As an organization with many ccTLD colleagues from around the world who has participated in funding the IGF over the years, it can be difficult just procedurally to do it because of the way it gets done, but also to Bertrand’s point about how is, how are the top, you know, essentially, what is the agenda and the purpose of the IGF going forward? I think for those who have been participating in the IGF over a number of years will recognize that we’ve seen the private sector step back considerably over the years. And I think that that’s, that’s a challenge on two fronts. One is, where are they? We can talk all we want about the platforms, but where are they? They need to be part of this conversation. And what can we do to make this space more relevant to get them back into the conversation? Because it’s beneficial for them to hear what the broader multi-stakeholder environment is saying, particularly in regards to some of the things that they’re doing. And it’s important that we hear it too. They have perspectives that maybe don’t get articulated in these spaces that are very, very relevant. So, the purpose and the format going forward need to encourage the private sector, the people who are actually providing the technologies often, a space to both listen and speak. And if we can do that, we will also find that diversity of funding will flow from that. So, I just want to say, I agree with Bertrand in terms of the sequencing. I, of course, was just initially speaking about the money, but the sequencing is also critical. If we take another layer deeper. You’ve got to provide the space that attracts the diversity of funders and making it relevant to the private sector actors is going to be key for that. Thanks.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Thank you, Byron. Well, I just would like to know, as we still have some time, we still can have one more question from the audience and while we wait for the question from the audience, I would like to know, Ellen, if we have any comments or reactions online.

Ellen Taylor: Thanks, Everton Teles Rodriguez. There is one, just to clarify the question that was previously asked to Byron. So, just a note from Mark Cavell here. He says, I fully agree with Byron’s focus on diversification, but I was wondering if a supplementary UN budget provision would enhance confidence amongst other potential investors. It might attract wider government… Sorry, I misread that. It might also have another benefit in promoting wider active government support and participation in IGF meetings and activities. So, that was just a follow-up to the earlier question.

Byron Holland: Just comment on that.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Sure.

Byron Holland: And I would 100% agree. I think there needs to be a baseline funding from the UN and, of course, I was entirely remiss in not acknowledging the governments that support these events on an annual basis. I mean, I’m staring at Norway. 100%, we need to acknowledge the importance of the governments that put their hand up and invest considerable resources in the event itself. But baseline funding from the UN, the support of individual countries for the annual event and the diversity of funding from the multi-stakeholder community. That will create the diversity of funding that I think we need.

Allison O’Beirne: Yeah, I just want to follow up on that point, Byron, because I think you’re completely right. And I think one additional consideration as we’re thinking through the diversification of the funding… for IGF as well and thinking through, you know, potential sources of funding from the UN itself, we have to ensure that the IGF does not become solely reliant on the host country to kind of provide for the ability to be able to host, specifically because that limits down and puts a particular emphasis on which countries might have the capacity to be able to host. So seeking out those diverse sources of funding, ensuring that we keep business or bring business to the table, and likewise looking at sources from international organizations like the United Nations, allows us to envision an IGF where the host country maybe has a lesser burden or maybe is able to more easily host, even if they are not, you know, G7, G20 nation.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Thank you very much, Alison. And well, with that, I would like just to thank you for the questions for those who participated from the floor. And now it’s time for one more interactive part of our session. We will be using Slido. So Ellen will display it for those joining us in person and those joining us online. So it will be soon on your screen. Here it is. So prepare your cell phones. And here it is. So, Ellen, can you just hit…

Ellen Taylor: It is loading. Apologies.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Yeah, it’s loading. So here you can find three… You will find three options for you to vote. Here is the code for you to reach to menti.com. Oops. Yes. So you can join us at menti.com and then in a few seconds. We are going to the questions. OK, so maybe it’s about time, so next slide, please. Here we have three suggestions of actions to strengthen the IJF, so you should pick your favorite of the three. So which one do you consider that should be the favorite? Please, Ellen.

Ellen Taylor: Thanks, Everton Teles Rodriguez. Just a quick note that this is a ranking activity. So feel free to position these three actions to strengthen the IJF that we heard from Alison at the beginning of the panel. Obviously, there are lots of great ideas. And so we’d just love to get a sense from you as to which ones you feel are the most awesome to, you know, also awesome. But in a ranked order. Thanks.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Thank you, Ellen.

Allison O’Beirne: I love I love a ranked ballot of the ideas that I brought up. It gives me the opportunity to vote for myself no matter what. It’s really great.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: So I’ll give you a few seconds until. We see a trend. OK, so should we move to our next question, Ellen? I still see some voting here. People are thinking for a few seconds.

Ellen Taylor: Yeah, that looks great. So it looks like we have about 28 people, 29 filling this out, which is wonderful and lovely to see the make the IJF permanent seems to be resonating the most strongly with with the group.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Right. So going to our next one, we have improving youth engagement at the IJF. So again, we would like to see what are your best, best options or your preferred ones. Of course, again, as Ellen said, this is a non-exhaustive list of topics, so many should come from discussions. We could keep discussing this forever. This one is more balanced, heavily, really balanced.

Ellen Taylor: Wow, it’s a tie, a three-way tie. That’s awesome. So thanks to Marko for bringing up some great points for us to think about and all great ideas. All right. Thank you.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: So the actions to improve the accessibility and representation of the IGF. Okay, so it’s quite stable now, or not. Okay. And Now improving the idea of financial sustainability. Great.

Ellen Taylor: I think it looks like for this one, the first and second option are pretty close of diversified IGF funding base and promotion of long-term commitments to IGF funding. So thank you to Byron for bringing those to our attention and speaking so in-depth and gave us really great points to think about when we did this activity. And for the previous one as well, I forgot to mention apologies, but thanks to Saba for really bringing those three ideas for inclusivity and accessibility at the IGF and that long-term support was really emphasized in the one that became the most prominent amongst the audience. So thank you all for your participation and that’s the end of the Mentimeter. Over to you, Overton.

Everton Teles Rodriguez: Thank you very much, Ellen. And then, well, with that, I just would like to ask each of our presenters for a brief concluding their takeaways from the session and high-level thoughts on the future of the IGF. I’ll use the same order as in the first half, so please, Alison, thank you very much.

Allison O’Beirne: Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Overton. I’ll be very brief. I think it was heartening to see in the questions that were raised in the discussions that we had that folks are very focused on the long-term sustainability of IGF. I think I have participated in a number of international…

Everton Teles Rodriguez: and Tali Wald הפki The largest network is called Marko’s House and this is one of the most renowned international forums in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s one of the most renowned international forums in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s one of the most renowned international forums in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s one of the most renowned international forums in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s one of the most renowned international forums in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s one of the most renowned international forums in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s one of the most renowned international forums in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s one of the most renowned international forums in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s one of the most renowned international forums in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. Tali’s House is the largest forum in the digital policy space and it’s wonderful to be in. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

Agreement points

IGF requires diversified and sustainable funding from multiple stakeholder groups

Speakers

– Byron Holland
– Allison O’Beirne

Arguments

Funding should be diversified across all stakeholder groups in multi-stakeholder fashion rather than relying on single sources

UN baseline funding combined with diverse stakeholder contributions and government event support creates optimal funding model

Summary

Both speakers agree that IGF funding must come from diverse sources including UN baseline funding, government support, and multi-stakeholder contributions to ensure sustainability and prevent over-influence by any single group

Topics

Economic | Legal and regulatory

National and Regional Initiatives need better integration with global IGF processes

Speakers

– Allison O’Beirne
– Jordan Carter
– Saba Tiku Beyene

Arguments

Need formal mechanisms to channel NRI inputs into global IGF agenda setting to strengthen multi-stakeholder representation

MAG appointees should be people active in their NRI communities to better connect grassroots issues with global processes

NRIs should serve as entry points to global IGF and be seen as spaces where new leaders are developed

Summary

All three speakers recognize that NRIs are valuable but currently underutilized, requiring better mechanisms to connect grassroots perspectives with global IGF agenda-setting and leadership development

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory | Capacity development

Youth engagement requires meaningful participation beyond token involvement

Speakers