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Summary

This discussion at the Internet Governance Forum focused on the material conditions for distribution of media content and the challenges posed by concentrated ownership of internet infrastructure to free and resilient journalism. The session was chaired by Professor Helle Sjøvåg and featured keynote speakers Chris Disspain and Anja Schiffrin, followed by a panel discussion with experts from various fields.

Chris Disspain emphasized that the internet is not an abstract space but a physical, centralized, and privately owned infrastructure controlled by a handful of companies. He warned that this concentration creates potential vulnerabilities and choke points that can be used to silence journalism or manipulate public discourse, particularly through control of undersea cables and content delivery networks. However, he noted that press barons have always tried to manipulate media, and humans demonstrate remarkable resilience in seeking information even when access is restricted.

Anja Schiffrin painted a more dire picture, describing the current moment as terrifying due to the dismantling of democratic institutions by autocrats supported by oligarchs and corporations. She argued that platform companies have been bad actors, polluting the information ecosystem, stealing intellectual property, and engaging in monopolistic practices. Schiffrin highlighted how these companies resist regulation through lobbying and threats to exit markets, as seen in Australia and Canada when news payment laws were implemented.

The panel discussion revealed broad agreement about the concentration of power in US-based technology companies and the resulting dependencies for news media globally. Panelists discussed how this affects different regions, with African representatives noting particular vulnerability due to limited bargaining power. The discussion covered various regulatory approaches, from Australia’s bargaining code to potential AI taxes and digital levies.

Several speakers emphasized the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches to governance rather than traditional regulation, noting that authoritarian governments might interpret “regulation” differently than democratic societies intend. The panel also discussed the role of ethics in journalism and the need for transparency and accountability from platform companies. Ultimately, the discussion concluded that while the challenges are significant, there are still choices available to governments, media organizations, and citizens to build more resilient information ecosystems through collective action, alternative infrastructure development, and maintaining high journalistic standards.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Concentrated ownership of internet infrastructure and its threat to media independence**: The discussion extensively covered how a small number of US-based technology companies now control critical internet infrastructure (undersea cables, content delivery networks, cloud services, social media platforms), creating potential vulnerabilities and dependencies for news media globally.

– **Platform dependency and the collapse of traditional media business models**: Speakers addressed how news organizations have become increasingly dependent on tech platforms for distribution, audience reach, and revenue, while these same platforms have disrupted traditional advertising models and appropriated content without fair compensation.

– **Regulatory challenges and the need for global coordination**: The conversation explored the difficulties of regulating global tech companies through national laws, the failure of self-regulation, and the need for international cooperation – particularly given the US government’s opposition to tech regulation and taxation.

– **Geopolitical implications and digital sovereignty**: Participants discussed how concentrated tech ownership creates geopolitical vulnerabilities, with particular attention to the power dynamics between the US, China, and smaller nations, and the need for countries to develop digital sovereignty and alternative infrastructure.

– **The role of AI in exacerbating existing dependencies**: The discussion touched on how artificial intelligence development by the same tech giants is creating new forms of content appropriation and further threatening independent journalism’s sustainability.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to examine the material conditions and infrastructure dependencies that affect the sustainability and independence of news media in the digital age, with a focus on identifying policy solutions and alternatives to ensure a free and resilient media ecosystem globally.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a consistently serious and concerned tone throughout, with speakers expressing alarm about current trends while remaining constructively focused on solutions. The tone was academic yet urgent, with participants acknowledging the gravity of the challenges while avoiding despair. There was a notable shift from diagnostic (identifying problems) in the keynotes to more solution-oriented discussions during the panel, though the overall sense of urgency remained constant. The speakers demonstrated both expertise and genuine worry about democratic institutions and press freedom.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Helle Sjovaag** – Professor of journalism at the University of Stavanger, Norway; research focuses on material conditions for distribution of media content; session chair

– **Chris Disspain** – Corporate lawyer; former CEO of Australian Internet Country Code manager for 16 years; former ICANN director for 9 years; former member of UN Secretary General’s Internet Governance Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Group for 6 years; keynote speaker

– **Anya Schiffrin** – Director of the Technology, Media and Communications Program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs; PhD from University of Navarra on online disinformation; former journalist covering Asia and Europe; keynote speaker

– **Pamella Sittoni** – Kenyan journalist and author; media and communications consultant; public editor at Nation Media Group in Kenya; former executive editor and managing editor of Daily Nation, the East African, and Standard newspapers; former communications specialist for UNICEF Kenya

– **Kjersti Loken Stavrum** – CEO of Tineus Trust; chair of the board of Shipstead Media; background as journalist and editor; former general secretary of Norwegian Press Association; former chair of Norwegian Freedom of Expression Commission

– **Rasmus Kleis Nielsen** – Professor at University of Copenhagen, Denmark; senior research associate at Reuters Institute for the study of journalism; former director of research at Reuters Institute; co-author of annual Reuters Institute digital news report

– **Anine Kierulf** – Norwegian lawyer; associate professor of constitutional law at University of Oslo; special advisor to Norwegian Human Rights Institution; former legal advisor to Council of Europe; former chair of Commission of Academic Freedom of Expression in Norway

– **Tawfik Jelassi** – Assistant director general for communications and information at UNESCO; PhD in information systems from New York University; former minister of higher education, scientific research and information and communication technologies in Tunisia; professor of strategy and technology management at IND Lausanne

**Additional speakers:**

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

# Internet Governance Forum Discussion: Material Conditions for Distribution of Media Content

## Introduction and Context

This Internet Governance Forum session examined the material conditions and infrastructure dependencies that affect the sustainability and independence of news media in the digital age. Chaired by Professor Helle Sjøvåg from the University of Stavanger, the discussion brought together experts from journalism, law, technology governance, and media policy to address the challenges posed by concentrated ownership of internet infrastructure to free and resilient journalism.

## Opening Remarks: Constitutional Framework and Infrastructure Dependencies

Professor Helle Sjøvåg opened the session by highlighting Norway’s unique constitutional framework regarding information infrastructure. She noted that paragraph 100 of the Norwegian constitution establishes the state’s responsibility for creating conditions that facilitate open and enlightened public discourse. This constitutional provision becomes particularly relevant when considering how media organizations have become dependent on infrastructure owned by a small number of global technology companies.

Sjøvåg emphasized that this dependency creates vulnerabilities for democratic discourse, as media outlets rely on platforms and infrastructure controlled by entities with their own commercial and political interests. The session aimed to explore these material conditions and their implications for media independence and democratic governance.

## Keynote Presentations

### Chris Disspain: The Physical Reality of Internet Infrastructure

Chris Disspain, a corporate lawyer and former ICANN director, provided a detailed examination of internet infrastructure realities. He emphasized that the internet is not an abstract space but rather a physical, centralized, and privately owned infrastructure controlled by a handful of companies.

Disspain illustrated infrastructure vulnerabilities with specific examples, including a blackout that affected Portugal and Spain when undersea cables were damaged, and the UK’s experience with water system privatization, which he used as an analogy for infrastructure dependency risks. He highlighted how big tech companies now control multiple layers of infrastructure, from undersea cables to Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), creating vertical integration that affects media distribution.

However, Disspain maintained a historical perspective on media manipulation, noting that “press barons have forever tried to manipulate what we read, what we see, what we hear” but haven’t succeeded completely. He expressed cautious optimism about human resilience, citing examples of people using old modems to maintain internet access during shutdowns, demonstrating adaptability in seeking information even when access is restricted.

Importantly, Disspain warned against using the term “regulation” in international policy discussions, as different governments interpret this differently. He noted that authoritarian regimes might use calls for regulation to justify censorship, preferring instead to discuss “global policy” developed through multi-stakeholder processes.

### Anja Schifrin: Platform Power and Democratic Threats

Anja Schifrin, Director of the Technology, Media and Communications Program at Columbia University, presented a more urgent assessment of current challenges. She described how platform companies have become problematic actors in the information ecosystem, engaging in what she characterized as monopolistic practices and intellectual property appropriation.

Schifrin provided detailed analysis of how platforms resist regulation, describing their use of standard corporate lobbying tactics, public relations campaigns, and misinformation about proposed laws. She highlighted examples from Australia and Canada, where platforms threatened to exit markets when news payment laws were implemented.

A significant element of Schifrin’s presentation was her analysis of US government opposition to tech regulation globally. She noted that the US actively opposes tech regulation and taxation worldwide, citing a “revenge tax” provision that was included in Trump’s budget, though she noted this was opposed by the US business community. She suggested that US isolationism might actually benefit global policy development by removing a major obstacle to progress.

Schifrin also addressed artificial intelligence development, noting how AI tools like Google’s AI overview reduce traffic to media websites by presenting information directly rather than directing users to original sources, creating new forms of content appropriation.

## Panel Discussion: Regional Perspectives and Policy Solutions

### African Perspectives on Platform Dependencies

Pamella Sittoni, a Kenyan journalist and media consultant, provided insights into how platform concentration affects developing countries. She highlighted the asymmetrical power relationships, where platform exit threats would have minimal impact on company profits but major consequences for information access in African markets.

Sittoni emphasized the lack of accountability in platform operations, noting how companies can arbitrarily choose which media organizations to work with and how much to pay them. She stressed the need for consistent global standards, arguing that what platforms are compelled to do in Australia should also apply in Africa.

Particularly concerning was her example of how platform data sharing can endanger lives. She cited a specific Kenyan case where someone was murdered in police cells after being tracked through information shared by platforms, highlighting the life-and-death implications of platform power beyond economic concerns.

### Nordic Models and Policy Innovation

Kjersti Loken Stavrum, CEO of Tineus Trust and former general secretary of the Norwegian Press Association, brought insights from Nordic media governance. She highlighted successful Nordic press ethical systems and their role in building trust and maintaining standards.

Stavrum introduced the “polluter pays” principle as a framework for platform accountability, drawing parallels with environmental policy. She argued that platforms should be held responsible for information pollution in the same way companies are held accountable for environmental damage.

She also provided specific examples of media success, noting that VG, a Norwegian publication, maintains impressive statistics with 2 million daily visitors and 1.5 million accessing the site directly rather than through platforms, demonstrating that direct audience relationships remain possible.

Stavrum noted a shift in European perspectives on transatlantic cooperation, observing that assumptions about US support for liberal democracy have been challenged by recent developments in digital governance.

### Academic and Legal Analysis

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen from the University of Copenhagen provided historical context, arguing that current concentration represents “the same old story only much more pronounced.” He emphasized the political nature of current conditions, noting a long period where corporate consolidation was “not only accepted but endorsed and wholeheartedly pursued by establishment political parties of both the centre-left and the centre-right.”

Nielsen challenged narratives of inevitability, referencing a 2015 Obama quote about US companies creating the internet while arguing against accepting “pretend helplessness of powerful politicians.” He noted that public alternatives exist, including decentralized, federated, and open-source solutions, but few in power pursue them.

Anine Kierulf, a constitutional law professor from the University of Oslo, addressed the challenge that law consistently trails behind fast-moving technology, with democracy’s inherent deliberative processes making rapid regulation difficult. She noted that current students have better critical thinking abilities than previous generations but less factual knowledge, highlighting the complexity of digital literacy challenges.

### UNESCO’s Multi-Stakeholder Approach

Tawfik Jelassi, Assistant Director General for Communications and Information at UNESCO, presented the organization’s approach to digital platform governance through inclusive processes involving 194 member states. He emphasized the principle that “without facts there is no truth, without truth there is no trust, and without trust there is no shared reality for action.”

Jelassi argued that ethics standards need to be both local and global since platforms operate across borders. He highlighted UNESCO’s work in developing guidelines that balance global principles with local implementation needs.

## Policy Discussions and Recommendations

The discussion generated several specific policy approaches. Speakers advocated for collective negotiation by countries and publishers rather than individual approaches to increase bargaining power against platforms. There were calls to develop national and regional digital infrastructure as alternatives to dependency on US-based technology companies.

Several participants supported implementing transparency and accountability requirements for digital infrastructure decisions, with human rights and freedom of expression as foundational principles. More innovative suggestions included requiring platforms to post bonds before operating in countries to ensure fines can be collected, and pursuing digital levies with funding earmarked for journalism support.

The panel also discussed the importance of digital literacy education and establishing regional press ethical systems to build trust and maintain standards.

## Unresolved Challenges

The discussion highlighted several ongoing challenges, including how to balance national sovereignty with the global nature of internet infrastructure, and questions about whether regional alternatives to US tech companies would behave fundamentally differently. The conversation also touched on concerns about Chinese alternatives potentially filling gaps if US companies exit markets.

Technical questions about enforcement mechanisms, funding for public alternatives, and fair compensation for AI use of media content remained largely unresolved. The complexity of achieving digital sovereignty for smaller states given resource constraints was acknowledged but not fully addressed.

## Conclusion

The session demonstrated broad recognition that internet infrastructure concentration creates vulnerabilities for media independence and democratic discourse. While speakers acknowledged the severity of current challenges, they also emphasized that alternatives exist and that current conditions result from specific political and economic choices rather than technological inevitability.

The discussion highlighted the need for continued dialogue and experimentation in developing policy mechanisms that can address platform power while maintaining democratic values. The emphasis on multi-stakeholder approaches and collective action provides a framework for future policy development, though specific implementation mechanisms require further development.

The session reinforced that addressing these challenges requires active engagement from political leaders, media organizations, and citizens rather than accepting current dependencies as permanent features of the digital landscape.

Helle Sjovaag: and big tech. My name is Helle Sjøvåg. I will be chairing this session today. I’m a professor of journalism at the University of Stavanger here in Norway, and my research currently is about the material conditions for distribution of media content. And editorial media are, as you know, responsible for overseeing power and for providing an arena for democratic conversation. So here in Norway, it’s the responsibility of the state to ensure that the infrastructure for information, communication and expression is open, diverse and free to all. This responsibility is in fact embedded in paragraph 100 of the Norwegian constitution on freedom of expression. So media used to largely own distribution infrastructures in the past, they owned television towers that relayed broadcasting signals, the trucks that delivered newspapers, and they leased the bandwidth where radio signals were transmitted. But they have also always been somewhat reliant on third parties to get their content out to audiences. In the past, these were cable distribution companies, video stores, movie theaters and newsstands. Today, news delivery is modular. It’s distributed through a range of platforms, most of which are owned by a handful of US-based technology companies. News media rely on terrestrial and submarine fiber cables to enable hyperlinking, but also co-production and audience reach. They need content delivery networks like Akamai to stream content. They rely on cloud service. like the ones provided by Microsoft and Amazon Web Services to store and manage data. They rely on web architecture like the ones provided by Google for website functionality. And news media have also relied for quite some time on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok to reach and engage their users and also to generate advertising revenue. More and more, news media also grow increasingly dependent on the AI services provided by Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon for research and production, analytics and also personalization of content. So, many of the key players here, they operate across sectors. Now this creates potential vulnerabilities along the value chain of news production and distribution raising questions as to the resilience of the overall technological infrastructure for news globally. These resilience issues emerge because these technologies, and these are technologies that work really well by the way, they’re concentrating in power and they’re also concentrating geographically. So, we are quickly approaching the point where it becomes impossible to operate sustainably without these services. So, this leads to issues of dependency and potential capture, posing questions about the resilience of the information ecology overall. So, how does this infrastructure create vulnerabilities for editorial media’s ability to operate sustainably? How do we secure free editorial media in the future? So, we will delve into these issues in this session. We will start by hearing two speakers. keynotes followed by a panel discussion. So our first keynote is by Chris Dispain. Chris is a corporate lawyer who for 16 years was the CEO of the manager of the Australian Internet Country Code where he started the Australian IGF. He was a director of ICANN, so Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, for nine years and he was a member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Internet Governance Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Group for six years and he continues to be heavily involved in ICANN and all areas of internet governance. So Chris, the floor is yours.

Chris Disspain: Good morning everybody. This is a really, really weird setup. Hang on, that’s it. Let’s get rid of that. I can hear myself properly, sort of cutting out. Good morning everybody. Thanks for asking me to be here. I’m gonna, I was in two minds about how to do this and in the end I decided that the best thing for me to do is a sort of level set and save all of the sort of controversial stuff for the discussion because I have no doubt there’s going to be some of that. So let me start by asking you to imagine waking up tomorrow morning to find that your favourite news outlet, maybe an independent investigative site or a local newspaper, trying to expose corruption has vanished. Not because it’s run out of money, not because it’s broken the law, but because the infrastructure that it depended on, servers, cloud storage, content delivery systems etc, was quietly turned off by a private company acting in its own interests and with no oversight or transparency. That’s the reality that could happen today. So the question that I’m going to address now is how does the concentrated ownership of the Internet’s infrastructure, affect a free and resilient news media. And in an era where information is both our most valuable resource and our most contested battleground, understanding the invisible hand shaping our access to news is more crucial than ever. We tend to think of the Internet as an abstract space, a borderless cloud, a place where information flows freely. But it’s not some ethereal democratic realm floating above us. It’s physical, centralised and privately owned. At every layer, from the undersea cables that carry data to the data centres that host it, to the platforms that distribute it, real companies control real assets. And with that comes enormous power. So I think we’re all clear what we mean by Internet infrastructure. And I’m going to talk mainly about, with reference mainly to undersea cables and CDNs, content delivery networks, but it applies to all the layers. And these layers aren’t just technical scaffolding. They’re points of control. And when ownership of the layers is concentrated in the hands of a few, then we can create choke points that can be used intentionally or not, to silence journalism, suppress dissent or manipulate public discourse. The concentration isn’t just about market share. It’s about infrastructural power. The ability to shape, restrict or enable the flow of information at the most fundamental level. As platforms and infrastructure providers consolidate, they evolve from mere gatekeepers to architects of the entire media ecosystem. Their control extends from the creation of news, through its distribution, and to how and whether it reaches you at all. When a small number of CDN providers control the infrastructure that delivers most of the web content, they also effectively act as gatekeepers. If they choose, voluntarily or under government or corporate pressure, to restrict access to certain news sources, those outlets may become practically invisible or unreliable. And of course undersea cables are the physical backbone to the global internet and that includes news delivery. A lot of people who aren’t involved in this area think that the undersea cables are all owned by governments, and indeed some of them are, but a lot of them are owned by a small number of corporations, and the number of governments that own them is also very small. Control of this part of the infrastructure enables you to prioritise or deprioritise certain data flows, so you can favour your own platforms, your own services or your own partners. It creates potential choke points where governments or companies can interfere with the transmission of independent journalism, and that’s especially true in the case of crises or conflicts, not that we have any of those around at the moment. It can enable censorship by infrastructure, denial of access and bandwidth throttling. Speaking of censorship, we traditionally worry about government censorship, but corporate censorship can be just as impactful and is often far more opaque. CDNs can remove or block content they consider controversial, false or harmful, and whilst this may align with societal goals, it can also be abused to suppress legitimate investigation or whistleblowers. Infrastructure owners have, at times, been pressured by governments or acted on their own to block content or services. Examples include financial intermediaries cutting off funding to news organisations, app stores removing controversial apps, or network providers shutting down entire countries’ access to the internet during political crises. That’s the imagine you woke up in the morning and you couldn’t access the news channel. There are surveillance and privacy risks as well. Companies that own cables may, can, may, monitor or will be forced to share data with governments. It undermines the confidentiality of journalists, whistleblowers and sources. Surveillance at the infrastructure level, not just the software level, is far harder to detect or to resist. CDNs often handle DNS queries, TLS handshakes and metadata about who accesses which news content and concentrated ownership allows the aggregation of highly sensitive consumption data which could be abused. The concentration can also put economic pressure on independent media. Tech giants who own cables also dominate social media distribution, search engines, cloud hostings, advertising markets, you’ll notice I haven’t named any of them, that’s because I suspect we all know who they are. This vertical integration can financially squeeze independent media who become dependent on a few platforms for both content distribution and monetisation. Infrastructure control gives big companies even more leverage over the digital news economy. And there’s of course the risk of geopolitical weaponisation. Countries that dominate cable ownership, currently the US and China, can pressure or disrupt global information flows. In authoritarian regimes, state-owned or state-influenced companies can influence how news circulates internationally. And for smaller countries, the lack of ownership or control creates a dependency which reduces sovereignty over the information access. History shows that concentrated ownership, whether in traditional media or in digital infrastructure, poses serious risks to media pluralism and independence. When a few entities control the spaces and relationships on which media organisations depend, end. They can shape public discourse not just by what they amplify, but by what they suppress. There’s economic leverage too. News organisations, especially the smaller ones and local outlets, are dependent on the infrastructure owners for access, distribution and revenue. This dependency can erode their editorial independence and long-term sustainability. And there’s homogenisation. Consolidation often leads to less original, more homogenised content with a decline in local reporting and diversity of voices, even if overall content quality doesn’t always suffer. I live in a small village in Norfolk in the UK and it’s reached the point now where the only way that I can really find out about what’s going on in the local area is in the individual parish magazines that still get printed and delivered through the front door, because the local news is over. It doesn’t really exist anymore. There are local papers, but all they have become is the delivery of advertising. The concentration introduces vulnerabilities that threaten the resilience of both the internet and the news media. Again, a small number of companies control critical infrastructure, so outages or targeted disruptions can have outsized effects. Look at the recent blackout in Portugal and Spain. If that doesn’t highlight the importance of diverse providers and the reliance on a few actors making the system brittle, then nothing does. Witness the beautiful and glorious United Kingdom’s privatised water system, where individual water authorities have a monopoly over delivery of water in various parts of the country, nearly all of whom are polluting our rivers and waterways so that they can pay more money to their shareholders. Infrastructure owners can also become instruments of the state or corporate power. and wielding their control to advance political or economic interests, sometimes at the expense of press freedom and public interest. And when ownership is concentrated, failure of one operator or geopolitical tension, the thing I mentioned we didn’t have very much of at the moment, can lead to severe disruptions. It’s important to remember that news organisations often depend on real-time global access to sources, feeds, witnesses and correspondence. And concentration makes the system itself more vulnerable to things like cable cuts, political sanctions or regulatory capture, and corporate decisions driven by profit, not by public interest. The consequences for democracy could be profound. As ownership concentrates, local and regional news media struggles. Their dependence on infrastructure and platforms controlled by distant actors undermines their ability to serve their communities and hold local power to account. It used to be possible. You may not be able to hold national power to account until there’s an election, but you used to be able to hold local power to account simply because you had all the news and information and you could turn up at your council offices and shout at them a lot. Homogenised content and diminished local reporting weakens the public’s ability to scrutinise those in power, leading to less informed citizens and diminished political participation. And of course, there are threats to pluralism. With fewer independent actors, the diversity of perspective shrinks. Minority voices are marginalised. Communities, marginalised communities are marginalised and risk being excluded from conversation. So, the challenges require a multi-pronged approach, of course, and I’ve no doubt we’re going to talk about that some when we get to the panel. It may be that the traditional tools for limiting media concentration are not appropriate or don’t work anymore. They’re certainly broken down in the mainstream media. The rules used to be you couldn’t own a newspaper and a television channel. No, not anymore. Policy should encourage a diverse ecosystem of infrastructure providers and media organisations. Policy is important. How you set it is obviously also important, but that’s another conversation. And infrastructure owners need to be held to high standards of transparency regarding their control over data flows and so on. And we should be investing in alternative infrastructure, community-owned networks, independent hosting and decentralised platforms are all within our own control if we choose to take that control. It’s a fundamental challenge to the freedom, diversity and resilience of our news media. And if it’s left unchecked, it risks entrenching new forms of gatekeeping, undermining local journalism and narrowing the spectrum of voices that sustain our democracy. But that said, it was ever thus. It might sound as if I’m suggesting we’re headed towards the end of a diverse media or the death of local news or a single point of control of our news. And I don’t believe that we are. Press barons have forever tried to manipulate what we read. If you look at the relatively recent fight between Prince Harry and Rupert Murdoch’s news media and his case for which he sued them, he won front page news in lots of newspapers, but bizarrely in the Murdoch press, a small article on the bottom of page eight. But the point is that Murdoch, the Murdoch press didn’t have the power, despite the fact that it owns an awful lot of the media, to suppress the story. There are more opportunities today also for citizen journalists than there have ever been. And I think we’re taking advantage of them. Part of the challenge, of course, is it’s not always journalism. Sometimes it’s just rhetoric. But above all else, we should never underestimate the resilience of us humans and our desire to be heard. I started out by asking you to imagine your favourite news network had vanished. Well, that’s not something some people need to imagine. It has happened in several countries over the last 10 to 15 years, where the government has attempted to switch off the population’s access to news. And what happens when that happens? Our own resilience kicks in. In one particular case, by folks heading up to their attics and dusting off their old modems and connecting to the world of news with two rubber caps and the soundscape of squeaks and buzzes over the good old-fashioned telephone. Even so, the choices we make today about the digital arteries of our society will shape the future of news for expression and democratic participation for generations to come. It’s our collective responsibility, policy makers, industry leaders, journalists and citizens alike, to ensure that the infrastructure of the internet serves the public good and not just private power. Thank you for listening, and I look forward to the panel discussion.

Helle Sjovaag: Thank you very much, Chris, for that. Our next keynote speaker is Anja Schifrin. Anja is the Director of the Technology, Media and Communications Program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She has a PhD from the University of Navarra on the topic of online disinformation, and she has published extensively on journalism’s sustainability, capture and policies to support journalism globally. Anja is also a former journalist. She’s been covering both Asia and Europe as a reporter for many years. So, Anja, the floor is yours.

Anya Schiffrin: Great. Thank you all for inviting me and Hayley for organizing this. Can everybody hear me okay? Good, and I’m going to time myself because I have 15 minutes, but if I have to skip, I’m happy to send my talk to you later. It’s really great to see old friends here like Pamela and Guy and Rasmus and make some new friends too, and thank you to UNESCO for all the support over the years. I’m going to be depressing. I’m from Columbia University and I’m an American, so I’m extremely worried right now. We’re in a terrifying moment, one in which it feels like everything we’ve worked to build over decades is being dismantled. Not for any good reason, not because thoughtful people who share the values of an educated or equal society built on truth and science and scientific inquiry decided it was time to carefully consider how to make the world more fair, more just, provide services more efficiently. I’m referring to Doge, of course. No, everything we’ve worked for and believe in is being torn apart by autocrats because they can do it. They came to power because they had support from oligarchs and corporations with money enough to influence political processes. They had the support of frustrated voters who were variously angry about income inequality, wokeism, and migration. And in the US, as well as in other countries, these new leaders use every method they have to grab and hold power, define courts and institutions, civil service, and civil society. So now we’re here trying to figure out what to do next. As usual, the media is on the front lines. Journalists believe that they’re the guardians of truth and their work holds power to account. They work in local communities covering local news, institutions, and politicians. And they work across borders exposing massive global problems. They provide new information to change hearts and minds and be acted on by responsible government that want to act. Quality information is even more important now in an age of AI. Slop, where the information ecosystem is awash in misleading images and strange blah words that sound like they mean something but don’t. Public discourse has been totally debased in the U.S. Our leaders lie without compunction. They seem to lie on every topic, whether migration or vaccines or climate. They attack and they defame their opponents. They did what they did in the McCarthy era when they attacked the Voice of America and librarians burned and pulped books in the U.S. overseas. What comes after this attack on science and academia? Confusion. Nathan Heller’s New Yorker piece last November summed up the U.S. today. It’s no longer the micro-targeted online disinformation that’s the problem, but the general miasma of confusion. As he said, it’s about seeding the ambience of information, throwing facts and fake facts alike into an environment of low attention. Worse is the terrifying public violence, the assassination in Minnesota, the people bringing their cars to protest to either crash into protesters or threaten them, not once but repeatedly. It’s all reminding me of the French sociologist Gabriel Tardé, who I teach in my class at Columbia. He talks about life before the public. Without the public, what did we have in the Middle Ages? Fairs, pilgrimages, tumultuous multitudes dominated by bias or belligerent emotions, angers or panic. Sounds like today. I won’t go into all the details that we all know so well about what happened to quality news media, the collapse of the business models, IP and content stolen by social media, changes in audience consumption patterns, loss of advertising revenue captured by the state, the spread of news deserts. Rasmus will talk to you about trust. I’m sure COVID-19 hitting advertising. advertising. Quality information is a public good, as my husband’s been saying for decades, and few want to pay the full cost of production and dissemination. And that’s true of course of art, culture, health, and many other essentials. So here, but there’s a cost to not producing public goods and we are paying that price now. So here we are in 2025, Trump and Musk decided to cut funding for journalism around the world, Voice of America, startups in Africa, exile media from Russia and Ukraine, the intermediary organizations. It’s a bloodbath ripping through the ecosystem. Some, such as Gina Neff and Taylor Owen, are saying that we need to have new regulatory frameworks. As the previous speaker pointed out, much of what we’ve done may not be enforceable in the future. Others like Reddy and Glacier have said we have to prepare for systems collapse. And they lay out in a recent paper in, I think it was in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, different options for funders, whether it’s protecting communities, blocking the worst parts, or being creative and willing to transform and fundamentally reimagine the sectors surrounded, supported by foundations and under attack. Since we’re talking today about platform dependency and the material conditions for a free and resilient news media, I want to talk about where I think those discussions are going and what I’m hearing around the world. I first want to acknowledge that there has been a tremendous amount of creative thinking already. I strongly disagree with the view that journalists didn’t innovate, that they spent too much time blaming the platforms. I think that journalists and donors have spent decades promoting engagement with audiences, supporting local news, trying to communicate and build trust with communities. They’ve innovated in endless ways, trying the subscription model, community building models, trying to earn income to replace what was lost to the tech advertising monopoly, governments in many countries, including Norway, have done a huge amount to support public interest news. So I don’t think this is a moment when we all need to sit around and criticize ourselves. I think we’ve done enough of that. The time is action. There’s been also, let me point out, tremendous engagement with the platforms. Attempts have been made to create voluntary codes of conduct, require data transparency, work together to develop new forms of technology and income stream, and it was only when those attempts were not sufficient that governments stepped in and tried to help publishers. The good news is we have the tools. Governments tried first with voluntary measures, but they know how to do tax policy and they know how to regulate monopolies. Many, especially in this part of the world, have done a terrific job supporting public broadcasting and journalism. But when government has tried to use their powers to tax and legislate, they were met with platform resistance. The platforms have shown themselves to be bad actors in many cases. I have a little list. They have polluted the information ecosystem by making money from spreading misinformation and hate speech. They steal intellectual property and by stealing it, they weaken the ability of those who want to provide good information to be able to do it. They’ve become monopoly capitalists and they have stifled innovation. They’ve engaged in tax avoidance despite reaping enormous profits from their monopoly power. The oligarchs heading these firms have used their wealth to interfere with the political process and written the rules in the U.S. to benefit themselves, their monopolies, and they’ve done the same things in countries around the world. They have not respected attempts to get them to pay for IP copyright. Their playbook was and is the U.S. classic corporate playbook for lobbying, PR efforts, spreading misinformation about laws, commissioning research. and threatening exit, and I have a book chapter that I wrote with Felipe Lauritzen coming out next year that looks at South Africa and Brazil as case studies for this classic American corporate playbook in tech. So, some regulators, I’m thinking here of Rod Sims and the Australian Competition Commission, came to realize that the heart of the problem is platform dominance and power asymmetries between platforms and publishers. This is why in Australia it was the competition authorities rather than the copyright office that tried to get platform remuneration for publishers. The Australian case is significant because it led to payments by Google and Meta along with a raft of measures enacted by government which helped shore up declining local news. But we saw what happened in Canada when they adopted a similar law. Meta responded by dropping news, which caused a collapse in website traffic. We saw in Brazil how Google lobbied against similar laws. South Africa, and in California, and all over Europe, dropping news as a test. And now we have yesterday’s announcement from Google that they’re also going to pull out of many of the Australian laws. And as always, they blame the victim. Oh, it’s the Labour Party’s fault for not being clear. Anyway, my point is that the platform intransigence has led regulators to consider a host of new measures. Late 2024, Australia announced that platforms that didn’t want to negotiate with publishers could pay a digital levy, which would be more expensive than what bargaining code payments would be. South Africa is also looking at digital levies. And many countries are considering things like digital services taxes with funding earmarked for journalism. I don’t want to go over time, but I’ll just say a few things. So, in the OSCE, we have this report coming out on platform dependencies and publishers, which we’re presenting in September and October. And we talk about must-carry and visibility policies. This, I think, is a big issue. is a very dramatic shift, and I’m not sure that much of it would actually even be implementable in the U.S. because of First Amendment considerations, which preclude compelled speech. But I think there’s two things to remember. One is, had the platforms agreed to previous laws and attempts, we would not be in this position where we’re now looking at really what I consider fourth-best measures. And the only way to get concessions from platforms is to proceed with legislative proposals, otherwise they do not act. I think that the next frontier is going to have to be some sort of AI tax, possibly with funding given to support journalism, and I see four policy options. Free-for-all, where the LLM AI companies can scrape whatever they want online, and creators and publishers have no protection. This is what we saw during the training period. The second path would be one in which there is a strict policy of no use of intellectual property. This is clearly unrealistic. So now we have two options which involve paying for the use of IP. One would be a fixed scale of fees that are predetermined. Payments to pharma companies during periods of compulsory licensing of medications are one example. The South Africans in the room are very familiar, and India as well, with compulsory licensing regimes. I think, frankly, I’m working on a paper now with a team of economists, and that is what we’re going to be proposing. And then the other point, of course, is more what Australia did, which is you lay out a negotiations framework. And this has to be done because the competitive environment has a direct bearing on negotiations. This was the whole entire point that Australia understood you don’t have fair negotiations when it’s a couple of monopolies that are doing at the table. So I want to be really clear. I’ve got five more minutes. I’ll give back a couple of minutes. updates, I want to be clear about what we’re up against. The US government has made it clear that it opposes both tech regulation and taxation all over the world. There is a proposal in Trump’s current budget to preempt state regulation on AI for 10 years. This is really important, because in the US, we have federal systems, so states do quite a lot. And if they’re not able to regulate AI for 10 years, we have a huge problem on our hands. Another thing is, I don’t know if you’ve heard about the revenge tax. This is a provision in the new budget which would punish companies in countries that try to enforce the OECD tax agreement on global minimum corporate taxes, which you may remember was settled at 15%, which is pretty low, or impose digital services taxes. So this is the US saying, we’re taxing you back if you do either of these things. Now, the funny thing about this, the revenge tax is such a bad idea that the US business community has hired lobbyists to try to kill it. That’s amazing, if US business doesn’t even want a law that’s supposed to protect them. And the New York Times had a great article about this last week. So let’s make no mistake about what’s happening in the US. Trump and his friends oppose misinformation research and legislation because they like to lie online. Trump and Vance and their Silicon Valley allies oppose paying for IP because that would eat into their profit. That’s what’s happening here. Let’s not muddy the waters with talking about First Amendment or anything else. So here’s the question. Can Europe stick together? In the US, those of us who care about this stuff want to know whether the EU and the rest of the world will cave, capitulate, or whether it will stick with its plans to tax and regulate big tech. India has apparently agreed to roll back its 6% tax. attacks on digital advertising. There’s also discussion, including a head of financing for development meeting in Seville next week, where I’ll be going, about whether having the US out of global discussions is better, because it means the rest of the world can go on with making their own plans. Normally, what the US does is their negotiators demand concessions to international frameworks. They drag out the discussions. And they were then, in the end, after dragging out, wasting everyone’s time, watering down, they just refused to sign, because Congress won’t pass it anyway. So I don’t think the EU and the rest of the world and the international community has any choice. Either the US is isolationist and out of the picture for the long term, in which case the rest of the world has to move ahead in all sorts of areas without us, or the US returns to sanity, in which case it’s good to have spent a few years developing smart policies, and the US can catch up later. Thank you for including me, and I look forward to the discussions. Thank you.

Helle Sjovaag: Thank you for that, Anja. I’m going to introduce the panel now. Our panel today consists of five distinguished actors working in the areas of policy, industry, and academia. First, we have Pamela Sitoni. She’s a Kenyan journalist and author. She’s a media and communications consultant and the public editor at Nation Media Group in Kenya. She’s previously served as executive editor and managing editor of Daily Nation, the East African, and Standard newspapers in Kenya. She has also worked as a communications specialist for the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, in Kenya. Pamela. Gustav Röhm is CEO. Tineus Trust and she’s the chair of the board of Shipstead Media. She has a background as a journalist and editor and she served as the general secretary of the Norwegian Press Association and chair of the latest Norwegian Freedom of Expression Commission. We have Rasmus Claes Nielsen. He is a professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and a senior research associate at the Reuters Institute for the study of journalism, where he also served as director of research for many years. He’s published extensively on political communication, the business of news, platform dependency and misinformation and he is co-author of the annual Reuters Institute digital news report. Annine Kjærhølf is a Norwegian lawyer and associate professor of constitutional law at the University of Oslo. She’s a special advisor to the Norwegian Human Rights Institution. Annine has served as legal advisor to the Council of Europe and she served as chair of the Commission of Academic Freedom of Expression here in Norway. Tarfik Djelassi is the assistant director general for communications and information at UNESCO. He has a PhD in information systems from New York University and he served as minister of higher education, scientific research and information and communication technologies in Tunisia. He’s also professor of strategy and technology management at IND Lusanne. And we also have on stage our two keynote speakers Anja Schifrin and Chris Despain and Tarfik is joining us now. Okay, welcome to the panel everyone. We’ll start with the section on reactions to our two keynote presentations I think. I want to start maybe with you Rasmus. Chris tells this story of a concentration in the internet sector and he draws this line back to the press barons in a sense. Do you think it’s a good parallel? Is it the same old story? I mean I think I’m

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen: reminded of the quote from the movie Casablanca that he is like other men only more so. I think it is the same old story even only much more pronounced in that the concentration of power we see today is increasingly transnational even global and and that is a more accentuated than the history that Chris rightly outlined. I also think it’s important to keep in mind that in addition to the sort of corporate story of triumph and tragedy that we all know so well the sort of the animal spirits of the market and they have been quite animalistic that have been unleashed in these areas. There’s also a political story that I think Chris gestured towards when you mentioned sort of privatization of water for example utilities but also the watering down of cross-media ownership legislation and I think if we want to understand where we are today it’s important to pay attention to the current inhabitant of the White House but also the history of this. The moment we’re in today I think has a political history that goes back at least to George W Bush and the Barack Obama administration to the Blair prime ministership and the David Cameron prime ministership to Chancellor Schroeder and to Chancellor Merkel in terms of a long period in which corporate consolidation, liberalization opening up media markets have not only been accepted but endorsed and wholeheartedly pursued by establishment political parties of both the center-left and the center-right. So for example here is a quote, our companies have created the internet, expanded it, perfected it in ways that other countries can’t compete. And oftentimes what is portrayed as high-minded positions and issues, sometimes it’s just a sign to carve out some of their own commercial interests. This is not a quote from the current inhabitant of the White House, this is a quote from President Obama from 2015. So there’s a political story here of deliberate non-intervention and deregulation that is across the political spectrum and across the Atlantic. And in fact, if we are to believe what we read in the press today, the brief of the current European Commission is not to respond to the hopes of many people who attend events like this. It is allegedly deregulation, corporate consolidation, and apparently if what we’re told today by the Wall Street Journal about the possibility of pausing enforcement of the DSA for US companies, it’s to make geopolitical concessions in the interest of maintaining some sort of tie across the Atlantic. So I think there is a very important political story here. If we want to understand who is responsible for where we are today, and I think that should probably inform as to what we hope from the same actors going forward.

Helle Sjovaag: Thank you. Annina, do you think we’re too late in regulating this space? How would you describe the current challenges to the information, ecology, and human rights?

Anine Kierulf: Yeah, I very much agree with Rasmus. We’re certainly too late. But in some ways, I think lawyers’ law is always too late. We’re sort of trailing the world. The world goes on, and we run after it and try and regulate it and mend all the things that don’t work with regulations. And that’s the way that law works generally, and it’s been like that in the meeting of all new technologies and even like, I don’t know, cars, everything. But the situation today is very different because the world is spinning a lot faster, so it’s hard to trail. The internet is fast. The technology companies are really fast. Everything’s going at a much higher pace. reaching out to a number of more people a lot faster than in any previous ways of technology, I think. And so law is trailing the world, but democracy is by its nature slow. And that’s to try and get people involved and listen to what the constituents have to say about things. Obviously, we have to do that. But seeing a model for regulation that incorporates that slowness into the pace that the world is working with today, I think is very, very difficult. So the challenges to free speech, obviously, but particularly perhaps freedom of information. I mean, the big internet revolution, obviously, it’s where all people get to speak freely about what they want, where they want, in some ways, at least on the mercy of big tech companies. But the big difference, I think, with internet and even before social media is the absolute overflow of unchecked information. So the model that we’ve sort of been relating to up until the internet came is one where some fact checkers, some quality checkers, some guardians have always sort of filtered the information that we get. And that’s so very different today. And it’s really hard to envision how to meet that even with more training in digital literacy and critical thinking. It’s very hard to keep up because we as human beings are netizens are also a lot slower than the machines are going right now.

Helle Sjovaag: Yeah. So regulation is usually reactionary, right? And politics is usually national and these systems are global, in a sense. So Anja paints a kind of a bleak picture. of where we are today, I want to ask you, Pamela, what do you think about Anja’s warning that we shouldn’t rely on the US to regulate this space? How has this dependency felt in the African context?

Pamella Sittoni: Thank you, and thank you, Anja, for that wonderful presentation. I couldn’t agree with you more in terms of the rest of the world really looking at America’s opposition to regulation, America’s opposition to taxation of these media tech companies, and thinking about a solution that includes everybody else. I think for me, my question would be the how to go about it because when you look at Africa’s situation, for example, we find ourselves in a situation where we can’t really have the bargaining power against these companies. We look at a company like Google or Meta, and if they pulled out of Africa, what difference would it make to their bottom line? Obviously none, but what impact would it have on the information flow in that part of the world? A great impact. So we find ourselves kind of in a catch-22 situation, and I think I would look at what Chris said about policies and also about creating an ecosystem where these companies are actually made to play by a global playbook and not specific rules for specific countries. So what Google does in Australia, it should also be compelled to do the same in Africa. And also we have had situations where these companies are allowed to pick and choose. They pick and choose who to work with, which media house to work with, who to pay and how much to pay. So this call for accountability and transparency, I think should. be made to apply globally and not in specific regions only. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that.

Kjersti Loken Stavrum: Kjersti, from a sort of an industry perspective, how real is this power relief felt in the industry? What are the threats to freedom of information? I think it was two great keynotes. I think what we see in my opinion is that social media or the platforms, they are amplifying the weaknesses of the society in way where they operate. So when we see this polarization in the US, it was there already. Like in the Philippines, where Maria Ressa always had strong and clear messages from. The Philippines were never a good place before Facebook either. But I guess at least we in this room share this mission of trying to foster a well-informed and enlightened public debate. And depending on the problem, the answer is almost always trusted media, trusted edited media. And at this very moment, actually, VG, Norway’s major private free media outlet, is celebrating its 80th anniversary. So the Prime Minister is there. I should have been there myself, but I’m here. Anyway, that makes it possible for me to tell you that VG has in a population of 5 million people, daily 2 million visitors, and 1.5 million comes directly to VG. That is both extremely impressive, I think, almost all media outlets in the world. And with them, those figures, isn’t that right, Rasmus? But it is a result of them. They were funded actually after the Second World War as a democracy project. and that project is still going on. They’ve had a very clear policy for what their role was in society and they work on that role very proudly. And I think the, yeah, I agree with Anina also because I agree to all, I guess that is why, that is how Echo Chamber developed. But I think the regulation has been too slow because we had the assumptions wrong. We assumed that the US was an ally for our liberal democracy and now we know for sure that it’s not. So we of course, yeah, it was too late. We didn’t treat the challenges seriously enough but we are doing it now, I think. And I think we more and more see parallel to what we saw in the 1990s when the climate policy also understood that the polluter had to pay. So we are sort of copying the polluter pays principle that was established back then. And I think that has, of course, both an economic aspect but it’s likewise important that it has a moral aspect of it. And I think that’s fair because we see that when not accountable platforms are spreading pollution into our information climate, there are someone else that are left to clean up the mess and very often that is the edited media. And I think that to make the polluter pay, I think we can enforce those that are edited and those that are responsible. And like, for instance, VG, they adhere to the Norwegian. media responsibility law and and also is part of a very beautiful press ethical system that Norway has and the Nordics share almost likewise that I think is of great importance but but in the end we cannot sort of be lame-duck facing those that are not playing by the rules that we others are it’s not more complicated than that you’re talking about some very clear institutional

Helle Sjovaag: differences I guess between the two sectors how fake how is UNESCO working to to ensure that we have a free information space in the context of the keynotes that we hear today thank you Hele first of all my thanks to both

Tawfik Jelassi: keynote speakers because I think that they set the stage very carefully and thoroughly and they were very eloquent in putting the arguments forward I am tempted to add to the title it’s not only conditions for a free and resilient news media but also for a trustworthy news media to pick on the previous panelist who brought up the issue of trust and the previous panelist also mentioned Maria Ressa and her famous quote she said without facts there is no truth and without truth there is no trust and without trust there is no shared reality upon which we can act today we do have a new shared reality and as it was mentioned before it’s caused us to act so what UNESCO has done three years ago it has launched a major global initiative called for an internet of trust which was an inclusive multi-stakeholder process involving not only the 194 member states of UNESCO but also civil society organizations tech companies, platform operators, academia, research, technical community, organizing free global open consultations, receiving 10,000 inputs from these stakeholders, inputs coming from over 134 countries. And what I have in my hand here is a booklet published about a year ago. It’s called the UNESCO Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms. And it calls or it spills out the conditions for a free, resilient, trustworthy media, clearly defining the responsibility in terms of transparency, accountability, user empowerment, independent regulators and oversight bodies. Why doing that? Because I don’t think the why is clear and the what is clear. But the how today is the challenge. How to go about it? And we believe that regulation showed its limits. Self-regulation did not work, did not deliver. We need maybe a core regulatory system, which is truly multi-stakeholder. And that was our base. And to anchor the process in human rights standards, because it’s also about individual dignity. It’s about data privacy. It is about the user empowerment, as I said a minute ago. So the good news is that we are now implementing these guidelines. We have pilot implementation underway. We set up a network of 80 regulators from all over the world. And we had last year the first UNESCO Global Conference for Regulatory Authorities. Why we need them? Because, of course, they can contextualize these guidelines and they can, of course, take into account, and they have to, the specificities of regions and countries when implementing these set of principles. So this is an effort. But again, I stress the multi-stakeholder. the multilateral, the inclusive process, because what some of you mentioned is a problem for society at large. And there is no one single country or actor who can tackle this issue successfully. We need to join forces to achieve our goal.

Helle Sjovaag: Thank you. So, Anja, how you kind of outline where the US is now, sort of isolationist. What’s your hope or belief in these sort of global systems? Is it going to work if the US isn’t able to, or willing to collaborate, to pull out, as you say?

Anya Schiffrin: Well, I think it’s, and I know we talked about this during the South African hearings, it’s very normal for companies to threaten to exit. That is what they always do. And I understand, I’ve heard so many people in Africa say what Pamela is saying. In terms of economics, the exit threat really makes no sense, because these companies make money off news and quality information. And even if they had to share some of the surplus, they would still be making plenty of profit, right? So, it makes no sense to exit. I think sort of three things. One is clearly, as Pamela pointed out, countries and publishers have to negotiate collectively. The Danish example is really important. So, Kenya by itself might not feel like a good market, but all of Africa is a market. So that’s the first thing. Second thing is, let’s be realistic. If these companies exit, Chinese technology will take over. So, TikTok or whoever will just take on this job. So, there is actually an alternative and those platforms know that. And then finally… eventually other countries would develop their own technology. So, you know, Indonesian telecom, Brazil, South Africa, there would be more innovation later. And I’m not, as I mentioned before, you know, none of these options are great options, but that’s where we’re at.

Helle Sjovaag: Yeah. Chris, it seems like most of the panel agree with you. Are you disappointed? You’re assuming I agree with myself. Care to disagree with yourself?

Chris Disspain: I do think, sorry, I do think that we need to be a little bit careful about what we say. I’ve heard everyone, most people talking about regulation. Different people hear different things when you say regulation. Is that better? Lovely. If the Chinese government hears regulation, it means something completely different to when Tavik was talking about regulation, with him I agree, because he was talking about multi-stakeholder regulation, or what I would call policy, global policy that can be implemented around the world. And I think there’s quite a danger in talking about regulation because it feeds into the narrative of some of the more authoritarian governments around the world. What we need is global policy. And what we need is the good guys, and I’m not going to say who I think the good guys are, but the good guys need to actually buy into the global multi-stakeholder way of making policy. And what that means is that you have to take the good with the bad. It means that you’re not going to win every argument. And what you can’t do, if you are a government, is if you don’t win something, pick up your bucket and spade and go home and create your own laws to make it happen. And there’s a tendency for that to be happening right now in certain places around the world, not a million miles from where we are today. So what I would say is, yes, I do agree. that we need to figure out ways of Making sure that we maintain the diversity we maintain an open and free resilient media But but just by saying we probably need to regulate isn’t isn’t going to cut it I just want to say one other thing which is that we We do have Open resilient media it does exist around the world It’s not everywhere, but it does exist it exists in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia exists in the jolly old BBC It’s been with me all my life and and is and and wins as independent because everyone hates it And that’s a key point if everyone is equally unhappy if when when the left is in government They think the BBC is right-wing when the right is in government. They’d be they think the BBC is left-wing That’s how you do it, and it does work But of course they’re under threat to you because of the funding model not because Google owns an undersea platform But because of the funding model and how’s that going to work? So this is a much bigger problem. I think than just Those you know ownership of stuff and as I knew said if if Google or Microsoft or that lot can own Undersea cables then the Chinese will come and put them in and so on and so forth And then there’s even more of a challenge one final thing which is We get an awful lot of stuff for free We there is except it isn’t of course free, and I’m reminded of a conversation with Tim Berners-Lee. Sorry to name-drop when When was the agreement that we would get free access to? Everything that’s on the internet and a free email account that we can use completely freely And we wouldn’t have to pay anything for that at all when did that happen? It never did there was always a price. Thanks

Helle Sjovaag: Can we get back to just the issue of trust a little bit because Shasti you talked a little bit about this and and about resilience and the power of these companies and the discrepancies between the institutional ethics of journalism and technology companies on the other side. What do you think the media can do to counter these dependencies or is there any way to work together in a very competitive space? What’s the future here?

Kjersti Loken Stavrum: Well maybe my answer can start by addressing Chris’s sort of warning against regulation or thinking of and using the word regulation because everything that we’re discussing has these dilemmas and what seems bright from a democracy perspective is black when you go to Turkey and then it is the opposite if you are Erdogan and hear the lovely word of anti-terror law then he will just run out and find another journalist that maybe has assaulted him. So that is the dilemma but at this time I still think that we need to take care of our own geographies so that not more and more are sort of sliding into a situation which is not bearable and very difficult to handle. That was the start but I do think that we should talk about ethics because ethic is of such an extreme importance and I think it’s interesting for instance since we’re sitting here in Oslo to see what the Nordics has in common. All the Finland, Sweden, Norway and to some extent Denmark has this brilliant press ethical system. I think the Danish is a little bit different because it’s the Ministry of Justice that appoints the press council but in the other countries it’s independent. If I have one dream it would be that the media in all the geographies that are natural to divide for instance Europe into, come together and establish a free, fair and fast press ethical system, because that makes everything so much easier. And it’s it’s a it’s a fast lane towards trust, I think, because then you can you can complain, you over years, you will you will see that media that adhere to a press ethical system, they, they comply, and they they feel part of holding up the the standards, like, like take a very, very easy example is that how often do you think that the Norwegian media has published a story that have been criticized in the press council for revealing people’s privacy, private life, it hardly never happened.

Helle Sjovaag: I mean, you have a comment.

Anine Kierulf: No, I just wanted to add on to what just said, and what Chris says is true, because keeping that that local perspective, even while looking at the world, going backwards, I think is very important. And also, both to sort of be examples for, for other regions, obviously, but also to sort of remind ourselves what is really at stake here, and how far we can really get with regulations, no matter what kinds of regulations we’re talking about. Because if you see, like some of the backsliding in the US now, is really following the books of the law that digging up like really old statutes from the 1700s, and so forth, but but you’re using laws as a pretext for doing what is absolutely contrary to both the rule of law and to democracy. So it takes really sort of good faith constitutionalism for that to work. And I think the same applies in this sector, you would have to have sort of a good faith approach to all of this stuff. And, and in that respect, I think the the ethic dimension comes in to be really important.

Helle Sjovaag: Yeah, and you’re thinking both at the sort of local, national, and global level. So, because Pamela was talking about issues of accountability and transparency, how do you think we achieve that at these different levels? Is it a global question, or can we work nationally, locally for that? Yes, Pamela, please.

Pamella Sittoni: I think it has to be both. So, at the local level, as the panelist who spoke before me has mentioned, it’s important that we have regulations or ethical guidelines that guide us. And I think this is really, for what we call legacy media, it’s a no-brainer. We all operate within the tenets of good journalism. The issue really is that the platforms are open for anybody and everybody, and there’s disinformation and misinformation. In fact, I always look at this as the flip side to that is that then the credible media have a chance to forge more trust with their audiences because they are the to-go-to platforms, and people will go there for what they believe to be factual, and so, therefore, they have to operate within the rules. But when I was talking about accountability and transparency for the big platforms, I mean, we’re just looking at issues of even how they work out their algorithms, which they do not disclose. They decide, as Chris said, they can decide what information to put out there and what to censor based on their relationships with government. They can endanger lives. I think the most current story from Kenya, where I come from right now, is about a young man who put out something on X, and it displeased a high-ranking police official. And because of that, he was literally, he was arrested and he was murdered in the police cells because this information was made available, was revealed by the platform. And they were able to track him down and actually arrest him, and then he was murdered in the police cells. So when you’re talking about these issues, it’s life-threatening, it threatens the rights of the people to expression, the freedom of expression, even to freedom to just be alive. So these are serious issues, and it’s important that we look at the best way to have that accountability and to hold platforms accountable for what they do. And then the other issue is the whole issue of media sustainability. I’m happy to see that in Europe, most countries actually, the media is funded by states, but in places like Africa, where independent media used to rely on a business model that has now collapsed. Transition to digital media has become very slow and painful, and it affects the quality of the journalism, it affects how much information, how they can do their stories, how they cannot do, for example, deep investigative stories for lack of funding. And it’s all because of how the whole ecosystem is owned by somebody who can decide how much money they can pay you for your content. They can take your IP for no pay, and you literally have nowhere to go. We have a case right now where Mitai is arguing on whether it should be sued in Kenya or not, and because they don’t have physical offices in Kenya, and yet they continue to violate the IP of Kenyans. or Kenyan organizations. So I think the whole governance in that space is very important.

Anya Schiffrin: Can I come in, Hayley, with an add on? You know what my husband is now saying is that the platforms need to post a billion dollar bond before they start operations in countries like Kenya or Brazil, so that when there’s a fine, they have to pay it. Because in too many places, they’re going around saying, we don’t have staff. So let them put down a bond or a deposit, and then they can be fined.

Helle Sjovaag: Yeah, like a rainy day fund. Is sovereignty a word we can use here? And is data sovereignty, digital sovereignty, is that a path?

Anine Kierulf: Well, we wish, I suppose. It would be nice if we had our own ecosystems and our own infrastructure for taking care of our own data and our own information. But it seems that’s a little way ahead. I think it would be very important to think like that. And we’re obviously totally lagging behind, was that, I think it was Timothy Garton Ash, in his 10 Principles of Free Speech, he was talking about the dogs and the cats and the mice. So the dogs are the states, and the mice are us. And the cats are the big tech companies in between, who obviously don’t obey by any rules and do whatever they like. And so that’s kind of the situation where we’re in, only that some of the big dogs are teaming up with some of the big cats. And that leaves us a lot more vulnerable than we’ve been up to now. So I think there’s no way outside of thinking sovereignty. I’m not a technologist, so I have no idea how that would actually be able to work out in practice. And I sometimes miss in conversations like this, not like this one, but conversations on this topic, is that people who are interested in freedom and journalism and democracy and human rights are not always talking so much to the technologists and vice versa, so that if we could team up in a way that informed us both better, maybe that could be at least one step ahead in that direction.

Helle Sjovaag: Well, we’re here at IDF, so maybe. I want to ask Rasmus about alternatives in a minute, but Chris and Kjersti have asked for comments, so Chris?

Chris Disspain: Just a couple of things I wanted to say, just on the digital sovereignty thing. The challenge with that is, does it work unless you try and go extra territorially? That’s a really difficult thing. The European Commission continues to attempt to regulate various parts of the domain name system extra territorially, and it’s a real challenge, because it simply basically doesn’t work. But the thing I wanted to pick up on was what Pamela was talking about, because she gave a really good example about the ethics of revealing someone’s name, and in therein lies the real challenge, because there are the ethical judgment in some cases, the good ethical judgment in some cases will be you should reveal, and the bad ethical judgment in some cases will be you should reveal. So it’s really, really hard to figure out a way through that, because at the end of the day, it’s not you should reveal or you shouldn’t, it’s what are the circumstances, and that by definition depends on your definition of who the good guys are, and who the bad guys are. I just wanted to start with me, I have that cat

Kjersti Loken Stavrum: and it’s absolutely ignorant to all the rules. You say you have a big tech company? Well, I definitely have, it’s a cat. But let’s build on that one, because I think we have no choice. We need to develop national digital infrastructure. No, I mean, what we see around us, leaves us no other choice. And, and I think we have in Norway, for instance, Telenor working on cloud storage, extremely important. We have some huge media companies like shipstead where I’m board head and and I think the policymakers need to to find out how can how does this 2025 going onward media policy look like it should facilitate tech development, it should make it it should be as broad as possible so that it sort of communicates with the framework of the free press in the world we live today. That will leave the media free and not so vulnerable to changes in the in the policymaking but but but sort of leveling the playing field with this big ignorant cats.

Helle Sjovaag: Yeah. Asmus, do you think that’s an option to build public alternatives?

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen: Of course it is. I mean, there are plenty of options. But I think the the real question is, we need to hold people in positions of power, including public and political power to account in terms of how they understand the system and whether they act accordingly. And I think the question here is, when looking at dependence on US American, big commercial platform companies, is which part of that phrase you stress, right? So if you think the problem is that they’re US American, then the path you pursue is obvious, it is that you try to create national or in the case of Europe, regional champions. And then when they have the right passport, and you are reliant on grande technologie, rather than big tech, things are fine, right? Because then those companies have the whole into a different set of politicians and then let’s just hope that whoever is the next inhabitant of the LSA is not going to abuse that power the way that we see in some other cases. And then the question is whether we as the mice can expect very different behavior from large corporations who hold different passports and I think that all of those of you have been at the receiving end of European capitalism around the world I think you will ask yourself whether you really think it’s fundamentally different from US American capitalism. Then the second way to think about the problem is that the problem is that they are big. Now then the alternatives are also I think quite clear. You’re thinking about decentralized, federated, open-source solutions. Now I think it needs to be very clear that very few people in positions of power seem to think this is the problem because if they did they would pursue those alternatives already because they exist like the Fediverse right with Mastodon or Lieber office. There are options in this space and we have now 25 years of revealed preference from people in positions of power this is not what they want. So those alternatives exist but they are not being pursued. And finally of course your analysis might be that the problem is that they are commercial and that’s where we can turn to the possibility of public service alternatives and I think it’s possible to do this. It’s not easy. We need to decide what are they going to do. You know there are many layers of the stack one could look at. How are they going to be funded? This is not going to be cheap. Who’s going to make the rules and who’s going to enforce them? Like all the controversies we see around content moderation decisions imagine those only with the politicians in your country of origin making the decisions rather than Mark Zuckerberg and his oversight board. So it’s not easy but it can certainly be done. The question then is a question of priorities right? In Europe alone we spend an estimated 40 billion euros a year on public service media. That has been stagnant in some cases declining in recent years but we could make investments of a similar size. Europe is a 20 trillion US dollar GDP region. Public spending in Europe alone is 10 trillion euros a year. It’s a question of priorities and that’s why I think we really need to be clear about, you know, if we are to pursue the route that Christie endorsed, you know, we have the means. It’s a question of choices.

Helle Sjovaag: Yes, exactly. Tawfiq, did you have a comment?

Tawfik Jelassi: Yes, the issue of ethics was brought up by a couple of panelists earlier and the question was, well, the statement was that the media needs to adhere to ethical standards and norms, but the question is, are these local national ethics standards or are these global? I would say I think it’s both because technology and the platforms are global by nature, are borderless, therefore you cannot only apply national policy or approach to it. And here I wanted to flag out a piece of work that UNESCO has done, which is the recommendation on the ethics of artificial intelligence, which was approved by all 193 member states back in 2021, and the set of principles, including on the media, including on freedom of expression, including on access to information, within this ethics of AI recommendation, are currently being implemented in over 70 countries, 70, 70 countries worldwide. So again, we have a base. I’m not saying that’s the answer to all issues, but there is a base and this is part of the UNESCO work, which is a standard setting, normative instruments in a consensus, multi- stakeholder way. So of course we are not, because some of you mentioned the European Commission and the DSA, etc., UNESCO does not have that executive power, cannot find the bad guys, the bad players, all what it can do is advocacy, norm setting, and trying to help move the needle.

Helle Sjovaag: Well, you brought up artificial intelligence, and I also have that on my notes, how does that development sort of increase or challenge these dependencies? These are many of the same companies… involved in the material internet and also in the AI race. What should we really be prepared for here in terms of how market power develops and ethics and regulation, and also for independent journalism in general? Maybe I can start with you, Pamela.

Pamella Sittoni: Thanks, I think first of all, I strongly believe that any technological advancement, including AI, is good. And it is not mutually exclusive to good journalism. And the core of journalism will always remain, which is to tell stories. AI will not replace journalism, it is not going to replace the way we tell, it might replace how we tell some of our stories, but it will not create stories for us if it’s used responsibly as a tool. And we’ve seen already a lot of media houses are applying AI. But I think for me, it just goes back to that whole control and ownership conversation about the platforms where you have, now you have the tech companies, they own the platforms, they own the distribution network, but they also want to own that content. And I’ll just give the example of the Google AI overview and what it’s doing for media houses already right now, just by gleaning all information about topics and putting it out there for the audience. Media houses have done research and they’ve seen that because of that, the traffic to their own websites reduces significantly. And what that means is therefore that they cannot monetize their own content, they cannot monetize it for advertising either. And eventually I see a vision. a cycle of just doom for both the media houses and even the internet ecosystem. Because the more you starve the media houses of revenue and ability to generate independent verified information, the more you starve the whole ecosystem of this information. So for me, I think the world should be very worried about what these companies are doing with AI and also force them to be ethical or force them to pay for that content. If they are gleaning content from the credible sites, then they need to pay those sites for what they’re generating out of it.

Helle Sjovaag: These are also large global structures that we’re talking about here. And I want to sort of end the panel or come to a discussion about what we can do is maybe small states or the role of small states in this context and maybe start with Rasmus and also ask you, Anja, after that what advice you could give to small states in this context?

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen: I mean, I speak as an academic who come from a small state. So I think I’ll wear both hats. And I think as an academic, my finest obligation is to call it as I see it, also when it’s inconvenient or unpopular. And when we think about this from the point of view of small states, perhaps I’m reminded of the quote from Thucydides’ Peloponnesian Wars that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must, which we should, of course, remember he didn’t write because he was sort of an inspiring manosphere would-be influencer. He didn’t write this to endorse this. He wrote this as a description of what he saw as the reality of power politics. And I think that is useful to keep in mind if you come from a small country. And as an academic, I would just say I think we need an honest debate, public debate, with politicians taking responsibility for the choices that they’re making. I don’t think my personal views on how elected officials balance between. in the urgency of climate change, of national security, of assuring welfare systems with aging populations, of ensuring a productive economy while also ensuring sustainability, vis-a-vis issues of digital sovereignty and technological autonomy. I don’t think my personal views and how they balance those are particularly interesting. What I will say is I think it’s very important to be clear that even small states, as long as they’re not desperately poor, have power and can make different choices and those choices matter greatly in terms of the outcomes. I don’t think we should accept the sort of pretend helplessness of powerful politicians who that way escape scrutiny and responsibility for the actions that they take. And I don’t think that’s any different from their choices about where they buy their military hardware, how they deal with climate change, how they deal with changes to the welfare system, migration or anything else. So I think there are choices also for small states, at least if they’re not desperately poor and marginalized, which of course some are. And I think we’re seeing some countries exercise those choices. And then we can hope that they will be informed by all the wonderful sentiments that have been expressed at a sort of aspirational palette like this.

Helle Sjovaag: Yeah, so accountability also towards the political system. Anja, did you have a comment?

Anya Schiffrin: Sure, I’m not obviously from a small state unless we count New York, but I think I would absolutely agree with Rasmus. And clearly I’m thinking about when all the island nations got together because of climate change, because they knew they were going to get affected first. I think that there are regional leaders. So I think South Africa and in Nigeria, I think Brazil, I think there’s Indonesia. I think there’s lots of countries out there that can play a role. On taxes, I think it’s been really interesting the push towards. it’s having the UN instead of the OECD. So I think it’s going to have to be collective efforts to tackle a lot of this.

Helle Sjovaag: Anina, is there a balance here between states’ responsibilities and people? What can we do? Oh, the mice? Yeah, the mice.

Anine Kierulf: Well, if you can’t sort of fix the things that threatens you, maybe you can fix how you’re being threatened. So some practice in digital literacy, obviously. And being a teacher myself, but at the university level, I seem to see a shift in students in that their critical thinking is a lot better, which is good, because that’s been sort of a priority, I suppose, but that their knowledge is a lot less. So I think it was Tawfik quoting Maria Ressa saying that without facts, there’s no truth. So just to stick to that part of the quote, I think that’s very important that we, our focus on critical thinking is not sort of going on the cost of thinking about truth and knowledge too, because we need to have some basis for that critical thinking. And I believe that’s really important now. Not just that we learn how these systems and these algorithms are working and how these black boxes are affecting us, but also that we learn more about ourselves and why we’re so vulnerable to this way of manipulation that we’re being subject to right now.

Helle Sjovaag: I think that’s a great way to end the panel. We’re approaching the end of our time. So I’ll make a brief attempt at summarizing and concluding here. So the internet, you know, it’s a material, physical thing that’s made up of cables and servers. They transmit content and it also connects us globally. But the internet is- not ownerless. Somebody actually owns this stuff, and ownership constitutes power. And this power is growing in concentration. So we are already past the point of dependency on the infrastructures that the global technology providers provide. So we have to start asking how resilient our societies really are to maintain healthy information spaces, particularly when we see increasing unrest and crises. So at what point does this dependency actually compromise national sovereignty, national political, and digital and data sovereignties? How do we regulate the space to ensure the conditions for a free and resilient media that actually help to uphold these societies? So I had three thoughts on how to maybe offset these dependency problems. The first would be to keep transparency and accountability at the front of every conversation that we have about private as well as public maintenance of digital infrastructures. Second, to regulate the digital infrastructure to make sure that we have universality, human right, and freedom of expression at the base of every decision. And third, to immediately start building alternatives. So with that, I want to thank our keynote speakers, Anja and Chris, very much for your perspectives today and also to all of our panelists for giving us this rich context. Thank you also to online audiences and you for being here in the room. Thank you.

Agreement points

Internet infrastructure concentration creates vulnerabilities and control points

Speakers

– Chris Disspain
– Helle Sjovaag
– Anya Schiffrin
– Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Arguments

Internet infrastructure is physical, centralized and privately owned, creating choke points that can silence journalism or manipulate public discourse

Media dependency on platforms creates vulnerabilities where outlets can become practically invisible if access is restricted

Platforms have polluted the information ecosystem, stolen intellectual property, become monopoly capitalists, and interfered with political processes

Current concentration resembles historical press baron control but is more pronounced due to transnational and global reach

Summary

All speakers agree that the concentration of internet infrastructure ownership in few hands creates significant vulnerabilities for media freedom and democratic discourse, with power to control information flow at fundamental levels

Topics

Infrastructure | Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Regulation has been too slow and inadequate to address platform power

Speakers

– Anine Kierulf
– Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
– Anya Schiffrin
– Kjersti Loken Stavrum

Arguments

Law is always trailing behind fast-moving technology, and democracy’s inherent slowness makes regulation difficult

There’s a political history of deliberate non-intervention and deregulation across the political spectrum that created current conditions

Platform intransigence and resistance to regulation has led to consideration of more drastic measures like digital levies

Platforms amplify existing societal weaknesses and polarization rather than creating new problems

Summary

Speakers consensus that regulatory responses have been inadequate, with law trailing behind fast-moving technology and political decisions favoring deregulation contributing to current problems

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Need for collective action and global cooperation

Speakers

– Pamella Sittoni
– Anya Schiffrin
– Tawfik Jelassi
– Kjersti Loken Stavrum

Arguments

Countries and publishers need to negotiate collectively rather than individually to have bargaining power against platforms

Rest of the world must move ahead without US cooperation, as US isolationism may actually benefit global policy development

UNESCO has developed guidelines for digital platform governance through inclusive multi-stakeholder processes involving 194 member states

Need to develop national digital infrastructure as countries have no other choice given current vulnerabilities

Summary

Strong agreement that individual countries lack sufficient power to address platform dominance, requiring collective bargaining and international cooperation to create effective responses

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic | Development

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize how tech companies have created vertically integrated monopolies that harm independent media through control of multiple layers of infrastructure and distribution

Speakers

– Chris Disspain
– Anya Schiffrin

Arguments

Big tech companies control multiple layers from cables to platforms, creating vertical integration that financially squeezes independent media

Platforms have polluted the information ecosystem, stolen intellectual property, become monopoly capitalists, and interfered with political processes

Topics

Economic | Infrastructure | Human rights

Both speakers highlight the serious human rights implications of platform power and the manipulative nature of corporate threats to exit markets

Speakers

– Pamella Sittoni
– Anya Schiffrin

Arguments

Platform actions can endanger lives, as seen in cases where user information leads to arrests and deaths

Companies threaten exit as a standard corporate playbook tactic, but this makes little economic sense as they profit from news content

Topics

Human rights | Economic

Both emphasize that effective governance requires good faith implementation and must operate at both local and global levels due to the borderless nature of digital platforms

Speakers

– Anine Kierulf
– Tawfik Jelassi

Arguments

Good faith constitutionalism is required for any regulatory framework to work effectively

Ethics standards need to be both local and global since platforms are borderless by nature

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Unexpected consensus

Optimism about alternatives and human resilience

Speakers

– Chris Disspain
– Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
– Pamella Sittoni

Arguments

Internet infrastructure is physical, centralized and privately owned, creating choke points that can silence journalism or manipulate public discourse

Small states have power and can make different choices despite constraints, and shouldn’t accept pretend helplessness

AI is a useful tool that won’t replace journalism’s core function of storytelling, but raises concerns about content ownership and control

Explanation

Despite painting dire pictures of concentration and control, speakers unexpectedly showed optimism about human resilience, available alternatives, and the agency of smaller actors to make meaningful choices

Topics

Human rights | Development | Sociocultural

Importance of ethics and trust in media systems

Speakers

– Kjersti Loken Stavrum
– Tawfik Jelassi
– Anine Kierulf

Arguments

Nordic countries have brilliant press ethical systems that create fast lanes to trust and maintain high standards

Without facts there is no truth, without truth there is no trust, and without trust there is no shared reality for action

Citizens need both critical thinking skills and factual knowledge base, with focus on digital literacy and understanding manipulation

Explanation

Unexpected strong consensus emerged around the fundamental importance of ethical frameworks and trust-building mechanisms, with speakers from different backgrounds emphasizing similar principles

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

Speakers showed remarkable consensus on core issues: infrastructure concentration creates democratic vulnerabilities, regulation has been inadequate, collective action is necessary, and ethical frameworks remain crucial. Agreement spans technical, legal, and normative dimensions.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications – suggests broad expert agreement on problem diagnosis and general solution directions, indicating potential for coordinated policy responses despite political and economic challenges

Different viewpoints

Use of the term ‘regulation’ and approach to policy-making

Speakers

– Chris Disspain
– Tawfik Jelassi
– Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Arguments

Different people hear different things when you say regulation. If the Chinese government hears regulation, it means something completely different to when Tavik was talking about regulation, with him I agree, because he was talking about multi-stakeholder regulation, or what I would call policy, global policy that can be implemented around the world

UNESCO has developed guidelines for digital platform governance through inclusive multi-stakeholder processes involving 194 member states

There’s a political history of deliberate non-intervention and deregulation across the political spectrum that created current conditions

Summary

Chris Disspain warns against using the term ‘regulation’ because it can be misinterpreted by authoritarian governments, preferring ‘global policy’ through multi-stakeholder processes. Tawfik Jelassi advocates for UNESCO’s multi-stakeholder regulatory approach. Nielsen focuses on the political history of deregulation as the root problem.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Whether the problem is primarily corporate concentration or political choices

Speakers

– Chris Disspain
– Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Arguments

Internet infrastructure is physical, centralized and privately owned, creating choke points that can silence journalism or manipulate public discourse

There’s a political history of deliberate non-intervention and deregulation across the political spectrum that created current conditions

Summary

Disspain focuses on the structural problem of concentrated corporate ownership of infrastructure, while Nielsen emphasizes that this concentration resulted from deliberate political choices of deregulation by establishment parties across the political spectrum.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic | Infrastructure

Optimism vs pessimism about current state and future prospects

Speakers

– Chris Disspain
– Anya Schiffrin

Arguments

But that said, it was ever thus. It might sound as if I’m suggesting we’re headed towards the end of a diverse media or the death of local news or a single point of control of our news. And I don’t believe that we are

We’re in a terrifying moment, one in which it feels like everything we’ve worked to build over decades is being dismantled

Summary

Disspain maintains historical perspective and optimism, arguing that press barons have always tried to manipulate media but haven’t succeeded completely, while Schiffrin presents a much more pessimistic view of current threats to democratic institutions and media freedom.

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Unexpected differences

Terminology and framing of solutions

Speakers

– Chris Disspain
– Other panelists

Arguments

Different people hear different things when you say regulation. If the Chinese government hears regulation, it means something completely different

Various speakers using ‘regulation’ throughout their arguments

Explanation

Unexpectedly, there was significant disagreement about even using the word ‘regulation,’ with Disspain arguing it could be misappropriated by authoritarian governments, while other speakers freely used the term. This semantic disagreement reveals deeper concerns about how solutions might be co-opted.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Role of historical precedent in understanding current challenges

Speakers

– Chris Disspain
– Anya Schiffrin

Arguments

But that said, it was ever thus. Press barons have forever tried to manipulate what we read

We’re in a terrifying moment, one in which it feels like everything we’ve worked to build over decades is being dismantled

Explanation

Unexpectedly, there was a fundamental disagreement about whether current challenges represent continuity with historical patterns (Disspain’s view) or an unprecedented threat (Schiffrin’s view). This affects how urgently and drastically solutions need to be pursued.

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers showed remarkable consensus on identifying problems (platform concentration, dependency, lack of accountability) but significant disagreement on solutions, terminology, and urgency. Key areas of disagreement included whether to use ‘regulation’ vs ‘policy,’ whether problems are primarily structural or political, and whether current threats are historically unprecedented or part of ongoing patterns.

Disagreement level

Moderate disagreement with high consensus on problem identification but significant divergence on solutions and framing. This suggests that while there’s shared understanding of challenges, the path forward remains contested, which could complicate coordinated action and policy development.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize how tech companies have created vertically integrated monopolies that harm independent media through control of multiple layers of infrastructure and distribution

Speakers

– Chris Disspain
– Anya Schiffrin

Arguments

Big tech companies control multiple layers from cables to platforms, creating vertical integration that financially squeezes independent media

Platforms have polluted the information ecosystem, stolen intellectual property, become monopoly capitalists, and interfered with political processes

Topics

Economic | Infrastructure | Human rights

Both speakers highlight the serious human rights implications of platform power and the manipulative nature of corporate threats to exit markets

Speakers

– Pamella Sittoni
– Anya Schiffrin

Arguments

Platform actions can endanger lives, as seen in cases where user information leads to arrests and deaths

Companies threaten exit as a standard corporate playbook tactic, but this makes little economic sense as they profit from news content

Topics

Human rights | Economic

Both emphasize that effective governance requires good faith implementation and must operate at both local and global levels due to the borderless nature of digital platforms

Speakers

– Anine Kierulf
– Tawfik Jelassi

Arguments

Good faith constitutionalism is required for any regulatory framework to work effectively

Ethics standards need to be both local and global since platforms are borderless by nature

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Key takeaways

Internet infrastructure is physical and privately owned, creating concentrated power that can control information flow and threaten media independence

Current concentration of digital infrastructure resembles historical press baron control but is more pronounced due to global reach and vertical integration

Platforms have become bad actors by polluting information ecosystems, stealing intellectual property, and using monopoly power to squeeze independent media

Traditional regulation approaches are too slow for fast-moving technology, requiring new multi-stakeholder global policy frameworks

The US government actively opposes tech regulation and taxation globally, forcing other countries to develop solutions without US cooperation

Developing countries face particular vulnerabilities where platform exit threats have asymmetric impacts – minimal effect on company profits but major disruption to information access

Trust in media requires ethical standards, transparency, and accountability, with Nordic press ethical systems serving as successful models

AI development by the same tech companies increases content control concerns, with tools like Google AI overview reducing traffic and revenue to original news sources

Small states and regions have more power than they realize and must make deliberate choices about digital sovereignty and infrastructure development

Citizens need both critical thinking skills and factual knowledge bases to navigate manipulated information environments

Resolutions and action items

Countries and publishers should negotiate collectively rather than individually to increase bargaining power against platforms

Develop national and regional digital infrastructure as an alternative to dependency on US-based tech companies

Implement transparency and accountability requirements for all digital infrastructure decisions

Regulate digital infrastructure with human rights and freedom of expression as foundational principles

Immediately begin building public alternatives including decentralized, federated, and open-source solutions

Establish regional press ethical systems similar to Nordic models to build trust and maintain standards

Require platforms to post bonds or deposits before operating in countries to ensure fines can be collected

Pursue digital levies and AI taxes with funding earmarked for journalism support

Invest in digital literacy education that combines critical thinking with factual knowledge

Unresolved issues

How to balance national sovereignty with the global nature of internet infrastructure and platforms

Whether European or other regional alternatives to US tech companies would behave fundamentally differently

How to implement multi-stakeholder global policy when major powers like the US refuse to participate

What specific mechanisms can ensure platform accountability and transparency in practice

How to fund and govern public service digital alternatives at scale

Whether current legal frameworks can effectively address extraterritorial regulation challenges

How to protect journalists and sources when platforms share data with authoritarian governments

What constitutes fair compensation for AI companies’ use of media content and intellectual property

How small states can practically achieve digital sovereignty given resource constraints

Whether voluntary ethical standards can be effective without enforcement mechanisms

Suggested compromises

Co-regulatory systems that combine government oversight with multi-stakeholder participation rather than pure self-regulation or state control

Fixed scale fees for AI use of intellectual property similar to compulsory licensing in pharmaceuticals, as an alternative to complex negotiation frameworks

Regional cooperation and collective bargaining to balance platform power while respecting national differences

Gradual development of alternative infrastructure while maintaining interoperability with existing systems

Polluter-pays principles applied to information pollution, requiring platforms to fund cleanup efforts by credible media

Global ethical standards implemented through local regulatory bodies that can contextualize principles for specific regions

Public-private partnerships for digital infrastructure development that maintain public interest oversight

Phased implementation of platform regulations with clear timelines and escalating consequences for non-compliance

I think it is the same old story even only much more pronounced… There’s also a political story that I think Chris gestured towards… a long period in which corporate consolidation, liberalization opening up media markets have not only been accepted but endorsed and wholeheartedly pursued by establishment political parties of both the center-left and the center-right.

Speaker

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Reason

This comment reframes the entire discussion by highlighting that the current crisis isn’t just about corporate greed or technological inevitability, but about deliberate political choices made across the political spectrum. By citing Obama’s 2015 quote defending US tech companies, Nielsen demonstrates that this concentration of power was actively facilitated by politicians who are now being asked to solve the problem.

Impact

This shifted the conversation from viewing tech concentration as an external force to examining the political responsibility and complicity in creating these dependencies. It challenged the panel to think beyond regulation as a solution and consider the deeper political economy that enabled this situation.

So what Google does in Australia, it should also be compelled to do the same in Africa. And also we have had situations where these companies are allowed to pick and choose. They pick and choose who to work with, which media house to work with, who to pay and how much to pay.

Speaker

Pamella Sittoni

Reason

This comment exposed the global inequality in how tech platforms operate, revealing how they exploit power asymmetries between different regions. It highlighted that the problem isn’t just about regulation, but about ensuring consistent global standards rather than allowing companies to cherry-pick favorable jurisdictions.

Impact

This comment introduced the crucial dimension of global inequality and power asymmetries into the discussion, moving beyond the European/US-centric perspective to highlight how smaller economies are particularly vulnerable to platform manipulation and exit threats.

We assumed that the US was an ally for our liberal democracy and now we know for sure that it’s not… we more and more see parallel to what we saw in the 1990s when the climate policy also understood that the polluter had to pay.

Speaker

Kjersti Loken Stavrum

Reason

This comment marked a fundamental shift in how European policymakers view the transatlantic relationship on digital issues. The ‘polluter pays’ analogy provided a powerful new framework for thinking about platform responsibility, drawing from successful environmental policy precedents.

Impact

This comment crystallized the geopolitical dimension of the discussion and provided a concrete policy framework (‘polluter pays’) that other panelists could build upon. It helped shift the conversation from abstract concerns about concentration to specific policy mechanisms.

I think we need to be a little bit careful about what we say… Different people hear different things when you say regulation… What we need is global policy. And what we need is the good guys… need to actually buy into the global multi-stakeholder way of making policy.

Speaker

Chris Disspain

Reason

This comment introduced crucial nuance about the dangers of regulatory language, pointing out how authoritarian governments could exploit calls for ‘regulation’ to justify censorship. It distinguished between harmful state control and beneficial multi-stakeholder governance.

Impact

This comment forced the panel to be more precise in their language and consider how their recommendations could be misused by bad actors. It elevated the discussion from simple calls for regulation to more sophisticated thinking about governance mechanisms.

The platforms have shown themselves to be bad actors in many cases… Their playbook was and is the U.S. classic corporate playbook for lobbying, PR efforts, spreading misinformation about laws, commissioning research and threatening exit.

Speaker

Anya Schiffrin

Reason

This comment provided a systematic analysis of platform behavior as following established corporate resistance patterns, rather than being unique to tech companies. It reframed platform resistance as predictable corporate behavior that can be countered with appropriate policy responses.

Impact

This comment helped the panel move beyond viewing platform resistance as insurmountable to seeing it as a familiar challenge with known solutions. It provided strategic insight for policymakers dealing with platform threats and lobbying.

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must… I don’t think we should accept the sort of pretend helplessness of powerful politicians who that way escape scrutiny and responsibility for the actions that they take.

Speaker

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Reason

This comment challenged the narrative of inevitability and helplessness that often surrounds discussions of tech power. By invoking Thucydides while rejecting fatalism, Nielsen demanded accountability from political leaders who claim they have no choices.

Impact

This comment served as a powerful call to action, rejecting defeatism and demanding that politicians take responsibility for their choices. It helped conclude the discussion on an empowering note, emphasizing agency rather than victimhood.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by introducing multiple layers of complexity and challenging simplistic narratives. Nielsen’s opening intervention reframed the entire conversation from a tech-centric problem to a political economy issue, while Sittoni’s contributions ensured global inequality remained central to the analysis. The interplay between calls for regulation (Schiffrin, Stavrum) and warnings about regulatory language (Disspain) created productive tension that led to more nuanced policy thinking. The discussion evolved from identifying problems to examining root causes, from lamenting tech power to demanding political accountability, and from viewing the situation as inevitable to recognizing it as the result of specific choices that can be changed. The comments collectively moved the conversation beyond technical solutions toward a more sophisticated understanding of power, politics, and the need for coordinated global action while maintaining democratic values.

How to implement global multi-stakeholder policy without it being interpreted as authoritarian regulation by different governments

Speaker

Chris Disspain

Explanation

Chris warned about the danger of using the term ‘regulation’ as it means different things to different governments, with authoritarian regimes interpreting it differently than democratic multi-stakeholder approaches

How to create fair negotiations between monopolistic platforms and publishers when there’s such power asymmetry

Speaker

Anja Schiffrin

Explanation

The competitive environment directly affects negotiations, and fair negotiations are impossible when monopolies are at the table, requiring new frameworks

How to develop regulatory frameworks that can keep pace with rapidly evolving technology

Speaker

Anine Kierulf

Explanation

Law is always trailing behind technological development, but the current pace of change makes this gap more problematic for democratic processes

How smaller countries and regions can collectively bargain with big tech platforms

Speaker

Pamela Sittoni

Explanation

Individual countries like Kenya lack bargaining power, but collective negotiation (like all of Africa together) could provide more leverage

Whether European and global actors can maintain tech regulation and taxation without US cooperation

Speaker

Anja Schiffrin

Explanation

With the US opposing tech regulation globally, the question is whether other regions can proceed independently or if US isolationism actually helps other countries develop their own policies

How to balance critical thinking education with factual knowledge in the age of information overload

Speaker

Anine Kierulf

Explanation

Students have better critical thinking skills but less factual knowledge, and both are needed as a foundation for navigating the current information environment

How to create sustainable funding models for public service alternatives to commercial platforms

Speaker

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Explanation

While technical alternatives exist, the question of how to fund, govern, and enforce rules for public alternatives remains unresolved

How to enforce accountability measures like billion-dollar bonds for platforms operating in developing countries

Speaker

Anja Schiffrin

Explanation

Platforms avoid fines by claiming no physical presence in countries, so new mechanisms like requiring deposits before operations could ensure accountability

How to develop national digital infrastructure as an alternative to dependency on US tech companies

Speaker

Kjersti Loken Stavrum

Explanation

Building national alternatives like cloud storage and media tech infrastructure could reduce vulnerability to changes in foreign policy

How to ensure AI development serves journalism rather than replacing it while addressing content scraping issues

Speaker

Pamela Sittoni

Explanation

AI tools like Google’s AI overview are reducing traffic to news sites by scraping content without compensation, threatening the sustainability of journalism

Summary

This discussion focused on building trust and combating fraud in the internet ecosystem, bringing together experts from regulatory bodies, telecommunications companies, international organizations, and technology platforms. The session was moderated by Johannes Vallesverd from the Norwegian Communications Authority and featured representatives from organizations including the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, UN Office of Drugs and Crime, Meta, Telenor, and ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee.

The speakers presented alarming statistics about the global fraud landscape, with an estimated $1 trillion in annual losses worldwide and 25% of the connected population having been victims of scams. Rens Grimm from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance highlighted that only 2.5% of fraudsters are prosecuted, while 67% of people believe they can recognize scams despite high re-victimization rates. The discussion emphasized that fraud has evolved from traditional methods to sophisticated digital operations using artificial intelligence, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between authentic and fraudulent content.

Several panelists shared successful mitigation strategies, including Norway’s anti-spoofing roaming shield that blocks fraudulent mobile numbers from abroad, and Meta’s deployment of facial recognition technology to combat public figure impersonation scams. The Global Signal Exchange was presented as an innovative solution for real-time cross-sector data sharing to combat fraud internationally. Speakers stressed the importance of treating fraud as serious organized crime rather than petty theft, noting that current international legal frameworks need strengthening to enable better cooperation between countries.

A key theme throughout the discussion was the tension between privacy protection and fraud prevention, with experts arguing that privacy laws should not inadvertently protect fraudsters while hindering legitimate security efforts. The panelists concluded that effective fraud prevention requires unprecedented collaboration between public and private sectors, standardized international approaches, and operational rather than just theoretical solutions to protect global citizens from this serious criminal threat.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Scale and Impact of Global Fraud**: The discussion revealed staggering statistics about fraud’s global reach, with 25% of the world’s connected population being victims, causing approximately $1 trillion in annual losses, yet only 2.5% of fraudsters face prosecution. Fraud has become the first or second most reported crime in most countries.

– **Multi-stakeholder Collaboration and Data Sharing**: Panelists emphasized that effective fraud prevention requires unprecedented cooperation between governments, telecom operators, social media platforms, law enforcement, banks, and international organizations. The Global Signal Exchange was highlighted as a practical example of real-time cross-sector data sharing to combat fraud.

– **Regulatory and Legal Framework Challenges**: The discussion addressed the need for harmonized international legal frameworks, with UNODC noting that fraud isn’t consistently criminalized as “serious crime” globally, hampering international cooperation. Privacy regulations like GDPR were debated as potentially protecting fraudsters rather than victims when implementation lacks clarity.

– **Technology’s Double-Edged Role**: AI and emerging technologies were identified as both enabling more sophisticated fraud (deepfakes, voice mimicking, automated scams) while also providing tools for detection and prevention. The challenge lies in deploying protective technologies at the speed needed to counter rapidly evolving fraud tactics.

– **Operational Prevention Measures**: Concrete examples were shared of successful fraud prevention, including Norway’s anti-spoofing shield that blocks fraudulent mobile numbers from abroad, Meta’s takedown of 1.4 billion fake accounts, and Telenor’s blocking of 2.2 billion fraud attempts in 2024.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to move beyond merely talking about fraud to identifying actionable, operational measures that different stakeholders can implement collaboratively. The goal was to share successful practices, explore technical and regulatory solutions, and build a coordinated international response to combat digital fraud across all channels (voice, SMS, email, internet, social media).

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a serious, urgent tone throughout, reflecting the gravity of fraud’s impact on global society. While acknowledging the enormity of the challenge, the tone was constructively solution-oriented, with speakers sharing concrete examples of successful interventions. There was a sense of cautious optimism about collaborative approaches, though tempered by realism about the persistent and evolving nature of fraud. The tone became particularly somber when addressing tragic consequences like suicide from sextortion, but remained focused on actionable responses rather than despair.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **MODERATOR** – Role/Title: Not specified, Area of Expertise: Session moderation

– **Johannes Vallesverd** – Role/Title: Senior legal advisor at the Norwegian Communications Authority, Chair of the National Expert Group Against Digital Fraud, Chair of the Global Informal Regulatory Anti-Fraud Forum, Area of Expertise: Legal affairs, regulatory anti-fraud

– **Rens Grim** – Role/Title: Anti-scam specialist, Area of Expertise: Anti-scam operations at Global Anti-Scam Alliance

– **Camilla Sharma** – Role/Title: Director of Market and Services, Department of Norwegian Communications Authority, Area of Expertise: Regulatory affairs, market services

– **Riika Puttonen** – Role/Title: Program Manager of UNODC (UN Office of Drugs and Crime), Area of Expertise: International legal frameworks, organized crime

– **Emily Taylor** – Role/Title: Co-Founder of GSE (Global Signal Exchange), Area of Expertise: Cybersecurity, data sharing for fraud prevention

– **Lucien Taylor** – Role/Title: Co-Founder of GSE (Global Signal Exchange), Area of Expertise: Technical systems, information exchange platforms

– **Rima Amin** – Role/Title: Security Policy Manager, Community Defence at META, Area of Expertise: Platform security, adversarial threats

– **Birgitte Engebretsen** – Role/Title: Managing Director of Telenor Norway, Area of Expertise: Telecommunications, digital security

– **Nico Caballero** – Role/Title: Chair of the GAC (Government Advisory Committee to ICANN), Area of Expertise: DNS governance, domain name policy

– **Andrew Campling** – Role/Title: Trustee of the Internet Watch Foundation, Area of Expertise: Internet safety, content moderation

– **Audience** – Role/Title: Not specified, Area of Expertise: Not specified

**Additional speakers:**

– **Frode Sørensen** – Role/Title: Online moderator, colleague of Johannes Vallesverd, Area of Expertise: Online session moderation

– **Shiva Bisasa** – Role/Title: Not specified, Location: Trondheim, Tobago, Area of Expertise: Not specified (audience member who asked a question)

# Comprehensive Discussion Report: Building Trust and Combating Fraud in the Internet Ecosystem

## Executive Summary

This session at the Internet Governance Forum brought together leading experts from regulatory bodies, telecommunications companies, international organisations, and technology platforms to address the escalating global fraud crisis. Moderated by Johannes Wallesward from the Norwegian Communications Authority, with Frode Sørensen as online moderator, the session featured representatives from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, UN Office of Drugs and Crime, Meta, Telenor, ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee, and other key stakeholders. The discussion revealed alarming statistics about fraud’s global reach whilst showcasing successful mitigation strategies and emphasising the need for international cooperation.

The session was structured as individual presentations followed by a panel discussion, with speakers presenting concrete examples of successful fraud prevention measures and identifying actionable steps for coordinated global response. Key themes included the massive scale of global fraud, the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration, regulatory framework challenges, and the balance between privacy protection and fraud prevention.

## Scale and Impact of Global Fraud

Rens Grimm from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance opened with striking statistics that established the magnitude of the global fraud epidemic. He revealed that 25% of the world’s connected population has fallen victim to scams, resulting in approximately $1 trillion in annual losses worldwide. Despite this massive impact, only 2.5% of fraudsters face prosecution, highlighting a critical enforcement gap.

Grimm provided historical context, noting that fraud has been a persistent human behaviour for millennia. He cited research showing that of 70 million pet animals mummified in ancient Egypt, one-third were fake—demonstrating that deception predates modern technology by thousands of years. He also shared a contemporary example of a Japanese lady who paid 35,000 euros believing she could help her lover return from space, illustrating how incredible some modern scams can be.

The scale of daily attacks was further illustrated by Birgitte Engebretsen from Telenor Norway, who reported that her company blocked more than 2,200 million fraud attempts in 2024, equivalent to two attempts each day towards their customers. Interestingly, Norwegian data shows that fraudsters “take ordinary Christmas breaks and well-deserved weekend off,” suggesting organised criminal operations with regular schedules.

Grimm noted that fraud has become either the first or second most reported crime in most countries, yet the low prosecution rate creates a climate of impunity. He also revealed that globally, 7% of people admit they would participate as money mules, and despite 67% believing they can recognise scams, re-victimisation remains common. Only 4% of fraud victims globally can obtain full refunds.

## Norwegian Anti-Fraud Measures and Multi-Stakeholder Approach

Camilla Sharma from the Norwegian Communications Authority presented Norway’s comprehensive approach to fraud prevention. She announced that Norway’s digital anti-spoofing roaming shield entered force on November 19, 2024, making it “one of the first in the world” to implement such measures. This system blocks fraudulent mobile numbers from abroad and has helped restore public trust in mobile communications.

Norway’s success stems from its multi-stakeholder approach, where the national anti-fraud group includes mobile operators, authorities, police, and banks working together operationally. Sharma emphasised that this goes beyond theoretical discussions to practical collaboration, with regular meetings and shared intelligence.

The Norwegian model demonstrates how regulatory innovation can enable fraud prevention while maintaining international cooperation. Sharma noted that their approach required careful coordination with international partners and technical implementation that respects both privacy and security needs.

## International Legal Framework and UN Initiatives

Riika Puttonen from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime explained significant gaps in current legal frameworks that hamper effective fraud prevention. She noted that fraud is not consistently criminalised as “serious crime” across all countries, which prevents the use of international cooperation mechanisms available under UN conventions. Serious crime typically requires a minimum sentence of four years’ imprisonment, but many countries classify fraud as a lesser offence.

To address these gaps, Puttonen announced that a new UN Convention Against Cybercrime will open for signature in October 2024, designed to address modern forms of fraud and enable better international cooperation. The UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime has 193 parties, providing a strong foundation for international cooperation when fraud is properly classified.

Puttonen also announced that UNODC and Interpol will host a Global Fraud Summit in March 2026 in Vienna to further coordinate international efforts. She emphasised that privacy laws establish qualified rather than absolute rights, which can be legitimately compromised for public safety purposes when prescribed by clear, accessible law.

## Global Signal Exchange and Threat Intelligence Sharing

Emily Taylor and Lucien Taylor from the Global Signal Exchange presented their platform as a practical example of cross-sector collaboration. The platform enables real-time intelligence sharing across more than 160 organisations, processing threat signals with a 40-second input time and four-day average time-to-live.

Emily Taylor highlighted a critical asymmetry: whilst criminals collaborate globally and share information seamlessly, legitimate defenders remain largely siloed within industry verticals and national boundaries. The Global Signal Exchange started with 40 million threat signals and demonstrates the potential for coordinated defensive efforts that match the scale and speed of modern fraud operations.

The platform processes significantly more threat intelligence than traditional reporting mechanisms, showing the value of automated threat detection and sharing compared to manual consumer reporting processes.

## Platform Response: Meta’s Approach

Rima Amin from Meta described her company’s comprehensive approach to fraud prevention. Meta removed 1.4 billion fake accounts in Q4 2024 alone, with 99.9% caught proactively before being reported by users. This demonstrates the scale of automated fraud prevention efforts and the importance of proactive rather than reactive approaches.

Meta’s strategy focuses on disrupting the fraud attack chain as early as possible, from infrastructure building through to victim engagement. Amin explained their ABC framework, which prioritises Actor and Behaviour detection over Content analysis, as fraudsters can more easily modify their messaging than change their fundamental operational patterns.

She provided a practical example of balancing privacy and security through Meta’s use of facial recognition technology to detect misuse of public figures’ images in scams. This technology deployment required careful consideration of privacy implications whilst addressing a significant fraud vector affecting celebrities and public figures.

## Telecommunications Industry Response

Birgitte Engebretsen from Telenor described how telecommunications companies serve as critical infrastructure in fraud prevention. Beyond the massive number of blocked attempts, she explained how Telenor integrates fraud filters directly into customer subscriptions as a standard security measure rather than an optional add-on.

Engebretsen proposed a triangular burden-sharing model between customers willing to pay for enhanced security, government financing, and private sector investment. She argued that effective collaboration requires clear distribution of responsibilities and costs across all stakeholders, rather than expecting any single entity to bear the full burden of fraud prevention.

The telecommunications perspective highlighted how fraud prevention has become an essential service that operates largely invisibly to protect customers from daily attack attempts.

## DNS and Domain Name System Security

Nico Caballero from ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee focused on domain name system security challenges. He noted that phishing comprises more than 90% of DNS abuse cases, with research from the Internet Society indicating an annual impact of $12 billion.

ICANN is developing stricter service level agreements for takedowns and contractual penalties for repeat offenders. However, Caballero noted challenges in achieving uniform enforcement against rogue registrars globally, as different jurisdictions have varying levels of regulatory oversight and enforcement capability.

The DNS perspective highlighted how fraud prevention requires coordination across different layers of internet infrastructure, from domain registration through to content hosting and delivery.

## Privacy and Security Balance

Johannes Wallesward posed what he called a “provoking question” that became central to the discussion: “Are the privacy rules now protecting the victims or the fraudsters?” This prompted nuanced responses from speakers who sought to move beyond binary thinking about privacy versus security.

Riika Puttonen emphasised that privacy laws establish qualified rather than absolute rights, which can be legitimately compromised for public safety purposes when prescribed by clear law. Emily Taylor noted that privacy and security can coexist when proper legal frameworks are established and followed from the outset.

However, speakers acknowledged ongoing implementation challenges. Rima Amin noted operational challenges where privacy regulations can slow deployment of anti-fraud technologies in Europe. Andrew Campling briefly raised concerns that privacy-focused changes to internet standards might remove signals needed for consumer protection.

## Regulatory Coordination and GIRAFF

Camilla Sharma highlighted the Global Informal Regulatory Anti-Fraud Forum (GIRAFF), chaired by ANCOM with 40 countries participating. This forum enables regulators to share best practices and coordinate approaches across different jurisdictions.

The forum represents an important mechanism for regulatory learning and coordination, allowing countries to adapt successful measures like Norway’s anti-spoofing shield to their own contexts and legal frameworks.

## Victim Impact and Human Cost

The human cost of fraud was powerfully illustrated when Shiva Bisasa, an audience member from Trinidad and Tobago, shared knowledge of a financial sextortion victim who took his own life. This testimony transformed the discussion from abstract statistics to human tragedy, emphasising the life-and-death consequences of fraud, particularly in developing nations where awareness campaigns and law enforcement capabilities may be limited.

This intervention highlighted particular challenges in developing countries, where limited law enforcement resources, lower awareness levels, and fewer reporting mechanisms create environments where fraud can flourish with minimal consequences.

## Technology and AI Considerations

Rens Grimm acknowledged that AI will enhance fraudsters’ capabilities through better text generation, voice mimicking, and image creation. However, he expressed cautious optimism that “we’re not yet at the tipping point” where AI fundamentally transforms the fraud landscape beyond recognition.

The speakers agreed that the key to managing AI’s impact lies in the speed of defensive deployment. Legitimate organisations must be able to implement protective technologies as quickly as fraudsters adopt offensive capabilities.

## Actionable Outcomes and Next Steps

The discussion produced several concrete commitments and action items:

– Regulators were encouraged to join GIRAFF to share best practices across participating countries

– The Global Fraud Summit in March 2026 in Vienna will provide a focal point for continued international cooperation

– Countries were urged to criminalise fraud as serious crime with sentences of four years or more to enable international cooperation under UN conventions

– The new UN Convention Against Cybercrime, opening for signature in October 2024, provides a framework for harmonisation

– ICANN’s development of stricter service level agreements represents concrete progress in addressing DNS-based fraud

– The public sector was encouraged to give higher weight to quality and security in procurement processes

## Conclusion

This comprehensive discussion revealed both the enormous scale of the global fraud challenge and the potential for coordinated international response. With 25% of the world’s connected population affected and $1 trillion in annual losses, fraud represents one of the most significant criminal threats of the digital age.

The session demonstrated successful prevention measures across different sectors—from Norway’s anti-spoofing shield to Meta’s proactive account removal to the Global Signal Exchange’s threat intelligence sharing. These examples show that effective countermeasures are possible when properly implemented and coordinated.

The upcoming UN Convention Against Cybercrime and the planned Global Fraud Summit represent important opportunities to build on the foundations established in this discussion. The challenge ahead lies in scaling successful approaches globally whilst navigating the balance between privacy protection and security needs, supported by the operational cooperation frameworks like GIRAFF that enable practical collaboration between stakeholders worldwide.

MODERATOR: Fraud is crime. Every second, somewhere in the world, a new victim is hurt. Are we losing the battle? We are entering unprecedented times where artificial intelligence makes it more and more difficult to differentiate false from true. The fight against fraud is fought everywhere. On voice, SMS, RCS, messaging, email and on internet. The fraudsters are smart and ruthless. Countries and networks are setting up individual and highly necessary digital shields to protect their citizens from the millions of attacks. It’s a whack-a-mole game. The fraudsters change the channel or target another country. Almost always, the fraudster go free. Cooperation is the only way forward. But we must do more than talk. Action is key. It’s time to act. Let’s take action together.

Johannes Vallesverd: Welcome, everybody, to this session on building trust and combating fraud in the internet ecosystem. My name is Johannes Wallesward. I’m a senior legal advisor at the Norwegian Communications Authority. I’m also chairing the National Expert Group Against Digital Fraud, also chairing the Global Informal Regulatory Anti-Fraud Forum. We also have today an online moderator, Frode Sørensen, my good colleague. He is online and taking questions online. So, welcome again, everybody. The goal of this session is to not only talk, but also to look at what we are doing and what can we do in operational terms, regulatory and technical, to reduce fraud. We should aim at not just identifying the vulnerabilities, but also to use our collective intelligence to identify potential mitigating measures. So, in order to do so, you need a good team, a team that has different angles to the problem. So, today, at the stage, we have a powerhouse of fraud fighters. These are people who are working on reducing the problem of fraud from very different angles. We have on my right side Rens Grimm. He’s an anti-scam specialist from Gaza, the Global Anti-Scam Alliance. We have Camilla Sharma, Director of Market and Services, Department of Norwegian Communications Authority. We have Riika Putunen, Program Manager of UNODC, UN Office of Drugs and Crime. We have Emily Taylor, Co-Founder of GSE and the Global Signal Exchange. She will be accompanied by Lucien Taylor on the presentation. We’re also very happy to have Rima Amin, Security Policy Manager, Community Defence at META. Also, Birgitte Engebretsen, Managing Director of Telenor Norway. Last but not least, we also have Nico Caballero, Chair of the GAC, the Government Advisory Committee to ICANN. So, it’s a fantastic lineup. I’m looking forward to hearing your presentations. So, let’s jump right into it. The first speaker can take the podium now. He is Rens Grimm. He is an anti-scam specialist. They have a lot of information on the global picture of fraud. So, tell me, Rens, how is the global picture like?

Rens Grim: Yeah. Welcome, everybody. I hope you enjoyed your lunch. My name is Rens. As Johanna said, I work for the Global Anti-Scam Alliance and I just wanted to show you that I promise you, no artificial intelligence was used to make this presentation, but I’ll leave it up to you at the end of the session. So, Global Anti-Scam Alliance. So, who are we? We are a non-profit organisation. What we try to do and we aim is get all the stakeholders together that are involved in fighting crime. So, we do that by exchanging knowledge. We do that by sharing the best solutions there are on the market to fight fraud. Our mission is very simple. We protect consumers worldwide from scams. If the room was the world today, then 25% of you have literally been a victim, not confronted with scam, but have been a victim of scam. 25%. Imagine that of the worldwide connected population. That’s quite a lot. What we’ve done is we’ve tried to extrapolate on the basis of a worldwide survey that we do on the 60,000 people and we have estimated that the total volume of losses is estimated to be $1 trillion. I’m from the Netherlands and that’s more or less the GDP from my country. In most countries, crime, online scamming, online fraud is either the first or the second most reported crime. I’ve highlighted England with 38%. If you can imagine that only 2.5% of those behind the scenes, those to fraudsters and the online scammers are actually prosecuted. 2.5% is actually good because worldwide it is estimated it’s five hundreds of a percent. So, the English are doing a pretty good job with a 50-fold of that number, but still imagine 2.5% is a desperately low number. I’ve put down some highlights from a survey that we’ve done in 2024. You see that 67% of world citizens believe that they have the skills to recognize a scam. At first sight, you’d say that’s pretty good. That’s two out of three people are capable of seeing a scam and possibly being protected against the scam they’d be confronted with. However, re-victimization is quite a problem. On the basis of the same survey, we’ve seen in many countries that victims are not only victimized twice, but in some cases three times. So, the number is maybe a good number, but if you look behind the scenes, it’s still troubling. Phone calls and text messages are still the most popular media to scam. Almost half of the world encounters a scam once a week. Globally, 31% are uncertain whether AI was used to scam. Shopping scams are the most frequently encountered scams, followed by investment scams and identity theft. Many victims are caught out by reacting quickly to attractive offers. Either it’s too good to be true or they don’t have the knowledge to judge if they are doing the right thing in making a purchase of the services delivered. 74% concluded that they were the victim of the scam themselves. That is a rather high number. It’s also culturally determined. If you go to countries like, say, the Philippines, it’s more a family thing together, that people together say, hey, guy, best friend, you’ve been a victim of a scam. Bank transfers and e-wallet are the dominant scam payment method. Globally, only 4% are capable of getting a full refund, only 4%. The last one, and I saved that one for last, is that 7% of people globally admit they would be taking part in a money mule. They would be asked a question, if I gave you $20,000, you can keep $1,000, and 7% say, well, I think that’s a pretty good idea, I’ll do that. Even 50% of the 7% say, why should I give back $1,000? I’m going to keep the money at all. Looking here at the audience, I would like to, of course, statistically, 7% could be here. Of course, you’re not the piece of people, but if you are, I’d like to meet you at the bar later on, and we can discuss. Scamming has gone back for 3,000 years. In old Egypt, it was good to favor the gods to mummify a pet animal. 70 million animals have been mummified. In recent research in England, of the sarcophagus that were still there, they noticed that almost 33%, one in three was fake. We’ve been scamming, and we have been scamming for about 3,000 years. This is an interesting one. This is a Japanese lady, 65 years old, who actually paid 35,000 euros to get her lover back from space because he needed a rocket. This sounds incredible, but it’s happened. It’s true. 28 seconds. My ex-wife is a scammer. and a whole bunch of non fiction business people like Elliot GSE and Frank Snyder. For more info about the Pew Media Apps and 2017,

MODERATOR: head to www.pewmedia.com. www.pewmedia.com www.pewmedia.com www.pewmedia.com www.pewmedia.com .

Camilla Sharma: Welcome to the first meeting. Today the group has participation from several public and private stakeholders, including mobile operators, the CRDB, authorities, police, bank sector and others. And we are very happy to have three mobile network operators, Telenor, Telia, ÖYSLYSETELE, on board. They are providing crucial and constructive contributions in the collaboration. But it is not just collaborations and discussions. The group also conducts vulnerability assessments and finds mitigating operational measures. This is, for example, one picture here. This is a table from the result of the digital anti-spoofing roaming shield that entered into force 19 November 2024 as one of the first in the world. This shield is the reason why no practical Norwegian mobile number can be spoofed from abroad. The trust in mobile numbers was low some years ago due to a lot of spoofing, but now it is almost restored. A fun fact of this slide, as you may have noticed, that you can see that the fraudsters take ordinary Christmas breaks and they also take a well-deserved weekend off, so they are not on duty all the time. But it is not a full or total shield. This is a very simplified illustration of some of the blocking measures that protects Norway. As you can see, it is missing a chunk, and there are dotted lines breaking through. But again, we are blocking almost all spoofing Norwegian numbers, but we are not blocking foreign spoofing numbers. We are blocking a lot of SMS, but not all. A lot of blocking of fraudulent URLs, but a lot goes through, as you can see. And on the OTTs and the Internet-based services, we do not know how much is blocked or how much is passed through. That is why we are expanding our initiatives towards Internet-based services. It does not matter for the end user where he or she gets defrauded. We need to protect them on all channels. But how do we begin with difficult and or? The answer, we believe, is to reuse the successful multistakeholder working methods that have produced results of both voice and SMS. We need to be collaborative, operational, and pragmatic. Why pragmatic, you may ask? Well, we will never get rid of fraud. The world is far too complex. Crime will always be there, and AI will make it difficult or probably impossible to differentiate fake representatives for true. So, I think it stopped working, Johannes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Lastly, I want to mention the importance of teamwork. One collaborative project that we find very interesting, that is the Global Informer Regulatory Antifraud Forum, or GIRAFF, as we called it. The group is chaired by ANCOM, and 40 countries from all regions of the world have participated in meetings. The goal is to compare best practices and create harmonizing measures in the global fight against digital-enabled fraud. If you’re a regulator, please consider to join GIRAFF. With these concrete operational remarks, I will close my intervention, and I look forward to the rest of this session. Thank you.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you very much, Camilla. It’s good to see that some mitigating measures are indeed working and protecting the citizens every day. That’s very good. So, we will move on. Let’s kick it up a notch. We will go over to the UNODC. So, Riika, you can take the stage. So, my question to UNODC and Riika is, what can you tell us about the international legal framework addressing fraud as a form of an organized crime? Very happy to have you here, and good luck.

Riika Puttonen: Thank you very much, and good afternoon to everybody. As we saw in Ren’s presentation, fraud is really as old as humankind. But in this post-truth era, supercharged by technology, artificial intelligence, deep fakes, and so forth, fraud is not only surviving, but it is absolutely thriving. It is evolving in terms of speed, scope, and scale, and it is absolutely exploding in that regard. Also, fraud really affects every one of us. If I asked you if there’s anybody in the room who was never targeted for fraud, I don’t imagine many hands going up. I think all of us are constantly targeted by fraudsters in various ways and forms. So, we don’t fall for fraud. That terminology we should leave aside. We are targeted for fraud. Whom are we targeted by? We are targeted by organized criminal groups. There is a UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, which is almost universally adhered to, with 193 parties to the convention. So, that is a very, very broadly adhered to convention of the UN. The idea behind the convention is simply to promote cooperation. Because clearly, when it comes to fraud, there is nothing one single country can do in isolation, but we need a concerted effort by every single state. And all the different players, like this morning we heard about the multi-stakeholder approach, the private sector, civil society, academia, and all the players. We need everybody around the table. How does the Organized Crime Convention, which is already 20 plus years old… has it really withstood the test of time in terms of applying to fraud as it manifests itself in today’s world? I’m very glad to say that it has, because the drafters, meaning all the member states of the UN, actually drafted the convention to apply to all serious crime. And serious crime, if I again asked you as the audience, what does serious crime actually mean, I would probably get as many answers as we have people in the audience. So drafters had to come up with a threshold. Any offence that in your domestic legal system is punishable by four years or more of imprisonment. The maximum penalty, four years or more, is serious. I’m also very sad to say that fraud, despite the severe consequences that we heard about, is not a serious crime in all countries. So there is homework for all of us to do. The consequences are severe and the nature of fraud keeps on evolving, so does the international legal framework. And there was just the new UN convention against cybercrime that was adopted recently, actually at Christmas last year, and that convention now kind of takes the whole fraud debate also to another level and includes also manipulation of electronic data and ICT systems. So that manipulation is now also covered, not only the traditional forms of fraud through deception. But that convention, which will open for signature in October this year, that’s when the signing ceremony takes place, that convention also builds upon the Budapest Convention, for those of you who may know the Budapest Convention already, and adds, proposed by Singapore, which is a leading country in the world when it comes to combating fraud, proposed by Singapore one more type of a fraud through more kind of traditional deception. This is how fraud is often carried out. So that convention again will mean a bit of homework for all of us, for countries to continue criminalizing fraud in a way that actually reflects the reality in today’s world. So I was very punctual today. I would just like to finish with a little announcement to say that UNODC and Interpol will host a Global Fraud Summit in March 2026 in Vienna, and we hope to see many of you there. Thank you very much.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you very, very much, Rikke. Always a pleasure to hear you and your insightful comments. So it’s good to see that there are exciting regulatory measures on the pipeline and looking forward to signing procedures in October. Let’s go to the next one. Please stay up, Emily. We are now going to hear from Emily and Lucien Taylor. They are co-founders of GEC, the Global Signal Exchange. I first learned of GEC this winter, and it was quite refreshing to see the operational aspect of the GEC. So with no further ado, I will give the floor to you both. Could we have our slides? I think we’ve got ICANN slides, which I’m happy to have a go at, but it’s for the Global Signal Exchange. Sorry for this little hiccup. So while we are here now, those of you online, you can ask questions in the chat field, and Frode will arrange which one will be presented later on. So now, Lucien and Emily.

Emily Taylor: Johannes, thank you so much for the floor and for inviting us here to present the Global Signal Exchange. My name is Emily Taylor, and I’m joined by Lucien, and the more observant will have noticed that we have the same surname, and yes, we are married. So RENS has given you a very detailed overview of the scale of scams and fraud and cybercrime generally, so I’m not going to dwell on this slide. Instead, I want to think about the way that cybercrime and fraud and scams can be disrupted, and the journey that a scam will take from building infrastructure, whether that’s establishing a company, a website, a domain, establishing a false identity, using and abusing the services of platforms and of other services, engaging with the victim, so they will be relying on platforms, they will be relying on internet service providers, telephone companies, and it’s only at the very last second when they persuade a victim to part with their money that it becomes obvious that there is a fraudulent payment there. So all of that happens prior to the payment, and all of those services are used and abused. Now, the current status has been that there can be quite advanced sharing of information within each of those industry verticals, perhaps nationally, but there’s almost nothing that takes information across those different sectors and shares that information internationally. The scammers work internationally, they share information, and to fight it effectively, so do we need to do. So the global signal exchange is really a clearinghouse, it’s not a takedown service, it’s about enabling those different services along the fraud attack chain to share intelligence with one another in real time to combat fraud and scams, and it was announced last October, so it was set up, the global signal exchange is a non-profit, and it was set up in partnership with the global anti-scam alliance, bringing together their amazing international scam fighting network, and with the support of Google, which committed to sharing threat signals from right across its business services for the benefit of scam fighters. At the session in London, which Johannes was talking about, the global signal exchange was called out by two ministers, the home office minister, the anti-fraud minister, and the DCIT minister, who I believe is here, and we are already getting many partners on boarded. And so the latest is that we have over 160 organisations either joined up or in the onboarding channel, including four of the big tech, who are committed to sharing those data, and we also of course work across the non-profit sector with fellow civil society organisations, so truly this is a multi-stakeholder, voluntary initiative. So now I will hand over to Lucien.

Lucien Taylor: Thank you, Emily. I’m going to do a full tech demo. I had three minutes, and now Emily took 12 seconds of that. So my job, I built this global signal exchange not overnight, it’s happened over 20 years, we’ve been developing information exchange systems for 20 years, my team in Oxford Information Labs. Our job is to make a difference, both pursue and prevent crime. So on the pursue, we’ve got a new acronym, the QUIC factor, we’re developing systems that support quantity, immediacy, and the quality of threat signals exchanged. In terms of the quantity, we’re now going into the actual global signal exchange. Every day we do an audit of new signals. We started with 40 million threat signals. When you think the British police advertise that they’re getting 30,000 threat signals from consumers every month, we’re getting a million a day. And I don’t think we’re seeing half of it, folks, that’s the problem out there. But we’re also interested in what we call when we share signals, uplift and overlap. And we’re going to go steampunk here. Uplift. When all parties share signals and thereby find new information, we observe uplift. Overlap. When all parties share signals and simultaneously detect the same signal, we increase confidence. And so what we’re now looking at is also the immediacy of the signals. We’ve got the time to live of signals, and we’re getting signals in in 40 seconds, and you can see that the average time to live of signals is basically up to four days. So we all have a job here to try and reduce that time lag. Quality, you have the provider score of the threat signal provider, but also the quality of each signal. And the provider themselves can give a quality score, a confidence rating, and also the people receiving the signal. can give a feedback and we’re missing feedback from this whole game between us all and that’s what we’re trying to do. Another part of our job is to develop league tables. We have registry league tables. Who’s the best? Who’s the worst? Here you can see a huge percentage of the bottom registries have their stock is toxic. Registrars, those with over 50,000 domain names, we say that they’re actually big players. You’re looking at large percentages of stock at the bottom that are toxic. Finally, we have a number of pilots. We’re working with advertisers, registries, registrars, ASN block providers, big tech, marketing providers, and we have a new public sector service for police and law enforcement, which is basically an investigations platform where they can look signal by signal at various metrics in there. Thank you very much. Finally, the impact, we all need to change the game. We need to do cross-sectorial international signal sharing and make things quicker and reduce the cost of threat intelligence for the small players. Thank you for the extra 10 seconds.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you, Lucien, and yes, it’s so refreshing to see. This is data sharing in practice. We’re talking a lot about data sharing. We’re doing it. We’re talking about real-time. You’re doing it. We’re talking about scale, so you’re doing it. So it’s very impressive the work that you have carried out and are doing. What you forgot was to say that .no, the Norwegian top level is on the top of that list, but so I said it now. So in a panel on fraud fighting, we need to have social media, and I’m very happy to say that Meta could join this session. We have all seen fake profiles, fake stores, and all the fraudulent activity on social media. So Rima, tell us the work you are doing on Meta

Rima Amin: against fraud. Sure, happy to, and thank you for having us here today. I’m going to start by talking a little bit about where fraud sits sort of within our team. So my team’s focus on tackling adversarial threats. Those are the threat actors who are persistent in nature, often have resourcing behind them, and have a strategic goal in mind. So those threats tend to typically manifest as foreign influence operations, cyber espionage, hacking, and frauds and scams. The reason frauds and scams falls within this subset is because they are some of the most aggressive and agile of actors sort of out there. They also have a huge amount of infrastructure underpinning them as well. Emily’s spoken a little bit about the attack chain. I’m going to add a little bit more sort of detail because this really is the anchor behind a lot of the way in which Meta is thinking about this problem as well. We took a step back and identified what are all the different tactics that these operations are, you know, what are they doing? And then we categorized them in terms of the sequencing within which they happened. And essentially we came up with this sort of attack chain. It starts off with the building of infrastructure, and that’s where people and tools are essentially being organized to conduct scams. It’s important to say that at this point harm is already happening. You may have heard about people being tricked into sort of job scams and being forced into scam centers where they are essentially forced to conduct these scams. The next stage is around preparing digital assets. So when you have the people and the equipment, you are then creating your online identities. The scammer moves on to engage the victim. That can be through a post, an ad, a message. It’s that first point of contact where they’re engaging. They then move on to execute, which is where the financial transaction takes place, and then cleanup, which is when the actor is trying to conceal their activity to avoid being detected. It can involve things like money laundering. In terms of the attack chain, a couple of things that we observe. One is for us as META, we have sort of the most visibility and therefore the most opportunity to really intervene at the engage stage, where the victim is being contacted by a scammer, and a prepared digital asset stage. We’re also conscious that there are others working to counter frauds and scams that may have more visibility into other parts. So law enforcement may have more information on the criminal groups that are building up the infrastructure, or banks may have more information at the execute stage where the financial transaction is taking place. So for us, we’re really focused on what can we do within the space we have visibility, and then what can we do to support others who may have visibility in other sort of phases. And then the other thing that we’re thinking about a lot is how do we push this as far left as possible? Because the further left you put in your interventions, the more chance you have at stopping this at scale. Okay, so I’m gonna try and give an overview of our the pieces of our strategy to tackle frauds and scams. The first is actually building up our product defenses to make them as sort of resilient as possible to scammers who may try to abuse them. Of course, if we know that somebody is a scammer, we’ll take them sort of down off a platform. But there may be times where we don’t have enough signal, and so putting in frictions and warnings and things like that are incredibly important. We’re also thinking about how can we leverage new technologies to counter frauds and scams. So you may have heard that public figures’ images are being sort of misused to trick people into scams. So we launched sort of use of facial recognition technology to understand if a public figure’s face is being misused, and then if we have some signal to accompany that, we’re able to pull it down. That has helped us to be able to tackle that particular problem, and we’re constantly thinking how do we utilize sort of technology in that way. The second area is empowering users. So how do we encourage people to or equip people in the best way possible to be as cyber resilient as possible? So that includes suites of tools, so things like two-factor authentication, making sure that they have everything they need to be cyber secure on our platforms, but also on other platforms across the internet as well. The third piece is disrupting scammers. So here I’m talking about pulling out these criminal networks that I was talking about before. We have investigators who are able to do that, pull those networks out, share that intelligence with others who are tackling the problem, and then be able to use that intelligence to rebuild our product defenses to make them stronger to prevent things in the first place. And then the fourth pillar, and this is really important and goes back to the attack chain as well, is how can we collaborate across society, leveraging organizations like the GSC who is facilitating sort of signal exchange, building up sort of other pilot programs, working with others on sort of campaigns to help inform people around how to tackle frauds and scams. Okay, I’m out of minutes, so I will stop there, but really looking forward to the rest of the discussion.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you, Rima, and we will also come back to your interventions in the panel discussion that we will have in not many minutes. But of course, another important part of the global fraud-fighting team, this powerhouse of resourceful people and businesses, is the mobile operators. So what are they doing and how are they doing it? To give you an example, we are very happy to have Birgitte Engelbretsen, Managing Director of Telenor Norway, on the stage. So tell us, Birgitte, what is your insights on this?

Birgitte Engebretsen: Thank you, Johannes. Telenor is a global company currently operating both in the Asian markets, but also in the Nordics, with more than 200 million customers. We have connected both people and societies safely for over 170 years, and in Norway we have close to 3 million customers. The majority of the data traffic in Norway is going through our networks and our services. We are therefore in a unique position to look into what kind of problems do we have related to fraud and digital crime, which is targeted towards the Norwegian society. In Telenor Norway, we have one of the leading security teams in Norway, with the expertise to combat advanced threat actors as well. as well as criminal groups. That means that if you are a Telenor customer, you have some of the best security experts on your team at all times. Our ambition is to be the safety net for the Norwegian customers and society at large. Since we are digitizing services to make our life easy, both in our private lives and in our work lives, this is fantastic. However, that increases the push from criminal actors from the physical space to the digital space. Telenor is experiencing that customers and the public are more concerned about security in their digital lives now, much more than before. There is a high demand for both information and security advices and assistance in protecting against fraud and threat actors. There. All of Telenor’s both mobile and broadband customers will get their subscriptions with fraud filters integrated into those subscriptions. In addition to that, we offer extra services in order to secure both private customers, but also the business customers, with security in their digital life or work life. In addition to a yearly publication, which is called the Annual Digital Security Report, and combined with an open press assessment, we also publish a quarterly security pulse for the security situation in the Norwegian society. In 2024, we could see that we blocked more than 2200 million attempts of fraud and digital crimes towards our customers in Norway. That’s similar to two attempts of digital crime each day towards our customers. This is a huge number, and it shows that we need to take this threat seriously, and it’s not a local threat, it’s a global game for these actors. Although we are taking many, many steps to stop digital crime and fraud towards our customers and the society as a whole, there are still jobs to be done in order to combat this together. And to effectively combat digital crime, it’s crucial for both businesses, government agencies and law enforcement to collaborate closely. The collective effort can lead to a more robust defense against cyber threats. Organizations must prioritize investments in advanced cybersecurity capabilities. By adopting cutting-edge technologies and proactive strategies, businesses can better protect both themselves, but also their customers and the society at large. Quality and security must be given a higher weight in tender processes. It’s crucial that the public sector creates a market for security and robust services and uses their purchasing power in order to support that. By doing that, we can keep the public safer, but also create the market for security services. Effective laws and regulations related to cybercrime can create a safer digital environment. Legislation can stop criminal activities. In this context, effective also implies clear. Let me give you one example. How do we balance customers’ need for data privacy protection and secure communication channels with the need to share data between relevant actors, such as banks and telcos, in order to fight digital crime? Dilemmas such as this must definitely be discussed in a collaborative context. Thank you.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you very much, Birgitte, for those insightful comments. I totally agree with the multi-stakeholder comment you made. Also, those operational remarks on the purchasing power and the clarity of law. Last but not least, when I discussed with my co-moderator, Frode, who is online now, we needed the domain name market industry regulations on board. We have FactFinders, we have regulators, UN operators, social media, GSE Hub. We started at the top with the chair of the Government Advisory Committee to ICANN, and he answered, I think, within a couple of minutes. Very happy to have you here, Nico. We want to hear about the issue of phishing that remains a dominant form of DNS abuse, often used in exploiting domain registration loopholes. What specific measures is ICANN advocating to enhance register and registrar accountability?

Nico Caballero: Thank you, Yohannes. Can you hear me? I can’t hear myself here. Thank you. My name is Nico Caballero, and I’m the GAG chair of the Government Advisory Committee to ICANN. I assume everybody knows what ICANN is. I was surprised. I had to explain a little while ago what ICANN is, but broadly speaking, ICANN deals with domain names and, let’s say, the translation between those names and IP address, IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. So let’s take a quick look, and I only have five and a half minutes. The DNS abuse landscape, as we understand it within ICANN, there are five main, I mean, I would say the top five DNS abuse types. The first one being phishing, which makes up more than 90 percent. According to some numbers, it’s 95 or 96 percent of the cases as per NetBeacon Institute, and there are some other sources as well. And then malware, botnets, farming, and spam for the remaining percentage, spam when used as a delivery mechanism for the other four. And a huge impact. I won’t get into the details. It’s been already explained. But broadly speaking, we’re talking about a $12 billion impact in terms of annual losses, and these are numbers coming from the Internet Society from last year. What it does is it basically erodes trust in the DNS ecosystem, which is a very bad thing. Sorry, let me move this. And that’s what I was more or less talking about. So I want to share with you some highlights from our last meeting, ICANN 83 in Prague, about two weeks ago, as a matter of fact. Some highlights from the GAC sessions. On the one hand, we have malicious registrations that clearly enable phishing, and we also identified that there’s a lack of uniform enforcement against rogue registrars. And again, there are many different sources for this, this one coming from a clean DNS study. There’s another case study that says that registrar X, let’s just say, unnamed, is linked to more than 60% of phishing domains in 2024. And we can talk about that a little bit later with more specific numbers. So I won’t read the whole thing because there’s obviously no time for this, but phishing scams account for a large portion of DNS abuse, with, again, some reports indicating they comprise all in all 62%, more or less 62%, and this is according to AAG IT services and some other sources, and you have the sources right there and you can check later. And then we have spam, malware, and botnets. Farming is almost non-existent, but they are at least in the DNS abuse landscape. And then botnets, you know, which are basically networks of infected devices controlled by attackers and so on and so forth. And I’m taking a look at the time. So I won’t get into details, but I want to concentrate on this, you know, the DNS Abuse Mitigation Program that ICANN has at this point and divided into three main pathways, so to say. The first one, you know, is basically contributing data and expertise to fact-based discussions. And there are four things there, the first one being the D.A.R. D.A.R. stands for Domain Abuse Activity Reporting, which is a system that measures domain abuse and registration activity for GTLDs and for volunteer CCTLDs, Country Code Top Level Domains, volunteer CCTLDs. And then Domain Metrica and I.T.H.I., and we can talk about what A.T.H.I. is later on. And then Capacity Building and Training, that’s one track, so to say. The second track being, you know, providing tools to the ICANN community, you know, through the Infermal, Infermal again standing for Inferential Analysis of Maliciously Registered Domains. As you know, ICANN is kind of like an acronym romance, so I’m just trying to be careful to actually explain what each of the acronyms means. And then SIFT, which is Special Interest Forums on Tech. So that’s basically the second track. The third track being enforcing contractual obligations with registries and registrars. You know, ICANN compliance enforces COs, that is Contractual Obligations, again, sorry for the acronym, in policies and agreements, including R.A., which is Registry Agreement, and R.A.A., again, the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. And I’m running out of time. And there are also some potential sanctions and service level agreements being discussed. These are proposed solutions, you know, and some brainstorming we had within the GAC. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. There we go. The first one being, you know, stricter SLAs for takedowns, you know, 24-hour response mandate, and we’re discussing that. This is not in place yet, but, you know, this is, you know, just some brainstorming session we had in Prague two weeks ago. Contractual penalties, the second one, you know, fines and suspension for repeat offenders within the ICANN contracts, that is. And then proactive screening, you know, as was mentioned before, AI-driven pattern detection, you know, like bulk registrations, and, you know, there’s lots of information in that regard. And then finally, and I’ll finish with this, because we’re running out of time, absolutely, the most important point would be, you know, collaboration frameworks, you know, as per the NetBeacons idea, you know, reporting tools, you know, and standardized abuse reporting, as per the Internet Society’s trust initiatives, you know, capacity building for Global South registries, and, you know, the real-time data sharing, you know, within the GAC itself. Again, the GAC being the Governmental Advisory Committee within ICANN. And there are so many sources there, you know, no more time for that, but anyways, thank you so much, and very happy to engage in conversations or taking questions. Thank you so much.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you very much, Nico, and I must say I was in a GAC meeting back in 2007, and it’s good to see that the role of GAC is now evolving, and that you are mentioning taking some stricter operational measures. That’s very, I think, very, very, very needed, because the registrar and registered units are a very important part of the puzzle, where you actually get the domain names. So we are now moving over to a panel session, and I’m looking forward to this for many months now. So we will go through some questions to the panellists, and then we will engage with our online community. So but I will start with my man on the right here, Rens. We’ve been talking about AI in many of these different sessions, so what do you think about AI and in the future of scams? Are we able to see the difference?

Rens Grim: Difficult question, but I mentioned the research that we did in 2024, where the conclusion was that in relation to 2023, we saw about the same amount of scams. The amount of money defrauded was more or less the same. Is that reason to be happy, or I compare that with that the bad didn’t get better. I like to make a comparison with the sporting arena. Let’s say, for instance, your football team that you support has lost 10-0, and the next game they lose again 10-0. I wonder what the atmosphere is in the changing room. Do they say, oh, we did a pretty good job because it wasn’t worse than last year? I doubt that very much. With AI, I think we’ll see writing of fraudulent text in SMSs, in emails. We see that in generating dialogues on platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook messaging. We see an increase in mimicking of voice, creation of images, being that a person or a product, and also the producing of voice, again, be it a product or an image. I think it’s a very difficult question, Johannes, to answer, but I think we are not yet at a tipping point, I believe, but that’s my personal opinion. It will get worse before it gets better.

Johannes Vallesverd: I think you’re right. Let’s embrace ourselves, and then we have to tackle it, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to differentiate. Let’s talk a little bit more with the regulator when you are here on the table, Camilla. You talked about the transition, that we will transition towards Internet-based services. What are your thoughts on this transition?

Camilla Sharma: I don’t think that it is a very easy, straightforward answer to that question. I don’t think so. But I think that we must entail that Internet-based services is a very broad term. It is a very complex field, both technically, legally, and culturally. But I really, strongly, truly believe that the industry and the regulators share many of the same goals. We have seen it in so many ways in the past time, so I think we can base that also with the future collaboration. We all want increased digital trust. We all want increased digital inclusion, and we all want to reduce fraud. We will get some new regulatory tools, no doubt about that. But I think that the most important aspect is that we work together with the Internet stakeholders and the traditional stakeholders, both from the regulator’s side and from the industry. I truly believe that is the answer in many ways, and we have to find out how to do it.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you very much, Camilla, for those comments. I totally agree. So we sometimes see that we ask for regulations, but many times the regulation is really there. We ask for clearer rules on privacy, but they are really there. Sometimes you just need some guidance. But let’s take a look on the legal framework, and let’s go a question to Rikke and to UNODC. How are countries doing with the criminalization of fraud as it manifests itself in the world today?

Riika Puttonen: Thank you, Johannes. Criminal law is not a magic bullet. It exists in the regulatory framework, and it has to be a complementary measure, and it certainly doesn’t exclude the kind of civil and administrative measures against fraud. They coexist, so to say. Globally speaking, different countries use different terminology for fraud. Some use fraud, scams, trickery, theft, deception, swindling, misrepresentation, and so forth. We are far away from actually having a common understanding of what fraud entails in today’s world. As I mentioned earlier, fraud under these various names is not always criminalized as serious crime, but we’ve heard of the serious consequences of fraud, and therefore I do think that it warrants to be criminalized as serious. This really is problematic for international cooperation, because judiciaries around the world would have to rely on each other for mutual legal assistance, extradition, law enforcement cooperation, and so on. and so forth to be able to tackle the organized criminal groups which operate without any regard for rules and so forth. They operate transnationally, so must countries as well. And if we do not criminalize fraud in a somewhat uniform manner as serious crime, we don’t necessarily have the legal tools for countries to actually cooperate internationally. So these international conventions are not only paper, but they constitute real tools to combat fraud. So really, criminalization matters, and we are not yet there. Thank you, Johannes.

Johannes Vallesverd: Fantastic. Good intervention. So I totally agree. Fraud is not petty theft, as we heard from Rens Grim. The consequences of fraud can be lethal. So let’s tackle this organized crime, international organized crime, as that organized international crime. So, but we always hear about privacy. We can’t share data. We can’t share data. But can we share data? And let’s talk to somebody that has shared data. How did you do it, Emily? How have you been handling the data privacy issue?

Emily Taylor: Thank you very much for the question, Johannes. And I should say, you know, in any healthy democracy, protect for fundamental rights and the rule of law are not unnice to have. They’re absolutely essential. And they also give the bright lines for law enforcement to adhere to. I think often in these sort of debates, you know, we as humans love binary. So we like, you know, are these in opposition to each other, criminal justice and privacy? No, they’re absolutely not. And in the UK, we were very fortunate that our national data protection regulator actually issued some guidance to clarify this matter, which is extremely helpful. And as Erica says, this is not, you know, whether it’s in the criminalization area or in the data sharing area, this is not a static legal international framework. We’ve got, we’ve had the OECD principles, the second additional amendment to the protocol to the Budapest Convention, EU Evidence Act, and the list goes on. So, you know, within the GSE, we have been working on the protections for privacy alongside the technical development from the outset. And I think that that’s really the way to do it. And to make sure that whoever is sharing data is always in control or in charge of what happens to it. And there’s no sort of really over lax default settings. So, you know, privacy laws are not an annoyance. They need to be baked in. The adherence needs to be baked in from the start so that people who are using the system can have confidence that their privacy will be respected and that they, you know, that helps to give the benchmark and the level playing field so that people feel confident in sharing data to combat scams and fraud.

Johannes Vallesverd: Excellent. Good answer. And I concur also in Norway, when we had the talk about the digital shields, we got input from the industry saying, okay, we need just some guidance. Please give us some guidance. And it took a couple of days to provide the guidance and that’s what all it needed to get the ball started. Of course, the industry did all the work, but we made some guidance in the start and that kicked it off. So totally agree. Okay. Now, Rima, many people are being confronted daily, perhaps not daily, but often with fake profiles on different social media channels. And you don’t have to talk for everybody here, but what do you think about the challenges of fake profiles and fake content? How do we reduce this problem? You talked a little bit about it in your intervention, but do you have

Rima Amin: any supplementary comments on it? Sure. Happy to do that. So fake accounts are an incredibly important thing for us to be able to counter. Again, if we go back to the attack chain, creating that deceptive identity is one of the sort of the earlier parts that we are able to have sort of visibility in. So we have teams that are working to create technology to be able to detect this stuff at scale. And just to give you an example of the type of scale that we are looking at, in Q4 of 2024, we took down 1.4 billion fake accounts, 99.9% of those proactively, often at the point of creation before they were reported to us. So our technology is catching these fake profiles. And I should caveat here that because we’re catching them very early on, we don’t know the purposes for which they would be used, right? It’s not necessarily all frauds and scams, but we know that fake profiles are important when it comes to frauds and scams. Now, when it comes to 0.1% of the ones that we weren’t able to catch that were reported to us, there is a challenge that comes with that. So the teams are constantly thinking, okay, how do we close that gap and get closer on it? The challenge can be is that as you become sort of more aggressive and you catch innocent people within that as well. So yes, very important part of the work and something that we’re focused on. I want to touch on content a little bit here as well, as you mentioned it. I don’t know if anyone’s come across a piece of research by Camille Francois, which talks about how you handle or ways to handle adversarial harm on the internet. She says that you can focus on an actor who is behind the activity. Then there’s behavior, which is what are the behaviors that the person is doing sort of on the platform. Things like trying to reach out to numbers of people that they’re not connected with, that type of behavior. And the third piece is content, which is what is it that they’re actually posting on the internet. Now, all three of those components in the ABC framework are incredibly important. For frauds and scams, content is important, but it’s a harder lever to pull. If you compare it to a harm like terrorism, fraud, it’s not as obvious. And they deliberately construct this to not be as obvious. And then the second thing is the content switches over time. Fraudsters will try to promote one item and then move on to another. So they’re constantly shifting, like that’s part of their MO. Whereas it’s much harder for a fraudster to shift sort of their behavior or try to hide who they are. Of course, they will try to. But I think that’s really important to sort of bear in mind. And that framework is something that we think about a lot when it comes to how do we tackle fraud across the ecosystem. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will get some questions afterwards from the

Johannes Vallesverd: room also. So if you have anything, just prepare yourself if you want to do that. Birgitte, you emphasized the importance of cooperation. And I know that many of the measures that Telenor are taking to combat fraud are quite costly. How can the private and public cooperation be in order to help in this regard? I think we should reflect upon

Birgitte Engebretsen: the magnitude of the problems that has been presented from all of us and the fact that we need to work together and we need to share the burden. So maybe let’s think about it in a triangle where you have the customers. They should ask for secure and safe services and be willing to pay for that. The government needs to finance parts of those costly measures. And the tech and telco companies also need to invest. So it’s in this triangle I think we need to really

Johannes Vallesverd: divide the burden between the three. Good. I agree. I think also the money that you put in protecting citizens is in the long run you get it all back with interest. So good intervention. Last but not least, over to Nico. You are in a key position here as the chair of the Governmental Advisory Committee. And you have a lot of data and you have a lot of issues at your hand, but in particular to this fishing topic that you mentioned. Is there any, let’s talk a little bit out of the box now, possibility for data sharing, real-time data sharing, a kind to the anti-fishing working group that you have mentioned, while still balancing the GDPR? Absolutely. And I took the time to prepare some.

Nico Caballero: It’s a very Very short list, you know, mainly four things, but important to take into account. The first one is layered access models, you know, implementing, you know, tiered access to who is data, where, you know, the critical fields, like, for example, anonymized email contacts, you know, are available for legitimate purposes, like cybersecurity, of course, while protecting personal data through reduction or encryption. That’s one thing. The other thing would be, you know, a centralized accreditation. Can you hear me? Because I’m having trouble with my, you know, developing a unified accreditation system for vet entities, so to say, like law enforcement, cybersecurity professionals, and so on, to request nonpublic data, ensuring compliance with GDPR, GDPR’s legitimate interest provisions. Also, you know, a collaborative framework engaging with, you know, data protection authorities and industry stakeholders to align policies with GDPR, as in, you know, as you can see in the temporary specification and the EPDP, that’s expedited policy development process, again, a long and complicated acronym coming from ICANN, but it is what it is. While preserving, again, as I said before, interests, like, you know, like fraud prevention, which is our main point here. And then, finally, there are some technical solutions, like, you know, coming from ICANN, I mean, you know, like supporting innovations like the RDRS, that is the Registration Data Request Service, you know, formerly, you know, known as the SSAD, you know, to streamline secure data requests without, I would say, overburdening the registrars. So that’s more or less what I can share at this point.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mikko. So we will have a couple of open questions first, and you can answer if you, when you want, the one where you just raised your hand, and then we will open the floor. But by first, we’ll talk a little bit about privacy. So I will give you a provoking question on privacy. Are the privacy rules now protecting the victims or the fraudsters?

Rima Amin: Anyone want to give that a shot, or both? I can give it a shot. Thank you. But hopefully, I’ll, yeah, so I think, I spoke a little bit earlier about the facial recognition technology that we deployed in order to protect people from scams relating to public figures. We deployed that pilot across the world in, I think it was October of last year, basically. And one of the challenges were that we were just unable to deploy it within sort of Europe and the UK at that particular time, because we were, you know, navigating with the regulator and putting all those pieces into place to ensure that they were sort of comfortable with this technology. So what I would say there is that these protections were designed for the right reasons and the right sort of principles behind them. But I think what needs to be sort of added to them is understanding sort of the adversarial landscape, especially when it comes to fraudsters as well, to enable us to deploy things at the speed of which we need to, because these are some of the fastest actors out there. And so we need to make sure that we’re able to deploy things in the right way at the speed of which we need to.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you. Good comment. Good comment. Riika?

Riika Puttonen: Yes, I totally agree. And indeed, privacy laws were actually put in place to also prevent fraud. So the intention, as Rima said, was a good one. But it’s the implementation of those laws that leaves some room for improvement. The right to privacy is not an absolute right in international human rights law. It is a qualified right. So there are certain conditions, and if those conditions are fulfilled, it can be compromised, the right to privacy. And it can be compromised for certain good reasons, a legitimate aim, and that would be, for example, public order, public safety, national security. And when we look at the scale of fraud, I do think that the legitimate aim is there. So indeed, it is not an absolute but a qualified right. But in addition to that legitimate aim, it also has to be prescribed by clear and accessible law. So again, for legislators, some work to do, serve this legitimate aim, and it has to be necessary and proportionate. And then you are in compliance with international human rights framework.

Emily Taylor: Thank you. Yeah. Emily? Well, I think Rima and Riika have both made excellent points, which I won’t repeat. I think that where I would come in on this is just reflecting on the transatlantic tensions around data sharing, you know, between very close allies, all democracies, all subject to the rule of law. And you know, Nico, I had the misfortune to be on the EPDP, and the expedited bit was certainly not really very apparent in this multiyear process. But actually, rather than blaming ourselves, I think we reflect on how difficult it is and that who is a microcosm of wider difficulties of sharing data. But Riika, you talked about the importance of laws being accessible and also understandable. I mean, there was a story of a guy going around an international law conference wearing a T-shirt saying, only God is GDPR compliant. And I think, you know, if we reflect on how difficult it is to comply, and particularly given the extraterritorial nature for US companies, which are very, very risk averse because they come in a much more litigious society and are not really used to the aspirational quality of many European laws, I think this is a moment of reflection to think, well, how do we do it better? You know, the fundamental rights need to be protected, and legitimate people also need to be protected from intrusion. But we can do better.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you for those words. I totally agree. Let’s move on now to, we will take one question from the floor, and then we will get the online community on for the next one, and then we will go back and forth. So we have the first question. When you present your question, just say who you are or where you come from, and then question. Thank you. Hi. Hello. Oh, we have two here. So you first in the front.

Andrew Campling: Hi. Thank you. I’mAndrew Campling. I’m a trustee of the Internet Watch Foundation. We’ve heard why signal is important by effectively everyone in the panel, whether it’s to identify criminals, to aid enforcement, or to protect end users. Building on Emily’s comments about the forced binary choice between privacy and security and the weaponization of, as Rikke quite rightly said, the qualified right of privacy, we’re seeing some significant unintended consequences. For example, current and planned changes to Internet standards are removing signal, which will make those consumer protections that the Norwegians are enjoying ineffective because you’ll lose the signal that you need for that and make it far harder to, again, to identify criminals, or to the ICANN example, the lack of proper know-your-customer processes mean that we’re aiding the criminals that undertake phishing because we’ve got no idea who registered the domains. So registers and registrars are hiding behind those privacy protections. How do we get people like on this panel more involved in actually stopping those harms, those unintended harms, by engaging Internet standards? Is that a question to Nico on know-your-customer? Perhaps.

Johannes Vallesverd: Let’s try. Thank you very much for a good question. Thank you for the question.

Nico Caballero: Even though I’m not involved in any kind of commercial activity within ICANN, ICANN is certainly taking steps in that regard, and I can mention, you know, a stricter registration data accuracy enforcement, like, for example, registrars now must verify and update inaccurate who is data within seven days of changes or face suspension of domains, on the one hand. You know, broadly speaking, ICANN’s Accuracy Reporting System, the ARS, has historically monitored compliance, though I must recognize it was paused after GDPR. But on the other hand, you know, as of right now, registrants are obligated to maintain accurate contact details, you know, to investigate complaints within 15 days, which is good progress, as compared to, well, not an ideal situation, not the best solution, but ICANN is doing, you know.

Johannes Vallesverd: Good, we are just looking at the time here. Thank you for the question, thank you for the answer, and we can connect the dots from GSE to ICANN and then you will get a very good picture. I think we will get the online community up now. Frode, are you there? I feel like it’s a Melody Grand Prix here, Frode Sørensen’s online moderator, so we will get him up on the screen. Many thanks for the presentations from the panelists and for an interesting discussion. So far, there is no question in the chat, but we encourage people to ask questions in the chat, which can be read aloud afterwards. So, I just hand back to you, Johannes, to take more questions in the room. Good, so you are in contact with the producer and then she will give him a sign if there will be, but that doesn’t matter, because we have four people here, three people waiting in line. So, let’s take this one first. No, I was on. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Audience: So, Rens brought up an issue. You have to say your name first and where you’re from. Shiva Bisasa, Trondheim, Tobago. Rens brought up the issue of financial sextortion, and this is something I had personal experience with earlier this year, where I knew the victim and the victim took his life. And as Rima showed, the engagement aspect is conducted on platforms. In this case, it was WhatsApp. My question is for the Global South, for developing nations. How can we increase awareness? What is the responsibility of platforms to increase awareness on these scams? And further, law enforcement is not as equipped as developed states within the developing world. How can we get law enforcement up to date? And if there is no mechanism to report these things to law enforcement, how can we report directly to the platforms?

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you, sir. Very good question. I will now go to Rens.

Rens Grim: Thank you for your question, and sorry to hear about your loss. It is a difficult area, especially in the sextortion that I was talking about, because in the country of origin, the people behind these scams are seen as heroes, and even the nation is discouraging people to go to school and, you know, just go scamming. So, but to answer your question, I think, is the whole purpose of the stakeholder participation, you know, getting into touch with local enforcement agencies and propagate that cooperation. It is a difficult story, because as it is said here early on the panel, there is no strict criminal prosecution possible. So, if it happens in country A and the extortionist is in country B, it is extremely difficult to get that person in country B to be prosecuted. And it is a difficult, we are not there yet, but I believe that encouraging countries, nations, governments to also actively go after the people within their country who are propagating and who are actually committing these crimes, that is the first step forward. Does that answer your question?

Rima Amin: Yes, somewhat. I can also take some of that question, and I’m personally so sorry for your personal loss. I think in terms of the question you asked around sort of raising awareness and what we can do there, I think there’s a couple of pieces there, right? So, you’ve got sort of campaigns that we can work sort of together on. I think that’s the working together piece is really important, because what we often see is fragmented sort of awareness campaigns and people, and young people especially, being bombarded with so many different messages that actually bringing those together is incredibly important. And so, that’s something that we look to do with governments and those types of entities. The next is sort of interventions and building products in a way that creates safe environments. So, separating, for example, messages that come from people that you’re not connected with and putting in sort of the guard rails there. And the piece on law enforcement, I think it’s something that we try to do at META is work with law enforcement. So, we have people focus specifically on outreach to help law enforcement identify what information that they can request, how they can request it, and how they can actually use that information to be able to investigate and enforce there. And then the piece on reporting is also particularly sort of important. One of the challenges we have in that type of scam, but also sort of other scams that might end up on websites and other sort of platforms, is that we don’t necessarily have the context that we need to be able to enforce. And so, reporting through the platform or through sort of the law enforcement channels that are available is important for us to then be able to look back and be able to enforce on that particular actor. Thank you very much, Riika and then Emily. And we

Riika Puttonen: have to close down, but it’s an important question, so we need to reflect on it. Yeah, thank you for that important question and example as well. At UN, UNODC, we have these intergovernmental processes, which we’ve done a couple of on fraud, and there’s an increasing awareness of the seriousness of fraud as such, and including naturally also sexual extortion. Tragic example. We also carry out technical assistance activities, and they kind of range from prevention to protection of victims and witnesses, pursuing the criminals, the organized criminal groups behind it, and also promoting that cooperation. So, I hope in the years to come there is an increased awareness, but clearly we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

Emily Taylor: Very briefly, Shiva, very sorry to hear of your loss. I just wanted to address another aspect of getting law enforcement up to date, which is the collaboration with industry. Global South and also other countries are suffering from lack of resources in law enforcement and are simply not able to follow up all of the potential leads, and I think industry has a part to play in it. I think this also goes to the point that Birgitta made about burden sharing, and this is something that we’re doing within the Global Signal Exchange with pilots between law enforcement and industry to see to what extent can industry sort of take some of the burden from law enforcement, enabling them to do what only law enforcement can do, which is the pursue element, but there’s an awful lot of prevent and a lot of following up that industry can do in that. Thank you very much

Johannes Vallesverd: all for those comments to that, and I’m very sorry that we don’t have time for more questions, but we are here, so you can approach us after this session. I would like to thank everybody for your contributions. I would like to thank the panelists. Well, we will never get rid of fraud, it will always be there, but we can tackle it one piece at a time, we can eat the elephant one piece at a time. I would like to thank Frode for his online moderator and also the IGF team for having this session on these important topics. I hope this is not the end of anything, this is the start of anything. We have to be more operational, we have to get action done, share data, share guidance, and we have to tackle this fraud because it’s serious, it’s lethal, so we have to protect the global citizens against this international crime. So, thank you very much everybody for your participation and your presence. you

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder cooperation is essential for effective fraud prevention

Speakers

– Johannes Vallesverd
– Camilla Sharma
– Birgitte Engebretsen
– Emily Taylor
– Rima Amin
– MODERATOR

Arguments

The goal should be operational action rather than just talk, focusing on regulatory and technical measures to reduce fraud

Fraud fighting requires a diverse team with different angles to the problem, bringing together various stakeholders

Norwegian anti-fraud group includes mobile operators, authorities, police, and banks working operationally together

Effective collaboration requires burden sharing between customers, government, and tech companies

Global Signal Exchange enables real-time cross-sector intelligence sharing with over 160 organizations onboarded

Focus should be on disrupting fraud attack chain as early as possible, from infrastructure building to victim engagement

Cooperation is the only way forward as fraudsters operate internationally and change channels when blocked

Summary

All speakers agree that combating fraud requires coordinated efforts across multiple sectors including government, industry, law enforcement, and international organizations. They emphasize moving beyond discussions to operational cooperation.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Legal and regulatory

Fraud represents a massive global problem requiring serious treatment

Speakers

– Rens Grim
– Birgitte Engebretsen
– Nico Caballero
– Johannes Vallesverd

Arguments

25% of world’s connected population has been victim of scams with $1 trillion in estimated losses annually

Fraud is either first or second most reported crime in most countries with only 2.5% prosecution rate

Telenor blocked over 2200 million fraud attempts in Norway in 2024, equivalent to two attempts per customer daily

Phishing makes up more than 90% of DNS abuse cases with $12 billion annual impact

Fraud must be tackled as serious international organized crime rather than petty theft

Summary

Speakers present compelling statistics demonstrating fraud’s enormous scale and impact, agreeing it must be treated as serious organized crime rather than minor criminal activity.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Economic

Privacy and security can coexist with proper legal frameworks

Speakers

– Emily Taylor
– Riika Puttonen
– Rima Amin
– Johannes Vallesverd

Arguments

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be compromised for legitimate aims like public safety when prescribed by clear law

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be compromised for legitimate aims like public safety when prescribed by clear law

Meta uses facial recognition technology to detect misuse of public figures’ images in scams

Privacy guidance can quickly enable industry action when provided clearly by regulators

Summary

Speakers agree that privacy and security are not mutually exclusive but can be balanced through clear legal frameworks and proper implementation, with privacy being a qualified rather than absolute right.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Technology and AI present both challenges and opportunities in fraud prevention

Speakers

– Rens Grim
– Rima Amin
– Nico Caballero

Arguments

AI will increase fraud through better text generation, voice mimicking, and image creation but we’re not yet at tipping point

Meta uses facial recognition technology to detect misuse of public figures’ images in scams

ICANN is developing stricter SLAs for takedowns and contractual penalties for repeat offenders

Summary

Speakers acknowledge that while AI enhances fraudsters’ capabilities, it also provides new tools for detection and prevention when properly implemented.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Infrastructure

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers present nearly identical arguments about privacy being a qualified right in international law that can be limited under specific conditions for legitimate purposes like fraud prevention, emphasizing the need for clear legal frameworks.

Speakers

– Emily Taylor
– Riika Puttonen

Arguments

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be compromised for legitimate aims like public safety when prescribed by clear law

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be compromised for legitimate aims like public safety when prescribed by clear law

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Both Norwegian representatives emphasize the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in their country’s successful fraud prevention model, highlighting how different sectors work together operationally.

Speakers

– Camilla Sharma
– Birgitte Engebretsen

Arguments

Norwegian anti-fraud group includes mobile operators, authorities, police, and banks working operationally together

Effective collaboration requires burden sharing between customers, government, and tech companies

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Both speakers provide concrete statistical evidence of fraud’s massive scale, demonstrating the relentless nature of fraud attempts and their significant impact on populations.

Speakers

– Rens Grim
– Birgitte Engebretsen

Arguments

25% of world’s connected population has been victim of scams with $1 trillion in estimated losses annually

Telenor blocked over 2200 million fraud attempts in Norway in 2024, equivalent to two attempts per customer daily

Topics

Cybersecurity | Economic

Unexpected consensus

Privacy laws protecting fraudsters rather than victims

Speakers

– Rima Amin
– Riika Puttonen
– Emily Taylor

Arguments

Meta uses facial recognition technology to detect misuse of public figures’ images in scams

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be compromised for legitimate aims like public safety when prescribed by clear law

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be compromised for legitimate aims like public safety when prescribed by clear law

Explanation

Despite representing different sectors (tech platform, UN organization, and civil society), all three speakers agreed that current privacy law implementation sometimes inadvertently protects fraudsters. This consensus is unexpected given their different organizational perspectives and typical debates around privacy vs. security.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Need for proactive rather than reactive approaches to fraud prevention

Speakers

– Rima Amin
– Emily Taylor
– Camilla Sharma
– Nico Caballero

Arguments

Meta removed 1.4 billion fake accounts in Q4 2024, with 99.9% caught proactively before being reported

Global Signal Exchange enables real-time cross-sector intelligence sharing with over 160 organizations onboarded

Norway implemented digital anti-spoofing roaming shield as one of first in world, restoring trust in mobile numbers

ICANN is developing stricter SLAs for takedowns and contractual penalties for repeat offenders

Explanation

Representatives from social media, civil society, government regulation, and domain name governance all emphasized proactive prevention over reactive response, showing unexpected alignment across traditionally different approaches to internet governance.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Infrastructure

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated remarkable consensus on key fraud prevention principles: the necessity of multi-stakeholder cooperation, the serious nature of the fraud threat, the possibility of balancing privacy with security, and the importance of proactive technological solutions. Agreement was strongest on operational approaches and the need for international coordination.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for fraud prevention policy. The alignment across diverse stakeholders (government regulators, tech platforms, telecom operators, international organizations, and civil society) suggests strong potential for coordinated global action. The consensus on treating fraud as serious organized crime and the need for operational rather than just policy responses indicates readiness for concrete implementation measures.

Different viewpoints

Privacy vs Security Balance in Data Sharing

Speakers

– Emily Taylor
– Rima Amin
– Riika Puttonen

Arguments

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be compromised for legitimate aims like public safety when prescribed by clear law

Meta uses facial recognition technology to detect misuse of public figures’ images in scams

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be compromised for legitimate aims like public safety when prescribed by clear law

Summary

While all speakers agree privacy isn’t absolute, they differ on implementation approaches. Emily emphasizes the need for clear legal frameworks and proper compliance from the start. Rima highlights operational challenges where privacy regulations slow down deployment of anti-fraud technologies in Europe. Riika focuses on the legal technicalities of when privacy can be legitimately compromised.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Unexpected differences

Impact of Internet Standards on Fraud Prevention

Speakers

– Andrew Campling
– Emily Taylor

Arguments

Current Internet standards changes are removing signals needed for consumer protection

Global Signal Exchange enables real-time cross-sector intelligence sharing with over 160 organizations onboarded

Explanation

Andrew Campling raises an unexpected concern that privacy-focused changes to Internet standards are actually helping criminals by removing technical signals needed for fraud detection. This creates tension with Emily Taylor’s work on the Global Signal Exchange, which aims to enhance signal sharing. The disagreement is unexpected because both are working toward fraud prevention but see different technical approaches as problematic versus beneficial.

Topics

Infrastructure | Human rights | Cybersecurity

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion shows remarkably high consensus among speakers on the fundamental challenges and goals of fraud prevention, with disagreements primarily focused on implementation approaches rather than objectives. Main areas of disagreement center on balancing privacy with security, specific mechanisms for multi-stakeholder cooperation, and technical approaches to maintaining fraud detection capabilities.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level with high strategic alignment. The speakers demonstrate strong consensus on the severity of the fraud problem, the need for international cooperation, and the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches. Disagreements are primarily tactical and procedural rather than fundamental, suggesting good potential for collaborative solutions. The most significant tension appears around privacy versus security trade-offs, but even here speakers acknowledge the need for balance rather than taking absolute positions.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers present nearly identical arguments about privacy being a qualified right in international law that can be limited under specific conditions for legitimate purposes like fraud prevention, emphasizing the need for clear legal frameworks.

Speakers

– Emily Taylor
– Riika Puttonen

Arguments

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be compromised for legitimate aims like public safety when prescribed by clear law

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be compromised for legitimate aims like public safety when prescribed by clear law

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Both Norwegian representatives emphasize the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in their country’s successful fraud prevention model, highlighting how different sectors work together operationally.

Speakers

– Camilla Sharma
– Birgitte Engebretsen

Arguments

Norwegian anti-fraud group includes mobile operators, authorities, police, and banks working operationally together

Effective collaboration requires burden sharing between customers, government, and tech companies

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Both speakers provide concrete statistical evidence of fraud’s massive scale, demonstrating the relentless nature of fraud attempts and their significant impact on populations.

Speakers

– Rens Grim
– Birgitte Engebretsen

Arguments

25% of world’s connected population has been victim of scams with $1 trillion in estimated losses annually

Telenor blocked over 2200 million fraud attempts in Norway in 2024, equivalent to two attempts per customer daily

Topics

Cybersecurity | Economic

Key takeaways

Fraud is a massive global problem affecting 25% of the world’s connected population with $1 trillion in annual losses, requiring urgent international cooperation

Multi-stakeholder collaboration between governments, private sector, law enforcement, and civil society is essential – no single entity can combat fraud in isolation

Real-time data sharing across sectors is both technically feasible and legally permissible when properly implemented with privacy safeguards

Privacy laws are qualified rights that can be balanced with legitimate public safety aims when prescribed by clear, accessible law

Operational measures like Norway’s anti-spoofing shield and integrated fraud filters are proving effective in protecting citizens

AI will make fraud more sophisticated but we haven’t reached a tipping point yet – proactive technology deployment is crucial

Current legal frameworks need updating to criminalize fraud as serious crime globally and enable better international cooperation

Prevention and early intervention in the fraud attack chain is more effective than pursuing criminals after damage is done

Burden sharing between customers, government, and technology companies is necessary for sustainable fraud prevention

Resolutions and action items

Regulators should join the Global Informal Regulatory Anti-Fraud Forum (GIRAFF) to share best practices across 40+ countries

UNODC and Interpol will host a Global Fraud Summit in March 2026 in Vienna

Countries need to criminalize fraud as serious crime (4+ years imprisonment) to enable international cooperation under UN conventions

New UN Convention Against Cybercrime will open for signature in October 2024, requiring country implementation

ICANN is developing stricter service level agreements for takedowns and contractual penalties for repeat offenders

Public sector should give higher weight to quality and security in tender processes to create market incentives

Expand successful multi-stakeholder working methods from voice/SMS to internet-based services

Continue developing and deploying technology solutions like facial recognition for detecting misuse of public figures’ images

Unresolved issues

How to effectively balance data privacy protections with the need for rapid threat intelligence sharing, especially across different jurisdictions

Addressing the removal of signals from internet standards that are needed for consumer protection measures

Developing effective know-your-customer processes for domain registration while respecting privacy rights

Scaling law enforcement capabilities in developing countries that lack resources to combat sophisticated fraud operations

Creating unified global standards for fraud criminalization and enforcement across different legal systems

Determining optimal burden-sharing arrangements between public and private sectors for fraud prevention costs

Addressing cultural and jurisdictional challenges where some countries view scamming as acceptable economic activity

Developing effective awareness campaigns that don’t overwhelm users with fragmented messaging

Suggested compromises

Implement layered access models for domain registration data with tiered access based on legitimate purposes while protecting personal data through redaction or encryption

Develop centralized accreditation systems for vetted entities like law enforcement to request non-public data while ensuring GDPR compliance

Create collaborative frameworks between data protection authorities and industry stakeholders to align policies with privacy regulations

Use technical solutions like ICANN’s Registration Data Request Service to streamline secure data requests without overburdening registrars

Deploy fraud prevention technologies at the speed needed to counter fast-moving fraudsters while working with regulators to ensure compliance

Share the financial burden of fraud prevention across a triangle of customers willing to pay for security, government financing, and private sector investment

Focus on behavior and actor-based detection rather than content-based approaches for more effective and less privacy-invasive fraud prevention

We are targeted by organized criminal groups… The idea behind the convention is simply to promote cooperation. Because clearly, when it comes to fraud, there is nothing one single country can do in isolation, but we need a concerted effort by every single state.

Speaker

Riika Puttonen (UNODC)

Reason

This reframes fraud from individual criminal acts to organized transnational crime, elevating the discussion from technical solutions to international legal cooperation. It challenges the audience to think beyond national boundaries and technical fixes.

Impact

This comment shifted the discussion from viewing fraud as a technical problem to understanding it as an international organized crime issue requiring legal frameworks and international cooperation. It set the stage for later discussions about legal harmonization and cross-border collaboration.

Are the privacy rules now protecting the victims or the fraudsters?

Speaker

Johannes Vallesverd (Moderator)

Reason

This provocative question challenges the fundamental assumption that privacy protections are inherently beneficial, forcing participants to confront the unintended consequences of well-intentioned regulations.

Impact

This question created a pivotal moment in the discussion, prompting multiple panelists to address the tension between privacy rights and fraud prevention. It led to nuanced discussions about qualified rights, implementation challenges, and the need for balanced approaches rather than binary thinking.

The current status has been that there can be quite advanced sharing of information within each of those industry verticals, perhaps nationally, but there’s almost nothing that takes information across those different sectors and shares that information internationally. The scammers work internationally, they share information, and to fight it effectively, so do we need to do.

Speaker

Emily Taylor (Global Signal Exchange)

Reason

This observation highlights a critical asymmetry – criminals collaborate globally while defenders remain siloed. It exposes a fundamental structural weakness in current anti-fraud efforts.

Impact

This comment provided the intellectual foundation for understanding why existing efforts fall short and why cross-sector, international data sharing is essential. It influenced subsequent discussions about operational cooperation and the need for platforms like GSE.

So if you are a Telenor customer, you have some of the best security experts on your team at all times… In 2024, we could see that we blocked more than 2200 million attempts of fraud and digital crimes towards our customers in Norway. That’s similar to two attempts of digital crime each day towards our customers.

Speaker

Birgitte Engebretsen (Telenor Norway)

Reason

This quantifies the massive scale of fraud attempts and demonstrates the invisible protection that telecommunications companies provide, making the abstract threat tangible and personal for the audience.

Impact

These statistics provided concrete evidence of the fraud epidemic’s scale and shifted the discussion toward recognizing the critical role of private sector defense mechanisms. It supported arguments for public-private cooperation and burden-sharing.

For frauds and scams, content is important, but it’s a harder lever to pull… And they deliberately construct this to not be as obvious… Whereas it’s much harder for a fraudster to shift sort of their behavior or try to hide who they are.

Speaker

Rima Amin (Meta)

Reason

This introduces the ABC framework (Actor, Behavior, Content) and explains why content-based detection is less effective for fraud than for other harms like terrorism, providing strategic insight into platform defense priorities.

Impact

This comment deepened the technical discussion by explaining why traditional content moderation approaches are insufficient for fraud, leading to better understanding of why behavioral and actor-based detection are more effective strategies.

Rens brought up the issue of financial sextortion, and this is something I had personal experience with earlier this year, where I knew the victim and the victim took his life.

Speaker

Shiva Bisasa (Audience member from Trinidad and Tobago)

Reason

This personal testimony transforms the discussion from abstract statistics to human tragedy, highlighting the life-and-death consequences of fraud, particularly in developing nations.

Impact

This intervention brought emotional weight and urgency to the discussion, shifting focus to the human cost of fraud and the particular vulnerabilities of developing nations. It prompted responses about awareness campaigns, law enforcement capacity building, and the responsibility of platforms.

We’ve been scamming, and we have been scamming for about 3,000 years… 70 million animals have been mummified. In recent research in England, of the sarcophagus that were still there, they noticed that almost 33%, one in three was fake.

Speaker

Rens Grim (Global Anti-Scam Alliance)

Reason

This historical perspective provides crucial context that fraud is not a modern technological problem but an ancient human behavior, suggesting that technological solutions alone are insufficient.

Impact

This comment grounded the discussion in historical reality, preventing over-focus on technology as the sole solution and emphasizing the enduring human elements of deception and trust that must be addressed.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by elevating it from a technical problem-solving session to a comprehensive examination of fraud as a complex, multi-dimensional challenge. The comments created several important shifts: from viewing fraud as individual crimes to organized transnational crime; from siloed national responses to international cooperation; from purely technical solutions to human-centered approaches; and from abstract policy discussions to urgent human realities. The provocative question about privacy protecting fraudsters became a central tension that multiple speakers addressed, leading to nuanced discussions about balancing rights and security. The personal testimony about sextortion added emotional urgency and highlighted global inequities in fraud protection. Together, these interventions created a rich, multi-layered discussion that addressed technical, legal, operational, and human dimensions of fraud prevention, ultimately reinforcing the session’s core message about the need for coordinated, multi-stakeholder action.

How do we balance customers’ need for data privacy protection and secure communication channels with the need to share data between relevant actors, such as banks and telcos, in order to fight digital crime?

Speaker

Birgitte Engebretsen

Explanation

This represents a fundamental tension in fraud prevention efforts where privacy regulations may conflict with the need for data sharing to combat crime effectively

How can we get people like on this panel more involved in actually stopping those harms, those unintended harms, by engaging Internet standards?

Speaker

Andrew Campling

Explanation

Current and planned changes to Internet standards are removing signal needed for consumer protections and making it harder to identify criminals

How can we increase awareness in the Global South for developing nations? What is the responsibility of platforms to increase awareness on these scams?

Speaker

Shiva Bisasa

Explanation

Developing nations face unique challenges in fraud awareness and law enforcement capabilities that need specific attention

How can we get law enforcement up to date in developing countries, and if there is no mechanism to report these things to law enforcement, how can we report directly to the platforms?

Speaker

Shiva Bisasa

Explanation

Law enforcement in developing countries lacks the resources and mechanisms to effectively combat digital fraud

How do we push interventions as far left as possible in the attack chain to stop fraud at scale?

Speaker

Rima Amin

Explanation

Earlier intervention in the fraud attack chain is more effective at preventing fraud at scale

How can we utilize technology like facial recognition to counter frauds and scams while navigating regulatory requirements?

Speaker

Rima Amin

Explanation

New technologies for fraud prevention face regulatory hurdles that may slow deployment against fast-moving fraudsters

How can we reduce the time lag in threat signal sharing, currently averaging up to four days?

Speaker

Lucien Taylor

Explanation

Real-time threat intelligence sharing is crucial for effective fraud prevention but current systems have significant delays

How can we achieve uniform enforcement against rogue registrars globally?

Speaker

Nico Caballero

Explanation

There is a lack of consistent enforcement against registrars that enable phishing and other DNS abuse

How can countries achieve uniform criminalization of fraud as serious crime to enable better international cooperation?

Speaker

Riika Puttonen

Explanation

Different countries use different terminology and thresholds for fraud, hampering international cooperation in prosecution

How can we create clearer and more accessible privacy laws that enable legitimate fraud prevention while protecting fundamental rights?

Speaker

Emily Taylor

Explanation

Current privacy regulations are often difficult to understand and comply with, creating barriers to legitimate fraud prevention efforts

Summary

This discussion focused on advancing digital cooperation across regions and stakeholder groups, building on the 2024 parliamentarian track at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The session brought together parliamentarians, technical community representatives, private sector actors, civil society organizations, and intergovernmental bodies to explore practical approaches for collaborative digital policymaking.

Key themes emerged around capacity building and multi-stakeholder cooperation. Representatives from organizations like Internet Society and APNIC Foundation emphasized the importance of national and regional IGFs as platforms for norm-setting and knowledge exchange. Several parliamentarians highlighted the need for enhanced technical understanding among legislators, with speakers from Timor-Leste and Tanzania proposing specific mechanisms for integrating internet governance expertise into parliamentary committees.

A significant concern raised was addressing power imbalances between national governments and major technology companies. The German parliamentarian stressed the need for legislators to reclaim authority over digital platforms that currently operate with quasi-monopolistic power. This sentiment was echoed by speakers from Pakistan and Lithuania, who called for greater accountability from social media platforms regarding content moderation and compliance with national laws.

Regional cooperation emerged as a crucial element, with representatives from Africa, Latin America, and Europe sharing successful models. The African Union and various African organizations highlighted the African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance (APRINIC) as an effective capacity-building initiative. Similarly, Chile’s senator discussed future committees as innovative parliamentary structures for addressing digital challenges.

Several speakers emphasized the importance of trust as the foundation of digital cooperation, while others called for transparent and accountable AI development. The discussion concluded with strong support for creating ongoing platforms for parliamentarian collaboration beyond the annual IGF meetings.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Multi-stakeholder collaboration and capacity building for parliamentarians**: Multiple speakers emphasized the need for ongoing training and knowledge exchange between parliamentarians, technical communities, private sector, and civil society to bridge knowledge gaps in digital governance and AI policy-making.

– **Power imbalances and accountability of big tech companies**: Several parliamentarians, particularly from Germany and Pakistan, raised concerns about the quasi-monopolistic power of major technology platforms and the need for stronger mechanisms to hold them accountable to national laws and public interests.

– **Operationalizing digital cooperation beyond the IGF**: Speakers discussed practical steps for sustaining collaboration, including establishing permanent platforms for dialogue, creating knowledge-sharing portals, and integrating internet governance into parliamentary committee structures.

– **Regional cooperation and harmonization of regulatory frameworks**: Many participants highlighted the importance of regional networks (like APNIC in Africa) and the need to harmonize digital governance approaches across regions, especially to help developing countries build capacity.

– **Trust, transparency, and technical infrastructure protection**: Discussion centered on building trust in digital systems through transparency (especially in AI), protecting the technical underpinnings of the internet, and ensuring policy decisions don’t compromise global internet interoperability.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to move “from dialogue to action” by bringing together parliamentarians with multi-stakeholder representatives to identify concrete, collaborative approaches for advancing digital governance and sustaining cooperation beyond the Internet Governance Forum.

## Overall Tone:

The tone was constructive and collaborative throughout, with participants sharing experiences and best practices rather than engaging in confrontational debate. There was a sense of urgency about addressing digital governance challenges, but the atmosphere remained solution-oriented. The tone became slightly more pointed when discussing big tech accountability, but overall maintained a diplomatic and cooperative spirit focused on building bridges between different stakeholder groups.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Jennifer Chung** – Moderator, from DotAsia and 2025 MAG member

– **Olaf Kolkman** – Principal of Internet Technology Policy and Advocacy at the Internet Society

– **Raul Echeberria** – Executive Director of the Latin American Internet Association (private sector)

– **Abel Pires da Silva** – Former Chair of Infrastructure Committee, National Parliament of Timor-Leste

– **Rajnesh Singh** – CEO at APNIC Foundation (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre)

– **Anna Luhrmann** – Member of Parliament from Germany

– **Rodrigo Goni** – Member of Parliament from Uruguay

– **Anusha Rahman** – Senator from Pakistan

– **Nazarius Kirama** – President of Internet Society Tanzania chapter, from Tanzania IGF

– **Johannes Vallesverd** – Norwegian regulator

– **Becky Burr** – Representative from ICANN

– **Kenneth Pugh** – Senator from Chile

– **Laura Gerasim** – Member of Romanian Parliament, Chairperson of committee on investigation of abuses, corruptions, and petitions

– **Adel ElMessiry** – Justice from Egypt

– **Jekaterina Rojaka** – Lithuanian Parliament member, heads committee for suicide and violence prevention

– **Peace Oliver Amuge** – Works for Association for Progressive Communications, involved with AFRICIG

– **Munir Ibrahim Suroor** – Member of Parliament from Bahrain Kingdom

– **Guilherme Canela** – Director for Digital Policies and Transformation at UNESCO

– **Sarah Lister** – Director of Governance at UNDP

– **Sean Maher** – Global Vice Chair of Public Policy for EY

– **Shuaib Afolabi Salisu** – Senator from Nigeria, Chair of Nigerian Senate Committee on ICT and Cybersecurity, Chairman of West African Parliamentarians Network on Internet Governance

– **Amira Saber** – Member of Parliament from Egypt

– **Speaker 1** – Representative from IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union)

– **Brando Benifei** – Member of European Parliament, co-chair and lead negotiator for AI Act

– **Desiree Milosevic** – RIPE Corporation Working Group Co-Chair, RIPE NCC representative

– **Adil Suleiman** – Representative from African Union and APNIC (African Parliamentary Network)

– **Lillian Nalwoga** – Works with CIPESA (Collaboration on International ICT Policy for Eastern and Southern Africa), based in Kampala, Uganda

– **Mactar Seck** – Dr., Chief of Technology and Innovation at United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)

# Comprehensive Report: From Dialogue to Action – Advancing Digital Cooperation Through Multi-Stakeholder Parliamentary Engagement

## Executive Summary

This comprehensive discussion brought together parliamentarians, technical community representatives, private sector actors, civil society organisations, and intergovernmental bodies to explore practical approaches for collaborative digital policymaking. The session, moderated by Jennifer Chung from DotAsia and the 2025 MAG, aimed to move beyond theoretical discussions towards actionable frameworks for digital cooperation, building upon the successful 2024 parliamentarian track at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

The 19-minute session (which ran longer) was interpreted in English, Spanish, and French, and included representatives from diverse organizations including OpenAI, Ally, Google, Meta, ISOC, APNIC Foundation, ICANN, RIPE NCC, Center for Democracy and Technology, Oversight Board, AFRICIG, Atlantic Council, African Union, GIZ, UNDP, UNESCO, and UNICEF.

The dialogue revealed strong consensus around key digital governance challenges, with participants demonstrating agreement on the necessity of multi-stakeholder collaboration, the critical importance of capacity building for parliamentarians, the need for technical expertise to inform policy decisions, and the urgency of addressing platform accountability issues.

## Key Themes and Areas of Focus

### Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration and Governance Mechanisms

The discussion opened with strong emphasis on the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration. Olaf Kolkman from the Internet Society highlighted how “national and regional IGFs serve as collection points for norming and operationalising solutions that can be shared globally,” positioning these forums as crucial infrastructure for collaborative governance.

Raul Echeberria from the Latin American Internet Association provided insightful analysis of the cultural challenges inherent in multi-stakeholder cooperation, observing differences between consensus-building approaches common in internet governance and majority-rule systems in traditional politics.

Abel Pires da Silva from Timor-Leste’s Parliament advocated for specific working groups on AI, data privacy, and misinformation to improve multi-stakeholder collaboration. Rodrigo Goni from Uruguay introduced the concept of “future committees” in parliaments that practice multi-stakeholder governance and overcome traditional political dichotomies.

Johannes Vallesverd from the Norwegian regulator demonstrated practical multi-stakeholder cooperation through the Global Informal Regulatory Anti-Fraud Forum (GIRAFFE), which operates across 40 countries with participants from multiple nations. Norway’s anti-fraud measures have been particularly effective, blocking 61 million spoofed numbers over six months.

### Platform Accountability and Power Dynamics

Anna Luhrmann from the German Parliament raised fundamental questions about power structures in digital governance, arguing that “the actual power in the internet currently resides with the big tech companies that have in their respective fields quasi-monopolies in many areas.” She emphasized that parliamentarians, national governments, and the UN system lack sufficient power in this system.

Senator Anusha Rahman from Pakistan challenged existing legal frameworks, specifically questioning intermediary liability protections and arguing for making platforms more responsible for content on their platforms. She also highlighted Pakistan Senate’s launch of the first AI-generated chat platform for legislative transparency and information sharing.

Jekaterina Rojaka from Lithuania provided concrete examples of platform inconsistencies, noting that platforms block legitimate parliamentary content while allowing harmful content. She specifically mentioned harmful TikTok challenges that have caused deaths, demonstrating the real-world consequences of inadequate content moderation.

### Capacity Building and Knowledge Sharing for Parliamentarians

There was overwhelming consensus on the critical importance of capacity building for parliamentarians. Abel Pires da Silva emphasized the particular needs of developing countries, whilst Nazarius Kirama from Tanzania advocated for anchoring programming within permanent parliamentary committees to institutionalize internet governance.

Peace Oliver Amuge from the Association for Progressive Communications highlighted the success of AFRICIG, which has trained over 40 parliamentarians across three years (since 2022) with meaningful ongoing engagement. This example demonstrated the importance of sustained, long-term capacity building.

Guilherme Canela from UNESCO described the scale of international efforts, noting that the UNESCO-IPU joint program trained 3,300 parliamentarians and staff from 180 countries through online courses. This programme importantly included parliamentary staff, recognizing continuity challenges when elected officials change through electoral cycles.

Sarah Lister from UNDP emphasized coordination with international actors to support parliamentary digital transformation and AI regulation, whilst Mactar Seck from UNECA described capacity building modules on emerging technologies and knowledge-sharing platforms specifically designed for African contexts.

### Technical Infrastructure and Internet Governance

Technical community representatives provided crucial perspectives on the importance of understanding technical implications in policy decisions. Rajnesh Singh from APNIC Foundation emphasized that policy decisions must consider technical underpinnings to avoid breaking basic internet infrastructure.

Becky Burr from ICANN stressed that “ICANN focuses on coordination not control, ensuring globally interoperable and resilient internet.” This distinction between coordination and control proved important in discussions about governance mechanisms and sovereignty concerns.

Desiree Milosevic from RIPE NCC highlighted how technical coordination work maintains robust internet foundation that powers all digital services, emphasizing the often-invisible technical infrastructure that enables all digital governance discussions.

### Artificial Intelligence Governance and Regulation

AI governance emerged as a particularly important area with multiple approaches being proposed. Abel Pires da Silva called for transparent artificial intelligence mechanisms, arguing that current fears about AI stem from it being treated as a “black box” without understanding how it reaches conclusions.

Brando Benifei from the European Parliament described the EU AI Act as representing the “first co-legislative multi-stakeholder approach to regulating powerful AI models,” providing a concrete example of how regulatory frameworks can incorporate multi-stakeholder input whilst maintaining democratic oversight.

Sean Maher from EY emphasized that “technology doesn’t have to be in black boxes – audit and governance mechanisms can ensure compliance and effectiveness,” suggesting that transparency could be achieved through verification mechanisms.

Kenneth Pugh from Chile introduced concerns about AI bias and cultural appropriateness, advocating for investing in regional AI models to solve local problems rather than relying on models trained primarily on Anglo-Saxon data. Chile has also implemented Cybersecurity Awareness Month legislation as part of their comprehensive digital strategy.

### Regional and International Cooperation

Regional cooperation emerged as a crucial element for effective digital governance. Adil Suleiman from the African Union emphasized that parliamentarians should be incorporated in continental digital policy development cycles, demonstrating institutional commitment to parliamentary engagement.

Kenneth Pugh from Chile described building a coalition of parliamentarians with digital agendas across Iberoamerica, representing approximately 1 billion people and showing how linguistic and cultural connections can facilitate regional cooperation.

Shuaib Afolabi Salisu from Nigeria highlighted the West African Parliamentarians Network on Internet Governance, which addresses common challenges across the region. Senator Salisu also noted the absence of US senators or congresspeople in the discussion, despite the focus on big tech companies that are largely US-based.

Munir Ibrahim Suroor from Bahrain advocated for cross-border digital partnerships between public, private and civil society sectors, emphasizing multi-stakeholder regional cooperation rather than just government-to-government collaboration.

Lillian Nalwoga from CIPESA described the Uganda Parliamentary Internet Governance Forum with 31 members, demonstrating successful national implementation of global models adapted to local contexts.

### Specific National Initiatives and Best Practices

Several speakers shared concrete examples of successful digital governance initiatives. Norway’s comprehensive approach includes a four-point framework: regulate, know your customer (KYC), trace back capabilities, and accountability/transparency mechanisms. Romania has established committees for investigating abuses and corruption in digital spaces.

Laura Gerasim from Romania described their committee’s work on investigation of abuses and corruptions, while Justice ElMessiry emphasized using existing UN legal frameworks as the foundation for international cooperation.

The discussion included mention of upcoming events, including the UNDP-CPA-IPU conference on responsible AI in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and continued UNESCO-IPU collaboration on training parliamentarians and their staff on digital policy issues.

## Areas of Strong Consensus

The discussion revealed remarkable consensus across several key areas:

**Multi-stakeholder collaboration necessity**: Speakers from all stakeholder groups emphasized that effective digital governance requires bringing together diverse stakeholders including governments, private sector, civil society, and technical community.

**Critical importance of capacity building**: There was overwhelming agreement that parliamentarians need continuous capacity building and training, including parliamentary staff, with sustained rather than one-off programmes.

**Technical expertise in policymaking**: Strong agreement that policymakers must understand technical implications to maintain internet stability and interoperability.

**Platform accountability challenges**: Parliamentarians from different regions shared concerns about big tech companies’ inconsistent content moderation and resistance to national regulations.

**Regional cooperation value**: Speakers emphasized the importance of regional networks and cooperation to address shared digital governance challenges.

**Trust as foundation**: Both private sector representatives and civil society emphasized trust as the fundamental foundation for digital cooperation.

## Actionable Outcomes and Next Steps

The discussion generated several concrete action items:

**IGF Secretariat initiatives**: Creating an ongoing platform where parliamentarians can share legislative experiences, materials, and best practices beyond annual meetings. The Secretariat committed to gathering information for distribution to participants.

**Expanded participation**: Recognition of the need to include US parliamentarians in future IGF parliamentary tracks to address big tech accountability concerns.

**Capacity building expansion**: Strengthening integration between parliamentary track and main IGF programme, expanding participation in initiatives like GIRAFFE, and establishing regional parliamentary networks.

**Institutional changes**: Institutionalizing internet governance programming within permanent parliamentary committees and incorporating parliamentarians into continental digital policy development cycles.

**Upcoming collaborations**: The UNDP-CPA-IPU conference on responsible AI in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and continued UNESCO-IPU collaboration on training programmes.

## Conclusion

This comprehensive discussion demonstrated the strong potential for multi-stakeholder digital cooperation. The consensus around fundamental principles—the necessity of collaboration, the importance of capacity building, the need for technical expertise in policymaking, and the value of regional cooperation—provides a solid foundation for continued work.

The concrete examples shared, from Norway’s anti-fraud measures blocking 61 million spoofed numbers to Pakistan’s AI-generated parliamentary chat platform, demonstrate that effective digital governance is achievable when stakeholders work together with clear frameworks and sustained commitment.

The identification of specific action items and next steps, including the IGF Secretariat’s commitment to creating ongoing collaboration platforms, offers clear pathways for moving from dialogue to action. The success of this initiative will be measured by the concrete actions taken by participants in their respective roles and institutions to advance collaborative digital governance in the months and years ahead.

As Jennifer Chung noted in her closing remarks, the session’s collaborative tone and practical focus on actionable outcomes reflects the maturation of multi-stakeholder digital governance from theoretical discussions to practical implementation. The path forward requires sustained commitment to dialogue, continued investment in capacity building, and creative approaches to bridging different governance cultures while maintaining trust as the foundation for all digital cooperation efforts.

Jennifer Chung: It looks like almost everyone of us is a huge contributor to this event. Hello, everyone, and welcome. Welcome to the session from dialogue to action, advancing digital cooperation across regions and stakeholder groups. So building on the outputs of the 2024 parliamentarian track and the discussions you’ve had in this room for the past two days, this is the open dialogue session where we have multi-stakeholder representation and consultations to bring together the members of parliament and key digital players to reflect on how to operationalize, how to concrete tangible, inclusive, and collaborative policy-making efforts that you are doing all in your home jurisdictions. All groups are invited to propose collaborative and co-operative approaches to building digital governance and to identify practical steps for sustaining cooperation beyond the IGF. I’m your moderator. My name is Jennifer Chung. I’m from DotAsia and also the 2025 MAG this year. A little bit of housekeeping rules. So this session is scheduled for the next 19 minutes and interpreted into English, Spanish, and French. It’s an open dialogue, as I mentioned, with no panelists, but there will be support staff around the room, and I think I see them. Yes. Holding the mics. If you would like to take the floor, please do raise your hand. A brief reminder, the previous sessions that you’ve had included many different experts from the technical community, from the private sector, from civil society and intergovernmental organizations, and members of parliament. I know you’ve been waiting for an open dialogue as well. I know you have a lot to contribute in this session as well, and you’ve been discussing emerging trends on freedom of expression, information integrity, and other online harms. So we also have invited, of course, I see in the rows here, different representatives from the stakeholder groups, from private sector. I see representation from Open AI, from Ally, from Google and Meta. From technical community, I see ISOC. There is APNIC Foundation. There is ICANN. There should be RIPE NCC, I think, in the room as well, and Center for Democracy and Technology. From civil society and academia, we have the Oversight Board, AFRICIG, and Atlantic Council. We invite, of course, the whole of government, the executive, legislative, and judicial branch members to speak here. And from intergovernmental organizations, we have the African Union, GIZ, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, and, of course, the Parliamentary Associations and Organizations. Before I open the floor, there are some brief guiding questions, I think, which start to, you know, get your creative juices flowing and thinking about things you’d like to share. And after yesterday and today’s parliamentary track sessions, how can we operationalize concrete, inclusive, and collaborative policymaking efforts? Are there any proposals for cooperative approaches to building strong and efficient, effective digital governance? And also, finally, any practical steps for sustaining cooperation with members of Parliament and other valuable and important stakeholders beyond the IGF? So now, without further ado, I’m going to open the floor, and I’m seeing in the front row there are already representatives that might want to start us off. Maybe Olaf? From ISOC?

Olaf Kolkman: Olaf Kolkman, I’m a principal of Internet Technology Policy and Advocacy at the Internet Society. That means a lot. It also means not that much. But at the Internet Society, we have been basically trying to operationalize this interaction with policymakers for, I would say, the duration of our existence. And one of the ways we have been doing that, and there are numerous ways, is through the funding and enabling and training of national and regional IGFs. That is a way where you can have a very, very, very, very large number of IGFs, and that is a way where you can take the ideas that come out of the global IGF back to the national level, and vice versa. I see this as a flying wheel. Ideas and new norms are being discussed. Things that work are being sorted out at the national level. The Internet is global. Software is being developed global. The Internet itself is a global infrastructure, a network of networks. But at the local level, we have perhaps different norms than in other places in the world, and we have different approaches to how we organize our societies. And things that work at one place might be an inspiration for other places. I strongly believe that the national IGFs are sort of those collection points of norming, forming, and storming about solutions, and operationalizing those solutions. And then bringing them back in the regional level and the global level where people can discuss them and bring them back as examples of how to to collaborate and actually operationalize the things that you’re dealing with within your local and national jurisdictions. I don’t want to go on too long. I think this is I’ll be happy to answer any any questions you have.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you so much, Olaf, from Internet Society. Perhaps Raul, Raul from Allied, from private sector.

Raul Echeberria: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for the invitation to participate in this session. My name is Raul Echeverria. I’m the executive director of the Latin American Internet Association. It’s a private sector association. in Latin America. We have in our DNA the idea of cooperating with the policymakers. So we are always trying to find avenues of participation and collaboration with the policymakers. As Olaf said before, we have in the region regional IGF, and we have also national IGFs in many countries of Latin America. The participation of governments and parliamentarians is not is not very high in the in the in the regional and local IGFs. This is something that I hope we could change with this based on this experience of the parliamentarian track in IGF and that that allow many people to to have an idea, a more concrete idea, about what the IGF is and what the regional IGFs are. In addition to that, we are trying to promote other possibilities of cooperation and working opportunities to work together. We recently organized a meeting in in Mexico that were attended by 30 parliamentarians from the region. Colleagues from Uruguay joined us in that meeting. So we are very hopeful in this sense that that is a something that we are building, something in construction, but that we will progress in the in the future with bigger participation. But there are other initiatives ongoing. I think that if we take all these initiatives together, there are reasons to be optimistic in having a more cooperative work in the in the region. One thing that we have learned from all those years working in the in IGF and internet governance field is that the wisdom and expertise is highly distributed and so only with the participation of everybody we can really develop not only the best policies that we need, but also in the right time. Timing is not a minor thing. So this is a reason to encourage people to work together. Those of us who come from the internet community are accustomed to what we could call maximizing the consensus opportunities. We are accustomed to do that. We work hard until we realize that we achieve the best possible consensus. The traditional politics systems work in a different manner. Work not in the maximizing the opportunity of consensus, but based on the construction of majorities. That is a rule of democracy. So I think that we have to bring those two cultures close together, understand each other, and try to produce the best results we can. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Raul, for those really good collaborative proposals and suggestions. I now have on my list Abel Da Silva from Timor-Leste.

Abel Pires da Silva: Thank you very much, Jennifer. My name is again Abel Da Silva from Timor-Leste. I’m a former chair of the Infrastructure Committee in the National Parliament. So I would like to propose perspective from developing countries. I think, add on to what mentioned by the two previous speakers, I would like to propose three main points here. First is how to improve multi-stakeholder collaboration mechanism. Because we are coming from so many different backgrounds. You have Google here, big tech corporates with different interests, academics, governments, and also NGOs. So we have how to say, sometimes conflicting interests. So we need some sort of real mechanism for us to sit together and then discuss honestly about the issues we are facing here. For instance, we need perhaps specific, how to say, specific group on AI, data privacy, misinformation or disinformation, something like that. So that will increase our capacity to work together. The second issue, the point that I would like to promote is how to harmonize regional and global regulatory framework. Because if you if you try to engage with different countries from Western Hemisphere, they have more advanced capacity to develop their own legal frameworks. But if you’re speaking like from my background in East Timor, we have very, very, very limited capacity. So this kind of mechanism will help us to evaluate ourselves and then to plan and develop our capacity. The last point that I would like to suggest is that how to promote a more transparent artificial intelligence. Well, yesterday we visited the Parliament of Norway and they introduced something that’s really, really important, really, really interesting, which is a more accountable AI machine. At the moment, we are fearing AI because it has been treated as a black box. We don’t know how it reaches its conclusions. So that makes us very, very, how to say, suspicious of the machine. But if somehow we can develop a technology with a very transparent mechanism, then all of a sudden we don’t You don’t need to fear the machine anymore. We have more transparent way of accountability for the machine in how it reaches its conclusion. So that’s really, really important effort here. The last one, for the above three proposals, I think we really, really need to actually increase effort to enhance parliamentary capacity for digital policy-making process. And I think, speaking from my background, I think not only Timor-Leste, but other developed countries are in need of such capacity-development process. I think that’s all from me. Thank you so much.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you so much. You brought up very, very good points because, you know, even in a multi-stakeholder model or conflicting interests, I think that is actually somewhere where you can have open and frank dialogue. It’s really good. Building capacity is also extremely important. And of course, there’s transparent and accountable development of emerging technology like AI. I’m going to next go to Raj Singh from APNIC Foundation, right in front. Raj, please.

Rajnesh Singh: Thanks Jennifer. Good afternoon. My name is Raj Singh. I’m CEO at the APNIC Foundation. APNIC is the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre. Our claim to fame is that over the last 30 years, we have helped build most of the internet in the Asia Pacific region. As you all, I’m sure, are aware, the Asia Pacific is a very diverse region. We have some of the most advanced economies in the world and we have some of the least developed economies in the world as well. So the region itself has been a bit of a challenge in how we’ve been able to do things. And I was just listening to my colleague from Timor-Leste. A couple of things I would just like to say. As policy makers, you have a responsibility to reach or create outcomes for your citizens. But when you go down that path, I would urge you to consider that there are a range of technical experts around the world who are there ready to help you with those decisions. Oftentimes we see around the world, not just in the Asia Pacific, but around the world, there are decisions made at the policy level which don’t really take into account the technical under workings of the internet, the interoperability that is required to make things work. We rely on the internet every day, from your AI to whatever else that you use today. But what makes all that work is the internet. And once you start fiddling at the basic structure of the internet, you start creating a whole lot of problems that you may not realize. As I said, I have a lot of my colleagues here from the technical community. All of us are always ready to help you better understand what the implications could be of certain policy decisions that you make. Now, I know there are challenges at the higher layers of the internet, the applications we use, the services we use, but when you are working at those layers and trying to control things or change things, ensure that the decisions you make at that higher level do not affect the basic co-internet infrastructure. Because if we lose that basic co-internet infrastructure, all this other stuff won’t work either. So I think it’s very important to recognize and realize that. One very quick other point I’ll make, some of my previous colleagues spoke about IGFs and local IGFs and regional IGFs, APNIC Foundation has been supporting that since our inception as well. But there’s another group that work in all regions, which are also very, very important for you to recognize and engage with, and they are network operator groups. They are the groups from the private sector, from the public sector, from academia, who run the actual networks that we all use every day. Now, most of them compete at the commercial level, but they come together at these NOG meetings to solve technical problems. And again, in most of your economies, you will have network operator groups, and therefore you can be a good resource as well to better understand the technicalities of the internet and what policy implications, you know, how policy implications could affect the actual technical end workings of the internet. So, I’ll stop there. I’ve said quite a bit, but I’m happy to continue the dialogue, and I’ll offer you my card, say from Tim Oleste. We should have a chat. Yeah. Please. Thanks, Jennifer.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Raj. Very important as well. Near and dear to my heart, because I’m also a technical community, and it’s really important for policy decisions to actually take into account the technical underpinnings of the critical infrastructure of the internet. You know, don’t break the internet, is what we like to say. I think next on my queue, I do have a parliamentarian in the back. I think the lady with the glasses, yes, please.

Anna Luhrmann: Thank you. My name is Anna Luhmann. I’m a member of parliament from Germany, and since yesterday, I’m thinking about a comment that an esteemed colleague from Kenya made yesterday in the bigger session, the bigger room. Namely, it was a very strong plea for IGF to provide a forum to actually support us as national parliamentarians. in actually addressing the power dynamics that exist in the internet at the moment, which is that the actual power in the internet currently resides with the big tech companies that have in their respective fields quasi- monopolies in many areas, and that we as parliamentarians, as national governments, but also as the UN system as a whole, doesn’t have power in this system. I think that’s the fundamental problem that we should address here as parliamentarians, and that we should think about how we can use this forum, IGF, but also maybe potentially other ways of working together as parliamentarians across borders to actually address this issue, to make sure that we are the ones who voice the concerns of citizens, who voice the public interest, and that we get some power over the big tech companies that are currently playing with us as national governments, as national parliaments, as they want. Threatening to leave, threatening not to have a service, threatening not to pay this, threatening to maybe use some other tactics, and I think that’s something that we need to work on and use this forum also to address this, particularly when it comes to hate crimes, when it comes to issues that we were talking about, digital colonialism, that is a key concern I know from many colleagues here from the African continent, so I would like us to talk actually about that also as parliamentarians and think about that, while at the same time of course preserving the Internet, the technology behind it, and as well providing a space for freedom of speech, so that at the same time is something that needs to be safeguarded, so I also don’t want national governments or international organizations to limit the freedom of speech, on the contrary, to provide an even better realm for that, so that we can actually have a space where everyone feels encouraged and is not repressed in expressing themselves, no matter which gender, which orientation, which religion, which country, and I think currently we don’t have that, so I came here to work together with you on creating that.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, you brought together a very, very important point, adjusting the power imbalances, I think as well having a multi-stakeholder process and a way to dialogue in the way that we can talk to each other at the IGF, that is very important, and I don’t know, I’m looking at IGF Secretariat, maybe in the future parliamentarians can be even more integrated with the rest of the program where we don’t have to come to you or you don’t have to come to us, but it is together we have a dialogue, that’s very important. I think I have on my list next Rodrigo Goni from Uruguay,

Rodrigo Goni: yes, oh I’m sorry, can I speak in Spanish? Creo que después de haber escuchado y lo que sabemos de la de los challenges that are raised, the parliaments, yes or yes, have to put it in the center of their agenda and also integrate it into their activity. We have to bring all the issues that we are seeing to the parliament. Of course we have to overcome distrust for that, we have to change the paradigm that we have today in the parliaments, we have to get out of the reactive paradigm, we have to get out of the paradigm of wanting to control artificial intelligence, new technologies, the internet. We have to find a space in the parliaments to address all these challenges and we simply wanted to share an experience in Uruguay that other parliaments in the world are also doing, which are the future committees. Future committees have found a model that practices, cultivates the multistakeholder, practices early governance. It is a model that allows to overcome left and right dichotomies, because these issues really demand it and allow it. So, to invite the parliamentarians who are in this room today to cultivate this model, which I reiterate, in some parliaments is being implemented, and also that it allows the other parties, from ALAI, internet associations, industries, academia, to integrate in these spaces in a permanent way, not as guests of one day, not as guests of a second level, but as a in a parliamentary space, which is still the democratic space by antonomy to address and define the issues, but in a different model, in a different paradigm that allows to address this issue in the way that I think we all agree that we have to address it. And there, what is known, and the United Nations is encouraging it as that model of innovative and responsible anticipatory governance can be applied, and I reiterate, we are applying it in some parliaments and I think it is giving us good results. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much.

Anusha Rahman: First of all, I’d like to really appreciate this joint effort by the UN and IGF to put together a multi-stakeholder forum because this is what was missing from the IGF, to have the parliamentarians and to build out a guided policy framework with everybody on board. It was extremely essential and my compliments. And your launching ceremony today, where we could see the UN and the political leaderships all coming together, opened new opportunity for solving the issues that we’ve been debating for years. Now, in Pakistan, the Senate of Pakistan is the first Senate that I know of has launched the AI-generated chat platform where they are going to provide and use the technology for transparency and sharing of the information for legislative purposes. And this initiative under the chairman of the Senate, Mr. Yusuf Zaghilani, is a unique model that would be taken forward. And you would see Pakistan leaping in technology in terms of the parliament. But for me, one more important point is is that we consider internet as the public good. And appreciating that it is two kilometers above the ground still makes it within the bounds and the boundaries of the sovereign countries who have the right to legislate. Now, we are fighting over what is being legislated versus what is being violated. So what we are legislating in our own land is being infringed by companies, the platforms, who are very far away from us. So what we are trying to advocate is that please respect the law of the land. And when we are requesting you to harmonize with our laws, we find a very blanket answer that we are not responsible for the content that goes on the platform. This is the basic flaw now in the legislation that we have had, is providing intermediary liability protection to the social media platforms, absolving them of the content that is placed on that platform, which essentially is the responsibility of the social media company that runs it. So I would say that the parliamentarians who are sitting here to go back and review their legislation and see that we can put more onus on the social media companies to be more responsible with respect to the content. Otherwise, this is going to become very ugly, because I see the temperature of the parliamentarians going up very fast, because the citizens are demanding their online rights to be the same as their offline rights. But the countries are failing to give the guarantee of the online rights to their citizens in the same way that they could or be accountable for their offline rights. So I would say that the countries are now or have crossed that point where they were continuously sending the request to the social media platforms and sitting on those requests, waiting for them to take action. There is a review that is required by the social media companies, and I would request the IGF to put some sense into their heads and make them realize that before the water is actually above the heads, it’s important to review the whole landscape in which we are working. Thank you very much.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, Senator from Pakistan. I think it’s a very important point, especially internet as a public good, looking at learning from the unique platform that Pakistan is actually going to establish. The next person I have on the list is Nisar. Nisar, please go ahead.

Nazarius Kirama: I thank you, Jennifer and Celine, for putting this together. My name is Dr. Nisar Nicholas Kirama from Tanzania IGF, and I also serve as the president of the Internet Society Tanzania chapter. Mine is just a very simple proposal in terms of actually actualizing programming of the capacity building. My idea is that everything should now be upside down. They should start from the parliament. For example, the National Assemblies have all these permanent committees on, for example, infrastructure. So my idea is we do the programming for the capacity building, for the awareness within the parliament committees. So when the parliamentarians come to a space like this, instead of actually getting lectures from stakeholders, they start actually lecturing from the point of what they are actually achieving in terms of internet governance from their parliament. So the idea is to have everything anchored and programmed within the permanent committees of the parliament. For example, in Tanzania. we have a permanent committee on infrastructure, so if we are able to anchor this and make it home for the Internet Governance in the Parliament, we will be able to achieve a lot. I’m saying this because if you think about 10 years ago when UNDESA, you know, make the Internet Governance Secretariat a home for it, you know, we’ve been able to achieve a lot. So my proposal is let us institutionalize the programming and programming of the Internet Governance things, I might say, within the Parliament, so when they are doing the policy making and legislating, they are legislating actually from the lenses of Internet Governance. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Nazar, and thank you for sharing the learnings from Tanzania. I think you echo a lot of the things that have been said from Raj, from AAPNIC Foundation, from our Parliamentarian from Germany, as well as Timor-Leste. The next person I have on the list has the mic, please go ahead.

Johannes Vallesverd: Thank you very much. My name is Johannes Wallesward and I’m from the Norwegian regulator. Welcome to Norway. Pleasure to have you here. So I’m just ignited by this fantastic overview that we need to go from talk to action, so I would just mention a couple of actions that you might be interested in, and I’m very interested to hear your reflection afterwards. So in Norway we have created a multi-stakeholder group trying to generate increased trust in digital communications. It’s a national expert group against digital fraud, consisting of police, banks, network operators, and security professionals. So what we’re trying to do is then to do operational measures, so we actually managed to, through the MNOs, put up a digital shield, so to speak, around Norway. Norway, making it almost impossible to spoof Norwegian numbers coming into Norway. So for six months we have blocked, there have been blocked 61 million numbers, mobile numbers. So the reason why I’m saying this is that the whole notion of action, you need to some, one of you explained it here, you need to also do it together with industry. So we have also tried to expand this notion of multilateral, multilateral stakeholder together on a more global level. So we have together with industry, with something called One Consortium, it’s an international carrier industry, we have together created something called GIRAFFE, which is the Global Informal Regulatory Anti-Fraud Forum, I know it’s a long, long word, but it, so we’re trying to, we are now 40 members, 40 participants in the meeting, including from Nigeria, also from Colombia, from the US, from Brazil, we have had participation from, in some of the meetings from Australia. We miss a little bit more of the Asian footprints, so if there are any Asian regulators, please contact me. The goal is to get a global best practice on enhancing digital trust. So I will give you, before I end, I will just give you four of the key elements that have come up, so it can be used either nationally, in your national legislation, or it can be more used internationally for a best practice. So one, regulate. You can regulate, nationally, spoofing. You can regulate taking action against misuse and fraud. You can regulate age limits. Second, KYC, know your customer. You can regulate obligation that you should at least know the customer. Third, trace back. You should have some obligation to provide trace back of fraudulent traffic. Accountability, and also transparency. So we are now in the sort of a pathway where we should maintain freedom of speech. we should not have freedom of fraud. We should put up operational sidebars, so that the good guys know where to go. And the good guys want to go in the right way, but we need to set up the clear path for them, the sidebars. And then we can build up reputation on those who want to follow the best practice, and those who don’t, okay, we’ll never have a perfect world where everybody will follow the best practice, but we could meet at least make it transparent who are following the best practice and who are not. So that’s why we are also, in collaboration with UNODC, try to get there on board to endorse this best practice that we hope we will get ready next year. This is a two-year project, so we are in a hurry, but we are going to try. Thank you very

Jennifer Chung: much, and thank you, of course, for welcoming us to Norway, it’s a beautiful country. I think there was a call to action there about Asian AIPAC colleagues to actually find our Norwegian regulator, and it’s good to know about the global best practice to enhance digital trust. The next person I have on the list is Becky Burr from ICANN.

Becky Burr: Thank you, and thank you for welcoming us to Norway. It’s a beautiful country, and I just want to say what we’re seeing today is a really good example of what’s important about internet governance. ICANN is about coordination, not control. We’re part of the ecosystem, and we work hard to ensure that all of the policymaking that parliamentarians are entitled to do in their country, that all of the regulatory work is informed and has access to the technical information that you need to provide policies that are coordinated and consensus-based, practical and implementable and globally coherent policies. By working together in an environment like the IGF, all of us come together as peers. We then go back to our work, better informed about what everybody else is doing and how the internet works and what we can do to make sure that it stays globally interoperable and resilient. We think that it’s wonderful that there’s this parliamentary track in IGF because you are all very important to maintaining a globally interoperable, not fragmented internet. I think one of the other speakers mentioned that the technical community is available and willing to provide technical input and information whenever you are thinking about regulation lawmaking, please take advantage of the technical resources that are available in your country, in your region, and globally.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Becky. Very important points, ICANN does a lot of the coordination of critical internet resources and it’s really good to hear also another aspect and view from the technical community. Next I’m going to go to Kenneth Pugh, our senator from Chile.

Kenneth Pugh: Thank you, Jennifer, I’m Kenneth Pugh, senator from the Republic of Chile, South America. Why is it important to be sharing our experiences here? Because maybe we face the same problem but different ways. In our country, I started eight years ago at the Senate trying to build a digital transformation agenda. The problem, this was not a political issue. Every march for the digital agenda, there are no votes. My colleagues say, you’re wasting your time. Well, I’m working for the next generation, not for my re-election. And that is very important because this should be a cause. And when we are speaking digitally, we need to secure the environment. So cyber security is actually a very important aspect, but not the traditional definition. It’s a nearly broader definition from data protection to protection of critical infrastructure, protecting the environment, but granting all the rights of the people, taking control of this information, but with digital ethics. We need then to add all these elements all together. So in our experience, and what I want to share with you, is our last seven years. First, we created a law in order to define a month dedicated to these events, taking the good experience of Europe. North America. Cybersecurity Awareness Month, you can call it whatever you want, and a month to update information, threats and everything, they’re changing, but also to force to have exercises, digital exercises, to prevent as you have to face earthquakes, tsunamis, you have to train, and you have to train every year and check that capability. Companies, they use ISO, and they, yes, make check boxes, but they really are not relying on what they did. Second, we create a forum, and a forum in a country is very special because you can have everybody. If we want to have a global governance, we have to first govern our countries and get together all the stakeholders and the meaningful stakeholders, because sometimes there are different levels. One little example of knowledge on Internet, Wikimedia, Wikifoundation with Wikipedia, they are the fifth most used website in the world. They’re trying to get funds from everywhere. If we want to have a system like an Internet without knowledge and proven logic checked, we need to invest in this. So we have to give them time in order to ask the legislators to work. Then having a forum with a platform, you have to have both physically, physical connection, and a platform working, you can get all the feedback you need for public policy. You need a strategy and a plan. What we did, we’re using the university, the model of maturity capabilities of Oxford University, but planning to 15 years. 12 years, it’s good enough. Why we say 12 years? It’s a time that goes from grade 1 to grade 12. So it’s more a political view rather than 5 or 10 years where you cannot really achieve it. What we are working now is to create a coalition of parliamentarians that have digital agendas. Digital agendas are very specific, it’s a lot of knowledge, and we need this parliamentarian bench across our region, and our region is Iberoamerica. That means Spain, we have three colleagues from Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and all Latin American countries. We are 1 billion people all together, and the artificial intelligence, which is now trained with material learning, I hope for good, with models from Anglo-Saxon countries and data from them, they’re not resolving our problem. So we are investing in our own models. Yesterday we were presented with a Nurean solution, it’s in Norwegian, but we are going to try to understand it. But now we’re going to invest in creating models that can solve our problems. So we need to have this as part of our national strategy, build it, then make the coalition. We would like to work with all the parliamentarians with the digital agendas, that they really will be focused with knowledge on this, and to have this bench, to have it at the higher level. Global level is much more difficult, and that’s something we’re living for United Nations, but as I said, it’s good to share the experiences and to see what’s working, what’s not working. In Chile, my colleagues call me the cyber senator, because I’m always involved in this issue. I hope there will be many of you then in the same public policy way. Thank you very much.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, legislator from Chile. The next I have on the list is legislator, member of parliament from Romania, please.

Laura Gerasim: Hello everybody, thank you for having us here. My name is Laura Gerasim, I’m member of the Romanian parliament, and I’m speaking today not only as a member of a parliament, but mother of a 16 years old daughter, and of a 24 years old son, that they are using all the gadget, and everything you prepare here, or in your countries, and I also want to tell you something. I’m the president, I’m the chairperson of the committee on investigation of abuses, corruptions, and petitions. And it is where the voice of the citizens arrive, where the voice of the institutions close. And I think here we are all together because of the values, and I want to remember you, these kind of values, the freedom of speech, the freedom to have the plane and arrive here, to bring our culture, our problems, our worries. So please, use this platform to promote peace, because if we have it online, we can keep it also offline. It is important to also have critical thinking, to have education for critical thinking, and to be sure that all together we use the algorithm for the people and not the people for the algorithm. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much for the learnings from Romania. Good reminder that we need to use this for peace. Again, you know, quoting from someone that I know, the internet is a reflection of the society, and we need to have that also. The next person I have on the list is our justice from Egypt. Justice Adel Majid.

Adel ElMessiry: Thank you. As a matter of fact, I’ve been hearing your nice comments, all of you, and I can find that there are some specific issues representatives are focusing on, like hate speech, respecting human rights, freedom of speech, this issue, and strengthening international cooperation. And I’m going to ask you, as a panel, and other stakeholders and parliamentary representatives, we have a legal framework which is organizing everything. We have many resolutions by the UN General Assembly on internet, on digital information, on cyber crimes, and most of these resolutions refer to international cooperation and ask states to strengthen international cooperation between them and ask developed countries to assist developing countries in issue of capacity building because you can’t engage international cooperation unless you have capacity for this. Recently, last December, the UN have adopted the United Nations Convention Against Cyber Crimes. One of the goals of this convention is to strengthen cooperation between states to combat cyber crimes committed by means of communications and technologies. And then, as I mentioned before, it’s repeat and repeat, please, international cooperation. So while I’m attending the forum, as a matter of fact, I didn’t hear about this legal framework, the UN legal framework, that is, I am not saying it is obligatory, sometimes it’s obligatory after states sign the treaties or conventions, but why we don’t use this legal framework as a base for our work, for our cooperation? And I’m putting this comment as a question to everybody. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much. This is from Egypt, and it’s really important to remember we do have treaties and legal frameworks, especially the ones that would strengthen cooperation between states, especially regarding cyber crime, very, very important. The next person I have on the list, yes, right in the front there.

Jekaterina Rojaka: Thank you very much. Ekaterina Rayakova, Lithuanian Parliament. Well, there was a very good mention about the Committees of the Future. We also have the Committee for the Future, so we do collaborate with the stakeholders on a pretty much weekly basis, raising all the issues, all the questions, however, I’m also heading a committee for suicide and violence prevention, and I just want to talk about the dual standards, where legislation is already put in, but there are kind of dual standards regarding what social networks can do and what they can’t do, because every single time when we are on the open parliament session on YouTube, when we start our session, we name the name of the committee, and they block us, because it’s suicide, so it’s out of the range. Then, of course, they reinstall, but there are so many harmful YouTube roles that are not stopped, and again, we have quite a lot of accidents, and just very recently, we have two lives lost because of the harmful TikTok challenges in Lithuania, so it is definitely important, what a colleague from Armenia told about the critical thinking, but again, the critical thinking, and this is the part of the program which is already fully integrated in our schools, and unfortunately, there is still a rise of addiction, also because the younger children could access restricted things via internet, unfortunately, and there are also quite bad statistics regarding the effect on the children, so unfortunately, I very much believe in the business, and the responsibility of the business, however, nowadays, I see that there is definitely a lack of mechanism that is really working, because the longer we are looking for this balance, the harsher the response would be from the government, and we are talking now further regarding the hash taxation of the platforms, or the total responsibility on the content, so we definitely need to make it clearer, and we make it now, and also to make it more globally, because even a national response wouldn’t be enough, we definitely need it regional, and we definitely need it global. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, yes, there’s always this balance we need to strike, and I think it’s important from the parliamentarians, those who are looking at this, to actually figure this out, the balance between child protection and online harms, and also in enabling enriching environment, where you can have knowledge, and you can use this technology and network of networks for good. Next on my list, I have a representative from AFRICIG, is it Peace?

Peace Oliver Amuge: Yes, Peace, please. Thanks very much for the mic. My name is Peace Olivamu. and I work for the Association for Progressive Communications, that in partnership with the research ICT Africa and African Union, brings together the school on Internet governance, African School on Internet Governance, AFRICIC. And I will briefly say that this is a very impactful project that I have worked on in my life and I’m very proud to share how impactful it is. We work in collaborations with the parliamentary track, with other partners that support the school, like GIZ, Luminate, ISOC, ICANN, PRR, Identical Digital and host governments whenever the Africa IGF is happening. And through the parliamentary track, since 2003 until now, those are three years, we’ve had over 40 members of parliament come to AFRICIC. So it’s really something great. And when you, like in this room, we have very many AFRICIC alumni members of parliament that have continued to meaningfully engage in the space. And not only at Africa, I mean at global IGF, but also at Africa IGF, at sub-regional IGF and national IGF. So I think this is a great way to build capacity of members of parliament and ensure that they can meaningfully engage in conversations of IGF and yeah, make meaningful contributions in their different parliament. We only don’t bring members of parliament, of course, we have other stakeholder groups that come and some of the outputs that we have, all the output that we have are really resourceful tools that different stakeholders can use for policies and the rest. In 2023, 2022 first, we had a recommendation to the open-ended working group on cybersecurity and we were giving out recommendations from the African perspective. In 2023, we made a recommendation, a multi-stakeholder recommendation to the implementation of African Union data policy framework. In 2024, our output looked at the African Union data framework and African continent of free trade area digital protocol. And we also gave recommendations to its implementation, we looked at the two documents. And this year, we are finalizing on our output that is giving a recommendation to the CSTD working group on data governance. So this is something that can be replicated in other regions and I just want to call out on anyone who is interested to support such initiatives and we are very grateful to the parliamentary track. We are very committed to continue to do this and have members of parliament join the school and interact and engage with the different stakeholders that join the school. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, Peace. You brought together a very important point as well, capacity building, especially in the schools of Internet governance. I know Africa region is doing a lot of very good work. I know Latin America has the South School of Internet Governance as well that does a lot of work for parliamentarians. In Asia Pacific, there is also AP SIG and APIGA as well. The next person I have on the list is from Bahrain, the Shura Council. Please.

Munir Ibrahim Suroor: Hi. Assalamu alaikum. My name is Munir Surur. I am from Bahrain Kingdom, a member in the Parliament of Bahrain. I have some notes I would like to share with you. We all recognize that the digital world is shared space. When will the government, the private sectors, civil society and academia must work together? The more we build. bridge between these sectors, the great capacity will be promoted and will be inclusive growth and address common challenges. Based on our legislative and oversight experience, I believe we can focus on three areas. First, we need to develop new legal frameworks by developing flexible and supportive legislation that promote the exchanging of data and best practice, while ensuring privacy and respect the surfacing thing. Number two, investing in human capacity. Provide the detailed skills and capacity, build a program to bridge the knowledge gap across regions and the stakeholders’ groups. Number three, establish sustainable coordination mechanism by creating permanent platforms for dialogues and follow-up between countries and organizations to ensure country and measurable progress. Allow me also to highlight what Kingdom Bahrain is doing in this field. Bahrain has made significant progress in creating an inclusive digital ecosystem that supports innovation and collaboration. Our national strategy such as the Economic Vision 2030 and National Communication Plan have accelerated digital transformation across all sectors. Furthermore, Bahrain was one of the first countries in the region that introduced cloud first place policy to public sector service, braving the way we create openness and cross borders partner. Additionally, Bahrain has invested heavily in the capacity building through initiatives like Bahrain Institute of Finance and Temkin programs, which support youth and professionals in acquiring advanced digital skills. These efforts have strengthened cooperation between public and private sectors and enhanced regional partnership and supporting start-up ecosystem to integrate into international network. Some practical recommendations I would like to recommend. Supporting cross-border digital partnership between public, private and civil society sectors. Sharing successful initiative across region to scale up solution that work. Launching dedicated fund and a partnership to support innovation and local digital internships, especially in under-revered community. In closing, strengthening digital collaboration across region and stakeholder group is not only shared responsibility, it is real opportunity to achieve sustainable and inclusive digital development to everyone. And then I have question, if you allow me, how we can leverage our experience to encourage deeper region collaboration and ensure that country across the Gulf and Middle East can equally benefit from this achievement. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, learnings from Bahrain and that call there for deeper regional collaboration. And I’ll take that initiative to also call for deeper inter-regional and international cooperation as well. I do have, one, two, three, four, I have eight more on my list so far, but before I go to the next eight speakers, I’m just wondering if we do have anybody from open AI in the room. I’m not seeing any. And in that case, I’d like to go next to UNESCO. Hello, everyone.

Guilherme Canela: Good afternoon. My name is Guilherme Canela. I’m the Director for Digital Policies and Transformation at UNESCO. But for many years, I was the Head of Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists, so connecting these two worlds. So very briefly, three things that can contribute to the action part of the title. We have a joint agreement with the Inter-Parliamentarian Union, precisely to offer to MPs all over the world this overview of the international standards on freedom of expression applied to these different discussions we have here today. And there are some good news there. Last year, we launched a massive online course with the Inter-Parliamentarian Union. 3,300 parliamentarians and their staff did the course from 180 countries. So the first good news is that, as you can see here, there’s lots of interest. Second important point, we can’t forget about the staff of the parliaments, because parliamentarians rotate a lot, is the logic of democracy, but their staff remains. So they also need to receive capacity building, and they are very much interested on that. And the third lesson learned, in many countries, there are schools of parliamentarians, official institutes, and we need to engage them in this conversation as well. And all those things were very much part of this initiative with the IPU. With also with IPU, we are offering some technical support for parliaments that are drafting legislation about these issues, with the aim of guaranteeing that this draft legislation is aligned with international human rights law. So this is the first thing. Second thing, cross-fertilization between the different duty bearers. UNESCO also has a big program for training judges and prosecutors, just from Egypt, Egypt just mentioned the importance of this. We have trained 36,000 judges and prosecutors on these issues, and we are putting them in touch with the parliamentarians, because some of the questions. are similar, and we also have a global program for regulators, and also with UNDP, with electoral authorities. So, putting all these different players together is essential because the problem is too complex to solve it alone. And the final issue, as a suggestion for the action, we also work a lot with women parliamentarians, which are particularly and unfortunately targeted with this current situation, technologically facilitated gender-based violence and so on. And there are several lessons learned from other constituencies. For example, the women journalists are also very much attacked, and there are different tools available out there that could be shared among those different groups. So, from UNESCO, obviously, always ready to help. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you, UNESCO. Very important points, especially when we’re looking at capacity building for parliamentarians, their staff, their aides, and also schools for parliamentarians, especially pointing out women parliamentarians. I think the next person I have is right in the middle of the room here. Yes.

Sarah Lister: Hi, I’m Sarah Lister. I’m Director of Governance at UNDP. So, it’s a good segue from my dear colleague Guilherme at UNESCO, and I will just add a few things to what he said in terms of what the UN system is doing to move from dialogue to action. So, UNDP supports parliaments in our partner countries on many of the issues that we’re talking about today in their digital and AI transformation, and we coordinate our support offer with other international actors, such as UNESCO, IPU, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and others. And so, we work alongside those in supporting knowledge development, training, capacity building, peer expert networking, cooperation, and practical tools for regulation, oversight, and public engagement on these issues. And UNDP, together with IPU, co-hosts an expert group on parliamentary and digital policy to support this work. So, I wanted to bring that to the attention of those in the room, and it serves as a global platform for parliamentarians, parliamentary staff, whom Guilherme mentioned, academics, and representatives from international organizations to exchange information on these issues, share good practices, and develop resources jointly. And we are joined in that expert group with representatives from other organizations, CPA, IGF, Parl America, and others. And in that light, just to highlight that UNDP is planning, together with CPA and IPU, a conference on the role of parliament in shaping the future of responsible AI, to be held at the end of November in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. So, we’re expected to bring together parliamentarians from across regions and parliamentary staff to further that conversation on parliamentarians and responsible AI. So, I’m participating in another session tomorrow, this is a bit of a PR slot at 2.45 where we’ll be talking about some of the lessons from that engagement. Thank you very much.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much UNDP, UNESCO and UNDP, very good work that you do with the IPU and I think the call to action there is to go to this conference that’s shaping the responsibility of AI in Kuala Lumpur. Okay, the next person I have on the list is Sean Maher from EY, right in the middle of the room.

Sean Maher: Thank you Jennifer and Celine for inviting EY to be here. Hello everyone, my name is Sean Maher, I’m the Global Vice Chair of Public Policy for EY, we’re a large global professional services organization. I am not a parliamentarian, I am not a former parliamentarian, however, I have worked for former parliamentarians in the federal government of the United States, as well as for a former president, and one of our finest but least known former parliamentarians was a gentleman named Morris Udall from Arizona, and he was known for his patience and he would often be among the last speakers in a very long meeting of his fellow parliamentarians, and he would stand up and he would say, everything has been said, but not everybody has said it. And then he would proceed to make his statement, touching on the comments of his various colleagues. So in that spirit. Jennifer, you’ve challenged us to think about practical steps that we can take to advance digital cooperation, and we at EY have thought and think a lot about that issue. And I would just make a couple of high-level observations. One is trust is the foundation of digital cooperation. And trust has two ingredients. One is communication. And forums like this play such an important role in advancing communication and understanding among all stakeholders in the digital ecosystem. The other is verification. And I don’t know if we have anyone in the room who speaks Russian, but I want to apologize because I’m about to butcher your wonderful language. But the saying that comes to mind is trust but verify. And that really goes to the heart, I think, of the challenge we all face, regardless of whether we’re in the public sector, the private sector, the nongovernmental space. How do we verify that the AI and other technologies, systems that we’re developing, we’re deploying, we’re using every day, how do we verify that those systems are as we say they are or as we believe them to be, that they’re safe, that they’re effective, that they’re reliable? That’s a critical, critical issue that requires the work of all of us across society. We, as I say, spend a lot of time thinking about this. We believe there are practical steps that are being taken today that can continue to be taken in an expanded way. way to build trust in the technologies that are playing an increasing role in all of our lives. The foundation of our organization is audit, auditing companies, auditing governments. This is a foundational principle. So the technology that we see today does not have to be in a black box. It doesn’t have to be something that’s not comprehensible to us. We have the ability to understand it, to make sure it is properly governed, to make sure it complies with any applicable rules and regulations, and to make sure it is effective for the purposes that it’s created. We would welcome an opportunity to talk with you more about some of the work we’re doing in this area. But again, my thanks to all of you for everything you’re doing here at the IGF, in your home countries and around the world.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, Sean, reminding us trust is the foundation of the dual cooperation. Next on the list, I have Senator Salisu from Nigeria.

Shuaib Afolabi Salisu: Thank you. My name is Senator Shoeba Falabe Salisu from Nigeria. I chair the Nigerian Senate Committee on ICT and Cybersecurity, and I’m also the chairman of the West African Parliamentarians Network on Internet Governance. I’d like to speak to three issues very quickly. First one is an appreciation, the second is an observation, and the third is a request. Let me start with the appreciation. I’d like to appreciate the IGF Secretariat, particularly for this year’s edition of the parliamentarian track. You could see how engaged the parliamentarians are, because the issues that we are discussing are issues that are very important to us, and I could see that. I would like to thank the IGF for this, and we must also thank the UNDP, UNESCO, IPU, ICANN on to the table, so I would like to start on a note of our presentation. Now moving to observation, I discovered that almost all the issues I talked about in my presentation are related to the IGF, so I would like to start on a note of our presentation. Discovered that almost all the issues are the same, particularly in the global south, from Malaysia to Pakistan to Mauritius, even Romania, the issues seem to be the same, the challenges of making laws, the laws that are more often than not trailing behind the development and also trying to hold the social media big giants accountable. Be that as it may, how comforting will it have been if you have a US senator, a congressman sit with us, listening to us as we express frustrations, as Romania, as Philippines, experience frustrations, also the roles and worth the big tech companies, who are largely US companies, are doing in terms of not respecting national laws, national values, and helping us to address the issues of disinformation and misinformation. I think it would be nice for the next IGF, for the IGF sectariat, the same way we have senators from Europe, from Romania, from Africa, from Asia, to also have parliamentarians from the US to sit with us, so perhaps they can share their thoughts and views as to how they have been able to have legislations or moral solutions to ensure that the the big tech companies, the same algorithm, the same accountability that they have in their home countries, they also extend it when they come to other parts of the world. Lastly, the request. I have listened in the last two days to some very innovative and very creative means that parliamentarians from different parts over the world have adopted. I’m making a request on the IGF sectariat. Can we have a portal, a platform, where we could go and have a glimpse of some of this? Where I can go and say, well, I am about to lead an effort to have a cyber crime act in Nigeria amendment. Is there anyone who has done something similar that can share views and materials with me? Or, oh, we’re looking at amending the Data Protection Act. Is that something new that we need to incorporate from the recently adopted UN conventions? I think we need such a forum beyond the conversation that we have here, something that can go on on a regular basis. Do peer review, share information, put inside there, and then have these conversations, not just within the period of the IGF alone, but on a long-term basis, even when we return back to our various parliament. Again, I’d like to thank the IGF sectariat for this opportunity, and I bring you the best wishes and goodwill of the government and people of Nigeria.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, Senator El-Solisu from Nigeria. I think IGF sectariat hears you loud and clear. We’ll probably try to take that proposal forward as well. Next, I have Amira Saber from Egypt.

Amira Saber: Thank you so much. I am a member of parliament, Amira Saber from Egypt, and it brings to my mind this kind of important dialogue, several tips, actually. Whenever in Egypt we have a kind of a grant, or… alone, I’m very keen to scrutinize on the topic of exchanging experiences because sometimes we just have the experts coming from the UNDP, coming from whatever UN agency, they consult, but the amount of knowledge and experience that needs to be transmitted, it doesn’t happen unless there is a certain track for transmitting this digital cooperation to national entities and parties inside Egypt. One other important thing is the experience which we had at APNIC. APNIC is a network, it is the African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance and this network is adding a lot to the African parliamentarians in terms of digital cooperation to see what really works in a country and what could possibly work in another and when it comes to the role of legislators, was it to put a legislation on the table or to scrutinize the budget or to ask the government and held them accountable for whatever topic related to internet connectivity, AI, any related topic, the experience exchange is extremely important, especially for legislation. I introduced the first draft bill to the Egyptian Parliament on AI governance and I learned a lot from the space which had the EU Act, which had another contributions from diversified and different parliamentarians from Africa and somewhere else in the world. So what I suggest here clearly is that we meet from one year to another at the IGF. I suggest that all across the year, away from the African IGF to or whatever other group of the IGF, the parliamentary track could have from time to time sessions that talk to the UN agencies, that talk to the experts, that brings all the stakeholders together and also we could have a room for exchange of experiences along with other MPs. All the time it’s about the knowledge gap, all the time it’s about the exchange of experiences and how much of them could be inspiring others to move and to act. I think this could cross the divide in a way or another. Thank you. Thank you

Jennifer Chung: very much. The learnings from the Africa region and Egypt, I think that’s really important to actually attire closer, not just at the global IGF but the regional schools, the regional IGFs, even the national IGFs. I think I have a very quick response from the IPU to the senator from Nigeria, IPU.

Speaker 1: Just a quick response. Thank you very much. And yes, taking good note of the observation and request from the member of parliament from Nigeria for ongoing exchange of information, what are different parliaments doing on these subjects we’re discussing? So one of the initiatives at the IPU at the moment is to publish a monthly summary of parliamentary actions on AI policy. So we try to observe and report on which parliaments are taking different kinds of actions, whether that’s introducing legislation, carrying out committee reports and inquiries, so that different parliaments can see what their peers are doing and can help to make contact and to learn from each other, as we do in this kind of forum, but also in other ways. And so what we’re observing is that many parliaments, currently 37 parliaments are listed. Many parliaments are considering framework legislation, but other parliaments are setting up specialized institutes on AI. Sometimes it’s the education committee carrying out an inquiry or the health committee, et cetera. There are many types of parliamentary actions, and it’s part of our job to help to share that information and help you connect to each other. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, IPU. And from IPU, I have, next, going to European Parliament, Brando Benifei. European Parliament, please.

Brando Benifei: Yes, thank you very much for this opportunity. I think that this topic is extremely relevant. We see from the different interventions. And I would like to underline that we are now, in this moment, as European Union, trying to do some very special and very important work, and we will see from your interpretation and also the word interpretation that we will see multiple interventions that will be able to enact an event for when the European Union becomes Committee Member. So, yes, Moderator. I think we discuss a lot of issues here about proprietarian governments and pro-European governments I’m a member of the European Parliament, and I’m the co-chair of the European Parliament, which is a multi-stakeholder process in this sense, so on the involvement of stakeholder groups, but also across regions, which is the work based on the AI Act of which I was the lead negotiator for the European Parliament, which is the code of practice, which is being developed with a multi-stakeholder discussion in the EU, and also with the European Parliament, and also with the European Parliament and the EU at all, that are contributing to, and in fact we are in the final phase on these code for how to operationalise the obligations of the AI Act for the most powerful models, the ones we define as bearing systemic risks, because of their role in the EU, and also in the European Parliament, and also in the European Parliament, and also in the EU at all. So this is the first case of rules that are the fruit of a co-legislative process regarding this specific very high level of the AI, the one that is, in fact, the engine of everything today. And this entails also the need to actually have, and I say that as a guarantee that these authors should be perhaps regulated, because the truth is that institutions have difficulty in checking that we actually can apply these rules on such complex entities, like very powerful big tech companies, that are behind these very powerful models. very powerful models. the objective of this regulating is in fact to put more transparency and more obligations to reduce risks on those very powerful subjects. On the other hand we do need their cooperation because to make this operational and to avoid a situation of extreme confrontation but rather of cooperation in the way we implement the rules we need to have this dialogue and in fact their active involvement which was there in the development of the code of practice. This has brought two different results I can say as a parliamentarian who chairs the implementation working group of the AI Act that there are stronger and in our view I know I can speak on this in the name of the working group we have a clear position a better in our view result in terms of defending fundamental rights so reducing risks on fundamental rights including damage to democracy through the very powerful models. While we could say that on copyright protection and downstream transparency so from the larger providers to the various deployers that are under the original providers until we reach to the actual affected user on this part of transparency some of us could say we could get more but in the end we are finalizing that that’s going to be real at the beginning of August and I think it will become obviously an interesting element to discuss how we regulate the most powerful models but also and I conclude and this was the reason of my intervention the way we did it because it’s a co-legislative multi-stakeholder in fact involving people from outside Europe in this work that is very unique. If it will be effective, we will see. But the reasoning is the one I explained, the very strong difficulty that we need always to reflect on, on containing and controlling in a way that is effective, very powerful actors that are exercising a state-like power sometimes, even though they are not. And the institutions, sometimes they need to find a way so that they can be brought into a process and then can be more transparently checked. Thank you very much.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, European Parliament, noting our time is really coming to an end very, very soon. I have four last speakers on my list. I will tell you who they are so you are ready to take the mic. Next, I’m gonna go to RIPE NCC, Desiree in the front. After that, I will come to Africa Union. After African Union, I will come to CIPESA. I think that’s Lillian. And our last speaker will come from UNECA. Desiree, please.

Desiree Milosevic: Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Desiree Milosevic. I’m a RIPE Corporation Working Group Co-Chair and the RIPE NCC provides the secretariat for the RIPE technical community. And I’m really pleased to see such a big room with a lot of discussion, very useful discussion, just introduce the RIPE NCC as a technical coordination body, whose work plays an important and essential role in maintaining the resilient and robust internet. And we do that with registering IP addresses and other key resources and also doing the registration of these resources throughout Europe, throughout the Middle East, and the part of Central Asia. And the work of NCC contributes directly to the sustainable digital goals as well as the WSIS action lines by helping connect the unconnected. And we work with many stakeholders, including governments and parliamentarians to help them realize and build some capacity building for this important foundation that we run, which powers then all the digital services that run on this foundation, be it artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and all the applications and platform. And with our capacity building efforts, we are not just doing the capacity building by involving other stakeholders, but also in upskilling engineers in these regions. So that is a part of our contribution. I think the other thing I would like to say that perhaps today when we look at the Internet Governance Forum, which is the premier platform for internet governance discussion, it is important to recognize that it has this record and has achieved a record of inclusive dialogue. And I believe this is what we need to come here together with tools and trust, the colleague earlier said from EU, and the time to share our expertise together and to support, to invest in our shared policymaking platform as we hear today and hopefully also continue with these efforts. So because of the time, I think I will stop here and please stop by and we’re happy to continue our conversation with the UIP and the RIPE NCC is a member of the European Internet Platform. So these discussions are also taken back within European Union and likewise, there are governmental roundtables in Southeastern Europe, in the Middle East, and parts of Central Asia. So we really welcome the opportunity to talk to you. Thank you.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Desiree, for highlighting all the good work that RIPE NCC is doing and please do to grab Desiree afterwards if you have any more questions. I’m gonna come to the front now to African Union from Adil Suleiman. Thank you.

Adil Suleiman: Thank you very much. I’m going to speak on behalf of the African Union and APNIC, the African Parliamentary Network. When we established this network in 2022, we were very nervous, we want the network to survive, so we focused on two elements. We focused on making sure that it’s a part of the African IGF, we have a fixed track on African IGF since 2022, and then we provided also capacity building, but it’s not sustained capacity building, it was like a couple of session on capacity building. We, thanks to, by the way, thanks to the support we received from UNDESA and also GIZ, but now we want to go to the next level. We are responsible for developing continental policy, digital continental policy, and we want our African parliamentarian to be part of this policy, actually policy development, policy adoption, policy implementation, policy domestication. Today we rely on our member state to nominate candidate, and most of the time they are not parliamentarians, so we want to make sure that parliamentarian are incorporated in the policy development cycle within the African Union Commission. I think this is very important, it’s a very concrete proposal, and we also want our parliamentarian. to receive continuous training. I think it was mentioned all the time that they need continuous training. As I said, we are working with GIZ to get parliamentarians to participate in the African IGF, the UN IGF, but also now, thanks to our collaboration with the EU, we have a new program called PRIDA, which is Policy Regulation Initiative for Digital Africa, aimed at providing capacity building for youth, parliamentarians, established national IGF, and so forth. So we want to make sure that also they receive sustained capacity building, because you know the environment is very dynamic, and it is important that they receive, so that they can be also part of the policy development. Then also, we are very limited in terms of resources. We want to make sure that also during the UN processes, our parliamentarian can be part of this negotiation. We know that we have staff in New York, but we want to make sure that they get complemented by our parliamentarian at their work, so that they can provide guidance and advice. And I think finally, I was also to echo the comments from the honourable parliamentarian from Nigeria. I think it’s important to have a platform where parliamentarians from all over the world, they come together and exchange knowledge, expertise, what works, what doesn’t work. So it’s very important. So I think now we are doing it throughout the African IGF, the UN IGF, but I think it’s important to have this separate track, where all the parliamentarian meet and then exchange expertise. Thank you very much.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, African Union. We have our final two speakers, and of course, thank you, Tech, for indulging us for a few more minutes. We’re running a little over. Last two speakers, we have one from, I think it’s Lilian from CIPESA, if you could be a little brief with your remarks.

Lillian Nalwoga: Thank you. Thank you so much, Jennifer. I feel I’m under pressure, because I’m holding you between now and the next session. My name is Lilian Naroga, based in Kampala, Uganda, and I work with CIPESA, which is the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for Eastern and Southern Africa. We are a non-government organization. We work around advocating for digital policies, inclusive digital policymaking within Africa, and our work on the parliamentary track, we’ve been engaging with parliamentarians within Uganda and in East Africa, mainly on the issue of digital policymaking, and I’m happy to hear APRINIC being mentioned, because I think one of the key recommendations that came from APRINIC is to strengthen national processes, and in Uganda, we have a member of parliament who is part of APRINIC, who went ahead and registered the Uganda Parliamentary Internet Governance Forum, and it consists of 31 members. They are very active, and this year, when we held the Uganda Internet Governance Forum, the Uganda Parliamentary Forum was launched officially by the Parliament of Uganda, and we had the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, and the Minister were happy to launch this forum. So, in terms of collaborating, the key message that perhaps I can put out to parliamentarians within this meeting is, we listen to so much, we come, we have conversations at these processes, but when we go back home, we should be able to concretize and take action, and this is what we are seeing happening in Africa, and I think maybe in terms of collaborations, even if we don’t know what’s going to happen to the IGF after this, but these processes that have been established need to be able to provide input. So, if there’s APRINIC in Africa, maybe there should be something in, you know, there’s, I think, Eurodig or, you know, other kind of, you know, processes. So, our work has mainly been around capacity building, and with support from GIZ, we currently are working at the East Africa community level, pushing for the adoption of an East Africa digital governance strategy, and we are working, we are training, working with members of parliament from the East Africa Legislative Assembly in being able to understand the policies, because one of the things is, members keep changing, members of parliament keep changing, and this year we have elections in Uganda, we don’t know if the same members will come, but when we target at institutional level, working directly with institutions like, say, the Ugandan Parliament or the East African Legislative Assembly, then you know there will be continuity. So, that’s the key message that I wanted to share from what we are doing within East Africa, and thank you so much.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, Liliane, for sharing. It’s really good work, again, there, coming from the Africa region. Our final speaker, the last word, we do have UNECA, I believe this intervention will be done in French.

Mactar Seck: Give me to speak in French, it’s okay. My name is Dr. Magata Sek, I’m the Chief of Technology and Innovation at United Nations. Commission for Africa. Let me highlight some key activity undertaken by UNECA. I’m going to do it in French. Qu’est-ce que nous avons remarqué au niveau du continent africain? Les parlementaires ont un rôle important au niveau de l’élaboration des lois politiques et règlements au niveau de leur pays, surtout en matière de technologie de l’information et de la communication. Et ceci, ce n’est pas seulement en Afrique, c’est dans tous les pays du monde. C’est le rôle du parlementaire de voter les lois, de les examiner, de faire des amendements. Le problème qui se pose en Afrique, c’est que nos parlementaires ne sont pas bien formés avec le développement rapide de ces technologies de l’information. On parle d’emerging technologies, frontières technologies, on parle d’intelligence artificielle, on parle d’internet des objets, on parle de nanotechnologies, de biotechnologies, on va parler aussi de quantum technologies plus tard. Comment outiller nos parlementaires? On vient ici et nous avons un programme de capacity building, de renforcement des capacités de ces parlementaires africains. Comment on renforce leurs capacités? On a des modules de formation sur ces technologies, AI, blockchain, comment on peut développer les policiers et aussi des guidelines pour les parlementaires pour pouvoir adopter les politiques en matière de la stratégie nationale, en matière de la technologie de l’information. Plusieurs parlementaires en ont bénéficié. On a organisé récemment durant African IGF en Tanzanie un cours sur l’intelligence artificielle politique et aussi à Cotonou. Je vous rappelle que ICI also gère l’African Internet Governance Forum Secretariat avec l’Union africaine. Une autre activité, je pense que l’honorable délégué de l’MP de Nigeria, it is knowledge-sharing. We are developing now a knowledge-sharing platform to share experience and best practices across the continent and across other regions. What is the best rule and regulation in terms of technology? How a country like America, Latin America, or Europe find a solution for the dis- and misinformation? And why we are going to now to develop a strategy, African strategy guideline for mis- and disinformation, because it is a big challenge across the continent. Also, we are going to work with several African countries to develop a platform for dis- and misinformation to exchange all information, all best practices across this policy. It is what we are doing now at UNECA, and I think before I conclude, I would like to congratulate Celine for the successful organization of this African parliamentary track, and congratulations, and well done. Thanks.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, UNECA. I think you should give yourselves a big round of applause. There’s a very good best practices shared, resources shared. I think we heard that trust is the foundation of digital cooperation. I hear, you know, we need to address power imbalances. I hear so many things. Conversation is here. It’s here in the IGF. It’s here in this room, in the corridors. I hope you take advantage of all of this. I’ve been asked to do a little bit of housekeeping as well. We will be meeting again at half past for the final session of the day, but there is coffee break right now. IGF Secretariat has been very diligently gathering all the information that we heard during the session, and I believe they will be distributing and circulating all these resources to all of you. Thank you very much. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential for effective digital governance

Speakers

– Olaf Kolkman
– Raul Echeberria
– Anna Luhrmann
– Rodrigo Goni
– Johannes Vallesverd
– Jennifer Chung

Arguments

National and regional IGFs serve as collection points for norming and operationalizing solutions that can be shared globally

Multi-stakeholder model allows maximizing consensus opportunities, unlike traditional politics based on majority construction

Multi-stakeholder processes need to address power imbalances between big tech companies and national governments

Future committees in parliaments practice multi-stakeholder governance and overcome left-right dichotomies

Global Informal Regulatory Anti-Fraud Forum demonstrates operational multi-stakeholder cooperation across 40 countries

Multi-stakeholder dialogue should be integrated rather than separated, bringing parliamentarians and other stakeholders together

Summary

Multiple speakers emphasized that effective digital governance requires bringing together diverse stakeholders including governments, private sector, civil society, and technical community to work collaboratively rather than in isolation

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Capacity building for parliamentarians is critically important

Speakers

– Abel Pires da Silva
– Nazarius Kirama
– Peace Oliver Amuge
– Guilherme Canela
– Sarah Lister
– Mactar Seck
– Jennifer Chung

Arguments

Need to enhance parliamentary capacity for digital policy-making, especially in developing countries

Programming should be anchored within permanent parliamentary committees to institutionalize internet governance

AFRICIG has trained over 40 parliamentarians across three years with meaningful ongoing engagement

UNESCO-IPU joint program trained 3,300 parliamentarians and staff from 180 countries through online courses

UNDP coordinates with international actors to support parliamentary digital transformation and AI regulation

UNECA provides capacity building modules on emerging technologies and develops knowledge-sharing platforms

Capacity building is extremely important for effective digital governance participation

Summary

There was strong consensus that parliamentarians need continuous capacity building and training to effectively engage with rapidly evolving digital technologies and governance challenges

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Technical expertise must inform policy decisions to avoid breaking internet infrastructure

Speakers

– Rajnesh Singh
– Becky Burr
– Desiree Milosevic
– Jennifer Chung

Arguments

Policy decisions must consider technical underpinnings to avoid breaking basic internet infrastructure

ICANN focuses on coordination not control, ensuring globally interoperable and resilient internet

RIPE NCC’s technical coordination work maintains robust internet foundation that powers all digital services

Technical community input is essential for policy decisions to avoid breaking internet infrastructure

Summary

Technical community representatives and moderator agreed that policymakers must understand and consider technical implications to maintain internet stability and interoperability

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Platform accountability and content governance need improvement

Speakers

– Anna Luhrmann
– Anusha Rahman
– Jekaterina Rojaka

Arguments

Big tech companies threaten to leave or withdraw services when faced with national regulations

Social media platforms should respect national laws rather than providing blanket intermediary liability protection

Dual standards exist where platforms block legitimate parliamentary content while allowing harmful content

Summary

Parliamentarians from different regions shared frustration with big tech companies’ inconsistent content moderation and resistance to national regulations

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Regional cooperation and knowledge sharing are vital

Speakers

– Kenneth Pugh
– Shuaib Afolabi Salisu
– Adil Suleiman
– Munir Ibrahim Suroor

Arguments

Building coalition of parliamentarians with digital agendas across Iberoamerica (1 billion people)

West African Parliamentarians Network on Internet Governance addresses common challenges across the region

African Union wants parliamentarians incorporated in continental digital policy development cycle

Need flexible legislation promoting data exchange while ensuring privacy and respecting sovereignty

Summary

Speakers from different regions emphasized the importance of regional networks and cooperation to address shared digital governance challenges

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the need to make AI and technology systems transparent and auditable rather than incomprehensible black boxes

Speakers

– Abel Pires da Silva
– Sean Maher

Arguments

Need for transparent and accountable AI development to move away from ‘black box’ decision-making

Technology doesn’t have to be in black boxes – audit and governance mechanisms can ensure compliance and effectiveness

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Both emphasized that digital rights should match offline rights and that technology should serve people rather than the reverse

Speakers

– Anusha Rahman
– Laura Gerasim

Arguments

Citizens demand same online rights as offline rights, requiring government accountability

Internet should be used to promote peace and critical thinking, using algorithms for people not vice versa

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Both emphasized the importance of using existing international frameworks and sharing information to facilitate cooperation and learning among parliamentarians

Speakers

– Adel ElMessiry
– Speaker 1

Arguments

UN legal framework including cybercrime convention should be used as base for international cooperation

IPU publishes monthly summaries of parliamentary AI policy actions to facilitate peer learning

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Unexpected consensus

Trust as foundation of digital cooperation

Speakers

– Sean Maher
– Jennifer Chung

Arguments

Trust is foundation of digital cooperation, requiring both communication and verification mechanisms

Trust is the foundation of digital cooperation and multi-stakeholder processes enable open dialogue despite conflicting interests

Explanation

It was unexpected to see both a private sector representative (EY) and the session moderator independently emphasize trust as the fundamental foundation for digital cooperation, suggesting this principle transcends stakeholder boundaries

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Need for long-term strategic planning in digital governance

Speakers

– Kenneth Pugh
– Munir Ibrahim Suroor

Arguments

12-year digital strategy planning allows for comprehensive educational system transformation

Bahrain’s cloud-first policy and Economic Vision 2030 demonstrate comprehensive digital transformation approach

Explanation

Unexpected consensus between Latin American and Middle Eastern parliamentarians on the need for long-term (10+ year) strategic planning for digital transformation, showing shared understanding across different regions

Topics

Development | Infrastructure

Importance of including parliamentary staff in capacity building

Speakers

– Guilherme Canela
– Sarah Lister

Arguments

UNESCO-IPU joint program trained 3,300 parliamentarians and staff from 180 countries through online courses

UNDP coordinates with international actors to support parliamentary digital transformation and AI regulation

Explanation

Unexpected specific focus from international organizations on training not just parliamentarians but also their staff, recognizing the continuity challenge when elected officials change

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

Strong consensus emerged around five key areas: the necessity of multi-stakeholder collaboration, critical importance of capacity building for parliamentarians, need for technical expertise in policymaking, platform accountability challenges, and value of regional cooperation. There was also notable agreement on making technology transparent rather than black-box systems.

Consensus level

High level of consensus across diverse stakeholders and regions, indicating mature understanding of digital governance challenges. The convergence of views from parliamentarians, technical community, international organizations, and private sector suggests these principles could form the foundation for actionable digital cooperation frameworks. However, the consensus was more about identifying problems and principles rather than specific solutions, indicating need for continued dialogue on implementation mechanisms.

Different viewpoints

Platform accountability and content responsibility approaches

Speakers

– Anusha Rahman
– Jekaterina Rojaka
– Anna Luhrmann

Arguments

Social media platforms should respect national laws rather than providing blanket intermediary liability protection

Dual standards exist where platforms block legitimate parliamentary content while allowing harmful content

Big tech companies threaten to leave or withdraw services when faced with national regulations

Summary

Rahman advocates for removing intermediary liability protection and making platforms responsible for content, while Rojaka focuses on inconsistent content moderation standards, and Luhrmann emphasizes addressing power imbalances. They agree platforms are problematic but differ on specific solutions – legal liability changes vs. moderation consistency vs. power redistribution.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Approach to AI governance and transparency

Speakers

– Abel Pires da Silva
– Brando Benifei
– Sean Maher

Arguments

Need for transparent and accountable AI development to move away from ‘black box’ decision-making

EU AI Act represents first co-legislative multi-stakeholder approach to regulating powerful AI models

Technology doesn’t have to be in black boxes – audit and governance mechanisms can ensure compliance and effectiveness

Summary

Da Silva calls for transparent AI mechanisms, Benifei describes the EU’s regulatory approach with multi-stakeholder involvement, while Maher emphasizes audit-based verification. They agree on the need for AI accountability but differ on methods – transparency requirements vs. regulatory frameworks vs. audit mechanisms.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Multi-stakeholder governance implementation approaches

Speakers

– Raul Echeberria
– Rodrigo Goni
– Anna Luhrmann

Arguments

Multi-stakeholder model allows maximizing consensus opportunities, unlike traditional politics based on majority construction

Future committees in parliaments practice multi-stakeholder governance and overcome left-right dichotomies

Multi-stakeholder processes need to address power imbalances between big tech companies and national governments

Summary

Echeberria promotes consensus-building approaches, Goni advocates for institutional parliamentary changes through future committees, while Luhrmann emphasizes addressing fundamental power imbalances. They agree on multi-stakeholder importance but differ on implementation – consensus maximization vs. institutional reform vs. power redistribution.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Unexpected differences

Absence of US parliamentary representation in global discussions

Speakers

– Shuaib Afolabi Salisu

Arguments

Need for ongoing platform where parliamentarians can share legislative experiences and materials beyond IGF meetings

Explanation

Salisu specifically called out the absence of US senators or congresspeople in the discussion, noting that while parliamentarians from Europe, Africa, and Asia were present to discuss frustrations with big tech companies (largely US-based), there was no US parliamentary perspective. This represents an unexpected structural disagreement about representation in global internet governance discussions.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Reliance on existing UN legal frameworks vs. new governance mechanisms

Speakers

– Adel ElMessiry

Arguments

UN legal framework including cybercrime convention should be used as base for international cooperation

Explanation

ElMessiry’s emphasis on using existing UN legal frameworks as the foundation for cooperation stands in contrast to other speakers who focused on creating new multi-stakeholder mechanisms, capacity building programs, and innovative governance approaches. This represents an unexpected disagreement about whether to build on existing legal structures or develop new governance models.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed moderate disagreements primarily around implementation approaches rather than fundamental goals. Key areas of tension included platform accountability mechanisms, AI governance methods, and multi-stakeholder implementation strategies. Most disagreements were constructive, focusing on different pathways to achieve shared objectives of better digital governance.

Disagreement level

Moderate disagreement with high potential for convergence. The disagreements were largely tactical rather than strategic, suggesting that collaborative solutions addressing multiple approaches simultaneously could be developed. The absence of certain key stakeholders (particularly US parliamentarians) may limit the comprehensiveness of proposed solutions.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the need to make AI and technology systems transparent and auditable rather than incomprehensible black boxes

Speakers

– Abel Pires da Silva
– Sean Maher

Arguments

Need for transparent and accountable AI development to move away from ‘black box’ decision-making

Technology doesn’t have to be in black boxes – audit and governance mechanisms can ensure compliance and effectiveness

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Both emphasized that digital rights should match offline rights and that technology should serve people rather than the reverse

Speakers

– Anusha Rahman
– Laura Gerasim

Arguments

Citizens demand same online rights as offline rights, requiring government accountability

Internet should be used to promote peace and critical thinking, using algorithms for people not vice versa

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Both emphasized the importance of using existing international frameworks and sharing information to facilitate cooperation and learning among parliamentarians

Speakers

– Adel ElMessiry
– Speaker 1

Arguments

UN legal framework including cybercrime convention should be used as base for international cooperation

IPU publishes monthly summaries of parliamentary AI policy actions to facilitate peer learning

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Key takeaways

Trust is the foundation of digital cooperation, requiring both communication and verification mechanisms

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential but requires new mechanisms to address conflicting interests and power imbalances between big tech companies and national governments

National and regional IGFs serve as crucial collection points for developing and sharing digital governance solutions that can be scaled globally

Parliamentarians need continuous capacity building and institutionalized internet governance programming within permanent parliamentary committees

Technical expertise must inform policy decisions to avoid breaking basic internet infrastructure while addressing higher-level application concerns

Platform accountability requires reviewing intermediary liability protections and ensuring social media companies respect national laws and values

Regional cooperation and knowledge sharing are essential, especially for developing countries with limited regulatory capacity

AI governance requires transparent, accountable development moving away from ‘black box’ decision-making toward auditable systems

Digital rights online should match offline rights, with particular attention to protecting vulnerable groups like women parliamentarians and children

International legal frameworks and UN conventions should serve as the foundation for cross-border digital cooperation

Resolutions and action items

IGF Secretariat to create an ongoing platform/portal where parliamentarians can share legislative experiences, materials, and best practices beyond annual meetings

Include US parliamentarians in future IGF parliamentary tracks to address concerns about big tech accountability

Expand Asian participation in the Global Informal Regulatory Anti-Fraud Forum (GIRAFFE)

Strengthen integration between parliamentary track and main IGF program rather than separate sessions

Develop knowledge-sharing platform for exchanging best practices on misinformation and disinformation strategies

Institutionalize internet governance programming within permanent parliamentary committees

Create sustained capacity building programs rather than one-off training sessions

Incorporate parliamentarians into African Union continental digital policy development cycle

Establish regional parliamentary networks similar to APNIC in other regions

Continue UNESCO-IPU collaboration on training parliamentarians and their staff on digital policy issues

Hold upcoming UNDP-CPA-IPU conference on responsible AI in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Develop African strategy guidelines for addressing mis- and disinformation

Unresolved issues

How to effectively balance child protection and online safety with maintaining an enriching digital environment and freedom of expression

Mechanisms for ensuring big tech companies apply the same accountability standards globally as they do in their home countries

How to address the fundamental power imbalance between sovereign governments and quasi-monopolistic tech platforms

Sustainable funding models for ongoing parliamentary capacity building and knowledge sharing platforms

Technical implementation details for transparent and accountable AI systems that move beyond ‘black box’ decision-making

Harmonization of regional and global regulatory frameworks while respecting national sovereignty and local values

How to ensure continuity of digital governance expertise as parliamentarians change through electoral cycles

Effective enforcement mechanisms for international digital cooperation agreements and conventions

Balancing innovation and technological development with necessary regulatory oversight

Addressing digital colonialism concerns while maintaining global internet interoperability

Suggested compromises

Multi-stakeholder approach that brings together competing interests (government, private sector, civil society, technical community) in structured dialogue rather than adversarial relationships

Co-legislative processes like the EU AI Act that involve industry cooperation in developing implementation guidelines while maintaining regulatory authority

Maximizing consensus opportunities (internet governance approach) while respecting democratic majority-based decision making (traditional politics)

Using algorithms and technology ‘for people’ rather than ‘people for algorithms’ – human-centered approach to digital development

Operational measures that maintain freedom of speech while eliminating ‘freedom of fraud’ through clear guidelines and reputation systems

Flexible legislation that promotes data exchange and innovation while ensuring privacy protection and respecting national sovereignty

Anchoring internet governance within existing parliamentary committee structures rather than creating entirely separate processes

Building on existing international legal frameworks (UN conventions) while allowing for regional adaptation and implementation

Combining technical expertise with policy-making authority through structured consultation processes

Gradual implementation of platform accountability measures through dialogue and cooperation rather than immediate confrontational regulation

Anna Luhmann’s plea to address power dynamics: ‘the actual power in the internet currently resides with the big tech companies that have in their respective fields quasi-monopolies in many areas, and that we as parliamentarians, as national governments, but also as the UN system as a whole, doesn’t have power in this system. I think that’s the fundamental problem that we should address here as parliamentarians’

Speaker

Anna Luhmann (German MP)

Reason

This comment was particularly insightful because it reframed the entire discussion from technical cooperation to fundamental power structures. Rather than focusing on capacity building or technical standards, Luhmann identified the core issue as a power imbalance between democratic institutions and tech corporations, introducing concepts of digital colonialism and corporate threats to national sovereignty.

Impact

This comment created a significant shift in the discussion’s tone and focus. It moved the conversation from collaborative problem-solving to addressing systemic power imbalances. Subsequent speakers, particularly from developing nations, began echoing themes of sovereignty and accountability, with speakers like Senator Anusha Rahman from Pakistan directly building on this theme by discussing how platforms disregard national laws.

Raul Echeberria’s observation about different working cultures: ‘Those of us who come from the internet community are accustomed to what we could call maximizing the consensus opportunities… The traditional politics systems work in a different manner. Work not in the maximizing the opportunity of consensus, but based on the construction of majorities. That is a rule of democracy. So I think that we have to bring those two cultures close together’

Speaker

Raul Echeberria (Latin American Internet Association)

Reason

This comment provided crucial insight into why multi-stakeholder cooperation often fails. By identifying the fundamental difference between consensus-building (internet governance culture) and majority-rule (democratic political culture), Echeberria highlighted a structural challenge that underlies many of the cooperation difficulties discussed.

Impact

This observation helped explain many of the frustrations expressed by parliamentarians throughout the session. It provided a framework for understanding why technical experts and politicians often talk past each other, and influenced later speakers to focus more on bridging these cultural gaps rather than just sharing technical knowledge.

Abel Pires da Silva’s call for ‘transparent artificial intelligence’: ‘At the moment, we are fearing AI because it has been treated as a black box. We don’t know how it reaches its conclusions… But if somehow we can develop a technology with a very transparent mechanism, then all of a sudden we don’t need to fear the machine anymore’

Speaker

Abel Pires da Silva (Timor-Leste Parliament)

Reason

This comment was thought-provoking because it shifted the AI governance discussion from regulation and control to transparency and understanding. Coming from a developing nation perspective, it highlighted how the ‘black box’ nature of AI creates particular challenges for countries with limited technical capacity, while proposing a solution focused on explainability rather than restriction.

Impact

This comment influenced the discussion by introducing the concept that fear of AI stems from lack of understanding rather than inherent danger. It connected to later discussions about capacity building and technical cooperation, with several speakers referencing the need for transparency and accountability in AI systems.

Senator Anusha Rahman’s challenge to intermediary liability: ‘This is the basic flaw now in the legislation that we have had, is providing intermediary liability protection to the social media platforms, absolving them of the content that is placed on that platform, which essentially is the responsibility of the social media company that runs it’

Speaker

Anusha Rahman (Pakistani Senator)

Reason

This comment was particularly insightful because it identified a specific legal mechanism (intermediary liability protection) as the root cause of platform accountability issues. It connected abstract discussions about power imbalances to concrete legal frameworks, providing a tangible target for legislative action.

Impact

This comment energized the discussion around platform accountability and led to more concrete proposals for legislative action. It influenced subsequent speakers to focus on specific regulatory mechanisms rather than general cooperation principles, and connected directly to the power dynamics theme introduced by Luhmann.

Kenneth Pugh’s long-term strategic thinking: ‘Why we say 12 years? It’s a time that goes from grade 1 to grade 12. So it’s more a political view rather than 5 or 10 years where you cannot really achieve it… We are investing in our own models. Yesterday we were presented with a Norwegian solution, it’s in Norwegian, but we are going to try to understand it. But now we’re going to invest in creating models that can solve our problems’

Speaker

Kenneth Pugh (Chilean Senator)

Reason

This comment was thought-provoking because it introduced the concept of digital sovereignty through technological independence, while also demonstrating practical long-term planning that aligns political cycles with educational development. The idea of developing region-specific AI models challenged the assumption of universal technological solutions.

Impact

This comment influenced the discussion by introducing themes of technological sovereignty and regional cooperation. It demonstrated how parliamentarians could think strategically about technology policy beyond reactive regulation, inspiring other speakers to discuss regional collaboration and capacity building initiatives.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally transformed the discussion from a technical cooperation forum into a deeper examination of power, sovereignty, and democratic governance in the digital age. Luhmann’s power dynamics framework provided the conceptual foundation that allowed other speakers to articulate their frustrations with platform accountability and digital colonialism. Echeberria’s cultural analysis helped explain why these power imbalances persist, while da Silva’s transparency focus and Rahman’s legal specificity provided concrete pathways for addressing them. Pugh’s strategic thinking demonstrated how parliamentarians could move beyond reactive policies to proactive digital sovereignty. Together, these comments elevated the conversation from operational cooperation to fundamental questions about democratic control over digital infrastructure, creating a more substantive and politically relevant dialogue that better reflected the real challenges parliamentarians face in governing digital technologies.

How can we improve multi-stakeholder collaboration mechanisms when stakeholders have conflicting interests?

Speaker

Abel Pires da Silva

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental challenge of bringing together diverse stakeholders (big tech, academics, governments, NGOs) with different interests to work collaboratively on digital governance issues.

How can we harmonize regional and global regulatory frameworks, especially for developing countries with limited capacity?

Speaker

Abel Pires da Silva

Explanation

This highlights the need to bridge the capacity gap between developed and developing nations in creating effective digital governance frameworks.

How can we develop more transparent and accountable AI systems to address the ‘black box’ problem?

Speaker

Abel Pires da Silva

Explanation

This addresses public concerns about AI decision-making processes and the need for explainable AI to build trust and accountability.

How can parliamentarians address power imbalances with big tech companies that currently dominate internet governance?

Speaker

Anna Luhrmann

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental issue of democratic oversight and regulation of powerful technology companies that operate across borders.

How can we ensure social media platforms respect national laws while maintaining global interoperability?

Speaker

Anusha Rahman

Explanation

This explores the tension between national sovereignty in lawmaking and the global nature of internet platforms and services.

Should intermediary liability protections for social media platforms be reviewed and reformed?

Speaker

Anusha Rahman

Explanation

This questions current legal frameworks that protect platforms from content liability and whether they need updating for current digital challenges.

How can we institutionalize internet governance programming within parliamentary permanent committees?

Speaker

Nazarius Kirama

Explanation

This proposes a structural approach to embedding digital governance expertise within existing parliamentary frameworks for more effective policymaking.

How can we replicate successful regional capacity-building models like AFRICIG in other regions?

Speaker

Peace Oliver Amuge

Explanation

This explores scaling successful parliamentary capacity-building initiatives to strengthen global digital governance capabilities.

How can we leverage existing UN legal frameworks and conventions for stronger international cooperation in digital governance?

Speaker

Adel ElMessiry

Explanation

This addresses the underutilization of existing international legal instruments for digital cooperation and cybercrime prevention.

How can we establish a permanent platform for ongoing dialogue and knowledge sharing among parliamentarians beyond IGF meetings?

Speaker

Shuaib Afolabi Salisu

Explanation

This addresses the need for continuous collaboration and resource sharing among parliamentarians working on digital policy issues.

How can we ensure US parliamentarians participate in global digital governance discussions given the dominance of US-based tech companies?

Speaker

Shuaib Afolabi Salisu

Explanation

This highlights the need for more inclusive global dialogue that includes lawmakers from countries where major tech companies are based.

How can we develop AI models that address regional and cultural needs rather than relying solely on Anglo-Saxon models and data?

Speaker

Kenneth Pugh

Explanation

This addresses concerns about AI bias and the need for more diverse and culturally appropriate AI development approaches.

How can we better integrate parliamentary tracks with the broader IGF program to avoid stakeholder silos?

Speaker

Jennifer Chung

Explanation

This suggests improving the structure of IGF to create more integrated multi-stakeholder dialogue rather than separate tracks.

Summary

This discussion was a briefing session about the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Council Working Group on Internet and its work on international internet-related public policy issues. The session was led by Sadhvi Saran from ITU, with presentations from the working group’s chair, Wojciech Berezowski from Poland’s Ministry of Digital Affairs, and vice chair Dr. Xiao Zhang. The working group was established in 2010 following an ITU Plenipotentiary Conference decision to create a unique platform for studying and developing international public policy issues related to the internet.

According to Council Resolution 1305, the group’s work spans critical topics including multilingualization of the internet, management of internet resources, and ensuring security, safety, continuity, sustainability, and robustness of the internet. The working group regularly organizes public consultations open to all stakeholders, including governments, private sector, academia, civil society, and individuals, having conducted ten such consultations to date. The current consultation focuses on ensuring meaningful connectivity to the internet for landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), examining strategies, unique challenges, and the role of various stakeholders in addressing connectivity issues.

During the Q&A session, questions were raised about upcoming Geneva meetings and the differences between ITU’s work and ICANN’s activities. The speakers clarified that while ICANN focuses specifically on domain name system coordination, ITU’s work covers broader internet policy issues and operates through a membership-based structure with multi-stakeholder consultations. The session concluded with invitations for participants to contribute to ongoing consultations and attend future meetings, emphasizing the collaborative nature of the working group’s approach to internet governance.

Keypoints

**Major Discussion Points:**

– **ITU Council Working Group on Internet Introduction**: The session introduced the ITU’s member state working group focused on international internet-related public policy issues, with presentations from the chair (Mr. Berezovsky from Poland’s Ministry of Digital Affairs) and vice chair (Dr. Zhang)

– **Scope of Work and Mandate**: The working group operates under Council Resolution 1305 and addresses critical topics including multilingualization of the internet, management of internet resources, security/safety/continuity of the internet, and development aspects to ensure an inclusive and accessible global resource

– **Public Consultation Process**: The group regularly organizes open consultations (10 to date) involving all stakeholders – governments, private sector, academia, civil society, and technical community – with the current consultation focusing on ensuring meaningful connectivity for Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs)

– **Relationship with Other Organizations**: Discussion of how ITU’s work differs from and complements organizations like ICANN, with ITU having a broader mandate covering multiple internet policy areas while maintaining active collaboration through various mechanisms

– **Upcoming Events and Participation**: Information about the September 2025 consultation meeting in Geneva, the WSIS Plus 20 high-level event in July, and invitations for stakeholder participation both online and in-person

**Overall Purpose:**

The discussion served as an introductory briefing session at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to inform stakeholders about the ITU Council Working Group on Internet’s activities, mandate, and opportunities for multi-stakeholder participation in their public policy work on internet governance issues.

**Overall Tone:**

The tone was consistently professional, welcoming, and informative throughout. The speakers maintained a collaborative and inclusive approach, emphasizing openness to stakeholder participation and input. The atmosphere remained formal but approachable, with the presenters actively encouraging questions and future engagement. There was no significant change in tone during the conversation – it remained consistently positive and invitation-focused from beginning to end.

Speakers

– **Sadhvi Saran**: Strategy advisor on emerging technologies at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), specializing in international internet-related public policy issues

– **Wojciech Berezowski**: Chair of ITU Council Working Group on Internet, Counselor on cybersecurity affairs with the Ministry of Digital Affairs in Poland

– **Dr. Xiao Zhang**: Vice chair of ITU Council Working Group on Internet, focuses on internet public policy issues

– **Audience**: Includes Professor Xu from the Communication University of China (specific expertise not mentioned for other audience members)

Additional speakers:

– **Professor Xu**: From the Communication University of China (role/title mentioned but specific expertise not detailed)

# Summary: ITU Council Working Group on Internet Briefing Session

## Introduction and Context

This briefing session provided an introductory presentation about the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Council Working Group on Internet and its work on international internet-related public policy issues. The session was conducted at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and was led by Sadhvi Saran, who works with the ITU as a strategy advisor on emerging technologies. The presentation featured contributions from the working group’s leadership: Wojciech Berezowski, Chair of the ITU Council Working Group on Internet, and Dr. Xiao Zhang, Vice Chair of the working group.

## Organisational Background and Mandate

The ITU Council Working Group on Internet was established in 2010 following a decision at an ITU Plenipotentiary Conference. Dr. Xiao Zhang described it as “a unique platform for studying and developing international public policy issues related to the internet.” The working group operates under Council Resolution 1305 and serves as a member state-based organisation that addresses internet governance issues while maintaining an open consultation format for all stakeholders.

Dr. Xiao Zhang outlined that their work spans “critical topics including multilingualization of the internet, management of internet resources, and ensuring security, safety, continuity, sustainability, and robustness of the internet.” The group also focuses on development aspects to ensure the internet remains “an inclusive, accessible, and resilient global resource.”

## Multi-Stakeholder Engagement and Public Consultation Process

The working group demonstrates commitment to inclusive stakeholder engagement through regular public consultations. Dr. Xiao Zhang explained that the group “regularly organizes public consultations open to all stakeholders including governments, private sector, academia, civil society, technical community, and individuals.” He mentioned that they have organized what he believes to be 10 public consultations to date.

The current consultation focuses on “ensuring meaningful connectivity to the internet for landlocked developing countries (LLDCs),” examining strategies, challenges, and stakeholder roles in addressing connectivity issues. The consultation process includes meetings held in Geneva where “stakeholders who participate in consultations are invited to present contributions at Geneva meetings either in person or online.”

## Relationship with Other Organisations

When asked about differences between ITU and ICANN regarding internet public policy issues, Dr. Xiao Zhang highlighted that “ITU membership is based on multilateral membership structure, which creates unique difference from other organisations.” Sadhvi Saran clarified that “ITU’s work is broader than ICANN’s focus on coordinating domain name systems” while noting that “active collaboration exists with ICANN including mutual participation in meetings and ITU participation in ICANN’s governmental advisory committee.”

The speakers emphasized that these organisational differences support collaboration rather than competition, with both organisations serving complementary roles in the internet governance ecosystem.

## Current Activities and Future Events

The working group is currently conducting a consultation on meaningful connectivity for landlocked developing countries, with contributions being accepted until August 8, 2025. A consultation meeting is planned for Geneva in September 2025, though specific dates had not been finalized at the time of the discussion.

Dr. Zhang mentioned that participants can scan a QR code for more information about contributing to the consultation. Sadhvi Saran also referenced the WSIS Plus 20 high-level event scheduled for the following month, which would be held back-to-back with the AI for Good summit.

## Key Takeaways and Opportunities for Engagement

The ITU Council Working Group on Internet operates as a multilateral platform that combines member state meetings with open multi-stakeholder consultations. The group addresses comprehensive internet governance issues including multilingualization, resource management, security, sustainability, and digital divide challenges.

Stakeholders interested in participating can:

– Contribute to the ongoing LLDC consultation with submissions due by August 8, 2025

– Participate in the September 2025 Geneva consultation meeting (in-person or online)

– Access additional information through the QR code mentioned during the presentation

## Conclusion

This briefing session successfully introduced stakeholders to the ITU Council Working Group on Internet’s mandate, activities, and participation opportunities. The discussion highlighted the group’s commitment to multi-stakeholder engagement and its role in addressing comprehensive internet governance challenges through structured consultation processes. The working group presents an inclusive platform that bridges multilateral approaches with multi-stakeholder engagement principles in international internet policy development.

Sadhvi Saran: Ready? Ready? All right. Good morning, everyone. It’s so nice to see you all here. Thank you for joining. It’s morning and day zero. So we’re very glad you could make it, and also very happy to see a lot of familiar faces here. My name is Sadhvi Saran. I work with the International Telecommunication Union as a strategy advisor on emerging technologies. But today, we’re here on the very specific topic of international internet-related public policy issues. ITU runs a member state working group on this. But to give you a proper welcome and a proper introduction to our work, we have two incredible speakers, the chair of our working group, as well as one of our vice chairs, Dr. Zhang. But we’ll begin with our chair, so Mr. Wojciech Berezovsky, who should be online. He’s a counselor on cybersecurity affairs with the Ministry of Digital Affairs in Poland, and like I said, the chair of our council working group on internet. So if I could please request Mr. Berezovsky.

Wojciech Berezowski: Good morning. It is my pleasure to welcome you to this lightning session of the ITU and Council Working Group on Internet. We are using this opportunity of IGF and meeting with the stakeholders to provide you with more information on our activities. And it would be great to hear your questions after the presentation which will be made by one of the vice chairs, Dr. Zhang. Unfortunately, I was not able to come to Norway to participate in person, but I’m really very, very glad to see you in the room, but also online. And I would like to pass the floor to Dr. Zhang, who will provide you with more information and a very, very good presentation on our activities. Thank you. Enjoy the session.

Sadhvi Saran: Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. And with that, we now hand over to Dr. Zhang. The floor is yours.

Dr. Xiao Zhang: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. And good morning, our chair. And thank you, Sally. Welcome to this session. And today, we’re going to have a short brief of what we are doing at CWG, Internet of ITU. That is a working group of council of ITU. We are very focused on the internet public policy. So welcome. We have a short introduction, and we are open to Q&A. So let me introduce some of the backgrounds. According to the ITU-PP, the Highest Applying Potential Conference in 2010, they decided to set up a working group on internet. So it has served as a unique platform for internet issues related to identify, study, and develop international public policy issues related to the internet. So you can see in the picture that we have some chairs, vice chairs. I’m so glad that I can join this working group. And normally, we’re working on internet-related issues. And according to our council resolution 1305, which was very clear, that our work spans a range of critical topics. Mostly, we can see linked with internet issues, which are the multilingualization of internet, the management of internet resources, and security, safety, continuity, sustainability, and robustness of internet. And also, we focus on some development aspects of internet. We see that these issues are at the heart of ensuring that internet remains inclusive, accessible, and resilient global resource. I know some of you are working also at ICANN. And we are also working on some public-related issues. And we understand that with the ever-evolving nature of the internet, that we should have more and more stakeholders to be involved in open consultations. So our group regularly organizes some public consultations on various groups. I think we have organized 10 public consultations. So it’s not only because of the complexity nature of these challenges, also because we want to draw all the aspects and experience of all of you, a broad spectrum of all the stakeholders. So the goal of this open consultation is to gather diverse perspectives that can inform and enhance the work of ITU and broader UN system on these critical issues. So our consultation is also open to all the stakeholders, including governments, private sector, academia, civil society, and technical community, and beyond, individuals also. Last year, we had another consultation. And this year, we have, with the previous ongoing public consultation, it focused on the ILDCs, that is, ensuring meaningful connectivity to the internet for landlocked development countries. And the questions we list are as the following. First, what strategies can be adopted to ensure meaningful connectivity to the internet for LLDCs? And second is, what unique challenges do LLDCs face in attaining meaningful connectivity to the internet? And also, it could include the following aspects, like affordability, quality of the bandwidth, and investments, infrastructure, enabling environment, security, and resilience. And also, what can ITU membership, is based on the multilateral. So what can ITU member states, governments, and other stakeholders, including those from transit countries, do to ensure the meaningful connectivity in these LLDCs? So this is our previous public consultation. And the date is till August 8, 2025. So you can just put your contributions, your ideas, thoughts online. And you can also scan this QR code. We have the on-spot and online consultation on September 2025. Data is not available yet, I think. But we will have it later. So you are welcome to give your opinion, both on-site or online. It’s really easy. And you can see, for the previous consultation, we have more than 10 consultations. And we have the archive online. It’s easy to find on our website. You go to the website, and there it is. is there is an archive on the page of CWG Internet. Quite easy. So again, CWG Internet thrives on collaboration dialogue. We understand your input is so valuable. So the open consultations for all of the stakeholders to put your visions and to make inclusive and secure internet for all. So we welcome all of you to join us. Thank you.

Sadhvi Saran: Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Zhang. And with that, that’s our brief presentation. And of course, an invitation to all of you to participate in our consultations and then attend the consultation meeting, which happens in Geneva at the end of each cycle to present your inputs and to have a discussion with the member states that form this group. So with that, we open up now for any questions. We still have Mr. Berezovsky online. We have Dr. Zhang here. You have myself. If there’s any questions, any comments, any feedback, we’d love to hear from you before we conclude for today. Going once, going, oh, there’s one.

Audience: Thank you very much for the introduction. I’m Professor Xu from the Communication University of China. A very technical question, what will happen in Geneva, as you have been talking about? There will be an event in Geneva, right? The second question is about the internet public issues. What are the differences, for example, between ITU and IECA in terms of the internet public policy issues? So two questions. One is a technical question about an event. The second is about difference. Thank you.

Sadhvi Saran: I can answer, or I don’t know if Wojciech is still here, if you would like to answer. Is he still online? Wojciech, would you like to answer the questions? And then I can compliment.

Wojciech Berezowski: Thank you. Thank you for the question. Thank you for your interest in the meeting and the event that the ITU will organize in autumn. So as Dr. Jacques mentioned, you are very warmly welcomed to send your input, your written comments, your written opinion to the public consultations that are now available online. The results and the opinions, the inputs will be discussed at the meeting that will be organized in Geneva. And for the open consultations meetings, all the stakeholders that are participating in these open consultations will be invited. So either in person or online, you will be able to present your contribution. You’ll be able to interact with other speakers, other stakeholders participating in this. Yes. For the second question, I would like to kindly ask you to repeat it, as I haven’t heard it exactly.

Sadhvi Saran: The second question was the difference between what the Council Working Group Internet is doing and what ICANN is doing.

Wojciech Berezowski: Speaking on ITU, the Council Working Group is consists of members, which are the administrations. But we have also this format of open consultation meetings and open consultations that are open for all stakeholders that are interested in the topic that was decided by the Council Working Group. So as for the ITU, we have this bi-annually twice a year, we have the Council Working Group meetings. And also, the Council Working Group decides on the public consultations, which are open to all stakeholders.

Dr. Xiao Zhang: I have one word for the sentence. I think ITU membership is very based on the membership. So that’s a very unique difference.

Sadhvi Saran: So just to add some more specifics to that, perhaps, the meeting for this cycle of the consultation will be sometime in September. We don’t have the exact date yet, but it’s likely to be between the 7th to the 14th of September this year. Remote participation is also available. In case you’re not able to physically travel, you can always dial in and be part of the discussions there. And as has already been mentioned, the work that we’re doing here, it comprises of a group of member states with this multi-stakeholder consultation. But we’re working on a range of topics, which includes things like the multilingualization of the internet. We just saw the focus on landlocked developing countries, management of internet resources, the security, continuity, safety, sustainability, robustness of the internet, environmental impacts, the digital divide. So the work is a little bit broader than what ICANN is doing in terms of its work as a nonprofit, focusing on coordinating the domain name systems. But we collaborate very actively. They come to ITU. We go to their meetings. We’re part of the governmental advisory committee, so there’s a lot of collaboration.

Dr. Xiao Zhang: Yeah, I think in 1305, the council resolution, it’s very clear, very clarified how we are doing. And also, there was a long history between ICANN and ITU, so it’s hard.

Sadhvi Saran: OK, any other questions? Any comments? Any feedback? No? All right. OK, with that, we’d like to thank you again so very much for joining us today. Dr. Zhang is here. I’m here. You’ll see us walking around. Feel free to catch us at any point if you have any questions that you’d like to ask personally. But of course, we look forward to seeing all of you over the course of the week, and then hopefully at the ITU. We also have WSIS Plus 20 high-level event that’s happening in July. And it’s from the 7th to the 11th of July, back-to-back with our AI for Good summit. So we also hope to see some of you in Geneva next month. All right. Thank you. See you in Geneva. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. You’re welcome. OK. Thank you.

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder engagement is essential for internet governance

Speakers

– Dr. Xiao Zhang
– Wojciech Berezowski
– Sadhvi Saran

Arguments

The group regularly organizes public consultations open to all stakeholders including governments, private sector, academia, civil society, technical community, and individuals

The Council Working Group consists of member state administrations but includes open consultation formats for all stakeholders

Invitation extended for stakeholders to participate in consultations and attend Geneva meetings

Summary

All speakers emphasized the importance of inclusive participation from diverse stakeholders in internet governance discussions, with the ITU providing multiple mechanisms for engagement including consultations and meetings

Topics

Legal and regulatory

ITU’s internet governance work has a comprehensive scope covering multiple critical areas

Speakers

– Dr. Xiao Zhang
– Sadhvi Saran

Arguments

Work spans critical topics including multilingualization of internet, management of internet resources, and security, safety, continuity, sustainability, and robustness of internet

Work covers broader topics than ICANN including environmental impacts and digital divide issues

Summary

Both speakers agreed that the ITU’s mandate encompasses a wide range of internet-related issues beyond technical coordination, including security, sustainability, development, and environmental concerns

Topics

Infrastructure | Cybersecurity | Development

Geneva meetings provide structured opportunities for stakeholder input and dialogue

Speakers

– Wojciech Berezowski
– Sadhvi Saran

Arguments

Stakeholders who participate in consultations are invited to present contributions at Geneva meetings either in person or online

Consultation meetings happen in Geneva at end of each cycle for stakeholders to present inputs and discuss with member states

Summary

Both speakers described the Geneva meetings as formal opportunities for stakeholders to present their contributions and engage in dialogue with member states, with both remote and in-person participation options

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the ITU’s commitment to addressing development challenges and ensuring internet accessibility for underserved populations, particularly focusing on inclusivity and connectivity issues

Speakers

– Dr. Xiao Zhang
– Sadhvi Saran

Arguments

Focus includes development aspects of internet to ensure it remains an inclusive, accessible, and resilient global resource

Current consultation focuses on ensuring meaningful connectivity to internet for landlocked developing countries (LLDCs)

Topics

Development | Infrastructure

Both speakers highlighted the distinctive nature of ITU’s approach to internet governance, emphasizing its multilateral structure and broader mandate compared to other organizations like ICANN

Speakers

– Dr. Xiao Zhang
– Sadhvi Saran

Arguments

ITU membership is based on multilateral membership structure, which creates unique difference from other organizations

ITU’s work is broader than ICANN’s focus on coordinating domain name systems

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

Active collaboration with ICANN despite organizational differences

Speakers

– Dr. Xiao Zhang
– Sadhvi Saran

Arguments

I know some of you are working also at ICANN. And we are also working on some public-related issues

Active collaboration exists with ICANN including mutual participation in meetings and ITU participation in ICANN’s governmental advisory committee

Explanation

Despite emphasizing the differences between ITU and ICANN’s approaches and mandates, both speakers acknowledged and supported active collaboration between the organizations, showing that organizational distinctions don’t preclude cooperative working relationships

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated strong consensus on the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement, the comprehensive scope of ITU’s internet governance work, the value of structured consultation processes, and the need for inclusive approaches to internet development. There was also agreement on ITU’s distinctive multilateral approach while maintaining collaborative relationships with other organizations.

Consensus level

High level of consensus among all speakers, with no apparent disagreements or conflicting viewpoints expressed. This strong alignment suggests effective coordination within the ITU structure and shared commitment to inclusive internet governance principles. The consensus supports the legitimacy and effectiveness of ITU’s approach to internet policy issues and indicates potential for successful implementation of their multi-stakeholder engagement strategies.

Different viewpoints

Unexpected differences

Overall assessment

Summary

This transcript represents a highly collaborative and informational session with no identifiable disagreements among speakers. All participants (Sadhvi Saran, Wojciech Berezowski, Dr. Xiao Zhang, and the audience member) were aligned in their understanding and presentation of the ITU Council Working Group on Internet’s mission and activities.

Disagreement level

No disagreement detected. The session was characterized by complementary presentations where speakers built upon each other’s points rather than challenging them. The only questions raised were clarificatory in nature, seeking more information rather than expressing dissent. This high level of consensus suggests strong internal alignment within the ITU working group, though it may also indicate limited diversity of perspectives in this particular forum. The implications for internet governance discussions are that while this demonstrates organizational coherence, broader policy debates may require more diverse stakeholder input to surface potential areas of disagreement or alternative approaches.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the ITU’s commitment to addressing development challenges and ensuring internet accessibility for underserved populations, particularly focusing on inclusivity and connectivity issues

Speakers

– Dr. Xiao Zhang
– Sadhvi Saran

Arguments

Focus includes development aspects of internet to ensure it remains an inclusive, accessible, and resilient global resource

Current consultation focuses on ensuring meaningful connectivity to internet for landlocked developing countries (LLDCs)

Topics

Development | Infrastructure

Both speakers highlighted the distinctive nature of ITU’s approach to internet governance, emphasizing its multilateral structure and broader mandate compared to other organizations like ICANN

Speakers

– Dr. Xiao Zhang
– Sadhvi Saran

Arguments

ITU membership is based on multilateral membership structure, which creates unique difference from other organizations

ITU’s work is broader than ICANN’s focus on coordinating domain name systems

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Key takeaways

The ITU Council Working Group on Internet serves as a unique multilateral platform for developing international public policy on internet-related issues, established in 2010

The working group operates through a dual structure: member state meetings bi-annually and open multi-stakeholder consultations that welcome all types of participants

Current focus includes critical areas such as multilingualization, internet resource management, security/sustainability, and bridging the digital divide

The group has conducted 10 public consultations to date, with the current consultation focusing on meaningful internet connectivity for landlocked developing countries (LLDCs)

ITU’s approach differs from ICANN in scope (broader policy issues vs. domain name coordination) and structure (multilateral membership-based vs. nonprofit model), though both organizations collaborate actively

The working group emphasizes inclusive participation from governments, private sector, academia, civil society, technical community, and individuals to ensure diverse perspectives inform policy development

Resolutions and action items

Participants are invited to contribute to the ongoing LLDC consultation through written submissions until August 8, 2025

A consultation meeting will be held in Geneva between September 7-14, 2025, with both in-person and remote participation options

Stakeholders are encouraged to attend the WSIS Plus 20 high-level event scheduled for July 7-11, back-to-back with the AI for Good summit

All stakeholders are invited to participate in future consultations and engage with the working group’s activities

Unresolved issues

The exact date for the September 2025 Geneva consultation meeting has not been finalized

Specific details about how the consultation results will be integrated into ITU policy development were not fully explained

The historical relationship and coordination mechanisms between ICANN and ITU were mentioned but not elaborated upon

The process for how member states use consultation inputs in their decision-making was not detailed

Suggested compromises

None identified

What are the differences, for example, between ITU and ICANN in terms of the internet public policy issues?

Speaker

Professor Xu from the Communication University of China

Reason

This question is insightful because it addresses a fundamental issue of institutional overlap and differentiation in internet governance. It challenges the presenters to clearly articulate their unique value proposition and role in the complex ecosystem of internet governance organizations, forcing them to think beyond their prepared presentation about their distinct mandate.

Impact

This question significantly shifted the discussion from a one-way presentation format to an interactive dialogue. It prompted multiple speakers to respond and clarify their organization’s positioning, leading to a more substantive explanation of ITU’s membership-based approach versus ICANN’s technical coordination role. The question opened up a deeper conversation about institutional relationships and collaborative mechanisms in internet governance.

I think ITU membership is very based on the membership. So that’s a very unique difference.

Speaker

Dr. Xiao Zhang

Reason

While brief, this comment is thought-provoking because it highlights a fundamental structural difference in internet governance approaches – the membership-based, state-centric model versus other governance structures. It touches on the core tension in internet governance between traditional multilateral approaches and multi-stakeholder models.

Impact

This comment provided a foundation for Sadhvi Saran’s more detailed explanation that followed. It served as a pivot point that allowed the discussion to evolve from a simple comparison to a more nuanced explanation of how different governance models can coexist and collaborate, as evidenced by Saran’s subsequent comments about active collaboration between the organizations.

So the work is a little bit broader than what ICANN is doing in terms of its work as a nonprofit, focusing on coordinating the domain name systems. But we collaborate very actively. They come to ITU. We go to their meetings. We’re part of the governmental advisory committee, so there’s a lot of collaboration.

Speaker

Sadhvi Saran

Reason

This comment is insightful because it demonstrates sophisticated understanding of institutional relationships in internet governance. Rather than positioning organizations as competitors, it presents a collaborative ecosystem model where different organizations have complementary rather than competing roles. It also reveals the practical mechanisms through which collaboration occurs.

Impact

This response effectively resolved the potential tension raised by the initial question about organizational differences. It shifted the conversation from a potentially divisive comparison to a collaborative framework, demonstrating how different governance approaches can work together. This comment helped conclude the substantive part of the discussion on a constructive note, showing institutional maturity in internet governance.

Overall assessment

The key comments transformed what began as a standard organizational presentation into a more meaningful dialogue about internet governance structures and institutional relationships. Professor Xu’s question served as the critical catalyst that moved the discussion beyond promotional content to substantive policy discourse. The responses from Dr. Zhang and Sadhvi Saran demonstrated how thoughtful questions can elicit more nuanced explanations of complex institutional arrangements. These exchanges revealed the sophisticated collaborative mechanisms that exist in internet governance, moving the conversation from ‘what we do’ to ‘how we fit into the broader ecosystem.’ The discussion’s evolution shows how a single well-placed question can elevate the entire level of discourse and provide genuine value to participants seeking to understand the landscape of internet governance institutions.

What are the specific dates for the Geneva consultation meeting in September 2025?

Speaker

Professor Xu from the Communication University of China

Explanation

The exact dates for the consultation meeting were not available at the time of the discussion, with only a general timeframe of September 7-14 mentioned

What are the detailed differences between ITU’s Council Working Group on Internet and ICANN’s work on internet public policy issues?

Speaker

Professor Xu from the Communication University of China

Explanation

While some differences were mentioned (membership-based vs. nonprofit structure), the response indicated there is a long history between the organizations that requires further clarification

How can the collaboration between ITU and ICANN be better understood and potentially enhanced?

Speaker

Implied from Dr. Zhang’s response

Explanation

Dr. Zhang mentioned it’s ‘hard’ to explain the relationship and that there’s a long history, suggesting this area needs more detailed exploration

What specific strategies and solutions will emerge from the LLDC consultation process?

Speaker

Implied from the presentation structure

Explanation

The consultation on meaningful connectivity for landlocked developing countries is ongoing until August 2025, with results and strategies to be developed from stakeholder input

Summary

This workshop focused on upgrading digital governance at the local level through the Local Online Service Index (LOSI) methodology, a collaborative framework developed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society (UNU-EGOV). The LOSI project assesses municipal government portals across 95 indicators in six categories: institutional framework, technology, content provision, service provision, participation engagement, and e-government literacy. Since its pilot launch in 2018 with 40 cities, the initiative has expanded to cover 193 UN member states’ most populous cities and has been implemented in various countries including Brazil, India, South Korea, and Tunisia through partnerships with local organizations.

The Tunisian E-Government Society presented a comprehensive case study of their LOSI implementation, which assessed 24 municipalities across all Tunisian governorates. Their findings revealed that 37% of municipalities fell into the middle digital maturity category while 63% were classified as low, indicating significant room for improvement. The Tunisian team innovatively developed a two-phase approach: first conducting assessments using the LOSI framework, then implementing targeted improvements through a “quick fixes” methodology that categorizes potential enhancements as easy, moderate, or hard adjustments based on complexity and resource requirements.

The second phase demonstrated practical results, with one pilot municipality (Reba) improving its score from 30% to 39% after implementing the first batch of easy fixes, with projections suggesting scores could exceed 50% with full implementation. The discussion emphasized the crucial role of civil society organizations in bridging gaps between citizens and governments, particularly in resource-limited contexts. The workshop concluded by highlighting how this collaborative approach between international organizations, civil society, and local governments creates a replicable model for enhancing digital governance worldwide.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **LOSI Methodology and Partnership Framework**: The Local Online Service Index (LOSI) is a collaborative assessment tool developed by UNDESA and UNU-IGOV to evaluate digital governance at the municipal level. The framework uses 95 indicators across six categories to measure city portal effectiveness, with partnerships established through MOUs between UN agencies and local organizations.

– **Tunisia Case Study Implementation**: The Tunisian e-Government Society successfully applied the LOSI methodology across 24 municipalities, finding that 63% fell into the “low” digital maturity category while 37% achieved “middle” ranking. This assessment covered all 24 governorates of Tunisia and provided comprehensive baseline data.

– **Innovative “Quick Fixes” Improvement Framework**: Tunisia developed a practical three-tier improvement system (easy, moderate, hard adjustments) to help municipalities enhance their digital services. Their pilot with Reba municipality demonstrated concrete results, increasing the LOSI score from 30% to 39% after implementing the first batch of easy fixes.

– **Global Expansion and Replication**: The LOSI network has expanded to nine published reports across multiple countries including Brazil, India, South Korea, UK, and others. The methodology is designed to be adaptable to local contexts while maintaining global comparability standards.

– **Multi-stakeholder Collaboration Model**: The discussion emphasized the critical role of civil society organizations, international bodies, and local governments working together. The Tunisian case exemplified how NGOs can serve as bridges between citizens and government, particularly in resource-limited environments.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to showcase how the LOSI methodology can be practically implemented to assess and improve digital governance at the local level, using Tunisia’s experience as a concrete example of successful multi-stakeholder collaboration in digital transformation.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a consistently professional and collaborative tone throughout. It began with formal introductions and technical explanations, evolved into an enthusiastic presentation of practical results from Tunisia, and concluded with forward-looking remarks about expansion and replication. The tone was optimistic and solution-oriented, emphasizing partnership, innovation, and the potential for scaling successful approaches globally. There was a sense of urgency toward the end due to time constraints, but this did not diminish the overall positive and constructive atmosphere.

Speakers

– **Sabrine Dachraoui** – Project coordinator of the LOSI application in Tunisia, Tunisian e-Governance Society

– **Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen** – United Nations University e-government section (UNU-IGOV), based in Portugal

– **Participant** –

– **Deniz Susar** – United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), moderator of the session

– **Salsabil Yakoubi** – Tunisian e-Governance Society, colleague of Sabrine Dachraoui

– **Audience** –

– **Dimitris Sarantis** – UNU-IGOV (United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society)

**Additional speakers:**

– **Aaron** – Works alongside Dennis at UNDESA in New York, involved in UK application of LOSI methodology

– **Steve McDowell** – Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida

– **Emmanuel Oruk** – From Uganda (mentioned as asking a question via chat)

– **Yusuf Yusufovic** – Director-General of the Center for Digital Governance in Turkey (mentioned in opening but did not speak)

# Comprehensive Workshop Report: Upgrading Digital Governance at the Local Level Through the LOSI Methodology

## Executive Summary

This workshop presented a comprehensive examination of the Local Online Service Index (LOSI) methodology, a collaborative framework developed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society (UNU-CS) to assess and improve digital governance at the municipal level. The session featured a detailed case study from Tunisia, demonstrating how civil society organisations can successfully implement international assessment frameworks to drive practical improvements in local government digital services.

The discussion highlighted the critical importance of local digital governance, with over 65% of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets falling under local authority jurisdiction. The LOSI framework addresses this significance through a standardised methodology employing 95 indicators across six categories to assess municipal digital services across 193 cities worldwide.

## Participants and Context Setting

**Deniz Susar** from UNDESA opened the session by establishing the workshop’s purpose within the broader context of digital cooperation and multi-stakeholder collaboration. She emphasised that the session exemplified cross-functional cooperation between the technical community, private sector, civil society, and governments.

**Dimitris Sarantis** from UNU-CS provided crucial context by highlighting that over 65% of SDG targets fall under local authority jurisdiction, establishing local digital governance as essential for global sustainable development. The LOSI framework emerged from recognition that whilst national e-government assessments exist, local government digital services—which often represent the primary interface between citizens and government—lacked comprehensive evaluation mechanisms.

**Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen** from UNU-CS detailed the methodology’s development and global implementation, while **Sabrine Dachraoui** and **Salsabil Yakoubi** from the Tunisian e-Governance Society, a 10-year-old NGO with three international publications, presented their comprehensive implementation case study.

## LOSI Methodology Framework

The LOSI framework provides a standardised methodology with 95 indicators distributed across six key categories: institutional framework, technology, content provision, service provision, participation engagement, and e-government literacy. The assessment employs a binary scoring system where two independent assessors evaluate each portal, providing clear, quantifiable measurements of digital maturity levels.

Since its pilot launch in 2018 with 40 cities, the initiative has expanded to cover 193 cities (one per UN member state). The scoring ranges are: Very high (0.75-1), High (0.5-0.74), Middle (0.25-0.49), and Low (0-0.24). This approach enables both individual city assessments and comparative analysis across different municipalities and countries.

The framework’s strength lies in its ability to provide triangulation between national and local assessments. The methodology allows for customisation to local contexts and priorities, with some countries complementing core indicators with additional measures whilst maintaining global comparability.

One key finding from the 2024 survey revealed that national portals still tend to outperform local ones. However, cities with strong collaboration between national and municipal governments, as well as those with clear institutional frameworks, consistently score higher.

## Global Implementation and Partnership Model

The LOSI network has expanded through strategic partnerships established via memorandums of understanding between UN agencies and local organisations. Nine published reports now exist across multiple countries including Brazil, India, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, with each implementation adapted to local contexts whilst maintaining methodological consistency.

Current ongoing applications include the United Kingdom (involving partnerships with both the Ministry of IT and universities), Mozambique, Tanzania, and Saudi Arabia. The UK application demonstrates innovative partnerships leveraging university students and cross-functional collaboration.

The partnership model enables international organisations to provide standardised frameworks and global best practices whilst local partners contribute contextual knowledge and implementation capacity. The methodology’s flexibility allows for adaptation to varying local government contexts, as local service delivery varies significantly by country, with some municipalities responsible for 80% of citizen services whilst others have more limited mandates.

## Tunisia Case Study: Comprehensive Implementation

The workshop’s centrepiece was a detailed presentation showcasing Tunisia’s comprehensive LOSI implementation across 24 municipalities representing all 24 Tunisian governorates. The project timeline included MOU signing in March 2024, training in April-May, and data collection in July, with Tunisia currently undergoing a decentralization process.

### Assessment Phase Results

The Tunisian assessment revealed that 37% of municipalities achieved middle-category rankings whilst 63% fell into the low category, indicating substantial opportunities for improvement across Tunisia’s municipal digital infrastructure. The binary scoring system across 95 indicators provided granular insights into different aspects of e-governance performance, with some municipalities achieving strong scores in e-literacy categories whilst performing poorly in other areas.

### Innovative “Quick Fixes” Framework

The Tunisian team’s most significant contribution was developing an improvement methodology that transforms the LOSI assessment from a diagnostic tool into an actionable improvement framework. Their “quick fixes” framework categorises potential improvements into three tiers based on complexity and resource requirements:

– **Easy adjustments**: Low-complexity changes requiring minimal resources

– **Moderate adjustments**: Medium-complexity improvements requiring moderate investment

– **Hard adjustments**: Complex changes requiring significant resources and time

This categorisation enables systematic and manageable implementation of digital enhancements, making improvements accessible to resource-constrained municipalities.

### Pilot Implementation Results

The practical effectiveness of the quick fixes framework was demonstrated through a pilot implementation with Reba municipality. After implementing the first batch of easy fixes, the municipality’s LOSI score improved from 30% to 39%, with projections suggesting scores could exceed 50% with full implementation of all recommended changes.

This batch-based approach enables manageable collaboration with municipalities whilst building trust and demonstrating feasibility. The strategy addresses key challenges in municipal engagement: establishing formal channels and building initial trust with local government officials.

## Implementation Challenges and Solutions

### Engagement and Trust Building

The Tunisian team described challenges in establishing formal engagement channels with municipalities and building initial trust. They addressed these challenges through strategic outreach using existing networks and providing clear documentation to demonstrate the value proposition of LOSI assessments.

### Resource Constraints

Resource limitations affect both assessment organisations and municipalities. The Tunisian case demonstrated how civil society organisations can supplement resource constraints through volunteer engagement and strategic partnerships, while the UK application leverages university students and academic partnerships.

### Contextual Adaptation

**Steve McDowell** from Florida State University raised questions about local government size and scope parameters, highlighting the challenge of meaningful comparisons across different contexts. The discussion revealed that flexible methodology application is essential, allowing countries to adapt frameworks to their specific contexts whilst maintaining comparability standards.

## Systemic Challenges and Policy Enablers

**Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen** identified that local digital governance frameworks cannot operate in isolation. National policy enablers such as electronic identification and digital signatures are essential prerequisites for transactional service delivery, creating dependencies that affect even well-resourced municipalities in developed countries.

Examples from Canada and the UK demonstrate that structural barriers to local digital service delivery exist even in advanced economies, highlighting the need for coordinated multi-level governance approaches. Private sector partnerships are essential for technological upgrades and infrastructure development, complementing national policy enablers.

## Accessibility and Inclusion Considerations

**Emmanuel Oruk** from Uganda raised an important question about accessibility for persons with disabilities, asking whether the LOSI methodology adequately considers accessibility requirements. **Dimitris Sarantis** responded that the framework does include checking for accessibility features, though this remains an area requiring continued attention to ensure equitable service delivery for all citizens.

## Future Directions

The workshop concluded with discussion of future directions for LOSI methodology expansion. **Deniz Susar** emphasised that international collaboration opportunities remain open for other countries to apply the methodology through memorandums of understanding with UN agencies.

The Tunisian team committed to continuing with a second round of implementation to measure progress over time, providing longitudinal data on digital governance improvement trajectories. Documentation and partnership frameworks will be made available to facilitate replication in other countries, with the Tunisian innovation in improvement methodology potentially becoming a standard component of LOSI implementations globally.

The team mentioned that their work was presented at ICEGov in Pretoria, South Africa, and that a recorded webinar and official report are available on the UNDESA website.

## Key Insights

Several critical insights emerged from the discussion:

### Civil Society Leadership

The workshop demonstrated how civil society organisations can effectively lead digital governance assessments and improvements whilst maintaining collaborative relationships with government entities.

### Methodological Innovation

The Tunisian quick fixes framework represents a significant methodological advancement that transforms assessment tools into actionable improvement strategies, showing how local adaptations can enhance the original framework.

### Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration

The discussion emphasised the critical role of diverse stakeholder engagement, with civil society organisations serving as crucial bridges between citizens and governments, particularly in resource-limited contexts.

## Conclusion

The workshop successfully demonstrated how the LOSI methodology can be practically implemented to assess and improve digital governance at the local level. The Tunisian case study provided compelling evidence of successful multi-stakeholder collaboration and methodological innovation.

The session highlighted that successful local digital governance requires coordination across multiple levels and stakeholders, from national policy enablers to local implementation partnerships. The combination of standardised frameworks with local innovation and multi-stakeholder collaboration creates sustainable pathways for digital transformation at the municipal level.

The workshop’s emphasis on practical results, innovative methodologies, and collaborative partnerships provides a foundation for continued expansion of local digital governance assessment and improvement initiatives worldwide.

Deniz Susar: and Yusuf Yusufovic, the Director-General of the Center for Digital Governance in Turkey. Good morning everyone. Welcome to the workshop Upgrading Digital Governance at the Local Level, workshop 3.0.2. We have 60 minutes in front of us. I will moderate this session. My name is Deniz Susar from United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. I just want to give you a brief background what this workshop is about. At our department we look at how governments are using technology through our United Nations e-government survey. We look at 193 UN member states and try to measure their online progress. This e-government survey has been continuing since 2003. Since 2018 we also started looking at how the local level, specifically cities, are using online services. This is in partnership with United Nations University e-government section who is based in Portugal and Mortan is with me. We started with 40 cities in 2018, the most populous city in 40 countries. Then eventually we expanded to 193 cities. However, after getting feedback from stakeholders, the feedback was basically one city per country is not enough, can we do more? Together with UNU we developed a methodology so that our application in one city can be spread to several cities in a single country. This partnership is open to anyone. We’ve done some applications in various countries, for example Brazil, India, South Korea, a few of the names that come to mind. And of course today it is Tunisia. We recently applied the methodology together with the Tunisian e-government society so we will hear more from them. But I will ask colleagues so that they can put in the chat the link to where you can find, where you can learn more about this project. So again, we can partner as UNDESA with any government or non-government entity. We have a memorandum of understanding. We sign jointly after cleared by legal departments. Then the partnership starts. And with that, after that we share the methodology. We give access to the platform, to the entity who is running the project. In this case Tunisia e-government society. Then in our methodology at the national and at the local level, the portal of the city or the country needs to be assessed by two people who do not know each other. So at the global level, we recruit two people in each country, which is around 400 people. They assess the portals and then if there are any discrepancies, then we bring them together and we finalize the data. So the same happens at the city level. So again, I’ll give example of Tunisia e-government society. They choose number of cities in Tunisia and they recruit two people from each city and these people do the assessment. The results come to that entity and then they produce an outcome document and we do outreach like this. So it’s important, of course, to inform the city officials about their performance but also to share this experience with other countries so that they can learn from each other. So this is a very brief introduction to the project and to the objective of this workshop. So we want to expand further in several countries. This is our goal. Right now it’s happening in UK. Together with our partner in UK is the Ministry of IT and they are working together with the university. So we have two partnerships there. So I will stop here and give the floor to Morten just to explain further and then we will hear from the rest of the online speakers.

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen: Thank you, Dennis. So as Dennis was saying, this is a partnership not just between UNDESA and UNU but also with local actors in a number of countries. So Tunisia will be presenting their results later during this session. But to put it into a context of why local government is important, we see that increasingly globally that there is strategic approaches to service delivery. Service delivery in some countries is mainly the mandate of central government. We see this particularly in smaller or low-income emerging economies. We see that in federal countries like the case of Brazil but also in India that local service delivery is taking place more on state level, so the regional level, or at the local government level. So for instance, in the context like we are in in Norway and other Nordic countries, local authorities, municipalities are responsible for some 80% of all service delivery to citizens and businesses. Only 20% is at central government. Tunisia is a country where there is a decentralization process in place and it’s also the latest report out of that. So what is the role of the LOSI network and the individual national applications of the framework? Well, it granulates the assessments that Denis and his colleagues do every two years of the largest city in each country. So that allows us, for instance, in India to say, well, we know that every two years Mumbai is assessed and that is then benchmarked with 192 other large cities globally. If we then do a LOSI framework application within that country looking at other cities, we suddenly have an amplifier where we can not only compare the progress, the strengths and weaknesses on local government service delivery online in the national context, but we can triangulate that with cities globally from the UNDESA biannual assessment or from other LOSI network applications. Now, naturally, local contexts matter. Priorities differ in different countries. So we’ve seen, for instance, that our partners in Korea and Brazil looked also at smart city-related indicators. So they complemented the core set of indicators to be assessed from the LOSI framework with a set of smart indicators related to mobility, waste, IoT and so forth to really complement that into the local context and the local national priorities. So this is where the LOSI framework is coming from. This is where the benefits are. And just to put some numbers on it, we have nine reports already published, so roughly three countries a year. There’s five ongoing. So the Tunisians are considering doing a second round. Mozambique, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, India and Korea is also in their second round. So they’ve done an application of the framework once, but they’re doing it again after a few years to see what progress is within this larger sample of national cities. So this is the context in which the framework was developed and how it’s used. And also a little bit of a background on how it is working before we hand over to our Tunisian colleagues. That’s all from me.

Deniz Susar: Okay. Thank you so much, Mortan. So now let’s turn online. Our colleague Dimitris Sarantis is online, also from UNUIGOV. And I have to say this is a joint project between UNUIGOV and UNDESA. And we very much appreciate the ongoing collaboration. Dimitris.

Dimitris Sarantis: Thank you. Thank you, Denis. So good morning, everyone. The sound is going through. The sound is okay?

Deniz Susar: Yes, it’s okay.

Dimitris Sarantis: Okay. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. So after an introduction of Denis regarding the LOSI methodology and the brief talk for today. for more than regarding the use of a local assessment and the importance of it, adjusting it to the country needs. I would share some insights regarding the logic application from our team until now. So, it’s a pleasure to be here, even though virtually, to share some perspectives on the Local Online Service Index and its transformative potential in advancing digital governance at municipal level. As said also from Morten and Deniz, logic plays a critical role in supporting the achievement of sustainable development goals, especially SDG 11, making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. As the 2024 United Nations Sea Government Survey highlights, over 65% of SDG targets fall under the jurisdiction of local authorities. So, this makes local digital governance not only relevant, but also essential. City portals are becoming the digital front doors of municipalities, providing residents with access to vital services, from waste management, public transport, to social protection and participatory budgeting. Logic helps cities assess and improve these services, using, at least for the last edition, 95 indicators across six categories. Since its pilot, as Deniz said also, in 2018, logic has evolved significantly. The 2024 edition now includes all 193 United Nations member states, most popular cities. It goes further by introducing e-government literacy in the last edition as a new category, recognising that digital inclusion requires not just access, but also the skills to engage. From real-time communication tools, to free Wi-Fi access points and multilingual platforms, cities are making progress, but challenges remain, especially around funding and the digital divide. One of the key findings from the 2024 survey is that national portals still tend to outperform local ones. However, we have seen that cities with strong collaboration between national and municipal governments, as well as those with clear institutional frameworks, score higher. This indicates that vertical alignment and shared governance models are crucial for digital success. So logic, we can say that it is not just an assessment tool, we can consider it as a framework for collaboration. In recent years, we have expanded its application beyond the most popular cities. So thanks to partnerships coordinated by UNDES and UNEGOV, as Dennis said also, countries like Tunisia, that we will hear afterwards, Uzbekistan, Korea, Greece, India, Jordan and Brazil, have implemented logic at sub-national levels. This decentralisation of digital diagnostics allows for more targeted interventions and knowledge sharing. Our aim and our hope is to see more countries join this logic network to strengthen their local digital capacities. Closing, and before giving the floor to Tunisian partners, I would say that logic is a powerful vehicle for cities to not only benchmark their progress, but also to learn from each other. With a growing pressure on cities to deliver inclusive and smart services, it is critical that we embed data-driven participatory and people-centred approaches into local governance. So I look forward to today’s discussion and to supporting more cities on their digital transformation journey. So before giving the floor to Sabrin, I would invite all participants with physical presence or online presence to submit their questions, their comments, orally or written to the chat, and so to have a discussion after the presentation from the Tunisian partners. Thank you, Sabrin.

Deniz Susar: Thank you, Dimitrius. So I think we clearly explained what this is about. I hope it’s clear to everyone as well. So I think it’s time to see it really in action, Sabrin. So the floor is yours and your colleagues. So if you can show us what this is about and what you did in Tunisia.

Sabrine Dachraoui: Thank you, Denise. Thank you, Morten as well, and Dimitrius. I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to our partners at the UNDESA and UNEU Governance Unit for making this session possible, the IGF Secretariat as well for believing in the session topic, as well as the audience for joining us today to talk about Tunisia. Before we begin the presentation, allow me to introduce myself and my colleagues. My name is Sabrin Dasharawi. I’m the project coordinator of the LUCI application in Tunisia. And I’m honoured to be here today with my colleague in the society, Selsabid Laiaqoubi, to share the latest updates and upgrades we’ve implemented at the local level. Okay, so before we… So in this session, we will focus mainly on two parts. Which represent the two most critical phases of the project. So in the next slide, you will find key messages of our session. I don’t know, Selsabid, if the audience is seeing the screen.

Deniz Susar: Yes, we see.

Sabrine Dachraoui: If you’re seeing the screen, moving to the next slide.

Deniz Susar: No, still at the first one.

Sabrine Dachraoui: Okay. Yes, now we see. Now we can see? Okay. Selsabid, if we can go back just quickly to key messages. Before I leave the floor to you to present the rest of the presentation. Good. We see right now, official partnership with the United Nations slide. If we can just move to the first part. Maybe you can continue explaining while the slide is coming up. Okay, so the first part of the presentation is…

Deniz Susar: Maybe you can continue explaining while the slide is coming on.

Sabrine Dachraoui: Okay, no problem. Okay, I’ll share from my side. Okay, I’ll share from my side. So I don’t know if the audience can see the screen moving.

Deniz Susar: It’s… Yes, we see now the first. Now we see the key messages. Please continue.

Sabrine Dachraoui: Okay, so in this presentation, we’re going to be mainly focusing on two phases of the LUCI project or LUCI implementation in Tunisia, assessing the MGP, which is the municipal government portals, using the LUCI framework, and the second phase, which is improving the municipal website using the LUCI-based approach. So for the LUCI application in Tunisia, and before I go ahead and introduce our work, I would like to give a quick introduction about our society. So our name is the Tunisian e-Governance Society. We are a non-governmental organization. We’ve been practicing for 10 years now. These are some of our vision, our mission and our goals. So we focus on transparent, intelligent and participatory governance model, smart governance, develop innovative policies as well. And we focus on using technology. We focus on open data and we focus on smart governance. And we are also involved in other initiatives. We’re not just in, let’s say, in LUCI assessment or engaged in LUCI project. We also have other initiatives with civil society, with academia and with other entities. We have here the Open Geodata Hackathon, the Metaverse Summit and our participation in the Open Government Week, where we presented our evaluation for ministry portals as well. So we also have three recently publications, international publications to our record. In March last year, we signed a memorandum of understanding with our partners at the UNDESA. just to highlight our collaboration on the LUCI methodology and its application in Tunisia. Of course, we have achieved a significant milestone in implementing the project in Tunisia. As you can see here, the timeline for our achievements, we first participated in the ICEGov last year’s edition in Pretoria, South Africa. We also published our report, which you can find it in the official website of the UNDESA. Our participation last year in the IGF through an open forum with our partners as well, UNDESA and UNU. And last, we have a recorded webinar where we presented our findings about the LUCI application in Tunisia. So this is a quick overview about, let’s say, our team structure. We have the project management, we have the review experts who are taking care of the review phase, and then we have our assessors. This is just to give you a quick overview about the expertise that we have in the team. With that, I leave you with my friend SALSABIL YAKOUBI to present to you the first phase and the second phase of our LUCI project. SALSABIL, the floor is yours.

Deniz Susar: Yes, just to remind the time as well, so if you can finish around 15 minutes, so we give some time for questions. Okay.

Salsabil Yakoubi: Thank you, everyone. So now we’re going to start presenting our phase one, which was basically evaluating the municipal websites using the LUCI framework. And so here we have the timeline for our LUCI project detailing the key phases throughout 2024, where we began the project initiation and the signing of the MOU in March, and this was followed by scope definition and comprehensive team training in April and May, data collection assessment from mid-July, with assessment reviews conducted in August. The crucial phase of result analysis and report development spanned from August to September, culminating in the presentation of our findings in November, and the structured approach ensured thorough and systematic application of the LUCI framework. And the primary goal of the LUCI assessment is, at the end of the day, to identify digital maturity of municipality-based portals for criteria communicated by UNTESA. And the assessment process begins with preparing a final list of municipality portals to be assessed, and then teams are assigned in pairs to these municipalities. The pre-assessment phase involves two key steps. First, reviewing the UN local e-government toolkit to gain a comprehensive understanding of LUCI groupings, ranges, indicators, and criteria. And secondly, thoroughly understanding the questionnaire and the LUCI indicators explained in the instruction column. Finally, the assessment involves filling out the LUCI questionnaire by scoring each evaluated indicator in the municipal government portal with a simple yes or no. And so here we’re going to try to just give you a quick demonstration of how that would work. And so we just picked three indicators for which belong to the content provision category. And starting off with, like, to just show you a brief overview how the assessment goes. And for example, for number 222, that’s the MGP present the list of services provided by the municipality. So here we pulled up a municipal portal in Tunisia. And if we go to services, we go to civil status services, and we will find the different kinds of services that they have and more information about that. And so that satisfies that criterion. And then, for example, information about municipality history, demographics, graphical region, economy, tourism, etc. And so here we could find that in if we go to the city of Sfax and definition of the city, we do find that information. And so that then that indicator is satisfied, as you can see here. And then the last indicator that we wanted to show, for example, the availability of the portal in different languages. So for example, here, we could switch from English to French. And basically, we reiterate that process with all the 95 indicators in all six categories, and then calculate the score if it exists as zero, if it doesn’t exist as zero, if it exists as one, and then that score is divided by the total number of indicators, which is 95. And that is just a very brief overview of like how the assessment process works. And so going back to our presentation, here, we reiterate the similar like what basically what we were talking about. So the 2024 version of the LOCIE methodology introduces a significant new criterion, which is the e-government literacy or ELI, which Mr. Dimitris has already mentioned. And this expands the total number of indicators to 95 distributed across six distinct criteria. And these criteria include institutional framework with six indicators, technology with 12, content provision with 30, service provision with 22, participation engagement with 15, and the new e-literacy with 10 indicators. The scoring method is again binary, where an indicator receives a value of one if it exists in the municipal portal and zero if it’s missing. And raw scores for each city are then divided by the total number of indicators, 95, to produce the LOCIE scores ranging from zero to one. These scores are then used to identify the digital maturity level of each municipality, categorized as very high for between 0.75 to one, high between 0.5 to 0.74, middle between 0.25 to 0.49, and low for 0 to 0.24. And this structured approach allows for a clear and quantifiable assessment for digital maturity. And so this slide details the geographical and demographic scope of our assessment. And so our study actually covers all 24 governments of Tunisia, encompassing a total of 24 municipalities. And so this broad coverage allows for a comprehensive understanding of e-governance across the country at the local level. And this slide presents the overall LOCIE results of the evaluated municipalities, where we can observe that 37 of the municipalities.

Deniz Susar: Can you please go full screen to see the whole slide? Is it possible? Yes, we just see speaker mode now, yeah. Definitely. Is. Yeah, it’s better.

Salsabil Yakoubi: Okay, sweet. Thank you. And so, yeah, we go back to the talking about the Tunisian results. And so these are the overall results. And as we mentioned, 37% of the municipalities, specifically nine out of 24, are ranked within the middle group. Conversely, a larger portion, or 63% of 15 municipalities fall into the low group. And this indicates a significant opportunity for improvement in digital maturity across many of Tunisia’s municipalities. And we have this chart that visually represents the distribution across the LOCIE index, from zero to 100%, with categories of low, middle, high, and very high. But as you can see here, most of Tunisia’s municipalities like between the row and the middle ranges. And so the slides provide a more granular view of the LOCIE scores, highlighting the top three municipalities. for each criterion for service provision, content provision, and for lastly, the tech. These results indicate varying strains across different aspects of e-governance among municipalities. This is basically a continuation of our analysis of the LOSI scores per criterion for e-literacy. We see outstanding performance from these municipalities, all achieving a perfect 100% actually when it comes to e-literacy. This highlights strong digital literacy initiatives in those areas. In terms of participation and engagement and the institutional framework criterion, these are the top performance. These detailed breakdowns of the top performers helps us pinpoint specific areas for improvement within each municipality, guiding a targeted intervention for improvement. As for our recommendations and based on our findings, we found several to improve the e-governance in the Tunisian municipalities. Firstly, to advance digital services, we recommend establishing responsive communication channels through advanced technologies and leveraging citizen centricity in service digitization. Secondly, to improve content provision, municipalities should develop user-friendly interfaces, provide thorough statistical data, regularly update municipal governmental portals, user statistics, and other multilingual content. Thirdly, extending the framework of our instructions, which involves strengthening open data policies to promote transparency and addressing gaps in privacy regulations and the right to access government information, and obviously building trust and accountability with citizens. Finally, to enhance the technical features, we suggest developing advanced search features for easier content navigation, improving user support features like frequently asked questions and help desk numbers, and these recommendations aim to guide municipalities toward higher digital maturity. And so, moving on to our second phase, where we move from more theory to action, and where we aim to improve the municipal websites using a low C base approach. And so, we now transition to the second phase using, and this is initiated in March 2025, which builds upon the insights gained from our initial evaluation and focuses on implementing targeted improvements to enhance the digital maturity of municipal online services. This is where our recommendations begin to translate into tangible actions, and our current project is actually focused on improving municipal websites, and the goal of this initiative is multifaceted to leverage research from the first phase to increase partnership between local government and civil society and improve municipal portal accessibility, really, for user experience and promoting digital inclusion at the local level. And the outputs will include training municipal members on how to conduct their own website evaluation and producing a report highlighting improved scores. And so, this is a project timeline which began in March with scope definition and team structure, followed by defining quick fixes in April, and then the pre-implementation phase in May with the implementation phase taking place in June, and post-implementation, lesson learner recommendation, and of course, the final report publication will soon follow. And this initiative involves checking portals, before and after updates, identifying problems in access, speed, and ease of use, improving structure, and ultimately making it easier for people to use. And this collaborative effort with Tunisian municipalities is actually very, very crucial for enhancing the digital governance. And so, for our scope definition, which is, again, a very crucial step for the second phase of our project, we clearly defined the scope in which ensures that our efforts are targeted and effective in promoting the municipal websites based on the LOSI framework. And this involves identifying specific aspects of the website to be addressed and the expected outcomes. And in defining the scope for improving municipal websites, we established a clear criteria for the selecting the municipalities that we want to be working with. And this criteria include their geographical location, their initial LOSI score, and their responsiveness to collaboration. For selecting the results, our priorities given to municipalities with low LOSI score, specifically those ranging from 0% to 24%, indicating the greatest need for improvement. And we also have a location-based meeting method with on-site meetings for municipalities outside of the capital region, and online meetings for those within, like, that are more far there. And communications facilitated through phone calls and emails. And the systematic approach ensures we focus our efforts on where they are most needed, and we can have the greatest impact. And so, actually, for the next step, and it’s a crucial part of our improvement strategy, it involves identifying and prioritizing immediate impactful changes that can be implemented to enhance the municipal websites. And these quick fixes are designed to address the most passing issues identified during the initial assessment phase. And so, our quick fixes framework classifies indicators into three categories, as you can see here on the screen, based on their complexity and aiming to improve the municipality score. And it’s important to clarify that the classification is based on the general complexity of the tasks from an international perspective, not necessarily on what is, like, currently available or practiced at the national level. And we have three categories, as I previously mentioned, which are easy adjustments, moderate adjustments, and hard adjustments. And this framework allows us to prioritize and implement changes effectively, starting with the easiest and most impactful adjustments. Yeah, so just a reminder that if you could conclude in two minutes. Okay, sure. So, for our pre-implementation phase, we undertook several key steps to initiate collaboration with stakeholders, conducting their mapping and outreach, identifying key municipalities. Secondly, we performed profiling, collecting conceptual data, and then, we drafted standardized partnership frameworks. And then, we aligned our shared goals, engaging municipalities in defining the improvement priorities. Finally, we formalized the collaboration by launching a pilot implementation discussion, such as Reba, which we’ll go over now. And so, actually, our chosen pilot is Reba, which has a SLUCI score of 30.52, placing it in the middle category, which is moderate for maturity, with room for significant improvement. And as you could see here on the screen, this is how they score for their LUCI, for each category on their LUCI scores. And here, this is a breakdown of all the missing indicators in the service provision, and their categorization based on our quick fixes framework. And these are for our content provision, where we see a lot of easy adjustments for institutional framework, with only one missing, for engagement and participation, e-government literacy, and technology. And so, here, we have, basically, our approach to implementing the quick fixes is based on batches, and starting with a small group of eight, and this allows us to validate the feasibility of implementation, ensuring our changes are practical, achievable, and demonstrating improvements as possible, with a minimal time cost and technical requirements, building trust, step-by-step, with the municipalities. And we chose this method to enable impact, and keep the collaboration manageable with municipalities, maintaining continuous communication, and of course, since our work reflects the voluntary resource limited capacity. And so, as a quick example, these are the suggested batch, for the first batch, these are the suggestions we made for service provision, and for content provision, and then for institutional framework. And here, you could see, actually, the suggestions that we made to the municipalities being reflected on their municipal websites. And so, actually, after the first batch, the score jumped from 30 to 39%, still placing it in the middle category, but still, we here have a proof of concept that this does work. And this is the score that we anticipate, after implementing all the easy fixes that we categorized for the Srebrenica municipality, and the score could jump above. 50% which would place the municipality portal in the high category. And as for our challenges, we encountered several from the lack of formal engagement channels as often unclear to who to contact, from the initial contact on trust building as we had to introduce the LOSI framework from its inception and the whole build credibility. Of course, we have limited resources on both sides, but we did tackle that by strategic outreach as we used our network. We also prepared documentation such as a partnership documents and one pagers outlining goals, roles and expectations. And of course, with consistent follow up, maintaining the regular friendly communication to keep them engaged. And so we do recommend using the existing networks and providing clear materials and most importantly, maintaining ongoing communication with the local partners. And at the same time, we have to balance ambition with realism. That’s why we’re going for the easy fixes first. And that’s why we’re doing it in batches. And so the way forward, as we look at it, we do see looking ahead, proposing several strategies to advance e-governance in Tunisia from advocating civil society organizations to collaborate closely with the municipalities to assist in the collection and publication of essential data and fostering PVPs for crucial e-service expansion, encouraging co-development of essential online services. And of course, we believe in collaboration with other countries interested in applying the LOCIE methodology and these international partnerships can provide valuable insights and beneficial exchanges about the best LOCIE application. And finally, we emphasize the importance of collaboration with the private sector for the technological upgrades. And so these partnerships can provide expertise and infrastructure development needed. And thank you everyone for your attention. We hope the presentation provided valuable insights into the application of LOCIE in Tunisia and our efforts enhance digital municipal governance at the local level and we’re open to questions and further discussions.

Deniz Susar: Thank you. Thank you so much, SALSABIL YAKOUBI. I think this was very, very helpful and congratulations for your efforts in this project. So you are not only applying, but you are also giving guidance to the public officials, which is very much appreciated. We have a little bit of time now for questions. I’m just following the script given to me. But before, I also mentioned that we are applying LOCIE methodology in the UK right now. So Aaron, if you want to just say two minutes about that, we’ll appreciate and then we can get questions for everyone.

Participant: Sure. Is my audio coming through well? Yes. Great. First, I just want to say thank you to everyone that helped organize at IGF, as well as my colleagues from UNDESA. I work alongside Dennis in New York. I’m sure you guys don’t envy being in Oslo when in New York, it was about 40 degrees Celsius the past three days. So I enjoyed the weather in Oslo, as well as the other amazing sessions happening at IGF in the meantime. So as Dennis mentioned, I work on the UK application of the LOCIE methodology. And I think the overarching theme that was touched upon, but that I really want to highlight in this brief input is that I think working together is more important than ever in this digital world, especially when it comes to improving the government services. As far as I can tell so far, it’s still in progress, but the UK does seem to be alongside Tunisia leading in this area. And the application of this LOCIE methodology in the UK really shows how innovative partnerships can improve people’s everyday experiences through local government, and in many cases leveraging university students, collaborations with national as well as the local municipalities. I think LOCIE and the UN provide the bridge to be able to turn this into a conduit to improve people’s everyday lives through, like I said, the digital services that are provided within their local governments. And what I like about LOCIE is it focuses on the practical cooperation, it measures how effective local government websites are, and encourages the groups and the parties involved to share their ideas and the strategies. And this teamwork that’s integrated within the methodology itself results in online services that are easier to use, more transparent, and truly more reflective of people’s needs on the ground. Thank you. The main point here is simple, when we work together and collaborate cross-functionally, just like with LOCIE, we achieve stronger and more accessible services, and the UK, just like with Tunisia, provides a further example of how entities can work together to deliver the results, because that’s how we’ll continue to deliver real improvements for communities everywhere.

Deniz Susar: Yeah, thank you, Aaron. Thank you so much. Can I ask how many cities in the UK? Just quickly. Oh, we cannot hear you, but I… Aaron, you’re muted. I was asking how many cities did you apply in the UK? Okay, we will go back to Aaron. But now, Dimitrios, do we have any questions online, if we can take, or anyone here from the audience, please?

Dimitris Sarantis: Thanks, Dennis. I don’t see any questions in the chat at the moment, so I will invite once more participants to submit the questions in the chat. We have some time to respond to comments or questions. I would like to make just a small comment on the presentation of Salsabil. I would say that this is a very good example, a very good case of using logic methodology as an improvement framework for local government, because I knew that they have done a very good work in assessing municipalities in Tunisia. I was not aware for the next step. They went, Tunisian, as we see now, Tunisian partner went a step forward. So using the results from logic applications to really not only improve local government, but also to suggest methodological steps to do that. I was really surprised with this categorization of improvement steps in clusters, easy, medium, and more difficult to be implemented. This is very interesting, because it gives this easy win-win opportunity to local governments to design quickly and successfully improvements in the local government websites. Also this interaction that Tunisian partner in government society has with the local government authorities to apply the results of logic application in government is very interesting. So these are some comments that I have to do on the presentation, and I will pass the floor to Sabrin.

Deniz Susar: Let’s get one more question from the audience, and then we’ll get back to you. Thank you. Please, gentleman here.

Audience: Thank you. My name is Steve McDowell from Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. My question is about the term local government. What’s the scope of size? Because a city like Oslo could be called a local government, or a city with two or three hundred thousand people might be called local government and have very different sets of resources and size of citizens population that you’re dealing with.

Deniz Susar: Thank you. I think I can answer that one. So when we started this project, in order to cover as many people as possible, we started with the most populous city in each UN member state. So it is not the capital. Usually people confuse with that, but it is, for example, New York City in U.S. But we know U.S. has 50 states, and it’s very challenging to define. But when Tunisian colleagues apply the methodology in Tunisia, they choose each region. When we did in Brazil application, in Brazil, I think 50 states, they chose. largest city in each state, plus the capital city. So there is some flexibility there to extend. And the name doesn’t really reflect the application, so we are focusing more on cities.

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen: If I may just complement that, the LOSI methodology, when colleagues like Dimitris go in and advise on how to apply the methodology in a specific country, we often suggest having a balanced approach. So when we talk about local government, in the UK they call it councils, in Denmark we call it municipalities, other countries have different names for that. But to try and find either a group of similar cases, so you can compare like with like as we say in academia, or try and get a representative sample. Because in most cases we can’t unfortunately assess every single local authority in a country. You also see that in some cases the city may not represent the whole metropole. So in Copenhagen for instance, it’s a city of some almost two million people in the metropole, but the municipality itself, Copenhagen, is 700,000 people. But the average size of a municipality in Denmark is about 55,000. So again, this is something we advise on, but it depends on the partner in terms of their resources and their strategic focus. But it’s then captured in the report what the case selection was,

Deniz Susar: and what the pros and cons are. Thank you very much. Sure, thank you for the question. Let’s go back to online again. Dimitrios, I think you had a question, or Sabrin wanted to say something.

Sabrine Dachraoui: I don’t know if we actually have questions, but thank you Steve for the intervention. That was actually a very interesting question. Our partners actually addressed the question very well. With that said, I would like to emphasize some points before we leave the floor for you, Denise and Morten, for the closing remarks, because we’re apparently running out of time. The main reason why we are here today at the IGF doing this session is because we believe in the potential of the joining forces. That said, our workshop is under the sub-theme of digital cooperation as it’s communicated, and it refers to the collaborative efforts between governments, the private sector, civil society, international organizations, all parties moving together to address global digital challenges. Some of the policy questions that we wrote in the descriptions, or we might go through them very briefly, as I said, the role of civil society and private sector. One of the significant takeaways from the Tunisian case study is the indispensable, let’s say, or important role of civil society. So we take us as an example, the Tunisian government society, we led the LOSI assessment, and this highlights how civil society organizations with their deep understanding of local communities can serve as crucial bridges between citizens and governments. They can independently collect data, they can assess services, they can provide valuable feedback, they can help governments identify gaps in areas of improvement to support governmental efforts. That’s a powerful model for advancing local digital governance, especially if governments or resources are limited. The next is the role of international organization and best practices. Now this is a scope, a scoop, sorry, for people who would like to collaborate with us. I would like to say is international organizations like UNDESA and UNU-IGOV play a vital role in this. Their provision of methodologies like LUSI along with guidance and support offers a framework, a standardized actually framework for assessment and global perspective on best practices. Another important note is that I know change can be challenging at some point. We want to see changes fast in local and our local governments, especially in our digital transformation journey, and that’s why addressing challenges in digital transformation requires a flexible approach, and this is what we were trying to apply in our second phase, is that we invented, let’s say, the quick fixes framework in that we wanted to apply this flexible approach of seeing the long term.

Deniz Susar: Just if you could conclude, so we have four minutes only. Okay, okay. But I want you to conclude in the next 15 seconds.

Sabrine Dachraoui: Okay, us as a society, I want to emphasize our openness to collaboration. So our team brings together experts across multiple disciplines, from technical implementation to policy design as well, giving us a unique holistic, let’s say, perspective of digital governance challenges.

Deniz Susar: If I can give two minutes to Morten, just to say, but Sabrin, you already started concluding the session. Your points are well taken and very to the point, Morten.

Dimitris Sarantis: I just wanted to put… Sorry Morten, before Morten, just one minute, because we have one question from the audience, from the participants. Can I make it? From Emmanuel Oruk from Uganda, how accessible

Deniz Susar: is it the project for a person with disabilities? Yeah, Dimitrios, if you can respond to that in

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen: the chat, Morten. Okay, so I just wanted to put some of the findings of the Tunisian case into a global perspective, where the key weaknesses for the Tunisian municipalities are not the provision of information online, it’s more about transactional services. And this is where these findings also have a role to national policy and the role of national government in providing the key enablers for digital transactional services, like electronic identification, digital signatures, and providing also a national set of policy and technical components to enable and empower local authorities to deliver services online, not just information. And this is something we see not just being a challenge in emerging economies, we see this also in the classical global rich north, where federal countries, for instance, don’t have a national infrastructure for for e-identity or signatures. This is the case in Canada and the UK, for instance, and that becomes a barrier for transactional service delivery and the transactional development. So the local framework cannot work exclusively in isolation, it is linked to also national policy priorities and enablers and direction given from the national government. So that’s a very interesting outcome of the Tunisian in a regional perspective.

Deniz Susar: Thank you. Thank you so much, Mortan. And sorry for the rush, but we have two minutes about the accessibility question or any other one. We have relevant associated features with those, we are checking those, and I appreciate Dimitrios responding in the chat. So just to say a few words in the conclusion, I think Sabrin’s remarks was really to the point. So here at the IGF, this is the UN Secretary General’s Forum on Internet Issues. It brings technical community, private sector, civil society, and of course governments together, and I think this project was a very good example of that. So with the Tunisian E-Government Society who is leading this initiative, so we are reaching out to local government officials, but we are also creating collaboration. I think the second part of your presentation is an innovation. You are building on existing methodology and further expanding it, similar to our national and local E-Government toolkits, but you are really highlighting, and I think this will be a very good example for other countries to pick from here and learn from you. And I think it will definitely help others. So I just wanted to thank you for that and conclude this session here, and the recording will be available online, and I’m sure Sabrin, people interested will be in touch with us. So thank you very much, especially to the Tunisian E-Government Society for this excellent session. Thank you.

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential for effective digital governance

Speakers

– Deniz Susar
– Sabrine Dachraoui
– Participant

Arguments

Cross-functional collaboration between technical community, private sector, civil society, and governments exemplifies effective digital cooperation

Civil society organizations serve as crucial bridges between citizens and governments in digital governance initiatives

UK application demonstrates innovative partnerships leveraging university students and cross-functional collaboration

Summary

All speakers emphasized that successful digital governance requires collaboration across multiple stakeholders including government, civil society, private sector, academia, and international organizations, with each bringing unique capabilities and perspectives.

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

LOSI framework provides standardized yet flexible methodology for digital governance assessment

Speakers

– Deniz Susar
– Dimitris Sarantis
– Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen
– Salsabil Yakoubi

Arguments

Partnership model between UNDESA and UNU enables global and local digital governance assessment

LOSI framework provides standardized methodology with 95 indicators across six categories for assessing municipal digital services

Framework allows triangulation between national and local assessments for comprehensive digital governance evaluation

Binary scoring system (0 or 1) across 95 indicators provides clear quantifiable assessment of digital maturity levels

Summary

Speakers agreed that the LOSI framework offers a robust, standardized methodology that can be adapted to different country contexts while maintaining global comparability and providing clear, quantifiable assessments.

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

National policy enablers are crucial for local digital service delivery

Speakers

– Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen
– Salsabil Yakoubi

Arguments

National policy enablers like electronic identification and digital signatures are crucial for transactional service delivery

Results showed varying strengths across different e-governance aspects, with some municipalities achieving 100% in e-literacy

Summary

Both speakers recognized that local digital governance cannot operate in isolation and requires national government support through key infrastructure like electronic identification and digital signatures to enable full transactional services.

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the critical role of international organizations in providing standardized frameworks and methodologies that enable consistent assessment and improvement of digital governance capabilities across different countries and contexts.

Speakers

– Sabrine Dachraoui
– Dimitris Sarantis

Arguments

International organizations provide standardized frameworks and global best practices for local digital transformation

LOSI framework provides standardized methodology with 95 indicators across six categories for assessing municipal digital services

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Both speakers recognized that local government contexts vary dramatically across countries in terms of size, resources, and service delivery responsibilities, requiring flexible approaches to digital governance assessment and implementation.

Speakers

– Deniz Susar
– Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen

Arguments

Local government size and resource variations require flexible methodology application adapted to country contexts

Local service delivery varies significantly by country context, with some municipalities responsible for 80% of citizen services

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Both speakers highlighted the importance of practical, collaborative approaches that build trust and demonstrate feasibility through manageable implementation strategies and innovative partnerships.

Speakers

– Salsabil Yakoubi
– Participant

Arguments

Batch-based approach enables manageable collaboration with municipalities while building trust and demonstrating feasibility

UK application demonstrates innovative partnerships leveraging university students and cross-functional collaboration

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

Civil society leadership in government digital transformation

Speakers

– Sabrine Dachraoui
– Deniz Susar
– Dimitris Sarantis

Arguments

Civil society organizations serve as crucial bridges between citizens and governments in digital governance initiatives

Cross-functional collaboration between technical community, private sector, civil society, and governments exemplifies effective digital cooperation

LOSI framework provides standardized methodology with 95 indicators across six categories for assessing municipal digital services

Explanation

It was unexpected to see such strong consensus on civil society organizations not just participating in but actually leading digital governance assessments and improvements, with government officials and international organizations fully endorsing this approach as effective and necessary.

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Innovation in methodology application beyond original framework

Speakers

– Salsabil Yakoubi
– Dimitris Sarantis
– Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen

Arguments

Quick fixes framework categorizes improvements into easy, moderate, and hard adjustments for systematic implementation

LOSI framework provides standardized methodology with 95 indicators across six categories for assessing municipal digital services

Framework allows triangulation between national and local assessments for comprehensive digital governance evaluation

Explanation

There was unexpected consensus on encouraging and celebrating methodological innovations that go beyond the original framework, with international organizations praising local adaptations and improvements rather than insisting on strict adherence to established protocols.

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkable consensus across all speakers on the value of multi-stakeholder collaboration, the effectiveness of the LOSI framework as both assessment tool and improvement methodology, the need for flexible adaptation to local contexts, and the crucial role of national policy enablers. There was also strong agreement on the importance of civil society leadership and innovative approaches to implementation.

Consensus level

Very high level of consensus with no significant disagreements identified. This strong alignment suggests the LOSI methodology has achieved broad acceptance and validation across different stakeholder groups, indicating its potential for wider adoption and scaling. The consensus also validates the multi-stakeholder approach to digital governance as both effective and necessary for sustainable improvements.

Different viewpoints

Unexpected differences

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkable consensus among all speakers with no direct disagreements identified. All participants aligned on the value of the LOSI methodology, the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration, and the need for flexible implementation approaches.

Disagreement level

Very low disagreement level – this was a collaborative workshop presentation rather than a debate, with speakers building upon each other’s points rather than challenging them. The lack of disagreement suggests strong alignment on digital governance assessment methodologies and implementation strategies, which has positive implications for continued international cooperation and knowledge sharing in this domain.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the critical role of international organizations in providing standardized frameworks and methodologies that enable consistent assessment and improvement of digital governance capabilities across different countries and contexts.

Speakers

– Sabrine Dachraoui
– Dimitris Sarantis

Arguments

International organizations provide standardized frameworks and global best practices for local digital transformation

LOSI framework provides standardized methodology with 95 indicators across six categories for assessing municipal digital services

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Both speakers recognized that local government contexts vary dramatically across countries in terms of size, resources, and service delivery responsibilities, requiring flexible approaches to digital governance assessment and implementation.

Speakers

– Deniz Susar
– Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen

Arguments

Local government size and resource variations require flexible methodology application adapted to country contexts

Local service delivery varies significantly by country context, with some municipalities responsible for 80% of citizen services

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Both speakers highlighted the importance of practical, collaborative approaches that build trust and demonstrate feasibility through manageable implementation strategies and innovative partnerships.

Speakers

– Salsabil Yakoubi
– Participant

Arguments

Batch-based approach enables manageable collaboration with municipalities while building trust and demonstrating feasibility

UK application demonstrates innovative partnerships leveraging university students and cross-functional collaboration

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Key takeaways

The LOSI (Local Online Service Index) framework provides a standardized methodology with 95 indicators across six categories to assess municipal digital governance maturity levels

Multi-stakeholder partnerships between UN agencies, civil society organizations, and local governments are essential for successful digital governance transformation

Tunisia’s implementation across 24 municipalities revealed that 63% fall in the low digital maturity category, indicating significant improvement opportunities

The innovative ‘quick fixes’ framework categorizing improvements as easy, moderate, or hard enables systematic and manageable implementation of digital enhancements

National policy enablers like electronic identification and digital signatures are crucial prerequisites for local transactional service delivery

Civil society organizations can effectively bridge the gap between citizens and governments by conducting independent assessments and providing improvement guidance

The LOSI methodology is adaptable to different country contexts and can be expanded beyond single cities to comprehensive regional assessments

Resolutions and action items

Tunisia will continue with a second round of LOSI implementation to measure progress over time

The UK application is ongoing with partnerships involving the Ministry of IT and universities

Tunisian e-Governance Society will complete their pilot implementation with Reba municipality and publish results

International collaboration opportunities are open for other countries to apply the LOSI methodology through memorandums of understanding

Documentation and partnership frameworks will be made available to facilitate replication in other countries

Unresolved issues

How to effectively address accessibility requirements for persons with disabilities in digital service assessments

Challenges in establishing formal engagement channels with local municipalities and building initial trust

Resource limitations on both assessment organizations and municipalities affecting implementation scope

Defining optimal local government size and scope parameters for meaningful comparisons across different country contexts

Balancing ambitious digital transformation goals with realistic implementation timelines and capabilities

Suggested compromises

Batch-based implementation approach starting with easy fixes to build trust and demonstrate feasibility before tackling complex improvements

Flexible methodology application allowing countries to adapt the framework to their specific contexts and priorities

Strategic outreach using existing networks and providing clear documentation to overcome initial engagement barriers

Balanced case selection approach comparing similar-sized municipalities or creating representative samples when comprehensive coverage isn’t feasible

Leveraging university students and academic partnerships to supplement resource constraints in assessment activities

Over 65% of SDG targets fall under the jurisdiction of local authorities. So, this makes local digital governance not only relevant, but also essential.

Speaker

Dimitris Sarantis

Reason

This statistic fundamentally reframes the importance of local digital governance from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a critical component of global sustainable development. It challenges the common focus on national-level digital initiatives by quantifying how much development work actually happens at the local level.

Impact

This comment established the foundational importance of the entire discussion and provided compelling justification for why local digital governance deserves significant attention and resources. It elevated the conversation from technical methodology to global development impact.

One of the key findings from the 2024 survey is that national portals still tend to outperform local ones. However, we have seen that cities with strong collaboration between national and municipal governments, as well as those with clear institutional frameworks, score higher.

Speaker

Dimitris Sarantis

Reason

This insight reveals a critical gap in digital governance while simultaneously pointing toward the solution. It moves beyond simple performance metrics to identify the structural and collaborative factors that drive success.

Impact

This observation shifted the discussion from purely technical assessments to governance relationships and institutional design, setting up the framework for understanding why some cities succeed while others struggle.

Our quick fixes framework classifies indicators into three categories… based on their complexity and aiming to improve the municipality score… easy adjustments, moderate adjustments, and hard adjustments.

Speaker

Salsabil Yakoubi

Reason

This represents a significant methodological innovation that transforms an assessment tool into an actionable improvement framework. It demonstrates practical problem-solving that makes digital governance improvements accessible to resource-constrained municipalities.

Impact

This comment marked a pivotal shift in the presentation from theoretical assessment to practical implementation. It generated visible excitement from other participants, with Dimitris specifically noting he was ‘surprised’ and impressed by this innovation, calling it ‘very interesting’ and highlighting the ‘easy win-win opportunity’ it creates.

The local framework cannot work exclusively in isolation, it is linked to also national policy priorities and enablers and direction given from the national government… This is the case in Canada and the UK, for instance, and that becomes a barrier for transactional service delivery.

Speaker

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen

Reason

This comment provides crucial systemic perspective by identifying that even well-resourced developed countries face structural barriers to local digital service delivery. It challenges assumptions about what local governments can achieve independently and highlights the critical role of national infrastructure.

Impact

This insight recontextualized the entire discussion by showing that the challenges aren’t just about local capacity or resources, but about systemic policy and infrastructure gaps that exist even in advanced economies. It broadened the conversation from local implementation to multi-level governance coordination.

37% of the municipalities… are ranked within the middle group. Conversely, a larger portion, or 63% of 15 municipalities fall into the low group. And this indicates a significant opportunity for improvement in digital maturity across many of Tunisia’s municipalities.

Speaker

Salsabil Yakoubi

Reason

While presenting concerning statistics, this comment reframes poor performance as ‘significant opportunity,’ demonstrating a constructive, solution-oriented approach to digital governance challenges. It shows how assessment data can be used to motivate rather than discourage improvement efforts.

Impact

This framing helped maintain the discussion’s focus on solutions and possibilities rather than dwelling on deficiencies. It set the stage for the practical improvement strategies that followed and demonstrated how to use assessment results constructively.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by establishing a progression from global significance to practical implementation. Dimitris’s opening statistic about SDG targets created urgency and importance, while his observation about national-local collaboration identified critical success factors. The Tunisian team’s innovation with the ‘quick fixes’ framework represented the session’s most significant contribution, transforming the conversation from assessment to actionable improvement. Morten’s closing insight about systemic barriers provided essential context that elevated the discussion beyond local implementation to multi-level governance challenges. Together, these comments created a comprehensive narrative arc that moved from ‘why this matters globally’ to ‘how to make it work practically’ to ‘what systemic changes are needed.’ The visible enthusiasm and surprise from participants when the quick fixes framework was presented demonstrates how truly insightful contributions can energize and redirect academic discussions toward practical innovation.

How accessible is the project for a person with disabilities?

Speaker

Emmanuel Oruk from Uganda

Explanation

This question addresses the critical issue of digital inclusion and ensuring that local government digital services are accessible to all citizens, including those with disabilities, which is essential for equitable service delivery.

How many cities are being assessed in the UK application of the LOSI methodology?

Speaker

Deniz Susar

Explanation

This question seeks to understand the scope and scale of the UK implementation to better compare it with other country applications and assess the methodology’s reach.

What is the scope of size for local government in the LOSI methodology?

Speaker

Steve McDowell from Florida State University

Explanation

This question is important for understanding how the methodology accounts for the vast differences in resources, population size, and capacity between different local governments, which affects the validity of comparisons and assessments.

How can the quick fixes framework be applied and validated in other countries beyond Tunisia?

Speaker

Implied from Dimitris Sarantis’ comments

Explanation

The innovative categorization of improvements into easy, moderate, and hard adjustments represents a methodological advancement that could benefit other LOSI applications, requiring further research on its transferability and effectiveness.

How can national policy enablers (like e-identity, digital signatures) be better integrated to support local transactional services?

Speaker

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen

Explanation

This addresses a key finding that local digital governance cannot work in isolation and requires national infrastructure and policy support, which is a challenge even in developed countries and needs further exploration.

What are the best practices for civil society organizations to effectively collaborate with municipalities in digital governance improvements?

Speaker

Sabrine Dachraoui

Explanation

The Tunisian case demonstrates the potential of civil society leadership in digital governance assessment and improvement, but more research is needed on replicating this model and overcoming collaboration challenges.

How can the LOSI methodology be adapted to include smart city indicators while maintaining comparability?

Speaker

Implied from Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen’s mention of Korea and Brazil applications

Explanation

Different countries have complemented the core LOSI indicators with smart city-related measures, raising questions about how to balance local customization with global standardization and comparability.

Summary

This discussion focused on combating misinformation and disinformation through collaborative fact-checking and verification efforts, featuring presentations from Norway’s Faktisk organization and the Philippines’ Rappler newsroom. Olav Ostrem from Faktisk explained how their organization was founded in 2017 as a collaborative effort between six major Norwegian media companies in response to the rise of fake news, Trump’s election, and Russian aggression against Ukraine. With only 15 employees, Faktisk operates two divisions: technical fact-checking and verification, and media literacy education, demonstrating how collaboration with media partners amplifies their reach and impact.

Morten Langfeldt Dahlback discussed the technological evolution of their fact-checking tools, moving from simple transcription services in 2017 to sophisticated AI-powered solutions including object recognition algorithms and facial expression analysis. He highlighted how the shift from text-based to audiovisual content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram required new verification methods, exemplified by their analysis of Norwegian flags in a National Day parade that debunked claims about foreign flag prevalence.

Silje Forsund detailed their verification work during the Ukraine conflict, explaining how competing Norwegian media outlets collaborated at a shared verification desk to authenticate images and videos flooding social media. She provided examples of their work, including exposing a staged video falsely claiming to show a Norwegian soldier’s death and using satellite imagery to document filtering camps and mass graves in conflict zones.

The discussion concluded with presentations from Rappler about building networks of truth-tellers and developing AI tools trained on verified content, emphasizing that combating disinformation requires global, collaborative efforts combining data analysis, community engagement, and technological innovation.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Collaborative fact-checking models**: Faktisk’s unique structure as Norway’s fact-checking organization, founded and owned by six major media companies, demonstrating how competing news organizations can work together to combat misinformation more effectively than individual efforts.

– **Evolution of misinformation tactics and verification methods**: The shift from text-based political fact-checking in 2017 to sophisticated audiovisual content verification, requiring advanced technical tools like AI object detection, facial recognition, and satellite imagery analysis to counter increasingly complex disinformation campaigns.

– **Real-time verification during crises**: The establishment of collaborative verification desks during major events like the Ukraine invasion, where journalists from competing organizations worked together to verify images and videos flooding social media, sharing skills and resources across the industry.

– **Technology-enhanced verification tools**: Development and deployment of AI-powered solutions including object recognition algorithms (YOLO), facial expression analysis, and data forensics mapping to track how disinformation spreads across networks and platforms at unprecedented speed and scale.

– **Community-based truth networks**: Rappler’s approach to building resilient information ecosystems through multisectoral coalitions like Facts First PH, combining data mapping, citizen engagement, and safe digital spaces to create networks of truth-tellers that can counter disinformation at the community level.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to share strategies and collaborative approaches for combating misinformation and disinformation in the digital age, showcasing how news organizations, technology partners, and communities can work together to verify content, educate citizens, and build resilient information ecosystems.

## Overall Tone:

The tone was professional and solution-oriented throughout, with speakers presenting their work as urgent but manageable challenges. The presenters maintained an optimistic outlook despite acknowledging the serious threats posed by disinformation, emphasizing collaboration and innovation as key to success. The tone remained consistently focused on practical solutions and shared learning, with audience questions reflecting genuine interest in the ethical and technical aspects of the work presented.

Speakers

– **Olav Ostrem**: News editor of Faktisk, Norway’s only fact-checking organisation

– **Morten Langfeldt Dahlback Rapler**: Head of technology at Faktisk

– **Silje Forsund**: Head of verification at Faktisk (also mentioned as head of strategy and innovation)

– **Speaker**: Role/title not specified

– **Audience**: Various audience members asking questions, including Surabhi from RNW Media (a media development organization based in the Netherlands)

Additional speakers:

– **Carla**: Representative from Rappler, a newsroom in the Philippines

# Comprehensive Report: Collaborative Approaches to Combating Misinformation and Disinformation

## Executive Summary

This discussion brought together practitioners from Norway’s Faktisk fact-checking organisation and the Philippines’ Rappler newsroom to examine collaborative strategies for combating misinformation and disinformation. The conversation focused on the evolution from text-based fact-checking to audiovisual content verification, emphasizing international cooperation, technological tools, and community engagement approaches.

## Key Participants and Their Roles

The discussion featured Olav Ostrem, news editor of Faktisk, Norway’s dedicated fact-checking organisation; Morten Langfeldt Dahlback, head of technology at Faktisk, who demonstrated verification tools and methodologies; and Silje Forsund, who was introduced as head of strategy and innovation but identified herself as head of verification at Faktisk. A Rappler representative presented the Philippine perspective on building truth-telling networks. Audience participation included Surabhi from RNW Media, who raised questions about AI implementation in journalism.

## The Collaborative Foundation: Faktisk’s Model

### Origins and Structure

Faktisk was founded in 2017 during what Olav described as “the tornado called Fake News.” The organisation’s distinguishing feature is its collaborative structure—it was founded and is owned by six major Norwegian media companies who recognised that working together against disinformation was more effective than competing individually.

As Olav explained: “We are only 15 people, so we need a little help from our friends.” This collaborative philosophy extends internationally, with Faktisk working with Nordic colleagues including Danish Tjekte, Swedish Kjellkritikbyrån, and Finnish Faktabari through the Nordic hub.

### Operational Framework

Despite having only 15 employees, Faktisk operates with two main functions: fact-checking and verification, and media literacy education. The organisation’s effectiveness is amplified through partnerships with media ecosystem partners who provide support, financing, and distribution channels.

## Technological Evolution in Verification

### From Text to Audiovisual Content

Morten detailed the technological evolution since Faktisk’s founding. Initially focused on transcription services for text-based political fact-checking, the organisation has adapted as misinformation evolved to sophisticated audiovisual content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

The organisation now employs advanced verification tools including object detection algorithms. A notable example involved analyzing footage from a Norwegian National Day parade to count flags and verify claims about the prevalence of foreign flags among Norwegian ones.

### AI Applications and Ethical Boundaries

The technological toolkit includes facial expression recognition technology for analyzing social media content patterns. However, Morten emphasized ethical limitations: these tools should only be used on public figures with significant impact, not private citizens, and personal information should be disaggregated from analyzed content.

Frame-by-frame video analysis has become crucial for identifying inconsistencies, editing cuts, and staging in propaganda content, allowing verification teams to identify subtle manipulations that could alter meaning or context.

## Crisis Verification: The Ukraine Conflict

### Collaborative Verification Response

The Ukraine invasion marked a significant shift in verification journalism. As Olav noted, the conflict brought “a flood of images and videos, and the big medias, they didn’t know what videos and images that occurred on social media that were to be trusted.”

This crisis prompted collaborative verification desks where journalists from competing Norwegian media organisations worked together in real-time to authenticate social media content, representing a departure from traditional competitive journalism models.

### Practical Verification Examples

Silje provided examples of their verification work, including exposing a staged video that falsely claimed to show the death of a Norwegian soldier. Through frame-by-frame analysis, the team identified inconsistencies and editing cuts that revealed the video’s fabricated nature.

The team also utilized satellite imagery and open-source intelligence to document conflict-related activities. Their training programs have equipped approximately 60 journalists worldwide in verification methods, particularly crucial for journalists working in conflict zones or in exile.

## Global Perspectives: The Philippine Model

### Network-Based Approaches

The Rappler representative introduced the Facts First PH coalition, which includes over 140 units working together across multiple sectors. This model demonstrates multi-sectoral approaches to combating disinformation through collective action extending beyond traditional media organisations.

The Philippine approach emphasizes understanding disinformation as orchestrated campaigns rather than random falsehoods: “You can’t fight what you can’t see… disinformation doesn’t just appear randomly, it is very much orchestrated.”

### Community Engagement Strategies

Rappler’s approach focuses on building networks through training programs and community roadshows. The organisation has developed AI tools trained on verified content to provide real-time fact-checking capabilities, creating digital spaces where communities can access reliable information.

The strategy recognizes that effective responses require understanding how disinformation spreads: “If lies spread a certain way, then we’re able to combat that by knowing where do they start, how are our audiences, our communities, responding to it, and what formats will they actually understand.”

## Technological Challenges and Ethical Considerations

### The Speed Challenge

A significant challenge identified was the mismatch between disinformation spread speed and verification time requirements. Silje identified this as their main operational challenge—stories spread extremely fast while verification work is inherently time-consuming.

This challenge has been exacerbated by AI technology, which has lowered barriers to creating and distributing disinformation at unprecedented scale and speed.

### Ethical Implementation of AI Tools

Surabhi from RNW Media raised questions about reconciling the use of tools like facial recognition with ethical journalism standards. The speakers demonstrated consensus on ethical boundaries, with Morten emphasizing practical guidelines such as limiting facial recognition use to public figures and ensuring personal information protection.

The conversation addressed compliance with regulations such as GDPR while maintaining editorial exemptions necessary for journalistic work, recognizing the tension between utilizing analytical tools and protecting privacy rights.

## Unresolved Challenges

### Hidden Disinformation Networks

An audience member highlighted the difficulty of tracking disinformation that spreads through private channels, targeted advertising, and ephemeral websites that disappear quickly. This represents a fundamental limitation of current fact-checking approaches, which primarily focus on publicly available content.

### Scaling Verification Efforts

The discussion highlighted the ongoing challenge of scaling verification efforts to match the volume and speed of AI-generated disinformation. While technological tools are becoming more sophisticated, verification still requires human judgment and time, while false information can be generated and distributed automatically.

## Areas of Consensus

Throughout the discussion, speakers demonstrated agreement on fundamental principles: collaboration is essential for effective fact-checking, technology offers both solutions and challenges, and education and training are crucial for building verification capabilities.

This consensus extended to ethical considerations, with speakers showing agreement on limiting the use of powerful AI tools when they might compromise privacy or ethical standards. All speakers emphasized the need for international cooperation, recognizing disinformation as a global challenge requiring coordinated responses.

## Conclusion

The discussion revealed both significant progress in combating disinformation and substantial remaining challenges. Speakers demonstrated that effective responses require collaboration across traditional competitive boundaries, sophisticated technological tools deployed within ethical frameworks, and community engagement strategies.

The conversation highlighted fundamental structural challenges including the speed mismatch between verification and disinformation spread, the difficulty of monitoring private disinformation networks, and the need to balance analytical tools with privacy considerations.

The strong consensus on core principles suggests the global fact-checking community has developed shared professional standards that could support more effective collaborative responses to what all speakers recognized as a global challenge requiring coordinated international action.

Olav Ostrem: Yes, it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to be giving this presentation to all of you. Yes, it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to be giving this presentation to all of you. Yes, it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to be giving this presentation to all of you. Yes, it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to be giving this presentation to all of you. At my side, I have my colleague Morten and I have Silje on the far right here. At my side, I have my colleague Morten and I have Silje on the far right here. She’s head of strategy and innovation. Hearing them diving into how to counter mis- and disinformation. Hearing them diving into how to counter mis- and disinformation. My name is Olav, I’m the news editor of Faktisk, which is Norway’s only fact-checking organisation. My name is Olav, I’m the news editor of Faktisk, which is Norway’s only fact-checking organisation. We are now 15 employees and we are part of two divisions. One is the technicals on fact-checks and verification. The other part is the media literacy department tank, or think in English, who is making educational material out of the same sort of material we are using for the fact-checks. who is making educational material out of the same sort of material we are using for the fact-checks. We’re going to address, as I said, disinformation, but first I have to take you into where we’re from, We’re going to address, as I said, disinformation, but first I have to take you into where we’re from, where Faktisk is from and how collaboration is a vital part of our history. where Faktisk is from and how collaboration is a vital part of our history. We were founded in 2017, just after the tornado called Fake News. It was after the start of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. It was after the first Trump election. It was a great need for finding a way to counter all of this misinformation being spread online. It was a great need for finding a way to counter all of this misinformation being spread online. In Norway, the solution was that the big media companies got together and found a way to do this together, making an own independent organisation called Faktisk and starting up there. As you can see, we were founded by and are still owned by the six big companies in Norway, As you can see, we were founded by and are still owned by the six big companies in Norway, which is now owned by Shipsted and Aller, and we have the two broadcasters, which is NRK and TV2, and we have two big media companies behind us that own a lot of regional and local papers. and we have two big media companies behind us that own a lot of regional and local papers. So where are we now? We want to do, I think, how to say the core mission that we’ve always been into, is to curate knowledge and share know-how and stay relevant. And how do we do it? Yeah, we are fact-checking and we are doing verifications, and we are also looking into the incidents when AI becomes a digital threat. And with that, we do fact-checking verification, publish it online, we have social media, and we have a TikTok account and newsletter, and at our best, we do this quick. We can make an article, a fact-check verification, and at the same time, our media literacy division, they make this into educational material that can be very useful for the teacher the next day in the classroom. This is when we are at our best. Then we do the debunking and pre-bunking all together. So how do we do this with very limited resources? We are only 15 people, so we need a little help from our friends. And with the friends, we have, I mean, like the big media ecosystem in Norway. And as I said, we are owned by the six big companies, so that means that not all of the media industry, but a large part of it are behind us and giving us support and backing. In addition to financing, we share ideas and we share know-how, and sometimes we visit them, they visit us, we can work together. And in this way, we can be stronger together. And at the same time, they are making most of our distribution, because it’s possible for them to republish our articles, and in that way, we get much more visibility. We get a big audience through our owners and through the rest of the Norwegian media. So this is how collaboration is so important, and we join our forces. Then a small organization like ours can still strengthen the methods and skills in this very important issue of our time. Just a few words on the development during these years. At the start, it was almost only fact-checking we did, and it was a lot of claims from the politicians. We’re still doing that. And at that time, like eight years ago, there was a lot of viral misinformation we also looked into. I mean, like, there was a lot of strange and funny webpages which had to be looked upon. There was a big change in 2020 because of the pandemics. Then almost all of our sources went into that, and fact-checking all the claims related to the debates on vaccine and what the authorities were to be doing. Afterwards, we had a Russian full-scale in Ukraine, and after that again, it was an energy crisis, and this occupied all of our strength almost. This was what we were doing. But the big change, I think, in the way we prioritize our journalism would be like the invasion in Ukraine because what we saw was a flood of images and videos, and the big medias, they didn’t know what videos and images that occurred on social media that were to be trusted. So we had to find a method and a way to verify all these images and videos. And the way we did it, or the Norwegian media did it, we sat together at our own verification desk, which was facilitated and administered by Faktisk, and it was staffed by journalists from all through Norway. So journalists that otherwise were from competing newspapers, they got together, found new methods, found new skills, and at the same time, they answered to this assignment on providing verified images and videos for the TV stations and the papers. And the third thing we made possible then was give education to all the journalists in how to develop this field, and they could bring that back to the organization they belonged to otherwise. So a lot of things happening, and Silje will later on tell you a bit more about that part. At the end, I’d just like to say that, of course, we have a lot of collaboration in Norway, but we also have collaboration outside, across the borders, and we work tight together with our Nordic colleagues, the Danish Tjekte, the Swedish Kjellkritikbyrån, and the Finnish Faktabari. And all of those, and we in Faktisk, we also take part in a Nordic hub of fact-checking organization, together with academic institutions and a tech company, which is called Nordisk, where also new ideas and methods are being developed. And we’re also part of an international network, IFCN, which is like 180 fact-checking organizations, and the European fact-checking standards network. So in that sense, we share the ideas, and we share the methods, and we share the tools. That is my bottom line. We’re better together.

Morten Langfeldt Dahlback Rapler: Thanks. So I’m going to talk a bit about how we actually get better by being together with other partners. I’m Morten. I’m the head of technology at Faktisk. So as Ola mentioned, back in 2017, we mostly fact-checked claims from politicians. And at that time, our tech suite looked like this. So this is our original toolbox. It’s transcriptions from public broadcasting with some entity recognition, so we could see what people were talking about when they were on the radio or on TV shows, and picking up on the claims that they made, so we could fact-check them. looked a bit into polling, so we had our own poll aggregator service. I’m not going to talk that much about that now. But times have changed quite significantly since 2017, and the ability of bad actors to create misinformation has become much more technologically sophisticated, and we’ve also seen that people consume much more audiovisual content online rather than text-based content. So back in 2017, we mainly worried about Facebook, which is a text-based platform, but now we have TikTok, we have Instagram, we have YouTube, we have all these platforms where people mostly share video, and sometimes long-form video too. So we need to update our toolbox, and we’ve done that in collaboration with our academic partners and our tech partners. So I’m going to give you a couple of brief examples, and then Celia will maybe tell you something more about how this actually works in practice. So the first example is this. So as you can see, these are Norwegian flags with boxes around them. The boxes are an object recognition algorithm that’s called YOLO. It means you only look once. This is a test case, so we tried to see how many non-Norwegian flags there were in the National Day Parade in Oslo. Every year, there is a debate in Norway about how many foreign flags there are in this parade, and the assumption seems to be that there is definitely some significant amount of them. So we used this object detection technology to actually look at the flags and try to verify if there were any foreign ones, and the answer was a very clear no. This was a myth. So we had to run through several hours of parade footage with this algorithm to actually get to this answer, something that would have been completely impossible just a few years ago. I think we counted around 80,000 flags, or flag instances, to be very technical about it, because the same flag can appear multiple times in the same video. We’ve also gone through TikTok videos. This one, I’m not sure if you can see. You cannot see. So here we used facial expression recognition because we wanted to see what the mood is like on Norwegian TikTok. So the box here actually looks at someone’s face, and it tries to estimate what emotion their facial expression signifies. So here, I’m not sure if it detects anything, but you can see it was actually quite instructive because we discovered that, one, people don’t really share a lot of substantial content on TikTok, and most people are happy. So that was pretty much contrary to our expectations. Here’s the algorithm, if you want to try it. It’s called FVR. It’s open source, so you can use it. I’m going to skip the next one because I can see that we are running a bit out of time. I’m going to advertise we also have a freedom of information platform that the journalists can use to get access to public records, or at least records that should be in public, through submitting FOIA requests to all sorts of municipalities, state organizations, and so on. I think there is at least 30 million documents in there, so it’s quite large. But that’s sort of the overarching technology stuff. I think it’s much more interesting for you to hear about how it’s used for verification work. So, Silja.

Silje Forsund: Thank you. My name is Silja. I’m the head of verification at Faktisk. And as Ola was saying earlier, this is a project organized under Faktisk that we started in the spring of 2022. And so, as you see from this image, this was posted by the former prime minister in Sweden, Carl Bildt. He shared this image on his Twitter account on the 26th of February in 2022. So this was two days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And he wrote, there are photos that will be with us for a long time. And he was indeed right about that. When this image was verified, it turned out to be six years old. So it did not show two children and soldiers up against Russian soldiers in the full-scale invasion. And this exemplifies what the media and the society as well were up against because traditional reporting tools were not enough anymore. And social media was overflowing the front line footage. And some of it was authentic and some of it was manipulated. So, and with the restricted access on the ground for journalists, newsrooms, they relied increasingly on user-generated content for their news coverage. So the newsroom, they lacked the skills and the methods to verify content, and it became very urgent for everyone to be able to separate facts from fabrications. So competing national media in Norway, we got together and we established a method and a work process on how to try to separate facts from fabrications. And three years later, we now use it as a big part of our journalism to use verification, and we’ve trained a lot of Norwegian journalists. About 60 Norwegian journalists have been part of our newsroom and got training in it. And we also trained journalists all over the world, many of them living in exiles. So we’ve been training them, journalists from Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, many corners of the world. So let’s give an example of how we work when we verify content, mainly videos and images. This video that you see screenshots of on the screen, this was a video that surfaced on Russian telegram channels, and it was claiming to show a Norwegian soldier being killed in Ukraine, and he was wearing a Norwegian uniform. And the footage, it seemed authentic, and it seemed to have been shot with a GoPro camera, showing a Russian soldier throwing a grenade into a bunker where the Norwegian soldier was hit. And the video, it was spread with allegations of NATO’s involvement in the war in Ukraine, and dead Norwegian soldiers that fed the Russian narrative of NATO’s involvement in the war. But something was clearly off, and verifying the video and analyzing it frame by frame, we could map and see how sun and shades revealed inconsistencies and editing cuts, and we could document that the video, it was staged, and it did not in fact show or capture a Russian grenade killing a Norwegian soldier at all. It was clearly propaganda and disinformation. So this is an example of the work we do. This other example, this is from the early part of the war in Ukraine. At the beginning, it had been rumors that there had been established a filtering camp outside of Mariupol, the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city. And we wanted to look into it and see if we could find some kind of evidence to support these rumors and stories that we heard. So we examined satellite images from the area, and at the start of the war, we could not see any of the tents that were meant to be put up, but after a few months, we could clearly see, using the satellite images and comparing them, we could see that there had been put up about 20 blue tents. So by this, we use satellite images and open source intelligence to turn rumors into documented facts. And this other example is from Syria, where we also have used satellite images to document signs of mass graves in several places in Syria after the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in December last year. And these satellite images documented how large trenches appeared around the time that thousands of Syrian people had been reported missing. So through satellite data, we could monitor the grave expansion and compare timelines and add facts to the reports from civilians on the ground. So, at Faktis we of course work to debunk misinformation and manipulated content from conflict areas around the world. And during the India-Pakistan conflict this spring, several videos emerged online and they were claiming to show Pakistan shooting down Indian fighter jets. Our analysis showed that clips were manipulated and they were from a military-themed video game. We tracked the source material, compared visual frame by frame and identified that none of the footage had any real-world connection. This case shows how visual content, whether it was intentional or not, can be misused and provoke an escalation between nuclear powers. Increasingly, our work is about exposing manipulation. We investigate content created by AI and video game simulations, as you saw, and also real images such as this, but connected with false claims. This example is from a famous image just a few weeks back, where it was claimed that the French president was accused of cocaine use after simply clearing away a napkin before a photo shoot on a train to Kiev. Stories such as this spread extremely fast and verifying content can be time-consuming. This is our main dilemma and challenge at the moment, and this is why we’re focusing on developing technical tools, such as the one Morten was telling you about with object detection with the Norwegian flags. These technical tools and methods are necessary for us to keep improving and develop in order to make verification faster and even more accurate. This is the main challenge that we’re up against at the moment, and it needs to be a global and joint force to tackle this, I believe.

Speaker: I will let Carla take over now. Thank you, Celia. I’m Carla. I’m from Rappler, a newsroom in the Philippines. As we saw from everything that’s been presented, this information is real and it’s happening here and now. Our goal really in tackling this is what do we do now and how do we continue the battle for truth and start it in a scale that matters to us all. First off, what is the cost of this information? It’s been reported that this information actually is costing us globally $78 billion every single year because of market manipulation, reputation risk, cyber crime, and everything that this information touches. It is designed to divide communities, distort reality, and ultimately destroy trust. The social cost for this is really immeasurable. The fact that we no longer have a shared reality is what we’re living through. Of course, the new entrant, a big entrant in accelerating everything, including this information, is AI. Now, the barrier to entry is very low, low cost, high scale in terms of production, producing, distributing, in a pace that we’ve never seen before. This is what we’re battling with in Rappler. As mentioned, we’re a Philippine independent newsroom headed and led by the courageous Maria Ressa, who’s right there. We’ve seen firsthand how this information has been weaponized to attack journalists, manipulate propaganda, and definitely destroy democracies. Ultimately, our question was, how do we make sure that we tackle disinformation or build resilience in a world where lies move faster than the truth? We’ve seen that this is not limited to just one tool, one newsroom, or even one solution, but it is meant to be a collective system that brings together the best of data, the most effective communities, and the right and impactful technology. Let’s start with data. It really is taking a look at how we fight back with it, because ultimately, you can’t fight what you can’t see. We are able to build out a data forensics company called NERV, where we expose different networks. Ultimately, how does this information travel across platforms, across networks, pages, bots, accounts? Because disinformation doesn’t just appear randomly, it is very much orchestrated. What you’re seeing here in this slide is actually our visual map of how one disinformation or crisis flows through the information ecosystem or platforms, whether it’s Facebook, TikTok, social media. What you’re seeing on the left is how the tendency is that for a piece of information to connect with various communities online splinters into niche communities. You would then be connected or be attracted to certain narratives, and then that’s what you tend to spread. Our ability to then map out where do the facts lie, where are the lies starting, and how do these lies spread, allow us to then connect to the networks who would have most influence to stop that same spread. Being able to then visualize this in a map is very important, because ultimately, the goal is to provide that kind of information and facts to a set of communities that are ready to act. Through MOVE.ph and Rapplern, we’ve been able to build out an effective network of civic engagers through various training, roadshows. Here’s a quick sample of what that looks like, where we bring together multilateral, multisectoral groups from youth leaders, local government units, and making sure that disinformation is a common enemy that we all need to be able to focus and fix. And a big part of the problem, a contributing factor, is technology. If internet or if technology is being used for criminal ends, there must be cooperation from platforms, telcos. I really appreciate these kinds of forums, because this will enable communities to be cyber safe. So let’s focus on educating on how to deal with the internet. If you really want to keep the discourse alive, you also need to keep a conversation with your local government leaders. So all this engagement has then allowed us to really collectively grow a movement within the Philippines. It’s called Facts First PH. This was started last 2022. And what makes it different and really powerful is that it is multisectoral, and everybody gets involved. So it’s over 140 units, and it is very difficult to bring together people, right? But the fact that we are battling through a common concern or crisis is what brings us together. So it’s not just about banding together, but making sure there’s a system where everybody gets to report, verify, check, and spread a piece of fake news or a piece of disinformation, and that’s all then collected. So why is this important? Because in this coalition, we then are able to piece together a network of truth tellers that then allows us to match where do the lies spread with where the facts should be placed. So here you’re seeing a network map of various Facts First partner communities, and how that then ripples out into their respective networks as well. So if lies spread a certain way, then we’re able to combat that by knowing where do they start, how are our audiences, our communities, responding to it, and what formats will they actually understand. So this way, we’re not just… Here’s a piece of news, this is fake, this is real, but in a language that they understand, in formats that they would actually bother to watch. So it’s knowing our communities, knowing what matters to them, and ultimately knowing how to engage with them better. And as we know, systems, broken systems at that, cannot be fixed overnight, so we built our own. Because the goal is to be able to reclaim the narrative from those that are spreading this information. So what you’re seeing here is Rappler Communities, powered by the Matrix Protocol. It is a safe space where everyone can actually jump in, join in, and have real connections direct with our journalists and editors, those who are also guardians of facts and truth. And how it works is, beyond just your typical news feed, you can actually then select which communities you want to be able to engage with online. Chat real time, always on, and then get to even chat with our AI, called Rai, that is trained on vetted articles and vetted facts from Rappler, through content and data. And this is how, if you’re visiting Rappler, you can then connect with Rai, ask it questions, verify yourself, if there’s any disinformation or lie that you come across, and it’ll provide you the response that is then connected to factual hard data. So it’s fact-based, it’s designed for civic engagement, it’s designed for you to be able to also spread the truth yourself to your respective communities. So ultimately, for us to be able to really address the issue of disinformation, it’s a long, hard road ahead, but we’ve seen that what has worked for us in Rappler is that really seeing how do we build out a network of truth, by understanding what the data shows, equipping citizens and communities to act with information that’s readily available, and also providing safe spaces for good, not just for profit. So it’s been a long journey, but we’re here to continue to battle for truth. Thank you.

Olav Ostrem: Thank you. So, questions? I’m not sure if there is a… Is there a mic? Here’s a mic. Oh, it seems to be working now, yeah.

Audience: Great. Yeah, thanks for the presentations, really interesting work. I’m Surabhi from RNW Media, we are a media development organization based in the Netherlands. I was just wondering about the tools that you mentioned, for instance, the facial recognition tool and some of the other AI tools that you’re using. How are you reconciling that with the ethical implications of using these tools in your work? Have there been discussions within the organization about the ethical, responsible implications of these tools? And I’m just interested in knowing how are you navigating some of those discussions, and if you have any practical insights on that.

Morten Langfeldt Dahlback Rapler: Oh, definitely. So we did have those discussions when we had this TikTok project, and one of the most important things for us was selecting only accounts that had a big public impact already. So we didn’t want to store facial expression information about normal private citizens. We selected only the most important influencers who have their face plastered everywhere anyway. We also didn’t publish, I think, almost none of the material anywhere else. As journalists, of course, we have the luxury of having an exemption from the GDPR, which means that we can store personal information as long as it’s for editorial purposes. But we’ve tried to be as careful as possible, especially both with people’s faces, but also with comments. That’s something else that we’ve stored and analyzed. And we’ve always tried to disaggregate the names of the people making the comments from the comment itself, because people can really expose their names, for example. So yeah, it’s usually on a per-project basis. We would have other considerations if we were looking into more, let’s say, random activity from non-public figures, for example.

Audience: Thank you very much for this presentation. I assume that the data that you showed about this information source is usually publicly observable websites. It actually will be visible by anyone. Now, I’m wondering if you also have a project to deal with the more hidden form of this information, especially the one that goes by way of personal targeting and delivery by way of ephemeral websites. So these websites will not be visible to anybody who knows what to do about it. And you will not be able to observe what it is. Of course, there could be ways to collaborate with the networks to enable people to report what they see. But it would actually take a bigger project. So I wonder if there’s anything going there. Yeah. So all of our work is based on publicly available data. And what we’ve observed is that they really do work in patterns. So while we’re able to map out various accounts and networks, it’s important to note that every account plays a role. And an account will then have their own respective private connections. And so if you’re able to then identify what is happening in the public space, what are the messages that are building up in certain clusters, understanding who would be the main influences or leaders or accounts in specific clusters, we can then connect that to potential private behavior as well. Because whatever you deal with publicly also would have an influence on how you spread it privately. So we take a look at patterns, we take a look at how the behavior is, as well as essentially the playbook of how messages spread. Then we are able to then track that out within private spaces as well.

Olav Ostrem: It seems that we have run out of time. So I think we could just take the question over here. Okay. Thank you for attention. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.

Agreement points

Collaboration is essential for effective fact-checking and combating disinformation

Speakers

– Olav Ostrem
– Speaker

Arguments

Small organizations with limited resources need collaboration with media ecosystem partners for support, financing, and distribution

Collaboration extends internationally through Nordic fact-checking networks and global organizations like IFCN

Multi-sectoral coalitions like Facts First PH with over 140 units can effectively combat disinformation through collective action

Summary

Both speakers emphasize that fighting disinformation requires collaborative approaches, whether through media partnerships, international networks, or multi-sectoral coalitions. They agree that no single organization can effectively combat disinformation alone.

Topics

Sociocultural | Development

Technology and AI present both opportunities and challenges in the disinformation landscape

Speakers

– Morten Langfeldt Dahlback Rapler
– Speaker

Arguments

Misinformation has evolved from simple text-based claims to sophisticated audiovisual content across multiple platforms

AI has lowered barriers to creating and distributing disinformation at unprecedented scale and speed

Summary

Both speakers acknowledge that technological advancement, particularly AI, has fundamentally changed the disinformation landscape by making it easier to create and distribute false content while also providing new tools for verification.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Sociocultural

Training and education are crucial for building verification capabilities

Speakers

– Olav Ostrem
– Silje Forsund
– Speaker

Arguments

Educational material can be created simultaneously with fact-checks for immediate classroom use

Training programs have equipped about 60 Norwegian journalists and journalists worldwide in verification methods

Building networks of civic engagers through training and roadshows creates effective community-based responses

Summary

All three speakers agree that education and training programs are fundamental to building capacity for fighting disinformation, whether for journalists, educators, or civic communities.

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers demonstrate how advanced technological tools can be used for verification work, from automated analysis to detailed manual examination of visual content.

Speakers

– Morten Langfeldt Dahlback Rapler
– Silje Forsund

Arguments

Object detection algorithms like YOLO can verify claims by analyzing large volumes of visual content, such as counting flags in parades

Frame-by-frame video analysis can reveal inconsistencies, editing cuts, and staging in propaganda content

Satellite imagery and open source intelligence can document evidence of conflict-related activities like filtering camps and mass graves

Topics

Sociocultural | Cybersecurity

Both acknowledge the importance of ethical considerations when using AI and facial recognition technologies in journalism, emphasizing the need for privacy protection and responsible implementation.

Speakers

– Morten Langfeldt Dahlback Rapler
– Audience

Arguments

Facial recognition tools should only be used on public figures with significant impact, not private citizens

Personal information should be disaggregated from analyzed content to protect individual privacy

Questions about responsible use of AI tools in journalism require ongoing ethical discussions

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

Ethical use of AI surveillance technologies in journalism

Speakers

– Morten Langfeldt Dahlback Rapler
– Audience

Arguments

Facial recognition tools should only be used on public figures with significant impact, not private citizens

Personal information should be disaggregated from analyzed content to protect individual privacy

Questions about responsible use of AI tools in journalism require ongoing ethical discussions

Explanation

It’s unexpected to see such strong consensus on limiting the use of powerful AI tools, especially when these tools could potentially enhance fact-checking capabilities. The speakers prioritize ethical considerations over technological possibilities, showing restraint in tool deployment.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Global scope of disinformation requiring international cooperation

Speakers

– Olav Ostrem
– Silje Forsund
– Speaker

Arguments

Collaboration extends internationally through Nordic fact-checking networks and global organizations like IFCN

Training programs have equipped about 60 Norwegian journalists and journalists worldwide in verification methods

Multi-sectoral coalitions like Facts First PH with over 140 units can effectively combat disinformation through collective action

Explanation

Despite representing different organizations from different countries (Norway and Philippines), all speakers converge on the need for international cooperation and knowledge sharing, suggesting a mature understanding that disinformation is a global challenge requiring coordinated responses.

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrate strong consensus on key principles: collaboration is essential, technology offers both solutions and challenges, education builds capacity, and ethical considerations must guide tool deployment. They agree on the global nature of disinformation and the need for coordinated international responses.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for the field. The agreement suggests a maturing discipline with shared professional standards, ethical frameworks, and recognition of collective action needs. This consensus could facilitate better international cooperation, standardized training programs, and more effective collaborative responses to disinformation campaigns.