Uncategorized

Summary

This discussion focused on UNESCO’s revised Internet Universality Indicators (IUIs) and their role in shaping global digital governance. The panel, comprising experts from various sectors, explored how the updated IUIs can contribute to evidence-based policymaking and address digital inequalities. Key points included the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in implementing the indicators and the need for adaptability to different national contexts.

Panelists emphasized that the IUIs are not meant for ranking countries but rather as a tool for self-assessment and improvement. The revised framework aims to be more streamlined and user-friendly, with fewer questions and indicators. It also incorporates new elements such as environmental sustainability and artificial intelligence considerations.

Challenges in implementing the IUIs were discussed, including data availability issues and the need for meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement. The importance of addressing the digital divide, particularly in developing countries and small island nations, was highlighted. Panelists also stressed the need for the indicators to evolve with technological advancements and emerging governance challenges.

The discussion touched on the role of the private sector in internet governance and the need for accountability in digital development. The potential of the IUIs to uncover issues related to Universal Service and Access Funds was also mentioned. Overall, participants agreed on the value of the IUIs in fostering inclusive digital transformation and informing national and regional internet governance frameworks.

In conclusion, the panel emphasized the transformative potential of the IUIs in shaping an inclusive, rights-respecting, and sustainable digital future. The importance of continued collaboration and adaptation of the framework to address evolving digital challenges was underscored.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The revised UNESCO Internet Universality Indicators (IUIs) framework and its importance for assessing national digital environments

– Challenges in implementing the IUIs, especially for developing countries and small island nations

– The need for multi-stakeholder collaboration and evidence-based policymaking in internet governance

– The role of the private sector and governments in advancing internet access and digital transformation

– Emerging issues like AI that need to be considered in future iterations of the framework

The overall purpose of the discussion was to launch and promote UNESCO’s revised Internet Universality Indicators framework, explaining its importance as a tool for countries to assess their digital environments and develop evidence-based policies for inclusive and sustainable digital transformation.

The tone of the discussion was largely positive and congratulatory, with panelists praising UNESCO’s work on the revised framework. There was a sense of collaboration and shared purpose among the diverse group of stakeholders represented. The tone became more reflective and forward-looking towards the end as participants considered future challenges and opportunities for implementing the IUIs.

Speakers

– Camila Gonzalez: Facilitator/moderator of the session

– David Souter: Managing Director of ICT for Development Associates in the UK, lead researcher and author of the Internet Universality Indicators

– Vinton Cerf: Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, member of the IGF Leadership Panel

– Anriet Esterhuysen: From South Africa, facilitator of the session, works with the Association for Progressive Communications

– Tawfik Jelassi: Assistant Director General for Communications and Information at UNESCO

– Alexandre Barbosa: Head of the Center of Studies for Information and Communication Technologies in Brazil (CETIC.br)

– Jennifer Bachus: Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary from the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy for the US

– Tenanoia Veronica Simona: Chief Executive Officer of Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation

– Alla Abdulaal: Chief Digital Economy Foresight at the Digital Cooperation Organization, based in Saudi Arabia

Additional speakers:

– Jose Fissa: Coordinator of chat with IGF, attending as a reporter

– Aziz Hilali: Professor and former co-chair of ISOC Morocco

– Avice: From Cameroon, representing civil society

UNESCO’s Revised Internet Universality Indicators: A Framework for Global Digital Governance

The discussion focused on UNESCO’s revised Internet Universality Indicators (IUIs) and their role in shaping global digital governance. A diverse panel of experts explored how the updated IUIs can contribute to evidence-based policymaking and address digital inequalities worldwide.

Key Features of the Revised IUIs

Tawfik Jelassi, UNESCO’s Assistant Director General for Communications and Information, highlighted that the revised IUIs are more streamlined, accessible, and future-ready. The framework has been updated to address new challenges, including environmental risks and artificial intelligence (AI) considerations. The number of indicators has been reduced from 303 to 125, and questions from 109 to 21, making the framework more user-friendly.

Jelassi introduced the ROAMx framework, which forms the core of the IUIs:

– R: Rights-based approach

– O: Openness

– A: Accessibility

– M: Multi-stakeholder participation

– x: Cross-cutting indicators (including gender equality, children’s rights, sustainable development, and trust and security)

David Souter, the lead researcher and author of the IUIs, emphasized that the revised framework aims to be more practical and easier to implement. Importantly, Jelassi clarified that the IUIs are not intended for ranking countries but rather as a tool for self-assessment and improvement.

Multi-stakeholder Collaboration and Implementation

A recurring theme was the critical importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in implementing the IUIs and fostering sustainable internet governance. Alexandre Barbosa, Head of CETIC.br in Brazil, shared Brazil’s experience with multi-stakeholder governance, highlighting its success in areas such as domain name management and cybersecurity incident response.

Jennifer Bachus, from the US Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, emphasized the need for meaningful multi-stakeholder participation, cautioning against tokenistic involvement and stressing the importance of diverse perspectives. Vinton Cerf, Vice President at Google, highlighted the vital role of the private sector in internet implementation and advocated for partnerships with governments.

Challenges in Implementing IUIs

The panel acknowledged several challenges in implementing the IUIs, particularly for developing countries and small island nations:

1. Infrastructure and Capacity Building: Tenanoia Veronica Simona, CEO of Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation, highlighted the unique challenges faced by small island nations, including high costs of undersea cables, limited infrastructure, and vulnerability to natural disasters. She emphasized the need for affordable satellite solutions and international support.

2. Data Availability: Alexandre Barbosa noted that data availability and quality remain key challenges in many countries, potentially hindering comprehensive assessments.

3. Digital Divide: Aziz Hilali, representing ISOC Morocco, emphasized that the digital divide remains a significant issue, especially in Africa and Arab regions. Tawfik Jelassi later expanded on the multiple dimensions of the digital divide, including access, skills, and content.

4. Affordability: Tenanoia Veronica Simona stressed that the affordability of internet access is a major concern in small island nations.

5. Universal Service and Access Funds: An audience member raised the issue of ineffective Universal Service and Access Funds in many countries. David Souter acknowledged this challenge and suggested that the IUIs could help assess the effectiveness of such funds.

Practical Applications and Impacts of IUIs

Speakers shared examples of how the IUIs have been applied:

– Argentina used the indicators to inform its national digital agenda.

– Senegal incorporated the IUIs into its national digital strategy.

– Brazil leveraged the framework to enhance its multi-stakeholder governance model.

Alaa Abdulaal from the Digital Cooperation Organization highlighted the potential of the IUIs to foster digital cooperation among member states and promote inclusive digital transformation.

Future of IUIs and Global Digital Governance

The discussion touched on the future evolution of the IUIs and their role in global digital governance:

1. Emerging Technologies: Vinton Cerf suggested that the IUIs can help address emerging challenges like AI governance. He mentioned initiatives like the Measurement Lab and Broadband Coalition as relevant to the IUIs’ goals.

2. Balancing Approaches: Jennifer Bachus emphasized the need to strengthen both multilateral and multi-stakeholder efforts in digital governance.

3. Regional Cooperation: Alexandre Barbosa noted that the IUIs could facilitate regional and international cooperation on digital issues, particularly in light of the upcoming WSIS+20 review.

4. Accountability: David Souter raised thought-provoking questions about assessing accountability in complex AI systems, highlighting a significant challenge for future revisions of the IUIs and society as a whole.

Conclusion and Next Steps

The discussion concluded with a strong emphasis on the transformative potential of the IUIs in shaping an inclusive, rights-respecting, and sustainable digital future. Key takeaways included:

1. Encouragement for countries to conduct national digital assessments using the revised IUIs.

2. The need for stakeholders to work on improving data availability and quality for effective implementation.

3. A plan for UNESCO to showcase early results from the implementation of revised IUIs at the next Internet Governance Forum in Norway (May/June 2025).

Tawfik Jelassi closed by reiterating UNESCO’s commitment to addressing all dimensions of the digital divide and ensuring that no one is left behind in the digital age.

It’s worth noting that the session experienced some technical difficulties, which occasionally affected the flow of discussion but did not significantly impede the overall exchange of ideas and information.

DAVID SOUTER: I’m not sure exactly who’s going to kick off the meeting on the site. You’ll find your seat. I’m just trying to get water. You can speak. I’ll follow the order. Yes, we ran about 15 minutes late in the IGFSA meeting, but mostly because of technical problems. So, let me switch it off. I’ve not been following anything this morning. How’s it been going? The opening is tomorrow, isn’t it? The formal opening?

VINTON CERF: That’s right. But there are quite a few meetings today. Of course, here I’m in Washington, D.C., where it’s 06.48 and still dark. Indeed.

DAVID SOUTER: I’m in London, where it’s just coming up to noon. This is only the second of these I’ve missed, actually. But I’m doing the 20-year review for CSGD at the moment. I’m drafting that. Wow. It doesn’t make sense to me to be at both. Anyway, I think I can’t have two U.N. contracts simultaneously.

VINTON CERF: Yes, that’s a challenge. We haven’t figured out how to clone people. However, there’s a science fiction book, I’ll put it in the chat, that actually speaks to that. So, if you happen to want to read about people cloning, that’s an interesting book. I’m guessing we’re… Is our conversation live in the room, or not? That’s a good question, and I don’t know the answer to that. Be discreet.

DAVID SOUTER: Yes. There are people coming into the room, I see.

VINTON CERF: I’m not sure what the mix is of people in person and people online for this meeting. It was about… In the last IGF in Japan, it was… 6,000 in-person and 3,000 remote, I think.

DAVID SOUTER: Yeah, but I mean, I think the problem with those figures is always the extent to which you have people who only come for the opening session.

VINTON CERF: Yeah, correct. Oh, well, that’s a good point.

DAVID SOUTER: We need local people who want to clear for them. I wonder if that’s a typo on the screen where it says height-level launch instead of high-level launch. I think it is. UW is not a reference to the international, but to the world, American radical group from the, what, 1930s that Woody Guthrie was associated with?

VINTON CERF: Oh, yeah, the Wobblies. Indeed. Do you remember the Wobblies? That was all about. Well, that’s weird. So this is an interesting development. If I remember right, the first time UNESCO showed up visibly in an IGF was in Kyoto last year. They’ve always been there.

DAVID SOUTER: I’m thinking back to when I drafted the first IRISA years ago. I think we probably presented them then as well. And Guy Berger used to be there. I used to see Guy Berger at IGF meetings in the past when he was running this art of UNESCO.

VINTON CERF: OK, maybe it wasn’t just as visible. For some reason, it became quite visible. In Kyoto, I think, partly because of the debate about, yeah, there were questions about multi-stakeholder versus multi-lateral and things like that. Okay, they’re asking us to mute. Okay. There’s another one. Oh, there’s another one. Okay. I think good afternoon.

ANRIET ESTERHUISEN: You can hear me. Thanks very much to our tech team, and welcome everyone to this session. We’re about to start. Apologies that we are a little bit late. So my name is Anriet Esterhuisen. I am from South Africa. I am very proud to be facilitating this high-level session, which is also unveiling the UNESCO’s Advanced Internet Universality Indicators. I work with the Association for Progressive Communications as a consultant, and sometimes with other organizations as well. So before we start on this momentous occasion, there’s a lot of work that’s gone into this process, I just wanted to introduce you to our high-level panel. And we’re very honored here to have, and he’ll be our opening speaker, Mr. Taufik Jelassie, who’s the Assistant Director General for Communications and Information at UNESCO. And as I think many of you would know, UNESCO has really been one of the lead UN agencies in the World Summit on Information Society, but also in participating in shaping the IGF. After Mr. Jelassie, we’ll have Mr. Alexander Barbosa, who’s the head of the Center of Studies for Information and Communication Technologies in Brazil, CETIC.br, a very important role that they have played in the revision of the UNESCO Indicator. indicators. We’ll then have online, and if I can just get confirmation, is David online? I’m very happy to welcome Dr. David Souter, who’s the Managing Director of ICT for Development Associates in the UK. And David has been the lead researcher and author in the first version of the Internet Universality Indicators, and now also with the revision. Next we’ll have Ms. Jennifer Bachers, who has just arrived. Welcome, Jennifer. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary from the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy for the US. Online joining us as well will be Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. Vint, another lead person who’s been in this space, and a member of the IGF Leadership Panel, in fact the chair of the IGF Leadership Panel. After Vint, we’ll have Ms. Tenanoya Veronica Simona over there, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation. And then, last but not least, next to me, Alaa, Chief Digital, Alaa Abdullalal, and Chief of Digital Economy Foresight at the Digital Cooperation Organization, based in Saudi Arabia, but the Digital Cooperation Organization, I think you work in 16 different countries around the world. So, welcome to our panel. And now, to get us started and to add some welcoming remarks to this high-level session, on behalf of UNESCO, I’m going to give the floor to Mr. Jelassi. And I think, Mr. Jelassi, if you can also tell us, after you’ve made the welcoming remarks, why is UNESCO doing this work on the IUIs?

Tawfik Jelassi: Thank you very much, Henriette. Distinguished panelists, esteemed participants, colleagues, and France. Good afternoon to all of you. Can you hear me? Apparently, you can. Excellent. Sorry for being a few minutes late. I just arrived from Paris. So, this is fresh from the oven, whatever I’m going to say. I’m very pleased to welcome you to this session, which is very important for us, since we are going to unveil the revised Internet Universality Indicators of UNESCO. And we’ll tell you more about it, including answering your question, Henriette, why we embarked on this effort a couple of years ago. For UNESCO, this initiative reaffirms our vision of a digital future which is anchored in human rights, in openness, in accessibility, and in ensuring a multi-stakeholder participation. This milestone would not have been possible without the invaluable contributions of many individuals and organizations, which I would like now to recognize. First, the Brazilian Network Information Center, NIC.br, and its Regional Center for Studies on the Development of the Information Society, that is CETIC.br. Their expertise has been very valuable for us at UNESCO. And I would like to acknowledge here Mr. Alexander Barbosa, who is in charge, who is the head of CETIC. He’s seated on my left. And also Mr. Fabio Senni, who is in the audience, and who was seconded to us at UNESCO for quite a long period of time to specifically work on the revised Internet Universality Indicators. I would like also to acknowledge the contribution of David Souter, who was the architect of the initial version of the indicators and is now, is it working? Okay. And also was very much involved in the revised framework. I would like also to acknowledge the contribution of the IUI Steering Committee and Dynamic Coalition, which both provided us with valuable guidance to ensure that the revised framework of the indicators addresses today’s challenges. I would like also to thank our host country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for making this session possible and for their hospitality at this year’s IGF. And finally I would like to acknowledge the IGF Secretariat for its enduring partnership, which has been a cornerstone of UNESCO initiatives, including the IUI framework and its revision. Ladies and gentlemen, as we know, the Internet has democratized access to information, has involved people from all over the world, and for us it’s a way of implementing the principle of leaving no one behind. However, as we know, in spite of the democratization of access to information, the Internet created some disparities, not only between countries, but within countries as well, and has introduced new challenges, among which, of course, the digital divide, but not only. As the UN Secretary General, Mr. Antonio Guterres, reminded us He said, the future of digital must be human-centered. We all share this statement, this principle, and as we’ll see in a few minutes, the revised IUI indicators wholeheartedly embrace this principle. I mentioned the ROAMx framework which encapsulates this vision and the pillars of the ROAMx for those who may not be very familiar with it. The R in ROAM stands for Human Rights Based Approach and this includes, of course, freedom of expression, data privacy, dignity, gender equality. The O of the framework stands for openness, ensuring that information flows freely, without barriers and without silos. The A stands for Accessibility, as I said, very much to ensure an equitable internet access. And the M stands for Multi-Stakeholder Participation in order to foster transparent and inclusive decision-making. I said it’s ROAMx, the X stands for cross-cutting issues such as gender equality, trust, security, sustainable development and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. You may know that to date, over 40 countries worldwide have used the UNESCO Internet Universality Indicators to conduct national assessments and the latest, I would say, Argentina, Senegal. And I would like to mention here the impact of these national digital assessments using our framework and the Romex indicators. In Argentina, as an example, the findings from the assessment have empowered the IUI research team to draft a proposed law aiming at addressing critical gaps in the country’s data protection framework. So again, this is one of the tangible outcomes of the IUI-based national digital assessment. In Senegal, the assessment facilitated the implementation of the country’s 2025 digital strategy and its high-speed national plan. Now to answer Amria’s question, why did we revise the framework, obviously we wanted to make the framework relevant, to make it adaptive, future-ready, we wanted to integrate key insights and lessons that we have learned from the 40 implementations around the world. This is very important for us, but we also wanted the revised indicators to enhance accessibility and ease of use to accelerate stakeholder adoption and implementation of the Romex. Let me just conclude here by saying that the revised framework also is aligned with the Global Digital Compact and the Pact of the Future, which were adopted, as you know, last summer, and the revised framework is now more streamlined with 63% fewer questions to answer in the survey and 56% fewer indicators to use. This makes the revised framework both comprehensive and accessible. I think I’ll stop here, Ariet, and give you the floor back. Thank you very much, Tawfiq. I do want to ask you one follow-up question, but particularly because I think we might have people in the room who are not that familiar with the indicators. But if I am from a country in the global south, we have very little bandwidth, very little internet access. Should we be worried about using the indicators? Will we find ourselves in some kind of ranking, where we would perhaps look as if we are not performing well? Is that something I should be scared of, or is that not something that the indicators will do? That is not something that the indicators will do, for a simple reason. UNESCO has been around for 80 years, has never done any comparative studies nor rankings of member states. So we are not in the business of rankings. The indicators are meant to be a guidance to our member states to conduct a national digital assessment, but not to compare countries, and certainly not to rank them.

AUDIENCE: Thanks so much for emphasizing that. I think it’s one of the reasons why the indicators are not just a powerful tool, but an empowering tool. David, are you ready? Are you online? Can you hear me? David, can you tell us, is David able to speak? I just want to check that I can hear you. Excellent, good. David, what is new in this revised internet universality framework? Taufik outlined very clearly why it was done, and also that it’s going to be much easier to use. But from your perspective, what is new? What do you feel are the key trends and challenges that was identified across the global IUI assessment process that informed this revision?

DAVID SOUTER: OK, so let me say something first about some issues, and then also something about the experience of research. and using the IOIs over the last eight years or so. I’m currently working on the 20-year review of the World Summit for the UN’s Commission on Science and Technology for Development. So that means I’m very conscious of the pace and the extent of change we’ve seen in digital development over the last 20 years, but particularly the acceleration of that growth in pace and extent of change in the last eight years or so since the original IOIs were published. And it was always intended that the first framework would be revised in time in line with what was happening in the digital environment and with the experience of researchers. So in this last eight years, we’ve seen really dramatic changes in each part of the Romex framework, from new trends, new challenges, which needed to be addressed within the indicators and the questions that frame them. So the enjoyment of rights online, for example, that’s been profoundly affected by issues concerned with information integrity or with platform regulation, the exploitation of personal data. The openness of the internet and open technology and resources has been amplified by the way in which technology and services have diversified. What we mean by access, the A in the framework, is much more concerned now with affordable connectivity and usage and, indeed, with impact of new technologies. And I think the multi-stakeholder context has also become much more diverse because digital resources now have great impact in every area of our economy, societies, and cultures, every aspect of sustainable development, and require input from those whose expertise lies not in digital resources themselves, but in those other areas of public policy and life. Much more attention is being paid now than was the case 10 years ago to gender equity, children’s rights. opportunities in welfare too, I think have been greatly enhanced by, the discussion of them has been greatly enhanced by General Comment 25 to the Children’s Rights Convention. So all of these are themes to which we’ve responded in the IUI revision, bringing them more to the fore. The ATG mentioned two trends in particular that we have especially sought to address, which, because they have greatly increased in importance, we’ve given them much more substance in the new framework. One of those is environmental risks. The environmental problems associated with digital development, as well as opportunities, are now much better understood than they were, concerned with energy consumption, with climate change, with waste, and that’s led to a much greater understanding of the need for a more circular approach to the literal economy. So that’s now incorporated within the X category in a way that it wasn’t before. And also there, one, artificial intelligence and other frontier technologies present great opportunities for digital development. They also present serious new challenges of governance arising from uncertainty and risk, which needs to be assessed within any thinking about the national internet environment. So all of those elements feature in the evolution of digital policies. They feature in the Pact for the Future, in the Global Digital Compact. They will feature in the BUSES First 20 review and the review of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2030. And clearly, they needed to feature in the IUIs as well. I could just say something as well about why we revised the structure in response to experience. I think it’s important that the framework is used to analyse the national internet environment, not just to tick boxes about particular indicators. And it’s important that it leads to recommendations that are feasible and can be put into practice by governments and other stakeholders, rather than simply speculating on what would be desirable in a perfect environment. So we’ve given more prominence to a couple of things. in the framework too, specific questions that should be addressed in the work of the research teams and of their multistakeholder advisory boards. The reports which are generated from these studies, they should respond to these specific questions above all, they should assess how the indicators relate to them, and they should make recommendations for ways in which the recommended supports can be advanced through changes that can practically be made to the national internet environment. And the other point, as David, you mentioned, is this was a substantial framework. Sorry, David, can you just pause? There’s interference, is everyone else hearing the interference as well? David, just pause a second, I just want to ask our tech support to check into that. Is it fixed, the interference? Great. It’s Vint Cerf and I’m not hearing any interference on the Zoom link. Thanks Vint, it’s obviously just those of us in the room. David, try again. Can you speak, David? Okay, there’s still interference. Try now, David. I’m afraid the noise is still there. I’m just asking if we can have, maybe there’s a phone or a mic, if that mic can be off. It’s crackling as well. David, try again. Okay, we still have interference. issue here and Tatevic can I ask you to just check with our tech team if they can fix this problem and David I think you should continue and I just apologize to everyone in the room for the noise on the line but hopefully it will be fixed please go ahead at least the remote participants are on not experiencing it go ahead David so those are the two main aspects that we felt from the experience of researchers needed to be amended they’re not particularly surprising I hope that they make the tools even more effective than they’ve been in the past so that’s all that I was going to say and there’s something more about the way the revision was done and about how the indicators can most effectively be used and I will pause I will stop there and hope that the rest is fine

Camila Gonzalez: thanks David and I’m happy to report that the interference on the on the reception has gone as well so and I reserve the right to come back not to cross-examine you but to ask you another question at a later stage but now let’s move on to to Alexander Barbosa from CETEC and what do you I mean in your experience Alexander you were involved in the initial development you’ve applied the indicators in Brazil and you’ve been part of the revision process. How do you feel that the revised IUIs can transform and advance national internet development and governance, particularly from the perspective of evidence-based policymaking and coming up with those kind of tailored policy recommendations, like the example Taufik gave us from Argentina? Tell us more.

Alexandre Barbosa: Thank you very much, Andrette, and good afternoon, everyone. Well, let me start by thanking Mr. ADG Taufik Jalassi for inviting me to this panel. And it was an honor for me to be part of the steering committee of the Internet Universality Indicators. And I have to tell you, Taufik, that your leadership and also Cedric’s and Taufik’s was really instrumental for this revision. It was one year of hard work of many actors revising this BROMEX framework and the set of Internet Universality Indicators. But if you allow me, I would like to go back in history to 2013 in the IGF in Bali, Indonesia, when UNESCO, along with NIC.br and LACNIC, we decided to fund a paper on the concept of Internet Universality. And after that year, we had into 2014 the NetMundial in Brazil, and we at NIC.br conducted two national and regional consultation to refine the concept and the framework. And after that, in 2015, we have conducted the first pilot of the indicators that gave us insights for the last revision. And David was really amazing by revising it. revising and putting all those indicators together, and the conceptual framework and everything. And in 2019, UNESCO published the first IUI report with the data from Brazil. So it was a real honor for us. And since then, many countries, as you said, ADG, more than 40 countries have published already a national assessment. And this gave us a lot of insights for this revision. And now going to your questions, Henriette, I would like to highlight four key points in my personal opinion that’s on the importance on how the revised UIS can transform and advance national internet development and governance. And I would like to emphasize the following points. First, I think that it was already been said by Henriette, internet universality indicators empower countries to adopt evidence-based policymaking by providing actionable data and diagnostic tool. This is the most powerful thing. We are not talking about ranking, but about assessment. And governments can identify gaps and strength in their internet ecosystem, ranging from digital inclusion to data protection and so many other aspects and dimensions of these ecosystems. And of course, allows a country to develop policies that directly address these findings from those national assessments. For instance, just to give you an example, the indicators can highlight disparities in internet access among marginalized groups or region, prompting target interventions to bridge the digital divide. I would say that more than that, the assessments offer a structured approach to evaluate the impact of policies over time, enabling continuous refinement and empowerment. So I think this is the first key important aspect on the how. The second point, in my opinion, is that the indicators facilitate tailored policy recommendations by aligning national priorities with international frameworks like the Sustainable Development Goals. This is a very important aspect. The revised IUI integrates lessons from global applications, as was already mentioned. A huge number of countries have already applied this assessment, and those lessons learned ensure their relevance across diverse contexts. And we, in this revision, took into consideration the past experience of those countries made in the assessment. And I would say that this adaptability allows policymakers to customize their use, whether focusing on enhancing data privacy laws, or fostering innovation, or promoting digital literacy. So one example from my country, Brazil, the application of this assessment in the country was able to flag very important aspects of this ecosystem. I’m not going into the detail, but for instance, the need to improve rural internet access. We had a long debate on community networks, and how to bridge the gap in rural areas, and also the establishment of the legal framework for personal data protection. And after this assessment, three years later, Brazil approved the national law on personal data protection. Another important point… on the how, is that the IUI strengthens multi-stakeholder collaboration as a cornerstone of sustainable Internet governance. So the multi-stakeholder dimension is really a key aspect of this framework. And by doing so, representatives from civil society, academia, private sector, government, this framework really fosters consensus-driven strategies that reflect diverse perspectives and interests. This is a very important point. And this multi-stakeholder approach ensures that policies are not only inclusive, but also rooted in practical and cross-sectoral expertise. And finally, my last point is that the IUI serves as a catalyst for regional and international cooperation. We have been seeing this in Latin America. We have helped many countries in the region to conduct their national assessment and collaboration was key in this regard. And countries can share best practices and align their strategy with global standards, fostering a collective effort to address shared challenges. For instance, the indicators can help neighboring countries in Latin America develop a harmonized approach to close the digital gaps, and more recently, to adopt best practices to measure the new concept of meaningful connectivity. This is really a key aspect that I would like to highlight. So in conclusion, I would say that the revised IUI offers an invaluable roadmap for advancing regional Internet development and governance. And by supporting evidence-based policymaking and providing tailored recommendations, the framework empowers… countries to create a more inclusive, rights-respecting and resilient digital ecosystem. So it was really a great pleasure to work with all of you in the steering committee and to produce this new revised version that we have some copies here, so for those willing to have a physical copy you can take after the panel. Thank you so much. Thanks Alexandre. Just a follow-up question on this. Now

Camila Gonzalez: UNESCO and CETIC consulted very widely in the process of this revision, so this was not a desk-based exercise, it was based on talking to people that have used the indicators and also getting input from others. Are there any particular insights or regional perspectives that you came across in the revision process that influenced this redesign of the indicators? Is there anything that stood out for you from the consultation process? Yes, it is important to mention that besides conducting a new round of consultations we also, UNESCO, sent out a survey for those countries that had already conducted the assessment and the result of this survey was very insightful for the process, because one issue was that the questionnaire, the number of indicators was too long, so it was an opportunity to review this set of questions and indicators. And more than that, in the X dimension we were able to really consider new dimensions like sustainable development, gender, so this was a really insightful process and as UNESCO is a very transparent type of organization, we took into account their voice from regions and from countries. Thanks very much for that, Alexandre. I’m just checking, I also have the Zoom on my phone here, so I’m also checking what’s happening online. But now that you’ve heard more about the indicators and about the revision, are there any questions or comments? And I also want to invite all the other panelists, including those online, if you have any additional remarks or questions in this first segment before we move on to our next part. The next part of the session is going to really look at the future of the IUIs and how we see the IUIs playing a key role in global digital governance. But the floor is now open. If you’re in the room, raise your hand. If you’re online, raise your virtual hand. I see… I don’t see the online hands. Tatevic, is there someone online? I can’t hear you, I’m afraid. Who’s there? It’s a question for David. So, David, can you… I’m sure you’ve read it, but I’m going to read it out for everyone in the room. And for David Souter, it’s from Susanna Naranjo. In your view, how do the IUIs stay adaptable to future technological and policy challenges while maintaining their core principles? David, are you happy to take that on?

DAVID SOUTER: Yes, sure. I think… So, one of the things is that, as I said at the beginning, it was always the intention to revise these indicators after a number of years in order to respond specifically to developments that were taking place. The developments that take place within the digital sector are particularly problematic because they’re very difficult to anticipate. If you look back at the World Summit 20 years ago, there was very little said then about mobility because that was not seen at the time as being a particularly important dimension of the future development of the digital world, of the information society. Well, clearly, that was one of the most stark. And many of the technologies and services we have now, but most of them really, were simply not anticipated at that time. So, these changes are dramatic and there needs to be a response to them. I think I’d say two things. This isn’t meant to be a rigid framework. It is meant to be a framework that is for the use of people within their particular environments. And so, the… teams and the multi-stakeholder advisory boards that assist them in each country should be thinking about what is specifically important to their country, how do these questions relate to their country. The meaning of that is different within every country as it is and it’s also gained adaptation that one might need here is twofold. I think every few years, maybe five years, maybe a little longer, it’s important for UNESCO to reflect on these indicators again and how they might evolve, perhaps next time after the SDG review in 2030, but it’s also important for those dealing with them, those using them in individual countries to think of the adaptations that are needed to interpret those principles and those questions for their own country and their own time.

AUDIENCE: Thanks for that, David. Is there bad audio again? Is it better? Great. I do have a question and you know and I want you to it’s it’s I can anyone on the panel can can respond to that David yourself as well and what about data sources? Have you found that in some of the countries where the indicators have been applied that actually getting the data to respond to those questions and analyze, do the kind of analysis that you’re talking about, has that been a challenge and and if it has been a challenge, how has that evolved over time and and what have you found as effective ways of responding to that challenge? So I’m not sure David or Alexandra if you want to to respond to that. David, Alexandra is going to respond first and then you can add. Thank you for this question. This is a key issue in the assessment. We need data availability. And we know that in many countries we still have a data gap for many indicators. In case of Brazil, we have the privilege of having a very rich data sets for many, many years. But what we have been seeing in countries that when the data is not available, countries have to go to more official type of data source from the International Telecommunication Union or World Bank or OECD, which is a secondary data source. And of course, in terms of collecting primary data, the interviews that we have conducted with the key actors in these ecosystems from different segments, not only government, of course, but academia, private sector and civil society, is really key. So it is very important that the multi-stakeholder advisory board really have the domain and can lead the data collection, not only using already existing data sets, but also going through new data collections. David, did you want to add on data?

DAVID SOUTER: Yes, I will. I think it’s one of the ironies, isn’t it, of the digital revolution, that we have, in fact, inadequate data to assess how the digital revolution is actually going. I think, so, I mean, firstly, one of the reasons why there were so many indicators in the first framework is actually addressing this particular problem. It was trying to give options that researchers could use within the particular question that they were looking at to find evidence. And essentially, the data that aren’t in there, adequate in many different contexts, and therefore researchers have to make the best use of what is available. That includes using assessments which are qualitative rather than quantitative, so considering the authoritative sources which might be available, the expertise which might be available, to fill in those gaps as credibly as possible. And also I think at the end of the day it’s really important among the recommendations that are coming out of these responses, coming out of these reports, that a part of that, some of those recommendations are about the ways in which the data gathering, data analysis framework needs to be improved within the countries, because good data are essential for good policymaking. Thanks,

Camila Gonzalez: thanks for that, David. Vint, I’m very happy to see a hand in our virtual room. You have the floor.

VINTON CERF: Thank you so much, Annemarie. I just wanted to draw attention to two activities in the US that might be of interest with regard to metrics. One of them is called the Measurement Lab. It’s part of an organization called Code for Science and Society. Google is one of the members among many. It’s a data collection effort to create open source data of performance of the Internet. There is continued development of new measurement tools and metrics in order to understand the quality of service that’s provided. For a long time bandwidth was the big kahuna, but now people are worried about latency and other things. So I would urge people to have a look at the Measurement Lab or MLab online to see whether there’s open data there they could find useful and also perhaps participate. The second activity is called the Broadband Coalition at the Marconi Society, and that’s a regular meeting. people who are concerned about getting broadband access in the rural parts of the U.S. into operation. And many of you will be aware of a major $42 billion effort to make broadband Internet access available in the rural parts of the U.S. So I just draw those attention I draw these to your attention because they are very much relevant to the metrics that you’ve been developing.

Camila Gonzalez: Thanks for Vint. And those are really good examples as well because I think it illustrates how the multi-stakeholder approach that the indicators deploy allows you to source metrics from your national statistical agencies but also metrics that are generated by other stakeholder groups or other sectors. And I don’t see any hands in the room. No one wants to ask a question. Is it too noisy here? And I don’t see any other hands online. So is there a question in the chat? No, I think we’ve covered everything so far. So let’s move on to the second part of our session and listen to more of our fantastic speakers. Just to look a bit more towards the future now and the role of the IUIs in this evolving landscape of global digital governance. Jennifer, I’m going to start with you. What is your view? How do you think evidence-based policy can inform the development of national digital policies to address tech inequalities and governance challenges? And I’m going to add a little bit of a more provocative question as well if I’m allowed to. Do you feel that evidence-based policy always comes naturally to governments or is there also sometimes a process there too that has to be undertaken in a collaborative, consultative way just to demonstrate and convince policymakers of the value of evidence-based policy?

Jennifer Bachus: I think this is working, yes. So my team gave me a great answer but I’m gonna riff a little on your question and thanks for including us here today and you know as since the US rejoined UNESCO we have really been thrilled to be collaborating and working with you and your colleagues on a whole range of issues that we find incredibly important. So I should say I have been in the US government for I’m coming up on 27 years and let me tell you this question around data-driven policymaking has taken off probably in the last 15 to 20 years but it’s really challenging. I think you’ve got to start with the idea that what’s the metric you use right I like to give the example I was I don’t know 20 years ago or so I was working in our embassy in Vietnam as the econ and labor officer and we were supposed to determine whether or not you know what was the metric we’re gonna use on the state of labor relations in Vietnam and they said okay well if you have more demonstrations more labor actions is that a good thing or a bad thing and I’m an economic person so I was like more labor actions means it’s a bad thing because it means that labor feels unhappy and the political officers were like no it’s a good thing because it means they can go and they can demonstrate and they can have their their point of view heard. So in many worlds actually trying to figure out how to judge these issues is really difficult as policymakers. Now luckily for us on some of these issues it’s actually quite easy what percent of the population is connected that one I feel like is pretty is pretty good but there are always going to be indicators that are probably going to be a little bit more fraught on what you’re trying to achieve right so I think first of all we should all strive for data-driven decision-making it’s something the US government has really embraced over the last 20 years but we also need to recognize that there’s going to be there’s going to be some tensions between you know, what data are we looking for? Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? How can we continue to try to strive towards reaching these outcomes that we want? Because the thing is, again, I am clearly a career bureaucrat. I haven’t worked in the private sector, but having worked with lots of bosses who have, they always say to me like, okay, but like, I got to get to understand what the return on investment is. If I’m going to spend X amount of money to connect it, am I getting my money’s worth? Like, where is the return on investment and how can we demonstrate our share, which is as taxpayers, that it is worth it? We are going in and out, I apologize for that. I promise it’s not me. I know. I do want to spend a couple of other things on some of the ideas they have written in here. So, you know, we think it’s incredibly important to have an affirmative vision for how digital technologies are working together. Part of the affirmative vision is the idea of connecting the unconnected, of trying to bring digital development to the world and doing so in a multi-stakeholder point of view. And I think, I also was very much struck by Vince’s comment about the indicators that can come from the private sector. We, the US government, can say we believe we have this percent of the population connected, but we need to double track that if you’re talking about the US approach, by talking to US telecommunications providers and US civil society and others who are going to say, well, you think it’s this percent, but you’re missing, you’ve got this over here on the left, and you need to look at that. We think about trying to analyze. You need to get as many data sources as possible and then recognize that sometimes those data sources are, in fact, going to disagree with each other, and then you have to figure out a way to reconcile them. Now, all of that is messy and time-consuming. but I think does have to be our ultimate goal as we look at these indicators. So, hopefully I answered your question. I think I missed a lot of things that my team wanted me to say, so if you come back around, I’ll see what I was supposed to say.

Camila Gonzalez: I will definitely come back around to you. And thanks for that response, because I think you really cut to why this is so challenging, and I don’t think we should pretend that it’s not. But Vin, do you want to build on that, actually? Jennifer talked about the perspective, the value that the private sector brings to this kind of process. What do you see as the role that tech companies, and specifically, but the private sector at large, can bring to this approach, advancing these kind of principles, but also addressing this issue of data-driven, evidence-based policymaking?

VINTON CERF: So, first of all, data-driven policymaking is really smart. I mean, any business model that you want to put together, really needs to be based on data, otherwise you’re just flying blind. So I’m a huge fan of data collection and analysis. In Google, of course, we believe that numbers count, and gathering data to guide our policies is absolutely essential. So I’m a big fan of measurement, and I’d like to congratulate UNESCO on its further evolution of the IUI framework. I wanted to just make a comment about metrics for a second, because it’s one thing to measure things like data rates and latency and so on, but there are some other very important things that determine whether something’s useful or not. One of them is availability. Is it reliably there all the time when you need it? Can you actually afford it, which is a major issue? And is it fit for purpose? That is to say, do its parametric performance values actually serve the applications that the users want? And I would argue that, as you… move around the world you find people using different applications requiring different kinds of performance. Reliability and resilience are equally important because if it’s not there when you need it, then it doesn’t serve your needs. And I would include one other possible metric. I’m not sure how you would do this, but I wonder if accountability is an important component of the utility of the Internet. We know that there are harmful behaviors on the net and we wonder about how to hold parties accountable. I have no idea whether that’s a metric that you can measure, but it certainly is something that should be concerned about. Am I assuming that we’re moving into my more general presentation, Henriette, or am I just responding to your immediate question?

Camila Gonzalez: I think that, you know, I think you’re responding to my immediate question, but I think if you have time, now would be a good time if you wanted to make some broader inputs as well. So please go ahead. I do want to come back though. I’m going to, while you do that, I’m going to alert David and Alexandra to your question about accountability. And Vint has just, I think, put a very important challenge on the table. Can you measure accountability? How do you measure it? It, of course, has many dimensions, but perhaps you can think about it and after Vint has gone again, you can come back and tell us the extent to which the indicators at present tries to and deal with this question of accountability. But back to you, Vint.

VINTON CERF: Thank you so much, Henriette. So I will continue more broadly. I want to talk a bit about private sector because that’s where a great deal of the Internet access is implemented. Certainly at Google, we invest very heavily in international subsea cable networks, our land-based cable networks, and of course our data centers and all of the communications that are required to support them, plus interconnection to the public Internet. in order to allow users to get to our data and computing capabilities. So we make, as do others in the private sector, major investments that enable people to make use of the Internet and the kinds of applications that it can support. Certainly another element here in terms of metrics and investment is Internet exchange points that allow the various networks of the Internet to interconnect efficiently with each other. And I’m sure many of the countries that are concerned about connectivity have made a point of at least measuring, if not also investing, in Internet exchange points to facilitate interconnection and resilience. There are other ways in which the private sector can contribute. One of them is open source, and we’re big fans of that at Google. Much of our software is available through open source, and it is an enabler for others to take advantage of that work and to build upon it. We also provide broad platforms like large language models for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications that, again, let other people build on top of those frontier models. We’re also big fans of open research, that is to say sharing what we’ve discovered and what we’ve learned. We’re also very active, as you know, in the Internet Governance Forum and the national and regional Internet Governance Forums because those are places where information about the metrics that you have developed can be disseminated and perhaps also feedback can be obtained from the measurements that are made. We’re active in standards as well, and I think those are other equally enabling mechanisms that make the Internet more useful for everyone. I could go on and on here, but I won’t. I will say, though, that… And with regard to accessibility, this is a space where the private sector has made significant contributions, not only at Google where we’re very focused on captions and translation of languages from one to another. Others have made significant investments, Microsoft and Apple, for example, in terms of accessibility. These are really fundamental to making the Internet useful for everyone, which of course is one of UNESCO’s primary objectives. I will say, however, that I don’t quite know what to say about artificial intelligence and the IUIs. I think we’re not clear yet what to measure about an artificial intelligence application to tell us whether it’s working well or not. So there’s still some, I think, work to be done to figure out how we assess artificial intelligence. And if it becomes increasingly central to the applications that we all use, I suspect that there has to be some further discussion within the UNESCO context about how we measure the utility and safety of the artificial intelligence applications that are emerging. So I’ll stop there. I’m sure you’ve got other questions and more for the rest of the panel.

Camila Gonzalez: Thanks for that, Vint. And I think if I recall actually what the revision of the IUIs does, it’s actually, it’s not overly ambitious. I think it’s actually asking countries to assess, are they at least talking about the challenges related to AI? So rather than having a finite measuring framework there, I think it is actually just giving those country teams the opportunity to have that conversation that you just opened. But now I want to move to Tenanoia from Tuvalu, from the Tuvalu Telecoms Corporation, because Tuvalu has applied the indicators. And I want to ask you, what are the challenges, particularly for a small island developing state which already has so many internet-related challenges? What challenges do you feel you face in internet governance? Reflecting on your experience… of applying the IUIs in Tuvalu. Can the framework provide solutions? Do you think it can? Do you feel it has? Just give us your insights based on your

Tenanoia Veronica Simona: experience. Thank you so much for the for the question. I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for the opportunity to participate and include our small Pacific Island countries in this assessment and it’s it’s it’s really great to have the people from UNESCO visit our small island state. Thank you. Looking at Tuvalu’s digital development journey really it reflects both the aspirations and challenges of small island nation in advancing IUIs within a unique socio-economic and geographic context. So let me just give you a little bit of the Tuvalu digital development journey. Our journey is forward-looking towards digital transformation. It’s shaped basically by the geographic isolation, limited infrastructure, vulnerability to climate change, and I think David mentioned that as well. But despite these challenges Tuvalu has enhanced and embraced a digital digitalization as part of its digital nation initiative. And the initiative really involves building digital twins, deploying modern telecommunication infrastructure, and and also implementing service like you know we are very disadvantaged from fintech solutions. It really aims to enhance connectivity and foster economic inclusion from our perspective. But I think this development reflects a commitment to more like leveraging digital tools like this, frameworks, to overcome the structural limitation and strengthen governance, education, and public service delivery. Coming to the question of challenge, small island nations like Tuvalu face very, very unique challenges in internet governance, which I would like to highlight a few. One of which is the big challenge is infrastructure constraints, in a sense that high cost of undersea cables, and I’m happy to say that my nation Tuvalu just landed the first submarine cable just a couple of days ago, and I thank the help from giant companies like Google, Vint, and your team for getting us connected to the entire world. And also with these challenges, the constraint of limited capacity for fiber deployment, given that the structure and geographic landscape of our islands are very remote and isolated, so the deployments can be very costly. And we, before that cable land, we depend 100% on satellite connectivity, so we are left out from the opportunity, you know, on advancement in technology. One of the other limitation that I think we highlighted in the assessment that we did is, because we are very small economies, we struggle to attract private investment in digital infrastructure, and we really rely heavily on development aids. The other important challenge that I want to highlight is capacity building. We have very limited technical expertise because of our isolated islands, and we are very far from the world with advanced technology, and given that we are now connected to the internet through cable, this will enable us, you know, to get those capacity built at the very rapid rate. One of the major challenge in the Pacific Island countries is the fragmented and underdeveloped regulatory frameworks, which makes it very difficult to ensure… things like cyber security, data protection, and basically competition. The other factor that really takes into account when it comes to internet governance is the environmental risks. We are very vulnerable as small island state to natural disasters because it disrupts connectivity and also it strains our ability to recover from those disasters. And so bridging the digital divide in remote islands and remote communities, ensuring affordable internet access, it’s still remain more like a persistent issue. So your question, the next part of your question asks if we consider this as a solution for the IUI framework. Well it provides, it offers quite a number of solutions from the perspective of assessment and benchmarking because it identifies the gaps in how we access the infrastructure, the skills and content of how we prioritize our interventions and also localize solutions. And I think adapting to global best practices to the specific needs and reality of small island nation is very important because we can contextualize what we need. From a policy guidance perspective, I think the framework really offers their governance, like a recommending governance structure that foster equitable access, I would say, and sustainability and resilience. Coming back to capacity building, I think this framework kind of give, like highlights the need for partnerships and training our programs to build that technical expertise at the local context, at the local level. My last point that I wanted to, like, the framework offers is the facilitating of collaboration in terms of funding availability, given our small context with international, say, donors and development agency, because it addresses the financial constraint that we have as small Pacific Island countries. Thank you.

Camila Gonzalez: Thanks, Thien-Hanoi. I think those are really good responses, because I would imagine that when you face so many different challenges, going through this national process, which allows, or also perhaps forces you to… I can’t hear myself, but I assume it’s working. And I think I really… I think what you said there is that it… And I think this is… I would… I mean, I’ve been close enough to the IUIs to say this is part of their design, that the IUIs are designed in such a way that you build to do the measurement and the analysis can also evolve into partnerships for collaboration around addressing those challenges. And I think you’ve just said that so well. I want to move on now to Alain. You work in digital cooperation for digital inclusion in 16 different countries. You haven’t used the IUIs yet, but you’re engaging with it now, and you’re thinking about it. How do you, at this point, see the IUIs facilitating and supporting the kind of multi-stakeholder collaboration that you’re already working with in those 16 countries?

ALLA ABDULAAL: Hello, everyone. Thank you. I’m very honored to be here on this panel. And I would like, first of all, to congratulate UNESCO for the launch of the new IUI. I think it’s a very amazing step to have that reviewed because we are in an era where everything is accelerating very quickly, and digitalization is affecting and impacting the transformation of countries. So it is very important always to stop, reflect, and engage, and always update all the measurements and frameworks that we are building. The digital cooperation organization, I think what we are trying to achieve through the IUIs and what is really aligned with what UNESCO, as an organization, is trying to do is to bridge the digital divide, to have a framework that will help and support countries to assess where they stand, to understand their current state, and build actionable solutions and plans. And even us as a digital cooperation organization, we have recently launched our digital economy navigator, which focuses on the digital economy from a maturity perspective. Again, we are moving towards using the same approach, which is a database of different indicators. It’s very aligned with what UNESCO is trying to do with the IUIs. I really see the point where it’s very important for us when we are trying to build collaboration is to have the right data in place, to have it built upon those different indicators. And this is why I believe with this framework that even the new one with the IOIs, I think it will really provide targeted plans for countries, not only to understand where they are, but even to, and it was mentioned by one of the panelists, to look at what is the return of investment, to measure what is being really impacted. So when you sit there and start creating initiatives or even change policies that are based on data, this will really help you measure how much you are progressing, because it’s not just random. It’s not just putting plans in place, but actually building those plans on existing data, on a unified framework, where not only one country is looking at it, but a list of countries having the same direction, having the same vision that they want to accomplish. And then, also, it’s very important, which is mentioned, share the lessons and the experience between those countries, again, based on a well-established framework. For all the countries to have that unified vision is a very, I believe, it’s an accomplishment by itself. And not only from a country perspective, but as we mentioned, it’s a stakeholder, a multi-stakeholder aspect. To have also the academia, to have the private sector, to have governments, all of them, looking at the digital divide in the same way, trying to bridge it, trying to address it. This is really a step forward to accelerate that evolution and transformation that we are trying to achieve. It is the right way, it is the fastest way, and I believe it’s the only impactful way for us to move forward. Thank you very much.

Camila Gonzalez: Thanks very much, Hala. And, in fact, as a taxpayer, I consider tax as my form of investment in the public sector, and I ask that question, too. You know, what return of investment do we get from our taxes? So, I think that that approach is as important, perhaps even more so, with public sector investment. And I want to go back to you, Jennifer, seeing as you’re a self-confessed government official. How do you see… I mean, we talk a lot about the multi-stakeholder approach. approach in the IUIs and in the IGF. But do you feel that there’s also a need to strengthen multilateral efforts to use tools such as the IUIs which adopt the multi-stakeholder approach? Do you think there’s enough of a understanding within the intergovernmental space about the value of tools such as this to address these emerging global governance and digital governance challenges? Thanks for the question. I think the reality is is that multilateralism dominate most of our work. I mean, let’s be clear, having negotiated the global digital compact, even though we injected multi-stakeholderism into it, in it and the global digital compact did reinforce the role of multi-stakeholderism, multilateralism is continuing to have a leading role in these issues. And I guess I’m more worried about multi-stakeholderism than I am about multilateralism. I’m worried about, and I looked back notes and it wasn’t in there, but it sparked my mind with the idea of the rights-based, open, accessible to all and nurtured by multi-stakeholder participation. It’s a question of how you evaluate the stakeholder participation. If you consult, is that multi-stakeholder participation? Talk to one civil society organization, is that multi-stakeholder participation? And I think we really need to, when you talk about the quality of data, the reality is you need to be consulting with multiple companies, multiple civil society, multiple academia, and multiple tech communities. And I think that. One of the things we need to think about, and sorry to have ignored your multilateral question because I think that we spend a lot of time on it, but I think the definitions around multi-stakeholderism in a way that’s actually meaningful is something that’s incredibly important and to make sure that the data is not just one company. Because what we find regularly is talking to big tech, we’ll get a different answer than talking to, let’s say, small tech, and talking to civil society based in rural areas is different than talking to civil society based in urban areas. Also, quantity, but a quality, says otherwise, you’re gonna make policies that are not the best and that are potentially not lamentable. So I think, for me, I think a lot about this because I am a government democrat. I am not an expert in the way technology works. I need as many experts as I can to say, well, you think if you write this thing, it’s gonna have an outcome, but in fact, yeah, it’s not working. But anyway, hopefully you get my point. Sorry, I am just sorry, Jennifer. Is the audio cutting out for other people as well? Not just for me. So our tech people in the back of the room, the audio from speakers in the room is not working fantastically. I don’t know if it’s the mic or whatever. But Jennifer, I’m so glad you said that. Do you think it’s the mic there? Good. So we need to give you another mic. We’ll hear now. I’m very glad you emphasized that because I think if we wanna use this multi-stakeholder approach, we cannot just use it at a tokenistic level. We’ve gotta be intentional about it, deliberative, acknowledge that there’s diversity. So I think that’s really important. And I think there’s the, in fact, we, I think, launched our open consultation. process for this updated internet universality indicators during NetMundial Plus 10 in Sao Paulo earlier this year. And one of the outcomes of that process is that both the multilateral and the multi-stakeholder internet governance processes need to get better and be more intentional and inclusive.

AUDIENCE: But Ale, you wanted to come in on this issue as well, so please go ahead and we’ll check your mic. Can everyone hear me? Yes, I think I can be heard. So, yeah, I totally agree with what Jennifer was mentioning, the specifics. Is it on? Yes. I can’t hear you. Can you hear me? Go ahead. I can’t hear you, but it’s fine. So I totally agree with what she has said, because again, it’s not only about one country perspective if we are talking about… It impacts also the multilateral aspect, because it’s not only from one country perspective rather than looking at different countries, different regions, different situations, different level of maturities of different aspects, different sectors. And then we are talking about, as you have mentioned, are we talking about big tech companies? Are we talking about SMEs, small, medium enterprises, a different perspective coming from academia, researchers, think tanks? They all provide their own right angle of how to tackle different transformation challenges that different countries are facing. And I believe we should try, even from an international organization’s work together, to bring everyone on the table through different consultations on different regions, different layers. Again, I believe this is the only way that we can really help in providing that unified direction for different countries to really all to be on the, let’s say, not the same level, but at least we are all talking on the same foundation and being in the same era, not having third of the world unconnected or 2.6 million of people are not connected and the other are connected and talking about a different age of transformation.

Camila Gonzalez: Thanks. In Africa, it’s under 40% at the moment. your hand. I also want to invite other people in the room to speak and ask questions. And also if someone, okay I’ve noted your hand, and Vint asked a question in the Zoom chat about whether low-earth-orbit satellites are being used for Pacific Islands. So if anybody wants to volunteer to respond to that, either from the room or online, please go ahead. Jennifer, you have an answer. I mean the answer is yes they are, and it depends what you’re trying to do whether LEOs are going to be sufficient to connect the unconnected. And this is, you know, we worked a lot on the Tuvalu, and I will turn to you, but recognizing that what you can do for a population the size of Tuvalu with low-earth-orbit satellites is nothing compared to what you can do with an undersea cable. But I also want to add another thing. What was really interesting was when we started to talk to ambassadors, U.S. Chief Submission about AI, we had a number of ambassadors who said, you guys are talking about a conversation that really is about a small number of countries, when in fact, and these were particularly in developing countries, ambassadors are like, we don’t even have connected populations. So you’re like, so it’s like there’s almost two different conversations happening in different areas. And so it’s a little bit of like, you can’t forget that you still have the unconnected. You need to have them in the room. You can’t just say, we’re going to run and have another complete conversation about AI, when we can’t even you know, talk about having, you know, meaningful access to information and connectivity. So that is, I think, your point about getting everybody in the room, because otherwise you can’t have a conversation that feels like only part of the world is participating in it. And I don’t speak for Tuvalu, but I think that you probably have similar points. Do you want to respond? Go ahead. Yeah, so in now part of the world, Leo, yes, it’s playing a very important role in connecting our remote areas. The question is, is it affordable? for a standard local person in that remote area to get connected to this LEO solution. You know, it’s a brilliant, it’s a very good solution, but there’s always a question of affordability and how we can sustain that in the context of small island nation. And it’s something that people in my country, I would say, still facing that affordability issue and challenges. Thanks for that. And Vint, I’m going to come to you. I’ve seen your hand. But I have two people in the room that are eager to speak, so I’m going to give them the floor. We’ll start over there. And then, can I ask someone to help with moving the mic? This is the mic that works. And just introduce yourself and be brief. Thank you so much.

JOSE FISSA: Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. José Fissa Hadidban. I coordinate the chat with IGF, and I’m here attending this session as a reporter. I would like to thank UNESCO for giving me this chance. And if I’m here attending IGF, it’s because of UNESCO. So thanks a lot to UNESCO team for that. I think I would like also to appreciate, I mean, the framework, revise it. But situations, I mean, in my country and indicators are quite different. And for me to understand clearly the position of the co-facilitators, I have a question. If you could please specify, how can the advanced second generation Internet universality indicators, ROMEx framework contribute to shaping an inclusive, right-respecting and sustainable digital future? And what specific strategies should a stakeholder, such as government, civil society, private sector and academia, adopt to integrate these indicators into national and regional Internet governance framework?

Camila Gonzalez: effectively. Thank you so much. Thanks very much for that question and I think maybe Taufik you can also come to that your closing remarks perhaps and that address that. Aziz let’s have your question and then Aviz just introduce yourself and be brief and then we’ll have Vint. Aziz you are next.

AZIZ HILALI: Thank you. We can hear you. You hear me? Yes. Thank you Henriette. I am Aziz Hilali, I am professor and former co-chair of ISOC Morocco and member of different IJF locally and regionally and I would like to come back to the special importance of indicators particularly in the Arab region where digital transformation is happening but in different speeds or different ways. More than half of I think we are in the Arab region less than 500 million people in 23 countries of the region are connected to the Internet. However there are still significant digital gaps. Internet penetration in the region remains below than the global average which is 65%. The same in African region. This indicator I think importance is they can act as a compass to guide public policies toward fire and sustainable solution aligned with the substantial development goals SDG. In this context I want to highlight the importance of including these indicators in the national and and regional strategies, for example, I want just to give North Africa as example, with its challenges, such as weak infrastructure and inequal access could benefit from more accommodation based on reliable data to reduce digital divides. So, this effort must involve stakeholders, as most speakers said in this session, we have to integrate these indicators into stakeholder strategies is very crucial for building an internet that is inclusive, openness and the respect of human rights, thank you.

Camila Gonzalez: Thanks Aziz, I think yes, I think we always talk about a holistic and I think what the indicators give us is a way of applying that. We’ll have a question from Avice, do you want to, you don’t have a question. Sorry, I couldn’t, I can’t hear, maybe give him the. Thank you very much, I’m Avice from Cameroon, it is a concerning question, I’m asking myself for civil society as I’m from civil society, we want to involve in the assessment and as you know, there is some data coming from the government, specifically in this point from the use of the Universal Asset Fund, which is very quiet, some country are not really, let’s say, they don’t want to give the information about this point and as you know, the use of the Universal Fund give lot of data for what are being implemented in the field. So I don’t know if there is some advice when coming on this point, please. Good, I think that’s a very good question and I’m going to ask any panelist who’s got experience of this and who understands the indicators to talk about whether the process will reveal whether there are concerns about our Universal Access Funds. I know, I have learned from looking at the indicators. is how different countries are actually approaching universal access funds deployment differently. But Vint, let’s have your question, and then we’ll go into a round of responses. I see David is ready to tell us about accountability. Vint, if that wasn’t an old hand, please go ahead.

VINTON CERF: It’s not an old hand. I am an old hand, but that’s a different story. So am I. Yeah. I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that multi-stakeholder practices are vitally important here. It’s certainly true that member states have a great deal to do with policy, and international policy in particular. But with regard to internet and its implementation, it’s fair to say that the bulk of the implementation is done in the private sector. And so there is a natural partnership that should arise out of government and the private sector, to say nothing about the influence of the civil society and the technology community with regard to either utility or implementation of the internet. So I just want to overemphasize the importance of this collaborative component for connectivity, as well as all the other metrics that go along with the IUI. Thanks. Thanks, Vint. I can’t resist saying this, though. If the private sector was doing a better job, we wouldn’t have lower than 40% internet penetration in Africa. But that’s really a challenge to the mobile sector, not to Google.

Camila Gonzalez: So let’s just hear what David. David, you can respond to the accountability question. So please go ahead. And then I’m going to ask other panelists to respond to other questions. Is that you need to leave quite soon, so I’ll give you first. Yes, how does the indicators, do they help us address that issue of accountability that Vint raised earlier? Please go ahead.

DAVID SOUTER: So I would say. Accountability is a very fundamental question to anything around this, and it’s really to do with the relationship between technology and human society, both governments and businesses as well. And it’s very much related to power structures, so the extent to which you are capable of assessing accountability really does depend a lot on what the power structures within a society enable you to look at and what sort of data are available. In this framework here, there are quite a lot of places where the IUI indicators are asking you to look first at what the state law, regulation and so on, so what is the formal requirement, and then secondly at how that is enforced in practice or what is actually happening in practice. So that is about, that second part of that question is to do with accountability, and in assessing it, I’d say, well first, quantitative evidence is often lacking, but also not always going to be the best source. However, a great deal more openness from digital businesses here might be helpful, there’s too much keeping of information confidential for commercial reasons, or supposed commercial reasons, I’ve noticed this particularly with the area of working in the environment. There’s a need for critical assessment of what quantitative information is available by researchers, but also there’s a need to look at this qualitative evidence that I said before, what do serious observers, academics, serious journalists, researchers in genuine think tanks, that sort of thing, what are they saying? And in terms of accountability again, I’d say, and I think the framework does address this, it’s not just about what governments are doing, it’s also about the power of other actors within the digital environment, including government. including business markets. And I suppose two other quick points. Firstly on evidence-based policymaking and one of the problems we have here is that not everybody believes in evidence-based policymaking and actually quite a lot of governments believe in evidence-based policymaking as we’re seeing. So that’s a challenge here. In terms of AI that’s going to be particularly difficult in the context where assessing accountability. How do you assess accountability if those who are running systems themselves aren’t really capable of understanding why particular decisions are being made? So I think with AI we reach another level of difficulty in assessing accountability which is a challenge for the next revision of the IUIs but it’s also actually a much bigger challenge I think for society as a whole.

Camila Gonzalez: And David thanks very much for that and before I move on to the next, well let me actually ask Alaa to speak and then I’ll come back to you on Universal Service Funds. Do you have some

ALLA ABDULAAL: closing remarks before you leave? Yes so first of all again we congratulate UNESCO and I really want to emphasize on the transformative potential of such frameworks like the IOIs and their vital role that they really play in shaping an evidence-based policy and action plans and having a good multi-stakeholder collaboration and bridging the digital divide. As the digital landscape is really evolving very quickly as the digital cooperation organization we really are committed to support these efforts by enabling our member states to leverage such tools like the IOIs and also our digital economy navigator to achieve their inclusive and sustainable digital transformation journey. We believe that as our name, we are the Digital Cooperation Organization, we believe in the importance of cooperation. And this is why we are very happy to be in such a panel beside the UNESCO and to have that multilateral and multi-stakeholder conversation. And we believe that this is the right approach to work together, to share our experience, to make sure that no one is left behind and that we have a prosperous future for all.

Camila Gonzalez: Thank you. Thanks very much. And I know you have to go, but thanks for joining our panel. And David, will applying the IUIs help a country team unpack some of the challenges around how the Universal Service and Access Fund is defined, deployed and contributing to meaningful access? Is that covered by the indicators? David, are you still there or are you muted? I lost the connectivity and you came back at the end saying something about…

DAVID SOUTER: My question is that I know that you have built in the revised IUIs, there’s now additional focus on meaningful connectivity. So the question that we had from the floor was, would applying the indicators help at a national level that multi-stakeholder group of implementers of the indicators be able to unpack whether it is using its Universal Access or Service Fund effectively, whether there are issues with how it’s defined, whether it’s being used for, let’s say, local access or community networks. Is that a topic that will be surfaced by applying the IUIs? I mean, okay, so the indicators that… you know they one of the things that’s important about them is then not overwhelmingly specific and so the issues that are raised in terms of meaningful connectivity in one country will differ from those that are raised in another and what the indicators do is give to the researchers to identify what is important within their individual country and then to focus on that so the answer to your question is yes it does and it doesn’t need to identify that in a you know it’s a very specific way in order in order for that to be the case it’s something that the researchers and the multi-stakeholder advisory boards should direct their work towards in those countries where that is a particularly important question thanks very much for that david and i

Camila Gonzalez: also know that it can also reveal if a regulator is finding it difficult to get data from operators which is often the case the iui process will also most likely reveal that too but but let’s have some some final remarks um from the the panel i put and i hear myself cutting out but um alexander let’s start with you and then we’ll we’ll we’ll go on to to you and then to jennifer and then taufik will will close for us any reactions or responses to the questions or additional points that you want to make

Alexandre Barbosa: thank you very much uh and yet well um i would like to comment on the multi-stakeholder dialogue that we’re having here just to mention that in brazil we have a very well established multi-stakeholder internet governance model in which the government coordinate the whole structure and i would say that it is um not so my multi-stakeholder dialogue platform in which Which we have different voices, and I agree with Jennifer, which voices are we hearing. But what I want to say, that although this is a well-structured governance model, we do have so many opportunities of dialoguing with the society, like the National Internet Governance Forum, all different areas that is taken into consideration in this dialogue, like culture, digital inclusion, gender, meaningful connectivity, artificial intelligence. So in those specific areas, we invite different voices so that we can take into consideration into the policy design those aspects. And besides that, I’m responsible for a data production center related to measuring the adoption and impact of ICTs in different areas of society, and in that particular case, we do have also expert groups that support our measurement activities. So we do have government, academia, civil society, private sector, that guide us in terms of how to measure and what to measure, based on which methodology. So I would say that the Brazilian model is really solid enough that provides the government very important, insightful for policy design. And just to mention three important influential dialogues that we have. I guess that most of you may know the Brazilian Act on the Internet Bill of Rights, that we call in Portuguese, Marcos Civil da Internet. It was based on a very important dialogue that took place into the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee. Also, we had the private, when we had the personal data protection. Act approved. It was previously based on the dialogue that we had, multi-holder dialogue. Also in terms of digital inclusion policies or digital abilities along with the Minister of Education in Brazil. So this is a really important process and I agree that a hundred percent evidence-based policy is really difficult to have because the policy design and the process is quite complex. But I would say that in the last 20 years, based on this dialogue on the Brazilian International Committee, we did make progress in that regard. And I would like to finish by saying that also the Brazilian government counts on this structure, on this multi-holder structure, to help in very important and critical actions like the G20. We have just finished the presidency of the G20, in which the Brazilian International Committee took a very active role in several areas in terms of digital economy. So we work very closely with the government in terms of artificial intelligence and meaningful connectivity. And just to finish, I would like to say that since the first assessment that we had in 2015, using the first generation IOI, I would say that today we are not discussing digital inclusion by the fact of being or not being connected, but the meaningful connectivity which brings a huge number of dimensions like digital skills, affordability, safety, use of the internet. So this is a result of this process. And I hope, Taufique, that we will be able to once again pioneer by adopting the second generation. this framework, which is so important. So maybe in the next IGF we will be able to give some results of this second generation. And once again I think that this is a very important moment because we have recently approved the PACT for the future and also the upcoming WSIS plus 20 review and Romex is a very important model. And just to finish I would like to say that the new title of this publication is advanced inclusive digital transformation with the Romex indicators. Romex is a key pillar in all this discussion of the global digital compact and WSIS plus 20 review. So once again congratulations to UNESCO and to your leadership for providing this very important and relevant framework.

Camila Gonzalez: Thanks very much Alexander. Tena Noya, do you want to add anything? Yep, thank you for the second opportunity. I think I will acknowledge the the role of MAP, the multi-stakeholder advisory body board, because there are key benefits out of this arrangement and one of which is the the board really brings out the, you know, together the government, civil society, private sector and community representation. Because it ensures the diverse voice of you know of the people and also enhancing that credibility. It gives you know stakeholders involvement, foster trust and buy-ins from various groups. And I think members contributed technical expertise as well as in size into best practices. which, for me, enhance the quality of assessment and recommendation from this. And the last one I wanted to say is that, you know, when it comes to a table, when we did the consultation, multi-stakeholders with various sectors, sometimes there’s conflict of resolution, and I think that the Board really brings that, you know, helps mediate that kind of competing interest and align the objectives to what we believe it should contextualize to the context of the nation. So, and again, I would like to echo the same sentiment from other speakers congratulating UNESCO for the launching of the new framework. Thank you. Thanks, Tena Noya. Jennifer. Thanks for that, and again, to echo the comments of the rest of the panelists, congratulations on this. I think it’s so critically important that we continue to discuss ways to try to evaluate and understand how connectivity is taking place. I think, you know, that the U.S. government has really upped its game on connectivity, on engagement with UNESCO, on engagement with a multi-stakeholder community. We’re proud in our organization to have been a critical element of this, and also through the launching of the U.S. International Cyberspace and Digital Policy Strategy, which talks about all of these things in it. But I think to conclude, I just want to say how excited I am to continue to work with this group and with others to really advance our digital future, one that’s based on retrospecting technology, one that’s based on bringing all the voices into it, because ultimately, if we’re going to achieve our goals for connectivity and for meaningful access to information, we’re going to need to do it together in a way that really is based on this idea of data and collaboration. communication. So thanks. Thanks, Jennifer. Vint, did you have any further comments? David, anything more from you? Vint says audio. The Zoom participants say that the audio is cutting out for them. And I think let’s move on then to asking Taufik to make some closing remarks for us. And I think I have to add, before you start, my congratulations to you as well, to UNESCO, to CETEC and to everyone who’s been part of this process.

Tawfik Jelassi: Thank you very much, Henriette. Let me first comment on the last two, maybe a couple of recent remarks made by Jennifer first regarding the collaboration here. We very much enjoyed having the US back to UNESCO since July 2023. We look forward to continued collaboration with the US in spite of changing administration at the White House. And you mentioned the field of communication and information, which has many themes there. Freedom of expression, protection of journalists, media development, multilingualism online, caring for minorities, including indigenous peoples, and so on and so forth. So we have many common topics of great interest and would like to continue the work that we have reinitiated a bit over the years since US came back to UNESCO. And also I want to comment on what you said, Alexander. You said that maybe in the next IGF 2025 you can showcase some early results from the implementation of the revised internet universality indicators. This is a great goal, we should definitely do that, because the point is not just to prove the concepts, it’s to prove the value of our work, of the ROAMX framework. However, this creates of course momentum, and as we know the next IGF is not one year away from today, it’s just six months away from today. So we need to be ready by May 2025, so in June 2025 in Norway, at IGF, we can showcase, we can share with interested parties the first set of results and to what extent the revised framework was impactful. Let me also thank everybody in the panel, but online and physically in the room, but also our participants. I see that I was told we have a few minutes left, I’ll be brief. So I would like to thank the panelists online and in the room, I would like to thank the audience as well for coming to this session, this is very important for us, and the discussion and the multiple perspectives we heard from the US, from Brazil, from Tuvalu, from the Digital Cooperation Organization, and for their field, I think the different testimonies clearly show the relevance of the ROAMX frameworks and the indicators, also they emphasize the challenges and the specificities of different contexts around the world. I think this reminds us also that we need to have a truly inclusive collective effort if we want to build the digital future that you aspire towards, and open, safe, secure, but also multi-stakeholder and human rights anchored. I think a number of speakers, including Jennifer, insisted on the multi-stakeholder dimension, in addition of course to… the multilateral role of international organizations, but I think we all agree that the work has to be not only anchored but remain respectful of human rights. And let me say again to conclude that the revised framework that we presented today and that book, booklet or book, which is here in physical form but we have it also available online and soon in multiple languages. I think this shows that what we did was not just revising a framework, it’s more than that. I think it was a bold step towards ensuring that the internet remains a force for equity, for sustainability and for human development. I think for sure our work and those who will be implementing the revised framework will foster our partnership going forward. A number of you mentioned the digital divide that is still today unacceptably high. I think this work of national digital assessment using our indicators is a step towards putting in place the right national digital strategy among others to reduce the digital divide. And as we know it’s multiple divides. It’s digital, it’s informational, it’s knowledge divide, it’s a gender divide as well. So it’s only through collective efforts and partnership that we can tackle these divides and the common goal of all of us is we should not leave anyone behind or anyone out of the new digital era, the new digital age in which we live today. And thank you Henriette for your excellent moderation of this panel.

Camila Gonzalez: And thanks to everyone. I see that the remote participants are also complaining. I would like one last word to thank the UNESCO team. I see Cedric Warhol is here. I see Tatavic as well, and colleagues who are in Paris, who maybe are not with us in the room here. I want to also say a big thank you to all of you for making it ready for IGF24. Thanks Tafik. A massive amount of work to make it ready for this launch. So thanks to everyone. Apologies for the difficulties with the audience. Thanks to our tech team. I know you did your best. And thanks very much everyone for joining us.

Agreement Points

Importance of revised Internet Universality Indicators (IUIs)

Tawfik Jelassi

Alexandre Barbosa

DAVID SOUTER

IUIs revised to be more relevant, adaptive and future-ready

IUIs empower countries to adopt evidence-based policymaking

Revised IUIs address new challenges like environmental risks and AI

The speakers agree on the significance of the revised IUIs in addressing current digital challenges, promoting evidence-based policymaking, and incorporating new issues like environmental risks and AI governance.

Multi-stakeholder approach in implementing IUIs

Alexandre Barbosa

Jennifer Bachus

Tenanoia Veronica Simona

VINTON CERF

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is key for sustainable internet governance

Need for meaningful multi-stakeholder participation, not just tokenistic

Multi-stakeholder advisory boards bring diverse voices and expertise

Private sector plays vital role in internet implementation and should partner with government

The speakers emphasize the importance of genuine multi-stakeholder collaboration in implementing the IUIs, involving diverse voices from government, civil society, private sector, and academia.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlight the improved accessibility and applicability of the revised IUIs, emphasizing their alignment with global frameworks like the SDGs and their potential to inform tailored policy recommendations.

Tawfik Jelassi

Alexandre Barbosa

Revised IUIs are more streamlined and accessible

IUIs facilitate tailored policy recommendations aligned with SDGs

Both speakers stress the need for the IUIs to remain flexible and adaptable to address future technological developments, particularly in emerging areas like AI governance.

DAVID SOUTER

VINTON CERF

IUIs should remain adaptable to future technological and policy challenges

IUIs can help address emerging challenges like AI governance

Unexpected Consensus

Challenges faced by small island nations in implementing IUIs

Tenanoia Veronica Simona

AZIZ HILALI

Small island nations face unique infrastructure and capacity building challenges

Digital divide remains a significant issue, especially in Africa and Arab regions

While representing different regions, both speakers highlight similar challenges in implementing IUIs, particularly related to infrastructure constraints and the persistent digital divide. This unexpected consensus underscores the global nature of these challenges.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include the importance of the revised IUIs, the need for meaningful multi-stakeholder collaboration, and the recognition of persistent challenges in implementing digital policies, particularly in developing regions.

Consensus level

There is a high level of consensus among the speakers on the value and potential of the revised IUIs. This consensus suggests broad support for the framework and its implementation across diverse stakeholders and regions. However, there is also agreement on the need to address ongoing challenges, particularly in developing countries and small island nations, indicating that while the IUIs are seen as valuable, their successful implementation may require additional support and resources in certain contexts.

Different Viewpoints

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement were limited, with most speakers generally aligned on the importance of the IUIs and multi-stakeholder approaches. The primary difference emerged around the role and effectiveness of the private sector in internet implementation.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers was relatively low. Most participants shared similar views on the importance of the Internet Universality Indicators (IUIs) and the need for multi-stakeholder approaches in internet governance. The few differences that emerged were more about emphasis and specific implementation strategies rather than fundamental disagreements. This general alignment suggests a strong consensus on the value of the IUIs and collaborative approaches to digital governance, which could facilitate smoother implementation and adoption of these frameworks globally.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the importance of multi-stakeholder participation in internet governance. However, Jennifer Bachus emphasizes the need for meaningful participation from multiple stakeholders, while Alexandre Barbosa focuses more on the collaborative aspect for sustainable governance without explicitly addressing the depth of participation.

Jennifer Bachus

Alexandre Barbosa

Need for meaningful multi-stakeholder participation, not just tokenistic

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is key for sustainable internet governance

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlight the improved accessibility and applicability of the revised IUIs, emphasizing their alignment with global frameworks like the SDGs and their potential to inform tailored policy recommendations.

Tawfik Jelassi

Alexandre Barbosa

Revised IUIs are more streamlined and accessible

IUIs facilitate tailored policy recommendations aligned with SDGs

Both speakers stress the need for the IUIs to remain flexible and adaptable to address future technological developments, particularly in emerging areas like AI governance.

DAVID SOUTER

VINTON CERF

IUIs should remain adaptable to future technological and policy challenges

IUIs can help address emerging challenges like AI governance

Key Takeaways

UNESCO’s revised Internet Universality Indicators (IUIs) are more streamlined, accessible, and address new challenges like environmental risks and AI

IUIs empower countries to adopt evidence-based policymaking and facilitate tailored policy recommendations aligned with SDGs

A meaningful multi-stakeholder approach is crucial for effective implementation of IUIs and sustainable internet governance

Developing countries, especially small island nations, face unique challenges in implementing IUIs, including infrastructure limitations and capacity building needs

The digital divide remains a significant issue globally, particularly in Africa and Arab regions

IUIs can play a key role in shaping global digital governance and fostering international cooperation on digital issues

Resolutions and Action Items

UNESCO to showcase early results from the implementation of revised IUIs at the next IGF in Norway (May/June 2025)

Countries encouraged to conduct national digital assessments using the revised IUIs

Stakeholders to work on improving data availability and quality for effective implementation of IUIs

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively measure and ensure accountability in the digital ecosystem, especially with emerging technologies like AI

Addressing the affordability of internet access, particularly in small island nations and developing countries

Balancing multilateral and multi-stakeholder approaches in global digital governance

How to effectively include diverse voices and perspectives in the multi-stakeholder process

Suggested Compromises

Using a combination of quantitative data and qualitative assessments from experts to overcome data limitations in some countries

Adapting the IUI framework to specific country contexts while maintaining core principles

Balancing the need for comprehensive assessments with making the IUI process more streamlined and accessible

UNESCO has been around for 80 years, has never done any comparative studies nor rankings of member states. So we are not in the business of rankings. The indicators are meant to be a guidance to our member states to conduct a national digital assessment, but not to compare countries, and certainly not to rank them.

speaker

Tawfik Jelassi

reason

This comment clarifies a key aspect of the Internet Universality Indicators (IUIs) framework, emphasizing its purpose as a tool for self-assessment rather than comparison or ranking. This is crucial for understanding the intent and proper use of the framework.

impact

It addressed potential concerns about the IUIs being used to create unfavorable comparisons between countries, potentially encouraging more countries to adopt and use the framework without fear of negative repercussions.

I think we really need to, when you talk about the quality of data, the reality is you need to be consulting with multiple companies, multiple civil society, multiple academia, and multiple tech communities.

speaker

Jennifer Bachus

reason

This comment highlights the importance of diverse and comprehensive stakeholder engagement in the data collection and assessment process, emphasizing the need for a truly multi-stakeholder approach.

impact

It sparked a discussion about the definition and implementation of multi-stakeholderism, leading to a deeper examination of how to ensure meaningful participation from various sectors.

How do you assess accountability if those who are running systems themselves aren’t really capable of understanding why particular decisions are being made? So I think with AI we reach another level of difficulty in assessing accountability which is a challenge for the next revision of the IUIs but it’s also actually a much bigger challenge I think for society as a whole.

speaker

David Souter

reason

This comment introduces the complex challenge of accountability in AI systems, highlighting a significant gap in current assessment frameworks and pointing to future challenges.

impact

It broadened the discussion to include considerations of emerging technologies and their implications for internet governance and assessment frameworks, prompting thoughts on how the IUIs might need to evolve in the future.

Small island nations like Tuvalu face very, very unique challenges in internet governance, which I would like to highlight a few. One of which is the big challenge is infrastructure constraints, in a sense that high cost of undersea cables, and I’m happy to say that my nation Tuvalu just landed the first submarine cable just a couple of days ago.

speaker

Tenanoia Veronica Simona

reason

This comment brings attention to the specific challenges faced by small island nations, providing a concrete example of how different contexts require different approaches to internet development and governance.

impact

It highlighted the importance of considering diverse national contexts when applying the IUIs, leading to a discussion on how the framework can be adapted to different situations and needs.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by emphasizing the non-comparative nature of the IUIs, the importance of genuine multi-stakeholder engagement, the need to consider emerging technologies like AI, and the necessity of adapting the framework to diverse national contexts. They collectively deepened the conversation about the purpose, implementation, and future evolution of the IUIs, while also highlighting the complex challenges in internet governance across different global contexts.

How can the accountability of digital technologies and services be measured?

speaker

Vinton Cerf

explanation

Accountability is crucial for ensuring responsible development and use of digital technologies, but measuring it presents challenges.

How can the revised Internet Universality Indicators framework address the challenges posed by artificial intelligence?

speaker

Vinton Cerf and David Souter

explanation

AI presents new governance challenges and uncertainties that need to be assessed within national internet environments.

How can the affordability of low-earth-orbit satellite internet solutions for remote areas be improved?

speaker

Tenanoia Veronica Simona

explanation

While LEO satellites offer connectivity solutions for remote areas, affordability remains a challenge for many users in small island nations.

How can the revised Internet Universality Indicators be integrated into national and regional Internet governance frameworks?

speaker

Jose Fissa

explanation

Understanding specific strategies for different stakeholders to integrate these indicators is crucial for their effective implementation.

How can the indicators help address issues related to the use and transparency of Universal Access Funds?

speaker

Avice

explanation

Access to information about Universal Access Funds is important for comprehensive assessments, but some countries are reluctant to share this data.

How can the multi-stakeholder approach be implemented more effectively to ensure diverse and meaningful participation?

speaker

Jennifer Bachus

explanation

Ensuring genuine multi-stakeholder participation, beyond tokenistic involvement, is crucial for developing effective policies and assessments.

Summary

This panel discussion focused on the issue of internet shutdowns and the importance of a multi-stakeholder approach in addressing this growing problem. Participants from government, civil society, academia, and the private sector shared insights on the trends, impacts, and potential solutions to internet shutdowns.

The discussion highlighted alarming trends, with Access Now reporting a 41% increase in shutdowns in 2022 and over 270 shutdowns in 40+ countries already documented in 2024. Panelists emphasized the wide-ranging negative impacts of shutdowns, from economic losses to hindering democratic processes and humanitarian aid efforts.

The importance of data-driven approaches was stressed, with academics calling for interdisciplinary research to better understand the motivations behind shutdowns and their societal effects. The private sector perspective highlighted the need for transparency in reporting disruptions and the value of human rights due diligence in technology development.

Participants discussed the role of advocacy in preventing shutdowns, citing examples of successful interventions in countries like Mauritius and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Global Digital Compact was identified as a key opportunity for advancing multi-stakeholder efforts to combat shutdowns.

The discussion underscored the complexity of the issue, acknowledging that some governments may resort to shutdowns out of a perceived lack of alternatives. Panelists agreed that addressing root causes of societal issues and promoting good state practices are crucial steps in reducing the prevalence of internet shutdowns.

Overall, the panel reinforced the critical need for continued collaboration among diverse stakeholders to develop effective strategies for keeping the internet open and accessible worldwide.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The increasing prevalence and concerning trends of internet shutdowns globally

– The importance of a multi-stakeholder approach to addressing internet shutdowns

– The role of data, research, and transparency in understanding and combating shutdowns

– The impacts of shutdowns on human rights, economic development, and society

– Potential solutions and advocacy efforts to prevent or mitigate internet shutdowns

The overall purpose of the discussion was to examine the issue of internet shutdowns from multiple perspectives (government, civil society, private sector, academia) and explore collaborative approaches to address this growing problem.

The tone of the discussion was largely serious and concerned about the increasing use of internet shutdowns, but also constructive and solution-oriented. Speakers emphasized the need for cooperation and shared examples of positive developments. The tone became more urgent when discussing recent trends, but remained hopeful about the potential for multi-stakeholder efforts to make progress on this issue.

Speakers

– Kanbar Hussein Bor: Deputy Director Democratic Governance & Media Freedom, UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

– Felicia Anthonio: Keeping It On campaign manager at Access Now

– Joss Wright: Researcher at Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University

– Alexandria Walden: Global Head of Human Rights, Google

– Scott Campbell:  Senior Human Rights and Technology Officer of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Additional speakers:

– Nikki Muscati: Audience member who asked questions (role/affiliation not specified)

Internet Shutdowns: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Keeping the Internet On

This panel discussion, moderated by Kanbar Hussein Bor from the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, brought together experts from civil society, academia, the private sector, and the United Nations to address the growing issue of internet shutdowns. The conversation highlighted alarming trends, explored the wide-ranging impacts of shutdowns, and emphasised the critical importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in developing effective solutions.

Trends and Impacts

The discussion opened with a sobering assessment of the current state of internet shutdowns globally. Felicia Anthonio, representing Access Now, reported that their ongoing work on the 2024 annual database has already documented approximately 270 shutdowns in over 40 countries. Notably, seven shutdowns have been recorded in countries that had never previously imposed such measures, including Comoros, El Salvador, Guinea-Bissau, France (disrupting TikTok in New Caledonia), Malaysia, Mauritius, and Thailand. Antonio also highlighted the worrying trend of cross-border shutdowns as a new development.

Panellists unanimously agreed on the severe negative impacts of internet shutdowns. Kanbar Hussein Bor highlighted the significant economic costs, while Alexandria Walden of Google emphasised how shutdowns affect basic services and democratic processes. The discussion made clear that beyond measurable GDP losses, shutdowns have profound effects on people’s daily lives, hindering access to education, healthcare, and vital information.

Joss Wright from the Oxford Internet Institute stressed the need for data-driven approaches to fully understand and quantify these impacts. This call for rigorous research was echoed by other panellists, who agreed that a more comprehensive understanding of shutdown effects could strengthen advocacy efforts and inform policy decisions.

Multi-Stakeholder Approaches

A central theme of the discussion was the critical importance of collaboration between diverse stakeholders in addressing internet shutdowns. Joss Wright articulated a vision of multi-stakeholderism that goes beyond mere representation to focus on leveraging diverse perspectives and capabilities in problem-solving. This sentiment was echoed by Scott Campbell from the UN Human Rights Office, who highlighted the reaffirmation of the multi-stakeholder model in the Global Digital Compact.

Kanbar Hussein Bor mentioned the Oxford Statement as an important multi-stakeholder effort in addressing internet shutdowns. The panel explored various roles different sectors can play:

1. Civil Society: Felicia Anthonio shared examples of successful advocacy efforts, such as interventions in Mauritius, where an attempt to shut down social media before elections was prevented, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She also highlighted the importance of ECOWAS court judgments against internet shutdowns.

2. Academia: Joss Wright emphasised the need for interdisciplinary research to understand shutdown motivations and impacts, as well as to develop technical solutions. He stressed the importance of empathising with authorities’ perspectives to proactively prevent shutdowns, rather than simply opposing them outright.

3. Private Sector: Alexandria Walden discussed Google’s efforts in transparency reporting, including their Transparency Report and the Jigsaw team’s work on VPNs and the Outline product. She also highlighted the importance of human rights due diligence in technology development.

4. Government: Kanbar Hussein Bor outlined the UK government’s role in championing multi-stakeholder efforts and promoting good state practices, citing the UK’s decision not to shut down the internet during recent riots as an example.

5. International Organisations: Scott Campbell discussed leveraging the Global Digital Compact as a framework for advocacy against shutdowns and emphasized the need to address root societal causes of protests rather than relying on technological solutions like shutdowns.

Policy and Advocacy

The discussion revealed a nuanced approach to policy and advocacy. While all speakers opposed internet shutdowns, there was recognition of the need to understand government motivations. The panel agreed on the importance of showcasing examples of good state practices and developing alternatives to shutdowns that address legitimate government concerns.

Technical and Business Perspectives

Alexandria Walden provided valuable insights into private sector considerations, noting that shutdowns are “bad for business because they’re bad for everyone who uses our products”. She discussed Google’s efforts in measuring and tracking shutdowns for transparency, as well as developing circumvention tools and alternative connectivity solutions.

Joss Wright emphasised the need for interdisciplinary approaches that combine technical expertise with policy understanding. This sentiment was echoed in discussions about developing more nuanced technical solutions that could allow for some government control without resorting to full shutdowns.

Unresolved Issues and Future Directions

While the panel demonstrated a high level of consensus on the importance of addressing internet shutdowns, several unresolved issues emerged:

1. How to effectively prevent shutdowns in cases of protests or conflicts that are difficult to predict

2. Addressing the root societal causes that lead governments to implement shutdowns

3. Specific ways to institutionalise multi-stakeholder approaches at national levels

The discussion concluded with a call for continued collaboration and research. Key action items included leveraging the Global Digital Compact for advocacy, continuing private sector transparency efforts, and conducting more research to understand shutdown motivations and impacts.

In summary, this panel discussion provided a comprehensive overview of the complex issue of internet shutdowns, emphasising the critical need for continued multi-stakeholder collaboration to develop effective strategies for keeping the internet open and accessible worldwide. The conversation highlighted both the urgency of the problem and the potential for positive change through coordinated efforts across sectors.

Kanbar Hussein Bor: Assalamu alaikum to everyone. Good afternoon. It’s a real pleasure to be hosting you for this event on multi-stakeholderism and internet shutdowns. I will be chairing you this panel today. My name is Canberra same bore. I am head of the democratic governance and media feeding department in the UK foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. I will quickly go through and introduce our panel members. I’ll say a few words, and then hand over to my colleagues to also say a few words. And then we hope that we’re going to have a interactive session. And please come forward with some questions we hope that there will be a good half an hour or so available for everyone to actually come in. So I’ll just go and introduce those panel members. So, I’m pleased to say that we’ve got Felicia Antonio from access now the keeping on campaign manager Felicia Do you want to say hello to everyone. Hi everyone. To join you today. Thank you. I’m also pleased that we’ve got a just right from the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University from the UK. Just would you like to say hello. Hello, pleased to be here. Brilliant. And in the room together, we’ve got Alexandria Walden from Google. Alex over to you. Got it. Okay, perfect. Hi. Thank you for inviting us to be part of the session today I’m Alex Walden I lead human rights at Google. Brilliant. And last but not least, we’ve got Scott Campbell from UNHCHR Scott over to you. Hi, Scott Campbell, leading the work on tech and human rights at the UN Human Rights Office based in Geneva. Brilliant. Well, just to start the session off really. I’ll say a few remarks. I hope you do take away from our session. There are three main messages from me. of the multi-stakeholder approach. Second is just to talk about the importance of trying to stop internet shutdowns. And finally, just a word on some of the ways in which we can try and prevent shutdowns and the impact that they may have. Firstly, internet shutdowns. I’m conscious I’m in a room where a lot of you are much more technical than I am. From my perspective and the UK’s perspective, we are taking a broad approach to internet shutdowns, what that means. You’ve got a spectrum of activity from one end, which might be classified as a technical shutdown, whereby you can have no access at all to the internet. But then there are a number of other measures in place as well, where for example, you can have efforts which are aimed at throttling the internet, whereby you can have almost some sort of access, but for all intents and purposes, that access deprives you of the ability to be online. From our perspective, that type of activity is a significant impediment to a free and open interoperable internet, but also it has a significant real world impact on the lives of people across the world. All of you can imagine, and I’m sure all of you know, what type of impact this could have. It could affect what you might categorize as farmers in a developing world who require and need access to climate data to ensure that they’ve got the best information available to maximize the yields that they are trying to extract. It can affect a citizen who wants to partake in the democratic process and is unable to express their views online. It might affect a business who needs the ability to access their financial services online quickly, and they can’t do that. Or it might affect an individual who needs to charge up their electronic car, and they can’t do that. So all of those type of impacts can have real world impediment to the ability of people to actually carry out their lives. Unfortunately, internet shutdowns are increasing in their prevalence. We are seeing more and more countries who are resorting to internet shutdowns. Access Now have reported a 41% rise of internet shutdowns from 2022. From the UK’s perspective, we have been championing the right for this. We have been championing the policy change whereby states no longer shut the internet down. We are arguing that this has a not only significant impact on democratic context, but also most recently in the situation of Bangladesh, it’s been reported that the shutdown there during the summer resulted in almost $300 million loss of GDP. So we have been using our G7 presidency in 2021 to argue that this is an important issue and states should refrain from doing so. We’re proud to be chairing the taskforce internet shutdown. from the Freedom Online Coalition and we’ve been using that for the last two years to come up with a number of measures to highlight the importance of this issue. In particular we have come up with a statement through the FOC on the importance of keeping the internet on in the context of elections. We also with UNESCO on the last year’s International Day for Universal Access to Information we came up with the Oxford Statement which underlined the importance of digital connectivity to both issues around development but also democracy. And last but not least we are using our platform here at the IGF as Task Force Internet Shutdowns to highlight this issue. My final comment on all this is that clearly this is a significant issue but most importantly all the all the measures I’ve just described they couldn’t have happened without the multi-stakeholder approach. You know through the FOC we’re proud that we’ve got colleagues that represented from academia, private sector, government, civil society coming together. Through the drafting of the election statement on shutdowns we brought together the multi-stakeholder community and I know from first-hand experience that diversity of views made that final product much more effective. And also when we went about the Oxford Statement we had representatives from over 60 to 80 different organizations all part of that multi-stakeholder approach who were able to highlight the importance of this. So a few framing comments from me but now let me pass on to our panelists to also express their views on this. So I might just start off with Felicia. Felicia can you talk a little bit more about the key trends you’re seeing in 2024 around shutdowns and some of the challenges you foresee in so far as trying to take a collaborative approach. Over to you Felicia. Thank you so much Kumbar and yeah

Felicia Antonio: definitely I can speak to what we are seeing. I come bearing not so much of good news. And just before I jump into that, just to mention that for those who are not familiar with the Keep It On campaign and coalition, this is a global coalition that is dedicated to fighting internet shutdowns around the world since 2016. And it currently has over 330 civil society organizations as members. We track internet shutdowns. We advocate against them, we raise awareness and we work with diverse stakeholders, including governments, regional and international bodies, like the UN, the EU, the African Union, and the Freedom Online Coalition, as Kanbayu’s mentioned, industry players, journalists, researchers, among others, to push back against internet shutdowns. So we track shutdowns looking at the triggers, which simply triggers incidents that are likely to get a government to impose a shutdown. And our focus is on deliberate disruptions to the internet, complete shutdowns, throttling, as well as targeting the social media platforms or digital platforms. And so what we’ve seen over the years since we started documenting shutdowns is that protests, exams, elections, conflicts, major triggers of internet shutdowns. In 2023, unfortunately, conflict was the main trigger of shutdowns, where we saw 74 shutdowns recorded in nine countries in times of conflict. And then protest was the second highest of 63 shutdowns in 15 countries. And then we’ve also seen government. disrupting internet during school exams and then elections is also an area where governments are likely to disrupt internet access. So for 2024 we are currently working on our annual database and we’ve already seen approximately over 270 shutdowns in 40 plus countries globally. And the countries are likely to be more and if that is the case we’re going to see the highest number of countries where we’ve documented shutdowns in a single year and that is not good news. The number of shutdowns are also likely to be really high but these figures will be finalized early next year when we release our annual reports. And so this of course underscores a worrying trend that shutdowns are spreading increasingly becoming a go-to tool by both repressive and democratic countries. In 2024 we’ve also already documented seven shutdowns in new countries that are countries that have never imposed internet shutdowns. In 2024 we’ve seen countries including Comoros, El Salvador, Guinea-Bissau, France disrupting internet TikTok in New Caledonia, Malaysia and Mauritius as well as Thailand disrupting or imposing internet shutdown. And in that case we’ve also seen two members of the Freedom Online Coalition that is Kenya and France resorting to the use of internet disruptions. Another worrying trend we are seeing is the deliberate use of cross-border shutdowns and that is countries imposing shutdowns across borders in around the globe and this is really really concerning for us as a civil society. And so just looking at these trends have indicated some of the challenges is the fact that we’re seeing the democracies also resorting to the use of shutdowns and so it really makes our advocacy work difficult. And so I think it’s important for us to continue to hold each and every government that has found an internet account so that we can push back confidently and effectively against internet shutdowns. We’ve also seen that conflict-related shutdowns is really becoming a big problem which means that this has implications on, for instance, delivery of humanitarian aid during conflicts and we are also looking at what alternative sources of connectivity can be provided during conflicts to sustain or to ensure that the internet is still or remains open and secure for people as well as the humanitarian organizations that are operating on the ground. As you mentioned, having the international community support civil society advocacy is really crucial and so, for instance, the statement that the FOP put out prior to the 2024 election, where we’ve seen that 2024 was declared the year of elections, was really important for our work and we continue to use this in our advocacy and engagement with governments and our election watch initiative. In 2024, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights also adopted a resolution which recognizes the importance of internet connectivity to the realization of free fair and credible elections. And so this was also really timely for advocacy against internet shutdown. And then in prior to some of these milestones, we’ve also seen governments such as Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone making commitment to keep the internet on during elections in their respective countries. And beginning of the year, we also saw Bangladesh in January making similar commitments to keep the internet on. I mentioned Mauritius as one of the countries, new countries that have disrupted internet access. And if you may be aware, in November, the authorities issued an order to shut down social media until after elections. And this was like 10 days or so before elections. And this was really shocking. Mauritius had never disrupted internet access. And we all recognize that has been rated as a free country. And so seeing a country like that imposing shutdowns and even attempting to have the shutdown in place for over two weeks was really concerning. And so following backlash from civil society and also engagement with diverse stakeholders, we got the authorities to reverse the shutdown. So it was lifted after 24 hours. And the people went to the polls on November 10, which opened access to secure internet throughout the electoral processes. So these are some of the cases or trends we’ve seen so far in 2024. I will pause here and hopefully, we can have time for questions and discussion. Thank you.

Kanbar Hussein Bor: Thank you, Felicia. Some worrying trends there that you’ve highlighted. But I’m also conscious you concluded with some positive examples as well, where countries have committed to keep the Internet on and where the multi-stakeholder approach has helped in terms of advocacy and accountability. Shall we move on to Joss Wright? Joss, if I can bring you in here, could you talk a little bit more about how a much more data-driven approach to this particular challenge can help us to navigate this challenge and maybe come up with better policy approaches? Joss, over to you.

Joss Wright: Thank you. Yeah, I’m really sort of pleased to follow on from what Felicia has just said. And what I want to do in the spirit of talking about this in a multi-stakeholder sense is in the context of a lot of Internet governance, multi-stakeholderism traditionally is more about representing the voices of the different people who are being affected by different sort of effects and policies that are going on. But I think there’s an interesting shift in perspective on multi-stakeholderism when we are, as a group, trying to address a problem that is fairly universally recognised as a problem. And I think that what I’d like to represent from the perspective of academia here is a form of multi-stakeholderism that isn’t so much about hearing all of our voices, but drawing on the perspectives we have in our solutions and our approaches and our abilities to provide some input to resolving the problem. And I think I sort of working in this area as an academic with the limitations of academia, I really see that every group that is working in this area, we’ve got representation from civil society, we’ve got academia, we’ve got business, we’ve got policy makers, each one has their particular sort of strengths and their particular abilities to affect change in an interesting way. but each has its sort of flip side, its set of weaknesses, and, you know, I’m not going to go into too much detail on all of them because I’ll just end up insulting all the amazing work that people are doing in the room. But there is this element of, you know, civil society has got the positive advantage of being on the ground and very sort of solution-focused, working directly to reduce the impacts of things like internet shutdowns, but the flip side of that is a tendency to need sort of results quite quickly to be very solution-focused in itself and have a restriction in the amount of sort of long-term stepping back that can go on. Business, in contrast, has a lot of power, a lot of voice, a lot of resources, a lot of ability to affect the policies of governments through the interactions at the business level, but they also have to sort of take into account their own market considerations, their own sort of legal constraints, and doing things like that. The policy side, the government side, is obviously, you know, the strongest voice in being able to push policies forwards, but necessarily is relatively slow, not quite as reactive as it can be. And then from my perspective as an academic, I see our abilities in this area as being more on the kind of flexible methodological innovation, the ability to bring new approaches and maybe longer-term questions and understandings, but we tend to have sort of less voice, less sort of capacity to directly interact with policy, and frankly, as academics, maybe a little bit less urgency in directly achieving the solution to a problem, and we’re all focused on publishing academic papers, because that’s all we care about as academics, ultimately, when we should be actually trying to work effectively to help there. But I think that’s why the multi-stakeholderism approach is so so important is because the things that academia can bring to the table, if appropriately incentivized, are to take a different perspective and to bring some of the more cutting-edge techniques that wouldn’t necessarily be practical or applicable for civil society to do, for government to do, or even for business to do. So to speak directly to the academic side of things and my own particular role in this, I think one of the particular strengths we have is the interdisciplinarity that comes out of modern academia, certainly. And it was mentioned at the beginning that this is a very tech-heavy field. And as somebody who studied as a computer scientist, it was quite a frustration to me to realize several decades into my career that I should have studied law, because that’s where I would have had much more effect on helping with stopping things like this. But it’s a bit late now, so I’ll stick with the computer science. But that’s the interaction between what we can bring on the data side, the method side, the data science side, is something we can bring to this. And traditionally, the limitation of the academic side of this work is that it has been very technologically focused. There’s been a lot of work on measuring the internet, measuring shutdowns, providing data, but then not being so interested in doing something with that data. So we’ve built a tool that will measure internet shutdowns in x, y, and z. Now it’s somebody else’s job to go off and do the policy advocacy, the interaction with users. Or on that technical side, we’re going to build a circumvention tool. And we’re going to show that we can get around the internet shutdown, or we can still access the internet in this particular place in a way that is largely meaningless to 95% of the population who don’t have advanced computer science degrees that can use these technologies. And so the reality of this is that while this is a technological substrate, a technological basis for what we’re talking about here, it’s a socio-technical system. It’s an attempt to use an important society-wide technology to have control over an aspect of society. And so the research that I do, that my group does here at the Oxford Internet Institute, is largely focused on trying to bridge that gap between the strong technical measurements and the social and political understanding that drives it. Because we do need to understand the technology. We need to know how it works so that we don’t make silly mistakes. But we also need to answer the question, why are internet shutdowns happening? Why do states or authorities implement internet shutdowns? Because if we understand that, we can say, look, this is what you’re trying to do, and it’s not doing what you think it’s doing. It’s not achieving the goals you’ve set out for yourself. And then hopefully that’s a route into policy to try and prevent that from happening in the future. Or if we’re being honest, we need to say this is having the effect that you think it’s having, but there are externalities, there are negative sides that are so significant that it’s not worth what you’re paying for it. And there are many forms of externality. I think GDP is widely mentioned. Frankly, I think it’s a poor measure of the impact of a shutdown. I’m much more interested in people being unable to communicate with friends, people being unable to coordinate their activities, people being unable to access healthcare information, quality news information, and similar. I realise I’ve already hit the five minute limit that I was given for this talk, so I won’t talk too much about the work that we’re doing here. But I’d like to say that some of the work we have been doing is about bridging these gaps. I’d particularly like to mention the Open Observatory of Network Interference to Uni project who have been working strongly with us to provide data, and we reciprocate by giving them the analytical tools, the sort of statistical data science machine learning tools that we can work with here to try and understand how the data around shutdowns relates to the social and political factors on the ground. How does shutdowns shift in the lead up to an election? How likely are they leading up to an election? What happens after an election? Not just in terms of the internet, but in how people respond. Does a shutdown increase or decrease the amount of political violence, the amount of sort of protest or things like that? And can we understand these dynamics and feed into the policy process to try and reduce the effects, the negative effects that happens? So just to conclude then, at the multi-stakeholder level, which I think is hugely important to tackling this problem, what we need to do is to continue this route of drawing from the strengths and the perspectives of each stakeholder, not in terms of what do they want out of it, but what does civil society bring? It brings an ability to work with people on the ground, to advocate for people on the ground, and to interact with policy. Policymakers have the ability to drive policy directly, limited by the need for agreement, nationally and internationally. Academia provides the analytical tools, the perspectives, and the methods, and business provides resources, infrastructure, and there’s a lot of crossover between these, but I’m so happy to see that this community in this field takes this multi-stakeholder approach very strongly, and so that coordination is something I hope will continue going forward.

Kanbar Hussein Bor: And I’ll stop there. Thank you so much, Josh. Really, really helpful. I’m going to move on now to our next speaker, which, in the room, Alex from Google. Alex, could you talk a little bit about the perspective of the private sector, really? How can the private sector help address this challenge, and how does a private sector, how is it affected by internet shutdowns? Thank you.

Alexandria Walden: Thanks for that question, and it’s nice to come after Felicia and Josh, because I think you hit on a lot of the things that are also important to us in the private sector, and that we think are important to be partnering with you on, to continue partnering with you on. These issues have long been a priority for Google. You know, we believe in a free and open internet. That has always been a core value of Google, and its products, and the way that we interact in the world, and so the increase in shutdowns that Felicia talked about is something that’s deeply troubling to us, and is part of why we believe in the multi-stakeholder model, and in engaging with governments, and civil society, and academia, and others in industry to make sure that there is data available to those of us who are studying it, as well as informing public policy statements, and advocacy to ensure that governments who are using shutdowns understand what the repercussions are, and hopefully can think of more tailored ways to address the problems that they’re seeking to work on by doing shutdowns, and disruptions, and throttling. In particular, you know, one thing we had sort of emailed about before was thinking about the value of human rights due diligence when we think about shutdowns, and for us, it is something that we think about when we think about how our products are operating in the world. We do have to think about sort of how we evaluate and plan when we know these things are going to happen, and how do we sort of design potentially around these kinds of, this kind of activity that will ultimately affect the people who are trying to use our tools, the devices that run on our operating systems, etc. The thing about shutdowns is they are rarely, from a human rights perspective, rarely necessary, and rarely proportionate. They’re a blunt tool that impacts all of our users and all of our services, and so from a company’s perspective, it’s bad for business because it’s bad for everyone who uses our products, and I think Joss was hitting on this a little bit, but certainly it’s everyone who’s messaging and trying to communicate with their friends and family members. It’s people who are trying to use digital payments and trying to send money back and forth. It impacts businesses small and large around the world, so it really does. It’s not just GDP. It’s every sort of interaction that we’re trying to digitize for people. When you have disruptions, that means that those, that activity can’t happen, and so I do think it is an, it’s interesting to think about ways we can maybe illustrate that and measure how that impacts people in all of these small ways that really add up. For us, we have, again, like I said, for a long time been working on these issues, and so one thing in particular that we have always had is a disruptions report on our transparency site, and so what that does is it tracks the sort of activity across all of Google products around the world, and you can see when the activity gets low on any given product. Ultimately, when there is a shutdown, you know, Google doesn’t directly control any of the infrastructure, so when there’s a shutdown, we normally learn about it when people are not able to access our products. It’s not something that we know about ahead of time, so that’s sort of the value of the transparency report. It makes sure that when we are learning that these things are happening, everyone else is learning that at the same time, and so transparency is one place where I think we’ve spent a lot of energy making sure that everyone has access to information about when these things are happening so that advocacy can happen. My colleagues in Jigsaw they are sort of our think-do-tank internally, have really invested also in transparency, but in partnering with other organizations to make sure that there’s more data sharing and creating more comprehensive visibility around the impacts of shutdowns and disruptions. So that’s included partnership and support of the Measurement Lab, as well as UNI and various others. And I’m sure Joss has also worked closely with them as well. So that is one place where we are continuing to invest in kind of the measurement and tracking and information sharing around transparency and disruptions. Just to maybe highlight a little bit more of the other ways we’re working with other stakeholders, we’ve long supported the Keep It On campaign and think that the advocacy role is something that needs to be supported by those of us in industry. And I think many of the companies that are part of Global Network Initiative have long done that. And that’s also part of why we engage with TFIS as part of the Freedom Online Coalition. We think that engaging with like-minded governments who understand all of the problems with disruptions and why that’s not the best way to solve whatever challenges are happening in any given country, that it’s important for private sector to be at the table, talking about what we’re seeing, what we’re tracking, and to come to the table with one voice on that. And then the last thing I just wanted to flag is that Joss, it was funny that you said, you know, law school would be useful, because I would say as someone who’s a lawyer, that actually it’s really important for us to be partnered with technologists, because ultimately, sort of when I go back to the human rights due diligence and how do we plan for addressing these issues, really that does require us to think about what tools are available to people. And so again, my colleagues in Jigsaw have focused on building things like Outline, which is a product that’s focused on VPNs, and how do we make sure that VPNs are more accessible to people? How do we ensure that people can maintain access when these things are happening? And those really are questions that require technologists to be at the table with policymakers. So maybe that does just reinforce the value of all the stakeholders at the table, both from a technical and an advocacy perspective.

Kanbar Hussein Bor: Thank you so much, Alex, really helpful. We’re just gonna go to our last speaker before we open it up to all of you for questions. So do cling on to those questions, we’ll be coming to you. Scott, if I may, your organization recently had a number of recommendations after you issued a report on internet shutdowns. What’s your assessment on the progress of trying to facilitate positive change in this field, building on those recommendations?

Scott Campbell: Thanks. Thanks very much, Kanbar. And thanks to the UK and the Freedom Online Coalition and all of the different actors involved in organizing this, Google, Oxford, and Access Now. We’re really pleased to take part in a multi-stakeholder discussion. And at the risk of repeating you a little bit, Kanbar, in your opening remarks, but this, our office has been a champion of multi-stakeholder approaches and will continue to be one going forward. The value of this kind of conversation is clear, and this will be a priority area for our office in ensuring that participatory decision-making processes and the one that Alex just mentioned are truly participatory and that civic space is clearly protected so that all can take part freely in such discussions on the challenges of internet governance and also on the topic of today on shutdowns. The progress on shutdowns, so I was asked to speak on that in the frame of our report. I think the first thing I would say is that we very much need a multi-stakeholder approach to make progress, to quote Joss, or misquote Joss, but we need a multi-stakeholder approach to provide input into solving the problem. And I think that’s a key takeaway, and I see in this conversation opportunities for the Freedom Online Coalition to be thinking about in 2025, for Google to be thinking about, for all of us to be thinking about alongside member states with how to move the dial. I don’t wanna repeat Felicia, in terms of the progress, if we can frame it as progress made, backsliding perhaps, but I did want to salute Access Now for the exceptional work that they’ve done through the Keep It On campaign and having really important data on what the trends actually are in the world. So I won’t repeat that. For today, I thought it would be more useful really to look at opportunities for problem solving through the multi-stakeholder lens and hooking to the Global Digital Compact. And what I think is really today our most significant frame, multi-stakeholder frame for problem solving. Multi-stakeholderism is clearly reaffirmed in the Global Digital Compact. And I think this, for our office, in terms of making progress on the recommendations, in a report, we need to seize this opportunity along with all. I just wanna touch on a couple of those hooks and maybe ask a few questions even, or put out a few ideas. I think as most of you that followed the Global Digital Compact are aware, it is firmly anchored in international human rights law. And I think it’s also fair to say the GDC doesn’t move us forward in terms of a normative framework, but it does move us forward in terms of having 193 member states reaffirm their commitment to human rights in the digital space and reaffirm their commitment to multi-stakeholderism. So I think we just need to seize on that re-commitment or commitment from some in those affirmations and seize that political momentum. And we’re very pleased that our office is one of the five UN entities that is called upon to implement, which is a huge challenge and leads me just to the two areas I’ll focus on in terms of hooks. Most of you, if you’re attending this workshop on shutdowns, you probably noticed the very clear language on internet shutdowns in the GDC. It’s quite simple, watered down in some ways from where it was, but I think very effective in calling for states to simply. refrain from internet shutdowns? Where are the opportunities to push on that very clear commitment? Companies, and Alex you touched on this, but there’s a clear call on companies to respect human rights and to apply human rights due diligence throughout the full lifecycle of technology. What are the opportunities to move forward also in a multi-stakeholder fashion on that? And I think there’s work, you know, you gave one example and I think Felicia touched on another interesting example, which is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a couple of weeks ago at the annual forum on business and human rights, Vodafone was talking about the agreement that they came to with support from civil society and the government of the DRC in a pre-electoral context. Now what was the impact of that agreement? Where are the shortcomings, the gaps? How can it be used as an example to build on? Open question. And then the last area is objective one of the GDC on connectivity. And this, in our view, is likely to be a massive area of investment from international financial institutions, from the United Nations, and a huge opportunity to integrate human rights concerns into agreements around connectivity. And as different types of infrastructure and connectivity projects are being established, there’s a key moment for prevention, as we outlined in our report, but for language to be included that makes it very difficult for governments to shut down and easier for companies to push back with their legal tools against shutdowns. I’m going to stop there because I could go on, but I sense we’re at time and really look forward to the conversation. Thanks again for including us.

Kanbar Hussein Bor: Thank you, Scott. Some really helpful concluding remarks there. Now I’m going to open up for question answers. I’m going to first look to the room here, so if you do want to ask a question. Can you hear me? Quick sound check. Yep, okay. If you do want to ask a question, please make your way forward. There’s a mic there at the front and you’re very welcome. So who would like to open up? Great. Please come in. Oh, I think we may need to turn the mic on. Do you want to use my mic? I just want I wanted to ask about any kind of good examples where policy advocacy actually made a difference on influencing internet sort of shutdowns or preventing them. Any that’s goes for people in the on the panel or in the room. And if so, what was the anatomy of that influence. I’ll pass that on. I think there’s another hand up. We’ll have two questions in the room. And then I’ll ask the panel to come in on that. Thank you. Are there any proactive steps in order to mitigate the disasters that will be behind internet shutdown for countries. Thank you. Great. Well, I’ll take that last one. I think in proactive steps. I think meetings like this are an example of that. We’re trying to raise the awareness around internet shutdowns. We’re trying to take a holistic approach in terms of the impact of shutdowns, be it from the issues around civil political rights, be it from issues about economy, but also development. So this is an example of that, but also our work through advocacy of the taskforce internet shutdowns and work on freedom online coalition. So we’re trying to be proactive there, but certainly there’s much more we can do. Who in the panel would like to come in on the point was raised about some positive examples about advocacy working. I see Felicia, you’re nodding. Do you want to briefly address that. Thanks.

Felicia Antonio: Yes, definitely. I think I mentioned some good examples, having commitments from governments, and I think this is prior engagement. So it comes under the election watch initiative and keep it on where we are able to engage with governments prior to elections to raise awareness about shutdown, the harms they have on human rights and how people can actually leverage connectivity. to actively participate in the electoral processes. And so through these engagements, that is when we got governments like the DRC, Nigeria and Sierra Leone to make a commitment to keep it on to other electoral processes. We’ve also taken governments to courts and won against internet shutdowns and the ECOWAS court has so far passed two or three judgments in favor of civil society against internet shutdowns, one in Togo, in Nigeria during the Twitter blocking and also in Guinea, where civil society sued the authorities for disrupting internet access. So these are some positives and in addition to the examples that Kamba mentioned. And I think proactive measures are really important, but some of the triggers is very difficult to predict, like protests, like conflicts. We don’t know when they just spring up on us and we have to find solutions to that. But with elections over time, we’ve been able to prepare ahead and to engage with stakeholders to push back against election related shutdowns. Thank you, Felicia. I’m just

Kanbar Hussein Bor: going to make a note. I can’t see comments coming online. I joined a little bit late, so I might ask Josh and Felicia if you could make a scrub of any comments in the chat and bring them to our attention. But while that happens, I do see a hand up in the room. So if you would like to come and

Nikki Muscati: ask a question and introduce yourself, that’d be great. Hi everyone. My name is Nikki Muscati. First, I just want to say thank you so much to the UK government for continuing to chair the task force on internet shutdowns and the FOC. And thank you to all the panelists. I look forward to this session every year. But I have two questions, if I may. One is actually to Google. Alex, you were talking quite a bit about how the ability for people to be able to actually access all the different Google products is key for the ability for Google to actually do business in a country. And so I guess one of the things that I’m wondering is when you are considering introducing products in different new countries and different new settings, is our internet shutdown something that you look at? Are internet disruptions something that you look at when you’re considering the expansion of Google products and new markets? I think it’s just helpful for people to know because I think there’s such broad conversation about FDI, but it’s not really looked at from a government perspective, excuse me, from a private sector perspective in that way. So it’d just be helpful if you could share. And then the second question I have is, we talk a lot, I think it was Joss that was sort of noting that governments will shut down the internet and they’ll provide a justification. And sometimes it’s not resolving the issue that they want. Sometimes it’s having the exact effect that they want. But the issue that they’re trying to resolve is one that has nothing actually to do with the internet itself. And so I guess that I’m wondering for the panel. panelists, or for the room, is we’ve been having this conversation for a long time. The fact that government shutdowns are often imposed because someone is trying to address something that really doesn’t have to actually do with the internet. Has there been conversation in these sort of multi-stakeholder settings on how do you address the actual root issue at hand? I think one of the things we hear is, we got to shut down the internet because there’s a protest that’s going to happen. Those are all just very different things that are one technical, like technically a solution that’s not a real solution being applied.

Kanbar Hussein Bor: Thanks. Thank you so much, Nikki. One question for Alex, and then we have a question, which I think very much chimes with Nikki’s second question around chatting to governments and trying to explain the issue. Maybe I might ask one of Joss or Scott if they want to address that, but Alex, over to you. I’m directed at you. Thanks.

Alexandria Walden: Hi. Yeah, that’s a good question. I think there are myriad factors that get evaluated when we think about where we’re going to expand business for any given product, but one of the buckets of things that we focus on is the operating environment. What is rule of law like? What are the regulations that we may have to comply with? And then finally, whether or not there is access available, what the infrastructure is, is the government shutting it down on a regular basis are things that we would highlight when we’re thinking about the riskiness of a country, and is it worthwhile to expand our business there? So it is something that comes up absolutely when we’re doing those evaluations.

Kanbar Hussein Bor: Thanks, Alex. And then we’ve got a question which was talked about having a dialogue with states, trying to really explain the challenges around this. I might ask Josh to come in on that, and then Scott, there’s a question in the chat directly for you. So Josh, do you want to address that one, and then Scott, if you could come in afterwards. Thanks.

Joss Wright: I mean, Alex, Scott, you come in. after that, but just first to you. Um, yeah, I think this this sort of trying to understand the relationship between the intended action of some authority, whether it’s local government or national government, and what they actually do, I’m beginning to suspect that maybe policymakers are not entirely rational actors, at all times in the way that they make their policies. And in many senses, there is this knee jerk reaction. And in some cases, it’s, you know, in some cases, it’s, I say it carefully, but justifiable, you know, there are there have, you know, I’ve certainly seen cases where the stated intention is, you know, there is sectarian violence going on in this region that is being spread by social media, we don’t see an alternative, this is the only thing we can think of to do. And as somebody that is utterly against internet shutdowns, I can still have sympathy with that perspective. Because if I don’t try to understand why an authority wants to shut down the internet, I can’t work proactively to try and prevent them from having that conclusion. And I think that’s something we really need to accept as a community that it’s it’s not an us and them problem. It’s it’s a it’s a problem to work out together, how can we prevent this from from happening. And I think that there’s a much wider point there, which is, you know, most people in this room would probably share this opinion with me, if you told me 10 years ago, that internet shutdowns would be increasing. Now, I was studying censorship 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And, you know, the perspective would always have been the internet’s becoming more and more important, it’s becoming more and more embedded in society, everyone is using it, it’s necessary, how could it possibly be shut down, it’s going, it’s just going to die off as something that you wouldn’t do. And yet it is. And why is that happening? Partially because the authorities who are trying to achieve their societal or political or economic goals, don’t feel that they have an alternative. lever of power to achieve that. And so it’s become an all or nothing problem, especially with the rise of encryption on the internet, which is obviously, from my perspective, an unmitigated good. But it’s meant that some of the more subtle or insidious forms of censorship where you could block pages or keywords or other things have gone away. And states are now being presented with the option, we either shut down everything or functionally everything in terms of the large major services, or we have no control over this. And that’s a difficult position for a state or authority to be in. And so that’s why I, I focus a lot of my work on trying to understand the motivations and the impacts, because it feels to me that that is the most proactive way and holistic way to try and combat this problem, rather than the 1015 year ago approach, which was more naive, which was saying, we will just stop, you know, we’ll just find ways to get around your censorship, and you’ll eventually give up. And that’s obviously not happened. So I think that really drives to the heart of certainly my research agenda, but where I think we need to be thinking in these terms.

Kanbar Hussein Bor: Thanks, Josh. Can I bring in Scott? Now we have a question in the chat, I think you’ve seen about institutional structures. And does the UN have a recommended model? You see the question? No, I haven’t seen that. But how can we ensure or enable national states to use multistakeholder model by creating institutional structures to engage all interested bodies? Does the UN have a recommended model? We can hear you.

Scott Campbell: Can you hear me? Okay, so sorry, lost power. Missed the question. I just really want to emphasize what Josh was just saying, that we see more and more governments looking for tech solutions to what are deep societal problems. And in a nutshell, and the root causes of protests are related to a lot of our bread and butter work, but promoting freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, non-discrimination. and exclusion. So I think we need to look at those societal causes and take on the reality of the human rights space that is or is not available to get to the problem. Similarly with online racism, you know, the racism won’t go away if we start censoring racism online. I think that there are, I think we see a lot of, you know, knee-jerk reactions in that space. So now that my ears are back on, I still can’t read anything without my glasses, but there’s a question about institutional… Institutional structures to engage interested bodies. Do any of your recommendations address how we can institutionalize the multi-stakeholder approach? Ah, absolutely, yes. Well, it’s a good plug too. Hope to see everybody at the next IGF and the next IGF and the next IGF, IGF. Perfect. We’ve reached the, I’ve got to

Kanbar Hussein Bor: sign and say we’ve got about three minutes left, but there’s one question in the room and I might try and wrap up things. I’ll give you my mic. Do you want to introduce yourself and ask the question? Thanks. Thank you. So that, it was my question that, so the question was can, how can we promote national governments to use this multi-stakeholder body to develop the policies, including all your parties, et cetera? Sorry, we can hear you now. Connectivity.

Scott Campbell: The short answer is also leverage the global digital compact. Whatever governments, 193 governments have just committed to a multi-stakeholder model. There’s very clear language. I’m forgetting which objective or whether it’s in the introductory parents, but there is clear language committing to multi-stakeholderism and an inclusive IGF that’s in there. I think this is, again, it’s not anything new that we couldn’t find in existing international human rights law and principles, but the fact that governments have collectively come together and reaffirmed that gives us space for advocacy and for peer pressure.

Felicia Antonio: Thank you so much. I’m going to wrap this up now, really. I’m going to say a few words and maybe ask each panelist to very briefly come up with any sort of concluding thoughts. I think from my perspective, I just want to thank everyone again. I think today is a real demonstration. This panel is a real demonstration of the power of the multi-stakeholder. older approach. I think one particular point which I want to draw out which hasn’t been highlighted is good state practice. Often it’s very easy to highlight examples where states have actually shut the internet down. Representing the British government, I would say this wouldn’t I, but in the summer in the UK just gone we experienced some really shocking riots across the country. They had a real impact on our social fabric, they were reported widely and they entailed quite a lot of violence. However, during that time the internet was not shut down. Policymakers took the decision not to do that. So I just highlight that because good state practice can encourage other states to look at this and realize that this is a blunt tool and there are wider societal issues at play and there are different levers available to address that. So with that in mind I might ask each panelist very briefly to have a concluding thought for us. So Felicia, do you want to come in? Yes, just to rehash that the fight against internet shutdowns needs multistakeholderism and so it’s important for us to continue to work together to push back against these riots coming practices. Thank you. Thank you.

Kanbar Hussein Bor: Joss, any concluding thoughts?

Joss Wright: really in terms of understanding the motivations and the activities of the authorities that are engaging in internet shutdowns, we all agree that this is a blunt tool and there are alternative ways to achieve those goals. Let’s not fall into the same problem of thinking that we can have similarly blunt solutions. We need to be just as sort of subtle and holistic in how we address this problem if we’re going to bring it together and multistakeholderism is the way to do that. Thank you. Alex? I’m not sure I have anything additional

Alexandria Walden: to add because we continue to be committed to multistakeholder model. Maybe the one thing I’ll just highlight is that I do think companies, Google in particular but not just Google, are really interested in continuing to work directly with civil society to understand how you’re experiencing the impact of shutdown so that we can continue to think about building tools that are effective as part of the work that we’re doing. And last but not least,

Scott Campbell: Scott? No, thanks. I learned quite a bit in the dialogue, so thanks for including us and I guess I’m inspired to have to go deeper into some of the examples that Felicia was putting out there as possible models, good and bad, but how we can learn together and to improve member-state practice in the shutdown space. Great. Well, thank you to our panelists but also thank you to

Kanbar Hussein Bor: everyone else who’s… joined us both in the room and online. Thank you. Alright, welcome, everybody.

Agreement Points

Increasing prevalence and negative impacts of internet shutdowns

Felicia Anthonio

Kanbar Hussein Bor

Alexandria Walden

Increasing prevalence of shutdowns globally

Shutdowns have significant economic and societal impacts

Shutdowns affect basic services and democratic processes

All speakers agreed that internet shutdowns are becoming more frequent and have substantial negative impacts on economies, societies, and basic services.

Importance of multi-stakeholder approach

Kanbar Hussein Bor

Joss Wright

Scott Campbell

UK government championing multi-stakeholder efforts

Importance of collaboration between civil society, academia, business and government

UN reaffirmation of multi-stakeholder model in Global Digital Compact

Speakers emphasized the crucial role of collaboration between different stakeholders in addressing internet shutdowns effectively.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlighted the importance of data-driven approaches and transparency in understanding and addressing internet shutdowns.

Joss Wright

Alexandria Walden

Need for data-driven approaches to understand shutdown impacts

Measuring and tracking shutdowns for transparency

Both speakers emphasized the importance of leveraging international frameworks and initiatives for advocacy against internet shutdowns.

Kanbar Hussein Bor

Scott Campbell

UK government championing multi-stakeholder efforts

Leveraging Global Digital Compact for advocacy

Unexpected Consensus

Understanding government motivations for shutdowns

Joss Wright

Scott Campbell

Need to understand government motivations for shutdowns

Leveraging Global Digital Compact for advocacy

Both academic and UN perspectives aligned on the importance of understanding government motivations and using international frameworks to address the root causes of shutdowns, rather than just opposing them outright.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers showed strong agreement on the increasing prevalence and negative impacts of internet shutdowns, the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches, and the need for data-driven understanding and transparency.

Consensus level

High level of consensus among speakers, suggesting a unified approach to addressing internet shutdowns across different sectors. This consensus implies potential for effective collaborative efforts in policy advocacy, research, and development of technical solutions to mitigate the impacts of shutdowns.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to addressing internet shutdowns

Joss Wright

Alexandria Walden

Need for data-driven approaches to understand shutdown impacts

Private sector role in transparency and advocacy

While both speakers emphasize the importance of addressing internet shutdowns, they differ in their proposed approaches. Joss Wright advocates for a data-driven approach to understand the impacts, while Alexandria Walden focuses on the private sector’s role in providing transparency and advocacy.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the specific approaches and strategies to address internet shutdowns, rather than fundamental disagreements about the issue itself.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. All speakers agree on the importance of addressing internet shutdowns and the value of a multi-stakeholder approach. The differences mainly lie in the specific strategies and focus areas each speaker emphasizes based on their expertise and perspective. This low level of disagreement suggests a generally unified approach to the topic, which could be beneficial for developing comprehensive solutions to internet shutdowns.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the importance of addressing government motivations for shutdowns, but they propose different strategies. Joss Wright emphasizes understanding motivations to develop targeted solutions, while Scott Campbell suggests leveraging the Global Digital Compact for advocacy and policy changes.

Joss Wright

Scott Campbell

Need to understand government motivations for shutdowns

Leveraging Global Digital Compact for advocacy

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlighted the importance of data-driven approaches and transparency in understanding and addressing internet shutdowns.

Joss Wright

Alexandria Walden

Need for data-driven approaches to understand shutdown impacts

Measuring and tracking shutdowns for transparency

Both speakers emphasized the importance of leveraging international frameworks and initiatives for advocacy against internet shutdowns.

Kanbar Hussein Bor

Scott Campbell

UK government championing multi-stakeholder efforts

Leveraging Global Digital Compact for advocacy

Key Takeaways

Internet shutdowns are increasing globally and have significant negative economic and societal impacts

A multi-stakeholder approach involving civil society, academia, business and government is crucial to address the issue of internet shutdowns

Data-driven research and transparency efforts are important to understand and track the impacts of shutdowns

There is a need to understand government motivations for shutdowns and engage in dialogue to find alternatives

The Global Digital Compact provides a framework for advocacy against internet shutdowns

Resolutions and Action Items

Continue multi-stakeholder collaboration and dialogue on addressing internet shutdowns

Leverage the Global Digital Compact for advocacy against shutdowns

Private sector to continue transparency efforts and development of circumvention tools

Conduct more research to understand motivations and impacts of shutdowns

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively prevent shutdowns in cases of protests or conflicts that are difficult to predict

How to address the root societal causes that lead governments to implement shutdowns

Specific ways to institutionalize multi-stakeholder approaches at national levels

Suggested Compromises

Engage with governments to find alternatives to shutdowns that address their concerns while maintaining internet access

Develop more nuanced technical solutions that allow for some government control without full shutdowns

Unfortunately, internet shutdowns are increasing in their prevalence. We are seeing more and more countries who are resorting to internet shutdowns. Access Now have reported a 41% rise of internet shutdowns from 2022.

speaker

Kanbar Hussein Bor

reason

This comment sets the stage for the urgency of the issue and provides a concrete statistic to illustrate the growing problem.

impact

It framed the discussion around the increasing prevalence of internet shutdowns and set a tone of urgency for addressing the issue.

In 2024 we’ve also already documented seven shutdowns in new countries that are countries that have never imposed internet shutdowns. In 2024 we’ve seen countries including Comoros, El Salvador, Guinea-Bissau, France disrupting internet TikTok in New Caledonia, Malaysia and Mauritius as well as Thailand disrupting or imposing internet shutdown.

speaker

Felicia Anthonio

reason

This comment provides specific, up-to-date examples of the spread of internet shutdowns to new countries, including democracies.

impact

It deepened the conversation by highlighting the global nature of the problem and raised concerns about the spread of shutdowns to previously unaffected countries.

I think that what I’d like to represent from the perspective of academia here is a form of multi-stakeholderism that isn’t so much about hearing all of our voices, but drawing on the perspectives we have in our solutions and our approaches and our abilities to provide some input to resolving the problem.

speaker

Joss Wright

reason

This comment reframes the concept of multi-stakeholderism from representation to collaborative problem-solving.

impact

It shifted the discussion towards a more action-oriented approach to multi-stakeholder collaboration in addressing internet shutdowns.

The thing about shutdowns is they are rarely, from a human rights perspective, rarely necessary, and rarely proportionate. They’re a blunt tool that impacts all of our users and all of our services, and so from a company’s perspective, it’s bad for business because it’s bad for everyone who uses our products

speaker

Alexandria Walden

reason

This comment provides insight into how private sector companies view internet shutdowns, highlighting both human rights and business perspectives.

impact

It introduced the business perspective into the conversation and emphasized the wide-ranging negative impacts of shutdowns.

And as somebody that is utterly against internet shutdowns, I can still have sympathy with that perspective. Because if I don’t try to understand why an authority wants to shut down the internet, I can’t work proactively to try and prevent them from having that conclusion.

speaker

Joss Wright

reason

This comment introduces a nuanced perspective on understanding the motivations behind internet shutdowns, even while opposing them.

impact

It challenged participants to consider the complexities of the issue and the importance of understanding all perspectives to find effective solutions.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by establishing the urgency and global nature of the internet shutdown problem, reframing the concept of multi-stakeholderism towards collaborative problem-solving, introducing diverse perspectives from academia, civil society, and the private sector, and encouraging a nuanced understanding of the motivations behind shutdowns. The discussion evolved from simply describing the problem to exploring complex, multi-faceted approaches to addressing it, emphasizing the need for collaboration across sectors and a deeper understanding of the underlying issues.

What are alternative sources of connectivity that can be provided during conflicts to ensure the internet remains open and secure?

speaker

Felicia Anthonio

explanation

This is important to address the growing problem of conflict-related internet shutdowns and their impact on humanitarian aid delivery.

How can we illustrate and measure the impact of internet shutdowns on people’s daily lives beyond just GDP figures?

speaker

Alexandria Walden

explanation

This would provide a more comprehensive understanding of how shutdowns affect individuals and communities in various ways.

What was the impact and what were the shortcomings of the agreement between Vodafone, civil society, and the government of the DRC in the pre-electoral context?

speaker

Scott Campbell

explanation

Analyzing this case could provide insights into effective multi-stakeholder approaches to preventing shutdowns.

How can human rights concerns be integrated into agreements around connectivity as international financial institutions and the UN invest in infrastructure projects?

speaker

Scott Campbell

explanation

This is crucial for preventing future shutdowns and ensuring respect for human rights in connectivity initiatives.

Are internet shutdowns and disruptions considered when Google is expanding its products to new markets?

speaker

Nikki Muscati

explanation

Understanding how private sector companies factor in shutdown risks could inform advocacy and policy approaches.

How can we address the root causes of issues that governments claim to be addressing through internet shutdowns?

speaker

Nikki Muscati

explanation

This could help develop more effective alternatives to shutdowns and address underlying societal problems.

Summary

This discussion focused on the work of Safer Internet Centers in Europe, particularly their efforts to protect children online and provide support through helplines. The session featured representatives from Belgium and Poland, as well as a youth ambassador, who shared insights into current online safety challenges and initiatives.

Key issues highlighted included the rise of non-consensual sharing of intimate images, sextortion, and cyberbullying. The speakers emphasized the importance of avoiding victim-blaming and instead focusing on empowering children with digital skills and resilience. They noted concerning trends such as the increasing use of AI in creating deepfakes for exploitation and the prevalence of harmful online behaviors among young teens.

The helplines operated by Safer Internet Centers were described as crucial resources, offering professional support to children, parents, and educators dealing with online risks. Statistics showed that teenagers are the primary users of these services, with cyberbullying being a top concern. The speakers stressed the need for ongoing education and awareness campaigns to encourage more young people to seek help when needed.

The discussion also touched on the challenges of parental oversharing online and the importance of involving youth in developing online safety strategies. The youth ambassador highlighted the value of helplines in providing immediate relief and guidance to young people facing online issues.

Overall, the session underscored the complex and evolving nature of online risks for children and the critical role of Safer Internet Centers in addressing these challenges through education, support, and collaboration with policymakers and industry.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Overview of Safer Internet Centers in Europe and their role in supporting online safety for children and youth

– Trends in online risks for young people, particularly non-consensual sharing of intimate images, sextortion, and cyberbullying

– Importance of empowering youth and involving them in online safety efforts, rather than just focusing on protection

– Challenges in getting youth to report online issues and seek help from adults/helplines

– Need for more data and research on emerging online risks like AI-generated harmful content

Overall purpose:

The goal of the discussion was to raise awareness about Safer Internet Centers and helplines in Europe, highlight current online safety trends and challenges for youth, and emphasize the importance of youth empowerment and participation in online safety efforts.

Tone:

The tone was primarily informative and concerned, with speakers presenting statistics and examples to illustrate the seriousness of online risks for youth. There was also an emphasis on hope and empowerment, particularly when discussing youth involvement and potential solutions. The tone became more urgent when discussing emerging AI-related risks near the end.

Speakers

– SABRINA VORBAU: Moderator of the session, representative of the Better Internet for Kids initiative

– NIELS VAN PAEMEL: Policy advisor for Childfocus, the Belgian foundation for missing and sexually exploited children

– ANNA RYWCZYNSKA: Representative of NASK, the National Research Institute in Poland

– JOAO PEDRO: Better Internet for Kids Youth Ambassador

Additional speakers:

– Sadat Raman: Representative from Bangladesh working on internet safety initiatives for teenagers

Expanded Summary of Safer Internet Centers Discussion

Introduction

This discussion focused on the work of Safer Internet Centers in Europe, particularly their efforts to protect children online and provide support through helplines. The session featured representatives from Belgium and Poland, as well as a youth ambassador, who shared insights into current online safety challenges and initiatives. The discussion highlighted the complex and evolving nature of online risks for children and the critical role of Safer Internet Centers in addressing these challenges through education, support, and collaboration with policymakers and industry.

Structure and Role of Safer Internet Centers

Safer Internet Centers play a crucial role in supporting online safety for children and youth across Europe. As explained by Sabrina Vorbau, the moderator from the Better Internet for Kids initiative, these centres provide awareness, helplines, hotlines, and youth panels. The specific focus of each centre may vary by country:

– In Belgium, Niels van Paemel noted that their Safer Internet Center is operated through a partnership between Childfocus and another organization.

– Anna Rywczynska described how the Polish Safer Internet Center involves collaboration between NASK (a research institute focused on cybersecurity) and NGOs, including the Empowering Children Foundation.

The Better Internet for Kids Plus strategy, mentioned during the discussion, is built on three pillars: youth protection, participation, and empowerment.

Current Online Safety Trends and Issues

The speakers highlighted several concerning trends in online risks for young people:

1. Non-consensual sharing of intimate images: Niels van Paemel identified this as a growing problem across Europe and worldwide.

2. Sextortion: Van Paemel reported a 400% increase in sextortion cases over the past five years.

3. Cyberbullying: Anna Rywczynska noted this as a major issue in Poland, citing research on its prevalence.

4. AI and deepfakes: Van Paemel raised concerns about AI-generated content, including deepfakes. He presented statistics showing that 42% of young people know what deepfakes are, 23% have seen at least one, and 13.8% have received one or more. Alarmingly, 99% of the victims are girls. The potential for live deepfake technology to be used in grooming was also discussed.

5. “Troll parenting”: Rywczynska highlighted the issue of adults setting negative examples online, including sharing embarrassing content about their children (“sharenting”).

Approaches to Prevention and Support

The speakers agreed on the importance of empowering children and involving them in online safety efforts:

1. Avoiding victim-blaming: Van Paemel stressed addressing gender stereotypes in prevention efforts.

2. Empowerment: Rywczynska emphasised building self-esteem and teaching assertiveness.

3. Research: Van Paemel called for more studies on emerging online risks.

4. Awareness and accessibility: Joao Pedro, a Better Internet for Kids Youth Ambassador, highlighted the need to expand awareness of helpline services.

5. “MenAble” project: Van Paemel mentioned this initiative aimed at working with boys on respectful online behavior.

6. “Cyberspots”: Rywczynska described this Polish initiative involving school teams focused on digital issues.

7. Digital Youth Forum: An annual event organized in Poland to engage youth in online safety discussions.

Helplines and Support Services

Helplines are a key component of Safer Internet Centers, offering crucial support for young people facing online issues. Challenges include:

1. Low reporting rates: In Belgium, only 15% of victims reach out for help.

2. Balancing confidentiality and safeguarding: Joao Pedro noted the importance of maintaining anonymity while fulfilling reporting obligations.

3. Expanding reach: Speakers emphasized the need to reassure children that they are not alone and provide tools to seek assistance and request content takedowns.

International Collaboration

The discussion underscored the global nature of cybersafety issues and the need for worldwide cooperation:

1. Safer Internet Day: Celebrated on the second Tuesday in February as a global awareness initiative.

2. Cross-border challenges: Online safety issues transcend national boundaries and require international cooperation.

3. Interest from other countries: An audience member from Bangladesh shared information about their helpline and Amber Alert initiative, indicating potential for broader international partnerships.

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted the critical role of Safer Internet Centers in addressing the complex and evolving landscape of online risks for children and youth. While speakers agreed on the importance of these centres and the need for youth empowerment, they also identified several challenges and areas for further work. These include addressing the rise of AI-generated threats, improving reporting rates for online abuse, and balancing confidentiality with safeguarding responsibilities in helpline services. The session underscored the need for continued research, international collaboration, and adaptation of strategies to meet emerging online safety challenges.

For more information, visit betterinternetforkids.europa.eu.

SABRINA VORBAU: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for joining our session. My name is Sabrina Forba, I will moderate the session. This session is organized by the Better Internet for Kids initiative and the InSafe network of Safer Internet Centers. Today’s session, we will tell you a little bit more about what is a Safer Internet Center and specifically how Safer Internet Centers support citizens at national level. We will hear two country examples today from Belgium and Poland, and we also have one of our youth ambassadors online with us, Joao from Portugal, who will also provide you with the youth perspective to understand how important the subject matter is. Very briefly. Can we change to the next slide, please? Okay. Very briefly, as I said, this workshop is organized by the Better Internet for Kids initiative. Better Internet for Kids is a European Commission funded initiative to create a safer and a better Internet for children and young people, not only in Europe, but also beyond. The Better Internet for Kids initiative comes with the Better Internet for Kids portal, a portal where users can find more information, but also resources in multiple languages on better and safer Internet subjects. Today, as part of this workshop, we will also look at current trends and issues. how we can support children and young people but also adults such as educators, social workers, to support young people in this matter. However, children and young people are at the heart of what we do. As I said, we also have one of our youth ambassadors from Portugal with us today. It is very vital for us with everything we do, with every resource we are co-creating, with every policies we are shaping to have the voice of children and young people. A safer internet center, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is structured based on four strengths. A national awareness center, a helpline, a hotline and also a youth panel. In today’s session we will specifically focus on the importance and the objective of helplines really acting as a first aid service in countries supporting users to supporting citizens, mainly children and young people, what to do when they occur troubles online. While we will hear, as I said before, we will hear and dive deeper a little bit into country studies specifically from Belgium and Poland and also Portugal. We are collecting at European level statistics because those helplines are existing in each of the EU member states plus Norway and Iceland. These statistics I’m presenting here are from the quarter of April and June this year. We are collecting these statistics on a quarterly basis because this helps us to assess what issues citizens are facing at national level and how we can combat these issues, how can we help users to be more aware but also feel secure and protected. You can see here on the slides some statistics, also first of all who is contacting those helplines and we see that a vast majority of people that contact the helplines are actually teenagers, young adults that seek help and later on you will see the current most trending topics and issues. There are various ways how users can contact a helpline. Traditionally this was done by phone but of course by today helplines are offering various different forms of contacts, also ensuring anonymity of course, especially if we’re talking about reporting sensitive issues such as for example abuse online or other issues. Many of our helplines offer for example online forms or chat services because definitely it takes also a village for someone to pick up the phone to report something, so also for those who are more introverted to give really opportunity to report their matter and seek help. You can also see here that helplines are also available to adults specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic. We saw a lot of educators and a lot of parents contacting the helplines seeking for advice, seeking for advice on technical matters but also seeking for advice on social matters as well. A final slide from my side just to outline the current trends and issues here on the right side and as I said we will dive deeper in two of the issues, my colleagues will dive deeper in two of the issues in a minute. Cyberbullying, we see that this has been really one of the top trends not only in this quarter but for many many years. It seems specifically for children and young people this is the main issue they are countering online and we see a lot of adults puzzled on how to help them because we know it’s not only cyberbullying it’s also offline bullying so it’s really really an important subject matters. But we also see an increase for example in subjects like sexting or sextortion which is also one of the issues we will comment closer on. And when looking at these trends and issues where do these trends and issues occur? It’s mainly online where these issues occur and for the vast majority it’s on social media platforms. So I think all that young people spend an awful lot of time on these social media platforms not only in one multiple social media platforms so it’s really really important that we step in that we also work together with social media platforms but also policymakers. So we from the Better Internet for Kids initiative we tried to bridge this conversation between policymakers but also industry representatives and really provide first aid for the end-user. Now I will hand over the floor to my colleagues as I said as part of this workshop now we will dive deeper into two country examples because we have colleagues here from the Belgium and the Polish helpline so I hand over to Niels now for some trends and also operational matters of the Belgium helpline.

NIELS VAN PAEMEL: Thank you Sabrina. Okay hi everybody so my name is Niels, Niels van Pamel and I work as a policy advisor for Childfocus which is the Belgian foundation for missing and sexually exploited children. I will specify, because I only have a few minutes, so I will talk about a part of our job, right? The mission of ChildFocus is easy. We are the foundation for missing, as I said, but also sexual exploitation of minors. And that happens, as we all know, both in the online as in the offline world. But of course, over the last two decades, we shifted a bit from children being more vulnerable offline towards more and more online. We are the Belgian Safer Internet Center, as Sabine explained, so we are the Belgian helpline that kids can call on the number 116000 number 24x7x3. And we work with FHIRs and case managers. FHIRs are first responders, and then case managers are the ones who really will go in-depth with the child that needs help, or with caretakers, professionals, even police. It can be people who work in education, who need advice around one of the topics that we work around. So that’s the things that we do. What do we want to do? We want to create a better internet for kids in Belgium, of course. We want to support and accompany professionals working with children in development of their digital and media skills. We want to strengthen media literacy and media education for children in Belgium. And we want to provide support for parents, professionals, and children through our 116000 helpline. And we report and combat child sexual abuse material. So what I want to focus on today is going to be the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, or NCII. And later we will go to sextortion. You cannot really see well the numbers on there, but it starts in 2018 and we go to 2023. So these are all the cases that we open at Childfocus, from children, mostly children who contact us because they have sex. Their image has been spread in the context of a school or a youth club or whatever, but without consent, the images have been spread towards third parties, right? And then in 2020, we saw a very big rise of this case, and we thought, okay, maybe it’s because of it’s COVID, all children are inside of their houses, and maybe that’s why they will go to more risky behavior and it might go more wrong online because of it. So we thought, after the quarantine, it’s going to go down again. But look what we’re seeing here, we are almost doubling our numbers, and with extortion, you will see that it’s even more. So we are seeing that it’s actually going, oh my God, I have the wrong, yes. So we’re seeing that it’s really on the rise, right? And not only in Belgium, it’s a European phenomenon, and also worldwide. What do I want to tell you about this, from working with all these children, that one of the biggest problems that we do, also as professionals, people have the tendency to go towards victim blaming, telling a child, you shouldn’t have taken that photo in the first place. But if you do that, children will even have a more hard time to reach out to you. And what do we want? We want children to reach out when they’re into trouble. Research shows that in Belgium, only 15% of victims reach out, and we want to heighten that number. And how do we do that? By making children reassured that they are not alone, that they have been the victim of something, and then we can give them the tools to not only reach out, but also find help and also go to the takedown of certain images. So consent, that’s the new word that we want to introduce here. It’s all about consent. If young people exchange within the context of a very healthy sexual relationship, if they want to exchange photos, as such, that is not the problem. The problem is that somebody takes the confidence of somebody, receives a very personal gift, and decides to spread it to a much larger community. And that’s also how we should look at it. We should not blame the victim, we should blame the person who asked for the photos and then spread them further on. So it’s about a break of confidence and sexual intimidation. Now another thing, secondary victimization, that’s actually what I said, we should try not to victim blame children who are reaching out to us. And that can come from many sides, parents, peers, teachers, but also police. The children reaching out to police when things go wrong is less than 10%. And also there, it’s also a sector that we really want to work with, and that we do through many trainings. And then, last but not least, gender stereotypical behavior also plays a big role in here. As we see, we are opening more and more cases of a child that calls us, yes, in my school there is this telegram group, sluts of school x. And then, a lot of boys will collect photos of mostly girls, but it’s not always the case. Mostly boys collect photos of mostly girls, post it on platforms like telegram, and there we see how this whole culture of exposing and doxing is finding its way, and where girls are being victimized with their own material. If we want to change this, we should really start working more and more with boys, because we need to show them that it’s not okay to do this. It’s not okay to be disrespectful online. It’s not okay to slut shame a girl. So things like this is really something we need to work more and more about. If you come find us at the InSafe booth, you will see that we started a project called MenAble, where we try to enable boys by giving them tools to reach out, to talk in a more positive, respectful way about sexuality online, and where we really want to work with them to give them the tools. So come find us at the booths later. I need to rush a bit, I’m sorry. We did a study last December about deep nuding. Has anybody here in this room heard of what deep nudes are? If yes, put your hand up, please. Two people, three people, four people, five. So for the people online, that’s a minority. There’s many more people here, there’s like 100 people. So deep nudes are actually deep fakes. I suppose you know deep fakes, but with a sexual connotation, right? So people making fake images of somebody naked, or it can also be videos. So what did we do? We thought that this is happening more and more. We got a phone call at our helpline, a girl saying, oh, my photo’s being spread around across the school, but actually I never made one. So turns out that actually somebody used AI to create a fake photo, and then later slut-shamed her with a photo that she never even took. This is something that’s happening more and more, but there was no research nowhere in the world around this, so we did a study that we just went to look about the markets, how are these apps working, how easily can you find them? Can you just Google them? Turns out, yes, spoiler alert, you can just Google those apps. Just some numbers, because you can scan the QR code and go to the study directly, but just so you know, and it’s from last year. The numbers right now would be higher. 42% know what deep notes are. 23% has seen at least one. 13.8% has received one deep note, or more, of course. And 60% of those who know deep noting apps have used them. It’s a very important one to know. And 99% of all the victims are girls. Why? Because until, let’s say, somewhere in this year, the deep noting apps, they would not work with boys, because they were mainly trained on female data. But actually, this percentage now should be a little bit more down. opening more and more cases of sextortion with boys. Why? Because, we will go there later, it’s because boys are the main victims of sextortion, right? And perpetrators are finding ways to sextort them. And now, if you can do it with a fake photo, why not? It’s easier for the perpetrators. Here we are, sextortion. The same, 2018 till 2023. Yellow means content sextortion, which, first of all, I should ask, does everybody know what sextortion means? Not everybody? Okay, basically, it’s somebody who gets extorted with their own nude pictures. So, mostly boys, because 90% of the victims of sextortion are boys, they get into contact with another person online, they are chatting, and the conversation goes in a sexual way. The boy is pursued to send naked photos, and then afterwards, they will have to pay money, or these photos will be transferred to their parents or to their friends, so they’re being scammed, basically, with their own photos. That’s what sextortion means, sexual extortion. And this phenomenon is on the rise. 400% up over five years. And we have some ideas why this might be the case. First of all, young people are online at a much younger age, but also perpetrators are having a much easier time to find them. And now, they are also starting to use AI to do this. So, this is something that really scares us and that we really should work with children more and more about. We need to tell them, we need to give them the tools to have conversation about this topic and to stop this from happening, right? This extreme rise. I will skip this. This is just like how in the present it got more and more picked up, that this is a big problem, but also, that there’s now also a link with. with sextortion and these deep nudes that I talked to you beforehand about, right? There might be a person who makes a fake photo of you, but then says, if you don’t pay me, I will show this fake photo to your parents. This is happening right now. So right now you can be extorted or scammed with a real photo, with a photo of you that’s been nudified. What does that mean? With a bikini photo that you use a website or an app that takes a bikini off, fakely, but it looks so realistic that everybody believes it, or with a completely fake photo that they just use your face and they make a naked photo of this. But also on the grooming side, because if you want to pursue a boy to send naked photos, the boy needs to be groomed in the first place, right? He needs to think that he’s talking to a sexy girl around the same age, right? But now with live deep fake technology, I’m a 37 year old man, but on the screen you could see a 15 year old girl and also the voice of a 14 year old girl in any language that there is. So it’s being made very, very easy for perpetrators to find their way into tackling young boys. So this is something that we really want to worry about, warn about, sorry. Within the InSafe community, we see that these are European trends, but if I’m talking to my colleagues of NACMAC or even in certain African countries, we see it’s a worldwide problem. It makes sense, right? Because these people who are looking for victims online, they do not necessarily have a sexual interest in the child. No, they’re just finding a way to earn money. So it’s a lot about gangs that are using technology for their own good in order to get money, to scam people off. And this is also maybe something that I should also… also tell you that now we should also rethink our prevention work. To give an example, if we’re talking in the past about parenting, parents that are sharing photos of their children, we would say like, oh maybe you should watch out with swimming pool photos of your child because people might take it out of context, right? They might sexualize this photo. But now people can generate abuse material of children just by the photo of a face. Maybe we should go to new prevention tips towards parents. Maybe we should even say like, okay, you should send photos, family photos, keep it maybe in an encrypted WhatsApp of the family and maybe don’t post them online. So this is something we should think about. But on the one hand, we want to keep our safe message towards families. Internet is a good place and it offers a lot of opportunities for children. But on the other hand, we do want to warn and we want to give tools to children to find their way in a safe and responsible way. This is my last slide before I give the floor to my colleague Anna. What are the challenges now that we have? Okay, these phenomenons are here to stay and they are even on the rise and AI is making it even more easy for children to become victim. So what should we do now? Do we need to respond at EU level or even worldwide? We need more data. We need more studies for sure. We were the first study, but even that, the deep nude study was one of the first ones in the world. But even this is just showing that it exists, right? But we need more. We need to go behind like dynamics. How is this happening? Who are the perpetrators? Towards prevention, like I said, how do we work with red flags? In the old days, we would say like, oh, if you’re talking to somebody online, ask them to put their hand up and then you can see if it’s a fake image or not. Right now, with deep fakes, very easy. You don’t see the red flags anymore. Toxic masculinity, something to talk about. Like I told you, the gender part. Sharenting. And then towards hotline. what would AI-generated CSAM, which is also on the rise. And as the last one, victim extortion offenders using live deepfake technology. And if I can end maybe with one positive thing, that is the fact that victim blaming has been made impossible. Because if a child tells you, I’m the victim of deepnoding, you cannot tell that person, you should not have made that photo in the first place, right? So that might be the only positive thing I have to say here. And gender-based violence, we need to have this discussion. We need to dare to see things as they are. And it’s a gender phenomenon that we need to talk to young men and boys about their behavior online. So thank you.

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA: Hello, everyone. First of all, I would like to express how happy I am, but I think that we all are, to be able to participate again in the Internet Governance Forum. And actually, I’m absolutely, I don’t know, I’m a little bit surprised because we are here since 3 p.m. And I think we have spoken with maybe 30 or 40 people about how big challenge is kids’ safety online and from the different parts of the globe. And I think this is exactly what we love about the Internet Governance Forum. So it’s so good to be here at this event again. And now I will tell you something about how the Polish cipher Internet works. I think there is no presentation, actually. Someone could help. There it is. Okay. Okay, I think we are… We are here. Sabrina told you how the Safer Internet Centers look in Europe. So here only the information who builds the Safer Internet Center in Poland. So we cooperate, the two organizations cooperate together. It’s Empowering Children Foundation, that is the NGO, and it’s a National Research Institute, NASK, and I’m representing NASK, the Research Institute, and here you can see what are our competences. NASK is one of the leading institutions for cyber security, but we are also very involved in safety actions, and we’ve started our work within the Polish Safer Internet Center in 2004, so it’s actually 21 years that we operate. And here is how we are constructed, so we cooperate together to deliver awareness activities and educational activities, and then helplines are run by the foundation, and at NASK we have hotlines, so the team responding to the illegal content online, but today we are focusing on the helpline support that we provide to children. Okay, can I ask for the second slide? Ah, okay. Now I have to go back? Ah, now I would know, I have to point different direction. Okay, sorry for that. Okay, so being the public institution as NASK, we operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Digital Affairs, so we are very involved also in the policy that is developed at the moment in Poland, I think one of the most important issues. is now the new law that is being developed, the law that is going to protect children from the illegal content, but also harmful content, not only illegal. And of course we are as well in all the process of the implementation of the DSA in Poland. We are also promoting the main activities. One of those activities that we are promoting also here at our booth, like Nils said, we invite you very warmly to our booth. We are talking a lot about the Safer Internet Day. This is like a big global event and it will come very soon because it will be 11th of February. So you can come to us and we will talk about it more. And here you can see some statistics on how the event looks in Poland. We managed to attract over one million and a half participants last year. So we are trying every year to get more and more impact. Our main mission is what Sabrina said and Nils, is to protect children and to secure their safe experience online. And here you can see how the helpline services work in Poland. So we have three branches of the helpline. We have the helpline for children, which is 116 and 111. That is available 24 hours, 7 days a week in two languages, Polish and Ukrainian. And we have among the counselors, we have lawyers. psychologists, sexologists. What is very important, nor in 116, 111, nor in the helpline for adults, 800, 100, 100, adults and carers and teachers, we don’t have interns, we have only professionals. But also what we provide is offline assistance. There is something called Child on the Web Counseling Center and carers, parents can come also to these centers to get some offline assistance. Okay, and among different types of reports that we receive in a helpline, one is the one that Niels picked because we wanted to talk about the most emerging trends that we can observe in our centers. So Niels was talking about extortion and I will focus on cyberbullying, which is one of also the emerging trends, especially in Poland. Okay, and I think all of you know what is cyberbullying. It’s of course a violence carried out by using electronic devices. These are few examples of different kinds of cyberbullying. We have things, situations like happy slapping, so you cause some accident, you attack somebody and then you film that and you put it online. You can do frapping, which is using somebody’s identity if someone forgot to log out. It can be of course stalking, one of the most serious risks that might happen for young people and for adults as well. You can have identity theft and this is the difference between identity theft and frapping, that here someone wants to get some financial benefits from that. And then of course there is a hate speech and I think on this we will focus mostly. And what is the difference between cyberbullying and the regular bullying? Because actually sometimes we go away from saying cyberbullying because sometimes you know it it sounded like something less important than regular bullying but actually it’s even sometimes more important. It harasses the child in the same way. We had here the wide reach, extremely wide reach, sometimes it cannot be stopped. We have this idea of anonymity so it’s easier for someone to be a bully. It’s very often the lack of adult supervision because as you know many of those cyberbullying cases they happen in communicators like whatsapp or messenger and very often like kids have a huge groups of friends of of peers but very often there the cyberbullying happens and the adults not necessarily knows about it. Okay and what is really problematic in Poland right now is that we are on a top list of cases that relate to the cyberbullying. We are on the in some research it’s we are on the fifth place in the European Union sometimes we are even on the first like in a research UK it’s online so it’s like a huge problem in Poland and of course the problem raises and the most of the bullies and the most of the victims these are kids around 13 years old so we can see that this is the moment when we really have to start with all the prophylactics prevention actions activities because this is the moment where it’s absolutely needed and of course why because 13 is a moment when kids go to the social media and I think you all know about the huge and wide discussion about postponing the moment when it will be legal like in Australia they put it to the 16 years old. So now I think we are in a very broad international discussion if the social media should be available from 16 years old because this is when really the problem starts and it is somehow related to this age. And also what Neil said, like the experience it goes slower. So now it’s the average 8 years old who is having alone and for his own mobile phone and then the time races. Yes, now from our research in Poland it’s 5 hours 36 minutes a day that a kid is in front of the screen. And of course the connotation of these two phenomena is not helping with the fighting and preventing the cyber bullying. These are Polish statistics so here you can see that over 40% of young people had experienced, not experienced by themselves, but could see online the situation of cyber bullying against their peers. And this you can see what were the reasons. Yes, here you see the physical appearance, clothing, style and these are the issues that very often are underestimated by their parents and carers. Like people think okay what a big deal, yes, but these are the situations, these are the cases that are most often the topics for the cyber bullying. And of course it goes also together with the excessive use of the internet because when the child posts online a photo, even by themselves, yes, and then the photo is not receiving enough likes that was expected or is receiving some, you know, bad comments. Then the child is all the time online and checking, checking, checking, counting the likes. If there is not enough likes then the child even sometimes, you know, delete the photo. So this is also all this, you know, the tension around this causes also the excessive… use of the Internet. What is very important in our work, we talk more and more about empowering children and not so much about, well, we talk about the protection but it’s, we have to change, you know, the accents. We have to more talk about empowerment and this is also what kids tell them by themselves. There was a very good research in Australia, I’m repeating Australia, the second time, but they did a huge job recently and there is a very interesting research and they’ve asked the young people what they need from adults to be more resilient from the cyberbullying and what they said was we need to have higher self-esteem, we need to be able to create like the safe relationship, we need to know how to be assertive, so these are the competences they needed, not necessarily how to protect my, you know, profile, yes, so they didn’t want any technical information from us but they want us to really empower them from this point of view. And what is the problem? I mean, they don’t get enough empowerment now from parents and even they get very bad examples on how to behave online. We have lots of problems with the troll parenting but I think it’s a global problem. I’m not sure if you’ve heard about this cheese challenge and egg challenge. This is something for me, like it’s very sad but it got a huge dissemination. These are the cases when there are parents and the little child crying, this cheese challenge and the child is crying and the parent want to chill the child throwing at him cheese and then it’s like a slice of cheese and then of course the child stopped crying because it’s like shocked, yes, and it’s always filming and put online and it’s like a ha ha ha, look how funny my child reacted. Sometimes the child is crying, sometimes the child is, you know, is frightened. And the second example, the egg challenge, is the parents invite a young girl, boy, a child to cook a cake together. Of course, they prepare all the scene for the filming and then in the moment when you have to add the egg to produce a cake, and of course, the child is not happy because these are the small kids, like five, four, six, so for them cooking with parents, baking with parents is something really cool. And in the moment that you should put the egg to the cake, then you broke the egg on the head of a child. And of course, the child is shocked, yes, because… And also, all these reactions are put online and it’s like funny. So, like the examples from the adult world are really not good and it gets like millions of likes and is totally disseminated. And here, talking about the sharenting, because very often the sharenting is also a part of this all cyber bullying process that is happening to our children. This is the Polish research as well. We asked them, do they like when parents post photos about them? Because there is like 70% of parents in Poland post photos of their children online. And you can see that 23% is not happy, like feels embarrassed. And it’s not necessarily must be a photo, you know, like a bad photo, like from the troll parenting photo. It can be a regular photo, but as I said in the few slides before, they really take a lot of care about their appearance online, about the identity that they create. And very often, because of some spontaneously posted photos by parents, they also get cyber bullied. They get bullied by their peers. And because there is still a very big problem in, I would say, in the belief that kids have to the parents, adults, teachers, that we can help. Very little, very little. percent of teenagers really goes to somebody when it happened, when they experience cyberbullying. It’s 38 percent, over 38 percent, who don’t go to anybody because what they hear from the first moment, of course, because all happened because you’ve spent too much time online, yes, so they are afraid that we will take off the mobile phone from them and they will be victimized for all the bad situation that happened. So these are the procedures, these are the situations that we have to educate parents on how to react when child come to us. And the cyberbullying is so present online that it’s even hard for them sometimes to say if they were bullied, if something was already a hate speech or it was just, you know, a joke because they are so surrounded by this kind of situations. And talking about and trying to prevent the cyberbullying, we have to always remember about the three roles that are involved. We have to remember about the bully who is also a child and needs our assistance. We have to remember about the witness who is actually one of the most important actor with all the situation because this is the person who is not that much emotionally involved in a problem and can react. But what is very important, we always have to emphasize for the witness that they have to react only in a way that is safe for them. Sometimes even not putting like to some, you know, bad post is already reaction. Sometimes to go to your parent is a reaction. But we have to always repeat to the child that not all reaction can be safe for them. It’s like, you know, in a first aid on the street the first information that we get for the person who is learning how to give the first aid is first you have to secure your own safety. Yes, you have to check if any car is not coming. Yes, so this is the same thing happens with the witness of the cyberbullying. And we have also, of course, the person who is experiencing bullying and we have to be very careful on the signs that might happen because each child can react totally differently. There might be a child who is excessively checking what is happening online but there might be a child who is not checking at all and just don’t look at the internet totally. But the effects of the long-term cyber bullying might be absolutely horrifying. They can lead to depression situations and even to the self-harm activities. I think I have to rush, yes, we don’t have too much time. We have to remember that talking about the prevention we have to always take care of all the environment around the child and we have to do this action permanently. We have to repeat like with all the situations regarding the safety of a child we have to keep repeating what should be done and we as a helpline we try to secure all these pathways. We help the child to cooperate with the police to provide the right evidence. We have to be present at schools. We help them with developing the right procedures. We help with all the collaboration when there is a cyber bullying situation in a school then we help you know to all this what happens between teachers, directors and parents. We give psychological support and we also help in a contact with the contacts to the operators and to know what is happening in our teenagers lives, to know how we can help them. We cooperate with children a lot and we provide them lots of different educational services. We organize a big conference for them, digital youth forum. It will be already the 10th one this June. We cooperate a lot with our youth panel and now we’ve started a totally new initiatives which we call the cyberspots and this is the building that school teams focus on digital issues. So we try to build the teams that can be invited by school authorities for example to work on some policies. These are kids who would tell what they have the biggest problems with and we started a month ago and we now have over 200 schools that joined this action. So it’s absolutely fantastic. We had a meeting with them and we had a thousand young people learning how to become those digital leaders at schools and we got lots of educational materials and we invite all of you to contact us if you would like to learn more and we invite you of course to our booth for next days. Thank you very much.

SABRINA VORBAU: Thank you very much Anna. As said these were just two country examples from Poland and from Belgium but of course as we all know these are global issues we have to work together. We heard a couple of times already how important it is to involve children and young people into the conversation and also create a conversation with them. Listen to them and take them seriously into account. That’s why I’m also very happy that I’m very happy that we have one of our Better Internet for Kids youth ambassadors with us, Joao. He has been supporting us for over 10 years now starting really the first time working with the Portuguese Safer Internet Center and with us as Better Internet for Kids when he was 13-14 years old. He’s also part of the youth IGF and I think it’s very important that Joao is connecting with us today to also hear the perspective of the young people why it is so important to have services like safer internet centers, to have a national helpline, and how we also can encourage children and young people to contact those services and to have a conversation, to share with us what they experience online and how can we help them. Joao, I hope you can hear us. I give you the floor now. Yes, can I just confirm that in the room the sound is okay? Yes, we can hear you.

JOAO PEDRO: Very nice. So, good afternoon, good evening, good morning everyone that is joining on the discussion today, thanks Sabrina for the presentation. Indeed, I’m one of the Better Internet for Kids Youth Ambassador. The idea is to be a bridge between providing awareness to young people and providing feedback from those awareness sessions to the wider Better Internet for Kids Network that collaborates with online platforms and decision makers to include the feedback from a youth perspective. Regarding the helplines and bringing it to the context of the Portuguese Safer Internet Center Helpline. In this case, it’s run by APAV, which is the Victims Support Association for Portugal. And indeed, it plays a crucial role providing these services. It’s actually a link between their expertise with let’s say the offline cases and the online support that it’s now providing for young people. And I think it’s important to reflect on a couple of things. So, helplines are beneficial, indeed, what we see in terms of the interactions with young people is that they are… getting the right support to the claims that they have, either because of cases of dealing with online harassment, harmful content, personal crisis, and that part helplines provide immediate relief. It’s also a valuable tool for educational guidance in terms of seeking digital rights, safe online practices, so helplines are helping bridging that gap. And I think it’s also a tool to provide access to further help, so either a young person or an educator that seeks helplines such as the Portuguese one have at least an opportunity to get the proper recommendation of whose authority or whose institution should they go further to tackle a certain problem. Of course it’s not everything perfect because if we are seeing that the helpline use is increasing, you also have to ensure that it’s widespread enough because if they are having good results it means that we should provide that tool or bring awareness of that tool to more and more young people. And I think that when it comes to the awareness challenges to such helpline services there are a few, so there are indeed a little bit of barriers to access in terms of that some young people may face stigma, don’t know really how to reach these services, and of course the solution has to come from a perspective of enhancing visibility through schools, through the youth programs. social media and it’s it’s in this step that I see the most effort being made especially around dates like the Safer Internet Day where typically the helpline number is provided or disseminated widely across the broader Safer Internet Day campaigns. That part I think it’s very important. From a youth perspective it’s interesting to see that the confidentiality and trust is something that is very tangible, very thin and it’s sometimes hard to breach hard to breach concept. So providing the anonymity while maintaining the reporting obligations of helpline are typically the challenges that someone operating those services might face. The scope of strengthening the helpline’s accessibility and future directions. Actually it’s becoming ever more interesting and understanding what should be done on this part. It’s an ongoing discussion but for instance recognising the hotline side of these services under the trusted flaggers role under the DSA. It will be possibly an interesting way of ensuring quick responses to the illegal online content reporting such as taking down the child sexual abuse material or hate speech. Also something that is relevant is of course including feedback from the youth that is interacting with the helplines and I think a best practice has been already shown in the two use cases that we’ve seen, so reporting or decision making based on the numbers and facts that are collective also from the current helpline usage helps of course to improve the helpline quality. And of course wherever it’s possible to expand the reach, I think right now the Portuguese helpline is a good example because it bridges all the offline impacts from the know-how of the Portuguese Association for the Support of the Victims with the online and more scoped environment of youth safety online. And yeah, I would say that’s basically most of my potential contribution. I think it’s important to expand awareness initiatives, normalizing the helpline use, not becoming a stigma and ensuring accessibility, mostly by providing the different forms of contact as also shown in the previous slide.

SABRINA VORBAU: Thank you very much Joao for your intervention. I think it’s very important to have these voices of young people represented specifically at forums like the IGF. Here on the slide you can see and connect with the Safer Internet Centre in your country. Of course this is a European initiative but not exclusively. We do also work with like-minded organizations at the global level. We have a program which is called Safer Internet Centre Plus and through initiatives like the Global Safer Internet Day you can be able to get in touch with us. You can create and act like the Safer Internet Day community. within your country. Safer Internet Day is an international international day that we celebrate every year on the second Tuesday in February. It’s a day where we stand together and raise awareness for a safer and a better Internet and we are also very happy to exchange with you how you can set up a safer Internet Center in your country, how can you establish these operational infrastructures of helplines and hotlines. We have great expertise there. We are coming to the end of the session but my colleagues already told you we are also represented in the IGF village at the Insafe booth. We will be here throughout this week and we are happy to share more best practices and more information with you. At European level we are also working under the Better Internet for Kids plus strategy that really emphasizes, it’s a policy at European level that really emphasizes and is built on three pillars. It’s about youth protection, youth participation and youth empowerment and this is really something we are trying to incorporate at a very integral level, trying to have voices of young people in all our actions. So this just invites me to also visit us online betterinternetforkids.europa.eu. As said we have a resource gallery there where we provide in multiple languages resources also for teachers, for parents. We have heard from my colleagues how vital it is to not only educate children and young people but also the adults for a more, for a better, safer and also more inclusive online behavior. I don’t think we have to much time for questions but as I said please do come by and visit us at the booth and thank you very much for joining our session today and we wish you a nice evening. We have five minutes by the way so if anyone has a question

Audience: Hello, I am Sadat Raman from Bangladesh. I would like to share our idea because we follow safer internet, better internet centre and also last year we celebrate safer internet day in Bangladesh and also we have a helpline, so we are working for the teenagers in Bangladesh, so we know the teenager age range is 13 to 19, so our helpline number is 13, then 2, then 19, so it is very easy to remember and it is toll free national helpline number and powered by the young people in Bangladesh and my three members have come to join this event, so we would like to collaborate with you and Nusk and also Nils from the Dial Focus, and also in Bangladesh we are trying to launch Amber Alert in Bangladesh, so we open a website called amberalertforbangladesh.org, so we are trying to sign 1 lakh petitions and we will launch this platform in Bangladesh because in Bangladesh child are missing day by day, so thank you so much and we hope we will work together for the betterment of the teenager and children. Thank you. I am very sure about that. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Importance of Safer Internet Centers

speakers

SABRINA VORBAU

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

JOAO PEDRO

arguments

Safer Internet Centers provide awareness, helplines, hotlines and youth panels

Belgian Safer Internet Center focuses on missing and sexually exploited children

Polish Safer Internet Center involves research institute and NGO collaboration

Helplines offer crucial support and guidance for young people online

summary

All speakers emphasized the crucial role of Safer Internet Centers in providing support, awareness, and resources for online safety.

Rising online safety challenges

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

arguments

Non-consensual sharing of intimate images is a growing problem

Sextortion cases have increased 400% in 5 years

AI and deepfakes are creating new online safety challenges

Cyberbullying is a major issue, especially in Poland

summary

Speakers highlighted the increasing prevalence of various online safety issues, including non-consensual image sharing, sextortion, AI-related challenges, and cyberbullying.

Need for empowerment and education

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

JOAO PEDRO

arguments

Importance of not victim-blaming and addressing gender stereotypes

Focus on empowering children rather than just protection

Expanding awareness and accessibility of helpline services

summary

Speakers agreed on the importance of empowering and educating young people, rather than just focusing on protection, to address online safety issues.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the need for more research and international collaboration to address emerging online safety challenges.

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

arguments

Need for more data and studies on emerging online risks

Cybersafety issues are global and require worldwide cooperation

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of youth involvement

speakers

SABRINA VORBAU

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

JOAO PEDRO

arguments

Safer Internet Centers provide awareness, helplines, hotlines and youth panels

Focus on empowering children rather than just protection

Helplines offer crucial support and guidance for young people online

explanation

While not unexpected, there was a strong consensus on the importance of involving youth in online safety initiatives, which was emphasized across different aspects of the discussion.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers showed strong agreement on the importance of Safer Internet Centers, the need to address rising online safety challenges, and the focus on empowering and educating young people. There was also consensus on the need for more research and international collaboration.

Consensus level

High level of consensus among speakers, indicating a shared understanding of key issues and approaches in online safety. This consensus suggests a strong foundation for coordinated efforts in addressing online safety challenges across different countries and organizations.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to prevention and support

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

arguments

Importance of not victim-blaming and addressing gender stereotypes

Focus on empowering children rather than just protection

summary

While both speakers emphasize the importance of supporting children, Niels focuses on addressing gender stereotypes and avoiding victim-blaming, while Anna emphasizes empowering children by building self-esteem and teaching assertiveness.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the specific approaches to prevention and support for children facing online risks.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. They generally agree on the importance of protecting children online but have slightly different focuses and approaches. This suggests a collaborative environment where various strategies can be implemented to address online safety issues for children.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agree on the importance of addressing online risks for children, but they focus on different aspects: Niels emphasizes the need for more research, Anna highlights the specific issue of cyberbullying, and Joao stresses the role of helplines in providing support.

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

JOAO PEDRO

arguments

Need for more data and studies on emerging online risks

Cyberbullying is a major issue, especially in Poland

Helplines offer crucial support and guidance for young people online

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the need for more research and international collaboration to address emerging online safety challenges.

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

arguments

Need for more data and studies on emerging online risks

Cybersafety issues are global and require worldwide cooperation

Key Takeaways

Safer Internet Centers play a crucial role in providing support, education and resources for online safety across Europe

Current online safety trends include increasing cases of non-consensual image sharing, sextortion, cyberbullying, and emerging AI-related risks

Prevention approaches are shifting towards empowering youth rather than just protection

International collaboration is essential to address global cybersafety issues

Youth voices and participation are vital in developing effective online safety initiatives

Resolutions and Action Items

Expand awareness and accessibility of helpline services for young people

Conduct more research and gather data on emerging online risks like AI-generated content

Incorporate youth feedback to improve helpline quality and services

Promote Safer Internet Day globally to raise awareness

Explore recognizing hotlines as trusted flaggers under the DSA

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively address the rapid rise in sextortion cases

Best approaches to educate parents on appropriate online sharing of children’s information

Strategies to encourage more young people to seek help when experiencing online issues

How to adapt prevention messaging in light of new AI-enabled risks

Suggested Compromises

None identified

We are seeing that it’s actually going, oh my God, I have the wrong, yes. So we’re seeing that it’s really on the rise, right? And not only in Belgium, it’s a European phenomenon, and also worldwide.

speaker

Niels van Paemel

reason

This comment highlights the alarming rise of non-consensual sharing of intimate images, framing it as a global issue rather than just a local one.

impact

It shifted the discussion from a country-specific focus to a broader, international perspective on online safety issues.

Research shows that in Belgium, only 15% of victims reach out, and we want to heighten that number. And how do we do that? By making children reassured that they are not alone, that they have been the victim of something, and then we can give them the tools to not only reach out, but also find help and also go to the takedown of certain images.

speaker

Niels van Paemel

reason

This insight emphasizes the importance of empowering victims and creating a supportive environment for reporting incidents.

impact

It led to a discussion on strategies to encourage reporting and support victims, moving beyond just prevention to focus on response and support.

42% know what deep notes are. 23% has seen at least one. 13.8% has received one deep note, or more, of course. And 60% of those who know deep noting apps have used them. It’s a very important one to know. And 99% of all the victims are girls.

speaker

Niels van Paemel

reason

This comment introduces concrete data on the prevalence and gender dynamics of deep fake technology misuse.

impact

It brought attention to an emerging technological threat and its disproportionate impact on girls, leading to a discussion on gender-based online violence.

We need to tell them, we need to give them the tools to have conversation about this topic and to stop this from happening, right? This extreme rise.

speaker

Anna Rywczynska

reason

This comment emphasizes the need for education and empowerment of young people to address online safety issues.

impact

It shifted the focus from protective measures to empowering youth with knowledge and skills, leading to a discussion on educational approaches.

From a youth perspective it’s interesting to see that the confidentiality and trust is something that is very tangible, very thin and it’s sometimes hard to breach hard to breach concept. So providing the anonymity while maintaining the reporting obligations of helpline are typically the challenges that someone operating those services might face.

speaker

Joao Pedro

reason

This comment provides valuable insight from a youth perspective on the delicate balance between confidentiality and reporting obligations in helpline services.

impact

It introduced the youth perspective into the discussion, highlighting the importance of trust and anonymity in encouraging young people to seek help.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by broadening the scope from country-specific issues to global trends, highlighting the importance of empowering victims and youth education, introducing emerging technological threats, and emphasizing the need for a balanced approach to confidentiality and reporting in helpline services. The discussion evolved from describing problems to exploring solutions, with a strong focus on youth perspectives and gender-specific challenges in online safety.

How can we address the rise of AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM)?

speaker

Niels van Paemel

explanation

This is an emerging challenge that requires new approaches for detection and prevention.

How can we combat the use of live deepfake technology by offenders for grooming and extortion?

speaker

Niels van Paemel

explanation

This new technology makes it easier for perpetrators to deceive and exploit children, requiring updated prevention strategies.

How should we adapt our prevention work and advice to parents regarding sharing photos of children online, given the new risks posed by AI image generation?

speaker

Niels van Paemel

explanation

Traditional advice may no longer be sufficient given the ability to generate abusive content from innocuous photos.

How can we better work with young men and boys to address toxic masculinity and problematic online behavior?

speaker

Niels van Paemel

explanation

This is identified as a key factor in online gender-based violence and exploitation.

Should the minimum age for social media use be raised to 16, as implemented in Australia?

speaker

Anna Rywczynska

explanation

This is part of an ongoing international discussion to address cyberbullying and other online risks for young teens.

How can we improve the reporting and support mechanisms for cyberbullying, given that only a small percentage of teenagers seek help from adults?

speaker

Anna Rywczynska

explanation

The low rate of reporting indicates a need for better trust-building and support systems.

How can helpline services balance the need for anonymity with reporting obligations?

speaker

Joao Pedro

explanation

This is a challenge in maintaining trust while fulfilling legal and ethical responsibilities.

How can the role of helpline hotlines be strengthened under the Digital Services Act’s trusted flagger system?

speaker

Joao Pedro

explanation

This could potentially improve response times to illegal online content reports.

Summary

This discussion focused on the evolution and future of National, Regional, and Youth Internet Governance Forums (NRIs) in the context of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and the upcoming 20-year review of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS+20). Participants from various NRIs shared their experiences, challenges, and strategies for engaging stakeholders and influencing policy. Many highlighted the importance of involving government officials, parliamentarians, and youth in their processes. Several NRIs reported success in gaining credibility and having input into national policies.

Key challenges discussed included raising awareness about Internet governance, securing funding, and measuring outcomes. Participants emphasized the need for capacity building, especially for newcomers and government stakeholders. The importance of documentation and follow-up between events was stressed to maintain momentum. Several speakers noted the value of collaboration between NRIs, particularly on regional issues.

Looking ahead to WSIS+20, participants discussed how NRIs could contribute to shaping the future mandate of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). There were calls to use upcoming NRI events to gather input on what the next 20 years of the IGF should look like. The discussion concluded with a suggestion to advocate for a working group to be established after WSIS+20 to draft a new charter for the IGF, building on input from NRIs worldwide.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Evolution and growth of national, regional and youth IGFs over the past 10-20 years

– Role of IGFs in implementing the Global Digital Compact and WSIS+20 review process

– Importance of engaging governments, parliamentarians and other stakeholders in IGF processes

– Need for concrete outputs, recommendations and impact assessment from IGF events

– Suggestions for the future mandate and structure of the IGF system

Overall purpose:

The purpose of this discussion was for representatives of various national, regional and youth Internet Governance Forums (IGFs) to share updates on their activities, discuss challenges and opportunities, and explore how IGFs can contribute to major global internet governance processes like the Global Digital Compact and WSIS+20 review.

Tone:

The overall tone was collaborative, forward-looking and action-oriented. Participants were eager to share their experiences and learn from each other. There was a sense of pride in the growth of the IGF ecosystem, but also recognition of ongoing challenges. The tone became more focused and strategic towards the end as participants discussed concrete ways IGFs could contribute to global processes and shape the future of internet governance.

Speakers

– Anja Gengo – IGF Secretariat, focal point for national, regional, sub-regional and youth IGFs

– Canada NRI – Dana Kramer from Youth IGF Canada

– Caribbean IGF – Nigel Casimir from Caribbean Telecommunications Union, coordinator of Caribbean IGF

– Myanmar IGF – Pyo from Myanmar IGF

– North African IGF – Ahmed Farag, Chair of North African IGF

– LACA IGF – Lilian from LACA IGF and Colombian IGF

– Chad Youth IGF – Dr. Kouzeifi Saka, coordinator of Chad Youth IGF

– Italian Youth IGF – Daniela Tura from Italian Youth IGF

– Benin IGF – Kossi, from Ministry of Economy and Finance in Benin, member of Benin IGF

– Jennifer Chung – Part of Secretariat for APR IGF (Asia-Pacific Regional IGF)

– Sandra Hoferichter – From EuroDIG

– Mary Uduma – From Nigerian IGF and West African IGF

– Benin Youth IGF – Yao Susu, coordinator of IGF Youth Benin

– Gambia IGF – Mariam Job, youth coordinator for The Gambia IGF and Africa Youth IGF

– Jacques Beglinger – Co-chair of Swiss IGF, board member of European IGF

– Bolivia IGF – Roberto Zambrana, facilitator of Bolivia IGF process

– Czech IGF – Natalia from Czech IGF

– Tanzania IGF – Nazar from Tanzania IGF

– Maldives IGF – Aisha from Maldives IGF

– Japan IGF – Masanobu Kato from IGF Japan

– Iraq IGF – As, coordinator of Iraq IGF

– Zambia Youth IGF – Levi Sianseke from Zambia Youth IGF

– Liberia IGF – Peter King, Liberia IGF coordinator

– West Africa IGF – Osei Keja from Ghana, from West Africa IGF and Ghana IGF

– Hong Kong Youth IGF – Jasmine Eman from Hong Kong Youth IGF

– Bertrand de La Chapelle – Executive director of Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network

Additional speakers:

– Dr. Eliamani Lal Taika – Judge from High Court of Tanzania

Evolution and Impact of National, Regional, and Youth Internet Governance Forums (NRIs)

This discussion brought together representatives from numerous National, Regional, and Youth Internet Governance Forums (NRIs) to share updates on their activities, discuss challenges and opportunities, and explore how NRIs can contribute to major global internet governance processes like the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and the World Summit on Information Society 20-year review (WSIS+20).

Growth and Development of NRIs

Anja Gengo from the IGF Secretariat noted that NRIs have grown significantly in both quantity and quality since 2011, with recent additions including Saudi Arabia and Ireland. The Caribbean IGF, represented by Nigel Casimir, highlighted its role as the first regional IGF, having started in 2005. This growth has led to a diverse ecosystem of NRIs addressing various local and regional internet governance issues.

Many NRIs reported on their efforts to engage stakeholders and influence policy:

1. The Myanmar IGF provides a platform to discuss internet issues despite challenges such as internet shutdowns and online harassment.

2. The North African IGF focused on the Global Digital Compact in its recent meeting.

3. The Colombian IGF, part of LACA IGF, engages the government in monthly meetings.

4. The Chad Youth IGF promotes multi-stakeholder collaboration.

5. The Asia-Pacific Regional IGF (APR IGF) creates a synthesis document with stakeholder calls to action.

6. The Nigerian IGF engages youth and parliamentarians.

7. The Gambia IGF and Liberia IGF have gained credibility with government involvement over time.

8. The Swiss IGF issues consensus messages after each meeting.

9. The Bolivia IGF relaunched with regulator engagement.

10. The Tanzania IGF engages judges in the process and plans to organize a national WSIS+20 workshop.

11. The Japan IGF holds regular information exchange meetings and plans study sessions on specific topics.

12. The Iraq IGF, recently established, is addressing internet shutdown and privacy issues.

Challenges and Strategies

Several NRIs reported facing challenges in their work:

1. The Italian Youth IGF faces difficulties with a government-nominated committee.

2. The Czech IGF struggles with awareness but collaborates regionally.

3. The Maldives IGF focuses on inclusivity and raising awareness, seeking to collaborate with other Small Island Developing States (SIDS) on the GDC.

4. The Zambia Youth IGF is working on media engagement to amplify their message.

A common theme among many NRIs was the importance of engaging government officials, parliamentarians, and youth in their processes. The Benin Youth IGF, for instance, supports other African youth NRIs, while the Hong Kong Youth IGF has restarted after a hiatus.

Engagement with Global Processes

Many NRIs are actively engaging with the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and WSIS+20 processes:

1. The Canada Youth IGF focused on WSIS+20 and GDC in recent discussions.

2. The Caribbean IGF used its network to disseminate GDC information.

3. The APR IGF held town halls on GDC and WSIS+20.

Jennifer Chung from the APR IGF suggested that NRIs should create input for the WSIS+20 process, emphasising the importance of concrete written contributions.

Measuring Impact and Outcomes

An unexpected point of consensus emerged around the need to evaluate and measure the outcomes of IGF events. Yao Susu from the Benin Youth IGF mentioned their efforts to evaluate recommendations made each year, while Osei Keja from the West Africa IGF raised questions about measuring outcomes. This focus on assessment and accountability was echoed by Mariam Job from the Gambia IGF, who called for a community-wide evaluation of the impacts made by national IGFs since their establishment.

Future Directions and Strategic Considerations

Towards the end of the discussion, several thought-provoking comments shifted the focus towards more strategic considerations:

1. Levi Sianseke from the Zambia Youth IGF suggested leveraging media partnerships to advance IGF goals and make the internet more accessible. This highlighted the importance of engaging media to amplify NRI messages and increase public awareness.

2. Bertrand de La Chapelle, Executive Director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network, proposed that all NRIs contribute to shaping the next mandate for the IGF by discussing “What are the next 20 years?” in their respective forums. This suggestion emphasized the critical role NRIs can play in defining the future of global internet governance.

3. Jasmine Eman from the Hong Kong Youth IGF emphasised the importance of documentation to capture learning and enable year-on-year progress.

These comments broadened the discussion to consider new strategies for outreach, long-term planning for the IGF’s future, and the critical role of documentation in tracking progress and identifying gaps in IGF initiatives over time.

Support and Collaboration

The discussion also highlighted the support provided by the Internet Society Foundation for NRIs, as mentioned by Roberto from Bolivia and acknowledged by Anja Gengo. This support has been crucial for many NRIs in organizing their events and activities.

Additionally, the establishment of new regional initiatives like the MRE IGF (Mano River Union IGF), mentioned by the Liberia IGF representative, demonstrates the ongoing expansion and collaboration within the NRI ecosystem.

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted the growth and diversity of the NRI ecosystem, with many forums actively contributing to national and regional internet governance dialogues. While challenges remain, particularly in engaging stakeholders and measuring outcomes, there is a clear commitment to addressing these issues and enhancing the impact of NRIs.

Looking ahead to WSIS+20, participants discussed how NRIs could contribute to shaping the future mandate of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The conversation concluded with a call for NRIs to use their upcoming events to gather input on what the next 20 years of the IGF should look like, potentially advocating for a working group to be established after WSIS+20 to draft a new charter for the IGF based on input from NRIs worldwide. This approach underscores the vital role of NRIs in shaping the future of global internet governance and ensuring that diverse perspectives are incorporated into the IGF’s long-term vision.

Anja Gengo: Once again greetings to everyone, good morning to everyone here in Riyadh, good afternoon or good evening depending where our colleagues in zoom are joining us from. My name is Anja Gengo from the IGF Secretariat in my role as the focal point for national, regional, sub-regional and youth IGFs and it’s a it’s a great pleasure to see so many dear colleagues finally in person. We do see each other from time to time on some of the regional or national IGFs but unfortunately we only have I think once in a year opportunity for the majority of the NRIs to meet in person at the annual IGF meeting. Last year this type of traditional NRIs coordination session was hosted in Kyoto at the 18th annual IGF meeting and now we’re meeting more than one year after here in in Riyadh in this really impressive setup. So it’s a pleasure to see you. Let me see just to introduce quickly the agenda while we’re still waiting for zoom to be set up. So the NRIs coordination session as you know is a traditional annual meeting of all the NRIs with the global community. We take stock in terms of what’s been done so far and we primarily focus on what we want to achieve in the time to come and because we are in a very important momentum in terms of the processes that are around us impacting us and I think representing potentially a good opportunity. In a bottom-up consultative manner the NRIs decided that this session will address the matters related to the implementation of global digital compact and the preparatory process for the 20 years review of the World Summit on Information Society in terms of the implications of the NRIs. What the NRIs could do for the GDC and WSIS plus 20 and vice versa. What these processes could do for the NRIs, how can they support better these already very successful platforms. Looking now by the faces in this room I think we have the majority of the NRIs represented be it through the regional, national or youth IGFs and we did agree. So we’re going to start very quickly by the Secretariat just introducing them the records on the NRIs, how many have been recognized so far. We’re going to focus on the evolution of the NRIs. We’re going to hear a little bit about how do you see the NRIs as an ecosystem has changed in the past couple of years. I know that there are some NRIs, the sub-regional IGFs that even predate the annual IGF meeting which is the Caribbean IGF. But I think the official recognition of the NRIs started in 2011 when the NRIs entrusted the Secretariat to run the recognition based on the agreed procedures and principles. And since then the NRIs have been growing both in quality and quantity and it would be good to hear from the first hand from you how do you see this in terms of what has changed and especially where are the challenges now. Then we’re going to move primarily on speaking about the role of the NRIs in the context of Swiss Plus 20 and the GDC. How is Swiss Plus 20 and GDC impacting the NRIs? What is the role of the NRIs in the IGF Plus 20 mandate review? What are the relationships with stakeholders in your countries within this context especially with the member states? Because let us not forget the GDC although informed by multi-stakeholder consultations was agreed through a process of the member states and therefore multi-stakeholder input can be channeled through the NRIs to the member states so that the decision making is informed in that way, which I think in so many cases was really, thanks to you, successfully done in the past two years. And then finally, we’re going to speak about the overall implications of the World Summit on Information Society. What do you see the WSIS resolution that is expected to be adopted in the last quarter of the next year should look like? How the action line should change with respect to the NRI? So those are some of the questions that are on the table. And without further ado, I understand we have the Zoom. Soon it will be on the screen. Let me maybe not go into sharing the slides. I’m going to just confirm to you, we have now 175 officially recognized NRIs. Among the latest NRIs we recognized is the National IGF of Saudi Arabia and also of Ireland. So indeed, it deserves an applause, and I join it. I will remind that one of the objectives that the NRIs set in their work plan at the beginning of the year was to support the community of the 2024 host country to establish a national IGF as a long-term form of engagement in the IGF processes of this respective community. And therefore, I think a portion of congratulation and that applause goes to all of you because you really called for it, and you put yourself at the disposal to colleagues who are organizing it. I hope that soon we will probably, maybe even in this week, hear about recognition of the national IGF in Singapore. And that I’m also very happy because Singapore as a community has been very active in the digital sphere, and I’m happy that we reached the stage where they have the national IGF as well. So these are the records, what the Secretariat can share now with you. I’m not sure if we have colleagues from Bhutan in this room. We have been working with colleagues, community from Bhutan for more than a year now, and I’m hoping that soon the national IGF will be established there. With that, I would like to open the floor. I think it’s important that we go into the open discussion. I’ll just, before you raise your hand, and before I repeat the question that’s at your disposal, you will raise your hand, and I will help to bring you the microphone. We have, I think, three or four microphones, so we will manage to do that. You have to keep your headset on. When you speak, I suggest that you take off your headset so you don’t hear yourself twice. So with that, the question for you is, how do you see the evolution of your NRI looking back into the past 20 years? What’s the biggest achievement? How do you see the Global Digital Compact implementation and the WSIS Plus 20 supporting your NRI, but also how do you think your NRI can support these processes? It would be good to be action-oriented. We are aiming to have an action-oriented output document from this session that will inform the WSIS Plus 20 preparatory process, as well as the GDC implementation. So with that question on the table, I invite you, please, to sign up and speak. I still don’t see the Zoom, yes, even on my laptop, but I hope that soon colleagues will be joining us. In the meantime, you can raise your hand to speak, and I will approach you to give you the microphone.

Canada NRI: Hello, Dana Kramer from Youth IGF Canada, for the record. I want to speak on behalf of Canada’s NRI, both the Canadian IGF, as well as the Canada Youth IGF. So one thing that we’ve been doing in Canada quite extensively, and I need to say a big thank you to the Secretariat for the Canada Youth IGF, being the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, is leading on significant WSIS Plus 20 talks. And at our Canadian IGF, we did have a large focus on WSIS Plus 20 and the GDC. And so I think that when there are NRIs to really specify that and ensure that these spaces do have that consideration at the national level. On the youth level, we’ve been having quite a bit of discussions on the Global Digital Compact as well, and so trying to bring in a national focus on these two key pieces of documents. So I just wanted to make that intervention on behalf of my country. Thank you. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Dana, and. Congratulations to you for an excellent job done with the U.S.-Canadian IGF and good cooperation with the national IGF. Yes, we have here the Caribbean IGF. Let’s go to Nigel, and then we’re going to go to Guinea.

Caribbean IGF: Yes, Nigel Casimir from the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, and I coordinate the Caribbean IGF, which we are always happy to point out was the first regional IGF. We started in 2005. In terms of recent achievements, I think we’ve also started a Caribbean Youth IGF. We had the third session this year, and we had our 20th Caribbean IGF also this year. I think we were maybe first as well to create what we call a policy framework around Internet Governance as an output of our IGF process. Having the job to coordinate 20 member countries around the Caribbean and try to build capacity in Internet Governance in particular, we found that the CIGF was a very good tool in terms of building capacity around the Caribbean. What we do is we try to move the venue of the event around to the different islands so that in each event, we can engage with the local community in particular. That has been a strategy of ours in the past, and going forward, I think that’s what we’ll do as well. Specifically related to the GDC and WSIS Plus 20 upcoming, for the GDC, we’ve used our network to mostly disseminate information about and… and solicit comments on as well. So the event that we had in August, our 20th CIGF, had some specific focus on the GDC. And going forward, we’ll use our network and our events as well to continue to engage the Caribbean input and actions coming out of the GDC. So I’ll stop there, thanks.

Anja Gengo: The Secretariat will be in touch with you and explain the process. I hope that you were able to hear me. So yes, we will definitely connect with you. The question for those that maybe did not catch everything was about the National IGF in Guinea and the way it can join the network. And I really commend our dear colleague for being here. That’s already a huge step. So we look forward to working with you. Thank you very much. Anyone else? We would like to hear about how do you see the NRI’s work has evolved in the past 20 years? Is there anything more that can be done, including from this side of the Secretariat or of the global community? And especially in the context of the Global Digital Compact and WSIS Plus 20 as our maybe key opportunity we should really use to leverage the work of the NRIs and to elevate the real year it was

Myanmar IGF: For a country like Myanmar, it’s quite far away from, you know, global level, but IGF has become like a platform for us to discuss about what is happening there and also how we can contribute and how we can feed the import at the global level as well. That is what we observed during these three years. It has been the three years we try to organize the forum and hopefully we can do the next year as well. As you may notice that Myanmar is a very chaotic situation right now and even there are lots of cases are happening in our internet ecosystem and infrastructure. Sometimes we cannot even identify who are the actors behind the scenes of the internet shutdown and the online harassment event, the failures of the different kinds of pillars is also challenging for us to figure out what is happening in certain regions, but having the IGF like a youth one or the national one, it was kind of like a chance for us to discuss more about the internet related issues. On one hand, I feel like multi-stakeholder model is a kind of a guideline for us how to bring the young people from the different stakeholders. Unfortunately, in this stage, it is difficult to identify for us to, for us like a government, who is a government of Myanmar, that was always questioning whatever we are trying to organize the forum, but so far we try our best to be the neutral way to raise the issue from the ground level, like western part of the Myanmar, eastern part of the Myanmar. We try our best to engage with the young people from the different part of Myanmar and to raise So, in conclusion, I might say that IGF is a good way to express ourselves and give information to the global and also regional level, initiatives related to the Internet issue, and also to think about how we should bring more opportunity and also engage with the young people who are from the Vanderbilt community. So that’s all from my area. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Pyo. It always reminds us that the realities around the world are different. I think colleagues from Afghanistan are still in their session, but we spoke about the position of women and girls in Afghanistan and what the National IGF can do for them, which is, I think, a very important topic. I want to give the floor to Ahmed, please.

North African IGF: Thank you, Anya. Ahmed Farag, Chair of the North African IGF. Actually, we hosted the 8th North African IGF meeting last October, and we focused on one of our sessions focused on the GDC to give a better understanding to the process that happened during the past months. Also, we believe in the collaboration efforts the North African IGF has organized a joint webinar with Arab IGF and Lebanese IGF to give a better understanding to the GDC and WSIS plus 20 process through our community in the Arab world. We want to ensure that the multistakeholder perspective is still improvement. We are focusing on how to engage how to bring new people to engage in the IGF process, new players to join, how to enhance the main parties already in the process. This is the main point that we want to focus on the Arab region. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you. Thank you so much Ahmed. You know all regions are important but in the Arab region presently probably is at the center of global attention. I’m happy that there are developments to hold the Arab sub-regional IGF very soon which complements well the North African IGF to cover that important part of the world and I hope that we can all kind of unite to support these two sub-regional IGFs further. Any other comments? I especially am also curious I have to say to understand a little bit more about how do you see, because we’re on time, how do you see we can use this time to prepare better for the World Summit on Information Society when the member states will be discussing the WSIS outcomes including the IGF, everything that’s been done in the past 20 years and especially when our future in terms of everything that we are doing, the vision we are sharing, jobs we are working on, will be also part of those discussions. How do you see the role of the NRIs in that sense? Are lessons learned from the GDC consultations as we expect that the WSIS also will be informed through multi-stakeholder consultations? Some of you recall the WSIS plus 10 for example, so very similar approach. Lilian please.

LACA IGF: Hello, can you hear me? Well I’m Lilian from LACA IGF, Latin American Forum and also from the Colombian IGF. We especially, I’m going to speak about Colombian IGF because we have meetings every month with many people from different sectors. Some people from the government, from the ICT ministry, and the communication, and other organizations from the government, and what we are trying to do right now is to ask to the government officially that we, as part of the multi-stakeholder committee in Colombia, want to be part of the discussion, sort of the delegation for discussing the GDC, and just like not only send our comments as we have been until now, but also being part of the delegation. I think at least we can try that the government, that each government invite us as multi-stakeholder committees to be part of the discussions and to comment, but also maybe participate in some of the meetings, participate as audience, I don’t know, but then maybe this is an opportunity. And for LACAJF, we are trying to, the next year we are trying to make some webinars or some discussions maybe, where we can talk also about how to participate, not only as countries, but also like region.

Anja Gengo: Thank you so much Lilian, Kouzeifi, and then we’re going to go to Daniel.

Chad Youth IGF: Thank you Anja, good morning, my name is Dr. Kouzeifi Saka, I come from Chad, I coordinate the Chad Youth IGF, thank you once again Anja and the IGF Secretariat for your support to bring youth voices here. I think it’s important now to promote multi-stakeholder approach to promote a very sustainable internet governance. I think we just adopted in New York during the General Assembly the Declaration on Future Generations, the Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact. So I think to make a very effective achievement we need to promote, I mean, multi-stakeholder collaboration, how they can promote like a very sustainable cooperation between developing countries and least developed countries, create the program of capacity building to make sure that skills are transferred into countries where people needed more in terms of internet accessibility, internet governance, in terms of digitalization, etc. So it’s quite important today to reflect our realities that, I mean, are in Africa for instance and we need also to provide more resources to support, I mean, academic institutions where people can go and learn about digitalizations and especially the rural communities where it is essential today with digital literacy we can also promote, I mean, local languages through this kind of programs. So thank you once again for coming here and I think it’s important to resolve these issues together.

Italian Youth IGF: Good morning. Can you hear me? This is Daniela Tura from Italian Youth IGF. So we had the Italian IGF last week and unfortunately the OASIS and the GDC didn’t really step into the discussion. We have currently a unique situation in Europe, that is a committee that is 100% nominated from the government, and this in a sense requires a different approach. We need to, I believe, find different connections, especially as a youth IGF Italian community, and one thing that we noticed in terms of actual potential steps to bring forward is capacity building, education, and cooperation. This, we believe, will be a key point, especially to make parliamentarians and members of the actual committee to understand the role that Internet governance has worldwide, and not just focus on digital matters, but also on other critical resources of the Internet. This is something that is not really discussed, but right now what I’m trying to say is that we need more community, and this can be done through an active collaboration between the youth and this committee that, again, it was not really multi-stakeholder. So yeah, local initiatives, and one last thing I would like to highlight is the importance of coordination with other national and regional initiatives that possibly share the same issues, that is key decision-makers not fully understanding how the Internet governance ecosystem works. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Now we have a queue. We have here Kossi, Jennifer, then Mary, then Sandra, then we’re gonna come to this side with Miriam. So let’s go to Kossi.

Benin IGF: Hello, good morning. Do you hear me? I’m Kossi, I’m a senior from Benin. I’m from the Ministry of Economy and Finance in Benin, also a member of Benin IGF. The IGF process we have now is very good because we have understood the point of view of each stakeholder. The next step now is to know how it’s possible to evaluate the recommendation we make each year. It’s important for us now to evaluate. How can we do it?

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Kossi. That’s actually a very good point we could maybe feed into our work plan. Jennifer, please. Thank you, Anya.

Jennifer Chung: My name is Jennifer Chung, so I’m part of the Secretariat for the APR IGF, which is the Asia-Pacific Regional IGF. Just really briefly, looking back for the, I guess, 15 years, we’re a little younger than some of the IGFs, like Caribbean IGF, which predates the IGF, which is really great. But the evolution of good practices is really important. For APR IGF, in particular, the way we structure our multi-stakeholder steering group, it is open as long as you adhere to our code of conduct. And also, one of the key innovations is creating an output document, which is called a synthesis document, where we aggregate all the important topics and issues coming out of the APEC region to do with Internet governance, and now digital processes as well. That’s been 10 years that we’ve had this document. Particularly this year, we had innovation to actually have concrete calls to action for each stakeholder group. I’m just going to read the very first one for government, which is strengthen multi-stakeholder cooperation and collaboration, and consider input on all issues and policies that could affect the governance and development of the Internet and digital policy processes. I think that’s a really central question that a lot of us are grappling with right now. For the GDC and WSIS Plus 20, we had town hall sessions during our annual meeting to take in the input, not only to capacity-build, to actually take in substantive input from the voices we hear in the APEC region, and all of them are captured in our synthesis document. Another concrete suggestion and proposal I have for the NRI network is to leverage each and every one of our meetings, first to take up the capacity-building to understand what actually… the WSIS Plus 20 process looks like for non-governmental stakeholders, and then also create the tools, materials, opportunities for each of our meetings, each of our NRIs, to be able to consult with our communities and stakeholders. And then finally, as a global NRI network, I wish that we would be able to create an actual input opportunity, be it a paper, be it some kind of concrete written input that we can put into the WSIS Plus 20 process. I think this would be really good suggestions for us to be able to take up in the upcoming year. Even starting now, I think, would be really important for us to do. Thanks.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Jennifer. Sandra, would that microphone work? Can you try? And then Mary.

Sandra Hoferichter: Seems to work. Hello, everyone. I stand up so that you see me. Many of you mentioned already that your initiatives are trying to warrant and guarantee the multi-stakeholder model in your country. And we all know, also in Europe, that this is sometimes not really understood by all stakeholders, particularly looking at governments. And because we identified that issue, that basically also parliamentarians, governmental representatives, need to understand why the multi-stakeholder model for the internet is so important to continue, we, together with ISOC, made a brochure. It’s called 50 Years of Internet, How It Works, and How We Can Protect It. Don’t be afraid that this is a very European perspective. It’s about the global internet, of course. And it’s, so the main context comes from ISOC, from Internet Society. And in addition, we put together what the discussion have been on the European level. But maybe this brochure is also interesting and useful for your countries and for your initiatives to use. It’s rather short. It’s not a long book to read, but it may be something for your stakeholder to be aware of, so that they really, particular parliamentarians, governmenters, understand what it needs to know before making any legislation, before discussing what multi-stakeholder is about, so that they really understand it. The Honorable Winsor was willing to write a foreword for this brochure, so we are very happy. He’s not here, unfortunately, at the IGF, but he wrote the foreword. I don’t have many of the paper copies with me, but you find it on the Eurodic website, eurodic.org, and you also can find the QR code at the Eurodic booth. But if you would like to have paper copies, let me know, and I’m sure we can, we’ve printed like a small edition, and if there is a big need on this, we can possibly print many more. But let me know if you’re interested in this, but I think that is something that is useful for the entire global community.

Anja Gengo: Thank you. Thank you very much, Sandra. Mary, please.

Mary Uduma: Thank you. Let me stand as well. I don’t know where that Sorin is, yeah? Sorin, are you here? For Africa IGF, but let me start from my Nigerian IGF. Since 2009, we started the Nigerian IGF, 2012, sorry, 2012. It had been there, but we re-established it in 2012, and since 2013, we have had the youth, Nigerian youth IGF, and there’s none of the IGFs we hold in Nigeria that we don’t have the youth IGF. And one of the things that has come out from this, some of them are players, big players in the space, and one of the ones that rings bell is Joshua Joshua. He came from the Nigerian youth IGF and he has been doing well at the global level. So that’s one for us. Secondly is that with the parliamentarian track that started, we had to invite the parliamentarian into our multi-stakeholder advisory committee. Even when they’re doing policy or legislation or open consultation, we are contacted to make input into whatever program that is being done by the caucus, the parliamentarian ICT caucus. So when they are doing any of the piece of legislation, they want our opinion and then we’ll have to add that to them. And again, the School on Internet Governance cooperating with ISOC had been on, and so many youth had gone through the school. And some of them have found expression of their desired career through that meeting. Because when we are done, we give them little certificates and some of them use it for other things. And they are also playing right or great in this piece. And at the West African level, we started the GDC process since 2022. So during West Africa Internet Governance Forum, we had a full program of three hours talking about the GDC and our contribution. We made our contribution to the GDC. And the WSIS also, we are sensitizing our people to know that it is very important. And our ministers are being informed about it. And let me just talk about, again, the youth. I think they are here, some of them. Some of our youths are here. The West African Youth IGF, they have continued to make sure that it’s working very well. That’s her. So I’m proud of them. And they are making a lot of contribution, even at the global level. And some of them made contribution to the GDC. For the Africa, at the Africa level, we now have the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, supporting the process, the Africa IGF process. And the parliamentarians also are coming up strong. We started in 2002, and just like the Tanzanian group mentioned, we are seeing them stronger. And we are seeing them now aware and getting involved in what the IGF is all about. So my suggestion is that, at your multi-stakeholder level, please let the government be part. Let me to your legislators, let them be part of it. Because whatever we say, whatever policy brief we come up with, like in my country Nigeria, the agency that is in charge of ICT had to call us to prepare what we call white paper on IGF, and what it’s all about. So with that contribution, it would also strengthen the policy process, and also we see results coming out. So I want to share with you that we’re not only, I like what they are doing in, I think, is it in Afghanistan you do monthly? Somebody said they do monthly meeting, or is it, okay, all right. So I think we shouldn’t just do the, run our program and go sit back. We should follow up, whether we are collaborating with ISOC, or we’re collaborating with any of the stakeholders, make sure we hold them responsible, that they listened to our recommendations, and also they are doing something, coming up with policies that will involve, and they understand the multi-stakeholder process is important. When they buy in, today I have somebody represent, the PAMSEC of my nation, representing the minister is here, the senator, my senator is here, and somebody, okay, okay, okay, okay, thank you. All right. The senator is here. The agency, the National Information Development Agency, the director general is here. They are now interested, they want to know what we are, what the IGF is all about, and when they get back, I don’t think it will remain the same. because they had to understand what the multi-stakeholder issue is. For Africa, we have what we call WSIS Africa. I think some of you attended WSIS Africa, and Dr. Seck is very, very passionate about it, and we have our paper already. We have our contribution from Africa, so we have contributed, so if you can also organize that. So be strong with your government, the legislator, and the other stakeholders to be able to come out to contribute too. And, I mean, it legitimizes the IGF. When your NRI is strong, and you are making impact, you know, the government can’t go there and say, no, no, no, let’s close, no, no, IGF is not important. So our input into it, our participation, and getting them involved would strengthen what will happen at WSIS point two, I mean, point 20, WSIS plus 20, yes. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Ach, I’m gonna ask you to pass the microphone, I think, firstly, here on your left, and then we’re gonna go back, well, to Mariam, and then to Jacques. And then to Roberto, yes.

Benin Youth IGF: Hello, can you, okay, you can hear me, right? Thank you very much. I am Yao Susu from the IGF Youth Benin, coordinator of the IGF Youth Benin. I think we are very young in the process, we are only on our second edition of the IGF Youth in Benin, and I want to take this opportunity to commend the work and support we got from Dr. Kossi in this process in Benin, and this is something we personally are also continuing the African regional space, supporting other NRI, youth NRI initiative in Africa, mainly supporting the Burundi Youth IGF who is going to take place on the 21st of December. I think Dr. Kossi mentioned something that I want to mention already is we have data available already on key issues we address during our different NRI events and we have recommendations from those events. I think now it’s time to make a kind of repertoire, if I can say, a collection of those recommendations and build upon those a clear guideline on how we assess the impact of the recommendations and one of the KPI could be how many parliamentarians are engaged in the process, how many government officials are ready to support youth initiatives, are ready to support the national IJF initiatives and how many policy implementations are really actually coming out of our recommendation during our different IJF processes. And one of going also pragmatically, I will also say we have currently a toolkit available on the NRI processes. Why not updating the toolkit and including specifically the five objectives of the GDC and at the national and even the youth NRI events, we need to ask the coordinator of the events to highlight which of the objectives the national IJF is going to tackle so that we have clear contribution to those objectives and in the end give a clear calendar of when we want to contribute. to consolidate all the recommendations regarding these key issues. Thank you very much.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much. Let’s hear from Mariam, then we’ll go back to Jacques, Roberto, and then we have a couple more. All right.

Gambia IGF: Thank you. Can everyone hear me? Good? All right. Good morning. My name is Mariam Job, and I am from The Gambia. I serve as the youth coordinator for The Gambia IGF and the youth coordinator for The Africa IGF as well. Africa Youth IGF, sorry. And my contribution really is to answer to Anja’s question about what can we do ahead of the recess. And it is along the lines of what Dr. Kosi, Jennifer, and Yao here mentioned. I think it’s high time we go back to the community, we go back to the multi-stakeholder approach, and go back to the people who have been involved in the IGF since the establishment of the national IGFs, and assess and evaluate what are the impacts that have been made. Because I believe that at the end of every IGF, there are recommendations, policy recommendations, or actionable steps that are often recommended to happen moving forward. And it’s time to reassess what has been done, what went right, what went wrong, what sometimes organizations or youth make position papers that are often presented to governments or international development agencies on certain issues, say, for instance, on data protection or so. So I’m going to share some of the recommendations from those position papers that have actually been taken into action, and what worked and what didn’t work ahead of the recess. Because this is next year, and a year goes by really fast. So I think my recommendation from this conversation that’s been happening would be for each of the NRIs to kind of go back to the community in their individual countries and reassess with them what went right, what went wrong. And because in the recess, we will need to defend the IGF. We need to provide concrete evidence in order to defend it. And I think it’s very important that we’re able to… provide concrete evidence and able to provide this is why the IGF must stay.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much Mariam. Jacques please you have the floor.

Jacques Beglinger: Hello, can you hear me? Yes, hello everybody my name is Jacques Beglinger. I’m from Switzerland. I serve on the board of the European IGF, but I’m speaking now in the capacity of the co-chair of the Swiss IGF and what I would like to share with you, besides that I am very happy to be among so many friends from all over the world here, what we discovered in our IGF is that to have most impact did we have something to distribute afterwards, distribute to government, to associations, to just other stakeholder groups as in the Asian Pacific area. We always issue, we call it messages, after each IGF and there’s some rough consensus in it. We just approve it on the spot and this has a huge impact. Something else I’d like to share with you, what we achieved over the past years in Switzerland was the buy-in also of business and recognizing that large, small, medium enterprises are also corporate citizens and are usually affected by whatever happens to the Internet. We also found their engagement and will now also use this to leverage the impact of the GDC. Thank you.

Bolivia IGF: Thank you. Hello everyone. It’s great to be here with so many friends and so new friends as well that are joining this great community. I wanted to comment on two things. One, some of us mentioned before about government participations in this process in our countries. In the case of Bolivia, actually we had a very extended relationship with the government. From our first IGF, we are young as well, our first IGF was in 2017, and from the beginning the government was always actively involved. This last time, actually after two years, because we also need to talk about bad things and in our case we had to stop the IGF for two years. The last one we did was in 2021. Actually we managed to relaunch the IGF in Bolivia this year, but with a full engagement from the regulator’s office. Actually he was supposed to come here to Riyadh, but he couldn’t make it because of different agenda issues. But what I want to say regarding this is we need to keep trying to involve, because when we talk about multistakeholderism, usually most of the stakeholders participate in our processes, but the government usually takes more time or sometimes it’s very difficult to involve them. But I think it’s important from the people that are supporting the processes in each of our countries to keep trying, to keep inviting them, and hopefully to finally make them part of the process. Because finally at the end, the ones that can provide the public policy are the governments, the parliamentarians, of course with the inputs that we can provide from the different actors. That’s about my capacity as facilitator of the process in Bolivia. But I also want to comment in my capacity of Internet Society Foundation member. I am working the training and e-learning team, and the experience that we have last year is that we were requested by many chapters around the world. In our case in LAC, we had three countries, three ISOC chapters that asked support from us to provide training in Internet governance, and also from many countries in Africa. So what I meant to mention about is that this is, I think, a very good point. This is an important contribution to prepare the newcomers in our countries in order to make them active in this process. So I also want to offer this support. You can reach us directly or through our chapters. You know that we have working many chapters in all of the world, so we will be happy to support this kind of process to you. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Alberto. Indeed, these type of processes are valuable, but they do come with a cost, and budgets are important, and I know funding has been an issue ongoing, but things have changed to a good extent. I think over the past couple of years we have now entities who established the grants process for the NRI, so Roberto actually reminded me of a very important point, and I’m glad to see Brian here from ISOC Foundation. ISOC has been a great champion and supporter of the NRIs, including through a grants program. Indeed, it deserves applause, such as the IGF Support Association as well. I’m not sure if Amrita is here, but Jennifer is here as a secretariat. The IGF secretariat was also this year giving a limited number of grants to the developing country NRIs, and with that in mind, I know we have here a couple of requests for the If you agree, it would be good to hear later from Brian a few words about the ISOC Foundation plans for supporting the NRIs long term. I would like to give the floor now to Lillian, chair of the African IGF. She is with us online, then we’re going to go to Umut, and we’re going to come back to the room. Lillian, you have the floor. Technicians will unmute you. Umut, maybe it’s on Lillian’s side, and then we’re going to go back to Lillian. Can we try this one? Am I speaking? I’m having some technical issues with channeling the audio back in the room, but I know that our online participants can hear us. Colleagues from the technical team are working on it to fix. I think it’s just an output issue. But while you’re working on it, I would like us to come back to the room. I know there was a request for the floor. I think somewhere here. And then from the side. Thank you.

Czech IGF: Can you hear me well? Thank you. This is Natalia from the Czech IGF. We were established very recently and earlier this year we had our first meeting. And I just wanted to share how it went. Because it is quite challenging in our country to even spread the awareness why the Internet governance is even important and why we should talk about it. And we wanted to make this first event more in the traditional fashion to bring various stakeholders, bring members from the civil society, from academia, from high schools. But we struggled with even… And yeah. Is it? Okay. Excuse me. We understand that their voice can really matter and they can take part in the conversation. So we had to change the approach and start by forming like a roundtable with people who are already interested to share, okay, how we can actually mobilize the people more, what we know about these issues, what worked well in the past, what can be probably made better. Because we still struggle also with regard to the ministry and government to really make a point that the multi-stakeholder model is very needed. And it should not just happen behind closed doors. and we should provide this platform when we know it can be done. So, going back to even sharing the knowledge, sharing the awareness was found to be crucial in our nation. Very briefly, I would like to highlight also something that Daniela Tura already said, that we should try and help each other out. When we start forming and arise from our countries, is to work together for the GDC consultations. I feel like I’m cracking. Okay, I will soon finish. Hopefully, it will be fine. So, as for the GDC consultations, we joined forces with also the German Youth IGF. We had a representative, Paolo Glovacki, and we formed a statement together with Czech Republic and youth representatives from Germany. And then we submitted and talked at the GDC consultations, and we found that this approach was also very valuable, and we managed to deliver something more elaborate when we joined forces. So, I would also like to highlight this approach, in case anyone feels like their voice is not as loud as they maybe need at the beginning, to not be afraid and just reach out to others and arise, that already are more in the system and they know their way around, as it was very effective in our case. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Natalia. Can I ask you to pass on the microphone to Nazar in front of you, Natalia? And then we’re going to go back to Brian. You just reminded me, I don’t think our colleagues from the National IGF of Greece are here yet, but I recently met them at the Southeastern European IGF. Last year they changed the name of the IGF into World Digital Summit or Digital Forum. I mean, it has a background, of course. But what they reported is that it was just easier, easier to communicate, to pass on the information, to translate into their national language. And perhaps what you’re saying now is something that could be considered to at least elaborate a little bit more about the concept of the internet governance being basically inclusive of everything that’s digital. So Nazar, please.

Tanzania IGF: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Anya. And for now, I have two interventions. Number one, just one minute, we have a judge from Tanzania. So that if you want to speak, you just have to say hi. I know the IGF now in session in terms of bringing the chairing space. Hello? Can you hear me now? Oh, sorry. Sorry. I said I have two interventions. Number one, I wanted to yield just one minute to the Honorable Dr. Lal Taika from the High Court of Tanzania just to say hi. Because what we are doing is just to make sure that we drag as many judges to the IGF space as we can possibly do. Welcome, judge. Thank you very much, Nazar. This is a big surprise. I didn’t expect this. But hi, everyone. My name is Eliamani Lal Taika. I think I saw some of you in Kyoto last year. I can remember a few faces. And I really am. I want to congratulate each one of you, you are doing a great job, you are building the future. Since I came to this room, I’ve heard the word future at least 20 times. So if you find individuals like you, passionate about global issues and thinking about the future, you cannot be in a better place. Thank you very much. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you because he won’t, I didn’t know if he would speak but I wanted to make sure that he speaks, even say hi. Number two, number two is that in Tanzania, because if you look at the fundamental principles of the GDC and what the IGF is and also the WSIS, you can conclude simply that these are just triplets. And what we are doing in Tanzania next year, I think for the first time, is to organize a national workshop on WSIS plus 20 before the WSIS forum in Geneva. So we are using this opportunity as a national IGF to organize the WSIS plus 20 national forum so that we can begin to do the input in terms of reviewing the actions, the WSIS action lines and what it has been able to achieve for the last 20 years. So I just wanted to inform you guys that the IGF is at the grassroots in Tanzania doing just that and we will send out the Zoom link for everyone to be able to participate. Thank you so much.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much Nazar. I’ll use a little bit of my discretion to jump the queue because colleagues are still trying to fix the technical issues so we can hear from Lilian, Umut and any other colleague online. There are some NRIs who have joined us not that long ago and they have done amazing work. I’ve seen it in person as well. So I want to give floor firstly to Aisha from the Maldives IGF.

Maldives IGF: Hello everyone and it’s great to be here and great to connect with the community here. As Anja mentioned, we recently joined the IGF and we started our second IGF this year, the forum. I would say the first one was more like creating awareness among people that internet belongs to them. It’s not only the voice of the technical people because when you talk about internet governance it comes in a way that only technical people can talk about it. So our first job was that. And secondly this year our focus was mostly on inclusivity because there are some communities who don’t have access to these platforms to communicate about internet. And then of course bringing in the legislators. We had a new parliament election this year and then we had new parliamentarians coming in. So that means like internet governance and these discussions become completely new thing for them. And this process is difficult. And I wish we had something like IGF 101 for parliamentarians. Some sort of book or tutorial that we can share with them. But going forward what we see is that we are yet trying to find out what Maldives is trying to do for the GDC and being part of a SIDS country I think for mentioning about the challenges that we have within the SIDS countries and how like IGF have supported empowering people and talking about these platforms will be a good point. to come as a statement as joined SIDS countries and those are some of the things that I would like to see in it and I haven’t met anybody like from the SIDS countries but I would love to collaborate and communicate and see how we can do this together. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you so much Aisha. Can we try with Lillian online? And then maybe you can remind me of the hands we have Anu here. I want to ask Brian to speak at the end because all this vision comes with the budget and you be addressing that. Yes and then we’re gonna come here Kato-san. Okay good. Can we try with Lillian online? Lillian. Okay Lillian left. Is Umut here? Yes. No Lillian is here. Now welcome. You can unmute. Lillian can you try to speak? I think you are unmuted now. He still cannot hear Lillian. Lillian apologies maybe you and Umut can type your comment in the chat. I’m gonna go to Kato-san and then I’m gonna come back to this side.

Japan IGF: Thank you Anja and nice to see you all here. Masanobu Kato from IGF Japan. After we hosted IGF last year in October we are continuing our activities and becoming more active. For instance we are having every almost three weeks of kind of information exchange meetings where we are inviting government private sector. civil society and so on and in addition to that we are now planning to have a kind of study you know sessions many IGF every month or so to pick up some interesting topics for general public instead of the really IGF you know groups but something like well probably SNS and election or but you know more you know specifically we are probably you know doing something on digital public goods as a first session in addition to those activities we are trying to recruit more youth and using some of the published you know documents reporting Kyoto IGF we are having a series of webinars inviting you know young students at the universities and so on that’s a short report from Japan. Thank you

Iraq IGF: from Iraq we are recently from September that should become IGF in Iraq as a coordinator and okay okay and yeah it’s like we hadn’t and like three meetings from September until now and we are planning for the first IGF this will be in Iraq we find a lot of things issues in Iraq especially for example internet shut down the government they stop internet in any like if there is exams if there is demonstration if there is anything that they just turn it off the internet shut down and there is also for the privacy about telecom company We did a research recently, we found it like their score according to the RDR criteria research. We found that they scored everything like zero. So we have a lot of issues, we need to work on it. And also we would love to learn from you. Because you have the experience, that you work on the idea for the last few years. So I’m open to discuss with anyone from you. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, As. So let me just finish this queue and then I’m gonna come here. It was Levi here.

Zambia Youth IGF: Greetings everyone. Levi Sianseke from Zambia Youth IGF. And also part of the organizing committee for the National IGF. But I mainly also represent the Internet Society Zambia chapter. With regard to the way forward, I think from an observation. We rely on the media so much for election updates, campaigns and so on and so forth. Which for me the media then becomes critical in being a kingmaker. How about focusing on these workshop efforts. In terms of the GDC, the WSIS. Working with the media to help amplify the agenda. In terms of making the Internet more accessible for many people. The reason for this in my view is. If the media can be powerful to influence policy and who wins the elections. How about using the media to also inform and influence. How then the Internet is adopted by our people. But also pushing government to be more accountable. Ensuring that the Internet is open and more inclusive and accessible to our own people. I think this is some of the things that I think we’ve been thinking about. For this year in Zambia we decided not to have the Youth IGF. Mainly because we observed most people are only active when there is an event. And afterwards they sit back. So we did an approach where we are raising more awareness on why youth should be involved in the IGF. So that after each event or main activity, you have more stakeholders actively engaged improving internet access in our community and more, for lack of a better term, keeping their government and other stakeholders accountable. Unlike just having an event and then everyone goes quiet and then we meet again at the next event. So there’s been more engagement and training for media personnels on how they can actively report on internet governance related issues. That way we feel it’s more impactful unlike always having to wait for an event, gather after the event, then we sit quiet and still wait for the next event. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Levi. Let’s Peter.

Liberia IGF: Good day to everyone. My name is Peter King, I’m from Liberia. I’m the Liberia IGF coordinator. And then I’m happy to say that for the past five years since 2020, thanks so much to the ISOF Foundation, RIME, and for supporting Liberia IGF at the time. We believe that this is a process and we’ve been visible enough that the government of the day now invites us to policy issues and make sure that we contribute towards it from the multistakeholder dimension. And we have been able to build a solid community where we have all the structures that is in the system contributing towards the event. And this year, we’re happy to see that the new minister was even involved in our process that shows that we’ve gained a level of credibility and stability in the system and working together with ISOC, Chapter Liberia, and all the LTA regulator who have made way to Saudi Arabia means that we are crossing the message over to the level of involvement of the multistakeholder in our system as well. So we also are working very well to get parliamentarians in Liberia to be part of the process because some of the policies that are being stuck on the table of legislation, we need to enhance their understanding. For example, we do not have a cyber security strategy in Liberia. We do not have a data protection policy in Liberia. All these things are key instruments that we believe that when proper education through our platform and through collaboration with the ministries and other line agencies will help to enhance it. And then, in recent times, we’ve been able to initiate the newly sub-sub-regional IGF, which is the MRE IGF, and we’re happy to say that we’ve made tremendous progress to bring together, not in the name of fragmentation, but in the name of inclusiveness, because we believe that the Internet issues on Internet governance needs to go across the whole country and across other countries in Africa, especially in West Africa. We’ve been able to bring Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and Ivory Coast together to have an NRI that speaks to issues that are the larger level of the West Africa IGF. We believe that these are all contributions that can fit into it and, as well, transcend to the Africa level. So we’re so happy to say that we’re very, very happy to appreciate the work that IGFSA and Internet Society, Internet Foundation, has continually do to help to host this event at this level, and it’s making a lot of impact, because for the MRE IGF, we go to a regional consultative forum that looks at going to key countries and collecting issues that we can fit into the main agenda and select a particular country that we host. We are happy to say that we are in negotiation with Guinea, which has been very, very much on the level side, to be able to come into the system to help to host for the 2025 edition. Thank you so much, and we believe that there will be more work to be done.

West Africa IGF: Hello. My name is Osei Keja from Ghana, from West Africa UFIGF and the Ghana UFIGF. So quick question. It’s very refreshing listening to the various strategies put in place by the various NRIs, but my question is, how are we retooling in terms of measured outcomes from the various discussions that we have periodically? Thank you.

Anja Gengo: I put this very good question on the floor. Somebody hopefully will respond. I think you… waiting for a long time so I want to give floor here and then we’re going to go back.

Hong Kong Youth IGF: Thank you very much. Hi, this is Jasmine Eman from Hong Kong Youth IGF. So we’ve been stopped having Hong Kong YIGF for some years due to COVID and due to political unrest, etc. But this year we successfully started the HKYIGF and there have been challenges for organizing it, resources, etc. But then unfortunately we do not have a dedicated session for WSIS plus 20 or GDC but we have close relationship with the NetMission plus network that the youth from Asia Pacific group have been actively engaged in during the GDC consultations. When there’s opportunities for inputting comments we do and actively engage on it. And actually from national to regional level, the way we participate is we have a fellowship for the Hong Kong youth, so people who have passions and commitments to follow up what have been written on. We have our own Hong Kong youth IGF statements and we move forward and we go to the regional APYL IGF, Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum, and we send some youth from Hong Kong there. And then we also take part in the synthesis document process and the town hall. So if you’re interested, please go to the APYLIGF.asia website to look into the documentation process that we’ve been into. I want to emphasize that documentation is very important because this is how we capture our learning and weight forward. And because having this kind of process that enables us to progress year by year, to see what have we done in the past few years, and so that what is the gap and how can we move forward. So, I think that’s something that I would love to share, but yeah, thank you very much for having me. Thank you very much.

Anja Gengo: And I invite you to share also your records through the authorized mailing list.

Bertrand de La Chapelle: Hello, everyone. My name is Bertrand Lachapelle, I’m the executive director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network. I just want to take the opportunity to say the following. We have here the occasion to have the representatives of a lot of national and regional IGFs. Next year, there’s the whole WSIS plus 20 process, there was the GDC. In the WSIS plus 20 process, there will be a lot of issues, but there is one that is clearly of interest for everybody, which is the future of the IGF. I do not expect, with all due respect to the governments, that the discussions in the UN, even the agenda of the UN in general and the state of the world, will be focused extensively on what the future of the IGF is going to be. It will be 20 years since the first IGF, and I probably here bring back the bag from the 2006 IGF, which is a nice memory. There’s one thing that we could all contribute as national and regional IGFs, which is to have a discussion in all of them on the one question, which is, what is going to be the next mandate for the IGF? What are the next 20 years? Is the mandate of Tunis sufficient? Are the institutions of WSIS and what we’ve built since then sufficient, or do we need a constitutional moment for the IGF, a moment where we establish a charter for the IGF with the appropriate funding for the Secretariat and all the resources that it needs? If all the national and regional IGFs could dedicate one session at one moment, either the global IGF in Norway or afterwards to feed into the UN discussion, that would be amazing if we could bring that together. I believe, to finish, that we will not set the result by the end of 2025. What we need, I suppose, is the equivalent of what was the Working Group on Internet Governance in 2004, i.e. something that after the UN General Assembly in 2025 is established to draft the Charter of the IGF for the next 20 years. And so the only thing that we need is one paragraph in the United Nations Resolution at the end of 2025 that says, we ask the Secretary General or whoever else to establish a Working Group to design…

Anja Gengo: Thank you for watching!

Agreement Points

Importance of multi-stakeholder engagement

speakers

Chad Youth IGF

Italian Youth IGF

Gambia IGF

Liberia IGF

arguments

Chad Youth IGF promotes multi-stakeholder collaboration

Italian Youth IGF faces challenges with government-nominated committee

Gambia IGF gained credibility with government involvement

Liberia IGF gained government credibility over time

summary

Multiple NRIs emphasized the importance of engaging various stakeholders, particularly government entities, in the IGF process to enhance credibility and impact.

Focus on youth engagement

speakers

Mary Uduma

Benin Youth IGF

Hong Kong Youth IGF

arguments

Nigerian IGF engages youth and parliamentarians

Benin Youth IGF supports other African youth NRIs

Hong Kong Youth IGF restarted after hiatus

summary

Several NRIs highlighted their efforts to engage youth in internet governance discussions and support youth-focused initiatives.

Engagement with GDC and WSIS+20

speakers

Caribbean IGF

North African IGF

Jennifer Chung

Canada NRI

Tanzania IGF

arguments

Caribbean IGF used network to disseminate GDC information

North African IGF focused on GDC in recent meeting

APR IGF held town halls on GDC and WSIS+20

Canadian IGF focused on WSIS+20 and GDC

Tanzania organizing national WSIS+20 workshop

summary

Many NRIs are actively engaging with the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and WSIS+20 processes, organizing discussions and disseminating information at national and regional levels.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of producing concrete outputs from IGF meetings, such as consensus messages or synthesis documents, to increase the impact of discussions.

speakers

Jacques Beglinger

Jennifer Chung

arguments

Swiss IGF issues consensus messages after each meeting

APR IGF creates synthesis document with stakeholder calls to action

Both NRIs are addressing critical internet governance challenges in their respective countries, particularly focusing on issues related to internet shutdowns and online freedoms.

speakers

Myanmar IGF

Iraq IGF

arguments

Myanmar IGF provides platform to discuss internet issues despite challenges

Iraq IGF addressing internet shutdown and privacy issues

Unexpected Consensus

Need for evaluation and measurement of IGF outcomes

speakers

Benin IGF

West Africa IGF

arguments

Benin IGF seeks to evaluate recommendations made each year

West Africa IGF asks about measuring outcomes

explanation

Despite coming from different regions, both IGFs raised the important question of how to measure and evaluate the outcomes of IGF discussions, highlighting a shared concern for demonstrating impact.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement among NRIs include the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement, focus on youth participation, active involvement in GDC and WSIS+20 processes, and the need for concrete outputs from IGF meetings.

Consensus level

There is a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on these key issues. This consensus suggests a shared understanding of the challenges and priorities facing NRIs, which could lead to more coordinated efforts in addressing internet governance issues at national, regional, and global levels. However, the diversity of contexts and specific challenges faced by different NRIs indicates that implementation strategies may vary significantly across regions.

Different Viewpoints

Unexpected Differences

Evaluation of IGF outcomes

speakers

Benin IGF

West Africa IGF

arguments

Benin IGF seeks to evaluate recommendations made each year

West Africa IGF asks about measuring outcomes

explanation

While most IGFs focused on their activities and engagement, Benin and West Africa IGFs unexpectedly raised questions about evaluating the impact and outcomes of IGF discussions, highlighting a potential gap in the overall IGF process.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around approaches to government engagement, methods of raising awareness, and the focus on evaluating IGF outcomes.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among speakers is relatively low. Most differences stem from varying local contexts and stages of development rather than fundamental disagreements on principles. This suggests that while NRIs face diverse challenges, they generally align on the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement and the role of IGFs in addressing internet governance issues.

Partial Agreements

All three IGFs agree on the importance of raising awareness about internet governance issues, but they differ in their specific approaches and focus areas based on their local contexts.

speakers

Czech IGF

Maldives IGF

Iraq IGF

arguments

Czech IGF struggles with awareness but collaborates regionally

Maldives IGF focuses on inclusivity and awareness

Iraq IGF addressing internet shutdown and privacy issues

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of producing concrete outputs from IGF meetings, such as consensus messages or synthesis documents, to increase the impact of discussions.

speakers

Jacques Beglinger

Jennifer Chung

arguments

Swiss IGF issues consensus messages after each meeting

APR IGF creates synthesis document with stakeholder calls to action

Both NRIs are addressing critical internet governance challenges in their respective countries, particularly focusing on issues related to internet shutdowns and online freedoms.

speakers

Myanmar IGF

Iraq IGF

arguments

Myanmar IGF provides platform to discuss internet issues despite challenges

Iraq IGF addressing internet shutdown and privacy issues

Key Takeaways

Resolutions and Action Items

Unresolved Issues

Suggested Compromises

I think it’s high time we go back to the community, we go back to the multi-stakeholder approach, and go back to the people who have been involved in the IGF since the establishment of the national IGFs, and assess and evaluate what are the impacts that have been made.

speaker

Mariam Job

reason

This comment highlights the importance of evaluating the real-world impact of IGF initiatives, rather than just continuing to hold discussions without assessing outcomes.

impact

It shifted the conversation towards considering concrete ways to measure the effectiveness of IGF recommendations and actions. Several subsequent speakers picked up on this theme of assessment and accountability.

How about focusing on these workshop efforts. In terms of the GDC, the WSIS. Working with the media to help amplify the agenda. In terms of making the Internet more accessible for many people.

speaker

Levi Sianseke

reason

This comment introduced a novel idea of leveraging media partnerships to advance IGF goals, recognizing the media’s power to shape public opinion and policy.

impact

It broadened the discussion to consider new strategies for outreach and influence beyond the usual IGF community. It highlighted the importance of public communication in achieving IGF objectives.

There’s one thing that we could all contribute as national and regional IGFs, which is to have a discussion in all of them on the one question, which is, what is going to be the next mandate for the IGF? What are the next 20 years?

speaker

Bertrand de La Chapelle

reason

This comment refocused the discussion on the long-term future of the IGF itself, proposing a coordinated effort across all NRIs to shape the IGF’s next mandate.

impact

It elevated the conversation from operational concerns to strategic planning for the IGF’s future. It proposed a concrete action item for all NRIs to contribute to this process.

We rely on the media so much for election updates, campaigns and so on and so forth. Which for me the media then becomes critical in being a kingmaker. How about focusing on these workshop efforts. In terms of the GDC, the WSIS. Working with the media to help amplify the agenda.

speaker

Levi Sianseke

reason

This comment introduced a novel perspective on leveraging media partnerships to advance IGF goals, recognizing the media’s power to shape public opinion and policy.

impact

It broadened the discussion to consider new strategies for outreach and influence beyond the usual IGF community. It highlighted the importance of public communication in achieving IGF objectives.

I want to emphasize that documentation is very important because this is how we capture our learning and weight forward. And because having this kind of process that enables us to progress year by year, to see what have we done in the past few years, and so that what is the gap and how can we move forward.

speaker

Jasmine Eman

reason

This comment emphasized the critical role of documentation in tracking progress and identifying gaps in IGF initiatives over time.

impact

It reinforced the earlier points about assessment and accountability, while also providing a practical suggestion for how to implement such evaluations through thorough documentation.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by shifting focus from general updates on NRI activities to more strategic considerations about the future of IGF. They introduced themes of impact assessment, media engagement, long-term planning, and documentation that were picked up by subsequent speakers. The discussion evolved from reporting on past activities to proposing concrete actions for improving IGF’s effectiveness and relevance in the coming years. There was a noticeable shift towards more action-oriented and forward-looking dialogue as a result of these interventions.

How can we evaluate the recommendations made each year at IGF events?

speaker

Kossi from Benin

explanation

This is important to assess the impact and effectiveness of IGF discussions and outputs.

How can NRIs create concrete written input for the WSIS+20 process?

speaker

Jennifer Chung from APR IGF

explanation

This would allow the NRI network to have a more formal and substantial contribution to the WSIS+20 review.

How can we create an ‘IGF 101’ resource for parliamentarians?

speaker

Aisha from Maldives IGF

explanation

This would help educate new legislators about internet governance and increase their engagement with IGF processes.

How can we better leverage media to amplify IGF, GDC, and WSIS agendas?

speaker

Levi Sianseke from Zambia Youth IGF

explanation

Using media more effectively could help increase public awareness and influence on internet governance issues.

How are we measuring outcomes from the various NRI discussions?

speaker

Osei Keja from West Africa IGF

explanation

This is crucial for assessing the impact and effectiveness of NRI activities.

What should be the next mandate for the IGF for the coming 20 years?

speaker

Bertrand de La Chapelle from Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network

explanation

This is critical for shaping the future of the IGF and ensuring it remains relevant and effective.

Summary

This discussion focused on explaining the fundamental structure and functioning of the Internet, particularly its addressing systems. The speakers described the Internet as a network of networks, comprising around 70,000 independently operated networks that provide global connectivity. They emphasized that this system relies on open standards and interoperability.

The discussion covered two key components of Internet addressing: IP addresses and domain names. IP addresses, managed by Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), are unique identifiers assigned to devices on the network. The speakers explained how RIRs allocate IP addresses hierarchically and highlighted their community-driven, bottom-up policy development process.

Domain names, coordinated by ICANN, were described as human-readable alternatives to IP addresses. The speakers detailed the Domain Name System (DNS) structure and resolution process, emphasizing its globally distributed nature. They stressed that no single entity controls or maintains the entire DNS infrastructure.

The discussion also touched on the challenges of maintaining security and accountability in this decentralized system. Speakers addressed issues such as tracing malicious activities and balancing privacy concerns with the need for transparency.

Throughout the presentation, the speakers emphasized the importance of multi-stakeholder governance in Internet infrastructure. They highlighted how technical communities, academia, civil society, governments, and the private sector all play roles in shaping Internet policies and standards.

In conclusion, the discussion provided a comprehensive overview of Internet addressing systems, their governance structures, and the challenges faced in maintaining a secure and accessible global network.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The Internet is a network of networks (around 70,000) that provides global connectivity

– IP addresses and domain names are critical resources for the Internet to function

– Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) manage the allocation of IP addresses in different regions

– The Domain Name System (DNS) translates domain names to IP addresses

– Internet governance involves multiple stakeholders and bottom-up policy development

Overall purpose:

The goal of this discussion was to provide an overview of how the Internet functions at a technical level, explaining the roles of IP addresses, domain names, and the organizations that manage these critical resources. The speakers aimed to demystify Internet infrastructure and governance for the audience.

Tone:

The tone was primarily educational and informative. The speakers tried to explain complex technical concepts in an accessible way, often using analogies and visual aids. There was a collaborative atmosphere, with speakers building on each other’s points. Towards the end, the tone shifted slightly to address more challenging issues around accountability and security on the Internet.

Speakers

– Theresa Swinehart: Moderator

– Olaf Christoph: Expert on Internet infrastructure and protocols

– Ulka Athale: Works at RIPE NCC, one of the five regional Internet registries

– Fahd Batayneh: Works for ICANN, covers the Middle East

Additional speakers:

– AUDIENCE: Attendees asking questions

Internet Infrastructure and Governance: A Comprehensive Overview

This discussion provided an in-depth exploration of the fundamental structure and functioning of the Internet, with a particular focus on its addressing systems and governance mechanisms. The speakers, representing various organizations involved in Internet management, offered complementary perspectives on the complex ecosystem that enables global connectivity.

Structure and Functioning of the Internet

The discussion began with Olaf Christoph’s foundational explanation of the Internet as a “network of networks”. He emphasized that the Internet comprises approximately 70,000 independently operated networks that collectively provide global connectivity. This decentralized structure relies on open standards and interoperability to function effectively, with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) playing a crucial role in developing these standards.

Two key components of Internet addressing were examined in detail: IP addresses and domain names. Ulka Athale, representing RIPE NCC (one of the five Regional Internet Registries), explained the critical role of IP addresses as unique identifiers assigned to devices on the network. She described how RIRs manage the allocation of IP addresses to large organizations like ISPs through a hierarchical system, emphasizing the community-driven, bottom-up policy development process that governs this allocation.

The discussion also covered technical aspects of IP addressing, including the use of private addresses and Network Address Translation (NAT) for IPv4. These techniques have helped extend the lifespan of IPv4 addresses despite the limited address space.

Fahd Batayneh, from ICANN, elaborated on domain names, describing them as human-readable alternatives to IP addresses. He detailed the structure and resolution process of the Domain Name System (DNS), highlighting its globally distributed nature. Using the example of www.example.com, Batayneh explained the step-by-step process of DNS resolution, from the root servers to the authoritative name servers for the specific domain.

Christoph reinforced this point, stressing that “There is not one domain name resolver. There is not one authoritative server. There is not one database that maintains all the information of the DNS. That is globally distributed.”

Governance of Internet Resources

A significant portion of the discussion focused on the governance structures that maintain the Internet’s critical resources. Athale explained that RIRs operate as not-for-profit organizations, funded by membership fees for services rather than selling IP addresses directly. This model underscores the service-oriented nature of Internet resource management.

Batayneh described ICANN’s role in coordinating domain names through a multi-stakeholder model. This approach involves various stakeholders, including technical communities, academia, civil society, governments, and the private sector, in shaping Internet policies and standards.

All speakers agreed on the importance of coordination to maintain interoperability and uniqueness in the Internet ecosystem. They emphasized that the Internet’s governance model is characterized by community-driven, bottom-up processes that ensure diverse stakeholder input.

Challenges in Internet Management

The discussion also addressed several challenges inherent in managing a globally distributed system. Theresa Swinehart, the moderator, raised the issue of balancing decentralization and security in domain registrations. This led to a broader conversation about accountability and traceability in the Internet ecosystem.

An audience member from the Bangladesh cyber team posed a question about tracing domain names using dynamic or shared IPs, particularly in cases of cyberbullying. This highlighted the complexities of maintaining security and addressing abuse in a system designed for openness and accessibility.

The speakers discussed various tools and methods for tracing domain names and addressing cyberbullying, including the use of WHOIS databases and cooperation with law enforcement agencies. However, they also noted the impact of GDPR on WHOIS data availability, which has made some investigative processes more challenging.

Christoph acknowledged the difficulty of establishing accountability on the Internet, describing it as “one of the more wicked issues”. He noted the challenge of identifying responsible parties and holding them accountable across different jurisdictions with varying privacy laws.

Future Considerations

The discussion highlighted several unresolved issues that warrant further consideration:

1. Effectively tracing and addressing cyberbullying through IP/domain information, especially with dynamic or shared IPs.

2. Balancing the decentralization of domain registrations with robust security measures to prevent abuses such as domain squatting.

3. Improving accountability and transparency in a globally distributed system with varying privacy laws across jurisdictions.

4. Adapting to the challenges posed by GDPR and similar regulations on data availability and investigative processes.

These challenges underscore the ongoing need for collaboration and innovation in Internet governance to ensure a secure, accessible, and accountable global network.

In conclusion, this discussion provided a comprehensive overview of Internet addressing systems, their governance structures, and the technical intricacies of IP addressing and DNS resolution. It highlighted the complex interplay between technical infrastructure, policy development, and global cooperation that underpins the modern Internet, while emphasizing the persistent challenges in maintaining a secure and accessible global network.

Theresa Swinehart: … … … … … … … … … Okay. Can everybody hear me okay? … … Okay. Can everybody hear me okay? No? Yes? … No? Maybe? … … … … … … … … … … … So, let’s give this a try. Is that working? Yes? Excellent. Very good. Okay. I can’t hear myself though. … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Olaf Christoph: … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … network of networks that gives you a perceived notion of global interconnectivity. So you could see this as my phone connects to, when I connect to that big cloud, I have all the services that live in that cloud. But how does that cloud work? How does that work? In fact, when I connect to a network, to the Internet, I connect to this room. You connect to a Wi-Fi network, you have to fill in your telephone number, and there you are. Suddenly, well, not completely. You are connected to the network that is maintained here at the ITF. And when you connect to the network, you get a unique address that works, that is unique on the whole of the Internet, so that you can communicate to any other thing that is connected to the Internet. And you will talk about how those addresses are connected. You can’t hear me? Okay, good. However, the network that we have here has handed you an IP address and will know how to connect to other networks that are near to it. And the networks that are near to it will connect to other networks. And so we have 70,000 networks that independently operate to give us global connectivity. And the magic of all of that is open standards. The magic that makes that work are open standards and interoperability. Those standards and interoperability are created by a number of standards or organizations, of which one is the ITF. Ah, beautiful. I can take a sketch and start sketching. So, normally we would conceive the Internet as one big cloud to which I, as a user, with a thing. It is the headsets. Okay. Day zero, people, day zero. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. So, normally you would conceive as connecting to the Internet through, you know, it’s a big cloud to which other people are connected. For instance, WhatsApp or Facebook. But internally, there is a number of networks, and there are 70,000 of them, that all are interconnected and give you the perception of a global connectivity. Now, all these networks make their own business choices. The network here has chosen to connect you through Wi-Fi and has a captive portal. But they connect probably to a network that provides a connectivity to the rest of the Internet, provides what we call as transit. They might be connecting to, for instance, a network that provides transatlantic fibers. So, all these networks make their own decisions about how to connect. And what they ship are very tiny envelopes of information called datagrams or packets. Basically, when you connect to the Internet and you use a service, your device, at the end, splits up whatever you use in tiny little datagrams or packets. And those are shipped over the Internet. Just like you would have a book, you tear up the pages, you put them in envelopes, and hand them over to the postal system. And the Saudi postal system would hand it over to the next postal system that transfers it over the ocean, that gives it to the postal office in, say, the U.S., and there the book gets delivered page by page. The standards by which that is done are globally agreed upon. How you tear up the book and put it in envelopes, that’s a global standard. And all these networks make their own business decisions, as I already said. Together, they provide us the image of global connectivity. And there are many users of that global network. Facebook is an application that uses that global network. WhatsApp is an application that uses the global network. The World Wide Web itself is an application that uses that network. There are a few functions that you need in order to interoperate here, and that’s what my colleagues will talk about. You need every device that is connected to this Internet to have a unique address. Just as in the postal system, if you want to deliver an envelope to somebody, a piece of mail to somebody, you need to have a unique address of that person. The Internet works the same. There are organizations that provide you unique addresses, and they will be talked about. But we don’t think in addresses, we think in names. So we also need a sort of a name system, a naming system, that provides us that connectivity. And I think you will talk about the naming system. So this gives you, I hope, in sufficient time, a little bit of context. The Internet is built out of a network of networks that provides you global connectivity, in addition to a number of global services that you need to hook that up. And once you’ve got that running, you can provide the things that we interact as humans with. Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, Amazon, your local government website, all those types of things. And with that, I’m going to hand back the mic.

Theresa Swinehart: Thank you. Thank you so much. And also, I’m so glad that the visual worked. And everybody, thank you for your patience as we’re doing the run through this. I’m now going to turn it over to Ulke, who’s going to talk about the processes connecting to this network of the Internet and the role of the Internet protocol addresses and other resources. So with that, we’ll turn it over to Ulke.

Ulka Athale: Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Ulke Ahte, and I work at the RIPE NCC, one of the five regional Internet registries. I’m just waiting to get my slides up on the board, please. Well, I can start talking a little bit about what I’m going to explain in my presentation. I luckily have my slides here, but you’ll see them in a minute. Day zero, people, as we’re hearing. So as Olaf mentioned, the Internet is a foundational network of networks. And from the regional Internet registry or technical community perspective, the Internet is something that’s distinct from the World Wide Web. In our daily experience as users, as, you know, if you can’t get a message on WhatsApp, you say the Internet is down, but it could just be WhatsApp that’s not working or you can’t connect to your website. And again, it’s not the Internet that’s down, but your access to a part of it. So… Can you hear me? Great. Then it’s just my headset that’s dropping out. So as you can see in what will be my first slide, the Internet and the Web are two different things. And from the RIR perspective, the Web is one of many different applications that runs on this foundational network of networks, one of the 70,000. So let me explain. Now that we’re a bit clear on what we mean by Internet and we don’t mean the Web, because you’re going to keep hearing this with regional Internet registries, RIRs, Internet Number Resources, let me explain what it is we do as a regional Internet registry. If you’ve decided you want to be a part of these 70,000 network of networks and you decide that now you want to get yourself onto this big global thing called the Internet, how would you go about it? Your first port of call would be to contact your local regional Internet registry. And RIR manages the allocation, administration, and registration of Internet Number Resources in a particular part of the world. So which RIR you go to would depend on where in the world you’re based. It’s five regional Internet registries, one for each continent. So there’s ARIN if you were in North America, and parts of the Caribbean, LACNIC for Latin America, and the other part of the Caribbean, RIPE NCC, that’s us, for Europe, Middle East, and parts of Central Asia, AFRINIC, the African continent, and APNIC for South Asia and Asia Pacific. So how did the RR system come into being? So many of you might already know that in the 1980s, the Internet was essentially a project from the U.S. Department of Defense, and it was chiefly universities and physics departments from these universities who were collaborating on this thing called Internet Protocol Networking. The web hadn’t been invented yet, there were no PCs yet, people didn’t know where this was going. So it was just chiefly universities trying to figure out what this IP thing could be. The U.S. Department of Defense handed over the management of this to, well, one of the universities saying, well, it’s chiefly universities working on it, you guys look after this yourself, please stop bothering us about this. And so it was someone who in the RR world is very, very famous, a man called John Postel. And if anyone talks to you about John Postel, they will talk to you about John Postel’s notebook. And I would love to know if anyone in the room has actually seen this famous notebook. This notebook is famous because when John Postel was approached by universities and other groups asking for IP addresses, this new IP thing, he would write down, ah, lovely, we have slides. So here you see the map of the five RIRs, and that’s us, RIPE NCC, Saudi Arabia is also part of our service region. And here we are, John, with John Postel. So John, I don’t hear myself anymore, it could be my headset, but if you hear me, perfect. So John handed out IP addresses, and he would write down in his notebook who he gave the IP addresses to. This was in the 1980s, I would say. But then this IP networking thing just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and at some point, it was too much. So he stopped using just one notebook, and he formalized it in the form of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, IANA, which still exists today. And gradually, the RIR system came into being. RIPE NCC was the first RIR, which was set up in 1992, and then they spun off the management of domain names, away from the management of IP addresses, and Fahd will be talking about that. So what is it that RIRs actually do? We manage the distribution of Internet number resources, and by that, we mean IP addresses and autonomous system numbers. We maintain the registry of directory services, including WHOIS, the routing registries, and we provide reverse DNS, but that’s not all the RIRs do. We support Internet infrastructure through technical coordination, and this is super important, right? Think five continents, 70,000 networks, all of which need to keep talking to each other, otherwise the system starts to fall apart. We also provide some security features, like public key infrastructure, and above all, when we work, we work with the support of our local communities. Local means, well, a continent, in our terminology. So we have community-driven processes for policy development, and community management is a very important role, and also training and capacity building in the areas in which we work. Here we go. Let me give it a second. Could I have the next slide, please? Well, we have it up on this slide anyway. Is this going to work? Yeah. Okay. I’m just going to keep going and not hold us up. I was just going to give you a quick overview of an IPv4 and an IPv6 address. Great. We have the next slide. Could I have the next one as well, please? There we go. So when we talk about Internet number resources in the RIR world, we’re chiefly referring to IP addresses. There are two kinds, IPv4, IPv6, or an autonomous system number. So when Olaf was drawing his circles that are connecting to one another, that is usually referring to an autonomous system, which contains IP addresses or prefixes within it. So these are the Internet number resources that an RIR registers. So where would you get, how are these resources registered? So IP addresses are registered hierarchically. And by that, we mean that IANA manages all the IPv4 space and a part of the IPv6 space and IANA hands over a block of IPv4 or IPv6 addresses to a regional Internet registry. And on my slide, you see RIPE NCC being used as an example. RIPE NCC then further allocates these IP addresses to what we, in our terminology, call a local Internet registry. But that would be any company to run its own independent Internet network. A telecom provider, an Internet service provider, a media provider, a content network. So these are our members. And then your Internet service provider finally allocates your IP address to you as the end user. So we don’t do that directly. We give the addresses to an Internet service provider, also governments, also universities. I think Fahd will be going into this a bit more and Olaf mentioned this. I just wanted to refer to this that IP addresses and domain names interact with one another but they’re not the same thing. So here you just see a screenshot of the RIPE NCC website. So what you see, www.ripe.net, that’s the website. And if you go to our website and just click on the search button, you will see your IP address. The unique address that your device is connecting to our website with. And in my case, you can see that it was an IPv6 address that I connected to the website with when I made this screenshot. But this is actually what I would like to focus on a little bit in this talk. That all the RIRs are not-for-profit membership-based organizations. We are all independent bodies. That is, we are not governmental entities. We are all membership-based organizations. So the way the RIRs work is anyone that wants to run an independent internet network, that wants to get resources from us, signs up, becomes a member, signs a contract with us, and then we give them the IP addresses. We are all not-for-profits. So we are funded by our membership fees. And the fees are for services, so you’re not buying IP addresses or ASMs from us. You are getting services from us and you get the right to use the IP addresses. And finally, we are community-driven. Our governing boards are elected by our members. And as organizations, we are all committed to being open and transparent. And each RIR operates in accordance with three factors. The community policies. So each RIR’s communities, that is the technical stakeholders involved, our members, the people running these networks, the actual internet service providers, the people using the IP address, they set the policies, we implement the policies. And this is something very important. We are all established in whichever jurisdiction we’re established in, the national legal framework applies to the RIR. And finally, we fulfill a specific function in the global internet governance system. There are different bodies, like the IETF that Olaf referenced, the ICANN, which manages domain names, and then the RIRs that manage IP addresses. And our approach to governance is multi-stakeholder. The RIRs have been doing this right from their inception, so starting from 1992, so multi-stakeholderism is not new. It is written into the definition of how the RIRs operate. And our stakeholders are the technical community, academia, academia were actually the founders of the internet in a sense, civil society and internet users, this is who we do this for, governments and national organizations, keep in mind governments also run their own networks, governments are also members of the RIRs, and the private sector, of course. Each RIR has its own version of this policy development process, but there are some common elements. Anyone can participate in developing policies at RIRs, including you. The policies are set in a bottom-up manner, the communities propose and approve the policies, and finally, all our decisions and policies are documented and published. Discussions on policies take place on public mailing lists. So if there is a particular topic that’s of interest to you, you can go to our RIR websites and see what’s under discussion. And policies are developed through a consensus-based process. And I’m just going to wrap up, I know we’re running behind here. So if you want to participate, I’ve given a couple of examples from RIPE NCC, you’re thinking, okay, this looks interesting, how would I even get started? I might not have a technical background. We have an online academy, this is free, you just need to make an account. We publish a lot of research and articles on our website, on labs.ripe.net. And if you have any questions, we have a booth, we’ll be there all week, and you can find your local internet registry. Thank you.

Olaf Christoph: I have a small two-finger. The notebooks of John Postel. John Postel was a modern guy. He used to maintain his stuff in computer files. So there are no physical notebooks. I think it’s metaphorical.

Ulka Athale: I thought that was an actual notebook. I’ve heard so much about John Postel’s notebooks. I’ve been misinformed.

Theresa Swinehart: Yes, I’ve had the same visual of just some books that were there, so absolutely. Okay. Thank you so much. You’ve really highlighted an important aspect also to this conversation, that the inclusive nature, which we call multi-stakeholder, is inherent to the IETF. It’s inherent to the RIR community and the governance around that. And I think that’s an important aspect on how one operationalizes things in a reality and make it function. With that, I’m going to turn it over to my colleague, Bhad, to talk about the domain name system, the other element of this addressing system. And Bhad, over to you.

Fahd Batayneh: Thank you, Theresa. And good afternoon, everyone. I hope I’m audible. So my name is Fahad Bataine. I am from the region. I’m from Jordan. I work for ICANN. I cover the Middle East. I’ll be presenting today about the domain name system. But just maybe I need my slides.

Olaf Christoph: In the meantime, you might have noticed the word governance and so on and so forth. But the reason why we do this is to maintain interoperability. We need coordination on IP addresses so that they are unique. And that coordination is done in a bottom-up fashion by the stakeholders that coordinate to make this network run. The standards development is done bottom-up by the stakeholders who need this to get stuff working. And I think that what Bhad will say is that we need coordination to make sure that those nest names that he will be talking about are unique. Sorry for filling up the time with some additional.

Fahd Batayneh: Thank you, Olaf. So my slides are up now. So ICANN stands for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Can you hear me? We play a coordination role. So we don’t regulate. We don’t run the Internet. Of course, there is no one organization that runs the Internet. We play a coordination role. We coordinate with many active players in the domain name industry, whether technical or non-technical. Sorry, so my presentation involves a lot of visuals, really. Can you hear me? Okay. It’s working. Thank you. So ICANN plays a coordination role. We are into the coordination of mostly domain names. Of course, my colleague Olga spoke about coordination in the numbering world. Olof spoke about protocol development at the IETF and others. So there are technical organizations, and ICANN is considered one of the technical organizations that are into the Internet governance ecosystem. But then also the Internet is not just technical. There are many other non-technical players who are responsible for different elements of the Internet. ICANN has a very unique model of governance that consists of three key entities or components. So at the heart of the ICANN ecosystem is the ICANN community. The ICANN community is a group of volunteers from across the world, thousands of volunteers, who are really keen and eager to drive policy development of the Internet Unique Identifier Systems forward. We also have the ICANN board of directors, and inside this room we have a number of esteemed board members whom you can talk to. And then, of course, there is ICANN the organization. We are a little bit over 400 staff members working on different elements of ICANN’s work. Our multi-stakeholder model is bottom-up in a sense that when policies are developed, it’s really the community who puts these policies. And once they are final and approved, they are executed and implemented. It’s very different to the top-down approach where a policy is developed and then it’s enforced on its citizens. Now, what’s the role of domain names? Why do we use domain names? So domain names really… So an IP address is always behind a domain name. And, of course, if I ask anybody in the room, do you know what’s the IP address of your website? I’m sure very few of us, if maybe none of us, knows what’s the IP address of any website, whether google.com or intgovforum.org or whatever. And that’s why we use domain names. So domain names are easier for us to remember. We can remember names. It’s even tougher for us to remember numbers. And the good thing is that behind one name, you can have several IP addresses, whether IPv4 or IPv6, and I’m not going to get into those details. This is how a fully qualified domain name looks like. So we start at the top, which is the dot. So this is called the root server system. This is where all DNS translation starts. And I’ll be explaining in a while really quickly, using cartoons, how the domain name system actually functions. Now, below the dot is a top-level domain, com, net, sa, you name it. Of course, there are thousands of top-level domains, whether generic or country codes. And under a top-level domain that we select, we can register a domain name under it, according to the policy of that top-level domain. And of course, once we have the domain name, we can register as many subdomains as we wish. Of course, there has been an expansion to the top-level domain namespace. So today you can find top-level domains of more than three characters. You can find top-level domains in local languages. So here in Saudi Arabia, they have dot as Saudi and Arabic. Of course, you can find top-level domains in Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese, you name it. And now I’m really getting a little bit technical, but I’ll try to keep it extremely easy to understand. So these are the different components of the domain name system. And maybe I’ll take a pause here and inform everybody in the room that there is a difference between a domain name and the domain name system. So the domain name system is really the technical part of things, whereas we as human beings, we register a domain name. So google.com or maybe igf2024.sa. So these are domain names. Now, the different components of the domain name system include authoritative name servers. And they have the authority to provide answers. We have the recursive resolvers. And I’ll explain in a while what recursive resolvers are all about. We have caching resolvers. So like in any other system or any other IT system, the DNS also has this caching facility. So rather than going through an entire process, you might find an answer to a domain name within the cache. And then we have the stub resolver or the client resolver. And this is actually the starting point of any domain name inquiry. So I’ll show a really quick demonstration in a very easy manner on really how a domain name resolution starts. So if you look at the bottom left, we have a stub resolver. So every device has a stub resolver. Your laptop has a stub resolver. Your phone has a stub resolver. You fire up a web browser and you type in a URL, example.com, www.example.com. Now, what happens is that the stub resolver would send this query to the nearest recursive resolver. So probably your ISP has a recursive resolver in-house, or maybe they have it through one of the other providers. But your stub resolver would send your query to the nearest recursive resolver, which is maybe for your ISP. And it asks the question, what’s the IP address of www.example.com? Now, the stub resolver would say, well, I don’t know, and I don’t have it in my cache. So let me go and ask the root server system. And so it goes and says to the root server system, what’s the IP address of www.example.com? The answer comes back where it says, I don’t know. But here is the name server of the .com server. So the recursive resolver sends the same question to the .com server, which is named here c.gtldservers.net. And it says, what’s the IP address of www.example.com? Now, the .com server says, I don’t know. But here is the name server of example.com. And by the way, there is a difference in this example between example.com and www.example.com, just to be clear here. Now, the query goes again. So the recursive resolver sends the same question to the example.com server, to the name server. And it says, what’s the IP address of www.example.com? And actually, ns1.example.com has the answer. So it sends back the IP address to the recursive resolver. And the recursive resolver sends it back to the stub resolver. And we actually have the IP address of www.example.com. So as you can see, the recursive resolver is at the center of this entire domain name query thing. Now, of course, if you have a cache, the stub resolver would send the question to the recursive resolver. The recursive resolver would find it inside the cache. And then the cache just sends back the answer. So that was really quickly how the DNS functions from a governance. standpoint and from a technical standpoint. Thank you. Back to you, Christophe.

Olaf Christoph: If I may, what is important in this context is that you saw three servers on the screen, but in reality, the domain name system has millions of servers providing this service of translating names into numbers. That is not the thing that is maintained in one place. No, it is globally distributed. One of the things about the internet, that 70,000 networks and the services that make the internet connect, they are global and distributed. I think that is an important takeaway. There is not one domain name resolver. There is not one authoritative server. There is not one database that maintains all the information of the DNS. That is globally distributed. I think that is an important takeaway. Globally distributed and locally maintained.

Theresa Swinehart: issue is not whether the system is working, the addressing system. It is actually about whether you have access to that system itself where the challenges are. I think it is a great observation. I am cognizant of time. We have about another 10 minutes. I realize that we had some glitches to start with. But first, I think maybe I turn it over to the floor or to the virtual participants to see if we have any questions. Otherwise, I have some questions for the panelists. Any questions?

AUDIENCE: I would like to ask one question about the IPs. You say each one should be a unique IP address. How is it managed when we are using our private network? How does the translation be made?

Olaf Christoph: Yes. The easy answer is every computer has one address and it is unique. But there are nuances to that. What we usually see is that, for instance, in your house, when you have a house network, you are using so-called private addresses, which are unique within your house, but not unique within the system. Your neighbor might be using the same addresses. Those addresses are, within your router, translated to the IP address of your router. And your IP address of the router in your house, the thing that is on your access network, that does the translation to a unique global address. That is a hack. That is a hack to make IPv4 work with the amount of devices that we have on earth. With IPv6, that is strictly not necessary. With IPv6, the story is that you all have unique addresses, no matter whether you are in a house or outside a house. It is basically all connected. There are many nuances to that, but on the first level, that is the case.

Ulka Athale: Okay. Did you want to add anything to that? No. Thank you, Olaf. I think that is a pretty clear explanation. I was going to say that most Internet service providers give their customers private addresses, as Olaf mentioned, but with your Internet service provider, they connect you to the big network of networks. That is when the unique address is used. Thank you.

Theresa Swinehart: Any other questions? I understand there’s none in the remote participants, but any other questions from the floor at all? Yes, sir.

AUDIENCE: We are from cyber team from Bangladesh. We have a phone number, which is 13 to 19 of teenagers, and it’s a handshake domain. We are now working for cyber bullying to protect from Bangladesh, and now we are working for global. I have a question, which is actually how can we protect from cyber bullying? I have a question, which is actually how can we trace in the domain, in case if they are using a dynamic IP or something, how can we solve the issues where we are tracing any kind of victims or something? Somehow, we are seeing that IP, V6, that are not actually properly traced, if they are sharing the IP.

Olaf Christoph: I think that’s a question for the person maintaining IP address, who is systems.

Fahd Batayneh: Thanks for your question. That’s a very important question, and actually within ICANN, there is a lot of work within the ICANN community and the contracted parties to combat and really mitigate and even reduce DNS abuse and misuse, which we call DNS security. Now, to your specific questions, there are several tools out there that can actually help get more information on any domain name. There is, for example, the Whois. The Whois can give you some data about the domain name itself. Of course, before GDPR, you could get much more data. Now, after GDPR, it’s much more limited, but then there is still a mechanism where you can actually ask the registrar for that information, and it’s a longer discussion, really. Now, the other part about knowing about the technical aspects of a domain name, you can always look at the zone file of a domain name. So if you do a simple NS lookup, it gives you more information about the domain name. So there are many times in the time to live and start of authority and when was the last time a domain name was updated and so on and so forth. Sometimes by analyzing that data, you can get some sense of what the domain name is. Now, there are also reputation block lists that actually solicit bad domain names, of course, in addition to many other things. So those are good places also where you can maybe obtain some information about a domain name. Talking to your local law enforcement agency can help you. Of course, when it comes to the domain name aspect, you can always talk to ICANN, and we can maybe get you in touch with one of our experts who can maybe help you or even point you on what you can do, actually. Yeah, that’s a question that we do get, particularly when there is, when people want to find who the holder of a particular IP address is. As I mentioned in my presentation, as the registry, we maintain a database of all the IP addresses that we allocate. But in the diagram that I showed, that we allocate IP addresses usually to big organizations like an internet service provider. So when there is a case of abuse within the RIPE database or the registry, we have a contact called an abuse contact. So every network operator that has IP addresses from us is supposed to maintain an up-to-date email address on which you can contact them when there is abuse originating from a particular IP address. In our databases, our visibility stops at the organization that we give the IP addresses to. So if you’re on a particular Wi-Fi network, a big company, imagine a big telecom company and that’s who your internet service provider is. When you query the database, when you query the IP address in our database, you will see that RIPE NCC, or if you’re in Bangladesh it’s more likely to be APNIC, gave those IP addresses to X company. And you will be able to see the abuse contact information of that company. And that is who you would need to get in touch with. Because if you contact one of the RIRs, we’ll say, we know these IP addresses are being held by this telecom company or that internet service provider, but we don’t know who every single customer is. That would be pretty much every person on earth whose records we need to maintain. So that’s not what we have visibility in this.

Olaf Christoph: I feel your pain. You are operating, getting accountability and transparency in a globally distributed world where there are different laws pertaining to privacy, where there are requirements or even approaches to responding to requests of organizations that you don’t know. And I think it’s fair to say that this is one of the more wicked issues in the internet. How do you find who is responsible for something in the internet and people accountable?

Theresa Swinehart: Thank you. We have one question from a virtual remote participant, which I’ll read out. In the context of maintaining a secure and accessible internet, what are the current challenges ICANN faces in balancing the decentralization of domain registrations with the need for robust security measures, particularly in addressing abuse such as domain squatting? Thank you. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Internet is a globally distributed network of networks

speakers

Olaf Christoph

Ulka Athale

Fahd Batayneh

arguments

Internet is a network of networks providing global connectivity

Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) manage allocation of IP addresses

Domain Name System translates domain names to IP addresses

summary

All speakers agree that the Internet is a complex, globally distributed system composed of interconnected networks, managed by various organizations like RIRs and ICANN.

Internet governance involves multi-stakeholder, bottom-up processes

speakers

Ulka Athale

Fahd Batayneh

arguments

RIRs use community-driven, bottom-up policy development processes

ICANN coordinates domain names through multi-stakeholder model

summary

Both speakers emphasize the importance of community-driven, bottom-up processes in Internet governance, whether for IP address allocation or domain name management.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlight the importance of coordination among stakeholders to maintain the Internet’s functionality, emphasizing bottom-up processes.

speakers

Olaf Christoph

Ulka Athale

arguments

Coordination is needed to maintain interoperability and uniqueness

RIRs use community-driven, bottom-up policy development processes

Unexpected Consensus

Challenges in maintaining accountability in a globally distributed system

speakers

Olaf Christoph

Ulka Athale

Fahd Batayneh

arguments

Maintaining accountability in a globally distributed system

Tracing and addressing cyberbullying through IP/domain information

Balancing decentralization and security in domain registrations

explanation

All speakers, despite their different areas of expertise, acknowledge the complexities and challenges in maintaining accountability and security in the globally distributed Internet system.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers generally agree on the distributed nature of the Internet, the importance of multi-stakeholder governance, and the challenges in maintaining security and accountability in such a system.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on the fundamental structure and governance of the Internet, with shared recognition of common challenges. This implies a unified understanding of the Internet’s core principles among technical experts, which could facilitate collaborative problem-solving in addressing global Internet issues.

Different Viewpoints

No significant disagreements identified

speakers

arguments

summary

The speakers largely presented complementary information about different aspects of Internet infrastructure and governance without notable disagreements.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

No significant areas of disagreement were identified among the speakers.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers was minimal to non-existent. The speakers presented complementary information about different aspects of Internet infrastructure and governance, focusing on their respective areas of expertise. This lack of disagreement suggests a cohesive understanding of the Internet’s technical foundations and governance structures among the presenters, which could contribute to a more unified approach to addressing Internet-related challenges and policy development.

Partial Agreements

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlight the importance of coordination among stakeholders to maintain the Internet’s functionality, emphasizing bottom-up processes.

speakers

Olaf Christoph

Ulka Athale

arguments

Coordination is needed to maintain interoperability and uniqueness

RIRs use community-driven, bottom-up policy development processes

Key Takeaways

The Internet is a globally distributed network of networks that provides connectivity through open standards and interoperability

Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) manage the allocation of IP addresses using community-driven, bottom-up policy processes

The Domain Name System (DNS) translates domain names to IP addresses and is also globally distributed

Internet governance involves multiple stakeholders and uses bottom-up policy development approaches

Maintaining accountability and addressing abuse in a globally distributed system remains a challenge

Resolutions and Action Items

None identified

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively trace and address cyberbullying through IP/domain information

Balancing decentralization of domain registrations with robust security measures

Improving accountability and transparency in a globally distributed system with varying privacy laws

Suggested Compromises

None identified

The Internet is built out of a network of networks that provides you global connectivity, in addition to a number of global services that you need to hook that up.

speaker

Olaf Christoph

reason

This comment provides a foundational understanding of how the Internet functions as an interconnected system rather than a single entity.

impact

It set the stage for the rest of the discussion by establishing a shared understanding of the Internet’s structure. Subsequent speakers built on this concept to explain their specific areas of expertise.

We are all not-for-profits. So we are funded by our membership fees. And the fees are for services, so you’re not buying IP addresses or ASMs from us. You are getting services from us and you get the right to use the IP addresses.

speaker

Ulka Athale

reason

This insight challenges common misconceptions about how IP addresses are distributed and highlights the service-oriented nature of RIRs.

impact

It shifted the conversation towards the governance and operational aspects of Internet infrastructure, leading to discussions about community-driven processes and multi-stakeholder models.

There is not one domain name resolver. There is not one authoritative server. There is not one database that maintains all the information of the DNS. That is globally distributed.

speaker

Olaf Christoph

reason

This comment emphasizes the decentralized nature of the DNS, which is a crucial aspect of Internet resilience and global accessibility.

impact

It deepened the technical discussion and highlighted the importance of distributed systems in Internet architecture, leading to questions about security and traceability.

I think it’s fair to say that this is one of the more wicked issues in the internet. How do you find who is responsible for something in the internet and people accountable?

speaker

Olaf Christoph

reason

This comment acknowledges the complex challenges in Internet governance, particularly regarding accountability and traceability.

impact

It brought the discussion to a higher level, addressing the real-world implications of the technical systems discussed earlier, and opened up considerations of legal and ethical issues in Internet governance.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by progressively building a comprehensive picture of Internet infrastructure, from its basic network structure to the complexities of its governance. The conversation evolved from technical explanations to broader considerations of accountability and global coordination. The speakers effectively linked their specialized knowledge to overarching themes, providing a multi-faceted view of Internet operations and challenges.

How can we trace domain names using dynamic IPs or shared IPs, particularly in cases of cyberbullying?

speaker

Audience member from Bangladesh cyber team

explanation

This is important for addressing cyberbullying and tracing victims in cases where traditional IP tracing methods may be ineffective.

How can we balance the decentralization of domain registrations with the need for robust security measures, particularly in addressing abuse such as domain squatting?

speaker

Virtual remote participant

explanation

This is crucial for maintaining a secure and accessible internet while addressing potential abuses in the domain name system.

How can we improve accountability and transparency in identifying responsible parties for internet-related issues across different jurisdictions with varying privacy laws?

speaker

Olaf Christoph

explanation

This is a complex challenge in the globally distributed internet ecosystem, affecting how abuse and accountability are handled across borders.

Summary

This discussion at the Internet Governance Forum in Saudi Arabia focused on navigating risks and innovation in the digital realm. Participants explored the challenges and opportunities associated with digital technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI).

Key risks identified included cybersecurity threats, data privacy concerns, and over-dependence on technology. Dr. Maha Abdel Nasser highlighted how technological failures can severely disrupt daily life and business operations. The discussion also addressed the risks of AI bias, with Hadia Elminiawi noting how AI systems can perpetuate unfair treatment if trained on biased data.

Participants emphasized the need for robust reporting mechanisms for online abuse and cyberbullying. Dr. Maha and others noted the lack of unified platforms for reporting such incidents in many countries. The discussion touched on the challenges of holding tech platforms accountable for abusive content while balancing innovation.

Caleb Ogundele stressed the importance of cross-border collaboration and public-private partnerships in managing digital risks. He also highlighted the need for more support for women entrepreneurs in the tech sector.

While acknowledging the risks, participants like Amr Hashem cautioned against allowing fear to stifle innovation, drawing parallels to historical resistance to new technologies. The discussion concluded with a recognition that while digital technologies pose challenges, they are now an integral part of modern life, necessitating a balanced approach to risk management and innovation.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Risks and challenges associated with digital innovation, including cybersecurity threats, privacy concerns, and technological dependency

– The need for frameworks, strategies and collaboration to mitigate online risks and abuse

– Challenges in reporting and addressing online harassment, especially for women and vulnerable groups

– The impact of AI and deepfakes on online safety and content authenticity

– Balancing innovation opportunities with associated risks in the digital realm

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore the risks that accompany digital innovation and discuss strategies for harnessing innovation while effectively managing and mitigating associated risks.

The tone of the discussion was generally serious and concerned when discussing risks and challenges, but became more optimistic and solution-oriented as speakers discussed potential frameworks, collaborations, and opportunities. There was a shift towards the end to emphasize not letting risks completely stifle innovation and progress.

Speakers

– HADIA ELMINIAWI: Chief expert at the National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt, member of ISOC Egypt, chair of the Africa Regional At-Large Organization (AFRALO) at ICANN, member of ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee

– DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER: Member of the Egyptian Parliament, vice president of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, executive member in the Salvation Front, member of the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Syndicate of Engineers

– CALEB OLUMUYIWA OGUNDELE: Internet public policy expert, member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society, chair of the Nigerian School on Internet Governance

– NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Support engineer at Dell, member of ISOC Egypt, instructor at the Pan-African Youth Ambassador IG

Additional speakers:

– MARIAM FAYEZ:

– LISA VERMEER: Policymaker from the Netherlands working on the European AI Act

– AMRA HASHEM: Member of Internet Master

– MOUSSA: Student from Nigeria studying in Malaysia

– RAZAN ZAKARIA: VIAG ambassador and content creator from Egypt

Expanded Summary of Discussion on Navigating Risks and Innovation in the Digital Realm

This discussion at the Internet Governance Forum in Saudi Arabia brought together experts to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with digital technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI). The conversation covered a wide range of topics, from cybersecurity threats to the potential of AI, highlighting the complex landscape of digital innovation.

Key Risks and Challenges

Participants identified several major risks associated with digital innovation:

1. Cybersecurity and Data Privacy: Dr. Maha Abdel Nasser, a cybersecurity expert, and Caleb Olumuyiwa Ogundele emphasised the critical nature of cybersecurity threats and data privacy concerns. They agreed on the need for robust measures to protect individuals and organisations from these risks.

2. Technological Dependency: Dr. Maha Abdel Nasser highlighted the growing dependence on technology as a significant threat, noting how technological failures can severely disrupt daily life and business operations.

3. AI Bias and Transparency: Hadia Elminiawi raised concerns about bias in AI systems, explaining how AI applications can perpetuate unfair treatment if trained on biased data. This point broadened the conversation to include ethical considerations in AI development, including risks such as deepfakes and non-consensual porn.

4. Digital Divide: Noha Ashraf Abdel Baky, a digital rights advocate, drew attention to the gap between privileged and less privileged users in accessing and benefiting from digital technologies.

5. Regulatory Challenges: Caleb Olumuyiwa Ogundele pointed out the potential for abuse of regulatory frameworks by those in power, while Lisa Vermeer highlighted the difficulties in implementing consistent AI regulations across different countries, mentioning the European AI Act as an example.

Strategies for Mitigating Risks

The discussion then shifted to potential strategies for managing these risks:

1. Government-led Initiatives: Caleb Olumuyiwa Ogundele advocated for government-led initiatives, including regulatory sandboxes, to allow companies to test innovations safely.

2. Cross-border Collaboration: There was a consensus on the importance of international cooperation and data sharing to address global digital challenges effectively. Dr. Maha Abdel Nasser emphasized the need for political will in establishing collaborative platforms for digital innovation.

3. Alternative Solutions: Dr. Maha Abdel Nasser stressed the need to develop backup systems and alternative solutions to mitigate the risks of technological failures.

4. Responsible AI Principles: Hadia Elminiawi suggested establishing clear principles for responsible AI use by organisations to address issues of bias and transparency. Caleb Ogundele proposed using meta tags to indicate AI-generated content.

5. Improved Reporting Mechanisms: Several speakers emphasised the need for better reporting systems for online abuse and cyberbullying. Dr. Maha highlighted the lack of a unified platform for reporting such incidents in many countries.

6. Digital Literacy: Noha Ashraf Abdel Baky stressed the importance of raising awareness and improving digital literacy among vulnerable groups.

Challenges in Addressing Online Abuse

The discussion revealed several obstacles in effectively tackling online abuse:

1. Lack of Trust: Dr. Maha Abdel Nasser pointed out that many victims do not trust existing reporting mechanisms.

2. Cultural Barriers: Noha Ashraf Abdel Baky noted that cultural factors often prevent victims from reporting incidents.

3. Anonymity: Audience members raised concerns about the difficulty in tracing anonymous online actors.

4. Platform Accountability: Dr. Maha Abdel Nasser highlighted the challenges in holding tech platforms accountable for abusive content while balancing innovation. Razan Zakaria discussed the complexities of content moderation on social media platforms.

5. Need for Collaboration: Razan Zakaria emphasized the importance of collaboration between governments and tech platform owners in addressing online abuse.

6. Role of Civil Society: Mariam Fayez highlighted the importance of civil society initiatives in addressing online abuse.

Balancing Innovation and Risk Management

The conversation also explored the delicate balance between fostering innovation and managing risks:

1. Embracing Innovation: Amr Hashem cautioned against allowing fear to stifle innovation, drawing parallels to historical resistance to printing technology.

2. Inclusive Funding: Caleb Olumuyiwa Ogundele stressed the need for more support for women entrepreneurs in the tech sector through inclusive funding strategies, highlighting challenges such as limited access to capital and networking opportunities.

3. Regulatory Challenges: Lisa Vermeer highlighted the difficulties in implementing AI regulations consistently across different countries, citing the European AI Act as an example of ongoing efforts.

4. Freedom of Expression: Audience members raised concerns about bias in social media algorithms affecting freedom of expression.

Conclusion

The discussion concluded with a recognition that while digital technologies pose significant challenges, they are now an integral part of modern life. This necessitates a balanced approach to risk management and innovation. Key takeaways included the need for better frameworks and strategies to manage online risks, the importance of collaboration between governments, tech platforms, and civil society, and the ongoing challenge of balancing innovation with risk management.

Unresolved issues remain, such as effectively holding tech platforms accountable for abusive content, addressing anonymity online, and implementing consistent AI regulations across different countries. These topics provide fertile ground for future discussions and policy development in the realm of digital governance.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: So, okay, so I’m starting. Welcome, everyone, to the Internet Mosque session at the IGF in Saudi Arabia, navigating risks and innovation in the digital realm. First, I would like to thank the forum and our host for their excellent organization and welcoming atmosphere. My name is Hadia Elminiaoui, chief expert at the National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt. However, I am here today in my capacity as a member of ISOC Egypt and chair of the Africa Regional At-Large Organization, AFRALO, at ICANN. I’m also a member of ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee. I’m an engineer by training and hold a Master of Science in Management and Leadership. Today, I will be speaking and co-moderating this session with my colleague, Mrs. Noha Ashraf Abdel-Baey, who is on site in Saudi Arabia. Mrs. Noha Ashraf is a support engineer at Dell, member of ISOC Egypt, and an instructor at the Pan-African Youth Ambassador IG. In today’s session, we will be exploring the risks that accompany digital innovation, including cybersecurity threats, ethical dilemmas, and other emerging challenges. Our discussion will focus on strategies and frameworks for harnessing innovation while effectively managing and mitigating associated risks. We are honored to have with us today Dr. Maha Abdel-Nasser, a distinguished member of the Egyptian Parliament. Dr. Maha is vice president of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and one of the founding members. She has been an executive member in the Salvation Front and has been elected as a member of the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Syndicate of Engineers. Dr. Maha holds an engineering degree, an MBA, and a PhD degree in political marketing. She is also a certified instructor at the American University in Cairo, the Arab Academy for Science and Technology, and the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. We are honored as well to have with us online today Mr. Caleb Ogundel, an accomplished internet public policy expert. Caleb is a dedicated volunteer with ISOC Nigeria and the Manitoba chapters and currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society. Caleb chairs and coordinates the Nigerian School on Internet Governance and was a former management lead of the Information Technology Unit for the University of Ibadan Distance Learning Center and a project director at the African Academic Network on Internet Policy. He is also an instructor at the African Network Operating Group. Caleb holds two master’s degrees in computer systems and information science. science. Engineer Noha will be managing the queue, both on site and online. We look forward to an engaging and insightful discussion. Thank you for joining us today. Without further delay, let me start with my first question to Dr. Maha Abdul-Nasir. Dr. Maha, it’s an honor to have you on site with us today on this session. And thank you for your time and effort and shared thoughts. My first question to you is, in your opinion, what are the primary risks accompanying digital innovation?

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER: Well, thank you very much for ISOC and for Internet Egypt. I’m glad to be here. I’m honored to be with all of you. And thank you for the audience for being here. Actually, when we are talking about the threats for the digital transformation or digital era, the first thing definitely we will get in our minds is the cybersecurity, which is the most important thing and the most aspect that a lot of people are thinking about. And again, the data privacy, we are all worried about our data and how we are visible to the world. Our data is now almost everywhere, and we cannot do anything about it. But there is another threat that I think people may be not thinking about it a lot, which is the dependency on the digital transformation or having this technological dependency, which actually may. cause things to be completely stopped if something happened which we already have seen in the airports across the world. We couldn’t think that a small bug can actually do all this harm to the people who are traveling and made them delayed to the work and got people to think really about what we are going to do if there is a shutdown in electricity, a shutdown in anything. We are so dependent on the technology now and I think this is one of the major threats, risk and challenge at the same time.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you so much Dr. Meher for this insight and actually pointing out the dependency on technology and how a small bug as you mentioned could like put the world on a halt. So I will follow up with a question. So in your opinion how could we mitigate this?

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER: It’s very difficult to say but of course if you are talking about cyber security, all of us knows about the firewalls taking all the precautions which actually will not stop still the cyber attacks that we are seeing every day everywhere across the world. It is just a matter of who is racing who, who can take the lead and somehow be able to avoid or attack. So it’s kind of… mouse and cat scenario because all of the governments, all of the corporates, all of the organizations are just trying to avoid the cyber attacks and at the same time the attackers are trying to do the cyber attacks. So it’s, I don’t think that there is something that can be done or there is a legislation for anything that can help in that. For the data privacy, I guess we all know that we have the GDPR and most of the countries are trying to follow or to do some legislations or acts similar to the GDPR, despite the fact that some of them are not really successful in that. For the technological dependence, I don’t think that we can, we cannot be dependent on technology anymore, but we have to find ways, we have to find some kind of alternative solutions if the technology fails us. We’ve been working without technology, we’ve been living without technology for centuries, but now we are so dependent when we find that there is a problem with our phone, we just, we panic, we feel that as if the world stopped. We cannot even remember how the life was before that. If the internet goes down, we feel that we are in threat. So I don’t think that we can really help it because it’s more of a feeling or lifestyle that we cannot get away from it. But for the corporates, they have to find a way, they have to find alternative solutions. So when the technology fails, they have to mitigate it somehow, they have to have the traditional way as a backup. if there is a problem. So you will not get everything stopped. This is how I see it.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you so much, Dr. Maha. And indeed, as you mentioned, maybe diversifying and and maybe also depending on local or community systems or applications. I’m not sure, but maybe also there could be a role here for frameworks or developed maybe by governments or incentives provided by governments. But I will stop here and move to Kalib. Kalib, I would like to also ask you the same question. In your opinion, what are the risks accompanying digital innovation?

CALEB OLUMUYIWA OGUNDELE: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Aria and Dr. Maha. Very interesting perspective from Dr. Maha. I must say that I do admire the way she approached the question. But first, one of the few things I did pick from our conversation was basically the fact that we can no longer do it without technology these days, right? And so because we can no longer do it without technology these days, that means that we are stuck with it, right? And if we are stuck with it, we need to really find solutions basically to some of those innovations and the risk that will follow. So one of the few things I did think while preparing for this panel session was, first, we need to first of all start having what we call government-led initiatives. Some of those initiatives could also be based on legislation, regulatory frameworks, sandboxes, where a company can also test innovation safely. Take for example, we are now in the age of the AI, and people need to get some regulatory assurances that AI is not going to take over their lives. So government needs to start having regulatory sandboxes that can help them safely test some of the AI systems. I’m aware that the Singapore government has a testing framework that allows companies to test AI systems while sharing insight into some risk and solutions as well, and we need to start having what I call cross-border collaboration mechanism across different spectrums. Now basically, the entire idea of having open standards is because we want to have collaborations from different perspectives of technology and innovation, and so it’s good that the government, and not just the government, the civil society, as well as the academia, start encouraging what we call cross-border collaboration mechanisms. There will be a lot of international data sharing agreements for risk assessment, global standards for risk assessment, and also trying to standardize frameworks for sharing some of the threats, cyber threats, and intelligence that we have across the board. I’m also aware that you also works in Egypt, where you guys take a lot of cyber threat intelligence very seriously. However, we cannot remove the fact that there are different types of cyber actors. Bad actors, that I will say, even when we look at the geopolitics of cyber threats, that are also interested in sabotaging some of the efforts of this open standards cross-border collaboration just for their own benefit. So my encouragement basically at this point is that we should continue to have a lot of public-private partnerships. We should continue to have joint research initiatives between governments, private sectors, to manage some of this innovative risk that we do have. More importantly is to also have a very good funding model that supports even private organizations that are into some of this risk assessment. The reason why I’m saying this is, trust me, people will definitely go out of funding, but when they are doing some important work that has to deal with, take for example national security, global security, and when it comes to some of these things, it’s always good that we have government supporting them. We also have cyber security framework knowledge base that also tries to support some of the things that they do as well. So I just want to stop here so that I don’t take so much of our time, and we can allow other speakers also contribute some of the inputs into what their thoughts are about innovation and risk assessment. Thank you.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you Caleb, and I move to Noha, and I know that Noha also would like to speak about her thoughts about risks accompanying digital innovation. So Noha, the floor is yours.

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Thank you Hadia. So I believe the digital innovation race is way faster than building national strategies, than acquiring new digital skills, than drafting policies and good frameworks. So I believe that the primary risks that will have a bigger digital divide, a bigger digital gap between the privileged and less privileged technology users, because we already half of the world population are still offline. So the more privileged people who are well-educated, who have

HADIA ELMINIAWI: And that many stories are just made up and are not real. Also, those women wouldn’t have cared much about what has been. That people do not know where or how to report. And of course I’m aware of those incidents where we have. Yes, awareness of course is crucial, but awareness is mainly crucial for people to understand. And we don’t want to get into the cases of the women who actually took their lives. But honestly, when I heard about those incidents, I thought if those ladies knew a little bit, like if they knew better, they would have never done so. And if the community also and the society was well aware that cyber bullying exists and that many stories are just made up and are not real. Also, those women wouldn’t have cared much about what has been posted about them and made them take their lives. However, again, the question is, do we have a place to which if someone is exposed to, is bullied online, they can go online and report it? Like how easy is it to report abuse? And what channels can they report that abuse through?

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER: Well, actually, if you’re talking about Egypt, because I don’t know about other countries, but in Egypt, there is a phone number you can call. Unfortunately, there isn’t a portal to report on. This actually one of the suggestions I made in the parliament, but it didn’t go through. In each police station you can do so, and there is a hotline in the Women’s Council. They take the reports of violence too, against women specifically, but the Ministry of Interior has another hotline for reporting all the abuses over the Internet for women, for children, for men, for anyone, because anyone can get actually hacked or blackmailed online. It doesn’t have to be a woman. Women are more vulnerable, but a lot of people actually have these issues. So there are ways to report, and I guess there are a lot of places now, or organizations from civil society, who are trying to spread the message, because as you said, if those women knew better, they wouldn’t commit suicide, and this is extremely sad. We have this burden on our shoulders that we didn’t let them know, but we have to work all together to spread this information and to do the awareness in every country, not just in Egypt, because it’s happening everywhere.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you.

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: We can also report to the social media platforms themselves, so they can suspend the account or take it off, in parallel with the government reporters. So Hadia, now I have some questions for you. What are the primary risks and challenges associated with the quality bias and security of AI training data? And second question is, how do these factors impact the ethical deployment and effectiveness of AI systems?

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you, Noha. So again, privacy and data protection are among the key risks accompanying digital innovation. Services and applications using IoT and AI depend mainly on collecting and processing huge amounts of personal data, which raises privacy concerns, but it also, in addition of course, failure to comply with data protection regulations could result in large legal penalties. So it’s both ways, you know, but let me speak specifically about the risks associated with the quality of data. So bias in AI applications and systems happens when outcomes of AI systems favor or disadvantage a certain group, or favor certain outcomes, or favors certain individuals. This bias can result in decisions and unfair treatment, depending on the field in which the AI system is deployed. So examples could include random security screenings, and a lot of us, you know, face this at airports where, you know, a specific ethical group are always selected for this random security screening. It affects employment opportunities, even job search results, unequal treatment in legal or medical systems. And this is all because of the data that is used in training the AI systems. So data used in training AI systems, or many AI systems, let’s not say all, but many AI systems use historical data that reflects past human decisions, behaviors. So if the data contains some kind of prejudice, or biases, or is taken only based on a, is not diversified, the AI will inherit and replicate those biases in the decision-making process. And the other thing also that comes to my mind here is, so after the decision also is made, how do you know what this decision was made on? And what data was used for that? So it’s also about transparency and accountability, right? And this human prejudice can be intentional or unintentional. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s intentional or unintentional, but there should be a way in which we do not have those flawed training data, and there should be some kind of transparency and accountability also associated with this. So addressing those issues, of course, are crucial for fairness, accountability, and transparency in AI applications. If we talk about security risks associated with AI, so AI usually uses vast data sets that may contain sensitive personal information, so improper handling of this data can lead to harmful consequences. Also data could be, from a security point of view, harmful or misleading data could be injected into the training process, corrupting the AI models and performance and causing unintended behaviors. So those are all risks associated with the bias and quality of data. Noha, the floor is yours.

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Thank you, Hadi. I would like to ask our audience if they have any questions to any of the speakers. I don’t see any questions from the online audience. Okay, I guess we can move on and leave the Q&A section at the end of the session.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Okay, thank you. I wanted to ask Dr. Maha about, so she was, Dr. Maha was speaking about reporting cyber bullying, and I was wondering if there is like a single platform at a national level that people could report cyber bullying through, and I know that there are some countries have those like platforms or single platform to report cyber bullying, that’s one of the questions, and the other is to all the speakers, and the same question will go also to Caleb, and then the other question is related to like international frameworks, and through which also people can report online incidents, and maybe if we take, for example, DNS abuse, you know, and online security of users, do we have like sites through which we could report this? And of course we have, we can report directly to the services, directly, as Noha mentioned. So I will give the floor to Dr. Maha, and then Caleb, and then Noha to discuss this. Thank you.

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER: Thank you, Hedy, as I said earlier, there is no platform, single platform, as I said, I suggested that to have something like that, and the reporting should be online, as it is all online crimes, but it didn’t go through, so unfortunately in Egypt we don’t have this single platform to report, and the reporting is a process as I explained earlier, and internationally I think there is nothing except what Noha said, than reporting to Facebook specifically, or Instagram specifically, to mainly specific, not platforms, but the applications itself, you can just report what happened to you, or report the account, or report a specific person, or something like that, but I’m not aware of anything else, unfortunately.

CALEB OLUMUYIWA OGUNDELE: Thank you very much. So one of the ways I’m thinking about this is, first of all, every human right that is physical is also the same thing online, which means that if I harass you, just in context, not that I’m harassing anyone, take for example, if Mr. A harasses someone, harasses Mrs. B, when they are not online, the same rule should apply to when they are online, therefore, if you look at it, that what platforms, or how should the reporting be done? The first instance is, does the person being harassed know their right? Do they know that they are being harassed? Do they know how they can be protected if they report some of these issues? So one of the issues that I have with the online reporting is the anonymity, is the fact that most people who report online are not even sure that if they report online, they will get the necessary protection that they deserve. Some of them also do not know that if they report online, actions will be taken, right? So that fear is also there, despite the fact that some of them might even have the information, they have the training, the digital literacy like Noah and Dr. mentioned, right? Now, the question now leads us to how do we start all of this reporting and all of that? I will give you an example of some of the context in my own country, Nigeria, and some of the abuses that has happened with regulatory frameworks, even though there are regulatory frameworks that protect women, that protect the vulnerable, or those who are exploited online. We realize that the political class is beginning to exploit the Cyber Crime Act, which encompasses some of the laws and acts that need to protect those vulnerable people. Take for example, someone who feels that he has so much power, instead of saying that they want to protect the vulnerable, they will rather tell the vulnerable person who is complaining and not really harassing them online, and say that, you are harassing me online, and then they use the powers of the police to get that person arrested, thrown in jail, and all of that. So we’ve seen a lot of abuses, even by some of our political classes, and I feel that these are issues that we need to bring to the forefront, these are conversations that we should not stop talking about, even at this political sense that the vulnerable needs to be protected by the law, not the political class only. And then we find out that even our police are, in a way, respectfully to our law enforcement agencies, are trying to choose who they prosecute when some of those issues are reported. So do we have justice for those who are vulnerable? Do we have justice for those women that we are talking about? So these are questions that I would probably want us to go back and have a second thought about, as I see that we have someone who has raised his or her hand to ask a question. So I would just let the floor over to you, online moderators.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: And Noha, over to you, Noha.

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Yeah, thank you, Hadia. I guess there is, as mentioned by Dr. Maha and Caleb, there is a lack of trust with the reporting mechanisms, and also a culture barrier when it comes to, like, victims can sometimes feel ashamed of reporting the incidents or the attacks, and instead they go silent about it. They are ashamed of their communities or how people talk about them or whatever, but we need to break this barrier, this culture barrier, and stop victimizing the attackers. I guess we saw many incidents. Egypt, as Dr. Ma highlighted, where young women and even teenagers took their lives and suicided. So we need to stand in solidarity with all victims or online victims of cyber attacks and stop attacking them again online because sometimes when you report an incident, people will start to comment with hate speech or share their negative comments. So sometimes even victims, they took back their reports to avoid all of this hassle. So yeah, we need to look at it from a 360 view, putting the good legislation, trust the process, awareness, civil society to lead the awareness part and internet users to be more responsible when using the technology because technology is here to help us. So we need to use the good part of it and report the bad part of it. And that’s it for me. Thank you. Back to you, Hadia.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you. And I see Mariam has her hand up. So Mariam, do you want to take the floor?

MARIAM FAYEZ: Yes. Hello, Hadia. Hello, everyone. I like how the conversation is really going because it boils out to the human rights and what each and every person has to feel comfortable, safe and empowered online and offline. I second what Noha and MP Vaha have been saying and I really think the civil society should be moving this concern forward. In Egypt, we have multiple successful initiatives, whether initiated for the betterment or for the safety of women or vulnerable women to address their issues or just the different groups and different rights. We have many, from women harassment, for example, to even first responders in terms of crisis, like the e-SIM card and all the e-SIM activity and even women harassment. We have very, very successful initiatives and all those initiatives have attracted the politics or the government. They looked closely at those initiatives and they let them grow or those initiatives had the opportunity to grow because they had the people’s support and the people’s momentum. People in Egypt were lacking, for example, women in Egypt lacked the opportunity to feel safe and to feel safe in reporting and to speak up when any sort of abuse happens and the trust was not there, but the trust started building when those campaigns and when those initiatives took momentum and they did not take momentum on the ground. Social media was a very strong tool. WhatsApp, for example, chatting tools were very strong that supported such mechanisms. So when it starts in the grassroots organizations or with civil society and then it will move forward, I think this is a good thing to start the momentum. So civil society, I think, comes first at this stage. Thank you.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you so much, Mariam. Indeed, civil society has a big role in leading the way when it comes to online awareness, when it comes to online awareness processes. I would like to turn to Dr. Mahanao and ask her about, first, are there practical strategies and frameworks for effectively managing and mitigating the risks that we have been talking about? And is it doable to have practical strategies and frameworks for that? And do we have such frameworks to mitigate online risks? And not necessarily rules or regulations? Well, actually, if we’re talking about frameworks.

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER: I’m not the person who should be answering this. this should be the government or the executive body. We have a lot of strategies in Egypt. We have a strategy for the cyber security, we have a strategy for the digital innovation, we have a strategy for AI. I still don’t see the real implementation of those strategies. Strategy is a very nice word, you can write very nice things, but when it comes to implementation, it needs a lot to be seen actually on the ground. We are still far behind in a lot of things, especially if you are talking about cyber security. I know that the government is taking it very seriously, but still, we don’t have the on-ground activities that needed to deal with cyber security. For the AI, we are definitely, definitely far behind. There are no incentives for SMEs or startups or any innovators who could work in the AI, which is extremely important and needed. You can find fragmented initiatives and people are working on themselves, but there is no structured work concerning these things. And I think it’s extremely needed now. This is my point of view. Thank you.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you, Dr. Meha. And you mentioned AI, so I will go back to AI. And indeed, artificial intelligence has the power to transform businesses and is important for governments to perform more effective and to be more effective and perform more efficiently. And that applies not only to governments, but to all forms of businesses. And that gets me back to the question of frameworks. And maybe what’s required is for organizations and entities to establish clear principles for their responsible use of AI. So any organization or entity that’s using AI will need to define guiding principles for using AI and commit and adhere to those principles defined. So those could be principles related to accuracy, accountability, fairness, safety, ethical responsibilities that would be established and published by organizations or entities using artificial intelligence. And again, we go back. back to as we started that, as you started, Dr. Maha, by saying that we cannot, technology is now part of our life. And we have this dependency that’s not going away. It will only increase. And humans and machines have always been working together. And moving forward with AI, this is also what’s going to happen, or is supposed maybe to happen. And so since the very early human history, I would say, so people were using carts. And then they’re using machines in agriculture. And then this keeps on moving. And then computers, and then mobiles. And then so it has always been humans and machines. But it’s again, how do we do that? And I. Hadia, we have one intervention from the on-site audience and another one from the online audience. So yeah, please. Go ahead. So thank you so much. It’s a very insightful discussion.

AUDIENCE: Thank you, Dr. Maha. Thank you, Noha, and particularly Hadia. Actually, I’m coming from a technical community. So I’m a security researcher. I actually know the other side problems, the one who is creating these problems. So I can actually give some insights on that. So I’m running this organization, Secure Purple. And we are doing, our focus was actually on the end users’ safety, so particularly women and kids. We have been very active in that. We arrange workshops, trainings, awareness in different regions in Pakistan. I’m from Pakistan, basically. But you know, normally in our trainings and workshop, what we used to do is to train the women and kids because they’re the most vulnerable part of the internet. particularly on image-based abuse, particularly on cyberbullying and stuff like that. So what we used to do was to train them how to stay protected from these kind of threats. And one of the recommendations we used to do was never share different or questionable or maybe indecent pictures of yours, maybe if you’re in an online relationship or normally or anywhere over the internet, because that was the main cause of creating or maybe give a rise to image-based abuse. But no, I’m actually in doubt of that recommendation because with AI now, you can create any sort of content with just a singular image. So now I’m thinking, what’s the next step, you know? And I’ll give you statistics, actually. There is an organization, Sensity AI, and they have been tracking the defects since 2015. And they have given the statistic that 95% of the defects are actually non-consensual porn. So imagine the defect, a huge technology coming up, and the 95% of its consumption is actually on the non-consensual porn. I mean, what would be the amount of the image-based abuse? What would be the morality and the social structure of the society if there is so much content, questionable content, producing daily just using AI? So I mean, it’s a lot of discussion. I mean, I can’t quite add up to every insights the speakers have shared, but due to time limitation, I would just say, you know, we just need to identify every single stakeholders of the internet, and we just need to reach them out. For example, on reporting, even if I report, the reputation damage it caused to me, the virility the video gets, I mean, the damage has been done, you know? I know, yeah, accountability is necessary, but still, particularly for a moment, reputation is gone, the damage has been done, they might not get able to get a job. You know, there have been cases we dealt with where actually, you know, people get divorces just because of a single image being getting public. That might be an indecent picture, but still, you know, the impact is too much. Legislations or rules, I mean, coming from a technical side, I can get away with these stuff. You know, the anonymity internet gives me. I can create a fake Facebook account with a fake email, with a fake phone number. Who are you gonna trace me? So, I mean, there’s a lot more, you know, to still consider in the internet space. And I’m still, I mean, we even from the technical end, we still confuse, I mean, how do we deal with it? And it may take time to evolve. So, yeah. Thank you.

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Thank you. Thank you for the very realistic and on-ground intervention. Hadia, I guess we have Toray, Moussa Toray has a raised hand, as well as Caleb. And we need to conclude people are waiting outside, by the way. We have till 1245, so

CALEB OLUMUYIWA OGUNDELE: Let me just quickly jump in because of time. Okay. So, back to the last speaker. One of the few things that I think I observed is he asked a question about the conscious effort of even the technology organizations, such as that own AI infrastructures, right? What are the conscious efforts that they are putting in into making sure that there are no abuses on some of this AI generated items that come online that could become viral? Now, one of the things I know that Meta does is that Meta allows you to be able to flag AI generated contents. And because you’re able to flag that, it kind of, in a way, reduces the virality. But one of the things that I am not sure of is that if other social media platforms are beginning to follow or toe in line and have some form of governance board, accountability board, that also helps review some of these things and some of the accounts that they have. At least I’m aware that Facebook is making conscious efforts on that. I’m not sure about X. I’m not sure about BlueSky. I’m not sure about other ones. But it would be a very interesting thing to see that they are taking conscious efforts to make sure that they are able to flag AI-generated contents such that those AI-generated contents do not become viral. And one of the things that I also like to see is that for AI-generated content, there should be meta tags that indicate within the images that are generated within those contents to indicate that these are AI content. And there should be a global standard that allows for those kind of meta tagging of AI-generated contents, even from any platform. Yeah. Thanks. That’s my quick intervention to the last speaker. Thanks. Thank you, Caleb. We had a raised hand from Musa.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: OK. Thank you, Musa. Hadi, are you still there? OK. You’re muted. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I was disconnected for a few moments, but I’m back again. And I wanted to ask Dr. Moussa to talk a little bit I wanted to ask Dr. Maha after hearing what Caleb said. How could we require tech platforms to take responsibility for abusive content? So is this possible? And how could we actually put it in action?

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER: Well, yes. Definitely, yes. We have to put them responsible for abusive content. And actually, they can do that. They have the resources. They have the tools. And we’ve been seeing what they have been doing for an instant during the what was. what was happening in Gaza and the conflict, they could have taken down all the content that they thought it’s not right from their point of view, they were biased, they were not neutral, so they can do whatever they want, so they should be responsible for taking any abusive content, hate speech, all these kind of things. And again I didn’t answer your question about the framework for AI, it’s ongoing debate between having an AI framework or legislation, I think we all know that the EU already has or had an act and it’s not working, most of the countries from the European Union are not working with this act and I guess mainly France who tried to work with the act and it didn’t work out, so we’ve been thinking that a framework could be more realistic, taking into consideration the huge action and speed in the AI which is moving almost every day and changing every day, so a legislation could be a little bit not good for this, but we are still, because we have actually proposed legislation in the parliament for the AI and we are waiting to see what will happen in that. But still either legislation or framework, we have to have something to the ethics, what should be done, the responsibility, and it’s extremely, extremely difficult if something happened with a self-driving car with the software and it killed a person. Who is responsible? And I’m a policymaker or legislator. I cannot say who could be responsible. Am I going to put the man who made the program in prison or the car? You can do nothing about that. You will just try to make as much as precautions, but it will be never, ever enough. And we will always have these kind of things. And I’m talking about the self-driving car because it’s already there. It’s happening. And we are hearing about the avatars, so you can have your avatar go and do a murder somewhere and no one can go back on you, and the VR, and a lot, a lot. Actually, thank you very much for what you said because it’s almost impossible. I think, well, the ones from you who saw Black Mirror, I think we are in the Black Mirror era and we don’t know what will happen after that. Thank you, Haji.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you so much. And if no one from the ground wants to make an intervention now or Noha, if you want to make it. Yeah, we have a raised hand here. Okay. Can you hear me? We hear you.

LISA VERMEER: Thank you so much. My name is Lisa Vermeer. I’m from the Netherlands. I work as a policymaker in Holland. Thank you so much for this interesting discussion. I wanted to share one thing with you and also ask a question related to the innovation part of this session. The first thing I wanted to share is that I work on the European AI Act in the Netherlands. It’s quite a new law. And at the moment, all the member states are working to really transform it, transition it into their own legislative systems. So this is quite a challenge, but I’m still hopeful that it will work. And maybe related to the discussion about abusive content and about deepfakes and the problems that are arised in that, there are provisions in the European AI Act that try to address this issue. And personally, I find it very exciting to see whether it’s going to work or not, because there are provisions that state that it has to be made clear by the developer of, for example, deepfakes, that it is AI generated and manipulated. And it also needs… to be machine readable and also for users of the internet it needs to be recognizable that it’s that it’s generated or manipulated content so maybe that can help but on the other hand of course there’s lots of actors who make this content and their intention is to do harm so in that sense the law is always limited to what extent it will help but at least it gives some kind of power to legislators in the EU to enforce and address when things are going wrong so and I wanted to ask in what kind maybe to you dr. Ma and to the speaker online Caleb to what extent do you think that the risk that you mentioned in your presentations hamper the entrepreneurial spirit of people of SMEs for example in your countries I’m very eager to learn whether for example female entrepreneurs are really stopped by the abusive practices they experience online or whether they still have for example in Nigeria that SMEs are still going on and not being being limited too much by this abuse of the law for example so thank you in advance for shedding some light on the innovation I can ecosystems in your countries thanks so much

HADIA ELMINIAWI: dr. Maha and then Caleb if but the initial shall we take the other question or I think be all the questions yeah thank you Caleb and thank you for the

AUDIENCE: excellent interventions I really enjoyed it much my name is Amra Hashem I I am a member of internet master and it was quite enlightening listening to all those interventions but let me share with you because we are we have always been thinking of the risks but let me share with you a story that happens maybe five centuries ago and it has costed this part of the world that we are living in, the Arab world, a lot over those 500 years because they were afraid to adopt innovation that was coming up at this point in time which was printing. They were afraid that through printers and through printing the Quran which is the holy book for the Muslims worldwide could be forged and it could not be accurate as the handwritten Quran. So actually the Sultan back then, Bayezid II, decided that he is not, he is forbidding printing to be deployed throughout the Islamic world that was controlled by the Ottoman Empire back then because they were afraid of the challenges and the risks associated with printing. So if we are reflecting today on what is happening with technology and innovation, let us please not consider the risks as much as we are considering the opportunities that could be, that could AI be opening to us. And if we are afraid of deep fakes or something that happened, let us instead of thinking about forbidding it because at the end of the day we cannot forbid it. The people who want to do deep faking or something like that will have access to the resources and will do it anyways. But let us think about counter technologies that would help us to make this a reality and to actually get the good part without the bad part. Thank you and looking forward to hear your comments on that.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you Amr for the positive note. Thank you. I also wanted to say something about what Amr, yeah this is Hadi. So I wanted to just point out something about what Amr just said. So what happened really that is Quran spread faster with the printing and instead more people could read it. And also now with the internet and having everything online you can just go on your mobile and read it. So it turned out that it was even better for the spreading of the holy book. And I just before the, I know you had a question with regard to innovation and I had one also with in regard to innovation. So I would pose the question so that you can answer both together. And the question is related to the establishment of collaborative platforms like how How can policy makers facilitate the establishment of collaborative platform for the exchange of insights among peers and experts in the field of digital innovation and risk management, of course? So I will stop here. And Noha, do you want to give the floor to Dr. Meha and then maybe Caleb? Yeah, sure, Dr. Meha.

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER: OK, I will start by answering your question. Well, actually, the female entrepreneurs, no, they are still working. And the innovators, the female innovators, I don’t think that they can be stopped easily by any cyber bullying or cyber attacks or things like that, because they are entrepreneurs and they are in the innovation business. And there are measures, actually, and there are things that they can use or they can get them to help them. And as Mariam said in her intervention, actually, there are still problems, but there are a lot of initiatives, actually, which is somehow helping, especially women in this area. Commenting on what you said, Amr, there is nothing can be stopped anywhere. We are not talking about stopping anything. If we are a bit worried or afraid or seeing the risks, we definitely see the opportunities and what AI can be helpful in. It is just. we need to be careful, we need to see the challenges and to address the challenges and as you said go to the find counter technologies to work with that but it’s moving extremely fast and I think this is what is frightening it’s not just worrying it’s even for us who are working in the technology field and in the digital field but we think this is it’s moving extremely fast that’s all what I can say as for your question Hadia it is not again the policy makers who can do or who can work with collaborative platforms it’s the executive bodies and there is nothing that can prevent this from happening it is just the problem of collaboration anyway any kind of collaboration and and unfortunately we are talking about digital collaboration but everything goes back to politics and as one who is working in politics I can tell you that it’s not easy because to get the data flow in Africa it has to have a political will to do this to to have a platform joint platform to to work with between countries it has to have political will and it is a political decision it’s not it’s not a digital decision and it’s not from the policy makers or from the legislators it’s from the executive bodies and the governments I guess and and we can give them our ideas our thoughts and try to push them to do so because I think we need to do this especially in Africa, in the Middle East, in the Arab world, we need to collaborate together, we need to cooperate together, and to work together to get things done, as I think that no country can do it on its own. It’s now beyond the countries. We need really to work together. Thank you.

HADIA ELMINIAWI: Thank you, Dr. Maha and Noha. I see a hand from the floor. I just had a follow-up for Dr. Maha, but maybe I can just post the question and move to Noha, and then Dr. Maha can answer later. And the question is, how do those bodies, executive bodies, work together in order to exchange insights in the field of digital innovation and risk management? How do they coordinate? And I will pause here, Noha, and give you the floor to manage the queue.

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Thank you, Hadia. We have a raised hand from our online audience. Moussa, do you want to take the floor? Or maybe share your questions in the chat? Will you raise your voice a bit, please? Yeah, we can hear you. Please go ahead.

AUDIENCE: My name is Moussa from Nigeria. I’m a student here in Malusia, in Al-Baghdadi National University. I would like to make a contribution regarding what the former speaker has said about collaboration between the bodies. I think that’s the strongest way to do it. Sorry, Moussa, the voice quality is not good. Can you try to raise your voice, please, or post your questions in the chat? Are you listening now? Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay, please proceed. Yeah, I want to make a suggestion and contribution to what the former speaker has said about the collaboration between the bodies. I think that is the perfect way to change life to do our own security in Africa. Because back there in my country, there is an incident that’s just going on. Whenever you like, you post something bad about a government personnel like a politician in the country, it is very easy for the government to press you and get you and like, they’ll press you and get you and deal with you regarding the issue you caused. But like for the institutions, I don’t know what the kind of technology are they using to press the person that post on the social media against a politician. And the kind of technology they use to press like the bandit and the other people that post on social media. So I think there must be a collaboration between the government and the leg to come together and put, that we should come together and talk to each other so that we get to do our own policy and security. That’s what I want to do.

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: So Musa was emphasizing on the importance of collaboration between the government and other bodies to facilitate the reporting mechanism or finding the attackers. Yeah, Maha, you have a comment? No, no, I guess he was talking about

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER: anyone who can post anything against the government or against someone from the politicians can be easily caught. And trust me, Moussa, it’s not just Nigeria, it’s in a lot of places, yeah. It’s, I guess, yes, all across Africa and some other countries too. We don’t want to specify. And I don’t think that this is what we need the governments to be collaborating in. We need the governments to be collaborating in doing, in trying to make the internet a safer place. And for the, what, your question, Hadia, it’s, I don’t know how they can do that. It’s their job to cooperate. They can easily, in a place like this, in the IJF, in other forums, the officials from different countries, they can sit together and agree on a way of cooperation. They can agree on having a unified platform for reporting the abuse, for instance, or doing things, helping each other in approaching a safer place in the internet for all vulnerable groups. So it’s doable. It is just, as I mentioned before, it needs a political web. It needs them to be really wanting that and feeling the importance of this cooperation and collaboration, which I don’t think is happening right now across Africa so far. Thank you.

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Thank you, Dr. Maha. Caleb, I saw your hand raised.

CALEB OLUMUYIWA OGUNDELE: Yeah, so I just wanted to comment on the lady who did ask a direct question to me about how we encourage women-owned SMEs when it comes to innovation and risk management. So I just wanted to mention something that, first of all, with respect to my male gender, I would say that women are the best money managers, right? And we need to give them their flowers when it comes to that. So why am I saying that? It means that women are actually the ones who power the underground of the economy that we have even globally. Trust me, women are always the ones at the marketplace, which makes them even more exposed and vulnerable. And I’ll take it back to how we can encourage women SMEs when it comes to around innovation and risk. First thing that I see is that the system itself is very biased against them when it comes to funding and supporting women such that they can innovate, such that they can expand businesses, make it more scalable. They are even more exposed to risk than even the male gender themselves. So I would say that they don’t have the same access to funding like their male counterpart. And so it limits their ability to want to scale and innovate. I haven’t seen so many female innovators when it comes to AI. I’ve always seen a lot of male, right? Why is it that the percentage of women are lower than those of men? So I’d like to see, in my own view, responding to the question that was thrown directly at me earlier on, to see that more women are actually supported when it comes to networking, funding, mentorship, and even risk management, as well as capacity training to help them have that. And then government should be conscious about having inclusive funding strategy or procurement to support women and those who are disabled, at least have a certain percentage for them. I’m aware of that, that that is being done in Kenya, that at least about 30% of government procurement are given to us women. men, those with disability, and a couple of other criteria. But I feel that more can be done. So that’s just my little intervention to the question that was thrown by the lady in red. I couldn’t pick her name when she asked the question. My apologies on that, please.

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Thank you, Caleb, for responding and for being a good ally for women empowerment. We need to wrap up, but there is one raised hand here from the on-site audience. Razan, you have, please, in less than one minute.

AUDIENCE: I’m Razan Zakaria from Egypt. I’m a VIAG ambassador, and I’m a content creator. So you talked about the collaboration with the government, and I saw that the most important to collaborate with the platform owners, like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, because they already have a social media platform that you can say that control on our minds and use algorithm sometimes to control in our point of view. As a content creator, when I want to share my point of view, especially in the politics topics, I see that algorithm that’s forbidding me to share my point of view and consider it as a hated speech or something like this, especially that’s related to the war in Gaza, and we said it at the last year, and we already have some tricks like symbols like watermelon or dots between the words, but we don’t have a freedom to share our point of view, and it’s a foreign platform, and the owners have a background with politics thoughts, and they manage on our sharing of our point of view. So this is my issue, actually.

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Thank you, Razan. So yeah, everyone has a hidden agenda, and it’s good that we’re trying to trick the algorithms. Dr. Maha, do you have any comments? And please add your closing remarks, because we need to wrap up.

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER: Okay, thank you, Razan. As I said earlier, you can do nothing about it, because they own these platforms, and whatever we tell them, they own it. them, actually we talked to them directly and they claim that they don’t do that, but we know very well that they are doing that and there is nothing we can do about it, except tricking them as you said, and they couldn’t do anything about it, so we could manage somehow. As a closing remark, I think I will close with the positive note from Amr that the technology, despite of all the facts that we’ve been talking about, about the threats, the risks, the challenges, but we should look at the opportunities and we should think what could be the world without technology. It’s a completely different world and I don’t think that we can do anything without technology anymore, so this is the end of it, we have to live with it, even if we had to sacrifice some of our resources.

Agreement Points

Cybersecurity and data privacy are major risks in digital innovation

speakers

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER

CALEB OLUMUYIWA OGUNDELE

arguments

Cybersecurity threats and data privacy concerns

Need for government-led initiatives and regulatory sandboxes

summary

Both speakers emphasize the importance of addressing cybersecurity threats and data privacy concerns in the digital era, suggesting the need for government initiatives and regulatory measures.

Need for improved reporting mechanisms for online abuse

speakers

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY

arguments

Improving reporting mechanisms for online abuse

Cultural barriers preventing victims from reporting incidents

summary

Both speakers highlight the importance of enhancing reporting mechanisms for online abuse and addressing cultural barriers that prevent victims from reporting incidents.

Similar Viewpoints

All three speakers express concerns about the challenges in regulating and holding accountable tech platforms and those in power for online content and expression.

speakers

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER

CALEB OLUMUYIWA OGUNDELE

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY

arguments

Challenges in holding tech platforms accountable for abusive content

Abuse of regulatory frameworks by those in power

Bias in social media algorithms affecting freedom of expression

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of balancing innovation and risk management

speakers

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER

AUDIENCE

arguments

Developing alternative solutions and backups for technology failures

Importance of not hindering innovation due to fear of risks

explanation

Despite discussing risks, both Dr. Maha and an audience member unexpectedly agree on the importance of not letting fear of risks hinder innovation, suggesting a balanced approach to digital transformation.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers generally agree on the importance of addressing cybersecurity threats, improving reporting mechanisms for online abuse, and the need for better regulation of tech platforms. There is also a shared recognition of the challenges in balancing innovation with risk management.

Consensus level

Moderate consensus on major issues, with some variations in proposed solutions and emphasis. This level of agreement suggests a common understanding of the challenges in digital innovation and online safety, which could facilitate collaborative efforts in developing strategies to address these issues.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to mitigating technological dependency risks

speakers

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER

CALEB OLUMUYIWA OGUNDELE

arguments

Developing alternative solutions and backups for technology failures

Need for government-led initiatives and regulatory sandboxes

summary

Dr. Maha emphasizes developing alternative solutions and backups, while Caleb focuses on government-led initiatives and regulatory sandboxes to address technological risks.

Focus on primary risks in digital innovation

speakers

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY

arguments

Cybersecurity threats and data privacy concerns

Digital divide between privileged and less privileged users

summary

Dr. Maha prioritizes cybersecurity and data privacy risks, while Noha emphasizes the risk of a growing digital divide between privileged and less privileged users.

Unexpected Differences

Perspective on technological dependency

speakers

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER

AUDIENCE

arguments

Technological dependency and potential for system failures

Importance of not hindering innovation due to fear of risks

explanation

While Dr. Maha expresses concern about technological dependency and its risks, an audience member unexpectedly argues for embracing innovation despite potential risks, citing historical examples. This difference highlights the tension between risk mitigation and fostering innovation.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around prioritizing different risks in digital innovation, approaches to mitigating these risks, and the balance between risk management and fostering innovation.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among speakers is moderate. While there is general consensus on the existence of various risks in digital innovation, speakers differ in their prioritization of these risks and proposed solutions. These differences reflect the complexity of managing digital innovation risks and highlight the need for multifaceted approaches that consider various perspectives and stakeholder needs.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agree on the need to address online abuse, but they propose different approaches. Dr. Maha focuses on improving reporting mechanisms, Caleb emphasizes cross-border collaboration, and Noha stresses the importance of raising awareness and digital literacy.

speakers

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER

CALEB OLUMUYIWA OGUNDELE

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY

arguments

Improving reporting mechanisms for online abuse

Need for cross-border collaboration and data sharing

Raising awareness and digital literacy among vulnerable groups

Similar Viewpoints

All three speakers express concerns about the challenges in regulating and holding accountable tech platforms and those in power for online content and expression.

speakers

DR. MAHA ABDEL NASSER

CALEB OLUMUYIWA OGUNDELE

NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY

arguments

Challenges in holding tech platforms accountable for abusive content

Abuse of regulatory frameworks by those in power

Bias in social media algorithms affecting freedom of expression

Key Takeaways

Digital innovation brings significant risks like cybersecurity threats, data privacy concerns, and technological dependency

There is a need for better frameworks and strategies to manage online risks while fostering innovation

Collaboration between governments, tech platforms, and civil society is crucial for addressing online abuse and risks

Women and vulnerable groups face disproportionate challenges in the digital realm and need targeted support

Balancing innovation with risk management is an ongoing challenge that requires flexible approaches

Resolutions and Action Items

Establish clear principles for responsible AI use by organizations

Develop alternative solutions and backups for technology failures

Improve reporting mechanisms for online abuse

Raise awareness and digital literacy among vulnerable groups

Create more inclusive funding strategies to support women entrepreneurs in tech

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively hold tech platforms accountable for abusive content

How to address anonymity and traceability of bad actors online

How to implement AI regulations consistently across different countries

How to balance freedom of expression with content moderation on social media platforms

How to bridge the digital divide between privileged and less privileged users

Suggested Compromises

Using regulatory sandboxes to test AI systems while allowing for innovation

Balancing government oversight with industry self-regulation for tech platforms

Focusing on frameworks rather than strict legislation to allow flexibility for rapidly changing technology

We are so dependent on the technology now and I think this is one of the major threats, risk and challenge at the same time.

speaker

Dr. Maha Abdel Nasser

reason

This comment highlighted a less obvious but critical risk of digital innovation – over-dependence on technology. It shifted the focus from more commonly discussed risks like cybersecurity to a broader societal challenge.

impact

This led to further discussion on the need for backup systems and alternative solutions when technology fails, deepening the conversation on risk mitigation strategies.

We need to first of all start having what we call government-led initiatives. Some of those initiatives could also be based on legislation, regulatory frameworks, sandboxes, where a company can also test innovation safely.

speaker

Caleb Olumuyiwa Ogundele

reason

This comment introduced concrete ideas for managing innovation risks through policy and regulatory approaches. It provided a practical perspective on how to balance innovation and risk.

impact

It sparked discussion on the role of government in facilitating safe innovation, leading to conversations about cross-border collaboration and public-private partnerships.

So bias in AI applications and systems happens when outcomes of AI systems favor or disadvantage a certain group, or favor certain outcomes, or favors certain individuals.

speaker

Hadia Elminiawi

reason

This comment brought attention to the critical issue of bias in AI systems, highlighting the ethical implications of digital innovation.

impact

It led to a deeper exploration of the challenges in ensuring fairness and accountability in AI applications, broadening the discussion beyond just technical risks to include social and ethical considerations.

There is no platform, single platform, as I said, I suggested that to have something like that, and the reporting should be online, as it is all online crimes, but it didn’t go through

speaker

Dr. Maha Abdel Nasser

reason

This comment highlighted a practical gap in addressing online abuse and cybercrime, pointing out the lack of a unified reporting system.

impact

It sparked discussion on the need for better reporting mechanisms and the challenges in implementing such systems, leading to considerations of both technical and political barriers.

Let us please not consider the risks as much as we are considering the opportunities that could be, that could AI be opening to us.

speaker

Amr Hashem

reason

This comment provided a counterpoint to the risk-focused discussion, reminding participants of the potential benefits of digital innovation.

impact

It shifted the tone of the conversation towards a more balanced view of digital innovation, encouraging participants to consider both risks and opportunities.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by broadening its scope from specific technical risks to wider societal, ethical, and policy considerations. They encouraged a more nuanced and multifaceted examination of digital innovation, balancing concerns about risks with recognition of opportunities. The comments also highlighted practical challenges in implementing safeguards and reporting systems, leading to a more grounded discussion of real-world implementation issues. Overall, these insights deepened the level of analysis and introduced greater complexity to the conversation, moving it beyond surface-level concerns to more systemic and forward-looking considerations.

How can we establish a single national platform for reporting cyber bullying?

speaker

Hadia Elminiawi

explanation

A centralized reporting system could improve response to online abuse and make it easier for victims to seek help

What international frameworks exist for reporting online incidents like DNS abuse?

speaker

Hadia Elminiawi

explanation

Understanding existing global mechanisms could help improve coordination in addressing online security issues

How can we require tech platforms to take responsibility for abusive content?

speaker

Hadia Elminiawi

explanation

Holding platforms accountable could reduce the spread of harmful content and protect users

To what extent do online risks hamper the entrepreneurial spirit of SMEs, particularly female entrepreneurs?

speaker

Lisa Vermeer

explanation

Understanding the impact of online risks on business innovation could inform policies to support entrepreneurs

How can policymakers facilitate the establishment of collaborative platforms for exchanging insights on digital innovation and risk management?

speaker

Hadia Elminiawi

explanation

Improved collaboration could lead to more effective strategies for managing digital risks

How do executive bodies work together to exchange insights in the field of digital innovation and risk management?

speaker

Hadia Elminiawi

explanation

Understanding current coordination efforts could identify areas for improvement in addressing digital challenges

How can we develop counter-technologies to address issues like deep fakes while preserving the benefits of AI?

speaker

Amr Hashem

explanation

Balancing innovation with risk mitigation is crucial for responsible technological advancement