The DC session of the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (IRPC) took place in two separate sections, a first presentation of remarks by speakers, and a second half of interactive group workshops. Between in-person and online attendance up to 50 people participated in the session.

Panel Phase

Helani Galpaya

The Global Digital Compact (GDC) is praised for its focus on human rights but lacks clear guidelines on implementing business and human rights principles within its framework. The voluntary nature of these principles and ineffective stakeholder integration slow progress, with separate discussions among businesses and civil society instead of meaningful interactions. The draft document does not support effective collaboration among stakeholders, and the GDC struggles to hold nations accountable for human rights violations by private companies and states. Although the GDC acknowledges the link between human rights and socio-economic rights, addressing inequality, there is a significant gap between its vision and real-world application. Proposed regulations often restrict rights, and there's urgency in their enactment, compromising the GDC’s credibility. Additionally, the GDC underscores the importance of teaching online civic responsibility, drawing parallels with environmental protection efforts to highlight the role of individual actions in creating a safe digital space. Despite efforts to make its consultation process inclusive, it remains imperfect and dominated by privileged voices. Effective ground-level actions are essential after the GDC’s establishment to ensure national policies reflect its principles and objectives. While the GDC commits to human rights and socio-economic issues, it faces challenges in clarity, stakeholder engagement, and enforcement, undermining its impact. However, emphasizing individual online responsibilities and improving consultation inclusivity are crucial for meaningful outcomes.

Raashi Saxena

The GDC is a joint effort by the UN, governments, and civil society to integrate technology with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through a multi-stakeholder approach. The Internet Rights and Principles Coalition plays a key role in the GDC by promoting digital inclusion and connectivity for marginalized groups like women, migrants, and refugees, supporting SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities. Ensuring that human rights in digital spaces match those offline, particularly in areas like freedom of expression and net neutrality, is vital for SDG 16 – Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. The influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in sectors like finance and health, and its challenges, including privacy and the rise of deep fakes, impact SDG 3 – Good Health and Wellbeing, and SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth. The IRPC emphasizes partnerships and youth involvement, aligning with SDG 17 – Partnerships for the Goals and SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. During IRPC events, interactive group activities foster engagement and idea exchange, promoting a collaborative digital future and advancing the SDGs.

Santosh Sigdel

The Dynamic Coalition on Internet Rights and Principles is committed to upholding human rights online, creating the multilingual Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet, now available in 28 languages, to facilitate global and regional stakeholder engagement. The IRPC promotes a rights-based approach to Internet frameworks and has participated in various global forums, including EuroDIG and UNESCO conferences, raising awareness about digital rights and fostering collaborations. Highlighting the importance of accurate and culturally relevant translations, the IRPC engages local stakeholders in the translation process to ensure integrity and build local understanding of the charter's principles. This not only aids in language translation but also inculcates a deep understanding of human rights among local communities, empowering them to advocate and enforce these principles. However, balancing the regulation of online misinformation with freedom of speech presents challenges, particularly as governments may use regulatory measures to suppress free expression. This issue is prevalent e.g. in South Asia, where Internet regulations often threaten freedom of speech. Moreover, awareness of the United Nations' Global Digital Compact remains low in South Asia and other developing regions, impacting its effectiveness. Ensuring broad stakeholder involvement from diverse regions is crucial for the GDC’s success. In summary, the IRPC's work in translating and promoting human rights online, while building local capacities and raising awareness, is vital. Nonetheless, ongoing efforts to maintain freedom of speech in the face of regulatory challenges and to enhance global engagement with initiatives like the GDC are essential for a rights-centric digital world.

Wolfgang Benedek

Wolfgang Benedek criticizes what we know about the Global Digital Compact for its limited progress in advancing human rights. He points out two main flaws: the compact's lack of enforcement mechanisms and the difficulty in achieving consensus among stakeholders. These weaknesses, Benedek argues, hinder the GDC's ability to effectively promote and protect digital human rights. He emphasizes the need for stronger enforcement and more collaborative decision-making to enhance the GDC’s impact on digital human rights.

Dennis Redeker

As far as work of the Coalition is concerned, key developments included the translation of the 10 Principles document into Japanese to engage more local stakeholders and there are concrete plans to translate the entire Charter into Japanese until IGF 2024. To support this, a task force is seeking experts in Internet governance or international law. Dennis also pointed out that the Platform Governance Survey, conducted at the University of Bremen, highlighted a discrepancy between the expected and actual influence in shaping the GDC, with technical experts viewed as ideal leaders but businesses seen as overly dominant. In addition, the general population of 41 countries does not appear to be aware of the important role of governments in the negotiation of the GDC. The results underscore the need for broader public consultation, involving citizens, NGOs, and academics to create a more inclusive digital governance framework. The Internet Rights and Principles Coalition is advancing this inclusivity by collaborating on translations with universities and student groups, enriching students' understanding of digital rights.

Group Phase

Dennis Redeker led a group discussion as part of the workshop, encouraging participants to analyze and discuss future challenges related to specific IRPC Charter articles. This activity aimed to deepen understanding and disseminate knowledge about the charter's relevance.

Audience

The audience discussed and emphasized the following topics:

1.  Youth and diversity in Internet governance emphasizing the importance of involving young people in updating and translating governance documents to reflect diverse perspectives.

2.  Freedom of expression: Discussed the need to balance regulation and protection of free speech, emphasizing principles like legitimacy, necessity, and proportionality to prevent government overreach.

3. Responsibilities in the digital space, stressing the importance of clearly defining roles for states, businesses, and stakeholders in upholding human rights when regulating online content and protecting against harmful information.

4. Inclusivity and accessibility, acknowledging advancements and ongoing challenges in making technology accessible for individuals with disabilities, including variations in regional sign languages and Internet accessibility.

5. Protection of children and their rights, addressing the need for careful regulation to protect children online, the potential impacts of digital certificates on human rights, and the necessity of strategic litigation to safeguard digital rights against overreaching government actions.

Vint Cerf (in the audience) emphasizes the need for users and providers in the digital space to understand and fulfill their responsibilities alongside rights. He links this to Rousseau's social contract concept, which balances individual freedoms with societal obligations. This approach, including the role of social norms, aims to foster a responsible, secure online environment. Ultimately, recognizing and upholding our duties can enhance harmony both online and in broader society.

Introduction

The DC-Sustainability coordinators, Daniel O’Maley, Waqas Naeem and Courtney Radsch opened the session by underscoring the significance of balancing technology innovation governance with the sustainability of journalism and news media. The key highlight for the year was the dynamic coalition's focus on data transparency and access as vital elements for media sustainability. The coalition's annual report was launched during the session, a collaborative endeavor that offers a snapshot of the critical issues facing the news media industry. The report spotlighted topics like the power imbalances between media and tech giants, the dual nature of government regulations impacting media, and the challenges and opportunities presented by technological innovations, such as generative AI.

In the first section of the session, authors of the report presented their chapters: Prue Clarke (New Narratives - Australia), Mike Harris (Exonym - United Kingdom), Juliana Harsianti (Independent Journalist and Researcher - Indonesia) and Juliet Nanfuka (CIPESA - Uganda). Following the presentations of each chapter, members of the DC-Sustainability took the floor to present their work: Michael Markovitz (GIBS Media Leadership Think Tank - South Africa), Ana Cristina Ruelas (UNESCO - Mexico), Julius Endert (DW Academy - Germany), Michael Bak (Forum on Information and Democracy - France), Sabhanaz Rashid Diya (Global Tech Institute - Bangladesh) and Ramiro Alvarez (CELE - Argentina). The session concluded with an open discussion with the audience.

Global influence of EU/US policies

A key topic was the overarching effect of policies and tech companies from powerhouses like the EU and the US on the global digital space. Despite being localized, their ripple effect transcends borders, impacting organizations working in so-called “Global South” countries. These organisations often find themselves grappling with the daunting task of compliance, struggling to decipher a logic they didn't create and can't control. Notably, these policies (both from companies and governments) play a pivotal role in shaping how journalists and media outlets operate, offering them limited avenues to challenge the tech giants. Courtney Radsch elaborated on these techno-legal systems, emphasizing the major influence of US and EU-based tech platforms on global media. These platforms determine how content rules and policies, such as the DMCA and GDPR, are implemented. Tying into the conversation on how centralized internet governance has impacted media visibility and sustainability, Mike Harris spoke about the importance of decentralized rulebook systems to empower news media, especially in the face of challenges from large online platforms. Juliana Harsianti shed light on the evolution of digital technology in Indonesia, emphasizing the implications of regulations intended for e-commerce now being used to restrict journalistic freedom. 

Digital Equity: Paving the Way for Sustainable Journalism

Data stands as the backbone of informed decision-making in today's digital realm. Gathering the right data is the first hurdle. With tech platforms influencing the visibility and viability of content, there's an undeniable need for a coordinated approach to collect and utilize data. Such data can aid in understanding audience behaviors, advertising strategies, and the effectiveness of content distribution methods. Ensuring a fair compensation model, bolstered by clear data-driven strategies, can pave the way for the sustainability of quality journalism. In that regard, via a written statement, Michael Markovitz the Conference held in July, “Big Tech and Journalism - Building a Sustainable Future for the Global South” which culminated in the adoption of the Principles for Fair Compensation, aimed to be a framework for the design of policy mechanisms seeking to address media sustainability through competition or regulatory approaches.

Prue Clark spotlighted the disparity faced by countries like Liberia in the digital age. The challenges faced by media in such countries, from a lack of digital monetization knowledge to reliance on government support, are evident. Juliet Nanfuka offered a parallel from Uganda, emphasizing the hesitancy in the media's approach to AI, despite the challenges they face. Both Clark and Nanfuka highlighted the struggles and gaps in media adaptation and digital training in lower-income countries.

Daniel O’Maley emphasized the transformative power of data sharing, stressing the importance of understanding which data is essential for different sectors. He talks about the implications of data transparency policies, especially considering their global impact.

While Nanfuka highlighted the challenges of integrating new technology into media spaces that are already grappling with other significant issues, Julius Ender dived into the transformative power of AI in media, emphasizing the importance of AI literacy. Both Ender and Nanfuka conveyed the urgency for media sectors, especially in developing countries, to understand and adapt to AI's growing influence.

Regional Focus vs. Global Perspective:

During the Members’ Spotlight, Sabhanaz Rashid Diya offered insight into the mission of the Tech Global Institute to bridge the equity gap between the global South and dominant tech platforms. Ramiro Alvarez provided a deep dive into the media landscape of Latin America, emphasizing the influence of state-driven media and the need for more open dialogue. This regional focus complements the broader global themes discussed, reinforcing the idea that global digital governance challenges often manifest in unique regional ways. Despite the fact that the media landscape varies by region and country, there are common threads of challenge and opportunity related to digital governance, sustainability, and the integration of new technologies.

Conclusion and next steps

Overall, the session emphasized the value of global collaboration grounded in local insights. It's not just about dissecting EU or US policies, but also diving deep into what's happening in places like Uganda and Liberia. The local challenges faced in these regions have global implications, reinforcing the need for an inclusive approach in policy discussions.

While the EU and US might often take center stage due to their significant influence, the collective effort should focus on ensuring that voices from all corners of the world are heard: Global strategies must be informed by local knowledge and experiences. 

In the coming months, DC-Sustainability members will meet again to shape the priorities for the year ahead, especially when it comes to envisioning AI governance and its impact in the media. The goal is to ensure that as the world of journalism evolves, it remains rooted in authenticity, inclusivity, and the pursuit of truth.

At the beginning of the session, Dr. Arisa Ema (The University of Tokyo), one of the organizers, explained the purpose of the session. The aim of this session is to expand the concept of "Responsible AI,” which is an important topic of AI governance, to "Resilient and Responsible AI" by considering the possibility of situations including crises where dynamic interactions between multiple AI systems, physical systems, and humans across a wide range of domains may lead to unpredictable outcomes.

First, Carly and Yui who are the pilots (operators of an avatar-robot) of OriHime (an avatar robot) talked about their experiences from the user's viewpoint of the technology. They have been in wheelchairs and feel the value of participating in society through the avatar robots. On the other hand, they have encountered situations where they could not handle irregulars because of the overreliance on technology.  Carly shared the experience that he was unable to turn on the power switchboard by himself and loss of communication with outside, when a power failure occurred by a lightning strike while working at home.  Yui talked about the anxiety and unnecessary apologies that people who need assistance face in a social system that is becoming increasingly automated. In a technology-driven society, where manuals are available but not always put into practice, they realized that this assumption would be broken not only in ordinary times but also in times of disaster, and that she would have to rely on people. The common conclusions of both stories, that is, the balance between technology and the manpower is important and that it should be considered that sometimes technology does not work, is suggestive. Furthermore, it made us realize that the nature of the crisis can be diverse for a diverse society. Next, Dr. Hiroaki Kitano (Sony), a researcher and executive of a technology company, who is currently working on an AI project for scientific discovery, pointed out that such an AI brings some positive effects for human being, but it also has a risk by misuse. Then, he also highlighted the possibility of future large-scale earthquakes in Japan and the importance of how to avoid excessive reliance on AI. There is a risk that AI will not be available unless communication networks, stable power and PC/mobile devices are available in accidents such as large-scale power outage when the dependency of AI in society is increased.

The organizers and three panelists, Dr. Inma Martinez (Global Partnership on AI), Ms. Rebecca Finlay (Partnership on AI), and Dr. David Leslie (The Alan Turing Institute), led the discussion based on the issues raised by OriHime pilots and Dr. Kitano. Dr. Martinez mentioned the necessity of defining resilience, and emphasized that the power of technology should be rooted in the values we have learned from our families and national cultures. By doing so, empowerment can create resilience. Ms. Finlay pointed out that while the assessments of AI systems before the launch are discussed, attention is hardly paid to how they affect different communities after they are released. The resilience and control methods are always required throughout the life cycle of AI, i.e., during the research phase, before and after launch. Focusing on machine-learning which has been the mainstream of AI in recent years, Dr. Leslie pointed out that data-driven systems may become vulnerable in a dynamic environment. As society and culture are gradually change, machine learning based systems driven by past data has the limitations. He emphasized the importance of considering resilience because excessive reliance on data driven systems has possibility to lead to stagnation in human creativity. In response to these discussions, Dr. Ema pointed out that we need to consider how technological and social perspectives on the current discussions such as generative AI will change. The following three points were pointed out by the audience.

• The need for society to provide people with options for solutions.
• The need for a more comprehensive impact assessment (technology, ethics, human rights, etc.) 
• The risk of forgetting skills due to dependence on technology.

Then, a participant was asked about AI as a critical infrastructure. In response to this question, at first, Dr. Martinez said that AI is an infrastructure-based service, and it creates an unknown area for society. She mentioned the resilience of the communication infrastructure in which she was involved, and introduced an example in which a specific band continues to operate even if the whole network goes down in a disaster. She also pointed out the necessity of considering the self-repair mechanism of AI in the event of an infrastructural outage, and how to build not only systems but also human resilience. Ms. Finlay touched on the possibility that AI can be introduced in various ways with various implications, in response to Dr. Martinez. And she pointed out that systems need multiple layers of resilience. The way to understand how AI interact in a system is to map the system and understand its effects. Dr. Leslie pointed out that AI is rapidly becoming an infrastructure and general-purpose technology, and that it functions as an alternative for humans to think and act. AI is becoming a kind of a utility, but if it becomes an infrastructure, the question is who should control it. Dr. Ema said that it is difficult for individual companies to be held accountable when AI become infrastructural and go beyond the scope of a company, and that governmental and global discussions will be required.

As a summary of the discussion, the panelists highlighted the need for AI to be safe and have a solid foundation for society. They also emphasized the importance of defining and monitoring resilience to support society. In addition, they agreed the necessity of international research institutions to discuss AI from scientific and technological perspectives against the rapid commercialization of AI. In response to these comments, Dr. Ema concluded this discussion with the hope that all of us will work together to realize a resilient and responsible AI. The session received a variety of comments. A participant from public sector appreciated the uniqueness of the theme and the importance of discussion. On the other hand, another participant pointed out practical aspects such as how to handle large and complex systems composed by multiple AI systems. It is important to continue the discussion on this topic.

This session was facilitated by the FOC Task Force on Internet Shutdowns (TFIS), co-Chaired by the U.K. and Freedom Online Coalition-Advisory Network members Access Now and the Global Network Initiative. The session examined causes, trends and impacts of Internet shutdowns and disruptions, and explored how the multistakeholder community can work together to anticipate, prepare for, and where possible prevent Internet shutdowns before they occur, with a focus on identifying practical steps that can be taken ahead of ‘high risk’ elections in 2024.

Kanbar Hossein-Bor, Deputy Director of Democratic Governance & Media Freedom at the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, provided opening remarks, noting that Internet shutdowns pose a significant threat to the free flow of information and are a fundamental impediment to the ability to exercise human rights, underscoring the importance of a multistakeholder approach to addressing these challenges. Mr. Hossein-Bor highlighted the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC) Joint Statement on Internet Shutdowns and Elections, launched during the session, which calls on States to refrain from shutting down the Internet and digital communications platforms amid electoral periods, as aligned with States’ international human rights obligations and commitments.

Speakers underlined the critical role access to the Internet and digital media platforms play in promoting free, transparent, and fair electoral processes. Panellists spoke on the negative reality of Internet shutdowns and their impact, noting its destructive consequences on economic prosperity and access to health care, as well as obscuring human rights violations. Panellists highlighted how Internet disruptions and preventing access to platforms during election periods are often justified by governments as a means to ensure national security and to mitigate disinformation, even though shutdowns and disruptions have proven to further exacerbate security risks, especially among already vulnerable groups. Speakers also highlighted big tech companies’ lack of engagement and product oversight in local contexts (e.g. hate speech moderation in local languages). Additionally, when examining government use of Internet shutdowns, panellists flagged governments’ lack of knowledge and experience regarding alternative tools to address security concerns amid elections in contexts of violence. In these contexts, full and partial shutdowns were used as a form of resistance and expression of sovereignty by governments in response to companies and systems they felt powerless to and did not know how to engage with. In addition to underlining the need for a multistakeholder approach and calling on telecommunications and digital media companies to ensure people have access to a secure, open, free, and inclusive Internet throughout electoral processes, panellists also recognised the role of disinformation as a risk cited by governments to justify Internet shutdowns and disruptions during elections. In order to address this challenge, speakers noted the following recommendations:

● Narrative forecasting: Anticipating the types of narratives that may be deployed at different points in the electoral process, and preparing a response;

● Overcoming selection bias: Finding ways to bring fact-based information into the right spaces;

● Preemptive responses to disinformation: Drafting preemptive responses to disinformation in order to reduce response time and minimise the spread of disinformation.

● Collaboration between civil society and Big Tech: Encouraging collaboration between local civil society organisations and big tech companies to address online content moderation in local contexts.

During the Q&A session, audience members enquired about government and civil society strategies to address and prevent Internet shutdowns, emphasising additional considerations to take into account when seeking to promote fair and open elections.

The U.K. closed the session by reiterating the importance of 2024 as a key election year, and also highlighted the publication of the Oxford Statement on the Universal Access to Information and Digital connectivity, developed following the Global Conference for the International Day for Universal Access to Information 2023.

This Open Forum focused on the role of AI in the Energy transition. With various perspectives at the table, the speakers discussed both the possibilities of AI and possible implications of the use of emerging technologies in the energy transition. Alisa Heaver, Senior Policy Officer at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, opened the session by emphasizing the relevance of the topic and introducing the speakers. She highlighted the lack of references to sustainability in the policy brief presented by the tech envoy and advocated for a more pronounced emphasis on this crucial issue. Additionally, she underscored the historical relevance of the venue, where the Kyoto Protocol was signed, as a symbolic cue to prioritize sustainability in the context of digitalization and global collaboration. 

Before starting with the presentations and discussion on the role of AI in the energy transition, Hannah Boute, secretary of the Dutch Coalition for Sustainable Digitization and expert on the Guidance Ethics approach, firstly elaborated on the Dutch Coalition for Sustanable Digitzation and after thatexplained the format of the session with help of the Guidance Ethics approach. 
 

The NCDD is a Dutch initiative that, together with government, industry, university and civil society, works on enabling sustainable digitization and exploring the possibilities of technology to accelerate sustainability in verticals, for example the chances of ai for the energy transition. The NCDD is working on enabling the twin transition and next to that works, among other subjects, on the implementation of green software, enabling organizations to make their own IT green and standards for sustainability in IT. 

 
The Guidance Ethics approach is a bottom-up ethical method developed by Professor Peter Paul Verbeek, Rector Magnificus of the University of Amsterdam and Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Science and Technology, and Daniël Tijink, responsible for ethics and strategy with the management team of ECP, platform for the information society. 

The approach brings together people, or actors, from four perspectives who are involved with a technology in a specific context. People who develop the technology (ICT), the professionals that will be working with the technology, people from policy or management and people who will be confronted with the technology such as citizens.  Together with these people the possible postive and negative effects of a technology within a specific context are explores. Behind effects, values can be found. During a workshop with the guidance ethics approachways to incorporate the identified values in the design of new technology, the implementation of technology and how we use technology within a specific context are explored.  

Today, we will not be doing a workshop with the Guidance ethics approach, but we will use it to explore the ethical dimensions of the application of AI in the energy transition. Neil Yorke-Smith will explain us how AI might be applied for the Energy Transition. After his explanation. Tim Vermeulen from Alliander will elaborate on the application of AI in the energy transition from a European perspective and Peach from the innovation hub in Cambodia will do so from the South East Asian perspective. 

Hannah actively requested participants to join the process of recognising values in the session by identifying them and submitting these values in the Mentimeter. During the panel discussion these values will be used to discuss the possible options for action to sustain these values in the design of AI, the application of AI on the energy grid and how we work with the technology in this context.  

Neil Yorke-Smith, Associate Professor at Delft University of Technology and part of the working group Energy & Sustainability of the NL AI Coalition, then further explained the role of AI in the energy transition. Neil emphasized that Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize the energy sector, but its implementation must be carefully considered to ensure that it is ethical, sustainable, and beneficial for all stakeholders.   

One of the key benefits of AI in the energy system is the potential for enhancing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of energy utilization. The utilization of AI extends to various areas within the energy sector, including forecasting, system design, real-time balancing, demand response, and flexible pricing. These diverse applications of AI serve to significantly augment the efficiency and efficacy of the energy system, ultimately facilitating a shift away from reliance on fossil-based fuels. 

In the pursuit of incorporating AI into the energy sector, several crucial ethical, legal, social, and economic considerations need to be taken into account. While AI offers many opportunities, the societal impact is not yet fully understood. To ensure that AI is implemented in the energy sector in a responsible and sustainable manner, it is essential to thoroughly examine the ethical, legal, social, and economic implications.   

Furthermore, it is imperative to factor in societal values when designing AI systems, considering the preferences and values of potential consumers and society as a whole. Value-sensitive design emphasises the incorporation of values in the design. In conjunction with this, there is a call for a focus on code efficiency, aiming to reduce the size and resource consumption of AI algorithms, ultimately fostering sustainable practices. Long-term decision-making is also critical, prompting consideration of the lasting consequences of present decisions, particularly concerning infrastructure that will endure for decades. 

This also leads to the importance of accountability. It is essential to hold those responsible for developing AI systems accountable for their actions and the (environmental) impact of their technology. Furthermore, global cooperation is necessary, promoting the sharing of knowledge and experiences to facilitate the successful integration and advancement of AI within the energy system. 

Neil concludes by stating that the implementation of AI in the energy system must be done in a manner that is both trustworthy and just, with a focus on fairness and sustainability. It is crucial to consider the ethical, legal, social, and economic aspects of AI implementation from the very beginning and incorporate societal values into the design process of AI technology. Furthermore, attention should be given to enhancing code efficiency and making long-term decisions that account for potential shifts in societal values. Holding developers accountable for their technology's impact and fostering global cooperation and learning are also integral to the successful integration of AI in the energy system. 

European perspective 

Tim Vermeulen, Digital Strategy & Architecture at Alliander and member of the strategy board of the Dutch National Coalition on Sustainable Digitalisation, shared his perspective on the role of AI in the energy transition from a European perspective. He stated that the energy landscape in Europe is undergoing rapid transformation, primarily propelled by technological advancements such as AI and open-source technologies. While these developments offer promising opportunities, they also pose challenges, notably the potential introduction of biases in energy distribution and access. 

In this dynamic context, fairness emerges as a critical consideration for the energy transition, encompassing not only equitable energy distribution but also the reduction of CO2 emissions. Given the diverse energy mixes and unique challenges within different regions, it becomes crucial to approach the transition with a modular perspective, accounting for the specific circumstances and requirements of each country. 

Tim explained how the key factors shaping Europe's energy landscape include transparency, modularity, and technology. The adoption of a modular technology system enables collaborative resource-sharing among nations, fostering an open and cooperative approach to the development of a more sustainable energy sector. Sustainability, fairness, and integrity represent core values in Europe's approach to energy. Access to energy is regarded as a universal right, with the preservation of the energy system's integrity being indispensable for achieving sustainability and fairness. 

Efficiency and awareness play vital roles in the development of applications that drive the energy transition. Tim further emphasized the creation of clean and efficient code across all sectors as it directly influences the shift toward cleaner energy sources. Recognizing that every job has the potential to contribute to a clean and affordable energy future, the significance of a comprehensive approach across various sectors is highlighted. This underscores the importance of acknowledging the influence of jobs in shaping the energy transition. 

Furthermore, technology remains a significant catalyst, unlocking new possibilities and advancements across different segments within the energy sector. Experts acknowledge the potential of openness and complexity in technology, underscoring the need for continuous innovation and development. To foster a successful global energy transition, the sharing of knowledge and values on a global scale is imperative. Effectively managing the knowledge-based landscape on a global level serves as a fundamental driver of progress and collaboration within the energy sector. 

In conclusion, Europe's energy landscape is undergoing rapid evolution, accompanied by various advancements and challenges. Tim explained that fairness, transparency, modularity, technology, efficiency, awareness, and global knowledge sharing emerge as pivotal factors shaping the transition toward a more sustainable, fair, and affordable energy future. 

ASEAN Perspective 

Chantarapeach UT,Space and Sustainable Operation Officer at Impact Hub Phnom Penh, underscores that youth-driven innovation and entrepreneurship in green technology serve as crucial drivers in expediting the energy transition and combating climate change. Chantarapeach emphasises the necessity of backing the initiatives of young individuals in this domain through both financial and technical support, awareness campaigns, and the incorporation of inclusive decision-making processes. 

The scope of youth-led technological breakthroughs in green technology encompasses a diverse array of fields, ranging from green energy engineering and smart agriculture to optimizations in renewable energy, air quality monitoring, green building solutions, climate modeling, and eco-friendly transportation. Empowering young individuals to pioneer innovative responses to environmental challenges represents a significant stride toward the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and 13 (Climate Action). 

An essential aspect of facilitating youth involvement in the energy transition involves raising awareness and fostering exposure to green jobs. Green jobs contribute to the advancement of sustainable energy practices, providing a multitude of opportunities for young individuals to pursue careers in areas such as green AI research, sustainability data analysis, renewable energy engineering, and clean tech research. By disseminating information and inspiring young people about these prospects, we can encourage their active participation in careers that contribute to a sustainable energy future, aligning with SDGs 7 and 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). 

Furthermore, the inclusion of young voices in decision-making processes concerning digital policy and climate change proves critical in ensuring an all-encompassing and fair energy transition. Platforms like the Cambodian Youth Internet Governance Forums and the Local Conference of Youth under UNGO serve as crucial spaces for young people to engage and express their viewpoints on these pivotal matters. By integrating the perspectives of the youth into the decision-making process, we can establish more efficient and inclusive energy systems, thus aligning with SDGs 7 and 13. 

She also emphasizes the role of harnessing renewable energy more effectively in Asia, where many countries heavily rely on fossil fuels. By concentrating on renewable energy technologies and enhancing energy sharing arrangements, Asia can lessen its dependence on non-renewable resources and promote sustainability, thereby aligning with SDG 7. 

In conclusion, Chantarapeach advocated for a comprehensive approach in supporting youth-led innovation and entrepreneurship in green technology. By providing both financial and technical assistance, promoting awareness of green jobs, involving young voices in decision-making processes, and maximizing the potential of renewable energy in Asia, we can empower and mobilize the youth to expedite the development of a sustainable energy future and combat climate change. Collaboration between the youth and adults remains pivotal in accelerating an inclusive energy transition. 

Panel discussion 

Collaboration and dialogue between policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society were essential themes throughout the panel discussion, emphasizing the importance of engaging multiple stakeholders from different sectors and regions to foster inclusive decision-making and equitable distribution of the benefits of an energy transition. The discussion also highlighted the immense potential of AI in driving an inclusive energy transition. However, technological advancements alone are insufficient for achieving an inclusive energy transition, necessitating a holistic approach encompassing social, economic, and environmental dimensions. Additionally, the panel discussion brought up the urgency of incorporating values in the design of technologies, addressing equity and social justice issues to prevent the perpetuation of existing disparities in energy access and affordability. 

The current dynamics of freedom of expression on the Internet are characterized by at least three aspects: i) the deterioration of public debate; ii) the need to make the processes, criteria and mechanisms for internet content governance compatible with democratic and human rights standards; and iii) the lack of access, including connectivity and digital literacy to enhance civic skills. And this is closely related to dynamics of violence, disinformation, inequalities in the opportunities of participation in the public debate and viralization of extremist content. 

Diverse and reliable information and free, independent and diverse media are effective antidotes to these dynamics. Tackling disinformation, violence and human rights violations requires multidimensional multi-stakeholder responses that are well-grounded in the full range of human rights and that brings together regulatory measures, self-regulatory approaches, soft law norms, and policy initiatives.

 As people worldwide increasingly rely on the Internet to connect, learn, and consume news, it is imperative to develop connectivity. Access to the Internet is an indispensable enabler of a broad range of human rights, including access to information. An open, free, global, interoperable, reliable and secure Internet for all facilitated individuals’ enjoyment of their rights, including freedoms of expression, opinion, and peaceful assembly is only possible if we have more people accessing and sharing information online.

Additionally, in the informational scenario of media and digital communication, citizens and consumers should “be given new tools to help them assess the origin and likely veracity of news stories they read online”, since the potential to access and spread information in this environment is relatively easily and malicious actors benefit from it to manipulate the public debate. In this sense, critical digital literacy aims to empower users to consume content critically, as a prerequisite for online engagement, by identifying issues of bias, prejudice, misrepresentation and, indeed, trustworthiness. Critical digital literacy, however, should also be about understanding the position of digital media technologies in society. This goes beyond understanding digital media content to include knowledge of the wider socio-economic structures within which digital technologies are embedded: how are social media platforms funded, for instance? What is the role of advertising? To what extent is content free or regulated?

Given their importance for the exercise of rights in the digital age, digital, media and information literacy programmes should be considered an integral part of education efforts. The promotion of digital, media and information literacy must form part of broader commitments by States to respect, protect and fulfil human rights, and by business entities. 

Likewise, initiatives to promote journalism are key in facing informational manipulation and distortion, which requires States and private actors to promote the diversity of digital and non-digital media. 38

On the other hand, the role of public officials in the digital public debate is highlighted. It is recalled that state actors must preserve the balance and conditions of the exercise of the right of access to information and freedom of expression; Therefore, such actors should not use public resources to finance content on sites, applications or platforms that spread illicit and violent content and should not promote or encourage stigmatizing discourses. States must observe obligations to promote human rights, which includes promoting the protection of users against online violence. The State has a positive role in creating an enabling environment for freedom of expression and equality, while recognising that this brings potential for abuse. 

In this sense, it is worth noting a recent example in Colombia of a decision by the constitutional court that urged political parties and movements to adopt guidelines in their codes of ethics to sanction acts or incitement to online violence. 

In this paradigmatic decision, the court recalled the obligation of the State to educate about the seriousness of online violence and gender online violence and to implement measures to prevent, investigate, punish and repair it; and iv) insisted that political actors, parties and movements, due to their importance in a democratic regime, are obliged to promote respect for and defend human rights, a duty that must be reflected in their actions and in their statutes. Additionally, the court determined that the State should adopt the necessary measures to establish a training plan for members and affiliates of political parties and movements on gender perspective and online violence against women in response.

Considering that unlawful and violent narratives are propelled by state actors on the internet through paid advertisement, it is worth noting that these actors should follow specific criteria in the ad market. Any paid contracting for content by state actors or candidates must report through active transparency on the government or political party portals the data regarding the value of the contract, the contracted company and the form of contracting, the content, resource distribution mechanisms, audience segmentation criteria and number of exhibitions.

On the other hand, to make business activity compatible with human rights possible, the Office of the Special Rapporteur reiterates that Internet intermediaries have the responsibility of respecting the human rights of users. In this sense, they should:

• Refrain from infringing human rights and address negative consequences on such rights in which they have some participation, which implies taking appropriate measures to prevent, mitigate and, where appropriate, remedy them. (Principle 11).
• Try to prevent or mitigate negative consequences on human rights directly related to operations, products or services provided by their business relationships, even when they have not contributed to generating them. (Principle 13).
• Adopt a public commitment at the highest level regarding respect for the human rights of users and that is duly reflected in operational policies and procedures (Principle 16).
• Carry out due diligence activities that identify and explain the actual and potential impacts of their activities on human rights (impact assessments), in particular by periodically carrying out analyzes on the risks and effects of their operations.

In conclusion, the challenges facing the digital public debate necessitate a multidimensional approach. Soft law principles, education, self-regulation, and legal mechanisms can together create a robust framework to mitigate the harms we face online.

• Key takeaways
  • Without independent quality media we (as individuals and societies) cannot understand the world we live in, we cannot create a shared reality, and we cannot form opinions and make decisions –> independent news media is essential to democracy, to enable a system where everyone has a say in how they’re govern and to hold this system to account.
  • We find ourselves in a moment of prolonged crises for the media, and for democracy – but while this is a moment of crises it is also a great moment of opportunity.
  • We have to keep it human, especially in a time when AI threatens democracy – the news media has to double-down on humanity and integrity to overcome the challenges of the pollution in our current information ecosystem.
  • Necessary to ensure access to quality news globally – currently there is a divergence between online platforms’ majority users, where they make money, and where regulation is developed.
  • Everyone needs access to quality information, it should not be limited to those who can afford it, otherwise others are at risk of exploitation and control.
  • Online platforms are occupying the public information sphere – this power must come with responsibilities. Regulation centering on human rights, public interest, and rule of law is essential in this regard.
  • Both democracy and quality news media is about empowering people, to create and sustain an active citizenry and vibrant communities, which is a prerequisite of public, political, and democratic participation.
  • News media has been transforming significantly over the last decade but identifying characteristics are being built on principles and codes, being accountable to itself, based on quality, and being transparent about its processes and itself (to avoid any undue influence, be it commercial or political). Therefore, it can serve the public interest.
  • The 2023 Joint Declaration on Media Freedom and Democracy coined what is needed for the media to take on its fundamental role in democracy: https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/3/2/542676.pdf.

• Call-to-action points
  • Whole-of-society approach needed to safeguard quality information and to consistently uphold public interest amidst the transitional media landscape.
  • We need to develop and implement a public interest framework to build a healthier online information space.
  • Need to create and ensure technology for democracy, opportunity to harness technology’s potential (especially by thinking of local levels rather than scale).
  • Need to recalibrate the relationship between news media and online platforms, but also with democratic institutions.
  • Online platforms have to be more accountable and play a role in overcoming global digital information inequalities.
  • As the challenges are highly complex, any response requires an intersectional and multi-stakeholder approach.

Introduction

As digital technologies increasingly intersect with privacy concerns, the OECD's insights on Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) demonstrate that these technologies can enhance privacy and data protection and foster trust. This workshop built on such foundational work, aiming to expand our understanding and application of PETs to explore the multifaceted role of privacy enhancing, empowering, and enforcing technologies (PE³Ts) in fostering privacy and data protection, while enabling the trustworthy use of personal data for growth and well-being.

Distinguished panelists discussed not only how the combination of PETs such as synthetic data, homomorphic encryption and federated learning can enable the trustworthy collection, processing, analysis, and sharing of data, but also explored how digital technologies can be leveraged to enforce privacy laws, enhance transparency, improve accountability, and empower individuals to take more control over their own data. In so doing the session provided a platform for multistakeholder dialogue, aiming to generate insights into the opportunities and challenges of PE³Ts, exploring how these technologies can foster greater trust in the digital landscape, critically contributing to a safer and more inclusive Internet for all.

Privacy-Enhancing Technologies in Action

Panelists detailed how PETs such as homomorphic encryption and differential privacy can be instrumental in data protection. This included the ICO's approach to PETs as tools for secure data sharing, emphasizing alignment with legal compliance and their role in facilitating safer data practices.

Panelists also shared examples, such as Mozilla's deployment of PETs and their integration into products like the Firefox browser. In this context, panelists discussed the broader implications of PETs in enhancing user privacy without compromising functionality, particularly in the context of advertising.

Digital Technologies and Privacy Enforcement

Panelists also illustrated how digital technologies for automation can streamline privacy enforcement. Insights from NOYB’s approach were shared where digital technologies are used for monitoring and addressing privacy violations effectively, highlighting the potential for scaling enforcement activities using digital tools. In this context the need for ongoing education and adoption of PETs within EU institutions and across its member states was also highlighted.

Proactive Privacy Management and Integration

Panelists later discussed concepts for proactive privacy management through software analysis, proposing methods to assess and ensure privacy from the development phase of software products. Such approach suggested a shift towards embedding privacy considerations early in the technology design process. Panelists also stressed the importance of integrating PETs with traditional privacy management practices. In this context, panelists discussed the challenges and opportunities of adopting PETs in various organizational contexts, emphasizing the need for strategic privacy risk management.

Conclusion and Recommendations:

The workshop underscored the multifaceted role of PETs in enhancing and enforcing privacy within digital landscapes. The collaborative discussions highlighted the importance of integrating technological solutions with regulatory and organizational frameworks to achieve robust privacy protections. It led to the following recommendations:

• Enhanced Collaboration: Encourage multi-stakeholder dialogues to further develop and refine PETs.
• Increased Awareness and Training: Promote broader understanding and skill development in PETs across all sectors.
• Guidance and Best Practices: Develop comprehensive guidelines that help organizations implement PETs effectively.

Session report: Can (generative) AI be compatible with Data protection?

IGF 2023, October 10^th, 2023, WS 10 - Room I

The session explored the tension between the development and use of AI systems, particularly generative AI systems such as ChatGPT, and data protection frameworks. The DC aims to present a diverse set of views, in the spirit of multistakeholder debate, from various sectors, countries, disciplines, and theoretical backgrounds.

Professor Luca Belli, Director of the Centre for Technology and Society at FGV Law School, opened and moderated the session. He discusses the concept of AI Sovereignty – “the capacity of a given country to understand, muster and develop AI systems, while retaining control, agency and, ultimately, self-determination over such systems”. Regulating generative AI is a complex web of geopolitical, sociotechnical, and legal considerations, whose core elements compose the AI Sovereignty Stack.

Armando Manzueta, Digital Transformation Director, Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development of the Dominican Republic – gave insights on how governments can try to use generative AI in their infrastructure and public services. When an AI complies with data privacy laws along with a transparent decision-making mechanism, it has the power to usher in a new era of public services that can empower citizens and help restore trust in public entities improving workforce efficiency, reducing operational costs in public sectors, and supercharging digital modernization.

Gbenga Sesan, Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative, Nigeria – emphasized the role of existing data protection laws, but also how this ongoing discussion on generative AI opens an opportunity for the countries that do not yet have a data protection law to start considering introducing one to regulate mass data collection and processing. There is also a need to de-mystify AI and make it more understandable to people. Sesan also pointed out that there is a lack of diversity in the models of generative AI like ChatGPT, as well as a need to establish review policies or mechanisms when they deal with information on people.

Melody Musoni, Policy Officer at the European Centre for Development Policy, South Africa – spoke on how African countries are taking steps to carve out their position as competitors in the development of AI. There is a need for AI to solve the problem in the African region. E.g., the digital transformation strategy showed the urgency for Africa to start looking into AI and innovation to develop African solutions. The speaker also mentioned setting up data centers through public-private partnerships.

Jonathan Mendoza, Secretary for Data Protection, National Institute of Transparency Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI), Mexico - explores current and prospective frameworks, giving a descriptive account of ongoing efforts to promote transparency and accountability. Due to the diverse nature of the population in the Latin American region, generative AI can pose a threat and therefore a policy to process personal data must be in place. There is also a need to balance the ethical designing of AI models and the implementation of AI to make these models more inclusive and sustainable while reducing potential threats.

Camila Leite, Brazilian Consumers Association (Idec) - explored the general risks of AI on the Brazilian consumer population. Financial and Mobility services can immensely benefit from generative AI, however there have been instances in which the output from generative AI was found to be manipulative, discriminatory, and violated the privacy of people. It is important to put consumer rights and protection at the heart of policies regulating generative AI.

Wei Wang, University of Kong - elucidates the disparate conceptualizations of AI accountability among various stakeholders at the Chinese level, thereby facilitating an informed discussion about the ambiguity and implementability of normative frameworks governing AI, specifically regarding Generative AI. China has a sector-specific approach contrary to the comprehensive one as seen in the EU, UK, etc. China has established measures to comply with sectoral laws and Intellectual property laws.

Smriti Parsheera, Researcher, CyberBRICS Project, India - discusses the why and how of transparency obligations, as articulated in the AI governance discussions in India and select international principles. She argues that the need for transparency permeates through the lifecycle of an AI project and identifies the policy layer, the technical layer, and the operational layer as the key sites for fostering transparency in AI projects.

Michael Karanicolas, Executive Director, UCLA Institute for Technology, Law and Policy - argues for the need to develop AI standards beyond the “auspices of a handful of powerful regulatory blocs”, and calls for the inclusion of the Majority World into standard-setting processes in international fora.

Kamesh Shekar, Senior Programme Manager, Privacy & Data Governance Vertical, The Dialogue - argues for a principle-based approach coupled with a detailed classification of AI harms and impacts. He proposes a detailed multistakeholder approach that resonates with the foundational values of responsible AI envisioned by various jurisdictions geared toward ensuring that AI innovations align with societal values and priorities.

Kazim Rizvi, Founding Director, The Dialogue - spoke about domestic coordination of regulation and then international coordination. Alternative regulatory approaches can also be looked upon through public-private partnerships.

Giuseppe Cicu, PhD Student at the University of Turin and corporate Lawyer at Galgano Law Firm - spoke about a framework to regulate AI by Corporate Design to fit together business management and AI governance concerns into a step-by-step implementation process, from strategic planning to optimization. He provided a game plan for responsible AI by bringing transparency and accountability into the organizational structure of the firm and having a human in the loop. The approach is grounded in the human rights global framework and privacy policies. He suggests that corporations introduce an ethic algorithmic legal committee.

Liisa Janssens, LLM MA, scientist department Military Operations, unit Defence, Safety and Security, TNO the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research - provides a focused responsible AI framework for military applications, developed through a scenario-setting methodology for considering AI regulation’s virtues and shortcomings. The disruptive nature of AI is considered in the face of the demands of Rule of Law mechanisms to trace the requirements that make up responsible use of AI in military.

Comments and questions: What are the key privacy principles at a normative level (e.g., transparency and data minimisation, purpose limitation) that should be ensured so that generative AI can comply with them? Will the data protection laws expand their scope to include non-personal data since most of the data to train a generative AI is non-personal data.

The Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibility (DCPR) session at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2023 provided an invaluable forum for discussing the multifaceted challenges and opportunities in digital platform governance. This session was marked by insightful dialogues among experts from diverse fields, reflecting the DCPR's commitment to fostering a multi-stakeholder approach in addressing the complexities of platform regulation.

Key Highlights and Discussions:

1. Professors Luca Belli and Yasmin Curzi, DCPR coordinators, highlighted the decade-long commitment of the DCPR in researching and addressing the challenges posed by digital platforms. They stressed the importance of not only acknowledging the necessity for platform regulation but actively engaging in research and practical solution-seeking.
2. Professor Belli underscored the need for fostering transnational dialogues to address systemic risks presented by digital platforms. The session delved into legislative frameworks in countries like Brazil, India, China, and the European Union, emphasizing the need for context-sensitive regulation.
3. Tatevik Grigoryan from UNESCO introduced the concept of Internet Universality, advocating for a global approach to internet governance based on principles of openness, accessibility, multi-stakeholder participation, and addressing cross-cutting issues.
4. Samara Castro highlighted Brazil's proactive stance in social media regulation and misinformation control, discussing legislative, executive, and judiciary efforts. Brazil's experience serves as an inspiration for other nations in creating a safer, transparent internet.
5. Anita Gurumuthy and Monika Zalnieriute emphasized the need to go beyond procedural principles and address substantive concerns like platforms' environmental impact and labor effects, calling for a holistic approach in platform governance.
6. Rolf Weber emphasized the importance of accountability beyond compliance and the necessity of observability in platform governance, suggesting a model where platforms are transparent and answerable in their operations.
7. Shilpa Jwasant provided an in-depth analysis of the Indian context, focusing on the recent developments in the IT Act. She highlighted how the Act is shaping the digital landscape in India, discussing its impact on user rights, data privacy, and the regulatory challenges faced by digital platforms operating in India. Jwasant’s insights into India’s regulatory approach underscored the balance between harnessing technological advancements and protecting fundamental rights.
8. Sofia Chang delved into the Chinese scenario, particularly the country’s approach to algorithmic regulation. She elaborated on how China is navigating the complex interplay between technology, state control, and user rights, offering a unique perspective on how algorithmic governance is evolving in a highly digitized, prioritizing digital sovereignty. 
9. Monika Zalnieriute brought a critical lens to the discussion on informational pluralism on social media platforms. She raised concerns about the private and opaque interests of big tech companies, emphasizing the need for greater transparency and accountability in how these platforms manage and disseminate information. Zalnieriute argued for a more equitable digital ecosystem that respects diversity of thought and counters the monopolistic tendencies of major tech firms.

The session benefitted from active participation from in-person attendees, who provided feedback and posed questions, enriching the discussions. Their contributions highlighted the global interest in developing effective platform governance models and underscored the need for inclusivity in these dialogues.

Conclusion: The DCPR session at IGF 2023 successfully facilitated a comprehensive exploration of digital platform regulation, stressing the importance of a multi-stakeholder, inclusive approach. The discussions and calls to action from this session are expected to guide future strategies and policies in the realm of platform responsibility.

The IGF 2023 session of the Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity focused on the digital sovereignty and environmental sustainability aspect of community networks. Session participants provided their perspectives and best practices. Some panelists authored and co-authored the official DC3 outcome, a report titled "Community Networks: Building Digital Sovereignty and Environmental Sustainability".

The session started with the launch of the report, presented by Luca Belli. The report is a compilation of of five different papers/ chapters.

Atsuko Okuda from ITU Asia Pacific opened the session, presenting some ITU statistics on the state of connectivity in the region and globally.

Raquel Gatto from CGI Brazil spoke about community networks initiatives in Brazil and the newly formed working group within Anatel, the telecom regulator.

Amreesh Phokeer from the Internet Society presented some of ISOC's community network initiatives, and provided insights on their environmental impact.

Pedro Vilchez from guifi.net presented guifi's efforts to incorporate circular economy into their project.

Nils Brock from Rhizomatica / DW Academy spoke about using local materials such as bamboo for building towers, and the positive impact on the environment that comes with the use of local resources.

Carlos Baca from Rhizomatica presented the initiative of National Schools on Community Networks and how capacity building contributes to environmental sustainability.

In his closing remarks, Luca Belli highlighted the link between community networks and digital sovereignty.

Moderator Olaf Kolkman introduced this Open Forum by elaborating on the role of modern security standards in securing the internet. He emphasized that we need to secure the internet for the common good. One of the challenges that comes with securing the internet is the slow adoption of security standards. Therefore, this Open Forum highlights tools that enhance the adoption of modern security standards.

The Role of Open Standards particularly in procurement, experiences in the Netherlands

Modern internet standards (such as IPv6, DNSSEC, HTTPS, DMARC, DANE and RPKI) are essential for an open, secure and resilient Internet that serves as a driver of social progress and economic growth. Gerben Klein Baltink and Annemieke Toersen explained the role of standards in procurement and their experiences in the Netherlands. The role of open standards in promoting a safer, more secure, and well-connected internet has become increasingly recognized, with initiatives like the internet.nl test tool which contribute significantly to this progress. The tool is primarily aimed at organizations, attracting both technical personnel and board members, and allows them to assess if their mail, website, and local connections comply with established standards.

In the procurement and supply chain management domain, the Forum Standaardisatie think tank has been actively promoting the use of open standards, advocating for more interoperability. With 25 members from government, businesses and science, the forum advises governments on the adoption of open standards, emphasizing their importance in promoting information exchange, ensuring interoperability, security, accessibility and vendor neutrality.

The Dutch government has pursued a three-fold strategy to promote open standards. Firstly, through the implementation of a "comply or explain" list of 40 open standards, carefully researched and consultated with experts. This have led to increased adoption, particularly in areas such as internet and security, document management and administrative processes, like e-invoicing. Government entities are mandated to use these standards, with required reporting if not followed.

Secondly, the government has fostered national and international cooperation, facilitating workshops on modern email security standards within the EU, and engaging with prominent vendors and hosting companies such as Cisco, Microsoft, and Google. They have also facilitated the reuse of internet.nl code in various projects, such as aucheck.com and top.nic.br.

Finally, the Dutch government actively monitors the adoption of open standards, evaluating tenders and procurement documents, and ensuring that the standards are included. Reports are submitted to the government, and efforts are made to support and guide vendors who may  lagging behind in the adoption of these standards.

Lessons learned from these efforts emphasize the importance of consistently checking for open standards in procurement processes and providing guidance and support to encourage their usage. The comprehensive approach taken by the Dutch government, along with collaborations with various stakeholders, has contributed significantly to the wider adoption and implementation of open standards, fostering a more secure and interconnected digital environment.

Procurement and Supply Chain Management and the Business Case

Wout de Natris and Mallory Knodel elaborated on the role of the Internet Standards, Security, and Safety dynamic coalition in enhancing internet security and safety through various initiatives. The coalition has established three working groups targeting Security by design on the Internet of Things, Education and Skills, Procurement and Supply Chain Management and the Business Case, aiming to contribute to a more secure online environment.

Their ongoing projects involve the deployment of DNSSEC and RPKI, exploring emerging technologies, and addressing data governance and privacy issues. They strive to persuade decision-makers to invest in secure internet standards by developing a persuasive narrative incorporating political, economic, social, and security arguments. The Procurement and Supply Chain Management and the Business Case working group have released a comprehensive report comparing global procurement policies, shedding light on existing practices and advocating for more transparent and secure procurement processes.

The coalition highlights the need for greater recognition and integration of open internet standards into government policies, emphasizing the importance of universal adoption of standards for data protection, network and infrastructure security, website and application security, and communication security. They aim to provide decision-makers and procurement officers with a practical tool that includes a list of urgent internet standards to guide their decision-making and procurement processes.

By focusing on streamlining and expediting the validation process for open internet standards in public procurement, the coalition seeks to enhance procurement policies, resulting in more secure and reliable digital infrastructure. Overall, their collaborative efforts and initiatives aim to create a safer online landscape for individuals, organizations, and governments by promoting the secure design and deployment of internet standards and advocating for the adoption of open internet standards in government policies.

The report from is3coalition.org highlights a concerning trend where governments fail to recognize the critical components that enable the internet to function effectively. This issue has been a recurring question in various research endeavors, prompting the Working Group (WG) to prioritize and compile existing security-related internet standards and best practices in the field of ICT.

Best practice awards go to: the GDPR in the European Union provides common understanding and harmonization with regards to the security of information systems; the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations makes mandatory standards deployment. The ‘Pas toe of leg uit’-Lijst (comply-or-explain list) of the Dutch Standardisation Forum is a document containing 43 open standards that all governments in the Netherlands have to demand when procuring ICT; and Internet.nl: the tool used to track standards adoption by an organization’s website based on three indicators: website, email and connection. The software has been adopted in Australia, Brazil, Denmark and Singapore.

IS3C provides decision-takers and procurement officers involved in ICTs procurement with a list containing the most urgent internet standards and related best practices. This assists them to take into account internet security and safety requirements and procure secure by design ICT products, services and devices, making their organizations as a whole more secure and safer. By raising awareness and emphasizing the significance of internet security and safety requirements, the report seeks to prompt officials to consider and integrate these crucial standards into their operational frameworks.

To gather insights and perspectives on this critical issue, the coalition is conducting a consultation on the report until November 5th at 10:00 UTC. This consultation aims to engage stakeholders and experts to discuss and address the challenges associated with the recognition and implementation of internet security standards by governments.

Report: https://is3coalition.org/docs/is3c-working-group-5-report-and-list/

Perspectives from India

There are many examples of good efforts and effective tools enhancing internet security. One of these examples comes from India. Mr. Satish Babu highlighted that the Trusted Internet India Initiative was initially established at the India School of Internet Governance (inSIG) in 2016 and has since 2018 been collaborating with the Global Forum for Cyber Expertise.

InSIG organized GFCE’s Internet Infrastructure Initiative (Triple-I) Workshop in 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023 as Day 0 events of inSIG. The Triple-I workshop seeks to “...enhance justified trust in the Internet” by building awareness and capacity on Internet-related international standards, norms and best practices. In its 2023 edition, the Triple-I workshop announced a new initiative that attempts to measure periodically the compliance of Indian websites, DNS and email services to modern security standards (to begin in 2024).

During the T3I workshop, it was emphasized that digital technology plays a crucial role in fostering India’s growth. The digital public infrastructure, which serves over a billion citizens, facilitates applications related to financial health, logistics, and more. However, the workshop shed light on the existing weak levels of compliance within these systems. In response to this observation, volunteers associated with T3I conducted extensive research to identify areas of improvement.

Building on their research findings, the initiative now plans to conduct comprehensive testing and disseminate the results to all stakeholders. The aim of this effort is to enhance compliance levels across Indian digital platforms, ensuring that they meet modern security standards and contribute to a safer and more secure digital environment. 

Perspectives from Brasil

Mr. Flavio Kenji Yanai andGilberto Zorello shared their experiences from a Brazilian perspective. The Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br) is a non-profit civil entity that since 2005 has been assigned with the administrative and operational functions related to the .br domain. NIC.br is actively investing in various actions and programs to improve internet services across different sectors. Their initiatives are geared towards disseminating knowledge and best practices, contributing to a safer and more secure internet environment in the country.

A key project they are currently undertaking is the TOP Teste os Padrões (Test the Standards) tool, which was initiated in December 2021 and utilizes Internet.nl provided by the Dutch government. As part of the Safer Internet program, their objectives include providing support to the internet technical community. This involves collaborating with various groups to develop technical teaching materials and promote good practices aimed at raising awareness within the technical community. Their efforts have yielded positive results, as statistics indicate a reduction in misconfigured IP addresses.

Furthermore, they have implemented the Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRRS) in Brazil, leading to a notable increase in the number of participants. The statistics reflect continuous improvements in various aspects of internet security within the country. With significant incumbents responsible for approximately 50% of the internet traffic in Brazil, the implementation of version 1.7 of internet.nl, currently in the validation phase, has been instrumental. The tool is being widely disseminated in conjunction with the Program for a Safer Internet, with government entities also starting to utilize it to test their websites and email services. The TOP tool has proven to be of immense value in fortifying the internet infrastructure in Brazil.

IGF 2023 DC-IoT Progressing Global Good Practice for the Internet of Things

The session considered IoT governance from various perspectives. To understand baseline IoT evolution, associated challenges, opportunities and responses, the IoT could best be understood as an internet of data, devices, systems or functions. For simplicity, we can call these “Internets of X” (IoX). Each perspective brings its understanding of what is possible, desirable or undesirable and tools and processes needed for governance.

Each approach must be considered in its own terms, but they start from a common base of experience and must ultimately come together to provide good governance. This leads to the need for an ecosystem comprising of stakeholders such as technical experts, governments, service providers, manufacturers, users, standards bodies, military vs civilian organisations, etc., varying in global and regional perspectives.

One immediate consequence is that IoT governance must respect a range of perspectives. Our fundamental principles are unlikely to be universal, especially when applied to specific IoT contexts. By analogy with the sensors and actuators of the IoT itself, governance needs to ‘sense’ the interests and perspectives of all significantly affected parties and somehow balance them to inform decisions at various levels. In other words, it requires multistakeholderism. It is not that specific expert groups (e.g., engineers) are insensitive to the needs of others (e.g., end users) but that they may misunderstand their interests, capabilities and behaviour.

The session began with a consideration of simple and recognisable use cases in which major challenges can already be seen (though they will become more complex). IoX components and their complex or hybrid assemblages will and should interact with others, so they must be identified uniquely and discovered with appropriate levels of precision, reliability, and permanence and be capable of enrolment in or separation from IoX systems. The concept of ‘identity’ has some subtlety. For instance, a smart home must be able to recognise and be recognised by new IoT components added to the system on a permanent or temporary basis, accorded the right kinds of access and privileges and tracked or remembered appropriately. These identities enable necessary functions, including the granting of trust. But they need not be unique, durable or universal. Indeed, categorical or shared identities (e.g., type certification) may be more practicable, scalable, flexible, future-proof, secure and robust to, e.g., (hardware, software or data) updates and interconnection or federation to create identifiable hybrid systems. Three subtleties linked to identity that came up in the discussion were security (including but not limited to cybersecurity), privacy (including but not limited to data privacy) and ownership (including protections against identity theft or misuse and, conversely, the use of identity to carry liability or responsibility).

Various identity schemes were discussed, ranging from central registries of semi-permanent discrete identities (along the lines of the DNS model) to purely transactional or temporary mutual authentication and identification schemes. These have advantages and drawbacks ranging from theoretical to practical, including technical, legal, commercial, security and other considerations. No single approach seemed to fit all foreseeable circumstances. In placing these in context, the panel recognised that the same concepts applied to the human beings (and organisations) that create, operate and use the IoX. For example, a person is more important than devices or data attributed to him/her, and human rights and responsibilities (e.g., of association and expression) cannot safely be extended to, say, their smart digital assistants. This cuts two ways; it may not be useful to hold a human being accountable for what their devices do in response to interactions with other systems, which the ‘user’ may not even perceive, let alone understand or control. Conversely, the automation of routine functions may result in their receiving less considered and responsible human attention, with unintended, undesirable and possibly irreversible results.

The discussion also considered desirable properties that might provide an ethical framework for IoT governance. Many are familiar, e.g., interoperability, transparency and accountability, robustness, resilience, trustworthiness, user empowerment, privacy and security. They are not IoT-specific but may need to be reinterpreted in that context. For example, IoT devices can harvest a wide range of data almost invisibly, which creates general privacy and security risks and affects global development, e.g., via ‘data colonialism’ whereby devices originating in and provisioned by the global north can be used to capture data from users in the global south to produce innovations for the benefit of the north and to lock in users in the south in ways that inhibit their techno-societal development.

One desideratum came up in relation to technologies, service provision, use cases, data issues, labelling and certification schemes and legal frameworks, and scalability. This is a generic issue, but the panel highlighted aspects that stand out clearly in the IoT context. One is complexity; as systems scale quantitatively, their qualitative properties may change and, with them, the appropriate kind of governance. Rules may need to be more general, neutral, principles- or function-based. Alternatively, governance may need to move between the data, device, software, etc., planes as systems interconnect in larger and more diverse ways. Another is practicability; effective governance may require limits on scale or interoperability. A further aspect is Quality of Service (QoS). The IoT-specific emphasis on low latency can constrain system scale, security or flexibility. Beyond this, QoS considerations may lead to multi-tier systems, which may reduce economic welfare, hinder interoperability or distort innovation. Large-scale systems may also be more susceptible to intentional or accidental compromise; effective access control in large environments may lead to inappropriate inclusions or exclusions. Under laissez-faire evolution, IoT systems may reach stable sizes and configurations, but these may not be optimal. Finally, very large systems may be difficult to govern with national or self-regulatory arrangements. For example, identification and certification schemes that identify individual devices or types scale with their number but cannot identify even pairwise interactions (which scale as the square of the number of interacting entities). As scale increases, management overloads, costs increase, and utility and use eventually decline. This, however, depends on the governance architecture; a centralised system (analogous to the cloud) offers economies of scale (or diseconomies) and a natural platform for observing systemic behaviour and emergent threats (if not weak signals). However, it creates additional power asymmetries and vulnerabilities; no one governance architecture will likely fit all cases. The group also mentioned other aspects of scale, such as environmental impact.

Another aspect that ran through the various phases of the discussion was trust and trustworthiness; beyond the customary discussion of e-trust, the panel contrasted high-trust and Zero-trust approaches to the problems of identification and interoperability.

The issue of AI in the IoT comes up often but not in depth. The panel recognised that it complicated the IoT, especially when considering smart devices and the emergent intelligence of connected systems. Foreseeability and explicability were discussed, as was the possibility that data-driven systems might be particularly vulnerable to noisy or biased data.

The panel considered various legal approaches and the ‘regulatory game’ being played out among countries, industries and civil society groups. Governance competition could spur the development of innovative and effective standards if different approaches can be compared and a suitable global standard emerges through a kind of ‘Brussels Effect’. This seems more promising than a too-rapid imposition of global standards and regulations whose implications cannot be foreseen. However, this result is not guaranteed; we could see damaging fragmentation or a rich diversity of approaches matching different contexts. Research on policy initiatives in 40 countries around the world shows that governments often do not regard modern global open source standards and global good practices with security at the core as “important”. It was suggested that governments could lead the way by taking such standards actively on board in their procurement activities. Keeping the discussion going and actively engaging with other DCs guarantees a positive outcome and an increased understanding of good global practices in IoT governance. Three important takeaways:

·        IoT data, especially AI-enhanced, should be understandable, accessible, interoperable, reusable, up-to-date and clear regarding provenance, quality and potential bias.

·        At the level of devices, there need to be robust mechanisms for finding, labelling, authenticating and trusting devices (and classes of devices). These should survive retraining, replacement or updating but be removable when necessary for functional, security or privacy reasons. To ensure IoT functionality, trustworthiness and resilience, market information and incentives should be aligned. Labels provide a powerful tool; many countries have developed and adopted IoT trust marks, and the time has come to start working towards their international harmonisation.

·        Functions are not all confined to single devices, designed in or provided by system integrators; they can also be discovered by end-users or emerge from complex system interactions in cyber-physical systems (CPS) and IoT-enabled services. Governance requires methods for recognising, protecting and controlling these functions and their impacts.

-=O=-

The purpose of this session was to explore the so called “fair share” debate, which is rising in popularity especially in the European Union and South Korea and moving rapidly to Latin America. The session also discussed the connection between fair share and zero rating schemes, especially popular in the countries of the Global South.

The session adopted an evidence-based approach, featuring multiple stakeholder perspectives, discussing to what extent fair share and zero rating can be beneficial for the internet economy and to whether they contribute positively or negatively to the sustainability of the internet ecosystem.

Furthermore, panelists will explore how these two core issues connect with broader debate on Internet openness vs Internet fragmentation. The session was structured according to the following agenda:

Brief intro by Luca Belli, Professor and Coordinator CTS-FGV (5 min)

First slot of presentations (6 or 7 minutes each)  

• Artur Coimbra, Member of the Board of ANATEL, Brazil  
• Camila Leite, Brazilian Consumers Association (IDEC)
• Jean Jaques Sahel, Asia-Pacific Information policy lead and Global telecom policy lead, Google  
• KS Park, Professor, University of Korea
   

Q&A break (10 to 12 minutes)

Second slot of presentation (6 or 7 minutes each)

• Maarit Palovirta Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs, ETNO
• Thomas Lohninger, Executive Director, Epicenter.works
• Konstantinos Komaitis, non-resident fellow, the Atlantic Council  

Participants stressed that, over the past decade, we have witnessed an increasing concentration in few internet platforms, with regard to social media or cloud computing, and such players generate a very relevant percentage of internet traffic. There is a wide range of ongoing regulatory initiatives aimed at frame large platforms, but over the past two years an additional type of regulatory proposal has been surfacing: imposing network fees to large platforms so that they pay their “fair share” of network related costs.

In countries such as Brazil, 95% Of users utilize internet access primarily for instant messaging and social Media (e.g. WhatsApp Facebook and Instagram are installed on 95, 80 and 70% of Brazilian smartphone respectively) and virtually all video recordings shared online in Brazil are hosted on YouTube.

Large platforms generate enormous amount of traffic, but at the same time, they contribute to network infrastructure costs e.g. by building undersea cables or content delivery networks

The most traffic intense platforms have been zero rated for almost a decade by most operators of the world, including those currently proposing “fair share contributions” and in most Global South countries zero rated models are still very common.

Some relevant points that need debate and clarification:

1) large platforms generate a lot of traffic because they have a lot of customers, not because they engage in any illegal or inappropriate practice; It is true that in most countries they have extremely low level of taxation, compared with their profits, but to cope with distortion it would be much wiser to review their taxation regime rather than simply shift part of their revenues to interne access providers.

2) Some regulators or operators have portrayed large platforms as free riders of internet infrastructure. This it is not correct, as platforms also invest enormously in infrastructure, e.g. by building submarine cables and large content delivery networks that are essential to maintain good quality of service good user experience;

3) Participants stressed that the topic of fair share with the topic of zero-rating are connected as large platforms have not become responsible for such enormous amount of traffic by chance, but the most traffic intense apps have been zero rated for almost a decade by most operators of the world, as we demonstrated with an empirical analysis, which was to annual output of this coalition already in already in 2018.

Actions suggested:

More comprehensive analyses of interconnection market is needed, including assessing the role of content delivery network

Increased multistakeholder confrontation to foster a better understanding of the issues at stake and whether proposed solutions such as fair share are de facto needed or not.

Evolutions in Public Access

It has been 20 years since the WSIS Action Lines were defined, setting out the importance of connectivity libraries and providing multifunctional public access centres. This fitted into a broader strategy that focused not only on finding rapid and effective ways of bringing the potential benefits of the internet to more people, while acknowledging the importance of a focus on people in order to turn this potential into reality.

The introduction to this session therefore set out the question of how public access as a concept has evolved over the past 20 years, as a basis for assessing its continued relevance and to understand how its place in the wider internet infrastructure has changed. It drew on written contributions shared by UNESCO and the Internet Society in particular, which noted, in particular that public access had been proven not to compete with public access, that libraries had proven to be adaptable and responsive, that public access had been a basis for service innovation and partnership, and that the fact of offering other services made libraries particularly valuable as public access venues.

Maria Garrido and Matias Centeno (University of Washington) set out the challenge faced, based on data collected as part of the Development and Access to Information report. Crucially, this underlined that good progress in general in bringing people online was not being reflected in other areas seen as vital for making access to information meaningful, in particular around equality and fundamental rights online. This illustrated the potential weaknesses of a tech-only approach.

Ugne Lipekaite (EIFL) offered a rich set of evidenced examples of how public access had proven its ability to help solve wider policy challenges, as well as its ongoing essential role in working towards universal connectivity. It had, indeed, been a driver of entrepreneurship and growth.  Crucially, many of the same trends could be observed in very different parts of the world, opening up possibilities for mutual learning in terms of how to develop public access most effectively.

Woro Titi Haryanti (National Library of Indonesia) described how public access was at the heart of a national strategy to develop library services as a means of improving lives. Centrally, the emphasis was on ensuring connectivity, providing adaptable content and building staff skills in order to develop programming that could combine public access with other support (including via partners). Thanks to this work, the library was increasingly seen as a partner for wider social development programming.

Don Means (Gigabit Libraries Network) underlined that libraries were often early adopters of new technology, providing a means for people not just to get to know the internet, but also new ways of working with it. They had also proven their role in connecting online services with users, for example to ensure that those needing to use eGov services were able to do so. They also offered a crucial backstop of parallel access technology, which boosted resilience.

The audience was then asked to share views via Mentimeter. They underlined their agreement with the idea that public access had a key role in the connectivity infrastructure and in future strategies, as well as broadly believing that public access complements other forms of connectivity.

Key themes that emerged in the discussion included:

• Public access had proved a structure for delivering on the promise of the localisation of the internet and digital inclusion efforts in particular. Rather than a purely tech-led, supply-side approach, public access centres allowed supply and demand to meet effectively and inclusively.
• The definition of meaningful access in general needed to include access to meaningful support services for those who needed them in order to make the most of the internet.
• It was important to develop wider internet resilience strategies, in order to keep things going in times of disaster. Public access was a key part of this.
• We needed to change the narrative about libraries in particular, and recognise (inside the library sector and outside) their role as agents for digital inclusion.

Safeguarding the Knowledge Commons

As an introduction to the session, the moderator underlined that while shared knowledge resources had initially been included in definitions provided of digital public goods, they were not such a strong focus of subsequent initiatives. In parallel, UNESCO’s Futures of Education report had placed the concept of a Knowledge Commons at the centre of its vision, seen as a body of knowledge which is not only accessible to all, but to which everyone can make contributions.

Finally, organisations working around knowledge had long promoted the importance of realising the potential of the internet to enable global access to knowledge, and address barriers created in particular by intellectual property laws.  

Tomoaki Watanabe (Creative Commons Japan) underlined the particular questions that new technologies and in particular AI offered, thanks to the generation of new content that could potentially be free of copyright (3D data, scans, AI-generated content). This had the potential to create dramatic new possibilities that could advance innovation, creativity and beyond.

While there clearly were questions to be raised around information governance and AI (not least to highlight AI-generated content), copyright appeared to be a highly inadequate tool for doing this.

Amalia Toledo (Wikimedia Foundation) cited the connection between the concept of the knowledge commons and the need for digital public infrastructures that favoured its protection and spread – something that was ever more important. Wikimedia represented just such an infrastructure, but remained the only such site among the most used on the internet, with a constant risk of underfunding.

Moreover, laws were increasingly made with a focus on commercial platforms, but which caused collateral damage for non-commercial ones such as Wikipedia. Efforts to expand intellectual property laws brought particular risks when they failed to take account of the positives of a true knowledge commons.

Subsequent discussion highlighted the following issues:

• The knowledge commons as a concept raised interesting questions about governance, and in particular how to ensure that it was inclusive and meaningful for everyone. There was a need for actors applying rules, such as Wikipedia and libraries in order to make it functional and sustainable.
• The need to look beyond copyright as a tool for regulating information flows, given how blunt it was, and in particular in the context of AI to take care in taking decisions. Too often, Generative AI was mistaken for all AI, and policy choices risked imposing major costs even on research and education uses.
• The value of a more holistic approach to upholding the knowledge commons in general, and the public domain in particular, in order to safeguard them and realise their potential to support wider efforts to ensure that the internet is a driver of progress and inclusion.

DC-CIV Evolving Regulation and its impact on Core Internet Values

Report on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Session.

Main Report

The Core Internet Values, which comprise the technical architectural values by which the Internet is built and evolves, also comprise ‘social’ or, in other words, ‘universal’ values that emerge (or derive) from the way the Internet works.

The Internet is a global medium open to all regardless of geography or nationality. It is interoperable because it is a network of networks. It doesn't rely on a single application. It relies on open protocols such as TCP/IP and BGP. It is free of any centralized control, except for the needed coordination of unique identifiers. It is end to end, so traffic from one end of the network to the other end of the network goes. It is user centric and users have control over what they send and receive and it is robust and reliable.

The Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values held sessions at every previous IGF. During the 2023 IGF at Kyoto, the Coalition discussed the topic of "Avoiding Internet Fragmentation"  with "International Legal Perspectives" as the sub theme - all part of this year’s “Internet We Want”.

The following questions were examined during the session:

• In a changing world and a changing Internet, should the Internet stick to its Core Values?
• Should more legislation be needed? If yes, then how should it be drafted?
• What are the risks of "changing" the Core Internet Values for the future of the Internet?
• Could we end up with fragmentation? With the end of the Internet as we know it?
• Could we end up with a better, safer, cleaner post-Internet network of networks? Is this achievable or is this a pipe dream? Does this have an impact on democracy across the world?

Panelists included  Lee Rainie, Jane Coffin, Nii Quaynor, Iria Puyosa, Vint Cerf with interventions from the floor moderated by Sébastien Bachollet as Co-Chair at Kyoto together with Olivier Crépin-Leblond.

Deliberations

The deliberations during this meeting by panelists' presentation, participant interventions and Q&A are reported here without attribution to the specific panelist or participant.

Broadly and roughly  there have been four notable 'phases' that could be seen as 'revolutions' in Internet evolution:

• Home broadband. It sharply increased the "velocity of information" into people’s lives, bringing support for the way it democratized creativity, story-telling and community building. But it also spawned concern about misinformation, for example, in the medical community – and concern about the type of content to which children might be exposed. 
• Mobile connectivity. Mobile phones became ubiquitous and became all-purpose “extra body parts and brain lobes” that allowed people to reach out and be contacted at any time, anywhere, without the need for knowledge on how to operate a computer. But a backlash grew about the ways in which phones disrupted people’s time use and attention allocation.
• Social media.  Exposed users to new information and allowed them new ways to share their lives and create. The backlash has focused on the impact of social media on people’s emotional and mental health (especially for younger women and girls), the way social media can be used for information war purposes, enabled political polarization and tribalism, and menacing behavior like bullying and physical threats.
• Artificial intelligence. Often functioning unnoticed and uncommented upon, AI allowed people to live their lives more conveniently, efficiently and safely. It promised productivity increases. But the backlash starts with people’s inherent wariness of anything that might challenge their rights, their autonomy and their agency. There are widespread concerns about job loss, bias and discrimination, and whether AI can be used ethically. 

It is worth noting that these and other concerns have mostly arisen at the level of applications, rather than the essential architecture of the Internet. Unfortunately, the concerns at the cultural, legal and social level usually drive policy deliberations that could limit the way the Internet functions.

Users almost unanimously support the Core Values of the Internet: open, free, secure, interoperable, end-to-end, permissionless innovation. The revolutions and the backlash they engendered:

Beyond those general concerns about digital functions, there is evidence that different people have different experiences of those revolutions. Those group differences drive concerns and calls for further regulations. At the group level, it is clear that divisions by gender, age, race/ethnicity, class, nationality, religious affiliations, affect people’s online experiences. There are also divisions along the lines of people’s level of awareness and their knowledge about technology, and their traits cause them to experience and react to technology differently. 

To further complicate the picture, it is clear that individual technology users act in different ways under different circumstances. They are not necessarily predictable and their actions are often contingent, transactional, and context specific. This makes it very hard for those designing policies to take into account the variety of ways people will use technology or have concerns about its impact on them.

In global surveys and other research, there is a division that pits individuals against society. Individual actors are often confident they can navigate the problems of information and communication ecosystems, but others are incapable of doing so. That results in an almost universal sense that “I’m OK, but the rest of the world is not”. 

How should policy makers understand that and take account of such an array of social, cultural, and legal variance as they try to think about regulations for the Internet? It is a chaotic picture that suggests that policy proposals affecting the basic functioning of the Internet should be undertaken with great caution and much humility.

The Internet has been self organizing its network of networks with as little regulation as possible for them to work. There is a lot of support for this self-organization on the network level even though in some cases the shared objective of developing networks for people who do not yet have access appears to have been lost.

Regulate

Caution is advised when facing pressure to “regulate fast... because some serious harm is upon us". Quick and ill-designed regulations may undermine online freedoms or lead to Internet fragmentation.

Before regulating, it is necessary to assess the tradeoffs of different policies as well as the suitable technical implementations of those policies.

Unfortunately, pressure to legislate is driven by public opinion on harms - often emphasized by governments to impose legislation. Law enforcement requests for access to private communications, national security, and cyber-sovereignty agendas dominate public debate in most countries.

The Internet will not be the same if it is run in a non open way - and we can see that with countries where there is a zeal to pass laws to "protect the interests of the regimes".

The intent may have originally been laudable but they may also have side effects.

For instance, we observe this problem in legislation threatening end-to-end encryption under the urge to provide more safety for children online, legislation establishing widespread Internet surveillance pretexting rising concerns related to violent extremism, cyber-sovereignty agendas undermining net neutrality, and cybersecurity policies that pose a risk to interoperability. 

Technical solutions to online harm must ensure respect for human rights and the rule of law in line with the principles of necessity and proportionality. Any restriction of access to the Internet must be lawful, legitimate, necessary, proportional, and non-discriminatory.

Civil society and the Internet technical community must continue collaborating in facing overregulation trends threatening Internet Core Values.

Some participants in the meeting pointed to further study in countries like Finland and Estonia, that have advanced in terms of e-governments. It was also mentioned that the borderless nature of the Internet would expand with a more widespread use of “satellite Internet” and Internet Exchange Points in Space - thus bringing a new perspective on cross-border issues.

Key Takeaways 

1. The Internet has been self organizing with as little regulation as possible for it to work and if strong regulation is introduced it will hinder its technical functioning. Too much regulation will damage interoperation. As Internet networks evolve into Space with no borders there are question marks as to how its Core Values will be sustained.
2. One of the major policy tensions in digital life pits anonymity against accountability. Anonymity has been a key aspect of Internet activity, but we have painfully learned that full anonymity can be exploited in ways that allow bad actors to escape being held accountable for the harms they cause. Systems must be developed to bring accountability without compromising essential anonymity - and layering identity levels is one way to do it.
   Such systems must be designed with clear and minimal implications for deep architectural changes. A layered approach (possibly in the application layer) may be desirable. 

Call to Action

1. All stakeholders should actively engage in understanding, appreciating, and expanding knowledge of the Internet’s Core Values and the damages that may arise from actions that, deliberately or as unintended consequences, impinge negatively on them. The list is not long and it starts by layered architecture, packet switching, “best effort” i.e. design for resilience against failure, interoperability, openness, robustness (Postel), end-to-end (meaning that most functions that are not packet transmission are a responsibility of the “edge”, and implying network neutrality), decentralization, scalability, and, as a consequence, universal reach and “permissionless innovation”.
2. Laws, norms, and treaties must all be commensurate with these values and only impinge on any of them after a deep analysis by all stakeholders, and with safety valves to avoid irreversible unexpected consequences down the road. 
3. The Internet community including the private sector, civil society, technical community should actively engage with governments to make them understand why a multistakeholder IGF is important.
4. Use of encryption needs to continue - as without encryption many of the functions of the Internet's safety will be negatively impacted.

Lived experiences

Vidhya Y:

• Digital space is huge - when we say tech, that’s the only way as a blind person I can communicate with the world. It opens up opportunities. Growing up in a village, I didn’t have access to tech and missed out on a lot. But when I got on to online platforms, there was so much I could do. I could access the news, know what time it is, communicate via emails. Most people don’t understand braille. 
• Taking help from someone to type messages would mean I don’t have privacy over messages I want to say. Digital platforms have enabled many disabled people to have privacy and more autonomy over their choices.
• Websites aren’t designed in a way all can access. There are a lot of images that aren’t labeled. 
• For women with disabilities, the barriers are too many! It’s an irony. Digital platforms have given a lot of privacy but at the same time, you have to be so careful. When Covid happened and people were trying to get on online platforms, video calls were a must. I’d adjust my screen to point a bit downwards so people are not able to see much of me. But my sister observed and told me that the camera is actually at the top of the monitor and if you put it down, people can see you more clearly. 
• I feel I have to take second opinion about a lot of things in the digital space. New things are coming up all the time.
• When you’re using a screen reader, if you’re in a crowded place, you tend to misread content. Voice messages also have privacy issues: eg. in conferences I’m unable to use voice message.
• Typing maybe easier if you have some other disability, but it’s a huge issue for visually impaired people. 

Gunela Astbrink:

• A young woman in Africa, a wheelchair user, has speech impairments, limited use of one hand. She was determined to study IT and went to school, vocational college, and now she sometimes tutors other students. The way she uses smartphone/laptop is with her knuckles. That’s how she communicates with her digital tools.
• When a person with a disability is online, there’s often a sense that we are all digital beings, and there’s an assumption that we’re all on the same level and will be able to use all tools. However, this isn’t the case. Tools, websites, platforms need to be made accessible. Important for tools and learning platforms etc. to be developed along with PwDs. 
• Nothing about us without us - so that PwDs are able to be part of development and part of the digital community.

Privacy and security concerns

Vidhya Y:

• Digital tools enable you to do a lot of things yourself, which wasn’t possible earlier. There are color recognisers, apps to tell you which currency you’re using, apps where sighted people sign up as volunteers for solving captchas etc. Captchas are designed as not being designed for machines so privacy isn’t compromised, but this is a barrier for many persons with visual impairments, if audio captchas are not enabled. Even if you can use a computer. If I want to get help in Kannada, local language, I won’t get help at night. But if you need help in English, there will be someone to assist you.
• I conducted digital literacy trainings with school teachers. Guided them to installing these tools - we found really good uses: you can call them and the volunteer who picks up the phone, they’ll tell you to point your camera at the captcha on the computer. And guide you accordingly. People have used these technologies to even take support in matching their sarees with their bangles.
• But you’re forced to depend on others at certain times. You’re also wary about where you’re pointing camera - what the other person can see - what data is being collected. At the end of banking transactions, if you have to enter captcha, you have to enter all other details beforehand, which means the person supporting you can see what all you have typed. It’s a huge privacy compromise.
• Privacy concerns around how much of you should be visible to the other person: apart from your voice you aren’t sure what else is visible. A concern for women with disabilities.
• For FB, IG etc.: If I were to upload photos I’ve taken during this conference to FB, my cousin will give me the photos with captions. But I don’t know if I’m missing anything in the photos - as I’m relying on the captions. Sometimes people have told me, only half your face is visible, or this photo shouldn’t have been taken.

Padmini Ray Murray:

• Every device we use is compromised by some form of surveillance, and it’s very difficult for non-disabled people to wrap their heads around being online, use these devices and think about how to maintain their privacy.
• Most devices or apps - even if they’re made for disabled users, might not be taking these considerations into account - while they’re being designed.
• While there are accessibility guidelines, those are often just the baseline, and there’s much more nuanced requirements of disabled users that need to be taken into account.

Imagining inclusive tech

Manique Gunaratne:

• Through assistive devices and tech, we’re able to work in an equally capable manner with non-disabled people.
• The problem is often the cost factor in accessing technologies. Eg. for hearing impaired persons, they cannot hear if someone rings the bell. But they can access a picture of doorbell ringing through a smartphone.
• For visually impaired people, smart glasses can identify what’s around us and provide a description of the surroundings.
• For people with mobility difficulty, apps and technologies can help them find spaces they can access - restaurants, movie theater etc. Through hand gestures or facial expression if they can operate computers, they can also be employed and economically active.
• Tech operating through brain functions.
• Entertainment is not only for people without disabilities. Games, etc. need to be accessible. 
• Technologies to give emotional recognition, especially for autistic people or those with intellectual disability.
• Smart homes: PwDs can cook food of their choice, make domestic choices etc.

Judy Okite

• For a long time, we’ve been advocating for physical accessibility at the IGF - hope it’s better this year. 
• One of the things we did with KICTANet this year: Evaluated 46 govt websites, just to see how accessible information is for PwDs. Unfortunately, the highest they got was 80%. The feedback from the govt was interesting: people felt if you’re at 80% you’re at a good space. But actually it means 20% of your content is not accessible to PwDs.
• From research we did: more emphasis is placed on persons who are blind when it comes to digital content. But persons with cognitive disability are more disadvantaged. If the content is not understandable/perceivable, then you’ve lost this person - they will not be able to interact with your content.
• In Kenya, only about 2 years ago, cognitive disability was recognised as a disability. So we can see how far we are on inclusion. 
• How do we ensure that PwDs are part of our change - not just because they want to, but because they have to be a part of the process.
• Forum for Freedom in Jerusalem - in Tanzania - they know my needs on physical platforms - worked with them before. There was a ramp, but I still needed to be lifted up to reach the ramp. They had an accessible room but very small cubicles for washrooms - so I called the guy from the reception who came with a wheelchair and I requested him to push it into the washroom. He asked how can I do that? I asked him back, how do you expect me to get in the washroom then?
• If they had included a PwD to be a part of this process, the ramp or the washroom wouldn’t have been this bad. Being deliberate in having PwDs as part of the process, the change.

Nirmita Narasimhan

On policy and regulatory processes

• Important to have policies - ensures that people are aware there’s a need. Mandated. Recognised by law. The fact that there’s a legal and social requirement and responsibility to comply with standards is important in ensuring that accessibility is there. Countries that have policies are better placed in terms of how accessibility is implemented.
• A lot of countries have implemented the CRPDA - domain specific policies need to come as well. Depends on different strategies and situation.
• Eg. In India when we had to lobby for the copyright law, we had to do a lot of research on what are the legal models available everywhere. We ran campaigns, meetings, signature campaigns etc. On the other hand, when we look at electronic accessibility, we had meetings with electronics and IT departments, and that’s how we worked with them to develop a policy. While developing the procurement standard in India, we worked with agencies, industries, academic groups etc. on what the standards should be and how they will be implemented. The idea is to get different stakeholders involved and be responsible for this.

Concluding thoughts

Padmini Ray Murray

• The biggest challenge we struggle with is when we design/develop technologies, we try to do it at scale, which means more nuanced and individual use experiences become harder to provide. This requires a paradigmatic shift in how tech is built - creating customised products. More layered and nuanced. More individualised and personalised experiences rather than one-size-fits-all.

Session Summary Report

As part of the 2023 UN Internet Governance Forum, held in Kyoto, Japan from October 9th to October 12, the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) organized an open forum on Whose Internet? Towards a Feminist Digital Future for Africa, on October 12. The session invited experts from the digital and policy sector to a panel discussion on opportunities and challenges faced by women, working in Africa’s digital economy and their role in shaping Africa’s digital transformation.

The session was hosted and moderated by Dr Towela Nyirenda-Jere of AUDA-NEPAD’s Economic Integration Division, supported by Alice Munyua, the Senior Director for Africa Mradi at Mozilla Corporation on-site.

Alice Munyua from Mozilla Corporation and Liz Orembo from Research ICT Africa (RIA) opened the discussion by sharing powerful personal testimonies, illustrating their experiences as women and female leaders in Africa’s digital sphere. Their reports highlighted the (mis)perception of female expertise and importance of female role models in digital spaces. Building on their reports, Bonnita Nyamwire from Pollicy and Dr. Nnenna Ifeanyi-Ajufo, Professor of Technology Law, shared and discussed research findings on threats of online gender-based violence, barriers faced by women in Africa’s digital economy and learnings on good practices and policy implications for ensuring safe digital spaces and socio-digital equality for women on the continent. Dr. Tobias Thiel from GIZ concluded the discussion by emphasizing Germany’s commitment towards feminist development policies and its continuous efforts to eliminate discriminatory structures for women, girls, and marginalized groups within the African Digitalization and Data sphere. All panelists highlighted the barriers women remain to face when working in digital sectors and emphasized the need to leverage women’s opportunities and participation to ensure an inclusive African Digital Transformation.

Participants off- and online actively engaged in the discussion and emphasized panelists’ statements by sharing their own experiences as leading female experts in the field. The interactive discussion underlined the importance of creating safe spaces and called for policymakers to ensure the inclusion of female voices in shaping policies that ensure a fair and just digital transformation in Africa. 

Panelists and the audience called for investing in developing more meaningfully and diverse research and advocacy agendas pertaining to women and feminist that extend beyond online gender-based violence. Panelists and audience also encouraged stakeholders to continue investing in capacity-building for African women. Women who are currently actively engaging in digital policymaking and Internet governance platforms should continue to actively open up spaces for new and young women leaders who can actively participate in these conversations and discussions in the future. Finally, the panel-discussion called on every person to consider their own unique commitment towards advocating for advancing socio-digital equality for women on the continent and beyond and take tangible steps towards realizing these goals.

In conclusion, the session identified several key takeaways from the panel discussion and subsequent round of contributions from the audience: While it might have become progressively easier for women to participate meaningfully in policymaking related to digitalization (including Internet governance) over the past twenty years, there are still many barriers to overcome and to address in order to make women’s voices heard and needs met in a comprehensive and not tokenistic manner. In addition, the discussion identified a need for diversifying and deepening conversations, perspectives, terminology, and research about feminist priorities in the Internet space in order to move beyond a common focus on challenges pertaining to online gender-based violence and related issues, to broader dimensions that shape socio-digital inequalities that continue to impact women’s experiences in Africa.

Session Presentation

Schools on Internet Governance (SIGs) are an important initiative that help with creating and strengthening capacity in Internet Governance. Regional SIGs have been operating in all the regions of the world, while national SIGs exist in many, but not all, countries. The DC-SIG provides a common platform where SIGs can discuss matters of their interest, share information, share innovations and discuss adaptive mechanisms as they evolve. While the global pandemic did adversely impact many SIGs, most are now back in a fully functional manner.

This session took stock of the current status of SIGs, support community members who want to establish SIGs in countries that do not have them, and examined how SIGs can improve themselves by adapting new programmes and courses.

As part of each yearly meeting, the DC-SIG takes on a topic of specific interest for discussion and further development of plans. This year, the DC looked at how the DC SIG can contribute to developing curricula in support of SDGs as the focus.

1- Slideshow of existing SIGs was shown and a presentation of the recently formed Japan SIG. New schools were given a chance to describe their schools.

2- Schools on Internet Governance (SIGs) and their impact to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)SDG 5,7 and 16)

SDG 5 on gender equality. 

• Ms Sandra Hoferichter (EuroSSIG)

Schools on Internet Governance (SIGs) contribute to this SDG because they are inclusive and the thematics are various. SIGs are a good effort  to fill the gender gap in education and to help promote women in leadership positions. For many years the application numbers of the EuroSSIG  show that more women are interested in these  topics.

• Anriette Esterhuysen: AfriSIG addresses SDG 5 through developing women as leaders in IG and by including gender specific topics in the programme. Examples would be sessions on online gender-based violence and on the gender digital divide and how to respond.
   
• Ashrafur Rahman Piaus (bdSIG)
  Bangladesh SIG works with the rural people on the SDG 5 and 9 by having women in their school and helping them achieve including transgender and many other marginalized community also 

SDG 7 on access to energy 

• Ms Olga Cavalli (South SIG and Argentina SIG)

Access to energy has a great link with climate change. So in this SIG they have a few panels discussing the impact of consuming energy. The other aspect of energy, it’s important to notice that there is a gap between some areas which have access to energy and others don’t. In the SIG, they talked with different experts and panelists about this issue.

Other SDGs

• Mr Alexander Isavnin (Russia SIG) speaks on SDG about peace and justice. The SIGs can help build new standards. Help enforce the multistakeholder process like in ICANN. Also enforces inclusion and effectiveness.
• SDG 8.6 Pakistan SIG conducts a session on digital entrepreneurship inspiring the youth to capitalize on the economic opportunities on  the internet.  For the SDG 9.5 (c), Access to the internet, they organize sessions on Access and Inclusion where Government and private sector brief the audience about their plans for expansion of ICT services and state of infrastructure in that city/area where school is being held (pkSIG is held at a different city every year). 
• Some SIGs sometimes discuss topics about SDGs but not all the time. So it is a good point to dive in after this session to see how the SIGs are promoted and present in Japan  for example.
• Abdeldjalil Bachar Bong for Chad SIG point is that  every SIG in their own and specific way already contributes  to the SDG topics  

Roundtable  Discussion on the evolution of SIGs

• SIGs are becoming references on IG in many countries on different topics : cybersecurity, regulations, and need to bring clarity to the IG understandings
• The SIGs can have a root in a solid curriculum and then adapt the content to a special target group to produce flexible and adaptable content. 
• The SIGs  can share their resources on the SIGs wiki and website to help others and promote their own achievements. This may align with the concept of open education. 
• There are different types of SIGs who cater for different groups of people.

RITEC: Prioritizing Child Well-Being in Digital Design

Open Forum #52 - Session Summary

Speakers

• Adam Ingle, The LEGO Group
• Aditi Singh, Young Advocate, Dream Esports India and Esports Monk
• Professor Amanda Third, Western Sydney University
• Sabrina Vorbau, EUN
• Shuli Gilutz, PhD, UNICEF 

Purpose: The session introduced the concept of well-being for children in the digital age before going on to examine its importance when we consider the centrality of digital technologies in children’s lives and the rapidly growing concerns around online harms. 

Part 1: Setting the scene on child safety and well-being in a digital age

This part commenced with Aditi Singh, Young Advocate, describing her own experiences with online gaming and how, from a young age, games pushed her critical thinking and collaboration skills and enabled her to grow intellectually and socially. However, Aditi also described the harms, particularly those related to being a young woman online, associated with gaming. This includes how she, and other children, often don’t understand the risks of sharing personal information and prevalence of gender-based harassment.

Aditi then discussed how forums, like the UNICEF Game Changers Coalition, has helped her and others reimagine the role of women in online gaming and drive the design of games to make them more age-appropriate spaces. Aditi called for governments and other bodies to incentivize private firms to build experiences with children at their core and how platforms themselves need to realize that their choices can unlock the benefits of games while minimizing the risk.

Sabrina Vorbau from European Schoolnet followed Aditi, discussing the EU’s revised Better Internet for Kids (BIK) strategy and how the revision process ensured the new BIK onboarded diverse views, including those of children which were instrumental to shaping the strategy. Ultimately this ensured the strategy adopted a more modern approach to promoting protection, empowerment and participation of children online. Sarbina highlighted how young voices also helped inform the Safer Internet Forum conference, informing important matters like topics, speakers and themes. Sabrina reinforced the need to educate with young people, not simply to them or for them.

Shuli Gilutz began to discuss how design philosophies within industry are critical to embedding digital well-being into online play. Shuli unpacked the concept for ‘well-being’, noting that it’s about the subjective experiences of children and includes not just safety but also outcomes like empowerment and creativity. Shuli described how RITEC is working with designers to develop a guide for business, giving them the tools to create positive digital experiences that are safe, private but also advance well-being.

Part 2: the RITEC project

Adam Ingle provided an industry perspective of why designing for children’s experiences is critical, discussing how the LEGO Group is embedding the concept in its own online play products. Adam highlighted that the RITEC project is about developing an empirical basis for understanding what digital well-being looks like while also creating the tools to proliferate responsible design throughout industry. Adam discussed the LEGO Group’s internal processes that helped the company implement best practice, this includes incorporating the views of child rights experts in product development processes, adopting clear digital design principles built around well-being as well as ensuring business metrics and KPIs also measure success against well-being. Adam concluded by noting that it’s not just about equipping businesses with design tools, but that cultural change is also needed to lift industry standards.

Amanda Third introduced the RITEC project itself, based on engagement of almost 400 children (predominately from the global south) and driven by their own views on digital play. Crucially, the project revealed that digital play brings joy and satisfaction and that children experienced many benefits – particularly through fostering social connection and promoting creativity. They are however conscious of the dangers and expect governments and firms to protect them.

Amanda noted how the perspectives of children informed design of a well-being framework with eight components (competence, emotional regulation, empowerment, social connection, creativity, safety and security, diversity, equity and inclusion and self-actualization). The project has also developed metrics to determine whether digital play experiences are meeting the above eight components of well-being, so it’s a practical, measurable framework and not just an abstract one. Amanda concluded by reinforcing the benefits of online play for children but also the criticality of involving children in research.

Shuli noted the next steps for the RITEC project, which includes the guide for business that summarizes the research and makes the findings actionable. Project managers are building the guidance with feedback from designers to ensure the tools speak design language and can be adopted with relative ease.

Panelists were asked to each note a critical action for embedding responsible digital design. Sabrina highlighted the importance of youth participation and including young voices in policy design. Adam emphasized the need for policymakers to adopt a holistic approach to online regulation, that balanced both harms and benefits and incentivizes firms to design for well-being. Shuli stated that industry needs to pivot towards more holistic design philosophies, including empowerment rather than just engagement. Amanda cautioned that we should also recognize the limits of design and how it’s one part of a wider solution that includes cultural change and education.

QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION:

How do we reach a true representational group of young people? Amanda noted that it’s important to reach to partner organizations who have expertise in engaging vulnerable and diverse perspectives but also there isn’t a perfect research method for participation, and we all need to move forward consciously.

How do we design for the evolving capacities of children? It was noted that regulatory frameworks require firms to consider the different capacities of children and Adam discussed how clever technical design can ensure that, for example, social settings are more limited for younger ages but expand for older ages who can engage with strangers in a more mature way (and with less risk).

What is the role of parents and educators and how does the framework include them? Shuli noted that the main recommendations for parents are (1) play with your kids - once you play with your kids you understand the benefits and risks and that helps the discussion happen, (2) also talk to children what you, as a parent, are worried about. Sabrina noted the conversations between parents and children about online safety is critical.

The UN is developing guidance note on human rights due diligence guidance for its use of digital technology. This process has included consultations with internal and external partners, helping mainstream human rights due diligence and align approaches across the UN system. The guidance, undergoing multiple drafts, aims to be inclusive and address different impacts, especially on gender and intersectionality. It will be considered for implementation across the UN system following feedback and endorsement.

UNHCR is actively applying human rights due diligence in its digital technology use, focusing on complex settings. They have a range of policies and are working on a formal framework to align with international human rights and ethical standards. They have been involved in developing the guidance through case studies and strategic partnerships, and the guidance has evolved to become more implementable. UNHCR plans to incorporate the guidance into their digital strategies.

The World Bank commends the principles-based approach but emphasizes the need to consider different levels of development and maturity among member states, stressing the importance of adapting the guidance to each country's specific context while maintaining universal principles.

Access Now highlights that access to effective remedy is crucial, noting the impact of technologies on marginalized and vulnerable populations. There is a need to build in elements of independent assessment for oversight and accountability reasons. Transparency on the process and practice and continued engagement with civil society are key. Effective enforcement is also a key element to the success of this guidance, as well as transparency in private-public partnerships.

The session concluded with OHCHR emphasizing the need to take seriously the questions raised in the discussion on transparency, independent assessments, and enforcement for the HRDD Policy Working Group to take on board as they implement next stages on the policy guidance.

The Open Forum "CGI.br’s Collection on Internet Governance: 5 years later" was presented at IGF-2023 in order to continue the discussion that began in 2017 with the Open Forum titled "Memory and documentation in Internet Governance: The challenge of building collections". It had an audience of 12 people and saw five interactions with the audience.

The moderator Vinicius W.O. Santos provided context by explaining that the earlier open forum was co-organized with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and focused on documentation and preserving institutional information. Additionally, the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) team shared its initial efforts to create a specialized library in Internet governance.

The Speaker Jean Carlos Ferreira reported on the main activities and progress made since the last Open Forum about the CGI.br collection. He highlighted actions taken within the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) and The Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br) related to producing and sharing information on Internet governance in Brazil.

The presentation mentioned the wide range of materials produced by CGI.br and NIC.br, including books, guides, reports, CGI.br meeting minutes, resolutions, technical notes, and other promotional materials. 

Ferreira described the main pillars of CGI.br's collection:  1) Documentation of CGI.br activities; 2) Publications; and 3) Specialized Physical Library. The project also includes the development of a digital repository that will include all materials from the Brazilian IGF.

Regarding the initiative's challenges, the presentation raised the need to build a multilingual Internet Governance vocabulary for standardized document indexing. Another highlighted challenge referred to implementing and maintaining robust, though complex, open-source tools that facilitate integration with other collections and collaboration with other organizations.

The moderator emphasized the importance of the session, as information organization and dissemination in the Internet Governance area are seldom discussed but vital.

Comments from the audience pointed out the significance of CGI.br's collections as a fundamental role in strengthening the community and knowledge development on Internet Governance in Brazil. One participant drew attention to artificial intelligence and machine learning in document indexing and designing taxonomies. Another participant also mentioned the possibility of using "language models" for term extraction to build a taxonomy. A third participant inquired about lessons learned during the project and tips for institutions interested in implementing similar initiatives. 

The speaker and the audience discussed the need to build an Internet Governance taxonomy for better information organization. Developing this taxonomy is a challenge faced by the Internet Governance community due to the diversity of topics and specializations within this field. Therefore, it is essential to bring together the librarian community, the Internet technical community, and other stakeholders to discuss and create an adequate vocabulary and taxonomy for the Internet Governance area.

The session featured comments from Mr. Winston Roberts, representing the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), who mentioned that IFLA is involved in the Internet Governance process, participating as one of the multistakeholder communities. He pointed out the critical role that Internet Governance plays in delivering library services and disseminating information. He emphasized the importance of collaboration and cooperation between libraries and the Internet technical community. He discussed the update of IFLA's Internet Manifesto, encouraging participants to reach out to IFLA and its regional representations in Latin America and the Caribbean for more information.

In conclusion, the open forum fostered an important discussion on the need for collaboration and dialogue within the Internet Governance community to create a taxonomy that addresses Internet Governance topics. It underscored the importance of CGI.br's collections in strengthening knowledge development within the Internet Governance community.

IGF 2023 Town Hall #162 How prevent external interferences to EU Election 2024

Esteve Sanz in Kyoto and Albin Birger from Brussels, the representatives of the European Commission, stressed that disinformation is false or misleading content that is spread with an intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. It is not the Commission’s aim to create a ministry of Truth, but to make the online environment more transparent and its actors accountable, to empower citizens, and to foster open democratic debate. One of the new challenges is generative Artificial Intelligence, which can amplify disinformation campaigns: a human centric approach needs to clearly separate human from artificial output. Therefore, AI production will not have copyright or have free sch rights, and should be clearly identifiable (identifying the effective way to do so, for instance through watermarking, remains a challenge).

They also presented the articulation of the different EU’s initiatives (regulatory and other) and institutional set up to fight against disinformation:

• under the DG CNECT, Regulations have been developed and are now in place at EU level (Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act); The 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation was strengthened in 2022, empowering industry to adhere to self-regulatory standards to combat disinformation. The Code of Practice aims to be transformed into a Code of Conduct under the DSA (to constitute a risk mitigation tool for Very Large Online Platforms, while remaining voluntary); and the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) has been set up to support the creation of a cross-border and multidisciplinary community of independent fact-checkers and academic researchers.
• under the European External Action Service different strands of work aim to foster international cooperation, to increase situational awareness and coordinate response to Foreign Information Manipulation & Interference (FIMI), including with partner countries, e.g. a Rapid Alert System between EU Member States’ administrations the creation of the EUvsDisinfo database or that  of a FIMI “toolbox”.
• the DG COMM, provides for internal Commission coordination and factual communication on EU policies, through monitoring  and analysis of related areas,, with an accent on debunking false narratives (e.g. climate change disinformation),  and through the promotion of media literacy initiatives.

Specific situations also call for targeted and coordinated actions, e.g. the imposition of EU sanctions on state owned outlets suspending RT and Sputnik’s broadcasting in the EU.

In view of the coming 2024 elections, specific initiatives have been put in place to further cooperation between the different actors:

- within the framework of the Code of Practice there is a Working Group on Elections, with a focus on the activities of the signatories and the facilitation of exchange of information between them

- under the guidance of the Commission, EDMO also has created a task-force covering all EU countries and all EU languages with the involvement of a broad set of stakeholders to carry out a risk assessment, monitor and report on mis/disinformation trends, and increase cooperation between the stakeholders.

Stanislav Matejka, representative of the ERGA, explained that the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services functions as an expert body, which is also tasked to provide the Commission with essential evaluation of the local implementation of the Code of Conduct, the local respect of the transparency obligations. It coordinates the work of the local authorities to monitor the effective implementation of the European policies in these matters (e.g. the access to data), and handles the repository of political adverts.

Paula Gori, Secretary General of EDMO stressed the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach of the phenomena of disinformation, which required expertise in numerous fields, from emotion analysis to computing, etc. In that sense, EDMO should be considered as a platform offering tools to the experts from the different fields, from fact-checkers to academic research, without forgetting the fundamental promotion of media literacy.

Giovanni Zagni, representative of a member of the network of fact-checkers and chair of the EDMO task force on elections, explained how their work has evolved from the sole analysis of content (which nevertheless remains an important part). For example, they set up a specific task force on Ukraine which led to 10 recommendations to policy makers; they produce a monthly brief on the tactics of disinformation.

Concerning the coming European elections, EDMO set up a specific task force which has three areas of activity:

- the past, i.e. reviewing old electoral campaigns to identify the different strategies

- the present, i.e. an evaluation of the main risks, country by country

- the future, i.e. how to better prepare the network for the coming campaign.

Caroline Greer, representative for TikTok, expressed the support of the company for fact-checking.

Concerning the coming elections, TikTok has a global election integrity program, with a template that is applied to local circumstances. This includes:

- specific election policies

- community guidelines

- a full prohibition of political advertising (at all times)

- a restriction of certain political activities such as funding campaigns

- local “election hubs” that inform citizens about - for example - where to vote, ecc.

Eril Lambert, from Eurovisioni in Rome, express appreciation for the role attributed by the European Union to civil society in the mechanisms to fight disinformation and raised several questions to the representatives of the EU and of the platforms. In response to different questions on line and in the room, it was precised that the voluntary Code of Conduct was only one tool to demonstrate compliance with European rules. The objective is to bring disinformation into light, through transparency – the Commission often launches investigations, and the DSA has now added an auditing layer to the instruments at its disposal. Take downs by platforms with their motivation and eventual appeal; have to be sent to a Commission database.

In case of non-respect of the rules, the Commission has several means available such as warning letters and imposing (large) fines up to 6% of the global turnover.

It was also indicated that what is important to improve collaboration between platforms, authorities, and institutions such as EDMO, e.g. to facilitate access to platform data on behalf of researchers.

Transparency of recommending algorithms systems is also an issue. TikTok for example allows the user to reset its recommendations to avoid to remain locked in a filter bubble, or to refuse a personalized feed.

The conclusion was that an efficient fight against disinformation requires a framework for a large cooperative between the different stake-holders, a continuous monitoring of the phenomena, and rules for transparency in the different processes.

A “big stick” against those who don’t want to play along the rules is also very useful.

IGF 2023 Open Forum #58: Child online safety – Industry engagement and regulation

Context

This hybrid session facilitated in-person by Ms Afrooz Kaviani Johnson – and online by Ms Josianne Galea Baron – explored different models of industry engagement and regulation to address online child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSEA). 

Panel discussion

Ms Julie Inman Grant, eSafety Commissioner, Australia, discussed the suite of regulatory tools her office uses to combat online CSEA. Key among Australia’s tools is its complaints schemes, which facilitate the removal of harmful content to prevent re-traumatization and allow trend analysis to influence systemic change. Additionally, the Basic Online Safety Expectations, which detail the steps that social media and other online service providers must take to keep Australians safe, enable the Commissioner to demand transparency, complete with penalties. Australia’s tools also include mandatory codes for various sections of the online industry in relation to illegal and restricted content, including CSAM. The Commissioner emphasized that even the largest companies are not doing enough and stressed the need for global pressure on companies to enhance safety measures. ‘Safety by Design’ was highlighted as a fundamental systemic initiative to support industry to better protect and safeguard citizens online.

Mr Tatsuya Suzuki, Director, Child Safety Division of the Children and Families Agency, Japan, presented how the newly formed Children and Families Agency is working with the private sector to combat online CSEA. The national framework acknowledges the essential role of private sector voluntary actions to ensure children’s safety online. It respects the balance between eradicating harmful content and ensuring freedom of expression. The Agency’s strategies, detailed in the 2022 National Plan for the Prevention of Sex Crimes against Children, involve public-private collaborations. The Plan for Measures Concerning Child Sexual Exploitation 2022 outlines these government-led actions. In July 2023, a prevention package was presented to the Cabinet Office, emphasizing joint efforts with relevant ministries to address child exploitation. 

Mr Toshiaki Tateishi, Japan Internet Provider Association/ Internet Contents Safety Association, discussed Japan’s private sector initiatives against online CSEA. The Internet Content Safety Association (ICSA) compiles a list of websites known for child abuse material based on data from the National Police Agency and the Internet Hotline Centre. An independent committee reviews this data, and upon confirmation, the ICSA distributes a blocking list to ISPs and mobile network operators, preventing access to these sites. The Safer Internet Association (SIA) contributes by operating a hotline for reporting illegal content, conducting research, advising on policy, and leading educational initiatives. These associations coordinate with providers, both domestic and international, to reduce and remove illegal and harmful content.

Dr Albert Antwi-Boasiako, Director-General, Cyber Security Authority Republic of Ghana, emphasized Ghana’s approach to championing industry responsibility and innovation. Recognizing that self-regulation is insufficient, Ghana advocates for ‘collaborative regulation’ rather than traditional top-down mandates. This strategy acknowledges that companies often overlook the risks children face online. Ghana’s Cybersecurity Act mandates industry action to protect children, encompassing content blocking, removal, and filtering. This law requires further specification through a legislative instrument, which is currently being crafted in consultation with the private sector and civil society. The Act includes administrative and criminal penalties, crucial for enforcement in developing nations, and allows for fines to fund the regulatory institutions. Dr Antwi-Boasiako noted that success hinges on widespread awareness and understanding of the issues at stake.  

Mr Dunstan Allison-Hope, Vice President, Human Rights, BSR (Business for Social Responsibility) highlighted the critical role of human rights due diligence (HRDD), including impact assessments, in combating online CSEA. HRDD based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) can form a key part of a company’s obligations to address online CSEA. The benefits of this approach include a comprehensive review of human rights impacts, special attention to vulnerable groups like children, and a structured framework for action, tailored to each company’s position in the technology stack. With regulations now echoing the UNGPs, voluntary measures are shifting to mandatory. He urged companies to embed children’s rights into their broader HRDD processes. While this significant regulatory change is especially prominent in Europe, he encouraged companies to take a global approach to achieve the desired child rights outcomes.

Interactive discussion

The discussion started on balancing children’s right to protection with their right to access information, especially age-appropriate and accurate sexual and reproductive health information. The conversation took cues from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General comment No. 25 (2021). Although the internet was not built for children, they are significant users, leading to a call for both minimizing harm and amplifying benefits. Australia’s consultations on approaches to age-assurance spotlighted this need, pushing companies to look beyond age-gating. A human rights-based approach was emphasized to navigate tensions between human rights. Strategies like DNS blocking alone were deemed inadequate, emphasizing holistic approaches, like Australia’s ‘3Ps’ model of Prevention, Protection, and Proactive, systemic change, are crucial. One significant challenge lies in raising awareness and promoting help-seeking behaviours among children and young people.

Conclusion

Both regulators and companies, along with civil society, are currently navigating extremely challenging dilemmas. Whether through regulation, self-regulation, or ‘collaborative regulation’, there is a significant shift happening in the regulatory landscape. This shift presents an opportunity to firmly integrate the issue of online CSEA into these evolving processes.

Further resources

United Nations Children’s Fund (2022) ‘Legislating for the digital age: Global guide on improving legislative frameworks to protect children from online sexual exploitation and abuse’ UNICEF, New York.

The session captured a discussion related to Internet Governance Forums (IGFs) and youth participation, specifically in different regions like Africa and Latin America. Following are some insights and takeaways:

1. Diverse Regional Perspectives: The session presented various regional perspectives, from Latin America to Africa, on the state of youth engagement in Internet Governance.

2. Growing Youth Engagement: The conversation underscored a growing trend where young people are becoming increasingly involved in these discussions. African governments, in particular, are beginning to engage more with the youth, but there is a call for deeper involvement beyond just Day 0 events.

3. Collaborative Efforts: Collaboration and partnerships seem to be key themes. The discussion highlights collaborative efforts across various groups, such as the Internet Society Youth Standing Group and the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance.

4. Case Studies: Various case studies from different regions, such as Latin America and Africa, were discussed to illustrate the state of youth engagement in these areas. For example, how Youth IGF operates differently across various regions due to cultural, logistical, and governmental factors.

5. Challenges and Solutions: Challenges such as the need for a common reporting tool and the disparity between youth discussions and main session topics were brought up. Solutions like creating a common platform for reporting were suggested.

6. Youth-Led Initiatives: There are emerging youth-led IGF initiatives, such as the Youth IGF in Ethiopia. These initiatives highlight the growing momentum and importance of youth voices in Internet Governance discussions.

7. The Role of Youth: While youth are at the decision table, there is a need to move beyond this and consider them as co-collaborators and co-creators in Internet governance discussions.

8. Value of Inclusivity: The discussion also emphasized the importance of not just engaging youth who are already part of the community, but also newcomers and the benefits of involving a wider and more diverse youth population in shaping these sessions and discussions.

In summary, the session provided a glimpse into the dynamic and evolving role of youth in Internet Governance across different regions. There's a clear call for deeper youth involvement, collaborative efforts, and the creation of systems that ensure their voices are effectively incorporated into broader discussions and decisions.

Dynamic Coalition on Blockchain Assurance and Standardization

Sessional Report: The IGF-Blockchain Assurance & Standardization, Panel Discussion on “A Maturity Model to Support Trust in Blockchain Solutions”.

Date of Session: 18 October 2023

Kyoto Conference Center, Room: WS 10 – Room I

Online Link: https://intgovforum.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEucuihrT4pE9VXFZ6GWP2gQNOjl19VqgLQ

Introduction

The Dynamic Coalition on Blockchain Assurance and Standardization (IGF-DC-BAS), was established to connect, communicate, and collaborate with government leaders and stakeholders to use blockchain technology to improve public services.

More specifically, with the support of the Government Blockchain Association (GBA), the IGF-DC-BAS established a working group for International Organizations & Standards, supporting the UN-SG Global Digital Compact goals, including:

• Ensure that everyone has access to the digital world.

• Promote the use of digital technologies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

• Protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in the digital age.

• Build trust in the digital world.

Outcome of the Session

Takeaways:

• Benefits of a maturity model:
  • Provides a common framework for assessing blockchains.
  • Support trust in blockchain solutions.
  • Helps organizations identify areas for improvement.
  • Facilitates communication and collaboration between stakeholders.

• Use cases:
  • Digital identity
  • Banking & Finance
  • Digital Assets
  • Voting/elections
  • Legal
  • Supply chain
  • Other (e.g., healthcare, education)

• Interest from parliamentarians, non-governmental organizations, and academia:
  • Demonstrate the growing awareness on the importance of blockchain assessments.
  • Create opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing.

• Reported benefits from those who have conducted assessments of blockchain solutions based on a set of shared criteria:
  • Ensure that blockchain solutions meet the needs of all stakeholders.
  • Reduce the risk of selecting inappropriate or inadequate blockchain solutions for their specific use cases.
  • Promote the adoption of best practices in blockchain design and implementation.

• Rationale for using a maturity model:
  • A maturity model provides a structured, objective, repeatable, and technologically agnostic approach to assess blockchain solutions.
  • It helps organizations identify their current state of maturity and track their progress over time.
  • It can be used to benchmark blockchain solutions.

Plan of action:

• Provide more details about opportunities for training and awareness on the Blockchain Maturity Model and the corresponding assessment methodology.

• Share lessons learned and best practices.

• Involve key stakeholders and interested new parties in the:
  • Periodic meetings of the IGF-BAS
  • Collection of input/requirements/suggestions from representatives of multi-stakeholder groups.
  • Develop and validate sector-specific supplements.
  • Simulate the assessments of blockchains.

 Additional Activities of the IGF-DC-BAS

In addition to the DC Session, representatives of the IGF-DC-BAS participated in the “Free and Fair Voting Panel”, “Blockchain Assurance Panel”, “Internet for All Panel”, and “Blockchain in Healthcare Panel”.

During the 4 days of the conference, the IGF-DC-BAS Team held 24 individual meetings with Government Officials (Parliamentarians form Uganda, Kenya, and Ghana), and representatives from media (Bloomberg), law firms, private sector, and educational institutions.  

The topics discussed included newly available functionalities in scalability of networks, secure identification, CBDC, voting, software supply chain security and general governance using zero knowledge, AI and blockchain technology.

Session Report IGF 2023 DC-Blockchain Implementation of the DAO Model Law: Challenges & Way Forward

1. Session Details

The DAO Model Law is a multistakeholder effort led by COALA (Coalition of Legal Automated Applications) to provide legal certainty for so-called ‘unregistered’ DAOs (i.e., DAOs that are not wrapped in a legal entity form) and their participants, and unlike other regulatory frameworks, accommodate flexibility for their unique features and further innovation. Since its development the Model Law has served as a precedential source in the development of legislation such as the DAO Acts in both Utah and New Hampshire, parliamentary discussions in Australia, and has also been referenced in the recent call for evidence by the UK Law Commission. The session seeks to take the discussion further from the session hosted at IGF 2022, to analyse how different legislators and policy makers are approaching the development of legal frameworks to govern DAOs and also outline lessons learnt as well as recommendations for the way forward as more jurisdictions express interest in regulating unregistered DAOs. The session will have great benefit for policy makers, governmental representatives, law makers, practitioners as well as DAOs in navigating the course of granting legal recognition and certainty and will address the critical aspects of inter alia governance, functional and regulatory equivalence, liability attribution and taxation of unregistered DAOs.

It is intended that the workshop will be conducted in hybrid format to accommodate onsite participation at IGF 2023 as well as online attendees within various jurisdictions who wish to contribute to the discussion on the implementation on the DAO Model Law. In this regard it is anticipated that the official IGF Online meeting platform will be utilized, and online participants will be able to post comments and also ask questions in relation to the content of the discussion.

2.  Panel Discussion

The Presentation made during the Panel Discussion and ensuing conversation centred around why is there a necessity to develop a DAO Model Law, the inherent advantages of DAOs, the primary principles of the DAO Model Law (viz. functional and regulatory equivalence) as well as the outline of the fundamental sections of the DAO Model Law.

The discussion then focussed on what are the next steps and the progression being made by various jurisdictions towards the implementation of regulatory frameworks. This therefore involved taking a close look at the jurisdictions that have instituted incorporation options such as Wyoming, Vermont as well as the Marshall Islands as well as countries where the Model Law have been considered/reviewed/(partially)transposed, such as Australia (Bragg report, Senate of Australia), United Kingdom (UK Law Commission DAO Consultations), St. Helena, New Hampshire and Utah.

During the session the Panel then focussed on what are some of the challenges faced in garnering adoption by countries which centred around the key sensitive issues of regulatory equivalence, privacy rights (incl. privacy of remuneration) recognised by law as well as taxation.

3. Next Steps/Way Ahead

It as identified that there is further work that can be undertaken to refine the DAO Model Law, based on developments within the global sphere. As such new taskforces will be convened to work on the key areas of Identity and Limited Liability, Privacy/Transparency, Taxation as well as Technical Guarantees for Functional & Regulatory Equivalence and Updates.

4. Key Session Takeaways

DAOs are a global technology that knows no borders and there should not be a rush to regulating this technology and stifling its growth. We are also starting to see the emergence of case law in relation to key issues such as liability, tort, fiduciary duties etc. What would be needed s the use of sandboxing to allow them to grow and deliver on its promise.

When looking at the development of legal frameworks in relation to DAOs some of the procedural requirements already fits under existing legislation. For certain issues there may not be the need to develop de novo frameworks, but to address the key issues such as the impact of joint and several liability on DAOs which can stifle their development.

There needs to be greater sensitization and discourse taking place between DAO practitioners and governmental policy and law makers in order to remove misapprehensions about DAOs and also clarify how the technology works and its benefits. In addition to which, DAOs could and should be used as an effective tool in promoting global participatory democracy by institutions such as the IGF and this should be definitely explored further.

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Organized by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br), the Town Hall focused on delving into different digital platform regulation governance models through the exchange of global south countries’ practices and discuss the role of State and non-State stakeholders vis a vis the value of the Internet Governance multistakeholder model. The session was moderated by Henrique Faulhaber, counselor of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, representative of the private sector, who opened the session by exposing the role of multistakeholderism in Brazil Internet Governance, as the role it may have on platform regulation, highlighting the particularities of regulation and institutional difficulties that may occur in global south countries. 

Marielza Oliveira, from Unesco, presented a more general approach to the multistakeholderism model, highlighting its importance to build consensus evolving multiple stakeholders, however the model must overcome challenges to be inclusive, diverse and human rights based as well as to account power imbalances from big techs.

Sunil Abraham, from Facebook India, on the other hand, highlighted the importance of coordinating all the forms of regulation – from the estate, co-regulation and self regulation with standards setting organizations. This could be seized in platform regulation by  giving room to bottom up knowledge and norm settling, especially with global south participation in a way that would ensure future-proof regulation. 

Miriam Wimmer, director from the brazilian DPA, also agreed on the importance of coregulation, highlighting the complex institucional set in Brazil with the difficulties in defining the regulation scope and which authorities would be evolved in a broad theme such is platform regulation. The director also emphasized that multistakeholder isn’t incompatible with multilateralism. 

Joanne D Cunha, researcher from the Centre For Communication Governance at NLU Delhi, pointed out the challenges for global south countries in platform regulations and participating in global forums and international processes, especially due to difficulties with resources. 

At last, Renata Ávila from Open Knowledge Foundation stressed out the inequalities between different realities, in particular considering small global south countries that may lack not only platform regulation laws but also data protection laws. She also highlighted the importance of platforms not taking advantage of that situation, ensuring transparency and a general frame to be replicated. 

The Q&A session stressed out the arrangements between the different regulation models that may be applied to platform regulation, and the challenges in cooperation between multiple authorities. It was also pointed out how platforms with transnational reach keep track of many jurisdictions and may replicate new mechanisms to different countries. At last, the speakers highlighted the importance of south-south cooperation, holding platforms accountable and an expanded multistakeholder model with more diverse participation. 

We can highlight two key takeaways. Multistakeholderism is still largely considered the best way to construct consensus, ensuring results that encompass different stakeholders. However, it was pointed out that it needs improvements to guarantee meaningful participation from all stakeholders, especially within civil society and technical community that many times have difficulties in participating in national or international forums, due to, among other reasons, lack of resources and time. Therefore, governance of platform regulation needs to consider the differences of institutional arrangements and the necessity to equalize the power imbalances that large platforms may cause.  

Call to actions mentioned: 

• Guarantee more resources to civil society and technical community to increase participation in international governance forums 
• Adopt bottoms-up regulation, specially in technical standards, such as AI, and ensuring global south countries participation. 
• Ensuring openness and access to data in order to ensure meaningful participation. 

Beyond development: connectivity as human rights enabler

October 2023

by session orgs: Raquel Rennó, Lucs Teixeira, and Nathan Paschoalini

Introduction

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development explicitly recognises that the spread of information and communication technologies has the power to bridge the digital divide; as such, governments are increasingly addressing connectivity expansion as part of their efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. However, framing connectivity solely as a facilitator for social and economic growth is limiting. These approaches ultimately privilege the most powerful telecommunication industries that can afford international agreements; if all connectivity is provided by the same few global incumbent telecommunication operators, there will be very little diversity in technologies, content, and little space for dissident voices.

To expand on this issue and bring in different views, ARTICLE 19 organized a Town Hall session during the 18th edition of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF2023) in Kyoto, Japan. It brought together regulators, members from the private sector, the technical community and civil society to discuss the following questions:

• Would it be possible to re-center connectivity as a human rights enabler, moving away from the development-only approach?
• How can PPP and cross-national agreements help solve the digital divide while allowing the diversity in the ISP technologies, improving innovative policies and techniques to spectrum management instead of just promoting one specific industry?

Moderated by ARTICLE 19 Program Officer Raquel Renno Nunes, the session included Jane Coffin (civil society), Thomas Lohninger (epicenter.works, civil society), Robert Pepper (Meta, private sector) and Nathalia Lobo (Ministry of Communication of Brazil, public sector). As online moderator, Lucs Teixeira (ARTICLE 19 Internet of Rights fellow, civil society) coordinated participants in the Zoom room; Nathan Paschoalini (Data Privacy Brazil, civil society) was the rapporteur.

The full recording of the Town Hall session, with captions, is available at IGF’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwlgWVXYFuo

Discussion

Before the discussion, the on-site moderator, Raquel Renno, stated that this Town Hall should be a space for an open discussion on connectivity issues, that enables different views on this subject, considering its importance as a human rights enabler. Then, invited speakers exposed their views on the questions raised above, with the opportunity for participation extended both to the on-site audience and to remote participants.

After the panellists’ intervention, there was a open mic round, in which members of the audience and the panellists could debate the topics covered at the beginning of the panel.

We split the points raised between three interrelated main problems.

Problem 1: Building infrastructure

Robert Pepper highlighted the fact that in the last few years, it was possible to identify a shift from a “coverage gap” to a “usage gap”. In this sense, more than 2 billion people could be online, but aren’t. He mentioned a project they conducted within sub-Saharan countries to understand the reasons why the majority of the population in this region are not online. In this study, they identified three main reasons for the issue, being a) affordability of devices and of monthly services; b) lack of digital literacy; and c) lack of local relevant content online. Another issue identified was related to the lack of electricity. He questions how to make people online, considering  that Internet access should be recognized as a human right and a human rights enabler. 

Jane Coffin in her turn told us about how difficult it was to take fiber from Zambia to South Africa, mentioning negotiations between the countries borders, the presence of an historical bridge in the way, and a swarm of bees as obstacles in the more than 1 year period of deployment. This example serves the purpose of highlighting the difficulties related to Internet infrastructure and the barriers related to building Internet infrastructure in a cross border region. According to Coffin, it takes a multistakeholder approach to improve Internet access and to strengthen the dialogue with governments, so they can understand what has to be done to speed up Internet connectivity.

She also mentioned that community networks come from a diversification of perspectives to bring in a last mile connectivity. In this sense, such networks can provide a type of Internet connection that is different from the ones provided by bigger ISPs, which don’t always have the economical interest to connect people in remote or otherwise impractical places. She states that building network infrastructure is usually very expensive, but there are alternative ways to build Internet infrastructure, especially if focused on smaller networks, and that different organizations can work together to achieve and improve Internet connectivity for those underserved publics.

Thomas Lohninger acknowledges that all promises related to 5G, especially regarding connectivity, have not yet materialized; and despite this, discussions about 6G can already be identified.

Nathalia Lobo presented the Brazilian context on the issues related to the universalization of Internet access in the country, due to the continental dimensions of Brazil. She mentioned that the Brazilian 5G auction was an opportunity to establish obligations related to the universalization of Internet access to the companies that won the process.

She also presented a Brazilian public policy named Connected North, that was designed to strengthen connectivity to the northern region of Brazil through eight information highways composed of twelve thousand kilometers of optical fiber laid in the bed of the Amazon River. Lobo also mentioned that the public-private partnerships play a key role in the accomplishment and maintenance of the Connect North project. 

Problem 2: Fair share proposals

Thomas Lohninger address issues related to network fees, such as the fair share debate, which is not new, dating  back to the telephony era. According to Thomas, in this context, small ISPs have revealed that they are afraid of their ability to compete and to connect to other networks if such a proposal is approved, due to economical barriers. This, Thomas said, might lead to a fragmented Internet, where only large ISPs would have the financial resources to remain connected to the global network.

Robert Pepper reinforces this critical view on network fees, explaining that the whole rationale behind them is based upon the architecture and economics of “Telecom Termination Monopoly”. With past network architectures, the distance and duration of connections increased costs substantially; after 4G arrived, with “essentially flat IP networks even in mobile”, the cost for connection is a step function and the duration or data exchange of that connection does not increase costs for the telcos unless they peak simultaneously.

Problem 3: Zero-rating practices and Net Neutrality

Thomas Lohninger mentioned issues related to zero rating such as Meta’s Free Basics, taking the Colombian Constitutional Court case as an example. He stated that zero rating contracts violate net neutrality, whose defense is deeply associated with accomplishing meaningful connectivity.

Regarding this, Robert Pepper mentions a Meta project called “Discover”, which he describes as an evolution from Free Basics and instead of limiting the access to a selection of allowed websites, it limits all web pages to text, filtering images and video. Pepper mentions this as a solution that is not perfect but may serve as an “introduction to the Internet”, and as a way for people in prepaid packages to keep using the network even if degraded after the data package is over.

Key takeaways

1. Some of the panelists see a shift in the lack of connectivity that went from a coverage gap to a usage gap. This means that, recently, the there was a improvement in the Internet coverage, and the main issue, now, relies in the Internet use by people who lives in regions that have Internet coverage;
    
2. On the other hand, some consider the lack of infrastructure still an important issue to address. It is conventional wisdom that building infrastructure is expensive, however there are strategies to lower this cost, which need a strong  multi stakeholder approach to address it.
    
3. The mismatch between a business model aiming for continuous improvement for the fastest and the better, clash with the reality faced by many in the Global Majority. The promises of universalizing Internet access through the 5G haven’t been materialized yet, and some sectors are already discussing the 6G technology. New regulatory proposals, such as the fair share or tech toll, may lead to a context of Internet Fragmentation, where only the largest content providers would be able to accommodate the demands, still, only in the strongest markets where the investment would meet some return. The second concern was related to zero rating agreements, which give an unfair advantage to large companies.

Next steps:

Based on the discussion, the organizers of the session see there are different interests from the private sector and pressure on the public sector, which in some cases can overcome the needs of the people in most fragile condition. It would be important to:

• Have governments and intergovernmental agencies to reinforce the relevance of universal and meaningful connectivity as a fundamental enabler of human rights and elaborate on this relevance for the protection, promotion, and enjoyment of civil and political rights, in addition to economic and social development.
   
• We also call for regulators to adopt a human rights-based approach to national, regional, and local connectivity expansion and improvement plans. Considering the roles of small, community, and non-profit operators in providing complementary connectivity for rural areas and minorities beyond the sole reliance on incumbent telecom infrastructure providers to sustainably address the digital divide.

Organized by the Laboratory of Public Policy and Internet (LAPIN) and the Brazilian Data Protection Authority (ANPD), the panel focused on debating how the Data Governance theme has been discussed in the G7 and G20 forums. The session was moderated by José Renato (LAPIN).

Mr. Yoichi Iida, from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, started the presentation declaring their active participation defending inclusivity and a multistakeholder approach in those forums. Iida exhibited how they focused on the subject of free flow of information across borders, proposing in 2019 their Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT) project in 2019, on G20. Mr. Yoichi also affirmed that in G20, they use "human centricity" as the main terminology, as opposed to G7, which uses "democracy". He believes that data flow and IA governance as the most important themes in their agenda, with the challenges of privacy protection, interoperability and human rights protection. The Japan Government recognizes the diversity in jurisdiction and approaches, but the frameworks should be as coherent and interoperable as possible. 

In the second part, Gaurav Sharma brings the Indian perspective of embracing technology and digitalization in G7 and G20 and the Data Protection Bill in India. He affirmed the need to focus on norms able to interact between sectors. For him, the digital strategies should be transparent, inclusive, secure and conducive to the sustainable development goals. To finish his presentation, he defended more participation from the Global South.

Alexandre talked about the labor behind data production and microworkers. He mentioned the need for attention on Cloud Economy and the so-called gatekeepers, and how the multi-level approach can benefit the discussions around data governance. To conclude, Alexandre mentioned the importance of merging digital rights organizations with traditional social movements, even in G20 negotiations.

Veronica Arroyo mentioned that the discussion about data governance depends where it is located, because of the difference between jurisdictions. Some of them have a very strong enforcement mechanism but in other cases, the country follows a more flexible approach. Thus, the design of data governance depends heavily on the policies and the priorities that the country has. She presented how the SDGs can be the core issue and how the commonalities help to meet those goals in different frameworks.

Luciano Mazza specified how there are different approaches to data protection and data flows, and within the G20 there is a certain stabilization in conceptual terms on the discussion of data free flow with trust. Every country tries to bring their own issues and reality towards the theme and weight which ones are higher up in the terms of importance. Mazza explains how one of the reasons why this was not discussed more directly is that when we started this discussion on data governance in the G20, there was a way to balance a little bit the debate on free flow of data and potential concerns or constraints in terms of a more development oriented perspective. He speaks how there are two different approaches included that are complementary in a way but not fully articulated in the G20 debate, which are the data free flow with trust and data for development. From a developing country perspective, it may feel like the subject is not fully mature, but in Brazil's case, they recognize that the issue is crucial and of utmost importance. He presented four priorities: universal and meaningful connectivity, artificial intelligence, e-government and information integrity. He affirmed how he does not envision the discussion on data governance as a full front debate in those forums.

Miriam Wimmer addressed some of the challenges posed by data governance and how it has been explored, the different approaches that have been proposed by multilateral organizations such as G7, G20, the UN and the OECD over the past years. She points out that we have been observing lots of discussions in many different proposals manifested through declarations, roadmaps, agendas based on concepts such as data free flow with trust. One of the main challenges, in her perspective, is to understand how these different proposals interconnect with each other, in which aspects they complement each other and in which cases they create tensions or gaps. Wimmer affirmed that another relevant aspect is how to make sure that all important stakeholders participate in these discussions, understanding that when we discuss the flow of data across borders, we are not only debating the interests of companies or states, but the rights of individuals. The discussion should take into account multiple perspectives, based not only on different approaches that the countries may have towards data protection, but also on the different interests of the various stakeholders affected by this discussion. She mentioned the actual debate in Brazil on international data transfers, in which the authority is facing the challenges of making sure that the mechanisms that are going to be established are interoperable and will allow for the protection of the fundamental right to data protection, regardless of where the data is actually located.

In today’s era, digital technologies represented by AI serve as the pioneering force in the global scientific revolution and industrial transformation, increasingly integrating into all aspects of economic and social development, thereby profoundly altering how society is governed. The iterative development of generative AI in 2023, with ChatGPT serving as a quintessential example, has once again fueled human apprehensions concerning the potential risks posed by an intelligent society.

This open forum was hosted by the Bureau Information Technology Development Cyberspace Administration of China, with support from the Institute of Intelligent Society Governance of Tsinghua University and the Center for Science, Technology & Education Policy of Tsinghua University. Under the theme “Intelligent Society Governance Based on Experimentalism: Insights from Cross-Country Experiences”, the open forum invited six experts and scholars from government bodies, research institutions, and social organizations in China, the United Kingdom, and Brazil to engage in discussions on the practical impacts of AI applications in different countries and case studies about intelligent society governance, thereby fostering transnational knowledge exchange. The open forum is committed to identifying effective governance models, cooperation frameworks, and policy tools that will cultivate a sustainable and humanistic intelligent society.

1. To further enhance the capacity building for intelligent society governance on a global scale, and to foster a humanistic intelligent society.

The world is undergoing profound changes that are unprecedented in the past century, with issues such as wealth disparity, environmental and climate change, as well as regional conflicts, standing as common challenges faced by human society. Enhancing the capacity building for intelligent society governance, promoting the widespread application of intelligent technologies, and fostering a humanistic intelligent society are crucial measures to meet these challenges.

Building a humanistic intelligent society requires vigorous efforts to empower public services with AI. Jiang Wang, Deputy Director of the Information Bureau of Cyberspace Administration of China, asserted that we should strengthen the integration of AI with public services such as elderly care, education, medical care, social security, and sports. Considering the need to safeguard and improve people’s livelihoods and create a better life for the public, AI should be utilized to enhance the public services and social governance levels of government departments. Simon Marvin, Professor at the Urban Institute of the University of Sheffield and Professor at the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, posited that, through examples such as Japan’s Society 5.0, Smart Dubai, and San Francisco, countries could actively explore how to construct regulatory systems while AI was rapidly developing, ensuring that AI better serves public domains such as healthcare and education.

The panelists all agreed that, in the face of the tremendous changes brought about by AI, countries around the world are exploring new values, new concepts, and new directions for intelligent society governance. Constructing a humanistic intelligent society has become a historical mission for contemporary humanity, necessitating a collective effort to guide AI in a direction conducive to human society's development.

2. To pay close attention to the social impact prompted by AI, strengthen the assessment of potential risks in AI development, improve laws and regulations to safeguard the healthy development of AI, and formulate ethical norms for intelligent society governance.

The industrial revolution incited by AI will exert a significant influence on human production and lifestyle. Alessandro Golombiewski Teixeira, Special Advisor to the President of the BRICS New Development Bank, Distinguished Professor of the School of Public Policy and Management of Tsinghua University, and former Minister of Tourism of Brazil, emphasized that AI would lead to the evolution of social structures and alter the way humans interact socially. The resultant intelligent society will address a series of major challenges such as climate change and may facilitate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Cui Huang, Professor at the School of Public Administration and Director of the Department of Information Resources Management of Zhejiang University, indicated that China’s practice of promoting the modernization of education and building a strong educational nation in the intelligent era, through the integration of digital technology and education, demonstrated that intelligent technology held immense potential in educational governance and could infuse new vitality and resilience into social development.

The transformation into an intelligent society has brought about issues and challenges about legal privacy, moral ethics, and public governance in human society. Jun Su, Dean of the Institute of Intelligent Society Governance of Tsinghua University and Director of the Think Tank Center of Tsinghua University, believed that in the face of risks and challenges posed by new technologies represented by ChatGPT, we should adopt a prudent, confident, and proactive attitude, employ a scientific evidence-based approach to comprehensive assessments, and facilitate its benign development.

Countries worldwide are actively conducting practices to utilize AI in addressing social problems and accumulating experience in the process, thereby forming a relatively complete regulatory system and ethical norms. As Zhiyuan Xu, Deputy Chief Engineer of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, stated, the development of AI governance was transitioning from conceptualization to the actual rulemaking and implementation stage. Globally, countries are actively releasing AI rules and policies under governance objectives such as reliability, controllability, human-centeredness, fairness, and justice. The panelists call for refining global advanced experiences and practices, further promoting the concepts and practices of intelligent society governance, and actively exploring the international standardization construction of intelligent society governance.

3. The international community should work together to promote exchange and cooperation in intelligent society governance, uphold the principle of technology for social good, and build a community with a shared future for mankind in the intelligent era.

The panelists agreed that it was necessary to explore the path of intelligent society governance under the concept of building a community of human destiny, strengthening international exchanges and cooperation in intelligent society governance, and promoting inclusive sharing, agile governance, and the realization of differential development and win-win cooperation among countries. Jiang Wang, Deputy Director of the Information Bureau of Cyberspace Administration of China, pointed out that China is willing to exchange and share work experiences in intelligent society governance experiments with other countries, actively contribute to Chinese solutions, and learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Jun Su, Dean of the Institute of Intelligent Society Governance of Tsinghua University and Director of the Think Tank Center of Tsinghua University, called on countries to strengthen academic cooperation and exchange in the field of intelligent society governance, widely hold open, diverse, and inclusive academic conferences, and publish related academic journals.

The panelists all advocated that the international community should strengthen dialogue and exchange, calling on researchers and practitioners from different countries and academic fields around the world to join in the research and discussion of global intelligent society governance and make academic contributions to building a humanistic intelligent society. They hoped that countries could deepen pragmatic cooperation, jointly face the opportunities and challenges brought by intelligent technology, and work together towards a new stage of human civilization. They looked forward to everyone’s efforts to make the public in countries around the world pay more attention to the application and future of AI, and jointly construct a new chapter of a community with a shared future for mankind in the intelligent era.

The purpose of the session was to discuss governance gaps in achieving a safer DNS. There is a separation between structural layers of the Internet and content issues, and the ecosystem understands those lines. But when we talk about harmful content, sometimes those lines become blurred and governance gaps become evident.

The conversation sought to discuss what to do about those gaps and how to be action-oriented.

Keith Drazek from Verisign began by setting the scene. In his view, the ecosystem seeking to address DNS issues, security, and online harms has to recognise that each actor has different roles, responsibilities, and capabilities, whether that is a registrar, a registry, a CDN or an ISP. There are different governance models, for example the ICANN community and the gTLDs have governance by contract. ccTLDs, on the other hand, develop local governance models based on their relationships with local governments or local Internet communities. Hosting companies and providers are subject to the laws of their respective jurisdictions, and operate in response to that regulatory guidance. In the overlap of these various models, there are governance gaps still remaining. He believes there is an opportunity for better communication, collaboration, and good work across the various parts of the DNS ecosystem, up and down the stack. There is also a need for the technical operators, registrars, and registries to collaborate better together as a sector to mitigate online harms in a proactive way. This will help reduce costs and demonstrate to regulators that the industry is taking the initiative. Hopefully, this will also help avoid being regulated in a fragmented way when it comes to different jurisdictions.

He also highlighted there are conversations to be had as well about the advent of blockchain, alternate identifiers and technologies, as there are governance gaps in that area as well that will require collective addressing by industry.

Jia Rong Low from ICANN providing background on the role of ICANN supporting abuse mitigation. He explained how ICANN is governed by a multi stakeholder model, and how the community was adamant that the issue of DNS abuse needed addressing within the ICANN structure. At the time of the session, there is an open voting period to approve updates to the agreements between ICANN and contracted parties to incorporate specific actions to address DNS abuse as a contractual requirement. In his view, “sometimes with models such as ICANN’s, it can feel like things are not moving, but the community has come a long way.”

Esteve Sans from the European Commission (EC) came in next with a perspective from a regulatory body. He started off by highlighting the bodies such as the EC are not just regulators, they are members of the multistakeholder community, and in the EC’s case, they are very active in ICANN.  The EC does not have any new regulation in mind, and is currently looking forward to supporting ICANN in what they see as “a moment of truth in dealing with abuse.” Esteve shared the view of the EC that amendments to the agreements of the contracted parties have not gone far enough, missing elements such as transparency or proactive measures. 

Fiona Alexander from American University welcomed the reactivation of the DC as a safe place for conversation. She highlighted how DNS Abuse and what constitutes harm can mean different things to different stakeholder groups, especially governments. She went on to highlight jurisdictional differences in approaches. In some jurisdictions, there is preference for proactive approach (e.g. the EU), in others there is preference for having demonstrated harm versus preventive action (e.g the US). In addressing harm, governments also have to balance the important issues of free expression and human rights. Addressing online harm is a cross‑jurisdictional challenge that can be difficult to resolve. In her view, it is important to (a) have a shared understanding of terms, and a shared understanding of some of the challenges, (b) to look at the proportionality of the response, when do you take a small versus larger measure, and (c) who is best suited to take action. Voluntary commitments such as those reflected in the updated agreements of the contracted parties are good. They could also be more targeted, more rapid. When looking at voluntary action, it is really important to make sure there is transparency in those systems and that there is due process in those systems.

Jen Chung from .Asia reflected on the contractual amendments with ICANN. She explained how the .Asia organisation is looking forward to using the trusted notifiers system in collaboration with APNIC and APCIRT and TWNIC to periodically identify risks and share lists. She pointed out how this type of collaboration with the ecosystem is important to tackle threats such as phishing, and highlighted how these are actions that go beyond their contractual obligations. She illustrated this point in connecting to the definition of DNS Abuse. “DNS abuse can mean different things to different people; for the the contracted parties it refers to malware, botnets, phishing and spam. But this is not intended to limit our sphere of work, we go above and beyond our contractual obligations.” Lastly, she concluded with call to action to include the CSIRTS in work related trusted notifiers, and mentioned that .Asia is discussing with APNIC and APCERT the possible set up of a South Asia CERT.She highlighted how in regions where there are no harmonised approaches –like in the European Union— the onus is on operators like .Asia and other organisations Internet organisations to step up to fill this gap.

Rocio de la Fuente from LACTLD brought in a perspective from the ccTLD community. She explained how ccTLDs are not bound by the consensus policies formulated in ICANN, as their policies are based on local regulations established with their communities. She shared LACTLD’s experience organising workshops for dealing with illegal content and DNS abuse targeted at judges, prosecutors and Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) which has been co-organised with LACNIC, ICANN and the region’s technical community organisations.  The workshops have been successful in building cooperation networks with the judiciary and LEAs. “We see a positive impact when policy makers and LEAs can have direct conversations with their local ccTLD,” she explained. Private sector has also sometimes participated in the workshops to address issues related to illegal content on their platforms and services besides the DNS threats or DNS abuse issues.

Jean Jacques Sahel from Google came in next to bring a perspective from the private sector dealing more broadly with content-related issues. Jean Jacques began by pointing out that from a Google perspective, the company is not trying not to be regulated; the internet has achieved a certain level of maturity and regulation is to be expected.It is rather a question of how, and understanding there is much of self regulation. He went on to share some lessons on how to tackle bad content, and take action on inappropriate behaviour. Google analyses content flagged to them by users or governments and follows content policies; in platforms like youtube, they demonetize bad content. They also seek to build out collaboration with relevant organisations. Honing in on APAC, there is a trend for increasing regulation –some omnibus regulation that concerns all intermediaries in APAC, some do “social media” regulation only. Back in the day they were copying regulations of other regulations, now it is changed — they add their own veneer. APAC is a very large market so this is bound to impact millions of users.

Jean Jacques highlighted that the one thing he sees as lacking is policy makers seeking out for input from the multistakeholder community – the tech community, industry and civil society. “We can remind them, and some of us are raising concerns of collateral damage, massive collateral damage to the ecosystem, but it gets scant attention.” He concluded that regulation is coming, and that regulators will go for whoever can bring actions. From a DNS industry perspective, the Internet’s core has been spared, but not for long. He called for regulators to leave room for freedom of expression and not to over regulate.

Esteve Sanz was invited to address Jean-Jacques’ points. Sanz said that the EU DSA offers an approach that strikes a good balance between users' fundamental rights and tackling abuse. In terms of coordination, he highlighted that the EC coordinated with the US on the declaration for the Future of the Internet, which he described as a straight jacket for the states not to regulate the internet in certain ways that are harmful. Lastly, he warned of digital authoritarianism in that authoritarian governments use the internet to control their populations. “We cannot think the internet is just a tool to promote freedom.”

Keith Drazek elaborated on the point of industry collaboration. He finds industry does not collaborate sufficiently, especially when up and down the stack, or across the range of operators. There is an opportunity for registries, registrars, hosting companies, CDNs and ISPs to engage more constructively and proactively together, and to collaborate in identifying trends of bad actors and in devising mitigation strategies.

He agreed that regulation is upon us, but urged for it to be informed, educated regulation and to take into account concerns by civil society. When we speak of content, it gets very complicated from a rights perspective. Registries and registrars have one option to address abuse, and that is to take the entire domain  out of the zone – the third level is with the hosting company. If it is a bit of offending content or harming content on a third‑level name or a website, the hosting company has to be involved in that conversation about how to mitigate those harms to ensure proportionality.

He offered five points for consideration that apply to dealing with online harms through the DNS, and also for any trusted notifier schemes. These include consideration of:

1. Provenance of a threat, to have the closest stakeholder take action
2. Proportionality, to ensure actions do not impact users or other parts of the ecosystem disproportionately
3. Transparency on how we use the DNS to mitigate online harms. What process was followed and what actions taken
4. Due process
5. Recourse –we need to offer recourse for the impacted party if you got it wrong,

Fiona Alexander weighed in and said that what is unique about how the Internet operates is the multistakeholder model. So it is important that industry and governments do not broker on their own, but that conversations are held in reach of the multistakeholder community. “How you do something is just as important as what you do.”

Connecting to regulatory efforts by the EU, Jia Rong Low highlighted the impacts of GDPR on the Whois database. He explained how he interacts with LEAs, and complaints by Interpol that Whois has become difficult to work with, highlighting how regulations have losers and winners.

Jen Chung offered an example of how articulation can play out. .ASIA is the registry operator for .kids, which is one of the first gTLDs with a mechanism for restrictive content. She explained how downstream, there are the hosting providers, DNS resolvers; at every point, there could be abuse happening all the way to content. For DotKids, they rely on Google AI to look at the content, they have a policy that listens to child rights experts and online rights experts. They are also highly transparent and have the paper trail of how reports are dealt with. They also offer recourse. 

Rocio de la Fuente came back with additional perspectives from the LAC region where there are no overarching regional regulations to harmonise approaches. She explained that while abuse in ccTLD communities is low, the ccTLDs have introduced actions to help mitigate abuse. For example, .co has a national hotline for reporting CSAM materials and mechanisms in place to review reports.  

Some comments from the audience included Mark Dattysgeld who in response to the comments by the EC explained that the community came up with a technical definition of DNS Abuse which could be agreed upon as a baseline from which we can always build on. Kanesh from Nepal urged for capacity building. Andrew Campling asked whether new standards introduce new governance gaps, hinting at DoH.  

In terms of what is required, the panel recommended

More capacity building, as done in the LAC region, with governments, LEAs, operators, judges, policy-makers and other relevant stakeholders. Esteve warned that the conversation has been dominated by the global north, and that this will play badly in the WSIS+discussions.

Bringing people together and having conversations. Continue the discussion about more coordinated action from the ecosystem, ensuring we get feedback from the multistakeholder community. Making it a sustained conversation.

Clarity on what tools we have, what to scale. From a cooperation perspective, Jen Chung highlighted the need to Join the dots on the things we are doing, and scaling what works.

More collaboration on DNS security, including involvement of CSIRTs.

Measure DNS Abuse

Be attentive to new standards being developed

Takeaways

There should be more coordination across the Internet ecosystem dealing with online harms, particularly to deliver proportionate responses that look beyond action at the DNS level.

Asia and Latin America offer good examples of (a) better coordination across the ecosystem and efforts to build collaborations among existing initiatives (example of operation of .kids by .Asia) and (b) capacity building and networking between the DNS, content and technical communities on the one hand, and policy makers, law enforcement and the judiciary, on the other.

Calls to action

The numbers and names communities as well as companies dealing with content need to actively build capacities with policy makers, LEAs and the judiciary to help them understand adequate and proportionate options for dealing with online abuse.

The Internet ecosystem needs to have better coordination mechanisms in place that break away with industry silos in dealing with online harms, and build ecosystem-wide consensus and collaborations for addressing harmful content on the Internet.

IGF 2023 DC-OER: The Transformative Role of OER in Digital Inclusion 

Report 

The IGF 2023 Dynamic Coalition on Open Educational Resources (DC-OER) convened a session under the theme "Digital Divides & Inclusion." In an increasingly interconnected world, access to quality education is paramount, but digital divide and inequalities persist. The IGF 2023 Dynamic Coalition on Open Educational Resources (DC-OER) addressed this pressing issue in a round table discussion, exploring the transformative role of Open Educational Resources (OER) in promoting digital inclusion. The session featured international experts and diverse stakeholders. 

The UNESCO and IGF OER Dynamic Coalition showcased its dedication to promoting open educational content while respecting privacy, legal standards, and inclusivity. OER's potential to provide inclusive access to digital knowledge was a key highlight of the session. 

The UNESCO OER Recommendation was the main focus of the session as the starting point for a common commitment and political will of Member States towards knowledge sharing through OER. This is the first international normative instrument to embrace the field of openly licensed educational materials and technologies in the UN System. 

The Recommendation provides a clear definition of Open Educational Resources, namely that OER are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, which allow no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others. 

The Recommendation also underscored that an open license is one that respected the intellectual property rights of the copyright owner, while granting the public the rights to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt and redistribute educational materials.   

The five action areas of the 2019 Recommendation on OER were central to the discussion: capacity building, supportive policies, quality and accessibility, sustainability, and international collaboration.  

The IGF 2023 session highlighted that OER is not merely a tool; it's a multifaceted solution that demands capacity building, supportive policies, quality, inclusion and accessibility, sustainability, and international collaboration to effectively bridge digital divides. These five pillars represent a collective commitment to unleashing the full potential of OER, empowering the digital era, fostering inclusion, and ensuring that equitable access to quality education is within reach for all. 

Capacity building was emphasized as the foundation for effectively bridging digital divides by enabling educators and learners to create, access, and adapt OER. 

Dr. Stephen Wyber of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) stressed the pivotal role of supportive OER policies, ensuring that educational resources are accessible to all, regardless of their digital environment. 

Quality in OER was underlined as essential for meaningful learning experiences. OER should not contribute to inadequate learning, especially for marginalized individuals. Sustainability models for OER initiatives, including financial strategies, open procurement, inclusive policies, and ongoing community engagement, were highlighted as crucial for OER successes by Dr. Tel Amiel, UNESCO Chair in Distance Education at University of Brasilia (UnB). 

For Dr. Patrick Paul Walsh, SDG Academy, UN Sustainable Solutions Network (UNSDSN), International cooperation emerged as a critical pillar of effective OER solutions, emphasizing the interconnected nature of digital education. 

The session's insights and recommendations underscored the critical role that OER play in advancing digital inclusion, knowledge accessibility, and quality education for all. As the world continues its digital transformation, the power of OER is set to drive global change, ensuring that no one is left behind in the digital age. In line with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, the session echoed the importance of implementing Member States-adopted standards for openly licensed digital education tools through the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) 2019. It stressed the pivotal role of OER as a digital public good, ensuring an open, free, and secure digital future for all, aligning with the Global Digital Compact. 

Key Takeaways: 

• The importance of tailoring OER to diverse learners, avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach. 

• The call for governments and institutions to support inclusive OER initiatives and promote the knowledge commons (Mr. Neil Butcher, OER Strategist, OER Africa). 

• The necessity of community-led initiatives with input from those they aim to benefit. 

• The session emphasized the role of governments, institutions, and communities in supporting inclusive and accessible OER initiatives, ensuring quality education for all. 

• Capacity building is of paramount importance spanning from creating awareness and optimizing resource utilization to promotion of inclusivity. In alignment with the Recommendation on OER, addressing resource scarcity through the allocation of public funds for openly licensed educational materials and incentivizing educators to embrace OER is a crucial takeaway from the session has recalled Dr. Melinda Bandalaria, Chancellor and Professor, University of the Philippines Open University 

Call to Actions: 

The session emphasized the role of governments, institutions, and communities in supporting inclusive and accessible OER initiatives, ensuring quality education for all. To realize these objectives, active support for inclusive and accessible OER initiatives was urged. This support should extend to the diverse needs of learners, the promotion of the knowledge commons, and the assurance of quality education for all.  

The IGF 2023 DC-OER session serves as a reminder that OER is a catalyst for bridging digital divides and fostering digital inclusion. It's a call for collective action to make digital education truly inclusive and accessible to all. 

In conclusion, the IGF 2023 DC-OER session highlighted the transformative potential of OER in bridging digital divides and fostering digital inclusion. The insights and recommendations from the session provide a roadmap for achieving these vital goals in an ever-evolving digital landscape. 

The session was divided into three parts:

1.       Disruption: addressing the challenge brought about by disruptive emerging technologies

2.       Agility: exploring whether and how international institutions can be agile, with an emphasis on bottom-up approaches

3.       Common principles: searching for shared values and principles that can guide international institutions going forward

1. Disruption

The international policy challenge brought about by disruptive technologies includes both a substantive challenge and a geopolitical one. With respect to the substantive challenge, there is a tension between two opposite approaches. One approach suggests that there is nothing fundamentally different with new technologies, and that over time the international community will address the issues. At the other extreme, one might be tempted to see new technologies as fundamentally problematic and warranting international regulation. From the panel, there emerged a need for balance. On the one hand, it is important to keep in mind the history of international policy responses to technological developments, paying attention to recurring patterns. It is often the case that new technologies trigger alarmist responses. Therefore, any action needs to build on fact-based, informed decision-making. On the other hand, the enormity of the challenges brought about by emerging technologies should not be understated. For example, as opposed to the early stages of the development of the internet, which was led by academia and government, nowadays the private sector has a much larger impact on the development of new technologies. One of the solutions for achieving this balance might be finding a new, original perspective of how to approach the rapidly evolving technology.

To address the geopolitical challenge, policy-makers should try to cooperate with those who understand the need to transcend geopolitics in order to foster a common good.

Multistakeholder-based policy discussions and exchanges are seen as crucial in enabling the international community to navigate both the substantive and geopolitical challenges. In that respect, the IGF and the model it embodies play a key role.

2. International institutional agility and bottom-up approaches

There was a consensus that international institutions ought to strive to be agile to the extent possible, in order to adapt to the rapid pace of technological change. However, the challenge for international institutions is to act with agility, while maintaining a high degree of depth, accuracy and transparency. Adopting bottom-up mechanisms can help. One example for this is airline industry regulation, which developed organically based on stakeholders’ common challenges and goals.

It was suggested to focus on agile processes rather than attempting to define in advance what the substantive outcome should be. In that respect, as a practical approach, instead of tackling large issues horizontally, which often requires tremendous resources and takes time, it might be useful to break up a given subject into smaller components that can be tackled individually. The UK’s AI Safety Summit is an example of this approach. Another example is the OECD's work in developing the AI Principles: the process was relatively quick, with involvement from multiple stakeholders, and the Principles have become widely used. In addition, the OECD maintains a repository of about 400 experts that are selectively called upon to provide input on specific topics. This allows the OECD to produce outputs in an agile manner.

The IGF's Best Practice Forums are another example of how an international institution can create flexible spaces for individuals from diverse backgrounds but with similar interests can coalesce and create valuable policy work.

In that regard, multi-stakeholderism can be harnessed to empower institutional agility.

The above examples underscore that future-proofing global technology governance need not be "high-tech": there are some basic mechanisms that can serve as models to enable bottom-up approaches and greater institutional agility.

3. Common principles

Principles of transparency, openness, accountability, inclusivity, a commitment to human rights (with particular attention to the impact of technologies on vulnerable groups), and trustworthiness of technology are relevant in discussions on disruptive technologies, at a high level. These principles should ideally be embedded in the work of international institutions. The question is how to apply these principles in practice, in a context-sensitive manner.

A related issue is fragmentation of efforts: multiple international organizations dealing with similar topics, in parallel, and issuing similar, complementary or conflicting outputs (recommendations, declarations, etc.). Is this fragmentation a feature or a bug? It was suggested that, to the extent that such fragmentation produces a diversity in outputs, it can be positive. However, if it results in a duplication of efforts by international institutions, then it should be avoided. This is essentially a resourcing question.

Going forward, a number of suggestions were raised. One was to improve accessibility of information on various technologies and their respective impacts, so that stakeholders across the globe benefit from high-quality data to inform policy. One potentially ground-breaking idea was to prompt a re-thinking of how international institutions go about addressing technological issues. Global policy-making mechanisms that we are familiar with today evolved in the 19^th century, and some of them might need to be updated. For example, it might be useful to think about global stakeholder-based policy making, based upon shared needs of similar stakeholders across the world, as a new mode of global governance.

Conclusion

There emerged a common understanding that international institutions, and the core values they embody and promote, remain as relevant as every in addressing the challenges posed by emerging technologies, but that there is a need to improve – and perhaps re-think – how they operate. To that end, existing examples of agile institutional governance and bottom-up approaches, should be studied and scaled-up, to the extent possible. Moreover, mutual understanding as well as sharing procedural know-how should be promoted.

Robert Kroplewski, a key figure in AI policy, opened a town hall panel to delve into Compassion AI, highlighting the need for ethical frameworks in AI development. He introduced a panel of global experts, both in-person and online, from various sectors, including Hanson Robotics and the GAIA Foundation. The session aimed to bridge the gap between ethical aspirations and the practical implementation of AI, with a focus on creating a balanced ecosystem. International efforts, legal frameworks, and policy recommendations were discussed, emphasizing the importance of a compassionate and inclusive approach to AI. The panel also addressed the challenges and disparities in access to knowledge and resources, advocating for a more equitable and responsible AI landscape. The goal was to foster an environment that benefits both humanity and the planet, ensuring the ethical development and deployment of AI technologies.

EDWARD PYREK

The speaker emphasizes the critical juncture humanity is at regarding AI development, urging careful decision-making to avoid past mistakes made during the internet's inception. They advocate for a global, ethical AI, acknowledging the challenges posed by cultural and religious diversities but highlighting compassion as a universal value. The Global Artificial Intelligence Alliance (GAIA) was formed to champion decentralized, compassion-based AI, introduced to the public in 2021. The speaker also introduces the Virtual Florence initiative, a multidisciplinary group of experts working together to shape the future of AI. They stress the importance of addressing the prevalent fear of AI and the future, aiming to teach compassion to both humans and AI through developed models and tools. The speaker criticizes the often superficial discussions at conferences, emphasizing the need for tangible products, impactful actions, and the upcoming AI Impact Summit in Salzburg in March 2024. They highlight the potential of AI in solving global issues, provided it is decentralized and compassion-based. The speaker also introduces the GAIA Guardians platform, aiming to unite individuals towards creating decentralized AI, and emphasizes the need for collaborative efforts from all societal levels to truly impact AI's future.

Three Most Important Takeaways:

1. Urgency and Responsibility in AI Development: We are at a crucial point in AI development, and careful, ethical decision-making is paramount to avoid repeating past mistakes and ensure a positive impact on society.

2. Compassion as a Universal Value for AI: Despite the diversity in cultural and religious beliefs, compassion is identified as a common thread, essential for the development of a global, ethical AI framework.

3. Multidisciplinary Collaboration and Addressing Fear: The future of AI should be shaped collaboratively by experts from various fields, not just IT professionals. Addressing and working with the prevalent fear of AI is crucial in teaching compassion and ensuring responsible development. Additionally, tangible actions and impactful initiatives, such as the AI Impact Summit and the Gaia Guardians platform, are vital for creating a decentralized, compassion-based AI future.

EMMA RUTTKAMP-BLOEM 

The speaker delves into the significance of AI technology, its rapid advancement, and its potential impacts on human agency and autonomy. They emphasize the need for human-centered technology and highlight the dual nature of AI, having immense potential for both good and harm. The UNESCO recommendation on AI ethics is presented as a global instrument aiming to address these challenges, promote responsible governance, and reduce inequality. The recommendation outlines values, principles, and policy actions to guide stakeholders towards ethical AI development, emphasizing inclusion, gender equality, and environmental protection. The speaker introduces the concept of compassionate AI, linking it to positive liberty and the capability approach, advocating for ethical entitlements that enable human flourishing and establish AI ethics as a dynamic mediator between technology and humanity.

Three Most Important Takeaways:

1. Rapid Advancement and Dual Nature of AI: AI technology is advancing quickly, impacting all facets of human life. It has the potential to both significantly benefit and harm society, necessitating careful consideration and ethical guidelines to maximize its positive impacts and minimize potential harms.

2. UNESCO Recommendation on AI Ethics: This global instrument provides comprehensive guidelines, values, principles, and policy actions to ensure responsible AI development and governance. It emphasizes the importance of inclusion, gender equality, environmental protection, and international cooperation.

3. Compassionate AI and Positive Liberty: The speaker introduces compassionate AI, linking it to the concept of positive liberty and the capability approach. Ethical entitlements are necessary to enable human flourishing and establish AI ethics as a mediator between technology and humanity, translating abstract principles into actionable duties for all AI actors.

DAVID HANSON

The speaker discusses the profound impact of AI on human lives, emphasizing its potential to both understand and enhance human existence. AI, being bio-inspired and capable of uncovering hidden patterns in human data, may one day be considered sentient and deserving of respect. The rapid advancements in AI, particularly in the corporate sector, have led to transformative discoveries, such as DeepMind's AlphaFold, which has revolutionized the biosciences. The speaker highlights the interplay between academia, policy, and the corporate sector in advancing AI technology. They define compassion simply as the appreciation of life in all its forms and interdependencies, drawing parallels between this concept and the development of AI. The speaker urges for the creation of technologies that enhance human caring and compassion, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach that considers long-term sustainability and the well-being of future generations. They pose a critical question on how different sectors can collaboratively work towards developing AI technologies that serve the greater good and promote compassionate interactions.

Three Most Important Takeaways:

1. Bio-Inspired AI and Sentience: The speaker highlights the bio-inspired nature of AI and its potential to become sentient, autonomous beings deserving of respect. This notion challenges our current understanding and interaction with AI, urging us to consider the ethical implications of such advancements.

2. Transformative Discoveries and Corporate Advancements: The rapid advancements in AI, particularly in the corporate sector, have led to transformative discoveries, such as contribution to understanding human proteins. These advancements underscore the potential of AI to revolutionize various fields and improve human understanding of life.

3. Compassion as a Core Value in AI Development: The speaker defines compassion as the appreciation of life in all its diversity and interdependencies. They emphasize the need for AI technologies to enhance human caring and compassion, urging for collaborative efforts across sectors to develop AI that serves the greater good and promotes compassionate interactions.

MARC BUCKLEY

The speaker reflects on the pivotal moment in human history marked by the advent of AI and emerging technologies, drawing parallels with past technological transformations that ushered in new epochs. They emphasize the need for humanity to transition from the Anthropocene to a new era, highlighting the role of AI in guiding this transformation with compassion, ethics, and accumulated human wisdom. The speaker points out the unique global collaboration represented by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), describing them as an unprecedented Earth shot initiative agreed upon by 197 countries. However, they also identify challenges, such as the lack of collective intelligence and AI to consolidate knowledge and mediate between diverse perspectives. The speaker raises concerns about the domestication of technology versus human beings and the sacrifices humanity might make for technology. They underscore the potential of AI to exponentially drive progress towards the SDGs, emphasizing the associated new ecological economic model, which requires significant financial investment. The speaker concludes by aligning with previous thoughts on the importance of approaching these challenges and opportunities ethically and effectively to achieve the SDGs in the shortest possible time.

Three Most Important Takeaways:

1. AI as a Guiding Force for a New Epoch: The speaker highlights the critical role of AI and emerging technologies in guiding humanity towards a new age, emphasizing the need for compassion, ethics, and the integration of accumulated human wisdom to avoid repeating past mistakes.

2. Global Collaboration and Sustainable Development Goals: The speaker points out the unique and unprecedented global collaboration represented by the SDGs, describing them as a collective moonshot for humanity. However, they also highlight the challenges posed by the lack of collective intelligence and AI to mediate and guide these efforts.

3. New Ecological Economic Model and AI’s Role: The speaker introduces the SDGs as a new ecological economic model, requiring significant financial investment and ethical consideration. They emphasize AI’s potential to exponentially drive progress towards these goals, ensuring that the approach is aligned with ethical standards and effective strategies.

TOM EDDINGTON

The speaker draws a parallel between the current state of AI development and the mythological moment when Prometheus brought fire to humanity, emphasizing the transformative yet risky nature of AI. They highlight the nascent stage of AI in business, pointing out that while billions are being invested and business models are still being defined, the primary focus remains on commercialization and profit-making. The speaker warns that this narrow perspective could lead to negative consequences similar to those observed in climate change, urging for a more foresighted and ethical approach. The speaker emphasizes the need for guiding frameworks, such as an AI charter, to inform business decision-making and model creation, ensuring that the development and deployment of AI technologies align with ethical standards and consider their impact on humanity. They suggest looking to various models, including public health, virology, WarGames, and cybersecurity, to understand and mitigate the potential risks associated with AI. The speaker concludes by highlighting the urgency of mastering our ethics and self-discipline to manage AI's uses responsibly, ensuring that the technology fulfills its promises without posing undue risks.

Three Most Important Takeaways:

1. Transformation and Risk in AI Development: The speaker underscores the transformative potential of AI, comparing it to Prometheus bringing fire to humanity, while also highlighting the associated risks and the need for careful and ethical management.

2. Commercialization Focus and Need for Ethical Guidance: The speaker criticizes the current business focus on AI commercialization and profit-making, advocating for a broader perspective that includes ethical considerations and the potential impact on humanity. They call for the development of guiding frameworks, such as an AI charter, to inform business models and decision-making.

3. Urgency for Ethical Mastery and Responsible Management: The speaker emphasizes the need for industries and developers to adopt a mindset that prioritizes ethics and self-discipline in the development and deployment of AI technologies, ensuring responsible management and minimizing potential risks.

MARCO GROBELNIK

The speaker provides a nuanced perspective on the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), drawing a parallel to the Prometheus moment in mythology. They highlight the challenges faced by regulators and the industry in adapting to the swift advancements, particularly after the significant "chat GPT moment" in late 2022. The speaker emphasizes the intense competition among tech giants and geopolitical entities, stressing the importance of balancing commercial interests with ethical considerations and societal values. They express optimism about the potential of AI to contribute to compassionate interactions and societal cohesion, advocating for a more philosophical and value-driven approach in the development and application of AI technologies.

Three Most Important Takeaways:

1. Rapid Advancements and Regulatory Challenges: The speaker underscores the challenges faced by regulators and the industry in keeping pace with the rapid advancements in AI. They point out the need for a balance between democratic and normative approaches to regulation, ensuring that AI develops in a way that is beneficial and safe for society.

2. Commercialization and Geopolitical Competition: The intense competition among major tech companies and between geopolitical entities is highlighted as a significant aspect of the current AI landscape. The speaker stresses the importance of not losing sight of ethical considerations and societal values in the pursuit of commercial success and technological dominance.

3. Potential for Compassionate AI: The speaker is optimistic about the capabilities of current AI technologies, particularly in text understanding and reasoning, as a foundation for developing compassionate AI. They advocate for integrating societal values and ethical considerations into AI systems, ensuring that they contribute positively to human interactions and societal cohesion.

Questions and Answers:

1. Guest 1:

   • Question: Raised concerns about defining compassion in AI, questioning the limits of compassionate actions and their implications on human development. Used the example of manipulating sheep genetics to cure human cancer to probe the boundaries of compassion.
   • Answer: David Hanson and Edi Pyrek responded, emphasizing the need to balance ethical considerations and the potential of AI to enhance human compassion. They suggested that AI could potentially lead to a higher understanding and implementation of compassion.

2. Guest 2:

   • Question: Asked if the current level of compassion in AI is capped by human developers' compassion, particularly those with significant financial resources.
   • Answer: Marco Grobelnik acknowledged the influence of big tech companies but expressed optimism about the future and the potential for positive change.

3. Guest 3:

   • Question: Inquired about including children's voices in the AI development process, especially considering the risks AI poses, such as generating child sexual abuse materials.
   • Answer: David Hanson highlighted the importance of strong guardianship and inclusive values to protect children and ensure their voices are heard.

4. Guest 4:

   • Question: Questioned how to eliminate quarterly earning requirements for corporations, drawing a comparison with European countries.
   • Answer: Robert Kroplewski suggested a shift towards more responsible and trustworthy business practices.

5. Guest 5:

   • Statement: Emphasized redefining intelligence as compassion and expressed optimism about the future of compassionate AI.
   • Response: The panel did not provide a direct answer but the statement added a valuable perspective to the discussion.

6. Guest 6:

   • Statement: Stressed the need for intentional architecture of compassion in AI development.
   • Response: The panel acknowledged the statement, aligning with the call for intentional and ethical AI development.

Different Points of View:

• Ethical Considerations: There was a strong emphasis on ethical considerations in AI, with different speakers highlighting the need for balance, strong guardianship, and intentional development.

• Compassion in AI: The definition and implementation of compassion in AI were central themes, with discussions on how to practically achieve compassionate AI and the potential benefits.
• Influence of Big Tech: The role and influence of big tech companies in AI development were acknowledged, with varying opinions on the current state and future prospects.

Key Findings:

1. Need for Clear Definitions: The session highlighted the need for clear definitions and boundaries regarding compassion in AI, ensuring that ethical considerations are central to development.

2. Importance of Inclusivity: The inclusion of diverse voices, particularly those of children, was emphasized as crucial in developing compassionate and ethical AI.

3. Optimism for the Future: Despite the challenges and ethical dilemmas presented, there was a general sense of optimism about the potential of AI to contribute positively to society, provided that intentional and ethical development practices are followed.

Session Report: UNESCO Open Forum on Capacity Building for Civil Servants in Digital Transformation 

Date: 10 October 2023, byUNESCO and GIZ's Fair Forward Team 

The open forum on capacity building for civil servants in the context of digital transformation, jointly organized by UNESCO and GIZ's Fair Forward team, brought together a diverse group of experts from around the world. The primary goal of this session was to facilitate an open dialogue and knowledge exchange among participants to explore the possibility of establishing a Dynamic coalition for sharing best practices in capacity building initiatives. The session also aimed to develop a group – with this DC – to develop new content and knowledge products that could be leveraged by organizations and partners globally to support governments in their digital transformation efforts. 

The Open Forum aimed to:

1. Convene a Network of Digital Leaders: The primary objective was to bring together a diverse network of digital leaders, including experts and stakeholders deeply engaged in dialogues centered on capacity building initiatives and best practices for digital transformation among civil servants.

2. Interactive Discussion and Examination: The session intended to facilitate interactive discussions and examinations of the challenges, requirements, and solutions related to digital capacity building as articulated by the stakeholders.

3. Development and Reinforcement of a Dynamic Coalition: The goal was to develop and reinforce the scope, membership, and roadmap of the Dynamic Coalition. This coalition was envisioned to serve as a catalyst for global discussions and the dissemination of best practices in digital transformation and capacity building for civil servants, grounded in real-world examples.

The participants around the table represented a diverse group of global stakeholders, including governments, civil society, intergovernmental organizations, academia, the private and tech sectors, civil servants, media, and more. The session was formally opened by a Keynote Address from Japanese Government Representative and by a representative of AI4Gov, emphasizing the importance of capacity building and technology challenges faced by the government.  Several challenges were highlighted, including network connectivity issues with platforms like Zoom, procurement challenges related to technology, varying levels of tech proficiency within the government workforce, the adoption of AI with its associated risks, and the preference for on-premise data services over cloud solutions, with the Japanese government expressing appreciation for UNESCO's capacity building efforts. The discussion was a very high-level and dynamic discussion among various stakeholders all 

The session successfully initiated a dialogue and highlighted the pressing need for addressing the challenges posed by digital transformation. The importance of forming a sustainable coalition, sharing best practices, creating knowledge products, and supporting governments in their digital transformation journey was emphasized. 

In conclusion, the session underscored the importance of addressing the multifaceted challenges and opportunities in digital capacity building for civil servants. The range of discussion topics explored, including sharing best practices, fostering interagency collaboration, establishing digital skill frameworks, and engaging in public-private partnerships, emphasized the need for a collective and holistic approach. Inclusivity, impact measurement, effective governance, and the role of digital leadership were integral components of the dialogue, highlighting the comprehensive nature of capacity building efforts. Resource allocation and international collaboration emerged as critical considerations, while the cultivation of a digital culture within government organizations was recognized as a key driver for success. Acknowledging challenges and formulating solutions, as well as the importance of government-wide strategies, data security, and stakeholder engagement, contributed to a robust framework for advancing digital capacity building among civil servants. These discussions set the stage for continued collaboration and knowledge sharing among stakeholders committed to enhancing the digital preparedness of government institutions.

As a next step, participants were encouraged to collaborate and explore the formation of a coalition that can effectively address these challenges and support governments worldwide. The session concluded with a call to action for participants to work together to achieve these objectives and ensure civil servants are prepared for the digital age.

Open Forum #15, "Protecting Children Online with Emerging Technologies ", aims to explore how to rationalize the use of emerging technologies to prevent and respond to various forms of safety issues encountered by children when they are online, as well as to explore in-depth ways to support the development of broader policies and interventions to keep children safe online and to explore the availability of specific action plans.

The forum invites representative panelists from government agencies, social organizations, universities and institutes enterprises and other aspects, to participate in the speech. Experienced moderator was selected to summarize and comment on each guest's point of view in a timely manner, so that the entire forum activities are rich in content, in-depth, and tightly focused on the theme, and resonate with the thoughts of the participants with a good authority and vivid expressive power.

Panelists conducted in-depth discussions on the development of broader policies and interventions to protect children's online safety, focusing on how to make good use of the Internet and other emerging technologies, so that information technology can maximize data integration and utilization, while maximizing the protection of children's rights and safety on the Internet. Speakers from the management, technology and other perspectives to talk more about methods and measures, more introduction of practice cases, exchange and share the international and domestic innovations in recent years, aimed at providing a series of solutions for children's online protection, with easy-to-understand knowledge propaganda, vivid and lively case introduction, to enhance the attractiveness of the forum activities.

Participating guests agreed that the Open Forum provides reference for countries to formulate protection policies and contributes useful inspiration to promote the protection of children's online safety globally and provide a healthy online environment. More than 100 guests from government departments, social organizations, universities and research institutions, news media, Internet companies and other online and offline to participate in the forum.

Although the forum was not able to hold a Q&A session on site due to time constraints, ,but after the meeting, the speakers had a fuller exchange with the audience, focusing on how to make better use of Internet technologies, especially generative artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. They conducted in-depth discussions and exchanges on specific policy measures developed and implemented by various countries, such as setting up a youth mode in smartphones, applying emerging technologies to online content auditing so as to accurately identify content that infringes on children's privacy and filter the dissemination of inappropriate content for children, and setting up a mechanism for reporting and handling reports.

IGF 2023  

Session Report- Child Participation Online: Policymaking with Children 

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2023 Open Forum on child participation online was organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The focus was not only to bring young people and children into the policy-making process but also to enable them to be part of the solution in matters that concern their safety and well-being online. Within the first round of the Forum debate, five stakeholders from across different domains ranging from academia, non-governmental and civil society organisations, and private sector discussed the contribution of children to creating solutions to the online challenges.  

It should be mentioned that ITU has been working on Child Online Protection since 2009 to facilitate the sharing of challenges and best practices among Member States. Since then, the involvement of children in the dialogue on children’s rights in the digital environment has increased so that the balance between protection and participation could be achieved.  All the speakers within the discussion proved the importance of children’s overall engagement in the debate as well as their understanding of the proper use of the Internet and the promoted platforms in order to better adapt the web to their needs.  

For example, according to the first speaker, Afrooz Kaviani Johnson, a UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, involving children in the elaboration of the Child Online Protection initiative is essential due to children’s approach to digital technologies, different from the adult’s one. Thus, working with children boosts the creativity and efficiency of projects, which eventually can help to explore actual, not perceived, risks in the online environment. 

Amanda Third, a professor from Western Sydney University, saw the answer to the question “how to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child” in the collaboration between adults and children. This practice was implemented in the project launched in cooperation with the child-facing organisations from 27 countries to inform the drafting of the UNCRC General Comment. Within the project, children attended 5-hour workshops where they talked about the things, they are experienced in. As a result of a collaborative effort between adults and children, General Comment no. 25, addressed to real experiences of children more than before, was made.  Another outcome of collaboration with children, according to Amanda, became an online safety app game and a set of trainings for three different age groups, released by the ITU on the 10th of October. 

Boris Radanovich, a SWGFL Online Safety Expert, admitted that adults do not have enough experience to connect with what children are living through, which proves effective to have a youth Advisory Board as well as support various targeted projects, launched by children all over the world. 

The fourth speaker, Courtney Gregoire, a Microsoft Chief Digital Safety Officer, revealed the fundamental reality that the digital environment was not originally designed for children. However, she claimed that with the changing realities, the ITU must strive to give young people a voice so that they can make greater use of their technological potential. 

Hilary Bakrie, an Associate Programme Officer on Youth Innovation and Technology in the Office of The Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth, also recognised the importance of children and youth as equal partners, not as stakeholders who are occasionally consulted. She also promoted the POP, Protection through online participation, initiative. According to her, POP, firstly, helps to see how young people and children use the Internet to access protection support, and secondly, to scrutinise the role of peer-to-peer support. Eventually, she believed that these findings help to identify the ways the Internet and online platforms can be used to create solutions that can help children and young people stay safe. 

Within the second round of the debate, the speakers shared the works and frameworks being used at the national, regional, and global level to get young people and children to engage and be part of the policy making process where their voices and actions will be recognised. They also highlighted some of the issues faced by young people in smoothly navigating the policy-making process and getting the required acknowledgement and recognition. Questions from the participants were directed in the following core areas: 

1. Information on Policy Transparency: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and Policy process at the national, regional, and global level needs to include concrete questions about how to include children in policy. 

2. Children Participation: Youths and children need to be encouraged to voluntarily engage in a respective and supported manner. This also includes supplying training for their safety as they are working on extremely sensitive topics and content, and the risk factors need to be clearly mapped out. 

3. Accountability and Recognition: The energy of young people and children has been a game changer at the regional, national and global level. Concrete examples were Tunisia and the Philippines where open consultation with children helped shape the national Child Online Protection in Tunisia and the long history of child participation has brought reforms on topics like early child marriage.  

4. Building Emergency response Plans: Research outcome has shown that user friendly approaches have revealed that young people and children feel comfortable asking for help online. This created a sense of belonging for the children as their voices are seen and heard.  

5. Funding and Investment: Building ability overtime requires funding, developing of regional programs and global projects needs national adaptation strategies for Child Online Protection. For example, national task forces in 5 countries to guide governments on how to implement the strategies within the initiative.  

6. Deep Dive into Online Safety and Limitations: Children and Young people have the right to speak up on matters that concern them, and their views respected. Children’s interaction with technology may be different from adults. 

1. IS3C’s annual reporting of its recent activities

In the first part of its third annual IGF session since its launch at the IGF in 2020, the Dynamic Coalition on Internet Standards, Security and Safety (IS3C) reported in Kyoto on its activities since the previous IGF in Addis Ababa in 2022, and announced the publication of the following key reports:

• The coalition’s working groups on Security by Design for the Internet of Things (WG1), and on Procurement and Supply Chain Management (WG3) presented their recently completed research projects which conducted global reviews of publicly available policy documents from national governments, regulators and public administrations in all regions.
• IS3c’s working group on education and skills (WG2) published its report on tertiary cybersecurity education at the IGF in Kyoto. 
• IS3C's comprehensive review of the relevance of its work on cybersecurity to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.  

Drawing on their research findings and analysis, the speakers in the IS3C session described the following key issues and challenges for governments and industry.