New media: Freedoms and responsibilities – PL 03 2011
31 May 2011 | 14:00-15:30
Programme overview 2011
New media are fundamentally different and still difficult to define. But what is so “new” and “different” about them? They are no longer one-to-many but characterised as many-to-many and the traditional media recipient became producers as well. This influenced the role of old media and the functioning of media professionals considerably. New media don’t follow the conventional media regulation scheme any more.
People
Key Participants
The format of this plenary is interactive discussion with the audience.
Co-moderators
- Maja Raković, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Serbia
- Matthais Traimer, Federal Chancellery, Austria
Session report
Noting the significant changes in the media landscape, including the dissemination, exchange and personalisation of information through providers of Internet services and technologies, it was posited that users consumption habits and behaviours are changing. There was a clear indication that declining purchases of print media was being replaced by access to free and interactive digital media, especially by younger users. The feeling of communicating with the whole world was underlined as a unique feature of new media.
Trust and reliability in content was considered to be a key aspect of the future of media, noting in particular the trade-off between the aggregation and transfer of (anonymised) personal data to third parties and media content offered for free. In this context, media literacy and the verification of sources, besides other professional media standards, was discussed.
Limited, flexible and proportionate regulation of media freedoms and responsibilities with special respect for human rights was stressed. Some participants questioned the need for new regulations and, as a corollary, placing the onus on consumers to decide on trust in media/content. A new Council of Europe (draft) recommendation on a new notion of media was discussed as a way forward to identify and discern the graduated freedoms and responsibilities for emerging media and intermediaries.
Transcript
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This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
>> Before we start our last part, the afternoon session of EuroDIG, I have to do some announcements again.
As previously indicated already, the side event on IPv6 is starting now parallel to this plenary in the room 5/1. And the round table in room 3/1.
The plenary on new media, as you can imagine, will be here.
As usual, and as you may have seen or realized on the programme, there is no coffee break indicated for this afternoon, but coffee is served as a kind of rolling coffee break outside this room. Like at all the other breaks, you will find some coffee from 4:30 to 5 o’clock. But we don’t interrupt the programme, because we have a rather narrow schedule. So anybody who wants, needs, is asked just to get out and go outside and get some coffee by yourself.
And so the following people are asked to go to the reception desk after this session. Tan Vinan Topanni. But Klaasen, Ester Funderderton. And some – it’s difficult to read, Denis Huber.
This is – those are the four people who are needed for something. I don’t know details. At the reception desk.
And now it’s time to start with the plenary 3 on new media. And I hand over to the moderators Maja and Matthais.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: I’m from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from Serbia.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: I’m from the Austrian government and I’m a media lawyer and I’m happy to do this plenary.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: The approach is interactive discussion with the audience, so we will not have any panelists and we would like to invite you to discuss with us some of the topics related to policy regarding new media.
And we very much count on you.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: This plenary will be about media, but not as simple as that. We will ask the questions, when we are talking about media, what do we mean by this term today?
Everybody is talking about media. But what are media when you are blogging? Are you a journalist when you are blogging? First we have to find out why do we ask this question? We all know that media always has been the most important tool for Freedom of Expression in the public sphere. Enabling people to do – to exercise their right to seek to impart, to receive information. And we all know that within the last year, the last decade, the last nearly two decades, immense changes have happened in the technological field with a direct effect on the media.
What does this mean now for mass communication? We all know that on the international and the European and the national level, there is plenty of standard setting. Is the standard setting still appropriate for the media field that we have today? That is what we want to discuss with you today and we ask you really to take part in a lively debate, because I think there are many questions.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Before we start, we would just like to introduce Dixie Hawtin from the UK who will be our participation moderator and we will have a session of Rapporteurs.
Elfa from the Ministry of Science and Education and Learning from the Council of Europe. There we go.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: I only read newspapers on the plane, because they are free there, says Martin, a student, very much in the back. Martin, you don’t want to buy a newspaper? When did you read your last newspaper? Yes, on the plane maybe, when you came here.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes. Matthais asked me on the coffee break the same question, when I read my last physical newspaper. It was indeed on the flight here, the very morning. The newspaper was free, so I took it and I don’t have materials on the plane. Then we also went to the discussion why the Freeport is actually relevant, because I can be at the news for free. I do get it. I get the popular German newspaper, I get BBC, I get CNN, all online. I get it on my cell phone. I read it in the bed, I read it at the University if the session is boring. That’s how I access my news. Usually much faster than the daily newspaper, which would arrive at my place the next morning.
And I get it for free. So for me, that was a big advantage.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE: Maybe also because I wanted to share a small opinion of mine about this session. We want to talk about this new media and what the difference might be. Please consider the Twitter ball right there, which is basically a medium that can provide live feedbacks and that can share information that people wanted to share from all over Europe. It’s running live all the time. You get links, you get additional information and you get opinions that might not be voiced through the microphone but of course on the online video.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Who of you today has read a print newspaper? How many of you?
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: How many of you?
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Who has read some information on the Internet today?
(Showing of hands)
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Perhaps then we should also ask Thomas Schneider, who is the chair of the Council of Europe, committee on experts on new media, what is the Council of Europe doing in this field? Now the Council of Europe has been active for decades. Now they are trying to define the concept of media, is it true? Is it correct?
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you. Yes, we inherited the task from our minister conference in 2009 to develop a new notion of media. As we have just witnessed right now, it’s obvious that there have been significant changes in the media and also in the way media are used. And new ways of disseminating content, new features, especially interactive features, user involvement, user generated content, blurring of boundaries between private and public. Twitter is a good example of this.
Further, in general, it’s a further diversification of the media system. We have new actors that have come in that have challenged traditional media.
We have intermediaries or auxiliaries that have become an essential role in helping people or allowing people to access information. These intermediaries were not there to that extent before. And traditional media have reacted to this. They have adapted or are still trying to adapt their business models. They are buying new services, they are merging with ISPs or with other Internet – with service providers.
And as we have seen also the user behavior has changed. The question of who do you trust? Where do you get information? How do you communicate? All this has changed.
And as we stated, the media landscape as we used to call it before has developed into fluid and multidimensional media systems. But what does that mean for media regulation and for the role of the media in the Democratic society? The role of the media has not changed. It’s still the most important tool for the Freedom of Expression, to disseminate, aggregate, produce information; to operate platforms for interactive mass communication. There are some new features with this, with underlying aims like influence public discussion, influence political decision, shape the public opinion. But also other aims like entertainment, culture, art, and also to generate income. These fundamental aims have not changed.
Also the basic principles behind media regulation should not change. That was the idea of those who worked on this. And what is the basic idea of media regulation? First of all, regulation is a form of interference and should be only done when necessary. This is why in the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights, you have article 10 that guarantees Freedom of Expression, and all regulation should be made only if they are necessary to guarantee Freedom of Expression.
But Freedom of Expression is not absolute. There are limits to Freedom of Expression which are clearly defined in article 10, paragraph 2. I will not go into details on this.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: May I interrupt you at this stage. It was a nice lecture. And sometimes we say okay, meetings like that are nice talks, we will have a closed workshop and a high intellectual basis. But maybe we can just ask in the audience, when you hear that, we will go into depth, but when you hear Council of Europe is thinking, considering maybe something like a new media ecosystem, please be very open, say right away what comes into your mind.
Does this, for you, is this more a positive or negative impact? Do you have any worries about that when we talk maybe about a new kind of media notion, definition, or do you think it’s necessary? Do you think it’s too early or too late?
Who wants to start? What is your first impression when you hear Council of Europe is talking or considering maybe on a standard setting field for a new way of the notion of media.
What do you think?
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Any traditional media here present would like to comment?
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Max?
>> AUDIENCE: Hi. My name is Maximilian from the European News Press. When I hear “ecosystems, media ecosystems,” it sounds like gas or something. It doesn’t sound connected to media yet.
So, you asked what does new media mean for mass communication? I believe it is mass communication. And what citizens do on the Web, citizen media actually is mass communication or is modern in today’s mass communication. And every means of regulating it, of standard setting, of somehow trying to do a definition is some way close to restricting what is actually being done on the Web.
So I would actually stop here and say there is no standard setting and there is no definition, because the definition is up to all of them who post or tweet, who do something on the Web in publishing.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: You don’t seem to be too enthusiastic when you hear what Thomas has just introduced?
>> MAXIMILIAN: Not so much.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Any other views?
>> AUDIENCE: Yes, I’m from ISOC Finland. I used to be a journalist, also, sometime ago, a long time ago.
But anyway, what I think is that there – the media ecosystem, it’s a very appropriate concept, and I would maintain that there has always been actually a media ecosystem. But now it’s just much more developed and much more sophisticated.
And I think that the old media can survive, the so-called old media can survive if they use – utilize this emerging ecosystem where, of course, so-called new media is a bigger and bigger factor.
I think that if we go back and think of the 1840s, 1850s, the telegraph at that time was conceived as a threat against newspapers. They were fearful that the telegraph will kill newspapers. But then of course some newspapers were clever enough to understand that actually telegraph is the best thing that ever happened to newspapers, and started using them. And of course that was a new, a new thing for them.
Thank you.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: But is this change a similar change to the one that you compare? Do you think there has been a much bigger change or is it just one new media which will one day become old media?
>> Of course it’s a much bigger shift.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: I see commercial broadcasters here. They would like to comment.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you Maja. My name is Simone and I represent the Association of Commercial Television in Europe, ACT. And I would like to first of all refute the definition of “old and traditional media.” If anything, commercial broadcasters are embracing the new technologies and are developing new services and trying to distribute the content that they are producing on as many platforms as possible and in as many ways as possible. I would like also to welcome a statement made by Thomas from the Council of Europe that regulation should be put in place only when necessary. Regulation, if anything, we all know can’t keep up the pace with technology. So, if anything, regulation shouldn’t hinder the development of new services.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Do you think that of public service broadcasters?
>> SIMONE: I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to comment on behalf of the public broadcasters.
But I have one more point to make. In relation to regulation and how that applies to, let’s say, old media and new media, we do see nowadays an explosion of new services and devices. And sometimes it is difficult to approximate the best way to apply the existing regulations.
And I’ll give you an example with hybrid television. So you have content on the screen which comes from the linear broadcast, which is heavily regulated and we have to respect those rules for their regulations at the European level and implemented at the national level. And on the other hand, on the same screen, you have content coming from the Internet, which is not regulated at all. And I’m not speaking about – I don’t know. We were talking earlier about censorship or anything like that, but simply regulation in the sense of protection of minors, for example.
There is no balance between these two types of distributing content, where one is heavily regulated. The other one completely not regulated. And they are on the same screen.
Thank you.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Thank you. What would some ISPs say about that? Would you agree with what Simone has just said? Are there any ISPs or any search engines here or social media representatives, registrars, maybe?
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Isn’t there much talk about the democratization of the media?
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Maybe. Some think there is more democracy with new development. Basically, this is not the case? Who do you trust more, traditional media or Google news or WikiLeaks. Raise your hands.
(Showing of hands)
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: WikiLeaks? No?
>> AUDIENCE: I mean, Andreas from Berlin. I really don’t get the question. I don’t trust any media until I verified their resources, their sources. And I mean no matter where it stands, I always want to know who is – what is their opinion? Where do they have the information from and why are they interested in writing that story to begin with?
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Do you think it’s transparent you can get it?
>> AUDIENCE: Sometimes it’s a total pain, but it’s almost always possible. And if I can’t find it, I consider the trust less and trust it less.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: The perfect headline. I don’t trust any media. How do media professionals act when you hear that?
>> AUDIENCE: I think it’s a little bit simplified approach to so-called old media. I’m, as an old media professional, again, I think there are certain established rules at newspapers and broadcasting media as training and as a journalist you’re obliged to verify certain sources, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We could talk half an hour at least about the quality standards, et cetera.
I agree on one point with you that there are more – getting more and more ignored by certain media.
But there are still old established medias, like Lemont, like Espeigel, et cetera, and you can be very sure what you read, this has been double, triple checked, and sometimes even more. And this is not always the case, but I can see on a first glance, when I consult new media, I like to consult new media as well. But I have a completely different approach on them than on certain established old media.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: So you don’t trust the new media?
>> AUDIENCE: Yes. If I know – I know some of them, I can take you an example. When I consult Annette Politic Ark, it’s new media. I know who is behind Micro, so I trust them. I trust Becht, but there are some new medias I don’t know. And some old medias that I don’t know very well. So it depends on how good or not good I know them.
This has influence on my trust.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Interesting statement.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: What do you think about this? Do you trust old media?
>> AUDIENCE: No. I don’t. My English is not so perfect.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: You can speak Serbian. There is translation.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Just give the people time to get their headphones on.
>> AUDIENCE: We have spent some 200 years
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Does it work?
>> AUDIENCE: We have spent some 200 years trying to determine the standards for both professional and regulatory standards for the media. I think that this was not in vain. And we started from the importance of the information for the development of each society. With the appearance of the Internet, I think that a lot of things should be changed. Simply speaking, some things that were determined in the previous 200 years both in terms of professional standards and in terms of media regulation do not work anymore.
Because the Internet is a medium of its own, and it’s difficult to regulate it. It’s like regulating the sailing on the lake. And the Internet is a notion, and it’s difficult to assure safe bast passage along the ocean. Sometimes it’s a nice Sail and sometimes you encounter a storm. And that’s why my trust in new media is not so great.
I must tell you that I never completely trusted any media, not because I work in the media, but because I think that when the people determine –
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: People who don’t know you have to understand that you’re speaking from the experience of how many years in journalism?
>> AUDIENCE: Okay. I have been in journalism for 25 years. I was the editor and chief of the Batten agency. I was Assistant Minister for Culture in charge of the media, et cetera.
Personally, I believe that regulation is necessary, that regulation and standards are necessary for the new media as well. But I must tell you that I do not know the way in which this could be done with the new media with the Internet.
Let me remind you that some two years ago a group of journalists from this country visited the American media, they were there in San Francisco. And they are losing their circulation. Their circulation is dropping, like everybody’s is. And they decided to act like a lot of media on the Internet. If they find out something that is important, they post it immediately. They are not waiting for the evening edition to print it.
Well, why? Because they conducted several surveys and they found out that only people who are over 40 are buying printed newspapers. And those who are younger than 40 read newspapers on the Internet. And even when they are 40 plus, they will no longer – they will not start buying newspapers. They will continue using the Internet so it has – the Internet has a dual role. It’s a platform and it is also a medium on its own. People on the Internet have the feeling that they’re communicating directly with the millions. You do not have this feeling when you read the newspapers. But when you’re on the Internet, you feel as if you’re communicating with the entire world.
And you can also choose what you will use from all those communications that you have. So I don’t have the answer as to what needs to be done and what can be done, but I think that it is necessary to look for some kind of regulation of the Internet.
I have to say what I find fault with. Today every child can access Google search and connect to any porn site, porn Web site, and watch that if his or her parents have not created some kind of protection, blocking that content.
What I want to say is actually what is the volume of the contents that are available?
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: What is not media content on the Internet because not all content on the Internet is actually media content. Meryem?
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: She is one of the – if I may say so, but one of the old fighters for really freedom at various stages of citizen freedom, how do you feel about that?
>> MERYEM MARZOUKI: I’m not sure I should say thank you to you. Meryem Marzouki, European digital right.
I wanted to react on your question, do you trust old or new media? I think we shouldn’t answer this question, because, for instance, I trust some old media that I know and that I read. And I can trust some bloggers. And I can trust someone when reading his or her Facebook page. But I certainly don’t trust Facebook or Twitter as a social network, as a platform.
So, my understanding is we should ask the question another way. And the right way in my opinion to ask a question is to which extent should we regulate this new Web 2.0 services under media laws? Should we change the media laws?
And let me give you just two quick examples. If YouTube was considered as a media, could it be blocked for more than two years in a Council of Europe country, which is Turkey? Because every member of the consulate of Europe has to comply with freedom of the media.
Another example, and it has – it is related to the public interest issue with the media. Should the online service market domination by a handful of companies, multinational companies, and they are vertically integrated, should this market domination be considered as a media consideration or simple as a dominant market position? This is another way to –
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Let’s leave this question open and come back to it. We can come remind us when we talk about the consequences. We are still discussing what is the term “Media.”
I think this gentleman over there.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. I’m Todd Gittlen from Columbia University in New York. There is so much to say. And it’s – the discussion is already both invigorating and noisy, which is sort of like living in the new age of media itself.
Let me try to say something a little simple. The discussion about freedom is quite abstract, which is not a bad thing. But, if I asked why people mistrust media today, I think there are two kinds of reasons. One is ideological, more or less. I don’t believe this newspaper because I know that the Jews actually control or I think that this is actually a communist propaganda or something.
The other reason people don’t trust media is they feel a generalized mistrust because the world doesn’t work. The economy doesn’t work. The legal system doesn’t work. There is corruption. There is war, et cetera.
The second reason is more interesting. And then you have to ask: Well why is there that generalized distrust? And I think essentially it’s because people feel themselves to have problems, which they want solved and they recognize that the problems need to be solved at a public level because it’s not my personal problem whether I have a job or whether the businesses are closing or whether trade has collapsed or whatever.
And I – they want to know that there are or that they can participate in creating institutions that work. Why did we have all these revolutions in Tunisia and elsewhere? Why are there people in the streets in so many places? It’s because they felt that the existing institutions don’t work. That they – at worst, they even lie.
On my way here I was in Egypt, and I interviewed a man who had gone into the Tarrier Square on March 25. He had never done anything like this before. And I said why did you do this? He said well somebody I trusted told me to join this Facebook group. So he already trusted, okay? So he goes to Tarrier Square and he sees what he sees. And then he goes home and he turns on Egyptian state television and they show a picture of the Nile flowing. Well, he knows that is a lie. Media failed to give back what he already knows to be true.
What does he do? He turns on Al Jezaria, because he believes that they are talking about something that matters to him.
So in a way the problem of Internet freedom and regulation is bigger than what we are saying.
Because what people are feeling is not just that they want to talk and listen. It’s also that they want the world to be better. And in order to make the world better, they have to do more than know things or tweet. They actually also need there to be institutions that are relevant, so that when, for example, the global banking system collapses, they would like to know why that was and who was responsible and who will be accountable.
And if the old media don’t tell them a useful truth about that, they will go elsewhere to look.
So we need not just negative regulation that says no, you cannot say X or Y. We needles positive encouragement, the incentives that the gentleman from Finland was talking about before. We need there to be built-in incentives for people to do good journalism and to do profound thinking, not just to express their dark thoughts.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Thank you very much. I think we could listen to you for quite an hour. No. It’s absolutely interesting. But Luda, I think you were asking for a question. For me, you’re a typical Twitter man. I think you couldn’t live without Twitter, right? Why is that? And – what is your reaction? You get an old traditional mic, but it’s digital. Don’t worry.
>> LUDO: So you can find me on Twitter. It’s Ludo Geiser. Not little guy. I don’t know who typed that last time.
I live on Twitter. I don’t read newspapers unless I get a tweet that I should read something from the newspaper. And I was triggered by the remark that you don’t trust everything from the media so you want to regulate it. I don’t see the argument between not trusting something and then wanting to regulate it. It’s weird to me, actually. If you don’t trust it, you should work on your literacy, honestly. And honestly, I’m not a, you know, expert on old media so I have an issue with old media, what to trust and whatnot to trust. With new media, no, it’s not a problem because I can verify easily where sources are coming from, from who is tweeting it, who is doing it in Facebook or whatever.
So, honestly, I think it’s about literacy, digital literacy in most cases and also about old media literacy, which I lack a little bit. So maybe we should help each other and not regulate it, but just help each other when it comes to literacy. I can help you – she is not looking at me and not paying attention, I think, but I was addressing you. But, you know –
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: She is following you.
>> LUDO: Do you trust it? Twitter is nothing. It’s just a channel. So Twitter is not to be trusted when it comes to sources. It’s the people that you need to trust. It’s not Twitter.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: We will come back to that.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: We have some more participants, I guess, they are following this discussion intensely.
>> There are lots and lots of people following and a few of them have comments. One is from Avri Doria who says she has never trusted any media item old or new until such time that she has read or heard from several sources. And she has a question, which is: Is reading the New York Times online a newspaper or Internet media?
And from Flyd Bachua, from Pakistan, he thinks that the source of media and their authentication can be assessed by levels of participation. And he is a strong supporter of new media and citizen media. He says that the existing and traditional media really don’t work, and their failure can be seen in the form of state controlled media depicting pictures across the world.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: People, I’m not very enthusiastic.
Well, there are people who say well, you have to defend a bit the old media, because they have still this central value. So what would you do in the Council of Europe with it now?
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: First of all, it’s not a question –
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: What was the question about –
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: It’s not a question of old or new media. I’d first like to answer to the person who told us about the Egyptian situation. This is exactly the point. From a Council of Europe point of view, any standard setting is not to restrict or control, but to guarantee Freedom of Expression. That is the basis. That doesn’t mean that some heads of states see this differently or try to implement this in a different way. But from a Council of Europe perspective, this is something that we cannot make clear enough.
And with regard to what if regulation, what kind of regulation? And this is the point that I would like to go to now. With this new notion of media that we develop, we take on a broader notion, see media as an ecosystem with multidimensional interdependent actors to produce services that involve and change quickly.
That we cannot apply a one to one on or one size fits all solution to all that we consider to be media, but we have to develop a graduated and differentiated approach in order to protect Freedom of Expression, depending on what function, what situation a particular service is in, what function it performs, what criteria it lives up to or not.
And also, with the intermediaries, they are not media, but they have a role in the media system. They have a role. You need intermediaries to give you access to media and to information. So we don’t want to control them and tell them what they should do. We want to protect them and tell them what they shouldn’t do, meaning arbitrarily block access or be interfered by private or public authorities. So this is – the idea is to have a graduated approach. And then it doesn’t matter whether a service comes from a traditional broadcaster or from a former Internet Service Provider. If a service is a communication platform, whether it’s on a site – on a Web Page of the BBC or on the Web Page of Google, if the service is the same it should be following the same principles and it should be subject to the same rules.
And these rules, as I said, are only – only – even if you consider something media, there should only be regulation if you consider it necessary in order to protect Freedom of Expression.
Thank you.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: We have more questions or comments from the audience. There is a gentleman in white.
>> AUDIENCE: Now it’s my turn? Just to give you my opinion of this discussion, nowadays, it’s in regard to media and in regard to information. It’s kind of economy of scale. There is so much more information available out there. And while those gatekeepers are falling away, it’s up to us to decide whether something is relevant or not. I don’t want anybody to Judge. I don’t want a newspaper or Internet magazine or whatever person or institution to decide what is relevant to me or not.
And I think this kind of change in paradigm is so important to understand. That it’s up to the individual person to decide whether the information is good or not. And what we need to do is we need to educate people on how to decide and elaborate upon this information if it’s relevant or not and if we can rely on that kind of information.
It’s not about controlling media, it’s about letting the free flow of information rule and enabling people to use this kind of information and to use it for the better of society and progressing society.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Thank you. But I’m wondering whether you can always choose. Do you have enough information? Do you know if some sites are blocked or filtered or on search engines? Do you know how they are characterized? Can you be sure that it’s all in your hands as an end user and you can choose who to trust or trust not?
>> AUDIENCE: That is the reason that my generation is raising its voice against all kinds of filtering, because we want all information available so we can build our own opinion on this information that is available. So it’s about – first of all, it’s the information that is available. And on the other side we can decide on the information on our own what is relevant and what we do with this information and how we process this kind of information.
And the Arab spring just proved it. It’s working so good. It’s about what my friends and social networks are saying, what my people are saying, and I’m relying on them. So this is how the Web works and this is something that you should definitely accept.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Thank you you.
>> Hi. Letitzia from the European Youth Forum. I wanted to raise an issue that was not raised so far. And it’s the fact that more and more traditional media when switching on a new media platform are also asking the user to pay for accessing this information. And as well, as the fact that the business model of media, in general, is probably failing? Question mark?
So probably an interrogation or the reflection that we need to have is more of why, why traditional media and media and information and journalism in general seems to be a failure at the moment. Because we see edging business models of citizen journalism coming. We have Twitter as our – personally, Facebook and Twitter are my main news source at the moment. Then I go and refer to traditional media and refer to other.
But, for example, my use of, I don’t know, television, which is still in my country of origin, Italy, the main source of information for the majority of my country. For me, personally, television is nothing. I see zero percent of television in my media consumption. So probably we need to interrogate with ourselves the relationship between not only the relevance and the education and the media literacy and the media education that is there, but also the influence that this has on the economic value of news and on the public value of news as such.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Thank you. We have intervention from the European Commission here.
I would be interested what the European Commission is saying. We have been working now three or four years dealing with television. So what about that, if we just hear from this generation television is nothing. It doesn’t interest me at all.
>> I’m from the European Commission. And on this specific point that you raise. I think it’s apparent to stress that the directive is not only about television. It’s also about what we in Euro jargon call multi-linear services, which are in fact –
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Television like services.
Finally, the Commission said it’s television like services, which are similar to television.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes. What I meant to say is that the audio vision service tries to go beyond. It’s not the level of television, but also other media traditional and new media services. The general philosophy of that directive is the fact that when you change technology that doesn’t mean that you can forget about any and all constraints or regulation and safeguards.
And this allows me to link to what I would say – it was a very interesting comment, but I don’t remember the name of the young person that did it, it was the one before Letitzia about having full access to information and being able to autonomously decide which information is relevant or not. This is in principle and theory and perhaps practice a very, very good objective. But we should not forget that if you are submerged by information, if you suffer from information overload, it can be difficult to understand what is relevant and what is not.
And also at the end of the day, information comes from some people and organisations, and there is no such thing as a neutral organisation or neutral sources of information. There often has been a view that you can actually, if you have no neutral source of information, you can balance it. And if you have two billion nonneutral sources of information, the end result is a leveraged objective of information.
The reality is many social studies demonstrated it’s not as easy as that. The real question is whether – we had to go back, which I think it’s impossible for technological and economic reasons, we have to go back to the old model, where we are the major gatekeepers that select whether it’s relevant or not, and whether we can keep the citizens with the tools that are not only technological but also culture, to have a better understanding of what is not only relevant for them, what they can actually trust.
And one final small comment, because the Arab spring has been mentioned. Media are very important. We shouldn’t overload the importance. And specifically in the Arab spring, the media had undoubtedly had a strong facilitating effect. But the root cause of the Arab spring was not because people started to tweet. They had to be found in political – understandable political conditions, very unsustainable political conditions for young people. So let’s try to see the media environment in the overall context.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: At this stage, we should really just do a small, let’s say, break in our thinking, what the hell are we doing here now? Is this an academic discussion? What is this all about? And I think to make it more concrete, why do we need such a definition or a new notion of media? Are there really privileges for media?
So to make it very clear, when we say the European court of Human Rights, for example, say they have a special watch dog function. They need a special protection of, of course, journalistic sources, there is no doubt that this is of course in the core of article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. But if there are privileges for media, should these privileges also be for, let’s say, the new media in the way not only the New York Times on the Internet, but maybe also for Ludo who is blogging on Facebook? Should he have the protection of his sources like a journalist?
What do you think about it? Yes, gentleman, please.
>> AUDIENCE: I’m from the German Ministry of Interior. And I think there is one very important boundary or rule for media in the privacy law, in the data protection law at the European and national level. And the rule is that privacy or data protection law is not applicable for press. If the press – if the media is writing something about – well, people have common interests. They don’t have to take care about privacy. There are different rules, other rules, but not the privacy law.
And we have now the problems with the blogs, and with – there was one famous decision of German court about teachers, which were – it was a – there was kind of an assessment of teachers, kind of a blog. And the teacher was brought – ensued this case and was demanding for privacy. But the court said no. There is a common interest, even if it’s a blog, it’s kind of a new media. And so the – this freedom of the press should also be applicable for bloggers.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: What do you think about it? Is it right?
>> AUDIENCE: I think it’s very important. Because there is a conflict and we have to be aware of this conflict of Freedom of Expression, freedom of the press and privacy.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: If I understand you, it’s to simplify. Because there is a privilege for the press that they do not have to obey so much to privacy or data protection. That’s what you were saying. And you would say – I mean, we could discuss this now, if this really can be simplified. We say this kind of privilege should also be open for any blogger?
>> AUDIENCE: Not the same. You need a balance and you find the right balance and a new balance. But it’s – yes. It’s a challenge. What we had as a privilege for press in former times must be more or less sometimes applicable for new media. Not in the same sense, maybe, but we have to face this challenge and find a balance, indeed.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Are there privileges –
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Well, you have certain privileges, but also you have certain responsibilities. And then if you adhere to those responsibilities, for instance, journalistic codes of conduct, then of course you have privileges. What do you think about responsibilities in new media environments?
Should, for instance, Internet intermediaries be responsible for – should they take care of Human Rights of the users? For in this case, privacy could be applied to some other – some others as well, not only bloggers?
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: So rights and responsibilities of the so-called nonprofessional media. What comes into your mind?
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: We have youth again.
>> Marin, a student from Austria. I study philosophy, so I’m used to reading about big and complex systems. And there is an option to rate these. And philosophy, as I said, basically, it’s a certain classification. And there is some concept that also works well if you look at media types. Media that would be outdated would fail. I think in that way it would very much also self regulate.
And I disagree with Letitzia that the time for newspapers has come. I very much enjoy, also, having a confirmation from a newspaper when I read new media articles. But, when you came to the point that it needs some regulation, I’m not exactly sure if that really is a need. Because – like Ludo said before, we very much are aware of what we are getting into. When I go on Twitter, I know what I can expect from the people. The people share their personal opinions in a very few amount of letters. Of course, I cannot expect a big contract, big and clear explanation what I have to expect. But I can get a brief information that I can use.
And I think it’s very hard to find proper regulations for these very different needs and for the very different models. So that’s – I don’t think that you can really, like sometimes as tried by the German government, to find a one size fits all option for all of these kinds of media.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: We have some comments from remote participants.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Yes. Remote? Okay.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Just a second for the participants and then we will get back to you.
>> Lots of discussions going on remotely.
The – well, consensus, the kind of opinions coming out there seem to be that what people – it’s audience who decide what is authentic, because they are the ones that choose who to follow and that’s how you know how authentic something is.
And that would be very dangerous for us to start trying to regulate and to decide which information is relevant and which is not, because that is – because everyone has their own perceptions.
And then in every situation there is not necessarily a black and white, what is right and what is wrong, and you have to give people the power to make that decision for themselves.
And there is also a comment from the Ukrainian hub who says how can you try to regulate Twitter and Facebook? There is of course stuff on there that isn’t true, but if we try to tackle that, there will be dangerous consequences.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Thank you.
>> Yucher. I think the multiplicity of channels of information is the regulation. There is not much more need of that. The value of that piece of information, the MIM that passes through a channel gets, is, at the end, how it is propelled into our collective consciousness or however you want to frame it. If we look at WikiLeaks, if the documents were just given to a few bloggers and they were uploaded, they wouldn’t have had the same authority. They have been given to the New York Times, Financial Times, et cetera, and then they became relevant. Then they became public debate.
Before that, they would have been, you know, dubious sources and perhaps at certain times we would have gotten proof that really the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey had such and such information, et cetera. And we could have said perhaps there is some veracity to this.
But it was the fact that all of these newspapers propelled that MIM into the ether that gave it the kind of debate that we were having around the WikiLeaks.
So the regulation is the multiplicity of channels. It isn’t about some –
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: It’s a wonderful statement for our summary. Thomas, you’re not only a highly profound working man in the council, but you’re a musician, for example. But just for private remarks if you do a 24 hours channel on YouTube, following Thomas live and the music, is there a medium or not? What do you do with that now in the Council of Europe?
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: The situation is that if I upload that content, I am part of the media system. But I’m not media. Media is the platform, the way we see it, that offers the space for certain reasons. Because it fulfills some of the criteria that you traditionally had for defining media.
One is intent to be a medium. Intent to act as a medium. You can see this in statements like in the name, for instance, if you call yourself a newspaper or platform and so on and so forth.
Another one is the purpose. The purpose to disseminate information to a large scale in order to influence, to entertain and so on. A very strong criteria is editorial control.
For instance, if you say YouTube is not a media, there is no editorial control, that is not true. There is editorial control in the design. The way – what you allow people to do, what the form and the length and the size and so on of content is that you can upload. The way it’s being processed is an editorial control. YouTube is screening automatically content that is being uploaded against IP violation, for instance. They have an ex-post moderation or ex-post control to take things down when asked by certain authorities. And they control what you see on the top ten rankings by their algorithms and how they perceive your page. If you watch this, you might be interested in this. It’s the service operator that decides the framework in which you can move. Editorial control is one.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Anything else?
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Another important thing is outreach and dissemination. If I run a platform on the Internet on my private computer at home and then can be accessed by ten people maximum and then my server on my computer breaks down, maybe I don’t – I fulfill another criterias to count as media but I have no outreach. So there is no need for regulation because I have no impact.
Impact is, of course, part of the criteria of outreach. If I don’t have any impact, why regulate? There is no need to regulate. But if I decide maybe I’ll buy a bigger computer or I go to another service that offers large-scale possibility of – that many people see my content or see content that others upload on my service, then I take the effort to reach out to a significantly larger population, and that’s another criteria that would go in the direction to treat me as media because I have control, I have outreach, I have the intention to disseminate, influence or entertain.
As I said, the fact that you fulfill the criteria of media doesn’t mean that necessarily you have to be regulated. Because some media, if I’m – if I run a network on dogs haircuts, maybe you have 50 million followers all over the world. But it has no political or economic impact. Then again why is there a need for regulation? The fact that you consider something as media is not enough – is not a reason per se to interfere or regulate.
And the last criteria that we have is also not fundamental but maybe more prominent now is the public expectation. As you say, those who know the new and old media, they know who to trust. You know what you get with something that you regularly use. So, there is also a perception of a service, whether you treat this yourself as a medium or not as a medium, which it has also – should also be taken into account.
And then I give the floor back to you.
There is one thing that we should not forget, however, that in nowadays, these services can change quite quickly. If Skype, for instance, is bought by Microsoft, that can have an influence on how Skype is developing. When Google buys YouTube or maybe somebody else buys Google and so on, or business decisions change, if Mr. Zuckerberg decides that he will tweak some aspects of Facebook, that can change the medium and can have a different impact and can call for a different appropriate regulatory response. So we have to get used to the fact that a regulatory response must be as flexible as the services themselves, in order not to over regulate or to provoke a wrong regulation.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: I have to stop you now. Only one sentence, please.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: The thing about paid versus free media. If those who use the new media think that they are free, they are completely wrong. You pay. You are selling your personal data. You pay in indirect ways. You pay through advertising. And for instance if you take Google, if Google will have the monopoly on search engines, they can decide now we start charging you.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Okay.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: So the thing about free is a shaky thing.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: European Commission.
>> I wanted to agree with the Council of Europe that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and this is something that we should all keep in the back of our minds when we discuss about old and new media or anything else that we are discussing here. Otherwise we are going to – doing what we have, it will be a naive approach.
I just wanted to comment on a comment made by the remote participant. I’m not sure I understood it. It was the fact that it is users who decide what is authentic or not. And this – I have to say this not so young anymore person really struck me. And does this mean that there is nothing authentic unless a certain number of people claim that it is authentic? This is the extreme version of the wisdom of the crowds. And coming from the country where I come from, Italy, we found that crowds love that. So I tend to be skeptical about putting everything on the crowds. And I believe that we should still keep some form of instruments to double-check not so much the authenticity, but the reliability of what we are reading.
Again, just a clarification whether I understood correctly, that there is no such thing as an authentic fact. In my old world view, I still believe that in life there are facts. There are things which are that way. And then we can have different opinions on that. It doesn’t mean that those facts are not authentic.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: The field of pluralism and diversity.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: There was a question on diversity and pluralism.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Lee Hibbard wanted to comment, if he gets the microphone, from the Council of Europe.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you very much from the Council of Europe. Just an observation. I use Twitter on my smartphone and I look at the guardian on my smartphone and I look at a couple old media on my smartphone.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Do you look at your wife sometimes?
>> LEE HIBBARD: Sometimes. And – thank you, Matthias. But if I didn’t have a smartphone, would I be using these services? I probably would be not buying newspapers. But I would be using the computer to look at BBC and other trusted sources.
I don’t know about new, new media, or having no time to verify sources personally speaking, but I just think the question of technology linked to consumption of new or old is important. Because we have all or many of us have smartphones. We all – we will all have smartphones in the future. But the technology influence is the consumption.
We had a discussion yesterday on the issue of ethics and corporate responsibility. And I just wonder – I’ll be a bit provocative. We are using the services. They are being bundled with other services, and that’s the thing, bundling things with other things so you can influence advertising. So it’s sort of cattling. I don’t know if you know that.
But when protestors protest, you have lots of police who Herd the group toward a certain way for security.
And I wondering if technology are cattling people towards new and old media. It’s a link between technology and services.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Do you think it’s economically driven only, what you were saying?
>> LEE HIBBARD: It’s all – absolutely economically driven. I mean, this cattling, if you can say, it’s all about pointing you in the right direction that you want to go, whether it be there or here. Whether it’s – it’s whatever service. It’s about keeping you in that space to influence the way you go next.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: But speaking about direction, these are directions driven by market interests. Should there be directions driven by Human Rights or public interests or minority interests?
>> LEE HIBBARD: Well, that’s my concern. We are talking about quality and trust. You know, that is the question, that is the trade-off between services that you cattle. If there is no public service media, where do you go? If you have time to verify sources, fine, well I don’t have the time.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: What do you do with pluralism?
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: We had some voice from the gentleman who said the public and market regulates and there is a big have a right. So the question is really do we still need standard setting or do we more than ever because we have this quantity?
Maybe also the interest is – I ask you the question: Is there still a necessity for public service media in this context? What role should they play? It’s also one of the debates we should not forget. But before we come to that, you have an urgent pressing need?
>> AUDIENCE: I’ve been having quite some free lunches in my life, so I wanted to address that. I just had a free lunch, actually, which was really nice. And I don’t know, you know, I understand what you’re saying when it comes to personal data and you pay for that, but understand that if it goes too far, you know, I have a lot of people in my surrounding – and most of us do – we can decide we don’t want this anymore.
Obviously with the, you know, huge services might be a little different. But let me take Wikipedia, for example. There has been a lot of discussion about Wikipedia. Well, you’ve seen the come up on Quora lately. I don’t know if you know it. You should look into it. Don’t pay anything for that. When it comes Torrents, a lot of people don’t like me to talk about Torrents.
I’m not going to movie theaters; I download my stuff. As long as Netflix is not in Europe and there is not a normal way for me to consume media, I’ll find a way to get it for free. I’ll find my free lunch.
I lived on the streets as well, and I was able to find a free lunch. Free lunches do exist and if you are creative, and the new generation is more creative than the Council of Europe, we will find our free lunch for sure.
(Applause)
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Just to answer, then – before you get the microphone, since we are going towards the end of the session, and I think it’s worth okay, what would be the major challenges then for policymakers now in the new media environments? You hear all the arguments, okay, what to do then or whether to do anything. Thomas?
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Thomas, are you old fashioned?
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Of course I’m old fashioned. I’m Swiss. But I’m extremely innovative at times.
So just – with regard to your free lunch, I have to tell you that the lunch you get for free is because my office paid for it. Somebody is paying for it. Not you. This is fine. But there is always somebody who pays for it.
I wanted to mention, Wikipedia is a good example of a community-based auto funded voluntarily driven example. But WikiLeaks, they also have to do fundraising. So somebody has to pay for the service they run. And many people work for free, because they believe in it and I love Wikipedia. This is a good thing, Google, although they are not evil, but they are maybe not all that altruistic. And maybe other services are not altruistic.
In the end there is a paycheck, maybe others who suffer who pay for it. And there is, for a government, there is a necessity, people expect from a government, if it’s a Democratic government and people can expect democracy, they take certain safeguards that the benefits are shared in a reasonable way and the costs are shared in a reasonable way in the society.
Like I said, that doesn’t mean that we regulate for the sake of regulation. But we regulate because people have certain expectations on media. They have certain expectations on quality of the media. They are not the same, if you compare maybe a public service broadcaster in Italy it looks a bit different than a public service broadcaster in other countries. In my country, a public service broadcaster has to help to keep the country together and the bridge to cultural divides. This is something that Swiss people, not all, but some of them are willing to pay for. So we paid the television of the talent speaking. They get the free lunch because the others decide that it’s important for them. We paid for them.
If you leave this to the market, the market will not necessarily provide benefits for all in a way that society wishes benefits to be divided.
So I think we should not forget the fact that the market is not the solution, and that not everybody has the same strength in the market to get what he wants. This is the basis of our regulation.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Okay. Now, we have – you had the chance. Now seeing that from the Council of Europe’s side, in a way, that is to say you can’t leave anything to the market, there must be some kind of basic regulation. But what is your opinion?
When we come to the final stage, what are the messages that you want to deliver, be it to government, to regulatory authorities, to parliamentarians, maybe also to NGOs? Even NGOs were seen as social watch dogs in a court decision in 2009. Not only the media are watch dogs, but also NGOs are social watch dogs. So what should really be the messages?
You have the chance and not only Thomas, he is in the situation because I say he is the Council of Europe. Many of us are working at the Council of Europe and we want to take with us your take aways. So please tell us what would be your message after this discussion?
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: We have one person here.
>> AUDIENCE: Just a few remarks. I know that we should be very careful with regulation. But we cannot – if – it would be also very dangerous if you put it to the window, very simple.
You know, in 100 years we have done a lot with self regulation, with tools to – not to control media, but to establish some frame for freedom without any kind of configuration is not freedom, I don’t believe. And I don’t believe in such kind of freedom.
And I think we didn’t spend this 100 or 200 years for nothing, doing and trying to find some way how to create free media, and full media freedom, but in such circumstances that you cannot obey anybody, you cannot obey some minority or something like that.
I think that governments and EU, anyway, should think about some kind of regulation even and for new media.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: So some kind of regulation you said is needed.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes. Self regulation. Something that we have in traditional media. We should in some way find a way to implement some of this new media.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Thank you.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: More take aways? Meryem?
>> MERYEM MARZOUKI: Yes. If there should be any regulation in the sector, especially on the new media, the purpose of this regulation should be to ensure plurality of views and to ensure the public interest.
And by plurality of views, I mean that we shouldn’t – I mean, self regulation is the regulation by the most powerful. And the most powerful is this kind of private company who owns this platform or this medias.
The last point is that the main issue, as Thomas said, is the editorial control. The technical platform should never have any editorial control on my expression as an end-user.
So yes, for some kind of regulation to ensure public interest and ensure a plurality of views, but no to a regulation which could give powers to technical intermediaries on my personal expression.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Simona.
>> I would have a few takeaways as well for today’s discussion.
First of all, to build on what Meryem said, a plurality of views in every country, I think we have to admit that commercial broadcasters are those who ensure a plurality of views, as a mass medium and television content is still being consumed. Linear television as well, the number of minutes of linear television consumed per day is increasing and has been increasing over the past few years.
And another important takeaway would be the investments that commercial broadcasters make in producing content. Professional content, as Wolf mentioned earlier, costs money.
And I’m sorry to break the news to the young gentleman who spoke before, but there is no free lunch. Commercial broadcasters invest heavy money to produce the films that you don’t want to go to the cinema to see. And you’re just taking illegally from the Internet.
Thank you.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Another gentleman there and then there.
>> Paul Hector from UNESCO. I think it’s really important to recognize that we’re dealing with an increasingly complex space. And so regulation to some extent is perhaps needed. But, this regulation needs to be transparent. It also needs to be – it needs to have human rights at its core and we also need to support regulators in terms of providing them with the tools to support the creation of these transparent processes and also the application of Human Rights within this regulation process.
At the same time, too, users also need to be equipped with also the tools that necessitate literacy and to better analyze and understand content and also to participate in this space. Thank you.
> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: I think we have, again –
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Two more. One more and then the closing.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Briefly, please. Yes. You with the white shirt.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. My takeaway from a youth perspective is with regard to the free lunch, you should understand that the difference is today that we’re doing what we are believing in. And if we are just not putting a higher value to something – and like downloading books from the University because I can’t afford them, but I decide to just make progress in my studies, it’s senseful to me. So I don’t care with regard to copyright. Maybe it’s different for entertainment. It’s all about where you base progress and where you base acting in this so-called Internet.
The other dimension I want to give you, you can start regulating like hell, but we always find different ways to go around it. So instead of fighting against each other, we should start progressing together and figure out.
Because the Internet is so powerful. It has so many new opportunities to collaborate, share knowledge and proceed together. You try to secure your old power structure, but that doesn’t work anymore. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry for you.
(Applause)
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Andrea.
>> Andrea from the European Commission. I understand that we are going to take some takeaways from the discussion. What I take away from the discussion is that it is very striking to me that this is I think the fifth session in which even though the topics are very different, at the end we end up talking about copyright. And I think this is quite indicative that it is an issue that will need to be addressed, sooner rather than later.
But then, besides this, this which is just my personal impression, I was the one that I think introduced the concept that there is no free lunch, and just to clarify on that, let’s forget about free lunches. But let’s remember about the consequence of what we do. Something that might appear sensible today, such as downloading a movie from the Internet or downloading textbooks from the Internet does have an impact in the short, mid and long-term. And the question that we should ask ourselves is whether copyright or new media regulation are sustainable for us as a society. And the message that – I can’t really send a message to myself as a regulator, that would be silly. But the message I want to launch to the younger generation is that there was a tweet up there just that struck me, the tweet said: Do people who take the floor in EuroDIG ever consider before speaking that they might be wrong?
I do consider that, and I would appreciate that with all the admiration for the energy of the youth, which is what we need, please try to keep in mind that if we try to push – not to push, but to say that we need regulation is perhaps we passed through your same path when we were your age. We claimed that for the same thing, maybe we sold that no regulation is not such a good idea. As somebody said, no regulation is the power of the strong, and this is not democracy.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Maybe we will start a discussion between the generations. What does the pirate say?
>> I’m Alexander from Serbia. I don’t see the problem here, because the free information flow and exchange of information opened a new field for economy. There is a whole bunch of new economic models already ongoing, and smart people don’t fight, smart people build wind mills instead of shelters, when the wind is strong.
So, smart people open the possibilities and embrace this huge omnipresence of almost any information around.
So we will support always free information flow and back it politically and with activists. So my remark would be that maybe the answer is again love, peace and understanding. Not fighting.
Thanks.
>> AUDIENCE: Because when there is wind, of course, there’s people who build wind mills. But there are also people who use the storm to storm into other people’s houses. So there are all kinds of people. And I think that the responsibility should be taken somehow.
Now, again, another trend that keeps ongoing in every discussion is that for the Internet, should be the same concepts and values we have developed for everything else that we have developed? And it’s key what is the intent of something.
I remember the earlier question about how do you regulate or address somebody who is blogging on a certain topic. And I remember Orson Wells’ broadcast of the “War on the Worlds.” He was reading out the book on radio. People who tuned in later didn’t know that this was a story being read.
They thought this was something going on. People were jumping out of Windows. Should Orson Wells be taken to prison? No. Because the intent wasn’t that. But if there is such intent, if there are people who are putting information with malicious intent, there should be some way to capture that – “regulate” is always a very bad term. We always react to it. But there should be a way to stop people from doing that. You know? And if it is done to be able to punish that, so that it doesn’t happen again, that is the core of it. And regulation I think that we all have, you know, some fear of this body regulating. But, you know, you could – you might as well use another word.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Just a brief reaction and then we are closing the session and going to the Rapporteurs.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Ludo first.
>> LUDO: Andrea, I want to thank you for your comment and I think we are all here to make that bridge. I understand sometimes we have a little – we have a lot of energy that we carry around. Maybe after 20 years of sitting in the conference rooms our energy level drops down as well. I’m kidding. Sorry, I had to make that joke.
But all I’m saying is – I completely agree with you, and some other comments here that we have to build a bridge. Do understand that if you call me a thief, then building a bridge becomes harder, Huh? And you’ve been a thief of my life basically as well, then, if I can mention it like that. Because I had to pay 40 Euros for a CD for a long ass time. And I mean 40 Euros for a CD. That is an old business model based on stealing. So we have to get together.
So yes, I’m willing to knock down the Torrent if there is an option like Netflix, which is reasonable. But as long as there is not a reasonable option, yes, I will find a way to sort of try to find my free lunch.
>> AUDIENCE: I have a practical example of nonregulating the reality. If you want to control the whole world, do you come up with a problem?
And this illustration follows. The most remarkable night of my life was when the WikiLeaks was heeded by the attacks.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: I hope you also had other remarkable nights in your life.
>> AUDIENCE: I’m talking about controlling the reality. People think about us activists and Internet like nonusable amount of Gigs doing nothing. But when the attack a wiki emerged, we spontaneously built a wide network of mirrors in two hours, live, noncentrally regulated by any center of controlling power. And we saved the WikiLeaks as it is. We inserted the new way of doing things. We inserted the new thinking pattern for free information flow.
That is the power of nonregulating the reality and keeping the free information flow.
You will always have the problem with the full control of the reality illustrated by this delay of microphone. That’s simple. That’s it.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: Thank you.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: I’m blocking the access to the microphone. Andrea.
>> ANDREA: I’ll try to be as quick as possible. I have no problem with being faced with energy. It’s refreshing. Some of us still keep the energy even after 20 years of sitting in the meeting rooms. But it is striking to me – and here I got a bit beyond the issue of media – let’s try to keep historical perspective here. Because the language that I hear especially from the young groups is, I have to tell you, and I’m talking from sympathy of your portion, but it’s exactly the same language that the social revolutionaries of the ’60s and ’70s used against the system. Most of those people are now comfortably sitting in the boardrooms of major corporations. So I’m happy, I’m glad to talk to you about the practical way to move forward, but be careful, because those who claim that they want to make a revolution usually end up being exactly on the other side, because when they just bump their head against the system and understand that the system cannot be swept away, and sometimes there are good reasons why the system cannot be swept away, more often than others tend to end up in part of the system that they despised at the very beginning.
I think it would be unfortunate, because I can sense a lot of potentialities for changing what needs to be changed. But you need, and I don’t want to sound paternalistic, but you have to channel that energy into something more constructive and if I may say so more pragmatic than information needs to be free.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: I think the Council of Europe should have the right to speak as long as the European Union.
I just wanted to actually thank the person who brought up the WikiLeaks issue. And this is exactly one of the reasons why we thought there should be a new notion of the media. Whether you like WikiLeaks or what they do or not, if you consider that this has a value for a society in creating transparency and so on and so forth, if you consider this to be a medium, then it should not be allowed by a government wherever it comes from to ask an ISP to take that Web site down or to ask a post or Pay Pal system to cut the economic fundamentals of a media like WikiLeaks. And this is an incentive, and if you read it carefully, it’s clear, we want to enable and protect new media in order that they can fulfill their roles in society. It can be entertainment but also a significant contribution to the public debate, to creating transparency, to force economic players and political players to be accountable to their people.
Because this thing does not just happen always. Sometimes it happens per se, but it does not always happen by itself. Thank you.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Thank you.
Elfa, what would you conclude from this – from listening to this substitution?
>> LEE HIBBARD: Just a few bullets. I think in terms of background, everyone agrees that there are significant changes in the media in the way it’s being disseminated. The personalization of the media of the new actors, how they approach their clients, their users, and the sort of knee jerk reaction of trying to adapt, how media is trying to adapt to the new technologies. It was acknowledged that user behavior is changing about trust and about where to get information.
I note that there is no free lunch. But I – there is one quite overarching point about the discussion is that society, the immediate access to information, the trends, free newspaper on the flight. No access to the Internet on the plane is revealing, of course, and the idea that media is becoming realtime. So it’s an adrenalin injection and we need it know and not at the end of the day.
The feeling of communicating live to the whole world as well. Web 3.0 sort of live co-creation of media is there. And new thinking patterns and the free flow of information, the way that patterns are changing regarding new services I think is quite important.
And then you went on to discuss trust. Some said trust, I can trust some but not all media.
Others said they never trust. And others said that they definitely need to verify sources beforehand, which will lend to a discussion on media literacy. But the dominant discussion was about standards and regulation, which don’t work, that trust is not so great in new media but there was a confusion about whether to regulate or not. Regulation was only put in place when necessary. Regulation which is human rights based.
Thomas mentioned criteria. But also referring to the fact that the role of media has not changed. That’s a point to keep in mind. A reference to preferences to user being the – the onus is on the user to deal with media and consumption and information. Someone said that it was dangerous to regulate, lending to freedom, more and more freedom.
And someone mentioned reference to intent behind the media with regard to regulation.
I think the one last comment is what was said earlier in the discussion, which is about survival. I think it’s about survival of media as we know it. And that old media can survive if they use new media, which I think is quite ironic.
>> I think Lee said everything. The only thing I want to add is that it was also mentioned that traditional media still matters, and it’s – it’s important also to – to set the agenda and also to make information legitimate.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Thank you.
>> MATTHIAS TRAIMER: So, I hope no one of you did expect that we will find an answer to the questions that I posted in the beginning. But what you should get out of this discussion, there is a lively debate as the Council of Europe especially tries really to get as much input as possible, that they are also, as I heard Thomas working quite on a cautious basis, so not over regulating.
But we will of course have to continue all the discussions. You’re warmly welcome, please, also to do all the input. I must say since I was fighting very much for you, having integrating youth in EuroDIG and so on, although there were critical voices and maybe the recreation of the 1960 generation, nonetheless I think it’s very valuable contributions that you do. And it has changed, let’s say, also the style of discussions at conference that I visited so far.
So from my side, thank you.
>> MAJA RAKOVIC: Thank you very much. I hope to continue this discussion. Thank you.
(Applause)