Agreeing on the Messages for Focus Area 4 – FA 04 2022

22 June 2022 | 17:30 - 18:00 CEST | SISSA Main Auditorium | |
Consolidated programme 2022 overview / Day 2

Messages from Trieste

Messages are compiled from each Focus Area and form the main output of the annual EuroDIG. The messages are presented to the global Internet Governance Forum that is convened by the United Nations with a view to contributing to global, other regional and national debates on Internet governance. Find the messages from 2021 as a reference here.

To agree in consent on the Messages we foresee 30 min at the end of each day for each Focus Area.

Reporters from the Geneva Internet Platform will be assigned to take notes and to formulate the messages for each Focus Area that:

• relate to the particular session and to European Internet governance policy
• are forward looking and propose goals and activities that can be initiated after EuroDIG (recommendations)
• are in rough consensus with the audience

These Messages are finalised after the event by the Org Teams on our Commenting Platform.

We strongly suggest all session organisers and Focal Points to participate in the process of agreeing on the messages, because this delivers the outcome of their work. Session organisers are free to make a summary in addition.

Video record

https://youtu.be/qFEpZUpEML8?t=27533

Transcript

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(No audio via Zoom)

>> ANDRIJANA GAVRILOVIC: As introduced, I’m the head of diplomatic and policy reporting at DiploFoundation which together with Swiss authorities operate the GIP, the official reporting partner of EuroDIG for God’s know what year in a row. I’m here to read out the messages for the focus areas.

Bear in mind though, these messages were written by three Slavic girls, none of us speak English as our maternal language, there will be language editing in the sense of grammar, whatnot.

These are the formulations that I hope that we will agree on.

First – yes, this is the first message. Europe needs to put efforts to preserve the global interoperable internet for all to avoid divergences that may cause even greater geopolitical conflicts. One of the ways to reduce the possibility of the splinter net is to avoid incompatible regulations for internet infrastructure. However, there is an open question on what to do with the nations who deliberately – ignore that – you didn’t hear that – another chance to avoid fragmentation is to use the potential of the upcoming UN Global Digital Compact and tech envoy which could prioritize the global nature of the internet and explicitly focus on the perseverance of Digital Human Rights.

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Is there is no strong objections. Maybe take the second already. There is no initial reaction.

>> ANDRIJANA GAVRILOVIC: This one is a bit longer, it had many – the session had many good suggestions that were forward looking and it would be a pity not to include all of them. The implementation of the principles of the declaration on the future of the internet is going to be the key process that would need more engagement from countries and the stakeholder.

(Reading quickly from slides).

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: One comment.

>> ANDRIJANA GAVRILOVIC: European Union will contribute to the implication, it is the signatory or the initial signatories, it is not the European Commission, the conference will be done by the initial partners of the DFI.

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you for that correction.

>> ANDRIJANA GAVRILOVIC: I had consulted with the moderator and this is what we came up with. Our fault, definitely. The initial signatories. That is what we corrected to. Thank you very much. Partners.

All right then.

Any more comments? Anything online? Okay.

Then let’s go to the next and last one. This is from the session that just ended.

(reading from Slide).

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Comments on that one.

>> A bit of lawyer correction, to comply with the Human Rights principles and values such as democrat and the rule of law. Democracy and the rule of law, they’re not really Human Rights related values maybe, European Human Rights related value, European fundamental – to comply with Human Rights and European values such as democracy and the rule of law. Would this suit? Otherwise it is a bit convoluted. It is just kind of factual correction of Human Rights is.

>> ANDRIJANA GAVRILOVIC: I can read it out again. The appropriate response from the Human Rights perspective is to comply with Human Rights and European values such as democracy and the rule of law.

>> Perfect, thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Not to comment on this, but maybe it is a focus area and I hope somewhere that we will write that we need some support as end user and Civil Society to participate to all those where we discuss about Internet Governance. It was discussed during one of the sessions.

Thank you.

>> ANDRIJANA GAVRILOVIC: Thank you very much. I believe that’s probably the multistakeholder session today, on the way forward. That I do believe was focus area 3.

>> This is Rachel, a speaker in the last session. I think because it just ended, we didn’t have a chance to look and further develop this message, it may need a little bit more I think involved.

I would add something along the lines of the first sentence that there has been a Ryan Clough in disinformation and its consequences and political polarization, public health. First to show the problem and then that the statement, we need a variety of counter measures, legal, I guess the self-regulation is by platforms. That could be specified. I would say more support for sustainable and independent journalism. We like to use the terminology media and information literacy so, maybe we could have media and information literacy, including digital literacy and I think about the appropriate response to comply with Human Rights as any efforts to counter disinformation should be in line with European and international human standards for Human Rights with limited restrictions, something, something along those lines.

If we have time after this, I would be happy to help with any wordsmithing. That’s the general idea.

>> ANDRIJANA GAVRILOVIC: A comment on that, thank you for the comments.

One comment from my side would be that messages are forward looking, proposals to what we can do. It is not in the nature of the message to describe the problem itself.

I do believe that’s something that we can discuss later on.

Yes, you will have as a speaker the opportunity to look at the message again and I suppose that the point in time we can go with these changes that we just mentioned.

I would say that at the essence, this message stands as more or less as I have read it out.

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: We should also remind everyone that in addition for each session, the Geneva internet platform will prepare a report. If someone wants a condensed summary of the session, that will possibly go into the report. What we’re doing with the messages, it is really the message that we would like to send out to policymakers to the global IGF, et cetera, and as said rightly, it should be forward look, European focused, et cetera.

>> NICOLA FRANK: Yeah. Maybe I agree with Rachel. We need a bit more flesh here to the message. This is important. We’re happy to provide that afterwards. With regard to the legal and regulatory – I would say regulatory rather than the legal measures and self-regulatory platforms. I think people in the panel thought there should be a bit stronger message to that.

Happy to contribute afterwards also.

>> ANDRIJANA GAVRILOVIC: Thank you for that comment. If I understood correctly, then the sentence would be we need to think about a variety of counter measures or counter disinformation, regulatory measure, more support for sustainable, independent journalism, more investment in digital literacy. We’ll change that on the spot. I’m not sure if you can see that on the screen.

Any more takers?

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Any other comments? Also on the other slides? If that’s not the case, these are the messages that will after fine tuning go into –

>> RACHEL POLLACK: One more phrase. I think it was echoed this essence by other, something along the lines of journalism as a public good and public service media specifically, if that could be included.

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: That refers to the last one, right? Org teams and speaker also be invited to do fine tuning on the commenting platform. Grammatical errors will be corrected. I think there is space to include these details.

Okay.

If this is – if no one has strong objections, then I would consider those messages as agreed for the focus area 4.

We will finish the EuroDIG with four messages on the four focus areas. A new approach.

Let’s see how that goes when you look at the messages from previous years, you will see that there were quite big booklets, they are still outside if you want you can take some of them. This year, we expect a rather smaller booklet, with four messages and we hope it will be easier to promote instead of 16 little messages from 16 sessions. We would also be interested in your feedback on how you found the new programme structure, including the message drafting process and we will invite the community to debrief a review of EuroDIG that will be announced via our channels, social media, newsletter, et cetera. If you’re interested in providing input on particular those process, let us know. We would be really interested in that.

I think we have finished a message drafting process, we’re waiting for others to come interest the workshop room. Are they already all here? They are not yet here.

I think we have one more small programme. I would appreciate if you just stay in the room. The closing in front of an empty room, it is really something that’s very frustrating. Back to you.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: Thank you very much. I would like to first of all thank Andrea for all of the hard work and of course your entire team who have been working on this message. Thank you very much for the messages for focus area 4.

Then we’ll come back here at 6:00 for a wrap up. There will be first the Internet Governance Forum support association. Please do come back, learn more. We look forward to having you hear. Thank you.