Open mic session 2018
5 June 2018 | 10:15-11:00 | GARDEN HALL | 
Consolidated programme 2018
Open mic session 2018
Find an independent report of the session from the Geneva Internet Platform Digital Watch Observatory at https://dig.watch/resources/open-mic-session
Transcripts
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This text is based on live transcription. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), captioning, and/or live transcription are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. This text is not to be distributed or used in any way that may violate copyright law.
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: We will continue in two minutes.
(Pause). >> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: So Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the moment where the community actually has the voice. And since the open mic is not really in the middle but somewhere hidden behind this column I would like to invite people to come on stage and let us know what their ideas are about innovative strategies for our digital future.
Please may I ask you for your attention. In the past this open mic session was always an opportunity for the people that are here in the room to say hello and to speak up. Is there anyone in the room who wants to speak up? One of our youngsters is doing it first. Please come up to the stage.
>> Hello, everyone. Good morning.
(Applause.)
>> Thank you. My name is Tony and I am a Human Rights activist. And I am also a participant of the Youth League. First of all, I would like to thank the EuroDIG for giving young people such a platform. It is amazing. Thank you very much. My comment regards the youth messages. Every year we come up with youth messages and there is nothing done with these youth messages. I would like to suggest the EuroDIG to create a post-event strategy to make sure that these messages are implemented or discussed at least. You could set up a body to discuss this with various stakeholder groups to create a discussion and possible implementation of this these youth messages because we spend a lot of effort and time to come up with these messages. Thank you.
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: One question to you. I know you have been participating in the YouthDIG. Have you finished the messages already or are you still working on them?
>> Done. Finished.
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Done. Finished. You will come up with the first messages from this meeting. Thank you very much. You will have a chance to read them out at the end. We have the open mic where it is supposed to be. Anyone who has an interest to say something can cue behind that mic, but you are also invited to come on the stage because this room has the many challenges with the columns. Who would like to be next? Lynne? May I introduce Lynne Santamore, IGF MAG Chair.
>> Thank you. I just wanted to inform everyone that the MAG is working hard to implement the suggested improvements that we have all heard over the year, whether from a CSD or annual stock takings from the IGF. We are working hard to put together a more cohesive programme and less redundancy and to have more outputs from the IGF. But we need your help. We need the community's support. And we need the community to accept this challenge, to be more focused and structured and to provide flexibility in the programming of IGF. It is incredibly important. We heard from the Vice Minister this and from Commissioner Gabriel all the issues. We are convened by the United Nations Secretary-General and yet our day-to-day operations is solidly bottom-up community focused. And I think it is really the only process in the world that is like that. And it is fully multi-stakeholder from top to bottom from beginning to end. We really need community participation, community support to help us enact a lot of changes that you have all said are so important to our future.
And maybe I'll just take this opportunity since I'm getting endless questions, we are expecting that the IGF 2018 will be in Paris November 12th through 14th. It is not formally approved or announced yet by the United Nations. Those agreements just take some time. We think that will be coming quite soon. But we have a very, very solid and we are very thankful to the French Government for their offer. And we should all expect that we will be in Paris in November. So thank you, Sandra.
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much, Lynne. Also for this good news about the announcement where the IGF might happen. Is there anyone else who would like to speak up? Debra, right?
>> Hi. Hello. First of all, I'm -- on this occasion I am happy that I am quite loud because we are here for a dialogue and half of the people are outside. They took it as a break. And this is kind of sad. So I'm happy that I'm loud because I am a young person, I'm a woman and I am here representing the Youth League Council of Europe for making a speech and promoting Human Rights online through the speech room and campaign. So since it is just the beginning we are not really yet in the topic, I wanted to take the words, first of all, to call the people outside yet and say this is a dialogue. So please listen to every voice and be open minded. We are here to discuss and take the best out of it because we are here to start changes and to start to do something good.
So we come from different parts and different sides of society. So it is really good if we take this together well and we all have competencies. That's why we are here. We -- everyone is somebody's tool. I am happy to be here to listen to all of you and I hope I can contribute and give something to you as well. That's my message.
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much, Debra. Anyone else? Okay.
>> Hello. My name is Alcap. I am a youth investor from the Netherlands. I want to thank the host country and the host for having us. And second of all, I would like to draw attention to responsible discussion. Responsible discussion is really important for hackers to report their full abilities to Governments, companies. I have seen a lot of countries that there is not yet too much attention to that. So with me being here and I would like to draw attention to that. Thank you all.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you. I mean we definitely don't have a problem involving young people. I think we are doing very well. What about the senior people in the room? They don't have to say something? Before I come to you, you better come here. I see one. I know this guy.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Welcome.
>> So thank you very much. My name is Wolfgang from the University of Quats and I have been in the early stages of participating. I am proud and grateful that this event has reached already the 11th year which I think is a great achievement by itself. And that we are near Georgia, has been one of the reasons I have been coming because I thought that Georgia as a country with a new approach which we have heard this morning also in the introductory speech, based on the very open approach to the Internet on Human Rights, based on the very open attitudes to the use of Internet is a country which really needs to be highlighted in the community of nations who are active in this field.
I'm also very happy about the interesting programme which has been put forward and I am really looking forward to it. But I maybe would like to see is more discussion on the role of the private actors on the Internet. In particular the social network, the intermediary providers because they have a very strong responsibility. We have heard today from the European Commissioner about the policies of the European Union but we did not hear too much about accountability issues. How to hold those who have the power, who define the algorithm, for example, who work on Artificial Intelligence and so on. How to keep them responsible, for example, to observe Human Rights and these European values which we heard in the Commissioner's speech. So I know that there are several events planned during the programme of EuroDIG. And I hope that these topics will be widely discussed. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much. So who else has an interest to share their thoughts, would like to make an announcement about the session that he or she is participating, organizing? I mean this is not a must. We can also close the session and have a break which is a bit longer.
>> It is okay. Hi everyone. I am Arvan from Serbia. And regarding the programme we are going to be organizing today a crypto party. Those who are unfamiliar with the term, crypto party is a workshop where we gather and discuss how to protect privacy online. It is actually a grassroots initiative. Not entirely directed towards policy. It is more at the way how to protect ourselves because of the lack thereof. So we will be starting at 11:15 at the master room. So yeah. Thank you.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much. Anyone else? Last call. There is a hand raised over there. Welcome. Kindly introduce yourself.
>> Hello. I am Madam. It is my pleasure to be second time of EuroDIG. Here previous years. I am a student here involved in a Nongovernmental Organization as well as have my schedule and so involved in nonformal education. And I was one of the BA European Ambassadors in Georgia. I am here like a student mostly. And I was -- I have an opportunity to be at EuroDIG. While I am here I would like to share an inspiration for everyone who is attending here. In the society whereas an Internet is very important and nowadays we have a lot of our -- we are doing like transferring, buying something. And nowadays when we look in Internet, cybersecurity or bully where it is not protected world. It is as well a challenge. During the cyber -- during some attacks, if I don't mistake, it was a blue shark programme. It is important to have this Internet Governance because you cannot live without Internet. And it is happening today. Today we have -- we are addicted with Internet and this is why we should be educated because this is in our daily lives. Thank you very much.
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you. Now people are warming up. This is what the session is for.
>> Hi. I am Leno. And I just wanted to use this opportunity to draw your attention to a Declaration that was launched at rights comm a couple of weeks ago. It is called the Toronto Declaration, protecting the rights of equality and nondiscrimination in machine learning systems. It is open for signatures. Especially as we seem to be talking more and more about institutionalization, innovation, machine learning and the role of Artificial Intelligence. It is well worth checking out. Thank you.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much, Leno. I saw another hand over there. If I am not mistaken it is also one of the YouthDIGers. >> Thank you. Once again thank you for the wonderful event and wonderful pre-event for young people. I am Maria from youth IGF Ukraine. And one of the discussions we had at the youth session was if the impact we made was actually meaningful. And I -- if I may, I would like to offer maybe to -- if it is okay, could there be some legal procedure by Government, maybe to review the result of some major conferences, like the offers. Can it be like a law that once a year there is a Working Group in the Government that gathers, maybe reviews the results of the major sessions and maybe reacts to it in some ways so that we understand if what we do here is -- actually reaches the Governments and the policymakers. So thank you very much.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much. You are actually touching a very good point and I would like to know if there is someone in the room from the Government who would like to reply to that. If there is a law or if there is a working group to review the results of those events. There is no one raising his hand, at least not from the Government. Okay. Maybe we will have a chance to elaborate on this further. But I saw there were more hands raised. Sonia and Bernow, right? Welcome Sonia. >> Thank you. Hi. My name is Sonia Herring. I am a member of the Executive Committee of SEEDIG which took place two weeks ago. I see a lot of familiar faces. I would like to invite everyone who was there or was not there to our flash session tomorrow. It will take place at 9:30 in the Lolita room. Very happy to be here and thank you.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you, Sonia. Actually she made a very good hint because you have seen this venue is very charming. And there is another part that also belongs to that hotel. And it is just across the street and this is where all the flash sessions are taking place. So it is really easy to find. Just cross the small road and then you will see a sign that you have to go upstairs for the other sessions that are in the EuroDIG programme. Bernow.
>> Thank you, Sandra. We have two remote participants who wanted to say a few words. We have Amara from UK saying that EuroDIG IGF process is critical for good Internet Governance with inclusion of all citizens and viewpoints. And we have another participant, Harish from India. He said we have to work together to promote universal acceptance, e-mail address internationalization and Internationalized Domain Name to connect the next billion Internet users. This is what we have from remote participation. Until now I want to remind you guys if you know someone that couldn't attend please ask them to log in to the website to EuroDIG website. There is a remote participation section. You can go there and connect to any of the workshops that you would like to attend and you can Tweet using the hashtag #eurodig18. You can voice your concerns and questions over there. Thank you very much.
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you for this remark. It is really important we are paying a lot of attention to those who cannot participate at EuroDIG. And please consider that they are people following us online not only watching but also keen to participate.
Any others? Nigel and then the lady. Okay.
>> Hi. Nigel. I would just like to -- thank you very much, Sandra. And thank you for organizing this with your fantastic team and it is fantastic to be in Georgia. And I would like to take up that challenge that the young lady said earlier about the results from some of these important conferences and how we take them forward because I think this is crucially important not just for this European IGF but for many of the meetings that we hold we have good discussions. We come up with good recommendations. We have excellent results from our discussions. And then somehow they are lost. They go in to the ether and we remember them over a beer in a few years' time and they are lost. And I think there is something fundamental that we need to capture and something that we have been discussing sort of globally at the IGF. But we need to come to more concrete conclusions, not laws. Not recommendations in terms of any UN charter but fundamental thoughts, fundamental sort of conclusions to our discussions. And if we can start that here, all the better. Thank you.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much. Please introduce yourself.
>> I'm Martina. I worked on data flows from a trade perspective and a founder, an NGO to teach skills to kids and my point is about Internet fragmentation. I just invite everyone to talk about how do we see the future of the Internet going forward. Because what we are seeing now is Internet fragmentation at different levels of the Internet, starting from the infrastructure. And what we are seeing also with the GDPR is examples of countries which are trying to put their way of seeing the Internet on the Internet. And by doing so we don't have knowledge of what other countries think the Internet should look like. We take this opportunity of the dialogue to try to find a way of having each country being able to have their own value reflected on the Internet without fragmented Internet -- intra local national net which are going to create other problems for Freedom of Expression and communication between people. Thanks.
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Anyone else? It is funny, I know most of you by name. Mark, take your time.
>> Yes. Thank you very much, Sandra. I was trying to navigate through a complicated set of rows and chairs there. Yes, my name is Mark. I am from the UK Government Ministry which leads on digital policy. It is department for digital culture, media and support. I am one of several government representatives here and why am I here? I think it is important for Governments to connect with these multi-stakeholder processes because they are dealing with a lot of issues that Governments are grappling with. For example, online harms, disinformation, cybersecurity. So we are here to participate on an equal basis to connect with you, sorry. To engage and find new Networks of contacts, through Civil Society, private sector, technical community and so on. So it is important for us to be here. And we need to report back and inform our policy development processes, that this is how the stakeholders are looking at issues, how we can learn and better define our policy objectives, be they to promote self-regulation, codes of practice, or if there is some opportunity for a regulatory response. We need to do that from a basis of understanding where and how the stakeholders are actually looking at these issues and kind of menus of options that could inform policy development in pursuit of the public interest.
So we need to have as Nigel was saying I think some sort of ability to capture what comes out of the discussions here for us to disseminate across our administrations. I mean I am one -- from one ministry and I need to talk to our Foreign Affairs Ministry and Home Affairs Ministry and independent regulators, too. So some facility to capture what happens here is vital. And that is meaningful in terms of continuation. Not stopping and we all go back to our respective capitals. So that's my sense of why it is important to be here. Why Governments, more Governments should be here and we appreciate EuroDIG's outreach to all the Governments in Europe for that purpose. But we need to build on that. Thanks very much.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much, Mark. I think some Governmental, civil servants to intern at you and get some recommendations on what you just said. Anyone else who would like to speak up? I know this person also, Wolfgang Kleinwachter.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Yes, my name is Wolfgang Kleinwachter. I am a veteran of this community and have been here many, many years. And now I am now a member of the global commission on stability and cyberspace. I want to follow up with Mark's comment on the need to enhance the multi-stakeholder cooperation. When this community started 15, 20 years ago Internet Governance was a technical issue with some political implications. And the big achievement which came out from this community was the invention of the multi-stakeholder approach. That means that people realize that the Internet is too big, that it can be managed by one stakeholder group alone. You need the expertise of the private sector, of the technical community, of the Civil Society and of the Governments, the stakeholders have to work hand in hand. They cannot substitute each other. But they will not find solutions alone. They have to work together.
The Commissioner Gabriel said we are now after 15, 20 years at a crossroads. If I look backwards every year there was another crossroad. Now we have reached this crossroad and what I have seen has changed in this 20 years is that Internet Governance is now a political issue with some technical implications. And this is a big change. Because now communities which had nothing to do with the Internet debate are taking over the discussion. The security people now, they are dealing with nuclear arms and conventional wars and now they are dealing with cyber issues. They have no idea what the multi-stakeholder approach is but they are discussing Internet issues of the World Trade Organization, now the e-commerce digital trade as a key issue. This group had nothing to do with the debate here and the Internet Governance community. And I think this is a challenge looking forward from this crossroads. Now we are here in Georgia in 2018 and to say we have to reach out to this community and explain what Mark Cavell has said that it is very useful for Governments for the security people for people dealing with trade and the Digital Economy to open their minds, to look -- to look for the ideas and the experiences of other stakeholders so to broaden this community. I think this will be a challenge. And I hope we will see more results in five or ten years from now. Thank you.
(Applause.)
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Okay. So then Wolfgang managed to have the last word. Congratulations to that. We are going to continue in this room at 11:30 with the Plenary that presents a very important project for this country, the Tusheti project and please be in this room at 11:30. Since we have one door start approaching the room a little earlier and be in your seat. We are going to start sharp with time. With this I wish you a good coffee break.
(Applause.)
This text is based on live transcription. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), captioning, and/or live transcription are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. This text is not to be distributed or used in any way that may violate copyright law.