Platform and data neutrality – access to content – WS 01 2018

5 June 2018 | 14:30-16:00 | GARDEN HALL |
Consolidated programme 2018

Session teaser

Net neutrality is not the only challenge - it is being overshadowed by/coupled with challenges of platform/data neutrality, ie discriminatory behaviour of dominant content platforms. The effects on access, education, literacy and freedoms can be huge, yet discussion often don't go beyond net neutrality related to ISP. Europe has position and responsibility to start open discussions.

Keywords

neutrality, platform, dominant

Session description

Net neutrality is not the only challenge – it is being coupled with challenges of platform/data neutrality, ie discriminatory behaviour of dominant content platforms. The effects on access, education, literacy, and freedoms can be huge, yet discussion often do not go beyond net neutrality related to Internet service providers (ISPs). Europe has position and responsibility to start open discussions

In the recent years, due to a boom in various online services, there is an increasing dependence of users and the society on platforms, and the discussions on neutrality have extended to the application layer as well.

Biases introduced to platforms and services – for technical, economic or political reasons – can lead to discrimination that has vast impact on end user experience, economy, access to information, human rights, etc. For instance, the decision of Facebook to introduce News Feed had impact on visibility and economy of small independent media in the test regions. A change in how YouTube suggests videos could impact the recruitment of terrorists, but could theoretically have – or be used for – a different impact as well. Removal of content from Google Search results can help applying the right to be forgotten, but if the algorithm is changed without utmost care, it could also have impact on access to information, and human rights in general.

This impact is even more critical with the growing dominance of several key Internet giants that are establishing own “walled gardens” – devices, operating systems, applications and services (and, increasingly, even connectivity services) – and have access to vast pools of user data and resources to develop advanced applications like artificial intelligence based on this.

The session aims to initiate discussions about platform neutrality, map the concerns of communities, and listen to arguments of why or why not such practices represent a challenge. The session will be highly interactive, without speakers, to allow brainstorming and various voices to be heard.

Format

The session will be organised in an unconference format, with elements of world café. It will start with allowing participants to openly share concerns they might have, in order to accumulate issues to discuss. This will serve as agenda setting for the rest of the session.

The raised issues will then be clustered into several thematic groups, and a breakout into several smaller discussion groups will be made. Time-permitting, the groups will rotate through topics in a World Café manner. A short final plenary gathering will allow main conclusions – or rather questions opened – to be shared with everyone. A suggestion on whether discussion should be continued at next EuroDIG meetings will be made.

Session will have no panelists. Instead, it will have several strong moderators of the plenary and breakout work. All participants will be required to take active participation.

People

Please provide name and institution for all people you list here.

Focal Point

Vladimir Radunovic, DiploFoundation

Organising Team (Org Team)

Michael J. Oghia, independent consultant
Arandjel Bojanovic, ISOC Serbia

Key Participants

Everyone!

Moderator

Vladimir Radunovic, DiploFoundation

Remote Moderator The Remote Moderator is in charge of facilitating participation via digital channels such as WebEx and social medial (Twitter, facebook). Remote Moderators monitor and moderate the social media channels and the participants via WebEX and forward questions to the session moderator. Please contact the EuroDIG secretariat if you need help to find a Remote Moderator.

Reporter

Ana Maria Corrêa

Current discussion, conference calls, schedules and minutes

See the discussion tab on the upper left side of this page. Please use this page to publish:

dates for virtual meetings or coordination calls
short summary of calls or email exchange

Please be as open and transparent as possible in order to allow others to get involved and contact you. Use the wiki not only as the place to publish results but also to summarize the discussion process.

Messages

The debate around Internet neutrality should go beyond Internet service providers, considering that different bias by online platforms can also lead to discriminatory treatment of their users. The lack of platform neutrality is particularly alarming, due to their worldwide reach and dominance.
The debate around Internet neutrality should go beyond Internet service providers, considering that different bias by online platforms can also lead to discriminatory treatment of their users. The lack of platform neutrality is particularly alarming, due to their worldwide reach and dominance.
There is a divergence on whether platforms should disclose their algorithms. On the one hand, their goal is to optimise user experience. Why should companies disclose algorithms if they are protected by intellectual properties rights and if they allow platforms to improve users’ experience? On the other hand, when private companies have so much importance and affect so many actors, they should have some sort of accountability vis-à-vis our society. The responsibility of private companies has existed for a long time and could be used as a model to reflect the limits between public interests and commercial ones.
There is a divergence on whether platforms should disclose their algorithms. On the one hand, their goal is to optimise user experience. Why should companies disclose algorithms if they are protected by intellectual properties rights and if they allow platforms to improve users’ experience? On the other hand, when private companies have so much importance and affect so many actors, they should have some sort of accountability vis-à-vis our society. The responsibility of private companies has existed for a long time and could be used as a model to reflect the limits between public interests and commercial ones.

Find an independent report of the session from the Geneva Internet Platform Digital Watch Observatory at https://dig.watch/resources/platform-and-data-neutrality-%E2%80%93-access-content

Video record

https://youtu.be/pFXbmrihGsA

Transcript

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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.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Welcome to the session on platform neutrality. So I kindly ask all of you sitting in the back row to join us here because we want to have a group of people and we will be quite interactive. So you should be sitting somewhere next to the front row. Please join us closer from the back rows. I will start the session with presenting myself in a role of care with the frog with the Muppets show. And I have friends there, all of you that have watched the Muppets show know that their role is to do country contributions to the session. And we also have Adriana who is going to take the notes of the session that you can see over there.

Now the topic of platform neutrality is something that's rather new to many of us. Net Neutrality on the other side has been discussed at the Internet Governance Forum for ten years, since 2008 when the first workshop was there and at EuroDIG at a couple of instances. We are reaching an understanding of what Net Neutrality is. But platform neutrality is not so clear. The goal of the session today will be to brainstorm. What do we see that platform neutrality is. What do we see that the platform neutrality is not. What are the examples of possible breach of platform neutrality, and what are the topics -- if we should discuss in the future what are the topics that we want to discuss in the future. Feel free to jump in at any moment.

The format of the session is different from anything we have had thus far. It is a nonconference which means that you are setting the agenda. We come unprepared. If you didn't come prepared for a chaotic session, go out and take a wine and come back. You will be setting the agenda and platform. We will start with this format. If any of you think we should be breaking in to smaller groups to discuss particular topics, raise your hand and say by the way I think now is the moment to break in to smaller groups.

We start with trying to map the examples. Now when we started discussing platform neutrality, we said let's try to find the examples. Can we have examples. What do we see as a possible breach of platform neutrality. So I have a couple of people here that have examples, but I am sure many of you do have some thinking about what could be the platform of breaching the platform neutrality.

I will start with Arandjel to share a bit of experience from Facebook. Is there anyone here from Facebook, Google, Microsoft? Google. It is good you are joining us here, please. Microsoft, Facebook, anyone else? Okay. We should be cautious when we mention you. That's why. You had a particularly good example of a study when it comes to Facebook and explore fit and how it impacts the society. Shoot. This one doesn't work. Let's try this one. We need the roaming mics.

>> ARANDJEL BOJANOVIC: Yep, this one works. Okay.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Try with the others. Good. You can stand up so we can see you.

>> ARANDJEL BOJANOVIC: Okay. I'll try to make it short because it is kind of a long story, but Facebook conducted an experiment in six countries. The experiment was announced and it was conducted in Guatemala, Bolivia, Slovakia and Sri Lanka. Everyone who are using Facebook, I hope there is somebody who does not. News feed and news feed contains interactions among friends and contains posts from pages you are interested. They created a news feed called explore feed, pages you were interested in were removed. It took some time for people to aware that they are not receiving posts from the pages they were interested in. By that time Facebook offered an option to all the pages to boost their posts so they could be seen in both feeds. So basically this is something that is usually described as artificial scarcity. Something that was kind of available at first, Facebook found a way to somehow make it more scarce and then to try to somehow earn some extra money on the basis of that.

So there have been a lot of interpretations, why Facebook did that, but it is also worth something because there is no accountability there. But given like the extent of Facebook, some kind of accountability has to be in place because it is a public sphere and actually there is a great public interest in keeping it somehow as good as possible.

And yeah, in a nutshell this was the move. And the example was interesting. And I presented it at a SEEDIG event because it resembles Net Neutrality in some ways because when it comes to Net Neutrality usually users are those who are in charge for the full access to the Internet. Once you decide to charge content providers which in the case of Facebook that were pages, once you can get some money from content providers then you have more space to make something less available that was previously more available. So in a nutshell that would be it. If you have any questions I can expand.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Is the exchange of Facebook and on communities and independent media and NGOs their visibility and their business model, right? So your main I can say problem, challenge with the decision of the Facebook was what? Not consulting the others or introducing the change? What would you say to Facebook to say that they breached the platform neutrality?

>> ARANDJEL BOJANOVIC: I can repeat how other actors in society reacted to this change. Many independent journalists, some independent content providers were complaining they were saying okay, now visibility of our pages dropped massively whereas visibility of already big players in the field stayed the same or even increased. So the one remark was inequality that created. At that time there were elections in Serbia and some other countries that also affected the election process because many voices couldn't be heard because of that. In a nutshell these kind of remarks, but I think I can encapsulate all of these in terms of inequality. So this was like --

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: We'll come back to that. I'm not -- yeah. I'm not sure that friends are going to join.

>> Of course, they said to me that I invented the generals. I am advocacy here. In this case Facebook is a private company. They can change everything. So what -- what's the problem. If you don't like it change it, switch it to something else.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: You want to react or keep the format. Okay. We are just teasing the questions. We will get back to the questions. Jack, you had some good examples. You want to share with us?

>> The first thing is the same. There were a lot of traditional media that prepared their on application on Facebook to make interaction between the programmes or between the news or between all the ecosphere that they produced with the Facebook and the algorithm has changed. All this work was for garbage and there was no interaction until they completely renewed the application and make it adaptive to the new algorithm. Yes, it is a private company but the data is asking people to link to you. Then you need to commit to a minimal standard level of fairness. If not, then there is something that we are considering as a broadcasting community. We have to think eventually not to any more link to that particular company. That would be something that could happen in the future if these kind of things continue to happen. And if you want other examples, when you look on Youtube for any kind of content, you will go first for on Google or any kind of video content. Of course, you get first Youtube that not necessarily is the original source of the content. So even if the content has been produced by the BBC or by any others you go on Youtube. I think that we are beyond the limit of fairness in treatment of all content providers in the world. Again it is a private company but they have the right to do anything.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: I wanted to check with our friend from Google. Do you want to comment on anything on this? Come closer here, please, if you don't mind. Jack, take the mic.

>> Hello.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: He is there. He is first. So is it okay that you -- when you search for videos on Google they get Youtube only?

>> As a matter of receive a notification daily. I would not agree with this experience but it is the relevance to the users and it is the most -- that we try to put first. So you will see the video that's most relevant to you, whatever the source is. We do not put forward and first our own product or services. That goes against our own principles.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Can you explain the principles a little bit? Because that's what we are talking about. What are the in-house principles when it comes to sort of neutrality of the content that is shown?

>> We have two core principles in everything that we are doing. The first one is to put the user first. What would benefit the user for most. That's one of the main driving forces behind every decision that we are taking. And the second one is the inclusivity of the Internet. We want an Internet that is for all and everyone.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thanks.

>> Of course, I connect. As I said this is a private company. Where is the fairness in private companies. Well, I am also working for one evil private company which is producing some platform for domain names. It is something different. So when we change something should we ask all our users do they agree or we think that it will help users. This is the case of fairness. Secondly, I will quote my favorite part of hearings about markets in the Senate, in the American Senate. I will quote Senator Kennedy who said from this hearing there is two ways. One way is to go for you, for Mark to go home and raise the money for lobbying the Senate. The second way is to form a commission with the U.S. Senate which will somehow change the rules in Facebook. So I don't see their users. I see Government. And I see private companies.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Yep.

>> MICHAEL OGHIA: I was going to say especially when considering optimizing user experience, I mean algorithms, these days are more valuable than gold. So, you know, if it is protected Intellectual Property, why should -- why should we have to open up these algorithms with scrutiny. Why does not that extend to ourselves?

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: You raise -- Jack raised a good question on algorithms, are we talking about content policy. Are we treating the intermediaries? Are they messing up with the content or not? We would not say that they are intermediaries but there is an algorithm behind it. Are we talking about algorithm neutrality or does -- there is something more than that. Please introduce yourself. Michael Oghia, you captured his name rightly and the other guy is Dushan. And then the rest of you please introduce yourself.

>> I talk about neutrality in general, not about algorithm yet. My name is Alexander and I am from the Russian Federation. I am really sad that you are us discussing platform neutrality, does not include most powerful leader Mr. Putin. Once he said who will open platforms will open up Internet. Fresh enough saying but discussing that we could bring example of what is not platform neutrality but whatnot is. For example, but actually this is -- this kind of neutrality. It is a Telegram case. The messenger built by Russian programmers and considered as terrorist messenger in Russia but keeping running for users, even blocked in Russia and they are trying to hide it. It still fights and it moves out and it works fine on Russian, even the Russian Government says it should be banned. Is this message neutral? It keeps running for its users. But negative examples, Google and Amazon. When the Russian Government says okay, this is banned in Russia. Google, Amazon, because things would not expel it from your services, from renting virtual machines, from whatever else, we will block your addresses and for sure what all they are doing, they are trying to negotiate, trying to change the Service Level Agreements.

Before Telegram there was LMS messenger which was used for Russian truck drivers to coordinate marches. As a salesperson of Amazon services they want to sell your services but not ready to answer it. So you can talk about neutrality. It would be fine if we talk just inside Serbia or just inside Georgia or just inside any European countries but one country. You can talk about platform neutrality if you still have state borders because somebody does not like well, photos of women without blockers. Google or Facebook or other hosting providers will do. Nothing. We still have state borders. Each state has its own opinion on what is allowed for citizens and what isn't. What platforms we are talking about that do not have national borders.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: But if I understand correctly, Governments impact the way they provide services?

>> Yes, and I want to point out that Google, Google, yes, that Google in some cases respects the national borders more than being neutral.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. We have the old example of while Google was still in China the difference in Google searching of (inaudible) and other cases. That might be one case which is old, of course, of bending to some extent to the Government, Government impact, right? Yep.

>> (Off microphone).

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: I agree. But one thing before I pass the floor is interesting that we are here delineating between the Net Neutrality and the telecom providers are deciding to do something and then the platform providers because of some sort of political pressure changed the way they worked. You want to comment?

>> No, I have a comment on his. Private companies are registered in one country. So we see that Google and Facebook are going to the U.S. Senate to say whatever they need to say there. Then they are going to the European Union with a bit -- their branch offices are open.

(Talking at the same time).

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. So also other point --

(Talking at the same time).

>> If there is no branch office in your country, sorry, guys.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Good. Yes.

>> I think we just --

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Should be working, right?

>> Yeah, I wanted to respond to what was said here. First of all, I don't know why we are so afraid of talking about private companies. It seems like private companies is a word that we can't actually object. But once private companies start having so much power that it actually affects society and how society is structured. Then I think it is our responsibility to talk about these issues at length and start discussing what we should do. And you said something like user experience. I have also worked at Google, Google search. And I don't remember anyone caring about anything other than click rate, right? So I think there was someone who said that like all these companies have an optimizing for click rate and we have seen that results of this, elections and Trump elected. I'm not supposed to say political things. It is not my President. We have these bad results. We are not speculating at this point. We know these have caused so many issues in our society. So I think being so afraid of talking about private companies and not putting responsibilities on them is like -- is a wrong way to go about this.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Two questions. I don't know if you want to jump in on this one, two questions. One is as you mentioned it is all about click rate, right? But it is business. It is a business model. It is a business that we expect oriented in business. We don't expect to be working for a society, okay? They have to respect some rules.

>> Yeah, we -- obviously they do operate as a business. Let's talk about -- I think it is so new that we sort of like -- we are still afraid of talking about these issues but let's take Internet out of this question, for example, and if there is one company who has a monopoly over milk and people in their private company but they have a monopoly over milk and the company is acting against interest of society. So we will intervene. There are monopolies about everything else in the society. So why not Internet and why are we so afraid of Internet. You want to talk about free speech. Free speech is even outside of the Internet. We had free speech but free speech doesn't mean that you can offend someone. We have regulations about pretty much everything out of Internet. So why are we so afraid about this, right?

So I'm not saying that they should care about users, but first of all, do users know that they don't care about users. They do care. But I mean they also -- they care very much about click rate. And secondly, if it reaches the point where it is actually bad for society, we should (inaudible).

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: You raise two important things or two -- two terms. Monopoly. So do we think about monopoly. We focus on only monopoly. Another one I forgot because Bernard came to me. I will get back to that. Ariana, a quick comment and then we have the remote participant. Try this one.

>> Yes. Thanks. Well, in the essence we are coming back here to the question why we want to regulate something like it is regulated, you know. It is the question of regulation of social media. Why we are talking about regulation of social media. I mean they practically have the role of vehicle for exploring the free expression of our days but we are always mentioning the big companies. Why we are not discussing about some small platform that helps maybe continuation or even worse things because you can go from that small platform to another and it is easy to speak to another resource. But on Facebook and Google and other big companies it is not easy to find the relevant substitute. But we want to discuss and bring to the companies that started their platforms as a viable business model, then we have to ask the question where is the limit about the public interest, free speech and commercial business model where you can say that this is the limit, that Facebook can say sorry, this is the business model and I have a right to design it. I am just provoking with a question. I know this is a bad guy role.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Good question. We talk about public interest and commercial interest. Of course, the first one to company is commercial interest. Where is that threshold of the public interest where we have to say stop it now?

>> But the essence of every regulation is to ask why. Where is the basis for that. That's your ratio to do that. Why. I mean the interest of the company is turning a profit and to create some new value. Whether this is social network or food or whatever. Why? This is the question we should answer why we should think that these social networks should have the different treatment and regime.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Good. We need more examples. And I know we have a remote participant with an example. Olivia is here as well. Can we hear?

>> Hello. Can you hear me? Hello.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: We can read you but can we hear you yet?

>> Okay.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Good. We hear you.

>> Hello. My name is Gonzales. I work for Telefonica. So I'm from the business stakeholder. And I am based in Madrid in Spain. I want to share with you an example. In Holland there was a telecommunication provider giving for a lead time for about three months, a 0 rating for HBO for a video content provider. So actually was a promotion where customers were getting three months free 0 rating for the HBO up. And the regulator said that it was privileged because it was against Net Neutrality. It was favoring the company to the detriment of others. And it was influencing customers' decision to get that service and that was prorated. At the same time if you went to an app store that same HBO could get -- could pay another (inaudible) so that his listed on top of searches. And in fact, that was having the same effect as basically customers would be first getting that application. And so there would be somehow prompted in to getting that service. But that was not pirated. We have the same effect on both sides, telecommunication providers but one was prohibited because of Net Neutrality regulation and the other was allowed.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Interesting parallel of Net Neutrality and platform neutrality or the effects of the two. This opens an example of the applications or apps for the fall. To what extent the sector by providing different apps or not providing other apps can impact the society. You had a couple of examples this year. You have been discussing platform neutrality for awhile. Share some more examples.

>> Thank you. I'm from the English chapter of the Internet Society but I'll speak on my own behalf. I did speak with you yesterday. Video search on Google. Google is here. That's fine. It might be that it is a technical reason, but when you do a video search on Google you do get the majority of Youtube videos.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Jack mentioned that.

>> And all the other video sharing sites which is unfortunate because in a way you only end up with a subset with the information that's actually out there. And this is one of the problems that one is faced with. The Internet today is so big that you still have what appears to be discrimination for content that is (inaudible) and finding other content in other languages that is not necessarily on the biggest platforms that seems to be harder than having the content on a living platform. If you want to have the actual, the exposure for your content then you need to put it on the major platforms. And maybe just the major platform in some cases and the smaller platforms are not quite as well sort of referenced for people to use.

And I'm not quite sure how to address this. I don't think that legislation is the right way personally. But at the end of the day it is very commercial and the consumer has the choice. The end user if you want is not well enough knowledgeable but the fact that there is a diversity out there that they could be accessing by using different search engines and different services rather than always going for the basis, the basic middle of the road platform that it is giving access to.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: You mentioned what I took out was not just the rights of the users but also the impact on possibly small and emerging companies which are our content providers that are not going to go to smaller platforms but rather to big ones which can impact the market as well. It is also the economic aspect.

>> It is the case on the Internet where the first mover has always had the advantage and I don't see this being redressed at the moment. First movers are going to get bigger and bigger. The smaller companies, the more sort of edge companies are not having the chance to be able to thrive in this same way.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Anyone from the small companies dealing with content or whatever? Someone who wants to become Google one day? No? Okay. Yep. Dushan.

>> So I was thinking about what Adriana said and I will try to put some something on the table. So who created Facebook, Google and other Amazon and other big companies? You guys. We all. Users. So you were satisfied with their service which was free. Not free. But we can discuss about the -- this price. And suddenly when they got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and when they have 70% of net traffic right now, those three companies that I have mentioned, we are trying to regulate them. Sorry, guys. You created this mess. So what's the point? Go to another company and create a better company that -- than Facebook, Google or Amazon.

Second thing that I want to mention, okay, guys, I said the price we can discuss but everything is about the price. We discussed 0 rating, Net Neutrality which is about the money. So content providers are going to some providers and offering 0 rating or something like that. It is about the money. Everything is about the money. So this is an industry. You want to regulate open market. And if you don't want go to another and make another Facebook, another --

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: So your argument is matter of choice. You have choice. You can change your choice and you can be satisfied.

>> Before Facebook you have killed My Space.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: I haven't. That's fine.

>> But that's the point. So many people don't want to go to another platform. There are so many bloggers, there are so many individuals who have personal accounts, so many ways to express themselves all over the world. Their voices would be completely unseen if it were not for platforms that take advantage of the network effect in order to amplify those voices. We are part of this free expression movement and think about the individuals now who would not have been exposed to their certain audiences had it not been for a platform like Youtube, had it not been for platforms like Word Press. Now before the gatekeepers were a group of individuals, generally men that were sitting in a board room deciding who is going to be the next big thing. Now if I'm good enough I can be the next big thing because now I have the ability if I have -- if I have an Internet connection, I can upload my video and people can see me. Is that not democracy?

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: We have one comment here and then we will go back there.

>> Hi. It is Rita from the IGF space. I was going to say just about the same thing. Platforms are two-sided markets which have a very strong network effect. So it is not that easy to move from Facebook to a different provider. There is no one in the other provider. So that's an issue, too. Thank you.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thanks. This one should work.

>> Yes.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: No, it doesn't work. Always giving the mics that do not work. You are so lazy. Get up. I'll throw this one away.

>> Yes. Hi. I have kind of an issue with the concept of users who are -- who should stand up and fight the fight because I think back in the days there was this concept of information asymmetry which is nothing new which tells you if you are in a position of power, you have a certain power in that transaction compared to the next people who are not privy of that knowledge. This was true in the old days and I think today, too, for the insurance companies. What they know about is a lot more and that's premiums can go in different ways. This is all I want to say is that users are in this situation powerless because this group of individuals they know a lot more about us. And if this were to be an issue per se, this sort of imbalance create and recreate has already created a market failure and create all sorts of bad AP phenomenon like monopolies of knowledge. So this is something that we have to deal with. And some of us are not empowered enough because we don't have that knowledge that somebody else in a position of power possesses.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Good. We will pass the floor to Jack. And then you to comment. The others just raise your hand and I will try to see you somewhere.

>> I want to correct something that was said by Michael before. Usually we agree but on the example he made I don't agree. If you change the rules without informing your providers because we are providers, it is not like asking for the patent. It is like if you change the attack for the will of the car without informing the providers that sell you the wheels, this is unfair. And according to free market rules this cannot be done. So just to put the things in the right perspective.

By the way two good advocates today. But -- and then coming back to the question of natural growth until you become a monopoly, this is happening in history. Many times a rock vender was the biggest iron producer and still produce in the U.S. At a certain point it was too big and was obliged to break up the company because it was suffocating the market. This happens. There was in the New York Times some months ago a question very articulated I have seen until 500 comments when it is time to break up Google. It is a legitimate question. But even if model of democracy there is nothing new and nothing caring. We look for alternative of social media. And you look for the first eight social media in the world, you find that four of them belong to the same country. There is a failure in the antitrust regulation there because it is impossible that No. 1 buy No. 3, No. 4, No. 5 and then where is the alternative in the market. According to the market rules is failing. And it is happening because now we are living in a global market.

So before the rules were conceived for regional, for national market because of Rockefeller for European market, the case of fining Microsoft made to the European Union some years ago and now we have to look for global rules for antitrust because this becomes a big problem for everyone. Stop there with my head of company. I think my professional head. I visited a very nice exhibition in Paris some years ago about Andy Warhol. Organized by the museum of modern art of Paris. Then I saw that there was an app that allowed you to access online to material in the catalog of the exhibition. I said wonderful. And I tried to upload this on my mobile phone and they say yes, you can access this app for free, of course. But because -- but you have to give us access to your contact list. This is for free or not for free? Because if you ask me to give up my contact details it is not for free. So the book -- I buy the book and then I wrote to the museum of Paris and ask why they do so because this is not for free. Explain to people that it is not for free, that you have to give up something of your rights to get there.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: There is three things that I see. One is that we are back to the issue of monopoly. Is it about monopoly or big players? And the second one is the later mentioned is transparency. So would it be enough if we know what they are doing and get back to your solution I will choose something different but I need to know for that. And the third one, of course, actually this is sort of linked to privacy in this particular case or how do we pay and what are our choices for paying the service and again how transparent is that, right? Adriana wanted to say something and then the gentleman in the background.

>> I am Bruce, a board member of the Brazilian Internet committee. We have a law that's called neutrality for Internet. There is a huge complaint from the telecom companies that says we work under concession agreement and pay a lot of money to the Government and have many and several applications are subject to very strong regulation. And we have to compete with OTT companies that are free to do whatever they want. They don't need to accomplish all our obligations is one point. That neutrality might disturb competition in this world. And about the comment that our colleague said from a colonial country. Some time in the history we see that nations create very disruptive technology. And if we look to the past, many of these nations were enabled to create imperial, colonial (inaudible) because of this. And I pose you a question. The fact that Google, Facebook or Amazon created something very good allowed them to become the new empires of the world.

>> Yeah, because they make great products that everyone wants to use and by the disruptive tech in this case it is disruptive because it empowers people. And so, you know, the more regulation that comes up the more that innovation is stifled. And that's how --

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Adriana was to jump in quickly and then in the background.

>> It is working? Yeah. Just to refer to the question before because it seems to me that all we are talking here is the problem of monopoly of the big companies. And here we keep forgetting one very important thing. A monopoly is not a problem. Sorry to say that. Monopoly is not punished. The problem is when you abuse your monopoly position and that's something that companies cannot do. That's something we should control. If we judge monopoly as the bad thing that stop the creation, stop the growth and the chase for creating a new value and profit by the company, which is the very nature of the company. So what we should do from the market point perspective and ensuring fair competition is to keep an eye on the practices that monopoly companies are doing and whether these practices are abusing better -- through these bad practices they are abusing their dominate position. But I think that's the other aspect of this story and that's the market aspect of the giant companies, you know, and how they are behaving in commercial practices. The more important question here is whether we are imposing on the platform's role. That's the role of the public -- that's the role of somebody who should preserve the opening. This is the role of somebody who should serve proper verified information. That's the question. The question about regulation we are pushing platforms from the area of intermediaries which are not liable for the content nor regulate content in the area where they expect them to have some role of moderation.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: I will sum up -- a couple of points or a couple of angles that we have been looking at in this discussion thus far.

>> Sure. Hi. My name is Christina. I work for the European telecom network operators. Your point on transparency and whether this can help. I think that it is not the only solution to the problem because if you don't have other choices to make then even if it is transparent and platforms publish the types of choices they make, what choice do you have as a user. And when we look at the, for example, the proposed business to platform regulation by the European Commission this is one of the proposals they make. So from our view it is not the only answer but rather you also have to use other tools such as competition law. But here, of course, transparency can help with more information for the competition authorities to review the action of the platforms. We might also get better enforcement of competition law. So I think these two aspects work together. Thank you.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Two quick reflections on that. One is related to the choice. We say the choice Net Neutrality debate but it is not a question of choice. It is primarily a question of informed choice. If we expect the users to make a choice, it is not enough to have the choice. We require these people to know what they have to choose and to know the differences and to have time to understand. We are talking more than just the choices. The question is whether we are offering the transparency is enough to offer people to make good informed choices or we need to invest more in education and so on. And so they could do that.

The second aspect is regulation. We tend to discuss the regulation. But I want to bring back a little bit to the other set of options which is cooperation, dialogue and there is much to be done. And I'm sure we can get back to Google later on that most of their solutions are not I can say evil, but the question is whether they consulted to the extent enough with other communities how this might impact societies such as the example that Rangu made about Facebook. If Facebook had consulted others would the affects on small media, and NGOs maybe they wouldn't have made this choice.

>> Just a quick answer to this. So first who was reading Facebook terms of reference? Terms of use? One. Two. Three. Four. Any time. Any time. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Okay. Ten people in the room. And you are asking about opening, educating people, et cetera, et cetera. Can I just make one quick sentence? Click, click, next, next, finished. You all do that. But you all do that when you install something. When you apply to something, click, click, next. Done. You don't read anything.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: We'll get back to that as well which is a case of transparency. Can we understand what's written over there and we will get back to that. We have three comments at least for now. A couple of topics that we mentioned. We mentioned before we are talking about algorithm neutrality and whether we have a right to ask for platform neutrality. And we mentioned whether transparency is enough and how do we tackle the monopolies and basically how do we approach the global model of regulation if we need for something like that. How do we find the balance between the commercial and public interest or not even the balance but rather where is the threshold with the society needs to react and say now stop, it breaches some sort of public interest. We touched about possibly the new role of a business when it comes to -- this sort of a business when it comes to public good and public policies. And then lastly the regulation and other aspects of cooperation. I don't know if I missed anything but you can bring it back. Professor Benedict.

>> I would like to start that I have some understanding that algorithms can be a business secret. If you take Coca Cola has more than a hundred years of existence and we still don't know the formula and it sells very well. When we look at such beverage we find out some information. And this is important to understand how it works. In the similar way it is good and important to have some transparency how algorithms work. Okay. We can find out. So research institutions who do that. Maybe it would be a responsibility for the companies also to give us some basic information.

I would like to link this up with the issue of platform neutrality. Normally we discuss platform neutrality in the context that all content should be moved at the same time, speed. But I want to address the issue of filter which most of you are aware of, namely of receiving personalized search results. And here it makes a difference for me to know whether they are personalized and in which way they are personalized. Or if there is an alternative to have them audit in a different way. Is that an issue of platform neutrality at all? And can there be platform neutrality. Because algorithm in any way is not neutral. There have always to be priorities, number of clicks or whatever which order research results. And could there be alternatives that I can update between personalized search results which sometimes make sense when looking for products or so. And sometimes to not make so much sense because I would like to have more neutral so to say search. Certainly we could always say I move to another service. But in that sense this is also discussion of the community of certain service provider. But it is also a principle discussion in the sense that there should be some minimum transparency how the algorithm works and accordingly also what I have to expect when I use a certain service. Thank you.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. Two aspects over there that you mentioned. One is the choice of an algorithm actually and that's maybe a question also for Google friends or maybe rather for the technical ones is can we come up to a platform where we can upload the algorithm that we wish. I want to use Google index search and so on, but I want to upload my own algorithm how I want this and used to be shown to me and when it comes to the privacy, that's sometimes we mentioned a translucency. So probably we don't need to have full transparency but full translucency there.

>> Hi. My name is Swati. I am representing University of London. And I want to draw the attention of the Chair towards the supply issue of platform neutrality versus a demand because I think we have been talking a lot about how the users make the platforms and how they have driven these platforms toward making a monopoly and for substantiating with free market. If we do not let them function in a way that they do then there would be no innovative disruptions at all. First of all, I think when you explain it from a free market perspective I think it is conceptually wrong. Free markets do not work with monopolies in theory. I have a question with respect to an example that I recently observed in my own country which was of internet.org. And I felt there were two parties that were involved in this internet.org and initiated by Facebook to entry Internet accessible to all. They did it in collusion with one of the telecom providers in India. And if you were not associated or subscribed to Reliance you could not access internet.org.

So I would like to ask the question to the Chair how do you think platform neutrality works when there are these several layers of agreements that are already done on -- so you have to be a customer of Reliance in order to access Internet and that comes from the -- from the -- and that to go to the poorest of the sections of the society. So how do you even make this accessible to all? And this is something that I feel that hasn't been discussed. And we need to bring more onus to the -- I believe there is no choice, let alone informed choice in this scenario at least.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. The question based to the Chair will be passed back to all of you so we can discuss on that. But I think you mentioned touched upon the accessibility for all and also sort of this -- the impact on Developing Countries, developing communities for access to information. I think this is also one of the good questions to raise. Yep. Michael.

>> My name is Shark. I work for -- I am from Switzerland and I work for the old industry but not tech industry but just an old-fashioned one. And preliminary, Mark, this discussion that we are conducting right now, what strikes me is that we are talking about a number of things. What I see is we could talk about data privacy aspects of platforms and we could talk about the competition aspects of it. We could talk about content and information and how this might impact everyone's life but as we are conducting right now somehow broiled. And one aspect that lacks in this discussion is the Internet of Things aspect. So for a platform not just about information. It is also about transport. So connecting and transporting information which does not actually have -- it is not recognized. For the ones whole -- live in hotel right now that is steered by RFID chip like in this particular hotel, it might well be that the elevator company that built the elevator might very well known when a particular room number, room key went up and down, how frequently, what time and so on. But it is also a platform aspect in a sense that it enables the producer of this particular elevator to be much more performed than other producers. And this is also an aspect that you will not forget.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. And a good observation that is really a mixed sort of discussion. One of the main questions that we also had yesterday are we talking about content policy here. Ultimately these platforms should build up the algorithms. They do impact the content policy. So it is quite a mixed discussion. Thanks for pointing that out. Michael, you wanted to jump in on something before we pass the floor further.

>> MICHAEL OGHIA: My response I guess to everything that has been said so far, the past three speakers, is that people are absolutely addicted to convenience and the fact that as long as people keep asking for something simpler or better. You can have a more personalized Google web search and more personalized feed and more personalized everything. But the moment that something goes wrong let's attack the platform. Let's attack the person. Ultimately everything that's on a platform is user driven. It all comes from users. How is that necessarily something that we can -- that we can, you know, address now? I have to say I'm getting a lot of really angry looks from everyone. I don't work for a platform one.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: You might start working for a platform now.

>> MICHAEL OGHIA: Actually --

>> Come here. Don't look there.

>> MICHAEL OGHIA: No. No, no. So because people are looking at me now. Basically something that I -- that I have -- you mentioned dialogue earlier and now I am just trying -- forgive me, I am going to step outside of my role I am playing at the moment. Especially when it comes to these kinds of discussions there is a lot of public anger, a lot of where do we go to talk about these issues. It is not where do we go in terms of space, but where do we go when there are these giant multi-national corporations but say they are listening and they get millions of feedback about anything in particular. In my experience and I also was sharing an anecdote from last week when a representative from Facebook was talking to a group of media and press freedom advocates and this person was talking about how they don't curate content and, of course, we were just like, of course, you do. Of course, you curate content. How can we -- you know the -- how can you say that. The point is what gets frustrating on the one hand -- if we are engaging in dialogue, it means we are being respectful on both sides. We are all invested on that. On the one hand when a representative like this young professional back here, when, for instance, when she comes and speaks or representing Googles it is easy to gang up on that person.

At the same time it is really easy to just list off a bunch of PR points that are clearly something that is not genuine or if it is not genuine we don't know how to ensure that it is genuine. So there is a lot of kind of -- there is a lot of anger on both sides and part of that is because we are not really having a dialogue and that stems from both cases. How do we have dialogue with millions of people and how do we have dialogue with a business model driven by more engagement. So any kind of loss of engagement means less money. So me there is a fundamental problem. Whether we want to have these discussions what do we do. Because there is not in any way sincerity in discussion. So I think that's something going forward.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Who -- out of that companies, obviously I have just Google, creative. We would have Microsoft and Facebook and many others. Think about who we are missing and before we -- you want to jump in. No. If you want, just let me know. Quick reflection what you said and I think this is an important topic, which is the responsibility of us as users for a demand of something and that brings me back to discussions of privacy. We don't think about privacy and security and then we complain. It is our responsibility to create the demand for something different, including secure, private season in ourselves just to us.

>> MICHAEL OGHIA: Back to devil's advocate.

>> Just a quick observation. Because I have been earning responsibility from users, many times respectively companies, maybe a couple of times and it has been mentioned before that we as users give power to these companies. We make them powerful. Like the politicians you get power. You cannot say anything about it. We as users we have the right for good services. I want to have good service and if available, and I want to have that but also have the right to transparency, especially if exchange value is my data. For instance, what happens with foods, some companies were obliged to sign on the brand, the different brands, where the foods come from and in that case at least you got a way of protecting yourself. You see money. You can understand what you are getting from what price. In cases of platforms, sometimes they -- it is so clear the power of dynamics they want to affirm. Because the way you are talking about terms and conditions they are not made accessible at all. The only time in which I could -- I'm quite literate. I'm -- the only time I could understand it clearly at first glance it was all the Cambridge analytical things came up. They pop up immediately. You are obliged to read it and it was written really nice and big, but at the beginning it was written in -- in visually. It was upsetting. So it was like factory owner, workers making them sign with X small written contract. I understand there is always ways to go behind it. It happens with food as well.

There are companies that produce in other countries that have such regulation. But this -- why should stop us from complaining what is our right. Why cannot we complain? Because, of course, we -- we have to be responsible but we have to be a label because we are giving something back. We are not giving something else. This data is managed. We give something which is really precious or they wouldn't do that. So I think I have the right to complain and they should have more responsibility. Just to contribute to maybe a literacy. There are people making money. There are businesses part of society but as such as responsibility. It happens with normal kind of factories and industries and companies. It should happen the same way. Google owns me. Build everything in Google. I'm scared sometimes of their powers, about their relationships. Why do we have to effect so passively and feeding this narrative and maybe coming together you are here dial -- making a dialer. So like even try to find other ways.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: I think the point is in dialogue that we don't have to necessarily go to regulation. We can go in to dialogue as well. You want to -- should we go back to you? Related to this?

>> It is but it will be directed to the next intervention as well.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Let's get back to you.

>> Yeah. I want to mention the platform that we missed and I want to also say that we missed it for a reason. But before that I want to answer some comments that were made. I think it was too structurally inaccurate. You mentioned something like now power, so -- I'm paraphrasing but something like oh, now everybody has the ability to take stress now. These huge platforms have algorithms elaborate themselves. They have lost the right to claim themselves as moderators. And this is where it comes from the platform that we miss was Twitter and this is the reason why no someone mentioned Twitter because they are not doing that. They are doing -- they are being purely moderators. Even though they are huge, they are not talking anything right now about Twitter. Two things, one they are not moderators. They are content -- not creators but at least shape the content. And secondly they have a monopoly. And third what I actually wanted to mention, this is pure left/right argument to the point where we have this many times and it is boring, but I think the idea that to say that oh, like if I was a young entrepreneur right now and I was trying to create a company and -- when I breach like 700 billion market hub, then Government would give me some responsibilities that wouldn't stop me from me creating my company. I don't agree with you that this stops innovation.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Quick comment?

>> Yes. Always. So first for her, did you sign any contract with the bank? Do you know the small letters in it? So it is not only on Facebook, and its entire world is set by that but this small words, small --

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Better glasses.

>> Yes. So get better glasses or you will want to -- let's say terms of service to be in some shiny, happy, big. I don't follow this. If you want, you can read even small this. But it is --

>> (Off microphone).

>> It is always when you apply in -- behind -- in the form you have read terms and conditions and you need to check it.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Purposefully to be a --

>> Is it enough? I don't know.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: We'll get back to that. You wanted to add something. Google first and then more comments.

>> I won't be able to answer to all the points and that's the point there because I am rather excited to hear everything that you have to say on that on some high level point. So first this full discussion we are talking about platforms but there is a whole different set of platforms. We have different solutions to address it. And I think it is important to keep that in mind when you talk about it because not in every sentence we can put it together. On the responsibility I think it is important to stress that we do feel we do have responsibility that's been reminded by our CEO. We have a different responsibility and we understand that and this is why we are in this dialogue. Of course, I represent the company and taking the time to come and listen and I'm not only here to use and (inaudible). I don't have papers with me. On the contrary I think we are one of the companies where we do try to listen and especially on the point of terms of condition this is why we have been hearing this feedback for a long time. And before congratulating, before we created my account, I don't know if anybody ever used it, where everything is written in big and you can skip to learn more if you want to learn more and we try to put the user in the driving seat. We don't like personal search. Don't like targeted advertising. You can opt out of targeted advertising. We try to explain to you what we do and leave you in the driving seat to decide. That's the general high level words.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: And it is generally very useful that you are here. That's a big step always for the discussion. Okay. Let's take two more quick comments because we have to wrap up and a couple of specific questions for all of you before I wrap up.

>> My name is Dushan, but I come from SEEDIG and I speak in my personal capacity. We have to be aware that these platforms are private companies. But they have significant market power and they can also abuse it. What is important here we have different sort of platforms as we heard before. But they are becoming very strong. Not only they provide services to us but they become aggregators of content, news, applications and services. And they can abuse that market power here. We are aware that these technologies are never neutral. So algorithms are not neutral. That's why transparency is important in terms of this choice and selection. And then users don't have choice. So I mean we cannot complain as users. But if you want to use these services then we have to use them. We have no other choice. Because they have such a power on the market. And if such -- if a company has a power and abuse it, then there is a normal solution that it is regulated. It can be regulated either as utility, as utility or according to antitrust laws. So it depends whether it abuses market power by its algorithms or in operations because this platform can also abuse market power in operations.

So another thing here is that, of course, there is no discussion about this issue or there is a lack of discussion. And the obvious reason is that this company have access to European Commission and the real commission unfortunately even entrusts sort of self-regulation to these companies which is also wrong because these fake news we cannot entrust this regulation and moderation to private companies. It has to be somehow according to public laws and we have laws in place to regulate this. And then other alternatives, there are some alternatives. You have to invest in to some personalized solutions and some ethical solutions. When we had new school at SEEDIG we have two groups. One was representing companies and one users. And very surprised because the two groups they came to the same solution. Not exactly the same but based on the same principle and these solutions were based on ethical principles. And I think this should also be the guidelines for these platforms. They should become more ethical.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. Okay. Very quick comment from there and then we kind of go towards wrapping up.

>> Thank you. Hi. Thank you. My name is Pablo and I am from the European Commission. And very great news. I make previous job, I spend a lot of years in the antitrust department of the commission.

So my comment is more about this concept of (inaudible) monopolies. We are in the hands of harmful monopolies. It is a monopoly or not. They cannot be harmful. The -- and I would like to react on this suggestion that there be a regulatory failure for antitrust authorities that miss the opportunity to put stricter limits on platforms on the basis of competition rules. I would like to remind that since the beginning of 2000 the commission has been very tendered with the tech giants starting with Microsoft and then last year with Google, with quite heavy fines. Where, in fact, have been sanctioned in both cases. When you talk about abuse of dominance and if you don't want to fall in to the track, that is -- to support legally you have to be fine. What is the relevant market. In the case of Microsoft it was permanence on the operating system and the extension of power in to the market. In the case of Google the dominance was on the research engine market and was to give prominence to the shopping services.

When we talk about freedom of expression and freedom of business as well, to carry out business as well, I think it is important to progress a bit in this discussion. Necessarily fashionable today to say that competition rules can actually step in and regulate the programme, what you want to do. You want to break up these tech giants as in the past that has been with Bell and to create seven Bells or Googles. The outcome was not very efficient. The antitrust authority produced a mess by breaking up that way. So the most promising way is to see whether the vertical integrations are created by mergers or downstream markets, which one of the market. So I think it would be beneficial here and since this concept comes over and over and just to start to define what is the market we are talking about which would be dominated. Datasets who are Google, perfect substitute with the Facebook data. Probably not. Probably yes. I don't know. But this is a study that needs to be carried out. And the abuse would consist or not. Extending the use of data in to news aggregation. Others for downstream services that could in a way compete with publishers. Probably. But we need to be very specific. Otherwise we seem to repeat among with not much substance in it. By the way final remark the freedom of expression at the level of the charter is ranking with Article 16 which is freedom to conduct business.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. We have a couple more minutes. I know there are a couple of people that wanted to say, to add something. I want to first check in if something that you really have to say? Or can I pass you a different question and also to all of you? I wanted us -- the idea of this session was really what we did was brainstorming and absolutely uncontrolled session to get the sense what are we talking about. We have a number of issues that we sort of clustered, but what I wanted to wrap up is with thinking about next EuroDIG or even if you wish the IGF that comes this autumn/winter, it seems like we need to have further discussion. That's obvious. What would be the question? One sole question that each one of you would like to see on that session to be discussed? So we are trying to draft the questions of the session. Think about one single question that's maybe top priority for you that you would like to discuss and we can take notes and articulate that a little bit bitter. Is it okay? Can you do that instead of your question or comment? So let's start with you and Andrea and the ladies. Articulate the question for discussion.

>> It is complicated to reduce so much but I think if we are discussing with monopoly. For instance, there are two things that shock me in particular. One is the fact that in social media they have four of the first eight social media in the world that belong to the same company. The freedom in the first company is in a range of 60. It means that everything that was moving and bubbling that they see in the market as a potential competitor. We are in a new situation about antitrust where you need prevent that somebody could buy these next competitors. Because then there will be no competition. This is what is happening in this market. The second thing is concerns the media. End of the day most of the money that is made, the most profitable business of this platform are still the oldest in the world that is advertising. We are talking of high innovation. And if you ask about advertising you ask how do you measure a click or a video material, then there is somebody say five seconds is enough. Somebody says that passing with the mouse over the link is a click, et cetera, et cetera. There is no real. When we broke the monopolies of the media market and broadcasters in Europe it took years but at the end we arrived to a Consensus about what audience measure is. In the advertising market for the platform, each platform decide. Each platform holds the information and each platform negotiates with the advertising agency. Transparency, no. Responsibility, no. Competition, no. Because on the contrary we have to say for the media, traditional media how many viewers, how we measured them and we have to guarantee that this was made under an audit.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: It was a longer question but I think we saw the articulation. We have a remote participant and try to be within the Tweet please. We want to go for coffee, yes.

>> Thank you. So this is the question from Gongalo from Telefonica and it is in a Tweet format. His question is are there -- are the platforms able to data mine people's digital experiences and that of other business and competitors.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Good point. Andrea. And then -- ladies, you still want to?

>> I have a question that's going to be very short. I want to do an analogy for this question. If you look in the past 10, 15 years we have been at the rate part, enjoying the best parts of the world and we had fun and we enjoyed the time and we dance and we make fun and we meet people. Then suddenly you get down and you see what's happening. And I think the questions that we should ask is was it worth it. What we as a society are putting at stake from the digital evolution. There was kind of say an unchallenged benevolent perspective on everything that came from Silicon Valley. It is good. Don't be evil, empowering, but I would like to ask this question, what are we losing. What is the price of that. And the challenge is to look at all encompassing. Look at our societies are changing. Our cities are changing. What is the impact on the job market. What is the impact of the, you know, of the brand distribution. And probably we should look at those problems beyond the single technological innovation but more as a societal question.

And to go back to this person from the European Commission which market are we looking at. I think if you are looking for an answer just go to China. And look what two companies, Alibaba and Tanzen termed the regional platforms in to. They do everything from grocery to banking to looking for your doctors to search engines, to texting everything. And I think one company is going this direction. We already know it. It is Amazon. And I think that more and more as we challenge how much advertisement can be the revenue stream of Google, of Facebook, of the platforms, those platforms will have to find new ways to monetize their businesses and probably these could be an idea. I don't think it is the best option but if you -- this is linked to the first question before what are we putting at stake as our society. Look at our democracy. Look how Twitter became the tool that the President now blessed the rest of the world with his Tweets. And Twitter was designed and presented as the one that allowed the evolution in Egypt. So look back and say okay, can we put that on the balance and now where are we going. Probably this is a question that we should be asking. And I thank you for -- I like to brainstorm. I think we should do more and I like the challenge.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thanks. It was a blog.

>> Can I say shortly his message? Let's go back to the party.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: We will have to remove the word drug from this transcript but that's fine. Professor.

>> I want to come back to your request. I recognize that there has been improvements in the information strategy of the big Internet companies and I think this is due also to the kind of constructive dialogue which has taken place, but for the Tweet what to do in the future session I say there is room for a lot of improvement and therefore we need to discuss stronger accountability, starting from transparency.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. Anyone else wants to articulate a question for the next session? We have quite many notes. Then before I pass the final word to the Muppets I want to challenge you, tomorrow is the deadline for the application of the workshops for the IGF. And I am happy to put down a workshop on this one. Anyone wants to join? Good. Let's sit down afterwards and talk how we can put a proposal for tomorrow. And then as a last words two of you and, of course, afterwards we will have the messages.

>> MICHAEL OGHIA: I guess -- I'm not going to give a last word as an anthelical Muppet. We have to make them better. The fact that you are here means that you care and the more that we can also work with those that might be perceived as being "the enemy or the Antihist" I think we will get through this when we collaborate. So -- collaboration is going to be what saves us.

>> And my style, so you create -- you let the monsters out of the cage. So you now want to put them back in to the cage. So enjoy.

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. We have some messages at the end as with every session.

>> So good afternoon. My recent message that I wrote during the session, you tell me if you agree or disagree with them. Debate around Internet neutrality should go beyond the Internet service providers. And platforms can lead to discriminatory treatment of users and platform neutrality, particularly alarmingly due to worldwide reach and dominance. News feed implemented by Facebook in six different countries is one of the problematic examples. Some in-house principles could be implemented to reach platform neutrality, to put the users first as a main force driver and inclusivity. There is a divergency whether platforms should disclose their algorithms. Why should companies disclose algorithms if they are protected by Intellectual Property. On the other hand when private companies have so much importance and affect so many actors they should have some sort of accountability vis-a-vi our society and commercial ones. Monopoly and transparency are concepts that impact platform neutrality. Because of that platforms should not abuse their monopolistic position regarding the neutrality.

And furthermore, transparency would help to enforce competition law and allow people to make informed choice. And finally in terms of platforms contained users are used to convenience and because of that platforms have adapted their model to use their recent content in implemented filters. So that's --

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you.

>> That's how I summarized the session. Do you agree or have any comment?

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: If you wish, if any one of you wants to help finalize the session just get back to us and we can work on that. Thank you. See you at IGF.