IGF 2020 WS #55 Fighting COVID-19: The Power of Internet and best practices

Subtheme

Organizer 1: Xingdong Fang,
Organizer 2: Bu Zhong, Pennsylvania State University
Organizer 3: Yuanyuan Fan , Communication University of Zhejiang

Speaker 1: NADIRA AL-ARAJ, Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Xingdong Fang, ,
Speaker 3: Louis POUZIN, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

Moderator

Bu Zhong, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

Online Moderator

Yuanyuan Fan , Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group

Rapporteur
Format

Break-out Group Discussions - Round Tables - 90 Min

Policy Question(s)

During public security situations, how to protect the rights of the vulnerable group via the Internet.

2020 began with a huge strike to human kind, COVID-19 got the whole world not so well prepared. Each country showed their own ways to fight the virus. And Internet industry played an important role on this fight, some are good, some are not so well. It is important to share best practices and learn from each other to better prepare for other public security issues.

SDGs

GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-Being

Description:

The global outbreak of the epidemic has become an unprecedented public security incident, resulting in a global humanitarian disaster, and the Internet has become not only the most important social support and lifestyle during the epidemic period but also the most important tool and means to fight the epidemic. How to properly use the power of the Internet has become the key to the success of fighting the epidemic. Different countries, regions, groups with different fighting stages, have accumulated some experiences and began to share with each other through the Internet. We hope to use the platform of IGF to share these global experiences more deeply, systematized and representative. At the same time, we also pay special attention to the problem of the overall digital divide exposed in this epidemic, between countries, groups, even within a family. It is essential to jointly examine and explore these issues at a critical juncture. Intended agenda: we plan to first have speakers share best practices in their countries, and then have participants on-site and online share their experiences and discuss what should be done and what shouldn`t. Hopefully, we can conclude some common activities that can be adopted to improve the livelihood during the epidemic.

Expected Outcomes

We expect that we can learn from each other how they cope with unexpected public issues, how to protect the rights of the vulnerable group via the Internet and how to help underdeveloped countries under public security issues, and to conclude some activities that can be adopted commonly to improve the livelihood during the epidemic.

organizers will motivate and encourage participants to share practices and experiences of their countries and regions, if necessary, could break down into groups for a short discussion and more importantly learn from each other

Relevance to Internet Governance: How to apply Internet governance principles in special period, how to avoid goverments expand their powers on Internet

Relevance to Theme: In the face of the epidemic, the digital divide is a matter of life and death, not only gaps between developed and developing countries, but also gaps between people who know how to take advantages from Internet and vulnerable people like the senior and the disabled who don`t know how to use it properly. Therefore it is important to include everyone in and improve accessibility under special circumstances.

Online Participation

 

Usage of IGF Official Tool. Additional Tools proposed: plan to use Official Online Participation Platform