Session
Organizer 1: Bu Bu Zhong, Pennsylvania State University
Organizer 2: Yuanyuan Fan, College of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University
Organizer 3: Jovan Kurbalija, DiploFoundation , the Geneva Internet Platform
Organizer 4: Milton Mueller, Georgia Tech Internet Governance Project
Speaker 1: Houda CHIHI, Government, African Group
Speaker 2: Yuanyuan Fan, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Yuanyuan Fan, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 4: Iva Georgieva, Private Sector, Eastern European Group
Speaker 5: Matthieu Guitton, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 6: Xianhong Hu, Intergovernmental Organization, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 7: Jovan Kurbalija, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 8: Milton Mueller, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 9: Jonathan Ssembajwe, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 10: Lola Xie, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 11: Bu Bu Zhong, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Bu Bu Zhong, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Yuanyuan Fan, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Bu Bu Zhong, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Birds of a Feather - Auditorium - 60 Min
Inclusion, rights, and stakeholder roles and responsibilities.
What are/should be the responsibilities of governments concerning Internet governance and respect for human rights, and what is needed for them to fulfill these in an efficient and effective manner? What are the evidence-based solutions available for the governments to achieve the goals?
Promoting equitable development and preventing harm.
How can governments make use of digital technologies to promote more equitable and peaceful societies that are inclusive, resilient, and sustainable? How can we make sure that the governments help avoid digital technologies being developed and used for harmful purposes? What values and norms should guide the development and use of technologies to enable this?
Connection with previous Messages: This workshop has expanded the scope of our successful workshop in 2021, which centered on the stakeholder's roles and responsibilities in improving internet governance, including sharing global lessons and practices on AI ethics (https://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/content/igf-2021-ws-68-ai-ethi…).
16.7
16.9
Targets: Our workshop proposal is linked to the following SDG targets:
9.b
Support domestic technology development, research and innovation in developing countries, including by ensuring a conducive policy environment for, inter alia, industrial diversification and value addition to commodities
9.c
Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries.
16.7
Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels
16.10
Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements
Please describe how your proposal links with the SDG Targets that you have just selected*
This workshop is highly related to the SDG Targets as the panel of experts and speakers will present workable solutions concerning Internet governance in three major areas:
1. Seeking common understanding. Rather than ignoring contentious conversations over the disagreement about the real challenges of Internet governance, the speakers will lay out mitigation strategies to unite people with a common understanding of the root of those challenges. Specific strategies will be presented and discussed to enable the governments to initiate new conversations for seeking common ground that focuses on what we value and share, rather than defining Internet governance in narrow terms.
2. Internet access as a human right. The governments must take urgent actions to help people reach shared understanding by initiating cooperative and productive conversations around disagreement without using personal truths as the baseline of the argument. Due to the governments' inaction, there is growing resistance and disinformation surrounding Internet governance. Thus, key intervention strategies will be presented at the workshop to improve the government’s role in building healthy Internet for everyone around the globe as access to the Internet is a human right.
3. Bringing in all the voices. To make Internet governance work, it is essential that decisions are not just made by one government or two. The governments can be of big help in getting people together for a shared sustainable and common future. When no one dominates Internet governance, we begin to develop a powerful mechanism for people to work together, in which people learn to earn the agreement of fellow stakeholders and thus achieve global commitment to make Internet governance work again.
Description:
Drawing on a painful lesson of the governments falling short in their efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change, the panel of experts and stakeholders in our workshop will reexamine the role of governments in building a healthy, resilient, and sustainable Internet. Following the growing public concern over climate change in the past decades, scientists had provided governments with tons of evidence-based findings on the deleterious effect of global climate change. They expected the governments to take immediate actions based on their findings. But the governments simply sat on the findings and took few critical actions. The failure should not be repeated again when we face mounting risks of Internet fragmentation.
Going beyond identifying the importance of Internet governance, our speakers will lay out workable solutions and interventions to hold governments accountable for maintaining an open, free, and interoperable Internet, a core value of the IGF. As we overcome the Covid pandemic, global governments should take urgent action to end the collapse in public trust around the world in many critical civic institutions, starting with improved Internet governance.
This workshop is highly related to the SDG Targets, whose speakers will focus on the following areas:
1. Seeking common understanding. Rather than ignoring contentious conversations over the disagreement about the real challenges of Internet governance, the speakers will lay out mitigation strategies to unite people with a common understanding of the root of those challenges. Specific strategies will be presented and discussed to enable the governments to initiate new conversations for seeking common ground that focuses on what we value and share, rather than defining Internet governance in narrow terms.
2. Internet access as a human right. The governments must take urgent actions to help people reach shared understanding by initiating cooperative and productive conversations around disagreement without using personal truths as the baseline of the argument. Due to the governments' inaction, there is growing resistance and disinformation surrounding Internet governance. Thus, key intervention strategies will be presented at the workshop to improve the government’s role in building healthy Internet for everyone around the globe as access to the Internet is a human right.
3. Bringing in all the voices. To make Internet governance work, it is essential that decisions are not just made by one government or two. The governments can be of big help in getting people together for a shared sustainable and common future. When no one dominates Internet governance, we begin to develop a powerful mechanism for people to work together, in which people learn to earn the agreement of fellow stakeholders and thus achieve global commitment to make Internet governance work again.
Our workshop will directly address the theme of the 2022 IGF and redefine the role of governments in building a shared global sustainable and common future. As people around the world are increasingly skeptical about the ability of the governments in the East and West to respond to global challenges, it is important to organize this workshop to work out workable solutions concerning Internet governance.
More importantly, this workshop should produce solutions and insights concerning advancing internet governance models in the past-pandemic world, such as active matrix theory, polycentric governance, hybrid regulation, and mesh regulation. The results should provide both inspiration and conceptual guidance on how a future internet governance model should be developed with the help of global governments.
Through the workshop, we hope that most governments will agree that the Internet must continue to be a tool for bettering people’s lives and not an instrument that caters to the preferences of the powerful players, in which the governments should play a critical role.
Hybrid Format: In addition to using Zoom onsite, we will live broadcast the workshop on YouTube, Google Meet, Microsoft Team, and Tencent Meeting to engage stakeholders and other audiences around the globe, who may ask questions and present their perspectives on the topic.
Usage of IGF Official Tool.