IGF 2023 DCPR A new generation of platform regulations

This session investigates emerging platform regulations worldwide, scrutinizing their implications on human rights. The focus will be on an array of legislative initiatives including the Brazilian Fake News Draft Bill, the United Kingdom's Online Safety Bill, the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA), the Indian IT Act, and the Chinese algorithmic regulation, among others, aiming at dissecting their complexities, particularly their potential effects on freedom of expression, privacy, and other human rights. The primary objective of this session is to understand how these legal paradigms are reshaping the digital landscape. Our aim is to discern viable strategies for fostering a universally safe, equitable digital environment that steadfastly respects and upholds fundamental human rights while avoiding internet fragmentation. The methodological approach entails fostering a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder dialogue, encompassing perspectives from government entities, civil society advocates, and the tech industry. This will allow for a profound exploration of the issues, challenges, and opportunities that these local regulations pose.

To facilitate interaction between onsite and online speakers and attendees, we will leverage a hybrid event platform that provides real-time communication channels. For the onsite attendees, we will project the virtual attendees and their questions/comments onto the screen to ensure that both groups can engage with each other. In addition, we will use a moderated chat on Zoom for online participants to interact with onsite speakers and vice versa. The session will be designed with both online and onsite participants in mind. The session will be structured with interactive segments to engage all attendees, such as Q&As and debates to cater both online and onsite participants. To increase participation and interaction during the session, we plan to use an online document to allow participants to contribute their thoughts in a shared digital space. We will also utilize social media platforms for pre-session and post-session engagement, such as Twitter and Instagram for live updates.