Session
Governing Digital Economy
Multistakeholderism
Round Table - 90 Min
Digital platforms have gained significant traction within Internet Governance debates, particularly as they have become essential tools for global, large-scale public and private communications. Numerous initiatives, groups, and organizations are trying to cope with regulating digital platforms at various levels. However, a great part of the discussions revolves around the models followed by Europe and US, that, as many point out, are then exported to global south countries, as the so-called Brussels Effect, limiting how regulations are adapted to local and regional contexts. Countries in the global south are in different stages of institutional development considering governmental bureaucracy, civil society organization or regional international organizations. Governance arrangements that may work in the global north may fail in Latin American countries. In Brazil, for instance, multistakeholderism has played a fundamental role in strengthening civil society participation through the means of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee which plays a relevant role in the local internet governance model. Equating the (i) (de)concentration of decision-making poles and (ii) the public/private protagonism in a governance model, in order to orchestrate the ensemble of institutional capacities in face of the digital platforms’ power is not trivial. Beyond that, national and regional approaches aiming to establish a sustainable platform regulation models should also consider the challenges to align them with ongoing international processes, such as the Global Digital Compact, WSIS+20 and the UNESCO Guidelines for Regulating Digital Platforms. Last but not least, expectations over multistakeholderism in the global Internet Governance realm have been questioned in several policy arenas addressing those issues. This workshop aims to delve into different digital platform regulation governance models through the exchange of global south countries’ practices and discuss the role of State and non-State stakeholders vis a vis the value of the Internet Governance multistakeholder model.
CGI.br
Hartmut Glaser, CGI.br, Technical Community, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC) Marielza Oliveira, UNESCO, Intergovernmental Organization Henrique Faulhaber, CGI.br, Private Sector, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC) Juliano Cappi, CGI.br, Technical Community, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC) Juliana Oms, CGI.br, Technical Community, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Khadijah El-Usman, Civil Society, African Group
Miriam Wimmer, ANPD, Government, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Sunil Abraham, Facebook India, Private Sector, Asia-Pacific Group
Marielza Oliveira, UNESCO, Intergovernmental Organization
Renata Ávila, OKFN, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Henrique Faulhaber, CGI.br, Private Sector, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Juliano Cappi, CGI.br, Technical Community, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Juliana Oms, CGI.br, Technical Community, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
10. Reduced Inequalities
17. Partnerships for the Goals
Targets: This workshop relates to the following SDGs: 8, 9, 10, and 17. The link with SDG 8 is based on the fact the discussion will touch upon economic growth. The relation to SDG 9 is grounded on the expected debate over innovation and industry. The regard to SDG 10 is based on the expected discussion over reducing inequalities of Global South's contributions to the world and within itself. The relation to SDG 17 is contingent on the focus on different types of cooperation.
Report
Multistakeholderism is still largely considered the best way to construct consensus, ensuring results that encompass different stakeholders. However, it was highlighted that it needs improvements to guarantee meaningful participation from all stakeholders, especially within the civil society and technical community that many times have difficulties in participating in national or international forums, due to lack of resources and time.
Guarantee more resources to civil society and technical community to increase participation in international governance forums Adopt bottoms-up regulation, specially in technical standards, such as AI, ensuring global south countries participation, involving the technical community and private sector in rule formulation. Private sector to ensure openness and access to data in order to ensure meaningful participation from other sectors
Organized by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br), the Town Hall focused on delving into different digital platform regulation governance models through the exchange of global south countries’ practices and discuss the role of State and non-State stakeholders vis a vis the value of the Internet Governance multistakeholder model. The session was moderated by Henrique Faulhaber, counselor of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, representative of the private sector, who opened the session by exposing the role of multistakeholderism in Brazil Internet Governance, as the role it may have on platform regulation, highlighting the particularities of regulation and institutional difficulties that may occur in global south countries.
Marielza Oliveira, from Unesco, presented a more general approach to the multistakeholderism model, highlighting its importance to build consensus evolving multiple stakeholders, however the model must overcome challenges to be inclusive, diverse and human rights based as well as to account power imbalances from big techs.
Sunil Abraham, from Facebook India, on the other hand, highlighted the importance of coordinating all the forms of regulation – from the estate, co-regulation and self regulation with standards setting organizations. This could be seized in platform regulation by giving room to bottom up knowledge and norm settling, especially with global south participation in a way that would ensure future-proof regulation.
Miriam Wimmer, director from the brazilian DPA, also agreed on the importance of coregulation, highlighting the complex institucional set in Brazil with the difficulties in defining the regulation scope and which authorities would be evolved in a broad theme such is platform regulation. The director also emphasized that multistakeholder isn’t incompatible with multilateralism.
Joanne D Cunha, researcher from the Centre For Communication Governance at NLU Delhi, pointed out the challenges for global south countries in platform regulations and participating in global forums and international processes, especially due to difficulties with resources.
At last, Renata Ávila from Open Knowledge Foundation stressed out the inequalities between different realities, in particular considering small global south countries that may lack not only platform regulation laws but also data protection laws. She also highlighted the importance of platforms not taking advantage of that situation, ensuring transparency and a general frame to be replicated.
The Q&A session stressed out the arrangements between the different regulation models that may be applied to platform regulation, and the challenges in cooperation between multiple authorities. It was also pointed out how platforms with transnational reach keep track of many jurisdictions and may replicate new mechanisms to different countries. At last, the speakers highlighted the importance of south-south cooperation, holding platforms accountable and an expanded multistakeholder model with more diverse participation.
We can highlight two key takeaways. Multistakeholderism is still largely considered the best way to construct consensus, ensuring results that encompass different stakeholders. However, it was pointed out that it needs improvements to guarantee meaningful participation from all stakeholders, especially within civil society and technical community that many times have difficulties in participating in national or international forums, due to, among other reasons, lack of resources and time. Therefore, governance of platform regulation needs to consider the differences of institutional arrangements and the necessity to equalize the power imbalances that large platforms may cause.
Call to actions mentioned:
- Guarantee more resources to civil society and technical community to increase participation in international governance forums
- Adopt bottoms-up regulation, specially in technical standards, such as AI, and ensuring global south countries participation.
- Ensuring openness and access to data in order to ensure meaningful participation.