The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Paris, France, from 12 to 14 November 2018. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: Speakers, could you please have a seat, please, up front. Please have a seat.
>> MARILYN CADE: Good morning, everyone. My name is Marilyn Cade. We're just going to get started and before I turn it over to our moderator, I'm going to issue the operating instructions, and that is come sit in the front of the room, please. If you don't mind moving up a couple of rows and encouraging people to sit up closer so that we can see all of you.
And then when you are speaking, always open with saying your name very slowly and clearly and look at the transcript and make sure it's correct so that we can make sure that the transcript which is not an official record, but is a very useful document, is actually reflecting who said what.
We want to have as few "woman speaking" or "man speaking" introductory comments as possible. So come sit at the front of the room if you would and say your name clearly whenever you speak.
And we're going to get started in just one minute.
Please come down toward the front and take a seat.
>> MODERATOR: Hello, everyone. Let's get started. This is our conversation on fake news on Tuesday 13 November in UNESCO. Welcome to everybody. Today we're going to discuss about the fake news and then we'll have some introduction of the speakers and then we're going to dive into how we deal with the fake news.
First of all, we're going to hear what kind of information affects the country. Probably, I assume that they own workshop session, they own country. In South Korea, all they did.
And then we will also ask each panelist how can we combatting ‑‑ how can we combat some kind of the fake news problem.
And thirdly, we're going to ‑‑ how can we take multinews take some kind of ‑‑ to energy of the effectiveness.
First of all, from my left side, I'd like to introduce. Could you please say your name, please.
>> MARY UDUMA: Good morning, everyone. My name is Mary Uduma. I represent Nigeria IGF I'm from Nigeria.
>> GIACOMO MAZZONR: I am Giacomo Mazzone from the Italian IGF today.
>> LUIZ FERNANDO MARTINS CASTRO: I am Luiz Fernando Martins Castro from the Brazilian Internet Streaming Committee.
>> YRJO LANSIPURO: I am Yrjo Lansipuro from the Finnish ISOC.
>> MODERATOR: And then we have one more panelist here.
>> MARILYN CADE: My name is Marilyn Cade. I'm the Chief Catalyst of the IGF U.S.A.
>> CLAIRE MELAIE POPINEAU : I am Claire Popineau. I'm from France from the Ministry of Justice.
>> MODERATOR: I'm from South Korea's NRI, not North Korea. Let's get it started. Fake news, we are living in the age of the social media, and then I say ‑‑ I will say internet is different from the original version. Today's internet is totally well connected in that we connected the internet by smart phone. In human history, there's been an age like this, circulate or disseminate information in the speed of light all over the world.
People believe what they see. People believe what they hear. And then people hear ‑‑ what they believe. And then what they believe, affecting to what they behavior. This is functionally logic of the fake news. What if somebody intentionally give choose fake information or react or publicate or manipulate information to somebody. What if today, what if the true social groups hate each other, what if a social group is just intimidated by the others and then actively involved in some kind of their quarrelling or some kind of -- in this unproductivity discussion all over the world.
That is not the world we can expect. And then panelists, how can they own country has a kind of fake news problem. Example, I never been in Kenya, but I heard that Kenya has shut down the social media for three days before the election.
In South Korea, there's kind of a voice we shoot Hudlow and so people just worry about their own fake news dissemination. Is it a good solution? We discuss about because there's no solution, clearly. And then people studying position is including several ‑‑ example, excludes the constant misinformation because misinformation because ‑‑ and then exclude the information. The information is everybody has a rule for information and we better not discuss information itself. And totally, we do not need to understand some kind of ‑‑ problem. It is not the proper solution for the coregulators.
And then okay, let's get started. Can you hear from the Nigerians idea and then on the fake news, please? What kind of impact do you have? What kind of negative impact do you have in West Africa, please?
>> MARY UDUMA: Thank you very much. I want to tell us that we have issues of violence, issues of terrorism, issues of hate, issues of bad attitudes. Difficult ones. So for us, it looks like the social media is dividing us instead of uniting us. And for that reason, my government is making all efforts to regulate, to control, to even criminalize fake news.
With photo shoots, with Instagram, with all the social media, you can twist anything against and come up with any story that would affect individuals while it could be anonymous. And since I didn't tell on the social media, the person that generated the news, you don't know.
So what is happening in our own environment is that we are creating hatred. We are creating problems. Difficult problems. Difficult times for our people because our young people are recruited online to go for terrorism. And how do they do it?
They will just publish 1 or 2 things that they think the government has done or somebody has done and they ask that you rise and stand against such thing. And they are misinformation.
And so we're looking at the social media dividing us more, dividing us because we have about 500 languages in Nigeria. We have about 200 ethnic groups. So each group wants to be seen and to be heard and to be active and to be part of what is happening.
But in the process, with this abuse young people's mind and pick up books. We have the book of Hiram ‑‑ because of the social media.
So my country, my government, is so concerned that they are asking that if they will ever ‑‑ if they will ever lay their hands on the person that have posted the hate speech, the person should go to prison. So it is as bad as that. That is the way we are looking at this. So it's not only that the news are fake, but they are causing a lot of problems, a lot of war. Internet war. Internet hatreds. And we are on the political era.
We're going to hold a national ‑‑ the general election in February. And as of today, the news, they come with all sorts of news and the people just salute it and take up arms. And it's not been good. It's not been good. So we are very much concerned on how to get the right information to our people to know what government or any person running for an office is really doing.
A sitting governor was shown in the news in the Facebook shown taking pride and that has caused him ‑‑ it's almost costing him his seat because the state assembly is getting him. And it could be a wrong information, misinformation.
So we are actually looking at how do we control this. How do we manage the wrong information. How do we manage the hate speech in political the hate speech because ethnic group is fighting against other ethnic group. So that's where we are at for now. I will talk more when we come the second round. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thanks, Nigeria. Next one is the Brazilian internet strategy contents. His name is....
>> LUIZ FERNANDO MARTINS CASTRO: Hi, everybody. Good morning. I'd like to say that it's a big pleasure to be part of this session. I'm Fernando Castro. I'm a member of the board of internet steering committee. I represent the government, the ministry of science and technology.
The CGI maybe most of you may know what we do. We are a multi‑stakeholder organization, and we are entitled of developing general guidelines and developing overarching products in favor of the use of internet in the country.
We also organized the Brazilian IGF which took place last week. We had about 30 workshops that have been proposed by the community, and many of them addressed the question ‑‑ the issue of the fake news and information disorder. That's a very present discussion.
And I may say that we are still on the same point we were one year ago during the IGF of Geneva. About this issue, CGI made something very important. We have very, very top election in Brazil this year, and at the beginning of the year, the electoral court that manages the process of election in Brazil created advisory border to treat the question of fake news.
And we from the CGI, we were invited to be part of this committee, and our main preoccupation at that moment is to avoid censorship during the campaign. In the first moment, the tribunal or the court, they wanted to take a very, very conserve or to control content. And we had members in the ‑‑ in this group that came from the army, from the federal police, from the national security department. And we were afraid to raise situations that could bring to censorship and criminalize the net.
And I could say that they realized that is impossible to avoid fake news and that we have to treat them after it occurs, not before. In the Brazilian electoral law, we have the crime of spreading fake news, false information against candidates or parties. And it's ‑‑ we decided not to work in a preventative way to avoid the free speech that could harm the liberty of expression.
To prepare this document or all this knowledge, the CGI organized in April of 2018 a seminar involving different and several ‑‑ different multi‑stakeholders like journalists, lawyers, social scientists, and authorities, members of the court, electoral court, and many questions were raised. And with them, we could produce a guideline that I have here, the one that want them, we have some copies here, that explain a little how the social networks operate, the business model that are adopted by internet companies to explore the economy.
We treated about democracy elections, political propaganda, and the phenomenon of online information. The third part shows some principles that must be observed during this discussion, like freedom of speech and combat to hate speech.
And in the fourth chapter, we give some tips for the user, how to avoid spreading or being part of a chain of fake news. And in the fifth part of the guideline, we compile some other source of information that might interest people for further discussions. And we found very important to bring this document and this knowledge to the members of the justice ‑‑ electoral justice.
And we have the opportunity to share with them in some seminars organized with the court to explain to the judge and to the assistants that would deal with this matter in general elections to separate what is reasonable and what is not reasonable.
And that's what I'd like to bring if someone has interest in getting the guideline we have here, hopefully on our website. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Thanks. Next one is the European....
>> GIACOMO MAZZONE: Thank you. As has been said, I'm one of the member for the Italian and Euro. We have done an IGF in November at the beginning of November from the fifth to the 7th in Rome and ‑‑.
>> MODERATOR: Can you speak a little bit louder, please?
>> GIACOMO MAZZONE: Now is better? Okay. Sorry.
So we had this at the beginning of the year, this month, the IGF in Italy, and this was just the arrival point of the many other meetings during the year because also in Italy this year was an electoral year. So as you can imagine, the debate on the propagation of fake news was a very hard topic for everybody and has been treated in many, many different events.
There was no proper committee to prepare it, not multi‑stakeholder. There was one committee at the level of the secretary service in Italy to monitor interference from foreign country. But because in Italy the electoral system is proportional then the effect of the so‑called fake news cannot be so big.
As you know, the effectiveness of this is more where there is very small margin of difference between parties or candidates that could make the difference.
The debate that took place in Italy started from one point, but first we don't accept at all the principle of the word fake news because fake news is simply the top of the iceberg of a larger phenomenon. We have adopted as and tools for analysis, two documents. One is the council of Europe reports on information disorder that was distributed yesterday in this same room for the council of Europe ABU meeting. And also the document that will soon be published that is called The Perfect Storm about the cries of media and information in the current digital society.
The total problem is composed by many element. One is the disruption of business model by social media. The economic basis. The second is the weakening of the profession everywhere in the world. Economic reason and also a question of safety. As you know, the number of journalists or people working information that has been killed in the last months and years has increased dramatically in many parts of the world, even in parts of the world before where that was setting aside from that.
In Europe, just to mention, after many years with no journalists killed, we had four investigative journalists killed in various countries of Europe. So that's quite alarming for parts of the world that has been protected for many years.
And then the reason, growing mistrusts in institutional sources. Any institutional source is seen suspect as part of the establishment, and the media are considered in many countries as part of the establishment. This creates a very bad atmosphere.
Then the election in Italy went quite well. There was only one episode in which it has been detected heavy interference from outside the interests, and it was in the post election moment when there was the negotiation for creating the new government. And heavy interference has been measured and reduced, even if this is not the date has not been revealed by the government but it has been said that there are.
And in the meantime, the nation regulator that is called AGICOM, the authority for communication, has started a table of discussion and self-regulation with the main operator of the internet platforms and of the telecom operators and the media. This group has worked for one year, and after1 year will arrive to some conclusion at the end of this year and the regulator will decide if the self-regulation measures has been enough or if they go to hard regulation with proposal to the parliament.
We discussed all these things at the IGF during the last weeks. The government seems to be unsatisfied of what has been obtained by the platform because there has been no real commitment and hard commitment. So it's very likely that they will go for legislation during next year.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. And then we'll have one more European speaker. He's a European dowel. If you can't hear that clearly, use the headset inside. The speaking system has kind of a problem, please.
>> YRJO LANSIPURO: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Yrjo, one of those impronounceable and difficult to write Finnish names. I'm here representing Europe which was set up in 2008 pretty much by improvisation in this very town, in Paris, and we were a few people, ten people, just gathering in a street cafe somewhere outside the ICANN meeting and just decided that since the IGF there could also be a European dialogue on internet governance.
One of the many, many offspring of this internet governance forum.
Now at the annual meeting, we have been treating this problem, actually, since 2015, but it's interesting how it developed. First their scene was media and digital age and somehow being aware of the problems that is the raise of social media caused to the traditional media and how that influences the contents.
Next year, in 2016, we already asked, what do we need the gatekeepers back because there is so much hate speech in 2016. The emphasis was really on hate speech, not so much on fake news, which was very much the scene next in 2017.
But last year, I think that we, with the help of the consulate of Europe and some other studies, we came to understand that actually information disorder is much more than just fake news because it covers misinformation, which is when false information is shared but no harm is really meant.
And this information where false information is knowingly shared to cause harm in a sort of ‑‑ in one way of hybrid politics. And finally malinformation which may be general information think that it's spread in order to cause harm.
So in order to find effective remedies, we have to be clear why this information is negligently created and amplified in the first instance. And often it aims to hollow out and discredit democratic which can only thrive if people can make informed choices.
So these message are more incorrect and ingenuous and devious than those of propaganda. Propaganda, usually they try to make you believe a certain version of what's out there, what's happening. And that was pretty difficult, as we found ‑‑ as I found, being a correspondent during the Cold War.
But now if you're spreading disinformation, your task is much easier because actually you don't even want people to believe those stupid things you are saying. The only thing is to ‑‑ you want to spread confusion. You want to sort of disorient people. And basically come to a situation where text loses value.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. And then I'm going to pass my mic to the French MOJ please.
>> CLAIRE MELANIE POPINEAU: Friends, as a proactive decision on ‑‑ the president during the opening session advocated for more regulation. He also announced 6 months partnership with Facebook aiming to figure out how to find against hate speech on the social network. France have taken a connective approach in both regulating and partnering with the stakeholders. In that respect, Paris calls for trust in separating space and take rights in creating manipulation in information.
And in France, the law cracked down on fake news is being discussed by the parliament. To date, the national assembly comes together in October and November 6, after the commission failed to reach an agreement. The national assembly is very likely to approve the final rating.
It could still be challenged by the France Constitutionals. Indeed, there are a lot of controversial debate.
For example, some model of paramount accused the president of trying to threaten speech, threaten freedom of speech, freedom of expression and be compelled to censorship. And so journalists could be used to ‑‑ and in practice, the new law, if approved and when approved, will impose a quick judicial review. Many productive information shared during electoral periods.
We also want to input transparency on obligations during platforms. And during the debate, a number of experts criticize the law as being a threat and to be as ineffective. And in terms of media education, could be part of the solution.
In a way, indeed, fighting against fake news most likely need a form of social digital literacy. And for example why do we share fake news. To understand it is the first step to fight it and to stop it. Hence, the need for digital literacy schemes.
For such an approach to be successful, it is needed one to raise public awareness through campaign and initiatives and, two, it needs educations to first and foremost help the critical thinking.
Really, fake news is maybe new in the form and modality, but it will not matter from the ‑‑ we can choose any century, 17th century, 18th century. I like to say that already I've thought about this kind of misinformation, disinformation, and today, the citizens need to have the technological awareness. And this is both aspects, critical mind and technology knowledge, which needed to really fight against and before the fake news arrive. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for your idea about the French IGF. And we'll hear some opinion from the....
>> MARILYN CADE: Thank you. My name is Marilyn Cade. I mentioned that my title is chief catalyst of IGF U.S.A. I actually helped found IGF U.S.A., but today I serve in a different role.
We have been looking at this particular phenomenon now for three years, and I perhaps would need to open my comments by apologizing for any contribution any particular individual located in my country who might hold an elected official position as made to the proliferation and misuse of the term fake news. So I'll open with that apology and trust me, I don't contribute to that proliferation.
We did a main session and a series of workshops in 2017 and repeated that again with workshops in 2018. And my prediction is we'll continue to work on this particular area going forward for all the reasons you've heard.
We do look at a ‑‑ within IGF U.S.A., we do look at a more of a spectrum of definitions, including the misinformation, disinformation, and actual distribution of false information that is from a source that is identified as being with the media, either the ‑‑ maybe the word formal media is the right word to use or the new form of expressions, such as blogs, et cetera.
We personally do not address cyber warfare in the discussions that we take up IGF U.S.A. and that is a purposeful decision because of the range of US Agencies and others that we would have to include, should we be moving into discussions about cyber warfare.
We also have been examining some of the ‑‑ I'm going to call them tactics as opposed to solutions ‑‑ that need to be taken in order to help the individual user who is receiving the information be able to be a more discerning, informed user.
It was relatively easy when you had a narrower and more centralized approach to distributing information, such as broadcast media, newspapers that were acknowledged as being the official newspaper, et cetera, et cetera and then people would make up their mind whether or not they trusted the source, but information, as we all know, is much more centralized. And if you wanted to know how to spell a word, then you pulled out our dictionary.
If you wanted to look for the official description of what a dinosaur was, you pulled out your encyclopedia. And of course we all know that the internet, the world wide web, digitization, has made access to information much, much easier, and that's the good news.
But the bad news is that the skills needed to be a discerning consumer of information sources are not being taught at any level in our education systems, really regardless of the country you're living in.
And there have been debates for some time about whether there should be sort of a ‑‑ in the United States, many states require young people, when they're the age of 15‑and‑a‑half through 16, 17, in their high school to take a ‑‑ it is a mandated course to learn to drive in the school. And you have to pass a test. You get a credit for that.
There's been a long series of debates about whether digital literacy skills and critical thinking skills should also be incorporated into the curriculums. That is an emerging discussion that I would just mention to everyone, because if you are talking to the ‑‑ if you are giving a silo approach and we start thinking more horizontally, then I think what we've been talking about at a very high level of IGF U.S.A. is we really need to go back and re‑engineer and update curriculum at a variety of levels, and that includes at the very fundamental level in the school where children are taught how to turn on the iPad or the electronic device and they're taught perhaps to avoid porno sites but they're not necessarily taught how to be a critical thinker.
And it's one of the big debates going on in the ethics community and in the education community. So being an informed user of information, our belief right now, our discussion right now, is that we have to start thinking about how to retro fit the understanding of all users of the internet, regardless of their age, and that includes users of the internet of people of my generation.
And you have to think about how you do that. How do you teach people the critical information skills? And do there need to be a community‑wide or society‑wide tools, such as mandated fact‑checking or such as a trust mart which says this information has been fact checked?
I'm not being critical of Wikipedia, but I just want to make a comment. I think Wikipedia is a fantastic resource, but in the courses I teach, I do not allow my student to use Wikipedia as a primary source. They can use it as an initial source but not as a documented source, because some of the articles are extremely well researchd and others are the product of the opinions of those who have found the time to contribute to them.
So fact checking, whether there needs to be some kind of government or even industry approach to certifying fact checkers is one of the things we've been debating. We have no conclusions. We think that reform and teaching digital literacy. We also think there may need to be almost public awareness campaigns that you need to check our facts before you ‑‑
The final thing I'm going to say is far too many people get their information from their neighbor, and they think their neighbor is a trusted source. And on the internet, your neighbor may be somebody who actually is a dog.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. This session is to tackle the fake news problem. We have heard the impact of the fake news in this country from the ethnic group balance and to the information disorder and then 2018 presidential election. I would like to add to the fake news media ‑‑ AI produces a fake news voice with together.
And then we have a limited time, and then I will give the right to the floor and if you wanted to say, raise your hand and then please push your button and give occasion to me. And in ten minutes, we can get to answer your occasion. We will have four people who have information about fake news, please.
Raise your hand and tell your country, please.
>> AUDIENCE: Good morning. I'm a youth IGF fellow. My question is could somebody please touch upon using the power of free speech and basically combatting fake news by counter speech.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Can you please do this? Okay.
>> AUDIENCE: Hello, everyone. My name is Manuella. I'm a youth IGF fellow and I'm from Brazil. I wanted to talk about the last commentary about the fact that we have to change education. We have this big problem of fake news in Brazil but we are also being threatened in the education sense because we have like parties saying that we should not teachideological things in school, which is impossible because I don't think we can have an education that is nottideological, even if you try to take this off, this is some type of ideology. We don't have the interest of talking about fake news and talking about this kind of stuff in school politically and critically thinking because some parties are being benefitted from spreading fake news.
So how do you enter this kind of environment, how do you do this critical education, without being accused of with ‑‑ because well if you say that something is true or not true, today in Brazil you are being attacked as a Communist or someone who is speaking about things that you shouldn't be speaking and you should be neutral. But this is impossible. So how do we enter this environment? Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. We'll hear one more, last one, from a different continent, from Asia. Okay, please.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes, Steve Sellser from the United States. Labor net, ABC. I agree with the speaker about President Trump and his use of fake news, although you did not mention the name.
The problem we have is governments are presenting fake news and they are being challenged and even when they're challenged, people are being punished. You look in turkey where journalists are being jailed, killed, for reporting the facts as going on. This is a danger.
And the use of social media by corporations to present their agenda is another issue. U.S. companies and large companies have made a lot of money from fake news, selling this fake news and making money from people who are paying for the fake news. I think the other danger that we have is censorship of news and information, and I think the threat that the government is going to decide what is fake or corporations are going to decide what is fake is a dangerous conception because the governments and corporations have an agenda.
And I think the ‑‑ I agree totally with the attack on journalism and journalists today. In the United States, thousands of journalists have lost their job, and people are ‑‑ go to the internet to find out information from people, regular people, who are not trained journalists and that has to do with capitalism and the attack on the press.
>> MODERATOR: Okay, please. We have no more time.
For the solution, I direct information a little bit, several things.
We can, to the fake news problem, we'll stress maybe literacy where somebody think ‑‑ and secondly, we need to criminalize fake news, invoking a very harsh law. And the third one is that can we formulate some kind of ‑‑ can you install some kind of fake news checkers or fact checkers.
Many platform has a gaining day of money from the click bait, whether it is true or not, they just need people's click. As much as they click, they get much more advertised money. And then fourth one is that do we need to trust some algorithm to detect fake news in Google or Facebook are also doing this, but many engineers aren't.
And then next is we need to get back to or gain the gatekeepers like the traditional media with the news room and journalists together. There are also more answers to these question. And then I will give a chance to summarize your cases and then ask them to answer the questions.
>> MARILYN CADE: Marilyn Cade speaking. We are operating under the flag of the United Nations, and that's a new behavior for many of you. But under the rules in which we operate, we try to not single out particular company or individuals but to think about this as a more generic problem and I say that because it's going to influence how I couch my responses.
I wonder, you know, we've heard a number of ideas about solutions, and I wonder if we might almost have like a mini 30‑second show of hands of do people in the room ‑‑ do people in the room think that more government direct oversight of the content on the web ‑‑ remember, we're actually not talking about the internet. The internet is the transport mechanism. We're talking about the web. We're talking about the content that is stored in sites that are developed by individuals. Now, social media is a transport mechanism, really, which is transporting and proliferating the spread of the information.
But are we thinking that we should begin to look at either principles ‑‑ and if we do that, how do we do that on a global basis? Are we ready to move toward outright regulation of what you can or cannot post? And then you get into the issue of what is determined to be freedom of expression, et cetera, what is fake news, and how do you determine that.
Those are long‑term issues that would have to be studied, thought about, and will move us very, very directly into an environment where governments are talking only to themselves. And sometimes in areas where experts are not even ‑‑ or citizens are not even in the room.
Or are we ready to look at shorter term approaches, such as digital literacy and other kinds of solutions going forward? And I wonder chair if we might ask the audience if there would be interest in, you know, any of those particular approaches or one over another.
>> MODERATOR: Let's wait to answer from Nigeria, please.
>> MARY UDUMA: For me, I think we need also the journalists to have self-regulation. For instance, there's something we're doing in my country so the online publications. Fake news are shared the same with the government. And our broadcasting commissions and the broadcasters, they continue to broadcast in a warn, advertise, warn people about spreading fake news.
And you don't just get ‑‑ you don't verify it, you keep sending it out. So it's something that will bring a lot of issues and maybe you are not sure where this is, so you go ahead, and it can result into unintended consequences because we are divide that somehow whether it's in my country or another country, whether it's color or religion or sex. So that would also bring about fake news.
So I advocate that the journalists have self-regulation and they go do that and share intelligence with the government.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. We have one‑and‑a‑half minute to do answers. How about Giacomo, please, answer this.
>> GIACOMO MAZZONE: Yes. We didn't discuss very much about the solutions, so I can give you a little bit of personal reference on that. Having that, we need to look for short end solutions and long‑term solutions that need to be practical at the same time. Because the problem is contexts are changing in societies, not simply different or something that the changing the technicalities. I give you a complete example based on the fact that the European broadcasting union is the organization of public service broadcasters in Europe. When we have done fact checking during the election campaign in Europe, the main problem we had was that we don't know exactly which are the news that are going fastly spreading in the internet.
We have not the tools. This information are in the hand of the platforms. We don't know, and it takes a lot of time for us to check if the starting from the point of the certain fake news was a fake account or not, while the platforms they know very well since the very beginning. The fact that the Twitter canceled 1 million 400,000 fake accounts just before the midterm elections means that they know exactly who are these fake account.
So without the cooperation of the platform, the journalists can do nothing. And until today, I have to say, unfortunately, that the platform they referred to work due to discuss with the government and say we will regulate et cetera et cetera and this is not effective. And this brings the government to become upset and angry and go to hard regulation.
I think that the cooperative way is the right way to go, and the platform not to be afraid to cooperate openly with the professional journalists because without the professional journalists, the problem will remain there forever.
The last point is we need also to tackle the business model because if the business model of the media continues to be disruptive as it is today, there will be no more professional induction of information, no more professional sources of information. And you will rely, as Marilyn said, to the neighbor's information that is not for me reliable. I don't go to my neighbor if I have a serious health problem. I go to a doctor. And if you have a problem with information, you need to go to professional that can give you immediately if it's a real or a fake news.
Long‑term. And I want to answer to the Brazilian student that was mentioned before. It's not ideological to learn young citizen at school that the presence of certain politicians to go to Twitter is motivated by the fact that they want to avoid nasty questions from journalists. This is a fact. You need to know I didn't tell like to learn to write and learn to interpreted correctly a picture. This is something that you need to integrate into curriculum, integrate in the life and the learning pros. And this is a process where media and educational system need to work together.
This, I think the government can make a difference because they can introduce this in the curriculum, install a positive process. For this a process of life‑long learning process. Because even my mother that is not going to school anymore ‑‑ the last time she went to school was 60 years ago ‑‑ the world has changed. She has not the tools to understand the problem. And so we need to be an informational society that is needed.
>> MODERATOR: Thanks for the info. Let me direct to Internet Steering Committee. Could you please answer these questions.
>> LUIZ FERNANDO MARTINS CASTRO: I would like to present an important view and maybe criticized by some of you.
I think there is a paranoia, maybe a little bit exaggerated. I think it's impossible at all to control fake news on the internet or in the web. And we must treat it as something normal or that comes with a new technology.
I think that we cannot try to control and to contribute everything, exception to hate speech, pedophile, and terrorism speeches like this, but that everyone should be accountable. That means that everyone could say whatever they want but having to answer for the consequences of their speeches.
Of course, all of us agree that it's very hard to make evidence and to control the content. It's okay we have fact checking. We have education. We have effectively to control business model, not to incentivate the use of fake news.
We have to have more ethics. But I don't think that we have to power or that is illusionary to control everything that is on the web. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Could you please answer the question.
>> YRJO LANSIPURO: Yeah, thank you. I agree with most solution here, but I want to, you know, refer to what the ICANN CO said yesterday and basically just to paraphrase, I think that he was saying that first of all don't do any harm, which is of course the old Hippocratic oath of medical profession.
But in this case whatever you do, by legislation, by any means, that may be quite blunt instruments, don't do any harm to the internet, which is a very fragile and complex construction.
Two more points. Media literacy, yes. And I think that somebody said when they use IGF because it's ‑‑ their ‑‑ it has been media education is ‑‑ because you should not teach an ideological thing. It's not ideology. It's just critical thinking and critical thinking is the basis of our organizations.
But this media education needs to be introduced early. It's a primary school. Kids who get their thirsts, at least in Finland, at the age of 6, 7, 8, they need some certain guidance.
And last point, journalism. I mean, a good ocean of good journalists keeps fake news away. And I think that we should ‑‑ everything we do to strengthen journalism, everything we do to take care of the safety of the journalists and strengthen the news rooms is good remedy against information disorder. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thanks. And then French, how do you find answers about these questions?
>> CLAIRE MELANIE POPINEAU: Yeah, we talked about how teaching critical thinking and we talked about media education. But I think that is a more global matter of education because when a child can read approximately and when someone think that a number everything on a rarity, a number alone, all these facts show that it is a linguistical matter on more global educational matter.
And in France, we heard often that there is a failure on our educational system. It is not really like that. And I think this is the really point that we need to direct to reinvent not only media education but education to really create cities and not workers through education system.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. We also have a Brazilian representative online ‑‑ Bolivian. And his opinion will be read by the remote moderator right now.
>> ONLINE MODERATOR: Are you okay?
>> MODERATOR: One moment to gain some kind of public opinion. Okay.
>> ONLINE MODERATOR: Very lovely, I would like to suggest to you two options. First option. Do you believe fake news problem can be solved by some self-regulation or media regulation?
The second question is that do we really believe the fake news solution by the law or very strong ‑‑ could you please raise your hand if you would like the first option or and then I will ask the second option. Just wanted to figure out the what kind of ‑‑ okay, first of all, could you ‑‑ if you ‑‑ could you please raise your hand if you prefer some kind of self-regulation solution with the media literacy. Self-regulation. Okay. Thank you.
And then is anybody who strongly prefer kind of the national agencies by the law? Not many people. Okay.
>> MARILYN CADE: It's Marilyn Cade asking. Are there people who would prefer a hybrid, part of option 1 and part of option two?
>> MODERATOR: Okay. It's good ration because in nation countries, they really prefer the strong regulation. I also believe that kind of regulation going to be faced some constitutional examination revealed and then ‑‑ personally, I think is there going to be ‑‑ there's a new institution of fake news for new institution of the media in the social media fake news era.
And then Bolivian?
>> ONLINE MODERATOR: Hello. A statement to be read, and I'm in charge of him. In fact, the branch of fake news is not a new issue. Reading media searches, newspapers, or bulletins were used in the past with the same purpose to deceive and manipulate people, usually for electoral or political purpose.
However, the internet and social media have greatly amplified their effect. Through social networks of popular instant messenger applications such as fake news appears in different ways. Hencely, my country, Bolivia, shocking headlines with pictures and fake contents are being formatted with no and apparently through news websites.
Then they are sent massively to groups and people who in turn make these contents viral in a matter of minute or hours. The effects is devastating for those affected.
Unfortunately, people who receive word of these news ‑‑ this content.
We found critical analysis and assuming responsibilities and consequences because although the authors or author may be committing connection that in some case can be classified as criminal, the ones who meet this information becoming accomplices.
The main challenges of identifying the origin of the content is whether the author hiding. The difficulty of providing automated monitoring or distinguishing fake from real content.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
Let's wrap it up. This session was a great opportunity to how can we tackle the social media fake news. We should try to affect the election and social integration in this country.
It was great session. Thank for the panelists. Give a big round of applause to the panelists, please.
[APPLAUSE]
>> MODERATOR: It's great moment. If you learn from the countries, your content solution, you should go get back to your own IGF and discuss more about that. There's no one clear solution of a fake news, but we will collaborate together to tackle new, emerging issue like this. Thank you so much.