The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here. I'm moderating. English is not my first language. Bear with me. I'm Santosh Sigdel. This is a workshop on Human Rights Law and the Global Digital Compact. We will be discussing briefly about the work of the dynamic competition and after that we will have three of the experts. After that, we have a group session. We will be navigating the challenges that we might face in the next ten years and how it can be used as a tool to navigate those channels in the online. There will be some recommendations for the stakeholders from our side for new challenges. That's the outline of the ‑‑ of this workshop. Regarding the dynamic coalition, we started it in 2008. It is an open network of individuals who are making human rights effective in the online space. This is the open coalition. Anybody can go and subscribe to the e‑mail. Our web site and since 2014 it is the committee member of the media and information society of the council of Europe. The charter of the coalition, one of the major outcomes of the dynamic coalition is the human rights charter and principles. Pertaining to the charter of the rights and principle. It was published in 2018. One of our major work is translation. Making it available in different languages. So far, the charter has been translated into 12 languages. It is the same country level. We also collaborate with the dynamic coalition and engage with the tech holder in different countries. At same time we also raised our awareness about the need of implementing the rights‑based approach while developing and implementing Internet framework in the country level.
So we have been ‑‑ the translation work is the approach. There's no dedicated support and funding for ha. We collaborate with the other organizers and volunteers for different countries. And we will be saying about the Japanese charter that we represented. Last year we had translated the charter into Nepali. This year we have translated it into a Japanese language. We have a copy of that as well. Dennis will be talking about the Japanese translation in a while. We hear the adversary about the work that was carried out in 2023. The coalition participated and presented the ‑‑ literally in Africa we participate in the Ghana and presented the charter. There was a UNESCO conference on platform accountability, sorry, guideline with the social media governance is France. We participated and presented in the charter. Similarly in Nepal, we participated. I appreciated the time. We took part in the human rights mission of Nepal and implementation in the charter in the local con Tech and emphasising the rule of the commission. Similarly the web site for the accessibility approach and improved the accessibility this year. We organised the perspective workshop. Similarly the work of this year, the Japanese translation of the charter which will be further explaining about it. Dennis?
>> DENNIS REDEKER: Absolutely. Thank you, Santosh. Today and on occasion we're launching the Japanese translation of the ten principles. This is the short version of the charter. This is a document of 25‑plus pages. That's a much bigger effort. The ten principles document that we got help translating for this conference. The conference also is to place where we hope that we can garner more interest in the charter among Japanese stakeholders in order to get more engagement of the coalition with the people in Japan. So if you are ‑‑ if you know someone, if you yourself are a Japanese speaker, feel free to join a task force that we're setting up to translate the charter. We now have 12 different translations of the charter. It would be great to have the 13th soon. That will be the Japanese version. This is teamwork. It is not that much time commitment. We look for people who have a grasp of international law. Ideally both. You can contact me. You are here in the room. Contact me. Write me a personal message if you are online. We're happy to engage. We hope to launch this in Japan, IGF, and Asia‑Pacific regional next year. That's already ‑‑ with the updates from the coalition. Thank you for listening. We'll distribute those after the session or in between. You can take a flier home if you want. That's also the web site thereon.
>> SANTOSH SIGDEL: Thank you, Dennis. We are discovering about our work. We're turning to the main part of the session talking about the human rights law and global digital compact. So in this presentation there will be three different speakers talking about the different dynamic of the global compact for the human rights law. To open, I request the co‑chair of the dynamic coalition, Raashi.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Hi. I hope you are doing well. I'm also moderating the session. I'm going to talk lightly about the GDC and give everyone an overview of the events that have happened, how we've participated, and, of course, I'll give it to Melody and Dennis. It was agreed upon in the summit of the future. Looking at digital corporations with United Nations, governments, civil society, and looking at a more multistakeholder digital technology track. We've seen this also in a lot of conversations where the SDGs are technology avoidant. Maybe this is a good gap to ‑‑ at least we look at it as a way to fill it up. Then there was ‑‑ there was also a decision held at the UN general assembly that was held on the 22nd and 23rd of September which would look at opening for comments on, you know, collecting inputs from interested stakeholders that would consider the GDC. We also have Sweden and Rwanda that are looking at appointing facilitators into the process and looking at road maps. From an IRPC point of view, some of the topics that interest us is the topic of digital inclusion and connectivity and, of course, we have, you know, a few topics in our charter. It directly goes into addressing the digital inclusion gaps that have faced refugees and looking at marginalised groups and how digital inclusion can also foster and include public participation, political participation, and how involving these groups in digital policy‑making processes is important. We also look at the point of human rights online. Where how can we equate that the same rights that people have offline are also seen online. Looking at cross cutting issues on freedom of expression, information, net neutrality, and, of course, also looking at providing multilateralism and culture of diversity. And also looking at children's rights and looking at agency and ensuring there's protection of privacy. There's also one on digital trust and safety looking at artificial intelligence being in the technical component on how the pervasive influence on how good include and influence financial services and how one should have agency on knowing whether AI is used in the process of, for example, in decoding, in the public health sector, and looking at the ramifications of AI on driving economic growth, but looking at it from a privacy concern. Safety concern, security concern, the specific media and ‑‑ also looking at an advanced technology that could look at examples that are more triggering for regulation, having more policy discussions, and, of course, just giving you a little overview. Then you can have you join in.
>> Right. I was a last‑minute addition to the panel. I'm going to be ‑‑ look ‑‑ I think the GDC in its sort of current policy draft, whatever, which is really the only document that we have to go on along with everything that was said in the various different consultations. I think it really ‑‑ it does a good job of referring repeatedly to human rights. It also refers to ongoing instruments, sort of, you know, like guiding principles on business and the universal decoration of human rights. It doesn't try to create a new set of rights. That's as it should be. There's a lot about misinformation and putting responsibility off platforms. There's a huge focus on article XIX, specifically on rights. I think what it doesn't do, there's time to do that, is really think about how those mechanisms are actually going to be implemented. Right. Even guiding businesses and human right. These are not binding. These are voluntary sign‑up things. I'm not sure how that process is. There's been very little visibility on that. I think that's kind of important. One of the critiques that I made yesterday in the session that ambassador was at as well was that there's so far been very little really to bring the different communities together. We've been civil society consultations have been in one side. The businesses have been talking, you know, separately amongst themselves, et cetera. Somehow the synthesised document in the current draft is out. Really it is the interaction of the various stakeholders groups that has to be facilitated. But I find the fundamental structural issue in that private companies are not the only violations of human rights. States and state mechanisms are a huge violator. In setting this as much as it gives way, it is set within the multilateral system. Nations states are the primary warning base when it comes to key decisions. And they are that system is unable to account. People who filter the Internet for billions of people and don't let their citizens, you know, browse what they like or say what they like. People who shut down the Internet under the excuses. There's no mechanism to hold nations to account. This is just a feature of the multilaterally system. Not of the GDC, by the way; right? That's a real fundamental shortfall. We need to think about this. There's no point talking about human rights when wars are going on. There's no mechanism. What are we talking about the Internet? I think the other issue is that human rights are viewed as sort of the exotic set of rights. Without really embedding them with the economic rights. They are intertwined. The GDG talks about the need for connectivity. It is like 1‑0. It is going to be moving ‑‑ sort of the continuum. And the kind of human rights that you can engage in are really dependent on the kind of social, economic power that you have. The Internet is vital to that. They are really interconnected. I don't think it really helps today to talk about these two things. The social economic rights and human rights as if one is more important than the other. They are intertwined and quite important. There's also, I think, my last point is that the GDC is going on in the process. In a way quite removed from what's really happening on the ground. While the conversation is going on and everyone is waiting for the summit of the future, what's really going on, for example, in south Asia is that everyone is coming up with laws and regulations that really fundamentally hinder rights. The recent technology that we proposed online safety bill. It is called an online safety bill; it is a speech moderation bill in Sri Lanka. We can cite many, many examples. We have no idea how the parallel systems ‑‑ the rights‑based human‑centric word. The underlying layer which is rushing by the way. Everyone is pushing for these. They should be done. They are completely removed from any of the GDC discussions and the vision that we have for the future. We're going to have a whole set of laws that violate. We have. And the new ones are also going to violate, you know, speech and many other rights. That connection is not really made. I find that problematic. Thank you.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Someone is online? Do you want me to comment? Who is online?
Okay. So who? We have Wolfgang next. I can see now. Sorry about that. Are you online? Okay. You can go ahead. Dennis, go ahead.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: I think it actually fits quite well here. That's the academic University of Brehmhem. I'm trying to focus the talk. Things are brought of who are the potential human rights violators anyways? You mentioned states as one of the main sources potentially. It is not just companies, obviously. And what I do when I do research, I ask people about the opinions. Across the world and actually in the global south and eastern Europe. I'm presenting some results here that I think are quite interesting for those who care about the global digital compact consultants and the process. And then relate, I think, also to maybe what people in the countries think about the governments with relation to making good rules on the global level and the governments influence on processes at the unlevel in the field. Now it is a very big challenge for someone that does public opinion research to ask the general population. What have they ‑‑ what has the average Internet users that I asked in terms of knowledge on the consultations and on the process. It is very difficult. It's a technical process. People would not be in‑tuned to the topics of global Internet and Internet governance. I asked easier questions. I ask people in your opinion who should provide the input into writing of the global digital compact. This is now explained to people that responded to the survey. If that makes the rules on the global level for digital technologies and so on. Who should have an influence on these ‑‑ on the global digital compact and I also asked them in reality who do you think actually has an influence in the process. Then lastly, we also asked them which are the principles if you have to in an abstract way that you have to think about principles that you care most about which do you want to see in the global digital compact? The survey ran with a couple of colleagues. Among them here I point you out one of the research assistants collaborate us here. This is the survey asking Internet users about their opinions. Recruitment among the social media users, the ads that we put out for the 31.4 million users was a quota sampling conducted and in total of 41 countries and six languages last year and early this year and 17.5 thousand people responded. I asked them who do you think you should listen to when listens to different stakeholders? You can't read it in the room necessarily. I'm going to read it out. The bottom left bar is technical experts. They should have the most influence in shaping the GDC. Secondly academics with about 50%. 45% of the citizens think that citizens should be heard by the UN in the process. In the consultations there, opportunities like that. The civil society for 30% of the respondents. And national government interestingly although they seem to have a great deal of impact obviously, only 35% of the respondents thought they should be listened to and give input. Businesses even less so. This is even more interesting about it. 18% or so of respondents think they should be heard on the global digital compact. I also asked them. This is what you want. What do you think actually happens? Well, technical experts. They are being listened to. No question about that. Academics. They are not listened to enough. I obviously agree. Citizens are not listened to. That's what they think in comparison to what they think and how it should be. NGOs less than it should be. National governments are not being listened to. This is what the people out there think. 17.5 thousand people. They might be ‑‑ they are certainly not right, I think. This is the perception. This is the idea of what people have when you ask them the general population. People think that businesses, although they shouldn't be listened to, they are more listened to than they should be. So this is, I think, quite telling about this question. It may actually tell you something about what ‑‑ this is connecting to the previous talk. What people think about who might be risks for human right‑based digital governance. It might be the companies or the states. Not the others. Please let the others have an influence on this. Then I also ask the question. This is a very ‑‑ the topics of the GDC are complex. You can't ask. How should the text be in the end? Please write it down. I ask people about core principles. I selected some. I asked them about all of the principles. I asked them if they agreed that's a principle that should be included. Security of children online tops the list. Most people ‑‑ more than 70% of the respondents think that's very important and should be included in security of privacy online more than 60% fighting the hate speech. It is up there on the list. Protection of intellectual property. But also greater cultural, linguistic diversity online. Network neutrality makes the list and right to encryption of data, more innovation and it is rather in the last third of those. Open source software doesn't feature up high. Neither does open data. Those who say there should be no censorship online are only about 20 to 30%. This is also a result ‑‑ what does no censorship? No moderation, essentially, if you will of any kind. Only just one or two slides more. This is a slide that says and shows in which countries people tend to say there should be no censorship online. These are primarily countries in ‑‑ sorry. In eastern Europe and central and eastern Europe, Latin America, and not so much in sub-Saharan and northern Africa and southeast Asia. Those asked about cultural and language right online, it is predominantly very strong around the African continent and some places in Latin America. Yeah. Maybe that's just the data. I think it is insight for us to think about the bottom up view. We often talk about it. How are people affected? I wanted to think about how can we talk to people about the GDC and what they think about this? Very abstract form sometimes with the principles. That's not the same discussion. Also very concretely. Who should be listened to? That's something if we know how things are going and reality and what people think it should give us at least some thought. And with that, I'm ending. Hopefully we have Wolfgang online.
>> If you are talking about me, I'm Wolfgang Benedek. I'm in Austria. It is a pleasure to listen to you and see you here. I've involved in the past in drafting of the charters. That's quite some time ago. I'm very pleased to see what progress has been made in the meantime with regard to the translations of the principles and the charter itself. I have to say I'm not an expert of the GDC. I'm working on artificial intelligence and human rights at the moment. We have a network of academics. A global network. In that respect, I'm I wanted to put the question to what extent in the global regulation is very much needed. However on the basis, we can expect some ‑‑ we regard to the rights and enshrined in our charter. And also with regard to the question of implementation. But I have listened to the percentile. This actually seems to be the gap. That there's little enforcement. That's not untypical for such situations. You need to get an agreement. Still what is the value add up of the GDC in that respect?
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Thanks so much, Wolfgang. Now over to Santosh or Dennis for the activity or open for questions? Yeah. We can do that. I wanted to check. Anyone had any questions or comments. I'll get up and give you the microphone. Then everyone could raise their hand so I could pass on the microphone.
>> Thank you very much. When I listen to human rights, which I think we all care a big deal about, I begin to wonder about human responsibilities. I don't know if we've had a charter that speaks to that. It seems to me in the environment that we're in in the online world that we have shared responsibility in addition for asking for and expecting rights. I don't know if we've tried to articulate that. Would you suppose it would be worth our time to try to offer what responsibilities we have as consumers, users, and occupiers of the online space?
>> Is there anyone else that has any comment or questions?
Just raise your hand.
No one? I'll give it a moment.
Go ahead.
>> Hello, everyone. This is Pyor from the coalition of the Internet governance as a community member. I have been on the internet coalition and been presence about the chart during the webinar that was happening in the ASEAN ‑‑ the Asian network. That's interesting. I'm curious about how we can engage and how we can get and how do you have a plan to bring them to get in at the chart or maybe translation part of something like that? That is what I wanted to know.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Maybe I can respond to ha. We are actually very open with partnership. We do have a partnership even with say the youth coalition on governance. A lot of those members also get ‑‑ I was an example of that. I was part of the ICG and I transitioned into co‑chair. The RPC e‑mailing list is good for opportunities on how to participate. The IGF is a good place. There's different ways. One is the Internet societies programme. But there are a lot of ways in which the country hosts have their own programmes on how you can participate in different sessions, and contribute remotely leading up to the event and even after whether it is a discussion paper or policy proposal. I would say the world is your oyster. You can connect with us after the session. We can see how we can collaborate together on the charter translation or anything else. I hope that answers your question. Okay.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: Maybe. You've worked on the translation project. I'll give you a microphone in a second. One other example is universities work on the charter. We had two universities in Italy in northeast and southern, to get their students involved into translation of the charter. It was headed by Mr. Lester and really trying to see whether this is worthwhile. They have the translation for the Italians to read and also for the students to think about what it means to translate English language text into your own language. What does it mean in your context. Often it is not just the translation that you can do with automated translation services. It really means it is translated in another language. You have to understand what it means. There's a different term for hate speech or something else. Everyone engages with the translations. Santosh, do you have another example; right?
>> SANTOSH SIGDEL: Yeah. We collaborated with the local NGO in Nepal. It is necessary that local people are used. Because the human agency is important. In the draft they can discuss it with their stakeholders. For example, I'll give you one example. The translation of the governance. When we talk about Internet governance, the real term and translation is not there. We had to use Internet governance in a romantisised way. After the long discussion, we continued with the Internet governance. We work with the local community and local holder. That's not only the translation. It is also the part of building capacity of the globalistic world. In the process of translating, you are working with the concept of the charter. That will also build the capacity of the local stakeholders that I fell personally.
>> I'm going to try to address this issue of, I think, responsibility. I'm going to give a very retail‑level answer. I think responsibility lies within ‑‑ obviously all of the different actors in the Internet value chain. I think consumers also do have. I think back at the environmental protection movement. My mother's generation it was very normal to go on trips and eat out of plastic wrappers and leave that stuff there. We no longer do that. Cross the world. We are much more conscious about it. That's a responsibility act that's been grilled into us through primary education almost maybe? Right? And the global conversation. It is being matched with incentive for good behavior. That's maybe sometimes punishment the other side of incentives; right? Right? I do think there's a responsibility. The danger of only having the responsibility conversation is it puts the responsibility on only the individuals. The language that women should save God yourself on the Internet. That's not the conversation. We have a civic responsibility. What we say and do on the Internet unless it is one‑on‑one message there's externalities. There's people that unintentionally come across it. There's a responsibility. I think we need to start very much for retail individuals with sort of young people and how we teach them on what civic behavior online is.
>> SANTOSH SIGDEL: Can I just add something to ha? I just wanted to relate with the ongoing discourse around the countries. We have seen, in some cases, in the context of south Asia and Nepal, the government is trying to impose the concept towards the city. You have to filter the conversation or the expiration on the Internet to make sure there's no propagation of the fake news or mission permission or division permission. Based on the responsibility, they want to frame a law or the legal regime where they can also kind of ‑‑ they can also control the expiration. Sometimes the argument is from the point of controlling the Internet, it is coming from point of view also. We should also consider that.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Maybe we can move to the activity. Yeah.
>> It is Vint Cerf again. In some sense, we agree to give up certain rights for safety and security, for instance, and in different countries. We'll choose to give up more or less depending on what we're comfortable with. There are other things that we call norms. Those are not exactly responsibilities. They are behavior patterns that the society generally teaches us that we should adopt. There's not an enforcement element. I think it is important for us to recognise as we demand rights that we also recognise that we have responsibilities that go along with them. Sometimes we don't often remember that part.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: My colleagues Dennis and Santosh are going to lead you through an activity. We are going to go into groups of four or five. Maybe we could have a random selection. I could ‑‑ I mean if ‑‑ go ahead. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. People come this way.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: It takes about 20 minutes. It is going to be a discussion within the group. You get to know new people hopefully.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Sorry. You have another obligation? You can go. That's fine. Sure. Sure. Sure.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: For those that are remaining, it is 20 minutes in the group. You get to know your group mates. That's a great thing. We'll come back together.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Okay. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. This group is larger. Maybe if you could come in closer. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So you move actually that way with them. You come in closer. Thank you for staying. Yes.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: So we're now going to start the group phase. We'll have one group online. Everyone that's online, after we give instructions, please do to the breakout room. I think. I'm correct, we're going to have a breakout room for you created; correct? Yeah. Yeah. For everyone else, the idea for today is to have a look at charter. This is the charter that we've brought. Unfortunately it is only very bad copies. It is English version of other translations. The idea is to pick one of the articles. Which is related to one or several right and principles. One of the articles of the charter as a group. And to think about the challenges that this article and the associated right and principle to face in the next ten years. Think about the most horrible technological development, political developments that can occur and think about this is a first step. Then think in the second step about what the global digital compact could do in order to help lower the risk in order to help address the challenge that you have to find. The challenges that you have to find. For the article that you have focusing on. First, get to know each other. Introduce yourselves to each other. Pick an article. Think about challenges for the next ten years. Then what you think about the international community can do. What should be entail and come out in the future in New York of 2024 that would help against the challenges? Any questions? Either in the room or online. Afterwards we'll come together and quickly discuss what you have come up with and have a discussion. Any questions in the room? No? Then you have 20 minutes. Go.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Hi, everyone. I have an announcement. We have five minute. Maybe you could have a representative to talk about the output of stakeholders learning. Five more minutes. Enjoy. Thanks.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Hi, everyone. I unfortunately ‑‑
(tapping microphone)
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Hi. Your five minutes are up. I'll give you another 2:00. I'm going to time you this time. Yeah.
Can we have group one starting please? I do ‑‑ who is group one? Santosh? You were group one. Yes.
We look forward to getting your input. Please introduce yourself and if you could also talk a little bit about your group, what you discussed ‑‑
>> Okay. I start by discussing we didn't know who would report. We picked two. We talked about the freedom of expression. Noting there's a long time there's been a debate about whether or how it applies online. Some people think it should not be someone different online. Of course, there are differences in the scale and speed and so on. The principle should be the same. Exactly why? It has been argued it was different and how it can be different online. How does this apply online for human rights? Okay. Maybe I'll hand it over to you from this point.
>> So the thing that we were discussing in the group is of course freedom of expression. It is in the offline and online world. Every day we say this is a right. There were better ways to stop. If somebody says which is a hate speech or makes some commands which might provoke violence against part of the committee, it could be curbed in another way. With the speed and scale in the online, we see the misinformation and coming from global we've seen in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Somebody writes a hateful poster against the minority and indigenous group. Even the real, physical loss of life. The expression in the online word we have to be cautious about how to protect and stop the dissemination of misinformation as well. This also means that, you know, there should be regulations. We should also be mindful as civil society that the comments are not going overboard with the regulations in terms of principle for accessibility and forewarning the government should not use this particular thing for the curb the actual application of the rights. The things like national security and carving misinformation should not be used to curtail the rightful expression. Not all opinions are misinformation. The facts are there. We can't say all of the opinions are misinformation. We need to find and these are the responsibilities of states and this is the responsibility of businesses and this is the responsibility of stakeholders in the environment. These are our responsibilities. So I'm noting that the freedom of expression the first thing in the offline world is the speed and scale makes it much more difficult to control the spread of information. That can actually loss of life and serious harm to certain communities.
>> Thank you.
>> The final comment, we did not solve all of the problems. We just talked about them.
(Laughter)
>> Okay. Group two now.
Group two. Please introduce yourself.
>> I'm Serio from Latin America. I'm voicing out what we discussed. We picked article XIII which is about the rights of the persons with disabilities. And how this can be a challenge, you know? How it will be like in the future. That's what is our discussion. So our idea was that technology's getting better and better. Some of the issues it might solve in the future definitely. Resource some gaps in, you know, areas like if you take pens with hearing impaired, where you need a lot of technological involvement and also if you take sign language is not kind of a universal language that you find. There are, like, regional variations and language variations and all of that. How do you make Internet accessible for them is going to be a challenge? You have all of the technological development, AI, helping you to read your lip and, you know, turning it into sign language and all of that. So the other point that we discuss is that you need to have inclusion by design. We can make, you know, all of the designs inclusive. We can, like, pride and commence on whatever the things like, you know, the developments out there and make those. And compel them to make those inclusive. Also getting community engagement and empowerment is also going to be really important. Because if you take persons with disabilities, they have always problems of creating the oasis. The system and the majority that follows. Sometimes you have, for example, for a certain comments you might have to submit written comments. You might have to go to the building and give your comments. Those things might restrict some of the persons with disabilities. We have to code them and find a way to get their comments on those things as well. Anything else? Okay. Thank you.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Thank you so much for your comments. Now we have last few not least, group three.
>> Hello, everyone. I'm from Nepal. We've talked about children on the Internet. We're going to present our conclusion here. First of all, I would like to say it is actually not the future of our nation and whatever rights we give them today it brings our nation, like what brings our nation in ten years is different upon the rights given today for our children. There may be lots of ‑‑ it will be exercised. Like on the other side, for the system while giving an excellent and giving them the rights and exercising their rights. Like the rights from the Internet, like we have given them a proper right to use and we have given them the rights, including their freedom of expression and freedom. While giving them the kind of right today, it might benefit them for the basis only. It can go darker and darker. If it is not regulated in the right way. For example, you can see the material like the chat GPT, it is becoming strong. It is becoming dangerous for the children. If we do not give this kind of right to children. Then we are not getting their right. And if we give this kind of right to them and then their committee might get destroyed in maybe five or ten years. And they might fully depend on the AI. So that body positive and negative aspect of the giving rights to the children. But what we suit and what the government suit is. What they are giving to their children and what is the future of the ‑‑ what it will bring. We have to talk about freedom from expression inside, like in the society, school, and country, we can see there's a strong rule that protects children from exploitation. In the online or in the online Internet it is not ‑‑ they are not protected safely. They are exploited more on the Internet than in the physical environment or ‑‑ a while giving freedom from representation. It is effective. For in the physical concept delivered in the virtual world it is not so strong. They can ‑‑ they might not get for another time to exercise its right. So while the government body or any try to exercise the freedom from expertism and this would be more specific on the Internet. Expect a burning. Some kind of activities. They were not effective. There should be a strong mechanism. Thank you so much.
>> Thank you for your comments. Now Dennis will ask the online participants.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: Yes. I asked the question in the chat. If you want to weigh in from online, please raise your hand, I think.
If that's not the case, we can head back to you, Raashi, for the last round of comments.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: All right. You want to start with me?
>> DENNIS REDEKER: Many things have been said. We haven't talked about the global compact solutions. If someone wants to bring it back to that, that's the original thought of the discussion. Take it from here. I'm sorry.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: That's true. Is there anyone who wants to or has a counterargument? Do you want to go or do you want the microphone?
>> I'm Tom Whey. It is interesting none of the group came up with the solution with the DDC. That's maybe telling someone about the impact of the GDC on the international human rights law perspective. I think the lady spoke about the human rights mentioning in the techiest. How concretely we can talk about the right and legal ‑‑ legality to the connected arguments and I think that's maybe a big question. Thank you.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Thanks so much. Anyone else who has any rebuttals? Solutions? Comments? Maybe comments about what another group said agreeing or disagreeing? Did someone come online?
>> Hi. Can I go ahead?
>> Yes. Please go ahead.
>> Okay. Hi. Hello, everyone. I'm Veronica Pana. I'm a student at the Tel Aviv University. We didn't have time to have a conversation. We focused on the rights and access to the Internet. I know that we're asked to identify some of the challenges and I spoke from a home perspective. I'm from Nigeria. Do we have that right? For me I'm saying that what we've experienced now, countries where we've seen instances where government infringes on the rights. The instance I gave is when the Nigeria government shut down access to Twitter in the country. At that time which is currently it. Although we have the rights access to Internet, we could see that the government could impeach on the rights. Other African countries have experienced Internet shutdowns. That's critical. Even if the article states that we have the rights to access the Internet, everybody knows that. From my own perspective, I'm seeing when we don't have these passed into legislation in the country that we're in, I'll speak for my country, Nigeria, when we don't have the legislation, it is difficult for enforcement purposes. One of the solutions that I speak of is having the laws passed in the country that reflects the principles. We have the rights. Like in our constitution. The new interaction with technology it is difficult. Whatever country passed that. It is in the non‑profit sector and being able to bypass these have been to use strategic litigation to change the governments and instances of breach of certain digital rights. So for us, that's been a creative way of using present laws. I'll give the stance. Like the right to privacy. Right to have access to information. Using those rights to go through the courts to challenge those rights. I hope I've been able to make a contribution. Thank you very much.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Thank you for your input. It is so great. Anyone else online that would like to give their inputs? And if not, anyone here? If not, I will give it back to Santosh.
>> SANTOSH SIGDEL: Before I speak, just continue the discussion from where she has started. About the why we want to discuss about the challenges and why there was no discussion about solutions and what would be the role of the Global Digital Compact in designs the solution? Just wanted to know. Your ‑‑ you asked about the stakeholders which are responsible for the framing the GDC or how effective they are and what role they have in framing the GDC. But maybe one question in the global south or all over the world we have to ask how involved with the stakeholders in different tables are in the global digital compact designing process? It is started in September of 2021. Now we are in October of 2023. Two years has gone. They plan to even plans to adopt it by the future submitted in September 2023. So we have almost 11 months and one year in our hand. But looking at the kind of discourse in southeast or the developing countries. There's no discussing about the global ways to compact. Even the government, they don't know about. Society and media they don't know about it. You are in organising, they are not talking about the Global digital Compact. It could be another compact. We are talking about the multipilarism and multistakeholderism and all of the stakeholders. If the compact is coming like this without proper consultation and even the stakeholder not knowing about you or about it in the larger framework. What kind of impact it will have? The second question is about the enforceability. Earlier that Melody mentioned of. We have, for example, the guidelines by the UN. That's normally framework. What would be the status of the global digital compact and how it would be enforced and what would be the role of different stakeholders in the whole process. If we look at compact from that perspective, maybe we can have some roles into it and different stakeholders can have some roles into. We can device and design it in a manner that it would be helpful to address the challenges on the different human rights and online interests that we are discussing now.
>> Quick comment. I think as much as we find fault with it, it has made a lot of effort for consultation. So I kind of, you know, agree and I'm kind of disagreeing with you. But consultation processes even at the national level are completely imperfect processes; right? The privileged participate the knowledgeable people participate. We've done what infrastructure. That's the nature of consultations. Large amounts of money have been spent. There was a global consultation. And I thought it was much more consultive than many other global processes actually. They did make the effort. It is never going to be perfect. The only way for it to make it perfect is to run national level elections on whether we agree on some of the articles in there. It is by definition going to be imperfect. It is still ongoing. The official consultations are over. There's still a lot of opportunity to influence. To me the sign that there are at least three sessions here at IGF itself, and, for example, I told you organised by somebody else. Aisle a speaker. All of the ambassador host of the countries hosting this Germany and Kenya and other one came. Somebody in the room all the time. At least there's the theater of listening; right? I don't know what actually influenced. So I think I'm trying to say something very positive about this. In the imperfect situation, the global mechanisms and enforcement is quite tough. We don't all live in the EU. We have a common understanding and structure. Question, there's some room for countries to wiggle around once the common framework is set. We don't live anywhere in the world. Even if we end up with the perfect document, it is, I think, at ground level for people like us to make sure that our nations developed policies that are at least reflective and aligned with that, I think.
>> RAASHI SAXENA: Okay. We're running out of time. Dennis is going to close the session for us.
>> DENNIS REDEKER: Thank you so much. Thank you all for coming. I think was very good to communication. We have English and Japanese versions of the principles. Take one, two, or three. And bring them to your friends that might be interested. Thank you for joining us today, and also online. Thank you.
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