FINISHED TRANSCRIPT
NINTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE
INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM 2014
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
"CONNECTING CONTINENTS FOR
ENHANCED MULTI‑STAKEHOLDER INTERNET GOVERNANCE"
05 SEPTEMBER 2014
11:00
WS 21
INTERMEDIARIES' ROLE AND GOOD PRACTICE IN PROFTECTING FOE
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This is the output of the real‑time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey, meetings. 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 session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> GUY BERGER: Good morning everybody. Thank you for coming. My name is Guy Berger. We have a great panel on a really important topic.
I was also want to, before we start, acknowledge this research has been a collaboration of UNESCO, and I see ISOC for your support for this and conceptual involvement as well, of course, and open society foundation. So together we came up with this thing and we've been working very closely with Rebecca MacKinnon and have done an epic job. When you see this final report you will be amazed what the human capacity can generate. It is a worldwide study and it is very, very thorough and comprehensive. I won't spend long. I am going to say a little bit about this study.
UNESCO's main job is to encourage member states to live up to their expression to freedom of international standards. You should know that the UN also what is called the raggy principles by the private sector is deemed to have some responsibility for Mu Hans rights as well.
The question then is okay, is a private sector also meeting international standards for freedom of expression such as proportionality in its measures in regard freedom of expression, legitimacy, transparency, potential redress.
So this is the research to see what is happening in the intermediary space, private sector space and what is good and what can be improved.
It gets into a bigger debate and you all know about and this is intermediaries and government keeps their hands clean and immediate years are required to make the judgment call and they must take a claim. So that is privatized censorship or whether it's private censorship, if it is censorship. If it is private it has been made and according to what standards. So people know. And I'm sure we'll hear that, that there is a global network initiative which is trying to develop standards on this basis and this is part of the discussion.
Anyway, certainly from the media experience, self‑regulation is a well established tradition that instead of having government regulation, you have a degree of self‑regulation amongst its private leader. Does the same system can operate with tech companies that don't have a background in the media issues of public interest professional standards and whether there is a publisher correction or an apology in newspaper or broadcaster.
I also wanted to say two things before we jump into the meat. We have done two nice studies in the past, this one freedom of connection, freedom of expression was done with William Dutto and the Oxford institute and we did this one with Toby and Toby on Internet privacy. This came out long before the Snowden. Not so long, but came out before that. This is also a review of privacy regimes online, as they apply online around the world. The great thing was we also get these translated into French Arabic, any other languages? Okay. Well, this one was in Chinese also in Mandarin. So with this research as well that we work on and that should be published by the end of the year. So you are getting the preview. This research we should also find resources and public them in lots of language. It's really a ground breaking study.
My last point is that UNESCO is working on a comprehensive Internet study at the moment which we will table at a conference on the third or fourth of March next year. A multistakeholder conference and the study will then be debated by UNESCO member states. 195 Governments will debate the studies and what it means for UNESCO and Governments both internally and externally. They will debate in November. So March will be draft of the study and November will be the government making a decision on these questions.
In this research that Rebecca has led will be extremely valuable factor, a contribution to this bigger study that we have to do so we really do thank them for that.
Well, we have got some people here that are going to comment on the report also. They've seen a draft, and we do have a few copies of an executive summary over here and we have some copies about this UNESCO Internet study if you yourself have research that you wish to contribute, please do.
I'll introduce the panelists briefly, but I think let's jump straight in. I need to introduce Rebecca, who doesn't need that much introduction, but people will know Rebecca, I think, first and foremost for her book called consent of the network and she's also director of the ranking digital rights project.
Next to her is Allon Bar, and he works for the project.
Rebecca.
>> REBECCA MACKINNON: Thanks very much. I have a presentation, and I'm not sure how to get it up on the screen. Here we are. Hopefully the clicker will work.
Just before I start, I want to acknowledge not only Allon Barr, who is sitting next to me, who has been really critical in both coordinating and writing and researching and so on, Betal Hitchcock from the Centre of Society in Banglador did a great deal of research for this report, and it would not have been possible without her.
Kirstin from the Humble Institute in Berlin, she is also here. She was critical in doing research for two of the case studies, both ISPs from Germany, the elements from Germany, as well as the social networking platform elements from Germany and there's a list of other researchers that I've got at the end of the presentation and I'll kind of thank them fully as well. But this is really a group effort that involved researchers in a number of different countries, providing the research and then multiple people helping to synthesize it.
So while I'm giving the presentation I'm standing on the shoulders of many people who have done a lot of hard work.
So, intermediaries. This report is about the role of Internet intermediaries in fostering freedom of expression. So what are intermediaries? The OECD definition of Internet intermediaries or immediate years generally is entities that bring together or facilitate transactions between third parties on the Internet. Another definition that's commonly cited in describing Internet intermediaries is any entity that enables the communication of information from one party to another. So therefore, the BBC news website is not an Internet Mead year in terms of the part of the website that's actually publishing original reporting edited content by its staff. That is not an Internet intermediary. That is an online news platform and online media platform. And, so, in terms of different types of intermediaries, I will get into that in a moment, but the context in which we're looking an enter meet intermediaries and all of the intermediaries we're looking at in this study are operated by companies is kind of two layers of context. The first layer is freedom of expression.
And, of course, article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights in the international covenant on civil and political rights makes very clear what freedom of expression is and that limitations must be based on law, must be necessary and proportionate and more recently the United Nations has, of course, affirmed that freedom of expression applies equally online and off line. So this is obviously the premise from which you're looking at these issues.
Then also protection of privacy is essential to the flourishing of freedom of expression and that, too, having been affirmed by the you United Nations.
The second look at intermediaries is humans rights. The intermediaries we're studying are all operated by companies. According to the UN guiding principals on business and human rights. Of course governments have a primary duty to respect human rights. However, companies also have the responsibility to respect human rights. That was written incorrectly. Governments have a duty to ‑‑ it is not respect, but protect human rights. So that is an error that will need to be corrected. Protecting rights.
Companies all have the responsibility to respect human rights and both must insure, let's see if this bullet point will appear, must ensure access to remedy.
Remedy is a third pillar. When rights is abused is there a mechanism for redress both at the state level through legal or other mechanisms and also are the companies providing any mechanism for complaints and redress.
In terms of intermediary types, unfortunately the red isn't appearing here very well, but there are a number of intermediary types. This study is looking at three different types. The OECD, they're different organisations have come up with different taxonomies of intermediaries and we in our report we have sort of a chart with the different taxonomies from different organisations, but here in the slide we're basically I'm showing one, two, three, four, five, six different types that the OECD lace out Internet active, infer net serve engines and portals, Ecommerce intermediaries and Internet payment systems and at the bottom that is completely illegible on the screen what the OECD calls networking platforms which is another way of saying social networking platforms.
Our study is looking at three of those intermediary types first being Internet search engines. I put them in red hoping that would be clearer but that obscured the thing so I apologize for not having been able to test it on this screen in advance. Then also the third category we look at it is the social networking platforms.
You know, just due to capacity we couldn't look at all intermediary types. I think it would be really valuable for another study to be done on web hosting and data processing and domain name, I think, intermediaries particularly because as we did our research there was clearly a great deal of relationship with those intermediaries that we did not have the time and resources to cover in the indepth case studies.
So the three case studies are, and I'm afraid I have some red that's not going to turn up very well. Internet service providers. What we did is look at Internet service providers both fixed line and mobile. That is how we're defining Internet service providers in this case we tried to get a cross‑section of regional providers and look at kind of cross‑section of different companies in different regional context. So Vodafone. Relooked at three different restrictions. UK, Egypt. We looked at Vivo which is a Spanish company, Vivo based in Brazil. Baretl, looking at their operations in India and Kenya and safari.com in Kenya. Again, to get a comparative perspective on the policies and practices.
Then search engines, there's really in the world three major search engines that are used by the majority of people using search. Sorry, Microsoft. Google BDU and Yandex. Of course, BDU, the Chinese search engine, and Yandex, the Russian search engine are used primarily in those jurisdictions, looked at those places. We looked at Google across a range of jurisdictions including Russia as well as Google's home company EU and to get a comparative perspective. Of course Google is much more than a search engine but our mandate was to do specific case studies and let's see if I can get bullet point number 3 or if it is ever going to appear here. There we go.
Okay. So the illegible red again. Social networking platforms we looked at FACEBOOK and Twitter as the kind of U.S. global networks, acknowledging that Google also does social networking, but, you know, we're trying to get a variety of different intermediary types and different case studies. Wabo in China and then there is a social network that when we started doing the research was operating in Hungary and then in the middle of our research close e down. It's IWIW or I've is how it is pronounced in Hungary, but we wanted to take a look at a more localized social net York and not just look at sort of the famous big players to see what the comparison was there.
So obviously I don't have a lot of time to go into huge detail on the findings of the case studies. The report will be coming out before the end of the year, certainly. The panelists have red the draft, so we'll be able to kind of pick up on some of the details and Guy will bring that out a bit in his questions. Let's see if I can advance this slide here. It seems to depend on where exactly in the air I hold this thing.
So types of restriction. There are obviously a number of different types of restriction. What am I supposed to points this at?
>> GUY BERGER: Point in the corner there.
>> REBECCA MACKINNON: Okay. So at the network level at the ISP level, primarily you have obviously filtering and blocking and not only are governments making demands on Internet service providers to block content or filter content, contents in the technical sense and we talk in the report about how that works, and at what different levels it happens, but also the threat of filtering and blocking then hasn't impact on whether search engines and social networks in turn feel pressure to remove or block content at the platform level. So you have the level of blocking filtering at the ISPs and then you have the level of content restriction at the search engine level and the social network level, which is in other words the platform level.
Then there, of course, privacy related issues that effect freedom of expression, as well, which ranges from collection, retention of user data, real time surveillance, state request for user data, how the extent to which users can be anonymous or how they're required to register and how their activity is linked to their real identities, et cetera. And all of those things affect freedom of expression in different ways on the different types of intermediaries.
There are also regulatory and governance factors that play in. In our chapter 2, we have an overview on all the ‑‑ in the different jurisdictions covered in the case studies the different ways in which speech is regulated and restricted by different states in different ways and then in the case studies we then look at the interplay with those regulations on how that impacts the intermediaries themselves.
There is also a section in our chapter 2 that El and I played the key role in putting together on intermediary liability regimes both generally, ranging from strict liability to the notice and take down system to kind of general very little liability in some cases and kind of how the level of liability is different in different countries and then in the case studies we're able to see how different intermediary liability regimes affect the way in which content is restricted on different types of intermediaries.
Then there are also what is known as self‑regulation at the individual platform level or intermediary level. That's enforcement of the private terms, private rules. But you also have collective self‑regulation where companies get together and say in order to solve a problem and perhaps to avoid being regulated by law, we're going to come up with some standards and enforce them privately and you also have what's known as co‑regulation which is sort of where the government mandates self‑regulation, essentially, and kind of hands over the regulatory function with varying degrees of official necessary, varying degrees of official participation to the intermediaries and the co‑regulatory arrangements are heaviest at the Internet service provider level and so there's quite a bit of discussion of that in the ISP case study.
So quickly on the findings so that we can get to our panelists and discussions t first case study with the Internet service providers, one thing that's interesting, there is not much transparency either by Governments or by companies either on surveillance or content restriction, but we actually found in our research, at least with the jurisdictions and companies that we were looking at, that there is even less transparency about content restriction than there is about surveillance in government data requests. So that is given UNESCO's concern with freedom of expression, that is something I think that we all need to think about, those of us who are concerned with that.
There is a great deal of stakeholder concern about lack of transparency and accountability with the co‑regulatory schemes around blocking and filtering of content by ISPs both mobile ISPs and fixed line, particularly in Western Europe that have emerged as a regulation, so there is quite a bit of discussion of that.
Then also if I can get the final ‑‑ I always seem to have this trouble with the final bullet point in these things. There we go.
One of the other interesting things is that of the intermediaries we looked at in the ISP case study, Vodafone as was Vivo. Both of those companies are men's of the telecommunications industry dialog. Vodafone recently issued a very comprehensive report on the government request it received. Not as detailed in terms of, you know, exact numbers of requests as we're seeing from the Internet, social networking and search and Internet platforms, but none the police a very serious attempt as being as transparent as possible in the context of government reVic shuns about what they can say about the types of requests and demands they're receiving particularly around surveillance and user data requests.
And, so, given the commitment that the telecommunications industry dialog is making towards transparency, that is an interesting development that vote a phone is part of. Telefonica to a lesser extent they issued a report where they made more commitments to be more transparent but we're not yet seeing much transparency at least from Vivo that we looked at in Brazil. It doesn't have even a publicly available privacy policy at this point. So there are some basic aspects of transparency that Internet service providers need to work on that if you're not a subscriber of these services you can't really look up what their privacy policies and practices are in most cases, in most parts of the world. That's a real problem among other problems that one could highlight.
In terms of the search engines, again, this was very interesting to sort of delve into how the way in which Internet filtering works in different countries has an impact in how search engines then themselves handle content restriction. And not to go into too much detail due to time here, but in China the way the filtering regime works is that when you try to access a page, a web page or a link that is filtered at the network level, not only are you not able to access that website shall built your Internet connection breaks. Which means that if you're running a search engine and you don't restrict the links very heavily based on what the Country is filtering, your search engine becomes quickly unusable to the user because every time they try and click on a link that leads to something that's filtered, their Internet connection breaks. So, again in the case study, that leads to a discussion of how things played out with Google in China in a particular way. And also kind of how that affects the way in which the BIDU handles its content restriction practices ask also how the intermediary liability regime there restricts content practice by the search engine.
In Russia there is beginning to be more filtering in the last couple of years but it does not break the Internet connection when it happens. So we're seeing a very different kind of approach. Google is still able to operate in Russia while complying with government demands and trying to be transparent about it. And it appears that Yandex isn't actually restricting very much they're leaving it to the filtering and the take down regime on the web hosting side for that restriction, which is very interesting. Yandex and BIDU are very different due to the nature of how filtering works technically in the two different places.
There is a discussion of ways in which, you know, search engines restrict content for reasons other than government requests. I won't get into all of the details there, due to lack of time. There is a discussion of the right to be forgotten. We can talk about that more later but again it is an immerging issue and there is a bit of discussion of how Google, as a member of the global network initiative, and having made a commitment to interpret requests narrowly and also to be transparent about requests running into some dilemmas about how to implement the right to be forgotten regime.
As I mentioned before, the nature of the liability regime in different places makes ‑‑ has a big impact on how search engines operate in different places.
Social networking platforms, again, similarly affected by liability regimes. One of the very interesting things looking at the transparency reports, not only of FACEBOOK and Twitter, but also of Google, is just the percentage of requests that these companies are not complying with. And that's, I think, really a useful thing to go and look at in the transparency reports, and we've got some charts in our report that look specifically at the jurisdictions that we cover. But, that companies are, you know, can and are decline government requests because those request DOS not fit legal requirements of the jurisdiction in which the requests are made. And, so, that's one of the real values of the transparency reports is it seems to be incentivizing companies to be more rigorous about what they're complying with.
And companies, one of the other observations and this has come up in some other workshops as well, which some of the people in this room might have noticed were present at, is that at the moment companies that have made transparency commitments are much more transparent about how they handle government requests than how they're handling their private enforcement. How what they're taking down in enforcement of their terms of service, what the trends are, what the volume is of different types of enforcement, different types of content that is being taken down both in response to abuse reporting by users and just the proactive enforcement of terms of service. That's quite un transparent at the moment and in our research there was certainly quite a bit of stakeholder complaint about that and concerns about unevenness of enforcement in that regard.
So recommendations. Again, the full report will have much more detailed recommendations. And this is for all stakeholders. Obviously there need to be adequate legal regimes and frameworks and policies in place, particularly in Developing Countries the intermediary liability regimes can sometimes be more vague which can lead to confusion.
Multistakeholder policy development both, this is both policy of the state and official level as well as company policy, very important to have stakeholder participation in formulation of both legal norms as well as company private policies and rules. That's a fundamental aspect of making sure that policies and laws are compatible with the rights of Internet users.
Transparency, obviously, I think the case studies really highlight the benefit that transparency brings in terms of accountability and in terms of users understanding what risks they're taking or what they can ‑‑ what is happening to the information that they're trying to access or post. Privacy, again, there has been a lot of discussion about the importance of privacy, and both respect for privacy at the state level as well as at the company level at this conference, a lot of recommendations, I won't go too far into that, I am sure it will be brought up more in the discussion.
Accountability and self‑regulation, this again is particularly in the co‑regulatory schemes, there is a lot of stakeholder complaint about lack of accountability and transparency in sort of the co‑regulatory and self regulatory filtering mechanisms on child protection and copyright and so on, and the need for more transparency and accountability and redress in that score remedy.
I just touched on that. Public information and education. There's still a long way to go in terms of Internet users, both understanding their rights and the Council of Europe has a very important documents on Internet user rights that was discussed at this conference and, you know both Governments and companies have an obligation not only to help Internet users understand their rights but of course Civil Society has a big role to play in this. But also to make sure people understand how they can obtain redress. What the mechanisms are. That's very important. And also, to add to the public information education is just the need for more data and research so that better mechanisms and better policies can be constructed.
Global accountability mechanisms, I think the case studies do show that those companies that are members of the global network initiative and that have made commitments under the industry dialog that there is a difference being made. There is a long way to go. The G&I focuses only on government demands, and as I mentioned there is a real gap in transparency and accountability between how governments ‑‑ how companies handle government demands and how they're has not leaning their private approach to self‑regulation and need for more focus on accountability around self and co‑regulation.
And need for broader participation by companies and other stakeholders in figuring out how we create these global accountability mechanisms for companies that are spanning across many different jurisdictions.
And one of the other recommendations that came up to just sort of go back to the policy framework recommendation at the beginning, touches upon one of the other discussions happening at the IGF around intermediary liability regimes and what does a model, human rights compatible intermediary liability regime look like and what are the multistakeholder processes that need to happen to make sure that that moves in the right direction.
So, I'm going to stop so that we can move to the discussion, but I just want to thank you once more, this is a list of our writers and researchers, so El and I there, Kirsten. The primary writers are in blue, and our research contributors in white. And I really, again, this research would not have been possible without the very hard work of everyone who went through a research survey and contributed the raw materials that we synthesized for the report. We also had a group of providers. Eduarde. Enrique is in the back there. A number of providers who provided comments are various rough drafts in their very embarrassing forms that helped us to improve the report. So really, we thank everyone for all their efforts in getting us this far. Thanks very much.
>> GUY BERGER: So a couple of things before we jump into the comments. Number one, the fact that one is looking here at some of the decision making around what is a legitimate limitation or not legitimate limitation of the free flow of information. Should not obscure the fact that the norm should be ‑‑ it should be free flowing. The norm should be free of expression. That is the kind of big picture that we should hold on to.
I think also the great thing about this report it's gives us a granularity in the sense that it shows there are different tiers as to these immediate years and it makes a difference at what level they're at and it makes a difference at what the Country is using it. This is the value of trying to get a more nuanced understanding.
I am particularly grateful to Google for coming here, you're part of the dialog but some companies might not want to go there. We're not here to chow Google and in fact we would love to hear your response to the study.
FACEBOOK, did you come? Okay. She was going to come, but maybe she got tied up. Anyway.
Let me also say we majorly have a question from the remote, so let us get that comment or question quickly.
>> REMOTE MODERATOR: Yes, we have a question from Roger. We will connect online.
>> GUY BERGER: Okay.
>> ROGER: Hello, can you hear me? This is Roger. This is Roger, can you hear me?
>> GUY BERGER: Yes, we can.
>>ROGER: Good morning everybody, this is Roger Kapis, AP, and I want to again thank you for all the team members who worked on this project.
The main question is we, are talking about open Internet and Internet Governance and Internet, what do you call, open expression. This is not happening. Article 19 nobody is following. Each ask every Country has bodies article issues and to help clear the fight with Indian government the solution for as well as Google and the development service provider.
I have one case, one of my friend, what you call threatening calls from the Google accounts. I had a question of Google to take action of them. When Google IT ac is the most I tack of India which article 19 is not followed. And this is not meeting the global standards. My solution for all the Internet Society and INS 14, let us have a global form framework on this issue such that all stakeholders will be happy and that at the same time have a common model such that article 19 is called one framework and now I want to know how we can move forward around this. Thank you so much.
>> GUY BERGER: And 11. Let's ask our speaker to comment. I'm going to ask them initially in the first round of comments to make a quick sound bite, two minutes or so, three minutes and then we can have another commentate tore.
Firstly, Lalana, from the Information Council Division of Europe.
>> LALANA: Thank you. I would like to address the question that you, Guy, raise at the very beginning, the dye cot toe me privatized censorship or private censorship and I would like to add a third layer to that, that is a third dimension that is editorial roles or editorial functions of Internet intermediaries.
Sometimes Internet intermediaries may act as publishers so they may exercise judgment and editorial control or editorial au verse meant as to what content should be relatable in their platforms. What content should be removed or not. So they play sometimes they may play an editorial role.
For example a policy decision by YouTube to promote or to make available or not to make available certain content on the website, to range content and information may be viewed as an editorial function or an element of an editorial function.
Dissemination and mod duration of content generated by users, mod duration of comments by users can also be seen as a publication not a function.
In a case that is now pending before the European court of human rights is transwork versus Astonia which is the about the reliability of the news portal about some defamation remarks and comments made by individuals by the public. The first section the court found that the publication and mod duration of comments was tantamount to journalistic activity on that website and it found that the administrator of the portal as an entrepreneur el was the publisher. Nonetheless, the court found the portal libel for the comments because it took into account a number of other factors and this case is still being reviewed by the grand chamber of the European court of human rights.
From the perspective of the Council of Europe, it is important to recognize the publishers function of intermediate intermediaries. This is important for freedom of expression online of individuals but also for media freedom online.
It's important to reduce the barriers to publishing of Internet ‑‑ publishing of content on the Internet. It's also important to deal with cases where prior authorization is requested for from Internet intermediaries to exercise their activity online. For example we see many counsel trees in Europe, even Council of Europe members state that blogging websites are required to register with authorities and this is a trend in regulation which is immerging as far as being developed.
It is also important to shield intermediaries from political pressure or other types of pressure to remove content. So a recognition of their editorial function is important for this.
And, of course, the Ed tore usual in dependence that goes is attached to this editorial function is not an absolute value. There are ‑‑ there can be a responsibilities of intermediaries as well in this function.
The Council of Europe's policy is all actors whether new or traditional who operate in the media system should be ‑‑ should benefit from a policy framework which gives them a level of protection and indicates the duties, their duties and responsibilities.
Now, which approach to be adopted, which specific case this has to be seen in the context of the particular case, the specific function of the intermediate intermediary in the process and production and dissemination of information has to be considered.
If Council of Europe policy is quite concrete and it ought to be taken into account at this evaluation but most importantly I would like to say that the jury is out of the court. We are waiting for a final judgment of the European court of human rights on this case and we should be mindful to of the outcome of that face for future policy development.
Thank you.
>> GUY BERGER: Thank you. Extremely.
Lillian, President of Uganda chapter.
>> LILLIAN NALWOGA: Thanks, Guy.
For me, looking at this report, the issues that have been grade, the challenges and opportunities are just, they're not limited to one particular Country or region or jurisdiction. They are cross cutting and I just wanted to share a similar study not so globally done but just focusing on east Africa. By the way I work with ‑‑ I also work with a collaboration on international ICT policy in southern Africa and I happen to carry a few copies of this report. We looked at the state of internet net freedoms in East Africa and we are looking at policies and practices defining Internet freedoms in Africa. And when I looked through some of this, I saw similar issues raised. I saw issues, freedom of expression coming into the context of political security, hate speech, vis‑a‑vis we have challenges, we do not have data protection of privacy laws. And here we are intermediaries required to, you know, take down content. We have quite a number of laws that are mushroom go, which are vague but they are on the rise. One gives, another one takes away
I will site an example. I think Uganda will be known for so many things and one of the laws is anti‑pornography law. To the world it was the anti‑miniskirt law. During that time, beginning of this year, if you are seen wearing a mini skirt, people are wondering how you're going to get backwards home. But this particular law was ‑‑ it was not was, it is instructing ISPs to block filter contained pornographic nature, but it doesn't layout what is pornography. It has this broad definition, you know, and it doesn't come out well as to what it is they're blocking. And it doesn't stop at ISPs but it also goes to content. It also goes to application developers. So you're not allowed to develop a website that is going to have pornography, you know, content. And we don't know what pornography content is.
I also site laws like we do have the computer misuse act. It says it does not allow ‑‑ it doesn't allow ISPs to monitor or filter content, but at the same time there is another article that says that they're supposed to keep user data and keep it until, you know, the state comes asking for it. So, you know, we have this taking away and this giving and this and taking away.
Back to probably the likes of the big search engines like Google, FACEBOOK, still my Country has been known also for bad things, because the recent Google transparency reports in 2013, I think two reports, Uganda has made request for a particular user and, of course, Google did not give out the details, but we don't know what it is they are looking for. You know, we don't know what they the government is looking for, what sort of information they are looking for. So, for us it is kind of interesting when we see the big search engines, the big, you know it is a middle intermediaries coming up with this transparency report.
The other example I would like to say, with the foreign transparency report I think the information was for Kenya, Transylvania and South Africa where it does operate. And where as some statistics was revealed, other countries do have laws that do not allow, you know, telecom companies to reveal that sort of information. So, for me, this does not limit to just one region. I mean, because I am looking at the countries that were looked at Kenya, Egypt, Brazil, China, India, UK, German, but it's a global, it's a global issue. So to me the question I would put to probably ISOC UNESCO is how do we get to adopt this recommendations. How do we get more of this intermediaries to become more transparent. I mean, Google, FACEBOOK, have taken a lead. How do we get the rest of the partners on board.
We do have ISPs operating, I'll say the Bahati, it is cross cutting across Africa. So in my Country, in my region I cannot do advocacy because decisions are made from above. So can we come up with this broad international legal framework or some sort of intermediary that can be adopted and it is cross cutting and it takes on, you know, it cuts up broad. So I think those are the few many little things I have to say.
>> GUY BERGER: Thank you. I think this is very early days and I think UNESCO's main concern is to sensitize governments to be transparent. But I think starting this dialog amongst all stakeholders is one of the things we can do.
Russ, you are global head of free expressions and international relations at Google. Can you give your comments.
>>RUSS: I want to start off by thanking Rebecca and the entire time for the work they have done on this report and congratulating all of ou it. It is a fantastic piece of work. And we welcome it.
Google really does recognize the role that it plays on this issue as than intermediary both in terms of a search engine and as having platforms, social media platforms, I forget already the term that was used, but you understand what I'm talking about. You know, I like to think that it goes without saying, but lie say it anyway, that Google very much has as part of its mission a commitment to the exchange of ideas and the free flea of information online. That is not just sort of corporate speak it very much lies at the heart of what we are as a company because we believe it is the right thing to do but it's also right for the users and right for the Internet and to be honest it is right for our business as well, to be perfectly honest and sometimes I think we don't speak about that last part often enough. But when we do, people realize that there's a confluence of values there and there is a confluence of priorities that all work together.
We also agree that holding online intermediaries for the content and shared by users is highly problematic. It is not a surprise why this happens. Governments find it much ease tore to go to the intermediaries than deal with the individual speakers or contents, as the case may be. Telco's ISPs are the easiest root and then platforms are much easier than going after, you know, individuals or individual content.
At the same time, we understand and believe that just as we believe that the same rights that apply to people off line apply to them online. Also the same laws that apply to people off line also apply online.
So, we do comply with valid legal requests when they are given to us by governments, but as a founding member of GNI and as a company of a group of individuals really committed to those principals, we make sure that each and every government request follows both the letter and the spirit of the law when we get it. We always seek to narrow it and as Rebecca referred to, we often say no. And I just want to point out that there aren't really many industries and businesses in the world that look government officials in the eye and say to a demand or request no, we're not going to do that. And I actually take great pride in the fact that we do that, that we devote a tremendous amount of resources to that role and that function, and sometimes, you know, we make life, and business very difficult for us when we do that. But we do it because, like I said, it's a core value of the company. We think it is the right thing to do.
I also really honestly am very proud of the role that we played on transparency. And I should say on GNI we are trying to bring others along. We're having a lot of conversations trying to get other companies to join the global network initiative and I think we have been really active in making sure that the tell co‑industry tying log is happening as well and we're really trying to push that forward.
And on the issue of transparency I'm very proud also of the role that we played there. We were the first company to issue a transparency report. We haven't sat back on our seats and been happy with that. We've ‑‑ every iteration we try to make it better and make it more granular and we really welcome the participation now, not only of other Internet intermediaries and platforms, but also now Telco companies starting to move at least in the right direction.
And it is a process. None of this stuff is perfect. We don't claim to be perfect. That's why so many Googlers come to the IGF to be perfectly honest. We're not here just to talk, we're here to listen. That is why I'm sitting at this table right now. I want to be here to engage and, you know, I never claim or no one at Google should ever claim that we get it right all the time but we are when it committed to doing is engaging in the dialog and getting better. That is why we welcome Rebecca and her teams work and I want to thank you her again.
>> GUY BERGER: Thanks, Russ.
It strikes me, listening to you speak, that we kind of have two sides in the world, the media industry and the intermediary industry. Actually there is a lot in common. The media also make judgment calls sometimes where they're going to obey a law or say no to a law such as disclosing sources. The media industry has to make editorial judgments on a lot of content with the framework and maybe some sort of dialog between these two sectors could be of great interest.
>>RUSS: One of the approaches that many governments are taking is the application of traditional media laws to this space. Which we think actually makes very little sense, but it is also a problem in terms of why that's occurring. And it is used primarily as a way of stiff leaning speech. It is coming from a mind‑set of usually from many governments, which are used to controlling traditional forms of media and communication. They sometimes own the radio stations, the publication sources and they see the Internet, of course, as this incredible threat. Which they're finding it very difficult to control. Some better than others.
So, you know, often a knee jerk reaction is let's apply those same old laws to this new space, and it doesn't really fit or work.
>> GUY BERGER: Great. Thanks for that response.
Our next commentator is going to than Jean‑Jacques, vice president for ICANN, global stakeholder engagement, but before he takes the floor, I have to express an apology that I'm going to miss my plane in I don't leave now. Me extreme colleague that has been the key person she will carry on mod duration. So I'm sorry to leave you, and I will get this whole record, and Jenna will briefly and I look forward to following up this discussion and please watch the you necessary co‑website. We will publish the stuff, I hope, in two months at the most, maybe three months. Anyway, the debate will carry on, and next IGF as well we'll take forward these ongoing issues.
So, Jean, over to you and over to Jean‑Jacques.
>>JEAN‑JACQUES S.: Thank you everyone. I will try to keep it short so we can have dialog in the room as much as we can.
I think from an unkind perspective the key point possibly our over arching aim is that the Internet should remain stable but also important and un fragmented. And it is from that perspective that we will approach this issue of Internet intermediaries. I think it is wonderful that UNESCO is coming at this from the freedom of expression perspective. I took part in previous roles in all the UCDs work around digital delivery of content and Internet intermediaries, that was very much the economic aspect and we came to very similar conclusions as with freedom of expression. In fact, now attic can we've produced or commissioned a report by a boss con consulting group that you can find online called Greece go the wheels of the Internet economy and it looked at the concept of E friction. Basically looking at, I think, 55 countries around the world and all the regions what they found amongst other things in what they called information related friction which is basically the inhibition of avail billet tee to access and content is a major structure to economic growth and that is really important argument, if you will, in supporting the rationale for basically having the right approach to Internet intermediaries across the world for any Country. If you want economic growth, you need to have an open Internet and access to content. Uninhibited access to content. So I encourage you to have a look at this. This is on ICANN.org, of course freely available.
A third point that I want to mention is that the role of governments is crucial. I have worked for some of the online platforms, I coordinated some of the inputs of the Internet intermediaries in the OCD's work before, and I can tell you it is not an easy position. You find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place. We take G&I initiatives. We have guidelines for ISPs or guidelines for online companies, which provide really useful guidance on how we should behave when we look at established human right standards, yet when we look at a lot of national laws, they are not fully complying themselves or their application is not fully compliant. Or simply some of our jurisdictions we might not have the right standards in place. When your e a company you're stuck with the fact that well you want to ensure the right access to content and respect for human rights and freedom of expression and yet the national laws and the enforcement of the national level is just forcing you or trying to force you into acts which go against that. So I think it is great that we have UNESCO coming in here with its intergovernmental hat and clout to try to bring another angle to this and remind government go their role in a way.
The last points I should make which has been very usefully reminded in the ‑‑ in Rebecca's work is the role of the multistakeholder model in producing all this. It varies from a freedom of expression perspective. An economic perspective. I think discussing the role of Internet intermediaries is best done in a multistakeholder context. I think a lot of us are sort of preaching to the converted in an IGF environment I think as to why we should have multistakeholder discussions I think it is obvious that combining the expertise of both national and international level of stakeholders with their relevant expertise and relevant role is crucial and particular to avoid the unintended consequences of some of the enforcement policies that we see around, for instance, over blocking.
So just to summarize, I think, we've got beside the need for free and open access to online content, we've got a major economic rationale for having free access. The rule of government is crucial ask we need to be reminded of that and of their obligations and, again, of multi‑station holder modems of government is the one of the surest ways of getting all the right balance and right actors involved.
Thank you.
>>CO‑MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Jean. Also, ICANN is not a part of this research, but appreciate your input to this.
This is also wealth this entire future opinion on this. I really like the schedule. We still have four or five speakers so I would like to invite the next speaker, Ms. Avri. And I ask you to be crisp.
Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I find myself in a quandary in this particular issue, because I am a full believer in the open Internet with a free availability of as much content as possible.
And also, I've been involved in the last year in various violence against women studies on the net, violence against the gay LGBTQI community, the bullying issues, and so when I look at those, I sort of really do have a problem in terms of how do we deal with that. Part of my problem I think comes up in the word lie Bill lit, too. Liability indicating a legal framework.
But then there is also the notion of responsibility. The violence against women project which was recently completed by APC and it's what Internet intermediaries and violence against women online. And it looked at Twitter, FACEBOOK and YouTube and was basically looking at what mechanisms do they have to try and protect women in this specific instance from violence on the net. So ‑‑ and you find very little support and it's very mixed in terms of how they do it, whether they do it, the degree to which they follow through, the degree to which they say, well, we'll obey all law, but law is ‑‑ I tend to have a little less faith in governments than some of the people around this table have been having as governments being a place where you find any sort of solution, because when it comes certainly to violence against the gay community, you have governments that actually encourage it. So, to say that I can look to governments for ‑‑ and even violence against women, you certainly have governments who couldn't careless. So governments are certainly not the answer there.
So, in terms of that notion, and, you know the global network initiative is perhaps one way, and it is not just do we self regulate, do we accept the responsibility because the law may be after us, but do we accept the responsibility because, you know, human rights say we ought to accept responsibility.
So as I say, I live in a quandary trying to balance these two things. Thank you. I hope that was crisp enough.
>>CO‑MODERATOR: We do appreciate the gender aspect. UNESCO promotes gender equality and Rebecca and her team has already delivered that gender session and maybe you can come back.
Invite next speaker. Ms. Serin.
>> MS. SERIN: Hi. I will try to keep it short. Intermediaries are forever in a difficult position when being pressured by the user when it comes to consumer obligation, et cetera, but now I think for the last couple of years we're dealing more with state intervention. Since the ISP, since the intermediaries need to work, need to cooperate, need to exist in that particular jurisdiction they have to somehow be in good terms officially and unofficially, so sometimes this takes the form of direct governmental regulation, on ISP liability, such as if I may give a nation example. As of February 2004, all access providers are obliged to become a member to union of access providers and now it is formed since this may I think whose primary duties include looking of websites upon the orders coming from the telecommunications authority and also taking the necessary measures to present alternative methods for accessing those websites. Those block websites.
Also in the report, again, congratulations on the impressive work on I'm also fascinated by the whole respect. The protect respect framework, which is excellent.
Also one of the most interesting things I red in the report was when there are strict liability, provided for intermediaries, then the intermediaries may tend to take proactive measures or self censoring as we might say. I would like to add another example for my own Country.
When filtering or when blocking website is offered to the users as a sanction for privacy violations and also other violation of personality rights and such, not to say take down procedures are very rarely resorted to. So I also find that very interesting because I see that notice and take down is a more friendly or laid back approach rather than excessive blocking and filtering of sites, which, again, unfortunately we are experiencing that are already highly block go friendly law is now even of a more simplified procedure for blocking websites and lots of websites are currently being blocked and un accessible.
Although the new law called for a url based filtering, the judge also as a power of discretion to block the website as a whole, still, and that is what happened with the infamous YouTube and Twitter bans which were lifted thankfully by the constitutional court. So this is also interesting example.
What I am suggesting apart from the suggestions that were appropriately made in the report, of course I am going to dump the M word again the multi staying holder while drafting legal provisions which will enable transparency and accountability but for all stakeholders, for Governments, companies, all together and under equally applied standards.
And also harmonization is, of course, always a tool and especially with regard to notice and take down and now the hot topic notice and notice procedures, standardize and harmonized principals to be formed and also, again, harmonization and cooperation when it comes to tackling with jurisdictional obstacles
Okay. I think that's it. Thank you.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Thank you. I should have introduced you actually. Sarah is from tush I shall university. It is called BIS University as a Turkish legal expert. Thank you for the national experiences.
And to my agenda, the next speaker will be Mr. Malcom Hati. Are you here? Could you come in the front. Mr. Malcolm Hati is public affair and chair for ISPA Intermediaries Network. Thank you for coming and for your input.
>> MALCOLM HATI: I'm sorry, I wasn't prepared for this.
How may I help you?
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Are you Malcolm?
>> MALCOLM HATI: I am indeed. Yes, you have the right person, but I wasn't expecting this. What would you like me to say?
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Well, okay. Our first physical meeting and as we study these intermediaries ISP is a part of our cases. I understand you are an expert in this ISP industry. Would you like to provide some of your views about the role of the ISP and the particular challenges related to this group of intermediaries.
>> MALCOLM HATI: Okay. Broadly speaking, to introduce myself I am the chair of URS Intermediary Reliability which is being the pan European trade association that represents the Internet services providers both access providers and content providers in Europe at the European level.
Naturally, we are faced as you would expect with a range of actors that have problems with the content or behavior online, and who wish to persuade or require our members to take action, so as to deal with that behavior or content. Through a variety of means both legal requirement and the attempt to engage us in commitments of so‑called cooperation or best practice and so forth.
At the same time, our members obviously have a need and a obligation really to have regards to the interests of their customers and uses and to the commitments that we have made as an industry to recognize the rights of end users.
Weighing these things up is not always easy, especially given the strong legal pressures that our members can be under in many circumstances. We, therefore, at URESPA engage in these discussions so as to really base the issue that it is distinctly problematic to attempt to solve broad social problems by asking intermediaries to step in to manage content and behavior when the user themselves who is the target of those complaints cannot really be represented in their defense, cannot really speak in their defense.
Now, of course, one of the problems that we have is essentially the question of scale. For many of our members receiving large volumes of such things, even the idea of having a traditional sort of legally based fact finding exercise, consideration of all the legal complexities that might relate to the request to say take down content disclose personal data and so forth as against the legal claims that an end user might be made on their behalf can, could impose very considerable costs for the intermediaries to conduct such an exercise. You are potentially looking at those rights not being adequately upheld.
As a further complicate go factor nobody has a fundamental human right to pick out a couple of examples here, to tweet or to have a FACEBOOK page or to have their particular video available on YouTube. In short nobody has a fundamental human right to make use of any given particular service provider's service. At the same time, interventions by public authorities law enforcement agencies or private parties attempting to assert legal rights and legal norms against end users. So as to prevent the avail built of that content at all which is essentially the attempt that is being made when somebody makes such complaints. Does very much invoke the legitimate interests of the speaker.
How to square that is something that I think we need to engage in collectively.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Thank you. Very good question. I believe this would be picked up by our experts. And thanks again.
Now I think the next speaker will be Ms. AnnKatis. Are you hear?
If it is not ‑‑ is our speaker from FACEBOOK, but unfortunately he is not here. Last one is Ms. Shurti from India.
Are you here?
>> REBECCA MACKINNON: Yeah, she is here.
>> MS. SHURTI: No, I don't need to. Thank you. My name is Mish and I also run a nonprofit in India. Can you ‑‑ okay. Now it's better? I don't need to say my name again, but I'm actually very grateful for this study mostly because in India what we've done in the past four years is to work extensively on the intermediary liability but we've done it from perspective of small and medium enterprises who don't have the might of Google and FACEBOOK and also the government cannot just dismiss to say you are an American company why should we listen to you which is mostly told to us which we talk about free speech. These are very strange different role this time with intermediaries because they are the one whose are providing and facilitating the expression of fundamental human rights which earlier start to be in only public spaces. So they're in this unique position where rights cannot be just shuffled against them but strictly used by the government.
One of the major things which we've been involved with is an dine an company called matchup.com which predates the American Yelp, but it's equivalent but they have been getting legal notices right left and centre. There are 240 of them. 750 which they have been facing 11 lawsuits which they are facing and they are the ones who always run into this problem because they do not have legal teams and because they are very scared of being shutdown, they are on the side of caution.
And the way the regime works in India is you still have to get to court even if you want to get the benefit of the safe harbor provision. So even if it is not ‑‑ it is only contributory reliability you have to spend money and time the and the process itself becomes a problem itself which bigger companies can afford but the smaller ones cannot.
So that is why if there are some international principals it truly makes sense and it is much easier to talk about compliance with those international principals for a smaller company as well as the people who are working in this space from Civil Society.
Also in India a lot of unrelated categories of intermediaries have been clubbed together and are subject to same liabilities so a network service provider and an online payment date which means if anybody collects payment for anything and also a cyber cafe are subject to similar regulations because they're all intermediaries which makes the job very, very difficult
So any formulation of international principals definitely helps, like the surveillance fund.
Two of the things in my experience, not as a Civil Society person but as a lawyer in courts, which I have seen and why the courts are not very despite the fact that they want to promote free speech and expression, but always are a little anti the way intermediaries pose are to one is this legal fiction which intermediaries create which is like slow guy server. We have only a sales office here. We really like your people. It's a very big market in India but we're really not here. Don't look at us, we only have a sales office. And our company, our servers, everything is there. Which does not go for a very good constructive engagement either at the judicial level or any other level. And most of the times although offhand remarks have been made, nothing is right time fully set in stone or written in law. These are all statements made by the judges. When we hear it and ask questions, what exactly did China do, which is not something that somebody talks about free speech and expression wants to hear that time, and asked the question. So you are telling us you're not going to be listening to ‑‑ you are not going to be weighing national laws this moves or forces the question to move into the direction of fragmentation. And also talking very, very restrictively about a free speech laws and the way they are enforced and Mead year reliability ask all intertwined.
So if there is a way of getting at least the foreign companies to come and engage it would be much better. We also hear from the policy makers things which, like oh, it is easy to pressurize local companies, but it's very difficult to pressurize the foreign companies. Which to me is a free speech person is very good. But because we like okay there so there are some companies and I'm grateful for companies like Google who do have the ability to stand and stair in somebody's eyes and saying no, we're not going to do what you want to tell us, we're going to make our own decisions, but these are actual problems and there is no way of resolving them by dancing around them or avoiding that topic. So this legal fiction really needs to be addressed one way or the other.
The other thing which I did want to mention was something about we've heard this a lot. There is something in the law also about what they want is that some kind of an easy way to approach somebody where they think that this is ‑‑ when I say they I mean authorities that there is a way to take down the content. We like the notice and take down thing because it is less burdensome. It takes us away from the establishment of an administrative agency, which will not be subject to any other scrutiny but only the bureaucrat making decisions and then everything going into this haze and maze, but we do like the idea, we do not like the idea of notice and notice provision, because that does have an impact on anonymity tee of the users and that is expressed as a big concern.
Also a put back provision, which is presents in some copyright regimes but not always in the notice and take down of other kind of liabilities. There is that if somebody is legitimate and legal contents has been taken there should be a way for addressing them that they can have that content put back. Especially in countries like ours where if websites are blocked not just urls but or if content is taken down and there is no way to even inform the user and somehow they somehow from somewhere ten days later, months later, find out that their content is nowhere up there, there has to be some kind of a mechanism where maybe a notice just goes up on the screen saying, your content has been taken down but you have avail for a dresser which is not in existence. So that would be really good.
Thank you.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Thank you so much for this development cover aspect from India.
Actually, we really only have maybe three or five minutes left or so. I suggest that we take very A quick question from the floor. Maybe a couple.
Yes, please. I will ask Rebecca to respond briefly.
Yes, please, the lady in red. If can come in the front and make your intervention. Okay. We take these three women speakers.
>> AUDIENCE: Hi. My name is Bree, and I'm an representative of association of telecom operators. This is an association of global carriers in India. I think we all agree that intermediaries operate in multiple countries across the globe and they are bowed by the land in the countries to operate. I have a question for the battle. Do we think there is a need for enhance by corporation at the government level in evolving a framework, a broad framework of policies and guidelines that intermediaries can look to while complying with the law of the land? Because they operate in multiple countries across the globe and the need to actually comply with the law of the land in each Country where they operate.
So is there a need, first of all, and what should be those broad set of guidelines that intermediaries can look at while complying with those kind of requests? Thank you.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: The lady in white to the left, thank you.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes. Rita from Open Knowledge Foundation. I have a question regarding these transparency reports. Aren't they just another measure of corporate PR? I mean, how trustworthy are they? I would doubt whether this was a valid measure to ‑‑ for this exercise. Thank you.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Thanks.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. My name is Courtney from the community to protect journalists. Two questions. I wanted to follow up on Avri's content and see if you are considering political speech or generic content or if you get into the specifics of type of contents such as harassment of women, you know, child threats, et cetera, or if we're looking primarily at political speech. And then the second thing with respect to Rosa's comment about applying old media laws to the internet.
I don't think we can say it is just problematic because I think in some cases it is beneficial to be seen as a publisher, obviously not in some repress I have countries but I think it depends. Sometimes you want to be seen as a media outlet.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Especially with right to be forgotten.
>> AUDIENCE: Right. Exactly.
>> REBECCA MACKINNON: I'll try to respond previously. To go in order of reverse questions, we're not dealing with political speech. We're dealing with a broader range of speech and one of the benefits of the fact that the court is not completely finished yet is we're going to be able in our gender chapter to incorporate the really great work that APC has been doing and their studies and to deal with some of these tensions, because that's absolutely, I think, a key point, that, you know, you know there are some legitimate restrictions to speech in order to protect other rights that are recognized under human rights standards and that is the context in which we're discussing freedom of expression is how do you insure that those limitations are necessary and proportionate, but also protecting other rights. So that's certainly part of the discussion and that's where, of course, multistakeholder policy formation genuinely multistakeholder including child protection groups, you know, groups that deal with violence against women, all need to be at the table. This is not just kind of one set of stakeholders but all stakeholders need to be at the table in formulating in helping both Governments and companies formulate the right policies and that is very much the right spirit in which that recommendation is made.
On transparency reporting, I mean you do raise a good question, and I've certainly gotten the question from a number of people, sort of over a time, you know how do we know that companies aren't completely lying, to put a blunt perspective on it. And this is why I think just transparency reporting without, you know unless it is happening in a broader ecosystem of commitments of verification of, you know, so for instance, the companies that sign up to the global network initiative are actually going through a third party assessment, an independent assessments to verify whether they're actually carrying out their commitments and whether they're telling the truth about what they're doing, and that's why having an independent assessments and verification mechanism in addition to commitments, in addition to poll law ease and practices, in addition to transparency you need this whole ecosystem of things.
It is also why having government transparency and other research going on to verify and see what's matching up is also really important.
So, just the corporate transparency piece on its own with nothing else happening, of course, you know why should you trust anybody, you know, they say, unless you can have some triangulation going on.
In terms of the first question, how do formulate sort of a broader global setting of guidelines and dying logs along those guidelines, that is actually happening on the telecommunication side. Telecommunications in DOS tree dialogue. Patrick from sunrise is one of complaints that is in that dialog. I suggest, I imagine you would welcome some Indian companies and non North American and non European countries in the industry dialog. It would be great to get Bart D much as part of that, but they are formulating principals that Internet service providers should be following globally in their global operations in trying to set some global norms and standards and, so, hopefully that conversation will continue. And as well as the global network initiative, which not only is setting principals that the company should follow globally, but setting up a framework for independent verification of what the companies are adhering to and what they're implementing. Again, that is another process. G&I right now is just Internet companies but G&I is actually talking in industry dialog about whether Telco might join it, et cetera. There are these global initiatives underway and I certainly welcome that more people, more companies, more NGOs, more industry associations from different parts of the world reach out to these initiatives and try and expand their participation.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Yes, please, Malcolm.
>> MALCOLM: Thank you. I thought I might be able to offer an industry perspective, especially from within the industry so France pair an see reporting
Because my view is that even minimal levels of transparency reporting, and even where they don't have anything like the level of independent sort of auditing or verification to which Rebecca was referring a moment ago still acts as a credible step forward into space. Lack of transparency in this area is a real problem for having a reasonable and informed policy debate on this stuff
For my own experience, from despite having personably trusted relationships with some government entities and with our own members, the lack of being able to know really what is going on how much proportion, where it is ‑‑ where activities are focused what kind of justifications are being given, where companies are willing to say, no, that is ‑‑ we will reject that, and whether or not all of these things limits even the ability of industry representatives at the trade association levels such as myself to inch gauge in these discussions. When you start publishing some basic information, then first it allows the company companies themselves to say we are committed to the idea that we ought to be engaged in an open discussion that has the recognizes that there are legitimate interests on both sides and it is not our duty as a company to simply be accommodating government requests without any consideration to the alternative. That is the first step.
It also then allows that discussion to be framed in terms of how do we balance these interests, and to ask questions about what these numbers actually mean. To ask, well, what, you say that you've had so many take downs or whatever, but what were they for? What about categories? Where did they come from? Are these the numbers about what you took down or the numbers of how many you had? How many requests you had? And if so, if there is a difference between the two, why? And you can start to have those discussions, but by taking the first step and making even the minimal publication amounts to a commitment that we will seek to publish that that we can.
Now admittedly there are limits to that and nobody wants to engage them to harm legitimate operational matters and there is a considerable recognize for mere that that would uncover capabilities information or for that matter would cause brand harm
But nevertheless by starting on that process it allows the policy debate to be much better informed but to give it a purpose society can be become further and better informed yet. So I would recommend it to you.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Thank you. We are really running late, and I will give you a last speaking opportunity, but with request to our speaker, as IGF tradition, we like to have a Tweet for every speaker, and we start with you to just express your most burning ideas or opinions in one sentence from now.
>> AUDIENCE: Now I feel badly, because I didn't know I was taking the mic. I wanted to build upon both Malcolm and Rebecca's point because this issue of transparency is so important, but it's absolutely true that we don't expect you to believe what's in that transparency report. Hook, line and sinker, which is why we do subject ourselves to independent verification and consider is why the next phase of our project is actually working with NGOs around the world to bring governments to the table to produce their own transparency reports, which has been remarkably difficult, to be perfectly honest. Even in the United States around the national security issue we sued the federal government to allow us to publish more information on our own site and to get them to be more transparent about the nature and the number of requests that they are submitting to intermediaries. And then I lastly just wanted to thank you Courtney for the verification that especially in the context of the right to be forgotten t reason that Google finds itself in the position that it is now is because it was deemed not to have the same protections as a traditional publisher, but just as a function near. I did want to agree and thank her for the clarification on that point.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Other speaker, would you like to share a tweet in the last minute?
Yes, please Avri.
>> AVRI DORIA: One thing. I thank you that you're going to include the issue about violence against women. Please include the violence on the LGBQ committee.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: Jean. And you, do you have anything? And Lillian.
Okay.
Yes, please.
>> LILLIAN NALWOGA: I note the report to be nice to add in more countries from Africa in your study.
>> GUY BERGER: Yeah. Thank you. This is one of the limitations of resources that in terms of people's time and paying for their time I think we kind of reached our limits, but you know this is one study. It doesn't stop. More studies happening by others.
But just a final tweet. Thank you so much to UNESCO and the Internet society and to the open society foundation for supporting this research and this project to begin with.
>> CO‑MODERATOR: I repeat your tweet. I also want to thank you and also all the contributors and the police research because we're going to finalize it in October and make UNESCO publication to be launched off line and our office will fit into our March conference Internet conference in UNESCO 2015, and I wish I can see you there, maybe.
Okay. Have a good trip back, and thanks again. Bye.
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This is the output of the real‑time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey, meetings. 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 session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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