IGF 2017 - Day 4 - Room XXII - WS301 Fake News Content Regulation and Platformization of the Web: A Global South Perspective

 

The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17 to 21 December 2017. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

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>> CHAIRMAN:  Hi, everyone.  We will start in exactly five minutes.  We have some speakers who are lost, but we're trying to fix that.  Thank you.  Hi, everyone.  We have located all of our speakers.  We will start.

We have been collaborating on for six months.  And I think just to give you a quick idea of where this project started and why we thought it was a good idea.  We were together on November 9th, 2016 at an ICANN meeting when the U.S. presidential election results became known to all of us.  And what we heard was this knee jerk reaction and we found that deeply problematic and also uncomfortable because as human activists and people working on work for thing on the work that we do.  But at this point because it was such a significant event, we saw there was a knee jerk reaction to what platform should we do it and how we understand content on the Internet and how we think of freedom of expression.  So I'm a lawyer and Stefania a social scientist.  So we both had very specific questions.  So I was wondering how we configure international law and international human rights standards throughout this entire debate.  Stefania was about the public and private and how we understand platforms and becoming such an integral part of the Internet.  We thought it was time to move beyond and start challenging each other across disciplines.  That was the bulk of this project.  We're very lucky to be funded by Anemberg School of Communication and so this panel is kind of like the second time that we're thinking about these questions in this format.  So I am very happy to have a great line up this morning.  I will now leave it to Stefania to talk about some of the questions and then swiftly move on to amazing speakers.  Thank you.

>> Yes.  We just put the questions in the light.  It will inspire talk afterwards.  We will explore the issue of fake news and content regulation as it unfolds in the global south for a number of countries represented here and many orders.  Hopefully they'll be evoked in the conversational.  So we ask ourselves what trends and developments in the global south Pacific is right now.  Assuming that sometimes in many of the countries, that is maybe a weaker brutal law and therefore the challenges might be bigger.  And then is this so‑called platform (inaudible) an evasion by social media platforms in particular.  Our social life accompanied in the content of content regulation in the global south specifically.  And finally, this is not something that will be addressed here by the panelists, but we invite to you chip in to answer the questions, which is one of the persons that made our project.  Our current intergovernance framework focuses on the age of platform of internet.  We are all very fund of the stakeholder model, but what does it mean when it is extremely hard to get the platforms that are represented to come to the podium and discuss this on the sort of same space.  We started a little late for you to come here and find us.  The way we structure the conversation today is the following.  We have four speakers.  Then a short round of Q&A.  Remember to state your name and affiliation and then in the interest of allowing everyone to participate.  Please be sure to have both question and answer and then we will have a second round of inputs from the panel here and more question and answers at the end.  So without further adieu, I would like to call up on Stefanie from Egypt to go ahead with our 5, 6 minutes of Provication.

>> STEFANIE:  Thank you, everyone, for allowing me to join in the conversation.  I have a few rules of the platforms playing in Egypt and from an Egyptian perspective.  I will address quickly the context in which they operate and how content regulation in the broader sense works because it works a little bit different in Egypt.  So to illustrate how central Facebook has become for a daily life in Egypt, it's definitely not as important as those articles in 2011 about Facebook revolutions would like you to believe.  But Facebook is a very, very crucial part of everyday life for both citizens and governments and newspapers.  To illustrate this, Facebook has used to ID people in checkpoints.  If you don't have your ID, they will ask you to take your Facebook.  Facebook is also routinely checked by police and people get arrested for what they post.  This happens on a very regular BASIS.  There are some examples of a kid that unloaded a t‑shirt of himself wearing a t‑shirt that said anti‑torture.  He stayed in prison for over a year.  And another one is somebody uploading the picture of the President with Mickey mouse ears and he also was arrested for that.  So to see this, it illustrates that the government sees Facebook as a very, very important indicator also of what is going on and sessions on Facebook are taken very, very seriously.  Recently since May 24 this year, there has been a concerted effort to block alternative voices in Egypt.  As of today, there's a very high number of websites blocked.  These are local international news media websites.  Everything from half post to Al‑Jazeera to the alternative papers in Egypt.  So if you want to go and find out more of what's happening in Egypt, these two websites are a very good place to start.  Also, things like the way back machines, blocks that stem from a pre‑platform era which were blocks that is a very vibrant blockers sphere.  This is an unprecedent from the side of the government because before what happened is what they do today with Facebook is what happened with news media websites.  So instead of targeting the platform where it is shutting down platforms, they would address individual journalists and activists and it would be more targeted intimidation and at the same time, there was nor liberal open policy towards activities on the Internet.  But what we have today is basically information blackout with most independent websites blocked and all existing media are very much aligned with authorities and the military.  So very interestingly what you have now that is accessible in terms of news is yeah.  Basically fake news, which is a very interesting dynamic compared to what we have internationally.  And this is very important because it comes out of time where people are used to consuming a plethora of difference sources of information and there was a plurality of media available in the 2000.  So also this closing down of Internet websites and blocking websites is taking place in the content of overall closing freedom of expression and freedom of speech.  It is interesting to illustrate how the Egyptians government sees this Reuters interviewed representatives about the shut down of the websites and his response ‑‑ first of all, they don't acknowledge that it's happening.  So it is difficult to find out who is blocking what because none the different government entities isn't taking responsibility.  But what they said is so what if it's true.  It shouldn't be a problem.  Right?  So yeah.  But what is indicated is that the Egyptian government has decided to control the internet and to see especially to see as part of its own national space and to see this part of its sovereignty.  It's interesting because they treat international platforms very differently than they do local media pages.  So they also treat Al‑Jazeera pages different.  They haven't shut down access to facebook and getter, but what they have done instead is tried to control the way ‑‑ they tried to set the stone on those platforms themselves.  So after 2011 and '12 and '13, the government started to dominate the conversation which is happens to an extent, but isn't always possible.  One example is recently the Egyptian government started and hosted a global youth forum and they had it under the hashtag we need to talk.  And which was basically a slap in the face of activists and people that have been trying to engage the government with policies, suggestions and advice.  And so yeah.  What the government also does, which is an interesting twist on how content regulation works because we try to somehow regulate hate speech and violent content and it's interesting to see that in Egypt, very often it is also the government posting very, very graphic and very explicit content of pictures and videos of supposed terrorists they have eliminated and those things ‑‑ so they never ask for Facebook to try and take down content because they know themselves they upload a lot of things that will fall under those guidelines.  What they do when it comes to regulating and influencing Facebook content is they take town and arrest people and they intimidate people.  I wanted to end on one note.  It isn't maybe specific to the Egyptian content, but I wanted to stress that for Facebook and Twitter, when we talk about content regulation in the stress of the care about content regulation and I don't know what Facebook's current mission is, but I wanted to stress that whatever content is up there when it comes to Facebook and YouTube and Twitter, for them it is mainly profit.  If it's the government uploading violent pictures or people getting arrested for books, in the end, Facebook still profits.  I wanted to ‑‑ thank you.  I think my main point would be I think content regulation works in very different ways.  It's not just online regulations, but also offline intimidation.  And I also wanted to point out the definitely yeah.  The role that Facebook and Twitter have in certain content like in Egypt today is more central than it should be because the government is blocking every other access on the website.  A lot of people are forced to rely on Facebook and Twitter and are forced to be dominated and second to get their voices and news out.  I think the question of ‑‑ yeah.  Speaking to those companies about this issue has become more (?).  I think it's an attempt to confuse.

>> Thank you very much, Stefanie.  Sorry for the alarm going on in the middle of your speech.  He kindly agreed to be with us today.  So I hope he can share some insight.  Thank you for joining us.  The floor is yours.

>> ZEENAB ANEEZ:  Okay.  Thank you for the invitation.  Good morning, everyone.  My name is Zeenab Aneez.  And recently the organization I work for with others were ask it for helping the superior court for elections.  On the topic of international Internet and elections, then I had the opportunity to organize this workshop content on Internet and elections.  And I invited speakers from Academia, Private Sector.  The ‑‑ it's important to make it clear that disappear courted for election in Brazil which is not only the curt for the regulation of every election in the country, but it also does decide all the legal dispute along the campaigns.  I will summarize the consensus and extensions in this workshop.  I will make some bullets because five minutes is hard to discuss every consensus and not deceptions.  The first one is fake news issue is older than the internet.  So just reading the bible, you will see a lot of fake news and the wars in the bible, but the fake news, of course, it's leverage in speed and outreach with social networks and robots.  But if you want to address this issue in a society, it's necessary to put together all the actors in a moot stakeholder action.  The actors, the Private Sector and the society as well.  The other thing is lost profiles are not the same as synonymous.  So much careful should be taken to not harm users.  The other bullet is any solutions for abuse.  Other bullet is difficult to establish any kind of law enforcement due to lack of effective cultural mechanism.  Another one we should be very careful when we are talking about the use of bullets because bullets may be at the disservice collective interests or in order to hire someone or groups.  So bullets are not bad in itself or good in itself.  We have to be very careful.  A lot of bullets privacy must also be preserved in the virtual environment.  One more is consensus that fake news affects election results.  Finally,s final consensus is fake news are cheap and profitable business model.  So let me move now to what is not consensus or distensions.  Should us move when we find fake news to removing content.  So a lot of discussion around this in there was not no consensus about fake news means removing of content.  The other thing is how to punish those who produce, who shares and who benefits from fake news.  Most of the dissection around this how to punish who produce and share there is a lack of precise definition of what is fake news.  So the origin venues are fake news or good news.  So we needed to be very clear when you talk about this and I can go back to the assumption of (?) in the beginning of this IGF when he says I don't like the term fake news because I think there is a bit of trap in it.  We are confronting campaigns of misinformation.  So we should talk about information and misinformation.  They are trying to dissuade us from reading news and thinking.  And finally, we also not consent ‑‑ we have more.  Sorry.  We should be required disclosure of information source and fake news so when we find something that we not agree or we think they are saying something bad towards one candidate, for instance in an election, we should ask for disclosing information certs.  There is no consensus about this because then comes up the discussion about anonymity.  What should be the legal process or procedure for removal of content?  There is no definition, clear discussion for removal of content.  Was it not consensus we should go to the removal of content. 

And finally, is there any risk of criminalizing freedom of expression when we are fighting fake news?  This is really big question.  I will recommend you to go to the internet and see the open ladder of the Latino America site about this topic of fakey news when they are very clear expressing themselves their opinion about this buzz words regarding fighting fake news.  And the next time, I will be back and I try to talk a little bit more.  What scares the large portion of Civil Society in Brazil with the receipt regulation about the next election, presidential election in Brazil in 2018.  Thank you very much.

>> VIDUSHI MARDA:  Thank you so much.  Now we (?) who is a lawyer based in India.  Not only is she thinking about this, she's an expert on neutrality.  But I think it is interesting to marry the two together especially when thinking specifically about platforms and how that changes the debate if at all.

>> Thanks, Vidushi.  We have due platforms regulate content and using regulation more loosely, but I'm going to focus on the old fashion definition of regulation, which is top down and how the government might regulate or not regulate content or platforms.  And I think I will speak about two things.  The first is about why I think content regulation or platform regulation is some what of a dirty word or maybe a red flag for a lot of Civil Society in the tech space.  I will explain a little bit of the history of why that is.  And the second is I'm a policy fellow and visiting scholar at the University of Amsterdam at the information law school.  They are doing really interesting work not so much face news, but fill the bubbles and how you feel about that.  I thought I would introduce that work and maybe talk a little bit about where I think a global south context and perspective would compare and would be interesting room for research in the future.  So to begin, I think when we talk about content regulation, we suppose there is a regulatory mechanism that has both capacity and jurisdiction to regulate.  Both of the issues are entirely up in the air in India.  The Telecom regulator came out infamously with the consultation paper which said there are these over the top providers.  They are existing in a some what regulatory vacuum.  Who are they that can regulate these entities?  Do they have regulatory presence in the process that consultation became a big mess because they were talking about everything from a rape that happened in an Uber and there was no way to apply criminal law to some of these companies to hate speech, to revenge to Telecom operators who said you need to regulate these guys who are offering service, but report licensed.  They wanted to kind some way to address these actors from a regulatory perspective.  For obvious reasons, Civil Society at that time, this raise feels it would be a blunt instrument applied by the government and it would maybe be a back door entry to allow more government control over internet speech and not just on speech, but also sort of upload innovation.  So the term licensing and consultation paper got everybody really worried.  What is going to come and what is going to happen.  So I think I gave all this context just to say it is sometimes important to remember why it is that maybe Vidushi said you get worried when there are blanket statements made.  We fight quite hard to make sure government intervention is kept some what at bay, but at the same time I hope I am starting to see there is space to talk about platform accountant in ways that are not co‑opted by government or by the Telecom sector lobby.  So I think I am happy that face is growing.  Yeah.  So now on just very quickly on the walk that I'm doing with the information law school at the University of Amsterdam.  They have interviewed the focus groups and qualitative interviews with users across the European region, but with a focus on Germany and France.  They have been asking users how do you actually feel about the filter bubble?  Do you know ‑‑ particularly in the context of personalized news feed, they ask if you knew that your news feed was being personalize and said perhaps without your consent, how does that make you feel?  Do you enjoy the fact you get more tailored news or does it make you uncomfortable?  So some of what they're saying is they don't like to be boxed into a profile.  And there's a German word for it, which I can't pronounce, but it means they want more flexibility to play with that data and play with the profile and therefore see information they might not otherwise.  I thought it was interesting if I can call global south is very broad.  But from a global south, I would speak learn Asia is doing some really interesting work and they're finding a team in people's use of social media is this ability to play with their identities.  They have multiple profiles which have different ethnicities, genders, religious backgrounds and that gives them the opportunity to speak to people they wouldn't otherwise.  That conversation might be quite advanced in some ‑‑ in some parts of south Asia and southeast Asia.  I am excited to see research on profiling as it is called and how people feel about having personalized news feeds from the different context.

>> Well, thank you.  You were perfectly on time.  Thank you so much.  I think to your point there are different perceptions in the global south.  We spoke about this when we were proposing the panel.  Even to say global south is to have a sledge hammer approach.  It is so different in India than it is in Egypt.  It is trying to impact what is similar, but also how we're different.  And also maybe focus more on how different because that then leads to questions about how do we configure national jurisdictions and how do we understand it is human rights law.  Thank you so much for that.

Now we turn to my colleague for ARTICLE 19.  Mahsa has been focusing on platforms.  So we would love to hear from you.

>> MAHSA ALIMARDANI:  I will be talking about one particular platform.  I don't think a lot of people understand how relevant it is to the context of Iran.  I approached telegram from two perspectives.  I see it as this platform that has all of this rich information, but from a Civil Society perspective, I look at it as this platform that has so much to do in order to deliver on human rights considerations in a country where freedom of expression is often times very were put under risk.  And so to look at some stats in Iran, there's a population of around 80 million and there's about 45 to 50 million people online in Iran.  That's the internet penetration.  And telegram as a platform has about 40 to 45 million monthly users.  So the ubiquity of this platform in terms of internet use and communications and ways that people are using social media, shopping, everything is centralized to this one platform.  And so there's a number of reasons why this platform has become such a ubiquitous tool for Iranians, but the main reason is that it is one ever the few foreign platforms that has not been censored yet.  Twitter and Facebook were both censored and over the years, there's been a push.  There's been a more moderate government trying to prevent the platforms from being censored and in 2011 ‑‑ not quite 2011, but 2015, there was a huge migration from Viber over to Telegram which has led to it's popularity.  Viber was being throttled.  So users have come over to telegram.  It's the most comparative case of telegram would be line in China where it is quite a central platform.  But the concern that arise are what is the role and responsibility of this company in this context?  And how is the government kind of reacting in creating new policies towards this?  So in terms of the fake news discourse, it's really risen inside of Iran and I guess this is the greatest gift that President Trump has given to governments like the Iranian government which has really bolstered their way to crack down on this kind of content which is something they're been doing for ages, which is trying to control and manipulate how information flows in within a country.  So telegram channels which are how most people are doing sharing information in the social media platform has become a great source of concern for the Iran rain government.  There have been instances where there have been fake news scares.  In 2015, there was one viral news story of techron being shut down because there was a police shooting and it caused considerable amount of panic inside of Iran.  So it does have actual ‑‑ these actual concerns, but then there are other instances where they have pinpointed channels that have aligned themselves with opposition groups.  There's one channel called Ahmed news which has aligned itself with the green movement, which was the protest movement in 2009.  And the Iranian government has asked telegram to shut down this channel because they had one viral news story of the speaker of parliaments daughter being associated with Mahsad and GCLQ.  It caused a number of controversy.  And telegram refused to shut it down and then the government or ‑‑ I've been studying this.  People who are loosely affiliated with the government started a series of body counts and started spamming on television to block out Ahmed news.  He's danced for freedom of expression and they only showed anything related to violence.  The government has kind of institutionalized the way that it is trying to sensor and control Telegram.  They have made it's mandatory for anyone inside of the country who runs telegram channels to seek permission and get a license to run a channel that has more than 5,000 followers.  And this has led to the fact that the government now has information of a lot of social media users and telegram administrators and there has been a series of crackdowns where they have administrators and arrested them.  That is of particular concern.  And ‑‑ but from the Civil Society's perspective though, what is really of concern is how telegram approaches this huge responsibility they have in a country like Iran.  (?) is reluctant to engage with this article so far.  In a recent interview, he said he's motivated by curiosity and he kinds it interesting to run the most popular social media platform in a country like Iran which is dismissive of the fact there are people who are actually being arrested, being really their safety and security is being compromised because of the fact they're present on this platform.  In terms of security, there's a lot of specific considerations in being in Iran.  There was a series of hackings that the Iranian government did of notable journalists on the platform and they did it through two factor authentication, breaking into accounts through two factor authentication.  So Telegram has been available to try to retrieve the accounts, but it's been mainly reactive.  Just last week, there was one flaw where service notifications from Telegram were being kind of forced into in order to spear fish for people's log in information and telegram reacted to it.  So what we really want is for telegram to start working in engaging with Civil Society with activists and journalists and those at risk to not be so reactive to this and be prepared for the considerations in the content.  And yeah.  Thank you.

>> Thank you very much.  MAHSA closes the very diverse interventions.  So we now have 10 minutes for questions.  Please state your name, be brief and then we will organize speakers.  So who is first?  Who wants to break the ice?  The floor is yours.

>> I am from India.  I am in the Internet service providers association of India as one of the governing board members.  Hence I ‑‑ I think I am competent to make certain commence.  Mostly, I am resident of a country India and hence, I think I these to make some comments here.  We talk of fake news.  We all have been discussing it just now.  Now, let me tell you how things get a little taken misunderstood.  Just now a young lady from my country only gave a very animated speech on how the government came up with a consultation paper and how there was a lot of ooh, ha, as to what is going to happen.  I would like to ask what happened?  They have banned (?) reading.  It's the most positive signs our government has taken.  Let's not ‑‑ let's not take things piece meal and convey impressions which are not right unnecessarily creates a distinct to the information technology act of our country was flawed.  What has happened?  The supreme court has taken a decision and struck it down.  The Civil Society is charged.  So all these things make a difference.  So what I would request is even at this meeting whenever we are talking, the news whatever we are trying to convey must be full and not in pieces.  Otherwise it is misunderstood.  Thank you.

>> Thank you.  I wasn't sure if that was a question.  It seemed like a statement.  We're only asking for questions.  I think it is important to let her respond to that.

>> Thank you.guess just to give everyone the full content, yes, there was a paper on OTT regulation in 2015.  It had as almost as a last few pages talked about in neutrality.  So that then proceeded separately on its own.  So what I was drawing attention to is the first part of the paper which brought up the regulation and spoke about the possibility of licensing reseal or not.  That consultation has not been closed.  There fact, a month ago the Telecom regulator tend to take forward the consummation.  It is very much a live issue and it will continue to be.  So I think just to explain why on an issue like OTT licensing, it is always skeptical and suspicious.  I thought I would give them that content and where we come from that suspicion.  There will be all kinds of ‑‑

>> I'm sorry.  We're not allowing because we have eight people and we have a full room.  So ‑‑

>> We encourage you to take this offline.  We have a second question in the back of the room.

>> Hello.  I'm Berna.  I had more of a comment/question.  Regarding the Brazilian contacts, all the initiatives I've seen so far on fake news were an attempt to prevent people from working on writing things along regarding political persons.  So in by view, at least, it is more of a way like a 41 tear to combat.  Fake news involving political class interest not misinformation campaigns.  And I would like to ask in the sense if they are discussing anything other than protecting the political class and their honor, something like this.

>> Well ‑‑

>> Go ahead.

>> Okay.  Fortunately, the bill protecting the political class hasn't passed.  So we still can talk against political class freely.  There is no problem with that.  I know that there is a lot of campaign about how to be careful with the fake news.  Also I see a group of organizations try to get together as effect checkers.  Great discussion is who checked the fact checkers?  So this issue is still something that it's not clear for everyone.  And we need to bring up all those topics, which is not clear for everyone.  My concern is that what we can get as a result of this not well discussed thing first is on some loss that can restrictive freedom of expressions and also we can also create some kind of intermediaries like fact checkers that might not be as much as transferring that we would like to see.  Because we have the amount in France is the platform for select or define what is fake or not fake.  Facebook is also moving to create an algorithm to attack what is fake news or not fake news.  It seems to be not enough transparent for the entire community.  Who is going to check the checkers is my concern.

>> Thank you.  Any other question?  If not, if it's not urge end, then we move to the next panelists.  Lilian was from Uganda.  Sorry about that.  Lilian, the floor is yours.

>> LILLIAN NALWOGA:  Thank you.  Good morning, everyone.  Yes.  I'm from Uganda, but I work with an organization that is in south Africa.  I am good to be associated with South Africa at this point since I will be presenting some perspectives on dealing with fake news from Africa.  I work with an organization called collaboration on international ICT policy.  And every area we focus on the issue of Internet freedom and we look at different issues.  This year we looked physically at the role of intermediaries in promoting freedom and challenges and opportunities for addressing internet and respecting Internet freedom in Africa.  One of the issues that came through the report is how intermediaries and governments are reacting or responding to the issue of fake news.  What we found out was fake news is at time fake news for information go hand in hand.  There's no clear definition of what fake news is.  So it is defined according to how you know someone or classifies whatever is forced or not.  And this is ‑‑ this is having a lot of interest from many African firsts on how to regulate social media.  One is in pass and go and using existing side bar security in trying to control this or big elephant code fake news.  Constant is what you found in the report where it is legitimate to control the spread of (inaudible) information or whichever time we recall it like many from my region.  This has been used to offer freedom of expression.  The other thing was what we found fake news of forced information.  At times it is treated as offensive communication or communication looked at or information looked at trying to coincide some sort of violence or at times even, you know, categorize fake news or forced information.  So there's quite a lot of different (?) and everyone watches fake news.  But nonetheless, we've had stories or had incidents where fake news has been use said to sprint certain, you know, rumors and one in place is during the elections in Kenya this year, there were fake news, you know, someone was spreading fake news.  We don't know where the source was, but there were false (?) someone created an account and tried to make it look like CNN videos and disguise CNN and BBC.  This widely spread and Facebook and Twitter and what's up, which is one of the biggest reach out forced news is being spread.  We are seeing citizens try to push back on how to address forced information.

>> There were spread of rumors about the President and he wasn't responding, so citizens created a hashtag.  Bring him back on Twitter and the government tried to respond.  I declare the status of the President at that time.  So what we're seeing is Facebook reacted in regard to the fake news in Kenya.  It created a platform and, you know, reacted to the Kenya incident.  They were trying to address Facebook force news spread.  The other thing although what I wanted to highlight is in Uganda, but in Africa, we also seeing some countries like India where it is kind of controversial, but fake news or false information is used to raise, you know, awareness about some injustices within community where people feel that they are not getting their voices heard and they're creating false stories to point out that we're expressing this and the government responds back.  But what does this mean when we have no clear definition of what fake news is and where we have no clear ways on how to justify what is fake and what is not fake.  What we are seeing is where I come from, we are seeing so many people trying to obsess or utilize those social media platforms.  We are worried that, you know, as people come online and they're having these sort of fake news and there's really need clear strategy on how to address it, I know in Kenya there's been guidelines that have been by government, but many times the governments are pushing back calling people social media terrorists like in Zimbabwe.  People know and we are concerned that there may be a point that people may stay away from using the platforms for our positive way.  And this is leading to, you know, censorship, but also for the governments, we are seeing increase in Internet shut downs or Internet disruptions.  We are seeing lots of take down requests to social media platforms and we think this is ‑‑ it's not a long lasting solution to how to address these old phenomenas, but also we are seeing how intermediaries are responding especially Telecom network platers and ISPs.  They're not giving that much attention that it should be done from the perspective.  Case in point, it is part (?) African countries and whereas it has this huge transparency report.  I think it is one of the service providers that you know release ‑‑ what is the transference reports, but the terms and conditions in the countries they operate that are clearly visible in many of the African countries, there's no where to access for users to know to utilize platforms.  This is how you should ‑‑ these are the times and this is what we promote and this is what we don't promote.  So there's lack of awareness on terms and conditions or user policies for these ISBs.  And also, ever course, the issue of digital democracy is dealing with concerns and how people should take advantage of the benefits on social media or this order social media platform.  So these are some of the things I'm trying to address.  So yes.  I got the (?) out of here and then we will engage after that.

>> CHAIRMAN:  Thank you very much for so graciously accepting.  So next in line is Romina Geredo from Chile.  The floor is yours.

>> Good morning, everyone.  Thank you for the invitation.  Can you hear me?  Yes.  Thank you, girls for the invitation to talk about this issue and the situation in one of the (?) countries in the world.  I work in Lados Protejidos.  And we were thinking about this span on the problem was fake news.  We think that this issue must are observed in the larger framework of the right.  Our freedom who are involved, but it's not just freedom of expression.  It's privacy and data protection always because management is an issue.  When who is manipulating information.  You know so much about ourselves and interest and taste is.  Special content design it for us.  In this contact, it's important to take into consideration a specific condition for the global south specifically Latin America because we identify certain characters that we need in the global south in our countries in Latin America.  Sharpen and complicated treatment of fake news.  And the first place, a very complex situation of freedom of expression and certain cases.  Rightly with the physical security of journalists, is that an issue in Latin America now?  The press freedom there the reported without reporters cataloged most Latin America country like area with visible problems in this kind of situation.  In second place, the region we have a high concentration of ownership of the media.  According to observe com, Latin America the market of presentation of media concentrated by the main operated, I did 80%.  In my country, Chile, this figure rides and denies 90% ever the concentration of the media.  In the third place, all population is still received non‑perceived (inaudible) for formal education.  Don't have education.  This is a very important issue when the responsibility is also in the use of this information or fake news.  And the last is compliance injected.  We are seeing and often manipulated by governments and company as a barrier of freedom of expression or barriers to Connectivity.

Well, many reports recognize that in Latin America, we are ‑‑ the government use these kind of tools to manipulate social media.  And our report of the University of Oxford are identified the intervention of social networking in Argentina, and many more, for example.  We than Facebook and Twitter like the main platforms.  Now the people that are actually informant and in Latin America countries.  They announced a pilot make sure to report fairly new to users.  And in that sense, we observe that in Latin America.  We have a double problem.  By one hand, the objective of worrying.  A tummy side and this story the public didn't.  In our country, we are ‑‑ we are people usually acquired through platforms like Facebook or Twitter.  By the other hand, we have enormous concentration of the media.  There are some Brills in Latin America, some countries of some authorities think that we need a legal solution about this issue.  Like Colombia and Costa Rica, they have bills who pan out penalty and try to make some definition about this issue.  In Chile, we have related the fake new issue with detailed propaganda.  We have a median low who penalty was media straight the different mention who can we understand as a media platform.  Blocks and internet media are not considered in the that log.  We have also a specific rule for critical propaganda and digital environments.  We implement our independent project in Chile who was developed in U.K.  It goes who charges me and in this present, we tried to identified dark adds in the political campaigns in which the extent works like an ad blocking, but instead, they categorize through publish id.  And this also terminates when the contents are put in intentionally for us.  So we have recently presented ‑‑ tell them the election this last Wednesday.  And we used this fool for approximately one month and a half.  And we were to publish their result soon, I hope.  So we thought this is a political issue, but it's also a marketing issue.  Marketing for the political propaganda are moving to the edge ethical.  It is possible to handle people in their critical options.  So some fresh example of my country of fake news, for example, the media published that who actual period will have parking.  And the last Sunday, market it was the same boat, but the information said there was a market that you have manipulated election.  But not just political issue are involved in fake news.  For example, issues like ethic and migration take the debate in Chile also.  Blame the ethnic group for the fires.  There should be speeches that are opposed for the migration and the people in our country.

To finish is the regulation, the answer.  We think not.  We think that we are talking about I think with go policy of control must fire and insure condition in partiality.  The second idea is training to the people digital literacy.  And, of course, trainings journalists and how this missing ‑‑ the ‑‑ how to adding ‑‑ how the misinformation affect the formal education. 

And finally, accountability and transpired in the operation of the political or such networks.  That's all.

>> My mic is now working.  So couple of things.  The first is Amber needs to leave because she has a flight to catch.  You did an excellent intervention.  And you couldn't feel more questions, but you can find out on Twitter and ‑‑

>> My Twitter handle against all odds.  I've been told to change it.  It's @amba.

>> We can continue this conversation.  Thank you so much, amba.  Now we move swiftly on to Kelly Kim who is the general council with zoo.  So it would be good to hear from you.

>> KELLY:  Hi.  Can you hear me?  Okay.  I'm Kelly.  I was introduced before.  I hope oval and he gets mad and he's like mama, turn that off!  We have panelists that have mentioned.  So first thing paycheck news is not a new ‑‑ and they have been used by those in power.  Before the democrat (inaudible) of South Korea and boy the dictators, these days there are a lot of politics.  There is force news or fake news is against established international human rights law.  And 30 point is that fake news regulations is that they target intermediary like platforms in posing monitoring obligations and liabilities on my Facebook, Twitter as our platform in India.  We have like other platforms that are dominant.  In the patient.  But the thing is this is an intermediary library.  Making these laws will make the quite for free speech freedom of expression harder for ‑‑ for the activists.  It's activists my knee.  So first point fake news is very Meno Mena in the sense that the presidential election in the U.S. last year and the election Donald Trump, I didn't hold and you said it's regulation.  The content of a piece of information is forced has been with the human (?) from the beginning.  What I'm saying is that news has been there all along and we just code them in different ways.  So further news, so information.  And secondly in South Korea, we have many laws.  And the name of the (?) forced information for forced news and defamation.  They have abused by those in power like in ‑‑ like Leon must have mentioned.  However, there are a sloping international human that ask then punish it and more normalizing for speech.  To this, I want to introduce Case of Nerva.  Who was in charge for spreading also news.  But not only did it get seated, I got the forced law as a institutional and in court of development 10.  This blog obtained a huge following like priest, procedia L.  Like he predicted, for instance, the down for human brothers.  We criticized the exchange rating I had several things lodged and support us to come die.  It's expensive part to medium companies and, are, of course, to violence for what?  And in ‑‑ they charge Minerva the spreading of sports news and then we got it.  He was in France or more than a year.  But in the end, we came together to defend him at the court and also by the constitution.  We won and how we won.  There were many stretches, but on them and we have a constitution or (?).  Most of them receive the health article from many.  But from the case, I can deny so just something is forest.  It does not mean it should be regulated.  So only options that cause damagen to you have to go through the subject of such regulation and even if it was a statement by Boris, it ask help uncover the truth in the market lies of ideas.  So I believe the regulation can have the filling effect.  Third point as I just mentioned, fake news has been ‑‑ fake news regulations have been abused by those in power.  Now a days, those politics were fake news regulations to be that just but that thing is in South Korea, it has been the state or the government who spread fake news?  It has been proven by the government and by the court that the international intersectional got used to it in a special task force.  We voted.  It was almost a million plants.  It was to get the impeached President yet effected.  So yeah.  I will get to the point.  So what we will do is for our speech, our freedom of expression or users or user along with special.  I easily compromise as the play forms and authorities have no right to fight bag for us.  Freedom of expression very hard because we have to go after the in term media restoration.  The regime where the state or the law itself law ‑‑ last I went to the stage.  That's one thing from a number of the global ourselves.  You are making my life as I recommend objects.

>> Thank you very much, Kelly.  Now last minute update.  We are now going to change the fact these would conclude our ground of taking of interactions and open to questions.  You see a question programming from the end and I would like to make a note of forth.  Stay to final or people they're talking to.

>> Apologies.  I missed the first questions of this session.  My question is:  Should we follow the money?  Isn't the problem that Facebook and Twitter have taken away most of the advertising refer new from the traditional and therefore, they should come together and build their own adequate works and remove that residency and face become that claim the business model real news.  Thank you.

>> Do we have any panelists that want to quickly adjust that question?

>> I can try.  At the beginning of this project, we were thinking how the different business models speak to each.  So we were tinging of looking down and the speaks and increase in fake news the incentives for different parties involved.  But as a researcher and I think we've spoken about this.  I don't know how to reach that.  And also secondly, I think it is a little more complicated in that people just like to believe bad things about people they don't like.  We just like to believe bad things.  We're usually more receptive to it, but I think as parent as a business model and valid as I think your point is, I think we need to knowledge about how do we account for more solutions and fixes.  I don't think one fix is going to solve the problem.  Bit of a ducking ‑‑ with your question, I hope that's okay.  We have another one.

>> ANA:  My name is Ana.  I'm from Switzerland, a compliance officer.  My question is:  You speak about fake news, but I haven't had any since.  This would be good for environments because they could, you know, control everything.  Yeah?  And obviously can still use homemade accounts with different numbers or names, but behind would be always an entry number, like a unique user and the other way to control people is ‑‑ that is not supposed to use a computer.  Apple reacts, for example.  At the moment, it does exist.  So my question is:  Do you think you would be rate to put those users and those governments to systematize.  You have a unique number and G‑mail accounts.  Any profile in any platform.

>> We do have a couple of people that want to reply and probably more.  Let's start bra this side.

>> Yeah.  I think the Egyptian government would be excited about that for all the wrong reasons.  We can make it very, very easy for them to understand whoever they would like to because they have to go and look at that number and then there's ‑‑ bulletin profiles is a good way to send the restrictions and governments put on us.  So to ask for such a user and number inside.  All for let's think and also I wanted to maim another point because we keep trying to ‑‑ we talk about fake news and I think currently there.

>> There is no south and at least from my background, I'm from self serve.  Ready subjective and it's really within them efforts from documents that we're trying to achieve absolutely without.  I'm also at that point at the moment.  So telegram ad up traitors and users often times do have to register and this already has been applauded.  So very short response that is a very dark road to go down.

>> Thank you.

>> Go ahead.

>> I think from Africa I think we need to have ‑‑ provide a way of some users remain anonymous.  Like I said in something that the go of would know very excited about.  We need to feather violations.  I think the question it is something that we need to find or trying to address.  We will not have a solution right now.

>> I remain on the same page.  Other than that, you'll encourage surveillance and then he asked me and I prefer to depend it.  I'm not on the internet.

>> Yeah.  I want to add about penalties already set.  In Korea, we already had the system.  So Korea government introduced this Internet real name law, but it got shot down by the constitution because we have a right to anonymous speech.  It could infringe it on those human rights and it used so many peoples.  That's it.  A registry is one of the things you can ‑‑ worse system can quiet the fake news.  Just a moment to follow up this idea.  I think we live in a huge balance between users and companies.  So implement solution like this just put they I think we have time for one more question if there is one.  I didn't see your hand.  Okay.  In that case, should you can I invite panelists your input on yesterday.  It's very difficult to respond who has the responsibility at the end of the day.  So it is a tricky issue.  I don't have the answer.  But we are continuously reflecting about that about how these kind of things not just affected freedom of expression because there is an absolute right ever the protection issue and this would be ‑‑ should be a concern in our governments in the global sales and Latin America.

>> We know that we are at risk when the next President of our superior court in election in Brazil says we will create a preventive structure for fake news which includes measures of constriction of property, measures to restrict the freedom of those who are in deductible.  Prepare to meet this type of crime says the minister.  That's all.

>> Okay.  For me I think we've had from ‑‑ my colleague from south Korea.  Fake news or (?) news, it has been amplified by social media.  I think addressing it should be shared responsibility.  We can put this role.  But also it is something that users also need to be aware of, aware about how to ‑‑ I didn't fight what is force and main force.  I think there is that individual to know.  We need to identify what the different steak holders is and then maybe we'll find some sort of, you know, common grounds on how to address this.

>> So from the contacts of Iran, which is where I was speaking from today, for a country with a government that flagrantly disregards the voices from the community becomes very crucial to rely on work by these companies.  And so my main take away would be what are ways to engage companies like telegram where their main aim and goal for existing is not necessarily the security and human rights of Iranian users but to be a profitable corporation.  How do you engage actor like this in a setting like IGF where they're usually absent and how do we create a more productive environment for a platform that has become so crucial to accessed information and freedom of expression?

>> Yeah.  I think I want to echo what has been said before.  We have a situation where we have four profit companies that have basically created some of the messes we're in now and it's on us to figure out how to find solutions to reconcile the situation.  I think it would be good to have solutions that keep the different context in which they have in mind.  More surveillance is no other step we should be taking to control this matter of fake news.  On the opposite, I would follow up with what Lilian were talking about.  Where does information come from, who produced it.  So maybe I know it takes steps and then more towards that direction to increasing transparency of flow is where the information comes from.

>> It was really great to have this discussion especially from the global perspective.  The session description it has mainly global north's discussion and global north's debate.  Every country has very different background and things.  I hope that this discussion ask debate can continue in the future and thank you very inviting me to this great panel.

>> So thank you very much for being so patient.  And the last day ever the IGF.  Thank you to all the speakers.  It's not random choice that most of them were women.  We're very proud of that.  We hope you share our excitement.  This is just the beginning of a conversation.  We are going to produce a white paper and get back to you in the next IGF.

>> If you are (?) please head on over.  Thank you so much.

[APPLAUSE]

>> For anyone interested, it's room 26.  Thank you.

5:15‑6:30 CST.