The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Berlin, Germany, from 25 to 29 November 2019. 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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>> ANDREA THILO: Let us take a minute now, please, to remember someone who can unfortunately not be with us anymore. And may I ask the Under‑Secretary‑General Liu Zhenmin to take the floor and share his thoughts and memories.
>> LIU ZHENMIN: Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues. Before we begin our last segment of the meeting this afternoon, can I have a few seconds of your time. We want to dedicate this moment to Dr. Tarek Kamel whose picture you will see on the screen.
We all mourn the loss of Dr. Kamel, Internet pioneer known for his contributions to global Internet Governance.
In ICANN, Tarek was Senior Advisor to the President and Senior Vice President of Government and intergovernment organization IGO engagement. He was also the Minister of Communication and the Information Technology of Egypt, a post he held from July 2004 to February 2011.
Exactly 10 years ago in 2009, also in the November week like this, he was instrumental in organizing the fourth meeting of the IGF in Sharm el Sheikh Egypt. Before that, he played a crucial role in the early days of World Summit of Information Society negotiations defending the multi‑stakeholder model and open, affordable around full access to Internet. He was also a true supporter of IGF and he always kept excellent relationships with my staff of DESA and the United Nations.
We will definitely miss Tarek.
Dear colleagues, I know you know the CEO of ICANN Göran Marby also to say a few words. Göran, you have the floor, please.
>> GÖRAN MARBY: Thank you. I'm humbled to be here to pay tribute to dear friend and colleague. Tarek was an internationally respected Internet pay near and a prominent figure in Internet Governance circles. He was also a supporter of IGF as was mentioned so much, he was instrumental hosting IGF in 2009 in Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt, the first time I met Tarek.
Tarek had a deep passion for connection. He fearlessly shaped Egypt into a connected future and in doing so created countless opportunities for people of his country. He was a visionary who believed that the Internet should remain free, open, secure, and for everyone.
He was a powerful advocate for the multi‑stakeholder model and collaboration. He passionately believed that all should have access to the Internet and spearheaded many initiatives to build technical capacity in Egypt as well as across the African Continent, later globally with us at ICANN. Tarek agreed to the Internet Community and beyond, and to me as my friend.
He is missed but will never be forgotten. Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> ANDREA THILO: Dear ladies and gentlemen, there is another person we miss who passed away yesterday, Jimmy Schulz. He was backing the initiative for the Chancellor just mentioned by Federal Minister Altmaier to see a systematic change in IGF by participation of Parliamentarians and I'd like to invite now kindly on stage, MP and Deputy Chairman of the economy of the Digital Agenda to please share your thoughts and feelings.
>> Ladies and gentlemen, hosting this Internet Governance Forum here in Berlin also shows how much this UN event is valued by Germany, and one person who tirelessly advocated for this year's IGF to take place in Berlin was Jimmy Schulz. With his passionate work for the IGF, he was well known to many German politicians but also many others in the world, and he was a visionary in that regard. For years he'd been an active and regular guest to the IGF and it was one of his goals in life to be here at this year's IGF in Berlin. But unfortunately, that wish did not come true. He passed away yesterday morning after a long, serious illness.
Jimmy Schulz was pay near of digital policy in Germany ‑‑ pioneer of digital policy in Germany. He was one of the early supporters who wanted to carry the issues debated at the IGF into the German Parliament, and with his ‑‑ and it is also thanks to his tireless work that we now have a digital Committee at the German Parliament and he was Chair of that since 2017.
We lost a dear colleague and good friend who knew to insight passion about his topics of interest beyond political groups. The IGF and us, we lost a passionate advocate of free, global, and accessible Internet. The Internet that has come under great pressure today. He tirelessly campaigned for digital education and literacy, so we lost more than a wonderful person. We also lost someone who fought for digital policy in service of the people. We will dearly miss Jimmy Schulz, and right now, our thoughts go to his wife and his three children.
>> ANDREA THILO: May I ask you all please for a moment of silence in honor for those ones who passed away. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
[ Applause ]
Thank you for this moment of caring. We now enter the phase of the afternoon, of the High Level Panels, the three sessions in a row. One hour each. And I'm delighted to announce the speakers and the moderators in a minute but what we will do for the first time I guess ever at the IGF is trying to really let you all participate digitally. We have a great well working tool for that, it's called Sl ios you can connect now if you can take out your Smartphones on three ways, either you use your QR scanner to scan that QR code or you can just if you a modern Smartphone you may just use your camera and make a photo of that and you'll be directly connected to Slido and it will open up the browser and you're invited behind the hashtag to put on the code which is not surprisingly IGF2019. And what we are trying to do, I said it earlier, we have more than 2,000 people in the room and we have people who are collaborating via Zoom which is another tool at the remote hubs. We will gather all your questions, and please apologize, we're not able to bring them all to the table in one hour of discussion with 6 panelists and a great moderator. But what we're going to do and it's very, very highly appreciated by the IGF and the team behind to about your questions and your expertise behind. Send us your questions although we'll only be able to put a few of them on the plate. That will happen in the last third of the discussion. Send me a smile or anything like that that you're in. That I know. Is it working out more or less? So whenever you want, you can drop your question related to the panel.
So I'm handing over the moderation now for the first High Level session which is on the future of Internet Governance, and I'm handing over and I very much am inviting all panelists please on stage together with the moderator. I start with introducing the moderator, it's Vint Cerf. He's an American Internet pioneer recognized as one of the fathers of the internet, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. He's received numerous honorary degrees and Awards, including the National medal of technology, the presidential medal of freedom and many more. I'll leave it here. Glad to have you here. Whatever you are, may I introduce your panelists.
>> VINT CERF: If you wish.
>> ANDREA THILO: If I wish. Please come on stage, please, please. I start with Sir Tim Berners‑Lee. His visionary and innovative work has transformed almost every aspect of our lives. The Time magazine named him one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. He invented the World Wide Web in 1989.
[ Applause ]
And later became the Founding Director of the World Wide Web Foundation which seeks to establish, that's the subject of the day, the net as a global public good and basic right and in this interest, I don't know who of you was testifying this yesterday, he launched the contracted of the Web at the IGF yesterday. Good to have you here.
And I start with the lady in the back, because Anriette Esterhuysen, can you come please to the front? That's not Anriette. Sorry, I was wrong, so I start with the other ones. This is Göran Marby, the CEO and the President of ICANN since 2016. He's a Member of the Swedish E identification board with more than 20 years of experience as leader in the Web and tech sector. Please have a seat.
[ Applause ]
I follow with Liu Zhenmin, the Under‑Secretary‑General for Economic and Social Affairs at the UN. He advises the Secretary‑General on three pillars of Sustainable Development: Social, economic and environmental. And he nurtures key partnerships with Governments, UN agencies and Civil Society organizations.
I go ahead with Makiko Yamada. He's the Vice‑Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications in Japan and since summer 2015, she has been the General Director of the global ICT strategy Bureau in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication and earlier she had become the first ever female Executive Secretary to the Japanese Prime Minister. Most welcome.
[ Applause ]
So, and over more. So could you please introduce yourselves? There was a change, and would you be so kind please. The mic is on.
>> Good afternoon everyone. My name is Alison Gould. I'm from research ICT Africa and the University Cape Town in South Africa. I'm an academic and Researcher in the policy Researcher. I have been involved in policy and regulation across the African Continent.
>> ANDREA THILO: Thank you very much. And finally Ignazio Cassis, the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Switzerland. Most welcome, please have a seat. Enjoy the conversation now.
>> Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. It turns out we've done a little research about some of our panel members and so I thought I would share a few secrets that we've discovered. We discovered that Vice‑Minister Yamada has joined a gospel lesson group and she takes singing lessons twice a month. Her favorite song is called the latter will be greater but her other favorite song is oh happy day. Let's hope at the end of the Conference we'll all be singing oh happy day. So welcome to the panel. Thank you.
It also turns out that Tim Berners‑Lee, to my left, we found another secret that he shared. He says he likes trail running and he's been known to update open street map whale he's running, sometimes in Berlin. So I hope you didn't run into anything while you were updating, Tim. We also discovered that Mr. Göran Marby to my right is a secret chef. He's an educated chef and that explains why the projects that he starts have names like call zone, strawberry, hubba hubba and milky way.
I'm sorry that I do not have any other secret ‑‑ I'm sorry, one more secret I've discovered, yes. This is Mr. Cassis, who is the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Switzerland is actually a physician who practices preventive medicine, and it seems to me that that practice will be very relevant to what we talk about today, which is Internet Governance and its future. We would like to prevent disease and promote health in the Internet.
Under‑Secretary‑General Zhenmin, I have no secrets. Do you wish to share any?
>> LIU ZHENMIN: I'm very transparent.
>> VINT CERF: I'm very transparent he says. Allison I don't know if you have any secrets you'd like to share. It's not required. Would you like to use the microphone? Allison Gillwald.
[ Off microphone ]
Let us get started with the subject at hand which is the future...
How many engineers does it take to turn on a microphone? Let's start with a few observations. The Specter of a fragmented and divided Internet sometimes called splinter net where markets are corrupted and people's free expression is censored and Democracy is undermined is no longer just an abstract concept. It's a rapidly evolving reality. Cyberspace is a global space and we need global solutions to our shared challenges. If we don't find flexible future‑proof International Governance frameworks for the global Internet, all of its promise and potential to lift up new voices and create new economic opportunities for everyone will cease to be global, and even in the places where the Internet does continue to work in the same way that it does today, without a global reach, its value as a socioeconomic innovation engine will diminish. The open and intraoperable Internet is the Foundation upon which many new and existing businesses are built. It's also something upon which everyone who participates in the economy, small companies, Civil Society governments and every day users rely and it's vital that this infrastructure functions reliably, safely, securely, accessibly and affordably. Governance matters must receive priority attention, especially those affecting individual users and rights. I could go on but I'm not going to do that. It's much more important to engage in discussion and find out what questions you who are here assembled have for this panel so I have a few and I would like to start with Mr. Cassis. What's your general view on the future of digital cooperation? And why has Switzerland been so committed to the UN Secretary‑General's High Level Panel?
>> IGNAZIO CASSIS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will start speaking German to honor our host and I will then switch to English.
Dear panelists, ladies and gentlemen, digital transformation changes our world and the technologies of digital transformation have to focus on the humans. Everybody has to be able to benefit from digital transformation. There may be many risks but there are even more opportunities. Digital transformation can promote security and prosperity and of course as any change, this change creates fears and concerns, as well. Our working lives are changed and artificial intelligence may soon trump our human intelligence but many of these concerns are unfounded, because we know that countries with a high degree of robotization have the lowest degrees of unemployment. Two things are quite clear to me.
First, more interdisciplinary cooperation is required, and, second, we need to strengthen International Governance in this area. The expert dialogue at this IGF is necessary, but it alone is not enough. We need to bridge technological experts and decision makers in policy and industry, and this is why IGF should be further developed and include all stakeholders, political decision‑makers have to ‑‑ decisions have to be measured against specific outcomes in terms of ‑‑ social and economic outcomes.
Our country supports the IGF. Just think of Vint Cerf. Switzerland advocates a multi‑stakeholder approach. We want industry to be on board, policy work, but also Academia and the general public and they should decide how digital transformation should be used to the benefit of all. I would lake to call this the Swiss approach, because we are a country that practices direct Democracy so we are familiar with that.
There are many good examples of multi‑stakeholder approaches. For example, the Geneva dialogue on responsible behavior in cyberspace, the Swiss Foreign Ministry launched this dialogue last year with the objective to bring businesses from all over the world into a dialogue, and come up with Guidelines for action.
And the peace Institute and the Geneva institution are going in the same direction. They already play an important role in global digital policy, and we would like to even expand that to turn Geneva into a hub of the global digital transformation and technology debate. Thank you.
>> VINT CERF: Thank you very much. It occurs to me that some of the members of the panel would like to make a few opening remarks, and I overlooked that. So may I ask whether you would like to add anything to what you just said? Or would you like that to be an opening statement of position?
>> IGNAZIO CASSIS: No, this was the opening statement.
>> VINT CERF: Wonderful. In that case, let me ask Under‑Secretary‑General Liu Zhenmin to make his opening remarks, please.
>> LIU ZHENMIN: Thank you, thank you Vint.
You asked me what was my secrecy. I'm very transparent. Actually I have a legal background, diplomatic career and multilateral experience is my life. So we're commemorating 50 years of the Internet and 30 years of the invention of the web site, WWW, then 14 years of IGF, but we have to be honest to say that we are still left behind in Internet Governance. I think we can find that the IGF has proven to be the most constructive and successful platform, multiparticipant platform, but I think but due to the complexity of the issue, I think this is understandable that we are left behind, but it doesn't mean that we should really be satisfied with this.
In the future I think it will be what is the future? What is the future of Internet Governance? Gradually I think we need to have some imagination. If you will allow me to have some imagination because in my career I think I have evolved in formulating many of the rules from antarctic, oceans, mining, fisheries, outer space, many issues but I think I am a layman on the Internet but I think if you could allow me to view forward, what am I thinking? I think definitely we need open, inclusive Internet system so I have to figure to be if in the future, the multi‑stakeholders could agree, we should really start to think of the future governance of the Internet on three pillars.
First, we need a system that could take care of concerns of multi‑stakeholders, that could safeguard global Internet connectivity, and cybersecurity, that could facilitate the Sustainable Development of all countries and that could accelerate human progress.
So it means we need the rule of law, not the rule of jungle. That should be benefit for all and safe for all except evils.
Second pillar I think we need to gradually think of how we could ever accumulate a different set of rules for regulating different areas for Internet‑related activities. For example, how we address common technological criteria. Common rules of the Internet, shared responsibility respond to cybercrimes, respect for innovation. This must be safeguarded.
Respect of intellectual property. Respect of human rights standards. Respect of differing culture and civilizations, et cetera.
Third pillar I think would be really we need rules, rules could include relevant rules of existing international law and Secretary‑General highlighted that. Some rules existing should apply, as well as there should be newly formulated Guidelines or criteria, but we should not be ambitious aimed at negotiate anything. This is not time for negotiating anything.
That's why I think we need to enhance the Internet collaboration with different Internet institutions. So that's why I think the IGF would be most ideal platform. If you go back to United Nations, United Nations could really be a support to the IGF process but we need to continue to maintain the multi‑stakeholder process. This is the way out. If we leave to the Member States only, I know that the Member States are divided. You know in the UN Committees, General Assembly Committees, in the first Committee on cybersecurity, they are divided among Member States. In the third committee of General Assembly on committing cybercrimes, Member States also divided.
I think we should avoid that. If members continue to divide, we can achieve nothing, reaching any conclusions, reaching a solution. That's why I think it's better that we make good use of IGF continuously, continue to monopolize the support for the multi‑stakeholder process but I'm afraid in our presence here today over 2,000 participants, I think majority are from Civil Society, industrial sector and Academia so we need continuing, more Government representatives to be here in the future.
So in the next 6 years, until 2025, the World Summit of Internet Society going to review the IGF, we need to continue to build up IGF, make the IGF more effective, more efficient, to develop some Guidelines, so to live up to the expectations of the international community.
>> VINT CERF: Thank you. I think we ‑‑ thank you very much. That gets us off to a very good start. Tim, I see you grabbed the microphone so why don't I ask if you have opening remarks to make. If we can keep them to about 3 minutes that would be helpful.
>> TIM BERNERS-LEE: I was told I would be asked a question about access.
>> VINT CERF: I will ask you about that but you're welcome to use that as your opening remark.
>> TIM BERNERS-LEE: Let me do both as we have limited time. Let me talk about, so, yes, yesterday here we launched the Contract for the Web. And that is the result of a year of multi‑stakeholder fairly effective Working Groups coming together with three parties, Governments, companies, and individuals and those who represent them all coming together to try to work out what to do about the issues which the first two speakers this morning have fortunately very well laid out for us already. Yes, multi‑stakeholder and getting down to Working Groups is a way to do it. The result, for example has been the Web Foundation for example when it comes to access, when we talk about first simple access just the fact that at the moment over half but only just over half the planet has any connectivity at all. We have said because the issue is now not the cost of devices as it used to be. It's now just the cost of the plan and so we have said you should be able to get one gigabyte per month for less than 2% of the mean monthly income in your country. So that's been the Web Foundation's 1 for 2 rule, The World Bank Commission also has picked up the 1 for 2 rule and it's interesting to see which countries are taking that. The basic level, yes, we need to push to get Internet in all the issues that we're talking about, talking about today, these people won't yet have because they won't have the Internet. That if you like is very primary, but also what we said at the Web Foundation is, we want meaningful connectivity. If you go through the process of applying for a job and then the final piece is, okay, now upload a video of yourself explaining why you want the job, and you've done all that you've done up to that point on a low bandwidth line and then in fact you know you'll never be able to upload a video because your connectivity will never do it, then you're sunk.
So in fact there are times when you need not more than just a connection, you need a reliable connection, a reasonable bandwidth, in both directions because video Conferencing is so powerful. So you need a connection which is neutral which allows you to connect to anybody.
And so not just connectivity, meaningful connectivity and then when you've got that connectivity, as more as more people do get online, of course hopefully even though the alarmingly number of people getting online was increasing at 20% per year a few years ago and last year it increased only 5% per year, so the actual rate, that percentage rate is going down. But we hope people will get more online. As more and more people are online we must be concerned, is this the Web we want? All of the concerns that we've seen in the developed world with people who are online, all the concerns about truth, science, Democracy, are all at risk.
The ways by which humanity decides what to believe, and humanity decides what to do collectively are all at risk partly because of a broken Web, and so we need to fix those very important things, so the Contract for the Web is a big part of that, laying out for the first time a global plan for doing that.
>> VINT CERF: Thank you so much, Tim. I think that that sets the stage for our work that lies ahead.
Göran, would you like to take a moment to share your thinking at the outset?
>> GÖRAN MARBY: Thank you. Actually I decided I'm going to reveal another secret as well and it might be illegal so don't tell anyone. 40 years ago one of my friends and my we borrowed may father's car. We drove to Berlin and stole a piece of the wall and drove back home again. Please don't tell anyone.
[ Laughter ]
So to be able, if you define a problem, if you define a solution, you better sometimes actually agree on what the problem is, and I think that the part where Internet Governance at the core have to agree what the problem is. Because Internet as itself is not governed in the traditional way. We're not a stock exchange, we're not a Treaty. We exist through corporations around the world and Internet's also sort of two layers in that sense. You have the accessibility of the Internet and you have platforms on top of the Internet and right now many of the discussions that arises around the Internet is actually about the use of private data in some of those platforms, and coming from ICANN that's not really the Internet.
The funny thing with the Internet is that no one owns it, and everybody owns it. You all have your own personal Internet, and you can define your own Internet by having your own ‑‑ you go to your own web site, so you create your own websites, you can use your social media and put content there. It's very much personalized. I think a lot of the future is about what we haven't done. Many times, we talk about Internet is done. Sometimes there's even a negative discussion, which I don't really agree with because I think Internet's a very positive force. When you bring people together on this network of networks, something magical happens. That's what we believe but it has to change because the next billion users will not be the elites of the world. They will not live in cities. They will come from totally different places. They will not have English as a native language or even an understanding of it. They want to use the Internet according to their values and their principles and their need.
And frankly, they will not have ‑‑ the financial means that many other people have had so far. And let's talk about the fact that it has to be in local scripts so you can use your own keyboard. It will be mobile more than fixed networks and so on. I think that we who's been around for a while, some much longer than me, we have to take into account that the governance, and when I speak now to Government's model of the Internet I talk about the Internet itself not the platforms on top of the Internet, I think we basically have to rethink a lot of those models.
Economic models, financial models because if we think Internet is a positive force for people to get online, because they can get information and share information we can't do the same thing we've done before because then we will never reach the next billion users who will be primarily outside cities in rural areas with less financial means. Thank you.
>> VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Göran. That sets the stage for some more debate. Vice‑Minister Yamada would you like to begin with some of your opening remarks?
>> MAKIKO YAMADA: It works, okay. It's lucky. Thank you, and so talking about the future of Internet Governance, we must think that data itself will be the source of added value and will drive our economy and society forward.
And in a world that has accomplished the free flow of goods across borders and our next challenge will be the promotion of the free flow of data across borders. And I'd like to introduce the discussion of G20 this year, because Japan ran the presidency of G20 platform and so my previous boss, the Prime Minister, chaired the G20 and Japan focused on the free flow of data with trust in the digital society.
And this is the kind of consensus so what we call a process, the National leaders developed and so what we should accomplish now is the free flow of data we trust and it will bring about the growth of economy and the growth of the society so that's my opening remark.
>> VINT CERF: Thank you very much. I think this point about free flow of information, free access, doesn't mean free of charge necessarily, but it does mean freedom of choice, the ability to go where you want to go on the net to get to where you need to go, to share information that you believe is valuable for others.
These are incredibly powerful notions.
So Professor Gillwald, I would like to find out whether you have any opening thoughts as well for our panel.
>> Alison Gould: Thank you. I do, I do. We've understood free and open Internet as something that we need to defend from regulation and from governance. But in fact I think what we're seeing more and more is the need to ‑‑ we have to defend the openness of it. We actually have to find ways of governing and protecting through regulation. It's not this kind of Libertarian free market that people can come and leave et cetera so in order to have this discussion around an open Internet we absolutely have to look at it more holistically. We can no longer just look at it as the sort of logical layer and the regulation of that and I think what we're seeing is a failure of the various forms of international and global governance we've had and I think we're severely challenged now. We really have a crisis in global governance about how to deal with these things. To deal with them holistically, we can't have this discussion about an open Internet with only 30%, elite 30% of the globe's population. We have to have this discussion around the access issues, around Internet Protocol issues and around the data and platforms because they're intrinsic to it. What we're seeing at the moment is the impacts of OTTs on infrastructure investments. We're seeing the taxation of poor people with social networking taxes instead of taxing the platforms so it's really impacting on people's ability to participate in this. People are actually coming off the net, so besides the stabilization that you're seeing people are actually being pushed off the net and because we can't just talk about the infrastructure any longer or the services on it, we're actually talking about the platforms and the content, these sort of traditional rent extractive processes by Governments are coinciding with social control, so those are specifically geared because young social dissidents are actually using those networks so there's this intersection of rights and economic regulation that we haven't seen before, and that have to be addressed at a global level. The an way we can engage with Governments, these are often the only industries from which they can get taxes so making the poor pay is not the solution so these global solutions G20, OECD solutions, around Global Platform tax that could be fairly administered so not an irrational tax, a fair tax on a National basis, kind of governance challenges we have to deal with and just to ‑‑ we have to move, I absolutely agree beyond the things we've been doing before that haven't been working and we've had failure at the nation state level, at the multilateral level. We've worked with multistakeholderism. I think there's been enormous progress in many ways but multistakeholderism on its own is not delivering enough. We're still seeing enormous challenges in what is happening in the Internet and we've got to move beyond the slogans. Devices are still the biggest challenge. Your demand side evidence shows devices remain the biggest challenge and those countries which have those very, very low prices, some of the lowest prices in Africa actually also have the lowest Internet penetration rate so we need to look at this and find alternative access strategies. Very quickly have a look at these different levels so what is actually happening with regulation at the different levels where we don't actually have, we have State failure. We also have private sector failure so the model of ICANN and the private regulation of the Internet, the sale of the .org Domain Name represents a significant challenge to private regulation. This should not have happened in a public regulatory regime so one can go on and look at the challenges of data governance with Cambridge Analytica and the platforms. So this is a very integrated challenge we have to come up with new forms of global governance to address that will have to be collaborative.
>> VINT CERF: Thank you, Alison. We need to leave a little time here for discussion.
[ Applause ]
It seems to me just based on what all you have said so far that the notion of a single regulatory regime is not going to work, because we have a very complex object that can be used in a variety of ways, and the business models vary from layer to layer. Göran was quite right I think to separate platform from the underlying communication network but then Alison you mentioned also the applications that sit on top of the platforms, every one of those content and usage introduces a need for some kind of regulatory oversight or protection from harm.
So perhaps the most important question that we can ask, and I'd be happy to have any of you respond to this, is: How do we approach this complex process? Undersecretary Zhenmin you thought the multi‑stakeholder element in the IGF was important for us to get on the table a variety of different approaches, to managing the development of governance processes. I wonder if you could say a little more about that.
>> LIU ZHENMIN: Yes, I think after 14 years, I think now it's really the time for IGF to underline what are the issues. We could have a list of issues. What issues we need to really develop some guidelines, some criteria, some rules, but you cannot have one ‑‑ I agree with you that one uniform set of rules to add dris all issues. For example some technological issues we can't asking for ITU to address. Some rules we can ask some other bodies.
I think we through the IGF process we could really find the issues and what are the issues we can start to find some solution. Then we could really request a mandate particularly Agency organization, some issues can be addressed by outcome. ITU. Some by UN. We need to find different issues to address but definitely IGF could serve as a platform for enhanced international collaboration. We need international collaboration but with shared responsibility of different international institutions.
>> VINT CERF: So you mentioned shared responsibility, and it occurs to me that the other people who have a responsibility to Sherrer the users of the network, because their behavior determines in some sense what the Internet is like and also whether or not it's safe and secure or not. People who don't know how to secure their own passwords for example introduce significant problems for everyone including themselves so this notion of shared responsibility feels like it might be an important plank in thinking so timid like to ask whether that fits into the Contract? Are the users themselves part of this contract?
>> TIM BERNERS-LEE: Absolutely, they're a very important part of the contract and part of it is simply straightforwardly when you go on to the Internet, on the social network on the Web and you start interacting with people, you actually have a choice in what you do, the way you react to something has enormous impact. If you react to the thing which psychiatrists and tests will show you're more likely to react to something which makes you feel angry than to somebody which makes you feel aha, if you suppress that and put off that reTweet till the morning and in fact think, or track the Providence of the thing you're just about to pass on, so you can just have a huge effect on the quality of discussion out there by moderating what you say and what you reTweet and what you like.
And so as an individual, you can have a huge effect, but also down the line in a way we can have multi‑stakeholder agreements between companies and Governments till we're blue in the face but at the end of the day, somebody will have as much accountability as possible but at the end of the day as the individual user you have to realize that it's got to the point no, the company which said it would respect our rights in that way is not. The Government which said we ought to be respecting our rights in that way is not and then you have to protest and then there are times in the Internet's history, you have to get that broom out and you have to get that piece of cardboard and pen and you have to ‑‑ so you also, yes, you have to use the Internet better but also as an individual citizen, at the end of the day you have to hold Governments and companies to account.
>> Alison Gould: Can I respond to that? This notion that people have the resources for that kind of Agency is an assumption that we make from a position of privilege that we can go on to the net, we know how to use it.
[ Applause ]
One of the major challenges we have as people, large numbers of marginalized people come online is that they don't actually they're unable to exercise those rights, even if they exist, even if they exist in codes of conduct, that they actually do have the resources in order to exercise those rights.
And I think this notion that once we've dealt with the connectivity, we've actually got Digital Equality in a data environment is not actually correct at all. I think one of the most wicked policy challenges we have is this digital inequality paradox, that as we bring people more online we're increasing inequalities, not only between the connected and unconnected but those people who are passively consuming tiny bits of data and those who are actually prospering and creating businesses doing those sorts of things so we actually we've moved beyond just individuals being able to gain access, make the most of it, put their best foot forward. We actually need public interventions that enable people to come online, enhance equitability and these are enormous challenges because the only way this can be addressed is at the global level and we have this enormous normative dilemma between clashing norm systems that make it very difficult to use those international Forums to get agreement on how to proceed with these.
>> VINT CERF: I wonder if you a reaction to this. I'm looking for something concrete we might do to move in the direction you're suggesting but I'm not sure what that concrete step would look like.
Also, this feels very local, and a global solution to a local problem sounds like it might be an interesting challenge so let me first let Göran think about that for a moment.
>> GÖRAN MARBY: Yeah, where do I start? There's many things said and many things are interesting and I think it shows to some extent that we always talk et cetera. I happen to believe the Internet is not a major catastrophe that was thrown into the world. I happen to believe that Internet is a good thing.
Many years ago I had the pleasure of being in Latin America and I was visiting a country and I met a Telecom regulator and he told me that they were doing a connectivity to the rural area project. And I asked him, why did you do this? And I have to admit that I sometimes don't listen to the answer, because the answer is often: Yes, we're doing this so people can get jobs, and economy and all of that good stuff.
And that's important, but you know what he said instead? He said that access to information has always been the right for the rich people. By putting people online you take away one of the biggest disadvantages of being poor. You have the right, you have the ability to reach the same information. I don't think that ‑‑ for that is for me personally one of 2 the reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing at ICANN and we're doing what we're supposed to do and I don't like the negativism about the discussion.
I think we're actually on an evolutionary path, so, yes, over the last ‑‑ you all use Internet I presume. Often, too often maybe? And it still seems to be working, and you do a lot of things with it but we sort of, we've done, and some gentleman here has experimented a lot to reach where we are, and now we see that taking the next step, we have to do evolution and go forward.
That doesn't mean for me that everything was done up till now was bad. It's just that now we reached a point where we have to make some new decisions and find new ways and I don't agree with the fact that everything is just a catastrophic thing and we have to blow everything up and it doesn't work, because actually, you go home and you use your Internet and I do agree, I do also agree, we need to train the end users more.
Last year, I was ridiculed when I said on this stage a year ago and I said clean your underwear and clean your cache every week. Yeah. My press agent just got a hiccup again.
You have a personal responsibility for your own security on the Internet. So I agree with that.
>> VINT CERF: I'm sure that you're elevating out of your seat. Would you like to respond? I have another topic I want to bring up so please briefly.
>> Alison Gould: It's actually because the Internet is so important that one wants to see these interventions, this equity, this making the Internet available for digital economies in Africa to address unemployment but we've got to address these underlying issues. Otherwise we simply as I said we exacerbate the inequality.
And I think the solutions because these are global markets and these are global networks, the solutions will have to be global, and I think what we have to shift from is this notion that it's Africa that's ‑‑ it's Africa's problem or it's Africa or people who are unconnected. What we need to do as we did with National Public Policy is treat the Internet as a global public good, and therefore it's the responsibility of all states, all members, all agencies, et cetera, to take responsibility for it.
The point you were making in point, apparently some vast percentage I can't remember of these malicious bots that are being directed around the world are being directed from unprotected phones in Africa, because as a global good, cybersecurity is only as strong as its weakest link, so this is a global problem. It's an international problem that we have to address.
[ Applause ]
>> VINT CERF: I think it's true that it's a global problem.
[ Applause ]
But the solutions have to be instantiated for every piece of the system and this is not a uniform system. This is designed to allow thousands, tens of thousands, of different networks to interconnect and interoperate.
That's why they are not all 100% uniform. That was a deliberate design decision in order to allow this network to be future proof, to ingest new technologies as they came along so I think you need to be a little careful speaking as an Engineer not to imagine that this is pure uniformity, and therefore we can apply a single solution everywhere.
I have some experience bringing Internet services into Native American parts of the United States. It's a very rural part and I can tell you that in every single case, the physical conditions and the economic conditions and the educational conditions dictate which choices we are able to implement in a sustainable way.
So this is ‑‑ we'll have to take some of this offline for the moment. Mr. Cassis?
>> IGNAZIO CASSIS: Thank you, Chair. Maybe just two words about that. This discussion shows how huge the challenge is ahead. And therefore we have to move to the next step and the next step would be the option IGF Plus. Recently convenes the IGF Plus has said it's legitimate to do this job and stage for all stakeholders open and has the right mandate to be developed any farther so we think that it is the best way to do that and the discussion shows it is not an easy discussion because all of, each one of us has mind set and values and we don't have the same values all over the world.
Switzerland is prepared to support the further development of global digital cooperation and Governance as proposed by the IGF Plus and again I want to reiterate that the international Geneva is predestined to serve as a hub for digital governance and we're ready to support this further development.
We already have the international actors who deal with many aspects of digital governance and I'm convinced it presents a unique opportunity to network these actors and promote forms of interdisciplinary cooperation that's accessible to all.
I hope that we could find them the right way to make the step ahead we need to do.
>> VINT CERF: I'm really glad to hear you say this. For those of you who might not have seen the High Level Panel on digital cooperation report, there were three options that we proposed that we could move forward in order to deal with the governance question. And the most well developed I think in terms of historical fact is the IGF Plus model, because here we are after now 14 years, and so I'm glad to hear that you're committed to that. I believe that's a very good basis on which to move forward.
So Vice‑Minister Yamada, I wonder if you have any thoughts on this topic, or whether we could move into another one which I would like to ask you about.
>> MAKIKO YAMADA: So concerning the discussion so far, I would like to point out two or three points. And one is that the development of the Internet has been the fruit of a multi‑stakeholder approach, and harmony of the development of technology, and by engineers and the private sector investment, and social advocacy and institutional framework designed by the Government.
So we should not forget that a multi‑stakeholder approach is the core of the development of the Internet.
And second is that the Internet is now the essential infrastructure of the society and economy, and the issues we are facing are becoming more diverse and complex, so what is important is to define the type of each issue, so we should not confuse the technology issue with the policy issue. And the third point is that the ‑‑ according to the access at the global level, according to the data on the individual using the Internet, provided by the ITU, Internet access is available to 80% of the population in developed countries, but only 20% of population in least developed ‑‑ least developing countries so therefore it is important to maintain the infrastructure, especially in developing countries, in order to provide Internet access to people all over the world.
And so that's the idea that we should regard Internet access as a kind of human fundamental right so we can discuss on that point, as well.
>> VINT CERF: So one could imagine attempting to set up a kind of challenge for all of the countries of the world, that it is in their best interest to assure that the infrastructure is in place, and that it's accessible and people know how to use it.
I have the sense that there might be some outside questions coming.
>> ANDREA THILO: Kind of. I have an iPad for you. I guess you know how to handle it.
>> VINT CERF: Well, I don't know. It's black right now.
>> ANDREA THILO: We have now parallelling the questions. Can I just summarize some things that popped up? We got more than 172 questions. That's a bit too much for the next 10 minutes. There was one question: Why don't we represent youth on the panel? There was a second remark on there's not enough inclusion and ‑‑ yeah, the question of gender equality.
But I can tell you that in the next panels, we will I guess, in the last panel double the number of females, and so in the next one, we work up to that.
[ Laughter ]
Then there was another thing, yeah, I deeply apologize, Alison, that I didn't know that you would be coming. There was the question where is Anriette? And I only learned that she was appointed this morning by the Secretary‑General as the new Chairwoman of the multi‑stakeholder Advisory Board at the IGF so that's why she didn't come. Sorry I didn't know that yet. Thank you very much for coming.
My first question is, that's to all of you, is coming from a Member of the Kenyan Parliament: What is the future of Parliament in legislating Internet Governance? Can law making keep up with the speed of digital advancement? Or will keep playing catch‑up? That was most favored by the audience as a question.
>> VINT CERF: Well, is there anyone who wants to respond? Tim?
>> TIM BERNERS-LEE: Because in a way, when you look ‑‑ I sat back and looked at the whole thing, the whole last 30 years of my involvement, based on 20 years of Vint's involvement, I see that when it comes to finding out whether something is true typically ‑‑ we go to Wikipedia and Wikipedia is amazingly good. It's not perfect but it's amazingly good.
When we want to have a debate, when we want to do Democracy, when we want to have a political debate about what to do instead of deciding what's true, we want to decide with what to do, there isn't a go to immediate place on the Web where we all go to have this discussion. We can't just say that was nice the discussion on the panel but that thing about global injustice, let's take that to wiki politics.
There are all kinds of social networks out there that have been built to do all kinds of things. We haven't ‑‑ what you see now is not what you'll see tomorrow. Let us build systems out there which allow us to meet together globally, connect together to do all these multi‑stakeholder things, let's build social networks, social systems, on the Web which allow us to have a civilized debate, allow politicians and everybody to be accountable. Have a system whereby if I say something and I realize it's not true it gets quietly voted down like on Reddit so we have technology. Let's build sociotechnical systems, so as we build the systems it's also technical tools so that we have much more effective democracies out there, use them in small groups initially like Working Groups and let's find out which ones work well and then promote them so eventually they can be used internationally.
>> VINT CERF: Let's see whether we can get even closer. Now you've built some technology so let's imagine. The question now is whether Parliaments are capable of keeping up with technological change, and it seems to me that the only way that can work is if the laws that are adopted have a certain degree of abstraction in them so that they are not so rooted in detail and underlying technology that they can't be properly applied to an evolving system.
So, yes.
>> Alison Gould: I think Parliamentarians have a critical role in defending human rights underpinnings of Internet‑related issues that arise. I think part of our job is to demonstrate what Internet Governance entails, and how much of it actually doesn't ‑‑ a lot of it doesn't happen through law and legislation. It's going to happen through this global governance and to get far greater participation of African Governments in those Global Forums and actively involved in those but I think the role of the informed Parliamentarians sufficiently informed on the technical aspects to be able to defend the human rights frameworks, at the moment we have cybersecurity laws in Africa, Data Protection laws, et cetera, that are not underpinned, there's no references, no human rights lens on these so I think it's a role of parliamentarians to integrate those laws to ensure they're compliant with the United Nations frameworks.
>> VINT CERF: It turns out the notion of IGF Plus has inside of it an element of advice given to Governments looking for guidance with regard to policy. That's the one missing piece, a missing piece, of the apparatus we have available. Where do Governments go to get advice about how to cope with some of these technologies? I sense that you'd like to move on to another question.
>> ANDREA THILO: I want to ask you but you want to be first please and then I'll ask a question to you, Vint.
>> LIU ZHENMIN: I think your last sentence, you mentioned the Internet, IGF Plus, my understanding is there's some misunderstanding among the public about the IGF Plus. I think IGF Plus the idea used of a High Level Panel on digital cooperation. I think that my understanding of this IGF Plus is not the intention to create a new process, a new platform to replace IGF.
>> VINT CERF: No, no, that's not what I said.
>> LIU ZHENMIN: IGF Plus, they are concerned where they find the platform to follow up their issues, their recommendations. They believe that the IGF might be also one of the choices of platform to take care of some of the issues.
>> VINT CERF: Yes, we're not in agreement.
>> LIU ZHENMIN: We're not going to create a new process, a new platform.
>> VINT CERF: No, I'm only suggesting there be a place for Governments to come to get advice. Anyway, you have another question.
>> ANDREA THILO: I have another question to you, Vinton. What will happen when we start to use quantum communications on the Internet? Privacy will be finally given by default?
>> VINT CERF: Well, first of all, there's a lot being conflated together. Quantum communication has to do with preserving the State of fotons as they move from one computer to another. If the channel is disturbed the entanglement fails and the communication fails but that's, somehow that question conflates an awful lot of stuff together.
Quantum communication is mostly simply about being able to move an entangled Photon from one place to another maintaining its state to be used for further commutation. There is quantum communication used for key distribution in cryptography and that's intended to work in such a way that if someone is trying to snoop on the transmission, the transmission fails because the entanglement fails. But I don't think the question is well enough formed to get beyond this very simple observation about the way in which quantum communication works.
>> ANDREA THILO: I want to drop another question heading to the final round that I leave in your hands: How do we regulate the decentralized Internet of the future that's designed to resist censorship?
>> VINT CERF: Well, who would like to tackle that.
>> ANDREA THILO: Who would like to tackle that?
>> VINT CERF: I can start by saying that one way to prevent censorship is to allow people to communicate privately so that in fact their communications can't be interfered with. That suggests cryptography is part of the solution to that problem.
[ Applause ]
>> TIM BERNERS-LEE: Typically it very much depends on what architecture your decentralized Internet has. If you have something like solid in which everybody again can have their own web site, it used to be a thing, but now everybody has their own data stores and they can store it with whoever they can trust, so to a certain extent sort of regulating that means that you're regulating a whole lot of different storage, maybe schools and individuals will be running stores, as well as huge companies.
So what you can't do, then you have to be aware of that. You can't have a rule that says ‑‑ has take down notices must be immediately implemented, that assumes that very large companies are storing all of the information. Now it may be only stored by two large companies so you assume one of them can take down. In the future if everything is decentralized and storage is done by lots of people it will be how to find those people, so ‑‑ .
>> VINT CERF: Tim, we need.
>> TIM BERNERS-LEE: Let me say one other thing. Another thing though that typically ‑‑ yes, we will encrypt everything, so if I communicate with you, then in general, I hope nobody will be able to read what I say to you, but on the other hand my identity and your identity and the fact we've communicated and the social network, the fact that I've come here and the people I've interacted with will be much more difficult to hide so I think a lot of the sort of the enforcement and chasing off the criminals will be done by looking for the networks rather than reading the messages.
>> Alison Gould: I think we're talking about sophisticated whether we have encryption and people can look into the encryption but a lot of the censorship that's been happening in Africa the last three or four years has been actually full Internet shut down so that's about the most effective censorship there is. We need global responses to that. Those shut downs happen with not a lot of multilateral pressure on the Governments doing that, no reference to those countries being signatories to the UN Declaration of human rights so I think it's these kinds of global governance things that find I know in this very complex ‑‑ conflict of norms that we're facing, find agreement on those basic rules of law, on the basic human rights that we can at least get those kind of hard shut downs and things addressed.
>> VINT CERF: Thank you. Göran, I think you'd like to have the last word.
[ Applause ]
>> GÖRAN MARBY: I always love have to the last word. I want to balance part of the discussion. When you talked about the delegated Internet and networks of networks, remember that this design has been actually quite marvelous. We talk about a design that's 50 years old and it's still the same design that's gone to 3.5 billion users in a very short period of time and I urge people to think about yes, there are many things to discuss and many things to solve and there's an evolution in parts of this but that essential thing provided Internet to a large portion of the world and do that every day, every second, every minute and that's something I think we really have to make sure that that's important for us, we guarantee that because otherwise we won't have the same Internet at all.
Thank you very much.
>> VINT CERF: Thank you, Göran. And I think at this point since we're out of time, ladies and gentlemen, will you help me thank the panel?
[ Applause ]
>> ANDREA THILO: Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
[ End of Session ]