IGF 2020 - Day 6 - WS105 Designing inclusion policies in Internet Governance

>> MODERATOR:  Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today in the session of the Designing Inclusion Policies in Internet Governance.  Designing Inclusion Policies is the name of the session.  The intention for this is learning inclusion policies in the Internet Governance.

At this session, we will analyze the differing access for inclusion, one, gender narratives, two, connect the unconnected communities, three, inclusion of people with disabilities, four, economic inequalities and, five, Governments and human rights, the role in Internet Governance.  During this session, we are going to have five speakers, each regional engagement, Latin American and Caribbean GRULAC, YCIG, a Steering Committee member, GRULAC representative. 

Mamadou Lo, her communication and information partners.  Mamadou Lo is with DIPLO.  Dr. Mohammad Azizi is a professor, policy maker, technology economist and social development expert, nominated by Government of Afghanistan, World Bank and candidate for the Deputy Secretary‑General.  From the Asia Pacific, he holds a Ph.D. from university and was a fellow at Stanford University.  Dr. Azizi was the Chairman and was announcer at Afghanistan Information Services and Skills Organisation.

Finally, (Garbled audio).  Human Rights attorney from Armenia focusing on human rights education and research, College of Pennsylvania Law School, U.S.A.  After we finalize the presentations, we will start the discussion where we can participate in chat, the Q and A box, taking the floor or being in a spot that we will be sharing with you at the moment we are going to have the discussion.

So after this introduction, our first speaker will be Eileen Cejas with a topic of gender.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Thank you very much.  I'm going to my slide.  Okay.  Here we are.  Hello, everyone. Good morning, afternoon, evening, depending on your time zone.  It is a pleasure to be here with you.

I am Eileen Cejas.  Juan presented me, I'm part of the Youth Observatory, Regional Engagement Director, and I'm part of the Youth Coalition, as a representative for the GRULAC region.

So today we are going to discuss as Juan said different aspects relating to policy drafting of inclusion matters.  So first of all, I'm going to address about the gender perspectives and the impact and the causes related to policy drafting.  So there are some key aspects to consider that one size does not fit all.

That means that a possible solution that we can think about couldn't be applied for all of the countries at the same time because we can see there are different multicultural backgrounds, so it's very important to consider that, and to be culturally sensitive.  Regarding these aspects, I would say it's very important to before applying for certain way to legislate on these matters about the different points of view of societies. Going back to what I have been saying about the metaphor of the rabbit and the turtle, you might know about this metaphor is very well known from the DIPLO's book the introduction to the Internet Governance.  First of all, we have the changes that start at Internet and then we have the laws, the legal frameworks in the different countries.

Following this idea, most of the changes as I was saying start as internal discussions on Forums like IGF and similar Forums and later it becomes law applicable to different countries.  However, we can see that generally the law is behind the changes implemented by the new technology.  Because implementation of these new technologies bring to us different challenges that when it was, for example, if we have let's say a law on copyright, the first thing that, the first policy maker thought what about how to protect intellectual property of a book, and then it becomes more changes with the Internet and other technologies so you can see that this is very important to take into consideration.

First, we have to build from these Internet discussions and then we can start discussing legal frameworks in our countries.  So I'm going also to bring to the table the VP of gender and access report, which was published, I think, a couple of days ago, and this report brings some examples of topics and their analysis.  For example, it analyzes about what has been happening from the IGF in past years and also this year when it seems that most of the discussions are being focused on the narrative sides rather than the positive sides of inclusion.

And also, which I think is very much a concern for us, is that there is a tendency to only address women and girls’ matters.  That's very, that is very pressure because there are few mentions to general diversity matters.  The possibility to be talking with you today, I think that that's something that we should work on, but only from this IGF.  We have the possibility to be together virtually that we don't have or at least we have less than our area to access because everyone can participate in almost equal possibilities.  We can say that it's important that we start discussing about this, you know, so to improve the IGF for the future.  This reflection is applicable to other places as I was saying on implementing legal framework that it's, it should focus on including more people representatives.

As I was saying, I see there is a need to amplify gender diverse voices.  As we can see in some countries, it's a very critical topic to be addressed and we have to address it urgently.  So some examples of a way to amplify this gender diverse voices is because they suffer discrimination, hate speech, death threats in the worst case scenarios.

Censorship of content and from that we can have a mention to bio algorithms.  Thinking of alternative norms which is very bad for gender-diverse people.  I'm not sure if I'm good for time, but in case, Juan, you can interrupt me, but I want to also bring to this little conversation these five minutes to discuss a lot of topics about a program that I'm part of which is called Youth for Digital Sustainability.  So this program was following what has been implemented from last year's youth IGF Summit.

So this year we are trying, well, we focus actually for Working Groups.  One of those Working Groups is called Internet for social cohesion, and in one of the topics that we discuss was about women and gender diverse.  So this is the message that we came from the discussion at our group that says women and gender diverse people are facing restrictions in accessing information on the Internet and participating meaningfully to establish healthy and equal societies, youth should urge Governments and societies to guarantee the rights to freedom, offline expression for discrimination.

>> MODERATOR:  You are about right on time.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Excellent.  Okay.  Well, going to pass the virtual microphone to you.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR:  It's a lot to cover, because gender is something that covers a lot of things.  Thank you for your presentation.  Now, we are going to pass the floor to Mamadou Lo.  He will be presenter that marks economic equality. Prices prevent people from being connected, Mamadou Lo, the floor is yours.  We are here to hear you.

>> MAMADOU LO:  (Technical difficulties.)

>> MODERATOR:  We go to Debora.

>> DEBORA BARLETTA:  Yes, thank you. Juan, thank you all of the fellow speakers.  Please support sessions that are organized by young people.  It's important and it's really important the IGF is nice to have many sub sessions and also thank you for people who are assisting technically with captioning and all of this stuff.  Sometimes they are visible.  I'm here humbly trying to point out some of the main issues regarding inclusion of people from rural indigenous and remote areas when it comes to digital literacy in particular.  And I will start by trying to demystify some stereotypes regarding these areas because already when we are in rural, indigenous and remote areas in our mind there are images and if you Google, you find some peculiar images.  Kind of trying to figure these areas, which the main point is to be kind of unique actually.  Also within their national context.  Because when talking about these areas, these communities in global environments such as the IGF, we figure out only certain kinds of characteristics.

>> So we think about, of course, Africa or some parts of India or other realities that in certain environments are looks in kind of a vertical, but they are not really giving the idea of the uniqueness of these communities.

I come from south of Italy, and in Italy it's a rather small country, but there is a huge diversity of rural and remote areas that have their own characteristics.  So this is a huge problem, and I really like the expression, so one size doesn't fit all.  So when it comes to policies that should address the problems and the needs of those areas, we should take into account the diverse needs and have an intersectional approach when it comes to these communities, all of the differences and the irregularities they have which are also their huge rich resource and their kind of precious aspect.

Of course, it's also important to reflect what we mean with digital literacy, because, of course, there is the kind of framework of competencies that are being, that have been pointed out by UN, by UNESCO to which we think about digital literacy as something that, as a set of skills and competencies.  A framework to each country's areas and people should adhere.

But in my opinion, and when thinking about inclusion at large, we should think of literacy in general as something that should enable people to know how to act greater than being acted upon.  Because the approach that many policy makers for Government have regarding solving the issues of connectivity and digital literacy in this area, in these areas is the fact that it's becomes a problem when they try to reach these areas to propose some product or some innovation which, of course, is not negative as a thing per se, but it is the sole purpose for which enabled connectivity and digital literacy in in that area will look as sort of in position from up.

And this is one of the main challenges, because very often in these areas, there is not readiness to welcome such programmes, such initiatives, because they look as coming from outside, and they are not seen as internal need of the community.  So one of the main things that policy makers, organisations is to involve local people because community spirit as I tried to point out is one of the main resources in these areas because it means that the community is strong and each set of values and strong points.

So if we are involving people in the bottom up approach.  They will feel like every program, every policy belongs to them.  That's announcing their agency in program and their contribution to the success of them.

Also it's really important to point out that apart from being a very empowering process for these communities, this can be inclusive also for other parts of the nation that are usually excluded and marginalized, especially when it comes to connectivity, Eileen before mentioned women, but we also have the problem of elderly people.

So having this kind of approach could represent a good practice at large on all policy makers initiate programmes in certain areas designing them to respond to the needs of the people who are their targets.  Because in this way, people will really feel like they are part of this process, and there are people contributing to their success or it will only be something coming from outside and making them some sort of products that would not really benefit their communities at large.

But, again, I would like to stress how it's important to have an intersectional approach not only regarding the different part of the communities we are mentioning, but also, again, their relationship with the nation, the countries at large, and the fact that, you know, it to marginalize communities as well and implementing resources which are not only infrastructures and tools but also human resources, trying to increase the competencies of these communities and their sense of agency in this policy.

So I think I am finished, but as I said before, I'm encouraged to hear other inputs of my fellow speakers, so it's a really big topic so I'm really looking forward to hear also other experiences and practices on this point, so thank you very much, and, Juan, the floor is yours again.

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you very much, Debora for your input about connectivity in rural areas.  And digital literacy.  So we are now going with ‑‑ she will be speaking about Government and guaranteeing our digital rights to include more voices connected.  So we have you know, Meri?

  >> MERI BAGHDASARYAN:  I would like to thank Debora and I'm thanking everyone helping to run this session.  My name is Meri, and I have the huge topic of Government and human rights and the overarching theme is how they can guarantee our rights and also ensure inclusion.  Well, this is a very big topic, and we also have the policy questions coming up, so I will try to keep my remark rather short to allow for more time to allow for policy discussions.  As this is a very big topic, I tried to brig break it down to three points.

The first one is access.  Well, this year especially we saw the role of Internet as no year before, because as a result of this pandemic, almost all aspects of our lives were dependent and are still dependent on Internet and this includes such areas as work, commerce, education, and many other fields, and this means that the Government in order to provide and guarantee our digital rights needs, the first step is to provide access to Internet.

And even using this point in time when we are in this global pandemic is not an excuse to shut down the Internet or do this for other, you know, political and other objectives that they may have.  Unfortunately, we have many different Governments all over the world and you know better than me that this is a big issue in itself.  So the message here is that Government needs ensure access to Internet to allow for further access to the digital rights.  In other words, they need to keep it on.

My second point is about the digital literacy.  I envision this as an underlying issue for all groups and this is a unique unwritten pre‑condition to full enjoyment of your digital rights and in my opinion, by enhancing the level of digital literacy, the Governments actually create a solely base for safeguarding various aspects of rights and also in a way they are actually preventing further issues.

And digital literacy should include understanding of digital rights in the first place starting from privacy and data protection so that people have more control over their data.  They understand what could be done and what aspects are still open to debate, and how can they better advocate for their rights.

Then we have the understanding of the importance of verifying your information.  We live in a very difficult time of finding out the truth and this means that every citizen regardless of their background, their age or citizenship, they need to understand how they can verify the information that they need, how they can check it to understand which information they can trust and share forward because a lot of people are simply not equipped with these skills, but I believe in this age, especially this year when we are also finding something already going this info Demic, we need to have this as mainstream thing happening all over the world and the Government as the ones providing especially the basic primary education and education going forward.

They need to implement sound policies in this regard.  And this also includes such topics as Internet health and hygiene, because now as I said, we are all online, and being aware of how you can protect yourselves online is also in a way part of digital literacy.  Therefore, as I said, measures should be undertaken to ensure better understanding and knowledge of digital literacy for all age groups.

And last but not least, we are at the IGF, and we see many different stakeholder groups, and a lot of issues as we already understand include very different but relevant actors, and I'm talking about Government and human rights.  Government are the only actors in this ecosystem that we as citizens of our countries elected.  Well, we can debate on everything was Democratic and legitimate or not, but that is a topic of another discussion.  In any way, they are our official representatives and in my opinion, they need to enhance and embrace in a way their role as Government in this ecosystem.

Because originally, if you take the example of speech online, originally everything was left to self‑regulation, but right now we are seeing the other extreme of Governments trying to regulate everything.  And this is also not something that we would like to see everywhere.

>> MODERATOR:  Sorry, Meri, you have one minute left, if you can wrap up.

>> MERI BAGHDASARYAN:  I was almost done.  So this is a topic that we are going to discuss later during our policy discussion.  So I will not talk about this for long, but my point is that Governments need to become more actively involved in the multi‑stakeholder processes and the dialogue because my personal feeling and also my research says that Governments are, especially some Governments are very active, but others are missing from this team and this is a huge problem for their citizens.  I will stop here and we will get back to this topic when we discuss our policy questions.  I look forward to our discussion.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you very much, Meri.

So now I ask to Mamadou Lo if he is ready to present his topic.  Hello, Mamadou.  We can't hear you.

>> MAMADOU LO:  It's good now.  I will go very fast because for my presentation, I am Mamadou Lo.  I am head of information department of Senegal.  I am also a fellow alumni and diplo alumnae and former IGF MAG member.  Also I am currently working with DiploFoundation as curator and also dealing with issues ever Internet and multilingualism.

Documentation platform aiming to provide information on Internet Governance.  Coming back to the information on the subject of biases ‑‑ National Initiatives to lower prices and taxes, I would like to bring back to this topic the discussion on the issue.  On national initiatives, I will say that as you know, the biggest barrier to Internet access right now today is the cost.  It is not affordable for many around the world, and as we know this applies to put data, which is too expensive for many, many people in low economic countries, low income countries, excuse me.

As you know, for those covered by the Internet connected devices, they are bringing down the cost of mobile devices is essential to get people online.  By now, I would like to talk about the COVID‑19 which has underlined the Internet divide.  These devices are mandatory for access and Governments should be setting policy accounting as many as possible can offer them.  And to avoid and a world where digital inequalities dive vied further inequalities in health, welfare and education.

In terms of wide Internet use of countries, Underdeveloped Countries face similar challenges including cost of data and use as I said earlier.  Now, challenges are still on policy and regulatory reform.  A really competitive digital market, I think this has to be answered by Government among all of the stakeholders and NGOs.  We need to have policy regulatory for work and filling market completion.  The second item, the second item I would like to bring out is international aspect relating to moratorium on tax for organisations.

Since 1998 organisation members have decreed to pose custom duties on guidelines.  This mortar rum has been extended since 1998, but how it works in Developing Countries.  The hand of this moratorium saying that the services are necessary to connect.  It is interesting to see how the moratorium of this activity, it is very interesting to be asked ‑‑ one minute, Juan, private business sector for not paying taxes, gaining more money or society as a whole benefiting from affordable Internet devices because of taxes.

I think the justifications are wide open and you need to see how we can tackle that to have more Internet.  That is all for me for now.  Waiting for your indication and contribution.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you Mamadou Lo.  Right now, we are going to start the second part of this discussion.  Its go is to be around like an open question and participation from all of you.  You can do it through the chat, asking for the floor, or writing in the chat.  Eileen, you just share the link.  It is on the chat.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Hello everyone again.  Now, at this part., I saw that you were commenting on the chat.  So if you want to speak up, share if you want, so at this part of the session we are going to discuss in three blocks.  So the first block we are going to speak about gender perspectives in Internet Governance standards and economic inequalities as Mamadou Lo just presented.  So to start, I'm going to ask you, and, of course, you can speak up, is how we can bring more tools for women and gender diverse people in order to ensure involvement in Internet Governance.  So you can type or speak up.  It's up to you.

I guess by now everyone is responding or not yet.

>> I can unmute people that have entries.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  So I have Yohan, the floor is yours.

>> Thank you.  I just want to mention.  That each and every stakeholder group that we want to be more active, first of all, they should understand the importance of their engagement, that their voice can be heard, and their voice can be taken into account, and can be crucial for the process.  So first of all, I think that it is very important for them to understand that they can make a change.  Their voice can make a change.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you very much for your input.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Thank you.  Those who are not speaking, you can close your mic and you can also write on this document.  So who wants to go next?  Innocent, you want to go.

>> MODERATOR:  Anyone that has their mic open, please close..  I think everyone now closed their mic.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Okay.

>> MODERATOR:  Can you repeat the question, Eileen for everyone?

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  We are addressing the first question, which is about how we can bring more women and gender diverse people in order to foster their involvement in the Internet Governance.  So we have a document for, and I'm going to read out loud, the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.  

So we have Gustavo and I missed the other hand.

>> Hello.  I will write my point in the document in just a moment as soon as I can gather my thoughts fully.  But I have a point regarding not specifically women, but gender diverse people and people with noon traditional sexual orientation, so AKA not straight people.  I think that the IGF has this, the IGF and the UN system as a whole by virtue of being, let's say, the main bastion of protecting human rights in the world it conveys an image of accepting gender diversity and sexual orientation first. 

I think we have that, I think that's great.  To that extent it's easier bringing in these people, gender diverse people and sexual orientation diverse people into the IGF.  That said, when you are talking about us as the youth, perhaps passions speak louder than words.

Maybe this is a point for next year.  This is not something for now, but there could be some thought into bringing LGBT teen news a session next year.  That would be a way to convey very securely just our position about this issue.  And that would be an invite.  It would be a silent invite, and whenever we are trying or we want to bring in more people or we have someone who is in doubt whether they want to join or not because of sexual orientation points or gender diversity, some of these people are very shy.  They are used to being rejected or not being included or just being sidelined very quietly.

So when we do this silent invite, I think that would convey a lot to a lot of people, and it would do a lot to actually getting them to participate instead of just joining and sitting on the sidelines.  Thank you.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Thank you very much, Gustavo.  It was put very nicely.  I will give you the opportunity to write it.  Yes, sorry, Juan.

>> MODERATOR:  Actually, this year I asked for informal session for gender diverse people because it's a think we have to address here.  And I think there is no representation in pretty much anything.  That's why I decided this year to organize this working for women and gender diverse people and their future.

So if anyone wants to do that, well, you are all invited.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Thanks for the reminder, Juan.  Yes, if, please, if you want, you can share the link so everyone can save it on their agenda.

So I'm not sure how much time do we have for this segment, but however, I think we can go on the second question, which is related to economic aspects.

>> I'm aware of the time constraint to I don't want to take up too much time.  I just wanted to note, I think, Gustavo had a very good point about sort of organising sessions that sort of can accommodate diverse groups and the interest of diverse groups.  One thing I would say in terms of taking a step back is the importance of making sure that as we encourage people to join, we are aware of and have taken steps to mitigate maybe the problems that exist in those venues, those Forums that may have previously been causing people to feel uncomfortable, causing people to feel they couldn't participate.

So I work for the right NCC, which is Regional Internet Registry for Europe and Central Asia, and we work with the right community, which is an open technical community, and RIPE has been doing work recently on its diversity task force and part of the work has included looking at a code of conduct for how people behave in the community both in meetings physically, but even also on mailing lists so looking at what acceptable behavior language, et cetera, actually is.  And I think particularly in some of the more long‑standing venues and RIPE has been there since the 1980s, there are perhaps approaches or attitudes that really people may not be aware of the problems they cause for other people or the limitation they put on other people's participation.

So it's important for those groups to look at their own dynamics, their own processes, that's one point.  The other point is it's also important to share information about how we are doing that.  So I know the IETF are doing this.  I know other AR communities are doing this.  I'm sure there are others outside of my immediate realm of awareness also doing this.  So sharing that information in a discussion like this is really important as well.  Just to try and raise awareness that there may be issues there that you don't even see because you have been so deeply embedded in that system.  So, I'm sorry, that was long winded.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Thank you very much.  In thinking about this code of conduct and to work on policies which are think it was mentioned also at the BTF report that I mentioned.

I'm not sure if we any more hands or comments?

>> I have a comment.  I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name, but building on top of what the previous speaker was saying, I was reminded that there is a problem in, I'm not talking about the IGF or the UN, I'm talking all around the world.  There is a problem of tokenism.  This is something that we as youth, we have already faced in previous years, the idea of being included as this little token just to establish diversity.

When it comes to LGBT issues in particular, and also women, the inclusion of women.  It has become particularly egregious because it is so, often it is so overwhelmingly often that when LGBT topics are included, they are always the same three or four.  It's a very, very narrow understanding of LGBT issues and quite often it becomes a matter of posturing, of just not really advancing a discussion.  So maybe that is something we should include if we go along with the idea of making LGBT team sessions, make them meaningful, make them advance special issues that substantively like objectively affect LGBT and gender diverse people.

There is another comment here which I thought was very insightful from Peter Crosby just to say, I'm just going to read it, just to say there is a real crossover between gender diversity and cognitive disabilities.  In particular autism, many autistic people are gender diverse and or diverse sexual orientation, which once again comes back to questions of accessibility and in particular cognitive accessibility.

I have, I think that this is exceptionally insightful, Peter, and I have actual direct experience with this.  So I over the years I have created a group of people whom I consult whenever I have Internet Governance issues which are well beyond my spectrum of experience.  And I have two people in this small group who are in the spectrum, in the autism spectrum.

And I think that is, I have seen this firsthand.  Sometimes they have very insightful opinions about what should be done in Internet Governance, but because this is a field, a professional field that is so intense, it is so socially influence that they cannot directly participate or they could only do that at the cost of immense emotional distress.

So I really appreciate your comment, Peter.  Thank you.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Thank you very much, Gustavo.

We have ‑‑ it's very interesting the discussion.

>> Thank you, Eilee. Alita here.  If we want to have more gender-diverse voices in the discussions and the figure, and to build capacity, first of all, we need to make these spaces kind of secure to converse, which is important.  The other most important thing is, for example, even if you look at the IGF registration, is it that gender-diverse friendly, we have a Mr. and Mrs. but do we have for others who do not want to kind of align to Mr. and Mrs?  These are small steps that can help make people who are diverse more comfortable.  We need to understand their sensibility and based on that, as you mentioned the first line that one size does not fit all.

We need to understand their concerns.  We need to understand why they are not coming in in more mainstream and Internet Governance discussions and then design capacity building sessions, but firstly, we need to make them welcome.  We need to make them trust these platforms.  Thank you.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Great reflection.  Thank you.  We have Debora, if you want to go.

>> DEBORA BARLETTA:  Really short, short, because I agree everything that's being said and the fact that, guarantee safe space for more people and there are small things that many people don't know about.  So in such a global and large community, something that should be pointed out to become kind of a new custom in such an interaction in such big fora.  And always I'm in mind intersectionality.  As the comment by Robert, there is intersection in diverse groups that really matters.

So the intersectional approach is really important, and also we should stop to expect certain groups, LGBT groups, people with disabilities, only to be present and conclusion on diversity, accessibility, but we should make safer spaces for them in AI, data governance and all of the other sessions or we, of course, we have participation, that we are always in session on youth participation, but maybe it's more difficult to access and to be actors in the other session.  Thank you, everyone, for the contributions.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Thank you very much, Debora.  Juan, you can tell me how we are with this.

>> MODERATOR:  We have to go into the second segment.  We are really beyond the time.  The conversation was so good that.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Okay.  For the second question of the first block, you can still write on the document, and now we are going to the second block, and I'm going to pass the floor to Meri.

>> MERI BAGHDASARYAN:  Just briefly introducing the topic and I would love to hear from you.  As I said during my initial remarks, Governments need to play better role, a more active role and one of the topics that we are dealing with on a daily basis basically is about online content moderation.

As I said, we went from self‑regulation to more national regulation right now, and I do not believe that either is the best solution.  So how can we find a middle ground? And in the discussion I will just rephrase the policy question this way.  So what measure steps should Governments take to ensure digital rights protection while regulating harmful content online, in other words, what role do you envision the Government to play in this whole big topic of online topic moderation and how they can embrace the role better so I would like to hear from you, and I give the floor to Debora.

>> DEBORA BARLETTA:  Okay.  Then, and just one minute to give an example of things that Government can do with civil society when it comes to Internet and literacy access, especially for disadvantaged and rural areas.

For instance, this project that is called Wireless for Communities, that started empowerment measure and a community information resource centre.  So, you know, it started from the needs from the community, and then following on that, there were implementation of structures and policies from Governments to follow up on these proposals.

So my question, policy question is really easy, so, you know, just brainstorm and include on the floor whatever is on your mind, so what should Government do to guarantee fair access to media literacy in these areas so the floor is yours and let's try to use this time to the best possible way.  Thank you.

And, of course, you can raise your hand if you have something to say, like we did before, we gather a block, so if you want to contribute orally with the discussion, asking questions to me or Meri or if you want to share other good practices regarding inclusion or regulations, you are welcome.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  We have a raised hand.  You can go.

>> Thank you.  I'm from India.  Content regulation, as Meri pointed out, we have situations from self‑regulation to the other extreme of very micro management.  And the middle part I think would be for the Government or for the Forum like IGF to have a certain principles, you know, dos and don'ts of the content.  Because, again, one size may not fit to all.

In Europe or many other parts, there may be content which may be offensive to the other parts of the world.  So there should be a principle‑based approach in the sense that dos and don'ts appear in each country, and how they will implement should be left onto the entity, the Internet entity to kind of do that.

But if they violate, there should be some threat to or some sanction to back it up.  So I'm not saying that Government should micro manage.  One way could be to form an association of such content providing platform, and within that association, they should come out with an ombudsman, but at the same time, I have seen that relying totally on self‑regulation may not always work.  So principles, yes, ombudsman can serve, but there should be some sanction for violating such dos and don'ts.  Thank you.

>> MERI BAGHDASARYAN:  Thank you very much.  Anyone else has any comments as Debora mentioned for digital literacy.  These topics or wide and challenging, but this is why it's more important to have more discussions on these topics.  So we invite you to just raise your hand or contribute to in the chat.  We would like to hear from you.

>> MAMADOU LO:  Hi, everybody.

>> MODERATOR:  We hear you.

>> MAMADOU LO:  I would like to bring out here the debate happening right now between big tech live Facebook, Twitter, and the Government, big tech asking for more regulation, more state regulation for them though do more on content.  It is actually a debate.  I do not know how that applies to our discussion, but I think it's an interesting question that we have to see.  Thank you.

>> MERI BAGHDASARYAN:  The topics are too challenging.

>> I see there are contributions to the first block, to people are still writing.  Timing is not the best.  We just leave the room when time is up.  So we understand it's not ideal.  But, you know, if you have suggests or something on this topic about media literacy or about other Government measures, please feel free to contribute.  It doesn't have to be written perfectly, just, you know, bullet points, main ideas.  A few words works well.

And I see that ‑‑

>> I'm sorry, guys, I don't know how to raise my hand from the mobile app.  Just a very quick comment.  I'm calling from Peru, Internet leader.  Actually, this is a very challenging matter because many proposals to regulation online content run the risk of unintentionally creating more harm than the initial harms they try to cot bam.  Here in Peru, we have two bills that try to regulate content, but actually policy makers do not understand which is the role of the social media platform.  So in my opinion, I believe that a legitimate intervention must, first of all, and from a minimum level of intervention, it needs to be in accordance with the principles of necessity in International Human Rights Law and here Meri is the expert, but what I believe policy makers must do is require more transparency from the platforms in regards of their algorithms on how they will manage the content because we need to preserve freedom of expression.

I believe that this is my two cents and thank you all for all of your insights and this conversation.

>> MERI BAGHDASARYAN:  Thank you very much, Paula, for a very important intervention.  And we have also Shrata.

>> Hi, I hope you can hear me.  So I think Paula's point is very important, and we are seeing the implementation of that in India.  I am an ISOC youth Ambassador from India, and the issue with what happened when Paula raised the point, it actually resonated closely because that is sort of what the Government is doing with respect to personal data protection bill that India seeks to implement in the upcoming session of the Parliament in the winter which will be in December or January, very soon.

So I think the minimal intervention aspect should be stressed upon, and with respect to digital literacy, I would like to add one point, and that is the implementation of certain programmes that are carried out by small and medium‑scale enterprises or companies, what they do is that they train engineers from rural or indigenous communities and then soon after their training they assimilate them within the company itself.

So it's called bare foot engineering and it's gaining popularity these days, but it's still in its very nascent stage and the awareness regarding the same is very low.  So I think that should be stressed upon and maybe popularized a little bit and should be seen as where it can lead to because it's helping the youth of the community a lot in this regard.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR:  We are now moving to the third block.  Thank you for those inputs.  Yes.  We are going to the third block.  Don't forget, you can still write in to respond to the questions.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  I'm going to allow to share the screen.

>> If we have a minute, there is a comment from Ruth I would like to comment for a moment.

>> MODERATOR:  Yes.

>> So may I proceed?

>> MODERATOR:  Yes, you can.

>> Thank you.  So, Ruth responding to Peter, she said I wonder if part of the issue that sessions are put together by Working Groups who are to some extent designing sessions for people like themselves in organising in the Working Groups, which is not really accessible.  I think you are on the point, Ruth.  I think that this is just how I frame this issue.  There are people who make a, a lot of people ‑‑ there are sessions that talk about inclusion within the community of Internet Governance.  So these are sessions, let's say, about how to make a workshop inclusive, how to make a workshop, let's say, the necessity of bringing in a translator for sign language.

This is inclusion inside Internet Governance.  And there is a different approach, which is inclusion in the Internet, which often, it may talk let's say about how to add inclusive features to a platform.  Let's say that.  I think that's what happens, so like way too often, perhaps excessively often, we focus on how to make Internet Governance more inclusive, which is good, but we cannot forget that perhaps our main goal or thing here is for everyone else.

We shouldn't be adding inclusion only for us.  We should be adding inclusion to the whole world.  Perhaps that is what I would say.  This goes back to what we discussed in the previous manual about youth matters, which I think I said something along the lines of way too often we defended the points, the points that we as youth care about and not necessarily the points that youth worldwide need or are asking for.  So maybe, maybe these very, this set of issues, they have a common root is what I'm trying to say.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR:  Yes.  The conversation that you are having on the chat has to do a lot with the point that we are going to discuss here, because we are going to discuss how to include disabled people, people with disabilities, and how this kind of session, and talking about inclusion, but it's not inclusion for everyone.  So thanks for sharing that.

So now we are going to share.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  So all of the discussion we have been addressing more than 40 minutes is to have different aspects of inclusion we should consider the input from Peter and Ruth, I think.  They are very valuable because in order to make this online campaign, we need to consider other aspects that are very important.

In case you are fine, we can later if there are things that we have need, and also people who are attending here and they can keep, continue writing on the document and have more input.

So when you are ready, you can share.  That's good.

>> Hello, can you hear me.  This, to many moment, we have the goal about gender perspective impact on Internet matters related to policy drafting.  The people assist in this session.  (ABDIAS ZAMBRANO).  Awareness to specific groups, more or all women panel or events, crossover gender diverse, communities with disabilities and talk about intersectionality.  And the secondhand, we had a great discussion about markets, economic inequalities where prices and taxes preventing people from being connected.  People mentioned about half do, don't, have ombudsman, minimally necessary intervention, transparency, necessary and proportionally intervention.

So this is what I have to this moment.

>> MODERATOR:  Okay, thank you, Abdias.  So now we move into the last part, the online campaign, right, Eileen.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  This is part of the online campaign, so there is a part that says additional ideas, so taking into account that we can add some points that you think it would be important to have on line not only on the topic but on the format we are going to have this campaign in the, I guess next two weeks or three weeks depending how much time it would take.  So anyone who wants to speak, the floor is yours.

  We have Mamadou Lo.  Yes, you can go.

>> MAMADOU LO:  I would like just to know if we have raised the question of multilingualism, and communication.  I do the no see that in the, on the box, multilingualism and communication as was raised earlier.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  We couldn't get your question, because you mentioned there are a lot of topics within inclusion.  So maybe we can work on them on the mind map.  So if you have input or ideas, you can go.

>> DEBORA BARLETTA:  Just one request, because in the chat, there were Gustavo and Peter having a really good conversation when it was coming, so it's I think Juan posted again the link, so please, if possible, right now, we know it's been really difficult to find the right platform to ensure that, you know, the process here is participatory and also inclusive for people with different needs.  But if you can ‑‑ we are going to copy paste your comment in the third block, and if you have more comments you have when it comes to these issues especially for people with disabilities can be part of the campaign too.

So I don't know if something or what someone want to add anything on this point, because it is really relevant and we are going to copy paste what is in the chat box but I think it's an opportunity for people who wrote this point to pick up if they feel confident, of course, to do it.

But just to say that, you know, I really appreciate that discussion and something that should be taken into account in the best possible way, even though especially when you use resource tool it's not really easy.

>> GUSTAVO PAIVA:  I have a few thoughts about issues on accessibility.  I could try and compile a proper document for future use or even perhaps to make a session.  I think this is something, the diaper we go, we could make a session about just picking two points that Peter raised, we could ‑‑ I'm fully confident we could make a session exclusively about online features, features for platforms or services which are friendly to people on the spectrum.  Or we could do the same thing, the same thing for people with dyslexia.

This would be a substantive session that would leave the private sector with objective standards to try and achieve.  This could be like really important for a lot of people and going back to the dichotomies I posited that inclusion in Internet Governance and inclusion in the Internet, this would be the case of let's try and do something that is inclusion for the Internet.

We could do something, I don't know if you guys are aware of the project from ICANN, universal acceptance.  So there are many, many services nowadays that never included non‑standard characters.  So if you are Chinese and you want to write an email address with Chinese characters for many services that would be impossible.  Why does it have to be that way?  It isn't too complicated to change it.  So ICANN did a whole project on bringing universal acceptance.

We could do something similar, not with universal acceptance, but with these diversity friendly features for people with dyslexia or people on the spectrum.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Juan, we cannot hear you.

>> MODERATOR:  I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was muted.  So if anyone else has something to say now is the moment.  We are reaching the hour that wither finished this session.  So if someone has something to say, please do it now.

Okay.  Well, it seems that anyone want to say anything ‑‑ doesn't want to say anything right now.  So before we close the session, we are going to ask you to turn on your cameras so we can make a picture for all of us.

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you very much to all of you, it was a very insightful conversation in this topic.  Now we know inclusion is more than we think and accessibility is something we need to talk about, so thank you very much for being here with us today.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  Thanks to the IGF technical team and the captioner and to everyone for being with us here.

>> Excellent session.  Thank you very much.

>> DEBORA BARLETTA:  Keep in touch with your comments.

>> Bye.

>> EILEEN CEJAS:  I will put our emails in the chat.  Maybe the rest of you can help so we can keep continuing on the discussion for the online campaign.

  Thank you.