United Nations

Internet Governance Forum

Rio de Janeiro, 12 - 15 November 2007

 

- HIGHLIGHTS -

Tuesday, 13 November 2007

 

Overview

The second day of the Internet Governance Forum meeting in Rio de Janeiro featured two main sessions dedicated to the issues of access and diversity, while other events took place in parallel addressing issues such as protecting children from sexual exploitation on the Internet, freedom of expression and opinion on the Internet, linguistic diversity on the Net, and issues of privacy and government regulations.

In all, 29 other events were held today comprising 15 workshops, 8 best practices forums, 4 dynamic coalitions meetings, and 2 open forums; of these 10 were devoted to the issue of openness and freedom of expression on-line, 5 on development and capacity-building, 3 on diversity, 3 on access and connectivity, 2 on critical Internet resources, and 6 were devoted to the issue of security.  Of the sessions which took place on security three spotlighted the issue of the protection of children and child pornography on the Internet.

Statistics

In terms of conference statistics, as of the end of the day, just over 1,700 IGF meeting registrations were recorded, out of which some 700 were coming from civil society, 450 from government, 300 from the private sector, 100 from international organizations, 100 from the media and 50 in other categories.  

 Access Session

During the morning’s main session on access, panelists underscored that the issue of access remained the single most important issue to many countries.  Speakers in the morning session talked about access in terms of what it meant for development, or technology in the service of development.  Against the background of the current one billion Internet users, several participants spoke of getting the next billion people hooked up to the Internet.  Setting the pace for the discussion, Richard Sandbrook, Director of BBC’s Global News Division and Vice President of the European Broadcasting Union, who served as moderator of the session, put forth the question:  “Who might be the next billion people to connect to the Internet”.   

Speaking at a press briefing, Markus Kummer, the IGF Executive Coordinator, recalled that one speaker during the session had asserted that “if people talked about one billion Internet users ten years ago that would have sounded unthinkable”.  “But now we are already talking about the second billion”, he noted.   Providing statistics, one speaker during the session pointed out that since the first IGF meeting in Athens last year, much progress had been made in terms of broadband and quality of access, as well as in terms of those actually connected to the Internet.

There was a clear convergence of views that governments had an important role to play in creating a solid regulatory framework and making sure that the rule of law was well established and respected.  Many speakers stressed the need for open markets, while others emphasized that market forces alone could not solve the issue of accessibility.    

In order to provide access in remote and rural areas there was a need for something more.  Many participants talked about the need for innovative solutions, including public-private partnerships, and the need for private companies to work with government, and also with civil society in providing access to the rural areas.

There was also a notion that every country had to find its own solution.  “There was no one-size fits all model that was perfect, but each country had to develop its own solution”, Mr. Kummer recalled at the press conference.  In that vein, the size of the local markets was mentioned as a problem for small countries.  One speaker pointed to the African experience where a big continent had only a very small portion of the Internet, noting that each country had tried to do it alone instead of a regional approach.   

Participants at the access session demonstrated that the underlining theme of the IGF – the multistakeholder cooperation – was also very important with regard to access, acknowledging that government had an important role to play, but had to work closely with private sector, civil society and the Internet community in that regard.

 
Diversity

The afternoon's main session on diversity expressed a strong plea for diversity in all its facets. There were different types of diversity mentioned -- linguistic diversity, cultural diversity, diversity of media, but also diversity relating to people with disabilities.  Participants expressed the need to do all that could be done to make the Internet accessible for all; that should include people with disabilities, use of universal design, assistive technology, but also sign interpretation were mentioned in this context.
 
The example of African children was mentioned where they were deprived of this freedom as they have to learn foreign languages as they enter school. The parallel was drawn to and from linguistic diversity to biodiversity, and in this context, a precautionary principle was mentioned that should also be adapted as relating to diversity. The impact of standards and the importance of open, non-proprietary standards was also mentioned, as well as the use of free and open source software as important elements.
 
One panelist pointed out that there were only 500 languages available on the Web.  As was the case in biodiversity, this loss of cultural diversity was a threat to human evolution, he noted.  A speaker representing Thailand's Association for the Blind, said for persons with disabilities diversity meant accessibility, including Internet accessibility.  For persons with disabilities, the goal was to achieve full Internet accessibility, including through universal design and assistive  technologies. "The Internet should be a caring, peaceful and barrier-free place," he said.  Another panelist emphasized that Internationalized Domain Names remained an important aspect of diversity.
 
A representative from the International Development Research Centre said his organization was involved in developing new technologies for development.  “Development would not happen without local, and diversity meant localization”.  One speaker, while stating there was a problem for less spoken languages, appealed for work on an agreement to find a way to loosen copyright restrictions on material for local linguistic use.

 
Participants also mentioned that the Internet can be a powerful tool when it is in your own language, that it can help change society. And there were several concrete proposals that were made as a possible way forward, including the creation of a group to work on agreements to find a way to release copyright materials for linguistic localization.
 
 

Other Events

In a workshop addressing the issue of freedom of expression and opinion on the Internet, participants discussed ways of ensuring fundamental freedoms were a pre-requisite to success in other areas of Net-related governance and how to assist governments to be accountable to preserve these basic rights.   A speaker from Amnesty international asserted that the right to privacy was increasingly affected by the Internet emphasizing that the expansion of the Internet must afford access to all, including marginalized societies.

Generally, panelists and participants attending the workshop on freedom of expression event agreed that basic freedoms must be a fundamental basis for discussions at the IGF.   A speaker representing Google stated that freedom of access to information through the Internet was a way of effectively empowering communities.  While noting that there were currently approximately two dozen countries currently applying censorship restrictions, another speaker said the Internet will either be a means of further disparity between nations or a means of building bridges.

In another workshop, panelists highlighted actions taken and still required for preventing and protecting children from sexual exploitation through ICTs.  Issues addressed included legal frameworks, law enforcement and civil society initiatives, policy responses and corporate sector social responsibility to tackle this problem, which, the speakers assessed, had grown to staggering proportions.  

Among some of the successful projects highlighted at this session were those aimed to engage and empower children, young people, parents and the community through information and education available through the Internet.  As one panelist put it, “the aim is to protect children and young people from exploitation from the e-world to the real world”.

Another workshop addressed different areas in relation to the theme of  Internet multilingualism. Among the topics discussed were perspectives of a multilingual Internet from developing countries,, the private sector's vision regarding demand for multilingual cyberspace, and the development of internationalized domain names.  A representative from the ITU noted the importance of multilingual content and the need for cooperation among the different organizations and stakeholders in this area.
 
The main focus was in the area of standardization in languages, character encoding systems and local content development.  There were also some questions from the audience around the need and the urgency to have standards and standardization processes at the language level before getting to the Unicode level.  Participants generally agreed that there was a need for a lot of effort and cooperation to make standards more available and mature.