Sixth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum
27 -30 September 2011
United Nations Office in Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
September 27, 2011 - 09:00am
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The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Sixth Meeting of the IGF, in Nairobi, Kenya. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> CHAIR KATE RUSSELL: Good morning, everybody; thank you very much for joining us and welcome to Nairobi to the Sixth Annual Meeting of the IGF.
Our panel has been assembled to discuss a very prominent issue in the web: "Media and Mutation: What is the Future of the News and Media Industry in a World of Social Networking?"
We have assembled a fantastic panel, some of whom are so fantastic they are not quite here yet!
(Laughter)
They have got some really diverse opinions as well so hopefully it will promote a very interesting and multifaceted discussion this morning.
First of all, we have the honorable Ed Vaizey, UK Minister for the Internet. We have Lewis Fry, competition winner and journalism student from the University of Creative Arts in the UK.
Participating remotely we have Sarah el Sigarny of the "Daily News Egypt" and our remote operation is being run by Kieren McCarthy.
We also are about expecting any minute now a blogger and journalist from Kenya, Dennis Itumbi, and Wael Khalil, a co-founder of the 20th March Campaign For Change so he's literally on his way from the airport and has been for an hour and a half.
>> He's through reception now.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: He will be here hopefully by the time we get to his section.
I want to start off with a five-minute chat with each panelist to get their opinions on the issue that we will discuss today and then open it up for questions.
So do feel free to sort of put your hand up if you want to ask any questions or make a comment. We'll take questions from the remote participation. We've had some good questions in already from the Internet. Good place to get them from given the discussion topic.
We'll start with Ed.
Ed, the question I want to start with you is: Social media has grown in reach and influence beyond anyone's imagination if you look at the size of the Facebook and people interacting through social media, but how much responsibility do you think people have to ensure the information they pass on is accurate?
>> HON ED VAIZEY: Well, I think it's depending which way you look at it. Clearly we have had an explosion of social media in the UK as many other countries have around the world. That brings with it all sorts of opportunities and all sorts of issues as well.
I think in a sense the responsibility lies on the people hosting the social media, be it in particular blogs that have established themselves as a very important presence in the media.
As a politician, I get a daily roundup of news and that no longer just includes the national newspapers, it also includes the leading political blogs of the day. They have a responsibility to themselves. People won't read them if they are not putting out accurate stories. Obviously they are very opinionated but we have always had a very opinionated media in the UK.
I think the first answer to your question is bloggers and so on have a responsibility to themselves to put out accurate stories; otherwise, people simply won't read them. They build a reputation on breaking news and breaking accurate news.
How much responsibility does government have? I think one can get oneself tied up in knots if you try to say that somehow new media brings different changes to old media. If you lible someone or slander someone on the Internet, you should be subject to the same comeback as if you libeled them in print. There are laws against inciting hatred or violence and those laws still apply if you are doing it on the Internet just as much in print. There are jurisdictional issues if you are doing it outside of the jurisdiction of the UK.
The short answer to your question is, yes, there is a responsibility to be accurate in social media but to a certain extent, that responsibility comes, benefits the people who are trying to build a brand on the Internet.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Absolutely. One of the issues with user-generated content if you look at YouTube which has grown, now eight years of content is uploaded every single day on YouTube. If you try to bring the responsibility back to the publisher in that respect, YouTube, the whole business model for that site comes down because there's no way they could give a free service that can be monitored for eight years' worth of content every single day.
>> HON ED VAIZEY: The responsibility still lies with the person who puts up the video, not necessarily YouTube but again I think it's an interesting example of how a brand evolves. It's a major multinational operation and in terms of how I engage with YouTube as minister for creative industries representing also as well as looking after policy in the UK represent a lot of the industries that depend on intellectual property. You will have seen transformation in YouTube over the last few years and how they interact with major rightsholders, record labels, film companies in terms of taking down content that infringes copyright.
They will do so on the basis of getting accurate information from the rightsholders but I don't think people will hold YouTube responsible for -- again, as part of its brand, YouTube will have policies and inappropriate content but in terms of, say, one video attacking a particular person, people won't hold YouTube responsible for that.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: There have been much tougher penalties in the last month in the UK, really tough penalties handed out to people inciting violence through Facebook and other social networking sites, presumably you hold with that view, that we should be more he -- start to let people know through the legal system what the responsibilities they have for what they publish?
>> HON ED VAIZEY: I think it's an important point to get across. I hope it isn't misinterpreted in any way which is that if you stand on a street corner and shout to everyone,
"Let's start a riot," you would be arrested. And similarly if you put out on Twitter, "Let's start a riot," you have to face the consequences if your actions lead to a riot happening. Just because you do it on Twitter doesn't mean you are immune.
But at the same time, there's a non sequiter in saying you should then shut down Twitter or somehow social media is to blame for that action. No, the individual is to blame. They just happen to be using a took tool to do it.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Fair to say if they don't have that tool they'll find another tool?
>> HON ED VAIZEY: Yes.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Let's move on to Lewis now because Lewis Fry is obviously just entering his career in this film field of new media journalism, and Wael, welcome. Thank you very much. Fresh off the plane from Egypt so thanks very much.
So Lewis, I would like to put a question to you about the blogging sort of world that you are coming into. A lot of high-profile bloggers and tweeters hire public relations experts to blog on their behalf. As a journalist what do you think of the moral issues around disclosure about your online identity?
>> LEWIS FRY: Well it's interesting to see that a lot of high-class celebrities and important figures, companies, are using people to run their feeds for them and update on their behalf, so when it comes to actually looking for information from an individual, it can sometimes be distorted and you have to really take the result so if you read something on someone's Facebook page or Twitter page that they're supporting a certain charity or foundation, then you've got to really realize that's just hype and maybe not just them actually doing it and they have just been advised to do so.
I think a lot of people using our site, let's say intervention to update their blogs and also feeds, it's not really them doing it and so therefore it's taking away their individuality because it's the voice of someone who has been paid to speak on their behalf and not coming from them.
As a journalist if you want to get a story or report that someone is doing something you have to be very careful that the source is actually coming from them and not just their press department.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Is it the consumer's reader's rights to know whether or not they are actually hearing from the source or from a representative of the source?
>> LEWIS FRY: Of course people want to know like if things are real and if what's being said is true. But then also it goes back to if you say it too much, you lose your privacy and then you are not able to be able to retract what you say because it's already been seen. So I think it is right people demand a voice that they know that their source is right and correct.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Another interesting aspect of sort of like the online content world. And that is hoaxes and fictitious content, also an art form, you know I know a lot of people who create online content as a character and don't have a problem with presenting that and portraying themselves as a real character. Great example if anyone knows about it is the lesbian blogger from Syria who last year caused a storm because it turned out to be a 40-year-old American man blogging from Scotland.
So at what points does art turn into deception? We are used to in the creative industries we can say you can take on a character or persona, but when you are in an online environment it's very difficult for the audience to actually separate what is real and not real.
>> LEWIS FRY: Certainly is. I myself have quite a personal knowledge of this area as I myself a few times have maybe used a character trait as a way of presenting something very creative and that's the main thing; people hoops content is a question creation of their own, therefore, they need to make sure everything that is being said and everything that is being done is being done because they want to, not for ulterior motive but make sure if there is it's one but if you look at people who are faking things, write things they do it from a point of view they have no knowledge of. Then it kind of almost violates the trust that is between a viewer and also a content creator.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Absolutely. Thank you. We'll come back to you with more questions later.
Wael Khalil has now joined us, thank you, co-founder of the 20th March Campaign for Change. Give us, the people who are tuning in on the Internet and online, give us a top-line how it works.
>> WAEL KHALIL: Hi. I'm Wael Khalil from Egypt. The 20th of March Campaign was one of many campaigns that started in 2004, that is, in organizing in a new way that's flat, that is nonhierarchical. It is challenging the regime one way or another. 20th March was the first time we started challenging the regime in democracy front. Before that it was Palestinian solidarity movement and then anti-war movement and it's the same mechanism and the same network of people and same tools. Participants make decisions and initiatives either being taken on by everyone so it's a successful initiative or it's ignored and not taken and subsides.
This is the way we worked. We worked in a bit of a margin of how to say legality. We were not legal and not illegal so the regime was not clandestine, we were above the ground. The regime could start to harass us, arrest us, for a few week, leave us, and this margin allowed us to -- this space allowed us to gain ground and start challenging Mubarek who is now in jail. He was untouchable until maybe 2004, every criticism in the country was against ministers and prime ministers and only around 2004, the rise of the democracy movement, 20th March was an early initiative but the most important one was called the (Speaking off-mic) meaning "Enough" which emerged in the end of 2004 and started demanding an end to Mubarek's regime.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: How much of a role do you think social media played in building the momentum necessary for regime change?
>> WAEL KHALIL: Very little actually.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Interesting.
>> WAEL KHALIL: Sorry to say that. We used the Internet as much as we could even since the early days of the movement using e-mail, e-mail lists, and Yahoo groups were popular then and forums and websites that were not called blogs by then but they were more or less blogs. This was the means available to us. I think this has been the case. We used SMS -- extensive text messages. They were not -- the term "social media" wasn't coined by then, or even existed.
When we started using social media it was really social networking. It was really groups of friends sharing things and sharing activities and ideas and thoughts.
There were -- then we started, I think, the world started using it differently. I don't think Twitter was thought of as the tool it is today by the time it emerged. But we used it as we use the tool. I think it helped in creating an alternative source of news which we could not have had without it. More or less realtime updates so we knew things from Twitter that happening so the following day it was really old news or -- and I think the most important thing is how the social media influenced the ministry media.
I think that was the real impact happened because we have to admit the accessibility to the Internet in -- Egypt still very little. In a recent -- not very recent -- in April a survey by Gallup I think they surveyed how people get their information and the news and only 9% said Twitter and Facebook and the rest was the good old mainstream TV media.
I think that the main impact happened when social media, Twitter and Facebook, had a strong impact so that it -- the mainstream media could not ignore it so it had to take it on and then it became a public case. I think this is the case for Syed, the man who was killed by -- brutally beaten by police last year. And this was a cause for very, very popular page that was instrumental, that -- it was a site that was instrumental to the 25th of January, but the case of (Speaking off-mic) started on social media and then taken and expanded and I think this interaction whether influencing public opinion or on creating news, so to speak, was very important.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: There's also been several cases where activists have been taken by the security forces and the message has got out on Twitter and there's been such a landslide of public outrage and support for these people who have been taken. Do you think that social media has played a fundamental role in some of those outcomes being better than it could have been?
>> LEWIS FRY: Not only -- in Egypt there was a bit of exaggeration of bloggers being targeted as bloggers or as -- we were targeted as activists. We were harassed because we were doing something like participating in a demonstration, not only for -- very few cases where only something you wrote was the reason.
Not only in arrests but in really getting news about what's happening, I think which was very important, so during the 18 days of the revolution, many people got their firsthand news from firsthand people on the ground, really saying what is happening. And we developed some sort of a credibility or way to access credibility of the news, source is one thing, this guy or this girl is usually reliable, they don't usually exaggerate so to speak and we wait for confirmations before we start spreading the news so it's been a very, very useful thing and in all cases, not only in arrested bloggers.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Thank you. We'll come back again with more questions but this seems a good point to bring in Sarah who is deputy editor of "Daily News Egypt." Remote participation console.
Sarah, can you hear me?
>> SARAH EL SIGARNY: Yes, I can.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Thank you very much for joining us.
You have heard what Wael just said. How do you think the relationship between the traditional mainstream media in Egypt and the blogosphere and activists has been playing out?
>> SARAH EL SIGARNY: You have to treat it as another source. Technology is being used but at the end of the day you have to use the traditional method (Speaking off-mic) information, facts, credit credibility of persons. As Wael said, when you have a blogger or a tweet saying something, you don't just taking take it as face value; you should know the source from earlier on. You should be -- for example, the journalists have been two or three years now so that there's no new source that could like surprise them with something and if there is a network of other sources that they can certify this, so it's not just something online and you are taking the information and publishing it.
You should have contact with that person and other people in that -- verify that and at the end of the day, take it as a tip where you then go out and as a journalist there's a job you had been doing.
>> Let's take that on a bit further and maybe defocus a little bit from the situation in Egypt to a more global aspect and that is as a traditional media outlet, when social media can spread information and news so rapidly, how do you as a traditional source of media, how do you compete with that kind of rapid delivery of information while still putting in place the checks and cross checks that you obviously have to do as a sort of recognized media outlet?
>> SARAH EL SIGARNY: You have to recognize the law here. It's a journalist. You cannot compete with immediacy of this information because basically people everywhere are seeing something as they see it happen. Unless you have a journalist -- happens to be there at this particular time you cannot compete. But at the end of the day it's a discussion between the traditional age of media and the new type of media. (Speaking off-mic) what type of credibility-checking, what other sources can we get. It's the value.
Network of journalists are working on the same story at the same time. And it's so it's not just breaking the news but also verifying it and a lot of reasons -- depends on social media for getting the information as it happens but we also look for the newspapers to tell them where is like for sure did it actually happen or not, what are the repercussions, how it is progressing and give them a more comprehensive story of what -- of that picture that saw minutes earlier.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Mainstream media outlets have been caught out publishing news stories that have come through social media. One fairly recently in the UK where a lot of very respected news organizations picked up on a story that was actually turned out to be a PR campaign that claimed that Internet Explorer users were less intelligent than other users which was picked up by all mainstream media including the BBC actually and it's difficult to not get tripped up when something seems very credible. Have you had much experience with that? I mean, what's happening in Egypt in that respect?
>> SARAH EL SIGARNY: Definitely. It's very tempting, you have an influx of information all the time and it's -- you need to weed it out. And the fact it because it's available for everyone, you will get caught out if you are not doing the job. If you are being a lazy journalist and that's the issue. But it's -- from both sides. Do you just, if you hear about something, do you run it or take your time and verify it first? And here is something it has to be a case-by-case and as I said before, network of that online words, don't just assume that it's online.
Make sure that the context of the people that are there, main people that you are relying on and this is what I usually do. If I hear about something that I cannot -- I cannot verify it myself right away, I just pick up the phone and ask all the questions that I need to ask.
I also like we come up with mechanisms to address the online sources, everyone, even journalists have their -- this is what -- you have to keep this in mind. Give you proper estimate of the other picture. Other people have an eye for details and you can look and follow them for that. But at the end of the day after all that, regardless of how much you know your sources, you need to go out and do your job.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Absolutely. Let's throw open some questions, then. Any panelists want to respond to anything that anybody else has said? If you have any thoughts.
>> I have a bit of a funny story because the talk about hoaxes and sometimes it's a joke, we have on Twitter about Barack Obama and the -- in Arabic and all of us know it's a joke but he always makes jokes very interesting, things that sounds like serious statement and like response, joke, we know that, but one day we found mainstream newspaper taking one of those tweets and elaborating it as a story, Barack Obama is eating this for breakfast.
I think there is this issue of differentiating hoaxes like the lesbian woman or actually outright jokes which is you cannot tell because you don't see the face of the person making the tweet, whether they are really joking or not, and sometimes we have to say we are joking because I mean in that situation like that in Egypt, I once joked that a plane took Mubarek to Saudi after he was arrested and I said I was joking, I am joking, by the way, and many people responded that have you not said that we have taken it seriously.
So we have to be very careful with what, especially when things are tense and evolving that we have to be careful even when we joke.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Absolutely. I want to bring you in on this point, Ed, because as minister for creative and cultural areas as well, we don't want to strangle creativity. I mean, that's one of the joys of the web, that you have people expressing themselves and not just for political reasons, but you have real creative people who just want to make you smile. So how do we get to a point where we can protect people from misinformation without strangling creativity?
>> HON ED VAIZEY: Well, I think the government is not allowed to make any jokes. That's the first rule.
(Laughter)
Nigel is always worried whenever I open my mouth what's going to come out so I'll avoid jokes like the one I made before the panel, which if I made it in public, it would have been a nightmare.
Going back to my opening remarks and I think it's an important point here. What I was -- what I should also say is I think there is a obligation if you like on many social networking sites for an element of self-regulation, I have a colleague where somebody has set up a Twitter account in his name and it's perfectly plausible. It's incredibly dull, so it could well be him.
(Laughter)
It makes perfectly normal statements and you wonder whether he's building up so everyone then sees it's my colleague and at some point he'll say something really outrageous once he's built credibility.
Twitter has a policy you cannot impersonate somebody on Twitter and I think to say you the individual can take action to have that account stopped and that's perfectly -- I don't think that infringes on anybody's freedom. It protects your freedom and certainly I think big social networking sites do have responsibility to help their users when it comes to cyberbullying which can be really unpleasant for someone who is subject to that, say, on Facebook and the ability of someone to take swift action and Facebook and others have steps in place to ensure that actions that are grat tu which Tuesday and frivolous, that's also important, but of course parody and satire has a huge place and I follow many different parody Twitter accounts which are very amusing.
The Downing Street Cat has a Twitter account and reports regularly on the prime minister and the going-ons in Downing Street from a cat's point of view. That's a very important new perspective for me. And therefore one that I'm keen to follow.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Question from the floor.
>> I was going to make --
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Press your microphone button. Introduce yourself.
>> Allen Michael, member of the Parliament from the UK. I was a member of the (Speaking off-mic) committee. Following the riots in August, we had some hearings about what had happened and one of those we had Facebook and Twitter and Blackberry there because of the extensive use that had been made of those means of communication during those riots and I think it takes you into a different perspective. I think the mainstream media covered events in Egypt as being a use of social networking accounts for a benevolent purpose so it was all good, all fine with one or two exceptions that have already been mentioned. Whereas there you had for a moment or two, police and ministers think for a moment well should we close these accounts down if they are being used to organize the ransacking of shops and things like that. They thought for about two minutes and said no that wouldn't be a good idea.
What they were doing was intervening and it was an example and evidence given to the committee, for instance, organizing and also things going around, saying don't -- you need to look all the different ways in which it can be used. You'll say you have this way of regulating this bit of the fields. So my question really is if members of the panel take themselves outside their direct experience, and look at other circumstances around the world, how do we get to something that is a standard which we can now be able to observe in terms of if you like journalistic standards or blogging standards or whatever, again, without impinging on the creativity. How can you do it?
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Very good question, and big question, I feel. Any one of our panelists want to specifically come back? If you have any thoughts on it push your button.
>> I think Ed makes a very good point from various points of view we have almost a responsibility to report accurately on things going on and the use of things like Facebook and Twitter to incite rioting was an extreme case of how it can be used badly. There was organizations, organizing street cleanup and that shows the positive side. That's a double-edged sword but also a lot of people had a little bit of -- I know rioting is a serious subject but there was a sense of humor. I think it was a police force maybe in Manchester where there was -- someone set up a event saying rioting at such-and-such place and the local police force said they were attending. So it just goes to show that the police or authorities are using the services in a productive way as -- it's not always sensible to use Facebook and Twitter of a way of getting information as it is inaccurate and can be -- can mutate very quickly into something that is very negative.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Yes? Go ahead.
>> Can I just -- it's a bit of a cliche response but someone's riot is someone else's revolution and this is the problem. When we ask the social networks, the corporates to make the decision what is good and bad that is a problem. I think there are many other less clear examples of that use and I think in our case in Egypt Mubarek shut down the Internet for five days. It didn't really make a big difference. Some people would argue that it made things worse for him. We'll never know but I think that the whole concept of regulating for the best causes is a bit tricky one and we have to really approach it very carefully. It's always dominated by the dominant forces, whether mainstream media, government, the common sense of the common citizen, whatever that means.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: To the floor, if you would introduce yourself.
>> Steve Miller, journalism educator in the UK. I wanted to make a plea for media education because I think that the main defensive against Internet hoaxes and journalistic web content is good sound media education. I think a lot of young people are coming through now, Facebook, second nature to them, frequent users, and that so frequent they are worried about being addicts. That is coming through from us talking to young people.
There's also a complacency, they trust everything they read on the Internet. They don't evaluate it very carefully or very well. I think one of the things we have to do as educators is make them evaluate Internet information effectively and be able to distinguish good solid well-researched factual content from other content that might be of less informational value.
I think there has to be sounded indication and that will be much more effective than regulation. I think that applies whether you are talking about hoaxes or people's attempts to be satirical or talking about information that is not very good, not very well researched. I just wanted to make another point about PR manipulation because I actually get some of these people who might be called PR manipulators, I get them into my university to train my journalism students into how to make their content more visible on the Internet.
You know, there is a sea of information out there and it's a definite skill set now within journalism, how to make content more visible, get up the Google rankings, and some of the best people in this area are the people who might be characterized as manipulators so we can learn a lot from them in how to make good content, factually significant content, visible.
Some of my students are getting very good at that.
It's the so called PR manipulators who are the real experts. We can learn a lot from them.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Ed now on this.
>> HON ED VAIZEY: I think that's a very good point about regulation versus education and what Khalil was saying.
As a politician, I am faced with this dilemma, if you like. It may surprise people to learn as a politician I don't like to regulate, I don't want to regulate, it's redifficult but I'm against regulation as well. I think what Khalil was saying is the obligation on Facebook or Google or Twitter are very interesting because as I said earlier I think it is important that they have clear policies in place for their users about what they regard as acceptable and what they don't.
I think broadly speaking when I look they seem perfectly sensible to not impersonate people and the right to complain about what you think is inappropriate content. It is an interesting dilemma because they do feel they don't want to be a policeman. They would in a weird way they would like government to set boundaries, I think they would like them set loosely and I would like boundaries to be set loosely. I want to highlight this dilemma. I think the best people, best regulation is self-regulation by social media. At the same time social media there's a feeling we also want to know -- government set boundaries although very wide.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: There's also a question about anonymity as well. Someone who might self-regulate more respectably, given the opportunity of complete anonymity will shoot their mouth off and say things they might later regret.
>> EDUARDO: Interesting thing, anonymous contents on the Web people say things that are just astonishing, they would not say to your face and certainly not if their name was there. Should you regulate that?
No. That's self-regulation, people go to websites depending -- sometimes the comments will drive people there and the other time they put people off. You live and die by that. It should be up to the individual website what their policy is.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: We've got another question from the floor.
>> So we had a comment before which was about --
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Introduce yourself.
>> Vicky Nash from the objection in order to (Speaking off-mic) education younger users how to interpret things from nontraditional sources but I want to flag up it works the other way around. Internet use is a sense of informal learning and as far as we can see at -- the greatest benefits of younger people accessing the information informally on things like Twitter or Facebook is actually it has a way of using use encouraging them to use more traditional sources. I was keen about (Speaking off-mic) the idea that already educating themselves through these sources.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Absolutely. Go ahead.
>> I think when it comes to the education aspect I speak to a lot of fellow students and they flag up the idea that in generations past people would wake up in the morning, turn on television or the radio or newspaper but a lot of younger people now the first thing they do is wake up, check Facebook and Twitter and it is almost as if it's their default setting to check these kind of media for news and not go for these more traditional ways.
>> -- people do it as we, well, little window into our world
(Laughter)
>> Thank you for educating me on that. It advertise in, then.
(Laughter)
When it comes to the education of young people I think a lot of young people forget that once you -- though you can delete things you say people will undoubtedly read it so if you put a view on something which is quite narrow-minded it may come back to bite you in the future. I think that educating people or young people, all people really on responsible Internet use and responsible social networking trends even is key to making sure that social networking stays a positive force in news gathering and also networking as a society.
>> That brings us to an interesting point. We sort of move on a little bit in the discussion.
The right to delete. I want to first before we get into in-depth comments take a quick straw poll. Do you think that there should be the right to delete permanently content you have put online? Ed?
>> HON ED VAIZEY: Well, there would be noises from the commission about this. You captain delete yourself from the Internet. That's just a fact. That's the first point. Secondly I'd be very worried about any regulation that required deletion and again fall back on the self-regulation. If a website were to offer the right to have data removed, I think that would be an attractive offer for many people. Does come down to there is a policy debate, comes down to who owns the data. What happens to the data and how do you control the use of your data which is a very important discussion but much wider than what we've got which is in my view impossible.
>> You think there should be limited right for removal.
>> HON ED VAIZEY: No, I'm not, no, I don't. What I'm saying, to be absolutely clear, if individual websites were to offer you that opportunity. That would be an attractive offer to the consumer. We have a policy debate about what happens to your content on the Web.
>> WAEL KHALIL: Are we talking about myself deleting content or deleting myself from the Internet?
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: You maybe make a post in haste you come to regret and the other thing is people can put content about you, you look at Facebook and your friend uploads a picture taken in a compromising picture at a party.
>> WAEL KHALIL: Usually (Speaking off-mic)
(Laughter)
That's a problem of the Internet. I think it's impossible to regulate. I personally think we should not delete content we put online. Even fits done, it's part of ourselves and I think the counter that -- the backfire from actually deleting it might be worse than leaving it and defending it or even apologizing. The only time I ask someone to delete a tweet is he mentioned a name he shouldn't have mentioned and it wasn't safe and I think still valid if you put someone in a criminal -- in a criminal accusation or something, then I would suggest that delete but the fact is it's there. If you deleted it, someone would have taken a screenshot of it and it's there and someone could have retweeted it the old way and it's there. It's like we to have live with it. Some of it is sometimes out of context and you have to live with it.
No way to confront or ask people or organization corporates to regulate it in a way to suit us because then again it will be regulated in a way that suits others.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: I'll come to you now quickly. Where do you stand on this? Do you think that people should have the right to permanently delete content they have put on the Internet or content about them that has been put on the Internet?
>> SARAH EL SIGARNY: I don't think it's even possible. You can blog. They're there's no way to control it. You can't go outside -- to be published. (Speaking off-mic) -- (garbled audio)
There might be some issues but, I mean, as well, I'm against deletion in general. In you go in a hall and say something you can't go back and erase that. People have to start dealing with the Internet as if it's an open forum with everyone having access. If you don't have this responsibility, then or you don't have this in mind then it's your problem, your issue.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Thank you. Well, this question has taken a flurry of hands up from the floor. If you could just introduce yourself.
>> Terry Joyce. It's not quite right to say, for example, if you delete a tweet, in the UK we have an issue with (Speaking off-mic) UK if you're not it's people have tweeted the names of people with there's an injunction forbidding the press. But the position judges take actually is that even if it's been done severa hundred thousand times, that's still different from every single person on your street knowing about it. That's why we still have this debate. It's still the fact judges think there is value in injunction because it's still different. So if you were to delete a tweet if it said something you regretted or was dangerous or whatever, then you would have an impact. Someone would still take a screenshot and circulate it. But it's still sitting in your stream, everyone still sees it.
It does not actually make a differences. Technically you can't.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Next over there.
>> Great. I'm Robert with Freedom House in Washington. In regards to the question I think it's issue of whether delete -- there's countries in Europe that are calling for the right to be forgotten online.
So the second thing, too, is the use of data I think what's important is just the education for the users and companies and expectations where that data will be storied and that people know the right settings. It's one thing to share it with friends. It's another thing to then maybe flag it and it is negative and the consequences of not deleting content, five or ten years from now, it's affecting employment for a lot of people and I think that maybe a lot of people aren't aware. So I think a lot of education really needs to be focused in terms of implications of maybe not the type of posts but also not figuring out another audience that will see that as well, and what will happen.
For the case of the activist there is very little going into training and by mistakenly reviewing networks or not setting the right settings on Facebook can expose a whole set of people to dangers they have no idea about and it can get them killed.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Yes, sir.
>> Alex -- independent researcher. We've picked up on one context and education with regards to where content is and what happens when you delete or don't. That's very important it's all context-dependent but we've missed another big side of the coin. In fact the other side of the coin talking about how to delete our own content but what happens when someone deletes our content? Who manages that? Who exercises power then?
And this year there have been many activists who claim to have had content deleted by social networking platforms. I understand that earlier this year before the protests and unrest in Britain we had University College london, bunch of activists that had Facebook accounts deleted. This was because they weren't complying with Facebook policy regarding the use of real names.
They did question why this was applied to them, why this happened during the royal wedding. I also don't use my real name on Facebook, if you see my name, you will pretty much guess that's not me. So, yeah, people seem to think this is selectively applied and there are those with the power to delete things.
Another example is there was a day of rage Facebook page for every single country in the Arab world, Palestinian one was deleted. Obviously and I'm not arguing against this, there is a policy about hate speech and from a certain argument there's a reason to delete it but I think we need to address who governs whether content is deleted and who actually exercises power there and who are stakeholders. Does Facebook consult big guys, small guys?
Secondly, I think it's also an education issue. You need to know if you create content you make offline copy and you can also put it on a number of other platforms online so you this not be enentrusting your content to something like Facebook entirely.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Thank you. Welcome to you guys. (unintelligible) -- get to a microphone and we'll engage you. Okay.
>> Steve -- Creative Arts UK. Just wanted to pick up on two previous speakers. I think my American colleague made some interesting points, widespread ignorance about who owns your property, who opens your content on sites like Facebook, strong case to be made for some kind of citizenship, education to include education about new media and responsible use as we mentioned about social networking sites but also this is causing the question the other way; if we're doing much more publishing online, much less publishing in book form, there is an issue actually about loss of information.
Lot of valuable information that has been published on the Internet which was deleted and even though you have archive.org and so on there is still huge amounts of information that has been lost, information of value. It works both ways.
How can you archive Internet information which is of value and make sure that it is kept for future reference?
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Let's come to the -- quickly and take that. Do we think there needs to be some kind of body of curation, independent curation body, to help control this or is that even wildly impossible and not even worthying about? Ed Vaizey?
>> HON ED VAIZEY: We are trying to pass at the moment regulations that would allow the British Library -- it goes right to the heart of what Steve was saying and really fundamentally what this debate is about -- who owns the data. And the thing is the negotiations have been very complex and difficult because of course all the publishers quite rightly and understandably they realize their archive is valuable resource. They can monetize it in the future.
So whereas in the physical world you would give a copy of the times to the library and it would sit collecting dust on a shelf and somebody would come in and look at it 40 years later for a book they're researching, that is fine but when you can sduvr the times for the last 50 years that's potentially a great form -- from your computer in your -- at home that's a financial opportunity.
So obviously the British government position is yes, there should be a curated archive at the British Library. Regulations are complex but will I hope go through in the next few months and we have to respect the right of publishers to make money from their archive as well.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: In today's Digital Age it's becoming more difficult for content creators to monetize their work as well.
>> HON ED VAIZEY: We're restricting access to the library content. It won't be available at home.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Thank you. Wael?
>> WAEL KHALIL: There were many points made I think one of the points made is we don't really understand how corporates work. How do they decide which page to drop? There's real lack of transparency, a bit of, yeah, they respond much stronger to stronger governments so that's why the Palestinian page was dropped down, not the Egyptian one. The Egyptian regime had worked to drop some page and we managed (Speaking off-mic) one of the issues is lack of transparency. We don't understand how Twitter decides, whether or Facebook example given, whether it should have this rule altogether because it's really a selective rule and has no -- it's not impersonating someone else, what's the point of not using your real name?
Who cares? But I think other than having regulation or like this global body that's I think is impressive we should push for more trabs paren si from the corporates. If they bring down a page they have to have clear at this point laition why they do that which actually means more effort on the part and more cost to them but we have to push them to do that. We have to have some sort of appeal or reconsideration way especially for -- not everyone can pick up a phone and call Google or Twitter or Facebook and at one point in time we can expect governments or corporates or wherever who have interest and resources to start using that again content they deem unfavorable to them.
I think corporates have a responsibility to be transparent and really defend the content.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: In the case of a lot of -- one in particular I won't name names but they seem to change the rules very quickly especially concerning privacy without any transparency. Lots of people are always complaining about certain social networking sites changing rules and not telling anyone and then their privacy is completely out of luck.
>> Without naming names --
(Laughter)
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: I'll go to Sarah now. We'll come back to Lewis in a second but Sarah has put her hand up.
>> SARAH EL SIGARNY. Yes I think when we talk a lot about regulation, we're missing the whole point of social media. It's really -- (unintelligible) -- done by -- the way they use media, the way they are putting information on it, the way they react to it but of course we can
(Garbled audio)
But people are setting rules for themselves. And that's part of the movement for me. For us to put a large emphasis on regulation rather than actually trying to understand how it works, benefits of it, it gets to so many people talking at the same time, getting their opinion even if it's just how they see it --
(Garbled audio)
-- Wonderful insights, technology before did not enable us to get and that -- not in that content so the people their using the media are the -- for example --
(Garbled audio)
-- where we want this, where we don't want your privacy and I assume eventually such website will be reacting to the rules of people because they are providing a service. If they don't like it they can just leave.
We have to understand that, rather than trying to regulate how social media works in a certain way.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: It's easy to say that if you don't like it, then you can leave it, but in the case of social media it's now such a force in people's every day lives. Half a billion Facebook members, I myself find it very hard to operate my social life without Facebook because a lot of my friends choose to interact that way now. You do have an opt out but at the same time it's difficult.
We'll come to you on this, Lewis.
>> LEWIS FRY: I think your point on the how it's very hard to -- organize a social life without networking is a very good point. I think a lot of people have become really dependent on it. Going back to a point of changing privacy rules it can create problems with especially young people, young people may not have the Tate of mind to want to be responsible and they take the things they say and also views they express. So if you take, for example, me, like I use Facebook, I'm a constant Facebook user and also Twitter.
So if you were to look at some of the things that I've been up to the last few years as like going through college and university, some pictures, you may see maybe a different image than what you see here. Instead of me sitting in a suit, you may see a totally different view.
I think if you control the privacy correctly you can stop people getting the wrong idea so the people will know who I am and know a lot about me, my close friends know that is not the real me, it's me having a good time and having some time off from being a professional person, young professional.
So I think when it comes to privacy everyone just has to be mindful and also think about how the things they are doing affects their future.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Absolutely. Okay. I want to go to the remote participation now.
Kieren, do we have any questions from the crowd?
>> KIEREN McCARTHY: Yes, Kieren McCarthy here. Yes. We actually ran a survey last week in which we asked people to give comments. I have not seen any comments yet online live so if you follow onlive and want to put a comment in the chat room please do.
Number of questions put in previously. One -- I've been thinking about popping them in. One was a possible censorship here, one question was about possible censorship from governments, whether people were concerned whether there were censorship for governments in this fear. We were talking then about how this appears to be with Facebook and Twitter but do governments have a system or mechanism to censor these setups and if so what are your feelings about that? I had a lot -- questions to Ed Vaizey which you answered partly was why you wanted to cut rioters off from social networks, effectively banning people from speaking to one another.
I think you addressed it partially but obviously that's a big topic. And I think there's two questions there.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Let's start with Ed Vaizey. You have actually made your position clear. You wouldn't want to cut people off from social media.
>> HON ED VAIZEY: Yeah, that's right. I think just because you're online doesn't mean you're exempt from the laws of the land. If there are laws against inciting a riot, if you inscit it online our breaking the law just as if you did it from the a street core nern. We all know governments do censor the Internet. I wouldn't want to live in a country where the government does censor, that's obviously wrong. There are laws though that apply offline and online and if you break them then you will are to face consequences.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Absolutely.
Question from the floor. Turn your microphone on and introduce yourself.
>> Alex Everett. About privacy particularly with children. It's very important often we rely on the setting defaults beforehand. So there's a certain amount of paternal is many from the Facebooks And Googles, It's very important to actually correct privacy settings so that the relevant ones are set in place beforehand. They're for those of us that don't understand them, don't bother, don't know, they are in place already. And similarly with the riots I guess I don't think that definitely any kind of censorship should have been placed but as Ed said law is the law. People need to respect that online and remember the online is just the offline pace in a different way.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Very good point. Anybody from the panel want to respond to the question so far?
>> In a case of protecting children online, that's a very good point. It's again going back to education of young people and also being able to almost have the access to this information that we have. Great tool, especially in the providing young people with insight into what the world is really like. Really want to -- the young people of today, you want them to see what the world has in store, not all on the once or too brutally, but it's clear that we try and help young people understand how to go about being safe just so they can enjoy the Internet and use it for positive tools as I've said before.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: The other question from our remote participation was about censorship. Could governments censor content and who should actually be responsible for that? Do you have any thoughts on that?
>> WAEL KHALIL: I was going to address the point of breaking the law. What the Internet and tools allowing us now is to decide which go to respect and which not. There was a recent case past few days in Egypt there was an injunction sought to have a media blackout on testimony of the current -- (unintelligible) -- like current president, Chief of Supreme Council of Armed Forces, testifying in the Mubarek trial and there was a media blackout and the testimony came out and everyone was tweeting it and participating it so the first person who leaked it will not face the law because we felt we have every right to know what the Chief of the Armed Forces said on the stand under oath.
And actually it's having a great impact because what he said is not really implicating Mubarek as we hoped and this is affecting his population. People decided while this is breaking, they are deciding we don't see this following or abiding by this law at this point in time is valuable or is important and I think there is a element of crowd sourcing taking place in that aspect is that if two people are deciding to do that it will be really very easy to single them out and then they will be breaking the law and facing consequences, but if there are hundreds of thousands of people, then the law will have to react in different way.
I mean, again, that's not to use the example of a riot but --
>> I think the key point is the Internet changes everything but also changes nothing, in a sense it does transform the way we get information. That was a very good example in Britain where people tried to use the official secrets act against a newspaper against a journalist who had got hold of information about the police investigation into phone hacking ironically and after two weeks of this being -- police I think came to their senses and realized this was a ridiculous way to behave toward a journalist. So of course there will always be very gray areas but you should not think that if you overtly break the law on the Web that now it gives you a different status if you do. Because --
>> At what point do you draw the line between the rights of the public to know and spread that information and the right of the individual whose life might have severe implication from that information getting out? Who needs to make that decision.
>> I think ultimately the courts. That's why you know certainly in my country which I regard as a free and open democracy the courts are awhere that battle takes place.
Eric Joyce mentioned super injunctions, we don't have a view on whether the court has the law right but people went to court to get a view on whether that information could get out there. It dangerous to ask politicians to make those decisions.
>> I to have go back to crowd sourcing once again because we have witnessed many cases where really people deciding on their own which information to disseminate and which to keep hold of and again after the fall of Mubarek there was a break into the SSI, state security intelligence, our secret police so to speak which was not so secret. Many documents with names and few of them made it to Facebook and then Twitter and online.
Some of them were implicating people sometimes falsely and allowing false documents to appear as authentic ones.
Suddenly it disappeared. Everyone stopped sharing, everyone decided on their own we won't do that anymore and it just went down no more -- became like unacceptable for people to start sharing things and stories. So crowd sourcing worked that way in a way people -- the people decided this is not useful. So we're not going to participate.
For us, of course, when you have millions of people participating with hundreds of thousands you get a better decision than if it's a smaller group but it's been working in you are case quite effectively and I think crowd sourcing is a way to go.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: I want to put this to you, Lewis, as a student of journalism just starting out in your career in multimedia. Does it scare you now that you have so much responsibility on you as an individual? As students we all make mistakes that maybe we shouldn't have but do you think there is a lot more pressure on students now to get it right first time straight out of the starting block?
>> LEWIS FRY: I think there is an immense amount of pressure on students to perform well and act professional as soon as they become students. Lot of university students have -- 18 years old, never lived on their own before, so they may not be as mature as everyone would expect them to be in the university.
As a journalist, though, there are so many people uploading content, pointing out their views, asking questions, it gets to the point when there are so many questions and not enough answers, how long before it becomes too hard to find the correct answer because as a journalist you want to find the correct answer and get it right the first time and if there's so many people talking the same things it's hard to hear the little gem of information that could make the story big or could add a valid point to your story.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: We're going to go to Sarah now. She's put her hand up but I'd like the other people to bear in mind we have reached the end of our time.
If you have any pressing thoughts or comments, make sure you put your hand up in the next five minutes.
Sarah?
>> SARAH EL SIGARNY: I was thinking about experience here and we deal a lot with censorship in Egypt. No such thing as censorship or responsible censorship. It is just censorship, it invades your right to know,
(Garbled audio)
Maybe even -- it's --
(Garbled audio)
Has censorship actually worked for the benefit of the people. I don't believe in censorship, I don't see a point in it except for someone somewhere deciding this information is not good for the people to know. I'm sorry, no one shuold have this type of power.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Absolutely. Thank you. Okay.
Allen, I'm actually going to come to you right before we close because you handed me a paper which I think you had a nice summary of the thoughts shared here today so far. Could you?
>> It was just to make the point that this is the classic discussion for which the IGF is necessary. If you looked for legislation and regulation, it would be too crude, inflexible, wouldn't keep up with change. But at the same time it's important that these things are discussed. I don't agree with the last remark because it is from a particular perspective. And we have seen illustrated in this discussion many things where individuals need the protection of the freedom of discussion and also examples where individuals need to be protected from bad use of social media by others.
It's all about human behavior and therefore we have to find ways of dealing with that. But legislation and regulation, a top-down approach by a UN body, that's never going to work.
The IGF is absolutely essential as a place for this sort of discussion to be taking place.
>> CHAIR RUSSELL: Thank you very much. I think everyone here has pretty much agreed it's about education rather than regulation.
I hope that you have managed to take something away from this discussion that will be of use to you. Feel free to continue the discussion outside.
I'd like to thank my panel: Ed Vaizey, Wael, Lewis, Sarah in Egypt and Kieren, our link to the outside world.
And of course to Nominet for running this. They are running another session if you would like to come along to that.
Thank you as well for all your comments and contributions and it's been a pleasure meeting you all today and I hope to speak to you at some point during the day. Thank you.
(Applause)
(Session concluded)
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