Session
Organizer 1: Jon Camfield, Internews
Organizer 2: Laura Schwartz-Henderson, Internews
Speaker 1: Jon Camfield, Civil Society, Intergovernmental Organization
Speaker 2: Lai Yi Ohlsen, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 3: Laura Schwartz-Henderson, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Laura Schwartz-Henderson, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Jon Camfield, Civil Society, Intergovernmental Organization
Lai Yi Ohlsen, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Round Table - Circle - 60 Min
Defining universal and meaningful access: What are the key elements that constitute universal and meaningful Internet access? How can it be measured? How is the concept evolving in time and what does this evolution mean for policy?
Barriers to universal and meaningful access: What are the main challenges that people face in obtaining and making full use of Internet access? To what extent are these the result of social, economic and cultural factors, and to what extent do they result from aspects of the digital environment? How can we use the responses to these questions to better understand the intersection between digital policies and other policy areas? Can this understanding help us to develop and implement more realistic Internet-related policy goals?
As internet shutdowns have increased worldwide, civil society’s focus has remained largely on the overt style of wholesale internet disconnection recently seen in Ethiopia and Myanmar. This panel aims to bring attention to the increasingly used, but more insidious form of network interference, throttling, the intentional slowing of Internet service. By decelerating speeds, both governments and corporations can halt Internet service to the point that it is unusable. In countries where internet penetration is low and poor performance leads to constant speed lags and disconnections, citizens who are desensitized to regular connectivity challenges generally associate such slowdowns to electricity/infrastructure problems rather than connecting it to deliberate state action. In this way, throttling has become a key tool to censor the internet while using connectivity and infrastructure challenges as cover. This session brings researchers, civil society groups, and companies together to discuss the challenges around measuring throttling and advocating against censorship and for more meaningful access for all.
3. Good Health and Well-Being
4. Quality Education
5. Gender Equality
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
10. Reduced Inequalities
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Targets: This session seeks to discuss censorship and meaningful access as hand in hand, reducing all forms of internet disruption and interruption and thus improving access to health (such that doctors can better communicate and access health data), education (such that schools and universities can rely on digital education opportunities), improve access for women, enable innovation and work opportunities, and build more resilient, informed and responsive communities and institutions.
Description:
As internet shutdowns have increased worldwide, civil society’s focus has remained largely on the overt style of wholesale internet disconnection recently seen in Ethiopia and Myanmar. This panel aims to bring attention to the increasingly used, but more insidious form of network interference, throttling, the intentional slowing of Internet service. By decelerating speeds, both governments and corporations can halt Internet service to the point that it is unusable. In countries where internet penetration is low and poor performance leads to constant speed lags and disconnections, citizens who are desensitized to regular connectivity challenges generally associate such slowdowns to electricity/infrastructure problems rather than connecting it to deliberate state action. In this way, throttling has become a key tool to censor the internet while using connectivity and infrastructure challenges as cover. Proving a government is intentionally throttling the internet is difficult due to technical challenges in detection and verification, which in turn makes advocacy more difficult. The session will bring together researchers, civil society groups, representatives from the technical community and private sector to explore the challenges in detecting and verifying throttling from a technical perspective; to better understand how and where are we seeing throttling currently being used AND the connections with poor infrastructure/access, and advocacy approaches that confront censorship challenges as well as the wider issues around lack of meaningful and reliable access.
This session will formally initiate a diverse community of practice on building advocacy campaigns and technical support (such as, detection, tools, and methodologies) for throttling. Attendees will leave informed on throttling and engaged with potential tools and solutions to it. We also seek to connect the (often siloed) anti-censorship community with communities and policymakers focused on connectivity and access, such that we can talk about these issues holistically- rather than as separate and unconnected challenges.
Organizers have a great deal of experience discussing these issues in both online and offline settings. Facilitators will begin by outlining some of the research and measurement challenges, advocacy and governance challenges, and then open the conversation up to focus more on building a community cognizant of the connection between governments' capabilities to disconnect and slow down the internet with low levels of access and poor (sporadic, unreliable, expensive) performance.
Usage of IGF Official Tool.