Sixth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum
27 -30 September 2011
United Nations Office in Naiorbi, Nairobi, Kenya
September 28, 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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>> VINTON CERF: Ladies and gentlemen, I think we should try to begin the session even though we seem to have a fairly small attendance. I was saying earlier today if no one shows up in our summary report on the question of participation in IGF we will have to report that nobody showed up. My name is Vinton Cerf and I am your chairperson for the day. I would like to suggest that because we have a small number of people in the room that we actually introduce ourselves and then we will go to brief interventions by each of the panelists after which I would like to open the floor up for discussion.
This session today has to do with the question of increasing the diversity and participation in the IGF, not limited to the business sector, but in general all of the stakeholders that we wish to be present and to be speaking about their concerns on the Internet. So let me start out by asking if we could introduce ourselves. I will start with Markus Kummer to my right and work around the room that way.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Markus Kummer. I am vice‑president for public policy of the Internet Society.
>> I am Sivi (phonetic) from ISOC.
>> ZAHID JAMIL: I am Zahid Jamil. I am a member of ICC and representing them here in this workshop today.
>> ANNE LORD: Hi my name is Anne Lord. I am director of chapters at the Internet Society.
>> LOUISE FLYNN: I am Louise Flynn from APNIC.
>> BERNADETTE LEWIS: Hello. I am Bernadette Lewis from the Caribbean Telecommunications Union.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Bill Drake.
>> GEORGE SADOWSKY: George Sadowsky, ICANN.
>> SCOTT BRADNER: Scott Bradner, ARIN.
>> JAN KLEIJSSEN: Good morning, Jan Kleijssen.
>> DESIREE MILOSHEVIC: Desiree Miloshevic with Afilias.
>> KATIM TOURAY: Katim Touray with the ICANN board of directors and also from Gambia.
>> Gheimer from the Austrian Government. Thank you.
>> SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: First I am Sebastien Bachollet member of the ICANN board but here working as online moderator. And we have Rebecca Mackinnon and Charlie McAfee. And we are still working on the audio trouble for them. But I hope it will work. Thank you.
>> GREG FRANCIS: Good morning, I am Greg Francis from access partnership.
>> HISHAM ABOULYAZED: Good morning, my name is Hisham Aboulyazed.
>> VINTON CERF: Welcome to all of you. Thank you for taking time to participate. My proposal is to begin with our panelists and brief remarks from each of them and then in more full discussion with everyone in the room. So Jan, I would like to begin with you unless you were preparing your remarks and would like an extra five minutes.
>> JAN KLEIJSSEN: Thank you very much. How to increase if we wish Stakeholder diversity and Intra‑Stakeholder balance. I come from an organization which was founded in 1949 and Multi‑Stakeholderism wasn't built in right from the beginning, because when the organization was established as an Intergovernmental one in '49 between then ten Governments, parliamentary assembly insisted that not only the Government parties be represented but the opposition and I think a lot of the success of the Council of Europe is the Convention of Human Rights. And it was sitting around the table and also parliaments in particular amongst those parliamentarians and also opposition members. And ‑‑ but I think that broad variety to the right from the beginning and it was different from the UN, for instance, in the sense that Governments had to deal with opposition right from the start. Afterwards we brought in NGOs who now have ‑‑ a number of which have participatory status in the Council of Europe and treaty making what we do and we have some 200 that are the result of what was not then at the time called Multi‑Stakeholder dialogue because the term had not been invented but it was the way we worked.
As to the Internet Governance discussions, our Deputy Secretary‑General said it very clearly yesterday, the Council of Europe is very much in favor of it and very much believes in it. Would also very much hope that Multi‑Stakeholder dialogue will turn in to Multi‑Stakeholder delivery. And in our tradition I think this ‑‑ it shows that this can be done. How to balance it, even to be very short and to respect the time, there are some categories of persons I think that could be opted in or brought in more clearly in to the dialogue such as in the IGF. The first category I would like to mention are young people. The Council of Europe is a partner in EuroDIG and very much pushed for young people to take the floor and youth organizations to be represented. So I think this is something that the IGF could also perhaps benefit from.
The second category of people that we are concerned about in the Council of Europe are the elderly and I think also the elderly or organizations representing them given the increased reliance on the Internet and the way that a lot of elderly people have difficulties in to adapting this digital world I think ‑‑ that their concerns are being taken on board.
Finally, we think that other networks which are already perhaps represented could be tapped even further. And I am thinking here, for instance, of consumers organizations which are different from the traditional NGOs that really deal with the Internet but those who represent the users and their everyday problems of which there are quite a few which regards practical matters Internet and other professional groups. And one I want to mention teachers here who could be brought in. As regards Government participation, something we have realized in the Council of Europe is that Governments don't always speak with one voice just by way of an anecdote. When we adopted recently a treaty in Europe the ambassador took the floor and held up two pieces of paper and said Mr. Chairman, I have instructions. In fact, I have two sets of instructions and as a matter of fact they are contradictory. There is something to be said to have at a national level Governments to coordinate so they can speak with not too many voices.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you very much not only for your brevity but also for the richness. And this is the first time that I have heard a broad scope of IGF and I think we should seriously consider it. Let me ask Bill Drake, if you would be willing to share your thoughts.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you. I had a little difficulty getting my head around exactly what we are doing here. I am not entirely sure, I might be more in a position to respond after I hear more from other people. If the issues are whether there should be more diversity internally within Stakeholder groups undoubtedly that's the case. I would say in Civil Society we have a great deal of diversity already. Of course, obviously there is the perpetual problem that those who are able to attend meetings, flying around the world and so on are a fairly selective cut of a much larger range of people around the world. And that's just inherent in the proposition. Obviously more needs to be done. In the business environment, for example, you know, one sees at these meetings usually a relatively small range of companies and a lot of the small, smaller and medium‑sized businesses and entrepreneurs and people who are doing creative stuff around the Internet don't see the reason, or whatever, they don't come. And that's a pity. And one wonders why that is so and how one engages them more. I suppose there is also issues that one could raise within Stakeholder groups the extent to which we practice everything we preach.
We all are big advocates of transparency, accountability, Multi‑Stakeholder participation, all these kinds of things in the context of Internet Governance mechanisms, but within individual Stakeholder groups it is not always entirely obvious that we live up to all those ideals. There are obviously always going to be within any kind of collectivity people who cluster together, those who might become more insiders than others who are more plugged in, have different kinds of interpersonal connections or come from organizations that have resources and power and other things in a larger environment that privilege them. So it is the case I think in all Stakeholder groups that one gets a certain amount of separation between those who become sort of the thought leaders and the main organizers and shakers and doers and the larger community for whom they claim to speak all the time. There are issues about that, about whether or not we have truly accountable and participatory processes internally and that's something we need to work on.
And the last point I want to make about Intra‑Stakeholder or as I often say interspecies dialogue. I'm amazed at how difficult it is to get that working. Look at the contemporary environment. We have Governments coming out with a lot of proposals and some of which are quite problematic. I think in particular China, Russia, Uzbekistan and I would argue the IPSA proposal for enhanced cooperation and others. And I would like to think that the Non‑governmental Stakeholders could collaborate more effectively and respond to these and yet we are not having any kind of real dialogue about that. I suggested the other night when the Internet Governance Caucus met that on the China/Russia things that it would be great that the three Stakeholder groups would release a statement. Of course, the General Assembly is moving quickly and it may be difficult to do it before the thing is addressed by Governments and we could still have something to say. There is not enough institutionalized communication and coordination and trust. There are particular people within each of the groups who know each other well, who go out to dinner and chat and say yes, we should do more and we should work together more, but then at the level of the kind of formal organization of the Stakeholder groups it doesn't really happen. So that would be I think a ripe issue for discussion in this session I would hope is whether there isn't more we could do there to foster better cooperation among the groups. I will stop there.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you very, very much, Bill. For someone who wasn't prepared, I would say that's quite a comprehensive response. I fear to imagine what it would be like if you were better prepared. I have a question for you, if you don't mind interrupting the flow, there have been regional IGFs of late and I think that's an attempt to allow more participation among parties who might not be able to come to the annual event. Would you see that as a useful extension of where we started?
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: I think the regional and national IGFs is a fantastic development and has been extremely encouraging, but I have to say that some I have been to are quite different than the model we have here. I keynoted at the Icelandic one and it was completely Governmental in planning, operation and control and the Civil Society people were complaining on the side and I have seen similar other kinds of things in other context. This is an issue. I shouldn't give an example. I guess that was probably poor taste. There is an issue whether they all practice the same model.
>> VINTON CERF: In fact, I want to note I will leave out the specifics, but I think we should note in summary that the regional IGFs, if they are to fulfill their intent have to be as Multi‑Stakeholder as the regular IGFs. Bernadette, I think I want to try to get to the rest of the commentary unless ‑‑ is this specific to this? Why don't you say something.
>> BERNADETTE LEWIS: The Caribbean has a regional Internet Governance Forum, the Caribbean Internet Governance. It is Multi‑Stakeholder. They are represented in the Forum and how we get things going, it is a challenge, of course, to bring together diverse groups, but we bring them around issues that are mutually beneficial. And the Caribbean Telecommunications Union act as a facilitator for their work. It is not left up to chance for them to get on with the business of what they have to do. We facilitate the process and provide the structures to enable these diverse Stakeholders to work in a collaborative means and I would like to see ‑‑ a little later on I will talk a little bit more about what we are doing.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you. You actually implicitly answered another question. People show up if they understand why they should be here and I think you just said that's how you get them to come.
Okay. Thank you, Bill. Zahid, could I ask you to intervene at this point?
>> ZAHID JAMIL: Thank you. I saw the transcript. My name was somebody else's on the transcript. Maybe for those transcribing the name is Zahid Jamil previously. Thank you. I represent an organization in the ICC which is as old as 1919 and also runs and manages the International Corporation of Arbitration and has various commissions under it and also the electronic business IT telecom. That commission deals with information society issues or I should mention IT telecom issues and develops policy. And it is broad based. ICC is not just an international body but has national committees in every country. So whatever feeds in to those policy processes coming from grass root national committee levels. And I am a member of the Barisan National Committee and that's how sort of the bottom‑up process works and it is diverse. It is very diverse. It is not software companies alone. It is anybody. Boeing is a member, for example. When the WSIS process started it is important that we ‑‑ we needed something that would be an advocate for information society. And business played an important role during the WSIS and has in the role of BASIS which is the business action for support of information society which is sort of connected to ICC but a different entity.
Incorporated within itself not only members of the ICC, so you now have the national committee members and members of ICC Paris and also have with them non‑ICC members. So that diversity added to what the initial BASIS does. So it is important to also mention that when you look at the Internet Governance landscape, for instance, ICANN, you have those businesses which are known as contractor parties. And you have those businesses which are users but in ICC BASIS we have both. And we bring that to the IGF. We have participated in all IGFs so far. We have a booth down there. I will be plugging some workshops we are doing. I hope you don't mind during the course of this workshop itself. And the idea being that the BASIS initiative is designed to coordinate the business inputs to have the representation at these Forums heard by governments.
What I would like to do during the course of this workshop is talk about what we have been doing and also from a personal perspective from Pakistan what the experience has been with regard whether there is enough diversity, what are the challenges and what is being done and focus on the productive ways forward. I have taken long enough already.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you. I attended for the first time the ICC BASIS planning meetings, so‑called breakfast meetings without breakfast because the food wasn't allowed in the room. And I want to say it was by far the most coordinated effort I had seen by any group associated with IGF to make sure that coverage was achieved. And feedback and reporting on the previous day was also accounted for. It is a very impressive operation.
Well, let us move on now. I had ‑‑ Wolfgang is not here. So I will skip over him. Katim Touray, where are you? Let me ask you to intervene.
>> KATIM TOURAY: Okay. Thanks a lot. I think this is a very interesting discussion because at least it seems to me that it is an attempt to have a quality ‑‑ a qualitative perspective on the issue of Stakeholderism in the Multi‑Stakeholder process.
And as always I come at the issue from the perspective of a developing country and a very small one at that and by no means insignificant as small as Gambia is. I would like to say first off the bat we do have some diversity in the Multi‑Stakeholder process. There is no question about that but I think we do can more. We can do even better. And as we go about attempting to improve and increase the diversity, an important question we have to ask ourself is are we going to seek for diversity for diversity sake or are we going to seek diversity so that it serves us all better. And related also to the question is does diversity actually equate equity, because you can have various people participating in a process and some actually get more out of it than others. Simply because of the fact that the resources they come to the process with or how they go about affecting change within the process itself, working with various communities and things like that. Of course, sometimes also they might be part of the community but do not actually affectively participate in the communities because of various challenges. I think we all know what the challenges that many developing countries face. When you talk about a classic example first off, you can't travel and then the next option is to participate remotely. This happens to me quite a number of times as an ICANN board member, not quite a number of times but it is worth recounting here. You have a meeting where you have a remote session to participate in and there is no electricity. These are real life situations that people face. Or you have bad bandwidth or no bandwidth at all. So I think we need to understand that there is in the diversity of Stakeholders we are also talking about, we also need to remember that there is a diversity in the resources and the facilities the various Stakeholders have to use to participate in the process.
I think in terms of increasing diversity, even when you talk about diversity at the regional and even at a national level, there needs to be some more work done. I will give you an example. One of the questions we always grapple with at various levels in Africa, and I have attended quite a few regional or subregional African Government Forums like the East African and West African Internet Government Forums and one of the issues we talk about is how we get local private participation in the process. No. 1 the fact is that I think very constructive to getting greater private sector participation, in particular the mobile telephone operators to get them to participate in the process. For the simple reason they generally have the greatest and largest economic clout in this country. I would like to name, for instance, MTM of South Africa and, of course, Airtel has moved in to many African countries. And it would help to have some of them, if not all of participate at the regional and subregional levels because they would lend support to the processes. And secondly, it would help for them to participate because of the simple reason as the Internet moves more and more to a mobile base platform GSMs and 3G networks and what have you, which is actually operated by the mobile phone operators it becomes important that they participate in the process in this ‑‑ in the Multi‑Stakeholderism process.
So this is important both at the local level because they can help influence policy that's important to the local context. But can also by virtue of the clout they have help influence or at least provide an opinion and perspective from the developing countries that they come from. I see no reason why as I talk to the Verizons and AT&Ts and what have yous and the France Telecoms I shouldn't in the same vain be talking to the MTMs and Airtel and the other very significant mobile operators and companies in the developing world. I think that's going to be quite a ‑‑ what you call again, important consideration moving forward.
The other issue is increasing participation of Civil Society organizations. At the end of the day I think ‑‑ I always tell people one of the biggest challenges we have in Africa when you talk about the Multi‑Stakeholders process you are talking to people who have never been consulted on anything in their lives. It is a challenge for the need for them to be heard. And the fact of the matter is we have to understand all of these demands exist in the context of global political realities that exist in the developing world. Somebody said that there was one country that said you have your freedom of speech but you are free to speak but you are not free after you have spoken. So those are all the nuances that we have to understand and as much as you have challenges faced by the private sector organizations, Civil Society organizations have bigger challenges. They have less resources than many private sector organizations and it is a much more difficult environment politically speaking to operate in.
In the same vain I think we need to focus efforts on educating governments on the need to really strengthen the Multi‑Stakeholderism process at the internal and subregional and regional levels and to educate it is in their own best interest to work with the various Stakeholders they have and the partners they have in their own countries. Once their homework is done they have a much stronger front to participate in the international Forum that is expected of them. I will leave it at that. I am looking forward to the discussion.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you, Katim. I have to say that you are extraordinarily articulate. I would like to highlight purposeful diversity and the point that you made beautifully is that we want diversity that contributes to the process and benefits from it as opposed to having a lot of diversity that isn't purposeful. I think we should hold on to that notion. Let me ask George Sadowsky now to make his intervention.
>> GEORGE SADOWSKY: Thanks. I had trouble wrapping my head around the topic just like my colleague Bill Drake did and he has an advantage because he is a political scientist.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Never an advantage.
>> GEORGE SADOWSKY: I took a step in the direction of the abstract, and I thought well, what are we talking about. We are talking about Multi‑Stakeholder models but that is one point within a very large spectrum and the spectrum answers the question about how a diverse group or society organizes itself to represent different points of view. And on the one end you have dictatorship and on the other end you have anarchy. It is a fundamental problem in Multi‑Stakeholder models and we all struggle with it, wanting to get the right balance. It depends very much on the subject. The way in which the IGF defines Stakeholder groups and the way that ICANN does is very different from how you might define Stakeholder groups if you were interested in agricultural problems. Any unidimensional model of Multi‑Stakeholder is likely to be incomplete. The issue of the business sector that was raised in the meeting description is a good example of that. And the way in which one defines the Stakeholder groups is clearly not value neutral. And one can define these groups in different ways and get different results by energizing them. Politicians understand this very well because they define the sectors to their advantage. This is ‑‑ they might ‑‑ they might talk about voting blocks or market segmentation but it is the same idea.
And okay. Now with reference ‑‑ let me shift a little bit. With reference to something closer to home, within the IGF and ICANN I would like to talk a little bit about Civil Society. I have always been puzzled by how Civil Society works in organizations like this, because if you look at them individually I see a collection of single issue special interests or a few special issue interests. It is not that the special interests are particularly bad. I like freedom of speech and I like a lot of things that people in Civil Society say. But when you aggregate them you have a formidable set of interests that you go up against in a creative tension way against the business sector and business Government and so on. And sometimes I want to say well, you know, I like all these things but I don't like the way in which they are being posed as a group. How was the ‑‑ how was ‑‑ using Bill's language what is the intraspecies decision making like. Who determines how that happens in Civil Society. Is it the aggregate of all demands? Is it some balance nuance among the demands? In the United States a long time ago we had a phrase called the silent majority. But they wouldn't speak up what they wanted. Apple calls this the rest of us and one wonders how can Civil Society reflect an interest in silent majority on the rest of as opposed to an aggregate of many, many demands which cause probably more tension and more fractionation of dimension than might be useful. That's a personal opinion that I am providing. That's it for the moment.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you very much, George. I think this question of definition of Stakeholder groups, it has played a stronger role in the ICANN world than it has in the IGF because the IGF's Stakeholder definitions are very broad compared to some other cases. Do I correctly understand that with regard to the Civil Society that your concern was that the many issues that are raised in some sense are not fully commensurate and they don't necessarily form a coherent body? They form a bag of things?
>> GEORGE SADOWSKY: They overwhelm probably what most people would want as a reasonable response to Governmental control or business influence.
>> VINTON CERF: So thank you. I will have to try to understand that more deeply. Could we move on now to Desiree Miloshevic for your intervention?
>> DESIREE MILOSHEVIC: Thank you, Vint. So I will speak on behalf of the Afilias which is a leader in domaining registry services. And I think we are a somewhat unique organization because we are a Multi‑Stakeholder baby since we have been born out of a Multi‑Stakeholder process within ICANN in 2001 when we were applying for a gTLD.info. We as an organization participate differently within the IGF as a private sector organization with ICANN. So it may be useful later on to discuss similarities, some differences in how we interact in these different Multi‑Stakeholder organizations. So and I would also like to thank the organizers for actually allowing this space to either do novel gazing or self‑reflection of how businesses self‑organize before they come to a Forum like this .
So we had a long‑standing engagement in the IGF and we have been a supporter of the Internet Governance and not to be mistaken with IGF and diabetes which is the latest Tweet. We believe that we need to build these bridges with other Stakeholders and we felt quite at home in a way attending the IGFs because we have been used to the Multi‑Stakeholder environment within the ICANN. We have Government participation. We would have technical community participation at‑large and Civil Society. So although in that environment we do interact more on trying to make policy decisions and build a Consensus, this is a different fora where we actually discuss in a broader public policy issues that we wouldn't necessarily discuss at ICANN. So just as one of the differences and we will also agree there is a need to have more diversity in business participation at the IGF.
(Lost audio)
(Reconnecting)
>> DESIREE MILOSHEVIC: Work with other international organizations and are involved. So I think that would be one of the notes that I would like to stress. How do we better explain what's at stake and be happy to discuss this, and maybe what is at stake is that if we don't get the balance right between all the Multi‑Stakeholders, if we don't hear everyone's voice and if we don't get equal participation we may get some decisions or recommendations made in some other fora that are made by people who do not understand all the facets of and different aspects, important aspects of Internet public policy issues. So there is a reason to get involved and there is a reason to participate. I will stop here and then.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you very much, Desiree. I think one take‑away from your comments that I absorb is that people will participate if they understand why they need to participate and what's at stake as you point out in your last remark. And so alerts and analysis may be necessary in order to help people recognize what issues they need to respond to.
We should have at least one remote participant, Rebecca Mackinnon. So let me ask if Rebecca is available to intervene.
>> SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: We tried.
>> REBECCA MACKINNON: Hello. Can anybody hear me? I am good?
>> VINTON CERF: Yes. Go ahead.
>> REBECCA MACKINNON: Great. Thank you. Thank you, Vint and Sebastien. I believe I was invited to participate on this panel for two reasons. One is that I am the cofounder of an International Citizen Media Network called Global Voices, and I also completed a book called Consent of the Governed. So I have been thinking about these issues particularly from a Civil Society point of view. I think I just like to start with a story that comes out of my own experience with this Multi‑Stakeholder process. I attended WSIS in Tunis and I was invited along with Ethan Zucker and I was invited to a workshop founded by a Dutch foundation. We were going to talk about the expressions by bloggers and people creating media around the world and practical devices of how to get around censorship. And the Tunisians tried to prevent us from holding our workshop. It was taken off the schedule and the room was moved and it took diplomatic intervention from the Dutch Government to even conduct our workshop. And it filled with plain clothes police and so on. It was, of course, the kind of thing that local Tunisians could not possibly come near. And we had actually originally invited a local Tunisian blogger to participate in the discussion and, of course, it was not in his interest to do so understandably because the Tunisian government clearly had made it clear that it did not want this workshop to take place, which I think just kind of illustrates the difficulty of having a genuinely Multi‑Stakeholder open discussion when the people in Tunisia who have since gone on to use the Internet for some transformative purposes in that country were completely absent, of course, from that venue and have not been involved in Internet Governance discussions at all.
In Sharm El Sheikh which was the only other IGF that I attended in person due to lack of travel budget at the time, again the Epyptian bloggers and cyber activists who have been so central to the transformation of their country were not there either. And I went to Cairo after the IGF was finished and met with some of the bloggers that are involved with Global Voices and sat and talked with one young woman who for several years had been running an anti‑torture blog and told her about the IGF and she made it clear that the IGF had nothing to do with her and it was something that Governments went to and, you know, it wasn't of interest to her and it didn't seem to be of any use.
And so this I guess is a concern that the people who are really perhaps potentially very affected by the discussions going on here and the ‑‑ not that decisions are made but certainly I think norms and opinions are set and politics of Internet Governance is shaped at the IGF and the fact that you are not hearing the voice of people who are using the Internet every day and people who are creating citizen media, and not only in authoritarian countries and I noticed in that the United States people are involved in ‑‑ have no idea about Internet Governance and are not engaged. I think part of it just has to do with lack of awareness, the fact that Internet Governance processes are not well covered by the media. The public doesn't know really what's going on. It is hard to really know where to start to find information unless you already know who is blogging about it.
And so one of the things that I am starting to look at with some of my colleagues at Global Voices is how we might better leverage our global network we have and media platform to try to cover these issues and engage with a broader global public since the news media clearly is not helping to help people understand more broadly why they should care, why they should follow Internet Governance and why they should be involved. And I think one of the reasons for the lack of involvement just again has to do with the invisibility in a way of Internet Governance processes to anybody except for a very small circle of people.
And which means that the Civil Society presence, to speak something that George was saying, Civil Society presence in Internet Governance process tends to be special, single special interest group driven because they are the only groups that understand what's going on well enough to have a stake in it to show up and to find funding for it. I do think if there was a broader understanding of what is being discussed and the moment that we are in right now in terms of the Internet and how it is going to be shaped and governed going forward in the coming decade I think more people would take an interest in getting involved that funding would be found. People would find ways to participate. If they ‑‑ they could participate (cutting out).
>> VINTON CERF: It sounds like we just lost audio.
>> REBECCA MACKINNON: Anyway I will stop there.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you. We lost you for just a few minutes. But a moment ‑‑ (echoing). I am getting a whole lot of echo here.
(Lost audio).
(Reconnecting)
>> I have ‑‑ I have been asked to explain this topic very well and I should have started first but now it is more of an opportunity to answer some of your interventions. So I will go small presentation which is not very visible. But ‑‑ okay. See, there are about 2,000 participants at IGF every year and remote participants, a significant proportion of names are recurrent ‑‑
>> VINTON CERF: Sorry to intervene. There we are. It was vertically oriented in the very ‑‑ almost as much fun as the echo we were having a moment ago. Please proceed.
>> Vint, it is all my fault. Sorry about that.
>> VINTON CERF: Okay. We will get even with you some other way I am sure.
(Laughter).
>> In many ways the participants of IGF are regulars which are in one way good. There are some consistency of participation. There is a lot of interest in the regular participants to take part and continue in process but at the same time there are not enough newcomers and not enough diversity in the process.
It is largely the same participants again and again. If you talk about Governments not even ‑‑ not all our ‑‑ every Government is represented. If we talk about business, not every sector is or not every region is represented. If you talk about Civil Society, it is a small group without a scientific gender or regional balance. None of the Stakeholders have retained a desired level of inclusiveness. I attended the summer school of Internet Governance. She said in a different context on some of the topic that she does not believe in conspiracy theories. I believe in that. We have the same situation here in the issue of diversities. There are no conspiracies, no design. It is just that some Governments understood the significance of the IGF earlier than the rest of the Governments.
Mega corporations early entrance, Civil Society has been open but it has not been reaching out. There has not been enough attention in improving the diversity. If we talk about the IGF Secretariat there are no resources to reach out and include new participants on a scale as required or probably some superficial contention that there is 2 or 3,000 participants in IGF Conventions. This is just a beginning. And there is so much more to be done.
So if we look at the Government as a Stakeholder group, I am very approximately speaking and this is not diplomatic classification. By diplomatic classification it is not right. There are more developed countries than developing countries. More Governments from north than south. We have Internet search companies and we see domain registrars and we see network equipment manufacturers and Internet providers but not many Internet user companies. Where are the hotels, banks, airlines, outsourcing companies and where is Hollywood.
>> It is here actually.
>> VINTON CERF: Did you say Baliwood or Hollywood?
>> There is a representative from Big Ocean (inaudible).
>> And if we talk about Civil Society there are a handful of Non‑governmental organizations, a few hundred individuals, some universities in a world of 6 billion. Even if we look at the academic community participation it is ‑‑ there are no reasons. It is more of higher education institutions and there are no journey schools and more academic institutions from the west and than the developing countries and we don't see enough consumer groups and do we have press as a participant on the Civil Society side rather than on the galleries. These are some of the thoughts. I have cited some examples and dropped a few names and the ‑‑ even the names that I have dropped are not diverse enough and not representative enough. Just the idea to convey that the IGF would be a Forum with participants from each Stakeholder group balanced within and then come to the Multi‑Stakeholder table for a Multi‑Stakeholder balance.
See, if we look at a situation that there is diversity, where banks participate, outsourcing companies directly participate, airlines participate, issues that a bank prioritizes may be different from the issues that an outsourcing company prioritizes. Bank might be interested about security. Airline could be concerned about issues related to satellite Internet or maybe the idea that ‑‑ could be vertical WiFi, something like that. We are ‑‑ hotels may be concerned about search algorithms or look for a hotel in Kenya. We see a lot of intermediaries coming up and don't get to the hotel's Website. So they might come up and say that we are losing about 20% of our revenue because searching in several intermediaries is squat on search strings.
So different priorities will be better understood if there is direct participation. There are a variety of issues that need to be examined at IGF. That cannot possibly happen with the existing level of diversity. I had an e‑mail chain with Ayesha Hassan. When I told her there was not enough diversity with the business participant group, she said ICC represents the business users and represents it well. And ICC is a great organization and it is a well‑organized organization and it represents well. If you go by the same argument all the business ‑‑ for argument sake all the businesses would be represented by ICC. All the Governments would be represented by one Government or a regional Government and all the Civil Societies would be represented by one politician. Then IGF would be a coffee table discussion. It is not like a huge ‑‑ so there are some advantages and each Stakeholder group reaching out to ‑‑ reaching out for within greater diversity.
Let's take an example. If Google makes an effort to bring together its competitors and friends and business groups like Facebook, Skype and BlackBerry, it will now become easy for a Government of India to say open up BlackBerry encryption. So when a Government says open encryption or retain data or create an opening for surveillance, a group of business corporations can get together and talk more effectively and more powerfully. That's one thing that I would say with the Government seated next to me. I hope she will answer me.
(Laughter).
>> VINTON CERF: Let me suggest that you try to wrap up pretty, soon because if you wanted diversity of views you need to stop and let other people say something.
>> I have come to the last slide. My suggestion is that businesses perhaps work through ICC and try to improve participation and participating Governments to inspire the rest of the Governments and maybe come up with less developing countries with funding. And Civil Society has to reach out and then IGF would be what it is intended. And I have another long speech that I will upload that will explain.
>> VINTON CERF: Here is what I would like to do. We have a half hour left. I already know there are two people who would like to speak setting aside Olivier who might not be able to join us yet.
>> And we have the list of panelists.
>> VINTON CERF: I beg your pardon? I didn't see that.
>> You are ‑‑
>> SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: We have a question online.
>> VINTON CERF: You have a better list than I do. Is it from one of the remote participants? Yes. Go ahead.
>> SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: In fact, he would like to talk and I don't know how we will do that. But we will try it. Charlie McAfee. Go ahead Charlie.
>> CHARLIE MCAFEE: Can you hear me?
>> SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Go ahead.
>> CHARLIE MCAFEE: Can you hear me?
>> SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Yes.
>> CHARLIE MCAFEE: Okay. You know, I am with ISOC and we are an at‑large structure in the RALO. And so recently we have seen differences. Talk about how ICANN, when it first started that it was for the public interest. And even if it wasn't transparent enough, now it is more transparent than perhaps it isn't in the public interest. As George said earlier does it represent the public interest. They are elected by the people to be Government or ‑‑ and the structure in there within, you know, commercial or non(Off microphone) kind of awkward, the non‑profit, new non‑profit constituency represents IP interests. Some people think about this. But what we have seen a development recently, I think it is something to be cheerful about, we have seen at‑large forging a relationship with the gap so that they can find common areas of public interest. And I think this is an interesting development within Multi‑Stakeholder to perform alliance on sort of topics like this. I will say at‑large it is on the resource at the moment and I will shut up.
>> VINTON CERF: Point is well taken. And in fact, I want to draw ‑‑ here we go again. We are getting echos. This is called an echo chamber, right? There is something interesting about this question of representation. And I would cite as an example in the Internet Engineering Task Force there isn't any representation. Individuals go there and they contribute their technical knowledge. We don't get in to the problem of who else is represented by that person.
It may very well be that we should adopt practices that don't require us to assume that some particular body or person represents others. But rather that they participate and they represent their views. So Markus, I apologize. My list did not have your name on it. It must have been out of date. But he is another one of the panelists. So Markus, let me let you do your intervention.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Maybe it is a good thing because I had nothing prepared. Commenting on some of the remarks and I have read the description of the workshop and I have to confess like William Drake and George Sadowsky I had a problem seeing the problem. I think a lot of what is described and what you argued for it would be nice to have. However, we have to be a little bit realistic and see what is the nature of the IGF. It is an open platform. Everyone who wants to come comes. Obviously people are interested in one issue, come. And you pointed out that there may be more representatives from more developed countries. The Internet reach is broader in a developed world than a developing world. If you don't have access to the Internet you are not particularly interested in a discussion on Internet Governance. In terms of diversity, I liked what Katim said, purposeful diversity, and I would also like to add that the diversity of viewpoints is important.
And I think we have in the past seen on any issue discussed under the IGF umbrella there was no agreement I think on any single issue because we had such a vast diversity of viewpoints, be that from anonymity to child pornography. I just pulled up the statistics from the last meeting of the IGF in Vilnius. There is clearly a diversity among the Stakeholder groups. They are more or less equally represented between 22 and 24%. 22% technical and academic communities. 21% Civil Society. 24% Government. 23% private sector. And then intergovernmental organizations was 7% and 3% media.
That is a fairly fair distribution of the Stakeholder. Yes, within the Stakeholder groups I take the point that diversity could be improved but you also have to face the fact that some people are simply not interested in discussions on Internet Governance which is a fairly abstract issue. (Inaudible) he used to say the average user's eyes glaze over when you talk about Internet Governance. However, when you talk about privacy and the other issues they do get interested. I come from a country where for more than 400 years we had direct democracy with Switzerland and we had votes on issues and most of the issues we had less than 50% participating. You cannot force people to be interested in issues. But when people do care about an issue, they go and vote.
And here I think over the years we have seen an increasing diversity and an increasing buy‑in of many groups. We have seen growing interest in gender issues. There is a meeting on gender Dynamic Coalition. Youth as well we have said that time and again we should have more youth participation. That efforts have been made. I just come from a breakfast where ISOC ambassadors met the kids from the dotAsia group, kids between 14 and 22. Okay, it is a small initiative, only six people but nevertheless they are well prepared. They come here and they participate actively. Yes, of course, it would be nice to have more of these groups. And MPs have come steady over the years and also in a variety of countries.
I just bumped in to a Chairman from a committee of Bangladesh parliament. They don't have the time to go to UN meetings, and yes, the way business is structured they have business organizations but business organizations are here and I think they do as Vint said an extremely effective job representing business interests. And you mention Hollywood, yes, the Motion Picture Association of America is here for the first time. They see this as an important issue they can discuss their business interest, and another group is people with disabilities. They have been part of this. The Internet is a marvelous tool for these people and they show a great interest in these discussions.
So I think we have a fairly purposeful diversity. Of course, it would be nice to have more. Yes, it would be nice ‑‑ in some big UN conference there is much more money involved, part of the regular budget but Governments in their wisdom did not want to set up a new UN organization with a big budget where you can ferry in people from all over the world, but people who come here is because they want to be here. This gives more value to the participation than you actually have the normal UN mechanism where you pay them. So if you get paid, yes, of course, I go to Nairobi if somebody pays for the trip. But do they engage? I mean I heard lots of stories of UN meetings in New York where people sign up on the first day and go the last day to get the per diem and spend the rest of the time shopping in New York. That doesn't happen here. People come here because they want to be here and that I think is the most important thing. The active participation we have at the IGF. We don't have conference tourists. People are here contributing.
Last word, I followed the live transcription from the other workshop on IGF improvement. They discussed very much similar issues on participation and they also said, pointed out that the rotation of the IGF, of course, allows for some regional diversity as well. Obviously when you have a meeting in Africa we have more African participation. A meeting in Rio we have more Latin American participation. This is more or less also the ICANN rotating around the world to increase regional diversity. And regional and national IGFs I would agree with those who emphasize their importance. They can't be overestimated. It brings participatory democracy where it was not the norm. Governments did not talk with Stakeholders but in the IGF they talk to Stakeholders and learn. There has been many discussions and I think there is a general agreement that more should be done to improve the interaction between the global IGFs regionally. We did discuss last year to be sort of formal requirements. There was a broad agreement at this stage there should be no too rigid straight jacket or a formula for the regional IGFs, but one characteristic if they want to call themselves regional IGFs they should be Multi‑Stakeholder. That was the only condition that everyone could agree on. And I would certainly fully emphasize the importance of the Multi‑Stakeholder character, also the regional and national IGF time initiatives.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you very much, Markus. Given that we have about 20 minutes or less left, Wolfgang, you are on the list of panelists but let me ask your forgiveness I want to pick up some other comments from other people who have been participating and I will catch you after that. First Tulika and then I want to come back to Bernadette and then we will pick up other comments from there.
>> Tulika: Thank you and I am glad I am here. After Markus I have little to speak. I am happy that he spoke before me. I come from a country we all know is multilingual, Multi‑Stakeholder and we sitting in the Government have not ‑‑ have never walked one step without other Stakeholders participating in our initiatives for the development that we have for the country. And therefore each time that the country has started to look at a framework or a policy, we have opened up our doors to all the Stakeholders to participate. Put up our draft proposals for requesting for comments.
And then come out with policies that finally get affected. And it is then that people wake up and they start to say hey, this is not what we wanted or you didn't get us right. And this is exactly what I align India's democracy with the IGF here. This is the best format of a Multi‑Stakeholder Forum that has been made available to each or any of us who would like to participate in the aspect of governance of Internet or the other areas. As rightly mentioned by speakers before me I also would like to say that as Markus said only those people for whom Internet has now become an important resource are going to be here. The others are still busy setting their houses right. Their priorities would be elsewhere. For them to come and participate in a discussion which has not kept touch with them is not so easy.
We see that in our own country. We have a national framework of reaching out governance, citizen services through our governance plans. And in our country the complexity grows because even if you have a complete set of services ready and available it has to be tailor made to languages, to cultures, to forms of revenue generation, for each community which changes almost every few kilometers for us and therefore in spite of all our efforts with all support from all the Stakeholders there are still gaps there.
And that is exactly what I see here at a global platform where with all the efforts that IGF has made open and inclusive participation of all communities and all Stakeholders we are still missing some of those people whom it is we who are trying to reach out to. But until we have something for them here they will still not get interested. So the IGF is a very broad Forum. You have broad issues that are being discussed. You may not always capture their attention. So maybe after five years, this is a sixth IGF here, we start to think about the specific issues, the real issues. Global issue for we developed economies or to the developing economies, maybe we would need to identify and balance those ‑‑ both the issues. We need to run them parallel. We cannot say that the developed world's issues are not the issues of importance because we got the Internet from that zone and we need to continue to run that Internet which is now becoming important for all of us. So you started the Internet and you are happy to share it. It was an open heart sharing and there is nothing like saying no, this is mine and I want to control it. It was a happy sharing of what technology brought out, what it could help others and therefore it was open. An Internet in design and structure is basically an open architecture. There is no stopping or controlling it. The only thing that can happen is breaking it and that is one thing that no Government, no Stakeholder would ever want to happen. Even 20 years from now.
Because it would be ‑‑ they would be at a loss. Their own citizenry would not be able to accept a situation of that kind. So my only request, my only input was to say that improve the Intra‑Stakeholder and Multi‑Stakeholder participation going a little more focused on specific issues may help us to get more participation. And once there is a demand we would be able to take care of how to get that participation in. Thank you.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you very much. I would take away specifically from this that participation is going to be driven by perceived value and perceived risk. And people understand that they are at risk or if they have an opportunity then they will be more likely to participate. Let me ask Bernadette to intervene and then we will come back to Olivier, Olivier is hiding behind the scenes and then Wolfgang.
>> BERNADETTE LEWIS: I wanted to stress the importance of education and raising public awareness in the whole scheme of things. If people do not understand what you are talking about, the impact it has on them they are not going to be in any position to participate. And this is one of the things that we found when we established the Caribbean Internet Governance Forum in 2005. There was no ready source of information, and without it you could not convince people to participate. First online intervention that we had spoke of the difficulty in finding information on Internet Governance and our approach has been to have very targeted outreaches. We do a lot of work with the ministers. My colleague from Gambia indicated that is necessary. And I concur absolutely Government ministers have to understand and you need to outreach to them and we have targeted outreach programs to the various communities in language that is understand ‑‑ that is it comprehensible to them in which we point out the implications of Internet Governance and various facets to what they do. We speak to the various Stakeholders in the context of their environments and what is of significance to them. And this has worked extremely well.
We have been able to bring together diverse communities to work on issues of mutual benefit with great success. And I think but I really cannot overemphasize the importance of raising the awareness. If you don't know about what the topic is, you are not in a position to ask questions. You cannot participate effectively.
And we tend to focus on the things that we can achieve with the resources that we have available. And also we move with those who are willing. And the only other thing I would like to add is that yes, there are many views coming out from the Civil Society, bags of different issues that are raised. But you also in your public awareness you have to recognize that there are certain things that we just do not have the capacity to do. So let's focus on the things that are achievable for which we could have a meaningful impact and let's work together to accomplish those things and that is my intervention. The importance of education and building awareness on the issue. Thank you.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you very much, Bernadette. That's very practical advice. I am advised that Olivier Crepin LeBlond is with us. Would you like to make yourself audible?
>> OLIVIER CREPIN LEBLOND: Yes. Hello everyone. It is Olivier. Can you hear me?
>> VINTON CERF: Yes, we can.
>> OLIVIER CREPIN LEBLOND: I apologize to everyone for arriving late. I was on another conference call just prior to joining you, and what I have heard just now resonates very much with the challenges that we face in at‑large. There is several physical parts of the world that we cannot change. One of them is the fact that the earth is round and that is a very big challenge to active participation and certainly inclusion on the worldwide basis because whatever call that happens usually happens in the middle of the night for at least some people on the planet.
And so what we have found in at‑large is that because the majority of our members are based in Europe and in the time zones that go along with Europe and with America, the Asia Pacific region has a particularly hard time in being able to follow because many of the calls are at very horrible hours, very early in the morning or very late at night for them. So that's one challenge that we have found in being able to have full diversity.
The other problem that we are faced with is the telecommunication problem. Some parts of the world have less good coverage than others. And so it is harder for them to be able to take part not because of the expense but because of the fact that it is impossible to get ahold of them but it is very difficult to hear them. The other problem is the language problem. The Tower of Babel is still very much alive. This one included we had a firm grasp of the English language but that's not the case for everyone in the world. So having interpretation services is extremely important for these things and I can see a scan of the room with several people here who I know are fierce defenders of interpretation. But even with interpretation it is sometimes very difficult to conduct a dialogue because of the fact that people are not expressing themselves directly to each other.
And finally I wanted to touch on the problem of volunteer burnouts which is not often talked about but, of course, one always looks at outreach. One also has to look at inreach. Once you are part of the discussion, part of the process, how do you keep people interested and how do you not overload them. We are for the most of us volunteers. I heard earlier that, of course, we are not paid. Some of us come with our own expense and some of us are particularly feeling particularly strong about matters but burning out is a real reality and it is a danger for the process because there is more and more happening all the time. There are more challenges facing us and we might lose some volunteers somehow along the way because we all have a real life and we all need to be able to pay for our bread at the end of the day. Thank you.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you very much, Olivier, for your brevity. We have one more intervention from Wolfgang Kleinwachter and a request to speak from Zahid. And at that point we will probably have run out of the time. Sebastien, if there is a moment or two we would be happy to call upon you.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: I have to apologize but I was in a parallel workshop of the IGF Improvement Working Group. So that means I had to split myself and say okay, I do the first half there and the second half here. I want to touch two issues. One is diversity and the other one is outreach and education. In a Stakeholder diversity I think it is a point and in the other workshop there was a question do we need Consensus or something like that. I think it is impossible to get full agreement within the Stakeholder groups and among the Stakeholder groups. And my answer there is no need to try to achieve this. Because the complexity of the issues we are confronted with have no single answer. What we have to understand is the various dimensions of an issue and not to try to reach Consensus. Because it will and is a process though it has no beginning, no end, it is a permanent continuation. And we have always to fill this process, you know, with new ideas or to come with all the ideas to put the old ideas in the new context and to understand it better. For instance, freedom of expression is not a new idea. Gutenberg invented the printing press. They realized that the printing press is used to criticize the Catholic church and they introduced the censorship. We have the same thing with Internet. It is celebrated as a freedom of expression tool and some Governments realize it can be used to criticize them. 500 years we discussed freedom of expression without a final answer or Consensus but we understand we have reached some sites, like the Human Rights. Even with the nice Human Rights court we have in Strasbourg but we will not settle all problems and it is important that we see diversity as a good element. And we should not make the mistake that the IGF should come to a certain conclusion and to have a Consensus on a certain issue. I think this is my first thing.
And the second point is I want to echo what Bernadette said is outreach and education. If you go to a library or if somebody sends you to the United Nations then you go to the library and you see dozens or hundreds of books about the United Nations and you study a book and you understand what the United Nations is. If you go to a meeting of IGF, you go to ten thousand sites, you do not understand. That means there is a lack of tools so that people who are not a part of the process get easy ‑‑ their knowledge that they need to understand the complexity. I think we have discussed in the WCAG, there is a special challenge for the academic community. And we launched the GIGA Net and we have introduced the summer school and I am happy to see that Bernadette, you all have summer school and it helped them to understand it much better. And the question is now because this is people say okay, this is part of the ‑‑ it is linked to the United Nations IGF. IGF have a lot of education programs. They spend a lot of money for education. Why not under the umbrella of United Nations why not start a program for Internet Governance. Some universities offer some courses on the master or bachelor level. It mean that the Diplo Foundation does some groundwork. Summer school has 30 students per year. South America another 30 but it means 60 students but we have 2,000 participants and more should come. This is a drop in ocean. For education there should be more resources and the resources are already there but are used for initiatives which has been probably important couple of years ago but we have other new challenges. So that means that educational programs should be adjusted to the new challenges.
>> VINTON CERF: Thank you. You actually consumed all the time but I am going to give the last comment to Zahid.
>> ZAHID JAMIL: I have a rebuttal and the rebuttal is that I appreciate what has been said about the ICC and the fact does it represent. Let me do something for ten seconds, Dutch Bank, Royal Dutch, Shell, Boeing used to come. Disney is here, was on a panel yesterday. Safaricom, Verizon, Telefonica, AT&T. These are different sectors. These guys are physically here. The second thing is we can't get everyone in to the tent. That's impossible. Third I don't think we have a situation where the WSSD has everyone come. How it is self‑organizer and even Governments in certain areas. We heard about the CTU organizing these sort of forums. I have a suggestion that I take from the university, IGF talk about the awareness and I would like to bring an example to the table. Katim specifically helped within ICANN. In my country we printed articles and I can tell you the interest we had after that has shown itself. Look at the fact that Pakistan is organizing a workshop here today. I never would have thought that possible. It is not business. Civil Society are working together.
And then also I would strongly suggest that the awareness exercise with the Secretariat being well resourced may be a way to go forward. One last thing maybe sort of a more dynamic Website for IGF, that would be very, very useful. Right now we tell young people to go on to the IGF Website and I know it has come a long way as far as information is concerned. Just like the ICANN Website had to be updated in the last few years maybe it is time to look at the Website of the IGF. Thank you. Yes, and need resources, exactly right, Markus.
>> VINTON CERF: It has to be the last intervention because we are over time.
>> No problem. But very sorry. I have to take the chance because you come just out of improvement group of IGF and I say something completely different than what I intended to say. Say the feeling of people coming here for the first time, I know it is a very difficult point that I am touching but think about yesterday afternoon. That's what we usually have with all these interventions, of course, where everyone is speaking ten minutes or something like that. And in principle very often they are on the very general basis. They repeat all the words. I was waking up when you said yesterday okay, in 2013 we will put on IPv6. It is a big challenge, but if we can also think in the improvement how to deal with the opening sessions that people do not do all these abstract opening speeches because Stakeholders really get frustrated. I know it. I spoke with many of them and watched them, but telling them or asking them to really open with a concrete issue, that's just my proposal for improvement because I think that's very important that Stakeholders really see what's going on here. Thank you.
>> VINTON CERF: All right. I think with that we will have to close the session. Let me thank the panelists both remote and local and the rest of you sitting in and commenting on this problem. If I have an opportunity I will do the best I can to summarize the outcomes. We have a stock taking session at the end of the week. I think some of the conclusions from this session should be voiced there and I will attempt to do that. Thank you very much and go on to your next meeting.
(Session concluded)
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