The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> EDUARDO BARASAL MORALES: Hello, everyone. Thank you all for coming to our workshop. We are very grateful to IGF for this opportunity to discuss the issue of the internet citizenship.
Also, I would like to thank the panelists for accepting our invitation and nic.br and cdi.br for supporting us in our research. My name is Eduardo Barasal Morales, and I am the coordinator of the autonomous system training area at nic.br in Brazil.
Together with my colleague, Tiago Jun Nakamura Nakamura from the same training area, we will be the moderators for this workshop. And we are here today to debate the importance of being earnest, a good internet citizen. This roundtable is related to the thematic track of universal access and meaningful connectivity.
So let me introduce our three panelists. First, we will have two representatives from the technical community. Mr. Awobuluyi from Africa, then Mr. Moreiras from South America. Next we will have a panelist representing the North American Civil Society view, Ms. Rosa.
I will start with the introduction to the subject. Then we will have the three-question quiz to introduce the discussion of each policy question. After that, we will have an open microphone part in which the panelists will answer questions from the audience. Lastly, we will end up with a conclusion part.
So let's start the introduction. The internet is constantly growing and every day new users are joining the network. The pandemic itself helped to accelerate this growth as the internet became essential for people to deal with the pressure of social isolation.
Currently, the world population is close to eight billion people and almost 60% already have internet access. This is a significant percent of users that only plans to increase. However, what is needed to reach the remaining 40%?
Do they all know how to use the internet? Is providing internet access the only thing necessary? Can digital citizenship education help these people to join the network? These are the questions we want to discuss with our panelists and the audience.
So now let's start our quiz and debate. Now I kindly ask you all to type in your browser Slido and enter the code internet citizen all in upper case. You will have up to two minutes to answer each question and then the panelists will have up to four minutes each to start the debate and present their point of view. So Tiago, can you start the quiz, please.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Sure. Just reminding we have to join the slides and internet citizen as the code. And the first question that we are asking in your country or your region, should internet citizenship be taught to people in general?
Okay. So you can continue to answer the question. And while the viewers are answering, we will ask for the panelists to speak about each question.
So each participant will have up to four minutes to speak. So we will start with Mr. Awobuluyi, please.
>> OLATUNDE AWOBULUYI: Can you hear me? Fantastic, good. So what do I think about this in the context of the country should internet citizenship be taught to people in general?
Yes, I believe it should be taught to everybody. Because in this context some people are not even aware like in African countries some people are not even aware that they are stakeholders in driving internet citizenship in the region.
Let's give, for example, we have in this region over 2,000 languages. And content has to be served, you know, to make meaningful impact for users of the internet content has to be served in the localized form. And we deploy volunteers free of charge to do things like this. Now without educating citizens about this, they may not be aware that they are stakeholders because people all see the government, regulators, what they think about within the society as maybe the stakeholders in this kind of thing. So yes, I do agree that I do think we should educate both newcomers and existing citizens about this. Thank you.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Thank you very much for your contribution. Mr. Moreiras, do you have anything to add?
>> ANTONIO MARCOS MOREIRAS: Yes. First of all, I would like to express the opportunity to be grateful to be here today debating with all of you about internet governance and internet development. The IGF really is an amazing stakeholder space and I hope it can continue to play the important role that it has for a long time to come.
Let's get to the question. Should internet citizenship be taught to people in general? As the majority of the people in the room, my short answer is also yes, sure.
To better understand -- to better understand this question, first of all, we should ask ourselves and try to understand what is internet citizenship? When we talk about citizenship on the internet I believe that we first must consider the meaning of digital citizenship an expression that is much more recent than the use of the word citizenship alone and with much more specific meaning.
Digital citizenship is usually understood as the responsible use of technology by people. Within that concept, it is considered everyone's right and duty to know how to correctly use technological innovations.
And who are the citizens on the internet? Citizen in the colloquial sense can refer to any individual, any person. Citizen can now also be understood as a synonym for inhabitant. The internet is not a country or a geographic region. But in a figurative sense, we can consider its users the inhabitants of the network.
Not everyone today has internet access. But we want them to. It's important they do have access and we work for it. But having access is not enough. In order to use the internet responsible, fully using it to its full potential, its users, the citizens of the internet need to go far beyond simple access.
I think this involves the need for users to know in depth how does the internet really work? How to behave in different digital environments. What are our responsibilities and rights on the internet?
How can they preserve the privacy online? How to use the internet safely. How to buy and sell on the internet. And other questions. So shouldn't the citizenship be taught to people in general? Yes. And we are trying to do it in a number of ways. And later I will talk more about it. For now, thank you.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Thank you very much, Mr. Moreiras. Now Ms. Rosa, do you have anything to comment?
>> FERNANDA ROSA: Hi, everyone. A pleasure to be here. Nice to meet you. Nice to see Antonio again and Eduardo and Tiago.
So I am very happy to be here. I would like to thank nic.br and I also add to how important it is for us to have the stakeholder places. So I am from a university. I'm a professor at Virginia Tech. And I feel really excited when I'm with the technical community because my research depends a lot on them. I interview them. I talk to them. I learn with them.
So thank you so much for this. And thank you also for who is there in the audience, I don't know in Poland or everywhere on the internet.
My short question is I agree with the answers to this question. And mainly because when you think about citizenship, we always think in terms of political, civil and social rights.
And education is a social right. It became a social right in the beginning of the 20th century because the society decided for us to have adults that can work, for us to have adults that can handle society, we need them to be educated to a certain extent.
So in the beginning education was considered self-improvement. So everyone should try to educate themselves. But when a State notice the importance of having adults that were educated, that were the moment when education became a social right and then the State became the provider of that education in most countries. So when we talk about the digital world, we should also think about that.
And I would extend what Olatunde and Moreiras said talking about digital literacy. Because if we focus internet citizenship, it's the whole thing. So if you are focusing on one right, in one social right, this social right would be education.
And in the digital world we talk about digital literacy. I then focus a lot on that because digital literacy is not only accessing, we are in a pandemic, we know how complicated it is when people are having fake news on their cell phones and they are believing more fake news than what their children who go to the university who study health are talking about vaccines, for example.
And this is an issue. It is an issue that is harmful, right, when you are more prone to believe on fake news than on sources that bring you perspectives that are first that come from sources that you can trust.
So digital literacy comes to tell us that literacy is not only about access, it is also about your way of dealing with information, your way of sorting information. But we have been discussing this for a long time in education. And we are not seeing that in a place where you can say okay, so what should we teach them? If we agree this is an important thing, what should we teach? This is not something that we have complete agreement on that. I think that any country, any community, any territory will decide about that.
From the perspective of the Americas, I would say the studies that we did in Brazil since the beginning of 2010 we started talking about the importance of looking at information, sorting information, but now because of the work I do with community networks, with people who are building their community networks, I would say that infrastructure is also an important part for us to include in the digital literacy.
So I think I talked my four minutes. We can continue this conversation. Thank you.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Thank you very much, Ms. Rosa. Now we can proceed to the next question poll. Question number two.
What are the key elements that constitute internet citizenship and meaningful internet access? So this is a more complex question so we will have up to two minutes for the audience to answer.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Now we will ask for the speakers to comment about the questions. We will start with Mr. Moreiras, please.
>> ANTONIO MARCOS MOREIRAS: One moment, please. Okay. Education, infrastructure, accessibility. Well, I will give my opinion.
In my opinion, the key elements are infrastructure, education, and people in parliament. And I will try to explain it.
First, infrastructure. First and foremost, to exist significant use of the internet there must be internet access. This access must be an internet access. And no, I'm not just lost in the words and repeating myself here. I just want to emphasize that access must be through the internet, through all of the internet, the complete internet. Not through a walled garden with half a dozen apps either because of restriction such as access to certain back edges only, or restriction made by governments with bans and block. And even technical restrictions such as those automatically imposed in practice by connections to -- connections of low capacity.
People should have access to the internet, to the entire internet, to all of the internet. It starts there.
We go even a little further on this issue. We must be concerned about the quality of the local internet infrastructure. How are the quality parameters of assessing the main services and content used in the region. Is there local dealing between different ISPs? Are there CDMs installed in the local infrastructure? How is the knowledge of the internet users about the infrastructure?
Do they know the difference between fiber optics, cable, radio, 4G, 5G access? Do they know how to install a wi-fi router and repeater in their home?
So those are questions about the infrastructure, and it is important to have good infrastructure and people -- it is important that people, that internet users know about infrastructure.
About the education. Education in the same -- in the sense of providing training for the use of the internet to its users is in my opinion one of the most important points. I work at Nic.br and one of the things we do is technical training. We are used to teach the technical internet community.
But this needs to capacity, the network users in general so that they can use the internet better, more responsibly, more fully, has become more evident through use to us over time.
And for some time, we thought how could we collaborate? And about a year ago we created an initiative that we call (speaking in non-English) in Portuguese. Internet citizen in English.
We decided to do the capacity through short videos and animations of about 15 seconds with no narration. Animations that focus on just one point. A simple tip. A concept.
They can be downloaded. They can be shared on social media and messaging apps. They are short enough to be displayed -- to be displayed in the commerce, in elevators, in public transportation system. And they cover different topics and such as how internet works, internet security, internet rights and duties and internet behavior.
And I would like to show you two small examples. It is only 30 seconds. Tiago, if you can stop sharing the screen, I think Zoom will ping my -- I will show the video here in my webcam. So if you stop to share the screen that your screen, think my web cam is pinned to the screen of the -- yes. And this is the first video. There is no audio. 15 seconds.
(Video)
>> ANTONIO MARCOS MOREIRAS: This is the second video.
(Silent video).
>> ANTONIO MARCOS MOREIRAS: Are you able to see it? If not, I can -- Eduardo is telling in the chat that you are not able to see. I will try to share the screen another way and to show it again then. Please wait a second. Tiago, yes. Okay. Okay. I think I'm sharing the screen.
Maybe you can see now. This is the website.
(Video)
>> ANTONIO MARCOS MOREIRAS: And this is the second video.
(Video)
>> ANTONIO MARCOS MOREIRAS: So the videos are available at internet citizen.nic.br and we have versions in English and Spanish and Portuguese.
And this is a contribution we are trying to do in this education area.
And the third point, can access to the internet and education, people will be empowered. Empowered to use the internet fully, empowered to be better versions of themselves and to build a better version of the world. And that's it. Thank you.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Thank you for your contribution. Now we will ask Ms. Rosa, do you have anything to add?
>> FERNANDA ROSA: Yeah, sure. Thank you very much for sharing those resources. I heard about it yesterday and I think it may be a real contribution including for schools like it is very easy research to share in classroom. I really appreciate that.
Yeah, I like the results of this quiz here. 11 people answered. Well, education, it was what we were talking for, so we were talking about literacy. And I think that this is one of the most important aspects of it, what we need to have for us to have good access.
I was trying to -- I started to say that about how today knowledge about the infrastructure is also important in the area of literacy in the digital world because Moreiras brought a very important aspect of infrastructure. Where is it located? If citizens are located in certain countries and your data is going to that country for it to have access to such data. So when our data leaves the national borders where we are located and goes to other spaces, to other countries, then the laws of that country will be the laws valid looking at that data.
So depending on the laws about privacy in that country, depending on how they manage international traffic, you may be surveilled, for example, without knowing. I bring that because I know with Africa, most of data needs to go internationally for it to come back.
You have lots of trouble when you have data going and coming back. When this happens, Europe is the place where data from Africa is going, laws of the countries in Europe will be governing that data.
In Brazil, we have a different dynamic, but it is still we also have situations where we have international traffic and many people are -- who do not -- this is for the people who have access, right? For the people who do not have access yet, they are building their own infrastructure to have access to the internet.
As a way to be a citizen in this digital space. But when they are doing that, there are many constraints because of the market, because of the players who are in the market.
So we also need to be aware of what is necessary for this infrastructure to be available for, again, Indigenous people, for again people in the territories of the big cities where we don't have that much infrastructure. I think this is extreme important element for us to talk.
And regarding the new, the accessibility aspect, I love that that came to one of the top answers. Because this brings us to the idea of equality and diversity on the internet, how it is important for us to have a space where everyone can feel welcome and invited.
If women are not feeling invited because of cyberbullying, if Black people are feeling harmed because of the ways that people talk about them, we should be concerned about that and then we should have regulations to a certain extent to avoid these kind of situations.
It is very hard how we are dealing with this now because we tried for many years to have a non-regulated space on the internet. And what is going on now is that we are seeing more and more that sometimes the harm is greater than the simply -- than the opportunity to have a space with no regulation. So we are now discussing if the laws we created a decade ago are still valid, for example, right?
And when I'm talking about laws, I'm talking about the space. In the U.S., for example, this is less common because the dynamics in the U.S. is to have a more liberal space on the internet. But it still, we are in the face of a big challenge now especially because of the fake news. We have damage including for democracies. So even countries that are very liberal as the U.S., we start to discuss the moderation of content on platforms.
And this is I think related with this idea also of accessibility because if we are discussing moderation of content because of elections we should also be considering what is our role when people are being harmed because of content circulated. So I will stop here.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Very insightful. Thank you very much for your contribution, Ms. Rosa. Now, I will ask Mr. Awobuluyi.
>> OLATUNDE AWOBULUYI: I'm with AFRINIC which is the African Network Information Center. I will give my answers in the African perspective because it is where I operate most of the time. Hi again, nice to meet you guys.
Okay, in the African perspective, infrastructure definitely comes up on the top of the list also. So reports -- there are reports that say we have about -- excuse me -- 45% of Africans are like over 10 kilometers away from fiber access. Even though they are high penetration, the penetration rates in the continent is improving, infrastructure is still an issue. So unlike -- like Antonio rightfully said, without infrastructure, there is no access.
Now, accessibility in the African context or perspective again, I would define it as affordable and localized content without any geo restrictions.
So yes, there is internet penetration rates, but it is -- I mean, in Africa, it is expensive compared to other parts of the world.
So and I would like to throw in this and by putting in this response here by government policies, that would be the third one for me. Now we want to have government policies that encourages or -- reduces the bottlenecks or the regulatory practices that encourage competition among operators within the local markets.
One of the reasons why the cost is up is because we don't have real competition here in this part of the world. So government policies are very, very key here in the African perspective. And with that we can drive accessibility by making internet access affordable.
Like I said, localized because we have a huge amount of languages here and users want to be served in the content in what they understand in their local context. And then geo restrictions. So I don't want to mention any apps here or any services where in other parts of the world the features you have are different compared to the ones you have in this part of the world, and it is the same service.
Some of these are services I'm talking about can drive to boost the digital economy in this part of the world but because of the lack of the features we don't have that. So that's why I define accessibility as affordable localized content without any geo restrictions. Thank you.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Thank you very much. Now we will go to the last question, question number three.
Should internet security and safety practices be considered part of meaningful access and good citizenship on the internet?
So we'll have one minute for the audience to answer and then we will ask for the speakers. So now we will start with Ms. Rosa if you have something to comment.
>> FERNANDA ROSA: Yeah, sure. Interesting that we have a divided result, right? And I like that and I'm thinking about how I addressed the response because when I say if it should be considered part of a good citizenship, security and safety, my answer was yes.
But then seeing the results, I'm also thinking of another element, and I will share with you one thing which is in this moment of internet of things who are the citizens of this digital world? Because in the beginning we thought always about humans, right?
But then more and more we have machines being connected. Are machines also going to be considered citizens in this space?
I ask this question because other people have already discussed that. Including in Brazil we the court, we have people who you might know, they asked the question about robots. Who should have the right to be autonomous on the internet? And that is important because if we have so many robots on Twitter, if we have so many robots around and they are anonymous -- if I said autonomous, I would like to say anonymous, not autonomous.
If they are anonymous on the internet, what is the harm that they are bringing to us? So we should really distinguish humans from robots on the internet. We should be able to have this distinction to know that when someone is just bringing that information to us on our timeline to say oh, okay, this is our robot, right. And someone is behind the robot. That is another point.
But I'm talking about that because when I think of safety and security, I'm thinking about encryption and I'm thinking about anonymity. I think that anonymity is very important on the internet. It is also a way for us to be safe sometimes. But more and more because of the way our internet evolved we don't have in many situations this right anymore because we have ways to track many, many different data, many kinds of data are who are using.
So anonymity is an important element that we should always come back because anonymity is also important in many situations. And in terms of machines, we should not regard them this right of anonymity at all and we should be always able to distinguish, to distinguish that.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Thank you very much for your contribution. Now, Mr. Awobuluyi, do you have anything to add?
>> OLATUNDE AWOBULUYI: Yes. I think that was a very good video that Antonio shared about, the very short clip, educating users, internet citizens to be how to use the internet and how to be more aware.
So in the African perspective also, it would be a resounding yes, this is very important. Not only for the younger ones but even the uninformed or digitally illiterate older adults, this is very important.
I also put in there to develop legislation that addresses issues like probably some regions, what is online harassment? What does that mean? Fraud might be more recognized, but there are other issues that you might come across on the internet that there is no legislative structure in place that addresses these in the region.
So I would look at that also. It is a resounding yes that we need to educate everyone about the safeties and practices and using the internet. Thank you.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Thank you very much. Now Mr. Moreiras, do you have any comments?
>> ANTONIO MARCOS MOREIRAS: Yeah, sure. I'm curious about the response, yes, but only in specific cases I'd like to hear people that answered this way after our comments, if possible.
My answer is yes, it should be included. I think security, safety, privacy, how this concept, it is -- how these concepts are interrelated and adapt to each other. People share personal information openly without thinking about the risks that exposure brings.
Companies and other institutions collect, process, store, share people's personal information without due care, increasing risk. All kinds of risk including safety related risks. I think the control of the personal data must be in the hands of the users and owners and they must understand the implication of using this data and giving you the right to know it, sometimes even to control it. And I asked who real knows the implications of this today? I think we are all learning.
And about security. Most users don't know how to properly create and manage passwords. Don't know what it is and how to use double factor authentication. Most of the users cannot distinguish from the official source for installing application from a suspicious source. They don't know the importance of backup or how to do a backup.
They don't know the importance of keeping systems up to date. Part of the solution to internet security problems, even the most complex internet security problems involves education, training of the end users, of the users that know -- that don't know technology.
And I think it's also up to each one of the stakeholders to make the life easier for users when it comes to security. Protocols have to be secured by default. Softwares should update automatically. We should make education and encryption methods easier to use with simple interface. We must handle personal data more carefully.
I think everyone can look at the services they provide on the internet and see how they can collaborate better.
I would like to finish this contribution by showing you some more -- two short animations of internet citizen niq.br. This time on the issues related to security. When I showed the other videos, I was with the blur here in Zoom activated. So after that I understood what happened.
I will try again. Let's see if you can see the videos this time.
(Video)
>> ANTONIO MARCOS MOREIRAS: So don't repeat your passwords. And take care when you -- when you are installing new apps. And that's it. Thank you.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: So now we will start the open microphone session. So if any of the audience wants to comment or to ask any questions to the speakers, please feel free to -- feel free to speak. While we wait for the questions, if the speakers want to make any final comments to the presentation. We will start with Ms. Rosa if you have any kind of comments, please.
>> FERNANDA ROSA: Yeah, sure. I'm very excited again. I learned a lot with your comments, and I also like the different perspectives that came up because of the different panelists.
I am glad that I was here, and I hope we can continue this conversation. Again, we should not dismiss information in all of the studies that have been done already, especially because nic is starting and putting this together I'm excited with the production of the videos and I also say it would be amazing to have the education community to a certain extent connected to it.
I said that they may use these videos, but I think that many people from education community can also help to build certain contents. And I'm saying that because in 2015 I wrote a book, coauthored a book and it was about mobile learning.
And one thing that we were discussing a lot in that context was at that moment, mobile learning was something still not that prevalent as it is now because of the pandemic. But one thing that we were discussing there is okay, so if we need to teach about technologies, if we need to teach about the internet, how do we bring that to the curricula for the schools, right?
Because if we think that this will be necessary for the future, we should have this kind of content in our schools.
So you probably have heard of all of the movements about coding and teaching coding, but we were thinking about what should they bring to the classroom when thinking about the history and geography. Can we also understand the history of computing and cybernetics?
And how we have this problem because in the origin of cybernetics we can understand why we are in the trouble now because the decisions made at the beginning also contributes to help us understand where we are in terms of geography.
Just as it was said, can we include in geography where things like CDMs are. How are data flowing on the information? This is also geography. We were thinking about that in 2015. Many people were thinking of that in the education area.
I will just caution to the importance of connecting these elements like the knowledge in the technical community with the knowledge we have in the education community. Thank you very much.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Thank you very much. Mr. Awobuluyi, any final comments?
>> OLATUNDE AWOBULUYI: Thank you. I would like to have the link for the videos again. It was really wonderful. I really enjoyed the session, the different perspectives that the different panelists brought to the table.
It was interesting to, you know, digest this. And then just like Antonio said also, I'm quite interested in knowing some of the people who voted in some cases why people should be educated about internet citizenship. I'm quite interested in that; it would be nice to hear their opinions. Other than that, it has been a very wonderful and informative session for me, too. Thank you.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Thank you very much. And Mr. Moreiras, do you have any final comments?
>> ANTONIO MARCOS MOREIRAS: I would like to just thank you all for coming to this session. And I would like to invite you to know this initiative of nic.br that is called InternetCitizen.nic.br.
Me and Olatunde Awobuluyi are from the technical community and Fernanda bring us the kind of different views, different perspectives. And I think it is very interesting to this -- this suggestions of getting the view of education community and we all could work more together and that's a good thing.
I would like to have more inputs for this project of nic.br from other areas, other stakeholders. And that's it. Thank you all.
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Thank you, Mr. Moreiras. If the audience has questions that you want to comment, we still have some time.
>> FERNANDA ROSA: I have a hypothesis in the result. I think that some of the people who answered were robots.
(Laughter)
>> TIAGO JUN NAKAMURA NAKAMURA: Okay. We thank you all for participating in our workshop. I think some of the points that were spoken here, first of all, this is a discussion, so I found it very interesting that some of the speakers actually disagreed on the answers that we had on the screen because that is what it is all about.
We need to discuss things, not because everybody wants something that is necessarily right or it is not about right or wrong, it is about discussing how can we make internet a better place. And we need to understand it needs to serve us for a better life.
So there are many people that are still out there that don't have internet access. And sometimes just having the connectivity is not enough. We need to have a meaningful connectivity for those people.
This is very complex, and we need to develop this topic because this is just a start for the conversation. So I think it was very insightful. I would like to thank you all the speakers for the very thorough comments and very specific for each region. I would like to thank all of the audience for participating in the workshop. I think it was very great to have you all here.
And please, don't stop the dialogue. We need to further study these issues because it is very important for those people that still don't have internet access. So we would like to thank you all. Oh. For this -- for your participation.
And hopefully we will see you next year at IGF. Thank you all very much.