SEVENTH ANNUAL INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM

BAKU, AZERBAIJANSUSTAINABLE HUMAN, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

8 NOVEMBER 201214:30WS 138

INTERNET AND HUMAN RIGHTS:SHARED VALUES FOR SOUND POLICIES

***This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

*** >> MARKUS KUMMER: Yes. Good afternoon. We would like to get started. We have an interesting workshop ahead of us. My name is Markus Kummer. I'm from the Internet Society. We have basically thought we would have more of a round-table discussion and had asked for a room with a round table. So it's not exactly what we had hoped for, and there are also not enough microphones. But Nicolas, who did all the preparation, will give you a short introduction, and then he will be the guy who runs around with the microphone to make sure that the show runs smoothly. Nicolas, please get us started. >> NICOLAS SEIDLER: Thank you, Markus. Can you all hear me? Okay, perfect. So I'm going to be very short. Thank you all for joining us today for this workshop. It's a workshop which is organized by the Internet Society and APC, and we are very happy to have you all here today. So briefly, well, Internet and human rights is an issue which has really picked up steam in the last few years, and if you just look at the schedule of the IGF this year, I just read an analysis that about 30 or 40 rights or human rights-related workshops this year. So it really demonstrates that there is a growing interest in this issue. And, well, I mean, for us lucky enough to have affordable and cheap Internet access, the global network has really become a central place for which we use to express ourselves for education, for access to knowledge, and for other fundamental rights. As a consequence, alteration of access raises serious human rights concerns. There is one underlying consideration that the workshop will take, and it is that of the relationship

between the way the Internet was designed and the ability to exercise human rights online. The Internet architecture is distributed, it is decentralized, it is made in a way which empowers the edges rather than the center, and this is a really important angle that we want to take as a consideration in this workshop, and that raises such questions as can there be human rights online without an open Internet? What's the relationship between the two? Is there any mutual influence? And can we go as far as to say that there are shared values between human rights and the open Internet model? To finish, I think we have a very good diversity of panelists here, and that reflects the fact that human rights has become a multi-stakeholder issue and one, again, of the objectives of this workshop is to see how we can best work together to foster a rights-based Internet. So please let me introduce some of our very distinguished speakers. On my right, Maria Hall, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications from Sweden. Next to her, Subi Chaturvedi. She's an assistant professor at the University of Delhi. Avri Doria is on the far right. Avri is a research consultant and works at dotgay LLC. I have over there Emin Milli, who is a writer and activist in Azerbaijan, Internet Write Project, Coordinator of the Association for Communications. On the side, Lee. Lee Hibbard from the Council of Europe working in the Information Society and Internet Governance Project. And just in front of me there is Theresa Swinehart, who is executive director at Verizon. And, finally, Markus Kummer, Vice President for Public Policy at Internet Society and the moderator of this session. So, Markus, I'll hand it back to you. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, Nicolas. We from the Internet Society, as you well know, provide institutional home for the Internet Engineering Task Force. We attach great importance to the work, standards and open interoperable standards are the heart of the Internet in a manner to speak. They make it possible to do what we do, as Nicolas explained, and we have an attachment with the Association for Progressive Communication and we thought it would be good to develop a paper that explains the close relationship between Internet standards and human rights. Human rights are, so to speak, part of the DNA of the Internet. They're hard-wired into its very core. And that gives me the opportunity to ask Avri to talk about her research as she was co-author of the paper I just mentioned. Please, Avri. >> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yes. So part of this talk is really an introduction to the paper that APC and ISOC, or ISOC and APC put out. Joy over there was the primary author on it,

and I sort of assisted with some of the research and some of the writing, and thus am the one to present it. Stepping back a little on this paper, it actually has been a year in the coming. Joy and I were actually sitting on a bus, as so many of you are doing this time, going back and forth between our hotel and the -- and the Nairobi meeting, and on that, Joy first explained to me that, you know, RFC 1591 defines the multi-stakeholder process, and I go what? And she says, yes. If you -- I said, well, I have read 1591. This is the one that defines how the TLDs need to work and how they are to be governed. And I go, no, I've read it, it doesn't -- but then I went back and read it, and indeed, it did define much of what we are calling the multi-stakeholder process, and this was John Pastel (phonetic) way back when writing that this is how we should be governing the Internet. And then on a later bus ride, we basically sort of started talking about Internet Protocols and human rights. I am a -- was a technologist for most of my career, you know, have written protocols and consider them, and yet had never considered the human rights aspect of a protocol the whole time I was working on them in the IETF. But we started going through them and we started looking at things like robustness principles where things could interoperate and how to be conservative in what you did and accepting and basically how to work with others, the whole notion of roles and responsibilities, the notion of fairness and non-discrimination. You find these things in IP. You go back and you read IP. You go back and you read the TCP protocol and you actually see that many of these things, participatory, distribution, all of these things that are fundamental protocol notions inside the Internet, inside the -- the pieces that build the Internet were indeed there and are indeed representative of many of the things that now we look at the human rights. So the project became one, and this paper is really just a first step in it, to basically start looking at the Internet Protocols that make up what we call the Internet. And start looking at human rights, both of us being sort of familiar with the other, but specialists in one, Joy being the specialist in human rights, and start seeing how we could start mapping the concepts we find in one and the concepts we find in the other. We looked both at the protocols that dictate the operation of the Internet, specifically we stayed with IP and TCP, though I have a long list in a table of other protocols that I really want to take a look at, at some point and see whether those protocols contribute further towards this human rights essential nature of the Internet. But as we looked more and more, we really became convinced, and this is where we did not start out with the notion of human

rights being in the -- in the DNA of the Internet, and I think that that's probably a phrase that belongs to Markus because it wouldn't have occurred to me. But as you start to look at, you see it really is fundamental, and you know, I can't speak for the people that wrote IP and TCP. We could probably go ask Vint at some point whether he was thinking of human rights. But I doubt it. It was just sort of a notion of, of course it's what you do when you are building a protocol, when things are in acting. You want a protocol that allows anybody to talk to anyone at any time, anywhere. And once you start breaking down what that means in terms of freedom of expression, freedom of association, I can associate with anyone any time, and other freedoms, you see that the protocol essentially is creating a network wherein those things are actually built. Now, one of the things we didn't take in this paper is go too far into looking at what happens if you start reducing those aspects of the protocol. What happens if you filter? What happens if you don't? Those are assumptions, those are conclusions that people can perhaps come to later. Another part of the problem that we looked at, or the issue that we looked at was is there anything in the processes that are similar? Is there anything in the multi-stakeholder process that created the Internet and is now being used in this forum to try and discuss governance? Is there anything essential in that with human rights? And we saw some similarities, but there we saw actually some differences in what we call discontinuities in terms of how indeed the rights -- (Audio Lost.) -- but understood and described and the roles and responsibilities to find. So where we're at on this paper, and this is one of the reasons why we're having this discussion, is we put out a working draft of that paper and someone can probably point you all to the URL. I don't have it at the moment. I don't know how many of you had a chance to read it before coming here. But basically we're looking to take it further. We're looking for comments. We're looking for people that see what we wrote, you know, see if the conclusions that we start to -- the things we start to point out make any sense to you, that when we look at RFCs, we see a rule of law, a due process, impartiality, neutrality, we see stewardship of duties rather than rights. We see fairness. We see non-discrimination. We see democratic participatory processes, accountability for performance, freedom of information, expression, the free flow of information, freedom of association, and freedom for those operating in various subparts. You know, we see the notion of subsidiarity. It's not a human right perhaps, but we see those notions built into the protocols,

and this one paper is sort of the beginning of starting to look at that. And it becomes important because if we're sort of saying mess with the Internet and you're messing with our human rights, to be able to go back to these protocols and say -- and really, here it is, here it is in black and white that the Internet is based upon these principles, and if you transgress these principles, if you harm the protocols, you are actually harming the human rights of the people that use the Internet. So that's the thesis. The paper is the beginning of the argument. We'd like you all to read it, comment, get back to us, and I think the discussion is going to sort of move on from here looking at some of those notions. So I think that's it for me introducing the paper. And thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you very much. That was an excellent introduction and a very good commercial for our paper, which we hope we'll be able to issue on the Annual Human Rights Day in December. And to pick up on what you said, I tend to agree with you that the Vints and Bob Kahns of this world didn't sit down and think let's write the protocol about human rights, but at the same time I heard them say quite a lot that it came sort of out of the '60s movement and also American Civil Liberties and the whole race question. So I mean there was a big movement in the '60s in favor of all these values, and obviously human rights are a very strong part of that, and all the IETF processes are very strong on these notions. But now we go over to our next speaker, Subi Chaturvedi, from Delhi University. It's Subi's first time at the IGF and she will present this. Please, Subi. >> SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you, Nicolas, and thank you, Markus, for giving me this opportunity. I have this very daunting task before me of trying to give you an Indian position. My first challenge really is there is no one India. So this is a country that lives and exists across three centuries. This is a country, before I even get into the question of access, I must absolutely begin diversity. I know Nicolas was kind enough to introduce me to you as someone who engages with academia. I also run a foundation called Media For Change which has helped me inform my perspective on India by engaging with youth and women, and I'm a documentary filmmaker. My last project was a film on freedom of speech and expression in India and what the contemporary issues we are that we are facing today. So that is where my interventions are going to come in from. Just to give you some numbers, we have about 750 dialects, about 18 languages that are recognized by the Constitution of India. There's a currency note that carries about 15 scripts, and we have 5 billion-dollar homes and we have slums which border those

homes. We also have the existence of about 700 million active mobile telephones and about 125 million Internet users. Now, the challenge really is how do you make sure that you reconcile the interest of several extremely fragmented, extremely disjointed stakeholders into the concept of one India, because it is, as a notion it exists. So one of the unifying, four unifying factors that we've been able to look at are, clearly, telegraph and post, the Indian movies, which I have had this fantastic experience of getting into taxis, Markus and I've had a cab driver singing to me songs from the '70s. That was even before my time, before I even walked the planet, and they're absolutely thrilled that I come from this country. So it's been a great unifying factor, and some of us would argue the other constituency is cricket. That's the only thing that gets us together and going like nothing. But one of the things that has also happened for us is the idea of mobile telephony, and that has then translated into the Internet. As far as penetration is concerned, we have a long way to go. But our issues in terms of what the Internet has been able to do, and that brings me to the first question that has been really posed for us here today is the one the idea of freedom. Can there be one concept of freedom across platforms? In India, clearly it's been about capabilities and choices, and a professor has argued that you cannot have a society that's been largely agricultural to automatically move into a society that's technology-based. So our biggest challenge is the Indian government through the -- where each mobile user contributes about 5% of their bill into the fund for the spread of the fiberoptic cable network which is now going to be connecting about 250,000 village local self-governance through mobile telephone subscribers, and their contribution, which is spreading the Internet forward. So one of the things that we've been able to do is we've been able to innovate at a very decentralized level in terms of policy making. So that's been one advantage. How do I link that to the basic grain and fabric of the Internet and the question of human rights. There are certain key, key intrinsic characteristics that the Internet brings with them, and one of them is openness. The other is permission for innovation. The third would be modularity. And the fifth is the ability to come together as disparate units. I think a lot of civil society and academia have a lot to learn from the way this format has played out, the fact that you can take on a cause, the fact that you can articulate choices. We have different regions, and there are special laws for different parts of the country. We recently had one of the biggest ethnic conflicts and new media and social media have played a large role, according to the government

perspective, in escalating that conflict. So one of our first reactions was there's a foreign hand, let's blame it there. And the other reaction was this is all evil. So what we need to do in the guise of protecting wonderful communities, we women and children are -- I'm really talking from the margins of the marginalized. The first action on government's perspectives is to get into take-downs, blockages. I know about 314 profiles that were blocked because they were supposedly threatening the fabric and the Constitution of this great democracy. Out of that, I know for a fact that there were senior journalists who were actually advocating and merely sharing those images and telling us that this is something that is clearly Photoshopped and cannot be true. But the way systems work and in the Indian Constitution, there is no particular right that recognizes freedom of speech and expression. The Constitution recognizes the right of freedom for the Indian citizens, so there are no special laws for either the Internet or the press or the media or any other communication vehicle. This is the article 19, and the article 19e which talks about certain reasonable restrictions to that freedom of speech and expression, talks about certain very esoteric, very arbitrary things like harming the national fabric, hurting villages' sentiments, and also the idea that you could possibly be disturbing friendly neighborhood relationships. Now, how do you possibly do that? And what do you do? So can there be a positive obligation on the part of the government to actually engage and use the same medium and not pose that as a threat? Questions two and three talk about policy and how the idea of openness cannot be at odds. I do not think that it is possible, remotely possible to say that anything that promotes dialogue or is a platform, it's like saying I have a gun and it's a tool. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. So if you're looking at -- and there is -- the first reaction was to instruct Telcos to restrict the number of SMSs that were being sent out in the case of the ethnic violence to five. So the idea of trust, the idea of reaching out and building platforms is something that's completely mitigated to a corner, and what we do is we create this blank space where you cannot reach out to anyone. I do not think that's could possibly be the best way forward, for any community. As far as engaging on the subject of human rights and engaging with each stakeholder in the Internet eco-system, I think that is something that the Internet does at a very fundamental level. So student communities especially from regions which have been in conflict and there are many in India, be it Kashmir, be it the Northeast, the voices which are not heard, which are not represented, they're the ones who have been able to articulate and reach out. There are pages on Facebook

which exist which have about several thousand likes, and for India, numbers are easy. That's the one thing that we're good at. You have a -- you want to show hands, you want public referendum, we can get that for you any time. But what is our concern? Our concern is the lack of research, our concern is -- and which is why tremendously appreciate Avri taking that time and putting together a paper, because for any industrial, any movement it's imperative that we introspect, we take two steps back and we consolidate our positions and we find ways of disseminating them. Markus mentioned it's been my first IGF really, and I'm overwhelmed and so grateful that this has been a platform, and it's such a great enabling platform that it's been able to put me in touch with parts of the world where we do fantastic events. We do national IGFs once a year. But if we were to only look at that platform, then I think it would take another 200 years for every country to get an opportunity to do an IGF. So what I am proposing is an Internet freedom movement. We've had the occupy Wall Street. We've had the Arab Spring. We've had a bit of an Indian Summer. So in terms of engagement of human right and Internet, if we could look at sustained platforms we could look at a series of events which would sustain conversations and dialogs and create spaces for dissemination. I do not think for one minute that we could possibly have a situation where a medium could be threatening or harming openness, and this is one tool at least in the Indian situation which has been hugely empowering in every which way possible. One of the things that has happened is it has created a new constituency, which is the prosumer. So you had the producer and you had the consumer. The amount of phenomenal user generated content that we've seen, the amount of public -- and there have been four specific instances. An author wrote a book and he was supposed to come to the literary festival and present his book and have a discussion, a conversation. There are certain fundamental groups that came in and he could not make his presentation. He then offered to make a presentation through a video link. Even that was disallowed. This conversation then went online, and there was so much public pressure that -- is that an indication? Yes. So I'll just make very quick two interventions. There was another controversy that flowed out on the Internet. This was a senior professor who shared a cartoon, and he was then taken to jail and ambushed and made to apologize. There have been several instances where freedom is at stake. But what has been amazing and what has been important is the fact that we've been able to multiply, we've been able to create change agents, and we've been able to tell the story. And I'm just going to end

my interventions here. We recently put together the India IGF, which had about 475 participants from across the world, across five multi-stakeholder groups, and about 15 international speakers. One of the things that we managed to do was reach out to the youth. So two days we had a whole half-day session that was dedicated to youth debates, which included students from all over. And we managed to involve them in every process of the mag. These are our multipliers. Civil society ran across with five sessions. So all that we're saying is there's this trend that we've experienced that it's easy to blame the industry or the private sector, but it's very, very convenient to step back and say not enough is happening, how do we get there. So just one last thought that we have to keep knocking on the doors and not give up because this is something that's precious to all of us and this is something that we've engaged in for a very long time. So I think it's a good fight and it's worth fighting it. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. I was in a workshop on intellectual property this morning and there was obviously a lot of talk about -- and there was talk about knocking on the doors. It's clearly the Internet community has woken up. You have noticed we have slightly changed speakers. We have different speakers, some of them could not make it. We had two speakers originally from Sweden, but neither Johan could make it from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, nor Patrik Faltstrom. But instead we have Maria, so, please, give a Swedish perspective. >> MARIA HALL: Thank you very much. I'm sorry for Patrik couldn't be here, of course, because I'm delighted to be here and I'm also sorry for my colleague from the Minister of Foreign Affairs who couldn't be here. But -- (Applause.) He's in another panel. So I'm happy to be able to talk on his behalf on the Swedish perspective. Actually because I'm working for the Minister of Enterprise, Energy and Communication, my view on what is an open Internet is a little bit different than you-all's, or it was a little bit different than you-all's, but we have been working so closely between the Ministry of Enterprise and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so there are several years by now, so we are actually coming together in a very, very mutual and strong understanding how important it is, both for innovation and growth and competition, which are my areas. And those are the open important for human rights. And in the beginning when we actually -- when we started to work together some years back, actually, the Internet related discussions was mostly taking part actually on the Ministry of Enterprise, in a very infrastructure, technical perspective. But then suddenly when I was going to

various meetings and so on, I started to realize that people are talking about human rights and Internet, and the open Internet in another perspective I was used to. I called my friend, whom I didn't know so well by then, by the way, and I said, okay, you have to come and help me here because these are issues actually we are not aware of and I'm not an expert in these kind of areas. But that is the way it started. So then by now it's been this kind of way of working and having this shared understanding and open Internet, it's spreading, it's not only me and Johan. Right now it's many other ministries and many other individuals and ministries that are having a lot of collaboration. And actually what we saw in the beginning was how strong we were together, that we could actually fight for an open Internet out of two strong platforms, both the human rights platforms and also about the innovation and growth and competition. But what we see now is not only that we are so strong together with these two important policy areas. We also see how dependent those two areas are to each other actually. I mean one is condition for human rights of course, need -- have to have good innovation and growth and lots of good competition. But also vice versa. Actually another thing that we are talking about a lot in Sweden, which I hope that we could actually maybe not sort out, but maybe we can have -- I can have other perspective than my own is actually what is very related to the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communication discussions is about Net Neutrality. So what we are trying to explore in Sweden actually, does Net Neutrality per se, does it have any human rights implications, and also actually which Nicolas was saying here in the beginning, this actually is an open Internet, can we have human rights without an open Internet? That possible? And of course like a gut feeling is, like, no, of course you don't have human rights if you don't have an open Internet. But if you start analyzing that a little bit and reflect on the Net Neutrality discussion, what do you mean with an open Internet? Could it be like a business model that, you know, certain service providers or telecommunication operators are actually, well, maybe not blocking, but maybe prioritizing the traffic in certain ways, and that might be not really open, and that of course, that debate is going on about the Net Neutrality. But is that violating human rights? That is a very good question. I am supposed to have a lot of answers and a lot of -- that need to be analyzed more. But another way of seeing open Internet is actually when states are actually blocking content or violating individuals. That's another perspective on the open Internet. So I think the

discussion today with my fellows here is very interest. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, Maria. And yes, Sweden has been really pushing this issue on the international agenda, and Human Rights Council started talking about the Internet and adopted a resolution and recognizing that online human rights should be as respected as offline. Sweden has always taken the line we also take that online and offline should be treated the same way to the extent possible. But let's not -- basically our plan was to have an interactive discussion as possible and I'm looking now at Joy. She was basically very much at the beginning of that paper we've been talking about, and would maybe also listen from you what you see as the main challenges going forward or whatever -- oh, microphone. Nicolas, can you? (Laughs.) I have to be room moderator and run the room with the microphone. (Laughs.) >> JOY LIDDICOAT: Is it working? Is it working? Yes? Thank you. Thanks, Markus and ISOC, for being willing to convene this panel and both for the bus ride and conversation and for the excellent introduction to the paper. I think that one of the interesting avenues to -- reasons to explore this concept and a multi-stakeholder environment particularly for me has been the possibility for collaboration with a technical community. And I think that in a multi-stakeholder environment, we can forget sometimes to weight equally the inputs of all stakeholders, and I very strongly think the technical community has a significant contribution to make to the human rights discussion in relation to the Internet. And indeed it seemed to us in working through some of the concepts of this paper that in fact often the technical community are our frontline human rights defenders, and securing and keeping open the Internet because, you know, I'm not a technical person. I didn't even know what an RFC was until, you know, a few years ago, or what an Internet Protocol was, and I'm totally dependent -- or was -- on the technical community to guide, shape, explain, and contribute to understanding for human rights activists what are the technical implications of changes to or interference with technical operation of the Internet. So I see this as very much a shared conversation and an important one in terms of expanding those people we think of as human rights defenders, those people who are able to see human rights issues. I think another sort of co-aspect and something that very much struck us in this research which we would like, you know, views

about is that hard-wired into the human rights themselves are also some similar principles to -- on which the Internet functions. For example, human rights belong to the end users, you know. It's not governments which have rights. Governments have obligations to secure and uphold and protect rights, and that rights, they're most powerful when the end users at the edges of the human rights systems, we are empowered ourselves. And this seemed a very core shared value at the very operation of the Internet itself that was worth exploring. And indeed also the free flow of information, the idea that as humans we would communicate with each other, unmediated by governments in this clear circumstances. So I suppose a question that then raises is, if we see the Internet being taken up so rapidly, so vastly, in some ways it's being taken up faster than human rights in some places. And again, what is it then that the technical community is bringing to human rights that we may not see if we look at human rights only from the point of view of what it gives the Internet. So I mean, I can give more introductory remarks, but I very much wanted to emphasize our desire for working with technical community on this idea of shared values. The principles of non-discrimination, equality, freedom of information, the right to free flow of information, which are core fundamental human principles. One other thing I would just remark on, the precedence of the engineers who wrote the RFCs in many ways, they were clearer than some of the human rights language that we sometimes have to deal with, and I think that also speaks to the multi-stakeholder way in which they were shaped, which in terms of the openness of the Internet Engineering Task Force is a platform for standards creation, and I think this is an interesting counterpoint when we see something like the SOPA/PIPA proposals where multi-stakeholder groups, including the technical community very strongly arguing for multi-stakeholder assessment of those human rights interferences. So with those just brief remarks, I'm happy to pass the microphone and share with others. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And I would like now to turn to Lee. He is from the Council of Europe, an organisation that does not have a technological background, but has a very strong human rights and democracy background. Lee, give us your take. >> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much for the invitation. I find it very interesting this discussion and the paper also because often you find people who do let's say human rights policy don't necessarily know always the deep, dark details of the technical side. It's very difficult to bring the two together. So

bringing them together here is to me very useful and very necessary. So thank you. I think we're grappling with change. I think we're in a change period for sure. People talk a lot about this being an exciting time, a time of, you know, not going back and I mean just look around at the court decisions across the world regarding Internet content. There's -- there's no uniformity there. There's all sort of decisions being made by all sort of judges, by all sorts of laws and jurisdictions. It's quite clear we don't fully understand the Internet, the freedom on the Internet. And I think this paper, for example, is a nice mix between technical and policy, and reveals some of the similarities perhaps. We did a paper for the GAC, the Governmental Advisory Committee, recently on freedom of expression and freedom of association, and Joy was one of the authors. And that's a step towards one of the things I think we need to do here is to try to create greater appreciation of Internet freedom at the different layers. And so, I mean, one of the things in that paper talks about, for example, that it's important with regards to sensitive neutralities and to give preference to upholding the right to free expression and freedom of association first, and in parallel, managing any risks associated to the DNS at the same time, but not affecting freedom of expression. So these things take time and I think one of the things that we need to do with this work, this ongoing work, is to create bridges. We must create bridges between the decision makers, the judges, the policy makers, to ensure that we can protect and preserve the Internet in the future. I don't think laws necessarily reflect the nuances we're talking about today. And, you know, technology is fast and law is catching up, but that's our job. We understand the Internet is a catalyst for human rights, that's very clear. We understand that in the Council of Europe. You, we are all recognizing the power of the Internet. We know -- I mean we know it's very important. We feel it's very important. Some of us talk about it as being the oxygen for many people who probably have more freedom online than offline sometimes. And so I mean several years ago in the IGF when it first started, I think some said that human rights had been done. I said this before, and we arrived to, you know, seven years later here and there's more human rights workshops on the IGF agenda than ever before I would say. I mean I just looked through the list today and it's just human rights events it seems. It's great, but it's quite revealing where we are. And for people in general, bloggers, I mean safety of journalists, we had an event on that. It's quite clear it's a source of freedom for economic

growth you mentioned, ACTA is a very revealing movement about why the Internet is atypical and represents a freedom which maybe we don't fully understand. That's why when we talk about cutting access to the Internet for copyright violations for example or blanket cutting of YouTube, that's a case before the court of human rights at the moment. We will see very soon how the interface between the Internet, the technical side and human rights will pan out. We've been very busy at the Council for a few years now trying to map out or look at the technical things, but map out how human rights and the Internet fit together, and a lot's already been done. So, I mean, Member states, the Council of Europe member state, 47, have already adopted texts, I mean some of you know them, and principles which talk about universality of the Internet, not to adversely affect the unimpeded flow of Internet traffic, that's a principle, adopt it. The integrity of the Internet, making sure it's ongoing, that the infrastructure is not affected. The things that you've mentioned. But there are open standards, interoperability. There's an open network that we have Net Neutrality in many respects that people have the greatest choice of access to content and services and that any traffic management measures are limited and narrowly circumscribed. So we have those adopted principles. States are at least adopting those things, whether they're implementing is another matter. But there's much out there which needs to be thought about. Do no transboundary harm to the Internet when things go across borders. And there's also case law of the court. I mean I'm thinking about Maria, there's a case in Sweden we've maybe spoken about whereby you have two private parties. I mentioned this yesterday. A family which was evicted from their apartment because they had put a satellite dish up outside that was refused. They put up inside the apartment. That was not allowed. So they were evicted for some reason. But the case eventually came to the court of human rights and it was thought that these people had a right to receive information on a satellite, okay. It's not the Internet, but on a satellite, the right to receive information, news from their country, even entertainment and culture was mentioned. So if you like, that was considered to be a violation of freedom of expression, the right to receive information, access to information. So that's where we are. I mean there is -- we are applying human rights on the Internet. That's happening, and one of the things I think which is coming through very clearly is we need to protect the Internet intermediaries. I mean freedom first, before you start talking about regulation at all, and I think

that's what's happening, and this is something which hasn't really come to fruition yet and I think we're close to that is in the 1960s we went from an freedom of expression to -- it was part of that right. And I think we're coming to a point soon whereby Internet freedom is a corollary of media freedom, which is a corollary to the freedom of expression and access to information. I think we're not far. And so that said, I think we need to -- I think the last thing I'd like to say and I'll stop there is to say that the thing we're not doing is putting these thing together. We're not -- it's very difficult to fit these notions, these principle, these rights and the technical side together. It's not easy. It will take time. But I am very comforted by one thing said yesterday by a speaker was that offline, online, this duality is not going to last for much longer and we're going to be left with online. So what does that mean for human rights? What does that mean for Internet freedom? -- for Internet freedom? And I'll stop there. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Good question. I mean you mentioned the role of intermediaries. We share very much your position as Internet Society and we defend that position in international organisations we engage in and when you compare it to the offline world, nobody holds the post office responsible for letters that are sent through the post office. But when it comes to the Internet, there's a tendency by the very same government to do it just because it's technologically feasible. But also off the -- teed off the question of freedom of bloggers and journalists and we have one of them here. Emin Milli, we would like to listen from you of your perspective. >> EMIN MILLI: Thank you very much. Unless someone gives you access to microphone, you may have right to express yourself, but nobody will hear you. So it's really important I think this exercise has shown that, you know, someone had to go to take microphone and to give it to you. So I think it's the same and similar with -- with human rights online. I think, you know, we have interesting case. I call it -- I try to nail this -- to coin this word, and I want really to -- I know we have some journalists here and some people from academia, you know, to look really to take up this case of Azerbaijan and to make it a case study because Azerbaijan, it's not North Korea, it's not Iran, it's not even China, you know. President says Internet is free in Azerbaijan. We are a member of the Council of Europe. But yet we have bloggers jailed, journalists jailed, and people are free to use Internet but the state and the government, government officials feel also free to punish people or some people who freely use Internet. So we have the problem here that on paper this country, you know, looks perfect. But when you go in real

life, then there is a lot of fear. And I tried to address this fear in my letter to President, which has been published in various global media platforms yesterday -- the day before yesterday, and it's continuing today. And my point is that we have to think about what to do with countries, not just think about countries where, you know, extreme cases like, I don't know, North Korea, Iran where basically you cannot do really much. I mean I don't know what can be done there, but cases like Azerbaijan, it's interesting because these countries, this government made itself acceptable and tolerable in the Council of Europe, so we are talking here already about some sort of, you know, accepted European standard of autocracy and we are talking here about the possibility of this autocracy going global exactly as this government didn't stop being corrupt here. It went corrupt globally. You know, I was watching the world box championship when a Azerbaijani boxer was knocked down six times and then the referee give him the victory, you know. And BBC wrote about this corruption case actually and the things that go on there. Ten months ago, before this championship, but it didn't prevent the government, you know, still to bribe the referee, you know. That was amazing. I mean I really have respect to consistency of our government to go global about corruption. So recently I was very interesting case in Mexico City, you think what has Mexico City to do with Azerbaijan, you know. And you have amazing scene there. The Central Park, one of the central parks in Mexico City having Martin Luther king, statue to Martin Luther King, then you have a statue of Gandhi, and next it to a statue of ex-KGB -- and ex-President of Azerbaijan, ex-authoritarian leader, father of the current president, his statue next to Martin Luther King and Gandhi. That cost our government 5 million to renovate the park and put the statue. The Mexicans are confused and there is more media coverage about it. It's very amusing. So what I'm trying to say is that the case with when you have a government which is so consistent and so stubborn about real exploiting its own vision and its own standards around the world, I think we should really think about that this standard can at the end of the day become accepted global standard of autocracy 2.0, and in my opinion it's more dangerous than countries like North Korea because they are not attractive. I mean you already have frameworks like you wouldn't allow you to deal with them, you know, and governments, they kill people in thousands and hundreds, you know. Doesn't matter what kind of security interests you have, you know, U.S. had to leave Uzbekistan after the Uzbekistan president killed 500 people on the streets, even if they had a great security interest, you know, to stay there.

So you don't need to do that. This is a nice autocracy, it's autocracy 2.0 and it can really export itself, it can clone itself. A lot of other countries which don't know which way to go can find this model attractive, you know. It's really cool. My case in the European Court of Human Rights, you know, and it's going to be decided was the State right to imprison me or did they really violate my rights? You know, I'm out of jail, still no decision. And the decision, someone was sentenced for eight years, he was released after decision of European Court of Human Rights in four years and the punishment was the European court decided that government should pay 28,000 euros to this journalist for being unjustly, illegally imprisoned and spending in jail four years. I can imagine looking at the faces of our, you know, government leaders paying this 28,000, you know, euros and basically laughing probably, you know, that if this is a price for us to go global, you know, on European level and then global and then really, really sell this as a model, as the way to live and exist, then I think here is something wrong and I think that we should pay more attention to I call it uninteresting story, like because you Azerbaijan is not extremely bad or not extremely good. It's average if you take the world autocracies. So it kind of can become a model and once it gets seen and tolerated, then I think we can start having real programme. So my question to the audience is what can be done actually about this new phenomenon of autocracy 2.0? What can be done about countries who are not extremely bad, but, you know, are actually representing not a good example for other countries, you know, to follow and to develop Internet freedom and human rights policies. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And also for introducing a concept of autocracy 2.0. Never heard that before. (Laughs.) It's certainly an interesting testimony and much food for thought. Nicolas, could you give the microphone to our last speaker, Theresa Swinehart from Verizon, please. >> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you. Oh. I think that's working okay. Yes. Fantastic. It's a very unique environment to try to talk. First, my apologies for having to step out briefly and for having missed parts of the earlier discussion. When I was first asked to join for this session, I was struggling a little bit to think about what to say and then I started to read and, you know, sit on the plane and talk to people and various other things and I was really struck by the fact that the Internet and human rights and the shared values are actually much stronger than I had actually thought about in the past. In part, the shared values of how the Internet was formed which was touched upon earlier, the areas around transparency,

the fact that the Internet system and the decentralized nature by itself is -- creates a checks and balances mechanism. There's transparency in how things are functioning, how the networks are functioning, how the -- where the servers are, things of that sort, and this checks and balances also enables that there's work-arounds when there's barriers to situations. And I think what's been clear and noticeable is that barriers don't scale at this point, and that efforts to create barriers have found work-arounds and the decentralized nature of the Internet itself has likewise done that. The other things that I just want to throw into the discussion itself would be the value of the Internet and what it's done to not only provide services and opportunities to users worldwide, but actually become a mechanism to better enable the protection of human rights. The awareness and the ability to communicate more rapidly when there are human rights violations occurring and get that out to a wider audience through the media, I think we've all seen over the past times. I remember prior to -- in my former life, when I was doing some human rights work and the atrocities in Rwanda were occurring, it was through a telephone communication that we received notifications in the human rights organisation I was working at. Today we get a tweet or we get a video clipping or we get something else. So I think it's a quite powerful medium, so it provides both opportunities for services and consumers, but it also provides a way for awareness around issues or atrocities. But I think there's also another factor. I know here we're touching on civil and political rights, primarily, in this discussion. But we also have economic, social and cultural rights, and the Internet itself has become quite an enabler in this space, and the more we enable and allow for investment, innovation and opportunities, the more we can also contribute towards the economic, social and cultural rights opportunities, whether it's e-health or education or other initiatives, and these are also enabling forces. And there's clearly roles that are shifting with responsibilities. It was touched upon with service providers earlier, and so I think the important dialogue that needs to occur now is how to ensure that we don't unintentionally pull in the wrong players to have responsibilities for issues that we would not have done in the offline world, and I think that's an important dialogue to be having because with that, we can also ensure that we retain the rights and responsibilities in the right locations and allow the Internet to continue to be a model not just for our own economic growth, but also for the protection of rights and the enabling of rights.

>> MARKUS KUMMER: Yes. We also have the remote panelist. I see our remote moderator's putting up their signs. Is it our remote panelist from -- do you have other remote questions? Microphone. >> Yes. Can you hear me? Yeah. So we have a remote participant from the Austrian Institute for International Affairs. His name is Phillip and he would like to know what the panel what could be the best method to connect the Internet and the human rights with the multi-stakeholder approach, and does the panel think that the focus should be on the international covenant that is supervised by the Human Rights Council rather than being an intergovernmental human rights committee which does not have a -- >> MARKUS KUMMER: A very specialized question. Anything else from the remote friends? >> NICOLAS SEIDLER: Nothing else. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Do we have contact with Jean-Paul? He was listed as a remote panelist. >> NICOLAS SEIDLER: He's actually not online. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. But I thought he had sent in some -- something in -- well, anyway. I'll leave you to sort that out. >> NICOLAS SEIDLER: Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: And I wonder, are there any other questions. Lee was actually trying to jump in on something, and I wonder also whether you would like to comment on a little bit on the role of the Council of Europe and the Court of Human Rights. Microphone for Lee. >> LEE HIBBARD: I think that just building on what Theresa said, in terms of responsibilities for protecting and preserving the open architecture of the Internet, equally in a way, you know, human rights on the Internet, governments have a role, companies have a role, that's becoming more and more clear, evident. Users have a role. We all have a role. It's shared space. We keep saying that. But we all at the same time have limited capacities to do things. I mean I don't think it's feasible to think that a country, a government can guarantee all human rights of all citizens in their country at all times. There's just too many things happening. So they have to make their best efforts of course, but in all of the work over the last years in the Council of Europe, it's been about a shared approach with companies, and with users for that matter and other communities. And so it's becoming very clear that we all have roles and we all have responsibilities and we have to do best efforts to make sure that we do things together and that we understand that we can't shirk those responsibilities. Now, okay, so up to a state to go before the European Court of Human Rights, of course. It's not a company. It's not a -- it

can be an individual of course seeking that right. But it's very clear that states will have to work with companies more and more and more, much more regularly I think, I believe, to ensure that we have the freedom and we understand the nuances, that decisions are made by the Courts and decisions are made in policy and regarding, you know, future work together, whatever with principles, global principles, etc., much more closely if we're really going to, you know, openly transparently, inclusively protect the Internet, preserve its functioning, make it ongoing, but do no harm to the Internet, do no transboundary harm, I don't think we're quite there yet in making sure those best efforts, all those actors are there. Leaders talk about rules for the road, state-to-state responsibilities, those are things to come. So I think those responsibilities include preserving the architecture of the Internet, as -- as a major catalyst for human rights exercises of your rights and freedoms. The duality, as we said, is disappearing. Thank you. >> SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you, Markus. Just as an idea, when as an academic one looks at a model, there are a couple of parameters that one would want in any system because, first, you would want to identify a problem statement and you'd also want to understand what is it that we're trying to fix and how then do we best go about it. In any format, especially one that's looking to address the Internet because the speed of development and the challenges as a lot of our panelists and discussants have already mentioned, are far more and they're far more faster. To get any intergovernmental body to react, not just to the specific problem statement, but because we're having this conversation clearly in the light of the debate between the new ITRs that are being written and the concept of the impending WCIT conference and the ITU, it is important to always remember if you're not part of that discussion, if it's not truly multi-stakeholder and if it is not inclusive, if I'm not in the room where I would be heard or if I'm not part of the most crucial meetings where our whole future is going to be written and decided and I do not have either access or recourse, I would be deeply disconcerted and extremely uncomfortable being part of such a process or supporting such a process as a mechanism for control. So, one, I need to find out what's broken and what it s it that we're trying to fix here, and second, these are issues when we're looking at either cybersecurity or when we're look at enhanced regional cooperation, a lot of that is about trust, and that trust does not come through in remote locations in Geneva. That trust comes through a lot of governments sitting together and spending time, so a lot of bilaterals, a lot of issues at a local level. I've sort of found that's -- because India is unique in its problem statements and we've been able to do this right because we've

looked at issues locally. So that's just my concern there. When I'm looking at an inter-governmental body which does not have scope for any possibility of multi-stakeholder engagement, I will come back very, very uncomfortable. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. That is what I sense is sort of a key notion among participants in the IGF, that whatever we do going forward, it needs to be in a multi-stakeholder mode, and this is basically also what is in the agenda. If this is part of Internet governance, Internet governance has to be done in an open, transparent fashion in a multi-stakeholder mode. Now, unfortunately the traditional body such as the Human Rights Council is anything but. I had the privilege of attending last February's session which was a discussion on the Internet, and I was one I think of four non-governmental speakers, and I think in the end only three were able to speak because there was not enough time. But it was government after government after government, and the general tone of the discussion I can assure you is slightly different than it is here. There was a lot of talk on the responsibility and far less on freedom of expression. Anyway, we have great participation here and I think I would like to hear from others as well. Yes, please. There are two gentlemen. Can you -- he was first, so can you go to the back of the room. Please introduce yourselves when you speak so that we know who you are. >> AUDIENCE: Hello. My name is Margi. I'm the director of international online advocacy, an NGO newly founded in Indonesia. Regarding the censorship, before Internet -- but during Internet era, we no have private censorship, intellectual property best censorship, but also in some country also there is censorship by society. For example, in Indonesia, someone is jailed after writing a Facebook status saying that the -- after a Facebook status, and then bring him to police and then he brought to jail for two and a half years. The government at the beginning didn't censor him, but the society, his Facebook friends who did that. If you are like in Indonesia, where majority of Indonesia society is Muslim, if you say something about another's rights, the majority will silence you, giving offensive comment. So do you think the Internet enable us to speak, microphone may make us speak here, but the society also try to silence us, not only the government, not only the companies, but also the society. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. That's an interesting testimony, but it is very much what we always say. We see there will be more and more people coming online and the 4 billion who are not online yet are usually in the developmental world with different societal and cultural values, also religious values, and this then come to the forefront and obviously with the Internet

everything happens at the same time and it does become also known to the outside world and governments find it difficult to cope with that, and do societies as well. There was a gentleman with the blue t-shirt there. >> AUDIENCE: I am from Egypt. I see countries undergoing political transition to democracy, like Egypt is doing this and Libya, have a great opportunity to take Internet as a human rights, as a serious -- as a serious thing. But, you know, those rules from other regimes are still there and new governments will say, okay, like we -- at the same time these laws are benefiting them. Like if the government sees that this law is good for them to control everything and to stay in power, how can we encourage them to go for more openness to protect Internet as a human rights, how can we encourage them to do this? This is my question. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: I don't have the answer to your question, which is a good question. Does anyone have the answer to the question? Or are there other questions? I mean can you think about the question. But anyway, I mean Egypt has -- okay. Joy has an answer. Egypt has proof that the Internet is a formidable agent of change. And, Joy, please. >> JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you. I'm not sure I've got "the" answer, but I have a response, and it picks up on a point also that Emin made, and I think one thing I've heard a lot of in this IGF is that sort of we have the same rights online that we have offline. And this fundamental idea of, albeit that it may be a short-lived duality, that our rights apply online. But I think the point that's being raised in the discussion is that the context in which those rights are exercised offline also affects their experience online. So that if one is in, you know, repressive regimes which are using sort of autocracy 2.0 tactics to silence and create chilling effects, then we won't see the power of the Internet realized. And I was at a meeting in -- at Highway Africa recently where, you know, some of the African activists were saying we haven't actually seen the Arab Spring, to call it that, replicated across the world. We haven't. And why haven't we? And it's because in part that, you know, autocratic regimes are now alive too and aware of the ways in which the Internet is being used and the variety of Democratic movements and are actively engaged in technical responses to resist that. Both online and offline. So I think part of the answer to those questions is that we must actually connect our offline human rights activism and concerns about the role of law and democracy and rights violations with our dialogue on Internet rights, and with our dialogue on the technical, you know, the profound policy

implications of interference with the technical protocols on which the Internet is based. So in response to Maria's question, for example, can business prioritize certain packets of data, I guess the question is it depend which is packets. And there as soon as we begin to discriminate, human rights issues will inevitably arise. I just wanted to respond to the remote participant because I think that was an excellent question in relation to the Human Rights Committee because they're quite right, quite correct that the Human Rights Committee is actually more multi-stakeholder than the Human Rights Council because they are independent experts who are appointed, who are academics, who are from different fields. It's not as multi-stakeholder as the IGF, but I think it's an interesting and well-made point that there may be other places than the Human Rights Council to pursue this. Finally, I'd just say that the Azerbaijan government was one of the governments which affirmed or signed on to the Human Rights Council resolution, that the same human -- that the same human rights we have offline apply online. And one of the questions that's being asked in the human rights round-table tomorrow morning is what are the implications of that resolution for the IGF. For example, should the IGF be looking to input something back to the Human Rights Council or others that are answering this question from our multi-stakeholder discussions? I think it's an interesting idea, and perhaps one we might want to get thoughts about. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for that. The IGF as such would be rather difficult to give a message back, but there can be a message coming out of the IGF. And that round-table is an event that is taking place in the framework of the IGF. And that is certainly worthwhile thinking to have some message out of that on this important issue, and as there are so many workshop on human rights, it's certainly something worth thinking about. Other comments? You would like to say, yes, Subi, please. >> SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you. I couldn't agree more with you. We recently had a bit of a controversy. This is about a book of political science that students in a secondary school. It had a small cartoon which was drawn about 40 years ago of an important leader who represented a particular community and is considered to be the father of the Indian Constitution. We had him on -- we were trying to say because Indian Constitution's been one of the most expansive ones, the process of drafting the Constitution was a little slow. This book was in circulation for about six years, the cartoon was about 40 years old. Somebody picked up the cartoon circulated it over the Internet, this was then telecast live across several state public service broadcasting channels. For the first time, what this managed to

do was, one, draw the attention of Parliamentarians to actually look at textbooks in India for the first time and, second, you had consensus across all party lines. It had never happened on any issue, saying that because -- and this is the election year, we're very close. So a certain community should not be offended. And I couldn't agree more with Joy when she says that offline activism has to support online activism because we are clearly looking at the strength of these ties. So you can -- you can vent and you can express your feelings, whatever and however much you would like to. So one of the things that we did was to go to a professor who was part of the committee, and this is part of the Human Resource Ministry, so this was a government textbook and you had the government taking a stand against the textbook and you had everyone coming together. So we went to student communities and we got engaged with them and then we build mobility and opinion that this possibly cannot happen. I think human rights and the right to be read and what was also happening was the right of academics to teach what they would like to teach, and this was a extremely well-drafted process. But there's always this danger that governments will cut off their nose to spite the face, even if they have to throw the baby out with the bath water, they will do it. So aligning as a community and taking this forward offline and getting mainstream media to also support online activism becomes very, very crucial. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you very much. Other comments? Would you like? Yes, Nicolas. >> AUDIENCE: Yeah. Just a question. I mean I think we've heard already that there is an interesting parallel in the way that, I mean, the Internet is really about empowerment, and then can you -- can we consider that the way that Governments deal with technology reflects the way they deal with empowerment in the offline world. So is there, you know, a mirror in the way governments use technology and deal with it by the way they deal with people's empowerment offline. So that is maybe a question for the panelists. >> MARKUS KUMMER: That's an interesting question. It's also a good question. Governments I think on the whole are always a step back when it comes the technology -- comes to technology, if not two. Technologists are ahead and the governments are usually late in adapting. I don't know whether anybody has an answer. Comments? Are there comments? Questions? If not, then I would like to give the opportunity to our panelists to make -- would you like to say -- (Inaudible). >> AVRI DORIA: Yes. Thank you. This is Avri speaking. I actually found that the discussion -- found the discussion interesting and at times disturbing. I think that the minimum

that I sort of expect from governments is to help uphold the rights, so that what I hear of Indonesia I guess it was Indonesia or whatever government it may be not protecting an OGBT comment from a crowd but actually imprisoning the person to be something, when you say who can do something about it, I'm not really sure. And it's one of those problems where, you know, you expect the government to behave better, you expect the people as we saw in the Arab Spring to be when the people were out in the street, they're trying to convince their government to behave better, not to behave worse. One of the things that come up, and I think that this comes back to the stemming from the paper is that the Internet is really meant to be a force for knowledge, a force for freedoms, a force for human rights, yet in developing technology, we often develop technology that has the ability to impact favorably or the ability to impact negatively, and I guess in that kind of case, I sort of expect it to be incumbent on the businesses that make a lot of money from technology to not make a lot of money on selling it to those who would use it to impact negatively. And -- and that's when you start getting to multi-stakeholder responsibilities and each of us having responsibilities within our own role. As a technologist, when I'm wearing that hat, I need to be very careful that I don't create technology, in fact, just to step back to almost an anecdotal, I was reading a document that I had written years ago and it was a routing document and I had talked about a requirement to be able to trace every packet from where it came from, and that I thought was important so that I could -- we could maintain the system. In reading it later, it all of a sudden occurred to me, and it makes it possible for a government to trace what everyone says. And so I think the last thing I'd like to say is that when we are creating technology, either in terms of creating protocols or in terms of creating and selling products, we need to measure the impact of what we are doing and take care. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you very much for this. Maria, do you have a few words? >> MARIA HALL: Yeah, thank you very much. I actually got a lot of thoughts from -- by listening to all of you. Very, very interesting perspectives. I'm not sure actually I really got your -- got your question right, but as I understand it, it's like if the governments are further ahead with the technology, that would actually make them have better tools to -- to surveillance or I didn't get your question, so really I'm sorry. >> AUDIENCE: What I meant is that, I mean across the world you see different governments in the offline world, they deal differently with people's empowerment. Offline freedoms are not the same in different countries, and my reflection was about is

this -- is the way they consider users' freedoms offline reflected in the way they tackle technology online. (Inaudible). >> MARIA HALL: I get it. I think it's a bit of a tricky question. I'm going to twist it a little bit by saying that in many cases, well, in some cases at least, it has to do with governments not being maybe behind or slow like Markus was saying, but maybe that as well, actually, but more like they don't always understand how Internet works. So maybe even -- even in some cases, and I'm not saying to violate the human rights here, I'm talking about other ways that it could be like stopping criminal activities or something like that, in other senses, then they don't always use the most efficient tools to do that. For instance, the roles of intermediaries, I can just give a little anecdote. This was a few years ago, but I was talking to one of my colleagues at the Ministry of Justice, and because we were talking about, well, he's on the police side of the government, and he said, well, of course we have to, the operators need to do something and need to cooperate and the operators are -- I said but what do you mean the operator. Are they more than one operator? I mean Internet has a lot of layers and all those layers are owned and have different responsibilities and there are different parties. So in many cases actually it has to do with governments not really understanding how Internet works, and that's one of the roles I -- well, maybe I put myself in that Internet role, but I'm trying to spread the word how Internet really works in my government together with my dear colleagues outside of government, of course, in a true multi-stakeholder way, of course. (Laughs.) But well anyway, so, however, I would like to say, of course having really high knowledge about how technology works also could be used in a, what do you say, bad way, to actually use all this fantastic technology actually to trace people and so on. So it's kind of both ways. Thank you. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. I just noticed I've been extremely bad at time management and I don't think I'll be able to give to all our speakers an opportunity for a last word. But I think all your remarks are very pertinent and also what Avri said and I think if governments behave badly offline, they will also behave badly online, and that is an answer to an equal asked questions. If governments are enlightened offline, then I presume they will also be enlightened online. There may be some glitches, as Maria said, they don't understand the technology properly or they don't understand the unintended consequences, they have what we like to call knee-jerk reactions. We have a problem, okay, let's deal with it. I remember the London riots last year when there were some politicians who said, oh, shut

down Facebook or -- that's a knee-jerk reaction to a problem which should not happen in a democratic government. But the example cited by our Indonesian colleague I think because the Indonesian government presumably would do the same thing offline, they did that also when it happens online. But because it is online, everybody knows about it, and that is the difference. A lot of these human rights violations happens, but they were less known because they were more behind closed doors. Now with Internet, it opens a big, wide window and everybody knows everything almost instantly. And that is also a big opportunity. Yes, we have to understand there are different societal traditions, but at the same time, I think collectively we do believe in the shared values of human rights and the universal declaration of human rights has been signed by all the member states of the United Nations, and I think this is something we should never forget. I just wonder whether we should give the last word to our journalist from Azerbaijan, lessons learned from this IGF and next steps, please. But you have to be very short. >> EMIN MILLI: No. Actually, I would like to thank you for actually holding this IGF event in Azerbaijan, and I think that you are planning to hold it next year in Indonesia. I think because there is criticism is a say Amnesty International was criticizing IGF for organisers, do we have to hold events like this in authoritarian countries. I think it depends, because there are different levels of authoritarianism and different, you know, bad human right, can be bad, it can be very bad, it can be extremely bad, and it can be unacceptable. So I think that it's good to hold IGF this these countries. I would even insist that you keep on holding this in authoritarian countries, you know, because in America I don't know, in Europe, you have already, you know, a lot of platforms where people can come and speak and discuss these things. But in many countries of the world, you know, like Google organized this big tent event, debate between independent blogger and pro-governmental blogger, you know, that was like doesn't happen here every day, you know. I don't remember when I was last at some event like this in this country. So that's why I want to thank you and I kind of can say repeat my request to write about it, about autocracy 2.0, okay, take it to academia, because once you take it there, I think we have much wider platform and about thinking about solutions. Thank you very much. >> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for this. This was excellent concluding remarks and I would like to thank you. Because this is indeed one of the questions which is forefront in many people's minds, and to know from somebody who is directly concerned that this is seen as positive to come into this country

for the IGF is I think good for us to know. With that, I would like to thank all the speakers, all the panelists, and all the participants who listened to us so patiently. Many thanks. And I would like to invite you to join us in giving a hand to the speakers.(Applause.)(End of session, 4:03 p.m.)

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