Programme for fellows for Day 1 – 3.12.2008

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Hilyard on December 6, 2008 at 4:53am

3.30pm Can Internet Governance Change Global Futures?

The session was an interactive one with groups discussing possible scenarios based on different possibilities of the future for Internet Governance. The groups discussed a Market Forces Scenario where “powerful actors advance economic growth through neo-liberal politics and unregulated markets… no consideration given for the poor and marginalized…no regulation to protect the environment…”; Policy Reform Scenario where “an extrapolation of the present world… vision of sustainable development is a starting point…strong government policies harmonize economic growth…”; Fortress World Scenario where “neither market forces, nor government policies, nor technological innovation have been able to contain social tensions and environmental breakdown…
and The Great Transition Scenario describes “systemic and transformative changes across many societal dimensions, including production, technology and consumption. It implies a deep change of values in human solidarity, quality of life, respect for nature and a change in life styles and consumption patterns…”. For each scenario, groups were asked to discuss: What is our future and how will global crises impact on the management of the Internet? What would be our priority concern in this future?

Before the session began, the introduction explained the scenario approach and why it had been selected by the session organizers to get an outcome through the participation of the attenders. The basic question of this FORECASTING SCENARIO approach is “what different kinds of futures could result from interaction of different forces given assumptions about their values, priorities and limitations?” It is an analytical approach based on stories set around values and relationships. It is generally about developing a support strategy – how to manage uncertainty and to achieve goals in a changing world.

I participated in the Policy Reform scenario group with Rodney and Isaac. I felt the discussion was interesting but some members of our group found it difficult to imagine themselves in the scenario before they could answer the discussion questions. I left at the end of the discussion time to attend another session (which was a letdown.) I should have stayed and listened to the responses from each of the groups and the expert panel who were tasked with giving THEIR answers to the questions for each scenario.

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Permalink Reply by Ogbuagu Ijeoma Chidinma on December 6, 2008 at 5:15am

I really want to say this was a DIFFERENT day for me, so much out of the usual. I started with a lot of anxiety knowing i was to debate for the notion "The internet is to vulnerable to be trusted". It was a challenge for me cause it was a new adventure, but with a lot of encouragement from Ginger, Maureen and all, i took the step. We(Maureen and I) based our agruement on the fact that the internet cannot be TRUSTED due to some major security probems such as

- Denial of service
- Automated vote buying/selling
- Software bugs
- Insider and Outsider attacks
- Man in the middle/spoffing.

The turn out of people was really poor but i believe subsequent debates with a lot more preparation and organisation will be wonderful. I would have loved to say a lot about Ginger but i'll just leave it at "Ginger is good"

At about 11:30am, I attended workshop 23 - Overcoming Obstacles of Effective Digital Education. Unfortunately I could only listen to one speaker before i left to attend to the booth where i spent the rest of the day but I picked a few things from him who looked at the benefits of digital education such as:

- Bridging distance and time
- Expands access to resource materials
- Supports new methods of teaching
- Relationship between students
- Student and teacher
- Teacher to students
- Expand education beyond the classroom

He also outlined some of the ROAD BLOCKS associated with digital education. They are as follows:

- Economic
- Cultural
- Technical
- Institutional
- Legal
- Scope

The bit i witnessed was an eye opening presentation because i began to see digital education in a light i had never bothered to look.

I will like to end this by saying the meeting this night was awesome. I respect whoever thought about it.

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Permalink Reply by Mwende Njiraini on December 8, 2008 at 12:42pm

You can find the presentation on Towards an open governance of the DNS system at: http://net4d.org/index1.html

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Permalink Reply by Rasha on December 27, 2008 at 4:02pm

Hi Charity ,

regarding to ITU report about that hotline with 3 digits , and the 10 Million calls received , do you or anybody know what kind of action taken regarding to those calls? and on which standards , legislations or rules been treated ?

thank you

Charity Gamboa said:

BEST PRACTICE FORUM: Child Online Protection

Here is a rundown of this session moderated by ITU.

A general overview of the session presented some observations that children are willing to share information in return for good services. This means that children are very gullible to child predators. Due to this pressing problem, there is a need to develop a coordinated global network for online safety. By protecting children online from abuse would build online confidence with regards to security.

In line with this, ITU reported that in June of this year, a new harmonized number 116 111 is the CHI or Child Hotline International (the speaker spoke of the hotline number quite so fast so I am not particularly sure if this is a 116 OR 111 number or the hotline number is the combination of both 3 digit number). Reports indicated that there are over 10 million calls in child hotlines that were received in a year. It was observed that sometimes children call hotlines because they were abused or just want to talk to somebody with regards to problems that would make them contemplate suicide. So having a single line will make the hotline more widely known.

ITU also reported that a few weeks back, they launched a child online safety project endorsed by 101 governments. It was noted that it was not an easy feat making governments agree all together so it was a great effort, thus, facilitating international cooperation. Plus, having a unified stand would help identify potential risk factors. Facilitating membership of 191 governments and 700 private entities would facilitate standardization, more development work – all these are great focal points for creating partnerships on a global basis. Furthermore, educational institutions are tapped to help minimize the risks by including in the curricula lesson plans about child online safety. It is encouraged to share our concerns and develop necessary procedure so children can definitely benefit from this technology.

eNASCO – European NGO Alliance for Child Safety Online – talked about the need to address this concern on child online safety in different angles and in different legislations applicable for each state. eNASCO also gave a report on how to block sites. They informed the audience that police database could contain 8000+ URLs containing illegal sites. Then the ISP’s are furnished with this URL list of illegal sites from the national police. When the user writes the URL, it is automatically blocked.

To conclude this report, “Child Helpline International” is a PHONE and outreach service for children. With 3 to 4 digit number being applied nationally for each country can ease access. Paragraph 2 of the WSIS Tunis Agenda would remind of this need.

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Permalink Reply by Charity Gamboa-Embley on December 28, 2008 at 3:40pm

Hi Rasha! Thanks for the question.

Those 10 million calls received were not all about online abuse. I remember the speaker saying that in those calls, there were various cases like children just wanting to talk to someone or those children contemplating suicide which is something that may have been a reaction to a previous problem that is not necessarily related to online abuse. It was just a fact that was presented.

I am not aware of any policies or legislation arising from this hotline on a global basis but I do know that each country has their own regulatory bodies who are responsible for any legal action towards these incidents. The purpose of introducing the hotline was to come up with a global network. Let me highlight what I wrote in my report:

"...not an easy feat making governments agree all together so it was a great effort, thus, facilitating international cooperation. Plus, having a unified stand would help identify potential risk factors. Facilitating membership of 191 governments and 700 private entities would facilitate standardization, more development work – all these are great focal points for creating partnerships on a global basis..."

I think the real issue here is to come up with a global policy. I remember in the IGCBP mailing list in Google about a discussion on a global legislation. Numerous reactions were presented - some say different countries deal with different problems so legislation would be unique for each country. Plus it was also pointed out that we need to educate ourselves and our law-enforcement agencies on how to deal with online problems like child online abuse. This is solely the reason why the hotline is a big step in this process.

Also, in my report, I mentioned that "...eNASCO – European NGO Alliance for Child Safety Online – talked about the need to address this concern on child online safety in different angles and in different legislations applicable for each state...." What do you think about this? :)

Regards,
Charity

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