{"id":355,"date":"2010-06-21T03:13:19","date_gmt":"2010-06-21T03:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rigf.asia\/?page_id=355"},"modified":"2024-01-25T06:49:59","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T06:49:59","slug":"aprigf-roundtable-june-16th-2010-session-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/event.rigf.asia\/2010\/aprigf-roundtable-june-16th-2010-session-3\/","title":{"rendered":"APrIGF Roundtable \u2013 June 16th, 2010: Session 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emerging Issues: Role of Civil Society in Internet Governance<\/span><\/p>\n

________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

REAL TIME TRANSCRIPT: Emerging Issues: Role of Civil Society in Internet Governance
\n APrIGF
\n 14:00-15:30, Wednesday 16 June 2010
\n Hong Kong<\/p>\n

DISCLAIMER: Due to the inherent difficulties in capturing a live
\n speaker’s words, it is possible this realtime transcript may
\n contain errors and mistranslations. An edited version of the
\n realtime transcript which amends the inherent errors, will
\n be posted later. LLOYD MICHAUX and APrIGF accept no
\n liability for any event or action resulting from the
\n contents of this transcript.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

>>: This session is about the role of civil society in
\ninternet governance, so may I now invite our moderator,
\nMr Charles Mok, chairman of Internet Society Hong Kong,
\nto introduce the panel for us.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: As always, a difficult thing to do, to try
\nto get your attention and your brain back after lunch,
\nbut we have a fabulous panel here that I think will be
\nhelpful in the process.<\/p>\n

First of all, actually, this morning, I was chairing
\nthe discussion that we had about some of the more
\ntechnical issues, internationalised domain names,
\ncritical internet resources and so on.<\/p>\n

Actually, in fact, we are seeing that the process
\nand the discussion, international discussion about
\ninternet governance gradually, over the last 10 or more
\nyears, moving more from the technical issues to a lot of
\nthe issues that really has to do with our society.<\/p>\n

Civil society, social movement in particular.<\/p>\n

Today, we have assembled a panel from all around
\nAsia, to give us their views and feedback on this topic.<\/p>\n

The topic that we are going to be discussing is
\nabout the role of civil society in internet governance,
\nbut we were discussing about this topic over lunch.<\/p>\n

The way we look at it is even though we are trying
\nto get ourselves prepared to provide input to internet
\ngovernance from the civil society’s view, in fact, it
\nall started with the internet affecting the way that
\nsociety runs itself and in particular, civil society has
\nbeen seeing a lot of impact from the use of internet in
\nthe way that they do carry out many of their courses and
\npromote many of their courses and so on.<\/p>\n

I think, right now, what we are looking at is how do
\nwe deal with this buy directional relationship.<\/p>\n

Then, taking stock at what has been happening and
\nproviding feedback to the institutional and other
\narrangements relating to internet governance, from civil
\nsociety.<\/p>\n

I think hopefully, maybe, that will be what we will
\nbe trying to discuss today.<\/p>\n

We were also trying to figure out what would be the
\nbest order of speaking, for all of our panellists, let
\nme introduce them very briefly with their title, when it
\ncomes to turn that they will be speaking.<\/p>\n

So we don’t take up too much of the time. Their
\nfull bio is already in the package anyway.<\/p>\n

Our first speaker, Issac, sorry to maybe surprise
\nyou a little bit, but we have decided you should be
\ngoing first.<\/p>\n

Issac Mao, our good friend, he’s been very active
\nand prominent blogger and internet business person from
\nChina and Issac is now also a fellow with the Berkman
\nCentre in Harvard university.<\/p>\n

Issac, if you are ready with your PowerPoint, I’ll
\nlet you go first.<\/p>\n

>>Isaac Mao: Good afternoon.<\/p>\n

Today I’m trying to use maybe to figure out some of
\nmy observations on the internet governance models, what
\nI experience in the past 15 years, you know, from since
\nI become an internet user and then a blogger about seven
\nyears ago and how to apply some methodologies to my
\nresearch and what’s the current status of the internet
\ngovernance landscape in China, briefly.<\/p>\n

Let’s try to recall those early days of internet,
\nbecause there is no concept of internet governance at
\nall. There are only pioneers in this landscape and we
\nsee they were actively trying to define their own rules
\nand try to define their norms, like those early stages.<\/p>\n

Then we have the definition of internet users. It’s
\nbecoming larger and larger population and quickly
\nadopted by the whole society.<\/p>\n

Someone came in, it’s called government, because
\nthey see the emerging of the information flow in the
\nsociety from the internet usages and they are trying to
\napproach this new stuff from their traditional
\nmethodologies.<\/p>\n

Then we see that some of the governments, especially
\nin China, they are trying to define themselves as
\na position beyond the internet users, to try to outlook
\nthe whole landscape from their understanding, but they
\nare still separated from this whole sphere.<\/p>\n

Some governments, they are trying to define some
\nrules, although they are not so — you know,
\nknowledgeable about the whole internet and all the
\nusers.<\/p>\n

So it’s a kind of early governance we see. It’s one
\ndirectional, governance based on existing maybe social
\nrules and regulations.<\/p>\n

We see those kind of confrontations between the
\ngovernment and the internet users, because the internet
\nuserses, they are trying to set up their own options and
\ndefine their kind of rules, like the P to P file
\ntransferring.<\/p>\n

Many, many places we can see that the confrontation
\nbetween the existing laws and regulations and the game
\nrules defined by the internet users, this confrontations
\nalso raised up a lot of debate and dialogues.<\/p>\n

That’s a good thing from the evolution.<\/p>\n

Wait. We see those businesses interests came in
\nalso and the government, they found a very good new
\nposition to try to control those businesses in some
\ncountries, especially in China.<\/p>\n

We see many internet businesses. They have to
\nfollow those rules from the government. Either it is
\nwritten rules or hidden rules.<\/p>\n

The battle becomes between the business and the
\ninternet users now and the government try to escalate
\nthemselves in the top level of managing role.<\/p>\n

But internet users won’t just stay in their
\nposition. They want to try to challenge the
\nregulations, try to challenge those rules from the
\ngovernment.<\/p>\n

They bypass the businesses to try to directly talk
\nto the government in different platforms, such as IGF.
\nThat’s something we see for Chinese internet users,
\nbecause they don’t have so many direct channels to talk
\nto government. Instead, they go to overseas platforms
\nlike IGF and ICANN meetings or maybe some other
\ninternational forums, to talk to their officials.
\nThat’s very interesting thing.<\/p>\n

If you’re interested, you can see some kind of
\nsamples.<\/p>\n

We see this kind of model is not so adequate to try
\nto really have some kind of ideal internet governance
\nmodels.<\/p>\n

So I suggest that we can try this model, that engage
\nthose three parties together with internet users and
\nmore and more conducted users, with businesses and
\ngovernment, they are setting themselves through triangle
\nposition and the government can have more and more
\nvariety channels to talk to internet users, at the same
\ntime business and government have the biodirectional
\nchannels to talk to each other.<\/p>\n

We are still like this kind of practices all the
\ntime.<\/p>\n

But the best model in the future maybe in the next
\nfew years, I try to envision is that the government and
\nbusiness become part of the internet users as well. So
\nwhen we talk about the e-inclusion or e-engagement, we
\nare always trying to, I mean, for the government, we are
\ntrying to separate ourselves from the internet users.
\nWe are trying to outlook the internet users.<\/p>\n

But actually, I think the e-inclusion should be
\nredefined as e-connect, so the government and business,
\nthey are all part of the internet users. They are all
\npart of the trying to define themselves as the inside
\nthe system, instead of being excluded from.<\/p>\n

So that’s the model part I want to raise to give
\npeople an abstract concept.<\/p>\n

But back to the real world, in China, we see a lot
\nof confrontations between internet users and the
\ngovernment.<\/p>\n

As I showed it’s almost like in very early stage,
\nthat the government want control the whole internet and
\nthe internet users try to confront back and they try
\nto — but they didn’t see any effective channels to talk
\nto each other.<\/p>\n

When the business came in, the business tried to
\nsatisfy the government a lot to secure their business
\nbenefit and that’s the case about the Google case, which
\nGoogle.cn try to satisfy the government for about three
\nto four years, but eventually, they found that they
\ncannot sustain this kind of satisfaction, because the
\ncommand from the government come in every day, by
\ntelephones, by messages, to try to push Google.cn to
\ncensor some new key words or new rules, criteria and
\nthey cannot sustain this model, because for Google, the
\ncompany, they cannot have a lot of people to follow up
\nthis kind of rules with very high salary. But for some
\nChinese companies Baidu and Sina, they can do a similar
\nthing, because they can pay very cheap labours to comply
\nthe censorship rules.<\/p>\n

So for the China government, I think they gracefully
\nunderstand the market and try to control the market very
\nwell, but they ignore a lot from the internet users.<\/p>\n

So just this month, back to June 8th (this month,
\nback to June 8, the China government from the central
\ngovernment news administration office, they publish the
\nChina internet, the internet in China white paper.<\/p>\n

If you look into the paper, it seems very well
\nexplained, their philosophies and positions and
\nstrategies to manage internet.<\/p>\n

For example, like in the part 3, we can see that the
\ntitle is guaranteeing citizens freedom of speech on the
\ninternet.<\/p>\n

They illustrate some data here, some facts.<\/p>\n

I use quotes for these facts, because actually, the
\nfacts are still under challenge as well.<\/p>\n

It reads like:<\/p>\n

“China’s websites attach great importance to
\nproviding netizens with opinion expression services,
\nover 80 per cent of them providing electronic bulletin
\nservice.”<\/p>\n

On the above part, you can sigh that at the same
\ntime, there were 3.23 million websites running in
\nChina.”<\/p>\n

So roughly, there are over 2.6 million websites in
\nChina provide on line bulletin services. Remember the
\nnumber. I will use it next slide.<\/p>\n

So in China, there are over a million, some
\n220 million bloggers. It’s a big number.<\/p>\n

Then, over 66 of Chinese netizens frequently place
\nposting to discuss various topics and to fully express
\ntheir opinions and represent their interest.<\/p>\n

It’s a great number.<\/p>\n

The conclusion from the white paper is that China
\ninternet users has enough freedom to express themselves.<\/p>\n

Seems good.<\/p>\n

But what came from the internet users? One blogger
\ncalled the passenger, passenger 8, he said that from all
\nthe data from the white paper, we have a calculation
\nhere in the right.<\/p>\n

The equation comes like 2.2, 220 million internet
\nusers, 80 per cent, 60 per cent, 66 per cent frequently
\ncomment on-line and then we got 3 million comments
\na day.<\/p>\n

If K, as the frequency from active users, to say
\nonly half post a day, you know, for those active users,
\nhalf post a day is not so active, but we can use this as
\na presumption. Then we can get the conclusion that
\nalmost 96 per cent of those posts are or comments has
\nbeen deleted from the China internet.<\/p>\n

That’s the conclusion totally contradictory to the
\ngovernment’s results.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to blame the government reports or who
\nwrote the reports. I just want to say that, you know,
\nif such kind of white paper to be published, if we
\nreally validate the data, how can we reach that kind of
\ntotally different conclusions? It’s a kind of question.<\/p>\n

That’s back to my model of internet governance.<\/p>\n

If we really try to have built some kind of
\nconversations or dialogue platform, how can we reach
\nsuch totally different result from one party to another
\nparty?<\/p>\n

This is a kind of question I want to raise.<\/p>\n

So in China, there are still a lot of problems where
\nwe are trying to solve. Not be able to be solved within
\nChina. It’s a kind of issue. We want to build between
\nthe officials, between the governments and the internet
\nusers, but this kind of efforts seems not so easy.<\/p>\n

We are trying to see that this kind of conflicts to
\nbe resolved in a conversational way instead of conflict
\nway.<\/p>\n

Because right now, the China internet users have
\na creative wish to try to confront the government, like
\nthe famous story. So I want to conclude my talk with
\nthis famous grass mud horse video.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: Have all of you heard of this grass mud
\nhorse? Maybe you can explain.<\/p>\n

>>Isaac Mao: The grass mud horse is the internet users call
\nthemselves and the river crab is described as the
\ngovernment. So the river crab try to eat out all those
\ngrasses, the internet users are living in.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: River crab in Putonghua, in China, sound
\nlike harmony, harmonising. So it’s a parody of the
\ngovernment trying to harmonise people speeches and then
\nthey are the river that eat the crab, so the grass mud
\nhorse is the magical creature that kill all the river
\ncrabs. They are all of us, the internet users.<\/p>\n

I think you can do a Google, even on English, for
\ngrass mud horse and you can find a lot of videos and
\nfunny parodys that are very creative Chinese internet
\nusers have put up all over the world.<\/p>\n

Thank you Issac for your great presentation.<\/p>\n

Let us come to the second speaker to give us
\na perspective, but probably very much also along the
\nsame way in has to do quite a bit with probable freedom
\nof expression and so on in his region. From Sean Ang,
\nwho is the executive director of Southeast Asia Centre
\nfor e-Media, for Malaysia.<\/p>\n

>>Sean Ang: My name is Sean Ang. I’m from Southeast Asia
\nCentre for e-Media.<\/p>\n

What I’m going to do here is to look at the question
\nof freedom of expression between the context of civil
\nsociety, so the issue of internet governance.<\/p>\n

I’m working with basically four groups of people.
\nThe first group are the NGOs, second group are the cyber
\nactivists, citizen journalists and bloggers and also the
\nindependent media.<\/p>\n

As you are aware, in the earlier session, Chun from
\nPrachathai were involved in this dissemination of
\nindependent and neutral news and there’s some issues
\nthere. So we also work with other groups such as Misima
\nand Iriwadi from Burma and also with some I would say,
\nundercover groups and also something emerging now is the
\ncitizen journalists.<\/p>\n

In Malaysia, citizen journalists are becoming an
\nimportant player in the whole check and balance
\nmechanism in the governance process and also we try to
\nexpand our work in other countries, to promote the idea
\nof citizen journalism.<\/p>\n

You will notice here, there’s a term called citizen
\njournalist and also blogger. So in some countries, we
\nhave to use the term blogger, because the law and
\nregulation, if you call yourself a journalist, then you
\nare under certain law and regulation. So we will use
\nthe term something broader.<\/p>\n

So before I go to my other slides, let us look into
\nthis interesting slide.<\/p>\n

This slide was taken from Malaysia government,
\nnational IT council.<\/p>\n

Before I became an activist, a media activist,
\nI actually worked for the government, so I roughly know
\ntheir thinking and also know their secrets.<\/p>\n

As you can see here, in this bigger scheme of
\nthings, we are moving towards the future and the future
\nis about knowledge economy, it’s about innovation
\neconomy and the most important characteristic, if you
\nsee our human evolution, is the transition from the use
\nof our hand. If you look at the early phase of our
\nstone age primitive society, we use hand to make tools
\nand hundred dollars for food. There’s a lot of exercise
\nand physical activity.<\/p>\n

Later on, we move into the agriculture period,
\nwhereby we still use maybe a little bit of our brain,
\nbut the focus is still on toiling, farming and there’s
\na lot of physical activities.<\/p>\n

Maybe that’s a reason we can know why in
\nagricultural society, they want to have a lot of
\nchildren, because they need labour to produce economic
\nvalues.<\/p>\n

Now we are moving into a new direction, whereby what
\nmatters is not our energy or our physical contribution
\nany more, but it’s our brain.<\/p>\n

So we are moving towards a new kind of economy. The
\nnext slide, this is hype cycle. If those who are into
\ntechnology, you will notice that, even me, myself, as an
\nindividual, just I got a handphone using this very high
\npixel camera, then in a short time, the android phone is
\nhere. So I bought the android here and Sony Ericsson
\ncome out with a new model, which is even better.<\/p>\n

So the technology is moving very fast and there is
\na high need for people to think creative. So what would
\ndrive the economy now is no longer our physical
\nattributes, but our ideas and innovation.<\/p>\n

If you look at hype cycle last year, there is even
\nan idea management. So there is going to be a fierce
\ncompetition for ideas.<\/p>\n

If you look at some of this prediction, from some of
\nthese people who actually do scenario planning,
\ndeveloped countries in the next 20 years or 30 years
\nwill have short of talent, so actually a lot of people
\nwill, the issue of brain drain will be a serious
\nproblem, whereby many developing countries will start to
\nmigrate to more developed countries.<\/p>\n

Developed countries, more people will become older
\nand there will be lack of talents and there is going to
\nbe fierce competition for people talent.<\/p>\n

So in this, we’ll have a big implication on
\nbusiness. How are you going to get talent? And there
\nis going to be a big implication on the country and
\nsociety.<\/p>\n

Countries that do not provide conducive environment
\nfor progress, the people will migrate. Then you will be
\nleft behind.<\/p>\n

So we go to the next slide.<\/p>\n

What I’m going to show you here is the relationship
\nbetween freedom of expression and why freedom of
\nexpression is important for societal change.<\/p>\n

I think a lot of people out there, even if when
\nI was in Malaysia, people often think of freedom of
\nexpression meaning can say something.<\/p>\n

In our context of civil society groups, people
\nI deal with, freedom of expression means we will be able
\nto express something that matters, that matters most,
\nsomething that matters most.<\/p>\n

There’s a concept, what we call a principle. If you
\ncan address 20 per cent of the problem, then you can
\naddress 80 per cent of the problem.<\/p>\n

We activists, we have discovered that the most
\nimportant issue that we need to address in our society
\nis the issue of political system.<\/p>\n

The issue of governance.<\/p>\n

Because these are the issues that will have big and
\nmajor implication on our society wellbeing.<\/p>\n

Why this is important.<\/p>\n

If you are from a business, you need a conducive
\nbusiness environment for the development of ideas and
\nalso products and services.<\/p>\n

But if you have what we call a government that is
\ncorrupt, whereby there is no transparency and it is
\ndifficult for you to develop, so that is why many
\ninvestors will invest in the countries they have better
\ngovernance and more transparency.<\/p>\n

The second thing is, we need to have a better
\ngovernance system, so that there will be equitable
\nsociety. If there’s no equitable society, then there
\nwon’t be finance.<\/p>\n

What is happening now in Southeast Asia, there is
\na group of government players, they are playing a very
\nactive role to sensor and why they are doing this,
\nbecause they are protecting their interest group of
\nthose political elites.<\/p>\n

For example, in Malaysia, the government, they are
\nfinding out ways to surprise in Thailand, we can see the
\nyellow shirts which are aligned with the monarchy and
\nalso the military groups, they are trying to suppress
\nanother group.<\/p>\n

What’s the reason? Because they want to control the
\nresources.<\/p>\n

I’m giving you an actual example, whereby I’m
\nindirectly involved.<\/p>\n

This is a photograph of the investigation of
\nMalaysiakini, by MCMC.<\/p>\n

We can see that in the case of Malaysia, for
\nexample, we can notice that there are many other issues,
\nvery important, like in the earlier session, we are
\ntalking about this protection of children, we are also
\ntalking about crime, internet crime, people, but what is
\nhappening now in Malaysia is a lot of resources are
\nbeing used to wash over a blogger and so on.<\/p>\n

For example, the last demonstration that I have
\nparticipated, we can see the Malaysia government
\nactually mobilise a lot of the FRO people, sometimes for
\na demonstration of just 206 people, they mobilise up to
\n100 police. So 100 police is looking over
\na demonstration with people with cannedless, to make
\nsure that there’s no riot.<\/p>\n

What’s the implication of this? If you look into
\nThailand, it’s the same thing.<\/p>\n

The government is working at mobilising so many
\npolice and armed forces on peaceful demonstration.<\/p>\n

What is the implication?<\/p>\n

The implication is the resources are being wasted.<\/p>\n

We want the government to use the resources to
\nprotect the business.<\/p>\n

But instead of catching the real criminals, they are
\nnow catching the activists who are fighting for the
\nrights of the people.<\/p>\n

So I give you another example.<\/p>\n

In the case of Malaysia again, it’s related to MCMC.
\nSo this is one example whereby there’s a video of this
\ncould you head protest. So in the case of Malaysia, it
\nis cow head protest.<\/p>\n

They send a team of people, actually I think more
\nthan five people, just to do the investigation process.<\/p>\n

In the case of Malaysia, an issue like this, whereby
\nthe actual protestor, who are insighting riot, are not
\nbeing investigated, but instead they try to kill the
\nmessenger, which is Malaysiakini and this case is still
\non going.<\/p>\n

The most important case in Malaysia is the hunt for
\nRaja Petra. What is happening in Malaysia is Raja Petra
\nhas brought up two important issues.<\/p>\n

No. 1 is to ask for the investigation of our first
\nlady, so whether she’s involved or not in a murder.
\nThey did not accuse her, but she say something is
\nbrewing.<\/p>\n

Can the authority please investigate? If the wife
\nof the programme is somehow involved.<\/p>\n

The second issue is he’s trying to analyse religion,
\nIslam, and to say that, Islam has some weaknesses but
\noverall, it is not the religion that matters, it’s the
\npeople.<\/p>\n

The whole discussion of Islam is within the context
\nof attacking the current ruling government.<\/p>\n

This issue makes Raja Petra high profile target of
\nthe authority and what’s a very important blogger in
\nMalaysia.<\/p>\n

So he has no choice but to escape from Malaysia.<\/p>\n

Because the whole judiciary process is not
\ntransparent, there’s no way that he can get a fair
\ntrial, because in the country like Malaysia, the
\nexecutive also controls the judiciary and also the
\nlegislative.<\/p>\n

This is the same also for other countries.<\/p>\n

So you can see that I’m talking there the Southeast
\nAsia perspective.<\/p>\n

Many things that you think that are not important,
\nit’s important for us, because we are under a different
\nkind of political system.<\/p>\n

So you see the whole idea of the authority now is to
\ncreate a fear culture.<\/p>\n

We can see like in Malaysia, we have Barisan
\nNasional, Singapore the people’s action party, Thailand
\ndemocratic party and also in Burma, state peace and
\ndevelopment counsel of Myanmar.<\/p>\n

How do we go forward from here.<\/p>\n

I think there is urgent and desire and need,
\nimportant for us to create a framework to protect
\ncitizen joinists and bloggers and these are some of the
\nrecommendations. No. 1, how can IGF promote freedom of
\nexpression act?<\/p>\n

No. 2, can we create legal funds to support
\njournalists and bloggers and thirdly to relocate an
\nexiled writer if they are under threats and No. 4, to
\nensure the independent of organisations that control the
\ninternet.<\/p>\n

So the item E, maybe it is more related to internet
\ngovernance, for example, if I were to write anything
\nthat criticise the political system, if I raise it
\nunder.my donation, then I will be in trouble, because
\nI have to get.org or something else registered outside
\nof the country.<\/p>\n

We also need some kind of framework for us to see
\nhow the whole internet governance will infringe on our
\nrights.<\/p>\n

At this moment, we really don’t have any clue.<\/p>\n

For example, a blogger will ask me, Sean, how do we
\nnow if the government is monitoring us? Is there a way
\nfor us to know this answer?<\/p>\n

The second question asked, how do they know if they
\nare not being monitored?<\/p>\n

We need answer like this, so we have a more
\nconducive environment to express ourselves.<\/p>\n

In my first few slides, I’m trying to talk from the
\ncivil society perspective. Now I try to play the hat of
\nthe government.<\/p>\n

What if we also may also consider the situation
\nwhereby there could be abuse. What if the government
\nhave a good intention and they really want to have
\nsocial stability and what if there are certain
\nindividuals from the government are victim of some
\npolitical power play? This could be another scenario.<\/p>\n

In order to — I do not want to be seen as someone
\ncivil society radicals whatsoever, so to be fair to the
\ncivil society, we need some kind of international level
\nombudsman.<\/p>\n

For example, in Thailand, they are accusing some
\nbloggers are terrorists, but are they really terrorists.
\nAt the same time, the people are not certain who is
\nright and who is wrong. So with certain kind of
\ninternational standard for the protection of freedom of
\nexpression.<\/p>\n

Some kind of ombudsman process.<\/p>\n

Maybe this will help a little bit to create the
\nconfidence.<\/p>\n

Why I have mentioned the word ombudsman, because in
\nthe case of Malaysia, for example, there is already some
\ncommissioner, human rights commissioner, and even there
\nis original human rights organisation, but this
\norganisation so far has not produced that kind of
\ninformed.<\/p>\n

People are still distrust this organisation. It is
\nseen as a government tool. Me, as a participant here,
\nit’s the same thing.<\/p>\n

Why I think civil society need a voice, because
\ninternet governance, the whole governance process of
\nthis IGF, is it independent? Do you guys take into
\nconsideration the needs of the people?<\/p>\n

So this is why we want to have a more role here, so
\nwe can play a better check and balance and, of course,
\nI also understand that some of these agenda of internet
\ngovernance has already been set, through an evolution
\nprocess.<\/p>\n

Maybe it focus more or domain name, the
\ninfrastructure, OK, fine, but why not, from today
\nonwards or from this forum onwards, we have a new agenda
\nand this agenda is to look into the relationship between
\nthe government and also its citizenry.<\/p>\n

To conclude my presentation, the theme of this
\nforum, building vibrant communities, realising internet
\npossibilities. This is only possibility if citizens are
\nfully empowered without any fear and we will be able to
\nthink out of the box to challenge current societal
\ndogma.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: Thank you, Sean. Let me introduce our next
\nspeaker, Parminder Jeet Singh. He’s the executive
\ndirector of IT For Change.<\/p>\n

>>Parminder Jeet Singh: Thank you, Charles.<\/p>\n

After two panellists before me have spoken about the
\nway civil society has been functioning in some areas
\nwhich are related close to internet governance or our
\ninternet governance, I would — my intervention here
\nwould deal with broader questions about what is civil
\nsociety in this new domain policy domain of internet
\ngovernance? Because I think and it will also come out
\nas I go through in my points, that this is a very new
\npolicy domain. It’s essentially global. There’s
\nnothing else before that. There are no issues like Sean
\nsaid, interaction between government and its on-line
\ncitizenship, which looks like a different kind of
\ninterrelationship than with governments with their other
\ncitizens.<\/p>\n

Issac spoke about how governments should become
\na user and then the government system should be
\nredefined from within, which is quite a radical way to
\nlook at it.<\/p>\n

But the least it says is it’s a hugely different
\npolicy domain.<\/p>\n

I would like to kind of bring forward some
\nopen-ended issues and questions about what is the shape
\nand what is the role of civil society in this new policy
\ndomain. It also, accordingly, has been changing a lot.<\/p>\n

Mostly, they’re open-ended issues. I may have some
\nperspective, but I do realise that there are other
\nperspectives, so they are more issues of discussion
\nrather than unilateral presentation here.<\/p>\n

I would try to talk about three things. One is the
\nnature of internet governance as a new policy space.<\/p>\n

Then the role of civil society in it and then the
\ncontext, which is multi-stakeholders on which has
\nevolved as a new form of governance, which is evolving
\nas a new form of governance, with very unclear and
\nI think that needs also to be inspected.<\/p>\n

The first thing I would like to say is that
\ngenerally, we understand internet governance as the
\nforces, the policies, which shape the technologies,
\nwhich we deal with and not so much really about the way
\nthose technologies get used.<\/p>\n

So I’m just making a separation and I think the line
\nis not very sharp, but seeing things in categories is
\nsometimes useful.<\/p>\n

We know that the technologies which we use are
\nconstructed by human minds and hands, by interests, by
\nmotives, good, bad, mixed.<\/p>\n

Therefore, every time something is shaping the
\ntechnologies and they are not given and a lot of people
\nin the morning and now have spoken about how these
\ntechnologies got initially shaped, because there were
\nsome good people with good intentions and they came up
\nwith a very open architecture.<\/p>\n

Probably bad people were not taking notice at that
\ntime and that set up a platform on which we have built
\nthis internet.<\/p>\n

More and more interests have come on board and
\nthere’s a lot of negotiation of interests, on how these
\ntechnologies get shaped and the internet of tomorrow, 10
\nyears down the line, would be an internet which would be
\nshaped by a power struggle among many forces here.<\/p>\n

Internet governance really, as I understand, deals
\nwith what shapes the internet. To deal with it does not
\nmean that we are looking for a centralised method of
\nshaping the internet. It just takes talk of the forces
\nwhich shape the internet and looks at the public
\ninterest implications of that and where necessity
\nintervenes in the interests of the public, to see that
\nthe internet that gets shaped is the internet we all
\nwant.<\/p>\n

I see internet governance as the technology shaping
\nspace and public interest intervention in that
\ntechnology shaping space.<\/p>\n

That would bring me to the next point, that I think
\nthere is a civil society which is community volunteerism
\nof the highest kind and we are not talking of that civil
\nsociety here.<\/p>\n

Again, we are also not talking about a civil society
\nwhich is more organised to assist service delivery down
\nthe line. Since we defined internet governance as
\na policy space, we are talking of civil society’s role
\nin a policy space and that role is of bringing and
\nparticipation and bringing in points of view.<\/p>\n

So my response to the principal question posed by
\nthe organisers as the title of this panel, the role of
\ncivil society in internet governance, is that primarily,
\nit is to bring in participation as points of view.<\/p>\n

Next, is that what kind of participation? Not every
\nparticipation is what I would associate with the domain
\nof civil society.<\/p>\n

Business lobbying brings in participation of
\nbusiness, big business groups, in governance, for good
\nor bad, but I wouldn’t consider that a civil society
\nthing.<\/p>\n

Civil society brings in the participation of those
\ngroups, people, who are disempowered, who generally do
\nnot count as equals in the typical policy making
\nsystems. This is a system of deepening democracy.<\/p>\n

We see that the typical institutions which make
\npolicies are not sufficiently inclusive of certain
\ndisempowered people and civil society’s job is to get
\nthose interests and those perspectives into policy
\nmaking.<\/p>\n

That essentially is the role I see civil society in.<\/p>\n

We do often talk about expert tease issue and
\nthere’s a lot of confusion, most of this in technical
\narea of internet governance, where there is a lot of
\nexpertise required and a lot of people do associate
\nexpertise with civil society.<\/p>\n

I think even if it is associated with the civil
\nsociety role, it is a secondary thing.<\/p>\n

Expertise, which is disinterested, disinterested
\nexpertise is a saleable commodity, it is something
\nsomebody has and somebody with sell it, volume untear
\nit, I mean, a knowledge economy, people generally are
\nselling their expertise, selling their knowledge and
\nthat’s not a civil society function.<\/p>\n

Interested expertise is a strategic form of
\nadvocacy. If somebody uses the expertise one has, in
\npursue answer of a point of view one tries to push, then
\nthat’s strategy advocacy. That’s still participation,
\nbut strategically you are using your expertise to
\nenhance the participation of the interests which you
\nhave tried to represent.<\/p>\n

Between expertise and participation, I think we
\nshould be clear that the primary purpose, primary role
\nof civil society is to bring in participation of the
\ndisempowered people and secondly, it may be of
\nexpertise.<\/p>\n

That distinguish has been very crucial, as I would
\ndiscuss some other developments which have happened in
\nthe area of civil society and internet governance.<\/p>\n

Having defined itself as bringing in the
\nparticipation of the disempowered, it’s important to
\nframe the structural location and form of civil society
\nand I think the civil society defines itself in
\na relation to the powerful players, two of which are the
\nstate and the big businesses, as the other. It
\nessentially identifies itself with not having those
\npowers.<\/p>\n

This is important, because representing the
\ndisempowered, you cannot too closely be related to the
\nkey powerful players.<\/p>\n

When I say you cannot be too closely related to it,
\nI do not mean that you would not make strategic
\nalliances with them. We work all the titles with
\ngovernments, with private sector for strategic
\nalliances, but the structural distance has to be clear.
\nIt has been traditionally understood. Our organisation
\nhas affiliation with the United Nations economic and
\nsocial council with special consultative status. Before
\nthey give that, they check our funding and see that very
\nsmall part of the funding can be from the government.
\nIn the funding is more than a small per cent from the
\ngovernment, you are not accepted as a civil society and
\nsame kind of rule should be applied to your funding
\ncoming from the private sector and this is what I mean
\nto have your structural location distinct as some
\ndistance from the powers which you are questioning.<\/p>\n

It’s not that power is bad, but the power has to be
\nquestioned and civil society in a policy role is placed
\nin terms of getting the perspective of the disempower
\nand questioning the structures of power and that
\nstructural location is to be very clear.<\/p>\n

That brings — I mean, people have asked the
\nquestion of legitimacy. Who are you? Anybody can get
\nup and make an organisation and claim it’s a civil
\nsociety and yes, there is a huge question of legitimacy.<\/p>\n

But it’s an ongoing examination. It’s not fixed,
\nunlike government which gets its legitimacy from
\nconstitutions, elections or whatever.<\/p>\n

But there are processes. We in civil society do
\nrecognise some civil societies as more legitimate than
\nthe others.<\/p>\n

I think it’s a big discussion, but I will be very
\nclear that we very often talk about it and it’s a key
\ncentral question to the role of civil society.<\/p>\n

If I have to mention couple of things, I would say
\nit’s demonstrated work, which shows that you have
\npresented the interests of the constituencies that you
\nclaim to represent that should be there, there should be
\ndemonstrated connections, there is where there should be
\nacceptance among other people, other groups in your area
\nof work that you do represent certain things.<\/p>\n

So there is a hugely complex but very ongoing
\nprocess of legitimisation and it’s very easy to say that
\ncivil society is illegitimate. It’s just more complex,
\nthat’s all.<\/p>\n

One of the tasks of civil society is, apart from
\nparticipation, is asking difficult questions. The
\norganisers that I started asking difficult questions
\nabout this forum before I came in here.<\/p>\n

The difficult question is to engage with power, to
\ndiffuse power. The only way to diffuse power is to
\nengage with power and question the power and speak on
\nbehalf of those who have been left out.<\/p>\n

There has been a certain history of how civil
\nsociety has evolved. A lot of early work, as everybody
\nknows, has been done by technical people who were very
\ngood people, exceptionally good people, very cream of
\nthe society who made internet as the way internet is
\ntoday.<\/p>\n

This community then grew, I mean, this community
\nperhaps grew a little, but internet grew faster than
\nthem and governments got interested and internet started
\naffecting everybody’s life. It started affecting
\nintellectual property, started affecting trade,
\ngovernance, reform, everything, civil society outside
\npeople who were involved with technical expertise, got
\ninvolved and there’s some kind of lines of tension which
\ncame up between those initial volunteers who put a lot
\nof work and the new civil society.<\/p>\n

I think this is an issue which should be discussed
\nmore and that community is generally recognised as the
\ntechnical community, which has been associated with the
\ndevelopment of the internet.<\/p>\n

There has been lines of disengagement or rather
\ndisengagement between the two sides.<\/p>\n

I do think that probably the community which was
\nincumbent civil society in a way, which were associated
\nwith the development of internet in a non commercial and
\non in status manner, probably needed to do more to
\naccept the fact that internet has become now a bigger
\nreality and more people from outside who want to come in
\nand understand it and be a part of that particular civil
\nsociety.<\/p>\n

I did discuss it, that expertise cannot be used as
\npolitical currency beyond a point. We can give you
\na Nobel prize, but we are still it’s the same equal
\nvote, which anybody else gets.<\/p>\n

There are a whole lot of complex issues would take
\na long time to discuss about, but there was this
\ntendency, perhaps, to kind of close and say, well, this
\nis committee which knows more and therefore there are
\nmore representative of whatever.<\/p>\n

And that engagement with a wider civil society has
\nbeen a problem, many people are trying to do work on it
\nand I really appreciate that, but I think those
\ndiscussions should come out more in the open and that
\nwould do all of us a service.<\/p>\n

The technical community has had closer relationship
\nwith policy making bodies and they have difficulty to
\nrecognise or disengage from the fact that policy I can
\nBurmaing body is then a policy making body and it itself
\nhas to be questioned by a civil society outside it and
\nthat recognition has been not very forthcoming in a way
\nand there has also been another issue. The suspicion of
\nthe state as one party out to take control of the
\ninternet are not completely unfounded, has made them
\ndistanced from the state so much and go perhaps many of
\nthem so close to the business sector that that has been
\na problem of tension for the rest of the civil society
\nabout disengagement of the voluntary civil society
\nsystem from the business sector and there again those
\nlines of tensions between technical community and civil
\nsociety have come.<\/p>\n

The last thing about multi-stakeholderism.
\nProf Peng said that internet governance is to create
\na public good and Prof Xue Hong said in the morning
\nabout new form of global democracy.<\/p>\n

I think there are a loss of questions about
\nmulti-stakeholders, I don’t myself understand it very
\nwell, but I think it needs to be engaged with. More has
\nto be talked about it before it takes a final format and
\ntaking things for granted and there are issues of
\nconflict of interest and I understand forums as public
\nparticipation forums primarily and anything more and
\nI have a couple of points to make which I would leave
\nout now, but I must say that it should not be taken as
\na composite structure which is presented to you, a lot
\nof political issues around it, those issues have to be
\nexamined and alone this new form of public participation
\nmay grow.<\/p>\n

So what I would expect the IGF to do is to take note
\nof the fact that and when they go to the IGF and make
\nrecommendations, to make note of the fact that
\nparticipation is what basically a public participation
\nforum should be looking for, a very actively of the
\ndisempowered and to keep on examining the role of
\ndifferent stakeholders and I understand the APRIG asked
\nfor a slot for a workshop on the role of civil society
\nwhich is good and those kind of examinations are
\nimportant role of business, role of the government and
\nthose kind of issues should be discussed more, apart
\nfrom the very technical decisions, discussions which we
\nhave had, both things should go side by side.<\/p>\n

Thank you very much.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: Thank you, let’s go straight to our next
\npanellist, John Fung, from the Hong Kong Council of<\/p>\n

Social Services.<\/p>\n

>>John Fung: I have a social service background, so let me
\nstart by explaining that there are two things, two major
\nthings that social service organisations do.<\/p>\n

Firstly, we provide direct services in the community
\nto help the most disadvantaged.<\/p>\n

Secondly, we work towards social changes and try to
\ninfluence policy maker, policy changes, towards general
\nwellbeing of people.<\/p>\n

Therefore, communicating of views in the community
\nto the government is a very important role.<\/p>\n

Right from the old colonial era, the Hong Kong
\nGovernment has very clever way to engage the public.<\/p>\n

Opinion pole was not very common when I was younger,
\nplus those tools, those polls would usually be giving
\ndry numbers and percentages without reflecting the
\nsentiments, emotions and the concerns.<\/p>\n

That clever way was a structure of advisory
\ncommittees, councils, meetings, and by appointing
\ncommunity leaders, representatives of civil societies,
\ninto the many committees, views were heard, consensus
\nwere made.<\/p>\n

These were all very well until web 2 came along.
\nIn March, the proliferation of social media.<\/p>\n

All of a sudden, the government realises that the
\nold way of assimilating views and absolving the
\nrepresentatives into advisory structures seemed to have
\nstopped being effective.<\/p>\n

Not only can people publish the views in great
\ndetails on the internet, netizens are difficult to be
\nrepresented.<\/p>\n

The dominant culture in web 2 is de-centralisation
\nand distributed views anyway. Everyone if the
\ngovernment sets up 10,000 more committees, that won’t be
\nenough to accommodate the different views.<\/p>\n

That’s the challenge for the government, in terms of
\ncontinuing to be a government and legitimacy.<\/p>\n

It is also a challenge to CSO in general, because
\ntheir roles in being the channel to consolidate public
\nopinions, to formulate consensus, seems to about
\ndiminishing.<\/p>\n

If the government or anyone wants to learn about
\npublic opinions and listen to public, they probably can
\ngo do that, can do so on the internet directly.<\/p>\n

Perhaps even better with the powerful search engine.<\/p>\n

So what would be left for traditional CSOs to do in
\nterms of social movement and social change?<\/p>\n

We can say for sure that unorganised individuals and
\nunorganised unstructured groups or loosely structured
\ngroups at best on the internet could demonstrate
\nextremely strong power in mobilisation, in shaping
\nsocial discourse and agenda and in pushing for social
\nmovements of all types.<\/p>\n

But how about follow-up work which requires a lot of
\nerrands to be run, and those boring logistics at the
\nback scene.<\/p>\n

Does it mean that the roles of CSIs would be
\nshifting more towards tasks of such nature?<\/p>\n

I don’t know. This is my first question to you.<\/p>\n

My second observation is related to the first one.<\/p>\n

Web 2 changes the landscape of NGOs, of CSOs in
\nHong Kong and in the world. I think it will, if it is
\nnot already happening.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong, like other parts of the world, has a wide
\nrange of CSOs, some are tiny and small with one or no
\nstaff and some are huge, as big as having a budget of
\nclose to US$100 million a year.<\/p>\n

In the past, needless to say, bigger NGOs were more
\ninfluential because they have more resources to do
\nlobbying, to conduct a wide range of promotional
\nactivities and to engage the public for support and so
\non and so forth.<\/p>\n

So they’re winners, most of the time.<\/p>\n

In web 2 era, it’s not the case any more.<\/p>\n

Quite the contrary, my observation is that bigger
\norganisations seem to be more prudent and having more
\nreservations in adopting more interactive tool to engage
\nthe public and they are more like the government, in
\nterms of mindset.<\/p>\n

But on the other hand, smaller NGOs are more
\nvibrant, more open minded, more courageous to try new
\nthings.<\/p>\n

And the adoption of web 2 and social media seems to
\nbe quicker.<\/p>\n

So my projection is that weaker CSOs, therefore,
\nwould take better and more advantage of the new
\ntechnology as compared to their bigger counterparts.<\/p>\n

The third thing I want to say is about internet
\ngovernance.<\/p>\n

Internet governance is very complicated, as most of
\nus are aware, there’s a range of technical and
\nnontechnical and yet hard to understand issues.<\/p>\n

I don’t think there’s one single person that can
\nclaim expertise to all the issues involved.<\/p>\n

It’s taken myself, for instance, a few years to
\novercome slightly my own internet governance phobia, my
\nlocal host organising committee colleagues would agree
\nhow hard it has been for me to engage NGOs in Hong Kong
\nto participate in the Hong Kong IGF tomorrow.<\/p>\n

So it’s a challenge to us all to think about how to
\nmake use of web 2, to make internet governance and all
\nthose policy issues at least look more relevant and
\nfriendly to the community, to the NGOs and users in
\ngeneral.<\/p>\n

I’m sure Cheryl and some other people probably have
\nbeen working along these lines and I look forward to an
\neasier and more participatetry channel to consult users
\nviews on internet governance issues.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: Thank you, John. John brought up the local
\nconference that will happen on Thursday and Friday and
\nI hope any of you, if you are going to be still around
\nin Hong Kong, to make sure that you try to join us and
\nmeet some of our local NGOs and other people that we
\nhopefully can try to educate them more about the IG
\nprocess.<\/p>\n

Let me turn now to our next speaker, Mr Yap Swee
\nSeng, from Malaysia.<\/p>\n

>>Yap Swee Seng: Good afternoon, everyone.<\/p>\n

Let me thank the organisers for inviting me to this
\nvery interesting conference, as we are coming from the
\nhuman rights organisation background, seldom we
\nparticipate in this kind of very technological oriented
\nconference.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I think it is very important that the human
\nrights organisation has been using internet tools for
\nhuman rights work to promote and protect human rights
\nand have created a lot of impacts all over the world and
\nin many countries, for democratic change and protection
\nand promotion of human rights, so that’s in the Eastern
\nBloc of Europe, as well as in many Asian countries.<\/p>\n

But we are now looking at a trend that states and
\ngovernments are looking into the possibility of how to
\ncontrol these tools of internet and this is a worrying
\ntrend and in Asia, we are seeing this trend increasingly
\nand leading by none other than China, in various ways.<\/p>\n

I think this is for the state, this is the so-called
\ninternet governance. This is from the perspective of
\nthe government.<\/p>\n

It comes in at least three forms.<\/p>\n

So whatever you call it, limitation, control or
\ngovernance, this is the government’s perspective and
\nthis internet governance comes in three phases.<\/p>\n

One is assessability, limitation to accessibility
\nand because of economic constraints, like in countries
\nlike Laos, in Burma, that makes internet access very
\nexpensive and unaffordable to many.<\/p>\n

This contributed, of course, to the issues of
\ndigital divide.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, we already have a session on this one, so
\nwill not want to spend much time on this, but accept to
\njust point out the reality in the region, in the Asian
\nregion, is that a lot of countries don’t even have
\nenough electricity, let alone access to internet.<\/p>\n

So it is a big surreal when I heard yesterday, when
\nsome governments are pursuing 100 per cent of
\npenetration of internet and when some countries like
\nBurma and Laos or Cambodia have less than 1 per cent of
\ninternet penetration and countries like Laos,
\n40 per cent of the population still doesn’t have regular
\nelectricity.<\/p>\n

So it is very stark reality in the region.<\/p>\n

Control of accessibility is one.<\/p>\n

Second the second phase is censorship and
\nsurveillance.<\/p>\n

This comes in various forms. One form is blocking
\nwebsites, to prevent freedom of information, freedom of
\nexpression.<\/p>\n

This happens in many countries, China, Burma,
\nVietnam.<\/p>\n

In Vietnam, you can’t access world press, you can’t
\naccess blog spot, BBC, human rights watch, as well as in
\nBurma and in China, you can’t access websites related
\nTianamen Square Massacre, Xingang, Tibet issues.<\/p>\n

So those are one way to block freedom of information
\nand expression.<\/p>\n

Secondly, also, this is to block websites from
\noutside and the other way also to close down websites
\nthat is within that has been in existence and when it
\ncross the line.<\/p>\n

This is happening in many countries, including
\nMalaysia and recently in Thailand, in the past two
\nmonths, more than 1,000 websites have been closed down
\nby the Thai government, that is perceived as supporting
\nthe red shirt protestors.<\/p>\n

In certain countries, also it is required
\nregistration for internet users and in Vietnam, photo
\nidentification is needed for users to use internet in
\ncyber cafe.<\/p>\n

Surveillance and data retention is another form of
\ncontrol by the state or internet governance in the sense
\nof a state.<\/p>\n

A lot of this surveillance, for instance, in
\nVietnam, you have this software that is installed that
\nwill track the access of users to websites and this is
\nactually an infringement to the right to privacy of the
\ninternet users and data retention is another key issue,
\nhow states are using all this data that is tran
\ntransacting through internet and cyber space.<\/p>\n

Then another form is also state organised cyber
\nattacks or cyber threats to websites to bloggers, to
\nblogs that are critical of government policies or
\ncriticising government policies and practice.<\/p>\n

Then lastly, there is another form of control that
\nis invisible, but it is very much present. It is self
\ncensorship. When a lot of draconian laws are in place,
\nalthough it was not used, but it create a chilling
\neffects on internet users, so when you are keying
\nstatements into the computer, you think twice whether
\nyou should, you know, say things like that in the
\ninternet.<\/p>\n

The last form is the most severe one, is of course
\nthe direct punishment on users when you cross the line.<\/p>\n

So there is countries that permit freedom of
\nexpression, like in Malaysia, like in many countries,
\nbut there is no freedom after expression.<\/p>\n

So after you express and then you get into jail.<\/p>\n

So that is the extent of freedom of information that
\nyou would enjoy in countries like Singapore or Malaysia
\nor Burma.<\/p>\n

This is the arrest and detention on the pretext of
\nthreat to national security, sedition, you know, trying
\nto overthrow governments and a lot of all these charges
\nare thrown against the internet users who just merely
\nexercise legitimate freedom of expression or even to
\njust access freedom of information to information that
\nis related to public interest.<\/p>\n

Of course, also we are seeing another trend that is
\ndeveloping which is the use of defamation on internet
\nusers and this is crippling freedom of expression,
\nespecially in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, as
\nwell as recently in Indonesia, where a woman was
\ncriticising hospital service and she was sued by the
\nhospital for a huge amount of compensation and this is
\nactually criminalising speech in a way that is really
\nworrying.<\/p>\n

My questions of the problems of internet governance
\nand this internet governance so-called, in the form of
\nnational policy of a lot of governments, it has at least
\nI see four problems.<\/p>\n

One is a lot of times, the definition of cyber
\ncrimes are really broad. It is framed very broad, very
\nvague, very general, that it encompass almost everything
\nthat you do would be construed, can be construed as
\na crime, cyber crime, if the government wants to take
\naction on you.<\/p>\n

Secondly, is also the arbitrary exercising of the
\npowers given to the government. A lot of these cyber
\nlaws give sweeping powers to the government and there is
\na lack of check and balances in this cyber laws and the
\nwhole political system.<\/p>\n

There is no democratic oversight of this exercising
\nof powers and if you look at the situation in Thailand,
\nthese two months, Thai government close down more than
\n1,000 websites, without due process.<\/p>\n

There is no opportunity for the websites owner to
\neven defend themselves and being given the reason why
\ntheir website is being closed down.<\/p>\n

The third problem is that a lot of this internet
\ngovernance by the government is actually very state
\ninterest oriented perspective and it is more to protect
\nstate security rather than human security.<\/p>\n

Lastly, it is the lack of consultation and
\nparticipation of civil society and general public in
\nformulating this kind of national policy on internet
\ngovernance.<\/p>\n

My recommendations would be, first, I think earlier
\nyesterday, there was a very good comment on the internet
\ngovernance should serve the purpose of development.<\/p>\n

So it should not be used to actually stifle
\ndevelopment progress.<\/p>\n

Secondly, is democracy and through internet, I think
\nit should have democratic oversight on internet
\ngovernance.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, I think internet governance should also be
\nin light with international human rights principles and
\nstandards.<\/p>\n

So we should not left out these key principles,
\nwhich is universal, and it has been recognised and
\nadopted by many governments as members of the United
\nNations and there is a whole range of human rights
\nregime in internationally that should be applied across
\nsectors, whether it is cyber space or in the real world.<\/p>\n

It should be applied equally.<\/p>\n

Fourthly, it is consultation and participation.
\nCivil society and public members should be
\ninstitutionalised, should be institutionised in a way
\nthat they would be able to participate and there is
\na genuine consultation can take place.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I think IGF should also coordinate and
\nsynchronise with the United Nations human rights
\ncouncil. This is the human rights council is the body
\nthat tasked to enforce human rights all over the world.<\/p>\n

There is a need for IGF to also mainstream human
\nrights into internet governance and for instance,
\nI think one way is that the IGF can maybe in future,
\ninvite the UN special report on freedom of expression
\nand his next report is really looking into
\ndecriminalising freedom of expression in internet in
\ncyber space, so that is one of the focus, the next
\nreport that he will report to the human rights council
\nand I think this is one way that human rights can be
\nintegrated and mainstreamed into internet governance.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: I think it’s a very concrete suggestion that
\nSwee has brought about the United Nations human rights
\ncommission bringing that into the IGF process.<\/p>\n

Next let us turn the mic over to Christine Loh from
\nCivil Exchange in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

>>Christine Loh: I think in view of time running out, I’ll
\njust make a very few observations.<\/p>\n

I think the first one I just want to make is for
\nthose of us who are from civil society, of course we
\nneed to stand up and see what it is that we can do.
\nHowever, I would like to offer some perspective about
\nhow we look at this. Everything that has been said
\npoints to my first point, which is that we’re witnessing
\nthe kind of contest between segments of society that we
\nhave witnessed for thousands of years.<\/p>\n

Every time there is a disruptive technology or
\ndisruptive something that comes up, that can change the
\nstatus quo of power, there is a contest.<\/p>\n

So now we are talking about the internet and
\ntherefore, there’s a contest between those who are in
\npower, whether they are the government power, whether
\nthey are business power, civil society who always feels
\nthey have to be more empowered, they’re stepping forward
\nto see what it is that they should be doing.<\/p>\n

So my first point is if we look at this as
\na context, and we look at this more historically to see
\nhow these contests are going to continue, that should
\ntell us we’re fighting a long battle.<\/p>\n

The second point I want to make is the fact that the
\ninternet community has now moved away from the technical
\naspects, to the broader policy aspect.<\/p>\n

This tells us that the internet, web 2, it’s come to
\na stage of maturity.<\/p>\n

I think wins you have sorted out the technical
\nissues and people get a sense of the power of this
\ndisruptive thing that we have, we are entering that next
\nstage, to define the sharing of power of this new
\ndisruptive means that we have.<\/p>\n

The third point I want to make, it’s really about
\nculture.<\/p>\n

Who everybody has given examples on different
\ngovernments in Asia, as to what they’re trying to do.<\/p>\n

If we remember back in time, in Asia, I think the
\nfirst country and correct me if I’m wrong, but the first
\ncountry that wanted to systematically control the
\ninternet was Singapore.<\/p>\n

I remember when we go back to those days, there was
\na lot of media discussion about whether they could do
\nit, how they were going to do it and we heard discussion
\ncoming from the west, essentially saying, don’t be
\nstupid, you can’t control this.<\/p>\n

Now, what then happened in Singapore was a very
\ninteresting example of how the government went about
\ndealing with it.<\/p>\n

I think many of you know that story, even better
\nthan me.<\/p>\n

Then, you have a big country like China, saying,
\nwell, I think I’m going to do it too.<\/p>\n

So here, the point I’m trying to make is, it’s the
\ncultural difference. Perhaps in the US, the government
\nwould never say I’m going to try and control the
\ninternet. They wouldn’t even bother to start thinking
\nabout doing it. They have just said, well, you know, we
\ndon’t need to do it and we’re not going to do it.<\/p>\n

However, if you come to another part of the world,
\nwhere the culture, the underlying culture is more
\nauthoritarian, society is structured in a different way,
\nyou get what some of my panellists have said, well, you
\ncan either call it the fear drive of the government, of
\nchaos, or you can call it the desire for harmony drive.
\nBut essentially what we’re witnessing is governments
\nseeing this as disruptive, that could affect them and
\nyes, of course, they are going to control it.<\/p>\n

When you see certain governments in Asia, the amount
\nof time, effort, money and manpower they are devoting to
\ncreating these systems, you see that they are serious.<\/p>\n

I am not sure this is going to change any time in
\nthe short term.<\/p>\n

The last point I want to make is, in terms of going
\nforward, we do understand the more authoritarian
\ngovernments, what they are really fearful of. They are
\nnot fearful of single individuals trawling the internet
\nand learning about all sorts of things. They are
\nfearful of the potential for association and
\norganisation, because that they see is going to disrupt
\ntheir power, disrupt their values and ideologies.<\/p>\n

So that’s really where we are.<\/p>\n

If we accept that, and then we look at what is it
\nthat civil society can do, what is it that we can do
\nnationally, what is it that there is out in the
\ninternational or that where we can do that, very often,
\nwe know this is going to boil down back to some argument
\nabout liberalism versus corporatism if you want to call
\nit that, if you want to call it authoritarianism, but
\nthat battle will continue, will continue locally and
\na lot of NGOs are going to be accused of collaborating
\nwith western forces that wants to destabilise Asian
\ncountries or developing economies.<\/p>\n

So I’m afraid these are just some of the things that
\nwe do have to deal with.<\/p>\n

In Hong Kong, my last comment is we are in a very
\ninteresting place, where we have — where we are able to
\nhave this kind of discussion, where we are able to
\ninvite people from around the region to come and have
\nthis kind of in depth discussion with us. We are free
\nto trawl the internet. We have more and more people,
\nI think hooking into social media. We have more NGOs
\nbeing born, although we have NGOs that are perhaps more
\nGOs as well, as I said, that’s the corporatism side that
\nwe have to deal with.<\/p>\n

We have more money being thrown on both sides, so
\nactually, in Hong Kong, I find this is a very
\ninteresting space to actually watch this contest.<\/p>\n

My last comment is, really, we are just kind of at
\nthe beginning of a new kind of contest to witness
\nbecause of the rise of the internet.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: Let me turn now to our last panel itself,
\nCheryl Langdon-Orr. All of you know her very well I’m
\nsure and after that, we will listen to some of the views
\nand questions from our floor audience.<\/p>\n

>>Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Charles and I am several
\ngoing to be as briefly in my world as humanly possible,
\nbecause I also don’t want to stop you from your
\nmidafternoon break, your beverages and other needs.<\/p>\n

I would like to, however, first of all pick up on
\na number of points that all the panellists have made and
\nI think what should be the take home message from this
\nsession is the diversity of enabling and disabling
\nfactors we need to deal with here.<\/p>\n

The role in internet governance for the voice and
\nspecifically in today’s session, the voice of civil
\nsociety, I think is on the agenda, isn’t going to go
\naway, was recognised because of the parity it was given
\nwith government and business sector in the IGF model in
\nthe first place.<\/p>\n

But we do need to continue to rework it, remanage it
\nand see where it is not actually meeting its remit.<\/p>\n

But just let me take you back-to-back in time for
\none moment. I have modified this, so with all apologies
\nto the original author, who I’ll confess to later. This
\nwas written in 1996:<\/p>\n

“The fundamental human desire for communications has
\nbeen the engine driving social, cultural, scientific and
\neconomic development throughout history. The medium of
\nthe internet has brought about widespread creative
\ncommunication between individuals and groups that
\npreviously had little chance of contact. The overriding
\nobjective is to give expression of the needs and wishes
\nof individuals, groups or organisations that have
\na common interest in the viability of the internet, so
\nthat all users of the internet may continue to benefit
\nfrom and to contribute to its applications, technologies
\nand evolution.”<\/p>\n

I think we probably have something we could put on
\nanother T-shirt for a future regional internet
\ngovernance. That was written in 1996. I have dropped
\nthe words new media. I have dropped the words
\nAustralia. But I do think it’s that basic precept that
\nwe are needing to deal with and why it is so important
\nthat we see our role in internet governance of voice as
\nbeing so important.<\/p>\n

Why on earth is a member, admittedly, of the
\nInternet Society of Australia and a person who
\nrepresents Asian Pacific regional at large organisation,
\nwithin the wonderful world of ICANN’s model of
\nmulti-stakeholderism, which means I’m a member of the at
\nlarge advisory committee for ICANN, sitting here talking
\nabout civil society.<\/p>\n

It’s because within the model that I’m currently
\ninvolved with, in the ICANN mantle and by therefore what
\nwe do in internet governance and the Internet Governance
\nForums, we have under our gambit, both voices from
\nindividuals, voices from various organisations and
\ncertainly voices from civil society, but voices which
\nare regionally diverse.<\/p>\n

So what we are grappling with is the fact that we
\nhave least developed and most developed countries
\nwanting to bring voice from the internet end user and we
\nhave experimented with a particular model.<\/p>\n

It’s had fault, it’s had benefits it’s had
\nadvantages, but it’s also shown us a few little things
\nthat I think are worthwhile us contemplating, as we look
\nat how civil society and voice can be brought into
\ninternet governance.<\/p>\n

Going back to one of the issues that was brought
\nforward this morning, by Prof Xue Hong, is having this
\nvoice is an important part of legitimisation and it
\nwould be delight to see it as — but we do have a little
\nway to go on that first.<\/p>\n

But it is important to see that we need to recognise
\nthat when we are talking about voice and even very
\nhighly organised civil society organisations, depending
\non their size, it’s going to be very rare one when its
\nsole objective is to look at internet governance.<\/p>\n

Most of them have a vast number of other things on
\ntheir agenda.<\/p>\n

If we are lucky, they will be technically savvy
\nenough to at least keep up with some of the language we
\nuse and the acronyms we use and the interesting
\ntechnical aspects that we have to deal with.<\/p>\n

But we do need to realise that there are abling and
\ndisabling factors and how we talk about internet
\ngovernance, how we talk about the internet and how we
\ntend to use it as a English based language discussion,
\nare real inhibitory block points for a number of voices
\nto be heard.<\/p>\n

Regional Internet Governance Forums or forums like
\nthis can cater better to bringing some of those
\nunifications voice and cultural differences together.<\/p>\n

Local internet governance discussions and engagement
\nwith local internet community is another way of doing
\nit.<\/p>\n

But I do wonder whether or not we are doing
\nourselves a disservice when we are trying to promote
\nvoice into these very important functions. We see
\nourselves only as having a choice of being participatory
\nor complainant.<\/p>\n

I would like to think that the voice of internet end
\nusers and the voice of those who are thinking on behalf
\nof internet end users who haven’t got on to the internet
\nyet, those billions who are yet to come who are the
\nother side of the digital divide, and don’t know how to
\nhave their voices heard yet, those of us who are looking
\nafter those needs need to strike a balance between being
\nparticipatory and being purely a complainant.<\/p>\n

I’m of the personal view and it is only a personal
\nview, that you actually have to be in the room and in
\nthe forum to have your voice heard.<\/p>\n

So how we get that to happen more globally and
\nindeed to hear Asia’s voice and the Asia Pacific voice
\nmore particularly is the challenge I think we need to
\nmeet.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest dangers I think is complacency.
\nThose of us who have the internet, even if it isn’t at
\nan affordable immersed in this area believe isn’t that
\nall managed? Hasn’t it all been organised? Isn’t it
\njust like electricity or water or something? Of course
\nwe know it is far from that, but we do have to
\nbreakthrough that barrier of complacency and we probably
\nhave to do a little bit of local outreach to our user
\ncommunity to encourage them to think in the ways of the
\nmodel and the multi-stakeholder model that I think
\neveryone in this room is quite supportive of.<\/p>\n

Of course, a perfect example was what the organisers
\nof this group did and that’s run the youth camp, the IGF
\nyouth camp. Absolutely perfect example. Every one of
\nthose I think nearly 60 individuals will all go out and
\nvirally comment and create interest in another five or
\nsix and that will go on.<\/p>\n

So for a two or three-day excursion into role play,
\nyou’ve set yourselves here in both China and in
\nHong Kong but also in Asian Pacific, a model where you
\nare making change for the next five to 10 years.<\/p>\n

The issue of experience, how we get people who are
\nnot the IGF governance old group, those who know how
\nit’s done and how to do and what to do, what and when,
\nthe confusion, the language barriers that I’ve mentioned
\nalso, but more importantly, the literacy and technical
\nlevels. That’s technical literacy and literacy,
\nliteracy. As we bring more mobile internet users
\non-line, their definitions of even the simplest forms of
\ninteraction with their machinery is very different than
\nthe ones we are all using here and how we therefore move
\ninto a social web and web 2.0 tools to get everything in
\nunder 140 characters, they are the challenges that we
\nnot only need to assist in, but we need to make sure we
\nare listening to.<\/p>\n

As I move finally to the other matters that I think
\nare probably extremely important, we need to make sure
\nwe have opportunity, getting a seat at the table, can’t
\nhave a voice without getting in the room, banging on the
\noutside of the door is rarely a successful as being
\ninvited to the top table.<\/p>\n

So we need to make sure that we give a seat at the
\ntable, in the local regional and of course eventually,
\nthe main IGF itself. We need to make it as easy as
\npossible for the involvement to be successful and that
\nprobably means prior preparation done regionally and
\nlocally and we need to look at the cost.<\/p>\n

Resource allocation, human, financial, all of these
\ncosts, let alone just getting to a major IGF meeting,
\nI find it fascinating we are talking about internet and
\nwe so rarely use it as a communication tool in these
\nmeetings.<\/p>\n

We don’t have a live blog and we don’t have
\na Twitter feed and we don’t have a whole lot of things
\nthat we could be doing to complement our work here today
\nand allow all those who aren’t in the room have a voice.
\nWe need to up skill and give a level of understanding to
\nthose we want to give a voice to.<\/p>\n

Here is the most important thing. To those who are
\nin charge of the forum, whether or not it is a local,
\na regional or the major IGF itself, you need to
\nrecognise that there is a clear need to give recognition
\nand respect to the views that are brought in by the end
\nuser voice. Having parity in name and having parity in
\nsome of these forums and I think if we can start
\nappreciating the extraordinary effort that goes into
\ndeveloping a genuine representational view from these
\nvoices, think about the hundreds of thousands of man
\nhours and the extraordinary risk and Chang that we have
\nheard about. If we start to appreciate what goes into
\ngetting that type of view and saying publicly that we
\nappreciate it, doesn’t mean we have to agree with it,
\nbut we should show our appreciation, then that will be
\na more welcoming environment.<\/p>\n

To wind up, I’m going to steal, plagiarise yet
\nanother line and this time it’s from the disability
\nsector in Australia. I think we — the other part of
\nthe t-shirt not about us, without us.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: I guess I did a terrible job of controlling
\nthe time, but I guess we still have the opportunity to
\ntake a little bit of comments and questions from the
\nfloor.<\/p>\n

May I suggest that we at least keep this panel until
\n4 o’clock and then you will have the break, but that
\nmeans that you might have only less than 10 minutes of
\ncomments and questions from the floor.<\/p>\n

How many any of you have anything you would like to
\nask or say?<\/p>\n

I would like to take one round of questions and then
\nfrom I see the three of you and then let our panellists
\nrespond and also give the final remarks, hopefully our
\npanellists in the final remarks can also give us
\na little bit of your quick perspective on what, as
\na group, you was want to suggest for us to bring back to
\nthe whole IGF process, especially after our discussion
\ntoday.<\/p>\n

Let me start with Xue Hong.<\/p>\n

>>Xue Hong: Thank you, I do have a comment on Mr Parminder
\nJeet Singh’s wonderful presentation. I’m particularly
\ninterested in the participation part, even though my
\ncomments what are already partially been responded by
\nCheryl Langdon-Orr. She always has a magic power to red
\nmy mind.<\/p>\n

Yes, I mention the issue of the reason I know
\nParminder is most senior researcher on this issue, you
\nare the world-class expert on this. I’m quite new on
\nthis issue.<\/p>\n

Before we are going to governments, you are
\nabsolutely right, we should first think about
\nparticipation. In the unlikely case could make
\ndecisions, eventually and only a few hundred of human
\nbeings on this planet are going to that venue and make
\ndecision under the sort of disguise of consensus, to
\ngovern the whole globe. That’s very concerning. Yes,
\nof course, I fully agree with that.<\/p>\n

Before we go to governments, we should think about
\nhow to engage people to make it really participative,
\nbut let’s go the point that Cheryl raised. If you want
\nto be heard, you won’t have the impact, you should be in
\nthe room. You should participate. If you don’t
\nparticipate, even though this global voting, this is
\nelection system, you won’t have any impact felt at all.<\/p>\n

I know you probably not a fan of Professor
\nMilton’s’s global election theory. 10 years ago, ICANN
\nsought global election for the board members. It was
\nnot very successful, otherwise we won’t have the tier
\nstructure for the large ICANN.<\/p>\n

So this is my question. What do you think which way
\nwe should go to engage people participation fully agree,
\nbut how to move forward? Thank you very much.<\/p>\n

>>: I’m Kay from Barminda. LI’m working with money of the
\nbiggest civil society groups in Myanmar, in Rangoon.<\/p>\n

Normally, when I introduce myself, in the
\ninternational events like this, I have to say I came
\nfrom Burma Myanmar, because the term Myanmar is not
\nacceptable for everyone. In terms of technical arena,
\nthis is very different, because the domain name .MN is
\nalways used for everyone, but nobody says like, you
\nknow, it should not be the case like .MN is not OK or
\nnot acceptable, but it should be before BR or
\nrepresenting Burma. Because mostly the technicians are
\nvery pragmatic. They use very practical way and they
\ndon’t want to spend time for arguing how to approach the
\nproblem, rather they want to focus on the problem
\nsolutions.<\/p>\n

Also, thank you so much for bringing me as part of
\ncivil society group here and also, in Burma, the
\ninternet became part of the democratisation process and
\npart of the — access to the internet is really, really
\nwe stricted, because of the government sanction, but not
\nonly because of that, but also other factors like
\neconomic sanction including economic sanction like, for
\nexample, I cannot buy email storage site from Google.
\nI cannot buy anything from I tunes store, for example.
\nAlso, even access to this kind of international event is
\nvery limited for the other important key from Burma.
\nI am three participants from here, from the civil
\nsociety group, but I don’t see any from the government
\nside and the business community and also other NGOs.<\/p>\n

Anyway, thank you so much. Next time, I hope to see
\nthem here.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: I hope next time, wherever our regional IGF
\nis going to be held, we get more participation from more
\ndifferent groups.<\/p>\n

>>: I’m Rita from the Hong Kong Foresight Centre.<\/p>\n

Generally, my impression is from the panellists,
\ncivil society is not empowered, but is kind of in a weak
\nposition in this game of who has governance in the
\ninternet matters.<\/p>\n

Also, this rhetoric of whether there is a contest or
\nwe hear a lot about conflict, but couldn’t we also see
\nthis as an opportunity space and new forms of
\ncollaboration and even social innovation? It’s
\ninteresting because last week, I was at a very similar
\nconference in Europe and I really for the first time,
\nhad the feeling that governments are taking the
\ninfluence of civil society groups very, very seriously
\nand they actually wanted and they wanted to improve the
\nquality of data, the openness of data.gov that we see
\nacross so many countries now, the access to more
\ninformation that is the basis for action for all groups
\nin all society.<\/p>\n

I mean, I do believe that this whole development
\ninto web 2 and social media really has for the first
\ntime, the opportunity for real cooperation and social
\ninnovation.<\/p>\n

So maybe we should also at the next meeting in Asia,
\nget a few more examples of positive actions where we can
\nsee serious collaboration between civil society groups
\nand governments. I think there are such examples as
\nwell.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: This gentleman in the back, I think this
\nwould be our last comment from the floor and then I will
\ngive the panellists a final round.
\n7<\/p>\n

>>: My name is Jenswidi. I am a blogger from the
\nPhilippines.<\/p>\n

I think there is you might be beautiful, but it’s
\nuseless to wink in the dark.<\/p>\n

In view of this, I think in terms of IGF, it is
\nreally important to have everyone be part of it and more
\nimportant, if you are a civil society, which means you
\nmight be part of an organisation or just a concerned
\ncitizen, not just a concerned, but a concerned citizen,
\nis that you become part of it.<\/p>\n

Just to share in the Philippines, we have had
\nseveral issues in terms of internet governance, in terms
\nof legislation, politics, and I observe and notice that
\napart from the NGOs, several concerned citizens also
\nvolunteer part of it.<\/p>\n

For example, we have presidential decrees that
\nsupposed to affect internet commerce and there are
\nhearings for that.<\/p>\n

Bloggers, media people went to it, because they felt
\nthey were affected by it, but more than that, they made
\ntheir on lines presence felt through blogs, through
\ntwits, I think there is also Twittering coming along
\nnow, maybe for the next IGF, you could have a Twitter
\nstring here.<\/p>\n

And also, live string. We have done a lot of live
\nstring as well.<\/p>\n

But, of course, the important thing is I think that
\neveryone should be, everyone who is a stakeholder,
\ngovernment, civil society, and every concerned citizen
\nshould be part of it.<\/p>\n

And as you said, everyone should just respect each
\nother’s ideas in this.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: Thank you. Who wants to go first?<\/p>\n

>>Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I might be last on the line, but I’m
\ngoing to be first on the responses and I am going to
\npick up on the last two responses.<\/p>\n

But to some extent, also at least Hong’s question as
\nwell.<\/p>\n

It is purely impractical for many thoughs of people
\nto have their individual voices heard unless we are
\ngoing to sit in fora for a very long time.<\/p>\n

You do need a mechanism of consensus building and of
\ndistillation of the most important aspects that
\na majority not global majority, because I think we’re
\na long way from having, but certainly perhaps
\na subregional or regional view. We need to have
\na mechanism to get some sift and sort, otherwise we will
\nbe hearing a cacophony not a symphony of voice and
\nthat’s probably a good way of stopping forward movement,
\nif and when in some of my other practices and life
\nskills, I wish to slow down a process, sinking someone
\nand a group of people under enough information is an
\nexcellent way of making sure that you can get out comes
\nwhich may not necessarily be for the greater good,
\nsomething I would like to think we avoid in the world of
\ninternet governance.<\/p>\n

To come back to the web 2.0 and particularly to
\nwhere we see the advantages in what are these
\nchallenges, Sharil yesterday brought forward the concept
\nthat within Asian Pacific being such a large and diverse
\nculturally linguistically and many other ways group,
\nthis what we might be able to do perhaps is distil one
\nor two points of particular consensus and I see that as
\na vast opportunity. It’s a vast opportunity because if
\nAsian Pacific can get even one or two points of
\nparticular consensus, we can practically guarantee it
\nwill probably get global buy-in as a important issue as
\nwell.<\/p>\n

So in our diversity and in our challenges, should we
\nmeet them effectively, we probably then can take our
\nrightful place as leaders in this area.<\/p>\n

There is always going to be a very great difference
\nbetween the attitudes in the already highly digitised
\nand the yet to be digitised world and we need to
\nremember and respect that we are going to have divorcety
\nof need and thinks like access and equity in the first
\nground, access and equity is looking at getting just the
\npipes and the mechanisms out there, so internet is an
\noption.<\/p>\n

The next layer tends to be and how do we manage it
\nfor our physical limitations of hearing and vision,
\net cetera.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong seems to be the variation on the theme and
\nyou are doing it all together.<\/p>\n

One of the ways we could perhaps for next time bring
\nsome best practice examples from countries and
\ngovernments who are looking at web 2.0, web on
\ntechnology and social media usage, and I’m sure within
\nAsian Pacific, we should be able to find a few of those
\nand obviously perhaps then bring them to the larger IGF.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: Any final thoughts? We are running really
\nlate, but Sean and Parminder.<\/p>\n

>>Sean Ang: Some comment on I think there are many civil
\nsocieties they want to have a voice. Internet
\ngovernance process, but what is lacking now is the
\nmechanism for the process.<\/p>\n

For example, what are the issues? Now it appears
\nthat we are discussing some issues here and there and
\nthere is no proper structure.<\/p>\n

So if there is a proper structure, what are the top
\n10 issues? How do we prioritise the issue? So once we
\nknow these are the top 10 issues, who decides the top 3
\nissues.<\/p>\n

Then what happens to the issue? So at this moment,
\nthis mechanism is still unclear to me and I’m not even
\nsure whether whatever I’m recommending is it being
\npushed up higher or whether it is relevant.<\/p>\n

Who decides? Who is making the decision, whatever
\nyou are saying now is not relevant.<\/p>\n

So these are the things I think needs to be more
\ntransparent, needs to be clear, so that civil society
\ncan be engaged better.<\/p>\n

>>Parminder Jeet Singh: I can’t answer your question,
\nProf Xue Hong, but you basically asked, this is
\na statement of the problem, then what is the answer to
\nthat.<\/p>\n

That’s too huge.<\/p>\n

I think what we need to do is that we recognise the
\nlimitations of the new method. We seem to have started
\nthinking because of a new tech know social structure,
\neverybody can be pleasant, everybody can be there and
\nthere is complete individualisation, everybody can
\npresent one’s own interest, there’s no need of the
\ncollectives, no need of the typical representative
\nstructures, I do agree immense amount of things have
\nchanged and we need to use all the structures and things
\nshould change, but things should also remain the same
\na lot and that’s the main point. That’s what Sean and
\nCheryl said, we need to remember that certain kind of
\nrepresentative systems will keep on working and let’s
\nnot junk them, even as normative frameworks and this is.
\nWe need to go and make the changes.<\/p>\n

The concept of multi-stakeholderism sometimes cites
\nproblems for me because it seem that is if people who
\nare present can talk all of them are present and if all
\nconsiders can be put together, public interest will be
\ncreated and I think public interest is created if you
\nget into a framework of public interest. Each person
\ncomes to this place with the intention not of pushing
\none’s own interest, but with the conception of public
\ninterest and a classical political theory, so I think we
\nneed to recognise this whole political theories and go
\nfrom there to the new systems and not rush too fast and
\nthat wouldn’t serve.<\/p>\n

One of the main things is that what many of these
\nsystems give us is they give us voice without agency.
\nThey give us presence without politics.<\/p>\n

You can all speak, but nothing will happen, so you
\ncan be happy that you spoke. Go home after that.<\/p>\n

So you always need to connect systems to outcomes
\nwhich are political out comes which affect us. Many of
\nthe systems, including the IGF, which I’m OK, people say
\ndon’t decide something, but you need to be connected to
\nsomebody or something which sides and if you just going
\nto talk, that’s not enough.<\/p>\n

So connection of these systems to actual political
\noutcomes are important.<\/p>\n

Two things I think which should be taken back from
\nhere.<\/p>\n

I want to move out of what I said, I am incleaned to
\nsay new things, but one is that we are talking about
\nparticipation. You have to actively go out and seek
\nparticipation. It’s not enough to say a system is open
\nand everybody can come, because everyone cannot come
\nunless you go fetch them, facilitate them, enable them,
\neven fund them, so the basic job of IGF is to seek that
\nparticipation.<\/p>\n

Second, it should be open to discuss difficult
\nquestions. What is multi-stakeholderism? What is
\nparticipation? What is policy making? Who is present
\nand who is not present should be a part of the IGF
\nprocess, not only the technical questions.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, there should be connection of all this
\ntalking to some possibilities of outcomes which affect
\nour lives. IGF may not decide anything, but it should
\nconnect to possibilities and places where certain kind
\nof outcomes are delivered, which could help public
\ninterest, shaping of the technologies.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: I’m sure we are taking note of all of these
\nand hopefully we will have an opportunity to really feed
\nit back to IGF.<\/p>\n

>>Yap Swee Seng: I think in terms of participation, I would
\nreally support what has been happening in Europe and as
\nwell as in Bangladesh. That means a national process.
\nI think that is one way that we can get more people
\ninvolved, because not everybody can come to Hong Kong
\nand Hong Kong is so expensive and good food, but very
\nexpensive, but at the same time, you need funding for
\nthese people to come and also, there is besides this
\nresource constraint, there is also a language barrier.
\nIf you have it in national, of course a lot of the
\nmarginalised also able to participate at the national
\nprocess, but when it comes to international, there will
\nbe language barrier and so many other constraints.<\/p>\n

So I think that is one way that IGF can reach out to
\nmore people and got more participation.<\/p>\n

>>Charles Mok: Issac and John, anything you might like to
\nadd?<\/p>\n

I think with that, we really have to end this
\nsession. We have over run quite a bit.<\/p>\n

I think please give all of our panellists a round of
\napplause.<\/p>\n

>>: Now is the coffee break. As we are running a little
\nbit late, so we will have 10 minutes coffee break and we
\nwill be back at 4.20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emerging Issues: Role of Civil Society in Internet Governance ________________________________________________________________________ REAL TIME TRANSCRIPT: Emerging Issues: Role of Civil Society in Internet Governance APrIGF 14:00-15:30, Wednesday 16 June 2010 Hong Kong DISCLAIMER: Due to the inherent difficulties in capturing a live speaker’s words, it is possible this realtime transcript may contain errors and mistranslations. An edited … <\/p>\n

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