From WSIS to Now: What Next for Digital Justice
The Global Digital Justice Forum, IT for Change, Third World Network (TWN) and the Association for Progressive Communications have come together to hold a strategy meeting for global civil society working at the intersections of the society and digital. This three day meeting is aimed at co-determining a combined vision for our digital justice future and the way for civil society to engage with the powers that be. The meeting is scheduled from March 3, 2024 to March 5, 2024 in Penang, Malaysia.
Concept Note - From WSIS to Now: What Next for Digital Justice?
A poignant hope articulated in the 2005 Tunis Agenda for the Information Society (part of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process) goes thus, “We are greatly encouraged by the fact that advances in communication technology, and high-speed data networks are continuously increasing the possibilities for developing countries, and countries with economies in transition, to participate in the global market for ICT-enabled services on the basis of their comparative advantage.”[1]
Cut to the present, with two decades gone by, the UN Secretary General’s policy brief on the Global Digital Compact strikes a more somber note, “Our digital world is one of stark divides: A persistent digital access divide across regions, gender, income, language, and age groups; growing data divides that disadvantage developing countries; and an innovation divide resulting in highly unequal wealth generation, dominated by a handful of big platforms and states.”[2] Read more.
Draft Agenda
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| Day 1: 03/03/2024 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Time | Session | Resource Persons |
| 17.00-18.00 | Registrations | |
| 18.00-18.45 | Welcome and introductions | Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change
Deepti Bharthur, IT for Change |
| 18.45-20.00 | - Context setting for the meeting
- Agenda walk through - Reflections and expectations |
Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change
Valeria Betancourt, APC Chee Yoke Ling, Third World Network |
| 20.00-21.00 | Welcome Dinner | |
| Day 2: 04/03/2024 | ||
| Time | Session | Resource Persons |
| 9.00-10.50 | From WSIS to now... promise and pitfalls
Moderator: Sean O' Siochru, Nexus Research |
Anriette Esterhuysen, APC
Emilia Reyes, Equidad de Género Chenai Chair, Mozilla Foundation Jamila Venturini, Derechos Digitales Kate Lappin, Public Services International Neth Dano, ETC Group Burcu Kilic, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) |
| 10.50-11.20 | Break | |
| 11.20-12.30 | The digital status quo and multilateral rules
Moderator: Chee Yoke Ling, Third World Network |
Vahini Naidu, South Centre
Cedric Leterme, CETRI-GRESEA Barbara Adams, Global Policy Watch Ana María Suárez, FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN International) Camila Leite Contri, Instituto Brasileiro de Defesa do Consumidor (IDEC) |
| 12.30-13.30 | Lunch | |
| 13.30-15.00 | Recovering the south: What do sovereignty, decoloniality and self-determination really mean?
Moderator: Valeria Betancourt, APC |
Alison Gillwald, Research ICT Africa
Paulo José Lara, Article 19 Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change Roberto Bissio, Social Watch Jai Vipra, Independent |
| 15.00-15.30 | Break | |
| 15.30-17.00 | Towards a civil society digital justice agenda (plenary followed by small group discussion) | Break-out groups |
| Day 3: 05/03/2024 | ||
| Time | Session | Resource Persons |
| 9.30-10.30 | Finding the convergences (report back from day 1 groups, followed by the creation of process and thematic action clusters) | Chee Yoke Ling, Third World Network
Gurumurthy Kasinathan, IT for Change |
| 10.30-10.50 | Break | |
| 10.50-12.30 | Group work in action clusters (mapping and bridging advocacy interventions for coordinated multi-scalar action) | Break-out groups facilitated by cluster champions |
| 12.30-13.30 | Lunch | |
| 13.30-15.00 | Closing plenary
- Report back from cluster champions - Collaboration process discussion and decisions - Mapping collaboration moments and spaces |
Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change
Valeria Betancourt, APC Chee Yoke Ling, Third World Network |
| 15.00-15.30 | Break (End of Program) | |
Schedule of upcoming advocacy events
Draft political calendar to be shared in advance for further inputs
Workshop Reading Resources
Data and AI Governance
- Accelerating Progress Toward Trustworthy AI (2024) - https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/research/library/accelerating-progress-toward-trustworthy-ai/whitepaper/
- 2023 Landscape (2023) - https://ainowinstitute.org/general/2023-landscape-executive-summary
- Beyond the North-South Fork on the Road to AI Governance: An Action Plan for Democratic & Distributive Integrity (2022) - https://itforchange.net/beyond-north-south-fork-on-road-to-ai-governance-an-action-plan-for-democratic-distributive
- The Wicked Problem of AI Governance (2019) - https://itforchange.net/sites/default/files/1625/The%20Wicked%20Problem%20ofAI%20Governance.pdf
- Governance of data and artificial intelligence (2019) - https://www.2030spotlight.org/en/book/1883/chapter/governance-data-and-artificial-intelligence
- AI is sending people to jail—and getting it wrong (2019) - https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/01/21/137783/algorithms-criminal-justice-ai/
Corporate Accountability
- Missing the Target? Why the OECD Updates Fail to See the Full Picture on Digitalization (2023) - https://botpopuli.net/missing-the-target-why-the-oecd-updates-fail-to-see-the-full-picture-on-digitalization/
- Breaking Up Big Tech: Separation of its Data, Cloud and Intelligence Layers (2020) - https://itforchange.net/breaking-up-big-tech-separation-of-its-data-cloud-and-intelligence-layers
Feminist Digital Justice
- The Feminist Principles for including gender in the Global Digital Compact (2023) - https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/feminist-principles-including-gender-global-digital-compact-0
- The Declaration of Feminist Digital Justice (page 11) - https://www.dawnfeminist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/DI-on-FDJ-2023.pdf
Platform Labor
- Feminist Communities of Care and a Transnational Response to Redesigning Social Media Governance (page 80) (2023) - https://itforchange.net/sites/default/files/2291/ITFC_Feminist%20Perspectives%20on%20Social%20Media%20Governance_0.pdf
- On Algorithmic Wage Discrimination (2023) - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4331080
- Beauty and the Platform Economy (2020) - https://botpopuli.net/beauty-platform-economy-urban-company-women-gig-workers/
Food Systems and Agriculture
- Food Barons 2022: Crisis Profiteering, Digitalization and Shifting Power (2022) - https://www.etcgroup.org/content/food-barons-2022
- Did you know that the digitalization of agriculture could affect farmers’ rights? - https://www.etcgroup.org/content/did-you-know-digitalization-agriculture-could-affect-farmers-rights
Community Networks
- Connecting the Unconnected: Supporting community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives (2019) - https://www.apc.org/en/project/connecting-unconnected-supporting-community-networks-and-other-community-based-connectivity
- Community Networks in Latin America: Challenges, Regulations and Solutions (2018) - https://cnlearning.apc.org/resources/community-networks-in-latin-america-challenges-regulations-and-solutions/