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.”

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.” Read more.

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, IT for Change
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
• Can Data Save Lives? The Right to Health in the Digital Era (2022) - https://projects.itforchange.net/state-of-big-tech/can-data-save-lives-pushing-right-to-health-into-the-digital-age/
• 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

• How tech billionaires are killing internet for all (2024) - https://www.somo.nl/how-tech-billionaires-are-killing-internet-for-all/
• 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/
• The Evolution of Big Tech Litigation (2023) - https://botpopuli.net/the-evolution-of-big-tech-litigation/
• What’s Public about India’s Digital Public Infrastructures? (2023) - https://botpopuli.net/whats-public-about-indias-digital-public-infrastructures/
• Rigging the Rules: How Big Tech Uses Stealth “Trade” Agreements and How We Can Stop Them (2022) - https://projects.itforchange.net/state-of-big-tech/rigging-the-rules-how-big-tech-uses-stealth-trade-agreements-to-undermine-and-prevent-digitalization-in-public-interest-and-how-we-can-stop-them/
• Digging Deeper: Assessing Big Tech’s Capture of the Internet’s Infrastructure (2021) - https://botpopuli.net/digging-deeper-assessing-big-techs-capture-of-the-internets-infrastructure/
• 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
• The Big Tech Takeover of Food Systems in Latin America: Elements for a Human Rights-based Alternative - https://projects.itforchange.net/state-of-big-tech/agritech-and-food-systems-in-latin-america-corporate-takeover-and-elements-for-a-human-rights-based-alternative/
• 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/
• From Digital Divide to Digital Inequality: The connectivity paradox (2017) - https://researchictafrica.net/publications/Other_publications/2017_Gillwald_From_digital_divide_to_digital_inequality.pdf

Longer Reading List

• Postcolonial Media Policy Under the Long Shadow of Empire. In R. Mansell & M. Raboy (Eds.), The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy (2011) - https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444395433.ch23
• Confronting Tech Power, AI Now Annual report 2023 - https://ainowinstitute.org/general/2023-landscape-executive-summary
• Coloniality as surveillance laboratory: Latin America and catholic radio (2019) - https://lavits.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/MoreiraLara-2019-LAVITSS.pdf
• Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future (2022) - https://networkcultures.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ResistingDataColonialism_INC2023_TOD50.pdf