The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Encourage developing responses to generate a global pipeline of robust civic solutions from young people around the world. We want to highlight the projects where ideas evolve so solutions so global youth can share and learn on the digital frontier. Each battle was conceived easy 30‑minute debate between two groups of young people based on one of the eight priority areas, each of the debates was region based. For example, Youth IGF Europe.
>> Hi, everyone, I'm Fabio, I'm relatively new to internet governance debate. I am starting in environmental science and have a background in political science as well, it is between the interface of political science and internet governance where we'll have our discussion today. This is why I think I'm going to win.
>> Hi, everyone, I'm from (?) part of the international IGF and in the Southeast Europe internet governance, I with all take part in the battles, see you then.
>> (Speaking non‑English language)
>> Hello, everyone, I'm 29 years old from Bulgaria, currently I'm a Ph.D. student in economic university in Bulgaria, University of (?) and I'm investigating the relationship between innovation and competitiveness. Also, I am a co‑founder of three companies here in Bulgaria, the first one is software company, employ exploring than ten employees, the second one is consulting company, and the third one is online platform for voice messages.
As I said, I'm interested in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship and also you have background in the field of financials, in the financial sector because I've been working for almost five years on three different positions in one of the biggest banks in Bulgaria.
So I will be happy to share my thoughts about digital Euro, and I will be happy to interview. Stay tuned.
>> Thank you. Hello, everyone, I'm Daniel and coming from Albania. I'm currently a student in computer science. For the past three years, I've been traveling in the field of internet governance as a youth participant and the United Nations internet governance and currently serve as a e an organizer at the internet youth government forum here in eastern Europe. One of my main interests, as well, have to do with intersection of technology, policy and entrepreneurship. Mainly in equity, capacity building, in cybersecurity and big data.
I would look forward to all the discussions we have regarding internet governance issues.
>> I'm doing mine for China. Specifically I'm interested in internet governance issue because I want to get more involved in defining the future of our internet. Also, I'm so glad to be joining you today, and I hope that today we will have a full session. See ya!
>> I'm Shea. I am in computer science, and my area of interest is artificial intelligence and. I am doing several capacity building programs. (?) mostly the colleges and other things upcoming, and we are doing our best.
>> (Speaking non‑English language)
>> I'm Maryam Jetha, I'm the youth internet governance ambassador from the U.K., I am currently working as a preregistration pharmacist at St. Barthelemy's hospital. I think this movement is needed more than ever before as particularly during these times of pandemic, we have seen a surge of fake online pharmacy, education, raising awareness and even policy change are really important for us to consider to fight this current pandemic, of fake information being spread online, as well as the current cyber of online pharmacies.
>> (Speaking non‑English language)
>> (Speaking non‑English language)
>> Hi, everyone, you maim is Razoana Moslam, I've been working on internet governance issues since 2012. I have drawn my master's. Since 2021, Australia (?), the users have increased, everyone is working from home. For that rope, we are more concerned on the internet usuals such as cyber bullying, cybersecurity, online harassment, et cetera. I would like to work for all the internet governance issues so that the youth participation and the nation of Australia can be a part of improvement of this internet journey, thank you.
>> We discussed, among others, AI in rural areas, digital Euro, 5g and green IT. Digital services app, Ms. Information and now four recommendations we bring to you.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Hello, good afternoon, Poland, good afternoon from the Youth IGF, I'm Yuliya from the Youth IGF, you I'll be facilitating this open forum, which is organized with the delegation to the IGF, and the Youth IGF itself. We are innovating in a very great manner. Normally moderator in the room and online, this time we are doing the opposite. We have participants and speakers present in the room. We see them, we'll introduce them in a minute. Unfortunately, the facilitator is not there, but I can imagine that will not be the problem.
Apologies for the audio problems in the room, Katowice. The message we wanted to bring to you a little bit problematic manner.
We are innovating and learning from technology, the idea of this message was, you know, to show you the whole geography and the languages we use during these Youth IGF 2020 battles that were organized, you know, in ten countries, in five different languages. So we expressly wanted to leave the languages to you, even if you don't speak Russian or Portuguese, to see people in their language can have impact, can discuss usuals and bring solutions.
That was the idea that we took by bringing this video to you and based on these battles that are available online, each of them will last 30 minutes. So we, you know, you can watch them online. They prepared for recommendations.
So I would like to present our key speakers, key people that will be with us today. And then present a little bit how we foresee the organization of ‑‑ you know, of this hour. I'm very pleased we will have a recorded message with Mr. Vinton Cerf, known as the Father of the Internet. I don't think I ahead to introduce him. And he's the Vice President and chief internet evangelist at Google today, and he reported an amazing strong message that I will bring to you, and actually that's the message to the whole community and to the young people.
Then we have with us, Ms. Yu‑Ping Chan, she's in the room in Katowice, we would like to welcome her. She's the Senior Programme Officer at the Office of the U.N. Secretary General envoy on technology. Yu‑Ping Chan, thank you for joining us. I think it's very important for the young people to know that the U.N. is keeping an eye on what the young people are ‑‑ have to say. Please be welcome if Yu‑Ping Chan is on the stage.
We have also with us, Mr. Pearse O'Donohue, director at the Directorate E, which means future networks at the DG Connect at the European Commission. Please be welcome. It's great to have you in cat was in Poland ‑‑ in Katowice in Poland. A lot has been possible in this open forum due to the team and the work of Mr. O'Donohue himself. Thank you for joining us.
We have with us, Mrs. Mei Lin Fung. She's online remote from U.S., from California. Mei Lin, great to have you with us, I know we have a lot to say to the young people, we'll give you this opportunity as well.
We have with us, Giovanni Seppia, External Relations Manager at EURID. It is managing dot EU and Giovanni will have the opportunity to ‑‑ not only to bring the message to the young people, to react on what he will hear, but to explain what it is about. Giovanni Seppia is online with us. I don't see him with camera, but I see him online. Oh, he's here, all right. Giovanni, be welcome. I can imagine in the room, in Katowice, we do see you as well. We will be having this coming back with Katowice in different countries around the world online.
So the idea of the setting is the following, not really fixed format. We wanted, we saw this in the beginning, to have the dialogue between the young people and the decision‑makers. And I think please correct me, specifically Pearse O'Donohue and other leaders if I'm mistaken, I think it's very important to understand what the young people would like to have or need from the decision‑makers and how we have foreseen the whole scenario. We'll go to the message of Vinton Cerf and give the opportunity to young people that came from the battles, Youth IGF battles 2020 and propose to the leaders to comment, our recommendations on what they've seen and heard, and what they can do. That's the idea.
So we have more or less 40 minutes from now. So let's start with the message of Vinton Cerf and then we will be back to our young people and to our great, you hope, recommendations.
>> VINTON CERF: Hello, my name is Vinton Cerf, Vice President and chief internet evangelist at Google. I appreciate an opportunity to talk to you about your interest in the internet governance forum and internet matters in general. Many of you are making heavy use of applications on the internet and contributing to further spread of access to internet and making it more available and more useful.
You will have figured out that there are a lot of things that are very powerful and useful about the internet and its applications on the worldwide web, but you have also figured out there are hazards and risks associated with the online environment. This is a complex ecosystem, and it needs work. We need to be safer and more secure internet for people to rely on. That will fall to some of you to develop new technologies and to adopt new policies and to implement new facilities and new capabilities. To create a safer environment for everyone.
Some of that relates to strong authentication of identity, use of two‑factor authentication, use of public key Crip cryptography, and integrity of content so people can't duly plate indicate things.
It's a political and regulatory challenge. What's happening today around the world, governments are seeing the internet as a potential threat in the following sense. For authoritarian governments, the threat might be disruptions of the government by people who don't like the authority of that government. So their response to this is to find a way to control who does what on the internet, who says what, who is allowed to get access to what information. That's an understandable reaction even if we don't necessarily agree with it.
There is the other side, and the more democratic governance, still a big concern of the risk on the internet, what content is available, particularly as we worry about misinformation, disinformation, political disruptions, polarization among the electorate, to say nothing of the general population. Those governments are worried about protecting not themselves so much but the population from harm. This also induces a need for international cooperation for law enforcement, for example, the harm that can occur can cross international boundaries. In order to identify and apprehend parties who are harming others through the internet, we may need other governments to cooperate with each other in order to capture or identify and bring those harmful parties to justice.
So this translates into more international agreements about and cooperation in the law enforcement space. More generally, even outside of laws, is a need for norms for behavior to be widely adopted. One of the global council for stability of cyberspace has generated something like a dozen or more recommended norms.
The first one had to do with protecting the infrastructure of the internet from deliberate attack. The routers and the root servers and routing systems, all essential components to the way the internet operates. And those are considered to be ‑‑ it's considered they should be protected against deliberate attack. That's an example of a norm that could be adopted.
At some point those norms could turn into agreements that are enforceable. Even though they're not enforceable, surface those ideas and advocate for their adoption, so I would urge all of you to think in this broad context about making the internet safer and more secure for everyone so to allow us to build more applications that we can rely on and improve our daily lives.
One last point to be made about all of this technology, is that it is technology and technology is never perfect. Nor is it always reliable. I've come away with a certain amount of concern over the SmartPhone as remarkable an instrument as it is, and it's turning into something you can use for medical and evaluations and detecting medical conditions, streaming audio and video, for conferencing, like I would be doing now if I were there with you love.
All those applications there, but when it doesn't work for some reason, like battery is dead, or internet access isn't available, either Wi‑Fi doesn't work or 4g or 5g isn't available, then suddenly a whole lot of things don't happen because the device isn't workable. You end up with a cascade effect because of this not working and that doesn't work and that doesn't work and something else doesn't work. We should be very concerned about the reliability of these systems, and also the ability to do something else as backup, in case the system doesn't work.
So those of you responsible for designing products that are programmable and use networks and so on, should think how to make them more resilient in the face of possible failures. Even go so far as to have two factor authentication you can use a two‑factor system.
I will leave it to you to fashion your own future and response to these challenges because you will inherit them, like it or not, people like me will eventually go on to our reward we have earned, and you will be responsible for making the internet better. I'm sure many of you will rise to that challenge, I'm sorry I can't be there in person to greet you and have this conversation, but perhaps we will cross paths on the net.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Well, we have heard the message from Vinton Cerf, I think the message quite ‑‑ it's quite strong because the young people, one of the sessions, was on message, I would be very interested in showing you, actually, what the young people, and we prepare these parts. I hope we will have time. If we have time in the program, we will show you what the young people said about the same subject that Vinton Cerf just addressed.
I would like to invite now, a lady from Zambia, Levy Syanseke, I hope levy is with us online and present the first recommendation, as I said, young people prepare recommendations, he will present his first recommendations. I do see Levy. I would like Levy to ask you what is your feedback, your feeling from the Youth IGF battles, but also what do you need from the discussion‑makers.
>> LEVY SYANSEKE: Thank you, Yuliya, and the Youth IGF.
What do I make ‑‑ what comes out is the fact that we have a lot of conversations about Internet Governance, which I think most of the young people have been partially left out, but so far from the battles, the organized battles that we had, so voices of youths being aired out, bringing out different issues, affecting the youth, especially on the internet response? That on its own has been very helpful. You're seeing a bit more of youth inclusion in the Internet Governance conversation.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, Levy. I think the first recommendation that were made was to include the young people in the presence.
>> LEVY SYANSEKE: What I think ‑‑ yes, it's mainly youth inclusion on the Mac, which you may have to get into in just a moment. It was around encouraging youth participation in the mag, as well as the creation of channels, but between the Youth IGF as well as the global internet.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: We'll get back on why do you think it's important to have a constant dialogue between the young people and the high level of the IGF and the young. I would like to go now to Razoana. Because it's very late for you, you have asked to be one of the first to speak. What is your feeling from the ‑‑ from the battles in what you want from the decision‑makers and what is the recommendation you would like to present?
>> RAZOANA MOSLAM: Thank you, Yuliya and the IGF for giving me the platform to speak and to present the youth voice of Australia. Actually, as we know and we have heard from Vinton Cerf, technology is never perfect. The young people who have the responsibility to take it forward.
Because we have so many shoes to be concerned of where we can ‑‑ there are room for improvement, there are online privacy, there are cybersecurity, there are misinformation, there are digital sovereignty and domain names, and matters like where we have the new legislations, the use legislations on services and all.
To start with, I would suggest the main recommendation that I would like to promote is to promote and encourage to have more dialogues between the Office of U.N. Secretary General's Envoy on Technology, the U.N. Secretary General's high level panel on the digital corporation and globally recognized youth groups so that we can, you know, ensure that all parts of the world are actually on the same track and have the same kind of security that we are expecting and the same kind of future that we are going to build together.
Online human rights exist online as they do offline. It has to be ‑‑ there has to be some center of digital technology where we must mitigate online harms and raise digital security trades, especially for the one vulnerable, which are youth.
So I would like to make that recommendation where we can make more capacity building as an absolute requisite for achieving that real sustained progress in terms of the internet security.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, Razoana for bringing that recommendation. I think it will be very interesting to hear from the decision‑makers present in the room and continue this dialogue and I don't have questions to you, probably they have questions to you as well.
I would like to bring on stage now, Yulia, the Youth IGF partner in the Russian federation, and you are also ITU, the generation connect, the person who Russia region. Yulia, what do you think, what is your feeling after these battles and what do you want from the discussion makers, same question and what is the recommendation you would like to present?
>> YULIA TIHONOVA: Hello, everyone, thank you very much for the chance to speak. So our battles, which were organized by the Youth IGF forum, online format. So there was a battle two involved people of different nationalities and ages, as already mentioned. The battles had the most sensitive for young people topics. Forum was implementation of 5g, technologies, for example, online education.
The battles, I think, unlike lecture or dialogue, include an idea that a speaker must in a very short period of time provide maximum arguments and to build examples, facts or data. So it's a little bit difficult, I think.
In addition to the two participants of this battle, there was an invited expert in case of Russian discussion, it was a Professor of economics, and he summarized our positions and supported them with arguments of academic circles.
As a result, we have reached conclusions on all eight debates, and we have particular recommendations that we of the Youth IGF wish to voice.
We think that cooperating young people with the office of the United Nations Secretary General envoy must be made. We suppose the office can develop a process of the global recognition of the innovative ideas that young leaders find the most significant in digital cooperation. Finally, our proposals, even the results of our battles, for example, can be scaled from an idea to a fully-fledged solution. That's all that I wanted to say, thank you very much.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, Yulia, I think you gave a lot of information to debate right now.
We have also the 4th recommendation, and I will read this recommendation, which is promote the formation of youth consultation committees and bodies, and/or bodies with the corporate governance structures with the organizations involved in Internet Governance, and the youth committee will serve as a best practice case, and actually, we will ask ‑‑ we will redirect this question to Giovanni Seppia who worked with the youth committee of the EU and hear from Giovanni Seppia in a while.
First I would like to bring on stage, Mrs. Yu Ping Chan to have her feedback on what she just heard and ask her to make a statement and say something to the young people.
>> YU PING CHAN: Thank you, Yuliya, I think this format is really cool. I think it would be amazing if this could be part of the full IGF session. The young people present Mr. Recommendations, it's not just myself and peers, the full IGF community, the older ones and the mag, the call to respond to them, I think it is pertinent and something the United Nations is committed to, that we listen to what young people want and respond concretely to their proposals and recommendation, we at the United Nations recognize if we are to build an open, free and secure digital future for all, then really it's incumbent on us to make sure that young people are part of the conversation and that we build that precise, inclusive digital future by involving them from the start.
I will also preface this by saying that I'm very flattened by Yuliya comment I'm a decision maker and a person to change the way the United Nations works. Unfortunately I am not. I am but a cog, I will promise you the Office of the Tech Envoy is committed to strengthening youth voices and you will always have a friend in my office, and we will convey back your messages to the policy makers that count and the ones that will make those decisions and we will try to amplify the very important things said here today.
Let me go through the recommendations one by one, starting with Levy, youth inclusion in governance discussions, we completely agree and do think that this is something that needs to be strengthened, that work around including young people on the mag is something we need to continue to work and from the office of the tech envoy we will strengthen that type of messaging.
From the idea Razoana to look at areas for mitigating online harms, digital security, capacity building, these are all areas that have been brought forward in the Secretary General's vision of the digital cooperation roadmap. Indeed, there are multi‑stakeholder round tables consisting of governments taking this forward, I take to heart perhaps young people need to be more deeply engaged in these discussions as well and perhaps we can have another conversation directly with you and your various organizations how you can be more included in this process.
The third recommendation from Yulia, we need a process of innovative ideas in the most significant areas of digital cooperation. This is particularly interesting, some of you may have recognized in the Secretary General's recent report, our common agenda, which was a response to what people of the world wanted on the occasion of the United Nations 75th anniversary, he proposes a global digital compact welcome back we at the office of the tech envoy will be including a public consultation on what precisely it means to have a global digital compact. Which would be an understanding reached not just but governments but by the private sector, civil society and indeed, future generations and youth voices is as well.
We really do think that youth should be part of that conversation about what you want to see in a global digital compact.
I think this idea that comes from recommendation 3 and Yulia about how you as the youth can really consolidate these most innovative ideas and what you think are the priorities and digital cooperation would find a home in the digital compact. I really do encourage you, the Youth IGF movement perhaps through the NRI's to think about how you can contribute to the general compact as it is built.
The fourth recommendation on the formation of youth committees, I think this is a very interesting one, it does go to the heart of precisely what we are talking about here, at the IGF, a multi‑stakeholder model, with private sector and youth engagement in that type of process is very important. You mentioned the youth committee of the EU, that could be a model we look at. So in summary, I do think your recommendations are very important, we will take them home, I will convey them to the parts of the U.N. that make certain types of structural decisions, but let me reemphasize the point, we value your contributions, look forward to being part of the process and really, again, I've been so inspired and energized by everything you've heard today. I do want to watch the battles and videos in detail. Thank you so much for having me.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, I apologize for the noise coming from my side. Your studio is ready, and your neighbors start the building work, it's them. I got apologize to hear this.
I can just say, wow, I'm pretty sure that the young people that were following your comment are more than happy because that's, like ‑‑ it's what they wanted to hear. I will give the floor to them. I would like to turn to Mrs. Pearse O'Donohue to make his comments and give his view from the European, European Commission, and if we have time, we will bring this very short statement of the young, a made during the battles about misinformation, it's very interesting. Mr. O'Donohue, please the floor is yours, and we will have you from cat was, Poland.
>> PEARSE O'DONOHUE: Thank you very much. Good afternoon to everybody, I have to start by picking up exactly on what Yu Ping mentioned, the core battles, another recommendation/instruction we should take is the process of the way this session is run.
First of all, those with the ideas spoke first and the people whom you call discussion‑makers, people who might be able to do something with this, listen and with all listen and then respond, not the other was around. I can say this because I've been to enough IGF's, just as we saw this morning, very important opening event with high level speakers who tend to make speeches and then leave, and that's one of the things we need to actually improve if the IGF and all the multi‑stakeholders are to have value and impact.
In that case we are talking about that community, which is young people. Young people cannot just be pacified as that group. You are a very diverse group of individuals in terms of identity, nationality, belief, race, ethnicity, et cetera, et cetera, and hopefully you will, as your careers in Internet Governance develop, you'll represent a multiplicity of views, everything we are doing. It is very important for us in this context, that the ideas of ‑‑ that the work of young people in regards to the governing of the internet, running of the internet, is center stage to what we do, it is the future as Vinton Cerf said. We see it aligns very closely to the ambitions that the European Union has expressed as regards Europe, but certainly that the United Nations has ascribed to. We see that from the Secretary General's roadmap for digital cooperation.
The topics that you touched are very close to my heart and our working agenda. Artificial intelligence on 5g, which is something I spent a little time doing, on disinformation and so on, things we have made a lot of effort on. Did we take the input, did we take proper account of the views of young people, the next generation when we designed our policy tools? That's something we need to continuously ask ourselves.
The way you're doing it through the youth figure and feeding into the main IGF is very important, this forum is she most important sounding board for internet policy and one we want to preserve and strengthen and make more relevant and effective. Your involvement will help us to do that.
Now, on the specific, the top level recommendations, as I heard them, I can only say yes, we strongly agree that we need to have representation of and even participation of Youth IGF and young people and linked to the young people of the new panel for the tech envoy and then, of course, a place in the discussion of the multi‑stakeholder advisory group, the MAG, that sets to deliver on some of the recommendations made from the IGF. From those Mrs. Action recommendations, I would strongly support them and even the format of holding meetings like this one, is something we should impact on and make that more of a standard process. On the development actions and looking then at the battles and the outcomes there, yes, we have to ensure that there's recognition and ownership of the ideas. That they can actually be implemented.
Just as importantly, as was described, without in any way entering into a patronizing process that where dynamic, no do it in some cases, challenging ideas, are brought forward, that those with great experience in one or another domain, in a very neutral and supportive way, try to help to translate that into immediately actionable language. I'm not saying some of those recommendations are not immediately actionable, you think that they are in fact, but it is that process which will allow the ideas coming through from the battles, from the work of the Youth IGF, just as we saw yesterday in the youth Summit. For them to actually be quickly and concretely implemented.
And then, of course, consultation within corporate structures and organizations involved in Internet Governance, that goes back to the first two points, you see that is something very necessary, I will now stop talking, I do want to hear more from the real drivers of this discussion, thank you.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, Pearse, O'Donohue, for reinforcing, actually, and once again bringing this positive, you know, attitude, positive atmosphere, and positive answer to the recommendations, to the voice of the young people, and to be very honest with you, we were a little bit afraid to start with this format. I have to confess, we thought, hopefully they will accept this. And thank you for saying we have done well with this format.
I would like to read one comment in the chat, from Mark Carvell from the U.K., he is saying as a former MAG member, I support the message leading of the MAG about involving youth in the MAG and its work on IGF strategy and consultations throughout the year. Thank you, Mark Carvell, for supporting and writing this.
I wanted also to say that maybe what we should do, we should make a small film of the battles so we can send to the world the films, so people can see what the young people discussed in doll.
I would like now to turn to Giovanni Seppia, a lot has been said about these youth committee advising the board, but you know much more about this, how it works and how it can be taken as best practices, definitely it has been taken by best practices by another organizations, but so how can we, you know, make this movement, to make this happen in other organizations. Giovanni Seppia from ‑‑ I don't know if you're from Russia, but from Europe.
>> GIOVANNI SEPPIA: Thank you, Yuliya, I would like to join the comments of the previous speakers of the incredibly nice format of these sessions, congratulations for initiating it.
Secondly, indeed, EURID works under contract with European Commission, and we manage that in Latin, and Greek, which is quite important because we are truly multilingual and multinational top level domain operator.
Last year at the very beginning of the pandemic, we were thinking how to engage the youth, the youngsters, in our actions, in the way we manage the registry and in the way we participate in the different events at international level, so we had the idea to create and start this youth committee, and thanks a lot, Yuliya, you have been instrumental in helping to set the committee and providing us names of possible members of this committee.
The committee started in the 3rd quarter of 2020, it's a brand new committee, and made of five different young representatives of the youth generation in Europe. They do provide advice to us on Internet Governance matters, on the way we should promote dot EU and engage with the overall international committee. I must say, they have been an incredible part of the past 18 months, the way we have been working together.
So it's an experience I would recommend to other registries, because at the end, we should always think about the next generation of user of the internet, and that's for us a way to understand the way they believe we should manage the registry, but the way they see the future of the registry and the future of Internet Governance, we really must focus on the future.
Again, these five brave youngsters have been really helpful in this respect.
It's a model that I would recommend any registry to implement internally because at the end, those people will be the users of the internet and also customers of the domain name market in the future.
So that's it, I'm shutting up because indeed, I like to hear more from the youngsters. Thanks a lot for this opportunity again.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, Giovanni and thank you for being so supportive during this year's to the Youth IGF, the Youth IGF also, you know, on where we are today, it's due to your support, so thank you for doing this and also in your personal capacity, I think it's much more related to the personal capacity, actually, I think that your initiative to launch with the youth committee has been taken already by the registry of EU and Yulia is a member of this. Are you? If you can quickly give feedback, how do you feel about being a member of such a committee. Are you still with us?
>> YULIA TIHONOVA: Yeah. If you mean generation connect group, yeah, I do understand, yeah? Yuliya?
Well, talking about the generation connect group, it is a great experience, we started last year in several months ago and we discussed some programs which are connected with cybersecurity in the region. With infrastructure, because it is a technical organization. Furthermore, there are some problems of women in IT and children protection. So there are projects which are done in order to improve the situation. I think to be a part of this youth group is a chance to do something good for my region and for my country in particular.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: All right, thank you, Yulia for bringing the answer, I think what you have done, that's why it's important to be on team, you know, to be complementary, thank you for bringing on your experience with the dot EU committee.
I would like to give the floor to Levy to have feedback from you guys, very shortly, we still have 15 minutes but would like to show something to decision makers, shortly, Levy, do you have comments on what you just heard.
>> LEVY SYANSEKE: Some of the comments with regard to youth participation in the MAG have been considered something that implemented. I would like to just say that youth voices actually matter, because if you look at it in the moment youth are doing more online. But if their voices are not mostly heard in the MAG on how level discussions, it creates a level of restriction that technology and innovation will be missed and compromise how much development can happen in that area. With that, I say it would be great to see more youth being involved. Not only being involved, but actually policy makers, taking actions on some of the recommendations that the youth raise on these packages as well as on the MAG or the bigger Internet Governance space as a whole. Those are my comments.
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>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, Levy, I think it goes to you are one of the co‑founders of Youth IGF Zambia, it goes in line with what, for example, Mark Carvell underlined, his suggestion and support to the young people being part of the MAG or having a seat or discussion with the MAG, it goes also for regional and national IGF. So taking back home in Zambia and thank you for emphasizing this importance once again, Razoana do you want to comment on something you heard just quickly.
>> RAZOANA MOSLAM: Yeah. I just wanted to thank everyone that ‑‑ everyone has defined and explained their participation and part of everything perfectly. I would like to add with the speakers that this is the prime time where we should start acting, and because everything is getting back to normal, we are looking forward to more events or more trainings and talking or debating sort of things that might be helpful for taking the next step, whether we should have more policies on the virtual world and online world and the work from home sort of things, the policy should be reformed, and this is it. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Yuliya.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, Razoana. I would like to bring on stage the comment from Aubin Gassette, I hope you pronounce your name, if not, apologies, as he's saying as NGO's are presenting civil society, we have a key in gathering the initiatives and make concrete action plans. Thank you for this comment indeed. I would like now if you allow to be ‑‑ to be straight to the point, to share with you these two short videos, I hope we have time for two. On the misinformation. Because that's the burning question in all discussions. I would like to show you what young people by kind of debating in between this. For the first one, I hope that the ‑‑ I hope the audio will be good.
>> Debate is essentially why misinformation can be a threat to human rights, and as a training pharmacist, I would like to focus on public health in particular, as the issue of focus. So I think before we start, it's important to understand what defines misinformation and disinformation. So a very simplified overview in a quick nutshell, misinformation is the spread of falsified information whether unintentionally misrepresenting facts or not. However, disinformation in particular is the species of misinformation that's deliberately deceptive. So this is a huge challenge facing society today, and it is definitely not a new one. Because anonymity and privacy online is making accountability more difficult in this area. Research has shown false news spreads faster on social media than real news. MIT report discovered falsehoods or more likely to be retweeted on Twitter than facts. True news stories take up to six times longer to reach people. 40 percent studies have shown is health news, 40 percent of health news shared online is fake and vaccines are the biggest area of concern here.
Being in a vulnerable time of the pandemic, where global health systems are at their weakest, this makes this issue even more important to address by our policy makers and you wanted to focus my side of the debate on it. I think the spread of misinformation or disinformation can cause harm to the right to health, which is article 12, and it's simply because inaccurate information about health care and disease prevention, for example, false information on vaccines, deters people from taking informed health care decisions that protect their health, which denies not only them, but those around them the right to health. So I think it is a severe threat to human rights.
The issue is not new to our COVID times. We can extrapolate learnings from the available virus crisis in west Africa where it was particularly challenging to manage, with the information available about the Ebola virus. We know there has been a surge in COVID related misinformation and fake online pharmacies. This denies our societies the right to adequate health care, which is an essential human right.
But some may argue that the European code of practice on disinformation or Malaysia's proposals, by policy makers about freedom of expression, it is my perspective it is the inappropriate policy responses that raise the risk of affecting freedom of expression, it poses a larger human rights violation. The right to safety, right to health. So I think I would like to conclude this debate is that as a youth voice, you believe we have a huge role to play and while we can urge policy makers to come up with appropriate and feasible solutions that work in practice, and that overcome the freedom of expression rights that it could potentially as a result some of the responses potentially violate, we can also help this ‑‑ solve this problem as young people and we can do this to ‑‑ with our efforts to involve digital literacy. I think education is really key here. At least as my contribution, contribution of young people to reduce the impacts of.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: You think she kind of summed up and brought quite strong perspective there. We don't have time for ‑‑ to watch another video. We can promise you to put all this together and present to all of you young people. We have two minutes left before the end, maybe we should turn now to the decision‑makers. If you would like to conclude with a few words, Yu‑Ping Chan, Pearse O'Donohue and Giovanni Seppia, Mei Lin Fung had to leave, she promised to write us in her statement, and we will disseminate this to all of you. Yu‑Ping Chan, would you like to tell us a view words, ending words.
>> MEI LIN FUNG: More of a suggestion for you to consider, in the building of the global digital compact, I think your voice will be essential, perhaps I can ask the youth global IGF to think about how you can collect these very important views and opinions and put them forward as a statement as to what future generations want to see in the global digital compact, and we at the United Nations will do our best to amplify your voices and make sure they are heard.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Pearse O'Donohue.
>> PEARSE O'DONOHUE: Thank you, I take a different tack and be quick, there's a meeting of the MAG here at 6:30 with the United Nations under‑under‑Secretary General and let's see how the process works. I'll take it upon myself to raise the recommendation about youth participation directly in the MAG and say that this comes from the Youth IGF and these battles, and that it is something that could be enacted very quickly and see how that goes and report back.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, I think young people come here better kind of proposal for action, and support. Giovanni Seppia, what would you like to tell us?
>> GIOVANNI SEPPIA: Just to thank you once more, Yuliya and to tell all the Youth IGF, all the members who are attending this meeting that I remain available to introduce the youngsters in the different countries in the world, to reach out to the different registries, because I think again, from the registry perspective it is important to have the perspective of the youth generation, the next generation, and that's
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, Giovanni. Thank you, for all your support and great words, you said them. Even if not online, right now, they will distribute the discussion and I think it's very important. It's why at the beginning we wanted to bring all these faces. It's not the full group. We wouldn't want to make this video long, and little bit longer for all of you. We would like to thank all of you, the young people, Levy, thank you for being with us, Yulia, thank you for being with us, row zona thank you for joining during the nighttime actually. And thank you, of course, to you decision‑makers and leaders of the digital world for having an eye on us, for taking our recommendations and for, you know, being with us, thank you Giovanni Seppia, Pearse O'Donohue, Yu‑Ping Chan, Mei Lin Fung. We will be with you, and we will continue, stay safe and I see you soon, thank you. We will end this session, goodbye.