27.11.2019

Youth IGF Summit: Messages of Berlin

Ahead of the Internet Governance Forum more than 100 young people from over 30 countries worked over several months in a collaborative process to develop and formulate youth messages for the Internet Governance Forum 2019. In regular webinars, collaborative documents and chats they worked together. 

On November 24 they came together in Berlin to agree on the exact formulation and finally decide on the Youth Messages. Below you find all 11 messages of the Youth IGF Summit.

 

Critical Infrastructure
Dear governments, nobody wants their utility companies to get hacked!Critical infrastructure that affects lives needs to be protected. Let's have a pro-active approach of audits and national strategies alongside proper disclosure of vulnerabilities.

 

Artificial Intelligence
Human intervention must guide AI-driven decision-making to ensure explainability, inclusivity, privacy, accountability and the right to appeal. It shall occur whenever the decision rendered had disruptive personal consequences, especially for vulnerable groups such as youth.

 

Platform Transparency
Companies should be transparent on their algorithms, data, content, rules & decision-making to uphold trust and responsibility. Governments should play a role in enforcement with independent bodies. Users & independent researchers should have easy access to necessary data.

 

Child protection
Child protection online is a priority for us all! We need a universal approach. Collaboration between all stakeholders is crucial for designing effective policies by involving parents, healthcare and education professionals as well as children themselves.

 

Cybersecurity
We demand new, dynamic cybersecurity strategies with multi-stakeholder approaches that include transparent, adaptive, and human-oriented policies since laws have direct impacts on our daily lives. As technology evolves, policies must too.

 

Net neutrality
Net neutrality and unrestricted Internet access must be guaranteed in order to ensure digital inclusion. To achieve that governments, companies, and ISP must not control data flows nor prioritize services, and must ensure transparency.

 

Misinformation
We demand platforms to instate multi-stakeholder councils to dismiss illegitimate data points from micro-targeting used for political advertising to diminish the dangers of dis-/misinformation.

 

Youth participation
Young people face various barriers to participation. It is the responsibility of (multi-stakeholder) decision-makers to overcome these barriers and involve diverse (including underrepresented) young people in a meaningful and measurable (KPIs) way in all IG processes.

 

Digital education
Stakeholders must strive to incorporate universal ethicalprinciples and standards and develop general competences framework indigital education.

 

Facial recognition
No facial recognition without transparency & accountability. Risks & biases exist, and they need to be known!

 

Platform regulation
Platform regulation is necessary but in a Goldilocks approach that balances human rights and innovation. Regardless of the platforms' purpose, their governance should be multi-stakeholder, inclusive, transparent and culturally sensitive. Everyone deserves a place at the table!

 

 

Your Contact
Elisabeth Schauermann
German Informatics Society (GI)
Project Coordinator
Phone: +49 (0) 30 24009-806
Mail: mail_at_yigf.de

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