This year I was once more privileged enough to visit the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)+20 Forum High-Level Event 2024 in Geneva. It was good to meet known faces, connect with new ones and see where the WSIS community is heading. The WSIS Forum is an annual multistakeholder event within the WSIS process. It brings together various stakeholders, including governments, civil societies, private sectors, academia, international organizations, and technical communities, to network, partner, and share insights on achieving Sustainable Development Goals through the framework of WSIS Action Lines. The key notes emphasised on already known topics pushed in the agenda, connecting the last 2.6 billion, disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital/gender gaps. It was refreshing that one speaker asked to what should we actually connect the last 2.6 billion people? Calling them the “last” should be neglected to rather named them “first” as they should be our focus. Secondly, just connecting them for the sake of creating new customers will actually harm them more than letting them unconnected. Offline-people need to be connected to educational, economic and democratic services who are decentralized and/or in control of the people. Current social media networks and other big tech services are centralized powers over the many. Unfortunately, this was almost never debated throughout the conference. As rightly stated during the opening ceremony, if they cannot freely participate in the information society, the digital gap will actually widen by connecting people.

In the session The WSIS welcome Part I: Meet the Movers Behind It!, they underlined that we only have 6 years left to achieve the SDGs and currently there are only 15% (!) of the goals on track. It is somehow frightening that nobody is brave enough to admit that we are most likely going to largely fail reaching the SDGs and that we should talk about why and what to do instead? They also went down memory lane and summarized the founding moment of the WSIS Process in 2002:

• Why WSIS: the need to educate people and organizations about ICTs (back then only 12% of the world population was online)
• What: The WSIS action lines
• How: Is still an partly open question till today. There were many failures between 2002 and today, which should be seen as opportunities to learn from. The panellist from the UNESCO rightfully stated that information used to be a public good but became a hazard in the last decade. Insults, harassment and disinformation are a painful online reality. He underlined that the internet must be inclusive, transparent and trustworthy.

In UN Leaders dialogue on the progress and future of digital cooperation participants mentioned that as WSIS we represent the people and it was the first time that both the private and the civil sector were invited to an UN body. The WTO representative proclaimed that digital services are the fastest growing services worldwide and 73% of this growth is in developing countries. The OHCHR stated that all current issues can be answered with Human Rights as they are valid offline and foremost online. Rightfully asked, power dynamics play a big role here, so who do we give the power to? We need to close the digital divide from a human rights perspective, not a technological one.

A reoccurring theme throughout all key notes was the Summit of the Future and the Global Digital Compact (GDC). The Pact for the Future Rev1 document describes well where the UN is heading and references the GDC under section 3 Science, technology and innovation and digital cooperation. While many of the Pact for the Future statements are valid, they lack concrete proposals on how to achieve them. Not a surprise as the UN is often torn apart by its member states and always needs to find a common ground – simply politics. The GDC is similar and in the following I would like to summarize my thoughts about the document:

• Monopolies are not mentioned once: Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and ByteDance. These companies are based in only two countries and accumulated too much economic and political power. They influence elections, institutions and politicians, they harm our democracies – too few people have too much power and money. A key focus must be redistribution of wealth and power. New estimates show that just eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world, why is this not addressed at the WSIS forum, in the Summit of the Future or the GDC? They promote free and open markets so it must be in our interest to break up monopolies.
• The internet and technology is centralized and ran by just a few players. It must be in the interest of the UN to decentralize our public good infrastructure. How can the marginalized freely participate in the internet when it is controlled by just a few companies? By its current form, the GDC will just create new customers instead of free online citizens. See the Fediverse movement for an answer and ask yourself why the UN is not actively promoting its Mastodon accounts? Why is the WSIS Forum not on Mastodon while preaching development?
• Both documents promote technology as a solution against climate crises while also admitting that they harm nature and people. They still talk about “sustainable” technology, which simply does not exist. Our whole technology is created in an unsustainable way and will never be sustainable. It is not a coincidence that you cannot swap your phone battery, that you do not receive software updates or that your devices simply stop working once they are not supported any longer. All of this is done so you can buy new devices again and again – planned obsolescence. Less than 25% of these are actually recycled. We need a Right to Repair, force companies to keep devices operational even if they are not supported any more, have a right to software updates, truly recycle and finally admit that technology is unsustainable at the core and not an answer to the climate crisis. See the Fairphone for a positive example.
• The whole online world is based on Attention Economy and we spend too much time online. Devices and software are designed to be addictive. It is estimated that 60% of the world population is now online and we spend on average >40% of their waking life online. This not only harms us as individuals but also has an huge impact on nature. As researchers from ETH Zürich conclude in their latest publication: We find that considering current infrastructure, the global average consumption of web surfing, social media, video and music streaming, and video conferencing could account for approximately 40% of the per capita carbon budget consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, as well as around 55% of the per capita carrying capacity for mineral and metal resources use, 20% for freshwater eutrophication, and over 10% for particulate matter, ecotoxicity, and fossil resources use. Technology heavily contributes to the climate crisis and is one of the reasons why we fail the 1.5 °C goal. The UN must react and change the way it promotes technology to solve the climate crises.
• We live in world of Surveillance Capitalism and everyone of the 60% online world population is constantly monitored. A few companies on the planet know where everyone is, who they talk to, what they do online and then create psychological profiles to sell them to who ever wants to influence them. They sell this data to shoe sales people, politicians with an anti-democratic agenda or anybody else who can afford it with a specific agenda. The whole system is not transparent and only a few really know how all of this works in detail. Why is Article 8 – Protection of personal data so violated by the private sector and the UN is not even trying to protect us? Can it really be true that with a simple click on a check mark we must neglect our fundamental human right to privacy so we can use the service of a private company? Why should we connect the “last” 40% offline people to a system of surveillance and exploitation?
• The role of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is mostly ignored. Not in the GDC nor at the WSIS forum is FOSS understood as a tool to free us from digital dependence. The Global South is expected to adopt our technologies and become technologically dependent on our infrastructures, which just leads to a form of Digital Colonialism. Admittedly, there are also power structures behind FOSS as money and development is still located in the Global North, but it is much more open to anybody to Use, Study, Share and Improve. The UN should have Public Money Public Code at its core. Imagine governments would share code and systems so everyone would benefit. This works as countless times proven by many open source projects, with DHIS2 as an outstanding example. Keep in mind that companies would still make profits by developing and running the services but monopolies and walled garden could be avoided – real competition in a free market. From my experience, the biggest challenge is that most people do not really understand the difference between open and proprietary code (watch this if you are also not sure about it). If an organization/government commissions the development of software then they could simply demand that it will be published under an open source software licence – Public Money Public Code – why is this not the default?

Why is the GDC not addressing any of these concerns? To better understand why the GDC is failing the most marginalized people on this planet, I highly recommend you reading Tim Unwin’s Reflections on the Global Digital Compact.

Parallel to the WSIS forum was the second AI for Good Global Conference. I managed to tune into some of their sessions and want to leave you with this picture and my written statements above so you can make up your own mind about the current AI trend:

source and copyright: International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

Contributions to the WSIS Forum

Towards a better understanding of the interface between digital tech and the physical environment

Next to Tim Unwin, Serge Stinckwich and James Crabbe, I had the privilege to be part of the panel Towards a better understanding of the interface between digital tech and the physical environment. We came together to debate the holistic approach of Digital-Environment System Coalition (DESC) and how technology mostly harms our environment. Serge shared with us his work at the United Nations University Macau and how complex systems and AI might help towards a better understanding of the interface between digital tech and the physical environment. James sent us a video contribution about deep sea mining and how the for us mostly invisible extraction of resources heavily impacts the oceans. Tim was moderation, setting the frame and elaborated on DESC. He also put a focus on outer space and how we currently trash this part of nature with our satellites. I had the privilege to present our IdeaContest which was lead and implemented by the outstanding Isabella Wagner and Birgit Kolb. We debated that technology can never be sustainable and will always harm our environment. We as a society went already too far and need to take back our actions so nature can regenerate. Regenerative approaches are required but we concluded that the current system of technology is rather the opposite of regenerative and we have a long way to go if we really want to start living in harmony with nature.

Community Media Networks: Envisioning the future

Tim Unwin, Pramod Tandukar, Philomena Gnanapragasam, AHM Bazlur Rahman and R Sreedher join in a session called Community Media Networks: Envisioning the future where I had the pleasure to moderate the discussion. We had a vivid debate about why radio is still the best working technology for the most marginalized as it has proven so countless times over the last decades. Alone standing communication after a disaster, price effective educational programs during the COVID-19 pandemic or expression of local culture, artists and language illustrate the need for a healthy community radio network. Panellists mentioned during the session that today’s challenges for community radios are:

• Funding, although working successfully since decades and most valuable during (natural) disasters, community radios struggle to get budgets to keep running. Most politicians see the future in the internet and neglect community radios
• Another challenge in relation to the internet is bringing up the next generation of radio hosts as the youth is rather online than listening to analogue radio
• The technological switch from analogue to digital is a big challenge for many community radios. The technology itself can be challenging (new and costly) but also the question what to do with listeners who cannot afford to be online?

The debate concluded with a passionate call to keep community radios alive and not replace them with new technologies which have yet to show that they are as robust as radio.

WSIS+20 Visioning Challenge – WSIS towards the Summit of the Future/GDC and beyond

I was part of a round table in the session WSIS+20 Visioning Challenge – WSIS towards the Summit of the Future/GDC and beyond and chosen to be the moderator. We debated 3 questions asked by the panellist and I summarize our responses here:

Topic 1 – Assessing the Milestones: 20 Years of WSIS

• Big and quite general question; hard to answer but we defined the “we” as everyone participating in the WSIS process
• First time the UN opened its doors for civil society which back then was visionary
• WSIS is the unique opportunity to bring people together to find each other (like-minded or need based)
• Successfully created awareness between governments and all other stakeholders

Topic 2 – Bridging the Gap: Towards Just and Equitable Information and Knowledge Societies

• Examples for when technology really reduced poverty on a large scale were hard to find – there were many “no, but” and “yes, but” statements
• GDC was debated as technology companies from the private sector currently heavily lobby for changes in NYC – which illustrates the importance of the document
• GDC is also already looking past the SDGs and it is forward thinking
• Unfortunately words such as “inequality” or “equity” is never mentioned in the GDC
• Most people and organizations still define development in terms of economic growth and not in terms of reducing inequality
• More feedback from stakeholders who have been involved in the ICT development movement for a long time should be included.

Topic 3 – Shaping the Future: WSIS+20 – Towards the Summit of the Future and Beyond

• The intention behind any technology must be to reduce inequality first, everything else second
• How many marginalized people are actually present at the WSIS forum? How can we really include our “target group” into the WSIS process?
• Just being connected is not enough, an example mentioned was Latin America where everyone owns two smartphones but it is still quite an unequal society
• Bring the engineers into the WSIS forum (not the private companies) who built the dominant systems; focus on open source projects and open data
• How can we localize resilience-to-robustness ?

https://www.ict4d.at/2024/06/world-summit-on-the-information-society-wsis20-forum-high-level-event-2024/