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The IGF - A Conference About the Internet
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a global multi-stakeholder forum, initiated by the UN, where the Internet’s governance and future are discussed. The sixth conference took place 26–31 September 2011 in Nairobi, Kenya, and had the theme “Internet as a catalyst for change: access, development, freedoms and innovation”. The Swedish Media Council attended the IGF to monitor seminars concerning children, youth and the Internet.
Internet Should Not Only Be Safe, But Also Feel Safe
Media literacy played a prominent role at this year’s IGF. In previous years discussions concerned infrastructure, access and speed, while this year the concerns were safe/right/wrong usage, media literacy education, behaviours online, etc. Although children learn while online, they should attain media literacy and develop social and technical competence.
Youth Participation at the IGF
A group of young people from the UK participated. The purpose of having young people present is to make young people’s voices heard and meet the industry, governments and NGOs. The young people were prepared to talk about the Internet based on their own experience, and participated as youth panels at a number of seminars. They were asked questions by their mentor and also asked questions themselves.
Some seminars saw the participation of young people from both East Africa and Europe, and the differences in Internet usage were notable. In Europe young people use the Internet for amusement, while in East African countries it is used by youths to discover the world and strengthen themselves, and as a tool in local development work.
The young people from the UK suggested that we talk about human rights and citizenship instead of digital rights and digital citizenship, that all subjects need a youth perspective, and that we can learn from each other across generations. The youths felt that online anonymity fosters equality but that they need to learn more, and that it is necessary to have a dialogue about what online privacy is and why it is important.
The youth panel was brought to the IGF by the British organization Childnet, who said that the young people were not used to talking about the Internet and were thus not familiar with the concepts used during the conference.
For more information about the Forum, please visit: http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/