• The increasing growth in utilisation and relevance of the Internet certainly necessitates the creation of legal and policy measures to regulate its use or help to deter crime, in order to enhance confidence and security in the cyberspace. Her Zimbabwe has established that the internet is to a large extent, an extension of offline social interactions and norms, which in some quarters then necessitates some form of social content regulation as well. • Attempting to regulate online spaces comes with its own challenges. There are risks of far reaching implications as seen for instance with the ongoing ‘right to be forgotten’ debate. When a European high court recently ruled that search engines were required to grant the right to be forgotten online, it brought up a lot of questions about the implications of altering historical records and making information that was lawfully public no longer accessible, and how then to balance that with a fundamental right to access to information. Then there is the question of jurisdiction. That is, whether or not to define borders based on where a technology company is headquartered. Where servers are hosted. Or where the end users are. • This potentially sets dangerous precedence wherein some governments can push for their own de-linking rules and demand for things to be deleted. This can then potentially lead to the lowering of standards. • There have been numerous cases of disappearance of evidence from some online spaces, almost in ways that makes the internet seemingly beyond legal reach. Apart from this, the ever-evolving technologies of freedom enable informed internet users to assume full anonymity, evade detection or circumvent censorship using freely available and open source tools. Even in countries where government regulation is heavy, there is a massive wave of tools aimed at circumventing these barriers such as virtual private networks that are especially popular and widely used in China. There are also proxies that act as intermediaries between user’s computer and end site Web platforms such as Tor that aim to protect users identity by erasing tracks of where users have been. Key considerations in regulating online content production and audiences: • Foremost, in the design of policies and strategies regarding the Internet, it is important to recognise the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches, as well as ensuring broad and diverse consultation with and participation of civil society and other actors working in the public interest. Such actors bring to the table, concrete human rights and civil liberties concerns that should be considered at the inception of any Internet related policy effort. Responsibility for cyber security should be distributed and power should not be concentrated too much in one particular place. • Reference should be made on the need to protect human rights online and offline as embodied in international human rights instruments; and commitment to this should be unequivocal. Necessary and proportionate principles: i) Surveillance should be limited to specific known users for lawful purposes, and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications.. ii) Ensure that intelligence agencies collect information under a clear legal framework in which executive powers are subject to strong checks and balances. Panel Discussion Points Gender • The challenge of bringing gender balance into the cyberspace is real. Women still remain the ‘subjects’ for online content and not the producers and sources of this content. • There is need to protect women’s rights online within the internet governance framework. Women themselves should organise themselves and ensure that they participate in the process of drawing up regulation for the internet. • Cyberspace presents opportunities for women to participate in multi-stakeholder forums. • Women should be made aware of their digital rights and also learn about safe ways of identifying themselves especially those that may be in fear of victimisation. • Digital awareness and literacy are key in the internet governance processes. will have to bend to the whims of advertisers to remain viable. • The need to have a clearer local content policy for Zimbabwe is also an integral part of the internet governance conversation. A policy for the sector will ensure that content creators and disseminators can be both innovative and remain viable in a highly competitive environment. • Most people who use the internet are not professional journalists and therefore they do not have strict adherence to journalistic norms and conventions. There are a lot of online violations and abuses owing to the proliferation of citizen journalism. There is therefore need to establish some degree of standards for online communications. • The cost of social bundles and mobile data should be lowered in order to improve citizens’ access to the internet. Ethics and data protection • There is little regard for journalistic principles and ethics, particularly with user-generated content. Consensus must be reached on a standard that is acceptable and accessible to individual online content producers. • There is need for strategies on raising awareness on the copyright laws and sterner measures against those who violate intellectual property rights online. Content generation and start-ups • The challenge that advertisers often bring for people working online, like any other business that relies on advertising revenue, is the controlling effect on content. Advertisers continue to shun certain websites because of certain content that they deem contrary to their business values. This means that content creators and disseminators INTERNET GOVERNANCE MULTISTAKEHOLDER CONFERENCE REPORT 2015 020 www.misazim.com @misazimbabwe MISA Zimbabwe