Change Makers How can we ensure that marginalized communities, such as women, youth, people with disabilities, and marginalized groups, are included in efforts to promote Internet freedom in Africa? The exponential converging technologies are challenging the structure of democratic decision-making. Access to information has changed, elections are vulnerable to manipulation (‘fake news,’ profiling, and targeting), and the digitalization of political debate changes central features of politics in general. Some pessimists even doubt whether or not, under those circumstances, democracy is still a possible form of governance, while optimists see new opportunities for democratic engagement. And how can such democratic governance function when digitalization requires global regulation while regulatory bodies are necessarily embedded in different political systems and cultural contexts? Gaining an alternative view on values spotlights historical inequalities and locates the problem within technical systems and its roots in the social structures and institutions. A good example is the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) and Chatham House, which have sought alternative views on values in their work from women and Global South thought leaders. Another way is by drawing from the readily available wealth of scholarship and expertise on resisting colonialism among the formerly oppressed. This also enables us to pay attention to the evolving power dynamics within countries in the Global South, where the political elite dominate their populations. There is a need to review the whole international human rights system, which is in a state of atrophy as all major powers seek to dominate in cyberspace. There are (valid) criticisms of the shortcomings of human rights instruments in terms of how far they go in incorporating non-Western values/human rights and not reflecting certain local values, especially those in the Global South. The new digital compact must seek an “overlapping consensus” that draws from the best values from the Global South and Europe and can inform key global values, as it is necessary to pay attention to the cultural context and the values of the communities that have historically faced oppression. 10 A CIPESA Series