| APrIGF 2022 Session Proposal Submission Form | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part 1 - Lead Organizer | |||||
| Contact Person | |||||
| Mr. Santosh Sigdel | |||||
| Organization / Affiliation (Please state "Individual" if appropriate) * | |||||
| Digital Rights Nepal | |||||
| Designation | |||||
| Chairperson | |||||
| Gender | |||||
| Male | |||||
| Economy of Residence | |||||
| Nepal | |||||
| Primary Stakeholder Group | |||||
| Civil Society | |||||
| Part 2 - Session Proposal | |||||
| Session Title | |||||
| Digital Resiliency of Civil Society in the context of shrinking Civic Space | |||||
| Session Format | |||||
| Panel Discussion | |||||
| Where do you plan to organize your session? | |||||
| Online only (with onsite facilitator who will help with questions or comments from the floor) | |||||
| Specific Issues for Discussion | |||||
| Civil societies rely heavily on tech platforms and the internet to conduct their activities, and the adoption has increased significantly along with CoVID19 pandemic. Civil societies especially in the south asian region were slow to adopt digitalization and digital platforms. Recent trends around the globe show that the apps and services that make up the digital space are now being weaponized by governments and big tech to monitor and disrupt civil society activities, silence journalists and whistleblowers, manipulate public opinion, and oppress citizens ultimately shrinking the role and influence of civil society.Thus, it is high time that civil societies invest in digital security mechanisms to develop digital resiliency for protecting themselves and maintaining and widening civic space. In such a context, the discussion will seek to unpack and hone in on: - Common operational challenges including trend and source of threat that CSOs face from censorship to surveillance in an already shrinking civic space; - Technical support CSOs have been getting ( if any) from government and international organizations, local networking among CSOs on navigating digital risk management and data security; - Exploring trend on how CSOs in the Asia Pacific region addressing the issues, including the best practices; and - Explore opportunities of digital resiliency, digital capacity and collaboration among civil society organization in the Asia Pacific region |
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| Describe the Relevance of Your Session to APrIGF | |||||
| The discussion will play a role in bringing forth the issue of shrinking digital space in public attention. It will also contribute to knowledge exchange and fostering mutual learning among diverse stakeholders by providing an opportunity to share experiences as well as discuss initiatives reflecting good practices and solutions for promoting digital resiliency and capacity of civil society. This year’s APrIGF overarching theme is inclusion, sustainability and trust within these themes APrLGF had encouraged proposals on key issues including surveillance, content moderation & censorship, capacity building and Digital rights / Human rights . The discussion will be particularly related to the surveillance, content moderation & censorship of CSOs activities where solutions to building digital capacity and resiliency of CSOs will be explored. Hence, thematic tracks and issues as recommended by APrIGF will be addressed and covered during the session. |
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| Methodology / Agenda (Please add rows by clicking "+" on the right) | |||||
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| Moderators & Speakers Info (Please complete where possible) | |||||
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| Please explain the rationale for choosing each of the above contributors to the session. | |||||
| Marius Dragomir is the Director of the Center for Media, Data and Society. He previously worked for the Open Society Foundations (OSF) for over a decade. Since 2007, he has managed the research and policy portfolio of the Program on Independent Journalism (PIJ), formerly the Network Media Program (NMP), in London. He has also been one of the main editors for PIJ's flagship research and advocacy project, Mapping Digital Media, which covered 56 countries worldwide, and he was the main writer and editor of OSF’s Television Across Europe, a comparative study of broadcast policies in 20 European countries. Sarai Faleupolu Tevita is Information Communication Technology Director at the National University of Samoa. She has got about 20 years of extensive experience in network infrastructure, cybersecurity, information management, hardware and software systems and project management. She is an active member of the Samoa Information Technology Association since 2004. Arjun Adrian Dsouza is a Legal Counsel at SFLC.in. He has 3+ years of litigation experience. He heads the Digital Defenders Network at the Center and is interested in platform governance. Achia Nila is the founder of Women In Digital - Empowerment through Technology. She graduated from United International University on Computer Science and engineering. Later on, she received her M.Sc on computer science and engineering from Daffodil International University. She has served in some of the internationally recognized organizations such as Dell, Microsoft, HP, Epson, Colgate, HillsPet, J&J, HTC, HSBC, Vodafone, Sony, Unilever, Betfair and Nokia etc. As a local product she successfully launched Maya apa Mobile application. She specialises on IT product development (like, web, mobile app and game) and Product management, project management, team lead etc. Recently she has join as an international IT expert for International Telecommunication Union. The aforementioned experience and expertise of the speakers are relevant and fit the discussion. |
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| Please declare if you have any potential conflict of interest with the Program Committee 2022. | |||||
| No | |||||
| Are you or other session contributors planning to apply for the APrIGF Fellowship Program 2022? | |||||
| Yes | |||||
| Brief Summary of Your Session | |||||
| Recent trends around the globe show that the apps and services that make up the digital space are now being weaponized by governments and big tech to monitor and disrupt civil society activities, silence journalists and whistleblowers, manipulate public opinion, and oppress citizens ultimately shrinking the role and influence of civil society. In this context, DRN hosted the panel session on the Digital Resiliency of civil society in the context of shrinking civic space. The session was moderated by Santosh Sigdel, Founding Chair, DRN, where Arjun Adrian Dsouza software freedom law center(SFLC.in), India, Sarai Faleupolu Tevita, National University of Samoa, Marius Dragomir, Centre for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) and Achaia Nila (Women in Digital) were the Panelist. The session mainly covered the Common operational challenges including trends and sources of threat that CSOs face from censorship to surveillance in an already shrinking civic space, Technical support CSOs have been getting from government and international organizations, and local networking among CSOs on navigating digital risk management and data security. Panelists shed light on operational challenges like gaps in skills in digital safety, online harassment and hate speech, restrictive laws curtailing media freedom and freedom of expression, and inadequate policies of tech companies respecting and protecting freedom of expression and privacy. Similarly, they highlighted the threats like statutory hurdles, government sanctions impacting free functions, lack of funding or resources that cannot approach projects, and distinct understanding between global north and global south on functioning of CSO are the major issues affecting the functioning of the civil societies in this digital age. Further Panelists focused on the CSOs Digital Literacy as Digital inclusion and digital transformation is not possible without shared knowledge, shared resources and collective actions of CSOs, government, private sectors, etc. The goal of the discussion was to have a clear perspective on the digital resiliency of CSOs especially in the south asian region. The session contributed to CSOs investing in digital security mechanisms to develop digital resiliency for protecting themselves and maintaining and widening civic space. |
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| Substantive Summary of the Key Issues Raised and the Discussion | |||||
| The discussion mainly focused on the surveillance, content moderation and censorship of CSOs activities where solutions to building digital capacity and resiliency of CSOs were explored. The panelist discussed common operational challenges including the trend and sources of threat that CSOs face from censorship to surveillance in an already shrinking civic space. Similarly, the session covered the Technical support CSOs have been getting from government and international organizations, and local networking among CSOs on navigating digital risk management and data security. The discussion explored the trend of how CSOs in the Asia Pacific region address the issues, including the best practices. The session helped to have common prospects on opportunities for digital resiliency, digital capacity, and collaboration among civil society organizations in the Asia Pacific region. The discussion played a role in bringing forth the issue of shrinking digital space in public attention. It also contributed to knowledge exchange and fostering mutual learning among diverse stakeholders by providing an opportunity to share experiences as well as discussing initiatives reflecting good practices and solutions for promoting digital resiliency and the capacity of civil society. |
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| Conclusions and Suggestions of Way Forward | |||||
| The session concluded with panelists raising important issues regarding shrinking civic space and digital resiliency. To start with, the session recognized the common operational challenges including the trend and source of threat that CSOs face from censorship to surveillance in an already shrinking civic space. The panelist focused on CSOs capacity building for making them digitally resilient by providing technical and monetary support from the government, and international organizations. Similarly, there was a shared understanding among the panelists that making cyber security in the paper will not secure CSOs online. There are many aspects to look for in cyber security. Media literacy and digital literacy is one of the important aspects of cyber security. The panelists concluded that media literacy and digital literacy are important not only for digital resiliency but also for everyone to protect human rights. Further, digital readiness assessment that considers all the factors of digital inclusions will help CSOs, government, and other stakeholders to identify risk and vulnerability associated with and help to have stakeholders, including CSOs ready digitally. |
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| Number of Attendees (Please fill in numbers) | |||||
| Gender Balance in Moderators/Speakers (Please fill in numbers) | |||||
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| How were gender perspectives, equality, inclusion or empowerment discussed? Please provide details and context. | |||||
| During the panel discussion, the issues relating to gender perspective were not discussed exclusively, but there were sporadic references such as how digital resiliency differs from sector to sector and country to country, how the local context, including the general perception towards a specific gender or societal groups or CSOs working on these issues face different levels of digital threats and safety issues. The issues of empowerment were discussed quite extensively and the panelists recommended focusing on digital and media literacy not only to increase the digital resiliency of the civil society but to address the related issues such as disinformation, misinformation, hate speech etc. |
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| Admin Use | |||||
| S14 | |||||
| Consent | |||||
 I agree that my data can be submitted to forms.for.asia and processed by APrIGF organizers for the program selection of APrIGF 2022. |
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