Themes

Overarching Theme: Enabling a Safe, Secure and Universal Internet for All in Asia Pacific

Sub-Themes:

1. Safer Internet, Cybersecurity & Regulation
   
   The growing concerns on issues such as misinformation, fake news, hate speech and harassment, online violence and terrorism, organized cybercrimes, data breaches, etc result in a decrease of trust as well as a wave of state regulations to mitigate the cybersecurity risks. To maintain the cyberhygiene, what kind of policies and governance model shall be adopted to tackle these issues and achieve a safer Internet? What should be the key considerations for states when creating these regulations? How shall we maintain legal interoperability of laws and extraterritorial data protection on the Internet? Should the Internet be regulated by the states solely and what is the impact of these existing regulations on the Internet? How should the balance be drawn between state interference on Internet infrastructure and a free and open Internet?
   
   On the other hand, there is a call for the co-existence of diversity for a peaceful collaboration towards a safer Internet. How can the Internet community participate more actively in the international cybersecurity discussions and encourage more co- operative measures? What shall the digital ethics be for businesses? How shall we take into account the concept of public goods and the commons vs. data ownership and privatization of knowledge? To enhance trust and security, how can we enhance the capacity building effort and how do we bridge the gap between technical and non-technical understanding of securing the Internet?
   
   
2. Access & Universality
   
   Internet as an important mean for access to information and knowledge, connecting the unconnected to such global resource remains a fundamental and primary goal. There are evidence that digital divides within national populations, are associated with factors such as geography, gender, age, ethnicity and disability. In many cases, these are consistent with structural inequalities in society as a whole, and so with differences in access to other goods and services. Beyond mere access, how do we measure the quality and ensuring it is affordable and equitable? How can we facilitate better access by encouraging more local contents and linguistic diversity as well as the adoption of Universal Acceptance (UA) and Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)? Digital literacy and e-government development are also key components to empower digital citizenship and civil participation.
   
   Universality includes striving for an Internet that are free from fragmentation. How shall we uphold the universal principles? How do we ensure the Internet is integrated and interoperable with the same values? What is the role of open technology playing in achieving universality?
   
   
3. Emerging Technologies & Society
   
   Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), cryptocurrencies and blockchains are highly prevalent nowadays with rapid developments. How do we encourage permissionless innovation while maintaining algorithm accountability and ethics? What are the opportunities and security risks behind these technologies? How shall we govern these technologies and or not at all? How does ICT provide solutions and impact on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) such as climate change, health and well-being? How shall we embrace the digital transformations and overcome the challenges?
   
   On a societal level, social media is ruining our identity, relationships, career, health and created videocracy. What are the impact on individuals and how that affect the society as a whole? How do we mitigate these emerging issues? What are the relations between Internet and the economy in developing countries?
   
   
4. Human Rights Online
   
   Human rights shall be respected and applied universally to physical and internet space in the areas of access and development, freedom of expression, right to assembly and privacy as well as on the right to education, health, culture and to a broad range of other rights.
   
   Issues such as online censorship, Internet shutdown, gender- based violence and inequality, privacy invasion are often observed in Asian countries.
   
   What are some best practices on these issues and likely impact on freedom of expression? What is the GDPR impact in Asia to the growing data collection and analysis in digital economy and IoT businesses? What is the importance of encryption with regards to the rights of online users? In addition to policies and tools, how can we make people more aware of their rights and the privacy standards?
   
   This sub-theme may also include other issues such as deliberative democracy in internet age, direct democracy in digital era, wiki democracy, data democracy and AI democracy, etc.
   
   
5. Evolving Role of Internet Governance & Multi- Stakeholder Participation
   
   The Internet community is going through a structuralization or institutionalization period of IGFs and SIGs around the world. Multiple capacity building effort on its history and evolution are proposed to help define the role of IGF and the community in the Internet governance processes.
   
   Throughout the last 20 years, there has been a discussion which puts governance and regulation in contrast. There is a difference between a multi-stakeholders governance model and a government- lead regulatory model. Furthermore, in the international arena there has been a contrast between multi-stakeholders approaches with multilateral approaches. Will the Internet need to be regulated more heavily by governments? If that is the case, is there a need for new regulatory processes to be able to be more inclusive to different multi-stakeholders groups especially the underrepresented communities like indigenous communities, religious minorities and people of all genders? How can we make the multi-participation model more effective and efficient in policy making?
   
   
6. Digital Economy
   
   What are the impacts of the massive growth of online platform and e-commerce to the traditional businesses especially in the Asia Pacific countries? What is the cost of digital economy and the security issues?
   
   How shall we address the legal issues including consumer protection, intellectual property rights, data protection, and social responsibilities of Internet industry? How can we empower underserved communities and regional in this digital boom?