Youth and Internet Governance
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REAL TIME TRANSCRIPT: Youth and Internet Governance
Hong Kong IGF
11:30-13:00, Friday 18 June 2010
Hong Kong
DISCLAIMER: Due to the inherent difficulties in capturing a live
speaker’s words, it is possible this realtime transcript may
contain errors and mistranslations. An edited version of the
realtime transcript which amends the inherent errors, will
be posted later. LLOYD MICHAUX and APrIGF accept no
liability for any event or action resulting from the
contents of this transcript.
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>> : Elaine Cheng: welcome you all to the RIGF. This is our
youth forum and we would like to make some report.
Everybody knows, if you know, that when you read our
backdrop, you will see it’s 12 to 18th. From the 12 to
14, we already in Sai Kung, we have already held three
days, two nights youth IGF camp and these are some of
our participants and they are trying to support their
representative. I brought seven with us.
But all of them are from the Y IGF camp. They are
selected by their peer groups. They are representing
the whole camp to what is the conclusion they came up
to, the camp, I’m responding to the charity project
creation. I spend a very great time with them, within
these three days, what kind of topics they have
discussed.
Before they come to the camp, they have to submit
papers of what is censorship, the second topic is
security and privacy and the third one is the cyber
differences.
Within all these papers, I feel very odd that people
in Hong Kong, they never heard about this gap, so we
decided to use one of the topics. We have called it the
cyber gap. I would like to hear what is their idea
about this topic and one thing I have to introduce to
you Y IGF camp, our discussion forum is going to reflect
the real IGF spirit.
We suggest for a very balanced participation, that
all participants have a fair chance to play their roles.
They are going to play the NGO, government, youth and
themselves. Youth is a lot of different kind of youth.
We are talking about born after 1980, very frustrated
people, and some of them we call it in the — and that
is something we would like to take a deeper
understanding about it and some private enterprise.
So they divided six different types of people to
negotiate or discuss within the table.
Today, is a very good chance we have Ken and also is
Mr Ken is going to give some feedback.
For today, each group of youth, we suggest by each
topic and we have about 15 minutes for your report.
Then after that, then we will invite Mr Ken for his
feedback and then we have 30 minutes for the guests,
open the floor for questions.
First of all, they spend a great time in the camp
and we are very proud of them.
I am going to pass the mic to the first group and he
is going to introduce themselves to you.
>> : Hee I can Tseng. I’m very proud to represent the Y IGF
as one of the representatives, to share our three days,
two nights, what we have discussed.
One of the topics is privacy. Then I’m going to
pass the time to Heiki.
>> : Heiki Tsang: So I would like to give you some
background about internet and privacy. I think
everybody have heard about ruby. This high school girl,
she is in Youtube. She send clips on Youtube and have
a lot of different feedback from the public, but the one
thing is she, because she’s a web user, her information,
she has no idea that somebody might use her information.
That’s her information or the people she knows and be
searching her information, then everybody come to find
out all the name, her address, her family background,
schools, all this personal information has been open to
the public.
He’s just a normal person, but because this one is
privacy invention, then she became a very famous person
in internet, because you have to heard about the uncle
from the bus. But these people just want to have a game
or these people have been her privacy been revealed and
she has a different impact or pinpointing by people or
impolite things happen to her, but up to the global
human right, what is privacy? Everybody’s private life,
family and her communication cannot be open or revealed.
By people. Nobody can have a bad impact, pinpointing to
that person.
But when the internet became one of the platform, we
don’t know how we are going to use the freedom of
speech. First of all, some of them want to confirm
about our identity. We give out our personal
information. Some people will post it or use it in
another way.
There is three suggestion and comments for the uses.
First of all, is to understand how serious, how much
information we have revealed or disclosed is Sam
Jackson, she said if I can go back to the past, a lot of
things he will choose not to post on the internet.
He doesn’t know who is talking to the person,
because he want his message or the information, who will
be get those people and who will be using it and what
kind of usage would that be.
One of the or some like this social website, we have
to be very alert. We have to understand what we have
disclosed, as well as like Facebook, your friends, they
might be revealing their own, disclose their own
information. We have to be alert.
Because we have to know how serious, what is the
contents we are going to share, who are sharing? We
have to be responsible for it. We have to take it very
seriously.
The second one, we have to know what kind of news
from our platform, once in a while, this social website,
there is a like of things like circles and they have
revealed a report and between the in Facebook, they have
a lot of violent attack. This negative impact attacks,
maybe they are looking for some personal information and
using the wrong way or they steal somebody identity or
identity threat. So what kind of you using the website
are you using? Will it be any danger situation, except
that we don’t know.
As a user, one thing is very important, that we
ignore what kind of — how the website is going to use
our personal information. Will they generate or selling
our information to them, but when we agree to their
policy, but we never know what is it. But it’s very
hard for us to protect ourselves this is this way. So
this is my report and I will pass the time to Ricky.
>> : Ricky Kung. I remove the microand make me much
relaxed.
I would like to ask you one question. Have you ever
tried in the internet and type in your phone, your name
or your email address? Have you ever think of any
privacy, if you upload a video or photo or you have some
attack in the website or internet, have you ever think
of your privacy? When we registered a lucky draw, we
provide a lot of — this company, do you understand what
this company are doing? Nobody really knows and nobody
knows what kind of usage will be our — how these
companies going to use our personal information. We
have no idea. As a youngster, not only us, but for
everybody in here, everybody is an internet user, that
we are responsible to read these website provider of
their privacy policy.
And then we have to decide whether we should post-it
into the web and now I would like to share with you
a private sir statement which I find from one of the
websites.
Please look at the slide.
As you can see, there is over 5,700 words of
a privacy policy.
As a user, everybody is necessary or interested to
read these 5,700 words?
We are sociable user. We won’t join one or limit
ourselves in one social website. As a youngster, we
will choose an easier and faster, convenient, rather
than reading thousands of words and thousands of words
about the policy, which is kind of contradict with the
convenience of internet.
These kind of social website and the policy from
these companies, they renew their policy very
frequently, as they renew it in April 2010 and we are
only in June, is only about two months. It doesn’t make
much difference.
The other one, the other issue that emerge, there’s
no transparency about it. We didn’t know what kind.
A lot of other website, for example, we remove some of
the pictures or information or videos. They will still
keep a record, but even though you delete it, all this
information, but these statements only takes a very
limited spaces there this 5,700 words from the statement
or policy.
So within these three days of camp, I ask them
whether they could shorten this policy, but the legal
adviser is impossible. So I really would fight for the
right to, before I do this research, I don’t know what
is Trust-e. Have you ever heard of Trust-e?
I asked a lot of people of any kind of tall,
short, man, girl, nobody knows what Trust-e is.
A lot of Trust-e, nobody knows. Education,
government, even the Trust-e corporate, they have the
responsibility to tell us what is Trust-e.
Now I would like to explain to you what is Trust-e.
What is the security and what is privacy protection for
users, they suggested to the companies, when they read,
when the user read the policy, then they can save some
time.
The other thing I would like to say, every time we
use some companies service, they kept a lot of our own
personal information, for example, accident, nobody
knows when, because accident comes anyway. Because some
hackers have cyber attack, you cannot expect. No matter
how alert or how careful we protect ourselves, but in
the cyber world, we cannot protect ourselves or our own
personal information.
So there’s three types of hackers. There’s black
hat, grey hat and white hat.
Then white hat, they should have to invite more
white hat, because they will try to hack to their own,
hire to somebody to hack into their website, so they are
getting well prepared before the black hacker, before
the black hackers attack them, they can protect
themselves. I think it’s a very good method to use to
protect themselves from hackers.
It’s a better procedure is before somebody hack into
your website, stealing this personal information from
you, you protect yourself first.
Another is the internet user, we have to speak our
voice about and also reveal our comments and ideas to
these suppliers, when one of us, we have a commonsense
in this internet privacy.
In order so we can protect ourselves, and in order
to protect our own privacy and personal information.
I’ll pass it on to Kit. I’m sure she’ll continue.
>> : Kit Yeung: I think when we look into this situation,
there are three major areas we can tackle this privacy
issue, which are education, legislation, and
enforcement.
Firstly, I would like to talk about education.
Education is really, we need more funding for NGOs to
really education our parents and teachers and students
to protect themselves on the internet privacy field.
Schools have to provide more training and courses
for both teacher and their students on how to protect
themselves and retain their own personal information
without giving them out easily to other internet
companies or other service providers.
Really, training additional peer supports, because
sometimes even you teach them, they don’t really get it.
But if using a team as a media, it is much more
easier and effectively to tell those teenagers that what
they should be concerned about, how they should protect
themselveses from on-line space and advertisements as
well.
To increase the general awareness of the social or
the internet privacy issue.
Secondly, legislation. Legislation, I’m suggesting
to introduce a buffer zone that is in place between
updates of privacy statements.
This buffer zone is to give the user time and to
have reasonable time and time to reflect on how the new
privacy statement will have affect them. They can
interact with the internet company to discuss about
these situations, before it actually effective.
This gives user a more ensure. To let them know
that it is not what they change we have to accept, we
have time to input and ask them to negotiate with their
user and to teak their new privacy statements before
push it out.
We suggest as well a clean, easy to understand
privacy statement.
It is impossible, as my teammate pointed out, there
are 5,700 words, which is close to impossible for anyone
to read it. They usually make it extremely small box on
the registration form.
It is impossible to read from it. So we are
suggesting an easy understanding statement, like a point
form or summary, about the privacy statement, which is
the main point that affects the user most.
Other related to, say, law, we can really not put it
all together and to just present to users.
We should also have standard guidelines which
company must comply, like a basic standard and
validation, such as the Trust-e. We can introduce
a very low standard at first, then we increase it every
year to help to maintain the standard of the privacy.
We can also against people who actively collect and
display personal, other personal information. Because
this kind of personal information disclosure are not
really nice things to do and it is hurting other people
and try to make other people self-censor themselves. So
it must be against and other people should be protected
from being self-censored.
Lastly, I would talk about enforcement. I think,
really, a privacy commissioner should more actively
posting those company who retain huge amount of personal
information. No matter if it is anonymously,
non-retractable information. It is really key
information that you should care about.
They should actively disclose. How will they use
these personal information in their business practice?
To let user to understand my information, where it go,
how you will use it. Will it use against me?
That is pretty much all of it.
These concerns must be negotiated between
stakeholders of pretty much everyone.
Thank you for your attention. Privacy is finished.
>> : Elaine Cheng I really appreciate this group of
students. They are working on privacy. Example what
they just said, well like posting pictures, photos on
the social website, is not really something that I would
like people to do. Also, having freedom of speech, on
the other hand, you should be aware that you have
responsibility on the website too.
There is someone who want to add on. Ken will make
a speech.
>> : Ken Chang thank you, Elaine. They did very well and
then they under this topic, they did it very detailed.
They have detail on every point.
Also, in the ordinance, they are very clear about
the ordinance.
Even adults, we surf a website, we didn’t pay so
much attention onto the privacy statement or somewhere
that potentially is a trap or somewhere like
particularly on the social website, how they are going
to use our personal data.
When I use Facebook, I’ll pay more attention to such
details.
Next time when I log-on this social website, I’ll
pay more attention to the details, as to how I am
protected, like my personal information or how it is
uploaded to the website, how it is going to be used and
how it is going to be protected.
It is very well researched, this team.
I would like to add more to this area, what we just
discussed on more on a global scale. Just now, we talk
about glooming. This is talking about you put up a name
and get other people information.
It is called cyber bullying.
What I think this area, youth and adult, we have to
pay more attention. Maybe ourselves, we have misused
the information.
Also, we are not aware this action putting other
people information, photos on the web, it is infringe of
other people privacy.
I’m saying that we should be more aware of how we
are going to use other people’s information.
All the time, most of the time, we think that
on-line, we are having a private communication, which is
not.
On this social networking website, it is very
public. Then it comes also the responsibilities.
Also, you comment you have to be responsible for you
comments, too.
I think youth, new generation, even adult, we have
to pay more attention to these areas.
It is a big information age we are facing, so this
is a very, very good point to be raised.
Just now, we talk about privacy, on-line privacy.
Young people, how they are going to load their
personal information on the website.
For example, Elaine was just saying that she’s
checking every day on-line whether her information is
disclosed on the website.
Young people may think that it’s not very totally
utterly such a concern, your personal information being
disclosed on the web.
In a secondary school context, the student found
information being disclosed on the website. I like to
raise one point. If the secondary student, their total
background is being disclosed on the website, it’s very
hurtful to their feeling. For example, your fellow
student disclose a student and then disclose them on the
website, the full detailed personal information and then
deliberately to disgrace him.
So the other person can do nothing, even when he
report it to the teacher, the teacher can do nothing
about it, because the information has been spread and
the story, this has been spread.
Just now, I have been to a conference in the US.
It’s about school internet conference.
We talk about one point. When you are witnessing
seeing someone being bullied, physically bully someone,
if you are a bystander, you are a culprit. They put
this idea, comparing to what’s happening on the website.
So it is to say that in the website situation, it’s the
same thing. Who you witness a bullying case, and you
don’t do nothing, so you are a culprit too. So they are
trying to put this into the internet context.
I would like to emphasise this. It’s very hurtful
to the student being bullied. It’s very hurtful to his
feeling and the damage could be very long lasting.
Nowadays, website, there is a problem on the
website. You cannot react to website bullying as
a teacher, as an adult. When the youth being bullied on
the website, how we are going to deal with it? Is there
any direction that we can follow?
On the other hand, the student has responsibility,
too. Because they put on their — they put their
personal information on the website themselves and
without realising the information will be misused or
used against them.
The other point, we have to think think aboutr it,
your personal information, where you go, your personal
hobby, is it right to put it freely on the website?
In our liberal education, in the classroom, should
we put more emphasis in this area? Recently, I come
across with some cases where youth has put up their very
intimate photos with their friends on the website and
then something happened. Their fellow student, they
spread this, they forward these photos.
So that the present boyfriend has seen it.
What is happened, the relationship was damaged and
gone.
So this is reality.
So don’t overlook your personal information.
A lot of times, young people may think it’s not
a big deal putting your personal information on the
website, but how does other people will use it. I think
it is a big concern.
What we just talk about, one point on legislation,
there is an ordinance on this. I think this ordinance
has to be improved and also this ordinance has also has
to be updated.
Under enforcement, we should think about very
clearly how a trustee is being educated, being known,
being acknowledged.
In the past, the consumer council has played its
role. They play the role of making this known.
In our context, Trust-e, do we have someone like
this, like a consumer council, like this kind of body,
to let us know, let the public know, about this grey
area? This is what I want to say. Thank you very much.
>> : Elaine Cheng: Thank you for Mr Ken and I know that all
the youngsters, if there is feedback or question, please
feel free. We have one person who has several
questions.
>> : Kit Yeung: Because I talk to my sister in Chinese, in
some occasions, it’s the opposite, because the school
actively would like to learn the information from the
school, because they are religious school, because they
will get into the students Facebook and then they will
look at your pictures, if you have very intimate
pictures, then they will give you penalty. They will
post it in the school because why we give you a penalty,
because this is because you have an intimate photo on
Facebook.
This is not only about teenagers, but other people
in Facebook and other people in the internet.
The role of the school, what is going to help to
reveal, to disclose the school identity, because these
actions are not conduct in the school or wearing
uniform. Why? She has to go under these school
censorship.
>> : Ken Chan actually, in some school, some teachers, they
will act this way, but I don’t know why. Because some
teachers are very nice. They really concern or care
about their students, so they will read Facebook
contents and what are the students doing and besides
studies or they have any difficulties in their own lifes
or psychologically they give them some consulting.
These are very positive. But just what you have
mentioned, to see what they did during their free time,
when they are reading from their Facebook and their blog
and then they give them penalty, then it is the first
time I have ever heard about it.
Will that be in some certain things that we have to
discuss? Because in these occasions, already outside
the school, secondly, intimate pictures.
If the person have take second thoughts about it
before she post it on the Facebook and then it has no
violating the laws of Hong Kong, then I think these need
to be discussed.
Another point is when we are talking about privacy
and freedom of speech and in our moral society, how we
are going to draw this line. This is the most important
thing.
If we cannot draw this line, everything can be — we
need to consider why and why not before we act. If not,
then the space, the reality, is an extension, but still
we have to obey some laws.
But besides the legislation, is there a free space
that we can use. This line and then we have to build
them or how to build this line.
At this moment, we cannot make all these definite
lines, but hopefully in the future, we can.
>> : Elaine Cheng: thank you, Mr Ken. Then we go to the
second group.
The second group will be about censorship. Then
he’s going to introduce themselves.
>> : Jerry Tam: Hello everybody. This is Anson, my
partner. Today I would like to talk about censorship.
I’m very happy that we can speak in this occasion.
Yesterday we prepare some materials and today I’m very
surprised, before we came, we took five slides away.
One is talking about is what is censorship, what is
censorship, what is the impact, why censorship is
necessary, but before we came in, is it something that
we need to stay state in this occasion, because
everybody know what is censorship.
I would like to reveal our view from our angle.
This is a picture I would like to show you is children
is from our point of view.
Some solutions. How are you going to protect
ourselves? This is where we start.
The first picture is very hot, maybe boring, this
may make you up.
This picture, this slide is shown very clearly what
is our thought.
It’s very simple.
Some violent or sexual revealing materials should go
under censorship. For some political or economic
content should be kept.
This is the common understanding we got as a result.
What is censorship?
The previous slide, how to differentiate what must
be needed to delete and then some conclusion.
The first one I would like to introduce is the UN
convention on the rights of the child.
But if you are talking about our conventions, why we
have to mention, because this is their 20th anniversary
and then Hong Kong is one region that signed this
convention. This is how to protect the rights, what is
the definition of children is under 18.
Over here, I think I’m only person who is under 18.
It is not how to protect myself only, but also how to
protect all the children.
One statement in here is No. 17, is how to protect
children from any information that might harm their
benefits or their person. Because it’s very difficult
to differentiate what actually should be protected.
When we sign this convention, and we are one of the
participants, it’s very clearly stated in this
statement, not only for the government, but everybody,
all of us need to protect children from violence or
anything about sex and because they are not well
developed, they are not mature, so there might be
a negative impact in the future.
Based on this convention and we need to know how to
improve it.
As we have one very concrete conclusion, I would
like to share with you.
You can see this is a meeting room, when we say is
internet censorship committee. You can see my face
here, because I am children, so I’m a child. Not only
three parties should be there, it’s government, adults
and children. Why children voice so important? Because
everybody think we are discussing is about the children.
When we are talking about the convention from the UN is
also we have to give the right for the children to speak
for themselves and then there’s some might be possible.
First of all is to raise some policy, some internet
censorship, voices from children or teachers, to see
what might be possible to conduct, what kind of studies
about censorship.
Of course, there must be voices from the children
also also there’s education and promotion. When we are
doing internet censorship, we rely on IGF to do the
promotion, but who is understanding? Maybe a school
promotion is very important or for the parents, but
these association or committees can add some education
element. Not only children, but also the teacher and
the parents, what more they can do and all your survey,
maybe undergo some survey, what is the children thinks
about internet censorship or the point of view from
parents and teachers and I think this is very useful for
Hong Kong.
As I have mentioned, because in this camp, we are
having a role play. When I’m representing, playing the
role of the government, before we have any suggestion,
we should go under a survey to see that we are
committed, what we are going to do, introduce our job
nature. Then what is the citizen, what is their
comments? That’s what the Hong Kong Government have
been doing. They are doing a lot of survey already and
the last point is, as I have been giving a chance for
the children to speak.
Because adults have their own thoughts and they will
think, have to censor everything, every day, about
politics, the children might say something very violent,
would have a negative impact on us, or maybe the adult
thinks politics is also have a negative impact.
So the adults and the children may have different
thoughts. They have to have a platform for the children
to speak and Anson will tell you more about our
committee, who is participating and the pictures you
have seen, protection, one is about freedom, who kind of
materials that we can watch from internet. Thank you
for.
>> : Anson Lau: This is our censorship committee, the
result from our camp. Within this committee, there is
a different stakeholders, NGOs, government
representatives, education representative, teachers,
teenagers, for example, children or the rights for the
children to speak, IT companies, because in censorship,
we need help from these IT companies to design
programmes, what need to be censored, what need not to
be censored. We have to ask the IT when what is the
recommendation, also parents. I think parents is
very — as we think, a family education is also very
important, because the children will keep in touch with
their peer groups, with the teachers and parents. So
they usually surf internet at home. So I hope the
parents in this committee can, what kind of information
they can get from the information, what kinds of
information they don’t want.
Within these stakeholders, they will elect
themselves. They will have a period of time, who is
going to be chairman and then another stakeholder will
take his place.
So let’s look at the level of censorship.
In the camp, we really reject that children is going
to get into something violent or pornographic materials
for the children.
I think this is good. You should take a look at it.
If you don’t read it, this is — they have peer
pressure. These pictures that I should read or under
curiosity. But these pictures might be very bad for the
children on their mindset or they have a negative image
or messages passed to the children.
So that’s why very strong in that censorship that
these all bad information should be filtered and also
the parents help is very useful, because for children,
from sensitive matters, what is not to get pregnant or
maybe something for something very bad or negative
information.
But this is very neutral or safety. This is
positive image. If we don’t have the help from the
parents, maybe the children will get into some negative
impact. People might — the children, instead of
getting the correct sex education, they might get
something which is negative.
That is something we encourage the parents to watch
TV with the children or even though in this IT
generation, should the parents accompany the children to
surf in the internet and the solution is if some adults
or more mature youngsters and they want to read how to
make bombs, maybe it’s just a research topic or when
they are in the university, they have to go undergo
a project and they want to know the procedure, how to
make booms, these are kind of dangerous messages.
They’re not going to implement. But when they try to
log-in to this kind of bomb making or violent or sex
website, then first of all, besides log-in your age and
then your birthday and also they need to be credit card,
because credit card, youngster may not have their own
credit card, so they have other email address, ISP email
also is only subscriber. Adults can own these kind of
emails. So hopefully if these kind of sensitive or
special information website, this kind of special data,
then we can confirm this is an adult or more mature
person before they can get in touch with this kind of
information.
On the other hand, we really against the political
censorship. Why? Like the problem in Tibet or the
Second World War or the June 4th incident of Beijing,
these are not things for censorship. These are
something is part of our history.
It’s the truth and it’s our truth. If some children
or students, they want to research or take a better look
at these politics issues, the reason and the procedure
and what is the result and what’s the impact, these can
fulfil their wants about new knowledge. Why do we have
to censor this kind of information? We should not stop
them from freedom of learning, because they want to
learn, they want to understand the incident.
To learn a lesson from this incident, to make
themselves to avoid from making the same mistake again.
Also, make themselves to be alert about not to have
this happen again.
With this kind of censorship, with this politics
censorship, is for researcher or students or historian,
it’s very unfair.
There is a gap, there is a big gap, if they could
not find information regarding to these issues.
Recently, the incident about Google China, the
trigger point is Chinese Government, they have high
censorship and they hack the people in opposition, their
emails.
All the while, the government has totally
discouraged about Google, Falun Gong, and because of
these triggers, that leads to all these political
problems, the diplomatic problem, I think Chinese
Government should be more wise and the China government,
they can avoid Google from being exiting from China
market.
When people in China, they want to know more about
these sensitive issues, the more they want to censor it.
I think in general, it’s not a good idea. People
would like to know the history. They have the freedom
to know.
Another point is, about censorship, in relation to
religion. Everyone, teenager, we should respect
different religion. Perhaps, say, Islam, they study the
Koran. We understand they shouldn’t reveal their body
for female. We should respect the doctrine about their
religion.
We want to do business or penetrate into this
country, we should know and follow what’s in their
doctrine.
Let’s look at this slide. I have National
Geographic cover page. This is about, in the Islamic
country, a couple, the photo being very intimate, is not
supposed to be shown.
So what I want to say is that we should respect
other people’s religion.
In conclusion, I would like to say about the UN, the
statement on, firstly, education, secondly in the
committee, children have the say.
Globally, we filter and discourage children from
getting information about violence or pornography and we
are against political censorship.
We should develop our value, own value and we should
have the right to know the history.
About religious censorship, we should respect that
and we should respect this.
This is my presentation.
>> : Elaine Cheng: now we open the floor for Q and A. IGF,
there is a mission for IGF. One of the missions is to
develop a better worldwide web for the next generation.
We now share our ideas in this forum.
I have one point to add. The content on the
internet, the content is not poisonous. What’s
poisonous is not how how you use the information.
>> : Ken Chan: I respond to just the last presentation.
I would like to think more into certain areas. Just
now, it was mentioned, what do we censor? Who is
supposed to do the censorship? Under these two areas,
there should be no censorship on politics.
Also, not on religion, but there are a lot of grey
areas.
I would say, politics, religion and terrorism, they
could form an ally, they could be very close. It’s very
hard for us to define.
We have to really be in their country to know, well,
for example, Al-Qaeda. Would you post your Al-Qaeda
information on your website, in your own country?
It’s very hard to define. There is a lot of grey
area.
We need to go into detail to understand.
What is to be censored? That’s a very good
question. It’s a very good alert. Who is supposed to
do the censorship? Just now we mentioned there should
be a committee. They should involve government, NGO, IT
company, parents, teenagers, when you come to think
about it, a teenager, they only have one vote. The rest
are all adults.
They all have different interests.
Teenager in whole process they are very active
participant.
What I’m saying is that in the whole process, in the
whole legislation process, in the whole process, how
much are you participating and how much are they
respected?
I’m not just talking about a simple consultation.
A consultation, the participation level is just social,
low. What I’m saying is teenager should take a big part
and they have a big role to play in their committee.
Just now, there is also mention, who is supposed to
run the censorship? We mention should the government do
this or website company or also school or parents?
We didn’t go into detail. Should they be doing the
censorship themselves? We should study and you should
investigate more in this area.
What are their responsibilities?
This is what I want to wrap up.
>> : Elaine Cheng: thank you, Ken. OK, we go to the third
group. It’s the topic is digital divide.
They do not have any writings on this, any article
on this from the teenagers. We like to explore more
about teenager position on this, on digital divide.
>> : Vincent Ng. Thank you, Elaine.
We would like to deliver what we have discussed in
IGF camp. The topic is digital divide. I would like to
share a very memorable experience. It happened three
months ago. I was a volunteer and I play with some
young children and took pictures with them before
I leave. I asked the children, can you give me your
email address or your Youtube address?
The child has flush, his face was flush and he shied
away. His reply is, I have no computer at home.
Very often, we think that everyone has a computer,
everyone has email accounts. This is exactly what’s
happened. We are creating this digital divide.
We look at some statistics, statistics department,
about they cover about computer usage in Hong Kong.
Every fourth family, there is one without
a computer.
We look at this. In the three families, they have
a computer. Are all the family member have the chance
to use the computer? There are reasons that it’s
creating digital divide. One firstly is they do not
have the chance to access the computer. They do not
have knowledge to operate the computer. Then they have
no motivation. Of using the computer.
What is sure about digital divide has create a lot
of problem.
In a school situation, if we have to submit an
assignment, for someone who knows how to use the
computer or you have a computer in the home, you are
much more efficient than the other fellow students.
Just now, I was in touch with this child. When you
feel there is a gap between other people, how you
socially and then their developmental, there is an
impact.
In the current day society, computer is nothing but
a necessity.
What I’m saying, if there is the poor children, they
do not have a computer, they put them in a disadvantaged
position.
On the other hand, we hear parents who complain
about the children always spend too much time on line
and there is also another problem, that digital divide
has created.
It is impossible for everyone to be on line all the
time, 24 hours a day. But what I’m saying, we should
have an equal opportunity for everyone to access the
computer, access the worldwide web.
We are on equal footing.
There should be more incentive to encourage people
who doesn’t know how to operate the computer and you
need the cooperation of a few organisations.
>> : Martin Wong: I would like to talk about next how we can
narrow the gap on digital divide.
We have come up with some solution. The first one,
a different stakeholder, NGO, firstly. They can,
through their network, through their website, network,
through their centres, how they can use it, how people
can use the website, provides flexible hours to teach
them to provide training.
All these people who need this kind of service, low
income earners and also look at the times and then the
places they take these courses, to make use of these
community centres.
The next point is in the business sector.
Are they willing to take the first step? For
example, they give us discount. Bids sector give us
a discount in purchasing computers.
Also, a discount programme on using the web.
Thirdly is school. They can provide technical
support in this area. We have look at this slide. NGO,
they provide free usage for computer. NGO with school,
they provide free training to upgrade their skills.
Then NGO working with the business sector to
increase the number of computers.
Then people who benefit from it, they have the
freedom to choose the services.
We have the responsibility to provide the software
and the hardware and at the end of the day, it’s the
people who need help to benefit from these services,
they have the choice.
What’s the core, take care of the core problem?
Who has the most digital divide in which community?
They have more clear information within that community.
We have to make better use of human resources,
social human resources.
We have a second solution. There are few
stakeholders to be involved. Government, they are the
central co-ordinator.
They have to coordinate with the NGO and the
business centre.
The business sector, they could create leasing of
computers and these people who benefit from it, they
could pay a deposit, small deposit or sign some
guarantee document for longer term usage.
Who will benefit from it? They have the right to
use it, but they don’t own the computer.
The government has the responsibility to take care
of the leasing process.
There should be some monitoring process.
If the people who benefit from this, they are
long-term users, they are genuine long term user,
I suggest we should sponsor them to ultimately get their
own computer.
NGO, they are the people who know how to get
involved, get to know the people who need help, who need
a computer.
The government may not know how to do this, so that
I’m saying that there should be some coordination to
match the needs and the wants.
Under my solution, No. 2, this is the most cost
efficient for the people who needs computer.
They can get involved in a digital life.
Also, under my solution, the business centre, they
can achieve the CSR and they can make their brand more
aware and they build a positive image in the community.
And there is the budget they use to take care of
this old computer and it is a good way. In fact,
business sector is cutting cost, to make good use of
this old computer.
For the public sector, on their budget, their role
is not to supply the funding, but I want them to do more
is to be a co-ordinator.
The NGO, they make good use of their network, the
local network, to reach out to the people who need
a computer, who need to know more about the digital
world.
The last solution I have is to collect the old
computer. A lot of the computer are dumped. In a lot
of the cases, they can be reused, so I’m saying that
they can work with the NGO for these old computer, they
can remodel, upgrade them, so that they can be reused.
Then these computers will be donated to certain
bodies.
Some of the computers are outdated and not usable to
certain people. But there are people in the society who
needs a basic computer.
They need to get involved with the digital world and
it is a good way to make good use of the overall social
resources.
Also, this is more eco-friendly way.
In conclusion, I would like to say, to narrow down
the digital divide, many stakeholder has to work
together.
I place more emphasis on the local community.
We rely mainly on the community centre. Actually,
this group, they will know about the digital divide.
I’m saying that, the best way is to find a synergy
between where they mostly needed, the digital divide, in
this community, and then to do something about it before
it becomes too big a problem.
The first thing we relied on the community centre.
Secondly, we like to create a foundation to work on the
digital divide.
>> : Elaine Cheng. Everybody is using a computer. That is
very hard for us to consider. Some people cannot be
very efficiently and using the internet. They have very
concrete and make a message that we are all one of the
players or participants in the internet cyber life and
how are we going to narrow down the cyber gap.
Now I’m going to pass to Ken.
>> : Ken Chan: I heard the three groups is very good
insight. The most impressive one is first of all, they
use a lot of good IT technology, like flow charts, to
understand how this should be.
Secondly, is freedom to choose their decisions. The
youngsters or the person in need, whether they need
a computer or not.
In Europe also they take a second thought. We are
then chasing for the newest version, the latest version
of computer.
In our production, we are producing a lot of
different kinds of electronics, wastage of garbage.
When we are thinking of something that can sustain or
sustainable and we are just throw away the old computers
and then just buy a new one or we can remove some of
these old parts from these computers and remake it to
a new product.
So we take a message of recycling or recycling of
some abandoned computer in stock or in the storage. So
for some disadvantaged group, youngsters, then they can
use these kind of resources. This is very positive.
Secondly, the government needs to find out the
problem and the issue and to solve the issue before
something happens. It’s not something to wait for,
something to wait for some disaster before they react.
Instead, they should pay more attention, the society
is there, is there any such group or group of children
they need a computer and they don’t have it and then
understand their needs and how they can help.
This is a very important point as well.
One more thing ised occasion.
It is a very good suggestion, because there’s a lot
of technical help can be found and within this education
system, when I got in touch with a lot of school
principals, they did a lot of things for the students.
They try to lengthen their school opening hours for
these disadvantaged groups or they close the school
doors until 10 in the evening, so they allow the
children to use the school computers to do their
homework.
This is a very good move that can help relevantly
some disadvantaged groups students, so they can do their
homework in school.
Also, there is students, also teachers, stay after
school to teach them how to use computers.
Some students, maybe they have a lot of printers or
computers, because they can spare, because if you want
your homework to be printed very nicely, you need a very
nice printer. Of course, a colour printing is better
than mono colour, so when some of the students will want
to print some their reports, they can use the resources
from the school. This is something that within the
education system, can help the children and can help the
students.
There is a lot of space. There is different
stakeholders can play different roles to eliminate or
shorten the cyber gap.
Then we can, when we consider making the proposal,
then we can think of different stakeholders. That’s my
opinion.
>> : Elaine Cheng congratulations for the seven speakers.
These three days discussion is very rich. Maybe I give
you 10 minutes for questions from the floor, if not
enough, then later on, we have lunch hour or maybe we
can discuss during lunch or with our participants.
Any questions?
>> Stephen Lau: Thank you. I am not going to raise
a question. I just want to make a comment, especially
for the cyber gap.
First of all, within the three groups, you did
a very good job. Because I think all the suggestions is
very constructive. I would like to talk about cyber gap
and the western person say about economic issues, make
some students or family cannot get into internet, your
idea is very positiontive to provide the hard ware,
software, but still I would like to mention in
Hong Kong, it is very diversified city. If you your
cyber gap is not only about from the economy problems,
but there’s two groups.
One is physically disabled person. Even though you
give them the computer, give them training, if you don’t
have software or maybe a blind person or a person who
cannot hear good and you don’t have an application for
them, they cannot surf the internet.
But at the same time, for this website, do they have
the same applications to help them to read this message
or get the result? This is one point.
Another area is diversity area. We are talking
about fairness.
Then we are talking about racial minority races,
people from the south Asian countries.
These are Hong Kong as well. Even though they can
serve the internet, still some for the government
website, because it’s only in English and Chinese, but
some just arrive in Hong Kong, they are not familiar
with these two languages.
Is there anything that can match or any other
languages, that can help them to get these services?
This is the two examples I would like to share. Thank
you.
>> : Elaine Cheng: any feedback? Any answer?
>> : Martin Wong: thank you very much for your comment and
idea. Stephen is very correct. Hong Kong is only
7 million population, but everybody is different. Some
may be disabled, some of the minority races, people have
different constraints. That’s why we strengthening on
these, our solution is in the community helping hands
and the people from that community, they know very well
what is necessary and they understand very well, it’s
for people who cannot read or blind people, they don’t
need only, they’re not only computer, but something
else.
Before mine or the races is the barriers of
languages.
And other constraints might not be economic, but how
we can help them, also this help from the local
community, that’s why it’s from different stakeholders,
from NGOs or schools or corporate, they are in the front
tiers.
They are standing in the frontline, rather than the
government.
The government participation helps, but the
government doesn’t understand the real need of the
society of that community.
>> : Maybe there’s privacy for the three groups. Ricky has
said that you might not be sure about the privacy
policy, because one will change, maybe the whole content
is very different. You have mentioned about white hat.
A lot of SME you hire some computer IT maintenance or
needs about $8,000 for SME, if you hire a white hat, can
they afford it? I have to say the teachers look at the
students Facebook and then give them pent, because they
have intimate pictures. Then the students thinks this
my private pictures.
Make my own personal leakage, personal leakage.
Personal information leakage. For censorship,
a little bit, I think is very good, as a community, for
what kind of materials needs to be go under censorship
and who is going to select these community participants.
This is a problem. As teenagers only have one vote, the
teenagers cannot — voice cannot be revealed. The most
important part, the guideline is how are you going to
differentiate the statute is pornographic or art and the
freedom of, is it political or artist? What is for
NGOs, are they really FGO? Because within these
three — real participant, NGO, then they have a lot of
bubbles. If all these suggestion pass their —
>> : Kit Yeung. I am going to respond about the school.
I think this is not on line or off line. It is public
or private life. In private, I’m doing my own thing.
Why they are going to interfere? Why the teacher comes
and interfere?
The student’s private life, when you are not wearing
student clothes, uniforms and you dump garbage in the
street and all of a sudden your school teacher came and
say you got penalty from the school. Would it be
overacting?
>> : Ricky Kung: some SME only have one technician for their
IT infrastructure and if you are SME, then you have only
technician. I think the company doesn’t have the —
it’s not sincere enough to protect people’s privacy.
That is my opinion for.
I think they should find a way, because privacy is
something we concern if you, because of this little
investment and end up I’m not going to make business
with you, then they suffer much.
>> : Anson Lau: I think about censorship is my very early
suggestion is CIO in Hong Kong officers, they can attend
these committee and also the teachers for the teachers
association, he should be the chairman.
For parents, I think there is parent teacher
association and I think it’s different. I think we need
to take closer look about it. It’s PTA.
The chairman of the PTA is a very suitable person
for students or children. They can use their elected
student association community for NGOs for you can have
Ken, IT company or internet industry representative or
the chairman of the association or councillor or Mr Tam
or Mr Mok, they can be a representative. This is my
early response.
>> : Elaine Cheng. I think, Ken, anything?
>> : Ken Chan: About censorship, when we think it’s very
simple question, but actually it’s a very complicated
and difficult task. When you see in the Hong Kong, when
the decision-making bureau, I cannot tell how hard they
work. This is funny. Especially they are talking about
pornographic materials, they felt very sick about it,
because the work is very heavy, the workload is very
heavy and every day in the media, a lot of materials,
there is tonnes of it. If they have to censor
everything, one by one, which is impossible.
But if we can use some tools or some reporting
system to simplify their workload, then they can go is
what is the suggestion has been made. This is some
things I would like to mention.
>> : Good morning. I have some question. First, for Kit,
about privacy, about the school. If the intimate
pictures posted on Facebook, about two years ago in
Sichuan earthquake disaster and there’s a lady posted
and tell her that she’s not to give money to this relief
and then the school teachers gave her a very heavy
penalty.
Should there be any policy that makes the teacher
that what they can read, what they cannot read?
Would that be no privacy or teachers are not able to
read from their Facebook?
The second comment about privacy, for government
consider as non-penalty or on in liability statement,
that is a very clear, very easy to understand
guidelines, some of the members say it’s SME the
guidelines, if you’re clear, nobody is going to suffer.
I would like to ask more than 5,000 words, are you
going to use it? Are you still using it? Will you not
using the Facebook? It’s not the SME will scare away
the consumers.
But some people have censorship. It’s about the
community. It’s easy to say, but very difficult to
comply. Some people say it’s not strong representative
for somebody, is very argue about somebody has religious
group. Somebody might reject it. And then so many
argument.S will be created. It might be, but the
screening have to go under — undergo the law, but in
China, they are using Google there. Tai are not
violating the Chinese law. So they have to stop them.
But Google should be — go under screen, then you are
somehow supporting screening the last one, about
recycling the computer.
I have this habit, but one thing is to comment is
how are you going to the incentive, some of the computer
volunteer to fix these computers. Should the government
give them some insevensive for this volunteer to work
about the recycling of the computer. You keep on
saying, you say NGO, NGO, because you are thinking the
community stakeholders understand, you have the same
with the government, always the community and
stakeholders, why can’t the government give some funding
to the NGOs? The NGOs say I have no funding. Because
at the end, then this cannot work out. Why can’t the
government give some give the government —
>> : Elaine Cheng: I think you shorten the questions —
>> : Because some associations who have to recycle the
computers. But this has not come up. Your suggestion
cannot help the disadvantaged group.
>> : I have a very short question. I’m talking about
digital divide. Somebody doesn’t have computer. I’m
a user right now. I’m still digital divided by the
other people.
About my privacy. They use English. I use
Facebook. Even though I change it to other languages,
I go back to privacy terms, it’s still to English.
It’s rather not — that is not available in Chinese,
because I don’t know English, then I have no idea,
because it’s about education and also ACTA. The privacy
terms.
I can see that not only for Facebook, even for ACTA,
I cannot — under Wiki, I cannot search the Chinese,
only the participant knows about it.
When we look at it, we are now digital divided by
other people, because we don’t know their languages. So
we don’t know about much about their privacy policy.
But I think it’s privacy is not only a term, but
also for the languages. I don’t know where we can go,
then in somewhere we must know exactly what this means
for education, I think can be conducted.
But under education, there should be more creative.
Thank you.
>> : Elaine Cheng. Thank you very much. Your comment is
heard.
We’ll let the panellists to respond to the question.
>> : Martin Wong. Thank you for the first question. You
worry about the workload of the NGO. Our solution
propose that a lot of them relate to NGO. While
solutions with NGO, they do not work alone. They have
other support. They have government funding and they
have other funding.
They also support disadvantaged group, physical
disability group.
We are not saying that can leave government out of
this picture. What I’m saying that NGO are very key and
crucial to the whole picture.
We can better utilise the local resources, combining
with government funding, it will achieve results.
Also, we though that NGO needs the support of the
government for many aspects. I believe the government
participation, the involvement, are very key, too.
I’m not saying that community take the front line,
doesn’t mean that government doesn’t need to be
involved.
There’s no doubt about it. English is the language
used on the web.
Secondly, to narrow down the digital divide, the
literacy level is key. We have broadband, we have
a computer and you don’t have any language ability. It
doesn’t help.
All these aspects, they compliment each other.
We have to admit English is the most used language
on the worldwide web. Because this is invented by the
English speaking world. In the short run, we suggest
that we increase the translation work on the website.
In the Hong Kong context, we need to have nor
documents to be translated into Chinese and to create
Chinese name website.
>> : Kit young computer, all computer recollection, there is
character sets always been doing the work.
>> : Jerry Tam I like to comment about censorship. There is
solutions. Initially, the government has to be involved
to come up with this committee. Another youth and
children’s group have to be involved. Parents and
teachers association. We need time. It takes time to
get involved, to get all these parties involved.
We do not involve the children when we discuss about
pornographic content.
The committee is — the aim of the committee is to
talk about direction. How to filter the web.
Another aspect, there are representatives for youth
and children.
I suggest that child protection policy and they are
independent and the voice is heard.
>> Edmon Chung: Your lunchtime is delayed enough.
Last weekend, I participated on the youth forum.
I feel the whole camp, the very key thing about the
camp, from different stakeholder point of view, to look
at issues on the internet.
This report, I find it very interesting, why IGF is
successful. We do not — the reason is that we do not
talk about policies.
Today is different. You talk about, at forum right
now, you talk about mainly about policy, but you didn’t
cover a lot of what you have discussed over the weekend.
IGF, the issue we discuss here are very
controversial.
We do need participation, involvement from the
government, commercial sector, NGO.
I think why IGF is successful is we are not aiming
to come up with some concrete policy to go forward. The
aim of it is to share and discuss issues, broadly.
>> : Elaine Cheng. Thank you very much. We have to wrap up
this session.
Over lunchtime, we can continue our discussion
privately.
It is just the beginning of our discussions.
>> : Now it’s lunchtime. Please proceed to the — as we are
running a little bit late, we will come back at 2:15.