At this year’s RightsCon Summit, taking place in Taipei, Taiwan from 24-27 February, the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC) will convene for strategic discussions, multistakeholder roundtables, and side-events, bringing together representatives from government, civil society, academia, the technical community, and private sector to advance the FOC’s Program of Action under Estonia’s 2025 Chairship.
As part of the Summit program, the Coalition will host two sessions exploring topics central to the FOC’s mission to promote a rules-based, democratic, and inclusive world where human rights and fundamental freedoms are upheld in online and digital contexts. Learn more about the sessions below, and register your attendance for RightsCon by visiting the Summit platform.
From Countering to Building: Finding the Keys to Promote Information Integrity Online | 14:00 – 15:00 UTC+8, Tuesday, 25 February | Room 402A, TICC
Roundtable discussion facilitated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, and the Wikimedia Foundation
Everyone, everywhere should be able to participate freely and safely in the creation, consumption, dissemination, and evaluation of information and ideas. A healthy information ecosystem should support and advance human rights, in particular freedom of expression. But recently, efforts to protect free speech and reliable information online – including with legitimate reason – risks undermining human rights. This includes both governments’ and companies’ active actions to control speech (including under the guise of countering disinformation), as well as their lack of addressing phenomena such as disinformation and hate speech to ensure people can safely access pluriform information without interference.
The right to freedom of expression and the global information ecosystem are complex topics. Global discourse as well as a majority of initiatives, and policies seem to primarily focus on the effects of the rapid spread of disinformation and misinformation that pollute the information ecosystem (which is accelerated by the developments of generative artificial intelligence). While disinformation is serious issue, overfocusing on content that needs to be removed may lead governments and companies to insufficiently address the essential ideas, values, and strengths of a healthy information ecosystem. Recent announcements from big tech platforms further underscore the need to refocus the conversation to what kind of global information ecosystem we wish to build and promote – rather than just focusing on what we would like to remove, block or take down.
Chaired by the Governments of Denmark and The Netherlands, and the Wikimedia Foundation, the Freedom Online Coalition’s (FOC) Task Force on Information Integrity Online launched a Blueprint on Information Integrity, which articulates a positive vision for a healthy online information ecosystem that supports the production and sharing of accurate, trustworthy and reliable information, and that protects and promotes human rights and democracy. The Blueprint presents three interconnected pillars: Agency – Trust – Inclusion.
During this roundtable conversation, the co-leads of the Task Force will briefly present this framework, and open up for a discussion about the key principles that underpin a healthy information ecosystem and how these manifest in different contexts. Participants are encouraged to contribute to this conversation on how we can utilize this framework to move forward this agenda, and to shift our attention towards the promotion of the key components needed to support a healthy, trustworthy, reliable, and inclusive information ecosystem.
Unlocking Progress through Inclusive and Rights-Respecting Digital Public Infrastructure | 9:00 – 10:00 UTC+8, Thursday, 27 February | Room 102, TICC
Dialogue session featuring Sabhanaz Rashid Diya (Tech Global Institute), Rasmus Lumi (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia), Amy Colando (Microsoft), Liz Orembo (Research ICT Africa), and Laura O’Brien (Access Now)
Digital technologies have the potential to significantly impact the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and offer unprecedented opportunities for development and innovation, with the potential to generate social and economic benefits. In this sense, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) often understood as a key tool to achieve the SDGs, and has been recognised as such through various initiatives, including the UN SG’s Envoy on Technology and UNDP initiative at the 78th UNGA to develop the Universal Safeguards Framework for DPI leading up to the Summit of the Future, and the UN Global Digital Compact (GDC).
In general, DPI is any digital technology that can enable the delivery of public services. There are three functional categories of DPI: digital identity systems, digital payment systems, and data exchanges. While DPI is an important enabling component towards digital inclusion, certain examples have shown how implementation without proper safeguards can lead to negative outcomes, including adverse impacts on human rights.
This session will explore human rights-respecting approaches to the design and implementation of DPI systems, that account for contextual realities in terms of access, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and examine ways to meaningfully engage with communities throughout the lifecycle of DPIs. Various stakeholders from the FOC community and beyond, including government, civil society, and technical community, will share perspectives and insight into ensuring that DPIs work towards securing social and economic benefits for communities, while upholding human rights in an inclusive and collaborative manner with access to effective remedy and redress.
