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>> Good morning, everyone.  I think we will get started even if people are
slowly coming in.  We'll keep the doors open for those that are still
interested in coming in.  I want to thank you all for coming and joining us
relatively early and braving the queues for such what is a relatively not a
very -- not a very uplifting topic this morning.  So my name is Andreas and
the Programme Development and Digital Freedom Adviser in Copenhagen
International Media Support organizing this session.  We're talking about
online harassment as one of the most pervasive and one of the most
perceived problems.  It reaches everyone and no one is really safe.
Although obviously some people are more at risk and it has more of a
disproportional detrimental act on some people than others.  But we'll hear
about some of those things from palace. I'm hoping that we'll talk about
not only the problems and online harassment, but trying to take a
constructive angle and see what solutions or ways of responding to the
issue is out there and which shall be taken from civil society and other
groups. So we can have a discussion about some of the constructive way to
respond to online harratsment and practical realtyistic ways.  To help us
with that, we have a really fantastic panel.  They'll -- I'll introduce
them in a second.  They'll do brief sort of five-minute introductions from
each of their perspectives and then we'll hopefully have a good discussion
afterwards. As I said, we have a stellar panel from left to right -- your
left to right from paradigm initiative in Nigeria.En in we have Ellery from
global voices.  We have Jonathan from legal media defense in the U.K .  We
have Marcel Leonardi and we have Hyra Basit.  So I wanted to just get us
starting with you, Gbenga if you want to kick us off from your perspective.

>> GBENGA SESAN:  Okay.  Interesting.  This one is red when it comes on.
Okay.  So I see you almost had an interesting topic and then you corrected
that.  It is obviously that is worrying -- something that is worrying.
Two, only establish that over the last few months either because of
elections or topical issues that have been debated on social media.  We see
a lot more harassment in terms of people -- especially when debates get
quite heated. People get threatened.  From some of the work that we did, we
did some studies recently on why because access is the major issue as well
as concern in Nigeria.  We've got numbers that say 50% internet
penetration, but we know the numbers much more than that because the
Telecom regulator measures in terms of numbers of SIM cards and it's easier
for you to say there are 14 million phones, but really there are much less
people who are using this.  And we're very interested in talking to a
specific category of people who are not usually involved with online
conversations and these are young people who are in either open
(inaudible).  The primary people we work with training.  What we realized
is that while the men, the boys where did everything possible to get online
and they did get online, we had a huge disparity in terms of number of men
and women online.  When we asked questions, first it was the fact that
culture with women are more involved in domestic work.  But when we dug
deeper, we realized one major reason they don't come online and why they're
not very interested in debates and why they prefer not to use that is
because of online harassment.  There are many popular cases in Nigeria of
vocal women who have been -- who have had feedback.  That was very
interesting including pictures, including suspicious -- I say suspicious
because you can't even prove this is the person who is being sort of shamed
online.  Someone is arguing with a popular blogger.  There's a very popular
female blogger who has an idle opinion and we love her for that, but one of
the things she will always get is terrible feedback.  People will post
pictures and say look.  The reason she has money and she sells things and
there is not one time, but they posted a picture that showed her face
clearly.  But the minute somebody posts that, other people who have argued
with her who didn't like what she said then they started tweeting.  We know
in that case, they treated online harassment and they have been a part to
it.  This is something very terrible.  What we have seen and we asked a few
ever them:  What will you do if someone did that to you online?  Some said
they would get offline.  The question was: What if your education dependent
on it?  And the response was well, I would find somewhere else to get my
education and that is very -- that's troubling because you can't leave your
entire Internet and say you would fine your education somewhere else.  But
one thing we also found out is there was one particular case, one person
who returned and sent an e-mail and wanted to be anonymous and said well,
she thinks that she will bible to come back online after a while and the
reason she said that was because there was a scenario where somebody was
being harassed, but in return, a lot of men responded.  Not the woman
herself.  But I think this is very important in terms of online harassment.
The best response is from a supportive community because if the victim
responds, it goes deeper into the argument.  If there's an online
community, then it makes it and validates the response.  That is one of the
things that we got feedback.  And the second thing was she said if the --
she particularly mentioned Facebook because that's a more popular platform
F. Facebook -- and these are her words.  If Facebook is able to punish the
guys who harass us, then maybe more of us will come online.  She no idea.
I think there's a lot more necessity for education in terms of tools to
report and all that.  Now, that's part A, and I hope I only spent 3
minutes.

>> Four.

>> GBENGA SESAN:  30 seconds.  This is what I thought I was spending more
time on, but this second side of online harassment, I think that what
happened in this conversation, we need to be a bit careful because it has
become an opportunity for harassment itself.  I will give a very simple
example in close.  Nigeria had something signed in 2015.  It was supposed
to address issues like online harassment and cyber stalking, but the people
victims of this law were people that were harassed and stalked themselves.
We need to be very careful because there are governments and institutions
and individuals who are looking for excuses to be able to victimize other
people.  There are conversations around harassment and people say wait a
second. This platform is open to harassment.  Let's shush it down.  We know
of countries that have shut count Internet because students -- they didn't
want students to cheat.  I have minus 5 seconds left.  So I will close by
saying that we need to be careful because there's a risk for freedom of
expression and even harassment itself when we have those conversations and
we don't -- there's a list of conversations to say there's harassment
online. Let's be careful.  Let's not use it, but there is a more deliberate
conversation to say we can fix the problems and educate yourselves, but
let's not create another problem while trying to solve this problem.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  Thank you very much. Ellery.

>> ELLERY ROBERTS BIDDLE:  No I work with global voices, which is an
international network and community of writers, translators and activists
in more than 160 countries.  And our mission is to tell stories about
communities and people who are less represented or misrepresented in
mainstream media narratives that.  Has taken on a lot of different forms
over the years since our founding learn years ago by Rebecca MacKinnon who
is sitting in the front row.  And one of those forms is the branch of the
organization and community that I helped to facilitate which is our
advocacy project, also known as advox.  We decided that we needed to carve
out a space for our community and partners to talk about threats that
people in groups experience because of the civic engagement and public
interest reporting that they're doing online.  So, we're a media
organization.  We're telling stories all the time and we're telling
critiques and inviting critiques. We accept that harassment is part of the
picture, it's part of the Eco system that we operate in. We're -- we've
been trying -- I've been trying to think about this question in a
systematic way and I find myself breaking it down like a journalist so the
who, what, when, where, how those kinds of questions come to mind.  Who
harassment affects matters?  So who's doing the harassing and who is being
targeted?  Those pieces are really, really important.  What is the nature
of the harassment? What is the content of it?  As you're just saying: Where
does it happen in digital space, what kind of platform it occurs on, but
also what country, juris diction, region, all of those things are
important. And understanding the problem and being able to think about
solutions I think it's really fundamental to be able to put those pieces of
content together in order to think about a response. One of the issues that
we have had a ton of problems our writers face a lot of problems related to
gender, we're very gender balanced.  We lean and tip a little bit more
female than male.  So what Gbenga was describing is very familiar.  Another
area that we encounter is state backed or informal allied state actors that
are targeting our writers and calling them traitors, calling them spies.
Often combine if they're -- so even then, the question of how do you think
about a state actor really depends on the state.  We've been doing some
work.  We have a strong community in Venezuela where there's actually quite
very open public organization of state affiliated and supporters of the
state who spend a fair amount of time online targeting informally and
sometimes more formally journalists that are critical of the government.
It is not a secret.  There's an open telegram account run by the agency of
the media.  So that's very interesting to bible to see where auto context
is much more quiet and much harder to see sort of clear link there. We are
I would say as concerned and conscious about the free expression
implications of trying to solve these problems through legislation or any
kind of public policy solution.  And for us, I think that the question
first of how we work together internally, how do we form mentorship kind of
systems for a community, that's been a really, really big part of how we
think about this.  A lot of our younger or newer contributors will find
themselves in a situation where they're testing the waters, they're testing
out what works first of all as a narrative that will be popular and they'll
engage more people in their issue.  But while you're doing that, you may
step into territory that leads you to a lot of trouble from another side.
So often times what is sort of a first step for us when that happens is
figure out who in the community has been there and get together in a very
private, secure space whether online or off and to talk about it. And it's
important one, in figuring out what sort of strategy for that person and
how the community can help like Gbenga was talking about, but also in a
more private way.  Two, it helps us figure out how to help that person as
an individual because it is really over time when this stuff happens to
you, it hurts and there are changes that will happen in the way that you
feel about yourself and about the kind of work you're trying to do and we
really want -- we don't want people to feel alone when they're experiencing
this.  So I have a lot more to say.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  Thank you very much, Ellery.  And Jonathan, you will
have plenty to say, I'm sure, about being careful and free speech.

>> JONATHAN McCULLY:  I have had a little difficult moment and I'm running
on very little sleep.  I am from the legal defense 30ive NGO that
represents journalists and media outlets and helps them defend their
rights.  I will be looking at this from a legal perspective.  Law is such a
lovely thing.  So I will start off by saying Gbenga drew on a very
problematic example of online harassment. Domestic and regional courts have
recognized the nie forms of harm that can be experienced through the
Internet and the unique system and particularly the harm it can have.  The
U.K . is a pretty good example.  It uses laws that applied offline to the
online context, but also developed laws in response to online harassment
specifically.  I should think they're pretty uncontentious from a free
speech angle, but willing to debate that.  So laws against threats of
violence, crime, stalking, harassment and revenge has become an
increasingly problematic area. As Gbenga said, legislating against cyber
harassment opens up the possibility of over censorship or that kind of
threatening and chilling atmosphere for freedom of expression.  One area we
have seen this is in a response to cyber bullying and we see this in cyber
crimes and legislation in particular.  And the U.K . actually adopted
legislative approach which has been almost copy and pasted by a number of
other jurisdictions.  So I will talk very, very briefly about the U.K . and
Kenya and how they have responded to this legislative provision against
cyber bullying specifically.  So this criminalizes communications online
that are grossly offensive and descent, obscene or menacing or
communications online that are false but communicated with the purpose ever
causing annoyance or anxiety.  Now the Indian supreme court find it to be
unconstitutional and that's for a number of reasons.  The language you can
tell already words like menacing, grossly offensive, annoying, inconvenient
have incredibly nebulous, but the supreme court has a lack of clear
guidance against online content.  And Kenya is similarly in a case and the
attorney is general.  We have a lawyer in from Kenya that might want to
discuss a little bit about the implications of the judgment for Kenya.
They struck the same provision. They find unconstitutional because it was
precise and undefined.  So this shows a legislative response of cyber
bullying that can open up kind of chilling atmosphere for free speech
online.  U.K . on the other hand has not struck this piece of legislation.
They have a very clear guidance on when individuals should be prosecuted
under the communications act. It is quite interesting because they
distinguish between the first kind of cyber harassment type of laws I
introduced at the start, threats of violence, stalking, harassment.  They
said prosecution under these laws will most likely be in the public
interest.  While prosecution under the specific provision that stroked in
India and Kenya -- that struck in India and Kenya would be unlikely.  And
there are a number of aspects of the online communications they'll look out
and take into continents.  It is quite interesting to look at some of that
guidance.  If we're going to legislate in our own countries to tacker cyber
bullying specifically.  So that made it quite clear that it has to be more
than just simply offensive, shocking or disturbing.  It shouldn't
criminalize scatarriccal or rude comments.  You can't target or prosecute
somebody for publishing content online that is unpopular or unfashionable
against the morals of the day.  They will take into account the victim
themselves.  Was the communication targeted specifically at the individual
or it was kind of spread more widely without it being directed against the
individual specifically.  Was there a clear intention to target the
individual or did they think that communication wouldn't reach them or
won't harm them?  Has there been actual harm for the victim? Does it have
crime elements?  Is it part of a coordinated attack against an individual?
Is it a repeated offense the age of the victim?  Critically whether it
engages political or public interest commentary and they will really look
at these factors when determining whether to prosecute somebody under this
really vague piece of legislation.  So it is very easy to say let's
legislate against cyber bullying.  I see U.K . as a legislative provision
in place.  Lea.  Let's copy and paste that.  It is quite clear that U.K .
has taken a context provision approach to this provision and they're not
using it in such a way there is no guidance.  There are no balancing of any
rights, which was the worry in both India and Kenya when they adopted the
same provision.  So that's just a little bit of an overview of some of the
purchased adopted by those countries and hopefully we can discuss and
approach.  That's it.  Thanks.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  Thank you so much, Jonathan.  And you're all staying
very much on time. Marcel?

>> MARCEL LEONARDI:  Thank you for letting me speak on behalf of Google
Brazil.  There is hate speech, extreme speech and harassment in general,
but I will speak to the experiences that I know are closer to home which is
what I do in public policy in Google Brazil.  So obviously Brazil and
legislation does provide for content takedowns for identifying infringers
and legal remedies that you have when you need to tackle harassment.  But
what we have noticed actually there is the problem of self-censorship by
groupsna are harassed in general. That is something the laws fails to
capture because it never comes to light.  A few members will help me
illustrate my point.  So for example, Brazilians are the second most active
group of users on YouTube in content consumption.  So Brazilians really
love watching videos in YouTube in general.  But Africans in Brazil are
lacking in creation, but also in fostering communities on that platform.
As we investigated why that was happening as part of a global effort to
better understand that, the question of self-censorship and harassment came
immediately to light.  Google had a big event regarding YouTube which is
YouTube summit for social change.  It was to show diversity in general,
buttery realize that the messages that certain parts of the world most
concerned with countering hate speech and extreme counter terrorist speech
was not encountered down there.  So what did we do?  We actually did a
specific creators for change event in Brazil.  We invited 25 of the top
African-brazilian YouTubeers to showcase their views and to discuss that,
but obviously Google lacks the expertise to leads that kind of discussion.
So we partner with an institute in Brazil called institute media technical
that pretty much has it's main core activity the job of fostering more
voices for the African community to be online and also present in everyday
life.  It was amazing to perceive and confirm what we had noticed with some
studies that most people did -- when they get harassed and get attacked and
when they're victims of racism and seeking legal remedies unless they're a
prominent person with resources, time and money and education to that kind
of issue, they just prefer to shut down rather than talk.  So that event
was very important to help showcase all of this community that
counterspeech is probably one of the most relevant tools that we can use.
It leads me to a very important second point which is because Brazil kind
of facilitates the legal remedies, it is really cheap to go to court and
have content takedown and take down infringers.  We lack in the region not
only Brazil, but Latin America in general is what they have in the United
States the so-called anti-slam legislation in the sense we are perceived in
selfcases people especially powerful people connected to several different
groups using the legal system to try to silence people in general.
Specifically these communities when they try to raise the problem.  It is
very common for Brazilians to say no.  Brazil doesn't have a racist problem
because we're a melting pot of races, but in practice, you see it every
single day.  So these are initiatives that are very helpful and we really
believe that specifically in that scenario we already are seeing the
results.  As a result of that seminar, we already see more African
Brazilians interested in creating content.  They are no longer afraid of
replying back.  Of course, especially in social media, but with the due
level of care that these kinds of responses demand.  It is easy when you
are being attacked 24/7 to elevate the fight rather than responding in a
more appropriate manner. What I have noticed so far is that the whole
individual of counter speech is growing.  But as that grows in the region,
so will grow the need for this kind of anti-slap status because people use
the speech to file lawsuits against and say the counter speech itself was
offensive.  So is it is really something that needs to be worked on and
maybe on a different level.  Those are the main points I wanted to raise
right now.  Let's move on forward in the discussion.  Thank you.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  Thank you very much.  That was exactly five minutes.
Thank you.  And higher from digital rights foundation, please take us to
the work you and your colleagues are doing there.

>> HYRA BASIT:  Thank you, everyone.  I want to set up the context for
Pakistan first.  Pakistan very recently financially passed a prevention for
drawing of crimes act.  In the game after a really long struggle.  It looks
good on paper, but what it does is it focuses on unpopular opinions which
against the government.  So it is not really that great.  There is focus on
cyber crimes, harassment online, but the big definition in the ad itself,
it makes the act weak.  So anyway, I want to set up the context for
Pakistan. What digital Rights Foundation does is we started the project
which means the Internet.  We went around schools and universities and we
started doing awareness sessions aimed specifically at girls and young
women and to teach them.  The thing is people don't even realized you can
be harassed online that you could be damaged in any way or get hurt online
because it is not a physical space, right?  So we go and talk to young
women.  We teach them -- we show them, not teach them.  We show them that
yes.  This is a thing that happens and you can protect yourself from it and
it's okay to reach out and seek help. We did this to create awareness
basically, but what we realized during the sessions was that numerous girls
would come up to us during the session about online harassment they were
facing.  This is the kind of harassment they can't really talk to anyone
else about because in Pakistan, the conservative environment the kind of
conservative environment that we have either the girls would be victim
shamed or blamed and from their own friends and family or that's the best
case scenario.  The worst case scenario is they can be killed for it
because no matter whose fault it is, the girl must have done something to
have been harassed online.  And so we recognize the need for a platform
where girls can come up or young women can come up and confeed in them
anonymously.  They can assure their identity would remain anonymous and
they wouldn't be even further -- their reputation wouldn't be further
damaged because of going out to seek help.  So basically we have two
problems here.  One is the psychological distress that people of online --
victims of online harassment face and the fact you don't have a support
system around to you help you get through all that.  So, what a digital
rights foundation what we saw is there was a need for an anonymous platform
and we came up with the decision to start on cyber harassment helpline.  It
is a very young help line that was started on the first of December, two
days ago basically.  Why we decided to go for the help line is so we can
assure that the girls have an anonymous platform and to confide in us and
we centered our entire policy on giving them as much privacy and insuring
the confidentiality as much as possible.  So people could actually come up
to us and not just girls, of course, but men.  Even when men complain about
online harassment, they're told just to deal with it.  It's not a real
thing.  It's just online.  So people from whoever are the victims of online
harassment can come up to us.  Aside from the three big cities in Pakistan,
in the far flung years of Pakistan, there's no awareness.  People use
Facebook and the Internet, but there's no awareness that cyber crimes is a
real thing or if there's a law which protects them.  So the harassment
helpline basically is a three-pronged help line.  It gives them
psychological and emotional support.  And it gives them legal advice as
well.  So we can't really go out and start the procedure for them, legal
proceedings for them, but we do give advice on how to do if they do want to
carry out a legal case against their harassers.  Of course, you want to
build awareness that this is the act and which is the rights that it gives
you and here you can protect yourself and we are here to help you. Another
thing, another reason we decided to go with the help line is because
there's no real concept of psychological support or psychological illnesses
or distress that people face.  So, we have a platform here that people can
receive psychological and emotional support without actually having to ask
for it.  Sometime its just helps if someone comes up to you and says hey,
listen.  I know what you're going through is rough.  I then is really
difficult and there are people out there who understand who you're going
through and we are here to help and listen to you, which is something they
can't receive from their friends and family.  And on the help line theme,
we have an experienced lawyer.  We have a digital security expert and the
entire team also went through counseling training.  So we are well
prepared.  But even then when you hear the stories about the kind of online
harassment that people are facing, it shakes you up for a while and you
have to settle yourself down to actually help them.  The help line is also
in the process of developing a referral system.  Behind the phone, you
can't really help people as much and we have limited resources. We're
developing a referral system.  So people who need extensive support can go
out and get them and these are the revel system is basically vetd by us. So
we know these are trusted people who they can go to for psychological
support, for legal support, for -- they will be safe in their hands even if
they're not exactly working with us.  Just to clarify when I say that we
are very young help line, again like I said, we just started.  So I can't
really tell you about the exact response that we've gotten, but even in two
days, the number and the nature -- oh, sorry.  The number of the calls we
have received and just last thing.  One of the things because we're not
affiliated with the government, it's actually difficult for us because we
can't exactly reach out -- we can't take action ourselves against the
harassers.  So it is difficult operating with the legal enforcement
authorities and getting them to do their jobs because we're here to help
and we can't do our job unless they're doing theirs.  So sorry to take up
so much time.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  Not at all.  Thank you so much, HYRA.  We now only
have 10 minutes for the last bit.  So we have to speak very quickly. I want
to follow on the concept of count iser speech.  I saw Gbenga and Ellery.
The role with the value from your pert spective.

>> ELLERY ROBERTS BIDDLE:  I think a lot of time its is put out as a strong
solution.  Something we don't have not around the world there's really
different kinds of norms about how critique can work -- you can speak back
to that, but usually it's going to make things worse for you.  The question
and maybe I can pass this to you something we have been talking about a lot
lately is allies and what -- who are people who are able to really
powerfully act as allies to a person who is receiving this kind of
harassment and really is probably not going to be able to get out of it on
their own.

>> GBENGA SESAN:  Even offline, when you see a bully, the best response to
the bully is the person being bullied.  And I think that this sense of
being in a community and it means today in a community for you, tomorrow
you are community for me and thathe whole African concept of Abun too.
That's one thing we must be able to find a way to make it work.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  That's excellent.  That's common among all of you as
supporting communities and as a response.  We only have a few minutes, but
I wanted to just -- I know that we have some great people in the audience
also.  I wanted to give just a few minutes for questions and maybe -- I
know that, MICHI, you have launched a great report.  She launched a great
report on online harassment as a form of sensorship.  So if you have a
minute or two to just very briefly say some of the main take aways from
that, that will be very interesting.

>> Yes.  Thank you.  We just launched this last week in New Delhi.  It is
called online harassment, a form of censorship.  It thankfully covers
almost everything you have touched upon from 66A to what it does to the
identity of the victim and what are the various phase either the companies
have come up to address this abuse or what the victims themselves can do.
We titled it online harassment as a form of censorship because what we
understood is this all led to curbing off one's own expressions.  It's not
that we did not think it was important to call attention to the hurt or to
the form of Gonza agony, victims of crime, rape or whatever.  But what we
wanted to do is -- what it does and I wanted to call attention to the fact
that how this act -Z as a blow against freedom of expression itself, one of
the platform companies calls it the free speech site. We think it's a cute
idea and we would like to think that it's true.  What part of our report
shows is that actually they're also the free speech end of the censorship
movement and that's not by design, but that's how it comes up to be.  Our
methodology involves interviewing a lot of people.  Very many of these
people have been in the public.  These are journalists.  These are people
who are activists who faced many things which you touched about.  It is
unnerving when somebody says to someone probably I'm not going to read it,
but I will pass this around -- or I should read it.  It says bloody pitch,
you should be raped.  And how does a woman respond to such a thing?  After
we have spoken to more than 35 people, which is not represented by the
entire population of our country, but nobody was interested in law
enforcement.  They told us many of the times that the law enforcement
officers were Willfully underprepare -Z when it came to holding the
perpetrators on online harassment accounteddage for their actions.  It
takes no time for starting to address online harassment to turning it to a
censorship tool.  It took up so much time.  On the existing mechanisms of
abuse report available, we were told that they're sketchy.  They are
improving with many of the platforms Facebook and gitter being the most
popular, but the companies can do better and they are doing better.
Twitter released another update in terms of services November 15th.  But in
summation what we understood is the online expression affected particular
individuals was highly subjective.  And it depended on what their community
was, how much that was and how much response they got.  I want to express
and highlight it again.  This is becoming a far more complicated matter
than just saying counter speech or not counter speech.  We have seen what
all bright research tells us and propaganda coming in.  So just saying
let's go to law enforcement or just having somebody help you counter speech
is not that easy. So, again, we have morescopies, but they're also
available online.  It documents what people said to us because it has
interviews and what various companies policies are and what we are seeing
also in terms of mechanisms to help address the issue. Thank you.

>> Is it MLF--

>> HYRA BASIT:  SFLC.  Software freedom law center.IN.  It's on the website
and we will have some copies around also.  If you need physical copies,
yes.  Thank you, Rebecca.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  We'll see when we have someone coming in.  But take
a quick round of questions if there's anyone who would like to impose
something to our wonderful panelists, if anyone is interested?  Yes?

>> (question asked) so the issue of counter speech, I'm wondering to what
extent it actually is productive.  I said it's a good thing.  But has there
been any measurement as to whether or not it is effective?  It seems it
should be, but I also worry that perhaps counter speech just simply adds to
the argument and the trolls and the negative people would ignore it or
encounter that.

>> ELLERY ROBERTS BIDDLE:  I think it depends so much on what you're
talking about, what you're expressing about and who is attacking you as a
result.  There is great research that we can look at, but I think it is so
contentual that it is hard to say.  I think the issue is so prevalent and
that's where it becomes really hard to imagine what kind of a counter
speech response a person being targeted can give when the conversation or
the comment turns to something really ugly and just not, you think, there's
no -- you're not going is to go anywhere.

>> Just for my own personal experience as a journalist, years ago when
readers would attack me for my opinion and I would respond, almost
inevitably, I would make a friend.  They were recognized and that hasn't
been happening lately. Now what I am seeing more is they simply pour on and
it seem toss help less than it used to.

>> ELLERY ROBERTS BIDDLE:  I think it happens more in semi-private spaces,
but it is a really, really wide range that we're talking about.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  I'll take the question from the gentleman down on
the corner.

>> Thank you.  My name is mugam bi.  I saw your comments you mentioned
about Kenya.  The takedown of the laws that are criminal in nature is now
it brings private prosecution.  They highly prohibit finds that I have
given that I have given too much for the people online.  The second comment
is how you deal with boats?  There's a lot of -- it is easy to say that you
harassed me online.  I can identify you.  There's also the issues there
with right to anonymity online.  The government in Kenya is they create
hundreds of boats.  So you will find 50 boats that are harassing you at the
same time.  And you really can't identify.  So that's an issue especially
with the spate because they know they can take down the internet and they
can't arrest me. They create the platforms that really have no idea how to
deliver them.  I know somebody has an idea of how this may be done.  Thank
you.

>> GBENGA SESAN:  So we have dealt a lot with this boats and anonymity.  A
lot.  A lot of security when we talk about digital rights is always
referred to anyone can be anything on the internet and things like that.
But one of the things we found useful in our conversation and this is not
exactly a conversation right now.  Now it's a conversation. [Laughter] One
of the things we found useful is to say that the difference between
somebody who is using Anoneimity to save their lives or to present their
views because they're scared of any repry mend and boateds is a clear
difference.  There's a thing to boats that are created to attack.  But
there's a thing to people who create accounts to express views to share
opinion.  It is almost human vessels, not human.  They cut and paste.  So
one of the tests would be -- and this is one representative at a time.
Take that tweeted.  The entire tweet, copy it and paste it and click enter
and you will find 15, 20 at times and 40 sharing the same thing attacking
one person.  I know this is not specific.  There's a clear distinction.
There are people that the moment they reveal who they are, I was sitting
across various spaces.  They are open to threats.  Number 2, it is sort of
demissioning what they are saying. I know that means shut off.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  It is.  (no sound).

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  I think let's just go on for two minutes.  Marcel,
please.

>> MARCEL LEONARDI:  Companies aught to do better all the tile.  Basically
it is very hard to tackle. It's an ongoing challenge.  For example, the new
issue that it is obviously an ongoing theme.  To what extent companies need
to have better systems to work that out.  I really agree with the point of
the counter speech not being the online solution obviously.  Basically we
have data from lawsuits and from other cases in Brazil that do showcase
whenever victims really don't care about legal remedies, but more of the
sense of the community.  It is to make a specific platform, a specific
community, a specific service less distracting.  So there is an overall
long-term fact especially by allies that was raised here.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  Excellent.  Jonathan?

>> JONATHAN McCULLY:  Brief comment on the anonymous speech point.  We're
involved in a case in Tanzania where the police can disclose user
identities.  It is suspicious or an investigation into cyber crime which
can include cyber harassment. I think the problem is anonymization, it is
not an absolute right to anonymity online.  There are occasions when it
does have to be set aside, but the important thing is that states can't
rely on these legal remedies to force disclosure to kind of harass them
themselves.  So we're trying to push the constitutional in Tanzania to say
that you need have at least a strong case before you can force the
disclosure of identities online rather than saying I'm investigating
something.  Let's get that user data and end that to me.  That's not
enough.  I think we need to be very careful about how we approach anonymous
speech online.  It is a more nuance approach for sure.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  Thank you.  HYRA, you have any final thoughts?

>> HYRA BASIT:  I think one of the topics of discussions that comes up is
where do we draw the line between free speech and online harassment?  Who
gets to define the like between that?  It's a very big issue and there's a
lot of stakeholders involved.  So I think it's going to take -- it's a long
process.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  Ellery, you have two seconds to finalize.

>> ELLERY ROBERTS BIDDLE:  Direct threats of violence are a separate
category under most many countries laws and the terms of service and
community standards of the many major social platforms.  It is a very
important distinction.  If has been a challenge for the companies and I
really want them to do better on it.

>> ANDREAS REVENTLOW:  I think on that note has we have been disrupted, I
would like to thank you all for taking part both panelists and the
audience. There are so many things going on in trying to find ways to
constructing and responding to this.  I would like to find a way to
continued conversation. So please talk to me or talk to panelists to keep
it going.  There really is an immense need for finding creative and
community-led responses amongst others. Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE]
CELE Argentina Regional Framework for the Protection of Human Rights on the
Internet in Latin America-room 7 1, 2, 3.  1, 2, 3. IGFSA general Assembly