Archives for isf

WSIS Forum, Geneva, Switzerland.

Posted on by in Uncategorized | Comments Off on WSIS Forum, Geneva, Switzerland.

OUTCOME DOCUMENT. Date : 25-29 May 2015

1) Title of the session

Organizing an Internet Social Forum

2) Name of Organizations organizing the session.

Just Net Coalition / Association for Proper Internet Governance

3) Main outcomes highlighting the following:

I. Debated Issues

  • Report from ISF workshop at the World Social Forum in Tunis in March 2015.
  • Visions for the Internet Social Forum on the basis of the Tunis Call for a People’s Internet, http://internetsocialforum.net/?q=Tunis_Call_for_a_Peoples_Internet

Please provide two important quotes from the session and the names & organization of the person you are quoting.

“This Internet we want will allow access and share to full rights to data, information, knowledge and best practices for community development. This social, community or people’s Internet is a bottom- up process alliance involving all concerned social groups in different parts of the world.“ (Ahmed Eisa, Gedaref Digital City Organization,

“To address corporate control and non-democratic approaches to internet governance, internet activists need to step away from rhetoric and podiums, and seek to engage meaningfully with a variety of global movements. This is the internet social forum we need.” (Shawna Finnegan, Association for Progressive Communications)

III. Main Outcomes of the Session highlighting

  • An organizing committee for the Internet Social Forum is in the process of being set up.
  • The Internet Social Forum itself is like a big frame, providing opportunities for different points within that frame to be pursued.

IV. Main linkages with the Sustainable Development Goals

Developing a people’s agenda for the Internet – as proposed in the vision for  Internet Social Forum – and then implementing it, is of essential importance for thesocial sustainability aspect of the sustainable development process.

Report on the WSF workshop

Posted on by in Events, Events | Comments Off on Report on the WSF workshop

Internet Social Forum (ISF) at the World Social Forum 2015

“At the World Social Forum, 2015, in Tunis, the workshop on ‘Organising an Internet Social Forum – A Call to Occupy the Internet’ was held on 26th March, 2015. At the workshop, inter alia, a call to hold an Internet Social Forum (ISF) and develop a People’s Internet Manifesto was presented in the form of the “Tunis Call for a People’s Internet”. Along with a brief report about this workshop, this Tunis Call was also presented to the Convergence Assembly on ‘ Resisting and Building Alternatives to Free Trade and Corporate Power.

Organizing an Internet Social Forum

Posted on by in News | Comments Off on Organizing an Internet Social Forum
Just Net Coalition / Association for Proper Internet Governance
A Call to Occupy the Internet

The Internet has become an essential part of our daily lives. It is becoming our basic means to access knowledge and to communicate with each other, as well as the new arteries for commerce. It holds great promise for strengthening democracy, for building the solidarity economy and for ensuring cultural diversity. However while this is occurring, the Internet is being coopted and controlled for private gain by a few corporations; data mining tools are processing our personal data in ways over which we have no say or knowledge; the Internet is being militarized and new digital technologies are transforming our world into a super surveillance society. What was supposed to liberate is being employed to chain and control us!

The World Social Forum (WSF) that first took place in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and has continued since then, represents, as stated in the WSF Charter, a different kind of globalization than that “commanded by the large multinational corporations and by the governments and international institutions at the service of those corporations’ interests”. The Charter enshrines the values that “globalization in solidarity will prevail as a new stage in world history. This will respect universal human rights of all citizens – men and women – of all nations and the environment and will rest on democratic international systems and institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the sovereignty of peoples”.

A group of organizations that believe that “Another World is Possible” have come together to create an Internet Social Forum that will carry forward the vision of the WSF Charter to the governance of the Internet. It will pursue a people’s agenda, challenging the neoliberal governance agenda to give corporations a veto over public policy, the latest and the most symbolic form of which is the WEF-based Net Mundial Initiative.

This workshop will present the status of the Internet Social Forum, explain the need for it and its modalities. It will explore how in such a Forum can be collaboratively defined the Internet we want and how to build it; and also how to begin a process to develop a ‘People’s Internet Manifesto’.

Speakers / panellists

Norbert Bollow, co-convenor, Just Net Coalition

Richard Hill, President, Association for Proper Internet Governance

Ahmed Eisa, Gedaref digital city organization, Sudan

Shawna Finnegan, Association for Progressive Communications (APC)

Session’s link to WSIS Action Lines
  • C1. The role of public governance authorities and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development
  • C3. Access to information and knowledge
  • C10. Ethical dimensions of the Information Society
Session’s link to the Sustainable Development Process

Developing a people’s agenda for the Internet – as proposed here – and then implementing it, is of essential importance for the social sustainability aspect of the sustainable development process.