Events

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) serves to bring people together from various stakeholder groups as equals, in discussions on public policy issues relating to the Internet. While there is no negotiated outcome, the IGF informs and inspires those with policy-making power in both the public and private sectors. At their annual meeting delegates discuss, exchange information and share good practices with each other. The IGF facilitates a common understanding of how to maximize Internet opportunities and address risks and challenges that arise.

RightsCon is the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age. We provide a platform for people from around the world – activists, technologists, business leaders, policymakers, journalists, and more – to come together and set the agenda for human rights in the digital age. Every year, the summit supports a program of 400+ sessions across 15+ program tracks, all sourced and selected from an open Call for Proposals.

The internet and social media have empowered societies with enormous opportunities for people to communicate, engage and learn. However, digital platforms have also been used as vectors for disinformation, hate speech, conspiracy theories and other content potentially harmful to democracy and human rights. Current regulatory systems have yet to catch up with these challenges. Taking forward the Windhoek+30 Declaration on Information as a Public Good, UNESCO will host a global conference gathering ministers, regulators, judicial actors, the private sector, the UN family, civil society, academia, intergovernmental organizations and the technical community from around the world to shape digital platform regulation. The leadup to the conference and the event itself will offer a forum for multistakeholder consultations to discuss guidelines for regulating digital platforms for actors seeking to regulate, co-regulate and self-regulate digital platforms, with the aim of supporting freedom of expression and the availability of accurate and reliable information in the public sphere.

The global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was initiated as a direct result of the UN World Summit on the Information Society – WSIS established by the United Nations and held first in Geneva in 2003 and then in Tunis in 2005. The IGF is an international arena for discussion and cooperation in areas relating to the development of the information society, Internet governance and issues facing the Internet as a whole. The IGF is not a decision-making body but rather a forum at which the problems defined and approaches discussed can be formulated into public, international or national policies and presented to other bodies, whether to those within the UN or to other international organisations or governments, for their consideration.

The Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF) is an important platform where conversations on digital policy in Africa are shaped, policy directions debated and partnerships forged for action.

After over two years of virtual convenings and limited networking opportunities, the Asia-Pacific Digital Rights Festival will bring together changemakers from the Asia-Pacific to strengthen the regional digital rights movement through creativity, conversation, and celebration. The week-long Festival in May 2023 will be the biggest physical gathering focused on the Asia-Pacific, with various sessions spread out across the whole city of Chiang Mai. The Festival aims to infuse the movement with an even broader range of allied actors: digital and human rights advocates, journalists, media-makers, artists, designers, technologists, youth representatives, and more changemakers. It is the culmination of a series of country-wide and regional digital rights forums that began in 2022, and a successor to the Coconet digital rights camps held in recent years.