Latin America towards the Internet Social Forum

Quito will host the “Dialogues for a People’s Internet”

This forum will enable dialogue around three central themes: knowledge, WTO, e-commerce and work, and democracy, security and the State.

ALAI

21/09/2017

Opinión

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Is the internet really a tool to democratize communication and knowledge? Do the big corporations such as: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (GAFAM) offer free services just so we can connect and communicate? What is behind all this? In the quest for answers to these questions arose the Dialogues for a People’s Internet: Our America towards the Internet Social Forum. This initiative proposes a space for interchange and the construction of a regional proposal in the framework of the Internet Social Forum. The event will take place on September 27 to 29 in CIESPAL, Quito, Ecuador.

This forum will enable dialogue through working groups, among various social sectors, around three central themes. The first is knowledge, which embraces media and communication; free technologies; free culture and intellectual propriety; access and diversity; education, etc. The second theme is WTO, e-commerce and work, contemplating issues such as electronic commerce; agriculture and the peasantry; and labour rights. And the third is democracy, security and the State, which has to do with surveillance and privacy; digital rights and governance; democracy, the State and citizenship; data protection; and infrastructure, among others.

Moreover, four transversal themes will mark the development of the event: the commons versus concentration of power; technological sovereignty; governance; gender and diversities. The programme includes panels open to the public which will situate the context and the challenges for citizens and countries of the region. To know more about the program visit: https://al.internetsocialforum.net/ejes/ (in Spanish).

Several of these issues are already under discussion by citizen groups that use the Internet as an alternative space to exercise their freedom of expression. A motive for concern for these groups is the issue of the services that corporations such as the GAFAM offer, that allow them to collect enormous quantities of personal data about their users that they then monetize or sell to other companies, under new business models that generate enormous profits. That is to say, the personal and collective data of our societies are concentrated in private hands and are sold as merchandise.

At the same time the big technology businesses tell their users what to consume or not. For example, websites such as Wikileaks, DemocracyNow or World Socialist Web have ceased to appear among Google search results, due to the implementation of new policies in the company’s search algorithms. So is the battle lost?

The people’s Internet is still alive. This forum proposes that this is the time to demand results and to participate actively in the democratization of this virtual space.

Among the goals of the Dialogues for a People’s Internet is to raise awareness on these issues of the digital era, so that people can begin to retrieve control of the internet. The forum proposes to build a regional agenda of actions and proposals for public policies, regional strategies and citizen initiatives, as well as a thematic agenda of proposals and contributions for the global Internet Social Forum, planned to take place in India, in 2018.

The event is expected to produce inputs for future reflection-action at a regional level and contributions for global action, and for the consolidation of continuing regional dynamics.

The organizations or persons interested in participating can sign up without cost in the portal:

www.internetciudadana.net, where the plenary sessions can be followed through streaming.

Organizers: ALAI, ALER, CORAPE, Pressenza, Medialab UIO and the Forum on Communication for Integration, with the collaboration of CIESPAL.

See the Call, Programme and further information (in Spanish) at:

· https://al.internetsocialforum.net

· https://al.internetsocialforum.net/programa/

· https://al.internetsocialforum.net/inscripcion_fsi_al/

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/188195