When the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was convened by the UN in 2003 (in Geneva) and 2005 (in Tunis), it was to be the first global multilateral forum dedicated to discussing governance issues and policies related to digital communication.

It was also the first officially multistakeholder UN summit, including governments, civil society, and the private sector, the latter two with observer status–theoretically in equal conditions.

The Summit was conceived with a technocratic vision, designed to facilitate investments from the Global North in internet infrastructure, services, and e-commerce, especially in the Global South. From a Southern perspective (mainly proposed by Africa), the goal was to mobilize greater official development funding and aid for their technological progress.

The Summit was conceived with a technocratic vision, designed to facilitate investments from the Global North in internet infrastructure, services, and e-commerce, especially in the Global South.

Civil society organizations were invited to contribute their “hands-on experience” to these goals; but the majority of us joined forces in refusing to adapt to a technocratic matrix, insisting on broadening the agenda to include such themes as human rights, open access to information and knowledge, free and open-source software, literacy, education and research, cultural diversity, attention to those with special needs, and a gender perspective.

The proposal of communication as a right

Since, historically, human rights have been born out of social conflicts and societal changes, their definition and recognition express an evolving process. And this is the case with communication rights. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR – 1948), which recognizes freedom of opinion and expression and the right to information as universal rights, is now the main reference point for legislation and policy in this field. Previous instruments tended to benefit media producers or writers/journalists, but not the citizenry in general.

The proposal to recognise communication itself as a human right entered the multilateral debate more than two decades later, in the context of the controversy in UNESCO surrounding the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), in which the Non-Aligned Countries confronted the thesis of the “free flow” of information defended by the Western powers, demanding a more balanced flow. The UNESCO MacBride Commission Report “Many Voices, One World” (1980) developed the proposal of the ‘right to communicate’, as a broader concept including the former rights, but also, for example, for people to have access to expression through the media. However, it was subsequently buried by UNESCO due to fierce opposition, particularly from the US and UK which withdrew from the organization.

While social forces were largely absent from the NWICO debate, the proposal of the right to communicate was subsequently taken up by civil society organizations striving to democratize communication as a fundamental condition for democracy (among others, the community radio movement), which flourished during the 1980’s.

In the early 1990s, the advocacy activity of civil society sectors in international policy-making gained impetus, in step with the advance of globalization, taking advantage of the series of UN world conferences that started with the Earth Summit (Rio 92). Beyond the formal results of such conferences (which are generally not binding on governments, but do imply commitments), they catalysed processes of civil society convergence, with repercussions that went beyond the events themselves. Coinciding with the Internet era, it was also an opportunity for new momentum in the emerging movement to democratise communication, that broadened its focus to democratising the internet and digital technology.

Coinciding with the Internet era, it was also an opportunity for new momentum in the emerging movement to democratise communication, that broadened its focus to democratising the internet and digital technology.

The 4^th World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) was one of the first UN conferences to include proposals relating to the internet, as a result of the advocacy work led by the Association for Progressive Communication’s Women’s Networking Support Programme and ALAI. Although, at the time, many official delegates scarcely knew what the internet was, we were able to introduce policy proposals into the UN Beijing Platform for Action that recognise communication and new technologies, including participation in decision-making, as a strategic axis for women’s empowerment.

Consequently, at WSIS, while many of the issues to be discussed were new, civil society organizations did not arrive empty-handed. Organizations from the movement to democratize communication, alongside others specialized in human rights, social justice, etc., joined forces during the preparatory phase of WSIS to insert a people-centred vision, based on human rights, social justice, and sustainable development, on the Summit agenda.

Organizing civil society at WSIS

One of the first initiatives was the launch of the Campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS), in late 2001, with the goals of deepening the debate on these issues and democratizing access to communication, in the service of sustainable development. An initial priority was to coordinate action at WSIS.

Coming into the first WSIS preparatory committee meeting (prepcom) as a coordinated group, involving a number of representatives of different organizations, meant that CRIS was able to significantly influence how the civil society (CS) plenary was organized. It acted as a facilitator, organising meetings and establishing partnerships and solidarity, with the aim of mobilising civil society around a unifying discourse in view of increasing its political impact both within and outside the Summit.

This facilitating role was a key element contributing to an unprecedented level of coordination among the majority of civil society participants to build consensus on proposals. A significant step, at the second prepcom, was to set up the CS Content and Themes Group in order to facilitate this coordination.

The Group met twice daily during the prepcoms, negotiating speaking slots for the thematic caucuses at the official plenary, organizing monitoring and reports of the official sessions, compiling consensus documents, and coordinating strategic actions such as lobbying governments. This was all the more important as the civil society process confronted constant frustrations to be effectively taken into account by the official process, and the fact that we could often present our positions as a common body was a great advantage.

In fact, several of the official WSIS organisers recognized that the level of unity among CS organisations was unprecedented in a UN conference, as well as our determination to make quality contributions and achieve an impact on the Summit outcomes.

In fact, several of the official WSIS organisers recognized that the level of unity among CS organisations was unprecedented in a UN conference, as well as our determination to make quality contributions and achieve an impact on the Summit outcomes. In the final days, the president of the Summit even invited the Content and Themes Group to summarize the CS “red lines” regarding inclusion of content we considered non-negotiable.

Civil society inputs

As a result of these efforts, we were able to introduce a number of proposals into the final Summit documents (the Geneva Declaration and Plan of Action), in particular, to broaden the focus and vision of the summit to encompass human rights and principles of social inclusion. For example, the introduction of the Declaration declares the aim “to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life”. This was a direct contribution from civil society. Nonetheless, the Plan of Action largely failed to translate this vision into concrete proposals for action, beyond issues of ensuring connectivity.

Civil society inputs to the Summit documents also include, among others, the principle of universal access to information and communication technologies (ICTs), references to the development of the public domain of information, open access publications and archives for scientific research, and the need for different software options, including free and open-source. In relation to capacity building, there is a call for extending literacy and education, training ICT professionals in developing countries, and promoting ICT research and development capacity in such countries. The section dedicated to cultural and linguistic diversity and local content, mentions cooperation with indigenous peoples and measures to preserve cultural heritage and to stimulate creation.

Even these achievements were only possible due to constant pressure, and many other proposals were rejected. For example, civil society efforts at damage control with relation to security issues were relatively unsuccessful, especially fears that the references to “information security” might be used to justify monitoring and surveillance of citizens.

As mainstream media associations were registered as part of civil society, the media caucus only achieved consensus on few points (freedom of expression, access to information…). Any mention of community media or media regulation was vetoed. In the final documents, there were only oblique references to “supporting media based in local communities” and managing the radio spectrum in the public interest. The “right to communicate” was originally included but later vetoed (by the media caucus and UNESCO among others), though we were able to refer to “communication rights”.

The “right to communicate” was originally included but later vetoed (by the media caucus and UNESCO among others), though we were able to refer to “communication rights”.

Given the frustration of having many of our proposals sidelined, the civil society plenary agreed to produce our own Declaration: “Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs*”, adopted by consensus at the final CS plenary on December 8 2003, and subsequently posted as an input on the official Summit website. This was another unprecedented achievement at a UN conference¹ and a contribution to the debates for the next phase of WSIS.

The Tunis phase of the Summit focused on two main issues that remained unresolved in the first phase: internet governance (as a result of which the Internet Governance Forum was set up, as an on-going space for multisectoral debate but not decision-making); and development financing for ICTs (which was practically boycotted by most of the major developed countries).

Building on the experience of the first phase of the WSIS Summit, the Content and Themes Group was reactivated and produced a new joint CS Statement, titled “Much more could have been achieved”, as an evaluation of the official outcomes of the Summit, recognizing certain advances and criticizing notable omissions.

WSIS + 20: similar goals, new challenges

Today, the problems we are facing in the digital realm are far more complex, and much more so with the expansion of artificial intelligence. There is certainly greater public awareness of some of the problems and threats, such as fake news, hate speech, digital addiction, invasive surveillance, discrimination in digital services, the impact of robots and AI on jobs, precarious platform employment, cyberwar, among many others. But it is not easy to fathom how to deal with many of these problems, and solutions proposed are generally piecemeal. Moreover, a democratic international model for internet governance is still unresolved after 20 years.

But it is not easy to fathom how to deal with many of these problems, and solutions proposed are generally piecemeal. Moreover, a democratic international model for internet governance is still unresolved after 20 years.

Yet the vision of a people-centred information society, oriented to improving the quality of life for the majority, is as valid as it was two decades ago, and perhaps even more so due to the much greater penetration of digital technology in our lives. To our understanding, one of the central obstacles to that goal is the inordinate power concentrated in the hands of the major tech corporations, that are expanding into more and more areas of the economy, and that develop the technology primarily to strengthen their monopoly position and profit goals, rather than for the public benefit.

The discourse that attempts to convince us that in the future artificial intelligence will drive development seeks to negate the role of social conflict in bringing about societal change. Digital technology today is about much more than communication and we need to ensure that social justice and existing human rights continue to be adequately defended in the context of AI, in a variety of areas (work, education, health, etc.) Moreover, with the development of neurotechnology, there is a real danger of AI being used to invade mental privacy and to exercise cognitive manipulation, oriented to social control.

The discourse that attempts to convince us that in the future artificial intelligence will drive development seeks to negate the role of social conflict in bringing about societal change.

Certainly, WSIS+20 is one of the spaces of potential opportunity for influencing governmental commitments on some of these issues and it is crucial that coalitions such as the Global Digital Justice Forum are continuing to express a unified voice. However, we no longer have the conditions that, in Geneva 2003, enabled such broad consensus among civil society representatives. Moreover, the large corporations have extended a major influence over such spaces, including some sectors of civil society.

While the movement for democratization of communication and digital justice has grown, it is in no way sufficient in itself to effectively take on these challenges. Beyond WSIS+20, we will need to broaden alliances with a wider range of actors and other social movements in order to develop mutual understandings of the central cross-cutting issues at stake, towards building a common agenda for action.

* For more about the civil society declaration see: Burch, Sally “Shaping information societies for human needs: The relevance of the WSIS civil society declaration, 20 years on”, Giswatch 2024.