With a superb line-up of high-level speakers the 19th Internet Governance taking place in Riyadh, Saudi-Arabia was opened on Tuesday Dec. 16th, 2024.
Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Divide were the two issues addressed in the opening speeches as the most important action points in the months and years to come. Here comes the Global Digital Compact (GDC) into play, since it’s implementation lays out the road map for our digital future which was described as the Intelligence Age by the Saudi-Arabian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Eng. Abdullah bin Amer Al-Swaha.
Since Children are the generation that will shape this vision of the Intelligence Age and that shall benefit from its further development it didn’t come as a surprise they were in the focus of several future-oriented sessions on day 1 of the IGF. In the “Children in the metaverse” workshop, presenters and participants discussed the current understanding of virtual worlds and the metaverse, how human rights can be realised in these environments and what regulations are already in place today. This involved looking at how new services are developed and how children interact with them.
Digital games and social media are already virtual worlds, argued Michael Barngover, raising questions about simultaneous physical and digital presence. Social relationships are established by means of digital representation in the form of avatars. It is difficult, if not impossible, to draw reliable conclusions about a person's physical identity. Against this backdrop, Deepak Tewari emphasised the need for age verification mechanisms. However, these are not only important in order to have at least some knowledge of the identity of the other person when interacting with each other, but also to be able to design age-appropriate virtual environments. Using an example, he demonstrated that the content and design of the environment could be adapted to the age of the user. In this way, children could be protected from advertising for products that are not suitable or permitted for them. Nevertheless, it must be ensured that appropriate mechanisms and precautionary measures do not lead to young people being excluded from participating in virtual worlds or being denied certain opportunities. General Comment No. 25 on the rights of children in the digital environment emphasises the right to non-discrimination as one of four fundamental principles that also apply to the internet and the metaverse, explained Sophie Pohle from German Children's Fund. Maryem Lhajoui from the Digital Child Rights Foundation also brought the perspective of young people into the debate and noted that it is important for children and young people to know how mechanisms work in order to be able to assess their effects and influences. In response to a question from a youth representative from Hong Kong, she explained that this also applies, for example, in the context of the design of services that are likely to create a dependency on the services offered.
Referring to the above, Deepali Liberhan explained that it is important for Meta to provide age-appropriate experiences and offers for young people. Identifying age reliably poses challenges in terms of balancing various objectives, such as data minimisation, effectiveness and proportionality. Meta's approach is designed to combine the autonomy of young users with opportunities for parental control in virtual environments.
Torsten Krause, speaking on behalf of the Digital Opportunities Foundation, identified the fact that states should encourage companies to respect human rights standards as a key aspect that was renewed with the adoption of the Global Digital Compact by the international community in September 2024. This also calls for national guidelines to be implemented in all countries to protect young people in digital environments. The aim is to involve children and young people. Overall, it is important to pursue a holistic approach to the realisation of children's rights in order to enable both protection, promotion and participation. Following this, Hazel Bitana emphasised that young people want to be involved and included so that they can use the digital environment to develop themselves, develop their skills and exercise their rights. Artificial intelligence is therefore not only associated with risks, such as forms of discrimination or sexual violence, but also with opportunities to advance children's rights and a wide range of learning opportunities.
In conclusion, Jutta Croll (Digital Opportunities Foundation) summarised, that through their participation in online games and social media, children are already moving in virtual environments that offer great potential for the development of their skills. The right to non-discrimination must be taken into account in order to protect children and young people from impairments to their development and to enable them to benefit from the opportunities offered by virtual environments. Mechanisms for determining age can help to realise child-friendly online environments. In order to achieve these goals, existing regulations must be reviewed to determine whether they are also applicable and sufficient for the metaverse or whether they need to be adapted. According to Croll, the focus should not only be on protecting young people, but rather their participation in virtual worlds must be accompanied by safe environments and measures for guidance and support.