 Hello and thank you for joining this tech for good debate as part of the Davos agenda as we continue the conversation today. I'm Karen Cho from CNBC. Globally there was shock and recrimination about the US insurrection on Capitol Hill. It was a violent reminder about the harm the internet can bring the social media fueling the outrage that we witnessed and the former US president posting encouraging a dangerous mob. Meanwhile vaccines the main solution to end the pandemic has also been the subject of lies and deceit. But events in 2020 with advertisers throwing their weight behind campaigns calling for change created a watershed moment for tech giants that have become content gatekeepers. On that note though as we begin our panel on advancing digital content safety. Let me introduce you to your speakers today. Her Excellency Hessa Bint Essa Boone who made Minister of Community Development Office of the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. Maurice Levy the chairman of the supervisory board publicist's group and A B Albreg Sen the chief executive officer at Plan International. Thank you all so much for joining us. A little bit later on the way in on with some final thoughts on this discussion will be Kathy Lee who is head of media entertainment and sports industries for the World Economic Forum. Just a couple of notes by way of housekeeping before we begin the first 30 minutes will be a live discussion. And this is open to the public so feel free to to post your comments on the chat function which you can see on the screen now. Following this we will close out the discussion to the public and just segue to a more detailed private discussion for foreign members and partners. So we look forward to continuing that for the full hour of the conversation. Let's now begin our discussion as we tackle the topic at hand. Her Excellency if I may just pivot to you first please. In my introduction I highlighted how social media can trigger political instability. The Washington since have highlighted the need for change. What role do you believe the government should play in tackling harmful content online. Thank you very much Karen and a very good morning to everyone. Welcome to our session and thank you for having us. Well the government can play a huge role when it comes to tackling harmful content on the Internet and on online. There are a couple of ways of doing so. And if you may allow me I would go through a couple of ideas that I would like to discuss. So putting in place the right set of regulations and governance around the online content to start with to criminalize the harmful acts and protect the victims right is should be a definitely a necessity. This includes having for example a sustainable law on the legal online behavior which the United Arab Emirates have done that back in 2006 and have went back and amended that law again in 2012. Another idea of how we can tackle that as government is by by putting technical measurements tools and to provide a quick response to such incidents. And when we mean what we mean by a quick response in this world in the digital world we know that the face is the face is much faster. So us as government will need to be so agile very equipped ready to such incidents. We need to ensure that we protect the government services that are being provided to the people. We should ensure that the harmful content is easily and quickly taken down to ensure the less of the spread of any harmful acts. Launching for example a national computer emergency response team is a way to ensure that you act as a government and as in as a country as well equipped to do so. I also believe that building cybersecurity capabilities is a necessity that would be including to analyze and stop any threats and threats and to monitor and protect the digital infrastructure of the government and also to allow governments to respond not only quickly but also effectively to such incidents. Another way to do so we also believe is 100 percent by raising awareness and about the digital and the security to all people of the of the society. And we also would want to focus on the importance of having this awareness at a very early age to the new generations. We have our students now all being I mean having their distance learning which means they are even much more exposed to such incidents. Our seniors as well. Life have changed over the last 12 months. We've all we have all noticed that we are more into ensuring a safe and a very effective platform for people to live through it. My last point if you may allow me and would be to do to really emphasize on leveraging the partnership international and national partnership to ensure that the awareness that the connection is there. Such harmful content will on the Internet will only be acted on quickly if the right partnership is put in place and if the right direction is clear to everyone playing such a role. These threats need to be addressed. People need to be aware about them and also need to be protected. Thank you very much Karen. Minister. Thank you very much for that detailed response. Maurice if I can turn to you less than two years ago you held a fireside with Mark Zuckerberg as European lawmakers were demanding answers around Cambridge Analytica. Fast forward. We've had the twenty twenty election. We've had a watershed year as advertisers demanded that these social media platforms change their policies. The latest election did see some labels with some posts with labels. I read with warnings about the content. But still the platforms allowed Trump to pedal a lie about voter fraud. And then we saw that deadly rampage on in Washington. We finally saw responses as social media giants then blocked the leader of the free world. What's your view on how the social media platforms have performed over the past 12 months. First of all thank you for having me and I'm very happy to be in this very unusual Davos meeting. We have been talking with the platform since more than 10 years. And the very first time that we did it was in Davos in a very heated conversation regarding the safe environment in which our clients should advertise and how the platform should create the content. And to be very honest during a few years they were in a denial. And since let's say the recent years and particularly the last election. Not the very last one but the previous one. They have started to enter into a more active role in moderating or trying to curate the content. Today there is three or four issues which are extremely important. The first one is that we must recognize that the harmful content is huge complex difficult to manage. The minister has spoken about the rules in Emirates and the necessity for a cooperation an international cooperation. But if you look at the rules in the US and the legal rules in the US they are very different from the one in Europe. What is permitted in the US in the name of freedom of speech is not allowed in the European countries. The second aspect is a sheer size. The volume of hatred messages violence messages inappropriate messages. We are speaking about hundreds of million. So we recognize that it's not very easy. And last but not least who should be the custodian. And we believe that the platforms have a role but they should not be alone. That there should be a third party. They cannot decide who has the right to speak and who has not the right to speak. They can obviously eliminate and correct the hatred content. But when it comes to decisions like the ones that we have seen recently on the Trump decision it's interesting to see that as long as he was president and despite the fact that he was issuing messages which were not really very accurate very true and very honest. They have not done anything. It's just when he was a lame duck that they decided that yes they will act which is something which is debatable. And they believe that when it comes to the authority of who should be speaking and who should not be speaking. We should not let them alone making the decision. Maurice interesting points there about the timing of those decisions taken by the social media companies. Let me turn to you because the societal impact of social media is not just important from a political standpoint but also from an individual one. Girls and young women have penned an open letter to the content gatekeepers effectively demanding more ways to report online abuse and more effective tools. Talk us through the scale of abuse that you're witnessing even in 2021. Yes so we at Glenn International surveyed about 14000 girls in over 22 countries and these countries are across the world. There's no difference in the responses and 60 percent of girls and young women that are on social media platforms have experienced harassment and abuse online. I want to just highlight that what we're talking about is not virtual violence. This is violence and violence that has a huge impact on the girls how they feel mentally but also how they feel physically when they are in the public space. About 20 percent of those that have experienced violence never come back to the social media platforms. It's so abusive that they decide this is not a space for them. And what we also see is that it leaves the girls feeling physically unsafe also when they leave their homes. So about 20 percent of them say that they really don't feel like going outside anymore because they may meet the perpetrators of violence. So it has a huge impact in the personal space for for thousands and thousands of girls. Thank you very much for that minister. If I can come back to you the UAE's National Digital Wellbeing Programme that's been unveiled this week aims to protect vulnerable groups as we're talking about young women especially. What is the Gulf State doing differently that other countries could think about adopting at this point. Thank you Karen for allowing us to highlight. It's actually the session comes at the perfect timing three days back. The UAE have launched the digital well-being program. I mean definitely this program this well-being program with its digital format is going hand in hand in our general well-being program. The digital well-being program is actually based on what have been launched by Cabinet earlier this week which is the national digital well-being policy a full policy which is one of its kind that has a lot. I mean one of its main core initiatives that come that came out out of the so-called the digital well-being council. This council is being run by by himself the deputy prime minister. His Highness Sheikh Seyf Benzait Ein Hayyan the minister of Interior with a membership of another 10 federal and local government entities. This policy consists of what we call the four C's four main pillars which we believe holistically will help the digital well-being of the United Arab Emirates. People who live here who visit here and who would ever come in contact with with the United Arab Emirates. The first component is is on the digital capabilities. And we mean here by building digital capabilities and expanding on the digital knowledge of different segments within the United Arab Emirates whether it's children youth adults senior citizens and so forth. The second component is about the digital content which is to basically to encourage the usage of positive content and providing solutions to reduce and report harmful content. The third pillar is on the digital conduct. This conduct is basically done and put in place to promote positive behaviors and values in the digital world because it's no difference than the real world. This digital conduct conduct have been spreading since the last three days massively within the United Arab Emirates to all platforms to everyone in the society to ensure that everyone is aware about it. And they actually sign up to this pledge of using the Internet in a positive way in being a good example of a citizen that uses the content and the power of the Internet to the benefits of all. The last pillar is basically on the digital contact which is managing the relationships and providing means of online protection through regulations and laws. And here where a lot of awareness will be happening not only for school students but even to other members of the society caregivers parents you name it. Each each pillar is associated with a number of initiatives which are which are dedicated to vulnerable groups and to ensure that we are continuously building their digital capabilities and literacy to raise their levels of awareness. If you may allow me Karen I do have some examples of how we would want to reach specifically some of our vulnerable groups for example. Let's say children enabling the digital well-being and embedding the digital well-being knowledge in our educational system right from kindergarten all the way to grade 12. And these standards just to ensure that teachers students parents at home caregivers are aware of them. And this type of knowledge is actually being built up for students all throughout while they are going during their years to organize as well regular interactive camps where parents can participate to raise their awareness. The ESF so-called school programs as well to ensure that our online safety policy is not only out there but it's also practiced. When it comes to caregivers as well we want to ensure that we are providing the right educational and material guidance to parents educators caregivers all throughout. We want to make sure that the parents virtual awareness is or is simple and it's out there as well easy to reach senior our seniors our people of determination who we call people of determination who are people of disability are already also included in this holistic national policy. It sounds multifaceted. Maurice let me come back to you because what we saw over the course of last year many big name clients effectively joining a boycott against Facebook. Yet we thought this would have a huge impact on the revenue model for a company that derives about 99% of its revenue from advertising. Then we learned that small advertisers are the ones that are having a dramatic impact on our supporting Facebook still. So we didn't see the revenue hit that we thought we would see from such dramatic action. Fast forward to this year Facebook also picking up subscribers because of these pandemic trends. What is it going to take for the digital media companies to respond to what advertisers are doing and respond to the pressure that they're seeing beyond some of the uses at this stage. The revenue of the platform are climbing simply because we are in a very specific situation due to the pandemic. As you know people are at home and they are most of them they are also shopping on Internet. They don't go outside and therefore they are using massively Internet and that's the reason why we see the revenue of the key platform growing quite dramatically. And this is something which we expect to continue in 2021 and this makes by the way the responsibility of the platform even greater. We as advertising agencies and publicists in particular we have insisted a lot and we have played a crucial role in drawing not only a line in the sand but also defining some 11 categories of harmful content. We want simply that the advertising money of our client is going to a safe environment. We want our clients to communicate in an environment which is reasonably safe. Now you have to see that and this has been mentioned by AB as well as by the minister. But you have to see that the real world is not very different from the platform world. The virtual world with a huge difference is that when you are insulting someone privately it remains private. It is something which is harmful for the person but the echo is very limited. When you do that on Internet the echo is unlimited and you can hardly get it out of the Internet and it takes days before your complaint is recognized. So what we are doing for time being through an organization which is called GARM is an alliance between the agencies the key advertisers and the platform in order to have some strong rules and making sure that they can respect those rules. What we see in nowadays is a clear conscience of the key platforms Facebook, YouTube and when I say Facebook is the whole group we see that they are starting to be extremely conscious of the need to take out some content to moderate some content. What they are doing is quite significant but as I said the complexity and the size make it extremely difficult to route out all the negative content. It's complicated. I don't believe that the kind of boycott or putting a finger directly on some platform will really change the situation. We need to work collaboratively. We need to be in a good cooperation with the platform in order to reasonably take out all these negative content. It's a long way to go. It will not be easy and some strong advertisers will probably lead the way. Maurice, a moment ago you mentioned the role of a third party in regulating the social media platforms. When it comes to the United States seen as the light touch approach, there's a discussion about changing section 230 where effectively the social media platforms have not been on the hook for any of the content posted. Should that change? Is that the third party that you're talking about? There are a few third parties. What Abe is doing is for me considering as a third party. What Brand Guard is, sorry, News Guard is doing is also a third party. News Guard, I don't know if you know, it is an unbiased organization which look at the content of the website, the credibility of the journalist, the owners, and they give a nutrition label from creditables. So you have three red lights. Red is something that should not take into account because it's really negative. Orange is something that you should be cautious about and green is a content that should be respected. You can respect and you can take for granted. So there are a few initiatives. It's not enough. Part of what the U.S. is doing, what the European Union is doing and the new decision which has been taken by Thierry Breton and Margaret Vestager and also a recent declaration of Ursula von der Leyen are all in the right direction, but it takes too much time and we need to act more faster. Abe, we're all raking over the profits from Facebook just reported in the past 24 hours, a profit of 11.2 billion on revenues of $28 billion in the final three months of 2020. So a huge pivot as people were seeking more social media under lockdown and certain parts around the world. How do we align the interests of public and private companies down the track with the wider interest as we talk about protecting vulnerable groups in society? Thanks for that. I mean, let me start maybe in the positive end. As a leader in civil society, advancing social transformation across many aspects, particularly gender equality. We've also got to recognize that the Facebook and Instagram and the social media platforms have had a huge positive impact on mobilizing for social justice. The Me Too movement, Black Lives Matters, others that have started transformations across societies. So we have decided that we need to be both an ally with the social platforms as well as a challenger. So also be the challenging boys for making it a safe space for those that want to speak up. Because what we've also seen, and I mentioned the numbers before, as soon as you as a girl or a young woman take a stand on gender equality, on LGBT issues, on environmental issues or anything, then the harassment and abuse goes up massively. So you can't, as a social media company, be that wonderful open platform for enabling social justice. And then as soon as somebody takes the floor, they're not protect them against the violence and harassment that happens. Fortunately, after we launched our findings and report in October, both Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, they've all come to the table and said, listen, you work with these young activists, we don't really have access to them in the same way. So they've decided to sit down at the table with the young female activists to really understand what is the particularity of the abuse that especially girls and young women feel. And what can they do about it in terms of their reporting requirements, how they publish data about their harassment, and what kinds of support that they can provide for their users to ensure that harassment goes down. But can I just say, I mean, I really welcomed what the minister was saying, because this has to be a whole of society approach. And it has to start at home with the caregivers in schools, etc., to make sure that we have the necessary education of children, boys and girls in terms of what's good behavior online, as well as we need the legislative changes because we cannot have legislation on violence against women or domestic violence, for example, that doesn't acknowledge the violence that happens online because the consequences in terms of self esteem in terms of preventing girls and young women from aspiring to leadership is tremendous. And we're potentially losing out on a whole generation of future female leaders. And just quickly before we wrap up, let me ask you there, NAB, about this patchwork regulation. While we applaud the efforts of the UAE, do we need to see more leadership from the Biden administration because these are platforms that are housed headquartered in the United States? Absolutely. No doubt about it. We need every leader with a voice. But yes, certainly in North America, that would be great. Minister, do you want to weigh in on that? Thank you. I'd love to. Well, I'd love to say that we are ready in the United Arab Emirates to collaborate, to extend our arms, knowledge, and to work collectively to ensure that the whole world is a better place. If anything, this year have taught us or the year before have taught us that we're not only connected, but we are all everyone is affected by the other. If you can just imagine how our lives on the online platforms and the digital life that we have is even much more connected. Therefore, there's a lot of area for collaboration, for voicing out the people's voice to ensure that public and private companies are working in alignment together.