03:29Germany: Merkel and Guterres open 14th Internet Governance Forum
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held speeches about the challenges and importance of protecting the global internet at the opening ceremony of the 14th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Berlin on Tuesday.
"Today there is a real risk of geopolitical rupture, a great fracture of trade security and internet systems. We all are familiar with the politics surrounding 5G technologies. We are also aware of the growing efforts of some states to construct ever harder borders in cyberspace on one hand and the ever-increasing number of cross border cyber-attacks on the other,'' said Guterres, adding that "there is an absence of technical expertise among policymakers even in the most developed countries."
Chancellor Merkel said that "the value that especially lies within the triumph of the internet is freedom. And we know freedom is not self-evident, we have to fight and defend freedom over and over.''
"That means, that the attack on the internet connectivity, which is the basic freedom of the free, open internet, has become a dangerous tool for politics,'' said Merkel, adding that protecting the internet's core as "global, public good" only works if we rethink "the governance structures of this global network, that connects all of us.''
The IGF is an annual meeting hosted in 2019 under the theme 'One World. One Net. One Vision' by the German Government in Berlin from 25 to 29 November to bring together people and aide discussions on public policy issues regarding the internet.
03:29United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held speeches about the challenges and importance of protecting the global internet at the opening ceremony of the 14th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Berlin on Tuesday.
"Today there is a real risk of geopolitical rupture, a great fracture of trade security and internet systems. We all are familiar with the politics surrounding 5G technologies. We are also aware of the growing efforts of some states to construct ever harder borders in cyberspace on one hand and the ever-increasing number of cross border cyber-attacks on the other,'' said Guterres, adding that "there is an absence of technical expertise among policymakers even in the most developed countries."
Chancellor Merkel said that "the value that especially lies within the triumph of the internet is freedom. And we know freedom is not self-evident, we have to fight and defend freedom over and over.''
"That means, that the attack on the internet connectivity, which is the basic freedom of the free, open internet, has become a dangerous tool for politics,'' said Merkel, adding that protecting the internet's core as "global, public good" only works if we rethink "the governance structures of this global network, that connects all of us.''
The IGF is an annual meeting hosted in 2019 under the theme 'One World. One Net. One Vision' by the German Government in Berlin from 25 to 29 November to bring together people and aide discussions on public policy issues regarding the internet.