PAUL POLMAN What weve seen in the Covid crisis once more is the difficulty of global governance. Increasingly, the issues that we face like the issues of the interdependence of the financial markets, cybersecurity, climate change and now also pandemics require, without any doubt, a global response. These issues know no borders. And yet weve got about 86 countries putting export restrictions in place around [personal protective equipment] materials. Weve seen a lack of cooperation between governments in terms of solidarity. The developing markets have gotten virtually zero support from the developed markets. So global governance is, without any doubt, at a low. And the reason it is at a low is that most institutions were created 70 years ago. And, frankly, unlike businesses that might have adjusted their strategies 10, 15, 20 times, global governance has not evolved.

ARON CRAMER One of the reasons that some oil and gas companies have begun to move on climate change more decisively is because they recognize that they can no longer attract the best and the brightest. They simply wont have an employee base if they dont contribute whats needed in a very profound way on climate. Its very unlikely that Amazon would have moved on climate without a very public display from its employees and, mostly, its younger employees to demand quite publicly that the company adopt an approach that is compatible with what we need to do on climate. Businesses have to understand that 21st-century talent expects that we can take on these big social issues, not least climate change, and without that, the pool of talent will not be available, and no company would possibly survive or thrive.

In recent months, the multifront battle between social media platforms, their users and the authorities who would regulate them has accelerated even further. What role does, or should, government play in keeping platforms honest and their users safe? And what tools can help citizens be more engaged?

PANELISTS Dan Shefet, lawyer, Paris Court of Appeal; Wietse Van Ransbeeck, co-founder and chief executive, CitizenLab, a citizen-engagement platform; and Orit Farkash-Hacohen, Israeli minister for strategic affairs.

ORIT FARKASH-HACOHEN Today there is no doubt that social media has become a haven for fake news, for incitement, for hate speech. What happens in my view is that in the name of, or on behalf of, freedom of speech, some groups spread fake news and violence around social media networks. And that is something that a state, every state, cannot overlook. As a minister, I started a process of engagement with the social media networks in Israel. We are conducting a round table with social media because I think that we cant do it alone. Only enforcement and regulation will not do the trick. Social media networks must understand that they have power, and with power comes responsibility and accountability. And the fact is that, at the end of the day, they have the power to control the minds and to corrupt minds. This cannot be overlooked. So were implementing a program of four steps with the social media giants. We want them to create relevant and clear policies. They should enforce their policies without double standards. They should be transparent about the facts. And, lastly, [they should] remove problematic content.

WIETSE VAN RANSBEECK So we [at CitizenLab] provide a digital democracy platform. There are of course many other tools, or other platforms available. But what we do is we help citizens have a say in local policymaking within government projects, but also more from the bottom up, where citizens can bring up their proposals. Whats different, compared to social media, is that it actually starts from a broader question: How are we going to constitute the public sphere in the digital era? And social media are not a means to have a constructive debate. We all know about filter bubbles on social media networks, the echo chambers. So I think its also the responsibility of the government to rethink how we are going to create that digital democracy. And such [government-administered] platforms can be interesting because those platforms are owned by the government; they are the data owners. So when it comes to manipulation, the government is in control. They can also, when they procure those platforms, design the platforms in a way that some democratic values are safeguarded, in the sense that when we talk about transparency and openness, they can procure open-source platforms and make sure that the algorithms are open and transparent, but at the same time, when artificial intelligence is used, that its explained to the citizens in what way it is used. So I believe that probably the most important aspect is that those platforms can constitute a space where you have citizens from different backgrounds deliberate and have conversations with each other. And that is essential for democracy in the digital age, that were not only talking to people like us, but that we can have conversations with people who have different opinions.

DAN SHEFET Ive had the opportunity of following almost all the cases before the International Criminal Court, the special tribunal on [Rwanda], the special tribunal on Yugoslavia and even the Nuremberg trials, dealing with incitement, and I can tell you that it is extremely difficult, even for the most trained judges, to decide whether something is illicit speech or not. There are many, many cases from these high-level courts, where somebody is either acquitted or convicted at the first level, and that decision is overturned on appeal. In other words, its extremely difficult. And I dont see how we can oblige social media to be more clever than professional judges in terms of defining whether something is illicit speech or not, given, of course, that once we do that, we mathematically restrict not only free speech, but we also impose upon these organizations accountability sanctions, which are not related to knowledge. And that, to me, is not possible from a legal point of view.

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Our Democracies Need to Change - The New York Times