In this episode, Jillian and I talk with Anriette Esterhuysen, former Chair of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and former executive director of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). We discuss a variety of issues, including the future of the Internet Governance Forum, the upcoming World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) and what it means for the future of the Internet and the IGF, human rights and the role of civil society in Africa. 

This episode is edited by Javier Pallero.

Anriette Esterhuysen

There is something profoundly human about the Internet, its infrastructure. The ability of people to join without permission and innovate, the ability of actors to act independently, yet obey to certain standards and the ability to provide the services that allow people to communicate - are all features of a very human technology. At the same time, beyond this heavy machinery, humans feed the Internet constantly with data that affects their lives and those of others. While we talk about issues of speech in the Internet, we rarely pose to consider the impact speech suppression has on humans.