Model Speech Motion: THBT international discussion forums should not self-censor* in an attempt to increase inclusivity to people from countries with stringent freedom-of-speech rules. 

*Examples of self-cenorship are: AI conferences avoiding discussions on the implications of the use of a certain technology by oppressive regimes; competitions censoring topics; moderators removing politically sensitive content from discussion boards

URL: https://www.youtube.com/live/N2fXz3nfdfs?feature=share&t=1373

Model Speech(OO)
just a clarification at the start of my speech we don't think that the side of the opposition is one where you don't actually critique these sort of authoritarian regimes to begin with we believe that in certain scenarios where you think that the crime is extremely high or there is extreme operation of people going on things like crimes against humanity things like genocide we do believe we can still come out and criticize these people but oftentimes when we are self-censoring we like where the cost and benefits that are involved in these scenarios and then we decide on what things we should censor or not that being said why like let's move on to what the actual like aim of these international discussion forums is and why you need a like inclusivity in the first place right we believe the general aim of international discussion forum is to create betterment so of the global population through things like creating better environment things like creating better economics for people in general etc etc we believe if this is some these sort of forums are something which create exclusive access for the people who are in the developing world and therefore this creates a scope for them in order to access better forms of life notice that when you're talking about other countries for example to weigh for example the risks or the developed countries these countries don't necessarily need to depend on these things as much because they probably already have bilateral agreements they probably have developed technology which they can implement within their country they probably have a lot of institutions that are very strong and that create censorship on the like create check and balance mechanisms on the government they are for creating better friend meant for the people in general right so we believe therefore the major stakeholders in this debate are these developing countries and we believe once there is in inclusivity you can create betterment for people living in those areas in general i'll move on to how that happens but it's important to recognize that if these people don't participate then probably your like like your discussions can be really meaningful to begin with and therefore it's important to like include like ensure inclusivity in the first place all right then on my material first i'll show you what the characteristics of these countries are and why they are unlikely to meaningfully engage if you do not sense self-censor and then i'll show you why the counterfactual is much better right so firstly on characteristics recognize that these countries are often likely to be developing regimes which don't have a lot of democracy meaning it's there likely to be authoritative or dictatorial states where the leader stay in power through the portal of some sort of strongman image or saying that they're creating a lot of development we also believe these are areas which have in general weaker institutions and lack public awareness due to the lack of things like education and whatnot we believe there is also a lack of access due to like lack of engagement to the global population you don't necessarily have a lot of global institutions in this area areas therefore you don't really understand oftentimes what the ground reality in these areas is why then are you not likely to get like meaningful engagement three reasons under this first thing these leaders need to like uphold the strongman image therefore they need to cater to the far right and show that we are doing a lot of good to those countries this means that they do not like bow their heads to criticism this means they try to always show that they are in the right place and everyone is their enemy the moment you go into these forums even though they are criticizing you or even though you're being harshly and everyone's harshly against you this creates the this might create the notion that you're not being strong enough for your country to follow this is why putin doesn't tries to show that he does not care about what the united nations says or this is why a lot of dictators for example in asia and africa don't really care about what they go like these forums say right we believe therefore if you don't criticize they are likely to go up against you and say these are just bad areas and we don't want to engage with them at all even if some engagement happens we think that is unlikely to be meaningful because they'll always think these people don't think about us and can cater for their own incentives in the first place recognize that oftentimes these countries come with a lot of colonial history and culture and ideological differences so the there is already an existing antagonism towards the west the moment in time the west criticizes them as well it's very easy for these frogmen dictatorships to lash on to their narrative and say well they are extremely against us they are bad people and therefore we should not engage right this means that oftentimes you do not have meaningful participation if you don't send self-censor and these countries keep on doing whatever they want to begin with right but secondly you also believe it's very hard to like engage on a personal level in these like forums as well because oftentimes even if you can come out of that country you have your extended family and friends living there and therefore you or you always think that there is a risk to their life if you go against the government and therefore you are unlikely to be able to like meaningfully go against these countries and create protests to begin with i think that is the reason you don't get meaningful engagement if you're really harsh on them why is this harmful because a i think this just means you have a lesser understanding because through these discussions is how you set up local forums and ngos in these areas which help you understand the local area better but also you can create education and i like infrastructure in these areas the way this is important is since now people can have education and infrastructure they understand why this is important for them and therefore the incentive to join is created without doing this actually the incentive does not exist and therefore the people are unlikely to push the government in order to create changes in the first place and are more likely to buy into the like narratives of ways being bad or that strongman dictator being really good in the like a government's world right we believe once you have these people participating in the first place is the moment in time where you can create these incentives for people to engage and therefore in the long run you create better discussions and better like better results as a whole before i tell you how that happens i'll gladly engage cg don't the governments understand that they need it and will still engage in those forums um i think governments are unlikely to understand because you already have a lot of alternatives existing in the world for example china can fund rogue nations for example you often have russia or other extreme leaders funding in those areas so what happens is if the international forum is way against them and they see no alternatives they are likely to buy into them but if there is alternative they are probably will consider the chinese jet strap and other problems that come with engaging with these extreme actors and therefore are likely to opt into the international forums more why is this better because a i think now these people like these strong men themselves can say well this is still a moral win because they are accepting us as we are and therefore they can still preserve their strongman image even though they are engaging this means that now there is an incentive to engage because they can create the narrative that they are winning but secondly we also believe due to this you get all of the marginal changes that we talk about things like creating better like institutions creating education and public interest in general but secondly we also believe due to having this sort of meaningful concessions you're able to create incentive for the people in order to be better this looks like china and japan understanding the benefits of capitalism and coming out we recognize that the status quo might not be the best but it's still better than now being extremely against the waste and not engaging at all we believe we have a marginally better level in our site and that's why we think oh takes this debate for very proud to propose a very front office