Workshop 297 Report: Digital Inclusion Through a Multilingual Internet

Beginning with the basic premise that “if you don't have access to the Internet, or you can't afford it, you can't use the Internet in any language,” discussants identified various economic, social, political, and technical barriers that prevent people from using the Internet in their own language.⁸

A participant from the African region observed that many of the languages used in Africa are not recognized as official languages within their own countries which, in turn, makes it difficult to obtain support for developing content in that language. A dearth of local language content poses a significant barrier to meaningful connectivity; members of that language community are less inclined to use the Internet when there is no content in their own language available for them to engage with. Further, while “there are many people who are literate in their own language,” the “devices and platforms they want to use are not localized.”⁹ Most of the devices that we use to connect to the Internet – mobile phones and laptops for example – do not support the less widely-used languages and scripts. And while some of the larger email services – such as Gmail or Outlook – support non-Latin scripts, many others do not.

Taking into account the foregoing, discussants then turned to address a more fundamental, if not architectural, barrier: the capability of the Internet’s websites, applications, and other systems to recognize them just as they would with the Internet’s legacy domains, like .com or .org.

Technical and policy work within the ICANN community over the years has advanced linguistic diversity in the Internet’s naming system. Participants recounted their experiences in building “the technology that allows Internationalized Domain Names and e-mail addresses to work on the Internet in a secure and stable manner.”¹⁰ This work saw the addition of tens of thousands of new and different characters to a system that began with “just 26 [Latin] characters plus…10 digits for domain names.”¹¹

At the same time, the same participants also recognized that creating IDNs was just the first step; these new domains also must be able to be put to use on the Internet by those who register them. While websites and email applications are accustomed to legacy domains in the Latin script, most are not programmed to accept IDNs. The Internet cannot become multilingual until software applications treat all Top Level Domains equally, regardless of the script they are in.¹² To do this, the multistakeholder Internet community must “build policy and other governance systems that encourage the universal acceptance” of all domain names and email addresses.¹³ Together, IDNs and Universal Acceptance (UA) are the foundation for the next billion users to meaningfully come online.

Discussants made clear that the technical solutions for IDNs and UA has been addressed. As one participant stated, “the core technical challenges, and the core technical contours of this problem are already solved…That is not something that we ought to be focusing effort on.”¹⁴ Instead, the community must address the globally low rate of UA readiness, which many believe now constitutes the greatest barrier to achieving a multilingual Internet. The 2023 UA Readiness Report noted that while UA readiness within modern web browsers is largely positive and improving, not a single social media site tested for usability with an internationalized email address was UA ready.¹⁵ This is one illustration of the challenges that occur when the many layers of technology that underpin use of domain names (including software, platforms, and standards) are not yet UA-ready.

Despite reports that Internet multilingualism presents a $10 billion growth opportunity, market forces alone seem unlikely to drive UA readiness. Most Internet users – including many governments – do not know that technology to enable multilingualism exists. For many, the possibility of a multilingual Internet or its opportunities will not naturally come to mind because of the way that the Internet evolved in the English and the Latin script. Because end users have adapted to the linguistic landscape of the current Internet, it is hard to imagine being able to navigate the Internet in any language one would want, or signing in to accounts or signing up for new services with an email address in any script.

Some communities may be more comfortable with or have become used to using the Internet in English. During the session, a native Japanese speaker explained that using domain names in Latin script, instead of Japanese, became a preference because, with such a compact set of characters, identifying locations on the Internet was a much simpler process. ¹⁶

Many others, however, may experience a greater need for the use of their native language online, including to be able to preserve the use of their language and to promote cultural traditions.

Discussants noted that, at the end of the day, there exists a great latent demand for multilingual Internet content and for Internationalized Domain Names to convey that content to the right audiences. In other words, until Internet users understand that a multilingual Internet is possible, they are unable to manifest the kind of demand for software developers and companies to change. Quite simply, this latent demand will remain unmet until UA readiness levels across the Internet begin to increase. Policy interventions are therefore needed. Incentives should motivate suppliers to flesh out the implementation of UA across all services.

One discussant gave an example in government procurement. Procurement policies could favor vendors which can demonstrate that their systems are UA ready. Governments, at little to no cost, could create an impetus to those who are competing for business to say to themselves, “we need to prioritize universal acceptance.”¹⁷

The Internet has become an invaluable resource for education, economic mobility, innovation, accessing government services, social connection, and cultural preservation around the world. These are benefits that remain out of reach to many. Further, as Internet connectivity expands and more of the unconnected are brought online, pressure will mount to address online linguistic exclusion.

Connectivity is just the baseline. Once connected, the goal should be to enable people to thrive online, and to thrive, people need to be able to use the Internet in their own language. This will contribute to the creation of a digital sphere that is diverse and inclusive. This will also enable users to take full advantage of the benefits outlined above, including accessing government services and engaging with local content online.

Internet multilingualism could also make the Internet safer. Users who must use the Internet in an unfamiliar language are more susceptible to fraud and scams, including when dealing with URLs they cannot understand or verify. Creating and enabling linguistic diversity online supports digital inclusion because it attracts more people online and gives those already online greater confidence and trust in the Internet.

Language preservation was discussed during the workshop and it was noted that the Decade of Indigenous Languages, as declared by the United Nations General Assembly, was underway. Taking the specific challenges around Universal Acceptance into account – for example, its inaccessibility to most as a “technical topic,” as well as perceived trepidation by some to take on the challenge of non-ASCII scripts – one discussant suggested that the IGF community may be just the community to start a “language justice” movement, similar to the climate justice movement. The IGF community would be the community to start that movement.