Today, the political committee debated on the preservation of free speech on social media, a topic which is extremely relevant in the present day. The committee’s discussion started off with lobbying where the chairs decided to separate the delegates by geographical location. This was slightly complicated at first as some of the delegates did not have the latest version of Zoom which prevented them from passing freely between the breakout rooms. In the breakout rooms, the delegates were able to talk to other delegates and get to know each other as well as talk about their clauses.
After around an hour of lobbying the debate began with a clause presented by the United Kingdom. There were no points of information presented by the delegates but I saw a high amount of participation during open debate which even included a few amendments. In fact, after much discussion on the same clause, the co-chair decided to not allow more delegates to submit amendments due to time restrictions.
The voting procedure is rather unique as the conference is online: when voting begins the delegates are presented with a poll on zoom which I thought was pretty cool. The next clause started with a little bit of confusion which brought a smile on all the delegates faces. The delegate of Greece, the submitter of the clause asked for “a motion of personal privilege” which asked the chair to scroll down so she could read the clause. During the debate on a few amendments, some delegates were holding their own conversation on the zoom chat including a personal favorite quote against the US death penalty “it’s the murdering for me”.
The debate became more heated when the delegate of DPRK presented a clause which according to some delegates “limited freedom of speech as a whole”. The tables definitely turned when Italy presented a speech in favor of this clause. When the delegate of the USA responded to this clause, in clear opposition to it, many other female delegates responded extremely well both in the chat and in their facial expressions (“Go off sis”, the delegate of the UK) and this gave me a really nice image of “Girl Power” in this particular committee. This clause was voted against and this caused another heated discussion, even after the chairs announced a five minute break.
In general, there was a good amount of participation by many delegates, even some that I know are less experienced than others. This debate was about an extremely important and serious topic but this committee was able to make it active and fun to listen to, especially thanks to these light-hearted moments.
Cartoons by Lia Magalhães