Welcome to the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2015!
On January 24-25 we’ll be bringing together the most innovative and inspiring digital activist and citizen media communities from the many corners of the globe to explore the connections between the open Internet, freedom of expression and online civic movements around the world.
See the draft Summit program below, and stay tuned as we refine the schedule and locations.
Follow us on Twitter at @globalvoices. Event hashtag: #GV2015
From Azerbaijan to Zambia, political leaders of near every persuasion see technology in the hands of citizens as a potential threat to their power and stability. Every day, a combination of government policies and corporate practice imperil Internet users’ rights of free expression and privacy -- rights that are enshrined by many constitutions, but also by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Can Guy Fawkes masks and Internet blackout campaigns really save us, or are we destined for a splintered, global network of national Internets? How do we reconcile the global “open Internet” ideal with this stark reality?
A Facebook event was crucial in mobilizing 300,000 people in the streets of Manila against corruption. Social media helped organize opposition to the anti-cybercrime law in 2012, and citizen media activists were integral to coordinating disaster relief and response in the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan in 2013.
In this panel Filipino netizens will tell us how they’ve been using online tools to promote good governance and transparency in their society.
We’ll also discuss some of the barriers they face - cost and quality of Internet connection, online regulations, and their privacy concerns.Governments from Hungary to Mexico to the Philippines have passed laws enshrining the right of access to information. How are journalists, bloggers, and human rights advocates using FOI and RTI laws to shine light on information about government activities? What impediments do they face in trying to do this?
This session will feature community experts speaking on their first-hand experience using these policies to bring greater transparency and accountability to the law-making environments in their home countries.
Venezuelan activists soaked masks in vinegar to protect themselves from teargas. Activists in Hong Kong guarded themselves with umbrellas as their police sprayed them with water cannons. Euromaidan’s activists documented abuse while they were violently evicted from Kyiv’s central square. And Mexico's protesters told their government they had enough of organized crime cartels and the corrupt government officials who protect them, after 43 students went missing in Ayotzinapa.
In this panel we’ll be talking about these defining moments and the threats, mistakes and lessons learned by activists in Venezuela, Ukraine, Mexico, and Hong Kong as they took on their governments.
This panel will feature Venezuelan lawyer and activist Marianne Diaz, Global Voices Ukraine author Tetyana Bodanova, Oiwan Lam, Global Voices' Hong Kong-based Northeast Asia editor, and Elizabeth Rivera Global Voices Mexico author.As grantmakers, governments, foundations, and corporations wield a great deal of influence in the current human rights and technology sector. What are the positive and negative aspects of this influence? How are decisions made around priorities for funding, and how do the power dynamics of funding affect choices? How does the traditional model of funding activism engage with networked activism which relies on individual participation and distributed resources?
Global Voices co-founder Rebecca MacKinnon will moderate this panel of experts speaking on the politics of funding activism in Egypt, Cuba, Ethiopia and Central Asia.
Ukraine is portrayed as a nation divided in two, Bahrain's freedom movement is given a sectarian wash, and Syria’s freedom struggle is lost on conflict coverage.
Activists on the ground are usually taken aback by the "frame" western mainstream media uses to report their revolutions. In this panel, we'll talk about how protests and movements for freedom in Iran, Syria, Ukraine, and Bahrain should not be reported.
Mary Aviles, Global Voices’ Latin America editor and co-founder of Venezuela Decoded, a site that breaks down Venezuela's protests, will moderate.Internet users the world over are facing an increasingly complex landscape of laws intended to protect everything from national security to intellectual property online -- many of which fall under the expansive category of “cybercrime.” While most governments are investing in legislation that limits online activities, a few outliers have sought an alternative approach -- rather than simply restricting or condemning online behaviors that they think are wrong, they have developed civil law defining and protecting the rights of Internet users. From Brazil’s landmark Marco Civil efforts to the Philippine Magna Carta, we are beginning to see a trend in positive law-making for the Internet. Should all governments set out to build their own Magna Cartas for the Internet? What benefits or pitfalls could this bring?
Moderated by Advox editor Ellery Roberts Biddle, this panel will feature Joana Varon and Mong Palatino, both of whom helped draft positive Internet laws in their countries, along with other leading Internet policy experts.
As protests and resistance movements have swept across the Middle East, governments and militaries have used intimidation, detainment, torture and lethal force to silence dissent.
Activists fighting for change in these environments live under the constant fear and threat of physical harm or detainment. Many are ripe for developing PTSD.
In this session we find out how activists from Bahrain, Syria and Egypt continue to fight the difficult fight after their friends have been tortured, arrested and even killed.
This roundtable aims to present recent work on the advance of a free and open internet at a local level, and discuss the challenges ahead.
In 2015, the Association for Progressive Communication (APC) in partnership with Article 19 will be leading the project Local Actions to Secure Internet Rights (LASIR). Inspired by the principles of the WebWeWant campaign, advocacy initiatives will be supported in nine countries to engage organizations and activists in national campaigns to promote Internet rights, the WWW principles and develop an integrated strategy of policy research, context analysis, coalition building, media outreach and popular engagement.
In Bangladesh, bloggers face jail time for espousing “atheist” ideas online. Pakistan’s Telecommunications Authority bans YouTube over the “Innocence of Muslims” video. In Venezuela, policymakers are propagating a cyber terrorism law that outlaws online speech contrary to “national ideals”. In this panel discussion, Global Voices authors speak on state censorship imposed in the name of religious and nationalistic sentiment in South Asia and Latin America.
Media Legal Defence Initiative attorney Nani Jansen, who has defended numerous bloggers and journalists imprisoned under laws like these, will moderate.
You were working into the wee hours of the morning on a difficult story. You wake up to 200 tweets. Many of them are personal attacks. You are being trolled.
How should we react to harassment online? And when should we fight back?
Jillian C York will talk to a group of outspoken online commentators about daring to speak up in the increasingly polarized and hostile online space.