issue26
FCJMESH-011 : ‘We don’t work with video, we work with People’: Reflections on Participatory Video Activism in Indonesia
M. Zamzam Fauzanafi Kampung Halaman doi: 10.15307/fcj.mesh.011.2015 In this article Indonesian visual anthropologist and co-founder of Kampung Halaman, Zamzam Fauzanafi, reflects on what he has learnt through almost a decade’s experience of using video technologies to support grassroots activism. He argues that while technologies will always change, what matters is a deep understanding of how they help or hinder your capacity to work with the people your work is meant to support. A different nature opens itself to the camera than opens to the naked eye—if only because an unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by man. (Walter Benjamin [1936], 1968: 236). In 1993 in Indonesia—long before I started to develop a participatory video program with the not-for-profit organisation Kampung Halaman—I learnt about Roem Topatimasang, who was using participatory tools for community empowerment in the small and remote Kei Islands, southeast of Moluccas. He supported the…
FCJMESH-010 : Getting Open Development Right
Zara Rahman the engine room 10.15307/fcj.mesh.010.2015 In this article Zara Rahman, from the engine room, explores tensions between the activist motivations that are driving the use of technologies in Open Development and the rights and aspirations of vulnerable people and communities. She discusses how we might and why we must resist the push for new technologies to be adopted too quickly in pursuing an Open Development agenda. This article will look at a few issues around the Open Development movement, which is a relatively new agenda within the field of international development. Open Development is centred on the idea that ‘openness’—in different forms—can improve the international development sector. Generally, there are a few broad themes that come up in most definitions of what Open Development includes: • the availability and use of (open) data relating to development programs • participatory decision making and involvement from those affected by the…
FCJMESH-009 Ranking Digital Rights: Keeping the Internet Safe for Advocacy
Nathalie Maréchal Ranking Digital Rights Project doi: 10.15307/fcj.mesh.009.2015 The Ranking Digital Rights project is creating a system to evaluate the world’s Internet and mobile companies on policies and practices related to free expression and privacy in the context of international human rights law. In this article, project researcher, Nathalie Maréchal, talks about the ideas and events that have informed the project and the challenges and opportunities involved in taking it forward. The techno-utopianism of the early 2000s has given way to new discourses warning about the threats that the Internet poses to democracy and human rights ([Deibert, 2013](https://blackcodebook.com); [MacKinnon, 2012](https://consentofthenetworked.com); [Morozov, 2011)](httpss://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Net_Delusion.html?id=ctwEIggfIDEC). (Deibert, 2013; MacKinnon, 2012; Morozov, 2011). These discourses are now being shaped by Edward Snowden’s revelations about the United States government’s mass surveillance programs which have brought privacy issues to the fore, and by the subsequent proliferation of news reports about Internet safety and security which have reinforced…
FCJMESH-009 Ranking Digital Rights: Keeping the Internet Safe for Advocacy
Nathalie Maréchal Ranking Digital Rights Project doi: 10.15307/fcj.mesh.009.2015 The Ranking Digital Rights project is creating a system to evaluate the world’s Internet and mobile companies on policies and practices related to free expression and privacy in the context of international human rights law. In this article, project researcher, Nathalie Maréchal, talks about the ideas and events that have informed the project and the challenges and opportunities involved in taking it forward. (Deibert, 2013; MacKinnon, 2012; Morozov, 2011). These discourses are now being shaped by Edward Snowden’s revelations about the United States government’s mass surveillance programs which have brought privacy issues to the fore, and by the subsequent proliferation of news reports about Internet safety and security which have reinforced that this is a serious issue that is not going away. Notwithstanding the United States government’s protestations to the contrary, a recent report led the United Nations High Commissioner, Navi Pillay…
Issue 26: Entanglements – Activism and Technology
During the 2009 post-election protests in Iran, YouTube proved useful for raising awareness and mobilising people; but later, the Iranian government used these videos to crowd-source the identification of protesters. Activists used Skype to communicate during the Egyptian uprising thinking it was safer than the terrestrial telephone system; however, when they examined files from the intelligence agency in the chaos after Mubarak’s fall they learnt their Skype calls were being closely monitored by Egypt’s security service . One of the most circulated images appealing for public sympathy and money following the 2015 catastrophic Nepal earthquake turned out to be a ruse—an old image from North Vietnam—its circulation initiated by unknown people with unknown motivations. These examples serve to remind us that while digital technologies are now deeply entangled with activist practices that are focused on contributing to social change, the philosophies and capacities embedded within these technologies often contradict, counteract,…
FCJMESH-008 Solutions for Online Harassment Don’t Come Easily
Jillian C. York Electronic Frontier Foundation doi: 10.15307/fcj.mesh.008.2015 When popular technologies are being used to work against people, it is natural we look for solutions. But what if there is no perfect solution? In this article he Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Jillian York, examines how social media harassment leads to complicated frictions between free speech and the protection of other basic human rights. Don’t feed the trolls. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. They’re just words. These are just a few of the things said to individuals—particularly women—who speak out about harassment they’ve experienced online. Time and time again, they are told to simply ignore it, to clamp down on their own privacy settings, or worse, that online harassment or stalking isn’t real harassment or stalking. The problem appears to be getting worse. As we increasingly…
FCJMESH-007 Our Enduring Confusion About the Power of Digital Tools in Protest
Ivan Sigal and Ellery Biddle Global Voices doi: 10.15307/fcj.mesh.007.2015 Since 2005 Global Voices has supported thousands of writers, online media experts and translators to share stories across borders and languages. Many of these stories have covered digital activism and protest around the world. In this article Ivan Sigal and Ellery Biddel share what they’ve learnt about protests, tipping points and technologies by reflecting on these stories and on the contrary narratives about these events that mainstream media have tended to focus on. Did technology X spark revolution Y? Pundits and political leaders have pointed to or blamed social media for driving the uprisings in the Arab region and for many other mass protests around the world, including those in the Philippines and Korea at the beginning of the century, as well as more recent uprisings in Burma, Moldova and Iran. In each case, it is clear that social media platforms…
FCJMESH-006 From Information Activism to the Politics of Data
Maya Indira Ganesh and Stephanie Hankey Tactical Technology Collective doi:10.15307/fcj.mesh.006.2015 Tactical Tech has a decade of experience supporting the use of information and digital technologies to support rights activism. They say that in this time they have witnessed a radically altered information eco-system thanks to an explosion of new technologies, a dramatic rise in technology uptake and a burgeoning government and corporate surveillance system. Here Maya Ganesh and Stephanie Hankey, from Tactical Tech, discuss their analysis of the challenges this new information ecosystem poses for rights activism and they describe the ways in which Tactical Tech are choosing to address these challenges. As an organisation that supports activists and journalists to secure their communications to be more effective and more secure, we believe we have some parallels with groups working on a rather different issue: climate change. Environmentally friendly and sustainable lifestyle behaviours often start with having to recognise the…
FCJMESH-005 Technology and Citizen Witnessing: Navigating the Friction Between Dual Desires for Visibility and Obscurity
Sam Gregory WITNESS doi: 10.15307/fcj.mesh.005.2015 WITNESS has been training and supporting rights activists and citizen witnesses around the world to use video for over 20 years. Since this time they’ve trained people from 100 countries, supported successful advocacy campaigns and advocated for innovation in human rights technology. In this article, Program Director at WITNESS, Sam Gregory, discusses the events, reasons and philosophies that have informed their work and enabled them to support many people to use video and related technologies effectively, safely and ethically. Put yourself in the shoes of an activist: perhaps a long-term Human Rights Defender or a first-time citizen witness. You are filming on your cell phone in a repressive regime—capturing the testimony of someone assaulted by the police or documenting a protest. After recording your video you are faced with choices about how your video should be used. You can upload your footage to a popular…
FCJ-197 Entanglements with Media and Technologies in the Occupy Movement
Megan Boler OISE/University of Toronto Jennie Phillips OISE/University of Toronto [Abstract] Introduction: Fighting Fire with Fire: Entanglements between Corporate-Owned Platforms and Activist Social Media Practices The digital era has seen activists around the world use social media platforms and information and communication technologies (ICTs) for social movement organising. Activist uses of corporate-owned social media platforms (from Facebook and Twitter to YouTube) and digital tools (including smart phones and digital cameras) support unprecedented coordination of local and global movements. However, these hybrid (online and offline) social movements [1] produce frictions that reveal discrepancies between the risks and promises of corporate-owned networks. This is certainly the case with social movements concerned with economic inequality, such as the Occupy movement, where such uses can benefit the very corporations the movement seeks to dethrone. Regardless of how one measures the roles and successes of social media in the context of activism, the uses of…
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