WITNESS, Author at WITNESS Blog

WITNESS at RightsCon Online 2020 Under the entwined and inflamed injustices that the world is facing (including a pandemic, authoritarianism, corporate exploitation of resources and privacy, racial capitalism, surveillance and the suppression of dissent), it is vital to have spaces that foster innovative resistance. RightsCon has long met this need. This annual gathering centers around the ever-changing role of […] July 22, 2020
Want to Record The Cops? Know Your Rights While not any sort of panacea for police violence, videos of police officers in the US killing unarmed Black men like George Floyd, Oscar Grant and Eric Garner have undeniably been an essential part of the conversation around racist, brutal policing in the United States. Police violence is a much longer lasting pandemic than COVID-19, […] June 18, 2020
COVID-19 Misinformation and Disinformation Responses: Sorting the Good from the Bad —May 2020: Sam Gregory, Dia Kayyali, Corin Faife. Last updated: 5/29 In this blog post we give an overview of some of the key trends in platform response to misinformation, disinformation and harmful speech during COVID-19, and develop a set of criteria through which the wide range of possible reactions can be assessed, using a framework […] May 21, 2020
The Right to Record for human rights during COVID-19 When WITNESS says the Right to Record, we are referring to the ability to pick up a camera or cell phone and film the police or military without retaliation. We are also talking about the initiative, commitment, attitude, and courage that it takes to exercise that right, and the organizing communities do to make this […] April 23, 2020
WITNESS joins 75 experts calling for platforms to preserve data about takedowns during COVID-19 The importance of accurate information during this pandemic is clear. But knowledge about the novel coronavirus is rapidly evolving. This is also an unprecedented opportunity to study how online information flows ultimately affect health outcomes, and to evaluate the macro- and micro-level consequences of relying on automation to moderate content in a complex and evolving […] April 22, 2020
Camera Justitia: Bringing Human Rights, Law and Film Together Every spring a large gathering of human rights defenders and filmmakers come together for the Movies that Matters Film Festival. While this year’s festival had to move online, the celebration of the selected ground-breaking films moved forward. As part of the festival, an international jury awards one filmmaker with the Camera Justitia Award and €5,000 […] April 22, 2020
COVID19 and Police Brutality in Africa We have created a video that highlights some of the violations carried out by security forces during the COVID19 lockdown in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. April 1, 2020
As content moderators go home, content could go down Updated with further information from Facebook that was published 19 March 2020 at 19:22 Pacific Time, after this post was already published. Most of us are spending a lot of time on social media right now. Social media has been instrumental in spreading misinformation about COVID-19, but it has also provided lifelines for people across […] March 19, 2020
What We Learned from the Pretoria Deepfakes Workshop (Full Report) —February 19, 2020 On 26 November 2019, WITNESS hosted a workshop at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, on deepfakes and synthetic media. Today we are releasing a full-length report on the proceedings of the workshop detailing presentation sessions, discussion points and a range of solution areas identified, compiled by Ade Johnson of the university’s […] February 19, 2020
Twitter Released A Draft Policy on Synthetic Media. Here’s What Stood Out to the Activists We Consulted. — January 28, 2020 Earlier this month, Facebook released its policy on manipulated media. As a civil society organization with expert knowledge on the subject, WITNESS was asked to give input on the policy while it was under development, and it’s worth recognizing the positives of Facebook’s pro-active approach in developing a response to this […] January 30, 2020
Human rights defenders are not terrorists, and their content is not propaganda Counter-terrorism is not a field that is known for its respect of human rights. The word terrorism, though it does not have any commonly agreed upon legal or societal definition, has often led to the implementation of repressive measures, not only in authoritarian regimes, but also in countries recognized as democracies. The United Nations Office […] January 21, 2020
To Fight Deepfakes Build Media Literacy, Say African Activists —December 23, 2019 In late November 2019, WITNESS led a workshop on deepfakes at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Building on the success of a workshop in Brazil in July, and with another workshop in Malaysia scheduled for 2020, the event series has been a unique effort to engage academics, journalists, researchers and human rights activists […] December 23, 2019
In Africa, Fear of State Violence Informs Deepfake Threat Our deepfakes preparedness workshop in South Africa revealed that perceived threats from synthetic media vary greatly by region, especially where repressive government is a factor. December 9, 2019
WITNESS tells world leaders- don’t delete opportunities for justice 24 September 2019 Today, the New Zealand government announced an update on the Christchurch Call to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. The Christchurch Call emerged in the aftermath of the horrific live-streaming of the March 15 attack against a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. The perpetrator livestreamed the murder of 51 people, and […] September 24, 2019
How You Can Help the Humanitarian Crisis at the US-Mexico Border… and Beyond When images of Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter, Valeria were published recently, we were outraged. We were heartbroken. The situation at the US-Mexico border is a crisis: a humanitarian crisis. Because of the government’s stronghold on the narrative — coupled with a militarized lack of transparency — without stories and images from brave whistleblowers, activists and community […] June 28, 2019