WITNESS, Author at WITNESS Blog

Storytelling in livestreaming: the Favela da Skol case in Brazil Mobil-Eyes Us is a project that explores technologies, tactics and storytelling strategies to use live video to connect viewers to frontline experiences of human rights issues. The goal is for audiences to become ‘distant witnesses’ who will take meaningful actions to support frontline activists. Mobil-Eyes-Us teaches us that a series of live broadcasts can form […] May 15, 2019
Western Sahara—Africa’s Last Colony Western Sahara, with a population of over half a million people and 200,000km land mass – the size of South Dakota – is the world’s largest non self-governing territory. It is also Africa’s last colony, left under Moroccan occupation following the retreat of Spanish colonial power in the 1960s. The human rights situation is still […] April 11, 2019
Promoting and Defending the Right to Record Secrecy breeds impunity. But the ability to record the police and military can expose human rights abuses to the world. International human rights law confirms the right of everyone, not just the press, to record military and law enforcement without fear of arrest, violence, or other retaliation. But unfortunately, the reality is that right isn’t […] April 2, 2019
Open Conversations & Collaborations in Franschhoek “We need to be able to show breasts.” This was only one of many learning moments at this year’s WITNESS retreat: the importance of Facebook support groups for the trans-community, specifically around sex reassignment surgery and for those navigating the challenges of transforming their body and identity. “For much of the queer community, this is […] March 27, 2019
How 21 Young People Keep Winning Against the US Gov for Climate Change In 2010, we began working with Our Children’s Trust and iMatter supported by climate scientists, constitutional law professors and faith-based communities to bring attention to a new movement of young people calling on state and federal governments to protect the atmosphere for future generations. March 18, 2019
Rio goes live Image: Brazilian politicians livestreaming while campaigning and breaking a Marielle Franco sign. Current Rio governor on the right and a now-elected deputy breaking the sign. By Adriano Belisário As mobile phone access and Internet bandwidth increased in this decade, video streamings became an important part in the political dispute: such as in the beginning with […] February 22, 2019
Call-outs in live streamings Mobil-Eyes Us is a project of WITNESS and the WITNESS Media Lab to explore potential new approaches to livestream storytelling for action. We look at technologies, tactics and storytelling strategies to use live video to connect viewers to frontline experiences of human rights issues they care about, so they become ‘distant witnesses’ who will take […] February 22, 2019
WITNESS brings together voices to push back on dangerous EU “Dissemination of Terrorist Content” proposal What do human rights defenders, journalists, archivists, and digital rights groups from California to Lebanon to Southeast Asia have in common? We all agree that the proposed Regulation on Dissemination of Terrorist Content Online, currently moving through the Committee process in the European Parliament, is a serious threat to free expression online—and, paradoxically, to efforts […] January 28, 2019
How to export content from WhatsApp By Yvonne Ng and Gabi Ivens Published on: 18 December 2018 The messaging platform WhatsApp has 1.5 billion users worldwide and is increasingly being used as a tool to organize, mobilize, as well as to share important human rights content. This tutorial, put together by WITNESS, walks you through how to download and export your […] December 18, 2018
European “terrorist content” proposal is dangerous for human rights globally This post was updated at 14:40 CET to note result from 6 December 2018 meeting of the Home Affairs Council. There’s a reason why, when courts function properly, they offer more due process than corporations when it comes to making decisions about free expression. Deciding what speech can take place in public forums in democratic […] December 6, 2018
Harm Reduction for WhatsApp Thanks to WITNESS’ Mozilla Fellow Gabriela Ivens for contributing the section on cloud backups and to all WITNESS partners and human rights defenders who have shared experiences of using WhatsApp that informed this article As we noted in our other WhatsApp focused blog post today, “Whats Up, WhatsApp?”, activists and journalists all over the world […] November 13, 2018
What’s Up, WhatsApp? We share some ideas for how WhatsApp can combat misinformation while preserving end-to-end encryption. November 13, 2018
Alex Jones, Myanmar, and free expression online Imagine ending up in jail with no understanding of what the charges against you are, no idea what legal process you will be facing, and no idea what happens if you appeal your conviction- or even how to appeal. It sounds like a Kafka novel, but that’s how social media platforms operate today. It has […] September 11, 2018
The Right to Record Recognized at the United Nations Last month, the United Nations Human Rights Council promoted the right to record explicitly in resolution A/HRC/38/L.16 — WITNESS explains what this means for activists and human rights defenders around the world. August 2, 2018
New United Nations Report calls on companies to take a “A Human Rights Approach to Platform Content Regulation” Our Tech+Advocacy Program Manager Dia Kayyali breaks down the Special Rapporteur's newest report to the UN Human Rights Council, a report calling for a "human rights approach to platform content moderation." June 19, 2018