- 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 […]
- 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 […]
- 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 […]
- 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 […]
- 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 […]
- Help Us Secure Justice for Land Rights Activist Samir Flores Soberanes On February 20th, Samir Flores Soberanes, popular communicator and activist, was murdered outside his house in Amilcingo, a community located at Morelos state in the eastern center of Mexico. His murder took place the day after he publicly announced, once again, his opposition to the Morelos Integral Project (PIM in Spanish) at a federal government […]
- 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 […]
- 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 […]
- 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 […]
- Cracolândia: A Public Health Crisis Treated with State-Sponsored Violence Originally published in Portuguese. Brazil currently faces the world’s largest crack epidemic, with an estimated 1 million crack users. Sharing a border with 10 countries, Brazil is a prime transit hub for the coca producers of the Andes region. While the increasing use of crack there is often attributed to the war on drugs in […]
- 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.
- Deadly, deadlier: Rio favela under fire by joint Police-Army forces Last week in Brazil, military police joined lethal forces with the Brazilian Army for an operation in the Rio de Janeiro favela of Maré, leaving 7 dead. Residents using mobile phones captured the deadly use of helicopters and over one hundred bullets fired during the attack.
- 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."
- Police Violence Against Local Teens is Caught on Camera in Rio de Janeiro By Victor Ribeiro and Dalila Mujagic. A video containing footage of a brutal police incident went viral amongst social media users in Rio de Janeiro. The footage shows Lapa Presente officers — a unit of military police dedicated to tourist areas and funded by a group of business and economic interests called the Federation of […]
- Last Month in Video: Cameras got smarter. Will we? From Florida teens using video as a powerful advocacy tool, to Pakistan's High Court ruling on network shutdowns, to the supercharged technology behind "smart" cameras and facial recognition: this is Last Month in Video, February 2018 edition.
