Ideas Archives - Page 2 of 7

After Abuses, Liberians Demand Action from U.S. Government A new video and report by the Accountability Counsel were recently submitted as part of a formal complaint filed by hundreds of Liberians demanding accountability for a U.S. federal agency's funding of a biomass project that caused serious human rights, labor and environmental abuses, including sexual abuse by company employees of local women. WITNESS January 31, 2014
Media Advisory: Peter Gabriel and Isha Sesay Host 2013 Focus For Change Benefit for WITNESS WITNESS' annual benefit takes place Thursday December 5, 2013. Interested members of the press need to RSVP to cover the event. Details in the advisory. Matisse Bustos Hawkes November 10, 2013
WITNESS Endorses International Principles on Human Rights & Surveillance We join 150+ organizations from 40+ countries supporting these 13 principles that explain how international human rights law applies to the current digital environment. WITNESS August 22, 2013
A Zimbabwean Election Observer’s First Hand Account of the 2013 Vote An election observer witnesses a mostly peaceful process, but one rife with irregularities and frustrations for voters WITNESS August 9, 2013
Watching, Documenting, or Participating: A Documentarian’s Ethical Dilemmas When is it okay to watch? When is it okay to shout with the crowd? Filmmaker Chris Kelly explains his bright line between observing and participating. Do you agree? Please share your thoughts in the comments. WITNESS January 25, 2013
A Big Year For WITNESS A changing world needs a changed vision: committing to support the millions who can transform the human rights landscape with video. Yvette Alberdingk Thijm January 11, 2013
Ethical Storysharing: My Words, Not My Story If your story isn't yours, what is? Ethical storysharing advocate Aspen Baker tells how her personal abortion story was used to fit someone else's narrative. What are our obligations as advocates, as filmmakers, as editors -- as storysharers? WITNESS January 3, 2013
16 Days Series: Revealing Rape – How to Illustrate a Crime Women describe their rapes from behind black face scarves in videos on our site that documents sexualized violence in Syria. We have no photos of women whose faces aren’t covered. We have few photos of survivors of rape even with their faces covered. Sometimes these women hide themselves for religious reasons or for safety—for fear of retribution for speaking out—but oftentimes they cover themselves out of mortification. Rape has taken their cultural purity. WITNESS December 6, 2012
You Are Being Watched: What Faceprints Mean for Generation Y On July 18, YouTube launched a new tool that would enable users to blur the faces in the videos they uploaded, thereby protecting the identities of people featured in them. The platform explicitly identified the human rights threat as a primary motivator for this online technological development. WITNESS August 21, 2012
Oral History as Storytelling: Sharing the Fabric of American Life WITNESS and StoryCorps both recognize the value of personal stories in tackling larger issues. People are at the heart of each organization, anchoring the abstract in the human experience. WITNESS August 9, 2012
The (Virtual) Bystander Effect: Witnessing Human Rights Abuse Online When a video goes viral, millions of people become witnesses. Whether it is a clumsy kitten, an adorable child, or a gruesome protest, we as viewers are transported to that moment. We see everything. We hear everything. But we change nothing. WITNESS July 20, 2012
Ideas, Buzz Words and Connections at the Social Innovation Summit 2012 What do the President of JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Lady Gaga’s mother, a young woman computer programming whiz, the former Hollywood director of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, the Chairman of World Economic Forum and a former NFL player have in common? They all spoke, along with many more, at the Social Innovation Summit of 2012, held at the United Nations last week. Tanya Karanasios June 6, 2012
20 Years of Witnessing It is hard to believe it has been 20 years since WITNESS was born in the aftermath of the Rodney King incident. Since then, WITNESS made it its mission to enable people to use video as a powerful tool in human rights advocacy and we are proud to have trained over 3,000 human rights activists and collaborated with over 300 groups in more than 80 countries. Yvette Alberdingk Thijm June 1, 2012
Tactical and Technological Defences For Facial Recognition Technology In my last post I looked at how facial recognition technology (FRT) works, how it's now in our phones, social networks and media management, and how legislators and regulators are reacting to this. But it's also increasingly used by law enforcement and for surveillance of "public" spaces. Sameer Padania May 18, 2012
Mother’s Day Reflections on Human Rights from WITNESS Moms The second Sunday in May is celebrated as Mother's Day here in the United States (and in other countries). With that in mind, I asked my colleagues who are also mothers at WITNESS if they'd be willing to share some thoughts on what human rights issues hit closest to home for them. Matisse Bustos Hawkes May 13, 2012