OONI at RightsCon 2018

We are excited to participate at RightsCon next week: the world’s leading event on human rights in the digital age. Annually hosted by Access Now, this three-day conference will take place in Toronto between 16th-18th May 2018.

Over the last years, RightsCon has provided us the opportunity to participate in critical discussions in the digital rights field, meet many fascinating people and organizations, and to form new coalitions. We therefore look forward to participating at RightsCon and are eager to meet many new faces!

Below we list the sessions we’ll be speaking at and moderating. We hope you can join us!

1 Enforcing Net Neutrality with Evidence Based Policy Making

Moderator: Georgia Bullen

Speakers: Simone Basso, Luca Belli, Amba Kak, J. Carlos Lara, Thomas Lohninger, Eric Null, Javier Pallero, Maria Xynou

When: Wednesday, 16th May 2018, 10:30 - 11:45

Where: 204B

The goal of this session is to provide an understanding of the current state of play in net neutrality in different countries and regions, discuss challenges that panelists have encountered, provide insight into the work of digital rights NGOs in making sure that the net neutrality provisions are enforced, talk about how the public can continue to be involved once net neutrality legislation is designed (e.g. submitting complaints to regulators, bringing cases, public advocacy). In this discussion, we hope to introduce more folks to tools that can be useful in their policy and advocacy work, e.g. internet measurement data like Measurement Lab, OONI and others. The discussion will cover how to think about working with measurement tools as part of advocacy and campaigns and overall be a conversation on strategic thinking with data in pursuit of evidence based policy making.

2 Shedding Light on Internet Blackouts

Moderator: Maria Xynou

Speakers: Mishi Choudhary, Archippe Yepmou, Arturo Filastò

When: Wednesday, 16th May 2018, 14:30 - 15:45

Where: 201B

An Internet blackout happens when the connectivity of a particular region or even a whole country is completely disrupted.

This panel will bring together the technical and social perspectives of this phenomenon. We will be explaining how we can gain a technical understanding of how internet blackouts happen, why they happen through a contextual analysis and who are most affected by them. Some of the panelists have first person experience dealing with and responding to internet blackouts, while others are working on developing a technically sound methodology for measuring blackouts when they occur.

We will give an overview of the state of the art and present some of the findings from the past years.

3 Defending Minority Voices on a Censored Internet

Moderator: Jessica Anderson

Speakers: Nadim Nashef, Japleen Pasricha, Maria Xynou

When: Thursday, 17th May 2018, 16:00 - 17:00

Where: 205B

Minority groups and marginalized communities often experience distinct patterns of censorship online. This censorship occurs at multiple levels, from the blocking of minority websites to platform censorship. This session will present evidence of online censorship of minority groups and will engage participants to consider what can be done to safeguard digital freedom of expression rights for oppressed communities.

Visualizing Impact will discuss efforts through Onlinecensorship.org team to capture reports of censorship by social media platforms. OONI will also discuss cases involving the blocking of minority websites around the world, as well as techniques for measuring their accessibility over time.

4 When Repressive Authorities #KeepItOn

Moderator: Arturo Filastò

Speakers: Arzu Geybullayeva, Arthur Gwagwa, Grace Mutung’u, Alp Toker, Maria Xynou

When: Thursday, 17th May 2018, 17:15 - 18:15

Where: 204A

The session will debunk the notion that the internet needs to be “controlled” to be safe. This session therefore seeks to develop a stronger analytical and conceptual understanding of the strategies being pursued by the set of leading authoritarian powers in Africa and globally in controlling information online; to assess the nature of the challenge this presents to the Internet Freedom Community; and to determine what opportunities may be available to digital rights activists within these countries—and to those outside seeking to support them—that have not been adequately explored or exploited. It will also equip advocacy strategists with solid facts to lead the global fight against censorship and disruption of networks, information, and communication by presenting an opportunity to discuss other emerging trends in surveillance and censorship, such as new forms of surveillance by police officers and intelligence services such as social media intelligence (SOCMINT) and offer recommendations.