February 28, 2023

Washington Post: Governments shut down the internet more often than ever, report says

Washington Post: Governments shut down the internet more often than ever, report says. “Authorities in 35 countries instituted internet shutdowns at least 187 times, according to the New York-based digital rights watchdog Access Now. Nearly half of these shutdowns occurred in India, and if that nation is excluded, 2022 saw the most number of shutdowns globally since the group began monitoring disruptions in 2016.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
February 1, 2023

Poynter: Mongolia moves to seize power to shut down internet, control social media

Poynter: Mongolia moves to seize power to shut down internet, control social media. “The Mongolian parliament passed a multipronged law last week that would ban users from posting information about any public official without express government consent. Any information shared in an online group of more than three will be subject to inspection, and the minister of internal affairs can shut off the internet.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
January 11, 2023

ProPublica: Does Your Local Museum or University Still Have Native American Remains?

ProPublica: Does Your Local Museum or University Still Have Native American Remains?. “The law, known as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA, sought to address this human rights issue by giving Indigenous peoples a way to reclaim their dead. But 33 years after the law’s passage, at least half of the remains of more than 210,000 Native Americans have yet to be returned.”

New Resources 0
December 9, 2022

University of Rhode Island: URI research team launches world’s largest global human rights dataset

University of Rhode Island: URI research team launches world’s largest global human rights dataset. “A team of researchers based at the University of Rhode Island and Binghamton University has launched the world’s largest quantitative dataset on global human rights. The dataset, called CIRIGHTS, provides numerical measures for the extent to which every nation on Earth respects 72 internationally recognized human rights.”

New Resources 0
December 6, 2022

WIRED: Iran’s Protests Reveal What’s Lost If Twitter Crumbles

WIRED: Iran’s Protests Reveal What’s Lost If Twitter Crumbles. “Twitter—and social media in general—has been awash in videos appearing to show protesters being attacked by police forces, the bodies of those killed, and people’s injuries. For more than a decade, the social network, now owned by Elon Musk, has been used as a way to document protests and human rights abuses around the world. However, as Musk’s chaotic takeover unravels and key safety teams have been cut, the Iranian protests put fresh light on Twitter’s importance as a platform for information sharing and chronicling events globally.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
November 20, 2022

Cape Talk: Robben Island calls on former political prisoners to maintain historic database

Cape Talk: Robben Island calls on former political prisoners to maintain historic database . “The Robben Island Museum (RIM) is asking for EPPS or their relatives to update their contact details and other key information on the latest records held by the Department. Initially compiled in 1997, the RIM ex-Political Prisoner Database (EPPD) is a living document that requires public contribution and input to ensure it remains true to South Africa’s struggle heroes, both known and unknown.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
October 13, 2022

University of Washington: Analysis of #BlackLivesMatter social media content points to the power of positivity in online activism and large-scale social movements

University of Washington: Analysis of #BlackLivesMatter social media content points to the power of positivity in online activism and large-scale social movements. “Drilling down into the dataset according to date enabled the team to identify instances where emotions spiked, presumably in connection with events. For example, anger and sadness peaked in tweets with pro-BLM hashtags in the days following Floyd’s death and prior to the first weekend of protests. Positivity, meanwhile, rose in the days leading up to that weekend and afterward became the most frequently expressed emotion through the rest of the month.”

Research & Opinion 0
October 12, 2022

Human Rights Watch: US Launches Promising Human Rights Reporting Tool

Human Rights Watch: US Launches Promising Human Rights Reporting Tool. “On September 30, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor launched a new reporting tool, the Human Rights Reporting Gateway, that gives the public a way to alert the US government of gross violations of human rights. The State Department hopes the information uploaded will help its staffers determine which foreign security forces should not receive US assistance.”

New Resources 0
October 6, 2022

TechCrunch: Popular censorship circumvention tools face fresh blockade by China

TechCrunch: Popular censorship circumvention tools face fresh blockade by China. “Tools helping China’s netizens to bypass the Great Firewall appear to be facing a fresh round of crackdowns in the run-up to the country’s quinquennial party congress that will see a top leadership reshuffle. Greater censorship is not at all uncommon during countries’ politically sensitive periods, but the stress facing censorship circumvention tools in China appears to be on a whole new level.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
October 6, 2022

CNN: The battle of narratives on Iran is being fought on social media

CNN: The battle of narratives on Iran is being fought on social media. “As anti-government protests enter their third week in Iran, the Islamic Republic has imposed a near total blackout of independent information coming out of the country. A fierce battle to control the narrative is now being fought online, where supporters and opponents of the government alike are taking to social media to tell their version of the truth and, in some cases, go beyond the truth.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
September 27, 2022

Erasing 76 Crimes: Activists launch website to document trans and intersex African history

Erasing 76 Crimes: Activists launch website to document trans and intersex African history. “A group of activists has launched an initiative to document and preserve the history of trans and intersex Africans and their struggle for equal rights. The web site Trans and Intersex History Africa is a labor of love for the four principal curators, who come from South Africa and Uganda.”

New Resources 0
September 25, 2022

WIRED: Iran’s Internet Shutdown Hides a Deadly Crackdown

WIRED: Iran’s Internet Shutdown Hides a Deadly Crackdown. “As thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the death of Amini this week, Iranian officials have repeatedly shut down mobile internet connections and disrupted the services of Instagram and WhatsApp, two of the most popular social media services in the country. The internet shutdowns are the largest since November 2019 and raise fears about further atrocities. So far, more than 30 people have reportedly been killed, while the Iranian government has admitted to 17 deaths.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
August 29, 2022

BBC: The sudden silencing of Guantanamo’s artists

BBC: The sudden silencing of Guantanamo’s artists. “Until the end of 2017, Guantanamo detainees were allowed to take their art with them when they were released, or give it to their lawyers to take out. The artists could bring their work to meetings with their lawyers, who would submit it along with their meeting notes to a team which vetted it for classified material or national security issues…. Then in late 2017, under the Trump administration, it became clear that art was no longer being allowed out.”

Security & Legal Issues 0

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