Digital Rights Weekly | April 15 - 19

Mon Apr 22 15:49:44 CEST 2024

Hello Digital Rights Defenders!

Here is your weekly update on digital rights around the world for the
week of April 15 - 19. As a reminder, you can submit your news for the
newsletter here: https://www.digitalrights.community/weekly-newsletter

### Team CommUNITY (TCU) ###

1. Global Gathering Deadline Extended to April 30

We extended the deadline to apply for a Global Gathering ticket to
April 30! However, the Equity Fund closed on April 15. The 2024 Global
Gathering will take place September 27, 28, and 29 in Estoril,
Portugal.

Apply Before April 30:
https://www.digitalrights.community/blog/2024-global-gathering-now-accepting-applications

2. April 25: Quiet - A Secure Slack Alternative for Groups that
Outgrow Signal (Glitter Meetup)

Join to talk about Quiet, a team chat that Holmes Wilson is building
for groups that need the privacy of Signal but also team management
features like channels and organization-level access control, without
running their own server. Holmes will give a short demo of Quiet,
which is built on Tor and does not require a server to work. Someday
it will even work locally offline in an Internet shutdown scenario, at
an office or in a meeting, for instance.

https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=April_25_2024_GM

____________________________________________

### Digital Rights in the Community ###

1. TCU at DRAPAC Series: Building a Digital Rights Community

Team CommUNITY's community manager, Mardiya Siba Yahaya, will be the
guest speaker on the April 24's Digital Rights Asia-Pacific (DRAPAC)
Series session. During the conversation she will share insights on
TCU’s community building and engagement work, and TCU’s  approach
towards creating spaces for communities affected by digital rights
challenges, such as surveillance, censorship, and digital security
threats. Learn more about our community of technologists, activists,
researchers, and other wide diversity of profiles working for digital
rights and internet freedom. The session will be on April 24, 2pm-3pm
Bangkok time (UTC+7). Sign in on the following link:

https://engagemedia.org/events/drapac-series-9-team-community/

2. Gaza Media Resources

Israel - with the support of BigTech - is suppressing eyewitness
accounts in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. In response, a coalition
of digital rights organizations have initiated The Gaza Media
Resource, which aims to combatt this suppression by offering critical
resources. These include guidance on operating under communications
blackouts, documenting abuses and filming for evidence, preserving key
evidence from devices and social media apps, fact-checking and
countering misinformation and hate speech online, digital security,
and working with distressing imagery.

https://www.gazamediaresources.com/about

3. Open Calls & Funding Opportunities

a) Spyware Accountability Initiative Fund

Apply for funding from the Spyware Accountability Initiative (SAI).
The funds aim to support initiatives that build and sustain
organizations working on spyware accountability broadly, addressing
the harms of the global spyware industry on civil society, through
regulation, litigation, research and investigation and other means, to
ensure such technologies cannot be used to harm or unjustly surveil
civil society by the governments and corporations they aim to keep in
check. Deadline: April 30, 2024.

https://stopspyware.fund/apply

b) Internet Society Foundation Research Grant Program

Apply to Internet Society Foundation 2024 application cycle for the
Research grant program. This program offers grants to support
researchers worldwide examining the future and sustainability of the
Internet. Independent researchers, non-profit organizations and public
research institutions worldwide are invited to submit proposals.
Deadline: May 14, 2024.

https://isoc.pub/ResearchGrant

c) Call for Contributors: Disinformation & Misinformation in the Arab World

The Arabi Facts Hub, in collaboration with the Tahrir Institute for
Middle East Policy, is pleased to announce a call for contributors,
including journalists, policy analysts, and academics, to write
analysis pieces on the topic of Disinformation and Misinformation in
the Arabic speaking world.  Articles for this special project should
be between 1,500-2,000 words long and cover one of the following
themes in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania,
Morocco, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, or Yemen. Deadline: Apr 30,
2024.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VnldHWwxrBcD0_wlU_PEer2JFJvPmjhM/view

d) 2024 Digital Rights Summer School in Montenegro

The applications for the 2024 Digital Rights Summer School in Perast,
Montenegro, are now open. The School will take place from August 25 to
31, 2024. This year’s program is designed for those based in Southeast
Europe who are passionate about digital rights and eager to learn more
about the latest developments in this field. Deadline: May 15, 2024.

https://www.sharefoundation.info/en/apply-for-the-2024-digital-rights-summer-school/

e) North Korea Information Technology Incubator Program

NetFreedom Pioneers (NFP) is inviting technical individuals and
organizations seeking to develop new information access solutions for
North Korean people. North Korea Information Technology Incubator
(NKITI) Program is a launchpad for a new wave of technology-driven and
North Korea focused projects. The selected incubated projects will
receive tools and resources, mentorship, and training from experts.
Application will be reviewed on a rolling basis until May 31, 2024.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeaGp96ALLj9gKcJYcHwDFSF1A3QD9c9kU-NVHZOoFhGgLOdw/viewform

4. EU Migrant Pact Ushering in 'Deadly New Era of Digital
Surveillance,' Privacy Experts Warn

A coalition of European digital rights groups say that the European
Union’s sweeping new Migration and Asylum Pact will "usher in a deadly
new era of digital surveillance". The Protect Not Surveil coalition,
which includes groups like the Border Violence Project, Privacy
International, and Access Now, said in a statement that the pact
"represents the further embedding of surveillance technologies in the
EU".

https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/04/17/new-eu-migrant-pact-ushering-in-deadly-new-era-of-digital-surveillance-privacy-experts-war

The Migration Pact expands a wide system of data collection and
automatic exchange, leading to a regime of mass surveillance of
migrants.

https://privacyinternational.org/advocacy/5296/eu-migration-pact-dangerous-regime-migrant-surveillance

5. Reports from Our Community

a) Rest of the World’s 2024 AI Elections Tracker

In a year when at least 64 countries are headed to polls, and nearly
50% of the globe’s population is set to elect new leaders,
misinformation is a risk looming large. Rest of World’s AI built an
elections tracker that tracks incidents where AI tools are being used
to communicate with and manipulate voters. This is a running tracker,
which means they will be updating it with new incidents as the year
unfolds. Explore the project here:

https://restofworld.org/2024/elections-ai-tracker/

Rest of the World also wants to hear from you! If you’ve seen
instances of AI elections content, you can fill out this tips form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSetYidIYNRQy8K9wzu3-3bIp_-EM7XXdk0MFNttdLyaY4FoTA/viewform

And more information on their approach here:
https://restofworld.org/2024/tracking-global-election-ai/

b) Tanzania: Surge in Online Censors LGBTIQ Censorship & Other Targeted Blocks

Analysis of OONI data collected from Tanzania over the last year
(between January 1, 2023 to January 31, 2024) reveals the extensive
blocking of LGBTIQ sites, which correlates with the escalating
discrimination and crackdown on LGBTIQ communities in Tanzania in
recent years. Many other blocks identified as part of this study
appear to be targeted in nature.

https://ooni.org/post/2024-tanzania-lgbtiq-censorship-and-other-targeted-blocks/

Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is a non-profit free
software project that aims to empower decentralized efforts in
documenting internet censorship around the world.

https://ooni.org/about/

c) Navigating Algorithms: The Case of Structurally Silenced
Communities in Uganda

HER Internet published a report offering insight into what is
informing LGBTQ+ organizing and community building in Uganda. It also
explores the extent to which algorithms influence these actions. The
report gives a background into the general social media landscape in
the country, and reviews global trends in algorithmic studies.

https://www.herinternet.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/HER-INTERNET-REPORT-April-4.pdf

HER Internet is a feminist organization established in 2018 to
advocate for digital rights and internet equalities of communities of
structurally silenced womxn in Uganda.

www.herinternet.org

d) Proposed Undersea Cables in Africa Exemplify Digital Colonialism

The report, titled “Undersea Cables in Africa: The new frontiers of
digital colonialism,” highlights how the undersea cable projects,
while often framed as acts of innovation and altruism, in reality
constitute a new form of digital colonialism — one that allows private
Western companies to exploit African markets and monopolize African
internet infrastructure. Indeed, these projects allow Meta and
Alphabet to own the infrastructure that carries up to 95% of Africa’s
internet traffic.

https://foundation.mozilla.org/fy-NL/blog/new-research-proposed-undersea-cables-in-africa-exemplify-digital-colonialism/

e) A Postcolonial Legal Critique of Online Expression in Africa

Far beyond the contributions of African and western thought on the
right to freedom of expression, there are now normative developments
under international human rights law on how states can protect online
expression. However, these developments are not applied in African
countries. A reason for this is the provisions in various laws that
threaten online expression. This article applies postcolonial legal
theory to understand why and how these provisions threaten online
expression in African countries.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-law/article/abs/postcolonial-legal-critique-of-online-expression-in-africa/07E56489C75923BEC9D1D9F789BA8777
(paywall)

The growth of internet penetration across Africa and the explosion of
social networking platforms opened the continent to new opportunities.
However, autocratic regimes are aware of and uncomfortable with
technology's power and have devised strategies that limit freedom of
expression and access to information and interfere with data privacy.

https://www.fairplanet.org/editors-pick/africas-internet-boom-empowers-youth-and-makes-governments-nervous/

f) The Digital Silk Road: China & the Rise of Digital Repression in
the Indo-Pacific

This report from ARTICLE 19 examines China’s digital infrastructure
and governance influence in four countries: Cambodia, Malaysia, Nepal
and Thailand. The report argues that assessing China’s regional
partnerships and what they mean for rising digital repression in the
region is vital to understanding China’s ambitions to rewire the world
and rewrite the rules that govern the digital space.

https://www.article19.org/resources/china-the-rise-of-digital-repression-in-the-indo-pacific/

g) From Sharing to Silence: Assessing Social Media Suppression of
Sexual & Reproductive Health and Rights Content in WANA

This research from SMEX analyzes the content moderation policies and
practices of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and
YouTube regarding content related to sexual and reproductive health
and rights in the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region. The aim of
this research is to establish how these platforms treat such content,
both in theory and in practice, and what the impact of their policies
is.

https://smex.org/from-sharing-to-silence-assessing-social-media-suppression-of-srhr-content-in-wana/

________________________________________________

### Digital Rights Community Resources ###

1. Genocide in Gaza: Enabled by AI, powered by Big Tech

Watch this episode that explores how Israel’s killing campaign of
Palestinians has relied on artificial intelligence to choose its
targets. A dystopian nightmare serves as a marketing campaign for
technology flawed by design, and deepens the global digital divide.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-listening-post/2024/4/13/genocide-in-gaza-enabled-by-ai-powered-by-big-tech

2. The Dangers of Metadata in Messengers

Messaging is still not where it needs to be. Privacy is confused with
security, when both are not synonymous, and there are major gaps in
helping users understand the fundamental differences. For example,
while WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, users still give up
metadata to use it. Metadata is data that provides information about
other data but not the content of the data itself. It reveals a wealth
of information about you and your connections, and in the hands of a
centralized monopoly, this can and does get misused in incredibly
dangerous ways.

https://simplex.chat/blog/20240416-dangers-of-metadata-in-messengers.html

3. Convite Awareness Project on Care

Convite is an awareness project about self-care and collective care,
focused especially on indigenous guards, cimarronas, and rural
(campesinas) communities from southwestern Colombia, as well as those
who defend the environment, territorial autonomy, and alternative
communication. Through awareness workshops and the creation and
circulation of sound postcards, Convite seeks to provide information,
tools, and resources for self-care, protection, and security in
digital, physical, and psychosocial spaces.

https://noisradio.co/convite-english-version

________________________________________________

### Digital Rights in the Wider World ###

1. Digital Violations in the Balkans

Romanian politicians mull social media restrictions. Turkey, Croatia,
and other countries face surges in digital rights violations ahead of
elections, while the rest of the region is shaken by misinformation on
a missing girl in Serbia and phishing attempts.

https://balkaninsight.com/2024/04/16/elections-and-reporting-on-missing-girl-spur-digital-rights-violations-across-region/

2. Russia’s Offensive on “Digital Sovereignty” in Africa

Russia is launching a new offensive aimed at “digital sovereignty”, a
party’s right and ability to control their internet. Russia has
greatly expanded its influence in the Central African Republic, Mali,
Burkina Faso, and Niger, to the detriment of France. Its offensive has
been progressing, especially in the digital arena, where Russia has
been at the forefront.

https://incyber.org/en/article/russias-offensive-on-digital-sovereignty-in-africa/

3. The Two Sides of Web Scraping: When Data Collection Becomes a
Double-Edged Sword

Emerging AI technology often relies on methods of data collection –
such as web-scraping – which can become a double edged sword when not
used with safeguards and transparency or in ways that are unlawful.
Web scraping is data scraping used for extracting data from websites.
These methods have been used to achieve several key victories for
digital rights, but can also be exploitative.

https://edri.org/our-work/the-two-sides-of-web-scraping-when-data-collection-becomes-a-double-edged-sword/

4. The AI That Could Heal a Divided Internet

Efforts to improve the health of online spaces have long focused on
content moderation, the practice of detecting and removing bad
content. Tech companies hired workers and built AI to identify hate
speech, incitement to violence, and harassment. There was one problem:
while these AIs helped remove the bad, they didn’t elevate the good.
To contribute to a more balanced online sphere, Jigsaw, a Google
subsidiary, revealed a new set of AI tools that can score posts based
on the likelihood that they contain good content.

https://time.com/6966990/ai-google-jigsaw-social-media-division/

5. Blog: Reframing the TikTok Debate – the Need for a Human Rights Approach

With so much attention on fixing TikTok, why not treat this as a test
case for pursuing truly radical solutions? Rather than merely focusing
on shifting TikTok’s ownership under an existing or newly incorporated
big tech entity, here is an opportunity to explore a fundamentally new
approach to ownership and oversight through a transparent,
multi-stakeholder, independent social media council, or as part of a
new community-oriented digital public infrastructure, much more
impactful in the protection of user rights.

https://www.article19.org/resources/reframing-the-tiktok-debate-the-need-for-a-human-rights-approach/

_________________________________________________

### Grants, Fellowships, & Awards ###

The following opportunities are open to individual digital rights
defenders and to organizations. If you would like us to include a
grant, fellowship or award in this newsletter, please email details to
team at digitalrights.community
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=Fundraising_Opportunities

Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute on Technology, Policy, & Democracy in Flux
Jesus College, Oxford
Deadline: April 24, 2024
https://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/oxford-media-policy-summer-institute-2024/

African Union Digital and Innovation Fellowship - Cohort 2
Deadline: April 28, 2024
https://auinnovationfellowship.com/

Spyware Accountability Initiative Fund
Deadline: April 30, 2024
https://stopspyware.fund/apply

Disinformation & Misinformation in the Arab World
Deadline: April 30, 2024
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VnldHWwxrBcD0_wlU_PEer2JFJvPmjhM/view

Women in Digital Economy Fund
Deadline: May 6, 2024
https://widef.global/funding

Internet Society Foundation
Deadline: May 14, 2024
https://isoc.pub/ResearchGrant

2024 Digital Rights Summer School
Deadline: May 15, 2024
https://www.sharefoundation.info/en/apply-for-the-2024-digital-rights-summer-school/

FOSS Sustainability Fund
Deadline: May 17, 2024
https://www.opentech.fund/funds/free-and-open-source-software-sustainability-fund/

ICANN Grant Program
Deadline: May 24, 2024
https://www.icann.org/grant-program-en

North Korea Information Technology Incubator (NKITI) Program
Deadline: May 31, 2024
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeaGp96ALLj9gKcJYcHwDFSF1A3QD9c9kU-NVHZOoFhGgLOdw/viewform

Female EdTech Fellowship Europe
Deadline: July 22, 2024
https://www.edtech-fellowship.eu/

Digital Rights Fund for WANA Region
Deadline: Rolling
SMEX
https://smex.org/digital-rights-fund/

FOSS United
Deadline: Rolling
https://fossunited.org/grants

Sovereign Tech Fund
Deadline: Rolling
https://sovereigntechfund.de/en/applications/

Incident Emergency Fund
Digital Defenders Partnership
Deadline: Rolling Basis
https://www.digitaldefenders.org/incident-emergency-fund/

Safety Net Fund
Deadline: Ongoing
https://wphfund.org/whrds-safety-net/

Rapid Response Fund
Derechos Digitales
Deadline: Rolling Basis
https://www.derechosdigitales.org/sobre-el-fondo-de-respuesta-rapida /

Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism
Deadline: Rolling Basis
https://urgentactionfund.org /

Urgent Action Fund - Asia & Pacific
Deadline: Rolling
https://www.uafanp.org/our_grants

Open Briefing’s Responsive Assistance
Deadline: Rolling Basis
https://www.openbriefing.org/support/referral/

_________________________________________________

### Events Calendar ###

Virtual School on Internet Governance
Virtual Course on Digital Capitalism
April 1 - May 12, 2024
https://lnkd.in/eGSKb2PX

DRIF24: Fostering Rights & Inclusion in the Digital Age
April 23 - 25, 2024
Accra, Ghana
https://drif.paradigmhq.org/

Team CommUNITY at DRAPAC Series: Building a Digital Rights Community
DRAPAC
April 24, 2pm-3pm Bangkok time (UTC+7)
https://engagemedia.org/events/drapac-series-9-team-community/

Glitter Meetup: Quiet: A Secure Slack Alternative for Groups that Outgrow Signal
Team CommUNITY
April 25, 2024
9am EDT / 1pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=April_25_2024_GM

Glitter Meetup: The Social Networking Glitter Meetup
Team CommUNITY
May 2, 2024
9am EDT / 1pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=May_2_2024_GM

Digital Rights in Francophone Africa and MENA Meetup
Team CommUNITY
May 9, 2024
9am EDT / 1pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=Mai_9_2024,_Digital_Rights_in_Francophone_Africa_and_MENA_Meetup

Bread&Net Online | Digital Rights in Times of War
May 13 - 15, 2024
Online
https://www.breadandnet.org/en/

Asia Meetup
Team CommUNITY
May 15, 2024
8am EDT / 12pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=May_15_2024,_Asia_Meetup

Glitter Meetup: sheEsecures - a Platform for an Inclusive and Feminist Internet
Team CommUNITY
May 16, 2024
9am EDT / 1pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=May_16_2024_GM

LATAM Meetup
Team CommUNITY
May 22, 2024
5:30pm EDT / 9:30pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=22_de_Mayo,_2024_LATAM

Glitter Meetup: Glitter Meetup: What is Happening with Digital Rights
Around the World?
Team CommUNITY
May 23, 2024
9am EDT / 1pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=May_23_2024_GM

Africa Meetup
Team CommUNITY
May 23, 2024
11am EDT / 3pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=May_23_2024,_Africa_Meetup

MENA Meetup
Team CommUNITY
May 29, 2024
10am EDT / 2pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=May_29_2024,_MENA_Meetup

Glitter Meetup: Open Technology Fund's Ask-Me-Anything
Team CommUNITY
May 30, 2024
9am EDT / 1pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=May_30_2024_GM

7amleh
Palestine Digital Activism Forum (PDAF 2024)
June 4 & 5, 2024
https://2024.pdaf.net/about-theme-en

Check out a list of our virtual events here:
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=Calendar_of_Events

_________________________________________________

### NEW Job Opportunities  ###

Below is a short list of jobs sent to us in the last week.

Want to see more jobs? OR Have a job opening you want us to promote?
Check out the Team CommUNITY Job Board:
https://www.digitalrights.community/job-board

✎ Finance Manager - Belgium | Access Now
+ Brussels, Belgium
https://accessnow.bamboohr.com/careers/207?source=aWQ9MjA%3D

✎ Technology Advocacy Manager | Committee to Protect Journalists
+ NYC or Washington DC, USA (remote considered)
https://cpjorg.bamboohr.com/careers/68

✎ Senior Security Engineer | Wikimedia Foundation
+ Remote
https://grnh.se/469ba6fd1us

✎ Lead UX Designer - Platform Teams | Wikimedia Foundation
+ Remote
https://grnh.se/a11d6db51us

✎ Administrative Managing Director | Sovereign Tech Fund
+ Germany
https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/jobs/administrative-managing-director

✎ Front-End Web Development Specialist (Azure) | Media Viability
Accelerator, Internews
+ Remote in UK or USA
https://phf.tbe.taleo.net/phf04/ats/careers/v2/viewRequisition?org=INTERNEWS&cws=38&rid=2221

✎ Back-End Web Development Specialist (Azure) | Media Viability
Accelerator, Internews
+ Remote in UK or USA
https://phf.tbe.taleo.net/phf04/ats/careers/v2/viewRequisition?org=INTERNEWS&cws=38&rid=2220

✎ Data Engineering Specialist (Azure) | Media Viability Accelerator, Internews
+ Remote in UK or USA
https://phf.tbe.taleo.net/phf04/ats/careers/v2/viewRequisition?org=INTERNEWS&cws=38&rid=2222

✎ Digital Security Training Intern | Freedom of the Press Foundation
+ NYC, USA preferred (open to remote)
https://freedom.press/jobs/?gh_jid=4400365005

✎ Deputy Director Technology & Human Rights | Human Rights Watch
+ Multiple Locations Considered
https://boards.greenhouse.io/humanrightswatch/jobs/7325712002

✎ Monitoring & Evaluation Associate (Central America + Mexico) | Internews
+ Remote in Central America and Mexico
https://phf.tbe.taleo.net/phf04/ats/careers/v2/viewRequisition?org=INTERNEWS&cws=38&rid=2202&

✎ Fundraising & Program Development Specialist | Humanitarian Open
Street Map Team (HOT)
+ Remote within East & Southern Africa region
https://hotosm.bamboohr.com/careers/155

✎ DevOps Engineer | GlobaLeaks
+ Remote
https://www.globaleaks.org/get-involved/work-with-us/

✎ Foundation Head of Research | Eticas
+ Remote
https://zurl.to/eH0n?source=CareerSite

✎ Foundation Executive Director | Eticas
+ Remote
https://zurl.to/eH0n?source=CareerSite

✎ Fundraising & Grants Manager | Eticas
+ Remote
https://zurl.to/eH0n?source=CareerSite

✎ Co-Founder: Business Development | Open Parliament TV
+ Remote from Berlin
https://openparliament.tv/job-co-founder

✎ Information Accountability Analyst | Common Cause
+ Washington, D.C., USA
https://jobs.lever.co/commoncause/67ad04af-3293-4480-a0a3-e1b06eae8194

If you feel like sending some digital glitter our way, or need further
assistance, feel free to reply to this message.
_________________________________________________

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If you have any questions or want to learn more about partnerships,
get in touch at team at digitalrights.community. We are always looking
for like-minded organizations and people.

(((Hugs & light)))

--
Team CommUNITY at ARTICLE 19
www.digitalrights.community
Organizers of the Global Gathering
PGP: 2E1D CC33 A362 0BD6 236E  540A F60A 89AD 6FF9 7A2F

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