Digital Rights Weekly | January 6 - 10

[Team CommUNITY]

Hello Digital Rights Defenders!

Here is your weekly update on digital rights around the world for the
week of January 6 - 10. As a reminder, you can submit your news for
the newsletter here:
https://www.digitalrights.community/weekly-newsletter

Have feedback on how to improve this newsletter? Share it anonymously
in this Riseup Pad:
https://pad.riseup.net/p/TCUFeedback-keep

What is in this issue:

TCU News
Community News
Community Resources
Digital Rights in the Wider World
Job Opportunities
Events
Grants, Fellowships, & Awards

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### Team CommUNITY (TCU News) ###

1. Upcoming January Digital Rights Town Halls

Jan 16 | Bitpart: Sending Secure Automated Messages Over Signal (Glitter Meetup)
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=January_16_2025_GM

Jan 23 | What is Happening in Digital Rights Around the World? (Glitter Meetup)
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=January_23_2025_GM

Jan 30 | Undersea Cables in Africa - New Frontiers for Digital
Colonialism (Glitter Meetup)
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=January_30_2025_GM


2. Stay Updated on News and Opportunities Across Our Other Platforms!

TCU BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/teamcommunity.bsky.social
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/digitalrightscommunity
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/teamcommunity


3. The 2025 Global Gathering Dates Are Here: September 8, 9, and 10!

Mark your calendars for September 8, 9, and 10, because the 2025
Global Gathering is happening in the beautiful Estoril, Portugal! This
year we’re opening up over 1,500 spots, wrapping up our three-year
plan to grow the event safely and sustainably. Registration will open
in the following weeks! Check out what the GG24 edition was like:

GG 2024 Report Out:
https://www.digitalrights.community/blog/global-gathering-2024-report

Finding a Vibrant APC Network at the Global Gathering:
https://www.apc.org/en/blog/finding-vibrant-apc-network-global-gathering

____________________________________________

### Community News ###

1. Amnesty Tech's Digital Forensic Fellowship 2025 Call for Applications

Amnesty Tech – a global collective of advocates, hackers, researchers,
and technologists – is launching its third Digital Forensics
Fellowship (DFF). This is an opportunity for 5 to 7 human rights
defenders, journalists, and/or technologists working in civil society
organizations around the world to train with Amnesty Tech's Security
Lab to build skills and knowledge on advanced digital threats and
forensic investigation techniques. Deadline to apply: January 23,
2025.

https://careers.amnesty.org/jobs/vacancy/digital-forensic-fellowship-4051/4079/description/


2. Open Call to Reclaim Your Lost Website: Resilience Grant for NGOs,
Non-profits, & Individuals

Apply to recover a website you've lost. Sutty and Resilience Press are
offering a Resilience Grant for NGOs, non-profits, and individuals who
protect human rights and empower people, especially those facing
systemic inequity and prejudice. They’ll recover your site and make it
more resilient with the DWeb. Apply now through this form:

https://sutty.nl/en/recovery-form/

More info: https://distributed.press/2025/01/06/get-your-website-back-reclaim-your-history/


3. Request to Gather Telegram Transparency Data

Transparency Reports is trying to gather transparency data from
Telegram transparency bot to build a consolidated database of law
enforcement requests accepted by Telegram per country. If you have
Telegram, please contact the Telegram transparency bot and get data
for your country.

https://t.me/transparency
https://github.com/Te-k/telegram-transparency

You can check out the dataset so far:
https://github.com/Te-k/telegram-transparency/blob/main/dataset.json


4. India's Internet Shutdown Crisis: A Growing Threat to Digital Rights

The Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC.in), a Delhi-based
not-for-profit, has been running the Internet Shutdown Project since
2012. This project is a real-time tracker that monitors and records
internet shutdowns in India. It relies on raw data collected from
reports published in both national and regional newspapers, as well as
user contributions, making it a comprehensive resource for tracking
these disruptions.

https://globalvoices.org/2025/01/06/indias-internet-shutdown-crisis-a-growing-threat-to-digital-rights/

____________________________________________

### Community Resources  ###

1. Can Academic Freedom Survive Donald Trump’s Plans for Thought Control?

Trump is poised to embark on an unprecedented attack on knowledge and
speech with chilling implications for academic freedom, not just in
the US but globally. This article discusses Trump's plans to extract
power from universities, punish wrong-think and degrade education with
AI.

https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2024/12/academic-freedom-survive-donald-trump-plans-thought-control-universities-colleges-education/

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

1. Facebook & Instagram Get Rid of Fact Checkers

Meta is abandoning the use of independent fact-checkers on Facebook
and Instagram, replacing them with X-style "community notes" where
commenting on the accuracy of posts is left to users. Meta’s plans to
scale back fact-checking apply only in the United States for now.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly74mpy8klo

ARTICLE 19 expresses serious concerns regarding this announcement.
While claiming to protect freedom of expression, the shift, and its
timing, appear politically motivated, reflecting an attempt to cater
to specific political interests rather than genuinely enhancing this
fundamental right.

https://www.article19.org/resources/meta-prioritise-human-rights-not-politics/


2. Internet Outages & Blocks in Latin America in 2024

In 2024, Latin America faced internet blockages, power outages, and
disruptions linked to politics, climate change, and access to energy.
Countries such as Ecuador and Cuba suffered prolonged blackouts that
severely affected connectivity, while, in Brazil, floods interrupted
internet traffic in the south and judicial measures limited access to
X.

https://globalvoices.org/2025/01/03/internet-outages-and-blocks-in-latin-america-in-2024/


3. 100,000 Iranians Use Starlink to Defy Internet Curbs

The number of Starlink satellite internet users in Iran has surpassed
100,000, in a way that Iranians are defying repression of their
digital rights.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202501060034


4. Vietnam Strengthens Control of Internet & Civil Society Through New Decrees

Vietnam has started the enforcement of Decree 147, which expands the
regulation of internet services, and Decree 126, which prescribes
stricter control of associations, amid concerns that these new
measures would further curtail digital rights and civil liberties in
the country.

https://globalvoices.org/2025/01/07/vietnam-strengthens-control-of-internet-and-civil-society-through-new-decrees/


5. ‘Form of Violence’: From the US to Pakistan, Deepfake Videos Target
Women Politicians

>From the United States to Italy, Britain, and Pakistan, female
politicians are increasingly becoming victims of AI-generated deepfake
pornography or sexualized images, in a troubling trend that
researchers say threatens women’s participation in public life.

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2585378/amp


6. UK Rollout of eVisas Could Leave Non-EU Migrants ‘Vulnerable’

The UK government is going ahead with a digital visa scheme to prove
the residency rights of millions of people from outside the EU without
having completed the necessary checks. Campaigners have warned that
the transition to eVisas could cause problems for older residents and
those who are less confident with technology or lack reliable internet
access.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jan/04/uk-rollout-of-evisas-non-eu-migrants-vulnerable


7. How a Wildfire Monitoring App Became Essential in the US West

Watch Duty – which began in California and has expanded across 14 US
states – alerted the public to more than 9,000 wildfires in 2024.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/05/watch-duty-wildfire-app

____________________________________________

### 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


✎ Social Media Consultant | Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation
+ Hybrid/Remote
https://bit.ly/blmgnf-comms-pr

✎ Communications & Press Relations Consultant | Black Lives Matter
Global Network Foundation
+ Hybrid/Remote
https://bit.ly/blmgnf-comms-pr

✎ Shipping & Fulfillment Associate | The Calyx Institute
+ Brooklyn, NY, USA
https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/calyxinstitute/jobs/4609046007

✎ Programs Manager | SMEX
+  Beirut, Lebanon
https://daleel-madani.org/civil-society-directory/smex/jobs/programs-manager

✎ Bangla Editor | GIJN
+ Remote
https://gijn.org/jobs/bangla-editor-2025/

✎ Communications Coordinator | Decidim Association
+ Barcelona, Països Catalans
https://decidim.org/blog/2024-12-18-job-offer-communications-coordinator/

✎ Bread&Net Creative Lead | SMEX
+ Lebanon
https://daleel-madani.org/civil-society-directory/smex/jobs/breadnet-creative-lead

✎ Senior Financial Analyst/Assistant Controller | Access Now
+ San José, Costa Rica, and other Locations in Latin America or the US (Hybrid)
https://accessnow.bamboohr.com/careers/223

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

__________________________________________

### Events Calendar ###

Virtual School of Internet Governance
January 14, 2025 - April 1, 2025
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdxElbmLzzGNUpUuoW3jDieHkNZpvO35hhDDlH9-Ia8jwKNww/viewform

Bitpart: Sending Secure Automated Messages Over Signal (Glitter Meetup)
Team CommUNITY
January 16, 2025
9am EST / 2pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=January_16_2025_GM

What is Happening in Digital Rights Around the World? (Glitter Meetup)
Team CommUNITY
January 23, 2025
9am EST / 2pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=January_23_2025_GM

ConnectBridge Hackathon
January 24–26, 2025
Deadline to apply: December 10, 2024
Brussels
https://connecthack.org/

Undersea Cables in Africa - New Frontiers for Digital Colonialism
(Glitter Meetup)
Team CommUNITY
January 30, 2025
9am EST / 2pm UTC
Online
https://wiki.digitalrights.community/index.php?title=January_30_2025_GM

FOSDEM
February 1-2, 2025
https://fosdem.org/2025/

RightsCon
February 24 - 27, 2025
Taiwan
https://www.rightscon.org/registration/

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

__________________________________________

### 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

Fellowship on Digital Rights & Gender Justice
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law, & Development (APWLD)
Deadline: January 15, 2025
https://ijnet.org/en/opportunity/fellowship-digital-rights-and-gender-justice-opens-asia-pacific

Digital Forensic Fellowship 2025
Amnesty Tech
Deadline: January 23, 2025
https://careers.amnesty.org/jobs/vacancy/digital-forensic-fellowship-4051/4079/description/

NGI Zero Commons Fund
Reclaim the Public Nature of the Internet
Deadline: February 1, 2025
https://nlnet.nl/commonsfund/

Digital Freedom Fund
Deadline: February 17, 2025
https://digitalfreedomfund.org/grants/

Cross-Border Media Literacy Projects
Deadline: March 6, 2025
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/funding/call-proposals-cross-border-media-literacy-projects

Reclaim Your Lost Website: Resilience Grant for NGOs, Non-profits, & Individuals
https://sutty.nl/en/recovery-form/

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

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

Open Tech Fund
Deadline: Rolling
https://apply.opentech.fund

Digital Impact Alliance Fellowship
Deadline: Rolling
https://dial.global/apply-to-our-fellows-program/

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

Apoyos de Respuesta Rápida
Fondo Acción Urgente
Deadline: Rolling
https://fondoaccionurgente.org.co/es/que-hacemos/apoyos-de-respuesta-rapida

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

__________________________________________

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They can sign up here:
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### Want to partner with us?###

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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