Digital Activism and Privacy – quick fix or long term involvement? – PL 02 2014

12 June 2014 | 16:30-17:30
Programme overview 2014

Youth working group

Strictly for youth, young people and young grown-ups only. Non-youth is kindly requested to stay outside.

Session topics

Privacy, mass surveillance, digital activism, civil society participation.

Session description

There is a need for stronger multi-stakeholder participation in the political processes of Internet Governance concerning privacy-related issues. However is digital activism really creating these opportunities? Digital activism can be defined as the use of ICTs for a range of forms of activism to facilitate communication among citizens and raise awareness for political issues. Recent debate on new EU Data protection reform showed the need to rethink and adapt. Carried out through a closed community of experts in a non-transparent process these important topic elude the average user, which it affects. Digital activism is one of the ways privacy issues are approached and addressed to date. However today's representation of actors and agents of digital activism is very imbalanced, regionally disproportional and creating a gender gap. Moreover participation of civil society on the web in IG, its work and methods are questionable, not institutionalised and often uncoordinated. Hence,the democratic quality of digital activism, characterized by its level of legitimacy, representativeness, accountability, and inclusiveness, needs to be assessed and problems associated in this context, such as the digital divide and a lack of institutionalization should be discussed.

Questions to be addressed: What is the added value of digital activism for the young people? Can problems of youth participation in IG be addressed through similar innovative processes of participation, or does it just relieve young people's need to express themselves whilst the decisions are made elsewhere.Can digital activism bridge the gap between classic particiaption and technical community? What is the impact of digital youth activism on the lives of young people, taking into account that the net keeps record on everything? What is the value of anonymous activism?

TL;DR: This panel will look into how digital activism influences privacy issues. Whether it is really working as an instrument to change digital policy debate. What are the mechanisms of digital activism and how relevant is that for young people? Moreover is it an effective way to go to influence European politics on Internet Governance?

People

• Focal points:
• Nadine Karbach, IJAB e.V./Youth IGF-D
• Lorena Jaume-Palasi, Ludwig Maximilians University/IGF-D Youth forum
• Live moderator: tbd
• Rapporteur: tbd
• Remote participation moderator: Narine Khachatryan
• Digital facilitator: Martin
• Panelists/speakers: (suggested list of panelist/speakers)
• Anya Orlova, Network of European Digital Youth
• Paula Roth, New Media Summer School
• Rabea Willers, Youth Representative, Directorate for Democratic Governance, Council of Europe
• Katitza Rodriguez, Director Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

Format of this working group at EuroDIG

A plenary with focus on remote participation and supported by digital debates We aim to develop an Activist Manifesto-Developed in parallel. In permanent beta (like the structure made in NETMundial) - Outcome document..."principles on privacy in Europe (?)" Questions will be collected primarily via Twitter and the created online discussion.

Further reading

Coming soon.

Messages

Reporter: Martin Fischer, Trainer & Facilitator

1. Activism as a way of meaningful participation can be ensured through privacy. In particular in authoritative regimes privacy is of the essence to allow resistance to government policy. Therefore the application of privacy tools by the citizens in itself can be already understood as an act of activism. At the same time activism needs to speak up against mass surveillance in order to ensure Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly and keep privacy on the agenda!
2. Petitions are a popular way to showing support for societal issues. Many of these are collecting much more data than necessary. It needs to be clearly made distinguishable what data needs to be known and which is requested additionally. Paula Roth: “Just because you want change doesn't mean that you have to be a public person or should become a public person.”
3. There have been first successful steps for crowd-sourcing of legislation in Finland. This process can have an empowering effect and increase participation and legitimacy of policy. Additionally there are various digital tools to keep records of voting and contributions of policy makers, which increase transparency.
4. Digital activism can greatly enhance the outreach and involve many more people in a more direct way. Media literacy needs to be considered to ensure equal participation opportunities. This overlaps with open source discussions, as these tools allow diversity and openness but often cannot compete with proprietary tools, in particular in regards to social networks.

Video Record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR6JdAbS8fI

Transcript

Provided by: Caption First, Inc., P.O. Box 3066, Monument, CO 80132, Phone: +001-719-481-9835, www.captionfirst.com

This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Can you hear me? Yes. And hello. Is it on? Yes.

Good afternoon everybody. Shall we begin on time?

Okay. First we need to close the doors. All right. Welcome to plenary number 2. It's a very special and important plenary, because it is called “The open youth spot.” So I'd like to stress the word “open,” because I'm here as a representative of the young at heart.

And I'm an honoured guest along with my other colleague, even younger at heart, Katitza Rodriguez. We are thrilled to be part of this panel which has been conceived by youth and also obviously has youth participating in it. And it is totally imbalanced, as far as gender is concerned. Yahoo! So, right. You can now tweet how it's actually unfair to men.

Now, seriously, we have a very interesting topic on the agenda this afternoon. We have already had an extremely interesting dialogue over morning coffee. So what you're going to get is hopefully a continuation of that dialogue. I'll run through the names of our participants because they will introduce themselves. This is how we decided to start. But also because of our live transcript peson in the back needs to hear who we are one more time.

As moderator, I'm Marianne Franklin, from the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition, which I currently co-chair along with Robert, who is following us in the U.S. remotely. I'm from Goldsmiths University in London.

Katitza Rodriguez is here, my other young and wild at heart colleague. She will talk about who she is and why she is here shortly.

To her left-hand side, I have Rabea Willers. She will talk about why she is here shortly.

To her left, I have Anya Orlova.

And to her left Paula Roth. The genuinely young at heart.

Now I'll hand it over to the panel to tell us who they are and why they are here and then we will launch into a very interesting discussion. As audience members, you are also invited to participate. I'll keep time, focus and all the other things that people do when they are moderating. Okay.

>> RABEA WILLERS: Hello again and thank you very much for having me here. I'm Rabea Willers and I work at the Council of Europe and the Directorate for Democratic Governance. And I'm part of the team that is organizing the Forum for Democracy, which is an annual gathering of more than one thousand participants, and it brings together Civil Society, activists, political leaders, business, and media representatives as well as academia.

The topic of last year's forum was how we can re-establish the link between citizens and political decision makers in the digital age by means of e-participation initiatives and digital activism. And the topic of privacy was, of course, very strong in all the debates. And this year's forum will be on the issue of youth participation.

So why I'm here is to tackle mainly the question of how we can increase the impact of particularly young digital activists in institutionalized decision-making in order to put the issue of privacy on the political agenda and to make the voice of the citizens heard, and particularly of the young, because in the end, yeah, we have to deal with the decisions in the future that are made now.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you very much. That's lovely. Moving on to Anya.

>> ANYA ORLOVA: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm afraid my presentation will be a bit shorter. I'm representing here a Network of European Digital Youth, and this is the network of – it's an informal network of young people, activists, and European Youth organisations that are working on advocacy of digital rights, and providing capacity building, trainings for local and International events, and basically people who decided to get together and work towards a better Internet. Because people wanted to get involved and to have their say in the shaping of our future Internet.

So I'm also working in the – and representing here as a researcher on privacy and Internet governance. So today I’m also here to speak about how debate on privacy is shaped by digital activities and activists and privacy advocates.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.

Paula?

>> PAULA ROTH: I’m here because of the New Media Summer School, to back some of the power or give influence to young people in this debate, which is mostly relevant. Because most young people use the Internet as well.

And there is also a great issue in being an activist, because we don’t know the future. So it’s a real concern about privacy. And that’s one of the main issues that I’m interested in.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: And Katatia.

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: So my name is Katitza Rodriguez. I’m here to talk a little bit about privacy. I want to thank the invitation from the Youth Coalition, because the issues, they take the decision to invite us as speakers and discuss as equal footing altogether this issue, which is very important.

So I see this panel being divide into topics, more or less in general terms. How to protect your privacy when direct campaigning against your Government in protest, special protest.

And the other part of the discussion is more about what do we do as a society? How do we do activism that could stop the mass surveillance that we are now living?

So this is one of the two topics that I want to throw out on the table for discussion, and have an interactive dialogue. Because it’s a complex topic that I think is difficult. It’s something that we need to keep talking about.

So I don’t know if – one of the things that recently happened, briefly I will mention, one of the campaigns that happened in the United States is what we said, the Net, which we are trying to take back our privacy and ask companies, individuals, to try using encryption to protect your privacy against Government surveillance. And it was an act to say: Hey, legislators, you’re not doing enough in the United States, so we are going to take back our privacy right now, by taking tools, by using encryption, by pushing companies to install encryption. So we can get back our privacy.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you very much, because that’s a very important lead in to these four points that came out this morning. They need not continue today. But the first question would be, to follow on from you, how has activism changed in an Internet embedded arena for action? How has activism changed or not in an arena that is now more dependent on the Internet or Web? We were talking about it today. But I’m just wondering if you have any responses to that. Anya.

>> ANYA ORLOVA: So I think one aspect of activism is digital activism. The way I understand it is when we are using digital tools and when we are applying the network, which gives us a certain – a much bigger access, with scale and the low cost of using the network. So the outreach is much bigger when the means are much smaller if, for example, you’re organizing an action of protests somewhere in the city. So I think digital tools and means are a very important additive part. But still it very much depends on who is standing behind it. Because if it’s a group of professionals and people who understand what they are doing and how they want to address the issue, how they want to maybe further change the policy and to deliver their message, that is what I think is the most important.

So digital tools, they are supportive, but the message and who is standing behind, the team that is working on the message I think is still – pertains to the essence of the activism.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: The means to an end, not an end in themselves.

>> RABEA WILLERS: I completely agree with what Anya was saying. I think the difference between digital activism and activism that we maybe knew before is that it is now a lot easier to mobilize many people in a shorter timeframe. And I think that is what the Internet is particularly good at.

Also, on this basis, we can create so many new innovative tools for connecting with citizens, connecting with politicians. Like, for example, using crowd sourcing to draft legislations, using e-Petitions, there are so many new ways now that we are at the moment, yeah, exploring. And, ummm, yeah.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: For instance, the live Twitter feed has gone down, so it’s not very activist. Sorry, I wanted to pop that in. You have to be able to activate the tools, as you wish.

Moving on. Paula.

>> PAULA ROTH: Well, most of my points were already taken, which is good. But there is also this point where most activists today are connected to the Internet, at least here. Because most organizing is done by or partly is on the Internet, because it’s so expensive to plan it ahead. Like if you want to organise a big demonstration for many people, like back in the days, you had to prepare it beforehand. You had to send invitations. You had to find out who to send the invitations to. We don’t have that objective anymore. You can organise it reactive. Like you can have an organised demonstration by tomorrow if you’d like, which is really bringing the power to do stuff closer to people. Because you don’t have to know how to organise. It’s all there on the Internet.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: So that brings us to something I’m sure Katitza has something to say – Anya? Did you – the idea that how it’s easier to be an activist because of the Internet. And we all know this is a debate, because supposedly it’s easier, it’s therefore less important and it’s “slactivism.” I hear that at my workplace, “if you click, you’re not really an activist.” Do you have an idea whether it’s easier or whether there are other forms of activism and mobilization?

>> I think I have done other activism. I was mobilizing, it was hard, there was no Internet in those days, so I’m not so young. But still we were able to organise in houses, after school, after University, pamphlets, papers, fliers, posters. Now we have the tools.

But still, the line between the digital and traditional I think is blurry. Because sometimes it’s just the same ideas, just use digital tools for those ideas. You want to get attention to the press. You want to get the message to the end-user, like to the – the one that your mother or father understand what it is we are talking about.

What is the success of the campaign? At least in the United States, in San Francisco, you were on the Metro and people were talking about what happened for the Internet when they – if they – if this Bill was going to happen. So that is the kind of activism that if we are able to just use the tools to educate the general public, so they don’t need NGOs to defend their rights but they can defend themselves. That’s like a powerful dream for an activist, to be able to mobilize the masses.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Anya?

>> ANYA ORLOVA: I have a comment thinking back to the complexities of tools and issues and coming back to privacy. What I think is kind of important is that this lack of understanding or complexity of the topic, especially recent implications of Edward Snowden’s revealing, and you don’t understand how it works, it can be not always an incentive to get involved but it’s something that could stop you. So it’s important to translate the message and to explain it to the users, and also to get them involved. For example, like the recent use of the Net is taking one step further, offering you various tools that you can download and use to protect your privacy online. Thank you.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Rabea, did you have a comment on this?

>> RABEA WILLERS: Yes. I think it’s also an important aspect that digital activism does not only put the privacy issue on the political agenda, but that also, on the other hand, the privacy of the digital activists is protected. And as Anya was saying, when the activists have to be scared that all their – that they leave traces online, that, yeah, it might be – might do harm to them sometime. Of course, then they won’t engage that much online politically.

So I think it’s also important that we establish mechanisms to protect the privacy, of course. So that this movement of digital activists can really grow.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay. So that brings us to, in fact, the next hub of questions. We are moving there naturally.

The mechanisms that we might need to protect the privacy. Before it was what sorts of specific privacy concerns are specific to any form of online activism mobilization? And Rabea just mentioned one. To be able to not be tracked relentlessly. So this of course raises issues about how far you can actually take this.

Any comments on what specific issue, privacy. You see what sort of privacy we are looking at? Anonymity. You can argue if you’re an activist, you have given away your privacy. You’ve become a public figure. So maybe you shouldn’t bother for it. So what specific concerns do you have, for the four of you, for what you are doing?

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: Right now we use our phone for everything. Every time we are tweeting or communicating through SMS, we are telling others where we are located and with whom we are communicating with. Who are next, close to us. So when we are in a protest, you know, we are giving away. If we were in the protest in the street in that moment in time, to the Government, who will have access to the data. So that’s why – that’s one of the risks.

But being an activist myself, I know that sometimes even if you are at risk, you will fight for whatever campaign you are protesting for. And you will take some risks and chances, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to protect yourself. You will try to use the means that you have.

For instance, to hide or protect your anonymity. Because anonymity protects you, protects you against retaliation that the Government could have against you. And there are tools that activists can use to hide their IP address and where they are communicating from.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: So in order to protect yourself from prosecution or persecution of exercising other rights that we actually have by law, and those two rights that we have are the Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Assembly. There are parts of the world where Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Expression are dangerous things to do. I remember Tunis in 2005. To be out in the streets was not actually a very secure feeling.

But the thing is that if we are talking specifically about privacy, what is the difference? If you’re on your mobile phone or if you’re organizing an e-Petition, don’t the authorities know where you are and who you are anyway?

>> PAULA ROTH: Yes, they do. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And it shouldn’t. You have to distinguish between what different instances should know and should be able to find out. And there is that distinguishing today.

And it’s also important to keep in mind that just because you want change doesn’t mean that you have to be a public person or should become a public person. Because that shouldn’t be the case.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you, Paula, that’s a very powerful point. I hope you got that one.

Anybody else? Rabea?

>> RABEA WILLERS: I think we have to distinguish a little bit maybe between public actions and private actions. Because if we sign a petition online, I think it’s not necessarily a problem if we can be identified or if it’s visible that we have signed the petition. Because if you sign a petition offline, it’s also visible that you have signed the petition.

But when it comes to the more private sphere, like with whom you are in contact, what your exact political views are, I think this is really dangerous if we don’t protect the privacy in this regard.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay. Anya?

>> ANYA ORLOVA: Well, I want to agree with Rabea and I think that it is important that the same rights that we have offline, we should have the same rights online. There should be no difference. Everything we have the right to do offline should be the same online. So even if I’m posting something online or starting a petition, there should be no way that the Government or legislation is not protecting me.

And another point that I wanted to touch upon is that – I forgot it. But I’ll come back to it.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Oh, thank goodness. Not only the young at heart forget things. That’s good to know. It happens, it will come back.

Any other comments from the audience about – what we’re look at is privacy not in a blanket sense, but the difference between identification, identification you need to make to be a legitimate petition signer on or offline and the more nebulous issues of about being able to have a conversation about the particular action you’re organizing, without being snooped on and without that information being given to authorities who might want to pursue you because you’re an activist and activists do bad things.

Could I just remind you that in 2011 there were huge riots in the City of London. These weren’t activists, these were rioters. And that is important on how Governments and law enforcement officers respond. In some parts of the world riotists see themselves as activists. The privacy issues became clear in London when the authorities wanted to close down or access the instant messaging services that the rioters were using. And the answer was okay, they may be rioters, but they still have rights.

Not necessarily rioters.

Sir, you’ve been up twice.

>> AUDIENCE: I have a comment.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: What is the comment on?

>> AUDIENCE: It is a particular – I’m Carsten Schiefner, with the DENIC registry DE. My question goes to Rabea. You mentioned one thing that was crowd sourcing for legislation. And I thought this is kind of interesting in a sense that currently we have like the deep pocket companies in Brussels and also where lobbying legislation, just to some extent. And I just wonder whether crowd sourcing legislation has been done already and where the first experience is.

So that would have been my question, off topic in terms of privacy of course. But –

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: But on topic in terms of activism?

>> AUDIENCE: Yes.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Rabea?

>> RABEA WILLERS: There was already an experiment with crowd source legislation in Finland. It was about a new law on off-road trafficking. And they set up an online platform and citizens could register and participate in drafting the actual law. The ministry was involved in the whole process. And later on, after the law had been drafted, it was passed on to the ministry and I think it’s still in the process of adoption. But so far the whole process was quite successful because it was not only about voting, but there was also a lot of deliberation on the law – on the new law going on on this platform. And so it also kind of – it didn’t only increase the transparency of the process and the participation, but also the knowledge of the citizens on the situation, on off-road trafficking in this particular example, in Finland. So yeah, it’s happening.

>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. Another question is: Is there any initiative already going on to also just not doing or to do it just not – not just on the national level, like in Finland, but also on the super national level, like, yeah, in Brussels, for example, on a EU level? Have you any knowledge about this one?

>> RABEA WILLERS: To my knowledge, there is nothing like that going on, that a law is really crowd sourced. I know that the – that the European Union publishes its laws, of course. But there is not really too much active participation going on, as to my knowledge.

>> AUDIENCE: Okay.

>> RABEA WILLERS: Yeah.

>> AUDIENCE: Thanks.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: This brings up an element that we may need to consider. If privacy is a form of activism, which I think is an important part for our panel, so privacy issueS, a means by which and around which younger people are mobilizing, because they see these issues in specific wayS, for instance, crowd sourcing legislation in order to make it more open, more transparent. So to counter the behind closed doors approach to legislation. So that is one example.

What about privacy as a source of the activism yourself? That might be counter intuitive. Do you want to comment on that?

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: I think there are a lot of examples about privacy advocates fighting. Especially now, there are many options. We have the campaign that my organisation, with many others around the world, in the United States organised, which was named “The day we fight back.” In the “Day we fight back” we have two actions. One at the United States level, which we’re asking individuals to call the legislators, asking them to make some meaningful reforms on the surveillance, the surveillance laws. But then we had International action where we were asking them to sign on the principles. We got 350,000 signatures and more than 400 NGOs supporting that effort.

And where it was just a petition and it’s not like a concrete action, like calling legislators, like in the United States they have to pick up the phone. So it was still a good way of doing advocacy, because when you go to venues, whether the United Nations or other places, you can present the principles and all the support that they have from around the world, which is – it’s important for policy advocates.

So there are different ways, and that was a privacy action.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay.

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: There have been more recently than that, I don’t know if everyone was familiar, but on June 5 we were also – and this was addressed, and they were mainly trying to take back privacy by encouraging people to use encryption or similar tools that promote privacy. But also asking companies to try to use or implement encryption in their products.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thanks. Anya, you had a comment?

>> ANYA ORLOVA: I was following the campaign. It’s not only in the U.S., it’s global. And this is helpful for everybody to install various tools to protect their privacy.

And coming back to Europe, I wanted to mention the campaign with promise. It was a campaign done by EDR, I, and other university organisations during the European Parliament elections, where basically MMPs or people who were trying to become an MP to go to the Parliament. You could just see who you could vote for and who is promising to protect your privacy. And then you could claim, if this person gets elected, then you can claim and track if he or she is really fulfilling their promises.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: How would you track that?

>> ANYA ORLOVA: It’s a digital tool, I think. You can track it online and there is a certain procedure. I wouldn’t go into details. Thank you.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay. But that raises interesting issues in my mind, I’m not sure about anybody else. But we have a remote participant to wants to make a comment.

>> MODERATOR: We have a question from a remote participant. What is the difference between online and offline activism and why do we see online activism as less valuable?

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: I think the lines are blurry. I wouldn’t make that distinction. Like we were organizing the – a big rally in the United States against NSA. And we were going all to DC to protest on the streets, traditional activism. But sometimes we are just using tools, like the Internet, to organise ourselves. And I don’t see it as something, how should you use the word –

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Contradiction. You see them as complementary.

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: Yes. And it’s a way to educate the public to get our message. The hard part is how do we explain these complex topics that the lawyers understand and how do we make it easy to understand so that my mother or father can understand what I’m talking about? And when we get that to the – get the message to that level, then that’s when the campaign starts to grow.

>> PAULA ROTH: Online – why we see online activism as less valuable, clicking is much easier. There is variety in our activism and some is easy to do. When stuff is easy to do, we tend to put less value in it. So I think that is the reason. And right now it’s, as we – as Anya said, it’s a really blurry difference because we normally use online tools when we want people to do activism, we use social media, meaning that it’s part of an online activism as well.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Could I ask about the tools? Some of the tools are commercial proprietary software tools which of course we know are also the object of certain discussions about how they retain and use our data. As activists, do we have a duty to consider the sorts of tools and software, whether they be free and open? Source. Or are we driven into the one that most people use? Is it possible to make that choice? And if it is possible, how to make that choice?

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: It’s a hard one. On one hand we prefer open services to protect our privacy. And also for freedom of choice, as you said. But for other times, we are realistic and we want to reach out to the population who is not familiar with our talking points. So how do we reach to them?

For instance, in developing countries, they are mostly on Facebook. And I don’t like Facebook personally, but well they are there and we have to reach out to them. And people use Twitter. So we have to, too. But they also read the media, so we also should not forget that media is powerful. We have to think how can we get our campaign to go to the traditional media. We should not forget traditional tools. Like writing of Ads. It always depends on the context, what you are going to be using, which tool you will be using.

>> ANYA ORLOVA: Well, I think that maybe it should be the other way around. Maybe we shouldn’t be afraid of Facebook as a proprietary or corporate tool. Maybe we should change the laws so that we can put anything on Facebook and not be afraid that something might be removed. Or whatever I put on Facebook is becoming the property of Facebook.

Because it will always be there, there will always be tools used by the masses. And it will always be difficult, even though I think we should raise attention and educate young people and old people about open source tools and various technologies, but still, I think it should be more – I think we should have more power as users.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: We have one question from the floor and I want to check that the remote participant is happy.

Rabea?

>> RABEA WILLERS: Regarding the e-Petition platforms like change.org or AVAS, we have to consider that there is a business model behind that and that we critically reflect on that as well.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Is the remote participant okay with that or do we have anything further to add? Go ahead, please just say your name for the purpose of the record.

>> AUDIENCE: Martin. I’m here with the New Media Summer School, and I wanted to just refer to one of the statements that our participants came up with, which was that if you are refusing to share data on the social media sites, you are also withdrawing yourself from the social industry, which is the Internet, which is all the private connections that you have. And I think that is more true for activists, because you have to rely if you want to reach out to people.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you. Any other comments from the floor?

>> AUDIENCE: So I think it’s even more true for activists that they rely on the tools and they have to use the tools if they really want to create the outreach. And I was talking earlier talking to Rabea and she pointed out the European Citizens Initiative Platform. And there, I’m quite confused about the data that you have to hand in. Because unlike all these offline petitions that you could have to sign, the European Citizens Initiative Platform asks for a lot of personal data to make sure that you have this one person, one vote, principle in short. And it seems like an incredible invasion of privacy by the European Union in order to justify participation.

And I wanted to know about –

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: That’s a very concrete example we can all identify with. It seems like an endless request for data.

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: I have one comment there. So I think in the campaigning, if we talk about a privacy policy, that’s something that we care a lot in my foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, so we have a policy that we don’t share the data with others. But you have to look to other privacy policies, that if they will treat your data with respect. And that’s an issue for us to have a strong privacy policy. But it’s still doing campaigns.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Rabea, I think you had a response?

>> RABEA WILLERS: Yes, about the European Citizens Initiative, I completely agree with you. And I also think that the threshold of signatures is too high. Because it’s quite difficult to get that many signatures, especially for normal citizens. Because you really have to be backed by a big organisation that is able to mobilize that many people to really gather all the signatures.

And also, yes, the kind of – it kind of creates a new inequality in maybe, yeah, participation.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay. Too high a threshold. We had something from remote participation and then an audience member.

>> MODERATOR: The comments are coming from Twitter. One comment is about that users shouldn’t have to think about things like encryption software and should the things be done automatically. And the question is, “Is Twitter activism ’Real activism’?”

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Does your comment relate to that question or can you wait a minute? Just stay cool.

The authenticity question, it keeps coming back. Is Twitter activism real? Any responses from our esteemed panelists? Is it real?

>> PAULA ROTH: It is indeed real. We have seen lots of hashtags on Twitter that actually resulted in change, or at least – maybe not always in, like, laws and these sorts of issues, but where people stand up and help each other. Like where people support each another that are maybe appreciated with the pride movement. We have seen people being, what is the word for it? Abused and these sorts of things. And they find each other.

And that’s one of the problems with the Internet, you can do this, you can live almost anywhere and be part of a minority and you can still find people in the same situation and help each other.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I wonder if the remote is person can answer what is real activism?

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: I think a successful campaign, whether that is a real campaign, I mean, that mobilizes masses, people call their Congressmen and they change the votes of the Bill. It was not approved. And one of the issues is if you have mobilized a lot of population, and those are votes. So if you mobilize the message and you figure out who is for or against your digital rights, well those are people who will vote in the next election. So that’s a powerful tool, too.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I think that is thinking that only Twitter is enough. You are talking about on the street demonstrations, about phoning Congress representatives and social media.

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: We use the Internet to call Congress. So it’s a mix.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Two people waiting. We might need to shift gear. Anymore comments from the panel on that particular thread?

>> Well, about Twitter in general, I think if it wasn’t real, then there wouldn’t be a case of Turkey, for example. I think that’s a very strong statement. If it wasn’t working as a platform for activism or for spreading information for sharing and connecting, then it wouldn’t be bent.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you very much.

Let’s move to the next audience member. Please announce who you are. It won’t be kept in the data base, just for the record.

>> AUDIENCE: Malita Chocot, from the New Media Summer School. I want to ask something about online and offline activism, again. If you do offline activism and you go to the streets, you reach people who never heard about this topic, for example. But if you do online activism, how can we be sure that we reach people that are not in our field? That we are not sensiblizing the people again and again, but to reach like other people?

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I’m just wondering, just remember that question, could we have the second question just to bunch them together because of time, and then we will respond to both perhaps.

>> AUDIENCE: Let me respectfully disagree with you, Paula. So you said that the Twitter and Facebook activism is always real activism. I don’t agree with you. And my question is, where is the line between slactivism and real activism, whether it’s digital or not?

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Bigger question, what is real and effective activism in any format? Remote participants and then we will see what the panel has to say.

>> MODERATOR: We have a question from an individual participant from France. He asks everybody in the panel, do you believe in equality of right to privacy, irrespective of the nationality of the person? Do your own countries make such discriminations in their surveillance laws?

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Let’s hear to that particular question. Let’s turn to the response about real, not real slactivism/activism.

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: The example of the “Day We Fight Back,” it was a petition and you have to sign the 13 necessary and proportionate principles. It was a toolkit of how to apply human rights law. And we got 350,000 signatures. It could die there and you will see it as just people signing a petition. But it did not end there. Once we finished the petition, the advocates who are below the petition will bring the petition in front of the Government. And it would be Governments from different countries saying we cannot ignore this toolkit because 400 NGOs were asking for that and we cannot just go to dialogues or places and be ignored. It’s not that it will die, you mobilize and you use whatever you obtain later.

>> PAULA ROTH: I would argue that slactivism is about raising awareness. And bringing more people to discuss an issue should be counted as activism. So clicking a link could be activism. Because you’re one of the 300 persons or 3,000. And you’re one of all these persons that will help these organisations do this. So that is a statement as well.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: We are hearing that this is a – where is the audience member who disagrees, the one who said she didn’t agree with – that’s right. Sorry. What is your name again? Could you just tell us why you still think that this is an issue?

>> AUDIENCE: Hi. Yes. I’m Anna, by the way. So yeah, why I think digital activism is sometimes slactivism. Yes, I can be informed that, for example, in China, someone is killing animals. And I got once – there was only one petition that I signed in my life. And it was like against killing animals and torturing animals. Okay, in China, they are torturing animals. So... I mean, what is the result? And I signed that petition.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Any response to that? Anya?

>> ANYA ORLOVA: Well, I think it doesn’t really matter, if you know the cause you’re fighting for. If you want to protect human rights, be it online or offline, if you want to protect the rights of animals, or if I want to protect the rights of animals, I would support it anywhere in the world. And it’s your personal choice if you don’t want to sign that petition, even if it’s online. So I don’t see the difference.

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: I see it different again, and it’s a combination of both. Depending on how you sign it, there may be many petitions, but usually you sign it because there is a serious organisation behind that petition who might be doing advocacy, litigation, or who need support to push forward in the forums. So it depends who is behind the petition and what the petition is doing. Of course, you can move for the petition based, which is not the best way to engage. Sometimes you need it for policy, but it’s not enough. Now with the Internet, you can engage them to do actions.

For instance, for us, when we mobilize Internet users to call their Congressmen, it’s a very powerful tool and it’s more efficient than just “sign the petition.” It’s like people want to do something and we have to give them something to do. And so we are all the time thinking on that.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: We have ten more minutes. I’ll ask the people to briefly put their questions to us so the panel can respond hopefully in a clustered way, just for time purposes. First identify yourself.

>> AUDIENCE: Hina Banding. The term came to my mind, and I wonder if you know about it, in systems scientists there is also a group bubble and a clan bubble. So they call it groupsing and cleansing. So if we are not aware of the meaning of what other people say, so it’s difficult. Are you aware of some deliberation approaches to check the meanings? So when you think you know and you don’t, you get into trouble. I can post links, but I really want to make sure that you are aware that just voting is not enough. You have to be informed.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Just voting is not enough. Okay. We do need to be informed.

And the second, keep that in mind.

>> Yes, I’m a spokesman for the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

What about the notion of buying clicks? Buying friends on Facebook? How do we know that you actually have actual signatures for some petition, whether you’re a corporation or an individual movement. Isn’t that a problem? That’s my basic question.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: These are important questions. Last but not least?

>> AUDIENCE: I just have a comment.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Identify yourself.

>> AUDIENCE: I’m Els Van Campenhout from the New Media Summer School. I’m an animal activist and we reach a lot of people through clicktivism. We have reached thousands of people in just a few months’ time, and we have been saving thousands of hens from being slaughtered and from people trying to contact us through social media, just by Facebook. So I think it’s a very good way.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: One example of how far it actually does make a difference. And two questions. Respond anyway as you wish, panel, because this is your last round more or less.

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: Okay. I’m going to reply. My organisation does a lot of political activism in the United States. So many Congressmen tried to undermine our work by saying exactly what you are saying. Now they are saying that people in the basement are doing clicks on Twitter. What we do is now we use new tools. We developed widgets in the Federal campaign and we fought back. Everybody puts the widgets in the websites. You saw a lot of websites with widgets. That’s a way of using digital tools, but this is a way of saying don’t forget. Because there are so many websites, people are involved.

Twitter. You know when they are bored or when it’s every other person. So you sign the petition and then you tweak something. So it’s ways to show the Government that it’s not just freaks in the basement but it’s actually mobilizing the masses.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Maybe it’s a false dilemma. Any other responses? Anya? Paula? No.

The question from the audience was to do with, did you know – do you actually consider, do you go back to your responses, to your campaigns, and consider what people are actually talking about in terms of substantive? Or are you simply gathering signatures? That was the question, really. Do you check that people are actually mobilizing around the same issue? And is that important to know?

Paula?

>> PAULA ROTH: Yes, of course. You have to check. Because you want it to go viral. You want it everywhere. And as with the case of just buying, they have a problem. They won’t retweet or spread it on. Passing it on is what it’s about. You can’t have one person buying 150,000 tweets saying we managed to get this many on the petition because then it won’t grow a movement out of that. If you get people to retweet it you can have people talking about it on the streets. So I think it makes a big difference.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: The sort of media that we’re using to mobilize, educate and organise are, in fact, now simply part of our landscape.

So Rabea?

>> RABEA WILLERS: Yes, but on another note, because I think the very first question of this round was important about the digital divide. That we kind of, yes, mobilize the people that are already politically engaged offline. And it’s like very often it’s those people who are also active online. And I think that’s really a problem. Like how do we mobilize also diverse people with different educational backgrounds? So I think here, also, media literacy plays an important role. And I think that there should also be a bigger emphasis on this.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: And if I could remind you about the point of the traditional media. Printed media. The old fashioned stuff like television and newspaper, that in fact Katitza are reminding us that these are places where you do have other audiences.

But we have another comment from the remote participation? Isn’t it great they are all participating remotely? Doesn’t that prove our point?

>> MODERATOR: We have another question from France. Do you believe it is consistent with human rights for national law to give different privacy rights to people solely according to nationality? Or, in other words, do you believe in equality of the right to privacy, irrespective of the nationality of a person?

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I think it’s a very important question to end on and I’d like to start with the young panelists – start with Katitza to answer.

>> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: I would say that the national human rights law provides protection for everyone, regardless of nationality. And so this reaches the International human rights law.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: We should all be protected regardless of our nationality.

Anya?

>> ANYA ORLOVA: I’ll just add that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides protection for privacy and therefore we should not divide by nationality. I think we are all equal and we are all equally eligible to have a right to privacy and be protected.

>> RABEA WILLERS: Yes, I wanted to say the same thing.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Paula, you get the last word. She is just officially our youngest participant. So does that matter?

>> PAULA ROTH: I don’t think so. There is nothing to add.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay. I think we have finished on time. In fact, ahead of schedule.

I’d like to thank our fabulous panelists for being so vibrant and visionary, and thank the audience and thank our remote participants.

(Applause)

Q&A

Q1: How has activism changed, or not, in an internet embedded area for action?

Anya: Digitals tools are very supportive. Digital tools gives you bigger access to all necessary things you need for organizing an action.

Q2: What’s the difference between digital activism and activism?

Difference between digital activism and activism is that with digital tools it’s easier to mobilise people in a shorter time frame. Internet has made it possible to create new innovative tools for connecting citizens to politicians. For instance - crowdsourcing for drafting bills/initiatives. Digital activism might be a better option if you want to organize a big demonstration. Digital activism does not only put privacy on the political agenda but it’s also privacy of digital activism is protected. This movement of digital activism can grow.

Q3: What about Slacktivism?

Q4: What specific issues/concerns of privacy are we looking for? Authorities know who you are anyway.

A: When you are activist you are giving away your privacy. But that doesn’t mean that you have not to protect your privacy/anonymity. However, tools like “Tor” can be used by activists to protect yourself from prosecution. Only because you want to change it doesn’t mean that you have to become a public figure. Everything that we do offline is the same as doing online. Therefore, legislation has to protect you in any case. Same rules should apply for both areas.

Q5: Is there any legislation on crowdsourcing?

A: There is an attempt of this in Finland and the Ministry is involved too. Law has been drafted and passed to ministry, it’s still in the process of adoption.

Q6: Any legislation on that at EU level?

A: No.

Q7: Is privacy a form of activism?

A:

Q8: How can we make that my previous generation can understand what we are talking about?

Q9: What about Slacktivism that is putting less value on digital activism is the majority of our activism slacktivism?

Q10: Which digital tools are activists using the most? Are there choices or only one we tend to use the most?

A: Different, but Twitter and Facebook is dominating. However, media or how we call it printed/traditional media is also powerful. Therefore we shouldn’t forget the traditional media as a tool of activism.

A: maybe we shouldn’t be afraid of facebook and just change the rules. Maybe facebook won't belong to facebook and it will be everyones.

Q11: Is twitter activism real? Where is the line between slacktivism and clicktivism and real activism (both - digital and non-digital)?

A: Twitter activism is indeed real. People support each other when they are abused/bullied because you can find someone like you and help each other.

A: About slacktivism. We (Katizia) get a lot of signatures on one (of our) petition. Government should not ignore that fact. Such digital activism can indeed mobilize people for making change.

A: Signing petitions and other digital activisms are a good way for raising awareness. Even clicking a link is informing you.

Q12: Shape the meaning. I can send someone some links but how can I really want to make sure that you’ve been informed?

Q13: What about buying clicks, buying friends on internet? How can we make sure that they are real?

Q14: What if we are engaging only those who are already active offline. How do we engage those who are from different social group/backgrounds?

Outcomes

EuroDIG Youth Panel Manifesto (in progress)

Mailing list

youth-working-group (add) collaboratory.de

Pictures from working group

Link

Session tags

Privacy, Digital Activism, Youth

Session twitter hashtag

Hashtag: #IGactivism

Session progress

The youth working group ran a survey among all participating individuals and organizations to narrow down the most popular topics for a session. Results of the survey. The youth working group has set a participation tool called Ypart to discuss easily with others about session subject and format. [1]

A mailing list with the most active people on the ypart was set up to finalize the session outline. The drafting progress is handled collaboratively on a pad.