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

Youth working group

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

Session title: Digital Activism and Privacy - quick fix or long term involvement?

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) 
*Alexa O'Brian - tbc

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.

Live stream / remote participation: Link Click here to participate remotely

Final report from working group: PDF (approx. 2 weeks after event)

Mailing List:

youth-working-group (add) collaboratory.de

Pictures from working group: Link

Session tags: Privacy, Digital Activism, Youth

Session twitter 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.