Global Voices Summit 2017

Around the world, community organizers, activists and civic journalists are using video and communication technologies for engagement, action and change-making. The Video4Change network (https://v4c.org) is a consortium of organisations catalyzing the use of video and communications technologies for human rights, social justice and environmental change. Members include organisations based in Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe and North America.

We will draw on the range of experiences within the network to share critical experiences of collaboration and community-driven leadership on video, how video creates impact and both existing and emerging challenges and solutions. We hope to spark a discussion how the V4C
network and the Global Voices network can best learn from and collaborate with each other. Members of the V4C Network will go on to lead a series of workshops focused on video during Day 1 in the Video4Change Tent.

When open internet advocates criticized Facebook's "Free Basics" program, which allows mobile users to access a limited set of apps and websites free of charge, CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded by arguing that "some internet is better than none."

This roundtable discussion will exmaine the various implications of this argument for the open web and its users, and also consider the different ways in which people gain only "some" access to the internet around the world.

Across Asia, countries with different dominant religious practice are experiencing increasing religious nationalism. Individuals and groups who publicly identify with other religious and secular identities have been threatened and attacked with increasing frequency. What vectors of online organization contribute to this phenomenon? What patterns are evident across the region? We invite voices from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, and elsewhere in a discussion to understand, explore counter-narratives and identify strategies for staying safe in these uncertain environments.

Fake news, propaganda, and other misinformation/disinformation efforts have started crossing borders in disturbing ways. Are facts submitted to cultural relativism? How can we understand and reply globally to the emotional power of memes /images and online rumours from one culture to the next? Are global efforts to counter this even possible or helpful?

Our panelists discuss these questions from recent experiences both on the transnational level -- through the CrossCheck France and CredibilityCoalition.org projects -- as well as within complicated local contexts of Sri Lankan Wikipedia articles and news across Nepal around its fledgling Constitution.  They will invite the audience for their insights as well.

Open web movements promote the idea that anyone can contribute to and develop knowledge to be used and shared by a global commons. What happens when traditional indigenous groups engage with this model? Can thoughts, language, customs and ideas rooted in a specific context, history and culture be embedded in a commons where truly anyone can contribute or appropriate those things?

As reporting freely has become increasingly risky inside countries, groups of immigrants and expats have become strong voices of free expression, critical thinking and context, not just for the world but also people inside their countries. In this session, we’ll find out the challenges of reporting from the outside and we’ll discuss what bloggers and activists should be prepared for when they start reporting from the outside.

How do state-sponsored or state-organized groups of trolls work? What motivates people to participate in these groups?

This session will feature comments from researchers around the world who are examining this phenomenon and invite all participants to brainstorm strategies that journalists, activists and other online voices can use to stay strong in the face of these groups.

For years women around the world have used online tools in powerful ways to demand justice, organize for change, and reclaim their own stories. This roundtable will discuss the challenges women’s movements have faced trying to create safe spaces for a feminist internet and give inspiration to women who want to leverage digital media to take on patriarchy, violence against women and structural inequality in their communities.