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Interview: Tonyo Cruz on Digital Activism in the Philippines

I am in the Philippines this week with fellow DigiActivist Lynn Casper to participate in a training organized by the Computer Professionals’ Union. While here I decided to interview one of the country’s most prolific digital activists – Tonyo Cruz – and ask him about digital activism in the Philippines.

Tonyo Cruz (foreground) at a recent event in Manila on digital campaigning

Mary Joyce: You are a very prolific digital activist – president of the famous mobile activism organization TXTPower, prominent blogger at tonyocruz.com, and  founder of a Filipino bloggers’ organization. How did you first become  involved in digital activism?

Tonyo Cruz: I’d like to think that I started my activism in high school. I was among the students of Manila Science High School who published an underground paper called The MaSci Times in 1991. We used the old program Printshop to design this one page newsletter that poked fun at our school principal and voiced out our complaints, among others. We just had it photocopied and came out with about a dozen issues.

Bayan, the multisectoral group I worked for in 2000-2003, was among the first people’s organizations in the Philippines to go online. Their first website was hosted in Geocities. As Bayan media officer, I introduced email, email groups and text messaging as ways of quickly and surely reaching journalists. Bayan officials later used email,
email groups and text messaging as tools for managing the organization. These tools — mobiles and the web — later proved crucial in the mass actions that led to the People Power uprising of 2001 which ousted President Estrada.

Following Estrada’s ouster, a group called Plunder Watch pressed [now President] Arroyo to prosecute Estrada. The group held a big media event for the launch of its website which contained Estrada’s accountabilities and liabilities. I was also the media officer of Plunder Watch and oversaw the management of the said website.

That same year, my friends and I gathered in Quezon City to form TXTPower. The following years, I was also involved in trying to form Indymedia Pilipinas which gave way to Indymedia in Manila and in Quezon City.

MJ:  Social networking is very big in the Philippines and Friendster is the most popular. According to their Country Sales Manager, Narciso Reyes, there are about 14 million active Filipino users on the site, which is almost 70%
of the total online population of the Philippines. Has this large user base translated into Friendster being used for digital acitivsm in the Philippines? If not, why not

TC: We will see by late this year whether Friendster will get the attention of candidates and parties, or whether voters themselves would use Friendster for their choice of candidates or for election-related causes. I do hope they do so.

MJ: Although there aren’t figures yet available, there is a growing number of Filipinos migrating from Friendster to Facebook, particularly the tech-savvy urban middle class. You recently used Facebook to organize a blogger
meet-up in opposition to President Macapagal Arroyo. Why did you choose Facebook to organize this mobilization? Which is more activist-friendly, Friendster or Facebook?

TC: Friendster has provided limited use to political activists simply because Facebook has overtaken it as the preferred social networking site of the most articulate, most dynamic and most political segment of the lower, middle and upper classes. They may be fewer than Friendster but these Facebook users are more influential. Also, there
are more activists, journalists and politicians on Facebook than on Friendster. Read more »

Open Source Movements and Iran: NedaNet

Background: In late June, following the Iranian government’s repression of public protest over the results of the 2009 elections, an ad-hoc network of internet specialists formed in support of the protesters. Fronted by open source advocate Eric S. Raymond, NedaNet, named in commemoration of the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, provides information necessary for people within Iran to anonymously reach and publish to sites government filtering would otherwise make inaccessible.

Tools: Tor, blogs, IRC, email, USB drives, phones, word-of-mouth

How these tools are being used: NedaNet members maintain documents that explore how to bypass the Iranian government’s highly sophisticated and adaptable filters and work to anticipate what they will screen next. While the group currently recommends Tor for accessing the Internet from within Iran, they are also actively considering alternatives that could take over should current methods to evade the filters suddenly be blocked. They also maintain contact with people in Iran to help them keep continued Internet access.

More “interlinking circles of collaboration” than an organization, members of NedaNet communicate through blogs, IRC chats and websites that provide forums for members to gather more information and exchange ideas. Twitter hash tags provide topics for searches that lead to those forums. The groups working together mostly remain separate for security. As open source advocates, many of the members knew of each other through that arena. In fact, Raymond was one of the originators of the movement.

In the earlier days of the protests, proxies were collected and distributed via email and phone to people within Iran to enable them to bypass the restrictions. However, once it became known that the Iranian government had started deep-packet inspection on all traffic, activists were and still are advised against setting up or using proxies. Use of a Tor client removes the need for them.

While access to the Tor Project site is usually filtered, the site has many mirrors from which the client can be downloaded. According to recent Tor Project metrics, “there were around 7800 new and returning Iranian Tor users on June 24. By ‘returning’, we mean Tor clients that were off for at least several days, so they didn’t have cached directory information.” This suggests that Tor use was widespread even before the protests began. The same report notes that “bridge usage from Iran has boosted to 950% as compared to June 1.” As users receive copies of Tor clients over email or exchange them via USB drives, this could increase.

Challenges: As an open source based group, NedaNet believes that the test of a secure solution is that it works even if how it does so is public knowledge. Consequently, new solutions are at risk of attack even as they are being built. This however, is also one of the strengths of open source solutions and internet technologies have historically been built in the field. A bigger challenge at least for users within Iran is the general lack of bandwidth which makes any internet solution more difficult. Even before the election, 256Kbit was legally the cap on bandwidth for most people in Iran, according to one researcher. Furthermore, NedaNet recognizes that Tor is only a temporary solution.

Analysis: As an unstructured organization, NedaNet has the advantage of being able to maintain a high level of security for its members. Using open source tools in the field allows their solutions to be tested even as they are built, which is important for a security product which will be fully exposed the moment it is used. However, both the decentralization and the openness make it challenging to develop and deploy new solutions quickly and efficiently while simultaneously trying to remain fairly covert. While most of the members exist outside Iran, security is a real concern.

NedaNet servers are crowd-sourced, all work is performed pro bono and they do not currently accept donations. During this crisis a lot of energy is being directed towards this effort. However, once the perceived need ebbs, it will require focus to direct such a decentralized group in order to stay ahead of the government. Considering its relationships, even if tenuous, to other anonymous and free net groups, NedaNet will be able to take advantage of work being performed on behalf of other initiatives around the world.

Using pre-existing tools means the time to launch is shortened and the team can move on to developing long term measures. However, those tools come with known risks which make them temporary at best. Developing a lasting solution requires balancing the essential non-organized nature of the group with the various needs for security, field-testing, and rapid development.

Campaign: InSTEDD’s Mekong Collaboration Program for Early Detection and Early Response

Description and Background: In 2006, Dr. Larry Brilliant won the TED Prize and called for the development of a technological system that would stop the threat of pandemics and catastrophes. Renowned for his work in the successful, worldwide eradication of smallpox, Dr. Brilliant emphasized the game-changing purpose of this system – early detection and early response.  As such, he declared his TED wish, “I wish that you would help build a global system to detect each new disease or disaster as quickly as it emerges or occurs.”  From this prize and wish emerged InSTEDD (Innovative Support To Emergency Diseases and Disasters), originally titled “International Networked System for Total Early Disease Detection.”  Shortly after TED, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google’s founders) appointed Dr. Brilliant the head of Google.org, the organization’s philanthropic arm.

With funding from Google.org, the Rockefeller Foundation, and others, InSTEDD began its social, technological mission with CEO Eric Rasmussen (a former U.S. Navy chief doctor for disaster response in the Pacific), Dr. Dennis Israelski as the Vice President of Global Health, and Eduardo Jezierski as the Vice President of Engineering.  Along with Chief Technology Office Robert Kirkpatrick, Chief Operating Officer Judith Kleinberg, and several other full-time team members, InSTEDD operates very much like a classic startup in which everyone wears many different hats (click here for bios).  In addition to the executive team, InSTEDD has over a dozen dedicated team members on the ground in their Mekong Collaboration Program (MCP).  This program focuses on rapid detection and rapid response in the Mekong Basin of Southeast Asia – Cambodia, Thailand, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Myanmar, and the Yunan province of China – and has been stationed in Phnom Penh, Cambodia since 2008. In the region, InSTEDD partners with the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Network (MBDS), a collaboration network of the six countries’ local governments and Ministries of Health that work to improve cross-border disease information sharing.  Not only does InSTEDD work closely with MBDS, but the organization also established a field-based Innovation Lab (iLab) in Phonm Penh in August 2008.  By empowering young Cambodian developers to design technological solutions based on their local expertise and understanding, InSTEDD works to maintain a creative, organic environment in which sustainable innovation can thrive.

Digital Tools Being Developed: GeoChat, Mesh4X, Evolve (tools that incorporate Twitter, RSS feeds, Facebook, SMS text messages, and so on, as applicable)

How These Tools Are Being Designed and Used: As Ed Jezierski explained to me in our Skype interview, GeoChat helps people in the field to share and report data with each other as well as with those at headquarters, amplifying the amount of information flowing between health workers; Mesh4X coordinates this information by synchronizing between various organizations’ virtual databases; Evolve functions as a place to curate the collective information and subsequently analyze it for conclusions.  For more details about InSTEDD’s approach, tools, and impact, read more after the jump.

Read more »

Interview: Dr. Awab Alvi organiser of the Long March in Pakistan

See 'n' Report coverage of the Long March: visual monitoring of information updates

The Long March in Pakistan is a case study in digital activism. The campaign utilized the full range of digital tools, from blogs to social networking and citizen journalism, through the use of old and new technologies. Yet the most interesting aspect of this campaign is not in the tools themselves, but in the breadth and depth of the digital coverage.

The campaign mixed old and familiar tools such as Twitter and Facebook, with new and customized tools. Twitter was augmented by See ‘n’ Report. Like Twitter, See ‘n’ Report collated emails but also SMS and MMS updates whilst providing a campaigners front page, compromising a geographical view, multimedia feeds, SMS feeds, twitter feeds and beautifully compiled video footage using Flowplayer (a video player for the web).

All of which was collated through CoveritLive to provide live coverage of the event. CoveritLive is a viewer that can be embedded on a blog or website to link a combination of Twitter accounts and hashtags (upto 12 twitter accounts and 6 hashtags), reader comments, multimedia and live blogs (through iPhones, Blackberries etc).

Activity was monitored through Cligs which provides analytical tools on traffic going through a site.

DigiActive interviewed one of the organizers, Dr. Awab Alvi.

Read more »

Gregory Sholette: the Dark Matter of Digital Activism

source: gregorysholette.com

Gregory Sholette is a New York-based artist, writer, and founding member of the artists’ collectives Political Art Documentation/ Distribution and REPOhistory, as well as co-editor of “The Interventionists: A Users Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life” (MassMoCA/MIT Press, 2004, 2006) with Nato Thompson.

He is currently working on a book about the political economy of the art world and his concept of creative “dark matter”, a theory which states that culture is increasingly being produced by ordinary people rather than experts and paid producers.  In this interview we delve into the implications for dark matter for digital activism, which in its own way seeks to create a new political culture through the creation of digital campaigns by grassroots activists.

Mary: In a short essay in the book A Guide to Democracy in America, you write that “ever more accessible technology for manufacturing, documenting, distributing, as well as pilfering images and information” has created a cultural landscape where “one can hardly escape an encounter with this heterogeneous production.”  You posit that, even though its content is most often apolitical (a YouTube video of a “dramatic hamster“, for instance), this production is closer in spirit to that of politically-engaged activists. What makes this massive creative output political?

Greg : Because it is generated for its own sake ––for the sake of expression, opinion, desire, even collective resistance–– such “bottom-up” cultural production embodies a potential form of opposition to the disciplinary mechanisms of the capitalist market. This may sound more than a little romantic, but its not. Generating, retooling, distributing, and recycling images, artwork, information, free software, all of this activity reveals an impulse that is directly opposite the kinds of enclosing and privatizing mechanisms necessary to capitalism from its inception.

Read more »

Campaign: ECPAT-USA, Connecting travel and tourism to the fight against child prostitution:

Campaign Description and Background: Human trafficking is a global crime against human rights. While trafficking and prostitution problems have received widespread recognition as a heinous crime, child prostitution, many activists and rights workers agree, is considered an even greater atrocity. End Child Prostitution and Trafficking is an international network of organizations and individual activists who have come together to protect the rights of children, worldwide. ECPAT carries out  “research, training, awareness raising, and policy development and advocacy.” All efforts are aimed at the protection of  the vast numbers of children who are being ‘sexually exploited.’

Digital Tools: Twitter, Facebook, Online Newsletters, Tassatag.org, TheCode.org

What Makes ECPAT innovating and effective?
ECPAT has promoted its cause and campaign on Facebook and uses this new application to promote awareness of child prostitution, human trafficking crimes, and events and note worth news. Similarly, ECPAT, like many digital campaigns, has begun using Twitter feeds. “ecpatusa” is used by the campaign to tweet on current news articles, local events, and important information regarding child trafficking and prostitution. With 115 followers, to date, it has already begun attracting attention from activists and other interested parties, however, this is one of the newer digital aspects and technologies of the campaign and remains underutilized.

TassaTag and TheCode – Connecting travel and tourism to the fight against child prostitution:
Unique to ECPAT is TassaTag.org, a website that is a direct project of ECPAT-USA. TassaTags are brightly colored, hand-woven cotton luggage tags, which “help you spot your luggage more easily while reclaiming children’s lives. It is practical, environmentally sensitive, fair trade, and with it you can make a difference” because by purchasing a TassaTag (bought only online) you become a partner in the larger ECPAT campaign against the prostitution of children. Awareness of the TassaTag logo as a “symbol against the sexual slavery and trafficking of children,” helps to raise greater recognition of the crimes of the  global, illegal, human trade. Additionally, all proceeds go directly to The Regina Center in Nongkhai, Thailand a center “which provides education and income generating skills and opportunities for women.”

While tourism may seem a far a field from the concerns of human trafficking and child slavery and prostitution, ECPAT has been a strong supporter of TheCode.com or the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism, “an industry driven responsible tourism initiative.”

What has been the impact?
ECPAT has increased its impact dramatically by joining such social networks as Twitter and Facebook. By connecting with international organizations and local campaigns throughout the world, ECPAT International has vastly increased the scope of its audience and the number of people it can help. Through online newsletter and awareness events, ECPAT is hoping to garner the support needed to mobilize Congress against child sex tourism. By raising money online, the campaign is able to garner funds in order to “train people in the travel industry to take an active role against sex tourism [and] inform the public that sex with children is against the law everywhere and if caught the person will be prosecuted and extradited to their home country, if necessary.”

a chat with Change the Web Director Joe Solomon

Note: An earlier draft of this interview was published about a week ago. This draft, which has been reviewed by Joe, is a better reflection on his opinions on the subjects presented.

Last week I had the pleasure of talking to my friend & colleague Joe Solomon, Director of the Social Actions’ Cange the Web Challenge. The Challenge asked web developers to create innovative tools to help people find and share online actions in the Social Actions database, with $10,000 in prize money on offer. (Winners were just announced!).

Joe and I had a chance to discuss the challenge’s finalists, trends, and online activism in general. Here are the highlights:

Mary: What digital activism trends did you notice in the applications that were submitted?

Joe: Well, we saw a change in what it means to create a mash-up. In an old-school mash-up you put data together and hoped people would come. As activists we want to expose data, but we also want to reach more people who will find that data. We’re concerned with outreach. We saw a number of developers pushing the boundaries of “meeting people where they are” online. A number of apps bridged ways to take action on sites and platforms we visit and use all the time, like WordPress, Twitter & Facebook, Firefox, OpenSocial, the iPhone, as well as widgets and tools that can work on any website. Also, the Sunlight Foundation had their App Contest at around the same time (they just announced their winners) and if you check out their apps you’ll see a similar trend.

Mary: I know it’s hard to single out one among the excellent finalists, but could you tell us about any projects that surprised you or that might indicate new possibilities in digital activism?

Joe: First, a disclaimer: I’m not a judge of the contest so my opinion doesn’t have an impact on the winners.  One app I like though is the “Take Action” button, literally a button a site owner can put on their site, which visitors can click to receive information on actions based on the content of that site. I like this app because it has the potential to transform any website into a platform for social change. However there are a number of other awesome apps. Really, it’s kinda crazy, we were blown away by the innovation! You can check out an overview of the 40+ apps that draw on Social Actions’s database here. Most are open-source, too!

I think we’re also at an exciting point in time where opportunities to take action online are becoming more engaging. We’re moving from signing online petitions as being one of the main e-advocacy tools of choice to inviting people to share expert advice & research, collaborate in real time, and micro-volunteer as new modes of online activism. It’s not just about the method of delivery. We need more relevant and effective online actions that lead to off-line impact. And I think as this space evolves, the apps that promote these actions will become ever-more engaging and ultimately more successful.

Mary: Other than by building new applications, what are some ways that digital activists can “change the web”?

Joe: Re-purposing the tools we’re already using like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook – and using these to promote issues and engage supporters are great ways to remix the web for change.
image source: Joe Solomon

Michael Silberman: Creating an Online Strategy

Michael Silberman (original image: NetSquared)

Today I “attended” a webinar on online strategy hosted by the New Organizing Institute.  The presenter was Michael Silberman, a partner and co-founder of EchoDitto, a communications firm founded by the techies of the Howard Dean campaign.  Below are Michael’s steps to building an online strategy.  I’ve presented his ideas, which are aimed at American non-profits, and then given commentary on how the steps relate to grassroots activists in other countries.  I’ve also added examples from international digital activism.

1)  Choose your moment:  It’s best to link the launch of a campaign to the news cycle so it is relevant.  This can be particularly challenging for activists that work on longterm issues, like the environment, public health, and or women’s rights.  It is common for these kinds of campaigns to link their actions to planned holidays like Earth Day or International Women’s Day, but smart organizations will also be attuned to the news for unforeseen opportunities and be ready to push their environmental campaign when there is news of a toxic clean-up or their women’s rights campaign when a female celebrity is the victim of domestic violence.

An excellent example of connecting an advocacy goal to the news cycle is Syria LinkedIn fail.  Social network LinkedIn had blocked its users in Syria because of a broad interpretatation of US sanctions against that country.  In order to make the block relevant, activist Jillian York created a Twitter tag #linkedinfail, which simulated the incredibly embarrassing #amazonfail story only a few days ago.  Eager not to follow in Amazon’s path, a PR representative responded to Jillian quickly (and on Twitter) and Syrians regained most of their access to the site.

2) Create an “ask”:  An “ask” is a jargon term that campaigners use to refer to the request you will make to your supporters.  While it is tempting to post a list of several actions, in Michael’s experience the most successful asks make only one request. For example, the project Postcards for Iran makes one simple ask:  send a postcard (snail mail or digital) to an Iranian political prisoner. Read more »

Digitally Active Org: The U.S. Campaign for Burma

Web site: www.uscampaignforburma.org

What is it?: The U.S. Campaign for Burma (USCB) is “a U.S.-based membership organization dedicated to empowering grassroots activists around the world to bring about an end to the military dictatorship in Burma through public education, leadership development initiatives, conferences, and advocacy campaigns at local, national and international levels.” With a small staff and smaller budget, USCB has grown its membership from a few hundred people to over 60,000 in the past three years. New media outreach was a key component in this growth, used to organize activists and raise awareness about the cause of Burma.

Tools: instant messaging, e-newsletters, blog, digital video, online social networks (Facebook, Myspace, Change.org, etc.), Ustream live video conferences, teleconferences, listservs, user-created media (photos, videos, t-shirt designs).

USCB has managed to dramatically increase their outreach by combining online with offline organizing. A coordinated YouTube campaign to launch 30 produced videos in 30 days helped increase exposure to the general public, since the spots starred Hollywood celebrities. But public reaction to the spots was mixed. Also, traditional media played a role in the successes and challenges of USCB’s outreach: with Burma often in the news this year (monks’ protest, Cyclone Nargis), more people became aware of the cause and eager to connect with USCB, but media of these events also somewhat overshadowed the organizational work of USCB. The full slideshow goes into more detail, with quotes from people at USCB.

Campaign: Mobile Phones Against War in Congo

Description: Last week a coalition of students and activists have asked mobile phone users to “Cell Out” in solidarity with the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where millions have died as a result of conflict over coltan, a rare mineral used in cell phones and other electronics.

Digital Tools Being Used: mobile phones

What Are They Doing: Friends of the Congo with the help of university students at dozens of colleges and universities in the United States and around the world had made this action as part of the “Break the Silence Week”, an effort to raise awareness among cell phone users and others about the ongoing civil war in the DRC and the role of minerals such as coltan in stoking the conflict.

In “Break the Silence Week”, you will find a lists of events in different parts of the world which you can join or support.