DigiActive.org

Tactic: Mapping Xenophobic Attacks in South Africa

Description: United for Africa is a South African web site that records reports of violence sent by SMS and e-mail on a Google Earth map. It provides living testimony to the atrocities committed during the xenophobic riots of May 2008 in South Africa. United for Africa is build upon the engine of Kenyan riot-tracking site Ushahidi.

Organizer: Quirk, a web marketing agency in Cape Town is leading this charge. Quirk will act as administrators on this build, and the Ushahidi team will step away from it as soon as the build is done.

Purpose of Action: To create a visual map of human rights abuses.

Organizing Tools: SMS, Google Earth, web site

Outcome: The xenophobic riots in South Africa are still continuing.

Ease of Replication: It is rather difficult to replicate the Ushahidi map, but their authors offer help to interested activists. United for Africa is actually the second rip-off build upon the Ushahidi engine after Sokwanele from Zimbabwe. The initiators of Ushahidi are developing their project as a free and open source tool for crowdsourcing crisis information and then visualizing that on a map. They hope that they will soon be able to provide this tool for any national or international conflict. To reach that goal they are still seeking for more developers.

via White African

Tactic: Keeping demonstrators up to date using Twitter

Description: A German group used the microblogging service Twitter to inform protesters during the traditional May 1 demonstrations in Hamburg, Germany.

Organizer: The Freie Sender Kombinat (FSK), “Free Channels Conglomerate”, a Hamburg-based independent radio station.

Purpose of Action: To inform leftist protesters about the progress of both their own and a neo-nazi counter-demonstration.

Organizing Tools: Twitter, cell phones.

Outcome: About 360 people followed the FSK’s Twitter account and were subsequently informed about the ongoing of both demonstrations, but the organizers failed to study whether their broadcasting had any effect on the protesters’ behavior. Using Twitter instead of regular SMS broadcasting saved the FSK about 650 € (~1000 $) of SMS costs.

Ease of Replication: Twitter is one of the new minimalist and easy-to-use web 2.0 technologies. Updates can be received via the service’s website, RSS feed, instant messenger (XMPP / Jabber) or specialized Twitter clients.
Reporting from a demonstration via Twitter is by far easier to handle than most alternatives, i.e. live radio broadcasting, and highly cost effective. Problems could arise through a lack of phone connection or data security.

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Resource: Digital Activism for the Environment

Title: Green Global Voices: Web 2.0 Environmental Activism

Author: Juliana Rotich, editor of Green Global Voices

Published by: Reuters Blog (2008)

What is it?: A detailed post reviewing how activists are using digital tools to protect the environment. Featured tools include blogs and video, Flickr, data mashups, and mobile phones.

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Campaign: “No More Than 24!” Cabinet Ministers for Kenya

President Mwai Kibaki (l) shakes hands with Prime Minister Raila Odinga as former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan looks on. The power-sharing deal produced an expensive extended bureaucracy.

Description: In an effort to create a coalition government after the turbulent elections, President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga agreed in April to increase the Kenyan cabinet to 40 members. However, many Kenyans believed this was an unwieldy number, which only increase bureaucratic deadlock. There was a campaign to limit the cabinet to 24 members, a more reasonable figure.

Digital Activism tools: SMS, e-petition

How These Tools Are Being Used: There were two online elements of this campaign, but it is unclear whether they are connected. Mzalendo.com, “eye on the Kenyan Parliament,” promoted a campaign by Kenyans for Peace and Justice to send SMS messages to political representative urging the 24 member limit. The Mzalendo site hosts a list of 59 MP mobile phone numbers for people to use in the action. “Given the current impasse, there is still an opportunity to urge OUR elected representatives to stop being selfish and to put the nation’s interest before their personal interests,” states the site. “It adds strength to your sms if you personalize it by addressing the MP directly,” the site recommends. “e.g., ‘Mr. Saitoti, Kenyans want a lean, clean cabinet.’”

In addition to the SMS campaign there was also and online petition being promoted by the African human rights organization Fahamu, via their news service, Pambazuka News. The petition, which demands that the grand coalition government consist of no more than 24 ministers, was signed by 170 people. “As your employers we oppose the looting of our public coffers and demand that these monies go towards development of our schools, hospitals, infrastructure and post election reconstruction efforts,” reads the petition.

Outcome: Not successful. Earlier today, the cabinet met for the first time since being sworn in three weeks ago. There are 40 ministers and 52 deputy ministers in the coalition government. The cabinet is the largest in the history of post-independence Kenya and salaries alone for these new ministers will cost the Kenyan taxpayer $1.5 million a month.

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Tactic: Student “twitters” out of Egyptian jail

photos of Mohammed Maree on James’ Twitter page

Description: James Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator Mohammed Maree were arrested April 10. On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the blogging site Twitter.

Tools Used for the Action: Twitter

Outcome: Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt many of whom had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted of the arrests. (Twitter is a social-networking blog site that allows users to send status updates, or “tweets,” from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook.)

Buck sent only one message with his cell phone “Arrested”. Buck’s friends started to write regular updates on their blogs about his arrest, as they weren’t sure how long he was going to be able to communicate with them. Fortunately, he was able to continue to send updates, and his entries set off a chain of events that led to his college hiring a lawyer on his behalf.

Buck was released from prison the next day, and sent another update saying “Free.” However, his translator, Maree, was transferred to another police station, and has not been heard from since. There are conflicting reports from the Egyptian government about whether Maree was freed and his whereabouts. Buck has now started another campaign on his Twitter page as a way to find Maree.

“James’ case is particularly compelling to us because of the simplicity of his message — one word, ‘arrested’ — and the speed with which the whole scene played out,” said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. “It highlights the simplicity and value of a real-time communication network that follows you wherever you go.”

Campaign: “What would you like a free Zimbabwe to look like?”

Description of Campaign: The outcome of the recent presidential election has still not been announced and while President Robert Mugabe is campaigning in expectation of a run-off election, opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai is asking for international assistance in pressuring Mugabe to step down (source: AP). In this time of political uncertainty, civil society community site Kubatana.net is running a e-mail and SMS campaign to engage ordinary Zimbabweans in their country’s political future.

Digital Activism Tools: e-mail, blog, FrontlineSMS, mobile phones

How These Tools Are Being Used: Kubatana sent out a text message to their mobile contact list:

Kubatana! No senate results as at 5.20 pm. What changes do YOU want in a free Zim? Lets inspire each other. Want to know what others say? SMS us your email addr

They then collected responses via e-mail and FrontlineSMS, a text-messaging hub for grassroots NGOs. The collected responses which were then distributed via an electronic newsletter and on the Kubatana Community Blog. After the election, Kubatana hopes to produce a booklet with a page on some of these ideas and some editorial commentary on the campaign, as well as a cartoon or even a set of postcards carrying the most “unique, original and practical ideas”.

examples of the campaign’s SMS responses after the jump…

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Tactic: Flash Drive Activism in Cuba

Description: In Cuba, where Internet use is strictly curtailed (there is only one legal cybercafé in Old Havana and home connections are illegal), activists spread digital content from computer to computer using flash drives.  This creative work-around demonstrates that digital activism is possible even in places where the traditional means of such activism - the Internet - is unavailable.

Organizer: This activity centers around the University of Information Sciences, the top computer science school.

Purpose of Action: To use computers to share politically- sensitive digital video and content despite the inability to connect to the Internet.

Organizing Tools: the humble (yet mighty) flash drive, digital cell phone video.

Outcome: Even the lack of Internet connections has not stopped digital activists in Cuba.

Ease of Replication: Flash drives are increasingly affordable and easy to use and, in the absence on an Internet connection (or in the presence of heavy filtering and surveillance) they are a practical alternative way to share digital content.

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Tool: SMS

Tool Description: SMS (short message service) is the technical name for text messaging - notes sent between mobile phone users. Think of it as e-mail for mobile phones.

Activist Application: There are so many activist applications for SMS that we’ve put most of them after the jump. Here they are in brief: organize a protest in minutes, evade censorship by using SMS for communication that you cannot speak or e-mail (only true is some countries), election monitoring, activist security (”If I don’t text you every 2 hours, it means something is wrong), citizen journalism, and more to come….

Ease of Use: Easy. All mobile phones now have SMS built in. Just choose a phone number to send the message to, type the message, and press send. Pricing varies by country and carrier.

thousands of phones, thousands of uses for activists

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Tool: Twitter

Tool Description: Twitter is social network where people update their friends about their actions in real-time via SMS. People can read your SMS posts online.
Activist Application: Kenyan blogger AfroMusing used her Twitter channel to send news updates on the unstable situation in the country following the recent elections. The Twitter channel KenyaNews has been set up specifically to update people on the latest news out of Kenya.
Ease of Use: Easy. Just sign up for a Twitter account here and inform your friends of your Twitter channel.

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Digitally Active Org: The Sex Workers Project

Web site: www.sexworkersproject.org
What was it?: The Sex Workers Project, based in New York, has used technology in its mission to defend the rights of sex workers around the world. One of their goals is to remove a rule prohibiting organizations that work with prostitutes from receiving money from the PEPFAR AIDS prevention fund and the federal development agency USAID.
Where is it?: New York, USA
Tools: podcasts, digital video, blog, listservs, SMS

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