DigiActive.org

Resources for Online Youth Activism

Description:It is said that the future of the world is left in the hands of the youth. More than ever, young people are using the Internet as a tool for advancing social change. Recently, a coalition of youth-oriented nonprofits got together and demanded that they have had enough of extremism worldwide, and are now putting those who use violence as a method on notice.

Digital Tools Being Used: Facebook, blogs, video, wikis

What Are They Doing: Pioneering leaders of youth movements from around the world, and other prominent attendees, met for the first time at the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit in New York City last week to share and discuss how to change the world by building powerful grassroots movements. Their website features videos from how to launch a human rights blog to how to practice passive resistance. They are currently using their Facebook group to organize a worldwide march January 17, 2009 to protest the recent Mumbai terrorists attacks and all other forms of extremism.

German Activists Collaborating on Writing Draft Bill Online

Description: Germany’s “Telemediengesetz” is seen as inadequate by many critics. The law is meant to regulate so called information and communication services, mostly affecting the internet. Hence its name: “Telemedien” is a neologism which was made up combining the former descriptions “Teledienste” (meaning one-to-one communication services) and “Mediendienste” (meaning one-to-many communication services). Though it only became effective in March 2007 it has since been criticized by experts as inadequate. As the Bundestag discussed amendments brought in by the three oppositional parties, German bloggers have started an online project to lobby for significant and useful changes on the bill.

Tools Being Used: Blogs, Wiki, Listserv

What Are They Doing: Some bloggers proposed to write a draft for the new bill together. The draft is thought to include all the proposals which can be heard from experts since years but have always been ignored by the government. The project is open for participation.
The bloggers set up a provisional wiki where the draft will be developed jointly much in the way of a Wikipedia article. They then announced it on netzpolitik.org, an important blog which is known for having criticized the Telemediengesetz before, in order to find more people interested in participating in the project.

In their first step, the bloggers started discussing the foundations for their project, including the question whether a wiki is the best solution for their intention. They subsequently set up a mailing list as a means to discuss the project.

The next step after finishing the foundations of the project will be to work out a draft which can be proposed to the Bundestag.

Who is organizing the action? The wiki was set up by the niche bloggers of Telemedicus in cooperation with Germany’s most important blog on net politics, award-winning netzpolitik.org.

Campaign: Free Rice

Description: Agricultural statistics are difficult to attain and must always be reviewed with care. However according to the current FAO statistics, the Least Developed Countries (49 of the worlds poorest countries) produce approximately 10% of the worlds food, whilst Europe and the US produce between 20-30% each.

And so in a world of adequate food supply, food shortage is still a daily reality. About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes (according to the United Nations). This is one person every three and a half seconds.

Poverty.com in partnership with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has started an innovative new campaign that takes one small but effective step to address this gap.

Tools: facebook, on-line petitions, blogs, wiki

How these tools are being used: The Free Rice campaign challenges the user with a simple game. Subjects include Art, Chemistry, English, Geography, Languages and Maths For every right answer 20 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). The WFP distributes the rice globally based on the greatest need and the website includes a video report on how the rice is distributed.

As the game progresses a tally of the total donation is maintained on the right of the page. Banners at the bottom highlight details of donors to the program.

The program has been running since October 2007 and over 45 billion grains have been donated so far. This is equivalent to feeding 2.5 million people. (The WFP estimates that it takes 400 grams of rice to provide a person two meals a day. With about 48 grains of rice in a gram, this is equivalent to 19,200 grains).

The campaign has utilized a marketing campaign that encompasses wikipedia, facebook (the group has over 100,000 members), snopes, youtube and blogs.

What you can do:

1. Play the game
2. Pass the word about the campaign (banners and logos are available on the website)
3. Add your name to the One Campaign
4. Find out about how you can involve your community

Tactic: European net freedom lobbyists unite to fight new internet bill

Description: The Telecoms Package is a proposal from the EU Commission to reform the EU’s regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services with a view to completing the internal market for electronic communications. It is seen by net freedom activists as a serious threat. Especially some of the amendments brought in related to intellectual property rights would lead to monitoring and blocking of websites and peer-to-peer exchanges by ISPs, permitting ISPs to sanction users by suspending or terminating internet access.
The proposal was due to be voted on by the responsible committees on July 7, followed by the vote of the European parliament as a whole on September 2. Not long before the committees’ votes hundreds of amendments to the package made it impossible to overlook it, which bore the huge risk that members of the parliament would vote for a bill the consequences of which they could not foresee.

Tools Being Used: Blogs, Wiki

How These Tools Are Being Used: On July 1, netzpolitik.org from Germany, La Quadrature du Net from France and the British Open Rights Group published a press release on their respective blogs announcing their actions to stop the Telecoms Package or have it changed in a way that it would not inflict net freedom any longer.
The involved groups subsequently organized the action mainly using a wiki, frequently posting updates on their respective blogs or websites to communicate the progress to the public.

What Are They Doing: Especially before July 7, the work mainly consisted of mobilizing an opposition by contacting members of the European parliament and their respective assistants to inform them about the dangers of the Telecoms Package and to convince them to drop or reject the amendments related to intellectual property rights. The organizations’ tactic included inviting volunteers via their open wiki – and “advertising” that trough blogs – to participate in this effort, which made a broad action possible.

Outcome: The action was successfully publicized in many blogs and subsequently turned massive (mainstream) media attention on the Telecoms Package. As an outcome, many – but not all – amendments inflicting or endangering net freedom were dropped by the committees. Additionally, the members of the parliament decided to postpone their own vote for three further weeks. That means, the decision will now be made between September 22 and 25. Read more »

Campaign: A Protest Movement Against Scientology

Description of Campaign: An online community called Anonymous draws other online users into a global campaign against the controversial religion Scientology. (Note: This post is not a criticism of Scientology, merely a study of the digital means used by its critics,)

Digital Activism Tools: Youtube, Digg (social bookmarking), wikis, online forums

How These Tools are Being Used: After announcing their campaign against Scientology via an ominous YouTube video on January 21st (see below), a group of nameless hackers used open forums like the alternative news site Digg to spread their message of protest against what they see as the exploitive and untruthful practices of Scientology. Their movement is very interactive. As it is based on a wiki, new members were able to leave feedback for the original founders and the founders listened. (In particular, they cut back on the illegal harassment of Scientologists, which many would-be supporters felt was illegitimate “cyber-terrorism.”) Anonymous, whose leaders and members are unknown, experienced a great success on February 10, when 6,000 supporters participated in anti-Scientology rallies in more than 70 cities around the world.

After the break I’ll quote a long passage of excellent background and analysis from Carnegie Mellon student Dan Schultz, originally published on MediaShift Idea Lab under the title “Anonymous vs. Scientology: A Case of Digital Media.”
Read more »

Tool: Wikis

Tool Description: A wiki is a web page which users can easily edit and add content to by clicking an “edit” tab on the page.
Activist Application: Following the tumultuous elections in Kenya, a Lithuanian activist, Andrius Kulikauskas, is using his community wiki to offer help and provide information about the situation.
Ease of Use: Fairly easy. You can create a wiki for free at sites like Wikispaces.com. This page explains the basics of wiki syntax (the codes for italics, bold, links, etc.). Here is a video which explains the basics of using a wiki: