Digital activism

Topics

free speech, net neutrality, anonymity, internet censorship, Big Tech, cloud computing, liberation technologies, cryptography, secure communication, deep-packet inspection

Activists, initiatives, writers

• Access
• Anonymous
• Miriyam Aouragh
• Jacob Appelbaum
• Community servers
• CryptoParty
• Digitale Gesellschaft
• Roger Dingledine
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Fediverse
• FoeBuD
• Paul Garrin
• Geeks Without Bonds
• The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest
• Interferencias
• Internet and Democratic Change
• Internet Ungovernance Forum
• Birgitta Jónsdóttir
• The Julia Group
• Mathias Klang
• Christopher Kullenberg
• Andrew Lewis
• Andrew Lewman
• Liberationtech
• Carlo v. Loesch
• Rebecca MacKinnon
• Smári McCarthy
• Patrick Meier
• PublicSpaces
• Reporters Without Borders
• Eleanor Saitta
• Servers
• Aaron Swartz
• Telecomix
• Stephan Urbach
• Varia
• Fidele Vlavo
• WeRebuild
• WikiLeaks
• Hellekin O. Wolf
• Jillian C. York
• Ethan Zuckerman

Initiatives, projects, resources

• http://crypto.is
• http://panspectrocism.org/
• https://www.eff.org/issues/free-speech
• http://en.rsf.org/internet.html
• http://deeppacket.info
• https://upinternet.org/
• http://www.internews.org/globaldigitaldownload/
• http://12milesahead.org
• https://cryptoparty.org/wiki/CryptoParty
• https://cryptoanarchy.org/wiki/
• NED: Digital Activism
• Critical Infrastructure Lab, University of Amsterdam, est. 2023.
• Internet Standards Almanac, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), 2023. This almanac answers two primary questions: Which standards developing organisations (SDOs) are developing standards that have human rights implications? How do these standards impact human rights?

Events

• Whistleblowers and Vigilantes. Figures of Digital Resistance, exhibition, HMKV, Dortmund, 9 Apr-14 Aug 2016. Curated by Inke Arns and Jens Kabisch.

• Truth-Tellers: The Impact of Speaking Out, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, 25-26 Nov 2016. Part of Art & Evidence conference series by Disruption Network Lab.

• The Glass Room, New York, 29 Nov-14 Dec 2016. Exhibition organised by Mozilla and Tactical Technology Collective.

• Peer-to-Peer Web Berlin, Trust, Berlin, 10 Feb 2018; 5 May 2018. [1] [2]

• Distributed Systems, exhibition, part of Gray Area Festival, Grand Theater, San Francisco, 26 Jul-3 Aug 2018.

• Tangible Cloud, exhibition, KBK Gallery, Brussels, 3-5 Mar 2023. Toot.

• International Trans★Feminist Digital Depletion Strike, multiple locations. "On 8th of March 2023, we call for a Counter Cloud Action Day. On this day, we will try to withhold from using, feeding, or caring for The Big Tech Cloud. The strike calls for a hyperscaledown of extractive digital services, and for an abundance of collective organising. We join the long historical tail of international feminist strikes, because we understand this fight to be about labour, care, anti-racism, queer life and trans★feminist techno-politics." Convened by Anarchaserver, Constant, esc, Varia, Systerserver, TITiPI, a.o. Events. Mastodon feed, [3]. Mastodon account. Images. List. [4] [5]

Publications

• Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, Public Affairs, 2010.

• Mary Joyce (ed.), Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change, 2010.

• Reporters Without Borders, Internet Enemies, 2011.

• Index on Censorship: "The Net Effect" issue, 2011.

• Patrick Meier, "Do 'Liberation Technologies' Change the Balance of Power Between Repressive States and Civil Society?", dissertation, October 2011.

• Milton Mueller, "Technology as symbol: Is resistance to surveillance technology being misdirected?", 20 December 2011. [6]

• E. Gabriella Coleman, Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking, Princeton University Press, 2012.

• Julian Assange, et al., Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet, OR Books, New York/London, 2012.

• Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner (eds.), Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

• Rebecca MacKinnon, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, Basic Books, Jan 2012.

• Gabriella Coleman, "Our Weirdness is Free", Triple Canopy 15, 13 Jan 2012.

• James Ball, "The Guardian's Open 20: fighters for internet freedom", The Guardian, 20 Apr 2012.

• Hito Steyerl, "Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead?", e-flux 49, New York: e-flux, Nov 2013; repr. in Steyerl, Circulacionismo. Circulationism, 2014, pp 28-39.
  • "Demasiado mundo: ¿murió el internet?", trans. Jaime Soler Frost, in Steyerl, Circulacionismo. Circulationism, 2014, pp 14-27. (Spanish)

• Feminist Principles of the Internet, Aug 2014 ff. Facilitated by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). Version 0.1 (2014).

• Finn Brunton, Helen Nissenbaum, Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest, MIT Press, 2015.

• Fibreculture 26: "Entanglements – Activism and Technology", eds. Pip Shea, Tanya Notley, Jean Burgess, and Su Ballard, Dec 2015.

• Miriyam Aouragh, Seda Gürses, Jara Rocha, Femke Snelting, "Let’s First Get Things Done! On Division of Labour and Techno-political Practices of Delegation in Times of Crisis", Fibreculture 26: "Entanglements – Activism and Technology", Dec 2015.

• Journal of Peer Production 9: "Alternative Internets", eds. Félix Tréguer, Panayotis Antoniadis and Johan Söderberg, Sep 2016.

• The Oracle for Transfeminist Technologies, Rio de Janeiro, November 2017 ff. A collaboration between Coding Rights and the Design Justice Network. [7]

• James Bridle, New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, London: Verso, Jun 2018, 304 pp. Publisher. Reviews: O'Connell (New Yorker), Self (Guardian), Thomason (Intercept), Fox (Review31), Judah (Vice), Howard (Rhizome), Gat (White Review), Budzinski (Frieze), Eastham (ArtReview), Kirkus, Fister (Inside Higher Ed).

• Emiliano Treré, Hybrid Media Activism: Ecologies, Imaginaries, Algorithms, Routledge, 2018, 236 pp. Publisher.

• Lukas Engelhardt, "New Dependencies", INC Longform, Mar 2022.

• International Trans★Feminist Digital Depletion Strike, Feb/Mar 2023. Published as a webpage hosted and asynchronously maintained by a network of networks. (multiple languages)

• Tiziano Bonini, Emiliano Treré, Algorithms of Resistance: The Everyday Fight against Platform Power, MIT Press, 2024, 256 pp. Publisher.

• Publications on internet activism at Monoskop Log

See also

Hacktivism, Copyright activism, Technofeminism, Data activism, Privacy