Internet and Human Rights: Opportunities and Threats

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Event Details

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Date: Dec 9 2011 - 9:30am - 11:00am

Location:

Cannon House Office Building, Independence Avenue and 1st Street, SE Room 234, Washington, DC, 20515-6065, United States

Internet and Human Rights: Opportunities and Threats

New America Foundation
Friday, December 9, 2011
9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

If there had been any doubt before, events over the past year have underscored just how important the Internet has become for activists fighting for human rights and democracy around the world. Social networks served as a powerful organizing tool and demonstrated the importance of digitally networked communications for organizing, newsgathering, and international conversation. But 2011 also highlighted the vulnerabilities of digital activism to censorship, filtering, surveillance, manipulation, and other even more drastic tactics like the shut-down of Internet and wireless services.

To celebrate this Human Rights Day, we cordially invite you to hear from some of the activists who depend on a free and open Internet to advance their causes. Please join us for a discussion of how the Internet has supported activism for human rights and social justice over the last year, and how the United States - particularly the U.S. Congress - can best support a free and open global Internet.

Featured Speakers
Anas Qtiesh
Editor
Global Voices
Jochai Ben-Avie
Policy Director
Access

Clothilde Le Coz
Freelance Journalist
Former Head of Washington, DC office, Reporters Without Borders

Moderator
Rebecca MacKinnon
Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow
New America Foundation

To RSVP for the event:
http://newamerica.net/events/2011/internet_and_human_rights

For questions, contact Stephanie Gunter at New America at (202) 596-3367 or gunter@newamerica.net