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- Convenors:
-
Tony Roberts
(Sussex University)
Tanja Bosch (University of Cape Town)
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- Formats:
- Papers Synchronous
- Stream:
- Business, finance and digital technologies
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 30 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
From hashtag campaigns to botnet disinformation, we are experiencing dramatic digital disruption of traditional deliberation and dialogue process. This panel examines who is using which technologies to both open and close civic space, with what impact for digital rights and sustainable development.
Long Abstract:
The space for government, civil society and the private sector to co-determine social policy is considered essential to sustainable development (SDG 16 and SDG 17). However most countries are experiencing "closing civic space" (CIVICUS 2019) a reality that denies citizens, especially those from marginalised groups, the space to participate fully in debates and decisions that govern their lives. Citizens have responded creatively to this closing of civic space by opening new civic space online, using mobile phones and social media platforms to voice their concerns and exercise rights guaranteed to them in constitutions, laws and treaties but being denied to them in practice.
Since the Arab Spring and Cambridge Analytica episodes governments have rushed to deploy an ever-widening range of tools and tactics to close this opening of civic space online. Government are using blogging regulation, social media taxes, bandwidth throttling, internet shutdowns, AI-surveillance, and the use of troll farms, cyborg armies and automated bot-nets to deploy disinformation, disrupt deliberation, drown-out dialogue and debate, and to dominate discourse.
Whether the subject is pandemic-prevention measures, climate-denial, ant-vaccination or gender/race hate, powerful interests are profiling citizens and covertly micro-targeting them with influence messages to determine referenda and elections, as well as shape an ever-broadening range of policy debates.
These are critical issues for development studies.
This panel invites papers examining how these dynamics are impacting sustainable development in countries currently under-represented in the existing literature.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 30 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This comparative study presents findings of COVID-19-related digital rights issues derived from the study conducted by the African Digital Rights Network in 2020 on the state of opening and closing of online civic space with regards to allegedly COVID-19-related measures in ten African countries.
Paper long abstract:
This comparative study presents findings of COVID-19-related digital rights issues derived from the study conducted by the African Digital Rights Network in 2020 on the state of opening and closing of online civic space with regards to allegedly COVID-19-related measures in ten African countries.
The comparative study reveals a number of inter-related themes from affordability and accessibility (internet or website shutdown), to tracking and tracing of infection hotspots, countering misinformation, to the impact on the privacy of citizens and closing of civic space.
From this study, we propose follow-up research to further investigate the implications of allegedly COVID-19-related measures imposed by states on the opening and closing of the online civic space.
Paper short abstract:
India's largest farmers' protest against farm laws are co-existing in newly created civic spaces, both offline and online, with many attempts by govt to disrupt it. How does disruption in one space impact the other? This paper will explore these implications on human & digital rights in a democracy.
Paper long abstract:
India’s largest farmers’ protest resisting government’s recently passed farm laws has grabbed worldwide attention, but what's significant is that it's a movement that has been marked by creation of new civic spaces of protest- both offline and digital, right from its inception. After being denied official permission to protest in India’s capital city, farmers decided to camp on national highways, thereby creating a new community-like offline civic space of protest. This was accompanied by simultaneous creation of an online civic space of protest- this movement is arguably among the first protests in the country’s history that has a defined online presence completely managed by volunteers- a dedicated IT team, social media handles, which have specifically been created to directly put forth the farmers' arguments to the masses and counter the government's narrative. The protests have time and again also come under the government’s scrutiny- from protesters being subjected to tear gas and water cannons to internet shutdowns and blocking of social media handles supporting the protests “as a measure to maintain public safety and avert public emergency”. What are the implications of the simultaneous existence of both spaces of protest? How inclusive are both these spaces? How does the closure of one affect the other? Through a desk-based review of grey literature, this paper seeks to examine the relations and patterns that are emerging and the implications it may have on human & digital rights in a democratic country as these two spaces of protest continue to co-exist.
Paper short abstract:
Faced with the closure of spaces to condemn the increasing gendered-base violence levels in Mexico, a new feminist movement emerged in 2019. The ‘Glitter Revolution’ mobilised via social media to organise widespread protests, condemn the government’s inaction and claim their right to participate.
Paper long abstract:
Whilst there was originally optimism and hope following Andrés Manuel López Obrador's election in 2018, Mexican feminists soon found the government following the same tendencies as its predecessors by normalising and misrepresenting Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) (Salas Siguenza, 2021). Unable to find an official outlet to condemn the increasing number of femicides in Mexico, and outraged by the insufficient State response (Volpi, 2019) young women in Mexico took social media to claim a space for participation and articulate a narrative of the State as the perpetrator of VAWG (Acuña and Botello, 2020).
In 2019 they created one of the country's most radical and innovative movements in the last decades (Álvarez Enríquez, 2020). Using #NotOneMore and #TheyDontLookAfterMeTheyRapeMe they began organising protests against the Mexico City Police. After an incident where they threw pink glitter at the Ministry of Public Security, the movement became known as the "Glitter Revolution". The protests became viral and mainstream media categorised them as an attack or aggression, quickly followed by criticism and criminalisation by the local government (Salas Siguenza, 2021).
The local government's intimidation and the lack of recognition of its demands by the federal level led the new feminist movement in Mexico to launch a virtual campaign using #TheyDontTakeLookAfterMeTheyRapeMe and #DemandingJusticeIsNotProvoking calling for a national march. The movement used digital media as a tool to mobilise and create new spaces for participation – their ability to combine online and offline tools provided increased visibility of the issue and directly influenced Mexico's public agenda.