Paper short abstract:

My talk examines the work and role of activist groups and NGOs in Europe that are engaged in campaigning against online racism, sexism and hate. It looks at the ways they appropriate the online infrastructure and “online rights“ by looking at the worlds of hate groups or other “malevolent forces”.

Paper long abstract:

My talk draws on my ethnographic research in a non-governmental organization and among activist groups in Europe that are engaged in campaigning against online racism, sexism and hate. Their members - online activists, lawyers, and technologists among others - deal with the "dark sides" of the online-infrastructure everyday in different ways: by reviewing and analyzing cyberhate structures, by creating information campaigns for raising awareness on the matter, by doing lobby work for (inter)national legalization, and by creating technological tools to make the online space safer for its users. By doing so, they often serve as "intermediaries" (Engle Merrry 2006) between national and international justices institutions/systems, the internet industry, and state interests.

Examining the work and role of these activist groups and NGOs, my talk looks at the ways they appropriate the online infrastructure and "online rights" by looking at the worlds of hate groups or other "malevolent forces": How is this "evil" programmed and engineered into common online practices, spaces and infrastructures? How is their understanding of the online world - and also their own work and personal online practices - affected by the "infrastructures of evil"?

I argue that the "evil" is a routine, a common thing in their work, that needs to be explored further in its social and cultural impacts on our online world and also on our own (theoretical and analytical) approaches in this field.