This article complements the first episode of Pretty Good Podcast Youth, featuring an interview with Activate Rights’ founders on Bangladesh’s student-led protests and their influence on youth’s understanding of human and digital rights.
In this guest post, Visual Rebellion interviews Burmese anthropologist Chu May Paing to understand the motivations and significance of Burmese netizens’ use of social media in spite of the digital safety and security risks.
The shutdown of Voice of Democracy, one of Cambodia’s last independent local news organisations, is a blow to press freedom, digital rights, and democracy, especially with the general elections coming up in July 2023.
Analysts have called Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s election triumph a victory for online disinformation. Amid continuing attacks on the free press and activists in online spaces, the fight against the erosion of digital rights continues in the Philippines.
Five digital rights films from the Tech Tales collection were among the works screened for Myanmar audiences at an online film festival that aimed to raise awareness on the human rights situation in the country. As of writing, the two-day festival has garnered over 300,000 cumulative views online on the pages of local news organisations Toward Journal and Mizzima TV.
The second episode of Pretty Good Podcast delves deeper into the Philippine court cyber libel ruling against journalists Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos Jr. of Rappler, a Philippine news organisation known to be critical of incumbent President Rodrigo Duterte. We ask John Nery, a columnist for the Philippine Daily Inquirer and co-founder of the Consortium on Democracy and Disinformation: What does this case mean for press freedom, and what are the wider implications of this ruling for freedom of expression online?
On June 15, 2020, online news organization Rappler’s CEO and executive editor Maria Ressa and former Rappler researcher-writer Reynaldo Santos Jr. were convicted of cyber libel charges over a seven-year-old report on a businessman’s alleged links to illegal drugs and human trafficking. The ruling, which can still be appealed and brought up to the Supreme Court, is the most recent addition to a growing list of attacks on press freedom and freedom of expression in the Philippines.
The pending Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 in the Philippines will effectively broaden the definition of terrorism to cover those expressing dissent and criticism against government leaders and policies. Here’s what we can do about it.
As an organization that stands for human rights – which include freedom of expression and the right to protest – EngageMedia is concerned about the recent crackdown on human rights defenders, women, farmer and urban poor advocates, trade unionists, theatre workers, community journalists, and humanitarian organizations.
