Coconet is a network and platform for digital rights movement-building in the Asia-Pacific. Its online hub is Coconet.social, where the partners and members of the Coconet community produce and publish content on digital rights awareness, advocacy, and activism. This website also houses resources and blogs on digital rights, artificial intelligence, disinformation, and other issues related to digital rights movements in the region and around the world.
The Coconet community first came together at digital rights camps where they sought to understand the varying changes to their work brought about by technology. Co-convened by EngageMedia and the Association of Progressive Communications, the Coconet digital rights camps enhance the digital rights movement-building in the Asia-Pacific by providing changemakers in the region a space where they can network, share their experiences, and co-create solutions to address their collective challenges.
The camps build critical digital rights discourse and connect policy advocates and researchers to communications, film, art, media, and technology initiatives. Dedicated spaces for digital rights in the region foster strong relationships that catalyze the collaborations needed to strengthen the movement.
Coconet participants have ownership over the process through the camps’ open-space methodology and participatory nature. The camps also prioritise socialising and creativity as much as it does knowledge development, leading to long-term relationships and enthusiasm that propels the movement into the future.
As of 2020, two digital rights camps have taken place: Coconet I was held in 2017 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and Coconet II in 2019 in Antipolo, Philippines.
At Coconet II, over 120 changemakers deepened the regional and cross-sectoral networks developed at Coconet I, fostering over 20 campaigns and projects. The second camp also launched a series of platforms to support ongoing campaigns and collaborations in the Asia-Pacific. Read about it in our 2019 outcomes report.
At Coconet I, more than 100 journalists, human rights campaigners, women’s rights activists, digital security trainers, documentary filmmakers, writers, social media activists, and artists came together to discuss many of these issues. Coconet I resulted in more than 30 post-camp collaborations. Read more about it in our 2017 outcomes report.
Watch Coconet related videos on EngageMedia and read the Coconet Blog.
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