April 3 2025 GM
What is Happening in Digital Rights Around the World?
- Date: Thursday, April 3
- Time: 9am EDT / 1pm UTC
- Facilitator: Mardiya
- Where: On TCU Mattermost "IF Square" Channel.
- Don't have an account to the TCU Mattermost? you can request one following the directions here.
Come to share emerging and existing digital rights conversations happening around the world and in your region at this Glitter Meetup! There is something new, specific or special that you would like to bring to the technology and human rights table? Join us and let's talk about it!
What is Glitter Meetup?
Glitter Meetup is the weekly town hall of the digital rights and Internet Freedom community at the IF Square on the TCU Mattermost, at 9am EDT / 2pm UTC. It is a text-based chat where digital rights defenders can share regional and project updates, expertise, ask questions, and connect with others from all over the world! Do you need an invite? Learn how to get one here.
Notes
We had different conversations around community members updates, projects, and regional news:
- Reporting for the Cyber Security Act in Zambia: a report on the cyber security situation in most media house & NGOs in Zambia at this time. Doing assessment of the cyber security bill of 2024 which was passed last year but has a lot of loop holes for exploration by state agencies. Our key concerns lie on some of the following:
- Section 54: Criminalizes the "spread of false information," which can be used to target journalists and activists reporting on government misconduct.
- Section 65: Allows government interception of private communications without clear judicial oversight.
- Section 29: Requires registration of online platforms, potentially limiting independent media operations.
- Section 44: Grants law enforcement the authority to seize electronic devices and access encrypted data without adequate legal safeguards.
- Section 52: Criminalizes "cyber harassment," a vague term that has been used to silence critics.
- Most of them only seek means of exploiting's current law to shutdown any movement that isn't in line with their agenda
- A Bluesky Content Moderator share that their main task is to monitor all reports of anti blackness and misogynoir on the Blacksky Feed on Bluesky. They decide how they should be labeled and if they need to be escalated for removal from the feed to keep Black users safe. Bluesky has a lot of moderation options, the harassment still exists but you have more options to choose what you don't want to see and since it's an open source platform technologists can create moderation tools through a software called ozone (so there are moderation apps for LGTBQ+ folks etc.)
- About threat modeling processes to determine what security to suggest to organizations: we recently made a quiz that gives people scores on their collected digital/physical/legal/financial threats, and then make recommendations based on that. It's in the midst of getting merged with another org's threat assessment, but I can share the last version
