In The Loop, August 2023
9 minutes read | First published: August 21, 2023
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OUR LATEST NEWS 🚀
🆕 DISCOVER OUR NEW DATA DETOX MULTIMEDIA RESOURCES PAGE
You can now find all the Data Detox Kit multimedia resources in one place! Browse through the many videos, audio readings, podcasts, and gifs and use them in your classes, workshops and events, or share them with friends and family. Explore the brand-new page here.
💡 OUR EXPOSING THE INVISIBLE KIT IS NOW AVAILABLE IN PORTUGUESE!
Portuguese speakers out there! Check the “Kit Expondo o Invisível”, a self-learning resource that provides investigative techniques and tools to collect and verify information, build evidence and share information. Special thanks to the translators' team comprised of Heloisa Averbach, Eduardo Macedo, Thiago Antonio Vieira, and Yael Berman, coordinated by our partner Celso Bessa. Explore the Kit in Portuguese.
🔍 NEW ARTICLE EXPLORING HOW A COMPANY PLAYS A KEY ROLE IN ELECTIONS ACROSS AFRICA
Qemal Affnagon, head of the West Africa division of Internet Sans Frontières, examines the role of the company telecom group MTN in political campaigns across Africa and explores the potential interference of companies in Benin's political landscape. Read the full article here.
💰 DO YOU KNOW WHAT SERVICES PRIVATE FIRMS OFFER TO POLITICAL PARTIES WORLDWIDE?
Check out the insights from our research into what private firms offer to election campaigns, including strategy advice, misinformation, and data collection, and which political parties pay for their services, such as BJP in India, Movimento Democratico Brasileiro in Brazil, and the New Democratic Party in Canada. Explore.
🧰 NEW ARTICLE ON HOW OPEN-SOURCE INTELLIGENCE CAN BE USED FOR POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND POLICY RESEARCH
The article "OSINT Tools for Online Political Research: the Context of Argentina", written by the Political Investigation Team - EdiPo of Revista Crisis explores how people and organisations interested in gathering evidence, exposing wrongdoing and tracing networks of influence affecting societies can use OSINT tools and verification techniques.
Screenshot of the article OSINT Tools for Online Political Research: the Context of Argentina on the Exposing the Invisible website page.
🎙️ PODCAST LOVERS! DON’T MISS OUT ON OUR LATEST EXPOSING THE INVISIBLE PODCAST EPISODES:
- Deepak Adhikari - "We are in a business of thinking"
- Basma Mostafa - If we just keep telling the truth
- Sajad Rasool - Every journalist has to be an activist
- Pascalinah Kabi - I don't just owe it to my mother
RESOURCES BY AND FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 🌄
International Youth Day 2023 focused on Green Skills for Youth: Towards a Sustainable World this year. Explore this selection of our resources for young people:
Picture of the materials included in the Data Detox X Youth.
Our partners hosting What the Future Wants workshops and engaging young people in discussions. Courtesy of The Community Library Project.
💪 DATA DETOX X YOUTH: AN ACTIVITY BOOK TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR TECH.
This interactive toolkit encourages young people to think about different aspects of their digital lives, from their social media profiles to their passwords, with simple activities for reflection and play. Check and download the activity book available in over 15 languages.
🧠 WHAT THE FUTURE WANTS: AN EXHIBITION BY AND FOR YOUNG PEOPLE THAT EXPLORES THE IMPACTS OF TECHNOLOGY ON SOCIETY.
This interactive exhibition invites young people to reflect on what it means to grow up in a digital world, ask critical questions, and identify the digital future they want. Interested in hosting an exhibition? Contact youth@tacticaltech.org. More information.
📱 A DROP IN THE OCEAN: AN INTERACTIVE APP TO SEE HOW YOUR PERSONALITY PROFILE INFLUENCE THE ADS YOU SEE
The version for young people of the 'OCEAN' app includes questions that explain how human personality can be measured and how companies, governments and others can use this information to define the ads people see. Take the tests here.
OPEN CALLS 📢
We seek a committed Junior Coordinator on a Working Student basis to join our Glass Room project, an interactive experience that invites visitors to reflect on how technology impacts their lives & explore mitigation alternatives. Want to join our international team? Apply.
EVENTS THAT EMPOWER YOU 💡
[VIRTUAL EXHIBITION 🖼️] TRACING THE GEOMETRY OF CYBERWAR. SEPTEMBER 9TH - DECEMBER 31,2023.
Contemporary cyberwar is based on electronic control, communication and weapon targeting systems. It also includes hacking, social network monitoring and analysis, and more. The flood of contradictory information and images makes it difficult to grasp reality. Using artworks, texts and sources, the project outlines the geometry of cyberwar. More info. In the frame of the exhibition, Tactical Tech will collaborate with Prater Galerie deliver two workshops:
[WORKSHOP 💡] HOW THE INTERNET WORKS. THEATER UNTERM DACH- BERLIN. SEPTEMBER 8TH, 14:00.
Participants will be able to understand how the internet is structured, and which journey information takes when traveling from the end user to the providers of information and vice versa. You will gain awareness of where the main digital safety risks are and what they look like for various scenarios. Reserve your spot.
[WORKSHOP 💡] SAFETY FIRST! BASICS OF PREVENTIVE DIGITAL SAFETY. THEATER UNTERM DACH- BERLIN. SEPTEMBER 9TH, 14:00.
This workshop introduces participants to the basics of preventive digital safety and risk awareness measures, which they can apply to their own context. It also provides the main principles and criteria of assessing and deciding what digital tools to choose based on specific individual or group/team situations and needs. Reserve your spot.
Poster of the workshop How The Internet works
Poster of the workshop Safety First! Basics of preventive digital safety.
[CONFERENCE ✅] BUILD PEACE CONFERENCE 2023. NAIROBI, KENYA DECEMBER 1TH-3RD
Every year, the Build Peace conference explores emergent challenges to peace in a digital era and peacebuilding innovations to address them. This year, the conference will focus on "How technology and the arts influence identities relevant to peace & conflict." Register here.
MEET OUR PARTNERS WORLDWIDE 💫
This month, we interviewed Chinmayi S K founder and member of The Bachchao Project.
Logo of the Bachchao Project.
. Picture of the piece See No Evil. Image courtesy of The Bachchao Project under CC-BY-SA
Tactical Tech: How do you imagine a different digital future?
Chinmayi S K: The digital world should be safe and inclusive for everyone, a place for anyone to express themselves in the way they desire and connect with people who would appreciate them.
TT: What is your project's mission?
CSK: The Bachchao Project is a techno-feminist collective. Our main goal is to help people develop and use open-source technologies that can advance the rights of women and LGBTQIA communities.
READ THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW HERE.
🌟YUSUF GANYANA: ENGAGING YOUTH ON CRITICAL DIGITAL LITERACY IN KENYA
Yusuf aims to raise awareness among Kenyan youth about technology's transformative power and digital rights by encouraging young people to take control of their online presence, protect their privacy, and make informed digital choices. Find out more about Yusuf's work here.
🌟DATA.LABE: PROMOTING DIGITAL SECURITY IN BRAZIL
Our partners from Rio de Janeiro have published an adaptation of their exhibition "Breathe" as an online format to browse through! Learn about key easy steps on how to keep your passwords, accounts and documents safe here.
Kids filling out the Data Detox x Youth workbook in a 2022 workshop in Kenya, photo courtesy of Yusuf.
Screenshot of the 'Respira' website.
🌟CELSO BESSA & TEAM: COLLABORATING TO MAKE INVESTIGATIVE RESOURCES AVAILABLE IN PORTUGUESE
Our partner Celso Bessa worked together with a group of volunteer translators to make the "Exposing the Invisible: The Kit" available in Portuguese. Find out more about Celso's work.
🌟POLITICAL INVESTIGATION TEAM - EDIPO OF REVISTA CRISIS: EMPOWERING INVESTIGATORS IN ARGENTINA
In collaboration with our Exposing the Invisible project, EdiPo organised investigative workshops and wrote a piece for everyone interested in investigating about use of OSINT techniques for political research and investigations in Argentina. More about the EdiPo team.
OUR MONTHLY POLL 📊
Researchers found that some states, including those not considered authoritarian, use digital communication technology to restrict access to information, promote surveillance and control, target expression and push narratives. “Several popular pro-authoritarian frames attempt to justify freedom restrictions as being beneficial to citizens. These narratives focus on topics such as national security, public safety and health, public morals, and equality under law.” Unfreedom Monitor report pag. 35. We asked our community if they think some controls can be justified if done in the name of public good. This is how you answered our poll.
Results of the poll.
Read the Unfreedom Monitor: Civic Media Observatory findings report by Advox- Global Voices.
WHAT WE ARE READING 🔍
- [💪 PROJECT] SearchWing: Saving lives with technology. An independent non-profit organisation of volunteers that builds Drones to support Search and Rescue (SAR) Missions that find people in distress at sea. Find out more
- [🗣️ OPINION] AI can be a force for good or ill in society, so everyone must shape it, not just the ‘tech guys’. By Afua Bruce. Go to source
- [📝 ARTICLE] The polycrisis - Is this the word we need to describe unprecedented convergences between ecological, political and economic strife? By Ville Lähde. Go to source
- [📝 ARTICLE] Passports and Power. Some travel for adventure, others for survival. By Rafia Zakaria. Go to source
- [💻 INTERACTIVE PROJECT] “Is Earth’s Inbox Full?” A website by London-based creative agency Anyways Creative that explores the issue of digital hoarding by uncovering the collective environmental cost of our cluttered inboxes. Go to source
- [🎙️ INTERVIEW] These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI. Today the risks of artificial intelligence are clear — but the warning signs have been there all along. By Lorena O'Neil. Go to source
- [🗣️ OPINION] We can’t afford to be climate doomers. By Rebecca Solnit. Go to source
- [🔍 SURVEY] Young people demand skills and learning for future employment, responding to a fragile world of high living costs, pandemic disruptions, climate crisis and rising conflicts. By PMNCH. Go to source
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