[Mitai-announce] Human Rights on the Web: dinner discussion with Ethan Zuckerman

[Karen Li]

 Human Rights on the Web: dinner discussion with Ethan Zuckerman
Tuesday, January 18
6:00-7:30
Room 4-145

Can the internet be used to promote human rights and to take down oppressive
regimes around the world? Or do new technologies actually empower the
authoritarian states that activists seek to challenge? Journalistic accounts
of the recent turmoil in Iran suggest that new media played a key role in
organizing and inspiring activists, but other evidence shows that the regime
used the same tools to to harass, identify, and imprison protesters.
Finally, what implications do these questions and stories have for the
development of new web technologies for social change?

Join Amnesty International and Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of the global
citizen media network, Global Voices, and senior researcher at the Berkman
Center for Internet and Society, for a theoretical and empirical discussion
on the interface between the web and human rights. A recent paper,
co-authored by Zuckerman, on the topic can be found here (
http://www.usip.org/publications/blogs-and-bullets-new-media-in-contentious-politics
).

Please RSVP to karenli at mit.edu by Sunday, January 16 so we know how much
food to get.