Curators: Tarangini Sriraman (King's and Labor Tech) and Aakash Solanki (Labor Tech and University of Toronto)

Hosted by King's College History Department in collaboration with Labor Tech Network, King’s India Institute, Africa Leadership Centre, Brazil Institute, and Menzies Australia Institute (Global Institutes)

Digital rights activism in the social media and cybersecurity space – this first conversation features a dialogue between digital rights activists and an academic from South Asia. Speakers will reflect on the history of digital rights mobilization and what this has entailed in terms of moderation, regulation, but also de-policing in the last decade. In both these countries, activists have incurred great risk in defending rights of cyber safety of residents whose personal data has been leaked by governmental and non-governmental agencies. Activists from these countries have re-centred formulations of cyber harassment by mainstreaming caste, communal, and gendered violence in the form of trolling, sharing deep fakes, stalking and instigating sexual abuse in online spaces. This conversation will also feature social, economic and psychological harms that moderators incurred while training large language models and working on behalf of tech companies in handling requests to report harmful content.

Speakers for the first dialogue

• Ishtiaque Ahmed (Academic, University of Toronto who has reflected on activist concerns of cyber security in Bangladesh)
• Nighat Dad (Lawyer, feminist activist, and founder of Digital Rights Foundation, Pakistan)
• Srinivas Kodali (digital rights advocate, civic hacker and independent researcher)
• Aakash Solanki, Labor Tech Research Network member, and PhD candidate (University of Toronto)

 

(Tentative) Agenda:

• Introduction to the series by organisers (King's and LabourTech)- 16:05-16:15

• Speaker Introductions by Aakash (Moderator, University of Toronto)- 16:15-16:20
  
  
• Moderator's introduction- 16:20 - 16:50
  
  
• Audience Q/A - 16:50-17:15
  
  
• Summary and Dialogue close - 17:20-17:30