Posts Tagged ‘You Tube’

Human rights defenders against modern slavery

May 30, 2023

Mariana de la Fuente, is a human rights defender who fights against slave labour and human trafficking in Brazil.  According to ILO,  more than 57,000 workers in Brazil were rescued in conditions similar to slavery – between 2003 to 2021.

Should HRDs worry about Artificial Intelligence?

April 12, 2023

Towards Life 3.0: Ethics and Technology in the 21st Century is a talk series organized and facilitated by Dr. Mathias Risse, Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights, Global Affairs, and Philosophy. Drawing inspiration from the title of Max Tegmark’s book, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, the series draws upon a range of scholars, technology leaders, and public interest technologists to address the ethical aspects of the long-term impact of artificial intelligence on society and human life.

On 20 April you can join for 45 minutes with WITNESS’ new Executive Director Sam Gregory [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/04/05/sam-gregory-finally-in-the-lead-at-witness/]o n how AI is changing the media and information landscape; the creative opportunities for activists and threats to truth created by synthetic image, video, and audio; and the people and places being impacted but left out of the current conversation.

Sam says “Don’t let the hype-cycle around ChatGPT and Midjourney pull you into panic, WITNESS has been preparing for this moment for the past decade with foundational research and global advocacy on synthetic and manipulated media. Through structured work with human rights defenders, journalists, and technologists on four continents, we’ve identified the most pressing concerns posed by these emerging technologies and concrete recommendations on what we must do now.

We have been listening to critical voices around the globe to anticipate and design thoughtful responses to the impact of deepfakes and generative AI on our ability to discern the truth. WITNESS has proactively worked on responsible practices for synthetic media as a part of the Partnership on AI and helped develop technical standards to understand media origins and edits with the C2PA. We have directly influenced standards for authenticity infrastructure and continue to forcefully advocate for centering equity and human rights concerns in the development of detection technologies. We are convening with the people in our communities who have most to gain and lose from these technologies to hear what they want and need, most recently in Kenya at the #GenAIAfrica convening”.

 Register here: wit.to/AI-webinar 

Sam Gregory finally in the lead at Witness

April 5, 2023

On 4 April 2023 WITNESS announced that Sam Gregory will be stepping into the role of Executive Director after two decades of service to the organization. Sam is a highly respected human rights leader and award-winning technologist who brings over 25 years of global experience innovating and leading interventions at the intersections of video, technology and human rights.

If Sam’s name sounds familiar – it should! [Also from this blog, see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/sam-gregory/] He has dedicated over two decades to WITNESS, most recently directing programs and strategy. In that capacity, Sam has supported WITNESS’ global teams and partners in more than 100 countries addressing urgent issues such as land rights, state violence, and war crimes – as well as spearheading our pioneering work on emerging technologies such as deepfakes and AI. Sam brings both the history and an ambitious vision for the future of WITNESS.

Sam steps into this role at an exceptional moment for those concerned with information technology and human rights. This era of omnipresent video, growing misinformation, synthetic media, and declining trust in a shared reality presents a serious threat to the idea of truth itself. Sam has led a global effort to ‘prepare, not panic’ for the new digital landscape, fighting for preservation of truth, trust in critical voices, and media integrity efforts. He is also a fierce advocate for centering the voices of those most removed from decision-making centers yet most profoundly impacted by the proliferation of new technologies.

Read more about him here: https://www.witness.org/portfolio_pag…

Human rights defender Pierre-Claver Akolly Amégnikpo Dekpoh from Togo

March 22, 2023

Witnessing the realisation of human rights in our countries would be a great joy because that is what we work towards.’

Pierre-Claver Akolly Amégnikpo Dekpoh works at the West African Human Rights Defenders Network (WAHRDN) in Lome, Togo. He spoke to ISHR about what drove him to become a human rights defender and about the challenges that he and his colleagues in Togo and West Africa face in working towards the realisation of human rights.

Learn more about Pierre-Claver and hear the stories of other human rights defenders like him: https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/

https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/human-rights-defenders-story-pierre-claver-akolly-amegnikpo-dekpoh-from-togo/

For those who missed it: relive the moving MEA 2023 ceremony

February 24, 2023

You can now relive the MEA ceremony which was held on 16 February 2023 and get inspired by the 2023 Laureates, three outstanding human rights defenders:

-Feliciano Reyna, Venezuela

-Delphine Djiraibé, Chad

-Khurram Parvez, Kashmir.

See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/01/19/breaking-news-laureates-of-the-mea-for-2023-announced/

The Ceremony was live-streamed directly from the Salle Communale de Plainpalais, Geneva, co-hosted with the City of Geneva.

Meet Ales Bialiatski, Nobel Peace Prize 2022

October 8, 2022

True Heroes Films (THF) has published a timely portrait of Ales Bialiatski, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2022, drawn from an in-depth interview with him at the Paris Summit for Human Rights Defenders in Paris, October 2018.

See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/10/07/nobel-peace-prize-2022-goes-to-well-recognised-human-rights-defenders/

Who are human rights defenders?

July 2, 2022

On 30 June 2022 the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights uploaded this video clip outlining the basic issue of human rights defenders:

In crisis, civic space is the ‘most crucial – and valuable’ element of building resilience. @ High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet says, “a vibrant civic space is a lever of a stable, secure society. Yet, we continue documenting attacks against defenders and journalists, off-line and online, worldwide.”

New report: You Tube also needs scrutiny

June 22, 2022

In June 2022, Paul M. Barrett and Justin Hendrix of NYU’s STERN Centre for Business and Human Rights came with a very timely report: “A Platform ‘Weaponized’: How YouTube Spreads Harmful Content— And What Can Be Done About It“. We know less about YouTube than the other major social media platforms. YouTube, with more than 2 billion users, is the most popular social media site not just in the United States, but in India and Russia as well. But because of the relative difficulty of analyzing long-form videos, as compared to text or still images, YouTube has received less scrutiny from researchers and policymakers. This in-depth report addresses the knowledge gap.

Like other major platforms, You Tube has a dual nature: It provides two billion users access to news, entertainment, and do-it-yourself videos, but it also serves as a venue for political disinformation, public health myths, and incitement of violence.

——————————————————————-

YouTube’s role in Russia illustrates this duality. Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, YouTube has offered ordinary Russians factual information about the war, even as the Kremlin has blocked or restricted other Western-based social media platforms and pressured foreign journalists in the country to silence themselves. But for years before the brutal incursion, YouTube served as a megaphone for Vladimir Putin’s disinformation about Ukraine and its relations with the West. Despite its heft and influence, less is known about YouTube than other major social media sites.

Does YouTube send unwitting users down a ‘rabbit hole’ of extremism?

In response to reports that the platform’s own recommendations were “radicalizing” impressionable individuals, YouTube and its parent, Google, altered its recommendation algorithm, apparently reducing the volume of recommendations of misinformation and conspiratorial content. But platform recommendations aren’t the only way people find potentially harmful material. Some, like the white 18-year-old accused of shooting and killing 10 Black people in a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store, seek out videos depicting violence and bigotry. These self-motivated extremists can find affirmation and encouragement to turn their resentments into dangerous action.

A social media venue with global reach

Roughly 80% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the United States, and because of language and cultural barriers, the platform’s content moderation efforts are less successful abroad than at home. The report explores how YouTube is exploited by Hindu nationalists persecuting Muslims in India, right-wing anti-vaccine advocates in Brazil, and supporters of the military junta in Myanmar.


In Part 2, we examine YouTube’s role as the internet’s vast video library, one which has contributed to the spread of misinformation and other harmful content. In 2019, for example, YouTube reacted to com-
plaints that its recommendations were pushing impressionable users toward extremist right-wing views.
The company made a series of changes to its algorithms, resulting in a decline in recommendations of conspiratorial and false content. But recommendations are not the only way that people find videos on YouTube. A troubling amount of extremist content remains available for users who search for it. Moreover, YouTube’s extensive program for sharing advertising revenue with popular creators means that purveyors of misinformation can make a living while amplifying the grievances and resentments that foment partisan hatred, particularly on the political right.

In Part 3, we turn our attention to YouTube’s role in countries outside of the U.S., where more than 80%
of the platform’s traffic originates and where a profusion of languages, ethnic tensions, and cultural variations make the company’s challenges more complicated than in its home market. Organized misogynists in South Korea, far-right ideologues in Brazil, anti-Muslim Hindu nationalists, and supporters of Myanmar’s oppressive military regime have all exploited YouTube’s extraordinary reach to
spread pernicious messages and rally like minded users. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/11/02/bbc-podcast-on-the-framing-of-video-monk-luon-sovath/]


Recommendations to the U.S. government

Allocate political capital to reduce the malign side effects of social media: President Biden’s off-the-
cuff expressions of impatience with the industry aren’t sufficient. He ought to make a carefully considered statement and lend his authority to legislative efforts to extend federal oversight authority. Former President Obama’s recent speech at Stanford about disinformation provided a helpful foundation.
Enhance the FTC’s authority to oversee social media: Some of the issues raised in this report could
be addressed by a proposal we made in a February 2022 white paper—namely, that Congress should
authorize the Federal Trade Commission to use its consumer protection authority to require social media companies to disclose more data about their business models and operations, as well as provide procedurally adequate content moderation.

To YouTube:
Disclose more information about how the platform works: A place to start is explaining the criteria
algorithms use to rank, recommend, and remove content—as well as how the criteria are weighted relative to one another.
Facilitate greater access to data that researchers need to study YouTube: The platform should ease
its resistance to providing social scientists with information for empirical studies, including random samples of videos.
Expand and improve human review of potential harmful content: YouTube’s parent company, Google,
says that it has more than 20,000 people around the world working on content moderation, but it declines to specify how many do hands-on review of YouTube videos. Whatever that number is, it needs to grow, and outsourced moderators should be brought in-house.
Invest more in relationships with civil society and news organizations: In light of their contribution to the
collapse of the advertising-based business model of many U.S. news-gathering organizations, the platforms should step up current efforts to ensure the viability of the journalism business, especially at the local level.

The NYU Center for Business and Human Rights began publishing reports on the effects of social media on democracy in the wake of Russia’s exploitation of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. We initially advocated for heightened industry self-regulation, in part to forestall government intervention that could lead to First Amendment complications. As the inadequacy of industry reforms has become clear, we have supplemented our calls for self-regulation with a proposal for enhancement of the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection
authority to oversee the industry.

In Part 4, we offer a concise version of the FTC proposal, as well as a series of recommendations to YouTube itself. The report does not address the problem of YouTube hosting potentially harmful videos aimed at children and teenagers. This persistent phenomenon deserves continued scrutiny but is beyond the scope of our analysis.

VIEW FULL REPORT

https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/blogs/2022/6/10/report-a-platform-weaponized-how-youtube-spreads-harmful-content-and-what-can-be-done-about-it

Profile of Soun Yuthyia from Cambodia

May 11, 2022

I chose to be a human rights defender by, hopefully, protecting those who don’t know where to find a solution when there are human rights abuses happening to them.”

Soun Yuthyia is the advocacy director for The Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, an organisation that seeks to protect and promote respect for human rights throughout Cambodia. He shares his vision for the future of Cambodia and how his work has positively impacted the people of Cambodia.

Yuthyia also shares his experience with HRDAP and the ISHR Academy in the below video:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/vAfHKFScArU

https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/human-rights-defenders-story-soun-yuthyia-from-cambodia/

Karla Avelar speaks out in Diversity in Adversity campaign

April 28, 2022

Episode 4: People who work to end violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) face multiple forms of risk. They can be targeted for their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, and for being human rights defenders as well.

Karla Avelar is trans woman human rights defender from El Salvador who has been working since the 1990s to defend the rights of LGBTI persons, people with HIV and other marginalised groups. After being subjected to two and a half years in prison, where she was tortured, sexual assaulted and denied access to medical treatment, she began to work more intensely for the rights of LGBTI persons. She began by calling for appropriate provision of HIV medications and greater access to justice within El Salvador. In 2008 she founded COMCAVIS trans, El Salvador’s first organisation for trans women with HIV. In 2013, she was the first trans woman to appear before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. After multiple threats to her own life and that of her mother, she applied for asylum in Switzerland in 2017, where she now lives and continues her work. She was a finalist of the MEA in 2017 [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/05/16/trans-defenders-karla-avelars-life-is-under-constant-threat/]

Diversity in Adversity is a joint campaign by Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, and Victor Madrigal-Borloz, UN Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity. It will feature interviews with 10 SOGI rights defenders from all over the world; ordinary people engaged in extraordinary work. For more on this campaign, visit: https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-proc…