Julie Owono | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1986 (age 36–37) Cameroon |
| Education | Master in International Law |
| Alma mater | Sorbonne Law School |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
Julie Owono (born 1986) is a French and Cameroonian lawyer. As of 2021 [update] , she serves as executive director of Internet Without Borders (IWB), and as an inaugural member of Facebook's independent Oversight Board. [1] [2] [3]
Owono was born in Cameroon and grew up in Russia and France. [4] Owono received a master's degree in International Law from La Sorbonne Law School. [5] She has worked as a blogger for Global Voices and an opinion columnist for Al-Jazeera, commenting on the politics of the Gulf of Guinea. [6] [7]
By the mid-2010s, Owono was active in Internet Sans Frontieres, "a Paris-based non-profit organization advocating for freedom of expression on the internet", [8] becoming head of its Africa desk. [9] In that capacity, she lauded the growth of internet growth in African countries, but cautioned that their governments must avoid censoring the internet, stating that "[a] government cannot say that it wants to fully get into the digital economy and treat the essential commodity of that economy in the way we have seen so far". [9]
In 2018 and 2019, Owono sought to pressure the government of Chad to restore internet access that had been cut off certain parts of the country. Owono indicated that the restriction occurred "because videos of violent clashes among the Zaghawa tribe in northern Chad were being shared on WhatsApp". [8] Owono sought to persuade western military allies to pressure the government of Chad to restore access but was disappointed in the response. Owono also oversaw a fundraiser to buy premium VPN access for journalists and activists, which raised €2,000 ($2250). [8]
In 2020, Owono was one of 20 individuals from around the world named to the Facebook Oversight Board, an organization established to make consequential precedential decisions about content moderation on the platforms of Facebook and Instagram. [10]
As of 2023 [update] , Owono is the Executive Director at IWB. [11] [12] In July 2023, following a recommendation from the oversight board to deplatform Cambodian head of state Hun Sen, the government of Cambodia listed Owono as one of 22 people connected with Meta who were banned from entering the country. [13]
On Internet websites that invite users to post comments, content moderation is the process of detecting contributions that are irrelevant, obscene, illegal, harmful, or insulting, in contrast to useful or informative contributions, frequently for censorship or suppression of opposing viewpoints. The purpose of content moderation is to remove or apply a warning label to problematic content or allow users to block and filter content themselves.
Samdech Hun Sen is a Cambodian politician and former military commander who served as the prime minister of Cambodia from 1985 to 2023. He is the longest-serving head of government in Cambodia's history. He is the president of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), which has governed Cambodia since 1979, and a member of the National Assembly for Kandal. His full honorary title is Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen.
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Kenji Yoshino is a legal scholar and the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law. Formerly, he was the Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School. His work involves constitutional law, anti-discrimination law, civil and human rights, as well as law and literature, and Japanese law and society.
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Maria Renske "Marietje" Schaake is a Dutch politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the Netherlands between 2009 and 2019. She is a member of Democrats 66, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party.
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Access Now is a non-profit organization founded in 2009 with a mission to defend and extend the digital civil rights of people around the world. Access Now supports programs including an annual conference on Human Rights (RightsCon), an index of internet shutdowns (#KeepItOn), and providing exit nodes for Tor network.
Nawaat is an independent collective blog co-founded by Tunisians Sami Ben Gharbia, Sufian Guerfali and Riadh Guerfali in 2004, with Malek Khadraoui joining the organization in 2006. The goal of Nawaat's founders was to provide a public platform for Tunisian dissident voices and debates. Nawaat aggregates articles, visual media, and other data from a variety of sources to provide a forum for citizen journalists to express their opinions on current events. The site does not receive any donations from political parties. During the events leading to the Tunisian Revolution of 2011, Nawaat advised Internet users in Tunisia and other Arab nations about the dangers of being identified online and offered advice about circumventing censorship. Nawaat is an Arabic word meaning core. Nawaat has received numerous awards from international media organizations in the wake of the Arab Spring wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
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Facebook has been involved in multiple controversies involving censorship of content, removing or omitting information from its services in order to comply with company policies, legal demands, and government censorship laws.
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The Real Facebook Oversight Board is an entity founded in 2020 by British journalist Carole Cadwalladr, in response to Facebook's announcement of the creation of its Oversight Board to address contentious content decisions made by the company through an independent appellate process.
Evelyn Mary Aswad is an American legal scholar and the Herman G. Kaiser Chair in International Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, and was previously an official in the United States Department of State. As of 2021, she serves as a member of Facebook's independent Oversight Board.
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