Movements.org is an online platform working to connect activists worldwide. It was founded when The Alliance for Youth Movements rebranded itself in 2011. It is an online marketplace that connects dissidents in closed societies to individuals in open societies with experience in such areas as legal work, mathematics, science, media, PR and technology. When activists post requests for assistance, experts and professionals respond with offers of assistance.
In October 2008, Columbia University, the US Department of State, Google, Howcast Media and other media companies sponsored the inaugural Alliance of Youth Movements Summit. This event brought together digital activists, technology and media leaders, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and governments to convene, share best practices, and create a network of socially responsible grassroots activists using technology for their movements and campaigns.
Following the inaugural summit, Jason Liebman (CEO and co-founder of Howcast), Roman Tsunder (co-founder of Access 360 Media), and Jared Cohen (Director of Google Ideas at Google) co-founded the Alliance for Youth Movements. This organization was dedicated to identifying, connecting, and supporting digital activists at the annual summit and throughout the year.
In December 2009, The Alliance for Youth Movements hosted its 2nd annual summit in Mexico City. This summit was sponsored by the US Department of State as well as other sponsors. The event convened activists and supporters interested in how social media and connection technologies were helping to combat violence, with a special focus on Latin America.
In March 2010, The Alliance for Youth Movements hosted its 3rd annual summit in London, which was sponsored by the UK Home Office and other media companies. At the end of the summit, it was announced that the Alliance for Youth Movements was launching a new online hub for digital activism, Movements.org.
In February 2011, Movements.org officially launched and the Alliance for Youth Movements re-branded itself as Movements.org.
In June 2012, Movements.org formally became a division of Advancing Human Rights (AHR), created in 2010 by Robert L. Bernstein (the founder of Human Rights Watch and former President and CEO of Random House for twenty-five years). AHR focuses on freedom of speech, women’s rights and promoting the freedoms outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly by leveraging the power of the Internet. [1] In 2016 Movements.org separated from Advancing Human Rights and is an independent project managed with the help of Democracy Council.
In August 2012, Movements.org in collaboration with Al Jazeera launched an interactive tool that tracks the defections of senior Syrian military officials, members of parliament and diplomats of Assad's regime. The tracker was released on Al Jazeera. [2]
On July 9, 2014, Movements.org launched as a marketplace site, where dissidents in closed societies could connect to legal, PR and technology experts in open societies.[7][1] Natan Sharansky said of the platform, “Too often, leaders of the Free World have proved to be a disappointment to today's dissidents. The citizens of free nations don't need to.”
Movements.org enables the exchange of skills and resources between activists and experts. Activists can post short descriptions of their projects and needs, while legal and other experts provide assistance using their special skills. Movements received support from Google Ideas in its start-up phase, and from Ronin Analytics in the design of its digital security perimeter. [3] Since its launch in July 2014, Movements.org has announced partnerships with SaferVPN - a software provider, which has committed to make free VPN subscriptions available for activists in closed societies, [4] and Youth Service America who run events to empower young people to engage in volunteer work. [5] Dissident users of Movements have regularly published original content in The Daily Beast . [6] Movements.org currently has over 20,000 users from up to 140 countries. The website is available in English, Arabic, Chinese, Ukrainian, Russian, Persian and French.
China censors both the publishing and viewing of online material. Many controversial events are censored from news coverage, preventing many Chinese citizens from knowing about the actions of their government, and severely restricting freedom of the press. China's censorship includes the complete blockage of various websites, apps, video games, inspiring the policy's nickname, the "Great Firewall of China", which blocks websites. Methods used to block websites and pages include DNS spoofing, blocking access to IP addresses, analyzing and filtering URLs, packet inspection, and resetting connections.
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a two-phase United Nations-sponsored summit on information, communication and, in broad terms, the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. WSIS Forums have taken place periodically since then. One of the Summit's chief aims is to bridge the global digital divide separating rich countries from poor countries by increasing internet accessibility in the developing world. The conferences established 17 May as World Information Society Day.
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is an international network of organizations that was founded in 1990 to provide communication infrastructure, including Internet-based applications, to groups and individuals who work for peace, human rights, protection of the environment, and sustainability. Pioneering the use of ICTs for civil society, especially in developing countries, APC were often the first providers of Internet in their member countries.
Alternative media are media sources that differ from established or dominant types of media in terms of their content, production, or distribution. Sometimes the term independent media is used as a synonym, indicating independence from large media corporations, but generally independent media is used to describe a different meaning around freedom of the press and independence from government control. Alternative media does not refer to a specific format and may be inclusive of print, audio, film/video, online/digital and street art, among others. Some examples include the counter-culture zines of the 1960s, ethnic and indigenous media such as the First People's television network in Canada, and more recently online open publishing journalism sites such as Indymedia.
Nonviolence International (NI) acts as a network of resource centers that promote the use of nonviolence and nonviolent resistance. They have maintained relationships with activists in a number of countries, with their most recent projects taking place in Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine. They partnered with International Center for Nonviolent Conflict to update Gene Sharp's seminal work on 198 methods of nonviolent action through a book publication. NI has also produced a comprehensive database of nonviolence tactics, which stands as the largest collection of nonviolent tactics in the world. They partner with Rutgers University to provide the largest collection of nonviolence training materials in the world.
The Vietnam Reform Revolutionary Party or the Việt Tân is an organisation that aims to establish liberal democracy and reform Vietnam through peaceful and political means.
The Internet is accessible to the majority of the population in Egypt, whether via smartphones, internet cafes, or home connections. Broadband Internet access via VDSL is widely available. Under the rule of Hosni Mubarak, Internet censorship and surveillance were severe, culminating in a total shutdown of the Internet in Egypt during the 2011 Revolution. Although Internet access was restored following Mubarak's order, government censorship and surveillance have increased since the 2013 coup d'état, leading the NGO Freedom House to downgrade Egypt's Internet freedom from "partly free" in 2011 to "not free" in 2015, which it has retained in subsequent reports including the most recent in 2021. The El-Sisi regime has ramped up online censorship in Egypt. The regime heavily censors online news websites, which has prompted the closure of many independent news outlets in Egypt.
Howcast is an educational technology website that provides instructional short-form how-to video and content that combines practical information with various filmmaking techniques such as humor, claymation and animation. The how-to content is created in-house, through its Emerging Filmmakers Program, media content partners and individual contributors. Its Emerging Filmmakers Program allows emerging filmmakers to apply to make videos for Howcast.com and are compensated by receiving $50 a video and 50% of the advertising revenue generated from videos that generate over 40,000 views.
CyberDissidents.org is a division of Advancing Human Rights, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization. CyberDissidents.org focuses on the human rights of online political activists. The group believes that highlighting the plight of individual democratic dissidents in the West affords a measure of protection against government oppression.
Advancing Human Rights (AHR) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. AHR's stated objective is to "leverage the tools of democracy to support those fighting for human rights in closed societies." AHR aspires to empower these dissident voices by utilizing crowd sourcing and technology to allow activists around the world to connect to the tools, resources and expertise they need to succeed.
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.
Jigsaw LLC is a technology incubator created by Google. It used to operate as an independent subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., but came under Google management in February 2020. Based in New York City, Jigsaw is dedicated to understanding global challenges and applying technological solutions, from "countering extremism", online censorship and cyber-attacks, to protecting access to information. Its current CEO is Yasmin Green.
Hoàng Tứ Duy is a Vietnamese-born American democracy activist. He is currently the executive director for Viet Tan, an unsanctioned pro-democracy political movement in Vietnam. Before becoming a full-time democracy activist, he worked as an investment banker for over 10 years. He has testified before US Congressional committees on human rights issues and written for the Wall Street Journal, Asia Times Online and leading Vietnamese-language publications.
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.
Freedom Collection is a digital repository sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on Southern Methodist University's campus in Dallas, Texas. The collection documents major players in human rights and freedom movements around the world during the 20th and 21st centuries through video interviews and documents. Contributors include former president of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Syrian dissident and author Ammar Abdulhamid, former president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic Václav Havel, Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng, former president of Peru Alejandro Toledo, and Egyptian author Saad Eddin Ibrahim. At its launch on March 28, 2012, the collection consisted of 56 interviews. As of 2022, the Freedom Collection website was last updated in 2016 and its YouTube channel, where video interviews are available to watch, was last updated in October 2015. It is unclear if the project is still active.
Tavaana: E-Learning Institute for Iranian Civil Society provides free online training and Persian and English learning resources to Iranians. Tavaana - meaning "empowered" and "capable" in Persian – was launched in 2010 with a mission “to support active citizenship and civic leadership in Iran through education and civil society capacity building.”
The Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy is an annual human rights summit sponsored by a coalition of 20 non-governmental organizations. Each year, on the eve of the United Nations Human Rights Council's main annual session, activists from around the world meet to raise international awareness of human rights situations.
The World Forum for Democracy is a gathering each November in Strasbourg, France to debate the complex challenges facing democracies today and foster democratic innovation. The Forum is hosted by the Council of Europe and brings together members of civil society, political leaders and representatives of business, academia, media and professional groups. Past editions have revolved around themes such as "Bridging the gap: democracy between old models and new realities", "Re-wiring Democracy: connecting institutions and citizens in the digital age" and "From participation to influence: can youth revitalise democracy?".
Digital Rights Watch is an Australian charity organisation founded in 2016 that aims to educate and uphold the digital rights of Australian citizens.
It Gets Better México is an organization that was founded in 2014 by Fernanda Garza and Rubén Maza. It is the Mexican affiliate of the United States based It Gets Better Project, an Internet-based 501(c)3 nonprofit with the mission to uplift, empower, and connect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth around the globe. Although It Gets Better México is the Mexican affiliate of the It Gets Better Project, It Gets Better México is an independent organization that is autonomously responsible for their own programs, allocation of funding, and building of community partnerships. However, through its relationship with the It Gets Better Project, It Gets Better México reserves the license to the It Gets Better brand. It Gets Better México is one of the It Gets Better Project's 17 international affiliates.