RightsCon 2017 is over, and we have lots to say about it. The Conference took place over a three day period, i.e. 29-31 March 2017 in Brussels, Belgium. We would like to thank Access Now for organizing and managing a smoothly conducted conference with over a thousand people in attendance. Mishi Choudhary, Biju K. Nair and Sukarn S. Maini from our team participated in the conference.
We organized a session in collaboration with Mozilla, called Connecting the Unconnected: Innovative Ways to Provide Affordable Access to the Internet. We were panelists in various other sessions, including extensive participation in the entire #KeepItOn Summit on Internet shutdowns, as well as the sessions mentioned below:1
- Advances in Measuring Internet Shutdowns.
- Better Ways to Document Internet Shutdowns.
- Freedom Online Coalition: Multilateral Approaches to Network Disruptions.
- Intermediary Liability and Beyond: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities for Human Rights.
- Let’s Talk Sex Toy Security – Internet of Things and Liability Issues.
- Tackling Harmful Speech: What Harms Rights Least?
- Zero-Rating Done Right? Establishing Principles and Guidelines to Address the Affordability Barrier.
We organized a booth on the first day, where we handed out physical copies of our reports on Online Harassment – A Form of Censorship and India’s Surveillance State. To generate more awareness about India’s digital rights landscape, we also distributed brochures, stickers, t-shirts and maps of Internet shutdowns in India.
Watch out for a post coming soon with details of sessions that we were a part of, and the outcome of those sessions.
1 The full RightsCon 2017 program can be accessed at https://www.rightscon.org/cms/assets/uploads/2017/03/RightsCon-Brussels-2017-Official-Program.pdf