Category: show on landing page

[blog] The true cost of human rights witnessing

Author: Alexandra Elliott – Header image: Troll Patrol India, Amnesty Decoders

Witnessing is widely accepted as an established element of enforcing justice, and recent increase in accessibility to big data revolutionizes this process. Data witnessing, now, can be conducted by remote actors using digital tools to code large amounts of information – a process exemplified for instance by Amnesty International’s Amnesty Decoders. Gray presents an account of the Amnesty Decoders initiative and provides examples of their cases, such as “Decode Darfur” (977) in which volunteers successfully identified the destruction of villages during war by comparing the before and after satellite imagery. A critical, yet under-discussed consequence of this type of work is the significant mental toll of engaging with this amount of confronting material. The nature of human rights exposés means witnesses are working with disturbing imagery often depicting violence and devastation, which can lead to secondary trauma and must be managed accordingly.

This blog-post should be read as an overview of completed research into the mental health effects of data witnessing and the initiatives that should be put in place to mitigate this. It concludes by highlighting Berkley’s Investigations Lab as an example of the efficient implementation of protective measures in human rights research. The text below presents, however, only the tip of the iceberg of detailed scholarship and I recommend turning to the Human Rights Resilience Project for a more thorough inventory.

The Human Rights Resilience Project is an “interdisciplinary research initiative […] working to document, awareness-raising, and the development of culturally-sensitive training programs to promote well-being and resilience among human rights workers” (“Human Rights Resilience Project – NYU School Of Law – CHRGJ”). Whilst not undertaking any human rights witnessing itself, it functions as a toolbox for those who do. It provides an excellent example of bringing the issue to the forefront of discourse, advocating for the psychological risks of engaging in human rights witnessing to receive the attention it’s severity demands so that both workers and institutions can prepare and manage accordingly.

Data Witnessing and Mental Health

We have reached a point in research in which the correlation between declining mental health and exposure to confronting material in data witnessing work is undeniable. There is a large collection of papers available which evidence the harmful impact on mental wellbeing within the human rights industry.

Dubberly, Griffin and Mert Bal’s research provides a clear overview of “the impact that viewing traumatic eyewitness media has upon the mental health of staff working for news, human rights and humanitarian organisations” (4). They introduce the notion of a “digital frontline” (5) as online data witnessing relocates the confrontation of graphic, disturbing material previously encountered exclusively in the physical field to an office desk far removed from the scene of the crime. 55% of the humanitarian workers and data witnesses observed in the research viewed shocking profanity at least weekly. Carried along with this shift is the psychological impact affiliated with engaging with disturbing content. The effects detected included that workers “developed a negative view of the world, feel isolated, experience flashbacks, nightmares and stress-related medical conditions” (5).

Over the past few years, a range of similar research was undertaken, of which I have presented merely a selection, all confirming a correlation between human rights witnessing and a negative headspace. In Knuckey, Satterthwaite, and Brown list human rights work practices that would contribute to fluctuating mental states, being; trauma exposure, a sensation of hopelessness, high standards and self-criticism, and inflexibility towards coping mechanisms. Similarly, Reiter and Koenig also discuss impacts of humanitarian research on workers’ mental health. Flores Morales et al. conducted a study of human rights defenders and journalists in Mexico of whom are consistently exposed to traumatic content in their work. They detect strong levels of secondary traumatic stress symptoms amongst 36.4% of participants. Finally in one of the earlier investigations into the concern, Joscelyne et al. surveyed international human rights workers to determine the consequences their work had on their psychological wellbeing. The results stated participant levels of 19.4% for PTSD and 18.8% for subthreshold PTSD. Depression was present amongst 14.75 of workers surveyed. Shockingly, these proportions are very similar to those observed amongst combat veterans reiterating the severity of the matter and emphasising the requirement for action.

A Call to Action

Several sectors of the literature on the relationship between data witnessing and mental health focus on what initiatives are currently adopted by organisations to identify, prevent and counteract occasions of trauma and depression amongst researchers or proposes new, potentially effective strategies.

Satterthwaite et al. is an example study that aims to map established techniques for recognizing and reacting to mental health concerns within human rights work. Ultimately it is concluded that the current action of organisations is weak and the suggestion is for targeted training programmes and further academic discourse. Observations of negligence seem to become a trend, with Dubberly et al. also reporting a lack of protective processes in place amongst the majority of organisations studied. In what is dubbed a “tough up or get out” culture (7), humanitarian efforts deny proper recognition of the effects of trauma upon their researchers and thus offer no support or compensation. Additionally, new employees are not notified of the degree of profanity of their daily work material and are consequentially inappropriately prepared.

Acknowledging this gap in current support structures, academics have sought to develop strategies detecting, preventing and reducing declining mental health amongst data witnesses. For instance, Reiter and Koenig’s “Challenges and Strategies for Researching Trauma” describe protective techniques that aim to strengthen resilience; eg. explicitly acknowledgement of the psychological consequences and subsequently fostering a supportive workplace community.

Academics too urge the need for tools for self-care. Distinct from the pampering sessions and beauty treatments commonly affiliated with the term, here self-care practices are put to use to strengthen mental health. Pyles (2018) promotes self-care within the work of data witnessing for its ability to “cultivate the conditions that might allow them to feel more connected to themselves, their clients, colleagues and communities” (xix). This sense of community and grounding within a greater environment is important to counteract any feelings of isolation. Kanter and Sherman also encourage human rights organisations to adopt a “culture of self-care” to mitigate the risk of mental burnout and Pigni’s book “The Idealist’s Survival Kit” was written to provide human rights researchers and witnesses with an artillery of 75 self-care techniques.

As mentioned by Satterthwaite et al., tt is important to acknowledge the lack of mitigating practices in place may well be because of a lack of funding rather than an act of negligence. Dependency on external fundraisers introduces a complex network in which responsibility is distributed amongst a range of actors with varying motivations.

Berkeley

Leading by Example

The tendency for human right organisations to neglect their workers’ mental wellbeing is fortunately not universal. There are instances of hiring counselors and enforcing regular breaks and rotations (Duuberly et al.), one standout initiative is that of the University of Berkley’s Human Rights Centre Investigations Lab.

Following a similar format to the Amnesty Decoders, workers at the Investigations Lab “use social media and other publicly available, internet-based sources to develop evidence for advocacy and legal accountability” (“HRC Investigations Lab | Human Rights Center”). What sets the Lab apart is its dedication to “resiliency resources” – a programme of training and tools aiming to support the witnesses’ wellbeing. Upon orientation to the lab, workers receive resiliency training in which they receive small practical tips to avoid secondary trauma; “use post-its to block out graphic material when viewing a video repeatedly” (“Resiliency Resources | Human Rights Center”), for example. Additionally they are encouraged to regularly check in with an allocated resiliency manager.

Concluding Thoughts

The material human rights witnesses engage with is horrific and the protection of their mental health must be prioritized by the institutions for which they work. However it is also important to remember the necessity of their work in detecting human rights violations and war crimes. The role of data witnessing is admirable and cannot simply be omitted. Therefore the way forward is for human rights institutions to guarantee a support network of education, tools and community so that witnesses can continue to strengthen humanitarian action without personal detrimental consequences.

About the author

Alexandra grew up in Sydney, Australia before moving to England to complete her Bachelors degree at Warwick University. She is currently undertaking a Research Masters in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. It is through this course that she became involved with the Good Data tutorial and DATACTIVE project.

References

Dubberley, Sam, Elizabeth Griffin, and Haluk Mert Bal. “Making secondary trauma a primary issue: A study of eyewitness media and vicarious trauma on the digital frontline.” Eyewitness Media Hub (2015).

Flores Morales, Rogelio et al. “Estrés Traumático Secundario (ETS) En Periodistas Mexicanos Y Defensores De Derechos Humanos”. Summa Psicológica, vol 13, no. 1, 2016, pp. 101-111. Summa Psicologica UST, doi:10.18774/448x.2016.13.290.

Gray, Jonathan. “Data Witnessing: Attending To Injustice With Data In Amnesty International’S Decoders Project”. Information, Communication & Society, vol 22, no. 7, 2019, pp. 971-991. Informa UK Limited, doi:10.1080/1369118x.2019.1573915.

“HRC Investigations Lab | Human Rights Center”. Humanrights.Berkeley.Edu, https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/students/hrc-investigations-lab.

“Human Rights Resilience Project – NYU School Of Law – CHRGJ”. Chrgj.Org, https://chrgj.org/focus-areas/human-rights-resilience-project/.

Joscelyne, Amy et al. “Mental Health Functioning In The Human Rights Field: Findings From An International Internet-Based Survey”. PLOS ONE, vol 10, no. 12, 2015, p. e0145188. Public Library Of Science (Plos), doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0145188.

Kanter, Beth, and Aliza Sherman. “Updating The Nonprofit Work Ethic”. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2016, https://ssir.org/articles/entry/updating_the_nonprofit_work_ethic?utm_source=Enews&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=SSIR_Now&utm_content=Title

Knuckey, Sarah, Margaret Satterthwaite, and Adam Brown. “Trauma, depression, and burnout in the human rights field: Identifying barriers and pathways to resilient advocacy.” HRLR Online 2 (2018): 267.

Pigni, Alessandra. The Idealist’s Survival Kit: 75 Simple Ways to Avoid Burnout. Parallax Press, 2016.

Pyles, Loretta. Healing justice: Holistic self-care for change makers. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Reiter, Keramet, and Alexa Koenig. “Reiter And Koenig On Researching Trauma”. Www.Palgrave.Com, 2017, https://www.palgrave.com/gp/blogs/social-sciences/reiter-and-koenig-on-researching-trauma.

“Resiliency Resources | Human Rights Center”. Humanrights.Berkeley.Edu, https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/programs-projects/tech-human-rights-program/investigations-lab/resiliency-resources.

Satterthwaite, Margaret, et al. “From a Culture of Unwellness to Sustainable Advocacy: Organizational Responses to Mental Health Risks in the Human Rights Field.” S. Cal. Rev. L. & Soc. Just. 28 (2019): 443.

Image References

Berkeley. “Human Rights Investigations Lab: Where Facts Matter”. Human Rights Centre, https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/programs-projects/tech/investigations-lab.

Perpetual Media Group. “14 Things Marketers Should Never Do On Twitter”. Perpetual Media Group, https://www.perpetualmediagroup.ca/14-things-marketers-should-never-do-on-twitter/.

[News] CFP: Special issue of Palabra Clave – Deadline Extension

Please note that the upcoming special issue of Palabra Clave, titled “Latin American perspectives on datafication and artificial intelligence” decides to extend its original deadline (March 21, 2020) for abstract. The deadline has been extended until May the 1st, 2020.

Stefania Milan & Emiliano Treré as guest editors of this special issue.

More information on the CfP here:

Call for papers (Español): http://bit.ly/Pacla-CFP-2021-2-ES

Call for papers (English): http://bit.ly/Pacla-CFP-2021-2-EN

Call for papers en (Portugués): http://bit.ly/Pacla-CFP-2021-2-PT

 

[News] CFP: Contentious Data: The Social Movement Society in the Age of Datafication

Editors: Stefania Milan, Davide Beraldo, Cristina Flesher Fominaya

NEW DEADLINE: Due to COVID-19 situation, we have decided to extend the deadline. The new deadline is MAY 25, 2020

Datafication is changing the conditions under which contemporary social movements operate, opening up new terrains of contention. As a result, grassroots initiatives in the realm of data activism, data justice, algorithmic accountability and/or resistance to mass surveillance mushrooms in liberal and authoritarian regimes alike. These initiatives vary by scale, organizational forms, tactics, political visions and technological imaginaries. They may take data “as repertoires”, whereby data and data-based tactics are mobilized as constituents of innovative tactics, or “as stakes”, that is to say issues or objects of political struggle in their own right (Beraldo and Milan, 2019). However, they share an emphasis on the contentious politics of data.

While many instances of the contentious politics of data have come under the spotlight of specialists of digital politics and culture, social movement scholars are only starting to investigate the consequences of datafication on organized collective action. Yet datafication represents a paradigm change able to radically transform “social movement society”, urging social movements scholars to reflect on how it intersects with known social movement dynamics.

This Special Issue invites scholars of social movements and critical data studies to engage with i) case studies and ii) theoretical reflections illustrating the evolution of collective action vis-à-vis datafication. We are particularly interested in (interdisciplinary) theory development: fostering a dialogue across disciplinary boundaries, the Special Issue wants to bring the question of datafication -broadly defined -to bear on social movement scholarship, with the ambition of addressing what has been to date a “blind spot” in social movement literature, and cross-fertilizing disciplinary fields that have long remained disconnected.

Consequently, we welcome papers (max 8,000 words) engaging with the following:

• Unfamiliar empirical cases of: social movements’ critical engagement with the datafication agenda (e.g., Hong Kong activists dismantling lamp posts with surveillance cameras); creative incorporation of data-based practices and tactics in social movements’ repertoires (e.g., citizen-led collection of pollution data); social movements engaging in struggles around data issues (e.g., algorithmic accountability); examples of conflation between data as constituents of action repertoires and data as a contentious issue in its own right.

• Theoretical perspectives on, for instance, data activism, data justice, artificial intelligence, the relation between protest and social structures in the age of datafication, etc. as they intersect social movements and collective action processes, concepts, and research questions.

• Theoretical contributions on, e.g., the relation between data and the means-ends continuum in social movements, oriented to theory development in the field of social movement studies.

Submission Process and Deadlines

Abstracts due 30 April 2020

Acceptance announced by 15 May 2020

Paper development workshop last week of August 2020

Submissions due 30 November 2020 

We invite the submission of structured extended abstracts (800-1000 words). Abstracts should be sent to contentiousdata-sms@data-activism.net no later than 30 April 2020. The outcome of the selection process will be notified no later than 15 May 2020. Prospective authors will be given the option to participate in a paper development workshop held at the University of Amsterdam in the last week of August (tentative date). Full paper submission (original articles of no more than 8.000 words) is due on 30 November 2020.

All papers will be subjected to double-blind peer review. For further instructions see the “Instructions for Authors” and “Style Guide” provided by Social Movement Studies.

Please contact us if you have any further inquiries:

  • Stefania Milan (DATACTIVE, Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam): s.milan@uva.nl
  • Davide Beraldo (DATACTIVE, Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam): d.beraldo@uva.nl

[News] Special issue: Media Innovation and Social Change

We are glad to announce that our new special issue is out, Edited by Niamh Ní Bhroin and Stefania Milan:
Journal of Media Innovation (open access), Vol 6 No 1 (2020): Special issue: Media Innovation and Social Change

From the editors:

Our purpose with this Special Issue is to present and contribute to a body of research that critically explores the relationship between media innovation and social change. In doing so, we also outline the contours of a research agenda to further develop this emerging field. Our motivation arises from a review of research published in the nine previous editions of this journal, where we explored how research about media innovations engaged with the topic of social change. We find that research in the field of media innovations has tended to focus on business and economic imperatives for media innovation, following the paradigm of research on digitalisation introduced by von Hippel’s theories of ‘democratizing innovation’ (2005), Chesbrough’s ‘open innovation’ (2006), or Tapscott and Williams, ‘Wikinomics’ (2011). As a consequence, digitalisation and the introduction of new technologies is usually unquestioningly presented as a business imperative for media industry stakeholders.

[BigDataSur] A widening data divide: COVID-19 and the Global South

COVID-19 shows the need for a global alliance of experts who can fast-track the capacity building of developing countries in the business of counting.

Stefania Milan & Emiliano Treré

The COVID-19 pandemic is sweeping the world. First identified in mainland China in December 2019, it has rapidly reached the four corners of the globe, to the point that the only “corona-free” land is reportedly Antarctica. News reports globally are filled with numbers and figures of various kinds. We count the number of tests, we follow the rise of the total individuals who tested positive to the virus, we mourn the dead looking at the daily death toll. These numbers are deeply ingrained in their socio-economic and political geography, as the virus follows distinct diffusion curves, but also because distinct countries and institutions count differently (and often these distinct ways of counting are not even made apparent). What is clear is that what gets counted exists, in both state policies and people’s imaginaries. Numbers affect our ability to care, share empathy, and donate to relief efforts and emergency services. Numbers are the condition of existence of the problem, and of a country or given social reality on the global map of concerns. Yet most countries from the so-called Global South are virtually absent from this number-based narration of the pandemic. Why, and with what consequences?

Data availability and statistical capacity in developing countries

If numbers are the conditions of existence of the COVID-19 problem, we ought to pay attention to the actual (in)ability of many countries in the South to test their population for the virus, and to produce reliable population statistics more in general–let alone to adequately care for them. It is a matter of a “data gap” as well as of data quality, which even in “normal” times hinders the need for “evidence-based policy making, tracking progress and development, and increasing government accountability” (Chen et al., 2013). And while the World Health Organization issues warning about the “dramatic situation” concerning the spread of COVID-19 in the African continent, to name just one of the blind spots of our datasets of the global pandemic, the World Economic Forum calls for “flattening the curve” in developing countries. Progress has been made following the revision of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals in 2005, with countries in the Global South have been invited (and supported) to devise National Strategies for the Development of Statistics. Yet, a cursory look at the NYU GovLab’s valuable repository of data collaboratives” addressing the COVID-19 pandemic reveals the virtual absence of data collection and monitoring projects in the South of the emisphere. The next obvious step is the dangerous equation “no data=no problem”. 

Disease and “whiteness”

Epidemiology and pharmacogenetics (i.e. the study of the genetic basis of how people respond to pharmaceuticals), to name but a few amongst the number of concerned life sciences, are largely based on the “inclusion of white/Caucasians in studies and the exclusion of other ethnic groups” (Tutton, 2007). In other words, modeling of disease evolution and the related solutions are based on datasets that take into account primarily–and in fact almost exclusively–the caucasian population. This is a known problem in the field, which derives from the “assumption that a Black person could be thought of as being White”, dismissing specificities and differences. This problem has been linked to the “lack of social theory development, due mainly to the reluctance of epidemiologists to think about social mechanisms (e.g., racial exploitation)” (Muntaner, 1999, p. 121). While COVID-19 represents a slight variation on this trend, having been first identified in China, the problem on the large scale remains. And in times of a health emergency as global as this one, risks to be reinforced and perpetuated.

A succulent market for the industry

In the lack of national testing capacity, the developing world might fall prey to the blooming industry of genetic and disease testing, on the one hand, and of telecom-enabled population monitoring on the other. Private companies might be able to fill the gap left by the state, mapping populations at risk–while however monetizing their data. The case of 23andme is symptomatic of this rise of industry-led testing, which constitutes a double-edge sword. On the one hand, private actors might supply key services that resource-poor or failing states are unable to provide. On the other hand, however, the distorted and often hidden agendas of profit-led players reveals its shortcomings and dangers. If we look at the telecom industry, we note how it has contributed to track disease propagation in a number of health emergencies such as Ebola. And if the global open data community has called for smoother data exchange between the private and the public sector to collectively address the spread of the virus,in the absence of adequate regulatory frameworks in the Global South, for example in the field of privacy and data retention, local authorities might fall prey to outside interventions of dubious nature. 

The populism and racism factors

Lack of reliable numbers to accurately portray the COVID-19 pandemic as it spreads to the Southern hemisphere also offers fertile ground to distorted and malicious narratives mobilized for political reasons. To name just one, it allows populist leaders like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro to announce the “return to normality” in the country, dismissing the harsh reality as a collective “hysteria”. In Italy, the ‘fake news’ that migrant populations of African origin would be “immune” to the disease sweeped social media, unleashing racist comments and anti-migrant calls for action. While the same rumor that has reportedly been circulating in the African continent as well and populism has been hitting hard in Western democracies as well, it might be have more dramatic consequences in the more populous countries of the South. In Mexico, left-wing populist president Andrés Manuel López Obrador responded to the coronavirus emergency insisting that Mexicans should “keep living life as usual”. He did not stop his tour in the south of the country and frequently contradicted the advice of public health officials, systematically ignoring social distancing by touching, hugging and kissing his supporters and going as far as considering the pandemic as a plot to derail his presidency. These dangerous comments, assumptions and attitudes are a byproduct of the lack of reliable data and testing that we signal in this article. 

The risk of universalising the problem

Luckily, the long experience and harsh familiarity in coping with disasters, catastrophes and emergencies has also prompted various countries from the Global South to deploy effective measures of containment more quickly than many countries in the Global North. 

In the lack of reliable data from the South, however, modeling the diffusion of the disease might be difficult. The temptation will likely be to ”import” models and “appropriate” predictions from other countries and socio-economic realities, and then base domestic measures and policies on them. “Universalizing” the problem as well as the solutions, as we warned in a 2019 article, is tempting, especially in these times of global uncertainty. Universalizing entails erroneously thinking that the problem manifests itself in exactly the same manner everywhere, disregarding local features to “other” approaches. Coupled with the “whiteness” observed earlier, this gives rise to an explosive cocktail that is likely to create more problems than it solves. 

Beyond the blind spot? 

While many have enough to worry about “at home”, the largest portion of the world population today resides in the so-called Global South, with all the very concrete challenges of the situation. For instance, for a good portion of the 1,3 billion Indian citizens now on lockdown, staying at home might mean starving. How can the global community–open data experts, researchers, life science scholars, digital rights activists, to name but a few–contribute to “fix” the widening data divide that risks severely weakening any local effort to curb the expansion of COVID-19 to populations that are often already at the margins? We argue that the issue at stake here is not simply whether we pump in the much-needed resources or how we collaborate, but it is also a matter of where do we turn the eye–in other words, where we decide to look. COVID-19 will likely make apparents the need of a global alliance of experts of various kinds who, jointly with civil society organizations, can fast-track the capacity building of developing countries in the business of counting. 

This article has been published simultaneously on the the Big Data from the South blog and on Open Movements / Open Democracy.

Cover image credits: Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

Acknowledgements. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 639379-DATACTIVE; https://data-activism.net).

[BigDataSur] Cuba y su ecosistema de redes después de la revolución

Por: Yery Menéndez García y Jessica Domínguez.

En Cuba la información, la comunicación y los datos son “recursos estratégicos del estado” [1] y “asunto de seguridad nacional” [2]. En la práctica, pero también en la mayoría de los documentos normativos del país, queda establecida la propiedad estatal sobre el capital simbólico de la nación.

A lo anterior se suman niveles de acceso y existencia de plataformas de redes telemáticas considerados entre los más bajos del planeta, importantes restricciones internacionales para el acceso a infraestructura, financiamientos, circuitos de telecomunicaciones y conectividad, y la existencia de programas que usan las TICS para intentar desestabilizar abiertamente al gobierno cubano.

Ante este contexto, y debido a los altos precios de conexión, grupos ciudadanos desarrollan prácticas de circulación de información que se adaptan a un contexto híbrido (off-on line). Estas iniciativas asumen un carácter autónomo, deslocalizado y auto gestionado e intentan satisfacer demandas diarias fuera de los mecanismos del estado. Algunas de las más relevantes en los últimos diez años son:

  1. Nuevos medios alternativos de comunicación

Un grupo de jóvenes periodistas graduados de universidades cubanas y otros profesionales están utilizando un grupo de recursos socio-técnicos para generar otras matrices de información.

Estas nuevas plataformas de información de interés público vienen a llenar vacíos dejado por los medios oficiales, únicos permitidos de existir. Algunos actúan como proyectos sombrilla o repositorios, albergando otras iniciativas ciudadanas de información.

Durante diez años y ante carencias de acceso a redes para resolver cuestiones infraestructurales, de fortalecimiento de capacidades y de acceso a fuentes, estas iniciativas han desarrollado formas de gestión creativas e innovadoras en concordancia con las más recientes tendencias globales.

A pesar de esto, la principal fuente de financiamiento de estos proyectos continúa siendo donaciones y becas provenientes de organizaciones internacionales. Este sigue siendo el principal punto de ataque usado para desacreditarlos por representantes del gobierno.

Entre los más relevantes y reconocidos se encuentran:

  • On Cuba, una plataforma en inglés y español dirigida, sobre todo a la comunidad cubana emigrada.
  • El Toque, un medio generalista, enfocado principalmente a los jóvenes y gestionado por jóvenes que cuenta historias de ciudadanía. El Toque pertenece a un grupo mayor de “emprendimientos de comunicación” reunidos dentro del Colectivo +Voces y que incluye también una radio digital llamada “El Enjambre” y un suplemento de humor gráfico, Xel2.
  • Periodismo de Barrio, una revista dedicada a tratar temas medioambientales y vulnerabilidades sociales.
  • El Estornudo, medio especializado en periodismo literario.
  • Joven Cuba y La Tizza, ambos son blogs colaborativos para promover el debate político.

Todos estos medios tienen como principal forma de socialización sus portales online. Pero desde que la distribución de formatos impresos es prohibida por el código penal cubano y el acceso online es caro, estos medios han tenido que innovar en sus interacciones con sus comunidades. La manera fundamental que han encontrado es la creación de una base de datos que se descarga una vez por semana. Con la base de datos descargada se actualiza la aplicación móvil de los sitios y desde entonces se puede acceder a todo el contenido offline.

Existe una clara diferencia entre estos medios y los medios abiertamente opuestos al gobierno de la isla. Los primeros están enfocados en producir información fuera de la égida del departamento ideológico del Partido Comunista de Cuba, estructura encargada de regular toda la producción simbólica del país, mientras los segundos subordinan la información que producen a su activismo político.

  1. El paquete semanal

El paquete es un producto-servicio que capitaliza redes sociales ya desarrolladas y las extiende. Si bien el objetivo final de esta expresión socio-técnica es el lucro y no la práctica de sentido de ciudadanía, si vale la pena comprender como esas redes de datos interactúan con redes sociales y como son producidas socialmente.

Dentro del paquete se recopila alrededor de 1 terabyte de contenido pirata, semana por semana. Este contenido se descarga de internet desde diferentes nodos o matrices que todo el mundo conoce, pero que permanecen ocultas, como secretos a voces. Una vez descargado el contenido, se entrega a un grupo de personas que a su vez, lo distribuyen mediante discos extraíbles a otras ciudadanos y así sucesivamente, por módicos precios.

De esta manera, en una especie de bola de nieve, los cubanos tienen acceso a internet offline y se mantienen actualizados de todo cuanto acontece en materia de información. Los contenidos del paquete incluyen desde cine hasta publicidad no permitida en los canales oficiales cubanos; desde música hasta bases de datos de otras plataformas de todo tipo. El paquete semanal es la principal forma de distribución de los medios y revistas mencionados anteriormente y de otros tantos, religiosos, humorísticos y políticos que no tienen otros espacios donde posicionarse.

La mejor descripción para el paquete es la de fenómeno híbrido de socialización de datos que media entre interacciones sociales no dependientes de algoritmos. Para la realidad semi-conectada de Cuba, el paquete semanal es hoy el recurso de distribución más popular y asequible. Y aunque no es legal, su carácter reticular, su distribución por nodos y de mano a mano y la calidad en la gestión y jerarquización de sus contenidos, hace imposible para las autoridades detenerlo completamente.

  1. The Street Network

La SNET (Street Network, por sus siglas en inglés) o Red de la calle, fue otra popular experiencia de distribución de contenidos y de creación de comunidades que, a diferencia del paquete, no tenía ánimo de lucro. En esta red, conectada por cables y Wi-Fi, sus “miembros” comenzaron a agruparse en nodos por toda la Habana con la intención de jugar partidas online. Con el paso del tiempo, la SNET fue creciendo y perfeccionando en estructura y organización, llegando a otras provincias del país. Y su objetivo primario pasó de ser el espacio de la comunidad gamer cubana a convertirse en un esquema para la generación de prácticas conectadas de ciudadanía mediadas por software.

La SNET, a pesar de ser un tejido ilegal, desarrolló un complejo sistema jerárquico, principios y éticas de funcionamiento bien establecidas, llegando a desplegar un nivel de infraestructura de red nunca antes visto, fuera de los márgenes del estado.

Convertida en un verdadero movimiento de activismo de datos, en 2019 el gobierno trató de institucionalizarla dentro de los Jóvenes Clubs de Computación y Electrónica. Este intento de cooptar la iniciativa generó protestas y demostraciones públicas que llevaron al gobierno, por primera vez, a sostener diálogos y llegar a consenso con los representantes de los nodos de SNET. A pesar de los acuerdos entre ambas partes, la red está hoy casi extinta.

  1. Articulaciones ciudadanas en redes sociales

En enero del pasado 2019 un tornado azotó la Habana devastando el ya vetusto fondo habitacional de la capital cubana. Luego de este fenómeno natural, una oleada de ciudadanos organizados congregaron a cubanos residentes y emigrados para brindar ayuda a los necesitados. Convocándose principalmente mediante Facebook, se crearon directorios colaborativos con los contactos de aquellos dispuestos a ayudar, bases de datos abiertas con los nombres y datos demográficos de los más necesitados e iniciativas de mapping para localizar los lugares donde fue mayor el daño.

Esta iniciativa fue, en su mayoría, impulsada por jóvenes profesionales y artistas. El nivel de movilización demostrado superó a las capacidades del estado, el que una vez más trató de institucionalizar las ayudas. En este caso, el movimiento siguió operando paralelo a los esfuerzos estatales y solo concluyó una vez que la mayoría de las personas afectadas recibieran kits básicos de apoyo.

  1. Plataformas comerciales

También existe una extensiva red de repositorios comerciales colaborativos como Revolico.com que intentan generar una alternativa dinámica al desprovisto mercado oficial. En estos repositorios se crea, gestiona, jerarquiza, recupera y socializa información referente a bienes y servicios que son adquiridos con otros bienes y servicios, moderados por reglas que toda la comunidad que utiliza la plataforma debe seguir.

En una situación de a-legalidad conviven estas comunidades de interpretación, creación y resistencia ante la información estatalizada. Ante un estado centralizador, estas nuevas relaciones sociales de producción dirigidas a llenar vacíos de sentidos que no pueden ser llenados de otra manera, mediadas o no por algoritmos; representan hoy alternativas cada vez más articuladas, populares y endógenas y de eso depende enteramente su supervivencia.

[1] Lineamientos de la política social del Estado (PCC, 2011, updated in 2016)

[2] Decreto Ley 370 de MInisterio de Información y Comunicaciones

Biografía 

Yery Menéndez García es periodista y profesora de la Facultad de Comunicación de la Universidad de La Habana. MA in Media Practice for Development and Social Change por la Universidad de Sussex en Reino Unido. Gestora de Audiencias en el medio independiente cubano El Toque.

[blog] Catching a Glimpse of the Elusive “Feminist Drone”

Author: Erinne Paisley

Introduction

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV or “drones”) are increasingly being used for military, governmental, commercial and personal purposes (Feigenbaum 267; Estrada 100). This rapid increase in drone use raises new questions about how this technology reinforces certain social and political inequalities within its own structure, function, and use. Those who work within the growing academic field of feminist internet studies are dedicated to understanding the aspects of society’s inequities that are both present in new technologies and that can be decreased through these mediums. However, a clear picture of what a “feminist drone” can look like is still relatively elusive.

To paint a picture of how this new media form can be used to decrease gendered inequalities, we can look to two previous feminist drone projects: Droncita (Dronette) in Mexico and the “Abortion Drone” in Poland. Each of these UAV projects worked in unique ways to expose the existing inequalities that are strengthened through typical drone use and, instead, counteract these forces by using the technology to fulfill feminist agendas. Droncita worked to address spatial inequalities and the “Abortion Drone” aimed to expose and counteract legal inequalities. These cases show a glimpse into the future of feminist drones and the expanding field of feminist internet studies that support them.

Mexico’s Droncita (Dronette)

  • Droncita before her flight (Estrada 108).

Discrimination against women includes the exclusion of women from physical spaces . They are also discriminated against in additional intersecting ways including racially and economically. This exclusion of women ranges from workplaces to specific areas of cities that have high risks of sexual assault and other forms of violence (Spain 137). Operating from the skies, drones are able to use their small aerial cameras to literally offer new opportunities for viewing and recording our political and social world. In this way, they can reimagine some of these spatially exclusionary forms of discrimination – as we can see with Droncita.

Droncita made her debut in Ecatepec – 20km from Mexico City. Ecatepec is the city’s municipality with the highest rate of deaths presumed to be murder. In 2016, Feminist protestors filled the main square in an attempt to draw attention to the state’s inadequate reaction to the increasing number of female deaths in the country. The activists worked together, using white paint, to cover the square’s ground. The message they were creating was only viewable by one activist in particular: Droncita.

The drone was created by the Rexiste collective project, that began out of an opposition to the presidential election of Peña Nieto. Above these feminist activists, the drone now whirred, recording the emerging message. From Droncita’s point of view, the white paint clearly states: “Femicide State”. By recording this message from the sky’s unclaimed public space, Droncita firstly draws attention, in contrast, to the gendered space of Ecatepec below. The drone’s recording highlights that the feminist protestors are still not fully free to create their message safely in this space. As well, Droncita reclaims the space, alongside the activists below, by completing their message and illustrating its take-over of the square.

Femicide is: “The killing of a woman or girl, in particular by a man and on account of her gender.”

  • Droncita’s image captured from above (Estrada 109).

Through its actions, Droncita uses “digital ethnography”, the linking of digital space with actual space, to intervene (Estrada 104). Droncita turns aerial space into public space, making violence against women and the reality of the physical more visible – ultimately holding the Mexican government accountable for its role in creating a space where women feel unsafe and face omissions of justice.

Poland’s “Abortion Drone”

  • Two abortion pills attached to the feminist “Abortion Drone” (O’Neil 2015).

Gendered and intersectional discrimination is also upheld globally through law. One of the most significant, and ongoing, ways is through legal boundaries for women’s access to safe and affordable abortions. Women’s rights to make decisions over their own bodies include decisions regarding abortions and yet this form of healthcare is still illegal in many countries. As of 2020, abortion is fully illegal in 27 countries (even if the pregnancy is due to rape or incest). This legal boundary does not mean that women stop getting abortions, but instead that they are forced to receive expensive and unsafe medical attention. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 25 million unsafe abortions occur annually worldwide and over 7 million women are admitted to hospitals in developing countries due to this lack of safe access.

This is where the role of the “Abortion Drone” comes in. In 2015, across the German border from Słubice, Poland, this drone prepared to make its first trip. On one side of the river, a collection of women’s rights organizations and doctors prepared to fly the “quadcopter” to the other side. There a collection of pro-life protestors, journalists, and two women waited to swallow the abortion-inducing pills attached to the drone.

Despite the only 60-second length of the journey, the goal of the “Abortion Drone” was far-reaching. Within Poland, abortion is still illegal unless a woman’s life is categorized as being “in danger” or there is “evidence” of rape, incest or severe fetal abnormalities (O’Neil 2015). Because of these barriers, over 50,000 “underground abortions” are conducted each year – often using out-dated and dangerous tools and for thousands of dollars (limiting the resource to those who can economically afford it). Not only are Poland’s legal barriers for women’s access to healthcare a threat for the safety of those within the country, but they also serve as a wider representation of the legal struggles of millions of women globally.

The collection of activists and doctors called Women on Waves explains: “The medicines used for a medical abortion, mifepristone and misoprostol, have been on the list of essential medicines of the World Health Organization since 2005 and are available in Germany and almost all other European countries.”

As the “Abortion Drone” takes off on its inaugural flight, there is nothing that those on the Polish side can do to legally stop the drone’s journey. The UAV weighs under 5kg and is not used for commercial purposes. Because of these features, the new technology is able to both make visible the legal barriers for women in Poland and counteract them.

The drone lands on the Polish side safely and the women ceremoniously swallow the pills. Soon after, the activists operating the drones on the German side have their technology confiscated but the drone’s work has already been successful. The “Abortion Drone” has illuminated the legal and sexist inequalities that exist with regards to women’s access to healthcare – and temporarily counteracted them.

Feminist Drones in the Future

Droncita and the “Abortion Drone” illustrate the potential of feminist drones to illuminate and counteract spatial and legal inequalities that still exist for women and minorities today. The potential for feminist drones goes much beyond these two cases. As this article is published, feminist internet scholars are working to imagine other creative ways this new media can join the global fight for equality. It is fair to say this new member of the 21st century feminist movement is becoming less elusive; in fact, if you look up you might just catch a glimpse of it.

About the author

Erinne Paisley is a current Research Media Masters student at the University of Amsterdam and completed her BA at the University of Toronto in Peace, Conflict and Justice & Book and Media Studies. She is the author of three books on social media activism for youth with Orca Book Publishing.

Works Cited

Estrada, Marcela Suarez. “Feminist Politics, Drones and the Fight against the ‘Femicide State’ in Mexico.” International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 99–117.

Feigenbaum, Anna. “From Cyborg Feminism to Drone Feminism: Remembering Women’s Anti-Nuclear Activisms.” Feminist Theory, vol. 16, no. 3, Dec. 2015, pp. 265–88. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1177/1464700115604132.

Feminist Internet. Feminist Internet: About. https://feministinternet.com/about/. Accessed 26 Feb. 2020.

Jones, Sam. “Paint Remover: Mexico Activists Attempt to Drone out Beleaguered President.” The Guardian, 15 Oct. 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/15/mexico-droncita-rexiste-collective-president-enrique-pena-nieto.

O’Neil, Lauren. “‘Abortion Drone’ Delivers Pregnancy-Terminatinng Pills to Women in Poland.” CBC News, 29 June 2015, https://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/abortion-drone-delivers-medication-to-women-in-poland-1.3132284.

Oxford University Dictionary. “Femicide.” Lexico, https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/femicide. Accessed 26 Feb. 2020.

Spain, Daphne. “Gendered Spaces and Women’s Status.” Sociological Theory, vol. 11, no. 2, July 1993, pp. 137–51.

Women on Waves. Abortion Drone; First Flight to Poland. https://www.womenonwaves.org/en/page/5636/abortion-drone–first-flight-to-poland. Accessed 26 Feb. 2020.

World Health Organization. Preventing Unsafe Abortion. 26 June 2019, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/preventing-unsafe-abortion.

World Population Review. Countries Where Abortion Is Illegal 2020. http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-where-abortion-is-illegal/. Accessed 26 Feb. 2020.

[blog] Show me the numbers: a case of impact communication in FLOSS

Author: Jeroen de Vos, header image by Ford Foundation

This blog post will explore the potential of repurposing impact assessment tools as a means to leverage funding problems in Free and Libre Open Source Software by making explicit the role they have in crucial public digital infrastructure. Two key concepts are relevant to help explain this specific exploration, the first of which is Free and Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) and the central role it plays in facilitating a common software infrastructure used by both public and private organisations as well as civil society at large. The second is the notion of impact assessment as a strategy to understand, account for and communicate results of your efforts beyond merely financial numbers.

‘Money talk is kind of a taboo in the F[L]OSS community’, one respondent replied in an interview I most recently conducted at CCC 36C3. The talk he just gave outlined some of the tentative revenue models one could think of to make your software development activities more sustainable – it attracted a larger-than-expected audience with interesting follow-up questions. FLOSS software development very much draws on the internal motivation of developers or a developer community, with recurring questions of sustainability when relying on volunteering time that could be spent differently. And the complexity of this situation cannot be underestimated. The 2016 Ford Foundation report Roads and bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure (Eghbal) contextualizes some of the common problems in the open-source software development – think of for instance the lack of appreciation of invisible labour, the emotional burden of upkeeping a popular project started, or the constant struggle over motivation while being structurally un- or underfunded.

The report draws on the metaphor of FLOSS as infrastructure, since it is readily available to anyone alike, but also in needs maintenance – has its limitations, but works well to illustrate the point. Just like infrastructure supports the flows of ideas, goods and people FLOSS operates on every level of digital infrastructure, whether talking about the NTP protocol synchronizing the internet, GnuPG (an encryption protocol allowing secure communication and data sharing) or MySQL (a database structure which quickly became a go-to standard for information storage and retrieval). Another commonality: as long as the infrastructure functions, its underlying support systems are seemingly invisible. That is, up until the point of failure it is unseen to which extent both private and public goods and services and public or private communication rely on these software packages. Only at failure, it becomes painfully explicit.

The recent well-known example of this escalation taking place is with the so-called Heartbleed bug. The FLOSS OpenSSL package contains the most widely used protocol for encrypting web traffic. Due to a bug creeping into the code somewhere in 2011, attackers could intercept information from connections that should be encrypted – which rendered large parts of online infrastructure unsafe in design, including services like Google, Amazon and many others. The issue raised the attention to the OpenSSL developers’ under-capacity – only one working full time for a salary of only a third to its colleagues in commercial counterparts. This is the point where the impact assessment tools might come into play – rather than relying on controversies to make visible the apparent widespread embedding and dependency on particular pieces of software, why not use impact assessment as a way to understand public relevance?

Conducting impact assessments can help communicate the necessity of maintenance by making visible the embeddedness of FLOSS software packages – whether it is on the level of language, operating system or protocol. To briefly contextualize, impact assessment grew out of changing management needs and has been implemented in the organisation of ‘soft output’ whether it be policymaking or social entrepreneurship. It is an interventionist tool that allows defining qualitative output with subsequent quantitative proxies to help understand the implementation results in relation to the desired output as described in a theory of change. It helps to both evaluate the social, technological, economic, environmental and political value created and subsequently make insightful the extend to which obsoletion would disrupt existing public digital infrastructure.

Without going too much into detail it needs mentioning that impact assessment already made its introduction as part of reporting deliverables to funders where relevant. Part of this exercise, however, is to instrumentalize impact assessment not only for (private) reporting by projects already funded but for (public) communicating FLOSS impact especially for projects without the necessary revenue streams in place. Needless to say, this output is only one of the steps in the process of making crucial FLOSS more sustainable but an important one, assessment output might help tapping into public or private sponsorship, establishing new collaborations with governments, educators and businesses alike, and venture into other new and exciting funding models.

This piece is meant as a conversation starter, do you already know of existing strategies to help communicate FLOSS output, are you involved in creating alternative business models for for-good public data infrastructure – ideas and comments welcome. Email: jeroen@data-activism.net

As for a short disclaimer I have been working with social enterprises developing market research and impact-first business models, I have been mulling over the crossover between social entrepreneurship and (FLOSS) activism, in their common struggle for sustainability, relying on informal networks or communities of action and trying to make a social change either from within or from the outside. This blog post is an attempt to think together social entrepreneurship and data activism through the use of a use-case: impact assessment for FLOSS.

References:

Eghbal, N. (2016). Roads and bridges: The unseen labor behind our digital infrastructure. Ford Foundation.

[BigData Sur] Exploring Facebook’s role in Ethiopia’s rising ethnic tensions

by Syver Petersen

As the world’s most widely used social media platform, Facebook has become a vehicle for extreme political forces and a breeding ground for pernicious stories bent on instigating conflict among groups. In Myanmar for example, an independent United Nations Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission found that Facebook played a ‘determining role’ in the recent mass atrocities committed against Rohingya people. Parallel to this, Facebook seeks to expand its userbase in the Global South(s) and, underpinned by modernisation narratives it proclaims its services as supportive of international development agendas.

In Ethiopia, recent ethnic conflict and resulting mass displacement are being linked to social media disinformation and hate speech. This blog reflects on my research on the role of Facebook in this politically polarised and culturally diverse country, with more than 80 languages and ethnic groups and undergoing a historical political transition.

Background

In Africa’s second most populous country, ethnic-based violence has sharply risen in the last couple of years. Since Prime Minister and recent Nobel Peace Prize Laurate Dr. Abiy Ahmed took office in early 2018 Ethiopians have experienced a small ‘political revolution’. The Ethiopian government has gone from using widespread authoritarian practices to releasing political prisoners and journalists, even inviting back previously banned opposition groups.

However, in terms of ethnic relations, political commentators have referred to the opening the political space as taking the lid off a pressure cooker. Mass protest and violence has left more than a thousand dead, and in 2018 close to thee million were displaced due to ethnic conflict and violence, the largest increase in internal displacement globally that year.

Broadly speaking, ethnicity has been and still is one of the most important identities structuring the Ethiopian society. Especially since the fall of the ‘communist’ Derg regime in 1991, ethnic identity has been intentionally emphasised and promoted by the ruling political elites, and the country’s administrational regions were re-organised along ethnic lines. This only further entangled ethnic identity and politics.

The government largely assigns blame to social media for the recent ethnic turmoil. Upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed stated that “The evangelists of hate and division are wreaking havoc in our society using social media”. Although social media cannot take full responsibility for the current situation, there is no doubt it plays an important role in shaping political discourse.  

In a context where neighbours kill each other on the basis of ethnic identity, and ethnic tension has the very real potential spin out of control, the potentially conflict-inducing effects of social media is an urgent issue. 

As has been noted in other countries, filter-bubbles, as a result of algorithms personalising online experiences such as the Facebook News Feed, can trap individuals and groups in a state of intellectual isolation. This can reinforce already held viewpoints without challenging them, encouraging partisanship and tribalism. In the highly polarised situation Ethiopia finds itself, I believe this phenomenon merits particular concern. As speech aimed at creating suspicion, spreading fear and encouraging violence, increasingly circulates on Facebook in Ethiopia, Facebook’s personalised algorithmic filtering might further polarise ethnic relations.

Furthermore, in August 2020, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed plans to hold Ethiopia’s first ‘free and fair’ election since 2005. As the election approaches, the ethnic-based tension and conflict has taken centre stage and the challenge poses a real threat to the country’s political stability. 

Social media use in Ethiopia

Ethiopians using social media are a subset of a subset of another subset–those who have access to electricity, those who have access to the internet and finally those who have accounts on social media. This group is estimated to be only 6 percent of the population. Much of the ethnic-based violence occurs in areas where even electricity is scarce, let alone internet access, like in the case of Guji-Gedeo in Southern Ethiopia, where recent conflicts have displaced close to one million people. Despite this, Ethiopia has one of the world’s fastest growing social media user rates, and social media are becoming increasingly important especially among the massive youth population. Furthermore, through word of mouth, which is still the main source of news for many Ethiopians, social media content appears to reach far beyond the fraction of the population with direct access to social media services. 

My research

As a case for exploring how Facebook influences Ethiopian ethnic-based conflict, I will study its role in recent conflicts between students at the Debre Berhan University, situated in central Ethiopia, about 120 kilometres North-East of the capital Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian universities have long been a hotspot for ethnic riots and violence. In Debre Berhan University, two dormitories were set on fire and a student was killed just off campus last year. Both incidents are suspected to be connected to the wider ethnic conflicts around the country. 

The potentially divisive effects of personalisation algorithms have sparked debates across various scientific disciplines. Some claim that effects are negligible while others highlight them as determining. My study seeks to contribute to this debate by exploring filter-bubble effects in the Facebook News Feed, but also how the students in this specific socio-cultural context relate to and are influenced by their social media information diets.

In order to get access to the student’s personalised Facebook News Feeds, I have asked participants, in their presence, to share access to their social media accounts. I have then used the facebook.tracking.exposed web browser extension– developed as part of the Algorithms Exposed project, a DATACTIVE spin-off– to collect, sort and analyse content from the student’s News Feeds. The idea is to compare the information diets of students from the two main conflicting groups. This will hopefully reveal the extent of filter bubbles, as well as what content participants are actually exposed by the News Feed algorithm. 

As Facebook aggressively expands into new market territory, critical engagement with its context-specific societal effects is pivotal. This is particularly urgent in the context of the fragile Ethiopian political situation, where there is a pressing need for more knowledge about the role of social media in mediating ethnic conflict. 

Syver Petersen

Syver is studying a MSc in International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam. His academic interests are oriented around how digital technology and big data impact power relations, political engagement and conflicts in the Global South(s). 

New Paper Out: Institutional Resistance To Transparency

Guillén published a paper in the latest number of the Journal Of Resistance Studies. You can download a pre-print version of it here. And read the abstract here:

Despite the popularization of progressive Freedom of Information and Open Data policies, both transparency practitioners and academia have warned about an increase in attempts to control and reduce the information that flows from the state to citizens. Within the literature dedicated to investigate this phenomenon, the notion of resistance to transparency has been used often to characterize instances of problematic governmental information control. However, within this body of research, the concept of resistance has been stripped of its contentious elements and treated as a synonym of reluctance, unwillingness or foot-dragging, rather than a category with an inherent political dimension. As a result, what is institutional resistance to transparency and what are its political consequences remains vague. Drawing from the theoretical toolbox of the fields of Resistance Studies and Science and Technology Studies, this paper explores the politics of institutional resistance to transparency through a case study of Mexican information activists. By focusing on activists’ experiences, I suggest that institutional resistance originates in how transparency mechanisms allow some citizens to make the state more legible, controllable, and accountable. Furthermore, I argue that institutional resistance is carried out mostly through everyday, subtle, seemingly non-political strategies implemented by the state’s institutions, which reduce citizens’ ability to produce and/or process data regarding governmental action.