Diego Naranjo

Manifestations of fear of terrorism are visible almost everywhere in the world. This fear facilitates the emergence of laws that give multiple powers to law enforcement, through de facto permanently raising threat levels in cities around the world to “code yellow”; to tackling the emergence of radical messaging online as a terrorist radicalisation tool. In the debate civil and human rights organisations navigate a difficult landscape: on one hand, acts of terrorism should be prevented and radicalisation should be counteracted; on the other, regulatory trends conflate fighting terrorism with simply removing controversial content from before our eyes. Many projects documenting human rights violations, incl. terrorist activity, are already affected by arbitrary content removal decisions taken by internet platforms. In the digital rights movement we believe that the rigorous application of proportionality is the only way to ensure that laws and subsequ [[Category:2019:Advocacy submissions]] ent practices will not radically change the ways we exercise the freedom of speech online. Human rights exist in the digital world, and must be respected by governments and companies alike. We want to engage participants in the conversation about the global society of the near future. Do we want laws that err on the side of free speech and enable exposure to difficult realities at the risk of keeping terrorist content online? Or do we “go after terrorists” at the price of stifling citizen dissent and obscuring that difficult reality?

Other people: Anna Mazgal

Technology is the solution: What is the problem? This seems to be the motto. Algorithms may be about to control our free speech while tracking technologies could control our bodies and communications. Will we react or stay quiet?

Technology is the solution: What is the problem? This seems to be the motto. Whether it is about preventing the dissemination of terrorist content or to prevent copyright infringements the solution from the legislator is upload filters. While content is controlled by algorithms, devices need to be under scrutiny. That is why confidentiality of communications needs to be secured now too. We have little time to stop these threats from becoming a reality, but we have most citizens on our side and the EU elections near. We still can and have to win this battle. Otherwise, once filters are put for copyright or terrorist content, they will be used for anything else. And if software and hardware does not defend our privacy by design and by default, 24/7 surveillance will be the new "normal".

Other people: Andreea Belu (EDRi)