Digital Empowerment Library

The "Freedom of Expression in the African Media and Digital Policy Landscape" course by Stellenbosch University explores key issues like media freedom, access to information, digital rights, and combating disinformation. It examines how legal frameworks, civil society, and AI impact media policy in Africa. The course also discusses communication pluralism, media diversity, and the role of civil engagement in promoting democratic media policies. It’s designed for professionals seeking to understand and influence media regulation and digital rights in Africa.

The "A.I. for Organizing and Campaigns" training covers refining ChatGPT use, creating custom GPTs, and leveraging AI for messaging, data analysis, and accessibility-focused video tools.

This course teaches activists and organizers how to effectively use online tools and tactics in combination with offline organizing to engage supporters, expand your base, raise funds, pressure targets, and win campaigns. It’s suitable for both beginners and advanced users, ensuring that no key digital tools and tactics are overlooked. Learn from successful organizers and discover how to achieve your goals with limited time and resources.

Access Now provides 26 recommendations for content governance, emphasizing human rights safeguards amid rising pressure on governments and companies to address harmful online content without infringing free expression.

This guide highlights human rights risks in surveillance technology, urging investors to ensure accountability and mitigate legal, reputational, and financial risks through improved due diligence frameworks.

This campaign exposes mass surveillance's ineffectiveness for security and incompatibility with human rights, urging transparency from companies in Latin America and public action to demand accountability.

This handbook provides guidance for election observers, diplomats, journalists, and human rights activists on how internet shutdowns undermine democratic elections. It offers tips and recommendations for navigating shutdowns and assessing the fairness and freedom of elections under such conditions. The handbook aims to equip key actors with the tools to understand the impact of internet shutdowns on elections.

This toolkit is designed to assist digital rights activists in navigating the complexities of digital identification systems. It provides a framework for understanding digital IDs by breaking down their distinct components, making it accessible for non-experts. While not a comprehensive analysis of digital ID systems or their risks, the toolkit offers practical language and guidance for campaigning, advocating, educating, and mobilizing around digital ID issues. It adopts a "choose your own adventure" format, allowing users to select a Persona and navigate through the stages of System, Harm, and Mitigation based on specific circumstances.

This resource addresses the issue of online gender-based violence (OGBV), emphasizing that it stems from deep-rooted gender inequalities and discriminatory social norms. While many forms of OGBV are extensions of traditional gender-based violence, the technological aspect of OGBV makes it more persistent, replicable, and scalable, enabling perpetrators to target women, girls, and other marginalized groups more easily. The toolkit explains various forms of OGBV, provides guidance on how to respond to it, and offers resources for support, including legal avenues, mental health services, and reporting mechanisms. Curated by the KRYSS Network, the toolkit draws on the experiences of feminists and activists defending digital spaces, making it a living resource for combating the growing problem of OGBV.

This resource examines the critical role of computational power in the development of large-scale AI systems and its concentration in the hands of a few dominant firms. It highlights how access to compute, along with data and skilled labor, is essential for building AI, yet it is increasingly monopolized within the tech industry. This concentration of compute resources influences the behavior of AI firms, drives toxic competition, and creates systemic risks, including environmental impacts and single points of failure in AI systems. The resource explores the political economy of AI, emphasizing the impact of computational infrastructure on who can build AI, the types of AI developed, and who profits. It also discusses the role of policy interventions such as industrial policy, export controls, and antitrust enforcement in addressing these issues, while considering the balance of economic and political power held by firms controlling compute resources.