UNIT 2016 | The Queer Tech Conference & Festival https://www.facebook.com/events/1593504910976633/?active_tab=highlights www.unit-festival.com

1. Dissent As A Strategy.
Strengthening Human Rights in the Digital Age.
Cathleen Berger
@_cberger_
#unit Festival 2016, April 16 Berlin

2. Dissent // Disobedience
• Dissent: the holding or expression of opinions at
variance with those commonly or officially held
• (Civil) Disobedience: an intentionally unlawful and
principled collective act of protest that aims to
change (a set of) laws, policies, or
institutions (digital examples: website defacements,
DDoS, whistleblowing)

3. All things “digital”
• Infrastructure
• Standards and codes
• Information and communication technology
• Social media
• Data traces

4. Rhetoric and state
behaviour
• Traditional state functions: security, welfare and
sovereignty
• Securitisation as a dominant narrative
• Predictive/pre-emptive policing
• Surveillance
• Censorship
• Internet shutdowns

5. Did you say cyber?

6. Ways forward
• TECH: build secure tools that are easy to use and visually
appealing (UX/UI challenge)
• POLICY: counter dominant narratives, use positive language,
challenge simplifying (and misleading) “offline” examples, focus on
the individual rather than the system
• ART: creativity and outside-the-box thinking is a powerful means to
reach a mainstream audience
• BUSINESS: raise the costs, incorporate human rights in your
business models, enforce transparency
• CIVIL SOCIETY: coordinate, exchange, cooperate -> amplify your
message to challenge cultural, political or religious paradigms

7. Share your story.
Individual strategy or collective action?

8. Thanks for your attention.
cathleen@gp-digital.org
@_cberger_