International Media Summit to Tackle Citizen Media, FoI, Digital Security, and Internet Activism

A two-day international summit that will be held in Cebu City on January 24-25, 2015 will tackle some of the latest issues on citizen media, freedom of information, digital security, indigenous languages and multilingualism online, and internet activism.

Global Voices, an international citizen media network founded in 2004 at Harvard University, will be holding the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in time for the organization’s 10th anniversary, at the Cebu Provincial Capitol.

Over a hundred international bloggers, citizen media advocates, and tech experts from over 60 countries across the globe will gather for the event which will highlight talks, panels, and workshops on the relations between open Internet and social movements around the world.

Leading the summit discussions are Global Voices co-founders Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon. Zuckerman is also director of MIT’s Center for Civic Media while MacKinnon is the author of the book Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom.

The first day of the summit will open with a talk, led by London-based Media Legal Defense Initiative Legal Director Nani Jansen, on protecting the open internet against government policies and corporate practice imperil Internet users’ rights of free expression and privacy.

There will be a session on Freedom of Information Laws, featuring experts led by Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism Executive Director Malou Mangahas who will share their first-hand experience using these policies for greater transparency and accountability.

Among others, there will be a panel on how Filipino Citizen Media has been used in mobilizing street protests and coordinating disaster relief and response efforts along with barriers it face from the cost and quality of internet connection to online regulations.

The second day of the summit will open by bringing the spotlight on indigenous language digital activism, including a session on Filipino Indigenous Languages in Citizen Media which will explore the ways indigenous languages are being promoted online.

Some of the panel discussions would include one on digital security and privacy, online censorship and freedom of speech worldwide, and a roundup of Magna Carta of Internet users from all over the world.

Like in the past Global Voices Summits in the UK, India, Hungary, Chile and Kenya, the Global Voices Media Summit 2015 promises to be a productive site for inspiring fresh ideas, sharing experiences, and forging cross-border collaborations.

Members of the public can register to attend the event at summit2015.globalvoicesonline.org. The cost of admission for the two days is PHP 2,000 for Filipino residents, with a special student rate of PHP 1,000.

The Global Voices Summit 2015 is sponsored by the Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Google, the Province of Cebu, Knight Foundation, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Sun Star Publishing, Open Society Foundations,Yahoo, and PRWorks.