The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter - Issue 9

The BHR Group

Dec 21, 2022

Dear Colleagues:

Since you follow tech and policy, you’ve seen the paroxysms of policy preferences of Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk. I don’t often share my own views via the platform for a number of reasons – first among them, just being real, I don’t have many unique insights. Some of us are also not wired professionally to fire off a tweet. A friend in tech and policy tagged me a few weeks ago on a governance and human rights question regarding Twitter, so I planned a carefully-worded tweet thread to share my view, for what it might have been worth. And then events overtook it all anyway because of course…it’s Twitter.

One of the many virtues I most value(d) about Twitter include(d) the activism, advocacy, and expression that happens on the platform. Hearing the voices of those who fight racism and antisemitism, those who advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, those who struggle for human rights, rule of law, and democracy – that’s powerful and it informs, teaches, and inspires. For personal and professional reasons I’ve followed events in Iran, especially in the past three months since the murder of Mahsa Amini and the ongoing state violence against the Iranian people. Twitter is, in my view, the most important place to learn about what’s happening inside Iran for those of us on the outside. The documentation of human rights abuses by the state and its proxies, the bravery of citizens in this women-led movement that’s inexorably becoming a revolution, we see that on Twitter.

One of the many small virtues of Twitter you might not be familiar with is the newsletter platform Revue, acquired by Twitter in 2021. In fact, if you’re reading this, you’re using the Revue platform. We just received notice from Twitter that Revue will be shut-down (sunset is the kinder, gentler verb they use in Silicon Valley) mid-January 2023. So this will be the last issue of this digital rights careers newsletter on this platform. Special thank you to my colleague Rebeca Joy West, who grew this newsletter from 0 subscribers to 1500+ in less than a year. But, we are sticking around and the newsletter will continue. We’ll send a note in the coming weeks to let you know where we’ve moved so you can continue to explore internships, fellowships, and jobs at the intersection of tech, policy, law, and human rights.

There’s so much more to say about Twitter, there’s so much at stake for so many, in particular for those whose voices have been marginalized not just in the online world but structurally and systemically in the offline world. And since you’re reading this newsletter because you’re interested in careers at the intersection of technology, policy, law, and human rights, I’ll leave you with a tweet. #BeTheCat in the face of the squawking and pestering movements of the bird(site). Be steady, we need you.You can continue to follow the not so many things I have to say, including about jobs in this field, on Twitter at twitter.com/MichaelSamway, on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/MichaelSamway, on Mastadon at indieweb.social/@MichaelSamway, and on Post at post.news/MichaelSamway. I’m not sure our next newsletter platform will allow photos, and we’ve saved pennies by using my sea-side photos. You can check out more of those on Instagram at instagram.com/everglades.mike.

One important voice I still hear from on Twitter (and you can too, most often in Spanish) is Carolina Botero, Executive Director of Fundación Karisma, a civil and digital rights organization in Colombia. Carolina’s also a regular contributing writer to El Espectador, and if you read Spanish I highly recommend everything she pens. Her pieces are always smart, thoughtful, and advocacy-centered. In addition to reading what she posts online, I’ve been lucky to have been on panels with Carolina and have worked with her on projects in Latin America, and she is a star advocate, thinker, writer, and leader regionally and internationally. In the Q&A, she tells you a little about her own path to digital rights advocacy work, and I’m sure you’ll find useful personal and professional lessons in her replies. I hope you’ll follow Carolina’s work.

Michael Samway
The Business and Human Rights Group
Website: www.thebhrgroup.com
Twitter: @MichaelSamway

Guest Spotlight: Carolina Botero

Carolina is the executive director of the Colombian civil society digital rights organization Karisma Foundation. She is a researcher, lawyer, lecturer, writer and consultant on topics related to law and technology. She also works for a world where human rights and social justice guide the development and deployment of technology.

Under her leadership, Karisma won the Index Censorship Freedom of Expression in the category of digital activism (2019). She was appointed as an international expert for the UNESCO recommendation on Open Science (2021). She holds a master's degree in international law and cooperation (VUB - Belgium), and a master's degree in Business and Contracting Law (2006, UAB - Spain).

Carolina is a member of the Board at Creative Commons and writes frequent Op Ed in local media El Espectador and La Silla Vacía.

What are some of the most formative periods or events in your life that shaped your work in technology and human rights?

I had completed all the coursework for my master’s degree and was working on my thesis. At the same time, my husband received a scholarship to study in Europe; after careful consideration, we decided to leave Colombia to live and study for a period. I used this move as an opportunity to shift my academic and professional focus, and I chose to study free software, especially the GNU General Public License. Previously, I had been a lawyer at the Bogota Stock Market, and this new path was a huge change in my career and in my life.

During this period, I also connected with the Creative Commons licenses, and especially with the nascent Creative Commons community, the free culture movements and free software groups. Over the course of three years, I learned to navigate those very generous free and open communities and to participate in the online forums and some of the in-person gatherings. I was able to learn by immersion about how to look at intellectual property from a public interest perspective and use that capacity in my own context by understanding its nuances and complexities.

It was an eye-opening experience that allowed me to transform my professional focus and become an open culture advocate first but, most importantly, a human rights advocate in the digital landscape. I started with access to knowledge, and I have never stopped learning.

Who are some people or an individual you’ve met during your work in digital rights that have had profound influence on your work? And in what way?

Eben Moglen, Lawrence Lessig, Lawrence Liang, and Ana Maria Ochoa all have influenced my work. Their way of addressing the legal challenges that digitization was posing was new for me, it involved thinking outside the box and was novel especially as applied in a country like Colombia. More recently, Mariano Fossati, Anne Clinio, and Agustina del Campo have helped me understand and address new challenges in this field.

What are some of the principles that guide you in this field or in life more broadly?

Empathy and respect, which are central in the multi-stakeholder approach to problem-solving. I also try to look at the other side of the coin when dealing with policy issues. To understand complex topics, including tech issues, and the impacts they produce in society, it is important to listen to all points of view, to hear-out others, and to view the same issue from different perspectives. If policies are oriented around only one perspective, they inevitably miss key issues or fail to account for certain specific challenges.

Building bridges with people that think differently or have other backgrounds is a key for me too. Also important is to listen carefully and with interest. This by no means implies not having and defending our own positions. Being an assertive and decisive person, explaining your views, and making yourself heard is also important, especially when you are a woman and spaces are more difficult to access.

What’s a specific event when you feel like your team’s or organization’s work was able to make a significant impact in the field of digital rights?

A biology student was accused of a criminal offense of violating intellectual property – an offense that had a sanction of 4 to 8 years of prison – just because he shared a master's thesis on the internet so that his fellow biology students could read it. Karisma stood beside him during four years of trial, until the final decision absolved the student and the judge determined there is no criminal offense if there is no economic profit intention and that among scientists there is a culture of sharing that the author himself practiced.

The maximalist copyright approach that exists in Latin America concentrates power in the defense of rights holders without any consideration whatsoever of the public interest. Users’ rights, science development, cultural impact on society, etc. are completely neglected from the policy landscape. As a result, we have strict rules that are not always followed by people; but that also means that many developments are at risk since institutions have strong liability burdens. Diego's case was a significant judicial decision to bring some balance in this field and remind us that copyright policies that anti-piracy measures without balance are harmful.

What are some ways you think the digital rights field can become more diverse, inclusive, and equitable in its composition, policy topics, and advocacy?

Digital rights was a good way to define a trend which, due in part to the Covid-19 pandemic and the furthering of a digital transformation, has transformed itself into another layer of human rights overall. It is a layer because it often requires a tech-focused approach. It relies on specific characteristics introduced by technology; but, as more and more people, organizations, and advocates learn about and come to understand the specifics of the field itself, the stakeholders involved in the field are becoming more and more diverse.

This comes with its own challenges, as many consensus-based agreements that we thought were achieved in the digital rights community will be challenged again and we will need to explain and discuss them once again.

For undergraduate or graduate students reading this, what type course or activities (e.g., internships, summer jobs) do you think might be most helpful as they contemplate careers in digital rights?

Thinking from a Latin American perspective, where internships and summer jobs are not abundant, I would say to students that you should identify the civil society organization that works on these topics and follow them, participate in their public activities and workshops, read, ask, and seek-out internship opportunities. Also, engage in the community at media labs, free software groups, or other communities such as creative commons, internet society or wikipedians. This also a great way of learning and engaging in the space.

For current practitioners in the field of digital rights, what are some considerations when deciding whether to change sectors, say from civil society to the private sector or vice versa?

I do not have much experience on this topic, but it is an issue in the field as the learning curve is very high so it is often the case that civil society loses when one of us goes to the private sector. However this comes with a gain when that person is able to bring the public interest views and positions to a higher level within the private or public sector where decision making processes take place.

The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter

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The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter - Issue 9

Guest Spotlight: Carolina Botero

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