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Article

9 May 2019

Author:
James F. Smith, Harvard University Carr Center

Commentary: Transnational advocacy groups should embrace technology to combat human rights abuses

"Transnational rights groups face promise and perils of technology: Carr Center's Sushma Raman on hopes and threats posed by digital advances", 9 May 2019

Unless [transnational advocacy groups and civil society] adapt to and embrace fast-evolving technological tools, they risk being outplayed by the governments and corporations they seek to confront... Sushma Raman, executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School [said] "My proposition is that global civil society and transnational advocacy networks have played an important role in social movements and struggles for social change... Looking ahead, these movements need to coalesce around the impact of technology on society, in particular harnessing the promise [and] challenging the perils.

... As technology companies increase the sophistication and reach of their algorithms to track and shape user behavior, intrusions on privacy inevitably grow... this has moved beyond making recommendations to actually making autonomous decisions for users, with still evolving consequences for civil rights and advocacy movements... [T]ransnational advocacy groups have also found innovative ways to leverage technology for good... Human rights advocates are partnering with satellite imaging companies to locate prison camps in... North Korean mountains, to create early warning systems that track famine, and to monitor the flow of people being trafficked across borders. Raman concluded by posing a significant challenge to transnational advocacy groups: finding ways to shift away from the tactic of simply confronting governments and companies and to move toward collaborating when needed with these groups.