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Making Swahili visible: Identity, language and the internet · Global Voices
Bonface Witaba

Tree roots cling to a 15th-century wall on Kilwa Kisiwani Island, Tanzania. In 1981, the ruins of the powerful Swahili sultanate on the island were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Image by David Stanley, January 1, 2017, CC BY 2.0.
Editor’s note: This personal essay was written following a Twitter campaign organized by Global Voices sub-Saharan Africa and Rising Voices where each week, a different language activist shared their perspectives on the intersection of digital rights and African Languages  as part of the project, “The identity matrix: Platform regulation of online threats to expression in Africa.”
According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), linguistic and cultural diversity are of strategic importance for people around the world to strengthen the unity and cohesion of societies.
This linguistic and cultural diversity propelled the UNESCO general conference to proclaim International Mother Language Day (IMLD) in November 1999, to be commemorated annually on February 21 annually. To bolster IMLD, the United Nations (UN) declared the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL 2019), to draw attention to the endangerment of the world’s indigenous languages.
Today, there are over 7,100 languages spoken around the world, 28 percent of which are spoken on the African continent alone. Despite this, English dominates online spaces in the region. Some twenty years ago, 80 percent of the world’s online content was English-centric. Currently, however, English content online is said to have shrunk to between 51- 55 percent.
4/4 English
Can we argue that more people are yearning to get online in their local languages? And is it true that 17 M people worldwide have no reason to get online, https://t.co/owzk24xch4
— GV SSAfrica (@gvssafrica) May 19, 2020
The million-dollar question, therefore, is: Could this sharp drop be an indicator that people now favor their native languages online over English, considering that less than 15 percent of the world population speaks English as their first language?
Swahili is recognized as one of the official languages of the African Union (AU), alongside English, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Arabic. Swahili is also the lingua franca for East Africa Community (EAC) member states.
Rwanda, an EAC member, saw its lower legislative house approve a law making Swahili an official language in 2017 – in addition to Kinyarwanda, French and English. Besides being used for administrative purposes, Swahili will be incorporated into Rwanda’s school curriculum.
In Uganda, the government in September 2019 approved the establishment of the National Swahili Council. Article 6 (2) of the Constitution of Uganda also spells out that “Swahili shall be the second official language in Uganda to be used in such circumstances as Parliament may by law prescribe.”
In 2018, South Africa, which boasts 11 official languages, formalized Swahili as an optional subject in its curriculum, starting in 2020. In 2019, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) adopted Swahili as its fourth official language.
Karibu Nairobi. Image by Rachel Strohm, September 20, 2019, (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Despite Swahili being the most widely spoken African language, with approximately 150 million speakers – mostly in East Africa, the Great Lakes region, southern Somalia, and some parts of Southern Africa, its visibility online is dismal.
John Walubengo, a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya, states in an op-ed with the Nation, a Kenyan daily, that the absence of online linguistic and cultural diversity creates “a society with a ‘tunnel-vision’ view of the world.”
Walubengo predicts that most indigenous cultures end up surrendering “their identities to the ‘English way’ of doing things.” This sad reality can only be reversed if indigenous civilizations “fight to retain their identities both online and offline,” he says.
Join our co-founder for a Tweetchat on identity, language and digital rights in Africa starting tomorrow.
For Swahili, visit https://t.co/pjjxAsMAva https://t.co/pvHOpbxi6x
— Centre for Youth Empowerment and Leadership (CYEL) (@cyelke) May 17, 2020
But all is not gloom and doom. There are some dedicated organizations at the forefront of promoting and developing Swahili online.
(ICANN), a global multi-stakeholder organization that coordinates Internet Domain Name System (DNS), Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and autonomous system numbers, instituted the Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) that enable people to use domain names in local languages and scripts.
Ideally, they are formed using characters from different scripts, such as Arabic, Chinese, or Cyrillic. These are then encoded by the Unicode standard and used as allowed by relevant IDN protocols, a set of standards defined by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and its subsidiary groups; the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF).
UASG is a community-based team of industry leaders, supported by ICANN, that prepares online communities for the next billion internet users. This is achieved through a process known as Universal Acceptance (UA) that ensures that internet applications and systems treat all top-level domains (TLDs) and emails based on those domains in a consistent manner – including those in non-Latin-based languages and those that are more than three characters long. UA serves digital natives around the world in their local languages and with domain names that better align with their cultural identities. Hence, promoting a multilingual Internet.
This nonprofit organization provides community-developed wiki on ICANN and Internet Governance, has over time partnered with organizations, educational institutions and individuals in Kenya and Tanzania. This has enabled East Africans to build, translate and add Wiki resources in their own vision, language and perspective.
This Swahili initiative — that I have personally been part of — has immensely bridged the information gap on Internet Governance issues by localizing ICANNWiki content to promote local engagement in the target communities.
Localization Lab is a global community of volunteer collaborators who support the translation and localization of digital safety tutorials and tools like TOR, Signal, OONI, Psiphon. These technologies address security, privacy and anonymity online by ensuring that indigineous language activists have safe spaces for accessing information online. Localization Lab has translated more than 60 of these safety tools into over 180 different languages and dialects from around the world, among them Swahili.
KCN is the first community network to pilot the use of television white space (TVWS), “a wireless technology that employs unused parts of the radio spectrum in the 470 to 790 MHz frequency band”  to address internet connectivity in rural Tanzania. KCN trains the rural populace to create and host local content that’s befitting to their context.
Matogoro Jabhera, KCN founder and lecturer at the University of Dodoma, Tanzania, told Global Voices in a Skype call, that he believes that local content provides an incentive for “more [of the] offline population” to get online because they can relate with “their local news […] compared to the current situation where most contents are in the English language.”
The world anticipates connecting “the next billion users of the internet” and 17 million of these users are projected to get connected online using language as their digital identity.
Therefore, a lack of sufficient local content could have adverse effects as far as digital inclusion. This will outrightly affect digital rights – largely, internet access, right to access information online, and the right to use their own indigenous language to create, share and disseminate information and knowledge through the internet.
It is thus vital to put in place formidable action plans that will foster the development of ICT applications and services, as well as the use of local languages, to guarantee digital inclusion for all.
This, complemented by actions such as localization of digital training and learning materials, and rural ICT literacy programs, is likely to spur a digital revolution, hence promoting digital rights of internet users and bridging the digital divide.
Ultimately, this process will hasten the protection, respect and promotion of  “all African and minority languages on the internet” as enunciated in the principles of the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedom.

author: Bonface Witaba


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‘Born fi dead’: The Caribbean looks at the George Floyd protests and sees itself · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

George Floyd protest by the White House on May 30, 20. Photo by Geoff Livingston on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
As Jamaican reggae pioneer Bob Marley declared in his song “So much things to say”: “Remember that when the rain fall, it don't fall on one man's housetop.”
The horrific May 25 killing of George Floyd, one of many African-Americans who have died at the hands of the police, is reverberating strongly throughout the Caribbean, a formerly colonised region still grappling with the legacy of its own history of race-based oppression.
Quite apart from the common Caribbean saying, “When the United States sneezes, the Caribbean catches a cold”, which speaks to the mammoth influence — economic and otherwise — that the country wields over the region, many West Indians have played an active role in the black struggle in the United States, notably pan-Africanist and Jamaican national hero Marcus Garvey; Trinidadian Kwame Ture, a prominent figure in the American civil rights movement; and Malcolm X, whose mother was Grenadian, and whose parents were active in Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA).
Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (UWI), Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, who has been at the forefront of the region's reparations campaign, released a statement which recognised this intertwined history:
This Minneapolis fight was Marcus Garvey’s fight; it was Martin’s fight; it was Malcolm’s fight; it was Marley’s fight. It’s a Caribbean fight and it’s a global fight. […]
From that horrible history when Europeans stole 15 million of our ancestors from Africa and scattered them across plantation America—the Caribbean getting the lion’s share—shattering family bonds, the future was cast in the concrete again, in which the face of George was crushed. […]
It is this culture of centuries upon which the American nation is built that continues to choke the air from black lungs. […] This is our cause.
All across the archipelago and throughout the diaspora, social media users were paying attention. While some wondered why Caribbean people were concerning themselves with American problems [many such comments have since been deleted], and others suggested that the US experience cannot be transposed into the complexities of the Caribbean context, many made connections between America's systemic racism and the region's.
Even as she urged fellow social media users not to police “those of us who can elevate our thinking beyond insular nationalist concerns”, Trinidad-born, UK-based attorney Margaret Rose succinctly summed up the crux of the matter:
For those who have eyes to see the issue playing out in America today is not only about police brutality and it is not only about America. It is a manifestation both literally and metaphorically of the meta-crisis we are all experiencing worldwide. It is about systemic oppression, structural violence, economic, social and physical violence perpetuated through an indifferent global economic system that operates to reward the accumulation of wealth with power. […]
Derek Chauvin’s knee was not just a white man’s knee casually crushing the breath of life out of a black man. Chauvin is an instrument of system enforcement against George Floyd who represents the poor, the powerless, and the downtrodden in society.
In that vein, the irony of Jamaicans being scandalised at Floyd's murder was not lost on blogger Annie Paul. The Jamaica Constabulary Force often operates with impunity in its violence against residents of low-income communities:
I see the outrage being expressed on local social media re #GeorgeFloyd but honestly? I don’t think the way Jamaican police treat poor youth here is any better. They are socially black in the Jamaican hierarchy and ‘born fi dead’ as far as police are concerned. #Selectiveoutrage
The term “born fi dead” means “born to die”.
In the time of a global pandemic, when the possibility of death looms large, several commentators acknowledged that it is no coincidence such societal unravelling is taking place at the same time. Margaret Rose noted:
COVID-19 began the systematic dismantling… this is part of the COVID-19 domino effect.
On June 2, in solidarity with the black American plight, many Caribbean netizens changed their profile photos to a black screen for Blackout Tuesday, a collective action by the entertainment industry that was taken in protest over police brutality against people of colour.
The move came in the wake of the killings of not only Floyd, but also Ahmaud Arbery, a black jogger who was murdered by two white vigilantes, and Breonna Taylor, an unarmed black woman killed by the police in her home. The Black Lives Matter movement later explained how the show of support was actually hurting its own efforts by hijacking the #BLM hashtag and steering traffic away from the organisation's attempts at education and dialogue.
Caribbean Twitter, meanwhile, was filled with testimonies of home-grown racism:
Racism is so prevalent in Trinidad and as a DARK SKIN AFRO TRINI WOMAN, I just want yall to know that the people that don't see it are privileged.
— JUSTICE (@mela_nin_fae) June 1, 2020
Racism doh exist in Trinidad but I know rel fellas who didn’t want a black gyul because they didn’t want “nappy head” chirren eh…but anyway back to y’all in the studio pic.twitter.com/2ymBx6JHRn
— MamaTiks?? (@MamaTiks) June 1, 2020
In the multicultural society of Trinidad and Tobago, where the two main ethnic groups comprise people of Indian and African descent, social media users pointed out that even the country's politics are race-based, that hatred between the two groups was used historically as a colonialist tool of control and manipulation, and that spin-off prejudices spring from racism, rooted in ignorance.
Isaac Rudder, a black Trinidadian, released an exposé about a racist WhatsApp group which he was curiously invited to join, run by Indo-Trinidadians. [Warning: The screenshots posted by Rudder contain disturbing and upsetting language.]
In Trinidad and Tobago on Blackout Tuesday, expressions of racial intolerance reached fever pitch with many commenting on the situation less from the point of view of Floyd's killing and more from the perspective of the ensuing social unrest. Facebook user Dené Voisin responded:
I find TOO MANY TRINIS […] have TOO MUCH TO SAY about ‘riots’ and ‘looting’ being uncivilized and how you don't respect it. If it wasn't for the Canboulay riots there would be no Carnival.
There would be no Labour Day without riots. There would be no Emancipation Day without riots. There would be no Independence Day if it wasn't for riots across the then British Empire.
Stop being myopic about your own history when people are fighting for their lives.
Adding fuel to the flame were the social media posts of a few business owners who felt the need to weigh in. Michael Patrick Aboud, a local businessman of Syrian descent and already a controversial figure due to his arrest on arms and drug-related offences, posted on Facebook that protesters in the United States were using Floyd's death as an excuse “to do what comes natural”. He later issued an apology saying his post was misinterpreted.
This was soon followed by other tone-deaf social media status updates, including an Instagram post — since taken down — by tea shop owner Dianne Hunt that declared “All Lives Matter”, and a Facebook post by businessman Gerald Aboud who defended Hunt's right to say what she did and admonished black people to “rise up” from their “state of mind”.
Hunt later said that she was “unaware [that] ‘All Lives Matter’ was contradictory to ‘Black Lives Matter'”, but then shifted the blame for the phrasing onto a staff member: “My waitress wrote it. It was a Black girl who wrote it.”
The focus for many, however, remained on speaking their truth and finding solutions.
Sarah Chong Sing, a member of the Caribbean diaspora living in the United States, shared her experience about living as a woman of colour in Minnesota, the state in which Floyd was killed:
The one-dimensional way that POC are seen there was shocking – we were treated like criminals more times than I can remember – cops were called for us at least twice that we know of, and we were harassed by them a number of times beyond that. The only place that we felt ‘safe’ and ‘human’ was when we visited Native American reservations. Not even the Catholic Church there was able to give us that. […] All that being said, I have hope for the younger generations in Minnesota, but it will definitely take some time.
Renee Cummings, a Trinidad-born criminologist who resides in New York, asked on Facebook:
How is this going to end and who or what is going to end it? What is it going to take?
Answers ranged from “Murder convictions for all the cops present” [at George Floyd's murder] to voting out President Trump — but Caribbean people know the answer lies much deeper than that.
A good place to start would be to explore the resources that netizens have been sharing which, in Facebook user Caroline Taylor's words, “may help some people better understand, and help ease the burden of constant explanation”.
Her list includes works by playwrights Anna Deavere Smith and August Wilson, films by Ava Duvernay, and protest music by Nina Simone, all of which, she admits, “scratch the surface”.

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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COVID-19 diaries from Wuhan: Collateral damage · Global Voices
Winston Chiu

Children played in the playground wearing face masks. (Photo credit: Guo Jing. Used with permission.)
The following post is the sixteenth in a series of diaries written by independent filmmaker and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming and feminist activist Guo Jing. Both are living in Wuhan, at the initial center of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are the links to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth parts of the series.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
This installment was written between April 5 and April 8, 2020. The original Chinese diaries are published on Matter News.
我几天没出门有点闷得慌，下午4点就到楼下走一走。本来没打算要出小区，因为我在抗拒出门被审批和记录。下楼后我被机器的噪音所包围，在小区里转了几圈还是忍不住出了小区。日常生活里真是充满了很多微小的斗争和挣扎。
我往江边走去，走到红绿灯的地方，看到对面有人在等红灯，我也停下来，然后意识到红绿灯开始重新起作用了。
今天江边很热闹，江边也重新开始了施工，不过没有大型机器在运作。江边有钓鱼的人，跑步的人，还有很多家庭都“出洞”了，江滩边小孩的游乐区、健身区有很多戴着口罩奔跑、游玩的小朋友。
今天看到了武汉4月3日起开放婚姻登记的新闻，回家的时候就拐到家附近的婚姻登记处。我走到婚姻登记处已经5点了，门还开着，不过没有人。门口贴着“公告”、“流程图”、“离婚协议书”等文件。
我走上去问工作人员：“你们什么时候开门的？”她说：“先扫码预约”。
“我不办理，就是想问问现在来登记的情况，结婚的多，还是离婚的多”。
“都多”
I didn't go out in the past few days and felt so bored, so I went downstairs at 4 PM. As a symbolic resistance to the authority's registration and approval of our physical movements, I wanted to avoid going outside the residential district. Yet our district was surrounded by machine noise [coming from a nearby construction site] and so I was forced to leave. Our everyday life is so full of minute fights and struggles.
I walked towards the riverbank, I stopped at a traffic light when I saw someone on the other side stop. Then I realized that the traffic lights were working again.
Today it was busy on the riverbank. Construction by the river has started, but there was no heavy machinery being used yet. People were fishing and jogging along the river. Many families came out. Many children were playing in the playground with face masks.
Today I read the news that the Wuhan government will let couples apply for marriage registration starting from April 3. On my way back home, I stopped by the marriage registration office close to my home. When I arrived at the counter, it was 5 PM. It was still open, but I did not see anyone. There were documents including public announcements, flow charts, and a divorce agreement template form posted on the door.
I walked in and asked the staffer, “When do you open?” She answered, “You can make a reservation online with your health code.”
“I do not plan to apply for anything. I just want to know what is happening — are there more marriage registrations or divorce registrations, for instance?”
“We have a lot of both applications.”
有个网友看到我的日记后，今天也写下了“我的疫期生活”。这是一种奇妙的联结和改变。
很多人问我“坚持行动的动力是什么？”人的改变是其中一个。我们的发声和行动像是喇叭，它在向外扩散声音，它必然会影响到一些人，有些人会在某种契机下成为我们的同路人。
A netizen wrote “my life during pandemic” after s/he read my diary. This is an amazing connection and change.
Many people asked what has driven me to continue taking action. To make people change is one of my motivations. Our statements and actions are like amplifiers, they spread voices and affect others. With some luck, some of [those affected] may work with us in the future.
Three women having a picnic by the river. (Photo credit: Guo Jing. Used with permission.)
昨天跟朋友聊天的时候，有人说到，很多人在闲鱼这样的二手平台上卖东西，准备离开北京、深圳等大城市。
我们这些外来者为了寻求个人发展来到大城市，可大城市的生活成本比较高，很多年轻人的收入只能勉强保障生活。
而如今，很多人看不到希望，不得不回到曾经自己努力离开的小地方。
今天阳光很好。中午，我出小区去江滩散步。我隔了一天出门，柳絮已经开始满天飞了。大家都戴着口罩，也不会出现不小心吸入柳絮的意外了。
有三个女人围着一个石凳在野餐，石凳上摆着油焖小龙虾、田螺、圣女果、绿茶等，她们有说有笑地吃着，特别欢乐。我默默地咽下自己的口水。
我去了超市，进入前要扫码、被“打一枪”、登记姓名和电话。超市的供应很充足，米面粮油、蔬菜、肉、速冻食品、消毒液、洗手液等都很齐全。
有个人穿着防护服、戴着口罩和面罩，全副武装地在买菜。
Yesterday someone in a chatroom said that many people were preparing to leave for big cities like Beijing and Shenzhen, and that they were selling items on second-hand platforms.
We are outsiders entering these big cities for career development, but many young people can barely earn enough money to support their lives there as living expense are so much greater.
Now many people cannot see their future in big cities and are forced return to the places that they tried so hard to leave.
Today was a lovely sunny day. I left my residential district and went to walk by the river around noon. I have been out every other day and today willow catkins were flying around in the air. As everyone is wearing a mask, we aren't too bothered about inhaling catkins this spring.
Three women were having a picnic around a stone table with crayfish, river snails, tomatoes and green tea. They talked and laughed. I envied them.
Before I entered the supermarket, I had to scan my health code, have my temperature taken and register my name and telephone number. The supermarket had a sufficient supply of food, including rice, noodles, oil, vegetables, meat, frozen food, and sanitizer.
I spotted a person shopping in the supermarket wearing full protective gear including protective clothes, a face mask and a face shield.
Someone shopping in a supermarket with full protective gear. (Photo credit: Guo Jing. Used with permission.)
今天，武汉恢复了和外界的交通流动，被称为“解封”了。从疫情的角度来看，解封当然是一个重大的进展，说明武汉的疫情在好转。可武汉市内什么时候可以解封？被禁锢在恐惧中的人们什么时候可以解封？“点亮武汉”再次制造了一种集体主义的浪漫，武汉城内人们的困境被掩盖和抹杀。
疫情带来的后遗症和次生灾难还在继续。有些新冠肺炎痊愈的人身体会留下一生的后遗症，他们未来的生活如何保障？住在其它地区湖北人外出遭受的歧视武汉人能幸免吗？那些因为疫情破产的公司、失业而难以找到新工作的个人该何去何从？这些社会问题的解决需要动用大量的社会资源，个体很难做到，需要政府制定全面的措施去应对这些社会问题。
不过，我的封城日记终于可以停下来了。
开始并坚持写77天日记不是我计划中的事情，但却有很多意外的收获。写作是一种对话，和自己的对话，和他人的对话。这77天里，我既是亲历者又是观察者。我观察和记录自己的情绪、周围的人和事。
我停止写日记，但不会停止发声，也依然期待和更多人建立联结，一起成为社会改变的一部分。
Today, the traffic between Wuhan and other parts of the country returned to normal. It is called “reopening”. From the perspective of pandemic control, this is a significant progress, showing that the epidemic in Wuhan is fully under control. However, when can we lift the lockdown inside Wuhan city? When can people open their hearts that are sealed with fear? “Light up Wuhan” [an official ceremony on the reopening of Wuhan] is another performance of collective romanticism that covers up the anxiety and pain of people in Wuhan.
The sequela and collateral damage of this pandemic have continued to affect us. Some people that recovered from COVID-19 may suffer from sequela for the rest of their life. How can we safeguard their lives? Will the discrimination towards people from Hubei Province diminish? What is the future of those companies filing for bankruptcy due to the pandemic? How about those who lost their job and failed to find a new job? It requires a huge amount of social resources to tackle all these problems. The government has to take a leading role to figure out a comprehensive set of measures to address these issues.
Alas, I can stop writing my lockdown diary, finally.
I did not plan to write this diary for 77 days. But in the process I have a lot of unexpected rewards. Writing is a kind of conversation, a conversation with myself, and a conversation with others. I am both a survivor and observer of 77 days of lockdown. I observed and recorded my emotions, the people surrounding me and the things happening around me.
I stopped writing the diary, but I will not stop speaking up. I still hope to build connections with more people and contribute to positive social change.

author: Winston Chiu


text:
How COVID-19 is intensifying content moderation’s flaws · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

Graphic by Mozilla. Used with permission.
The following post was co-authored by guest writers Solana Larsen, Internet Health Report Editor at Mozilla, and Leil Zahra, a Mozilla Fellow embedded at WITNESS.
As people around the world shelter from the COVID-19 pandemic, the internet has become an even more vital resource than before. Millions of us now exclusively connect, commiserate, learn, work, and play online.
In some ways, the pandemic has revealed the internet’s potential as a global public resource. But it is also revealing what’s unhealthy about the internet: Those without access are now at an even greater disadvantage. And privacy and security shortcomings in consumer technology are now making exponentially more people vulnerable.
One troubling issue the pandemic brings to the fore is the internet’s broken content moderation ecosystem. That is, the deeply flawed ways that big tech platforms deal with online hate speech, disinformation, and illegal content. Despite many advancements, Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms often moderate content in ways that are capricious or downright dangerous: harmful content is left to fester, and acceptable content is unfairly removed. These decisions often disproportionately affect people in the Global South and who speak languages that are less supported.
Right now, we’re at an inflection point. Will content moderation's flaws loom even larger? Or can this crisis be a springboard for positive, lasting change in how we communicate online?
One of the thorniest problems with content moderation is who — or what — does the moderation. With pandemic-related misinformation overwhelming platforms and many human content moderators unable to work, many platforms are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence. The limits of this approach are clear. Automated filtering has failed to prevent COVID-19 misinformation from spreading like wildfire and endangering public health. Platforms are awash in posts suggesting that drinking bleach can cure the virus, or that 5G technology is somehow spreading the disease.
In addition to overlooking misinformation, automated moderation can also accidentally censor quality content. Internet users asking earnest questions, or speaking in local vocabularies or contexts, can be incorrectly labeled as problematic. Mid-pandemic, automated moderation on Facebook resulted in the erroneous takedown of a large amount of content, including links to news articles about COVID-19. In March, Facebook claimed a technical “issue” was behind this, and said they had restored the removed content. But the episode raises serious questions about the efficiency of such systems, and, further, casts doubt on Facebook’s transparency. When YouTube announced it had heightened automated filtering due to COVID-19 in March, it wrote: “As we do this, users and creators may see increased video removals, including some videos that may not violate policies.” Similarly, Twitter explained in the same month that their automated moderation “can sometimes lack the context that our teams bring, and this may result in us making mistakes.”
It doesn’t help that when content is unfairly removed or an account is suspended, the appeal process can be opaque. In many cases, users are left without understanding the reasons behind the removal of content or suspension of an account. And even before the pandemic, context has been a major issue in the discussion around content moderation. For instance, whether a  U.S.-centric approach to what is accepted language or not should be applied internationally.
Flawed technology is one problem with content moderation; inequitable policies are another. In the United States and some European countries, big tech platforms can be fairly vigilant about following local laws and upholding their own internal policy commitments. Elsewhere, this isn't the case. During Nigeria’s 2018 election, researcher and Global Voices contributor Rosemary Ajayi and a group of colleagues catalogued hundreds of tweets spreading disinformation and were dismayed at the unpredictable and inconsistent response rates to reports about this activity. “If you report something serious on election day, and they get back to you a week later, what’s the point?” said Ajayi. The thought is equally frightening in today’s context: If a platform removes COVID-19 misinformation after millions of people have already seen it, the damage has already been done.
These are just two of several long-standing problems in the realm of content moderation. In Mozilla’s recent survey of the social media space, we examined several others. We spoke with a Polish nonprofit drug harm reduction group, SIN, that was suspended by Facebook and unable to appeal the decision. And we spoke with the human rights research group Syrian Archive, who say evidence of human rights abuses in war is frequently deleted by platforms. It’s not hard to see how instances like these can be especially grave during a pandemic too. What if critical health information disappears, or evidence of lockdown-related human rights abuses is wrongly taken down?
There’s no panacea for these problems. But greater transparency about what is taken down, when, and why, as well as what portion of takedowns are appealed and reinstated, could help researchers and affected communities advise platforms and policymakers far better. The transparency reports of major platforms have, nevertheless, become more detailed over the years, thanks in part to pressure from civil society, including the signatories of The Santa Clara Principles. This community initiative to outline baselines for transparency and accountability in content moderation was launched in 2018, and several platforms have gone on to endorse them. In March, noting that the principles would benefit from an update, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) initiated a global call for proposals (the deadline is June 30) for how to better meet the needs of marginalized voices that are heavily impacted.
So much is unknown about the moderation and appeal patterns in different global contexts, that even anecdotal evidence from affected users would be a precious resource. Silenced.online is one new grassroots tool for crowdsourcing and discussing experiences of unfair takedowns around the world. It aims to create a network of organizations and individuals who have been working on, or want to start working on, content takedown and moderation.
Other groups will concur that it’s crucial for civil society and researchers to be engaged on questions of content moderation and platform regulation. Scandals and crises tend to provoke new rules and regulations, or calls for further automation, that aren’t necessarily based on independent analysis of what works. New approaches to creating accountability and appeal mechanisms, like Facebook’s new Oversight Board, demand attention from a global public.
As outlined above, the COVID-19 pandemic is bringing content moderation flaws into sharp relief, but the problems are long-standing, not least on matters of health and disinformation. They call for a change in the daily operation of platforms as well as how they are held accountable. Heightened attention and focus on the issue has the potential to catalyze something good. It can spark more transparency, more humane technology, better laws—and a healthier internet.

author: Guest Contributor


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Is the Caribbean winning the fight against COVID-19? · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

The COVID-19 virus. Image by Trinity Care Foundation on Fickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in the Caribbean on March 1, 2020, when an Italian tourist in the Dominican Republic fell ill. On March 19, that country, which shares a border with Haiti, declared a state of emergency and to date, still has the highest number of positive cases in the region.
But how is the rest of the Caribbean faring? Are there signs of steady management of the virus? Is the Caribbean past the worst — or simply enjoying a quieter period before the much-feared second wave? What restrictions remain in place, and how are Caribbean nations working toward opening up, especially with regard to travel and tourism, both mainstays of regional economies?
It’s a mixed bag, and the next month or two will be critical as Caribbean governments try to balance public health and economic issues. Thrown into the mix is the fact that 2020 is a general election year for several regional territories.
In this, the first of a two-part series, we will offer a quick overview of how various Caribbean nations have been dealing with COVID-19. In the second part, we will examine the need to reopen regional economies — the majority of which are tourism-dependent —and the threat that this may pose.
Smaller territories, such as Anguilla, with a population of just 15,000; the British Virgin Islands, which has nearly 32,000 people; and St. Kitts and Nevis, with a population of 52,000, have recorded only a handful of positive cases each, with no active cases for some time.
Barbados, with a larger population of about 287,000, is one of them. Another heavily tourism-dependent territory, Turks and Caicos Islands, also has no cases and plans to reopen its borders on July 22.
All these islands are gradually easing restrictions, including the introduction of shorter curfew hours and the reopening of businesses and schools. St. Kitts is focused on holding its general elections on June 5.
Other regional territories — mostly larger ones — continue to face a range of challenges.
The Bahamas (population 385,000) is working toward an easing of some restrictions on certain islands, including the reopening of its borders by July 1. With 43 active cases, however, it is not quite out of the woods just yet.
Adding to the concern has been the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially began on June 1. Nine months after the devastation of Hurricane Dorian, some of the islands in its archipelago are still in recovery mode.
With a population of about 64,000, Bermuda remains cautious despite its declining number of active cases among its 141 confirmed cases; 47 of these are at care homes.
The government, concerned that citizens are not adhering to social distancing rules, has declared “zero tolerance” for violators. At the same time, however, the island's premier, David Burt, says he is “not willing to write off this year’s tourism season.”
With a population of 11.3 million, Cuba has recorded 2,083 cases of COVID-19, with 83 deaths. The country is currently dealing with 165 active cases and does not seem set to loosen restrictions over the next few weeks. Its borders will likely remain closed until July 1 at the earliest.
A nation with just 71,000 people, Dominica has been doing well in the COVID-19 fight, logging only a few cases, but has just acquired two new ones (repatriated cruise ship workers).
On June 1, however, the country recorded its first COVID-19 cases in almost two months: two repatriated cruise workers, both asymptomatic. They have been placed in mandatory quarantine, bringing the country's most recent numbers to 18 total coronavirus cases, with 16 recoveries.
Both the Dominican Republic (DR) (population 10.3 million) and its Haitian neighbours (just over 11 million) continue to grapple with rising COVID-19 numbers.
Restrictions on social activities in the DR remain tight, but despite its 17,572 COVID-19 cases and 502 deaths to date, as a major tourism player, it expects to open its borders on July 2.
On May 25, Haiti became the first country in the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to reach over 1,000 COVID-19 cases, having recorded over 300 new cases in three days.
The nation now has over 2,000 cases. Coupled with the social, economic and political challenges, the country may soon be trying to juggle its already limited financial resources to ease the burden on its health and social systems.
Though preoccupied with its own hotly contested elections, which were held on May 25, this CARICOM member state, located on the South American mainland, has only one active case of the virus.
Also a mainland CARICOM state, Guyana is still recounting votes that were cast in its highly controversial general election, held in early March.
As citizens await the results, which are now due to be announced by June 16, the country also faces a rising number of COVID-19 cases, with 12 deaths to date.
Jamaica (population 2.9 million) is still recording new COVID-19 cases, mostly imported (including repatriated cruise ship workers) or connected to an outbreak at a call centre in April.
At the time of publication, the island has recorded a total of 588 cases and 9 deaths, with the number of recovered patients increasing to 322. Repatriated workers (totalling approximately 2,300) have been arriving in waves from several cruise ships. It has a total of 10 deaths (a new one reported on June 3).
While social distancing measures and curfews remain in place, local businesses got back to the new normal on June 1, the same day the country's borders reopened to incoming citizens. The island's borders will open to tourists on June 15. Details of travel protocols have not yet been announced, but tourism minister Ed Bartlett declared on May 31 that he aims to make Jamaica a “COVID-resilient visitor destination.”
The US territory of Puerto Rico, with 3,189 cases and 127 deaths, has not yet reached the point where it can relax restrictions. In the aftermath of devastating hurricanes in 2017 and a series of earthquakes this year, it is still attempting to build resilience, even as it stares down the economic perils caused by the pandemic.
The scattered islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, though weathering the COVID-19 storm well, have now reported 29 additional cases — repatriated nationals who recently arrived on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. More people are being tested and quarantined.
One Caribbean nation that has consistently shone in the COVID-19 fight is Trinidad and Tobago. The twin-island republic recorded its first case on April 26, and has since succeeded in flattening the curve.
Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh stressed that reopening “has to be a gradual, well-thought-out and measured process.” Whatever measures are put in place will naturally have an impact on how the country's general elections, due later this year, are handled.
In the second installment of this series, we'll examine exactly how the process of reopening small island nation economies will be impacted, even as COVID-19 remains a global health threat.

author: Emma Lewis


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Password hack claim puts cyber security on the public agenda in North Macedonia · Global Voices
Metamorphosis Foundation

Ministry of Finance of Republic of North Macedonia in Skopje. Photo by Meta.mk, used with permission.
This story is based on reporting by Global Voices content partner Meta.mk News Agency, a project of Metamorphosis Foundation.
In North Macedonia, a hack targeting the email addresses and passwords of government officials may have missed its mark. But the attempt did succeed in briefly making cyber security a national talking point.
Twitter recently suspended the anonymous Twitter profile named “Powerful Greek Army”, which on May 10 published a text file that it claimed contained the emails and passwords of employees at the Macedonian ministries of Finance and Economy.
“Macedonia's”
Ministry OF Economy & Ministry OF Finance Hacked #PGA
Database LEAK: https://t.co/4xcyCtXtjO
(Includes all of the employees passwords & emails)
— Powerful Greek Army (@PowerfulArmyGR) May 10, 2020
The Government of Republic of North Macedonia promptly knocked back the claim, however, and noted that the hackers had in fact only published passwords no longer in use.
Дел од е-маил адресите не се во функција повеќе години, бидејќи нивните корисници не работат веќе во министерствата, а лозинките на сите објавени е-маил адреси се стари и се променети пред повеќе од седум години и во тие сандачиња не може да се пристапи преку објавените лозинки.
Part of these email addresses have been inactive for many years since their users don’t work anymore at these ministries, and the passwords of all the published email addresses are either old or were changed more than seven years ago. The respective user accounts and their mailboxes cannot be accessed through the published passwords.
In another media statement, the Minister of Economy Kreshnik Bekteshi explained that “no damage has been done” to the ministry's system and noted the ministry's IT department had informed him that no confidential data was stolen.
The minister further stated that both ministries have had their systems for official email services renewed and that complex passwords had been introduced for official email addresses, along with cyber security protocols that decrease the risk of systems getting compromised.
In their initial statement, the Government noted that its work strengthening the IT systems in state institutions was part of a comprehensive National Cyber Security Strategy and Action Plan.
That has not stopped pro-opposition profiles, including members of the VMRO-DPMNE troll army, from trying to use the scandal as proof of ruling party incompetence, however.
Ова не се лични работи бе црепојно, службени мејлови се од министерствата за економија и финансии. Кој ќе одговара за овој башибозук??
— ︽☆︽ Чиз™ ︽☆︽ #АΨ (@C4i7Z) May 13, 2020
These are not personal matters, you dummy, but official mails from the ministries of economy and finance. Who would be held accountable for this bashi-bazouk [unruly or chaotic management]
Media close to this political party, such as Hungarian-owned Alfa TV and its associated website express.mk, attempted to raise tensions with unverified sensationalist headlines such as “Employees in panic, Greek hackers breach [ministries of] finance and economy.”
Such comments are in spite of the fact that any breach, if one did occur, likely occurred during the period from 2006 to 2017 when the VMRO-DPMNE party was still in power.
Indeed, in the three weeks since the alleged hack took place, no-one has produced evidence that would contradict the government's position that the password list was at least seven years old.
Around the same time, the @PowerfulArmyGR Twitter profile boasted that it had hacked the websites of two Macedonian educational institutions and posted screenshots of supposedly vandalized web pages.
However some Macedonian Twitter users doubted the hacker credentials of the “Powerful Greek Army,” implying that the list might have been built from previous hacks.
Others cast doubts on the national identity of the hackers which was never independently verified, with some users speculating that the leak might be the work of opposition moles or foreign agents.
А како знаеме дека се грчки а не руски хакери кои само се претставуваат како грчки за да извршат хибриден напад на нашата земја а со тоа и на НАТО? ?
— Миталик (@DiMithril) May 13, 2020
How do we know they are Greek, when they might be Russian hackers who only pose as Greeks to conduct hybrid attacks on our country, and, in so, doing, attack NATO too?
Much of the social media noise focused on the simplicity of some of the passwords, and what they revealed about their creators, however.
One in particular lit up social networks — “cicecice” (pronounced tseetse) is best translated into English as “tittit” or “boobboob” — a slang for female breasts.
Enter password:
– cice
Password to weak ⛔
– cicecice
Password accepted✅
— Зимзелено Дрво? (@NemaPariNemaMir) May 13, 2020
At least one Twitter user was prepared to give that particular finance ministry employee, or former employee, the benefit of the doubt.
@alter_gella said the account owner could have meant čiče, a word that means “uncle” and is spelt almost the same way, but pronounced chiche.

author: Metamorphosis Foundation


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Restarting Caribbean economies under threat of COVID-19 · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Travel in the time of COVID-19. Image by Prachatai on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Part 1 of this series discussed the status of the Caribbean's COVID-19 battle as of the beginning of June 2020. In this second instalment, we'll take a look at how the region plans to reopen its economies, most of which are reliant on tourism.
Caribbean tourism had a boom year in 2019. Then, toward the end of the year, COVID-19 emerged. The result has been a pandemic that caused the Caribbean Tourism Organization, in a series of podcasts, to dub the virus as “the unwanted visitor.”
As a major source of foreign exchange and employment for most Caribbean countries, the imperative to safely open up borders to overseas visitors, at least now that some regional territories appear to have a decent grasp on containing the number of COVID-19 cases, has become ever more pressing since May.
However, while a few islands have declared themselves ready and even set dates — whether tentative or firm — for reopening, others have not reached that stage. Some are unwilling to put any date on an opening at all.
Among those that have declared themselves open for business from June are Antigua and Barbuda, which will welcome its first flight from the United States on June 4, and St. Lucia, which has announced it will take a “responsible phased approach to re-opening the tourism sector” on the same date — despite having extended a local state of emergency until September.
Belize, a Caribbean country situated along the northeastern coast of Central America, can boast no COVID-19 cases for over a month; along with Grenada and the Dutch island of Aruba, it appears ready to open borders soon. None of the three countries have yet announced dates, however. Aruba’s neighbour, Bonaire, also with zero cases, will end its travel ban on June 15.
Meanwhile, the US Virgin Islands reopened for tourists on June 1, although its state of emergency remains in place until July 11.
The Cayman Islands (population 64,000) has no set date for returning to full normality, although one health institution there plans to conduct antibody testing for COVID immunity.
A hugely popular cruise ship destination, Cayman has already tested close to 20 percent of its population and has 150 cases. Tourism officials are planning a phased recovery, with no timeline set. However, the unpredictability of the virus was illustrated on June 3 with the announcement that a nine-year-old child has tested positive – a situation the islands’ Chief Medical Officer calls “sobering.”
Meanwhile, travel interests and hotel chains are gearing themselves up, taking bookings and hyping the region as a preferred destination. Pointing to the region’s relatively low infection rate, one travel website asserted that US visitors will be back in the Caribbean by June.
However, with the virus not completely dispelled in some countries that are planning to reopen, and fears that large numbers of visitors may spell danger for local populations, the mood in the Caribbean remains cautious.
The current chair of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, said as much in an interview with the BBC on May 26:
We are not going to be driven by dates, we are going to be driven by protocols that make us safe. […] We are trying to balance lives and livelihoods, like everyone else […] but the scale of unemployment has been crippling.
Mottley stressed that going forward, “the big issue” is the testing of travellers; she confirmed that stakeholder discussions with regard to detailed travel protocols are ongoing. Her own island, with a population of 287,000, has recorded no new cases of COVID-19 for six days; 11 cases were recorded for May, and there has been extensive testing. While restrictions on shopping have been lifted and citizens have access to the island's beaches, the Barbadian government has not yet announced a date for reopening its borders.
In Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness confirmed at a press briefing that CARICOM is seeking to collaborate on new protocols for tourists arriving on its shores. Referring to a “new normal,” he noted:
These protocols probably won’t be much different to what other countries will have, but as a group, I think there is a general understanding of what the future of travel will look like.
It’s a dilemma for Caribbean governments, torn between ongoing public health concerns and the reality of a regional, tourism-dependent economy now in a downward spiral. The Planning Institute of Jamaica has predicted a major contraction in the gross domestic product (GDP) for the April to June quarter, primarily as a result of the measures being taken to address the pandemic.
One more factor should be entered into the equation, to which the CARICOM chair referred: June 1 was the official start of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, a period which the Caribbean faces with increasing trepidation, thanks to ever-worsening impacts of the climate crisis. Over the past few years, the storms have increased in intensity, with devastating effects.
2020 is proving to be a year of enormous challenges and great unpredictability for the Caribbean. Is the region past the worst with COVID-19? It may be too early to say, but it seems likely that there may be more trials to come.


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‘To speak of George Floyd, it is necessary to speak of my own failures’ · Global Voices
Shivanee Ramlochan

The George Floyd mural outside Cup Foods at Chicago Ave and E 38th St in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The mural is by artists Xena Goldman, Cadex Herrera, and Greta McLain. The group started working on the mural on Thursday morning and finished it within 12 hours with the help of artists Niko Alexander and Pablo Hernandez. Photo by Lorie Shaull (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The original version of the piece below was published on the author's Facebook page.
To speak of George Floyd, it is necessary to speak of my own failures. To speak now is to try to fill a well of silence I've been filling for several days, thinking. It's dangerous to be silent in such times, and my quietness on Indian Arrival Day was part of that lack of speech. It's not enough for me to say I have a complex relationship with my Indianness, and leave it there. It becomes more and more important to explain how I have been both a troubled observer and undeniable beneficiary of Indo-Caribbean violence and racism; how I have seen that violence used against black bodies in this, our shared Caribbean space, all my life.
Like many Indo-Caribbean women and people of my generation and other generations preceding and following mine, I was raised in a communal culture of Black Suspicion and Indian Superiority. If my parents didn't dispense this ideology in clear, calculated language (they did not) it was nonetheless all around me. I was not so much taught, as I understood, that the worst thing (yes, thing) you could bring home was a big black man™. I understood, rather than learned, that I should be proud of my culture, “preserved and intact” as it was, sailed across treacherous kala pani and the brutalities of indenture. I was led to feel grateful that I had an identity I could wear like a sari, recite like a mantra, cook like dhal, pick-a-pan like Mastana Bahar, deya like Divali. That against that, the fragmentation and erasure enacted on Afro-Caribbean culture was something to not only pity, but fear and condemn. That it was my Indian woman's responsibility to carry the filled brass lota of my Indianness forward into future generations, ideally birthed from my hips via the incursion of an Indian husband. To not do that would be a betrayal. This, of course, makes me a kind of betrayer.
I would learn that what looked like fragmentation and erasure of Afro-Caribbeanness—the things I'd balanced against my Indian certainty—was, in fact, a mythology of colonial textbooks, of empire's narratives doing what empire does: choke-holding truth to serve its power and purpose. By that time, I had much room in which to reflect on how Indo-Caribbean racism had both privileged me, while I'd professed to be disgusted by it: how I'd benefitted from standing beneath its cloak of power and influence while trying, often failing, to rip out the stitches at its golden hems.
I think of George Floyd, and I think of all the times I've bitten my tongue while my uncles raged on about the grotesquerie of the blacks, their laziness, their ineptitude, their savagery. I think of my silence in the backseats of route taxis, listening to Indian men commiserate with me about the places I should not go, the black men I should not entertain, the blackness to which I should never aspire, in music, hairstyle, or excess. I knew all this to be deeply wrong and hateful. I spoke back, yes. And many times, I did not.
I'm protecting myself, I would say, internally, hands knotted in my lap like a good brown girl. I'm protecting myself from what I fear in these men, these Indian men I know and do not know. I was. I did. Is this how I would have behaved, on the pavement watching George Floyd be kneed into a sputtering, wailing death? Change the picture frame from the U.S.A. to Port of Spain: is this how I would have behaved if a black woman were assaulted by an Indian security guard outside of a bank? I don't know the answer.
I know my past pain, and I know my past behaviour. I know, too, that in the past I have conflated Indo-Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean responses to structural and systemic racism and classism, right here in Trinidad and Tobago, as though they were the same thing. They are not. What have I done with this knowledge? I've transmitted it to my younger self, who knew little better at the time, and I've asked her not to make the same mistakes, to consider the true, useful value of her allyship. To strip it of performative spectacle. To listen better.
But Indians are and have been persecuted right here in our nation's history, an academic will slide into my private messages to upbraid me: for our religions, for our agrarian rurality, for our perceived weakness in the eyes of “the blacks”, for our food, which before being popularized was openly scorned in “official” settings, long preceding the miniaturization and pocket cuteness of the tiny goat roti on the porcelain plate on the steps of the Country Club. I will be accused of not knowing my history. I know it, and I know what it does not excuse.
I have sufficient thought within me to recognize the long, long arm of empire that stretches over all of us, over all people of colour in the former colonies of the Caribbean. How it has shackled and indentured us, used the same and different techniques on our skin, in our homes and hearts and atop our altars, in the tools our hands held in the fields, chapels, bedrooms and graves of conquest.
This, all this, does not make me innocent. It doesn't make me American, or black in America. It does not put me in George's shoes, in his body, in his everyday joy, struggle, or terror at the moment of this death, the long minutes of his dying.
As I learn, fail in the learning, failing hopefully every time towards a better way of witnessing police brutality, violent and calculated racism against black citizens, and the horrors of the racist police industrial state, I recommit myself to listening. To sitting at the feet of black women, nonbinary, male writers, agitators, thinkers, and listening.
To drinking in the rich bloodvein of Audre Lorde, of James Baldwin, of Paule Marshall, of Malcolm X, of Michelle Alexander, of Reni Eddo-Lodge, of Zora Neale Hurston, of Marlon James, without being a theatrical vampire-ally.
No, no operatic and ventriloquistic allyship for me, I beg of myself.
No co-opting or speaking for, no blood-salutations without personal bloodletting.
I know I will never get it one hundred per cent right, but if I can't pin myself to the raised flag of failing upwards with love, then I don't deserve to be any sort of standard-bearer, at all.
I am holding the flag I've made myself to bring to the forefront of my politics, my voice which cannot afford silence, even in its thorny and barbed complexity.
Lifting it for George, for Trayvon, for Tamir, for Sandra, for Tony. For Black Americans. Offering my flawed Brown Indo-Caribbean solidarity. Offering it in the hope that my hands, which are not blameless, will become better and cleaner givers in the work.
May I learn to give the blood I owe.

author: Shivanee Ramlochan


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‘A possible violation’: Mexico’s biggest telecommunications operator is blocking Tor network · Global Voices
Jacobo Nájera

Photo by darwin Bell/Flickr, under  CC BY 2.0  license
Mexico is one of Latin America's most active countries on the Tor network, yet the country's most popular telecommunications operator, Telmex, has practically blocked the network's entire host system. This is what a team of researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Magma project, of which the authors of this article are members, found in their recent investigations. This is a worrying finding for defenders of free speech and privacy, since it is viewed as a setback in the exercise of rights.
The Tor logo. Photo from Wikipedia, used under CC BY 3.0 US license.
The Tor network is a free and open-source software that is used throughout the world for anonymous communication. It offers alternatives for those who wish to exercise freedom of access and speech online by maintaining their privacy and anonymity. To this end, it relies on a network of more than 6000 nodes or relays that provide a worldwide anonymous routing, also known metaphorically as “onion routing” because of the various layers that make up this network.
Mexico is a country where freedom of speech is threatened, and this could thereby explain the interest in having a secure way of interacting online. In 2020, Mexico came 143 out of 180 countries in terms of press freedom, according to Reporters without Borders. Journalists and defenders of human rights often put their lives at risk by doing their job.
Onion routing provides anonymity by transmitting data from the websites we visit through a series of three relays, in such a manner that the final destination cannot know the connection's origin. In Mexico, there are between 10,000 and 15,000 users per day according to Tor. Civil society and communities have boosted the use of the Tor network. Its projects focus on the use of anonymous inboxes for whistleblowers in journalistic writing and human rights defense work.
Bandwidth provided for Latin America. Data Source: Tor Metrics, 2019
In recent years, a team of academics, students and defenders of human rights have pushed for universities like UNAM or the Metropolitan Autonomous University, to work with infrastructure for the Tor network. Some view this as “digital self-defense,” or in other words, a political act of self-management to develop alternatives with communities.
Such involvement is reflected in the increased number of relays installed in Mexico. According to Tor network sources, this number has increased in the last three years from 1 or 2 relays to more than 20 in the most active logs. However, the number reduced significantly when Telmex began to block them.
As the team of researchers from UNAM and the Magma project documented in their analysis, Mexico's most widely used telecommunications operator, Telmex, has been blocking the Tor network.
Telmex is a private company owned by Carlos Slim, the wealthiest man in Mexico, and is one of the largest telecommunication companies in Latin America. It offers fixed-line telephone services and is considered the “king of fixed broadband internet” in most parts of Mexico.
Yet, operators who are keen to continue or begin their involvement with the Tor network have been forced to find internet providers other than Telmex.
The first public report on the Telmex block by Tor network operators dates back to 2016. A Tor network node operator said the following in a Tor project mailing list:
He estado ejecutando un nodo (retransmisión sin salida) durante aproximadamente 5 años. Desde el año nuevo, noté que mi nodo se cayó, y que no apareció en los lugares habituales.
I have been running a node (non-exit relay) for around 5 years now. Since the year began, I noticed that my node had crashed and wasn't appearing in the usual places.
Number of relays in Mexico, 2009-2019. Source: Tor Metrics.
The node operator also added that there used to be between 5 and 8 relays in Mexico, but at that time only 1 was appearing online. This report coincides with the Tor network's history logs, which show a significant fall in the number of relays between 2015 and 2017.
The Tor network system relies on 9 servers and 1 backup, known as “directory authorities,” which are located in Europe, the United States and Canada.
Telmex has blocked access to 7 of these directory authorities. Users can access the Tor network but it is not possible to install relays because it hasn't been possible to establish a stable connection with the directory authorities since 2016. These are required for the reliability of the Tor network as a whole.
Chart created with measurement data from the Open Observatory of Network Interference
The chart on the right shows measurements that were taken on a regular basis between January and June 2019. The measurements for the Telmex network are shown in red or brown; 7 of the 10 Tor directory authorities have been blocked.
The government agency charged with regulating telecommunications in Mexico, the Federal Telecommunications Institute, became formally aware of the Telmex block on 31 October 2019 through a Recommendation concerning practices that involve Net Neutrality, which its advisory board had shared. In its recommendation, the board argues that:
(…) se puede tener una posible violación al no permitir la libre elección de privacidad y anonimato que una persona pueda elegir al usar servicio de internet de determinado proveedor.
(…) by not allowing free choice of privacy or anonymity, which a person can choose by using internet services of a specific provider, there may be a possible violation.
It also adds:
Como es evidente, la privacidad y la neutralidad serán letra muerta en las leyes mientras el instituto no actué de forma más proactiva.
As is evident, privacy and neutrality will be remain on paper only as long as the Institute does not act more proactively.
Despite the Mexican Federal Telecommunications Law stipulating that internet providers must adhere to “Free choice, Non-discrimination, Privacy, Traffic control, Quality and Development,” sustained by the infrastructure, the Institute did not respond.
For their part, Telmex has denied blocking operators, on several occasions, when asked to stop doing so.
Within this digital framework, operators in Mexico consider the block to be a breach in the exercise of human rights. But in spite of this block, Mexico's community of node operators obtained more than 20 relays on the Tor network and subsequently set up more than 10 in the last 3 years by dealing with other internet providers. However, with Telmex being the country's most widely used provider, this measure is a difficult obstacle to overcome.

author: Jacobo Nájera


text:
Art as a true act of resistance: A conversation with theatre actor Juan Pablo Mazorra · Global Voices
Alejandro Barreto

Juan Pablo Mazorra. Photo by David Ruano. Used with permission
An artist's work is a fusion of successes that take place during the creative process. The final product is then presented on stage in its immaculate form for the audience to appreciate. Actor, director and drama teacher Juan Pablo Mazorra knows this process all too well.
Mazorra's passion for different theatrical expressions brought him from his hometown in Puebla, Mexico to Spain, where he currently lives and works. During his career, he has worked in many prestigious institutions such as the Institut del Teatre and the Moveo centre in Barcelona. He is currently an actor in one of the oldest independent theatre companies in Europe, Els Joglars.
Mazorra is also a drama teacher and the founder and artistic director of the independent theatre company Parece una tontería (It seems silly). In 2018, he received the best actor award for the monologue “MIGRANTE” at the IX MUTIS Independent Theatre Festival, which is held every year in Barcelona.
Global Voices’ author Alejandro Barreto spoke with Mazorra about his art and how his experience abroad impacts his work.
“Set Segons. In God We Trust” by Falk Richter. Directed by Ruben Pérez. Photo by Markel Cormenzana. Used with permission.
Alejandro Barreto (AB): Why did you choose to work in the theatre and what commitment do you make to your profession?
Juan Pablo Mazorra (JPM): Porque honestamente, a los actores nos gusta sentirnos exhibidos, contar una la historia donde es el protagonista, sentir la interacción entre público y el mensaje que estás dando. Es un juego de dos, el actor y el público que ha pagado por entrar a verte, es un acto de comunión. Me gusta cuando actúo ver las caras del público, los gestos, la respiración, las risas, eso me apasiona.
Ahora bien, aunque suene idílico, creo que el teatro cambiará al mundo, o al menos un mundo, el de una persona. Lo imagino cuando la gente se acerca al final de la obra para felicitarte, darte sus puntos de vista y saber que quizás ese día llegará a su casa y durante la cena contará algo sobre lo que sintió o reflexionó gracias a una obra de teatro. La gente que va verlo, asiste con una expectativa, al menos pasar el rato, y ese es un buen momento para decirle que aparte de divertirse, vamos a reflexionar sobre un tema, o yo voy a plantear también las inquietudes que me preocupan, porque al final el teatro no plantea respuestas, sólo preguntas. El teatro modifica de muchas formas, yo me siento mejor persona gracias a él, es un trabajo de empatizar, me obliga a ponerme la piel de un personaje, entenderlo y no juzgarlo.
Juan Pablo Mazorra (JPM): Honestly, because actors like to feel exposed, to tell a story where they are the protagonist, to feel the interaction between the audience and the message that is being sent. It's a game between two players: the actor and the audience who has paid to see you perform. It's an act of communion. When I am acting, I like to see the faces of the audience, the gestures, the breathing, the laughter. It inspires me.
I know it sounds idealistic, but I believe that theatre will change the world, or at least one world, that of the individual person. I imagine it when people come up to you at the end of the play to congratulate you, to tell you their opinion. I know that, thanks to the theatre performance, maybe they will go home and say something about what they felt and thought over dinner. People who go to the theatre attend with a certain expectation, at the very least [they expect] to pass time. This is a good opportunity to tell them that on top of being entertained, we are going to reflect on a certain issue. Or that I am going to raise my own concerns, because in the end the theatre does not propose answers, only questions. The theatre changes in many different ways, and I feel that I'm a better person because of it. It is a job that requires empathy. It forces me to wear the skin of a character, understand it and not judge it.
“Migrante” directed by Neilor Moreno and Giselle Stanzione. Photo by Mayra Luna, used with permission.
AB: What is the current state of the theatre?
JPM: He tenido el privilegio de pisar algunos países y durante mi formación he podido intercambiar ideas con personas de muchas nacionalidades, y es triste reconocer que el común al hablar de la situación del teatro es siempre complicada e incierta. Pareciera que los artistas somos de los últimos eslabones en la cadena humana. El común denominador en México, en España y en casi todos lados, sigue siendo el mismo: pagos miserables, falta de interés por parte de los programas de gobierno para las artes, el poco hábito de la gente para ir al teatro, teatros que se ven obligados a cerrar, contratos inexistentes, pagos atrasados…. No se equivoca ninguno al decir que esta es una verdadera profesión de resistencia.
JPM: I have had the privilege to work in a few different countries and during my training I've been able to exchange ideas with people of different nationalities. It's sad to acknowledge that the common theme when talking about the theatre is its constant complicated and uncertain status. It seems that we, the artists, are one of the last links in the human chain. The common denominator in Mexico, Spain and almost everywhere else, remains the same: terrible pay, lack of interest from government programs for the arts, the fact that people don't go to the theatre often, theatres that are forced to close, non-existent contracts, late payments…. It wouldn't be wrong to say that this a true profession of resistance.
“ZENIT” From the Els Joglars company. Photo by David Ruano. Photograph used with permission.
AB: Why did you decide to go abroad to advance your career?
JPM: La razón principal por la que vine a España fue para estudiar. Quería profesionalizarme en un tipo de teatro muy específico y su estudio en México era complicado y/o inexistente. Fue un posgrado en teatro y educación, y un diplomado en mimo corporal dramático y teatro físico las que me hicieron viajar a Europa. Mientras vivía aquí, la compañía de teatro Els Joglars  convocaron a casting y tras un largo proceso de filtros, me contrataron, así que tuve la oportunidad, al finalizar mis estudios de seguir viviendo en este país.
JPM: The main reason why I came to Spain was to study. I wanted to become a professional in a very specific type of theatre and study for this in Mexico was complicated, if non-existent. What made me travel to Europe was the opportunity to study for a postgraduate degree in theatre and education, and a course in corporeal mime and physical theatre. Whilst I was living here, the theatre company Els Joglars held auditions and after a long selection process, they hired me. This gave me the opportunity to continue living in this country after I had finished my studies.
“BRUELS'”. Written and directed by Oriol Morales. Photo by María Alzamora. Photograph used with permission.
AB: The concept of migration has become part of the discourse of your work. How does this reflect your experience?
JPM: Considero que muchos de los trabajos personales que desarrollo como artista siempre están permeados de una fuerte necesidad de hablar de una problemática social porque considero que todo artista es un ser político. Con la obra “Intermitentes” nos aventuramos a hablar del suicidio juvenil, con “ese lugar que nadie escucha” sobre la violencia contra la mujer, en “Tafus” sobre el duelo tras la muerte… y no es que la migración se haya vuelto mi discurso de la noche a la mañana. Creo que ser mexicano y no tener en la cabeza la palabra migración, se debe a que vives de manera muy privilegiada, o porque no has querido mirar la realidad que te rodea. La idea de que alguien tenga que dejar su lugar natal, por las razones que sea, ha sido siempre algo que he reflexionado mucho; pero hasta que me convertí en parte de esta estadística, fue que decidí convertir esa idea en un espectáculo. Así nace “Migrante” uno de mis proyectos personales al que más tiempo le he dedicado y qué más satisfacciones a nivel personal y artístico me ha dejado. Los artistas tenemos una gran capacidad de migrar, ojalá nadie tuviera que hacerlo por supervivencia, sino por placer y por la curiosidad de descubrir el mundo.
JPM: I think that a lot of my work as an artist is permeated with a strong need to talk about social issues because I believe that to be an artist is to be political. “Intermitentes” (Intermittent) broached the subject of youth suicide. In “Ese lugar que nadie escucha” (That place that no one hears) we talked about violence against women, in “Tafus” about mourning after death… and it's not as if migration has become part of my discourse overnight. I think that to be Mexican and to not have the word ‘migration’ in your head, is either because you live a very privileged life, or because you have not wanted to look at the reality around you. The idea that someone has to leave their birthplace, for whatever reason, has always been something that I've thought about a lot. But once I became part of that statistic, that was when I decided to turn the idea into a performance. This was how “Migrante” (Migrant) was born. This has become one of my personal projects to which I have devoted the most time and that has given me the most satisfaction on a personal and artistic level. As artists we have a great ability to migrate, although I wish that no one would have to do it for survival, but for pleasure and a curiosity to discover the world.
AB: Do you ever see yourself taking your training as an actor, playwright, and director back to Mexico?
JPM: Las pocas veces que he vuelto a México para visitar a mi familia, me las he arreglado para siempre impartir algunos talleres o compartir algo de mi trabajo; nada me haría más feliz que trabajar en México. Me encantaría que me inviten a dirigir una obra, llevar algún espectáculo mío de gira por allá o ir e impartir clases. Muero de ganas de regresar y aportar mi granito de arena, modificar y dar un punto de vista diferente en la situación teatral de mi país.
JPM: I have always managed to teach some workshops or share some of my work the few times that I have returned to Mexico to visit my family. Nothing would make me happier than working in Mexico. I would love to be invited to direct a play, take a show of mine on tour there, or go and teach. I am eager to return and add my two cents, to modify and to give a different point of view in my country's theatrical situation.

author: Alejandro Barreto


text:
Serbian foreign minister disowns ‘zombie-like’ campaign ad · Global Voices
Metamorphosis Foundation

Photo: Screencap from video clip published by Branko Ružić, vice president of the executive board of the Socialist Party of Serbia.
This story is based on reporting by Global Voices’ content partner Meta.mk News Agency, a project of Metamorphosis Foundation.
The leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), Ivica Dačić, has distanced himself from a pre-election video clip that has become the butt of zombie film jokes on social media.
The video was published on Twitter on May 31 by Branko Ružić, the vice president of the SPS executive board.
It shows a crowd consisting of animated gray figures flocking slowly towards a billboard featuring an image of Dačić and the scheduled date for parliamentary elections – June 21, 2020. The slogan asks voters to “Count on us…Towards victory! #socialists”
Both Dačić and Ružić serve as ministers in the coalition government of Republic of Serbia.
Dačić occupies the position of First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, while Ružić holds the post of Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government
The background music for the advert is a punk version of the iconic song “Računajte na nas” (Count on us) by singer and songwriter Đorđe Balašević, which was originally published in 1978.
Do Pobede @socijalisti ?? pic.twitter.com/D141U77jye
— Branko Ružić (@brankoruzicsps) May 31, 2020
Ružić’s tweet received over 80,000 views and hundreds of negative reactions in its first two days online.
Many of them described the video as “horror” or “creepy” while comparing voters depicted in the advert as characters from TV series such as the Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.
Racunajte na zombije. To su oni.
Ne može sablasnije od ovoga.
Karpenter lično režirao spot? https://t.co/SEo1H2AZ12
— dkrasojevicpavicevic (@dusicakrasojev1) June 1, 2020
Count on the zombies. This is what they are.
It can't get more creepy than this.
As if [horror filmmaker John] Carpenter himself directed the video.
Dačić reacted with a statement published on the SPS website, saying the clip was not an official publication of the party, but rather “an independent creation.”
То није предизборни спот, и нема везе са СПС-ом. То је самостална креација која се појавила на друштвеним мрежама. СПС још није пустио своје спотове.
This is not an election video and has nothing to do with SPS. This is an independent creation which appeared on social networks. As of this moment, SPS has not released any video clips.
The Socialist Party of Serbia ruled the country from 1990 to 2000, at a time when Serbia led several bloody wars in the Balkans. Back then the party was run by Slobodan Milošević,
Some of the reactions to the video related to that legacy, in particular commenting on the text of the tweet “Towards Victory!”
These reactions sarcastically referenced supposed ‘victories’ that included the slaughter of civilians in Vukovar, Sarajevo, Srebrenica and during the War for Kosovo.
koje bolan pobede? u vukovaru? sarajevu? srebrenici? kosovu? i jabse drogiro ali nemam para za to
— Dejan Kozul 1234… (@K_U_P_E_K) June 1, 2020
Which victories do you refer to, man? In Vukovar? Sarajevo? Srebrenica? Kosovo? I'd like to get some of the drugs you are on, but I don't have the money!
In 2008, after several years in opposition, SPS once more joined the government, this time as part of the ruling coalitions dominated by current President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić.
Vučić himself had served under Milošević as information minister during the 1990s.
Đorđe Balašević was among the few famous Serbian artists who openly opposed SPS policies during the rule of Milošević.
His anti-war and anti-corruption positions earned him a wealth of respect in former Yugoslav countries, including those who were targeted by the Serbian nationalist regime's aggression in the 1990s.
The 1978 song “Računajte na nas” became a pop rock anthem across former Yugoslavia, and was widely performed and sung at youth gatherings during the 1980s.
In the years following the breakup of Yugoslavia, when the ideals of brotherhood and unity guiding inter-ethnic policy dissolved, Balašević stopped performing the song at live performances.
During a 2018 concert in Split, Croatia, he explained his refusal:
Djeco, okanite se tih tema. Večeras je tu s nama Dino Rađa, velikan svjetskog sporta. Takve stvari vas trebaju veseliti, a ne Jugoslavija. Jugoslavija nije valjala, da je valjala ne bi se onako krvavo raspala. Mene zovu jugonostalgičarem, ali ja sam jugoplastičar, meni nedostaje Jugoplastika, meni samo nedostaju ta vremena, a ne ta država.
Kids, don't raise those subjects. Tonight with us is Dino Rađa, one of the greats of world sports. These kinds of things should bring us joy, not Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was no good, if it was good it would not have broken down in such a bloody way. Some people call me a Yugo-nostalgic, but I'm not Yugo-nostalgic, I miss [the Split basketball club] Jugoplastika, I miss those times, but not that state.


text:
Who fact checks online disinformation in West Africa’s Bambara language? · Global Voices
Kpénahi Traoré

Si ni kɛnɛya (“Longevity and health”), a Bambara/Jula language inscription on a bush taxi in Burkina Faso. Image/translation by Coleman Donaldson/An ka taa and used with permission.
Editor’s note: This personal essay was written following a Twitter campaign organized by Global Voices sub-Saharan Africa and Rising Voices where each week, a different language activist shared their perspectives on the intersection of digital rights and African Languages as part of the project, “The identity matrix: Platform regulation of online threats to expression in Africa.”
A few weeks ago, I received a WhatsApp message consisting of a voice message and a video about COVID-19 in the Bambara language. The 26-second audio alleged that the virus was created in a laboratory by white people.
Screenshot from a video received on WhatsApp, of a man displaying a liquid which he claims cures coronavirus in Bambara language.
The second file, this video, was about a supposed herbal treatment for the coronavirus. For almost two minutes, a man displayed a bottle filled with a colorless liquid, which he claims cures COVID-19.
This type of disinformation is rife among the Mandingo community and sadly, people believe it.
With a population of 11 million people, the Mandingo ethnic group cuts across the West African countries of Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.
Mandingo (also called Mandenkan, Maninka, Mandingo, or Manding) is a tonal language but with different varieties spoken across countries in Western Africa. In Mali, it is called Bambara/Bamanankan. In Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso, it is known as Dioula. In Guinea, they say Malinke, while in Senegal and the Gambia, it is called Mandingo.
There has been abundant public discourse on false information in news channels, particularly in international languages like French and English, and in major African languages.
This is because mis- and disinformation has a great public impact on people's lives; the inability to distinguish facts from fallacy is the challenge of our times. In the case of COVID-19, mis- and disinformation and propaganda are major obstacles in fighting the virus, especially in Africa.
But who cares about mis- and disinformation in a minority language like Bambara?
There is currently no control mechanism to track fake information in Bambara. Communities have not been educated that digital platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook are also potentials vectors of fake news.
False information is a big issue in most African languages like Bambara. People spread fake news unintentionally because they do not realize the danger. They cannot imagine that someone can write or record something that could be false.
Misinformation and disinformation in Bambara spread in various digital platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. This has become more pronounced with the COVID-19 pandemic. Some examples are that Africans are immune to coronavirus or this disease infects only the wealthy. Others claim that the virus does not exist. These falsehoods delay the implementation of protective measures against the new coronavirus.
Les médias crédibles essaient de combattre les fake news en consacrant des émissions au coronavirus dans les langues locales comme le #bambara
— GV SSAfrica (@gvssafrica) April 30, 2020
Credible media are trying to fight fake news by devoting programmes to the coronavirus in local languages like #bambara
Disinformation about COVID-19 had already taken root among Bambara users in some countries before authorities started awareness campaigns like maintaining social and physical distancing in public places. For instance, Rémi Djandjinou, Burkina Faso’s minister of communication explains (as shown in the video embedded in the tweet below) in Dioula/Bambara language on hygiene measures to fight coronavirus.
For example in this video Burkina Faso communication minister try in #bamaba #dioula language to explain th barrier gestures against coronavirus. This is good but not enough https://t.co/jwoL6kf7QJ
— GV SSAfrica (@gvssafrica) April 30, 2020
Mɔgɔ man ɲi (“People are bad”), a Bambara language inscription on a bus in the busy traffic of Bamako, Mali. Image/translation by Coleman Donaldson/An ka taa and used with permission.
There is a similarity between the spread of false information and the transmission of COVID-19.
Someone receives false news from a digital platform, consumes it and then shares it with a dozen people. The recipients equally share it with others as well, and soon, the message goes viral.
In the case of the coronavirus, one person can infect more than five people, according to a recent study by Steven Sanche and five other scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, United States. The infected people will equally transmit the disease to others.
Due to the massive sharing of disinformation, WhatsApp recently imposed a limit on message forwarding to curb the spread of rumors and viral messages that lead to disinformation.
In August last year, Facebook partnered with Africa Check, a nonprofit media organization, to integrate more African languages in the fight against fake news: Yorùbá and Igbo (Nigeria), Swahili (Kenya/Tanzania), Wolof (Senegal), Afrikaans, Zulu, Setswana, Sotho, Northern Sotho and Southern Ndebele (South Africa).
Sadly, there is no project with Bambara.
It is time for african local languages as #bambara to take a place on the internet. The many languages missing from the internet #africanlanguagesmatter https://t.co/jQvqxafG2Q via @BBC_Future
— Kpénahi Traoré (@Kpenahiss) May 13, 2020
I recently asked a journalist from Africa Check in Senegal why Bambara was not considered in the Facebook collaboration on African languages. He said that since neither he nor his colleagues are Bambara speakers users, they cannot possibly fact check mis- and disinformation in that language.
Unfortunately, this was a lost opportunity to work on a specific project to identify and check disinformation in Bambara.
Bambara is hardly considered in many international interventions unlike Yorùbá and Igbo (languages from Anglophone Africa). Oftentimes, African languages from French-speaking countries are often forgotten in local language development projects.
At RFI (Radio France International) where I work, the Bambara language newsroom is streamed on the internet. But this is a French public media project and not an initiative from Bambara speaking countries.
Digital platforms can give Bambara a new breath by showing that it is a dynamic language. There are few projects and initiatives to promote Bambara on the internet.
Coleman Donaldson, a linguistic anthropologist at the University of Hamburg is the founder of An ka taa (“let’s go”) an online project that teaches Bambara language. An ka taa also makes information about Bambara cities like Bamako or Bobo Dioulasso, where Bambara is spoken, available online. It is an ambitious project, considering that it is a nonprofit and lacks institutional financial support.
In Mali and Burkina Faso for example, offline local media promotes Bambara. Even if they want to be visible online, they can’t because they lack internet access.
Je souhaite qu'un jour les locuteurs du bambara puisse des espaces de discussion sur internet, des espaces qui prennent pleinement en compte l'orthographe et l'évolution du vocabulaire de la langue, que le bambara évolue avec le monde #identitymatrix
— GV SSAfrica (@gvssafrica) May 1, 2020
I hope that one day, Bambara speakers can find spaces for discussion on the internet, spaces that take full account of the spelling and evolution of the language's vocabulary, that Bambara evolves with the world #identitymatrix
Another obstacle is that digital technologies are not designed for African languages, even though the “choice to create and disseminate information through the internet” in one’s language is digital right, as stated in the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedom.

author: Kpénahi Traoré


text:
Despite COVID-19 restrictions, Spain’s extreme right supporters protested in Madrid · Global Voices
Amaya Hernández Suescun

Rally organized by VOX on 03.06.2018 Photo credit: Vox España/Flickr, public domain.
As Spain gradually eases coronavirus restrictions, 6000 cars packed into central Madrid to call for the resignation of President Pedro Sánchez and his ministers.
Yelling slogans like “freedom”, “resign”, and “Sanchez leave now”, and bearing Spanish flags and masks, protesters came out against the government's handling of the pandemic. They called for a return to individual freedoms and a reopening of the economy to avoid turning Spain into a “Third World” country.
The demonstration, which was called by extreme right-wing party VOX, was held with citizens using their vehicles to ensure compliance with mandatory safety distances during the pandemic. Even so, many broke these measures by leaving their cars.
In the most recent general election on 10 November 2019, VOX won 52 seats and became the third-largest force in the Spanish Parliament. The party is growing and is accused of using nationalist, racist and anti-feminist rhetoric to push its political messaging. Some of the measures it drafted in its 2019 electoral manifesto included outlawing political parties that “pursue the destruction of the territorial unity of the nation”, deporting illegal immigrants and excluding immigrants from the national health system, closing mosques, repealing the law on gender violence, banning abortions, and creating a Ministry for Families to protect “the natural family”.
Demonstrators drove through central areas of Madrid where the wealthiest VOX supporters live. In Plaza de Colón, a convertible bus was set up where the leaders of VOX, including party leader Santiago Abascal, were present.
MANIFESTACIÓN, AUTOBÚS de VOX. VIVA ESPAÑA. pic.twitter.com/ULafL1TcM1
— ??Jorge?? (@007_Bonnk) May 23, 2020
Demonstration. VOX bus. Long live Spain
Confinement measures were relaxed on 11 May in the hard-hit capital and small businesses could partially reopen under strict safety measures. However, the city is still only slowly opening up. VOX's demonstration caused controversy due to the danger posed by crowds, the pollution caused by thousands of cars, the party-like atmosphere, and Abascal’s calls for all Spaniards to “take to the streets” during the ongoing pandemic. There was also tension when a journalist from La Razón was attacked by some of the demonstrators, and other journalists from RTVE were harassed.
"Maricones, comunistas"
Esto es lo que ha tenido que soportar este periodista de @rtve. No hace tanto veíamos imágenes parecidas con otras banderas y nos llevábamos las manos a la cabeza.
Quién reclama libertad y no la ejerce sólo quiere imponer su modelo de sociedad. pic.twitter.com/r988J8XADm
— David Holguín (@DSHolguin) May 23, 2020
” Queers, communists.”
This is what this journalist from @rtve had to endure. Not so long ago, we saw similar images with other flags and we had our hands on our heads.
Those who claim freedom and do not practice it only want to impose their model of society
The right to protest is written in the constitution, but the controversy arises from the exceptional situation in which the whole world finds itself. At the time of writing, Spain has 287,740 confirmed cases and 27,133 deaths from COVID-19.
This procession of cars was the high point of a number of anti-government protests that began on 14 May in the Salamanca neighbourhood where over 70% of residents voted for right-wing and conservative parties in the last general election. Since then, every day at 9 pm, a number of citizens have taken to the streets or their balconies to bang pots and pans, demanding the government leader's resignation — making the already tense political situation even worse.
Since Pedro Sánchez was sworn in as president on 7 January 2020, he began forming a coalition government with leftist party Unidas Podemos. In response, the Spanish right-wing parties began to harden its anti-government rhetoric. On social networks, the ultra-right is calling the government and its members “putschists“, “illegitimate”, and even “thugs“.
On Twitter many people reacted against VOX's protest, especially criticizing the right-wing party's use of the Spanish flag, which many described as a misappropriation of a national symbol for party interests. This complaint was also leveled against the party during the 2015 election when party propaganda included the national flag.
Es vergonzoso el uso d bandera española por manifestantes de Vox, en vez de la suya, verde. Lograrán que muchos españoles, que no son de Vox, vean la bandera española como símbolo faccioso de ultraderecha ("efecto Azor") https://t.co/ipei868u8s vía @expansioncom
— Manuel Conthe (@mconthe) May 23, 2020
The use of the Spanish flag by Vox protesters, instead of their own green one, is shameful. They will make many Spaniards, who are not with Vox, see the Spanish flag as an extreme right-wing factional symbol (“Azor effect”)
However, other well-known people, such as the former goalkeeper of the Spanish national team, Pepe Reina, supported the protests.
Ah! Pues parece que ha salido gentecilla a la calle, no???????#democracia #unidossomosmásfuertes pic.twitter.com/nG2uIU228t
— Pepe Reina (@PReina25) May 23, 2020
Ah! So, it looks like the common people are out on the street, doesn't it?
But there were also critical voices pointing to a contradiction between VOX's opposition to the large feminist demonstration on 8 March and their holding of a similar public event now.
Vox el 8M vs Vox hoy #ElVirusSoisVoxotros pic.twitter.com/fgNP1HwnEq
— salfuman (@sulfatador) May 23, 2020
Vox on 8 March vs Vox now
Several members of Congress from political parties Más País, Unidas Podemos and Esquerra Republicana, respectively, also gave their opinions on Twitter:
La patria es cuidarnos. Nada que ver con el desfile de la insolidaridad de los señoritos. pic.twitter.com/uOpjx9UD4Y
— Íñigo Errejón (@ierrejon) May 23, 2020
“Homeland” is to care for us. Nothing to do with the parade of unsolidarity of these young men
La "manifestación" en coche de Vox obstaculizando el paso de una ambulancia.
¿Puede haber una metáfora más precisa que esto? pic.twitter.com/mGquRATkVw
— ᴘᴀʙʟᴏ ᴇᴄʜᴇɴɪQᴜᴇ ?? (@pnique) May 23, 2020
The car “demonstration” by Vox blocking the path of an ambulance.
Can there be a more accurate metaphor than this?
El fascismo es también un virus. pic.twitter.com/tOb4LQY1r3
— Gabriel Rufián (@gabrielrufian) May 23, 2020
Fascism is also a virus

author: Amaya Hernández Suescun