Digital society
This position paper outlines APC's current thinking on the pandemic. It identifies several key, interrelated issues that require attention by governments, the private sector and civil society.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the dissemination of vast amounts of information, both verified and unverified. Against this backdrop, civil society organisations recently launched the Disinformation Tracker, an interactive map to track disinformation laws and policies across Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Philippine government has launched an exposure notification application, StaySafe.ph, which aims to contain the pandemic in the country. While the effort is commendable, the importance of combating COVID-19 while protecting people’s individual freedoms cannot be emphasised enough.
Students are facing infrastructural challenges in attending online classes, which are mandatory. The unavailability of quality access to the internet is causing massive challenges for students who are solely dependent on online platforms for education during COVID-19.
Amid physical and social distancing guidelines across the world, LGBTQI+ organisations faced roadblocks in fully celebrating this year’s Pride month in person. So this 2020, the organisers of Pride marches needed to explore new ways of expressing that unity fully – if not mainly – online.
Twenty years ago, some of us old-timers were beginning to gear up for what became the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
On 17 June 2020, APC collaborated with other organisations to submit a contribution to the draft Telecommunications Licensing Directive No. 1/2020. In the contribution, we recommend the Ethiopian Communications Authority consider international recommendations, as well as best practices in other countries both regionally and globally.
Yes, we’ve been able to substitute digital ways of doing things for the ways we’ve previously done them across much of our lives – or, at least, some of us have. But it’s proved more partial and less universal than some expected, which poses questions for the future.
Rights and advocacy organisation VOICE expresses deep concern over the arrest of journalists, online activists, teachers, students, writers and cartoonists, among others, under the Digital Security Act 2018, and urges the Bangaldeshi government to scrap the law.
King Catoy, video lead at EngageMedia, breaks down the free/libre and open source (FLOSS) tools he used to record EngageMedia’s recently launched video podcast on digital rights in the Asia-Pacific region.
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2020
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