Transcript for 10 tactics for turning information into action

We asked 50 rights advocates how they turn information into action

and we asked what info-activism means to them

Info-activism means having access to technology

and being able to use technology to create and disseminate information

in a very democratic and participatory way

Giving people information helps them make informed decisions

helps them mobilise and motivate their communities

and it also means helping to raise hope

in circumstances where that's the last thing that you actually feel you have

People who haven't had access to sophisticated tools

for communicating and advancing their agenda

now have pretty amazing access

We have these amazing tools with the internet and mobile phones

to spread messages very quickly

And the entertaining messages spread even more quickly

It has to be people centred. Has to be participatory

And it has to be the strategic use of different communication tools

It's about using new spaces that have opened up because of the internet

and even new media as well

even cheaper forms of digital technology

whether it's video or other platforms such as online publishing

And it's about making use of all these new spaces to do

you know, to do old fashioned activism

engagement

creativity

interaction

mobilisation

connecting people

participatory

accessible

inspired

sharing

co-operation

action

change

10 tactics

for turning information into action

a film by

Tactical Technology Collective

Information is power.

It can raise awareness, improve lives

uncover corruption and rights abuses

and when used effectively within a campaign

bring about equality and justice.

Info-activism is what happens when rights advocates use information

as their primary asset for driving change.

It is what happens when we turn information into action to address an issue.

Info-activism involves harnessing information and communication tools

for positive social change.

Here are ten tactics

explained through successful campaigns from around the world

that you can use to turn your information into action

10 tactics

for turning information into action.

Mobilising people around the issues that matter to them

Requires a strong message, clear goals and a good plan.

Video is a powerful tool that can be used to bring people together

to take action.

We train communities in making videos and

in one of the areas where we train communities

they made a film on land rights in a very feudal part of Gujurat

and all the videos actually end with a call to action.

So the call to action in this video was

to stand up for their rights and ask for the land.

Video is a good tool because I think a lot of communities do not have literacy

and access to other forms of technology, for instance the internet.

In that sense I think video is a very good medium

to reach out to such communities

because you see things happening right in front of your eyes and

it really creates a lot of impact.

As a result of this film which was screened in around 25 villages

around 700 people took a rally out

and went to their local administrative office and filed complaints

that they were not being distributed land

Although the application is still under process the fact that 700 people

got together and took a rally out was a great thing

and it was one of the biggest impacts that we've had.

Online platforms, such as social network websites

can be used as virtual meeting spaces

for people concerned about a particular need or issue

Rebecca Saabe Saade uses Facebook in her work

with lesbian, bisexual and transgender women in Lebanon.

Because facebook is so popular in Lebanon

it allows the organisations Rebecca works for

to connect with a large number of people struggling with discrimination

and social pressures.

But using popular social network sites like Facebook

has disadvantages as well.

When I was working with marginalised society it was different because

mainly the pressure is social so just by being out it's a problem.

So we had to find a way to use this very popular tool in Lebanon

without damaging their security or their anonymity.

So what we did is we started this very lonely profile

that doesn't have any friends, that just contains very basic information:

the logo, the name of the organisation, the country and what we work on

which is lesbians or trans in Lebanon.

The whole point of this profile is not specifically social networking.

It's just to help these women or whoever is looking for support for lesbians in Lebanon

to just get to our website. It's linked to our website.

I mean we have profiles in different places but this is the point. The point is to always

advertise in a very popular way to get them to our website.

Working with a very marginalised community that I work with

we were aware that Facebook is not private at all.

No matter what you try to do it can not be private.

So if we start a group, for example, and a lot of girls join that group, it will be very clear

that these girls are lesbians, most probably.

So what we had to do was find a very

inventive way of not connecting anyone to us.

The Pink Chaddi campaign in India also revealed

pros and cons of using Facebook.

'Chaddi' means 'underwear' in Hindi

The Pink Chaddi campaign was developed as a response to women being attacked

by a right wing political group called Sri Ram Sena simply because

they were seen drinking in pubs.

The Pink Chaddi group mobilised 16,000 people

to join the campaign within just three days

and it peaked a few months later with over 50,000 members.

"In a shocking incident of moral policing...

hoodlums viciously attacked girls who were at a pub..."

A lot of the images of this attack were broadcast on television across the country

and a lot women and other people got very angry at how women

were being treated by the Ram Sena.

There was a lot of momentum on the online group, a lot of anger and resentment

that had to be translated.

One of the ways it did get translated was the sending of the Pink Chaddis to Pramod Muthalik.

There was a lot of media coverage as well of this act

and in response what he has said first was that he would respond by giving pink saris

because he wants to cover up our perversion

with something decorous like a sari.

The Pink Chaddi campaign has definitely been successful in my opinion

because it has allowed for a space in which a conversation has happened

between ordinary people and the Hindu right

which is not always possible.

It's a non violent response and it's not about

beating up people who were involved in the campaign

which is very often what happens -- that there is a violent response.

There were various problems with the online activism which made it

difficult to translate into an offline mode and one of them was

the fact that it was on Facebook.

And Facebook stops you from messaging the people in your group

after you hit 5,000 members. So without realising

when we crossed that mark and became 16,000 and 40,000

we realised we could not communicate with anybody who was in the group anymore.

All that could be done was discussion boards and messages on the wall

which were not effective enough to communicate with everyone.

Later, the Pink Chaddi campaigners learnt

that using Facebook had other disadvantages as well.

The groups online presence was hacked into, defaced and

later deleted while offensive messages were sent to the group's creators.

Despite numerous requests on Facebook to re-establish the group

months later, no action had been taken.

These examples highlight the need to be alert to both

the opportunities and risks involved in using online platforms for activism.

As media recording devices have become smaller and cheaper

people have started to record rights abuses, as they happen.

Supporting witnesses to record rights abuses

and providing spaces where they can be broadcast

is a useful tactic that can be used to highlight rights abuses

and have them addressed.

For me the power of video lies in it's ability to convey

the visual evidence and the real first hand experience

of what it's like to experience, for example, a human rights abuse.

The exciting thing now is people have cell phones

which they can use to capture the first person reality

that they experienced. So it's no longer just a select few

who get to tell the stories. Everyone has the potential to be a witness.

Witness, record, broadcast and expose.

This was the tactic used by the Targuist Sniper --

an anonymous video activist in Morocco

who filmed police officers taking bribes from motorists.

So he filmed those police in different places in different days

of the week doing the same thing.

He filmed about 10 or 15 police agents doing the same abuses

in the streets of those villages.

He put that on YouTube: he published the first, second and third videos

The videos were seen by hundreds of thousands of users.

They pushed the government to arrest those agents

and they pushed the government actually to use the same technique

and hide cameras in the street and monitor police agents

by using the same technique as was used by the Targuist Sniper.

In a different context in Burma

citizens' documentation of state abuses does not appear to have

changed the behaviour of its military regime.

However, bloggers have recorded and broadcast what they have witnessed

putting a global spotlight on Burma

and this has raised awareness about the human rights abuses that are taking place.

Now, in Burma, everything is restricted

especially internet, email and online stuff.

But a lot of people in Burma are using blogs.

So they are posting stories, images, whatever they can get.

And then people around the world can see what is actually happening in Burma.

Blogs and cheap digital recording devices were seen as integral

to the so-called Saffron Revolution that took place in Burma.

As the Burmese protests about economic hardship and military brutality

grew in size and frequency, reports of military violence also increased.

Images of protesting nuns and monks wearing saffron coloured robes

were broadcast on the internet and were then picked up by

mainstream media across the globe, leading the military regime

to temporarily cut all internet and most cellphone services

during the peak of activities.

Despite this, as Aung explains, the deployment of simple, cheap cameras

was critical for recording what happened

while blogs were an invaluable tool for getting news and images

distributed to the outside world.

What happened was people saw this thing happening in front of their eyes

and they just took a camera and they just shot it.

All the photos, audio, videos that they got they just posted them up on blogs.

That did automatically become a very good success.

But under repressive regimes successful online info-activism

does not always easily translate into offline impacts.

In Burma, many bloggers are now paying a high price

for their online activism during the Saffron Revolution.

Many have been jailed with sentences sometimes stretching beyond 50 years.

This shows why the consequences of online activities

need to be thought through carefully in advance

by those involved in uncovering and broadcasting rights abuses.

Victims and survivors of human rights abuses are already vulnerable.

So it's really important when we film them to make sure we don't doubly victimise them.

For us that means making sure that people understand the worst case scenario for who will see the footage.

In a digital era you can't assume that once a piece of footage is out there

it won't be copied, placed on YouTube and seen by the perpetrator

or the person who is responsible for whatever happened.

We think you should explain the worst case scenario and help people make their own judgement

about whether they want to speak out or be seen

and then take measures to protect them.

So disguising their identity or voice and taking those steps.

I think one of the biggest challenges now for info-activism is

how we encourage thousands of people who are

now participating in movements for human rights using video

to think about how they understand the importance of consent

and how do they understand these issues

so they don't doubly victimise people who have experienced human rights abuses.

Mobile recording devices, blogs, videos and online broadcasting channels

Are just some of the ways that info-activists can record and expose rights abuses

and support actions that will address them.

But as these examples have highlighted, it is essential to carefully consider

people's need for anonymity, to protect those who may be vulnerable to further abuses.

To really engage an audience, you need to be creative.

Rather than overwhelm people with words or text

there are many ways to visualise an issue.

Animation is one way and it is a medium that also provides a creative license

to explore sensitive issues.

I think animation would be particularly good

as a info-activism tool in advocacy

in a situation where there's an explosive or

sensitive political context where you don't

necessarily want to handle things in a literal way or in a head-on way

when you're dealing with, for example, race or gender sensitivities

because you can use animals or objects, for example, in animation

rather than real people. That gives you a license to deal with

a lot of things that you can't deal with

in conventional film making.

I think the magic of animation appeals to everyone.

Moving inanimate objects or objects you don't expect to move

is quite amazing and it's something that excites most people.

I'm currently working on a project in Cairo

with a group called The Women and Memory Forum

who are re-writing Arabic mythology or folk tales from a feminist perspective

We're producing a three minute animation

based on one of those re-writes in order to

have different cultural representations of women in the Middle East.

Maps are another way to visualise information.

There is something timeless about maps and this may be why they are

a medium that people seem to trust.

During the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon

human rights NGO, Samidoun

used maps to help people understand what was happening.

We did a couple of maps during the summer of 2006

at the time of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The two main maps, one detailed the daily bombings on Lebanon every day

and it was updated daily.

And the second map detailed damages in infrastructure and vital sites.

During that period when we started

we didn't really know what we wanted out of collecting that information

but we wanted to understand what we were going through.

As we started working and publishing the stuff we had

we discovered different uses for it

in activism, in organising relief work and in facilitating reconstruction later on.

You don't need to create new maps to embed your messages.

Anyone who tries to look at the Tunisian Presidential Palace

using Google maps, is likely to find some unexpected information

thanks to the work of Tunisian activists involved with

the independent collective blog site, Nawaat.org

There is a very creative experience

that we've seen on the Tunisian internet when activists from Nawaat

geo-tagged their videos on YouTube.

By geo-tagging I mean giving geographical information or

the name of the place of the video you are publishing on YouTube.

By doing that you are making your information, your video

available and watchable on the mapping tools of Google.

So what the Tunisian activists did is

they geo-tagged all the videos about human rights abuses in Tunisia

by putting them around the Tunisian Presidential Palace in Carthage

So when you go to Google Earth and you go to the Presidential Palace

you will find it surrounded by videos talking about human rights abuses in Tunisia

So you will find two sides of Tunisia.

The touristic side of Tunisia about the big history

and on the right side information about the recent Tunisia

the modern Tunisia of human rights abuse.

Maps and animation are two of many tools

that can be used to help people navigate and interpret information

in a visual way, that will engage them

and embed pictures in their minds that are likely to resonate over time.

It is easy to get lost in the big picture of human rights abuses.

Bringing people's personal stories to the front of your info-activism

is one way to make sure people's experiences are not ignored.

We use personal stories in our information activism

because as a feminist organisation the personal is political

and for us they really demonstrate the real life application

of human rights and women's rights.

An example of where we've used digital stories in our work

is in a training with two groups of women.

One group of women were survivors of sexual assault

because of their sexual orientation.

And another group of women who had survived domestic violence.

We put these stories together on a DVD and

we distributed the DVD with a book that gave instructions

on how to integrate the stories in a human rights education programme.

So the stories were really meant to provide alternative training materials

to people who are trying to do change-making training.

We hope that will also contribute to the information that's out there

but assist in understanding and also reduce violence

against the groups that we are speaking about

and help inform policy that is really addressing

the needs of people as they identify them.

This a particular example of how a silenced community can

take control over their own words and images and make something

not necessarily revealing their identities as well.

They get to choose the voice, the images and also have control over the

actual equipment and the computers themselves.

Personal stories can be compiled and distributed in many different ways.

Grassroots video-making can capture people's experiences

in a way that will bring about change.

We were working with a group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

where about 5 million people have died as a consequence of the conflict.

One of the biggest problems is the use of child soldiers.

This group was trying to find a way to engage communities

to think about why they let their children become child soldiers.

So they thought to produce a video that

would open a debate in their community.

They showed it in communities

all around the Eastern Congo to start a discussion.

I think that's really important because they thought not only about

what the issue was, but they also thought about who their audience was

what their goal was and what story they had to tell.

They were successful in starting to get people thinking about that

and then they realised their campaign had moved on.

And so they needed a new tactic.

At that time the International Criminal Court was starting to think about its first prosecutions.

So they said, 'well how can we influence the criminal court to think about that'

A completely different audience.

So they made a different video which really brought the voices

directly of those children who had been forced into the military

to show to senior officials at the criminal court.

And they chose a different story.

It wasn't an open story, it was much more of a directed story

saying to that audience

'You need to act on this because this is a crime of war...

...a crime against humanity'

For me that's really an illustration about how the power of personal experience

at a local level captured by people who are closest to it

can be used as a tactic to influence different audiences

at different times to really achieve change.

Blogs are renowned for their ability to blur the lines

between personal and public dialogue

which makes them an effective storytelling tool.

The collaborative blog project, Blank Noise

allows people to support an ongoing discussion

about sexual harassment in India.

They invite bloggers to talk about their experiences

of urban sexual harassment.

But they do in a way where, well in the year that I participated

they asked us to talk about it as if we were superheroes.

So it's a very interesting take on urban sexual harassment.

It's not a report, it's not like a sob story, it's kind of wittily put.

So it's a great way of making things readable as well for a different audience.

I think blogs are good tools for info-activism

because they lend themselves to storytelling.

Blogs are very personal so it becomes quite easy for

individuals to put their perspectives out there.

And it's very easy to use, it's like journaling.

It's a very accessible way of writing and also reading about issues.

The way most blogs work for info-activism and for advocacy

is through blog communities.

Blog communities centre around a particular issue

and they usually have a time-frame where they write around a particular issue.

Blogs, documentary videos and online stories

are three ways that personal stories can be used

to ensure that people's experiences reach different audiences

and bring about social change.

A good joke can spread far and wide

and can be a powerful tool, especially when it is used

to criticise or mock power in environments

where it is difficult to do that in a direct way.

In Egypt, while activists were trying to mobilise people

against the Mubarack's regime

we got tonnes of contributions from practically unknown

young people on the internet

of humorous images that are basically remixing of

film posters depicting the face of the President

in place of famous villains and thugs and thieves

and members of organised crime or whatever

to make a statement about the current situation.

In a very short period of time

because of the incessant use of humour

the whole mystique of power around the President

was completely destroyed and he is now perceived as

an aging old man who is

trapped into this role and being very inefficient about it.

That became like a kind of narrative platform

to build an actual movement that is demanding

democratic reform and clean elections and so on.

People don't only laugh at good jokes.

Ever been to a karaoke bar with your family or friends?

The Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers in Thailand

use karaoke to raise awareness about serious things

using popular songs with lyrics and video clips

that are re-focused on sex worker's rights.

It's a clever tactic, which uses popular music

to transmit information to sex workers and their allies

and to get them thinking about what is wrong with the laws and policies

that affect their communities and to push for change.

I use video Karaoke because in Asia

people love to sing a song and see the picture

Video Karaoke in Asia is really popular.

So it's easy to get people into it.

That's why I got the idea to change the lyrics of a song

So it was easy to get a message across about anti sex worker policies

and the new trafficking laws.

For sex workers from the Asia Pacific Network

Kareoke provides a common language, even when they do not have

another language in common.

The group's karaoke videos have been screened across the region

at parties, performances and in front of audiences of thousands

such as at an international HIV/AIDS conference.

One video received nearly 10,000 views online

on YouTube and Blip.tv

A different example of how humour can be used

came in the form of a birthday gift to Belarus's President, Alexander Lukashenko

after he complained publicly that the internet was too anarchic

and announced plans to tighten content restrictions.

Activists responded with an online campaign that sought to mock

what they saw to be propagandising government-controlled media.

Humour is the first step to break taboos

and to break fears.

So by making people laugh about dangerous stuff

like dictatorship, repression, censorship

is a first weapon against those fears, actually

There is a very funny campaign launched in Belarusia, a few years ago.

It's called 'Give Luchenko his net'

Because Luchenko made statements accusing the internet of

playing against the government of Belarus

saying 'their is a lot of untrue content there'.

So the Belarusian activists made a clone of YouTube and Live Journal

And published their stuff, very funny videos

and humorous cartoons about President Luchenko

This kind of use of tools that are easily identifiable

by internet users, but switching the content

to something political and shaping it

in a humourous pattern that makes fun

and it makes political accounting interesting.

Making people laugh can be a highly effective way

of breaking down barriers that prevent positive social change.

Websites, karaoke video clips and film posters

are just three ways to convey a serious message

in a light, yet effective way.

Sometimes an overlooked part of info-activism work

is the value of maintaining and sustaining healthy networks.

Networks are power in the digital age

and exploiting them fully requires planning and time.

All the non-profit work and campaigning is

basically about people.

And when you translate it into technical language

People are contacts.

Not only people but organisations, groups,

relationships in between them.

All of this is information that you can build on

that you can use to engage your audiences

and you can use to engage your targets.

I am personally involved in a project called CiviCRM

which is a free and open source software

built especially for non-profit organisations and advocacy groups.

It has been built with a lot of feedback from all those groups so

in my personal opinion it's basically an excellent tool

for managing contact information.

FrontlineSMS is a different kind of software

that also supports targeted, network communication

this time, specifically using SMS.

Well managing contacts is obviously important from an organisational point of view

but speaking from the perspective of the someone you are communicating with

the last thing they want to be receiving is messages or information that

they are not concerned about, that does not interest them, is not relevant to them.

So if you're running multiple campaigns

clearly you don't want to be sending the wrong groups of people the wrong messages.

It may be necessary to send

a message just to a group of women in a particular area

or maybe to human rights activists working in a particular region.

If you're not categorising people in the right way

then you're going to start blasting people with things they don't want.

Not only does that affect the effectiveness of your project or your campaign

but it also upsets people and it can be very counter-productive.

A good example of how FrontlineSMS is being used

to help send targeted messages and communicate

with targeted groups was during the reconstruction efforts after the Asian Tsunami

where a project being run by Mercy Corps was looking to have conversations

and send specific information to a different number of groups.

So using FrontlineSMS they were able to group people into different categories

and these people included farmers, who might want to know the coffee prices in different markets,

Government Ministers who wanted summary information on the different market prices being charged in different areas

other people wanted weather forecasts.

Using FrontlineSMS and using the grouping facility and functionality within the software

they were able to put people into multiple groups

depending on what information they wanted to receive and then they could target those people

with an SMS providing them with that market price, or that weather report or whatever the information might be.

If you want to manage your contact information in your info-activism work

you need to be systematic

you need to try to integrate information collection on almost all the levels

After some time, well I will not hide it, it's an effort!

But after some time you will see the incredible effects

of seeing different connections, seeing patterns.

Basically it's like getting a very powerful tool to find out about

what's happening around you and giving you a powerful tool to achieve your goals.

Databases, client relationship management systems and bulk text messaging software

are three tools you can use to manage your contacts

and to sustain healthy and productive relationships

with the people who want to support you.

Sometimes issues are very complicated.

They may involve issues that have been evolving for a long time

or they may be connected with many events and many different people.

To enable an issue to be understood

you may need to find out what information exists

and whether you have a legal right to access it.

Every year most of us pay our taxes to the government

and every few years we elect the representatives who will run that government

and therefore we're handing over power and money

and we have a right to know how that money is spent

and how that power is exercised.

In over 82 countries around the world

access to information or freedom of information laws

give everyone a right to ask a question and get an answer from their government.

The international standards are very clear that

access to information procedures should be simple, fast and free.

Generally they are.

In the majority of countries filing a request for information is free.

So we have many examples from around the world where

people have asked the government a question

got information and used that in public debate to change the way things are done.

Farmsubsidy.org is an initiative that lobbies for

access to information about government farm subsidies

across the European Union.

It aims to ensure that journalists and civil society

are able to scrutinise how the billions of euros of funding

allocated for farm subsidies is spent.

Within our campaign at farmsubsidy.org when we're successful

we're almost faced with an avalanche of information.

Deciding which information to draw the attention of the media to is very difficult

If you've got an enormous data set

and you're trying to find out ways to present it to people

one really good way of doing that is to make it relevant to them

in their locality, in the area where they live.

A great way of doing that is to use a map

to plot the data out on Google Maps, it's quite easy to do that now, the technology is free

we've done that with Sweden

because we got excellent coordinate information for Sweden

and so we were able to present seven years worth of farm subsidy payments in Sweden

on a single Google map so people could

zoom right in to find out where the money goes in their area

and that really makes it relevant to them -- much better than looking at a long list

that goes page after page of boring text.

But getting access to government information is not always easy

whether a freedom of information law exists or not.

It took me three years to get the data on the UK farm subsidy recipients

and I'm not quite finished in fact with my request.

So you have to be prepared for a long fight

and to not take no for an answer

and to use any tactic you've got whether it's your legal rights

or whether it's political pressure

that you can apply through anyone you might know working in the area

or maybe even through the media

You need to just build up the pressure

using your rights as a citizen.

In another example, technologists and rights advocates

obtained information from multiple sources

including government and non government agencies.

The information came in many different forms

and so the challenge lay in making it meaningful to a global audience

who could then take action.

A project I was involved with was the

featured layers on the Darfur Crisis in Goggle Earth.

We were a team of about a dozen people

assembled by the United States Holocaust Museum.

They wanted to, in a very engaging way

raise awareness of what was happening in Darfur.

We really pushed the boundaries of what could be done in Google Earth.

We had a great amount of information -- spreadsheets, photos, videos

plus the base layers in Google Earth themselves

which were recently updated satellite images

often showing villages that had been destroyed in Darfur.

We spent about six months working with that data

to really pay proper respect to the situation there

so that we could convey a powerful message.

It got great coverage by Google and in the media

and thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people

have seen those layers and it's greatly raised awareness of the issues there.

We also provided direct means for people to get involved in the campaign.

So from the layers there were links to sign petitions

and to get even more deeply involved in the cause.

It's not always an easy task exercising your right to information

and then finding the right ways to present dense information to engage the public.

But it is an important tactic in Info-activism.

If you can persist you may be rewarded

with significant leaps forward for your cause.

Not so long ago, real time collaboration between large numbers of people

was difficult if you weren't physically gathered in the same space.

New technologies have changed this.

We are now seeing innovative examples such as what is sometimes called swarming.

Swarming is what happens when people's experiences and knowledge

are pulled together to create a combined effect

far greater than their individual acts.

As the 2008 Mumbai attacks unfolded,

a swarm was created using Twitter.

A microblogging service that allows people to send and read each others personal updates

via the internet and mobile phones.

When the Mumbai terror attacks were happening

there were a lot of us within the vicinity

and we started pouring out our emotions

and talking about what was going on

and what we were seeing on television into Twitter.

We were feeling like 'what do we do?'

and we were feeling alone in our homes because we weren't allowed to get out

and it allowed us to feel less alone, less angry as a group

and we able to actually network with people on the ground

to bring out information that was required.

For instance, we had people going to hospitals

and collecting lists of injured and dead

which wasn't published anywhere on the web and they were faxed to us

and then we quickly put them up as links on Twitter to a blog that was supporting this.

In other cases it was about getting the right kind of blood

to the hospital that required that kind of blood.

So its about spontaneous mobilisation of a community that already exists

through the multiples nodes and hubs that you have

as you leave your footprints on the web.

The other thing that is really sort of almost magic about microblogging

is the aggregation of these things

and the amplification of these things

because it is a broadcast mechanism.

So that served in getting a lot of interest from mainstream media

which fed back into how effective the mobilisation could be

around awareness of what was going on.

As the Mumbai terror attacks showed, mobile phones

have become vital tools during crises.

In Madagascar, mobiles were used with computer software

to enable citizens to report what was happening

when anti-government protests turned violent.

One software program, FrontlineSMS

allowed text messages to be sent and received

by large numbers of subscribers in Madagascar

while Ushahidi allowed subscribers messages to show on a map.

In 2009, during the troubles in Madagascar

where I believe some demonstrators were shot by the army

there was clearly an opportunity there to collect

information and news and voices of people on the ground

who were experiencing the troubles, who were involved in the demonstrations

and who were impacted by what was going on.

Using technologies you can combine the collective voice of people

so people can SMS in information, they can send in emails,

they can complete online forms. You can then aggregate that information

with the news coming in from the mainstream and then bringing all that together

you get a much better picture of what's happening on the ground.

Ushahidi, the crowd sourcing platform, which used FrontlineSMS

to allow people to text a number and then contribute to the news

through their mobile phones so people could go to the internet and send emails

or they could go onto a website and complete a form.

People generally prefer, due to convenience and speed, sending an SMS

and FrontlineSMS was used to collect those messages

which was then posted to the Ushahidi site

and from that point they were aggregated with the other reports coming in

including information from the mainstream media and then placed on a map

and it gave a very good idea of where the hotspots of the trouble were

and it gave a much broader view of what was happening

in the country than otherwise would have been given.

As these examples illustrate, mobile phones, when connected with online platforms

can be a powerful way to combine experiences and knowledge

to report events comprehensively as they unfold.

Technology that listens is technology that responds

to individual information needs.

One example is Infonet's budget tracking platform

which allows people to send free SMS enquiries

about the allocation of funding for development projects in their local area.

Citizens can then contact social watch groups

to assess if funds have been spent in the way that was intended.

The context here is that we developed a system that uses short code SMSs

and we get people sending in queries about the amounts of money

that have been allocated for projects at a local level.

It's a two way process because they query the system

and at the same time, they feed the system with content.

Infonet's budget tracking platform has led to a number of discoveries of misused funds.

By leaking these findings to government and mainstream media

Infonet has been able to ensure that corruption has been addressed

and citizen efforts have been rewarded with action.

Recent developments have greatly increased the ways technology can listen

and respond to people's needs.

The phone used to be something that was controlled

by the telecommunications monopolies

and over the last few years, there's been a whole

renaissance in telephony technology that's built around voiceover IP.

You can now run your own phone company on free software.

What that means is you can do all of the creative call centre

and interactive voice menus and that kind of stuff

on your own phone system or on your own home computer

so many activist groups will now set up a call-in line.

Using their own phone system, the Kubatana Trust of Zimbabwe

developed a platform that ensured citizens

were informed via an SMS about where they could vote in government elections.

In Zimbabwe, we've had many elections over the last seven or so years

One of the government's tactics was to make it difficult

for people to work out where to vote and where to register to vote.

But one of the things that we did was to help people find out where to vote

by cooperating with another organisation that had managed

eventually to get the voters' roll into a database format.

We got people to send us their national registration IDs using SMS.

We compared those IDs against this database and then we SMSed back

to the people where they could vote.

It was a very interesting campaign and a lot of people took advantage of it.

While thousands of people used this system developed by the Kubatana Trust

the experience showed that lack of literacy and language differences

continued to limit people's use of SMS services.

To address this, Kubatana are now developing 'Freedom Fone'.

A system that uses voice recognition rather than text

to provide people with information.

The Freedom Fone project is being built out so that each group

can take a copy of this software and run it on their own system

and simply provide the menus of what kind of information

they are going to access and provide.

Freedom Fone registers that they called and the phone system calls them back

so the organisation is able to cover all the costs.

There is a tool that has been overlooked I think by the development sector

and that's the area of interactive voice response.

We believe that if we can make this an easier device to use by non-profits

that we will see people reach out to their communities

using dial-up information services which would become almost the poor person's

equivalent of the internet, being able to dial up for information when you need it.

Designing and using technologies that can listen to people's needs and respond quickly

can be a good way to quickly address immense gaps in information

and improve information flows.

When corruption and right's abuses

are being committed by those with the most power

such as governments, multinational companies, police or the military

It is sometimes necessary to investigate and expose

what is going on.

Although there was widespread knowledge

of police brutality in Egypt

it was an issue the mainstream media seemed unwilling to report on.

To help affected citizen's carry out investigations

Journalist, Noha Atef, began a blog called 'Torture in Egypt'.

All the content is about torture crimes committed in Egypt

and the relationship between policemen and citizens.

'Torture in Egypt' was started at the time

when torture was not highlighted enough, at all.

Torture crimes were rarely mentioned on TV

It was not very interesting to mainstream media.

So 'Torture in Egypt' highlighted it

and it was inspiring to other internet users, especially bloggers

to write about torture and even their views.

Because what they were reading

in 'Torture in Egypt' that was really shocking.

By uncovering human rights abuses in Egypt through though this blog,

Noha has managed to correct some serious injustices.

In 2007 a woman wrote telling Noha that her husband

had been kept in prison for 14 years

even though the courts had found him not guilty

of the crime he was arrested for.

The court said that he was not guilty

but the policeman, a certain policeman, kept him detained.

And he was renewing the papers to keep him in jail.

And I wrote about it many times

and I was following it up.

Noha's article was cited in mainstream media across Egypt.

The policeman involved in the case wrote to her

upset at the public attention he was receiving.

A short time later the jailed man was released from prison

free, as he should have been 14 years earlier.

Another effective investigation was carried out in Tunisia.

The story of the Tunisian aeroplane video began when

a friend of mine, Tunisian activist and blogger

was searching the internet for photos related to aeroplanes in Tunisia

and he found the image of the Tunisian Presidential aeroplane

in a website for jetspotters -- people who share photos of planes they have taken in airports.

He kept on searching and found more than 20 photos

of the same Presidential aeroplane in different airports in Europe.

So he went to the Tunisian Presidential website

and took the list of the official trips of the Tunisian President

and compared that with the photos with dates and places

of the photos of the Presidential plane in Europe

and he found out that only one trip was official

So the question that he asked was

'Who is using the Tunisian aeroplane and why?'

He went out and made a video

mashing up those images using Google Earth

flying over the different airports

where the plane was witnessed.

He published that on YouTube

and engaged the Tunisian blogosphere to talk about

issues of transparency and the abuse of power.

Big mainstream media like foreign policy magazine

published the story and investigated the case

and said that the Tunisian aeroplane was used by the first lady of Tunisia

for some personal shopping in luxury shops in Europe.

As a result of the public attention this video received

the government in Tunisia blocked YouTube

and another popular video sharing site, Dailymotion.

Despite this, this story, like the Torture in Egypt blog

shows how the internet can be used

both as a tool to investigate abuses of power

and to broadcast and spread the truth.

As digital tools become cheaper, more widespread

and easier to use

our ability to access, analyse and share information grows.

By linking new technologies with creative thinking

communities and advocates can transform information

into powerful action that defends and promotes human rights.

Tactical Tech have been working with rights advocates

to use information for advocacy for over a decade.

In this film we've collected advocates stories

and shown 10 tactics you can use to

turn information into a force for change

If you'd like to implement some of these tactics

Try using one of our toolkits and guides

which will tell you how to use different techniques

and provide you with the software and tools you will need.

Then, think about how you can document your own info-activism stories

and when you have done this, tell us

so that we can share these stories with others.

The information age is here.

And with it comes the power for us all

to make change.

For updates and content visit: http://www.informationactivism.org