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NetSquared is an initiative ofTechSoup
NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.
The Hub
Challenges Entered:
Imagine a My Space meets You Tube for human rights - an online destination where global citizens could learn the strategies and access the tools they needed to use their visual documentation of abuses to create community action and change.
Today, WITNESS trains and supports local human rights defenders in “video advocacy†- the strategic use of video to create human rights change. But while WITNESS will always continue to hone these best practices, we are now facing an unprecedented frontier, with digital technology and the “participatory culture†of citizen journalism it has inspired about to explode. These are exciting times for the potential of visual imagery to create change. WITNESS will strive to be at the forefront of this transition, carving out a unique space for communication and collaboration in the human rights landscape for activists and concerned citizens around the globe.
WITNESS has begun developing the Hub where anyone with human rights related footage can upload media (video, images, audio) that can be used to create change – serving concerned citizens, activists, journalists, researchers, and advocates worldwide. Premiering in Fall 2007, the site will allow community review to foster a sense of shared responsibility and accountability. Using existing technologies such as mobile devices and web-based video upload and distribution, content syndication, community building software, peer filtering, user-generated meta tags, and online advocacy and organizational tools, the site will provide new opportunities to feed the populist shift toward user-generated content with media in the service of global human rights advocacy.
Ultimately, we hope the Hub will be more than just a media sharing site but also provide a way to connect like minded people, build and strengthen a global community of human rights defender while also providing the tools of advocacy to anyone interested in using them in their work.
WHAT WE NEED:
Programming team: we have them – CivicActions;
$$$ - we have some, our development team (including our Executive Director, Gillian Caldwell) is raising more;
Members of the human rights community to volunteer for content review and community moderation;
Experts in HR field for editorials and community events;
Translation resources
$$$ - we have some, our development team (including our Executive Director, Gillian Caldwell) is raising more;
Members of the human rights community to volunteer for content review and community moderation;
Experts in HR field for editorials and community events;
Translation resources
Location
Brooklyn, NY
United States
See map: Google Maps
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Matisse, The Hub is probably
Matisse, The Hub is probably my favorite project on Net2 so far. I really like how you are trying to do something very simple and clean. I was wondering if you had contacted any news agencies, particularly TV. In the long run they are the ones who can bring videos uploaded onto your site into the popular arena. Once people start seeing some of these atrocities live and in color we might start getting something done about stopping them.
I would appreciate you checking out my project World's Biggest Problems. It has a much different focus than yours, but please let me know how it strikes you.
I have big hopes for this
I remember hearing about it at the Net2 conference last year, and it sounds like a really strong initiative. I think WITNESS is a great organization, and building the social community around human rights footage seems like a natural step. Have you thought at all about, somewhere down the line, collaborating with Global Voices Online? Then you would have not only video footage but commentary from the front-lines of human rights.
In any case, this is one of my favorite proposals -- good luck!
--ivan (quixotic1.com/Genocide Intervention Network)
Cross-pollination
I just wanted to follow-up on my original comment to say that I think there is a LOT of room for collaboration between this project and our anti-genocide community proposal. Essentially I see the Hub as fulfilling a vital role of recording human rights abuses "in the field" and propagating them into the Global North. And I see the anti-genocide community being well-positioned to remix that footage into compelling, user-generated, participatory media for use in any number of compelling advocacy initiatives.
So if both of these projects move forward one way or another, I see a lot of cross-pollinating happening, and to great effect.
This is essentially the same comment I posted on our project, but I figured I might as well cross-pollinate it over here :)
Very cool..
Very cool. I enjoyed your DIVX community as well.