GFMD AT RIGHTSCON 2019 IN TUNIS

Organised by Access Now, the RightsCon Summit Series is one of the Internet world’s premiere, multi-stakeholder events focusing on human rights in the digital age. The GFMD secretariat along with many of our members and partners will be in Tunis, Tunisia, for this year’s edition, which is taking place from 11-14 June.

The secretariat will be represented by Executive Director, Mira Milosevic and Advocacy and Engagement Manager, Michael J. Oghia. Additionally, GFMD will be co-organising a session on Wednesday, 12 June at 9:00 AM (GMT+1) with Timothy Karr from Free Press, focusing on the relationship between digital markets, platforms, and sustainable journalism. The session will consider the wider impact of the digital economy on democratic societies, and will take a hard look at both the benefits and harms of a world where global platforms are dominant distributors of news and information, as well as major forums for public debate. Full details of the session can be found here.

As well as this, there will be many other journalism-related sessions this year, including ones by:

• ARTICLE 19
• Center for Law and Democracy
• Committee to Protect Journalists
• DW Akademie
• Free Press Unlimited
• Global Voices
• International Center for Journalists
• Internews
• IREX
• Maharat Foundation
• Media Matters for Democracy
• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
• Reporters Without Borders
• RNW Media
• And more

For full details of all sessions, see the official RightsCon 2019 programme.

Pre-Session Survey

GFMD member Susan Abbott (Cross-Pollinate Consulting) is co-organising a session with Free Press Unlimited (FPU), IREX, and others about conducting research in closed societies. As part of this, they have developed a survey to be filled in by those who will attend their session. The questionnaire focuses on the challenges faced in doing research in closed spaces and conflict contexts, what you are most interested in learning about in this area, and what digital security concerns you have. Feedback will be used to directly inform the presentations and discussion.

The survey should only take around five minutes, and can be found here.

DC-Sustainability Meeting

In early April, GFMD officially launched the Dynamic Coalition on the Sustainability of Journalism and News Media (DC-Sustainability) within the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). GFMD plans to hold an informal meeting of the Coalition at RightsCon, so please indicate on this spreadsheet if you plan to attend and what days are suitable.

Additionally, please subscribe to the DC-Sustainability mailing list in case you would like to stay updated about the coalition moving forward.

We’ll post additional updates here as the week progresses. See you in Tunis!