Episode Transcript
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0:10
Laura May: Hello and welcome to the Conflict Tipping podcast from Mediate.com,
0:15
the podcast that explores social conflict and what we can do about it.
0:19
I'm your host, Laura May, and today I have with me Anne Ikiara.
0:24
She's the executive director of the nonprofit Digital Action and has
0:28
a wealth of experience directing and working with social enterprises
0:32
in Global Majority countries. She speaks six languages and has the entrancing LinkedIn tagline
0:38
of "author, poet, speaker, gender consultant, and social advocate".
0:43
So I'm excited to dig into all of those identities.
0:46
Welcome, Anne. Anne Ikiara: Thank you thank you, hi Laura so much for having me.
0:52
Laura May: No, I'm so excited to have you here because you know, the, the
0:55
work you've been doing with Digital Action these last few months since
0:58
you've started has already been so interesting and fascinating to me as
1:02
someone who stalks to you on social media. So I'm really glad to have you here with me today to talk about it and
1:07
learn a bit about you and learn a bit about the organization as well.
1:11
So, I understand that Digital Action protects democracy and
1:16
human rights from digital threats. But before we dig into that, I actually wanna know about you.
1:22
So what led you there?
1:24
What sort of piques your interest in this kind of work?
1:29
Anne Ikiara: Thank you. Thank you, Laura. I have lived experience in the effects of disinformation, misinformation,
1:36
hate speech that is propagated online.
1:40
In 2007 we had elections in Kenya and uh, owing to disinformation,
1:48
misinformation and hate speech, we had post-election violence.
1:52
At that time I was running a small organization, national organization
1:57
called Nairobits, and as you may anticipate, the epitome of the violence
2:02
was in the non-formal settlements. So I came face to face with young people whose livelihoods had had
2:09
been destroyed, their houses had been burnt, they had lost relatives.
2:14
And even some of them had physical injuries.
2:18
And I remember one day a young person coming to me and telling
2:22
me that their home had been burnt. And as a result of that more than a thousand people lost
2:28
their lives and more than two hundred others who are displaced.
2:33
So I understand from a lived experience perspective what this
2:38
could mean at the personal level.
2:40
That is why when I saw the role at Digital Action, I got very interested because
2:46
I wanted to have this kind of impact globally and contribute to elections
2:54
and protect democracy from threats.
2:58
Laura May: Absolutely. And so, I mean, I know very little about Kenyan politics, and I have a hunch that
3:03
maybe quite a few of the listeners don't know much about Kenyan politics either.
3:07
So can you give me just a little bit more information about what this
3:11
disinformation and misinformation was?
3:14
Like what actually led to these outbreaks of violence and displacement
3:19
in Kenya around the elections? Anne Ikiara: Well, actually it is something that
3:23
perpetually happens in Kenya. It happened in 2007, 2000 and 12 again.
3:30
And even last year, 2000 and 22, it did happen.
3:36
What we have in Kenya is um, ethnicity.
3:39
There are different tribes in Kenya, and much of our politics follows
3:43
ethnic lines, so it's very easy to to have disinformation and hate
3:48
speech especially now with the digital media along those lines.
3:54
So that's exactly what happened in 2007, where We used actually the phone SMSs
4:01
to send hate messages and disinformation against other communities, which
4:07
is how the the violence happened.
4:10
And the same way now it's even become worse, because Kenyans have embraced
4:16
digital media and social media more than most other African countries.
4:22
So it has uh, escalated. Disinformation, misinformation has always been there in the context of
4:27
elections , has always been there. But now it is very easy to spread because of the tools
4:32
that we have in social media.
4:35
So that's what happened in 2007, 2008.
4:39
And that is how the violence happened because we, we, I mean the information
4:44
pitted communities against each other. And then it went to offline violence where we physically fought each other.
4:53
Laura May: Awful. Yeah, and thank you so much for shedding light on that and I mean,
4:57
it does sound really difficult 'cause there's along those ethnic lines as
5:00
well that I guess it makes such a, a visible cleavage for people to use and
5:05
to exploit for their own political ends.
5:07
So it sounds really, really difficult.
5:10
So tell me then about Digital Action.
5:14
What does the organization actually do? Anne Ikiara: So Digital Action is a small but mighty organization.
5:19
Started in 2019 to protect democracy from digital threats.
5:26
We are a fiscally sponsored organization that is funded by the SCO Foundation,
5:31
Luminate, the MacArthur Foundation and Open Society, and the Ford Foundation.
5:37
And our work really is to take tech companies to account, to protect
5:42
democracy from the threats that are propagated on their platforms.
5:47
So big tech companies such as Meta Twitter and YouTube have under invested
5:53
in the Global Majority countries.
5:55
So much of their investment in protecting citizens is spent in the Global Minority.
6:03
But then you and I know that much of the harm happens in
6:07
the Global Majority countries.
6:10
So Digital Action is trying to take tech companies to account to invest as much
6:19
to protect the Global Majority as much as they protect the Global Minority.
6:26
Laura May: Absolutely. And for those listeners who haven't encountered these phrases before, Global
6:30
Minority and Global Majority, it aligns more or less with sort of this idea
6:35
of West and non-West or Global North and Global South but stresses that in
6:40
fact what had previously been described as the Global South is the majority
6:44
of population, majority of countries, the majority of land area, and yet
6:48
not getting the majority of resources. And so, yeah, for those who are listening, that's what we're talking about.
6:54
I understand that, in the Eu for instance, there's all, there's a lot
6:58
of talk about the Digital Services Act and, and things like that, which will
7:01
help to, as I understand it, to regulate some of these social media platforms.
7:07
Are there similar initiatives and legislation underway in Africa?
7:12
I mean, I guess I wanna know, like this divide in resources, is it related to
7:18
local legislation or is it related to the biases of the tech companies, or is it
7:23
related to something else, do you think? Anne Ikiara: It is related to the biases of tech companies.
7:28
You understand that tech is very versatile.
7:31
It usually will go faster than registration in specific countries.
7:35
And it's a very complex legal situation because most of the servers, of course,
7:40
are not based in the Global Majority.
7:43
They're in the Global Minority. So it's very easy for a big tech company to side step local registration.
7:51
So what Digital Action is trying to do is to take them to account.
7:56
To provide safeguards not based on the level of uh, resources that they
8:01
get or the business model, but also the level of harm that could happen.
8:07
So if in Kenya, for example, or in Brazil or in any other country, the
8:13
level of harm is huge, then they should invest more in that context.
8:18
As much as they invest in Us, where they get most of their business from.
8:23
So that is what Digital Action is trying to do.
8:26
Because right now, the model follows the money.
8:31
Where they get advertisements and where their, their revenue is
8:34
coming from is where they invest, ignoring the Global Majority, where,
8:40
of course much of their platforms have been uptaken by the citizens.
8:46
And the effect is even worse for obvious reasons because of lack of resources
8:51
to, to mitigate some of the challenges that are occasioned by that situation.
8:57
Laura May: No, it, it absolutely makes sense. And something I was really struck by is when I was reading Chris Wiley's
9:03
book about Cambridge Analytica , as one of the whistleblowers, and he
9:07
talked about how this organization had started off experimenting in Africa
9:13
and trying to influence elections there and trying to like stir up different
9:17
types of partisan violence there. And so it was almost as this testing ground, I suppose for this
9:22
Global Minority based organization. And the consequences have just gone un untalked about right, because
9:28
we, I mean we heard about Brexit, we heard about like, you know, obviously
9:31
Trump's election in the US as well. Like, oh yeah, this is all because of media manipulation, whatever.
9:36
But what we don't hear about is the harm in Global Minority
9:40
countries, as you've just flagged. Anne Ikiara: That is why that's what Digital Action is trying to amplify.
9:48
Because we are working with partners. We are a frontier organization.
9:52
We don't necessarily do the work ourselves, but we like to front
9:57
organizations in the Global Majority that are doing different things
10:02
to make that environment safe. So there are different people doing different things.
10:08
There are researchers, there are civic educators.
10:11
There are, other policy people at the intersection of policy and regulation.
10:17
But Digital Action is the convener. And at the moment we have more than a hundred and forty
10:21
organizations across the world.
10:24
And we are having a campaign, to make 2024 the Year of Democracy, elections safe.
10:33
And in 2024, over 65 countries are having elections.
10:38
And that is the first in a century where so many people will be
10:44
having elections and also the level of threats then is heightened.
10:48
Because if there is no regulation and if there are no safeguards
10:53
in that space, then you can see the level of harm in 2024.
10:58
So we are having a campaign that is being launched on the 15th of September.
11:03
And we are calling it " protect people and elections and not big
11:07
tech", and there are organizations in the space, partnering with us to
11:13
really make sure that the campaign is very strong and that the big tech
11:19
companies listen and pay attention to some of the asks that we have.
11:24
Laura May: It actually sounds really scary. 'cause I mean, you've just highlighted that misinformation, disinformation,
11:29
hate speech had this profound and in fact physical effect in Kenya.
11:35
And yet now we're talking about 65 different countries which are gonna
11:39
have elections, which could be affected in similar ways and by similar means.
11:43
It sounds like we could be hearing about violence, about co-optation
11:48
of democracy in countries. Like it's, it's quite scary what you're talking about.
11:53
Anne Ikiara: Yes. It's very, very, yeah. And that is why our Campaign Global Coalition for Tech Justice is convening
12:01
to really protect people and not the big tech companies and call really the Metas,
12:06
the YouTubes, and the Googles to account.
12:10
To protect, to mitigate that situation in much the same way as they would
12:15
mitigate in the Global Minority, to make sure we are all safe in 2024.
12:21
It's really a big test and it's a big also opportunity for them to show concern and
12:28
responsibility in protecting democracy.
12:32
Laura May: And so when you talk about protecting people and not big tech, and
12:35
you've mentioned safeguards a few times. What are the asks?
12:39
What are the safeguards? What could actually protect us?
12:42
Anne Ikiara: Okay, what could protect us is. Some of their policies are aligned to the West, you know, they, they are
12:48
specific to the English speaking context especially, but in other countries, like
12:54
in Kenya, for example, you just said in the beginning that I speak six languages.
12:59
I could write in any of those languages, you know, hate speech on Twitter, and
13:04
it'll not be flagged unless they have found somebody or they have context
13:09
specific safeguards so that content moderators really understand that
13:14
language and the challenges that are specific to the Kenyan context.
13:19
So, one ask is for them to make sure that content moderation and
13:24
safeguards are context specific.
13:28
And then the other is they should be transparent.
13:33
Because right now we really don't know what safeguards are in place.
13:37
We don't know how much money is being spent, where; we really don't know.
13:43
So we ask them to be transparent. You know, we are using this amount of money in US, for example, and we
13:50
are using this amount of money to protect Kenyans as well, for example.
13:55
So they should be transparent and the resources should match the level of
14:00
harm anticipated, and not the revenue.
14:04
That is another one. And then they should also operate throughout the election period.
14:09
Because like you saw in the, in the US and like I've given you the example
14:14
of Kenya, they let their guard down immediately the election happened.
14:20
And then we are talking about post-election violence.
14:24
So they stop moderating. So, so they should put in measures before, during, and after the elections.
14:33
They should offer comprehensive range of tools and measures and adopting to local
14:38
context that we, we have talked about. And they should also involve governments.
14:45
Not, in the way of buying them off so that they, they're silent about the
14:49
harm, but also partnering with them to make sure that the elections are safe.
14:54
And not just governments but also election bodies, civil society.
14:58
They should partner with us, because we are on the ground and we can point out
15:03
areas of concern that they can invest in.
15:06
So in a nutshell, those are some of our asks.
15:09
Laura May: Yeah, I have so many questions about the asks.
15:13
The first one that comes to mind is you mentioned that they need to put resources
15:18
into protection, not just during election campaigns, but also afterwards, because
15:24
as you mentioned, post-election violence.
15:26
And something that strikes me, 'cause you know, before we started having this
15:31
call, before we started recording, we were talking a lot about gender and racism.
15:34
And so I guess when I think about this, I think, oh well, yeah,
15:37
post-election violence is bad, domestic violence is also bad.
15:42
And so maybe they should have these safeguards and these moderation always
15:48
. Like why not dedicate resources to protecting people, not just in the context
15:53
of elections, but to protecting people from misogyny online or racism online,
15:58
which also lead to violence, right? Anne Ikiara: Exactly.
16:02
Misinformation, disinformation is a very wide subject and covers
16:07
different kinds of concerns. And this is just one of them, but that is what we focus on.
16:13
But even in the context of elections, it's not gender blind.
16:17
Women candidates, even women election officials, have been targeted with hate
16:24
speech that really removes agency from them as election officials, and integrity,
16:32
but also some of that has moved from online to physical harm to themselves.
16:39
Because really the way they're portrayed in media, in social media,
16:45
can sometimes expose them to harm.
16:48
And it has happened in several places where women have really
16:53
been targeted and sometimes even physically harmed, and their families.
16:57
Even some of the harm has extended to their family.
16:59
So it's not a very, it is not gender blind.
17:01
It's a very gendered concept. Mm.
17:04
Yes. So that is also something that should concern them, and that is
17:08
why it should be context specific. Because like in the context of Africa, for example, in the Global Majority, other
17:14
Global majority countries, women are, are just now getting into elected positions.
17:22
Competing for positions , in the electoral space.
17:25
And it's not yet a very acceptable concept in some, in some areas,
17:30
especially in mostly in Africa.
17:33
So, women are really targeted, candidates especially, and, and it's
17:39
gonna appear very interesting and very annoying because for the men
17:45
nobody talks about their private lives.
17:48
And, and, Laura May: What they're wearing Anne Ikiara: or what they are wearing.
17:52
But for women, somebody will talk about what they wear, who they are married
17:58
to, and how many children they have.
18:00
I don't know, who they ever dated. And there are all these things that really not not relevant to the electoral
18:06
position that they're looking for. So that should also be a concern.
18:10
But most of these things are context specific.
18:13
That is why we insist that they should enable accountability at the
18:17
level, at the level of the context. Laura May: This actually makes me really curious about Rwanda of all
18:25
places, because as far as I'm aware, they're the only country in the world
18:29
that has majority female government.
18:32
And so I'm really curious, especially given the context of their history.
18:36
You know, it's what, 30 years nearly since the genocide.
18:39
I'm like, I wonder for myself like what hate speech looks like in
18:44
Rwanda nowadays around the electoral cycle and around the role of women.
18:48
And if it's somehow different. Very curious.
18:50
I mean, I don't know if you know this, I'm just like, ooh, that's so interesting.
18:55
Anne Ikiara: Rwanda is a very progressive country, and the
18:59
rule of law is followed.
19:02
I'm not very familiar with that context, but my estimation is that
19:06
there will always be subtle subtle gender issues in this context,
19:11
but it may not be as pronounced in Rwanda as it is in other places.
19:15
Like, for example, compared to other African countries, Rwanda might
19:20
be a little bit ahead, but that doesn't mean it's exclusively absent.
19:25
It might be, it might be there, but it might be more subtle
19:28
than it is in other countries. Laura May: Hmm.
19:33
No, I would be really curious because yeah, when I think about the Australian
19:38
context, and obviously we had Julia Gillard as as a woman Prime Minister,
19:42
and she was just shredded in media, for yeah, what she was wearing and
19:47
her, inverted commas, "lifestyle choices" and all of these other things.
19:50
And it was brutal. You know, this, this sheer misogyny she faced on a day in, day out basis.
19:56
And yet, people think about Australia as this, you know, developed country,
20:00
it should be progressive, right? Like women get into government so it can't be sexist.
20:04
I was like, well, I've got news for you buddy. Like, that's not how it works.
20:08
That's not how it works. Oh my goodness.
20:11
I'm gonna leave that, that alone.
20:14
There's actually something else I wanted to talk about, which is also
20:16
difficult to measure because you referred to this idea of aligning
20:22
funding and resources to the level of harm done on social media platforms.
20:28
So how do we measure levels of harm and particularly potential harm for
20:33
an election that hasn't happened yet?
20:37
Anne Ikiara: Yeah, good question. That is, that is difficult.
20:41
And one of the things that we are struggling with is that there's
20:44
no baseline data, but given the past elections, and given the
20:53
the heat before elections, it is possible to anticipate that indeed
20:58
we need to invest heavily here. Because like if I give an example of Kenya, because that is where I come from,
21:05
elections are usually hotly contested, and it's very clear what the proponents are.
21:13
So it is possible to estimate that people will be posting comments in their
21:19
native languages or probably sometimes in Kiswahili, and I think the level of
21:26
investment should follow that trajectory.
21:31
And it should be properly monitored so that as is escalates, then also
21:36
the level of protection follows. Because once you have a service that is potentially dangerous, then I think you
21:45
have also the responsibility of mitigating that risk, however big it might be.
21:53
Yeah so it's a grey area, admittedly, but um big tech companies should
21:58
have the resources to do their own research and be able to anticipate the
22:03
level of investment that is required in their platforms to mitigate.
22:09
And I don't think it is impossible, because many of the factors are known
22:13
long before the election takes place. And if they're willing to have partnerships with local civil
22:19
society organizations that are invested in the local context, and
22:24
governments and electoral bodies. Then it should be possible to really understand and single out
22:30
the factors that constitute risk, so that they're better able to mitigate,
22:35
long before the harm happens. Laura May: It's beautifully put.
22:40
I mean, yeah, you have the concrete need for local language moderators,
22:43
but as you've just highlighted yourself as well, people already on
22:47
the ground in civil society already know what the danger zones are.
22:52
They already know if something's gonna blow up.
22:54
And yeah, by partnering those organizations, social media platforms
22:58
can say, "oh, we do actually need to to allocate some resources here, we do need
23:02
do a better risk assessment for here. Like it absolutely makes sense.
23:06
Anne Ikiara: Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Risk assessment should happen in every context, and that's actually one
23:14
of our requirements, one of our asks.
23:18
For you to make it context specific, then risk assessment must take
23:23
place in that particular context.
23:27
Laura May: So, tell me a bit more then about this campaign you're launching.
23:30
How do people get involved? Like how does the campaign work?
23:34
Anne Ikiara: Okay. The way it works is that over the past one year, we have been researching and
23:40
trying to find out the best method to coordinate and cooperate with people.
23:46
And it's been a very consultative process in which we have talked
23:50
to different people globally. So in June we launched our website in which different people and organizations,
24:01
both individuals and and organizations across the globe could sign, and
24:07
agree to our regulations because they are for any, any organization, any
24:13
coalition, there has to be something that is bringing you together.
24:17
So they needed to agree on our campaign asks.
24:20
Since then, 140 organizations and individuals have signed on.
24:26
We call it a coalition for tech justice.
24:29
That's the name that we have given it. And then together we are having different activities.
24:36
We are having the official launch in September 15, the International
24:41
Day of Democracy, that's when we are having the launch.
24:45
After that, then there'll be different activities to highlight what we are
24:49
doing, and by different organizations that are already decided to partner with us.
24:56
And of course tied to that is what I talked about earlier, writing to
25:01
big tech companies specifically to ask them to make the environment
25:07
safe, equitably across board.
25:11
And different organizations will have different activities.
25:14
Even individuals will have different activities, all to
25:17
create a lot of visibility around the issue of digital harm.
25:23
And we shall monitor different elections that are happening in 2024, and make
25:30
sure that we understand the level of harm and the safeguards that are being
25:35
put in place, so that then in the year 2025 we'll be having some data, to
25:42
take big tech companies to account. And to ask for policy direction, now based on hard data that we are going to have
25:52
collected from monitoring the elections.
25:55
Laura May: Amazing. Anne Ikiara: Yeah. Laura May: And a huge project, a huge campaign.
25:58
Anne Ikiara: Yes. Yes. And you'll be surprised, the campaign is ran by four people within Digital Action.
26:06
Our team is small, but we have the bigger network to front our case.
26:11
Laura May: Amazing. love Anne Ikiara: Yes. Laura May: that.
26:14
And so, something else I'm curious about is the sheer confusion of the social
26:21
media landscape at this point in time. Obviously we've seen Twitter has become X with some horrible looking branding
26:29
and it's obviously sort of falling apart. You know, people talking about the dark days of Twitter, the fall of Twitter.
26:34
We've seen similar things happen with Reddit in terms of, there was
26:37
a lot of fuss about the APIs being cut off, apps no longer being used.
26:42
We've seen migrations to Mastodon servers to Lemmy, kbin, we've seen as well the
26:50
launch of Threads, which, after the first three days, I heard nothing about.
26:54
Who can we even talk to in this environment?
26:57
Like who, who are the people? What are the correct platforms?
27:01
This sounds like such a confusing, huge puzzle.
27:05
Digital Action has written letters to specific people that are responsible
27:11
for exactly what you have described.
27:14
We have through our own networks, we have identified people who are responsible for
27:20
making the platform safe at Twitter, at Google, at YouTube, and at TikTok, and
27:30
we have written specifically to them, and actually the deadline for them to
27:34
respond to us is the 4th of September in anticipation for our launch on the 15th.
27:41
It is not as faceless as it it might look because there are
27:44
people running those offices. There are people who report to that office every day, and their
27:48
task is to make the platform safe.
27:52
So we have written specifically to those people to make sure that they
27:57
tell us what exactly they're going to do for the 65, more than 65 countries
28:02
that are having elections in 2024.
28:06
And what does that look like for the decentralized platforms.
28:10
Like Mastodon for instance, like Lemmy and kbin, where there's not one person
28:15
in control or one company in control.
28:18
For example, for Mastodon, I'm on a server for social scientists.
28:23
Which is managed by social scientists and you have to like be
28:26
a social scientist to be accepted. But I mean, there's heaps and heaps of different servers and
28:31
they all have their own rules. I mean, Truth Social, like Trump's network, is a Mastodon server.
28:37
And I mean, I'm assuming you can't really write to that server or who, whoever's
28:41
running it server and say, Hey, would you mind just not using hate speech?
28:44
Is that cool with you? Like, so how do you deal with this decentralization issue?
28:51
Anne Ikiara: We have to find strategies to deal with, because it's evolving.
28:55
It's an evolving threat. Every day is something that is different.
28:59
So it's something that we should anticipate.
29:02
As we, as we continue, because there are evolving threats every day.
29:06
That's why this field is very challenging, and it's also very
29:10
exciting, because you see different things every day which you might either
29:16
anticipate or respond to as they evolve.
29:20
So that's another new challenge. Laura May: Yeah, it sounds really difficult in the era of decentralization
29:26
and sort of fragmentation of the social media landscape, at least with targets
29:31
like Meta, like Google, you do have, as far as I'm aware, the majority
29:35
of the world's population on there. So they're pretty good targets for reducing harm in the interim.
29:41
Anne Ikiara: Yes. They also have a very, very wide reach.
29:44
And in Majority countries there is quite a, a sizeable chunk of the population
29:50
have access to those platforms.
29:52
So I mean, you put your resources where the harm is greatest and
29:58
where you can score big wins. I, yeah, that's part of our thinking.
30:04
Laura May: Absolutely. Anne Ikiara: Yeah. Laura May: Okay.
30:07
There's actually something else I wanna ask you about, because
30:10
I've been so curious about your identity as an author and a poet
30:14
since I saw that on your LinkedIn. I love that that's your LinkedIn tagline.
30:18
I love that it's there, you know, you have this creative
30:20
component to your personality, you've got your soul on display.
30:24
So so tell me, what kind of things do you write?
30:27
What is your poetry about? Anne Ikiara: My poetry is about justice, and equity.
30:34
That's what I write about. You're not surprised, no?
30:38
Laura May: I'm not surprised at all. Anne Ikiara: I write about equity and human rights and democracy.
30:47
I'm a child of, as you may as assume, from parents that experienced colonialism.
30:54
So there's a bit of a bit of that in my poetry.
30:58
My book actually is I have a manuscript that is currently going
31:02
through editing, that is about my experiences in the nonprofit sector,
31:07
and the inequalities that exist in that space for for people of color.
31:14
And the colonial aid system structures that follow the same
31:19
trajectory as colonialism did.
31:21
I also write about women's rights and, and gender issues.
31:27
That's my passion. Laura May: Incredible.
31:30
Absolutely incredible. I mean, to me it sounds like we would be better off having your
31:35
writing circulating on social media than disinformation for sure.
31:38
Like. Anne Ikiara: Yes, yes.
31:41
Yes. I, I hope it'll circulate
31:44
uh, soon. It usually happens that disinformation spreads faster than positive messages.
31:51
I think that's the way human beings are. Laura May: It's true.
31:55
I mean, we've got that negativity bias, right?
31:57
And threats are more immediate and more important and pressing than
32:01
things that make us feel good. Absolutely.
32:04
Yes. So tell me, if you had a magic wand and you could use it to change one
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thing about the digital landscape.
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What would you do with your magic wand? If you could do any one thing?
32:18
Anne Ikiara: I would make all platforms safe for the 2 billion people that
32:23
are going to have elections in 2024.
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I would just wave my magic and 2 billion people would be safe.
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There'll be no disinformation, no misinformation, no hate speech,
32:35
so democracy would thrive.
32:38
People would have their agency, because disinformation robs people of their agency
32:43
because these spaces target messages at you that skew your thinking, and that's of
32:49
course taking your agency away from you.
32:52
So citizens in those countries would have their agency, would have the best
32:56
leadership, would have the best democracy.
32:59
There would not be any hate speech. There would be serenity in all of the world and we would
33:05
interact in those platforms. To, you know, to have messages of hope and peace and, and progression,
33:12
not how to hate on each other and how to make life difficult for
33:17
each other, rather to progress. And we'd discuss things that are great for take us forward,
33:25
rather than that divide us. Laura May: I love that answer.
33:30
You know, sometimes, sometimes when I ask people a question like this,
33:33
they'll be like, hmm, I would change this program to be something different.
33:36
And you're like, no, no. With my magic wand, I'm gonna cause world peace in the next year.
33:43
I love that. I love that. And why not, right?
33:45
I mean, that's what you're doing with Digital Action.
33:47
That's, that's the whole end goal, so good on you.
33:51
And on the more personal level, Do you have any recommendations for
33:56
us as individuals and as listeners?
33:58
Like what should we do if we think something is disinformation?
34:03
Anne Ikiara: I would ask citizens, private citizens, not to spread misinformation,
34:08
disinformation, hate speech. Verify information before you pass it on, because the platforms are
34:16
powerless without us participating in the disinformation, in spreading
34:20
disinformation and hate speech. So don't spread hate speech.
34:24
Verify the information before you spread it, and instead of
34:29
spreading disinformation, spread the right information that is
34:34
bringing peace, democracy, and promoting human rights to the world.
34:39
Both in the Global Minority and Global Majority.
34:44
all people are the same. We are all human and I think that's the way we should see ourselves.
34:52
Laura May: Amazing. So look Anne, thank you so much for joining me today.
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For those who are interested in learning more about your work, whether
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as a poet or on the behalf of Digital Action, where can they find you?
35:04
Anne Ikiara: Okay, our work is on www dot Digital Action dot co.
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That's where you can find our campaign materials.
35:13
You can find our asks, and you can find our coalition partners.
35:18
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about Digital Action and the Global
35:26
Coalition for Tech Justice and how people can partner with us to protect people
35:32
and elections and not big tech companies.
35:35
Laura May: Absolutely. Thank you so much again Anne, and for everyone else, until next time,
35:40
this is Laura May with the Conflict Tipping Podcast from Mediate.com
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