Do you feel safe to talk about sex in facebook chat? Are you comfortable expressing your political opinion online without hiding your identity? How do you deal with anonymous person who insults you? We want to find out how to use anonymity for good and fight those who abuse it.
The topical area in which our idea is located, internet policy in general and online privacy in particular, is currently a specific focus of both the EU as well as many individual European countries. Everyone acknowledges that the internet has huge potential but there is little agreement on how to realise it. There has recently been a resurgence of calls for restraining anonymity online, mostly for law enforcement and intelligence gathering purposes. We feel that these measures would do much more harm than good, threatening the internet's creativity, ease of use and utility for political activism. Therefore we need more creative and democratic solutions that originate from the users themselves, and which do not restrict our essential freedoms.
One important part of the work we want to do is study examples of software and practices used by online websites and communities that both guard anonymity and enable fruitful exchanges and creativity. There are many factors, both technological and normative, that allow online communities to function without real identities (e.g. avatars, pseudonymity, reward and rating systems, a policy of "not feeding the trolls"). We want to find out what works where, when and how, and use this knowledge to develop strategies for both individual users and those intending to set up sustainable internet communities. By creating a community of like minded people and addressing anonymity issues of internet culture we hope to develop new and long lasting partnerships to have a common space to maintain them.
1) A preparatory team will develop an online platform as a basis for the announcement and implementation of the event (e.g. the interactive platform for the social experiment)
2) Participation of relevant local stakeholders and experts will be confirmed and integrated into the program
3) Implementation: Each day of the main event the international participants will meet with the aforementioned local stakeholders to discuss the issues covered by this project
4) The outcomes will be evaluated and processed by the preparatory team in cooperation with the project partners
5) The follow up will result in a publication containing all of the topics covered during the project; said publication will then be shared using the online platform and a number of other platforms
We want to receive advice and reflection on our strategy to partner different stakeholders and age groups. Whether we can improve it and receive some methodological advice and inputs from the AdvocateEurope community.