What do you do when your government shuts down the internet? How can we as civil society respond to such restrictions?
This was the focus of this year's Disco-tech event, organised by Hivos/Digital Defenders Partnership, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Columbia Global Freedom of Expression, Columbia Global Centers Tunis and other partners on 10 June, the evening before RightsCon 2019.
With the aim of exploring internet shutdowns in the African region, this innovative, peer-learning event brought to light stories of the shutdowns’ effects on human rights at individual, national and regional levels, and shared strategies and techniques to avert or lift them, including tech demos, policy ideas, advocacy strategies and litigation.
The Disco-tech event in Tunis built on previous work done by the APC community on this pressing issue, including our collective piece, "Internet shutdowns: It's like being cut off from the world".
See the summary of the event in this video. You can also find the speaker's highlights on this Twitter thread.