On January 18, 2012, numerous website across the internet called for an internet blackout in protest of SOPA and PIPA. SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, the Protect IP Act, were a series of bills promoted by Hollywood in the US Congress that would have created a “blacklist” of censored websites.
Restore the Fourth is a privacy movement started in the summer of 2013, in reaction to Edward Snowden's revealing of the National Security Administration's extensive spying on American and foreign citizens. The movement seeks to uphold the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects American citizens against unfounded search and seizure of their property or identity.
Have you ever wanted to see current or potential innovations for poverty or the environment without having to do a lot of researching or reading? Have you ever thought of an idea and wanted to tell the world about it and get feedback? Howitcouldbedifferent.org was founded for these purposes - to enable people to easily see, share, and suggest ideas in different categories.
A couple of weeks ago, a group of activists working with Rainforest Action Network’s Energy and Finance campaign hit the streets of San Francisco to bring a little truth about Bank of America’s misdeeds to its customers—not in the lobbies of the bank’s local branches, but at its ATMs throughout the city.
ScareMail is a web browser extension that makes email “scary” in order to disrupt NSA surveillance. Extending Google’s Gmail, the work adds to every new email’s signature an algorithmically generated narrative containing a collection of probable NSA search terms. This “story” acts as a trap for NSA programs like PRISM and XKeyscore, forcing them to look at nonsense.
Trash Tycoon is an upcycling social network game developed by Guerillapps. The game applies traditional social gameplay features to highlight real-world issues such as waste, water, and “green” activities. Gameplay includes cleaning trash, recycling, and constructing products and decorations out of recycled material.
In this mobile game, the studio Molleindustria makes commentary on the people and practices behind the creation of mobile devices. Not lost on the authors is the deep sense of irony in that the game itself relies on mobile platform. The "game" is structured as a narrative where the process begins in mining materials in Africa (slavery) to putting together the devices in China (labor abuse), to heavy purchasing in the U.S.
There’s a fine line between offensive and hilarious, and Arizona lawmakers aim to make that boundary legally protected. If House Bill 2549 passes, online harassment could become a criminal offense – but some hacktivists are there to help you rejoice.
From New 24By SAPAHanoi - When riot police broke up a recent protest over a forced
eviction, Vietnam's bloggers were ready - hidden in nearby trees, they
documented the entire incident and quickly posted videos and photos
online.Their shaky images spread like wildfire on Facebook, in a
sign of growing online defiance in Vietnam, in the face of efforts by
During the Steubenville, Ohio rape case in 2012, members of Anonymous uncovered and promised to release names of unindicted participants in the rape of a teenager by high school athletes.
Spent is an online in-browser game designed by ad agency McKinney as part of a partnership with Urban Ministries of Durham, NC, calling attention to the problem of poverty and educate people about homelessness. In the game, players are challenged to live on $1000 over a month, often having to decide between essentials and utilize outside options in order to survive.
The aim is to create an on line community that seeks to find new ways to articulate what it means to be an international women in relation to art and sexuality.
International visual artists who are making cutting edge fine art, with an erotic edge, please upload your work onto the web site for free. (see link) Also a competition has been launched, giving you a chance to win £300.
Fundacion Via Libre is an Argentinian digital rights group that advocates for more user awareness of internet surveillance and policy. To build this awareness the group not only conducts activist projects and attend events, but they also work with legislative bodies to reflect the growing technology and protect users.
Games for Change is a community of game designers, activists, artists and individuals focused on creating and using digital games for purposes of social change. Games for Change is a large and loose community, but it has a major nonprofit organization at its center, who organizes the majority of the meetups and work of the movement.
The elimination of Net Neutrality is a much bigger issue than most people would like to admit. This issue stems far from just an issue dealing with an open internet, free from biased control of the internet service providers, whom which we rely on.
From Konami Digital Entertainment (makers of Dance Dance Revolution, Castlevania, and other hits) comes a significant expansion of their long-running support of the World Food Programme’s gaming initiatives. The result is the re-emergence of Food Force, one of the most successful early games for change titles.
Media@McGill will be hosting The Participatory Condition, an International Colloquium, which will be held in Montreal at the Musée d’art contemporain (MAC) on November 15 and 16, 2013. The Colloquium’s main objective is to assess the role of media in the development of a principle whose expansion has become so large as to become the condition of our contemporaneity.