Conferences Worth Attending: Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference

from the human-rights-matter dept

We're always interested in hearing about new conferences that take on really important subjects, so we're pleased to announce that we're acting as a media sponsor of the fantastic looking Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference, taking place on October 25th & 26th in San Francisco. It's important that this conference be held for innovators in and around Silicon Valley, given the impact companies and businesses here have around the globe -- both positive and negative.

The speakers list looks fantastic, including (but not limited to) the following:
  • Andrew McLaughlin, Former Deputy CTO Whitehouse, ex-Head of Policy, Google, and Founder of Civic Commons
  • Alex MacGillivray, General Counsel Twitter
  • Craig Newmark, Founder, Craigslist
  • Mike Posner, US Assistant Secretary of State
  • Jillian York, Director for International Freedom of Expression, EFF
  • Rebecca MacKinnon, New America Foundation Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow
  • Alex Fowler, Global Privacy & Public Policy Leader, Mozilla
  • Bram Cohen, Chief Scientist & Co-founder, BitTorrent
  • Ilya Zhitomirskiy, Co-founder, Diaspora
  • Mong Palatino, Philippine Parliament Member, and Blogger & Activist
  • Sascha Meinrath, Director of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative
  • Marietje Schaake, European Parliament Member (recently mentioned here for challenging Italy's proposed copyright law)
  • ... and many many more
The conference is designed to be interactive, with an open exchange of ideas and best practices, providing an opportunity for industry leaders, startups and concerned citizens from around the world to share and benefit from each other's knowledge and experiences. Discussion topics will include: technology and revolutions, navigating legal jurisdiction in a borderless world, coding for human rights, social media and law enforcement, user privacy and terms of service and lots more.

As a part of this, we're happy to provide Techdirt readers a 20% discount on attending the event. You just have to register with the code "Techdirt20" by September 30th.
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Filed Under: conferences, human rights


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 Sep 2011 @ 7:37pm

    All the IP maimists will talk up a storm about how IP is somehow a human right.

    Instead, what we need to discuss is how copying is a human right and how limitations to such behavior should be the exception (as the founding father intended).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 Sep 2011 @ 8:18pm

    freetardian fantasy conference.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Jay (profile), 27 Sep 2011 @ 9:00pm

      Re:

      So you're calling Michael Posner a freetard?

      Awesome way to show your support for fact checking.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 27 Sep 2011 @ 9:38pm

        Re: Re:

        I looked at the list, and the vast majority are making their money or bones either on free or on trading in personal information (hi Facebook, and fuck you very much). You pick the one exception.

        Thanks Jay for being consistant... always an asshole.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Jay (profile), 27 Sep 2011 @ 9:56pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Coming from an AC, it sure means a lot to me.

          I'm sure I'll weep as I tell you to get off your cross, make a bridge, and get over it. :)

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 27 Sep 2011 @ 9:11pm

      Re:

      No that is not a freetardian fantasy conference, that one is taking place right now on the Pirate Bay, you can go there to check it out it happens everyday 365 days and it has been happening for 8 years now on that location LoL

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 27 Sep 2011 @ 9:36pm

      Re:

      running late for your retardian monopolist conference?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike Masnick (profile), 27 Sep 2011 @ 10:16pm

      Re:

      freetardian fantasy conference.


      As far as I know, the conference has nothing to do with IP issues, so sorta weird for you to bring that up. Obsessed much?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        The eejit (profile), 27 Sep 2011 @ 11:31pm

        Re: Re:

        Three words, Mike: Law of Focus.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 28 Sep 2011 @ 4:09pm

        Re: Re:

        As far as I know, the conference has nothing to do with IP issues, so sorta weird for you to bring that up. Obsessed much?

        More weasel words Masnick? I can't imagine that one could avoid IP issues. Let's see who putting on the show:

        ACCESS (from it's own website)

        "Access is a global movement premised on the belief that political participation and the realization of human rights in the 21st century is increasingly dependent on access to the internet and other forms of technology. Founded in the wake of the 2009 Iranian post-election crackdown, Access teams with digital activists and civil society groups internationally to build their technical capacity and to help them advocate globally for their digital rights. Access provides thought leadership and practical policy recommendations in the broader field of internet freedom, and based on that expertise mobilizes its global movement of citizens to campaign for an open internet accessible to all.
        Access' Global Movement for Digital Freedom is made up of ordinary people from all over the world. Many of us are normal internet users without much experience in either human rights or technology, but we understand that technology can be a powerful platform which gives us all additional strength to achieve greater participation, accountability and transparency. Together we can work to help each other and maintain the internet as open space for all. Join us and you'll receive action updates with easy ways to effect real change or take action with our campaigns."

        Next, let's see who is paying the bill:

        "The conference is sponsored by Google, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo! and Mozilla and held with partners in the civil society sector."

        And who will be preaching to the apologist choir

        Andrew McLaughlin* (Founder Civic Commons, Former Deputy CTO Whitehouse, ex-Head of Policy, Google
        Rebecca McKinnon, New America Foundation Bernard L. Schwartz, Fellow, Board Member Global Network Initiative
        Dan Gillmor, Author, Founding director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
        Jan Malinowski, Head of Media and Information at Council of Europe
        Bennett Freeman, Senior Vice President of Calvert Investments, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
        John Markoff, The New York Times
        Robert Scoble, blogger, Chief Learning Officer, Rackspace
        Craig Newmark, Founder, Craigslist
        Sam Gregory, Program Director, Witness.org
        Nathan Freitas, Founder, The Guardian Project
        Hooman Radfar, CEO, Clearspring
        Brett Solomon, Executive Director Access

        Finally, who all is on the board of Access:

        International Advisory Board

        Andrew Rasiej - Founder of Personal Democracy Forum
        Chris Hughes - Co-founder of Facebook and Director of Online Organizing for Obama’s Presidential Campaign
        Eli Pariser - Former Executive Director and Current Board President of MoveOn.org
        Ethan Zuckerman - Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Co-Founder of Global Voices Online
        Joe Rospars - New Media Director for Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign and Founding Partner of Blue State Digital
        Lawrence Lessig* - Co-founder of Creative Commons and Professor at Harvard Law School
        Peter Gabriel - Grammy Award winning international musician and co-founder of Witness and the Elders
        Reihan Salam - Policy advisor at Economics 21, blogger and conservative political analyst
        Ricken Patel - Co-founder and Executive Director, Avaaz.org
        Professor Ron Deibert - Director of the Citizen Lab, Co-founder of the OpenNet Initiative and Psiphon
        Tattu Mambetallieva Emilbekovna - Director of the Civil Initiative on Internet Policy
        Yvette J. Alberdingk Thijm - Executive Director, Witness


        So you're right Masnick. doubtful IP will come up at all.



        * A real piece of shit.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 28 Sep 2011 @ 9:47pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Thanks. Clearly Mike doesn't grasp that anyone who is fighting for "online freedom" will almost always also end up fighting against IP laws.

          That the sponsoring companies all have a significant economic interest in diminished IP rights and in increasing their access to your person information "freely" seems almost too good to be true.

          It's a Tardian love in, with the tards not realizing that the big companies paying the bills want to cut down the IP laws and open things up so they can track you better.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Mike Masnick (profile), 30 Sep 2011 @ 7:53pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Wait, so because Larry Lessig is one of many people on the advisory board of a group that helped put together this conference, suddenly it's all about IP?

          Are you crazy? And I note Peter Gabriel is on that same advisory board. Should I assume that this will now be all about RIAA positions too?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Sep 2011 @ 6:01am

    Philippines has no parliament

    Interesting that the Filipino is stated to be from the Philippine parliament.

    The Philippines does NOT have a parliament, it has a house of representatives, senate, supreme court and president. This is because the Philippines was US territory until July 4 1946. The government of the Philippines took US law on the books from that time and built on that. That is why the Philippines and US have such a similar legal system not to mention sharing the same legal forms like notary, titles etc.

    There was a push by past Philippine president Arroyo to change to parliamentary system. However the people saw her for what she really was: A big government progressive and a clone of Hillary Clinton. This was roundly defeated.

    Oddly enough the a philippines is tthe only aasian country that Cuba actively spends great efforts to subvert thru supporting communist revolutionaries.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Jay (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 9:26am

      Re: Philippines has no parliament

      You mean the fighting going on in Manila?

      Because Cebu keeps pretty civil for foreigners for the most part. And last I checked, most Filipinos were too interested in American songs like Justin Bieber to begin the fight against the government again.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    DizzyD (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 10:53am

    Is it me or does AT&T and facebook seem like odd sponsors for this type of an event?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    mohamed, 24 Nov 2011 @ 2:54pm

    I want to attend a conference iam from egypt

    hello Iam mohamed from egypt I am a lawyer and Iwant Attend the International Conference on the Law

    What are the documents required to attend

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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