New Design Congress

Organising Safely Online for Mutual Aid

Posted 02 Apr 2020

It’s good to see you again. How long it has been since we entered the Artificial Wilderness, a new shared online life forced by globalised quarantine. The tangible world is replaced with electronics – keyboards and screens and networks and platforms. A human retreat that is both a global humanitarian act of compassion and a profoundly dark political reality.


https://twitch.tv/newdesigncongress
(no signup required, save in your bookmarks!)

Thursday, 2 April, 2020.
12:00 PST / 14:00 CST / 15:00 EST
20:00 GMT / 21:00 CET

Friday, 3 April, 2020.
07:00 AEDT / 09:00 NZDT

In collaboration with Common Knowledge, we are livestreaming a Q&A session for anyone who worries about this sudden mandatory online life and its implications for personal and community safety. We’ll talk about how to better understand digital safety when organising and supporting communities from isolation and take questions from viewers. Facilitated by Alex Worrad-Andrews, Cade, Rose Regina will discuss risk management, privacy, community moderation and playing anxiety games that help you confront digital risk and mitigating real world potential outcomes.

Digital platforms were already imperfect, and tools such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, Facebook and Discord are now mandatory social prosthetics. But this weird freedom of the Artificial Wilderness still allows for exploitation and manipulation. It is crucial that we are aware of the fault lines, leverage points and weaknesses in these limbs. On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog, and maybe that’s how it should be.