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Mobile technology is being used by citizens all over the world as the most affordable and massively adopted piece of technology. How can we harness this technology for advancing human rights and civil society participation? This dialogue is a space to share and discuss many ideas for "Using Mobile Phones for Action."
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[Photo: from the Private Sector Development blog]
Using Mobiles | SMS (Short Message Service)
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Intro
Mobile technology is being used by citizens all over the world as the most affordable and massively adopted piece of technology. How can we harness this technology for advancing human rights and civil society participation?
Our outstanding resource practitioners for the November-December tactical discussion shared and discussed many ideas for "Using Mobile Phones for Action". You can still contribute your ideas, questions and experiences!
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Philippe Duhamel - in his interTactica blog - Harnessing new technology for new tactics provides some great examples to get our creative ideas flowing.
- Sending out an SMS -- Supporting human rights work and activism with text messaging, or SMS - Short Messaging Service - functionality
- Organizing demonstrations -- Such as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine
- Coup de text -- Like ousting a president, it happened in the Philippines
- Protest Ringtones -- Highlighting corruption, it's being used in the Philippines
Links from the dicussion:
Mobiles in mass organizing white paper
This is an excellent resource for activists. I'm particularly struck by the attention given to the positive and negative aspects of mass organizing. Not everyone is committed to nonviolent change - and mobile phones can be a tactical tool working against our nonviolent change campaigns.
It's important to remember that a tactical tool is used to effectivly move your strategy forward. If it's not connected to a strategic goal, it might be an interesting excercise but it's taking your energy and resources away from where you actually want to be.
I really encourage people to read this white paper from MobileActive.org, White Paper on Mobile Phones in Mass Organizing
Thanks Katrin for sharing it with us.
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics Program Manager
Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager