Watch the video stream of The Great Firewall of China]]>Once little more than a glorified porn filter, China’s ‘Great Firewall’ has evolved into the most sophisticated system of online censorship in the world. As the Chinese internet grows and online businesses thrive, speech is controlled, dissent quashed, and attempts to organise outside the official Communist Party are quickly stamped out. But the effects of the Great Firewall are not confined to China itself.
Through years of investigation James Griffiths gained unprecedented access to the Great Firewall and the politicians, tech leaders, dissidents and hackers whose lives revolve around it. As distortion, post-truth and fake news become old news James Griffiths shows just how far the Great Firewall has spread. Now is the time for a radical new vision of online liberty.
James Griffiths talks about his book with bestselling author Paul French – who is no stranger to Chinese censorship himself – and Anna Bacciarelli, who spearheaded Amnesty UK’s successful (for now) Google Drop Dragonfly campaign. They discuss how the Firewall is affecting human rights and journalistic freedoms in China, as well as all over the world as the model is actively exported to countries from Russia to in the Africa continent.
Chair
Born in London and educated there and in Glasgow, Paul French has lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. As a leading expert on North Korea he is a widely published analyst and commentator on Asia and has written a number of books dealing with China’s pre-1949 history, Asian politics and current affairs. His previous books include a history of North Korea, a biography of Shanghai adman and adventurer Carl Crow, and a history of foreign correspondents in China.Paul was awarded the 2013 Edgar for best fact crime for his international best-seller Midnight in Peking.
Speakers
James Griffiths is a reporter and producer for CNN International, currently based in Hong Kong. He has reported from Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Australia for outlets including the Atlantic, Vice and the Daily Beast. He was previously a reporter and assistant editor at the South China Morning Post, where he played a key role in the paper’s award winning coverage of the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests in Hong Kong.
Anna Bacciarelli is a Technology and Human Rights Researcher and Advisor at Amnesty International, where she investigates the impact of developments in artificial intelligence, big data and automated decision-making on human rights. She advocates for human rights protections in the creation and use of technology around the world, and jointly led Amnesty’s campaign calling on Google to Drop Project Dragonfly, after it was revealed that the company planned to u-turn and comply with the Chinese government’s strict censorship and surveillance laws last year.
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At a time when the US tech sector outpaces the overall growth of the employment market, CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap asks the important question: where are all the women? This revealing and uplifting documentary examines the reasons why more girls are not seeking opportunities in computer science and explores how cultural mindsets, stereotypes, educational hurdles and sexism all play a role in widening this employment gap.
Director Robin Hauser Reynolds opens by pointing out that in the early days of programming, women dominated the field. This was in no small part because male engineers thought this “soft” work was relatively trivial compared to building machines. In the decades that followed, more and more women entered computing; by the mid-1980s, women made up more than 35 percent of computer science graduates. Then began a falloff that persists to this day, with women making up only 15 percent of computer science majors in the U.S.
Expert voices from the worlds of technology, psychology, science, and education are intercut with inspiring stories of diverse women who are engaged in the fight to challenge complacency in the tech industry and to have their voices heard. CODE aims to inspire change in mindsets, in the educational system, in startup culture and in the way women see themselves in the field of coding.
Director: Robin Hauser Reynolds
Producers: Robin Hauser Reynolds, Staci Hartman, Christie Herring
Year: 2015
Running time: 80′
Dr. Sue Black was named one of the top 50 women in tech in Europe in 2015 and is an award-winning computer scientist, radical thinker and passionate social entrepreneur. She has regular tech columns in both The Guardian and The Daily Mirror.
]]>Acts of journalism should be shielded from targeted surveillance, data retention and handover of material connected to confidential sources. This is a key early finding from a recent study commissioned by UNESCO on the state of journalistic source protection in 121 countries.
Early findings from the study, Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age, authored by Australian journalist and journalism academic Julie Posetti, indicate that legal source protection frameworks in many of the countries studied are outdated and need strengthening. It also shows that they are being eroded by national security and anti-terrorism legislation; undercut by surveillance – both mass and targeted; and jeopardised both by mandatory data retention policies and pressure applied to third party intermediaries to release data.
UNESCO commissioned the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) to undertake the study and Posetti led the project in her capacity as WAN-IFRA Research Fellow.
In an event in partnership with the Foreign Press Association, we will be joined by the author of the study and other experts to discuss the implications of the findings and what needs to be done to ensure journalists can fully protect their sources.
Chaired by journalist, writer and Foreign Press Association President, Paola Totaro.
The panel:
Julie Posetti is an Australian journalist and journalism academic. A former news editor, presenter and political reporter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Posetti is currently based in Paris as a research fellow with the World Editors Forum and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. She is completing a PhD on “The Twitterisation of Journalism” at the University of Wollongong, Australia, where she teaches social journalism, radio, TV and multimedia storytelling. She recently completed a major UNESCO-commissioned study of journalistic source protection in the digital era in 121 countries for WAN-IFRA.
Gavin Millar QC has a broad practice spanning media, information, public, criminal, employment and discrimination law. He is a noted specialist in all areas of media law including defamation, privacy, breach of confidence, publishing contempts and reporting restrictions. He often represents media outlets, journalists and politicians in both civil and criminal proceedings.
Jonathan Calvert is the longest serving editor of the The Sunday Times’ Insight team in its 50 year history, having held the job for a decade. His first scoop for the team was exposing the cash for questions scandal as an undercover Insight reporter in 1994, and he soon after became investigations editor at The Observer where he oversaw a string of major exclusives. Since returning to The Sunday Times he has headed a long line of exclusives – most recently the Fifa files investigation which made waves around the world.
Paul Myers is a BBC internet research specialist. He joined the BBC in 1995 as a news information researcher. He also runs The Internet Research Clinic, a website dedicated to directing journalists to the best research links, apps and resources. His role in the BBC Academy sees him organise and deliver training courses related to internet investigation, data journalism, freedom of information, reporting statistics, working with social media, web design and image production. He has worked with leading programmes like Panorama, Watchdog, national news bulletins, BBC Online, local & national radio and the World Service.
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL
]]>Directed by Tonje Hessen Schei and produced by Flimmer Film, Drone takes an in depth look at the United States’ use of drone technology, questioning how drones are altering the psychology of war. Drone explores new war technology from both the perspective of civilians living under drones in Pakistan and drone pilots training on programmes that resemble video games.
The film covers diverse and integral ground, from the recruitment of young pilots at gaming conventions and the re-definition of “going to war”, to the moral stance of engineers behind the technology, and the world leaders giving the “green light” to engage in targeted killing. Tonje Hessen Schei presents a thorough and well researched examination of how drones are remoulding the technological, political, and psychological landscape of war for both countries using the new technology and citizens of countries under drone strikes.
In the midst of the rapid advancement of technology, with which international legislation is struggling to keep up, Schei‘s film displays how drones are rapidly defining a new perception of war.
Directed by Tonje Hessen Schei
Duration: 78′
Year: 2014
Technological developments have influenced the way stories are crafted. The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has been at the forefront of major developments in cinema since 1939, both creatively as well as technologically. Their projects are also true testaments to a filmmaker’s desire to transmit images and words in a meaningful and passionate way.
Today, with opportunities offered by new media, stories can be told in a non-linear fashion through different platforms, or made interactive. Do these new technologies truly revolutionise the way we document the world, or merely change the relationship between the maker and the viewer?
Award-winning executive producer and creative technologist of the NFB Digital Studio Loc Dao, will explore the possibilities these developments offer through some of NFB’s most innovative projects. He will go back to the start of interactive magazines and photo essays, which led to the interactive documentary and storyworlds.
Loc Dao is co-founder of the groundbreaking NFB Digital and CBC Radio 3 studios and their industry shifting bodies of work. The combination of his experience in digital strategy, editorial, web development, content production and architecting large scale internet delivery systems, brings a rare multi-dimensional approach that pushes the boundaries of what can be done with story, form and platform. He has received over 60 awards most notably Digital Producer of the Year, nine Webby Awards, two New York Festivals Grand Prizes, three Online Journalism Awards, a Prix Italia, the FWA Site of the Year 2012 and a Cannes Cyber Lion.
Loc Dao will also be speaking at the Power to the Pixel Conference on Tuesday 7 October.
This event is in partnership with the Canadian High Commission.
The evening will include short stories capturing the essence of big issues, films showing life in other parts of the world under difficult or extraordinary circumstances, and stories focusing on one particular remarkable event or person.
Model Village
Hayoun Kwon is not allowed to film in the North Korean propaganda village, Kijong-dong, situated close to the border. In order to document her denied journey she builds a scale model and films it. The result testifies to the real state of the ghost village – a mechanism of fiction unattainable other than by imagination. Directed by Hayoun Kwon | Duration: 10′ | Year: 2014
Shipwreck
In October 2013, a boat carrying 500 Eritrean refugees sunk off the coast of the Italian island Lampedusa. More than 360 people drowned. Abraham, one of the survivors, walks through a graveyard of shipwrecks and vividly remembers the nightmarish experience. Meanwhile at the harbour, hundreds of coffins are being loaded onto a military ship. Directed by Morgan Knibbe | Duration: 14′ | Year: 2014
Winter
Winter is a portrait of a season – a journey through North Russia and Siberia, through the feelings and thoughts of the people who have to cope with one of the world’s harshest climates. Cristina Picchi captures a reality where the boundary between life and death is so thin that is sometimes almost nonexistent, where civilisation constantly both fights and embraces nature and its timeless rules and rites. Directed by Cristina Picchi | Duration: 12′ | Year: 2013
Autonomous
The boundaries between what is real and unreal are becoming increasingly blurred through technological advances. Is there a limit for what can be replaced? Autonomous is an intense, emotional look into a future that is already here. Directed by Per Eriksson and Alexander Rynéus | Duration: 14′ | Year: 2014
Down on the Corner
Beer, cigarettes or margarine, the corner store in Sirča has it all. It is also the meeting point of those who didn’t emigrate. For those who stayed, there is no work and no money, but a lot of humour and friendship. Down on the Corner captures everyday life in central Serbia. Directed by Nikola Ilić & Corina Schwingruber Ilić | Duration: 15′ | Year: 2013
In Guns We Trust
In Kennesaw, a small American town in the state of Georgia, a good citizen is an armed citizen. By law, since 1982, each head of household must own at least one working firearm with ammunition. Photographer and filmmaker Nicolas Lévesque takes the viewer on a stunning exploration of this town where the right to bear arms trumps every argument. Directed by Nicolas Lévesque | Duration: 12′ | Year: 2013
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https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/the-changing-face-of-news
In more and more places around the world it is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous for foreign journalists to gain access and cover stories as they unfold. In the past, this often meant that events would remain unreported. This is no longer the case. User generated content (UGC) – and the innovative ways in which it is used – is creating a new way of seeing the story on the ground.
We will be joined by a panel working on the edges of the news to get the stories where conventional means have failed. They will be talking about the technology and the techniques that they use, looking at how content is verified, and how you can empower people to tell their own stories and distribute it to local and international communities.
Chaired by Richard Pendry, a lecturer in broadcast journalism at the University of Kent, where he is currently researching non-traditional news gatherers working in areas of conflict.
The panel:
Eliot Higgins is author of the Brown Moses Blog, which specialises in analysing social media produced from the conflict in Syria. His work has included uncovering smuggled Croatian arms in Syria, and in depth investigations into the August 21 sarin attack in Damascus. Twitter: @Brown_Moses
Malachy Browne is news editor with Storyful. Prior to that he created and edited Politico.ie, an Irish political website and news archive. He worked for the Irish political magazine, Village from 2006 to 2008 and was editor of the magazine’s website, Village.ie. Twitter: @malachybrowne
Videre’s head of operations, an international charity founded in 2008. They work in partnership with local activists in hard-to-access areas giving them equipment, training and support to gather visual evidence of human rights violations and other abuses. This captured footage is verified, analysed and then distributed. Twitter: @_videre
Trushar Barot is assistant editor at the Social Media and User Generated Content hub at BBC News. He has worked in the British media for the past 15 years, across newspapers, TV, radio, online, social and digital. Over the past four years he has helped develop and implement BBC News’ social media strategy, as well as helping to maintain the UGC hub’s work as an industry-leading team in social media news gathering. Twitter: @Trushar
Photograph: 1000 Words / Shutterstock.com
]]>https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/drone-journalism-the-future-of
Interest in the potential for using drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), for journalism is growing. As the technology becomes cheaper and easier to use, journalist are experimenting with using drones for news gathering.
They offer the opportunity to document scenes that cannot be captured on the ground and to be used in circumstances when it would be too dangerous to send in a journalist. But what might this mean for privacy, ethics and safety in our skies?
With these opportunities come many questions and challenges. We will be bringing together a panel of experts to explore the potential for the use of drones in journalism and to discuss the challenges this new technology presents.
Chaired by Richard Sambrook, professor of journalism and director at the Centre for Journalism, Cardiff University. He is a former director of Global News at the BBC where he worked as a journalist for 30 years as a producer, editor and manager.
The panel:
David Goldberg is legal and regulatory specialist for Unmanned Experts and is co-author of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems & Journalists published by the Reuters Institute, Oxford University. He directs deeJgee Research/Consultancy and is a senior visiting fellow at the Institute of Computer and Communications Law in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary, University of London.
Professor Robert Picard is the director of research at Reuters Institute, University of Oxford. He is a world-leading specialist on media economics and government media policies. He was formerly based in the Media Management and Transformation Centre at Jönköping International Business School in Sweden where he was director and Hamrin Professor of Media Economics.
Tom Hannen is a Senior Innovations Producer in the BBC’s Global Video Unit. Working with a small team, he is currently learning how to build, fly and film with small unmanned multi-rotor helicopters.
Gerry Corbett joined the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) Safety and Airspace Regulation Group in June 2012, his focus is all matters associated with the operation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems in UK airspace. He is also the sponsor for Civil Aviation Publication 722, the primary guidance document for Unmanned Aircraft System Operations in UK Airspace.
]]>VHS or Betamax? Is video rental a good idea? Should the public even be allowed to have physical access to films? On Tuesday 3 September, these were some of the era-defining issues raised at the Frontline Club’s screening of Rewind This!
Directed by Josh Johnson, Rewind This! beamed the audience into a time when the idea of the rewind button – or even having the ability to choose when to watch something at home – was a pioneering concept. Overcoming the initial fear and resistance from major film studios, the meteoric rise and eventual demise of the home video empire draws many parallels to the expanding internet video markets today; most notably in the success of your medium being defined by its relationship to the adult film industry. The idiosyncrasies of home video, from the intricacies of box cover art to sub-genres of cult horror movies – and the impact it had on a generation – is told by the passionate characters who are trying to save home video, and perhaps themselves, from obscurity.
Director Josh Johnson taking questions from the audience via Skype. Photo: George Symonds
Joining via Skype, director Johnson began the Q&A with an explanation of his motivations:
“I feel like the home video revolution is what changed my life more than anything else and really shaped the person that I am. When I was a child I was able to wander the aisles of the video store and imagine what might be contained in those boxes. And then I was also able to take things home – sacks of tapes – and then I was exposed to all the film history from a very young age. . . . So that was a big part of wanting to make the film, because that part of the story of the home video world hadn’t been told.
“And then the other aspect that was really appealing about it was the contemporary relevance, because there were so many thousands of titles that were at risk of being lost. So it didn’t feel like it would just be looking back, it would also be looking to the future.”
A central theme in the documentary was archiving and the potential loss of many films. Johnson was asked if there had been improvements in the archiving or digitising process of VHS tapes.
“What is happening,” he replied, “is that a lot of these collectors, a lot of these people who have access to material are aware that it’s very scarce and that they’re at risk of losing it, and they are starting to digitise and back up things. And you see a lot of file sharing sites on the web and other ways of sharing this content. So it’s legally questionable at this point but people are trying to do it. And I think what’s happening online right now, with the torrenting and file-sharing of a lot of these rare films that are only available on videotapes, is that they’re setting up a good model for what that system should look like once it becomes a more official thing.”
An audience member then asked for the director’s thoughts on the idea of ownership – or false ownership – with the development of internet. Johnson responded:
“I think the only risk is that people think everything is going to be made available to them and I think that’s probably not going to be the case. I think when a studio owns everything, and they are able to provide their entire catalogue, it really makes more sense for them to provide various segments of a catalogue at different times. And I don’t think everything will be widely available.”
“I think what you have now, with Netflix and other sites where they have them for a window of time, and then they go away and then they might come back a little later. But I think the idea of endless access to everything that’s ever been created is unrealistic. So for me, the value of physical media is that when something is released and I purchase it I can back it up. I can hold onto it and I have access to it when I want it. Whereas on the online space when everything goes completely digital or is hosted in the cloud or hosted elsewhere I don’t feel as confident that I’m going to have the level of access that I want.”
Following on, Johnson was asked if his comparison of physical video rentals and contemporary online video consumption was pre-planned. “That was definitely pre-planned,” said Johnson.
“We wanted to make something that was definitely motivated in part by nostalgia and would take people back to a time in their lives, or for a younger audience introduce them to a time that they didn’t live through or that they weren’t aware of. . . . But we also didn’t want to make a film that didn’t hold any contemporary relevance.
“What’s interesting about the current online distribution system is that it actually does seem to be doing what they were fearful of in the early video days, which is that people are going to be able to access so many things so conveniently and so inexpensively that they’re not as motivated to go and see movies in the theatre. So we are seeing that negative impact on the box office. . . . It’s essentially a new version of that same home video concept, but it actually is taking over and becoming the dominant way that people see films.”
In the words of a contemporary VHS enthusiast featured by Johnson:
“When you see a Be Kind Rewind sticker on it [a VHS cassette], there’s something deeply moving about that. It’s such a call to arms and a suggestion or imperative about the way to live your life. To be kind, and rewind. Go back, and hang on to those things that are important to you; and not let them disappear, and not let other people take them away from you. Find what’s important and preserve that – and help it to endure.”
Rewind This! was the last in a series of the Frontline Club’s summer screenings, exploring the role of technology in how we document our world.
Full details of upcoming screenings for Rewind This! in the UK and beyond can be found on the official website and on Twitter.
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Home video changed the way the world consumed films, it had an enormous cultural and historical impact. Low cost equipment and the rise of VHS tapes created unprecedented opportunities for the film industry. For the first time, video made it possible for small independent production companies to operate on an even playing field with the major film studios.
More movies were released on VHS than DVD could ever hope to see. A vast amount of culture seems to have been lost, with a huge number of films released during the VHS years that never transferred over to DVD. Rewind This! goes further than the discussions of those who fetishise obsolete technologies. Genre celebrities like Frank Henenlotter (whose film Basket Case became a VHS cult), Charles Band and Roy Frumkes discuss how VHS changed the ability to make and distribute films, in an enlightening and nostalgic look back at a now dead technology.
Through the rise and fall of VHS, director Josh Johnson discusses media consumption, zero budget filmmaking, unchecked global piracy and an exploding film industry where everything was possible – developments that laid the foundation for today’s digital culture.
Directed by Josh Johnson
Duration: 93′
Year: 2013
This screening is part of a summer season looking at the way technological changes are shaping the way we document the world and interact with it. See the full programme here.
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