Six days before the 14th edition of RightsCon – the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age – the host government, Zambia, announced a unilateral postponement. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) had applied diplomatic pressure on Zambian authorities because Taiwanese civil society were planning to attend RightsCon in person. This came amid rising tensions in the region with reported efforts from the PRC to push back against perceived resistance to the One China Principle.

In effect, it took just a few days of foreign interference to unravel a global conference two years in the making, and the cancellation sent shockwaves through the community.

Governments, companies, institutions, and civil society alike reflected on both the immediate impact and the longer-term implications for their work, but beyond the financial losses and missed collaboration, there was – and remains – a deeper concern about the erosion of digital civic space.

Fear and Optimism

Looking back on the origin of the digital rights movement, it is first worth noting that for much of the internet’s early history, the dominant narrative was one of optimism. Digital technologies promised unprecedented access to information and even new forms of civic engagement.  People had wider access to education, could easily comment on public interest matters, found safe spaces for their communities, and were more easily able to organise with like-minded people.

Philanthropy, for its part, supported this vision, investing in civil society organisations seeking to extend civil liberties and democratic principles into a fast-moving technological landscape. Yet as human rights moved online, so did the forces seeking to restrict them.

The same technologies that empowered communities also became new instruments of surveillance, censorship, and political control, and as these shifts intensified globally, philanthropy has been slow to rethink its approach to not just who it funds, but how it funds, and the visibility of its funding in the digital age.

Read the full article about digital civic rights by Bridget Andere and Nikki Gladstone at Alliance Magazine.