In an increasingly connected world, human rights are inseparably intertwined with technology. Individuals and organizations working for social justice must mitigate technology’s grave harms, but also harness technology to strengthen their work.

It’s a thorny paradox. For example, human rights workers face surveillance, harassment, censorship, and disinformation that undermines their work and threatens their lives. Governments and corporations abuse digital technology to surveil human rights defenders in Mexico, political dissidents in Argentina, and environmental activists in Brazil. And disinformation campaigns waged across digital platforms have undermined democratic processes in Colombia, Kenya, and the United States.

Yet technology can also be a powerful shield and tool for human rights workers. For example, Brazil’s Internet Lab in 2018 helped advance protections that criminalize the non-consensual recording and distribution of intimate images, a form of online violence that disproportionately harms women. Technology played a vital role in this victory, from online organizing to an online tool that helps victims understand the resources and remedies available to them.

Amid this paradox, many civil society organizations protecting human rights de-prioritize technology in their work. This is largely due to a dearth of capacity: These organizations can lack technical access, funding, or skills. This lack of capacity is especially dire in the Global South, where technology is actively being used to curtail civic engagement, infringe on human rights, and cloud public opinion. Thus essential civil society organizations can’t protect themselves, scale their efforts, or strategically harness technology.

The reality is, civil society organizations and human rights defenders cannot carry out their missions without technological expertise. They need interdisciplinary public interest technologists who understand both human rights and the complex regional dynamics they are operating within. Yet the pipeline for such experts has been lacking.

The above case studies illustrate how vital it is for civil society and public interest technologists to work in tandem. For our funder-colleagues supporting similar work, we want to share the following five lessons from this fellowship, which may serve as a model:

  1. Interdisciplinary expertise is crucial. 
  2. Regional context matters. 
  3. Organizations must fully understand how digital technologies are used as a form of violence. 
  4. Intersectional feminist approaches are vital. 
  5. Networks strengthen civil society across the board. 

Read the full article about public interest technology by Alberto Cerda Silva, Amy Schapiro Raikar and Roselyn Odoyo at Stanford Social Innovation Review.