Trust is more important now than ever before. This spring 2019, WITNESS is changing the story. We will highlight the people and communities that fuel our movement, and show that without trust, in our partnerships and for human rights content, there can be no justice.

Cheryl Morris, Community Team @ VIMEO and WITNESS volunteer, reflected on “who can we trust?” As noted in Cheryl’s blog post:

“I am a young, black, first generation American woman from New York City. Following the indictment of George Zimmerman and the murders of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Akai Gurley by the police, I began to feel extremely weary of authority figures and fearful of any potential interactions between my family and friends with the police. When walking through the city, I found myself anxiously crossing the street whenever I saw an officer, my heart racing and palms sweating. It seemed as if anything people of color did could be construed by the police as dangerous…

My growing anxiety over the documented cases of police violence however, led me to become more involved with the community of grassroots activists here in New York. I found local rallies and demonstrations through the Black Lives Matter movement to take part in, in hopes of effecting some change within our country. I began to speak candidly with friends and acquaintances about the fears that myself and many people who look like me feel on a regular basis. I wanted to make sure that future generations of black and brown people would not have to worry about their safety in the way that my generation and generations before me had. Through these activities, I learned that I had people around me that I could lean on when I felt overwhelmed. Through my community I learned that I didn’t have to live in fear every day. Over the past few years, I’ve grown to learn that I could trust the community that I had built around myself — friends, progressive-thinking people of color, and allies.”

For Mother’s Day 2019, we also created a fundraising campaign to encourage individuals to donate $25 in their mother’s name. With a small donation of $25, WITNESS can help many more activists, human rights defenders, and vulnerable people to defend their human rights online and on the ground. 

WITNESS is building a movement based on trust, truth, and transparency – will you join us? Learn more about and donate to the campaign here.

The program aims to foster participatory and critical thinking on urgent human rights issues, debate with experts and filmmakers from all over the world during the 75th Venice International Film Festival and learn how to use films as a tool for social and cultural change.

Our Senior Attorney and Program Manager Kelly Matheson will conduct a few sessions on how to use video for change, advocacy and evidence for human rights.

Crime & Punishment, winner of Sundance’s special jury award for social impact and executive produced by Laura Poitras, tells the story of the NYPD12, a group of officers suing the department over instituting arrest and summons quotas that target black and brown communities. The film touches on a number of the issues raised in our new Profiling the Police project, including lack of transparency and systemic abuse in the NYPD.

The screening will be followed by a panel conversation featuring Bianca Tylek (Corrections Accountability Project), Albert Saint Jean (Black Alliance for Just Immigration) and Sgt. Edwin Raymond (member of NYPD12). Find more details and RSVP for the event here.

If you can’t make the film on the 23rd, a brief theatrical run begins at the IFC on Aug 24.

In their commemoratory article, they write of WITNESS, “They’ve trained over 7,000 people across 108 countries, reaching 1 million people in the last year with their resources.”

In addition to the donation, Mainframe also plans to “…collaborate with a number of [the organizations] on future projects.” We are excited to continue to spread our message and thank everyone who has helped us continue to seek justice through video.

To read more about WITNESS and Mainframe’s Proof of Heart, click here.

In the video titled, “How Video Can Create a Just Society,” Yvette spoke about the importance of filming injustice and knowing how to handle video and use it for justice.

“There’s a real need to understand how video can help people prove what happened… You have a right to film,” she said.

To watch the video, click here.

This year we’re proposing the panel, “Deepfakes: What Should We Fear, What Can We Do,” led by our Program Director Sam Gregory to discuss questions surrounding deepfakes and synthetic media, how they can be used maliciously, and how we can detect and stop them.

More about the panel:

Sound interesting? Want to hear from WITNESS in Austin? Then please cast your vote for Deepfakes: What Should We Fear, What Can We Do here!

In the article titled, “Business in the Age of Computational Propaganda and Deep Fakes,” Sam spoke about the reality of deep fakes and how WITNESS is working with companies to inform them of the potential of deep fakes to influence people (not only in the political sphere) and on dealing with synthetic media.

“Deliberately polluting the environment to erode trust is a common authoritarian tactic. So we have to guard against it… In human rights, that could mean identifying an audience that you want to target hate speech at… In business, I think about phishing scams in which someone fakes a voice you trust. These are some of the threat models we have been laying out as we try to address the dangers of mis- and disinformation broadly.” Sam said during the interview.

You can access the full interview here.