‘Threatened Voices‘ is a new on-line initiative by Global Voices Advocacy to help counter the suppression of free speech on-line.
‘It features a world map and an interactive timeline that help visualize the story of threats and arrests against bloggers worldwide, and it is a central platform to gather information from the most dedicated organisations and activists, including Committee to Protect Bloggers, The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Reporters without Borders, Human Rights Watch, CyberLaw Blog, Amnesty International, Committee to Protect Journalists, Global Voices Advocacy.
The site will attempt to track and map the suppression of bloggers to gather more accurate data on when, where and to what extent threats are taking place and help develop strategies and partnerships to help defend bloggers and on-line activists.
The map is interactive, allowing people to submit reports on individuals, creating a ‘blogger profile’, as well as look at different views. For example click on a country and see the individuals threatened there.
And filter by type of threat. The screen shot below is by ‘arrest,’ and allows you to click on one individual, from where you can find out more info. You need to zoom in on some countries as it gets a bit cluttered and difficult to pick them out (especially on Egypt and China who appear to be in a race of their own to be ‘the world’s worst’! which I guess Egypt leads due to size of population?).
The pages on individuals will be populated by articles about the blogger. It would also be nice to see some of their own articles too. Another addition, which does not appear to be there at present is a ‘Take Action‘ button that takes you to current actions by participating partner NGOs.
Linked to the site are a range of other projects that provide tools and information useful to bloggers and those working for their defence, including the ‘Access Denied‘ map looking at on-line censorship.
All in all it looks like a cracking initiative and a good use of maps to provide info and, hopefully, encourage activism.
Filed under: Campaigning, Graphics | Tagged: censorship, NGO, tools&resources, web
