Taking Action
Side Quests
These three side quests will give you an eye-opening look at some specific issues relating to digital surveillance, privacy, and censorship. This will give you further insight into some of the serious challenges and even threats faced by people around the world when they go online. Enjoy the quests, but don’t forget to come back and finish up this lesson.
Life as a Hacker
In this short anonymous interview, a white hat hacker, discusses his decades of experience as a cybersecurity specialist. White hat hackers, or ethical hackers, help expose the vulnerability of digital systems before malicious actors do.
He makes it very clear how easy it is to access sensitive data and systems, ranging from personal data to entire medical facilities.
(Source: VICE, a privately owned Canadian-American digital media company.)
Great Firewall of China
In China the web is far from “world wide.” With tight government control, censorship laws and surveillance, the Chinese internet is highly restricted.
Many hugely popular platforms, like Google and Facebook, are blocked in China, and their alternatives are closely monitored.
(Source: South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based newspaper and website owned by the Alibaba Group. The SCMP website is blocked in mainland China.)
What is Privacy?
This short explainer gives you the big picture on privacy and why it’s important. In short, privacy allows people to create spaces to protect human rights, challenge the threats to democracy, and communicate free from surveillance.
Often, digital privacy and related laws are not very well understood, putting everyone at risk of losing this invaluable right.
(Source: Privacy International, is a registered charity based in London.)
Tools You Can Use
Learning how digital devices and platforms can be used for surveillance and censorship is a great first step. You’re here, however, because you want to see real change. Here are some advocacy tips and tools that you can adapt for your context, or use to grow your network of people and organizations working to protect your privacy online.
Are you guilty of using the same old password for nearly everything everywhere? That’s a big risk! But there are easier ways to protect your privacy than memorizing new passwords for every account and device. Password managers, like Bitwarden, can make things simple for you and generate strong – and unique – passwords for online shopping, social media accounts, and more.
(Source: Bitwarden is a highly-rated, privately owned password manager based in the United States and compliant with local and European data protection laws.)
Remove Your Data from the Internet
Your digital footprint includes information sent to contact forms, browsing history, social media accounts, and data collected by your phone and other smart devices. Many of us have spent 30 years or more online and our trail of data is massive. Here is a step-by-step explainer to finding and deleting your data from the internet.
(Source: Incogni provides services to remove your data from data brokers. It is owned by Surfshark, a VPN provider.)
This article from Wired magazine, outlines the steps you can take to advocate for data privacy in your communities. While based on the United States context, it also points to several international organizations and identify strategies that can be used in other contexts.
(Source: Wired is an online and print magazine owned by Condé Nast. It covers technology-related topics.)
Congratulations
You’ve done it! This is the last section on surveillance, censorship, and privacy.
You have looked at the scope of digital surveillance and censorship around the world, learned more about why privacy is important for digital justice, and know what steps to take to protect yourself online.
Click the button below to finish this session of Just Digital and continue to the final session on ecological justice.