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Tools for Mobile Activists
The presentation-lite slides from last week's Global Philanthropy Forum panel on Early Warning: Listening, Technology, Activism can be downloaded from here (PowerPoint, 2MB).
To recap the framing discussion: that for many the mobile phone is their primary video/photo/audio capturing and sharing device and as such their skills surpass what you might expect. The photo below from the streets of Cairo shows a screen shot from a mobile phone movie that re-created scenes from the Godfather shot and edited entirely on the mobile phone (the gent in the photo isn't an activist just someone whose mobile phone editing skills are highly evolved, and yeah the pixelation is just to maintain a degree privacy); that a person's understanding of what happens when they use mobile technology can be significantly out of sync with what actually happens - something that system designers sometimes refer to as the user's mental model. It doesn't necessarily matter that the mental model differs from how it actually works - but it can quickly become an issue if that person is trying to try out new features, recover from an error or say, wants to stay one step ahead of the authorities. Examples from both ends of the spectrum of understanding: Ken Banks talking about activists in Pakistan using Frontline SMS whilst riding around the city in a truck to reduce the risk of detection by base-station triangulation, to an interviewee in Tehran (but could equally be an example from my/your country) assuming that a voice mail message stored on the phone's memory was out of reach of prying government ears - never mind that the message originally passed over the network which may be monitored. The spread of tools that can capture experiences means that more people are in a position to document and publish (human rights) abuses - including many ad-hoc activists who wont be aware that of the relative ease of tracing communication - and this in a world before the widespread adoption of geo-tagged photos.
But why use a photo of a street signs in Tehran as an example of mental models? Explanation here.
The three things on the device that will impact the spread of activist material in emerging markets and beyond: lower device cost's are broadening the base of who can afford a feature rich mobile phone - putting more people in a position to capture and communicate what they see and hear; memory prices are rapidly dropping and sufficiently-large-for-storing-media memory capacity will filter down into the lowest cost handsets increasing the range of what is stored and the ability to communicate via the sneaker net - photos and video passed from hand to hand, rather than say sent over the network; and mobile phones equipped with TV Out e.g. N82 will leverage existing big-screen infrastructure and practices. I'm less sure of this last one - but included because most people aren't aware of the feature.
After the session Gigi Brisson asked a smart question about the likely strategies for staying one step ahead of whomever is trying to snoop - the simplest is single or limited use communication tools e.g. using one SIM/phone used for a single conversation before disposing of it. Whether this is affective assumes other factors such as buying from different sources, varying the location from which the communication is carried out, encrypting what is communicated and so on and on. Even though countries like Japan or India are supposed to register pre-paid SIM card consumers at point of purchase there are enough lost, stolen or hacked SIM cards/phones to create a steady supply. NGO's looking for a comprehensive solution should start with Benetech and in particular Martus - with thanks James Fruchterman for the pointer.
Back to the panel - ta to Mitul Shah for hosting, and Mark Smolinski, Erik Hersman and of course the attendees for making it the first panel I've actually enjoyed. Photos in the slides from Accra, Ayni, Cairo, Delhi, Seoul and Tehran.
Writing from Tokyo | April 15, 2008 | Permalink