Lost (and Found) in Translation: My Experience at RightsCon (Part 1)

From Expression to Listening

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference (a.k.a. RightsCon.org) sponsored by ACCESS -- an advocacy organization that focuses on digital and internet rights.

What immediately struck me about the gathering was its incredible diversity of participants. At one moment, I had the privilege of meeting change agents like Alaa Abd El Fattah (@alaa), the Egyptian blogger and activist who was sadly detained by authorities immediately after his return from the conference. The next moment, I received an extended hand from a senior executive of Facebook seated next to me. The audience was an eclectic mixture of Silicon Valley corporate execs, self-described “hacktivists,” academics and representatives of long-respected human rights organizations.

The conference organizers pulled off an amazing feat by bringing together such a diverse set of actors who don’t normally play in the same sandbox. The mere fact that these individuals were in the same room and sharing their perspectives represented a huge success in and of itself.

Nevertheless, the diversity of participants presented a new set of challenges. Just because attendees shared the same space didn’t necessarily mean that they were speaking the same language or understanding one another. Translation was often necessary. And I don’t mean French to English.

A conference of “traditional” human rights activists would have been much simpler. Activists could speak the language of activism to fellow activists. If we disagreed, we’d at least have the common vocabulary to argue with each other! This conference represented a complex new set of players who had different ways of expressing themselves and operating in the world. While coders talked about technical solutions that went over the head of many (including myself!), the language of policy wonks likely baffled those who had not been steeped in “human rights speak.”

But this was a conference of inclusivity. Organizers carefully orchestrated expression opportunities for all the major constituencies in attendance. Plenary sessions were divided into mini-keynotes with a prominent activist being followed by the corporate counsel of a Silicon Valley giant. Alaa Abd el Fattah was given the space to criticize Vodophone for “hitting the kill switch” on Egyptian protestors while urging companies to proactively stall immoral government directives. Conversely, corporate execs had the opportunity to publicly reaffirm their support for human rights while criticizing other companies that should be doing more.

In this sense, the conference itself mirrored the very issues it was trying to promote -- freedom of expression and the opportunity for all voices to be heard. On this level it was a huge success. The more delicate question, in my mind, is how we begin to move from the realm of expression to the realm of enhanced listening, understanding, and ultimately, action. What would it have been like if these actors had begun a dialogue beyond the mini-keynotes and structured panels in a way that elevated the temperature in the room, but not so much that major stakeholders would flee the next time around?

Nevertheless, Rightscon may have been the right conference at the right time for the right reasons. As a bold first experiment of bringing these actors together, it may have been important from the organizers’ standpoint to provide a forum for diverse expression and to avoid eruptions without creating a holding environment to contain them. But maybe next time organizers will turn the heat up a tad, de-segment the presentation format and provide a space for the conversations to deepen.

In my next post, I’ll focus on the relationship between the technology developers and activists who attended the conference, exploring how we can break down language barriers between the two and create better tech-for-good products in the process.