Using mobiles for documenting violence: Planning and practicing [tactical activity]

This is a tactical activity for activists intending to use their mobile phones to document violence.

About this learning activity

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This is a tactical activity for activists intending to use their mobile phones to document violence. Participants will practice doing a safety assessment and making a documentation plan. Participants will then work hands-on with their mobile phones to practice documenting using their apps and tools of choice.

Care note: Facilitators, this is a long activity and may take most of a day. Be sure to take breaks as you go through this. Acknowledge that the act of documenting is stressful and encourage your participants to share exercises that they find helpful when they are documenting for example breathing and motion exercises.

This activity has 2 parts:

Part 1: Assess and plan

Participants will first plan their work, assessing safety issues and the wellbeing of those involved and will make safety plans and decisions about managing mobile phones and media based on this assessment.

Part 2: Setup and practice

Following this, participants will practice tactics for documenting violence using mobile phones.

We recommend also using the Deepening discussion about mobiles for documenting violence and tactical Back it up, lock it, delete it.

Learning objectives this activity responds to

Who is this activity for?

Groups who are currently or considering using mobiles to document violence.

Time required

This activity will require about 1 hour 45 min.

Resources needed for this activity

Mechanics

Introduction - 5 minutes

Share some recent examples of movements using mobiles to document violence and ask participants to share examples of how they are using mobiles to document violence or to share documentation. Examples may include: documenting state violence, forwarding videos of violent acts, the implications of having possession of this kind of media.

Part 1: Assess and plan – 30 minutes

Facilitate participants to make small groups based on common situations in which they are documenting violence.

Care note: Facilitators, encourage participants to assess and plan for their own care needs. Documenting acts of violence can be activating and stressful for the documenters. Encourage participants to share how they are self-resourcing, how they are working with other activists to address the impacts of documenting.

see also Back it up, lock it, delete it

Purpose and planning: Discuss the purpose of the documentation

Assessing risks and taking care: Discuss known and likely safety issues for the people documenting and being documented

Know your rights

Preparing your device

Discussion: Why or why not, do you use your personal mobile for documenting violence?

Input

Use information from What is a phone? to explain how mobile phones are linked to the people using them, how identification works with real-time surveillance, how metadata about phone usage and media EXIF data can be used to identify you.

After
Discussion

What else do you want to do after documenting?


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Part 2: Setup and practice - 60 minutes

Depending on the time available, you can do these activities together or break into smaller groups and participants join whichever groups suit their needs the most.

Recording tips and tricks

How to use photo, video, and/or audio recording to document violence

Recording phone calls

Input: This has proven useful for sex workers who were being threatened by authorities.

Using an app

You can install and use an app that allows you to record. This will require data for downloading, data for conducting the call as the app will use data and not the phone line and will take some planning ahead.

Using a recorder

If you are unable to or choose not to use an app for any reason, you could work with another person, using your phone on speakerphone and using a recording device or their phone to record from the call using their phone as a voice recorder. Some phones have a built in voice recording feature.

Screenshots

You can take screenshots of your phone to document textual harassment and violence.

Notice, you will not be able to screenshot all apps. Some apps, like Signal, have a security setting that allows a user to prevent others from screenshotting specific conversations.

Documenting the events for internal records

As an incident is occurring, whether it is brief, long, one time or repeated, it is important to document information about the event. Whereas many of the other tactics are around documentation for public and social sharing, this may be mostly useful as an internal practice. Where is the event occurring, when, who is involved, what is happening. Keeping track of this information can be useful in reconstructing events, assessing and planning responses.

Live Streaming

Adapted from the WITNESS resource: Livestreaming Protests, written for activists in the USA

You are livestreaming at an event like a protest, rally, etc. Definitely use the Planning activities and Prepare activities. This may be a great way to show events that are unfolding and to engage people who are watching in supporting. There are also some elevated risks as there may be police presence and there may be police watching now or later to target activists.

Shareback - 10 minutes

Additional resources


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Revision #8
Created 16 April 2023 04:22:35 by Kira
Updated 28 July 2023 14:51:35 by Kira