Le istituzioni locali e il mondo associativo per la costruzione di una rete in materia di cooperazione, cultura di pace, integrazione multietnica, promozione dei diritti umani e della solidarietà fra i popoli.
The YouTube for human rights
“Upload it, see it, share it, take action”: this is the slogan of the Hub, the first global platform collecting evidence from all over the world – video, audio, photo – that denounce abuses and violations of human rights. Everybody can send a material or just watch and comment on it. It is important to be aware of what is going on around us and try to act. >>>
History- The Hub is a rib of more famous “Witness”, launched by Peter Gabriel in 1992, an international organisation born “to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations”. The “Witness”, in cooperation with 250 organisations from more than 80 countries, denounced abuses and violations on-line by means of amateur video. “See it, film it, change it” was the slogan invented by the organisation providing video cameras to numerous activists to make video on tortures in Darfur, HIV/AIDS-ill children, working conditions in China, raids of American policemen.
Without censorship-The Hub is born with the same intent, but by other means and with different participants. Times have changed and now everybody can become an author. If one does not have a video camera, photo camera or mobile phone can be used. What concerns materials, unfortunately, abuses are often under the eyes of many people all over the world. Therefore everyone can make and upload on-line his own video of accusation: there is no censorship and anonymity is guaranteed – even IP-addresses of the computers sending materials won’t be registered. While on the one hand, the richness of the site lies in its absolute openness, on the other hand, it is also true that there is not any kind of control regarding content and it is not possible to completely believe the truth of the videos placed there. The Hub does not take any responsibility for accuracy and authenticity and control is limited to violations of copyright (users are asked to publish videos with the licence of Creative commons).
The videos- However… policemen in Egypt torturing prisoners, war crimes in Afghanistan and Israel, Palestinian and Israeli children snatched from families, collective protests in China suppressed by policemen using unheard violence, “ghost” trains in Argentina, the “secret” war for independence of Papua New Guinea that caused more than 100.000 deaths… All this does not seem to be just a fantasy. Videos can be a short sketch, unclear pictures “stolen” by audio and video means – as in the case of violence committed by policemen – or well-edited films with witnesses and interviews. While on YouTube one can choose a category/tag (“music”, “entertainment” and “people”), on the Hub the choice is among “human rights”, “police”, “torture”, “refugees”, as well as regions of origin. At present the web-site functions in “beta” version, but further it will be possible to form discussion groups, collect petitions, use interactive maps and create a playlist of video and interesting resources. And all this is not only in English, French and Spanish – three languages currently used on the site, but also in Arabic, Chinese and Russian. It is important for everyone to know and participate.
