This year’s RightsCon took place in Taipei, Taiwan, in the shadow of new threats to freedom of expression and human rights.
The recent U.S. foreign aid freeze, aligned with the ‘America First’ policy, has created a global vacuum that authoritarian regimes like China, Iran, and Cuba are exploiting, and will continue to exploit, to suppress freedom of speech and transparency.
Despite the financial uncertainty and severe impact on civil society globally, the digital rights community showed resilience and solidarity in addressing these concerns.
ARTICLE 19 had already planned to participate in RightsCon in Taipei before the funding freeze, and we welcomed the opportunity to join with colleagues and partners at the world's largest gathering of civil society and other stakeholders working on digital rights. We joined the Committee to Protect Journalists, Doublethink Lab, the Internet Freedom Foundation, Beam Reports, Digital Security Lab Ukraine, and many others to discuss, interrogate, and reflect on some of the major fault-lines in free expression today.
Transnational repression, freedom of expression in times of conflict, information integrity, digital attacks, including doxxing, surveillance, and gender-based harassment, were all under the microscope.
Here is what we learned:
– Modern conflicts are increasingly characterised by comprehensive attempts to censor and violate people’s right to free expression and access to information – which are pivotal to life-saving humanitarian aid.
– China’s ongoing export of its digital authoritarianism playbook across the world, its attack on rights in Hong Kong, and its silencing of dissidents outside the country must be challenged. The digital rights community must work together, and push for greater commitments from tech companies to prevent them becoming willing servants and accomplices of repressive regimes.
– Across the world, speech is being weaponised to manipulate narratives and fuel hostility. Civil society must protect information integrity through smart collaboration built on trust, transparency, and legal safeguards. Together, we integrate security, education, and digital policies to build resilience against disinformation.
We are are not about to give up. The conversations and connections that began in Taipei will guide us as we look to strengthen solidarity, forge new pathways, and collectively resist the global attack on our rights and freedoms.
