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Sam Gregory's Tumblr for exploring the future of human rights activism and researching the 'Mobil-Eyes Us' project. ‘Mobil-Eyes Us’ uses the power of live video to connect you to direct experience of causes you care about, and then provides you meaningful ways you can act by doing what you do best. Contact me at sgregory_at_fellows.iftf.org IMMERSIVE ADVOCACY: Is 'feeling' and 'experiencing' believing? How do we use the power to 'walk in someone's shoes', to see through others' eyes, and to be part of live, interactive immersive witnessing for human rights? + CO-PRESENCE FOR GOOD: How do we use the sense of being together with other people in a remote environment to drive concrete, productive actions, engagement and understanding across borders and timezones? = What's the potential of immersive advocacy and co-present activism to make us do something, say something, act in solidarity with others? And what are the pitfalls of having to be in and/or feel a situation to take action on it? = For example: What if you could ‘walk in the shoes’ of a Syrian human? Or be part of a live protest in Russia against LGBT rights abuses? Or be part of the live video "panic button" team for an activist at risk? How would that transform your understanding and ability to act and how could it be useful to people facing situations of great challenge

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SMART and OKIO REPORT transport you to Jisr al-Shughur, Syria, to experience the tragedy as if you were there. Filmed inside the world's most dangerous war zone with virtual reality technology, the viewer is immersed in the disaster from which so many have fled. See for yourself the living conditions the migrants are escaping.

(via The Battle for Northern Syria - 360° Virtual Reality Report - YouTube)

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(via Could virtual reality revolutionise crisis-response filmmaking ? | Technology | The Guardian) VR to immerse people in the streetscape of Aleppo

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How live video on Periscope helped 'get inside' the Syrian refugees story | Media | The Guardian

Ronzheimer plans to use Periscope for more stories when it’s appropriate, based on the lessons learned during his journey with the Syrian refugees. “It’s not enough simply to do camera shoots. You have to comment on what you see, and always explain why this story is important. And you have to interact a lot with the people, and answer questions and comments,” he says. “For the refugee story, the personalisation is very important, I think. It’s not just showing lots of refugees walking on a road: you can ask them how they feel.

(via How live video on Periscope helped 'get inside' the Syrian refugees story | Media | The Guardian)

On the narrative arc of using Periscope to give insight into a journey - very interesting demonstration of a potential ‘walk in their shoes’ approach and also the importance of the arc of multiple livestreams.

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(via How We Can Use Livestreaming Apps to Promote Justice | WIRED)

From Passive Witnessing to Action: the ‘Mobil-Eyes Us’ vision

For human rights activists and citizen witnesses who Periscope, Meerkat or Bambuser the scene of violations, there are ways to move people from being passive viewers to active witnesses who see something and do something. The key here is to offer actions to viewers that go beyond watching and commenting, and simultaneously to make sure we generate empathy and connection. Within the “Mobil-Eyes Us” project we’ve been exploring how layering tech innovation in smart calendaring and task-routing on top of robust tactics and storytelling with live video enables this.

What if five frontline LGBT activists in a repressive country knew thousands were watching and willing to call their governments if violence happened at a Pride rally? What if “distant witnesses” banded together to identify abusive officers in the suppression of a peaceful protest, and called ahead to police stations to say ‘We know you’ve taken people detained to this station’? What would it be like if the authorities could literally see the number of people watching a livestream via on a counter on the front of a camera? Could that deter violence in a protest?

Beyond the power of the crowd, sometimes all that matters is that one person is watching and supporting. Using the power of smart task-routing we could match a need on the ground with the right person, available then, with a useful skill or expertise: a lawyer to provide legal guidance to a community during a forced eviction or protest, or a video editor available to turn the visceral experience of a livestream into something much more shareable on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube after the fact.

Stay tuned [LIVE] for developments. This is going to be a bumpy ride, but the destination is worth getting to!

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Using live streaming app Periscope the Guardian's Paul Lewis broadcast from Baltimore's riots, observing a community making sense of the chaos. The stream began in the west side of the city, two blocks from the church used hours earlier for the funeral of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old black man whose death in police custody sparked the riots. Paul travels from the west side of the city, near the epicentre of the violence, to the east, capturing the reactions of local residents along the way. He interviews two men who protected the battered owners of a looted liquor store, but has to cut short the broadcast when confronted by looters who did not want to be filmed. Later, he joins Pastor Donte Hickman as he discovers his church's $16 community housing project in flames. "This is not the justice we seek," he says. "This is chaos and confusion." Paul ends on the corner of a ransacked street, talking to Cynthia Brooks, the heartbroken owner of a nearby homeless shelter.

(via The Baltimore riots: the night on Periscope - video | US news | The Guardian)

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(via The Stars Finally Align for Mobile Live Streaming — Medium) A good overview of the evolving market of livestreaming. 

Why now: 

- Apple used to block live video, but now smartphone caable of doing especially with LTE

- “Smartphones provide all the critical pieces for these new services. They take care of distribution through the app store, monetization through in-app purchases, incredible video quality through cameras and microphones, and connectivity everywhere with LTE internet.

- Plummeting costs of data, mobile access up up

- Most live video on YouNow is via mobile; and is by young people - an always-connected, often-recorded generation

- A combination of technological advances, youthful adoption, and familiarity with live video has allowed a new form of social networking to emerge.

- Another trend is evident here as all social media interactions move to real time. As people are “always” connected the communication form becomes more immediate and frictionless. Photo sharing and text became more real-time with Instagram and messaging apps, now video is becoming real time as well.

The Market is Growing Up:

“The technology is not new — people used sites like Livestream and Ustream to broadcast during protests in Ferguson and elsewhere — but these new apps help to incorporate live streaming into the existing social media landscape, potentially bringing it to a much larger audience.” –Slate

Other participants:

Ustream has shifted from their initial strategy to target the live streaming market for enterprise customers. The firm has also recently opened up their API allowing ‘anyone’ to build their own live broadcasting app. Ustream also powers ‘Facebook Live’, a collaboration from 2012.

Livestream, a company headquartered in Brooklyn, targets media and entertainment with their “broadcaster mini” adapter which gives professional HD cameras live broadcasting abilities.

Chosen recently launched an app that further gamifies the social live streaming experience, acting as a platform for an American Idol-like performance competition.

Snapchat’s success has acted as evidence towards social networking’s evolution into mobile, real-time, and video-based interaction. While Snapchat’s primary function exists via one-to-one communication, their location and event-focused stories offer a glimpse into the future of contextually relevant social video. 

Yahoo Screen recently released ‘Live Events’.

Facebook, although not a platform centered around live media, has tinkered with live streaming since 2009 ..BUT... Facebook focus is on increasing the consumption of pre-recorded videos. 30% of Facebook’s users are a slightly older demographic (compared to lives streaming) of 25–34 year old who spend 20 minutes on average per visit [11]. Their video consumption habits are all about browsing through the platform when they have time. For these users, time and convenience is paramount. 

YouTube has been unsuccessfully attempting to enter into livestreaming video since 2010. This, and the constant pressure from Facebook to replace YouTube, pushes YouTube to make a radical moves: getting a younger audience hooked up before Facebook gets them, generating live content that can then be recorded and shared indefinitely on the platform, and lastly, helping generate more meaningful revenues. 

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(via DeGuarda) Meu Rio’s De Guarda project provides online ‘watching’ opportunities for public to monitor at-risk sites - an inspiration for co-present work

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In December 2012, the teachers at the Friedenreich primary school got wind that their whole site was going to be bulldozed to make way for a soccer stadium car park. There was no consultation process, no vote in public, and no plan for the children. But without a demolition date, the parents didn't know how to get their protest together in time. Then Meu Rio received this letter: "My name is Beatriz Ehlers, I'm 11, and when I grow up I want to be an architect... I love my school! It was here that I learned to read, write and respect other people. We urge all people of Rio to help us to keep our school from being demolished." They "popcorned in" as they call it, and created the "On Guard" tool. They wired up a series of webcams covering the school gates, and rotated activists to watch the feed 24/7. Any sign of bulldozers, and the Guardian on watch was one click away from mobilising 1,500 campaigners to block their way. Together with off-line protests and media coverage, the mayor reversed the decision.

A Brazilian app gives power to the people | ZDNet

An inspiring example of using a co-present crowd to prevent an eviction.

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(via The revolution might be televised, but most protests won't be | ISHR)

Maina Kiai highlights that big protests get the headlines but smaller protests are forgotten: 

“2014 is shaping up to be the year of the protest, with the headlines dominated by stories of mass demonstrations in Ukraine, Venezuela and elsewhere. The extensive coverage of mass citizen movements is a good thing, but the tendency to focus on large events does leave part of the story untold.

Scores of smaller protests take place across the world each day. Few of them have revolutionary aims. Rather, they tend to be staged by people at the margins of society: the excluded, the disfavored, people whose voices have not been heard through more conventional means. Their aims are typically modest. They resort to protesting because they have to. The rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association are often their last recourse.”

It’s precisely these types of protests that lend themselves to a co-present approach to bring in additional people who share the cause but are not physically there.

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(via Spain puts 'gag' on freedom of expression as senate approves security law | World news | The Guardian)

“As the legislation also includes fines of up to 30,000 euros for disseminating images of police officers “that would endanger their safety or that of protected areas or put the success of an operation at risk”, the proposed laws have evoked fears of self-censorship among some journalists, said Susana Sanz Guardo. An activist who often live-streams protests, focusing on interactions between police and protesters, she said the legislation would result in a “total block of the type of journalism I do”. The ultimate result, she said would be diminished accountability of law enforcement officers for their actions during protests.”

As part of the push-back on civil society worldwide livestreamers particularly at risk where laws push back on the right to record.

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(via A live stream of sexist comments? - BBC News)

A risk to be managed in any live platform - trolls; here the risks of sexism amid the hearts.

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(via YouTube Is the Sleeping Giant of Livestreaming | WIRED) YouTube is starting to experiment with live beyond just big events like the Red Bull Stratos jump - direct-to-live buttons on upcoming phones, and drawing on its power to be a DVR as well as a live broadcaster (so you can see what happened before you joined the broadcast)

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Ubiquitous video + push alerts + vertical video + immediate interactivity: the new gen of live

Livestation is an aggregator of live user-generated content from around the globe. Its CEO Lippe Oosterhof explains that, while the technology for livestreaming has been around for about ten years, the technology has only just matured to the point where it's becoming widespread: "This idea of broadcasting live from a mobile device has been around for ten years. [But now with] push alerts, you know instantly when someone is live. Another reason is the capability of the devices coupled with the ubiquity of the 4G networks." Additionally, he argues, the livestreaming apps that existed prior to Meerkat and Periscope missed something fundamental about how people use their smartphones, something that Snapchat was the first to zone in on: "There’s a big distinction between Periscope and Meerkat and the other apps that never got to be mainstream successful. That’s vertical [video]. Everyone missed the point; that’s how people hold their devices."  But more than anything, he says, those other apps lacked the most vital reason for why people are choosing to use livestreaming apps - they allow immediate interactivity between the broadcaster and their audience: "This content is interactive. The livestreaming element is just an enabler. All the other apps were not able to do that.

(via The oncoming storm of copyright claims over livestreams)

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(via Periscope, by the Numbers — Medium) Periscope hits 10 million users (and 40 years of video watched  a day)... though live is still only so far 3% of video market

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YY, and interaction with amateur singers via livestream - with virtual and real gifting (//s to giving to people who eat on camera, another livestream phenomenon).

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Social Media and Stress | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

Social media and stress research that looks at how awareness of stressful events in others lives (experienced via social media) increases stress on us aka 'the cost of caring'. Research relevant to thinking about how when we use ambient co-presence and live copresence there will be stresses created on the remote participants. "Overall, frequent internet and social media users do not have higher levels of stress. In fact, for women, the opposite is true for at least some digital technologies. Holding other factors constant, women who use Twitter, email and cellphone picture sharing report lower levels of stress. At the same time, the data show there are circumstances under which the social use of digital technology increases awareness of stressful events in the lives of others. Especially for women, this greater awareness is tied to higher levels of stress and it has been called “the cost of caring.” Stress is not associated with the frequency of people’s technology use, or even how many friends users have on social media platforms. But there is one way that people’s use of digital technology can be linked to stress: Those users who feel more stress are those whose use of digital tech is tied to higher levels of awareness of stressful events in others’ lives. This finding about “the cost of caring” adds to the evidence that stress is contagious."

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Excellent Fusion article looking at the issues of video visitation - copresence in prisons. Good for grappling with visits across distance but what about surveillance, costs, and the possibility that it get phased in instead of actual visits (like it or not).