ICODR podcast: Sanjana Hattotuwa on technology, disinformation, and peace

Screenshot The ICODR Podcast, from the International Council for Online Dispute Resolution (icodr.org), covers the rapidly growing field of online dispute resolution. Hosted by Ian Macduff, the podcast interviews ODR experts from around the world to discuss the latest developments in the field, with an eye to ethics, culture, security, and impartiality. I joined the …

Sri Lanka’s 2022 Aragalaya studied through social media lenses

Delivered a lecture on 6 March 2023 over a Twitter Space, moderated by Priyanga Hettiarachi, on my study of Sri Lanka's Aragalaya over 2022. Download the complete slidedeck here or as a PDF here. You'll need to have the Powerpoint open to follow along with the lecture. Note that the Powerpoint version has video, and …

Making Facebook’s New Human Rights Policy Real

This article was originally published on the website of Institute for Human Rights and Business. ### The world’s biggest social media platform, Facebook, recently unveiled its human rights policy. It is a step in the right direction. But declaring a policy is one thing; implementing it is quite another. In a recent podcast with the Institute for Human Rights …

The Christchurch massacre and social media: Lessons learnt and unlearnt

Image courtesy Guardian As part of the New Ec(h)o systems: Democracy in the age of social media, Paul Ash, the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Cyber and Digital and Cyber Coordinator at Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet joined Special Advisor Sanjana Hattotuwa in a session titled 'The Christchurch massacre and social …

Video of session: Information disorder & conflict – The humanitarian dimension

What are "information disorders"? What impact do they have on conflict and other situations of violence? And how can humanitarians better understand them and mitigate their negative effects? Special Advisor of the ICT4Peace Foundation, Sanjana Hattotuwa, took part in a panel discussion on the impact of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech in the humanitarian sector. …

Groupthink: Are we collectively ruining democracy?

Invited by Transparency International New Zealand, I gave a presentation titled 'Demons in our demos' for a Zoom gathering held on 29 July 2020, hosted by the University of Wellington as part of their leadership week. PDF of event description here. Are we collectively ruining democracy? Polarisation of thought and belief seems to be on …

UPDATED: President, PM, Parliament, MFA, Cabinet, Central Bank & News.lk: Google Custom Search Engine

Updated the Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) for official government websites I first created in November 2016. Access latest version here. Queries can be in Tamil, Sinhala or English. Deleted sites indexing former President Maithripala Sirisena & PM Ranil Wickremesinghe. Added the following websites to the CSE, http://www.mahindarajapaksa.lk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahinda_Rajapaksa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajapaksa_family https://twitter.com/PresRajapaksa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotabaya_Rajapaksa https://twitter.com/GotabayaR https://gota.lk/ Sites …

Facebook’s Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) on Sri Lanka: Some brief thoughts

First reading Facebook released the company's Human Rights Impact Assessment for Sri Lanka today. At the time of writing, Joshua Brustein writing for Bloomberg has one of the first takes on the report, highlighting Facebook's apology for its role in Sri Lanka's violence. Commissioned by Facebook, the report was conducted and written by Article One. …

When a law is not the answer

Wonderful news said all the Sri Lankans. But why Queensland, all the Australians asked. Fifteen years ago, a Rotary World Peace Fellowship award offered seven universities around the world to undertake a Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies. I chose the University of Bradford. I was awarded a place at the University of Queensland, in …

Digital Blooms | Article for LMD, January 2019

Witnessing a constitutional crisis through social media Of the many frames of reference readers may employ to help comprehend the extraordinary developments in Sri Lanka after the 26th of October, I doubt images of flowers in bloom or flower beds would immediately spring to mind. And yet, this is how I see Sri Lanka, or …