Rebecca MacKinnon Activists Quotations

There are many cases of activists having their Facebook pages and accounts deactivated at critical times, when they are right in the middle of a campaign or organising a demonstration.

Political activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan use Facebook as their primary tool to mobilize support for their causes and activities.

On March 5, 2011, protesters stormed the Egyptian state security headquarters. In real time, activists shared their discoveries on Twitter as they moved through a building that had until recently been one of the Mubarak regime's largest torture facilities.

Activists from the Middle East to Asia to the former Soviet states have all been telling me that they suffer from increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks.

As in Pakistan, Tunisian and Egyptian human rights activists are concerned that any censorship mechanisms, once put in place, will inevitably be abused for political purposes no matter what censorship proponents claim to the contrary.

Social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter should be urged to adhere to business practices that maximize the safety of activists using their platforms.