Civil Rights Defenders - Stakeholders

An Expert Organisation for Human Rights. CRD partners with and supports human rights defenders who work in some of the world’s most repressive regions on four continents.

Through advocacy, litigation, and public campaigns, CRD advances people’s rights globally. The organisation also acts as Sweden’s watchdog civil rights group.

Every year, CRD has The Civil Rights Defender of the Year Award, an award for outstanding work in defence of civil and political rights, to recognise a prominent human rights defender who, despite the risk to their own safety, continues the struggle for civil and political rights.
The award highlights the situation of human rights defenders at risk. It enhances their human rights work by providing international recognition and support to the organisation represented by the award recipient. The award recipient is a person who carries out their work without the use of violence and within an independent human rights organisation or network.

Among the support activities, there are security training, emergency support, expertise, organisational development, and long-term financial support.

CRD also brings together its partners so they can exchange experiences, as well as learn from and inspire each other.

Oxford Internet Institute - Stakeholders

The Oxford Internet Institute is a multidisciplinary research and teaching department of the University of Oxford, dedicated to the social science of the Internet. The institute's activities are developed through research, teaching and policy.

Media Literacy Institute - Stakeholders

MEDIA LITERACY INSTITUTE (MLI) is a non-profit organization founded in 2017 in Greece. Its aim is to promote and disseminate the concepts of Media and Information Literacy in Greece, Europe and internationally. Media and Information Literacy aims at the critical perception, use and creation of knowledge and information οn any traditional or modern communication medium, and requires the acquisition of cognitive, functional, technical and communication skills, as well as the capabilities of using modern means of communication. The mission of the Institute is to inform the Greek public about the conceptual, theoretical, regulatory and practical framework in which MIL concepts are developed. Its goal is to mobilize citizens and to provide them with opportunities to access the relevant information, skills, tools and means and to engage in appropriate activities to become media literate.

MLI supports the idea that democracy requires well-informed citizens and that Media and News Literacy are among the most important ways to combat bias and hate speech online, to promote the fundamental right of citizens to be self-aware when they interact with the media, to learn how to cross check resources, to develop skills of inquiry when investigating the resources, creators and purposes of any content, so that readers can distinguish reliable information from “fake news”, personal opinions, prejudices or propaganda.

MEDIA LITERACY INSTITUTE focuses on printed and online content such as social media, mass media, all kinds of public and frequently used communication platforms, as well as various online and offline sources. In this context, MLI emphasizes that modern active citizens of all ages need to develop the habits of curiosity,  research and creative questioning along with suitable expression skills, to cultivate the necessary critical thinking in getting information from any source, and to acquire the knowledge on how to create and use multimedia messages.

Tow Center for Digital Journalism - Stakeholders

The Tow Center for Digital Journalism is an institute within the Columbia Journalism School. It was established in 2010 to explore how the development of technology is changing journalism. A multi-year research project on "Platforms and Publishers" is being carried out. 

Electronic Frontier Foundation - Stakeholders

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in the US, aiming to defend civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. It works to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as people's use of technology grows.

Universität Wien (University of Vienna) - Stakeholders

The Media Governance and Industries Research Lab of the University of Vienna studies the processes of and challenges posed by governance of communication processes and the media in relation to Democracy, Citizenship and Human Rights. Its work is both theory and practice driven and it aims to bridge academic systematic enquiry and theory together with applicability and solution driven research. 

Union of Bulgarian Journalists (UBJ) - Stakeholders

The Union of  Bulgarian Journalists (UBJ) is the largest journalists' organization in Bulgaria. It is a voluntary association of 4500 journalists from all over the country who want to protect their own professional, social and trade union rights and interests. The main goals of UBJ are as follows: the promotion of professional journalism in the Bulgarian society; the adherence to professional standards and ethics; the protection of media freedom and independent press; the expression of the common interests of Bulgarian journalists to public authorities; the development of international cooperation in the field of professional journalism.

Center for Information and Bubble Studies (CIBS) - Stakeholders

Located at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen, the Center for Information and Bubble Studies  (CIBS) was opened in 2016 by professor Vincent Hendricks . It is an interdisciplinary center that looks at mathematics, economics and logic as well as philosophy, information theory, social psychology and behavioral studies. The CIBS aims to examine the mathematical structure and dynamics of the "bubble phenomena", trying to answer questions such as "what do you do with these bubbles once they are there? Could you intervene? Are there good bubbles or malignant bubbles or are all bubbles malignant and some benign?". The CIBS was endowed in 2015 by a grant from the Carlsberg Foundation, which runs for a 5 year period.

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) - Stakeholders

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is the world's largest organisation of journalists. First established as the Fédération Internationale des Journalistes (FIJ) in 1926 in Paris, it was relaunched as the International Organization of Journalists (IOJ) in 1946 but lost its Western members to the Cold War and re-emerged in its present form in 1952 in Brussels. Today the Federation represents around 600,000 members in 140 countries.

IFJ promotes international action to defend press freedom and social justice through strong, free and independent trade unions of journalists. Its Safety Programme includes casework, protests, campaigns, information and production of various publications. The Safety Fund, established in 1992, is an integral part of this programme that provides immediate financial relief to journalists in financial straits as a result of work-related reasons, such as:

• Forced exile due to threats at home
• Litigation
• Medical Expenses
• Travel costs

The request for assistance has to be submitted either to the IFJ regional offices in the applicant’s region or directly to the IFJ Human Rights and Communications Officer in Brussels.

Blueprint for Free Speech - Stakeholders

Based in Australia but with offices throughout the world, Blueprint for Free Speech is a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving freedom of expression as described by the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Among various activities, it provides a free library of research and analysis about freedom of expression laws around the globe.