The Longest Internet Shutdown In History with Jarrell Giday -Jerusaliem Gebreziabher- Michael Abraha

all right so this uh talk is about Tigre Tigger internet freedom and the idea that places around the world that are that house oppressed peoples should be making an argument and should be collectively moving forward together under the guide under the banner of Internet is a human rights access to Internet is a human rights and we all take this for granted but we will now show you the reality of what it looks like when you live in a world where internet is not considered a human right so the longest internet shutdown in history just got done actually it's just now getting done it's not really actually over but it happened in Northern Ethiopia in tigray tigurai is a very old very very um proud community in Northern Ethiopia it's about 22 000 square miles and it is um the northernmost region of the country of Ethiopia I could tell you everything you need to know about it but I'm just going to let this video do that sound yo you got sound of course you've got to change your sound settings oh my God classic all right let's pretend like that didn't happen all right so when a central Authority has the ability to deny Millions their right to the global stage that Authority is now free to abandon all Humanity I think that we like to pretend like human rights is something that just exists and that people are going to try their hardest to uh uphold but it's actually the systems of checks and balances that that flag human rights abuses that keep these types of systems uh in in check um I'll just let this do its thing Ethiopia we're a two-week warning that a full-scale humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Ethiopia where a two-week conflict in tigray is threatening to descend into Civil War Focus to another big story of the hour an airstrike in a busy Marketplace killed 43 and wounded several people in Ethiopia's water on Tigre the conflict in November 2020 authorities have weaponized internet and telecommunication shutdowns to control information center populations and cover up atrocities including masculines and sexual violence against women and girls the blackout is endangering lives fueling violence and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis the world should know what's happening in Tigre frustration over the Tigre war is now growing days after the United States announced financial and visa restrictions on Ethiopian and Eritrean officials Africa correspondent Leila Nathan's report contains images that some will find very disturbing they're out of their respect for the media I am doing a disservice to my people that I am remember a person who justifying the genocide and the killing of the great people able to grind people because there is no no proof of genocide of ethnic cleansing um like she said there may be some atrocities because of in war when there's things may happen we can investigate that that's not an issue we can learn to that but when you have a fishing Expedition when somebody's just acting okay turn it down so they can come attack so let's do it the right way you just heard a couple people in this video and they are essentially saying there's no evidence of genocide Integra there's no evidence of human atrocities there's no evidence of a weaponized rape there's no evidence of mass killings Mass Graves that is literally genocide denial and it's kept in place by the fact that there was no ability for tigraines to tell anyone about what was happening there was no ability for someone to take a photo and upload it and this was a purposeful campaign kept in place and learned by from watching Syria itself uh shut down the internet a few years ago and they learned that they could do the same thing and it was wildly more successful in certain ways so um yep so who are we we are to Ryan's in web3 we are probably some of the only ones and we're actively working to make sure that that's not you know we're not the last uh why are we here well our mission is to ensure Tigra is never hidden from the world again and what does that really look like what is what does it mean when we're trying to make sure the world's not hiding us well in November of Justice last year and let's offer let's like realize that the tigray war is from 2020 through the start of 2023. so in November just a few months ago the entire world went to Arizona for the UN internet governance Forum Addis Ababa the capital city of Ethiopia and it's this event is designed to highlight open internet policies in the developing world it's supposed to make everybody feel good they're like hey we had a few companies donate a few hundred million dollars we're getting internet to these people and shouldn't we all feel good about ourselves now keep in mind now that pat on the back conversation was happening inside the capital city of a country that was completely shutting off internet to 7 million of its citizens just north of that little funny fancy conference that a bunch of European and American and private sector people were at they knew everything knew about it entirely they knew everything was going on they knew that there was a starvation of 7 million the idea for the West is that Ethiopia needs to stay unified that is the biggest concern for the west and for Global Powers it's a concern for many other countries as well they're like we need to keep them unified and I will now explain to you why internet access as a human right is one of the biggest like the biggest bargaining ships that the West is just leaving on the table when dealing with operating sanctions and creating actual human rights stability in multiple parts of the world because this is what it looks like when we're not there oh bro can you show the sound back up thank you all very much this is the igf conference in Addis Ababa this is why we're here what is the timeline to reconnect to Grass this is his ladies and gentlemen Ethiopia has been hugely to have had you this is for this important gathering this important World Gathering of the world of the internet and digital technology thank you all very much for having me here with us history we would say all right so because such this situation that's happening here is the closing ceremonies of that exact conference that was shut down to tag Ryan's and was honestly even if you all had visited there they would have taken your phones upon entering the building this was incredibly locked down events we managed to hack into their Zoom accounts and we managed to uh do what needed to be done to be convince them that we were European translators for diplomats however it was done with the entire intent of entering these conversations taking over the mic and completely just asking the question that no reporter was willing to ask ask the question that no politician was willing to even approach with the Prime Minister crime Minister ABI Ahmed so we decided to go ahead and get involved turned off the [ __ ] mute and said what is the timeline to reconnect to dry the person who did that remains unnamed but you know it's something we probably can't tell everyone their name um so what does that look like in the future well the weaponization of Internet looks like this we need to pause what the f is multi-ethnic federalism because that's what Ethiopia is before we get into this I don't want to like overwhelm you guys I can see like there's a glaze that comes over here like I have to learn more proper nouns about African people I cannot handle that here's the deal multi-ethnic Federalism is exactly what a lot of Western countries have actually already implemented multi-ethnic federalism oh why you gotta be like this bro other one try a different USB you know why it's giving you these that's just my life give me the juice hey all right let's be honest this is probably the most technical difficulty anybody's gonna have and it's probably because this content is actually worth listening to um so what the hell is multi-ethnic federalism all of you guys have already experienced it Ethiopia is the original EU that's like plain and simple this is a country that has been around a lot longer than um most most other countries uh so what is happening to tigray is exactly like if France's entire infrastructure was suddenly shut down by the rest of the EU and not even the rest of the EU by if like the chairman director of the EU decided arbitrarily that France has kind of been you know they [ __ ] around they're going to find out and that is what's happening here so it's not like oh these tribes are at tribal Warfare a lot of people like to just dismiss African situations because it's Tribal Warfare or they can't identify with it it's literally the EU and it's just way older version of it okay so when we say internet as a human right or there are no rights it's because there are places in the world where infrastructure as a whole is quite centralized and this is never going to change unless there's actual pressure from outside parties third parties interested in developing within those Nations making a standard call saying hey this centralized internet infrastructure actually isn't going to work because we protect human rights so what does that actually look like well the real problem I'm sure a quote you guys have all seen before uh it's been used many times in a lot of different versions of things but the real problem with humanity is the following we have Paleolithic emotions medieval institutions and Godlike technology it is terrifically dangerous and is now approaching a point of Crisis overall well the issue here is that cigarette is past the point of crisis when we have a centralized government that has completely locked us out it looks like this Ethiopia's telecommunications banking system and power grid utilities that serve 117 million people are entirely centralized to the capital city of Addis Ababa prime minister Avi Ahmed can flip off the lights and internet whenever he wants and he did in on November 4th 2020 he flipped the switch and decided that realistically the tagaro people were not his his biggest concern they were causing political uh unrest for him he decided it'd be easier to completely erase seven million people's digital footprint completely cut them off from the entire world and cut off their family's ability to connect with them and talk to them so for the last two and a half years there are millions of people around the world who have not been able to talk to anyone in their family a single member of their family and have no idea whether or not they are still alive inside of tigray that is the reality of what weaponized internet looks like so let's go beyond internet now we kind of understand sure centralized infrastructure is really not the greatest thing for freedom of speech for human rights to be maintained and you know uh upheld but there's actually a really interesting new use of crypto that actually lends crypto to as a tool of genocide and what I mean by that a lot of you are like wait what the hell how can crypto be a tool of genocide reality is it actually can because in 2016 and 2017 when all of us were saying [ __ ] like Bank the young Banks and we should do that we should really like help out all these people around the world what actually happens and I have confirmation of this from multiple layer one communities I will not be naming things obviously was that everybody wanted users you all we all wanted users and what do we do we want to have a lot of clout we want to get clout because of the user base that we've managed to acquire so what's everybody doing everybody's trying to get contracts from the UN from the world food program they're trying to have them build little programs on their on their blockchain so what happens when they want to do that well they control how it's built because we want their money and their clout and their reach and we want to prove to all the other crypto projects that we're gonna be the one that makes it but this one's going to do it well this is like what's been built on multiple layer ones with multiple ngos and it's basically a bio tracking that's also used uh to create stipend payouts so that refugees can buy things well this sounds good and we're all like like yeah wow look at that crypto helping people it's doing the dance this is what we got here for definitely not that is super not What's Happening Here the architecture of this type and distribution is dependent on decentralized payment rails sure being paired with a centralized database of identity database that is the reality of it and they're selling this to everyone saying this is a privacy preserving way of Distributing money to refugees and migrant populations they're claiming that this is going to somehow protect people well you guys might also be like sure maybe they claim that maybe that's bad marketing maybe they should change their marketing sure no they have a third-party search engine that allows them to know who all the refugees are and what their blockchain address is is that really that bad there's been getting through a genocide actually yeah it super is because who are these ngos sharing this information with sharing data like who you are your genetic code your map of where you've been the village you come from where your family is saying where they've tried to escape to they're sharing it with the Ethiopian effing government they give it back to the government that these people are migrating from and so when they share that information with them they say Hey you know that those two million people you chased out of Western tegrai they're all over here these are their names this is what their health status is this is their genetic information and this is the village they come from now you might be saying that's a lot to expect out of an Ethiopia out of any government they're like tracking them what are they going to really do with that information this has already happened before this is not us whistleblowing for the UN this is the U.N is aware of the fact that this has happened because in Myanmar they did the same pilot before they rolled this out everywhere they did the pilot in Myanmar and what happened was they gave this information back to the government and those people tried to return to their displaced regions and they were murdered they were murked they were killed finito it was done and that is like the reality of sharing data on even the most basic concepts of like stipend distribution and the real reality is that these companies designed this on purpose there are multiple there's like three of them and one of them says that if they brag about the ability to spin you up your own search engine so that you can categorize the refugees if you're involved in the U.N efforts or you're associated with the UN you have access to Refugee data so they're giving the very genocidal forces these victims are fleeing acts the location of this data and basically a map of everywhere they've been this puts families at risk this is the standard design of the protocol external database you get it it's it's literally the worst design ever and they're having crypto devs that does dedicate their lives to saying like hey let's Liberate the world they're saying you know what shut up and build this thing for the UN and these devs do and I can confirm uh that they do because they've complained about it and get and talked to me to give me this information um this is unacceptable antigrines demand data sovereignty why do we demand data sovereignty why do we Demand internet sovereignty is because when internet infrastructure is weaponized against us there's millions of stories countless crimes and a ton of a ton of atrocities that are easily hidden and those atrocities overwhelmingly do affect women they are the ones on the front lines having to deal with the uh the uh the lack of humanity being displayed so I want to give them a mic over to uh to Brian woman who's actually been on the front lines works with the refugees and helps actually create some kind of uh support network for violent survivors and sexual violence survivors um we're going to go over by the way all right hi everyone so I was in Sudan working in the refugee camps also during the Sudanese internet shutdown as well ironically so um as JJ mentioned who pays the price in war overwhelmingly it's women children girls and vulnerable populations and Integra that's definitely been the case so current status there's over 70 000 to grind refugees that have fled from tegrai on foot fleeing away from genocidal forces experiencing violence on the way and once I get to Sudan once I get to these safe zones they still face a range of issues one of those issues are is food insecurity so one example in 2021 the world food program was not passing out food and the student the refugees in tigray were pleading with diaspora to help them to send them resources instead the world food program was giving them vouchers these vouchers are useless because refugees cannot leave their camps they are essentially in an open-air prison so that's one issue another issue is that within the camps because of all of these resource scarcity problems and also because of the lack of infrastructure clinics being under-resourced schools being under-resourced people end up in Risk prone situations because they leave the camps anyway in order to seek work and some some of that work leads them to being trafficked into places like Libya which is an insane human trafficking crisis you can talk to me about that after there's been prostitution On The Rise as well and then on top of that risky situations work situations that are illegal within Sudan and neighboring countries because people are desperate they do not have the resources within the camps and these institutions like the UN and the unhcr and all these ngos are not helping them in the ways that they need so some examples so this is an example of a fire that I witnessed while interviewing a family in Sudan it took out five family homes within minutes and there was no infrastructure no one to help we all turned into firefighters within seconds dropped our camera equipment and we're just grabbing water from wherever we could find there was no water there's no fire truck nothing and these people were not compensated so these unhcr tents for example and also refugees are even lucky if they get these tents sometimes they are stolen and resold outside and outside and neighboring Sudan um a lot of these tents are not durable for the weather there's mudslides there's fires due to the environment and there's nothing they can do so as you can see their homes are constructed with destruction in mind and mind you these are all the things that these people have brought on their backs they have nothing left and to dry and all of it's gone in an instant in a freak fire like this so a little bit about the population that I was working with in Sudan a lot of them were survivors of gender-based sexual violence or conflict sexual violence um this is a quote from a doctor in the last week from Ella which is the capital Integra he says that 120 000 women and girls have been projected to this estate to the one of the worst forms of sexual violence the world has ever witnessed so things like gang rape being raped in front of your family tied up against trees and girls as young younger than 10 years old all the way up to elderly women experience this and there's so much Social stigma a lot of these victims do not come forward and so a lot of our work in Sudan had to do with creating different projects where women could sit in groups create small businesses and feel comfortable to share their experiences so we could document them for future legal proceedings because what these people have experienced amount to war crimes and right now it's 200 000 people are estimated to have been experienced sexual violence so um this is also a quote that I heard over and over again when interviewing survivors a lot of them wish that they would have died and not survived because of the humiliation and the shame and the stigma and I also want to highlight men have been victims of sexual violence and rape they do not come forward and these things are discovered at the hospitals that are often under resource Integra so where do you come in the web 3 Community has tons of resources and we need your funds so there are reachable communities in Sudan that we can connect you to and I can talk to you more offline about Tigris is still under siege despite the peace deal there's still not internet I have not heard from my family my grandmother died at the very beginning of the war and this is the reality for most of us so there are so many different ways that the web 3 Community can utilize their resources their infrastructure to provide internet in these camps work opportunities microfinance or micro grants so that people can create these businesses and survive these traumas and have sustainable growth and next we have Michael with the tigway Art Collective thank you [Applause] so are on the front lines we started the tiger Art Collective to join the web 3 space to provide um our purpose is to utilize and utilize artist artwork from the tegreen community and to use our Network to raise awareness of the conflict our goal is to be able to tell our stories of our culture our history and our struggle entering the web 3 space has allowed us to leverage tools such as nfts Grant programs pull donations and much more oh [Music] so um all in all uh throughout entering the web 3 space we have definitely seen a handful of gatekeeping um when we look at the conflict in Ukraine there was a lot of substantial support um a lot of people would say it's because there's a handful of ukrainians in the web 3 space and you know as crypto in general is supposed to be for the people it's supposed to be emphasized to help everyone out uh but when this conflict is happening and Africans are asking for help there's a lot of crickets so as we go along in this uh conflict we have seen artifacts and historical sites being destroyed hundreds of artifacts end up on eBay um that are stolen from churches eluded directly from tegrime and you know now that we're here what we're trying to do is raise awareness point out to what is happening and how we can provide use resources and tools within the web 3 space to elevate and um promote our cause yeah thank you Michael sorry we gotta wrap we gotta wrap this up a little bit uh technical difficulties lead to us losing time it happens so let's do this real quick Facebook can catch these hands so killing the academics that was a huge plan of the genocide Facebook she's used by more than six million Ethiopians has been a key Avenue with which narratives have targeted to Brian's specifically like leaked documents by Francis Hogan directly called out that meta leadership was well in front of other platform's potential for this violence to be exasperated they knew it happened it wasn't difficult to identify they verified these government agency Pages were doing this and they still didn't care these were universities hunting their own students this is a man Professor Amare Abraham he it was a professor that was outspoken in the amhara region about the tigray genocide and he was hunted down and murdered outside of his home his son is now suing meta and Facebook for 1.6 billion dollars with a ton of tigraines behind him whose family was also hunted down and murdered because of Facebook posts that were confirmed and Zuckerberg all of them confirmed and have internal documents that prove that they knew that these hunts were happening and they didn't do anything about it because it was making them money so if you have a platform that's a genocide platform why are you getting a platform at all so the whole kill the academics was maintained and is still being maintained by Facebook so in response we propose this movement William internet it is the idea that we should have infrastructure sovereignty over our internet that's just it it should be something that all oppressed populations around the planet identify with everyone who is in a situation where they have lip frogs forward you haven't leapfrogged as a nation your country is actually not your country has leapfrogged a couple cities and then you are a completely different class of individual within your country a centralized infrastructure by demand makes you a second class citizen second-class citizen so every element of war was used this is why we think we should actually look at every element of battle that we have at our ability tigar needs to take a struggle to the digital realm take our needs internet sovereignty and the reason is because the secession of hostilities treaty stopped the war not the genocide there is still a genocide going on there is still no internet there's still huge portions of this of this region that do not have access to uh internet or any health services because they were completely destroyed by the government that built those Health Services in the first place so let's not forget that so never again actually means tigride must always be online and that's what we're here to do royana internet creates space for a free ticket eye so feel free to come and talk to us about this I'm getting the wave because I've gone over my time by kind of a lot but I'm I mean why not uh so thank you and yeah uh feel free to scan this QR code come to the party that uh we're throwing on Saturday if any of you ever been to like any of my other parties it's not a bad time um then go to this link and just figure out your own [ __ ] you know there's a lot of different ways which you can get involved but I would suggest coming and talking to us directly in order to find the most the most impactful ways with which you can work with actual tegrayans not the UN not the world food program not anyone who's like saying they're doing things actual turbines who are on the ground using crypto and using tools to help rehabilitate survivors and protect our people thank you is [Music]