Cyber Partisans: An Insider's Interview on Truth, Terror, and Technology in the Lukashenko Regime
Date: November 18 from 3-5 p.m. EST, registration link below. Organized by Gabriella Coleman (Harvard University), Marijeta Bozovic (Yale University), and Benjamin Peters (University of Tulsa) Hacktivism is on the rise, and there's a new, notable crew on the block: the Cyber Partisans. Hailing from Belarus, this collective was chartered in 2020 to fight and expose the Lukashenko regime. First hacking a TV station to stream videos of police brutality, their tactics and interventions have become more diverse, sophisticated, and wide-ranging in 2021. Collaborating with former police officers and hacking into government databases, they've landed and analyzed troves of leaked data that showcase everything from alleged police informants' names to proof that the regime doctored Covid-19 death statistics to downplay the severity of the pandemic. To learn more about the group's operations and organization, along with their history, goals, and successes, please join us on Thursday, November 18, from 3-5 p.m. EST for an online event featuring the Cyber Partisans' spokesperson, Yuliana Shemetovets. She will join us live on video and communicate with several other members of the collective to answer questions from the event organizers and the audience. Yuliana Shemetovets will kick things off by introducing us to the group. Gabriella Coleman, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University, will follow by briefly discussing the history of hacktivism in light of the Cyber Partisans' accomplishments. We will then move to the formal question and answer period with Ben Peters, Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Tulsa, and Marijeta Bozovic, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages & Literature at Yale University. We will dedicate the last 40- 50 minutes to a live question and answer period with the audience. Registration link: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ONWNdHEpSxC0zk68riaoPA To ensure audience members have the time to ask questions, the event is by invitation only, so please don't share details on social media. If you'd like to invite someone, please reach out to Julia Bugiel <[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]>, and we will send over an invite. We look forward to seeing you! Gabriella, Marijeta, and Ben Speaker Bios Yuliana Shemetovets is a Belarusian activist and spokeswoman on behalf of the Cyber Partisans. A director of the "Belarus Liberty" nonprofit organization, she is focused on using technology to empower civil societies and to advocate for human rights. Gabriella (Biella) Coleman is a full professor in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University & is a faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She is the author of two books on computer hackers and the founder and editor of Hack_Curio, a video portal into the cultures of hacking. Marijeta Bozovic is the author of Nabokov's Canon: From Onegin to Ada (Northwestern University Press, 2016) and an assistant professor of Slavic languages and literatures, affiliated with Film and media studies and Women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Yale University. Benjamin Peters is the author of How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet (the MIT Press 2016, Vucinich Prize 2017) and an associate professor of Media studies at the University of Tulsa.
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