Lisa Schirch 25 Spheres of Digital Peacebuilding and PeaceTech 23 that fight Russian disinformation are also digital upstanders, as described earlier. In both of these examples, people-powered social movements address digital threats. 20. Digital Social Movements Civil society groups pressing for human rights and democracy have used digital tools to plan, coordinate, and carry out mass actions on and off digital platforms. Nonviolent social movements make important contributions to peacebuilding by balancing power between groups and raising public awareness about grievances that need to be addressed.97 For example, Avaaz is a global digital movement that organises “people-powered politics” in the form of digital petitions and digitally coordinated action to promote social justice, human rights, and democratic norms. Avaaz has organised digital campaigns on a variety of issues, from climate change to preventing war to preventing the spread of false information about COVID 19. 98 The organisation called Social Movement Technologies offers free training to civil society on how they can use technology with guidance for safety and privacy in regions where surveillance and doxing (publishing personal information online) of human rights and democracy activists occur.99 The US political contest offers two recent examples of innovative digital social movements using hashtags, which are used to categorise information online. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement began with a hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) that digitally linked isolated police killings of African Americans into an online movement. With the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, the digital movement sparked the largest nationwide protests against police violence in the history of the US. When white supremacist groups developed their own hashtags in response to BLM, Korean pop stars urged their fans to flood social media with peaceful messages co-opting white supremacist hashtags. By using this hashtag, the Korean youth were able to drown out violent extremist messages and support the Black Lives Matter movement, from half a world away.100 21. Hackathons and PeaceTech Startups Another type of digital peacebuilding involves identifying current gaps or challenges that might be able to be addressed through new technology. This type of creative problemsolving using technology is called a “hackathon” and emphasises user-centred design where real people with pressing needs drive the process for designing potential technical solutions. The Tech4Peace initiative in Cyprus grew into a digital space called “Mahallae” where Greek and Turkish Cypriots collaborate on new ideas for using technology to foster peace. Nadine Bloch and Lisa Schirch. Synergizing Nonviolent Action and Peacebuilding. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 2018. 98 For more information on Avaaz see their website at https://secure.avaaz.org/page/en/ 99 For more information on Social Movement Technologies see their website at https://socialmovementtechnologies.org 100 Justin Kirkland. “Inside K-Pop Stans' Social Media War Against White Supremacists.” Esquire. 8 June 2020. Found at https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a32754772/k-pop-stans-fight-white-blue-all-livesmatter-twitter-hashtags/ Accessed on 14 June 2020. 97