Today more than ever, we’re witnessing how digital technology is rapidly transforming the ways and instruments that censor and persecute artists.  Private corporations, organized hate groups, and states are using data to harass, censor, persecute, monitor, and silence artists and cultural workers, and these violations can be extremely traumatic.

 

After working with artists around the world for the past 20 years, we have recognized some clear problems relating to artistic freedom: artists often do not know what their rights are, when these rights are violated, and what are the solutions or instruments they can resort to. 

 

Freemuse believes that the rights of fully participating in cultural rights must be ensured in both offline and online spaces, free from all sorts of violations, such as pirated personal information, doxing, trolling, harassment, stalking, surveillance, hacking, false profiles, insults or verbal attacks, defamation, etc. And it is upon this foundation that the organization has produced a Digital Toolkit for Artists in the MENA region that empowers them with agency, tools, and awareness of the systems they are navigating, to protect themselves and ensure their freedom to express whatever they want.