The current ugly fight involving Facebook in Australia has led some to ask “Is the government more afraid of News Corp or Facebook?”. These and other ugly manoeuvres beg the question: How do we see our digital future?

Big tech and governments are twin sources of authority over our digital lives, sometimes working in conflict, sometimes in cooperation. How do we reclaim power over the development of technology? What will it take to build a digital tomorrow that is humane and democratic?

Join us for Conversation at the Crossroads first online event for 2021, to talk about digital human rights with renowned lawyer and writer Lizzie O’Shea.

O’Shea’s commentary is often featured on television and radio, and she has written for the New York Times, Guardian, and Sydney Morning Herald, among others. She is a founder and the chair of Digital Rights Watch, which advocates for human rights online, and was a recipient of the Davis Projects for Peace Prize. In June 2019, she was named a Human Rights Hero by Access Now. Her book, Future Histories (Verso, 2019), looks at radical social movements and theorists from history and applies them to current debates on digital technology. It was shortlisted for the Premier’s Literary Award.

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Reviews of Future Histories

“There has never been a better time to pull the politics of platform capitalism into the foreground where it belongs. Lizzie O’Shea brings a hacker’s curiosity, a historian’s reach and a lawyer’s precision to bear on our digitally saturated present, emerging with a compelling argument that a better world is there for the taking.”

– Scott Ludlam

“This insightful, provocative book is an intellectual kaleidoscope that sits effortlessly at the crossroads between investigation, history and radical philosophy.”

– Victorian Premier’s Literary Award panel