The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is delighted to announce that it is heading to this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW), taking place in Austin, Texas, from March 11-20!

This year, the world’s largest creative conference will return as an in-person event, and HRF is thrilled to come back with amazing panel discussions on deck. Registration is now open, so make sure to register to attend HRF’s incredible panels!

The gaming industry has taken the world by storm since as early as the 1970s. Technological advancements over the past several decades have allowed PC, mobile, and console games to incorporate new designs and new storylines. These advances have helped the industry to expand dramatically, attracting diverse audiences with various interests, ranging from sports, fantasy, music, to current events. This discussion will explore how video games have become not only a hobby, but also even an avenue for activism.

➔ Join this panel discussion with co-founder of Zeitgeist Studio, Jerry Chan; founder of iNK Stories, Navid Khonsari; Reporters Without Borders public relations officer & project manager of “Uncensored Library,” Kristin Bässe; and HRF’s Policy Advisor, Alvaro Piaggio.

Dictatorships frequently use art and culture as propaganda tools with which to create cults of personality and maintain legitimacy. The totalitarian aesthetic is familiar to many of us from films and documentaries of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany: tanks driving down wide boulevards; paintings of toiling workers; military uniforms laden with medals; and films depicting past glories. However, for billions of people who continue to live under authoritarian regimes, these images and experiences continue to be part of everyday life. This discussion will explore how dictators co-opt cultural institutions, and use clothing, art, film, architecture, and other kinds of visual propaganda to impose upon citizens their vision of society, instill fear, and reinforce their authoritarian regimes.

➔ Join this panel discussion with Peter Pomerantsev, author of “This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures In The War Against Reality,”  Krithika Varagur, author of “The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project,” Louisa Lim, author of the upcoming “Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong,” and HRF’s Policy Officer, Alexander Sikorski.

See you soon in Austin, Texas!

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