SHORT FILM SYNOPSIS

Black Code is a gripping account of how governments control and manipulate the internet in order to censor and monitor their citizens. With stories from exiled Tibetan monks circumventing China’s surveillance apparatus, Syrian citizens tortured for Facebook posts, Brazilian activists using social media to distribute alternative news, and Pakistani online violence against women, we see firsthand the high-stakes consequences that our unprecedented level of digital communication can produce. As this battle for control of cyberspace is waged, our ideas of citizenship, privacy, and democracy will be challenged to the very core.

CITIZEN LAB DESCRIPTION

The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, Canada focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), human rights, and global security. Their research monitors, analyzes, and impacts the exercise of political power in cyberspace through a mixed methods approach that combines technical reconnaissance, field investigations, and data mining, analysis, and visualization. The Citizen Lab is best known for exposing “GhostNet”, a large cyber spy-ring running out of China that had hacked into high level political, economic and media locations in 103 countries around the world.