Speaker: Rhiannon Neilsen

In the digital age, mass atrocity crimes are increasingly promoted and organized online. Yet, little attention has been afforded to the question of whether offensive cyberspace operations and big data analytics might be used for human protection purposes. Specifically: How might cyber-operations and online influence campaigns help protect populations from genocides, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansings? In this talk, I introduce the concept of ‘cyber humanitarian interventions’ to disrupt potential perpetrators’ means and motivations for atrocities. I will also navigate the most pressing ethical objections to deploying cyber humanitarian interventions, and identify which moral agents, precisely, are responsible for their deployment. This includes states, coalitions, international organizations, individuals, civil society, and – of course – Big Tech.