Hiring Internet Censorship Researchers

Dear friends,

Netalitica is hiring researchers to investigate Internet censorship in select states in Latin America and Asia.

About the project

Netalitica is a research-oriented organization which investigates information controls and online censorship in various parts of the world. In 2019, we conducted the first phase of a project called “Improving Test Lists of Censored Online Content”. It aims to update Citizen Lab test lists that network measurement tools (e.g. OONI Probe, Centinel) use to uncover Internet censorship in individual countries. If network probes have greatly evolved over the past decade, test lists for many countries have seen little updates. Our project aims to address this problem.

Last year, our team updated the lists of 20 key censorship states. This March, we are launching the second phase of the project and we are looking to hire researchers to update the test lists of the following countries:

Latin America: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua

Asia: Hong Kong, Myanmar, Singapore, Vietnam

This is a part-time research position.

What will you do:

As a country researcher, you will have one month to service the test list of your state and you will be hired for this duration of time. The expectation is that you will spend 3.5 hours daily to conduct the following activities:

·        Update the test lists for your respective country with fresh URLs of recently blocked or likely to be blocked websites. For this purpose, you will examine various resources discussing Internet censorship topics such as analytical reports, media accounts, social media channels, etc.;

·        Examine and clean the test list from faulty URLs;

·        Balance the list to include representative number of URLs from different categories;

·        Outreach to local digital rights organizations and activists to solicit their feedback;

·        Communicate your progress to our Senior Researcher;

·        You can consult our methodology for further details on the update process;

 You should have:

·        Excellent reading and writing skills in the main language(s) spoken in your country/region of interest;

·        Knowledge of the Internet landscape, filtering regime and digital rights organizations in your country;

·        Familiarity with the socio-political processes on the ground;

·        Strong research skills;

·        Previous experience in conducting research on Internet censorship topics and use of network measurement tools;

·        Experience in updating test lists and/or contributing to relevant Internet freedom initiatives;

·        Experience in conducting outreach campaigns;

·        Experience using anonymization tools and ability to conduct this research safely;

·        You should not be receiving other forms of USG support;

Location

Remote. This part-time position does not require you to be located in the country that you intend to research. In fact, for high-risk states, it would be better if you conduct this research remotely from another safe state.

Salary

The monthly salary will be $2,940 USD, based on $40 USD hourly rate and 73.5 work hours per month.

Start date

Will be determined following interviews with successful candidates.

To apply

Please send us an email to netalitica@gmail.com with the following documents attached:

·        Résumé/CV

·        Cover letter outlining your suitability for the role

Deadline

The application process is now open will remain such until all positions are filled.

Please check our website for updates.

Thank you for your interest!