About Groups

The Hub was created by WITNESS to be a venue for the most urgent human rights content from human rights organizations, grassroots activists, and citizen eyewitnesses around the world.
Allies are organizations that share this vision of the Hub, a place where we can each join in collective action to help bring to light the human rights violations that affect millions of citizens around the world – and to help bring an end to them. To see a list of our official allies please visit the Allies Page.

About Groups

Groups are a way for a collection of people with a shared interest to easily share media, views and stay informed. Groups can be created by any registered member of the Hub, but any new group needs to be approved by the Hub staff. It should take less than 24 hours for us to make your group live. Before starting your own group, do a group search and see if there is already an existing group with the same interests or focus as yours.

To join a group, click the Join button on that group page. Most groups are open to any members, but some groups are set up as private, or invitation only. The administrator of these private groups will need to approve your request before you can participate.

Community Guidelines

This set of guidelines is intended to provide users of the Hub with a broad set of principles by which to behave and interact on the Hub, both in terms of interaction with other users, and of submission of content.

Be respectful

The Hub is a global platform for human rights media and action that is designed to serve, connect and mobilize individuals, groups, advocates, educators, activists, journalists and defenders of human rights.

The Hub is your community.

Each and every user of the Hub makes the site what it is – from uploading media and taking action, to commenting on videos and participating in discussions. We strive to ensure that the Hub community is inclusive and safe, as well as a platform for vibrant, intelligent and passionate discussion of issues.

The Hub community is extremely broad, global in scope, and encompasses a wide variety of perspectives and life-experiences. In the interests of making the community function as well as possible, here are the Hub Community guidelines we would like you to be aware of, and which we expect all Hub users to abide by:

1. The key to maintaining the Hub as an inviting space is focusing on intelligent, insightful and passionate discussion of human rights issues. While we welcome debate and dissent, we will not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of hate-speech, or content that could be interpreted as such.
2. Please respect other people's views and beliefs. We understand that engaging in debate on human rights issues may result in heightened emotions, but we reserve the right to remove any content that other users might find offensive or threatening. We actively discourage obscenity, abuse and personal attacks on other users.
3. We reserve the right to remove any posts that we believe are commercial or otherwise spam-like. Our filters help to identify spam and prevent it from being published on the site, and we actively encourage users to flag it as such.
4. The vast majority of conversations on the Hub will relate to a specific media item, human rights issue, country or campaign. We reserve the right to remove unrelated postings.
5. We want the Hub to be a welcoming space for intelligent discussion, and we expect participants to help us achieve this by notifying us of potential problems and helping each other to keep conversations inviting and intelligent.

Report Violations of the Terms of Use or Community Guidelines

We share the responsibility for maintaining a positive environment by asking users to notify us of problems and violations on the site. If you see or suspect violations of either the Terms of Use Agreement or these Community Guidelines, please use the FLAG icon on any media item to report such violations.

If WITNESS believes a contribution to the Hub breaches the Terms of Use Agreement or these Community Guidelines, such content will be modified or removed.

These Community Guidelines are designed to maintain an inviting environment on the Hub. Participants who persistently and willfully ignore these Community Guidelines or the Terms of Use Agreement may have their Hub user account suspended or deleted.

We may join a comment thread or discussion topic to initiate dialogue to help focus (or refocus) the discussion. We will always identify ourselves clearly as Hub staff. Our overarching aim is never to curtail debate or discussion, but to ensure that the Hub is a pleasant and welcoming environment for all users.

If you have suggestions or questions about any aspect of community participation on the Hub, you can write to hub[at]witness.org.

How to Protect Your Safety & Security on the Hub

We take safety and security very seriously on the Hub, with respect to both Hub users and those individuals depicted in uploaded content. In general for Hub users, we encourage you to keep your personally identifiable information to a minimum on the Hub, and in some cases, not to use any personally identifiable information at all. Specifically, we recommend that you do not post your phone number or physical address for public viewing on the site and discourage you from sharing your password with others.

Moreover, many users of the Hub may find their personal security compromised if their identity is revealed or publicized. Do not invade other users’ privacy and do not reveal their personal information (including without limitation, name, location, contact details or workplace information).

Do not use your username in an effort to impersonate another, whether it be another member of the Hub Community or another individual, a Hub staff member, or the representative of another legitimate organization. In the event that you do, WITNESS reserves the right to deny use of such username and/or cancel your registration.

Do not select a username that is vulgar, obscene or misrepresents who you are to the rest of the Hub Community. In the event that you do, WITNESS reserves the right to deny use of such username and/or cancel your registration.

We suggest all users closely follow the Hub’s Safety and Security Guidelines to best protect themselves. If you need or wish to remain anonymous, you may find detailed instructions here.

Publishing Content on the Hub

It is the content and the community that make the Hub the unique, engaged community that it is.

The Hub relies not only on your participation and creation of content, but also on your efforts to identify inappropriate content on the Hub. If you are in any doubt as to the suitability of any content you would like to upload to the Hub, please refer to our Content Review Policyfor guidance. In general, you need to follow these basic guidelines to protect yourself when uploading or posting to the Hub:

• Refrain from using foul and abusive language, and do not indulge in hate-speech.
• Do not post or link to content that is libelous, fraudulent, illegal, defamatory, harmful or threatening.
• Do not upload content that violates the privacy of others – make sure you have the consent of those you feature in media you upload.
• Do not spam the community with advertising or promotional materials.
• Do not upload materials that are protected by copyright unless you are the copyright holder, or have the permission of the copyright holder to do so.
• Make sure that you contextualize and tag your content accurately, responsibly and appropriately.

We Review Media Flagged As Inappropriate For Any Reason

We share the responsibility for maintaining a proactive, thoughtful environment by asking users to notify us of problems and violations on the site. If you see or suspect violations of the Terms of Use Agreement or these Community Guidelines, use the FLAG icon on any media item to report it. For further information regarding procedure with respect to flagged media items, please see our Content Review Policy.

If you think there is cause for immediate concern about a particular piece of content on the site, you can report content and/or another user’s behavior to Hub staff.

About Hub Campaigns

Each month, the Hub will feature one human rights campaign to activate Hub users and allies around a specific human rights issue. Any Hub group may create a campaign page which features its selected campaign media, information, resources, events, specific on and off-line action items and opportunities to get more involved. Upcoming featured Hub campaigns will include International Human Rights Day, Earth Day 2008, the China Olympics and the ongoing conflict in Chechnya.