Help

What is Protect The Human?

This is a site from Amnesty International UK dedicated to making it easier and more fun for a community of people who care about human rights to share news and resources, communicate with each other and generally make the world a better place.

What's the difference between this and the Amnesty UK site?

Amnesty.org.uk remains the main site for Amnesty International in the UK. If you want to get the latest reports, join Amnesty or contact the organisation, this remains the place to go. Non-UK visitors should go to www.amnesty.org to find the right site for their country.

Protect The Human is a community space we have created to allow everyone to discuss issues relating to human rights by sharing bookmarks, photos and videos and then taking actions.

What are the rules for using Protect The Human?

If there were only one rule, it would be: show your fellow user some respect. In fact there are quite a few rules and you can read them all in our terms and conditions.

Do I have to be an Amnesty member to join Protect The Human?

No. Becoming an active member of the Protect The Human is a great way to do something about human rights and that might be exactly how far you want to go. Obviously, we'd be delighted if you also wanted to join Amnesty International but it is not a requirement to use the site.

Someone is harassing me, what can I do?

We take bullying and all forms of harassment very seriously. You can contact us using our form and ask us to investigate. If it turns out that someone has been harassing another user, we reserve the right to delete that person's account.

I find something some content on the site really offensive; who can I talk to about it?

All content pages on the site have a link that lets you flag the page as 'inappropriate'. Click the link that says 'Flag as inappropriate'. This page will then be investigated by the Protect the Human team promptly.

I am a journalist and I want to speak to someone about Protect the Human

In the first instance, all media inquiries should be sent to our media team, who will be pleased to find the correct person for you to speak to.

Is this the place to get Protect the Human Party kits?

No, you should go to http://www.amnesty.org.uk/protect for all you might need to know about Protect The Human week.

How do I report a bug?

Just drop in on our contact us page and let us know what the problem is and we'll try and fix it right away.

Abuse

Freedom of speech is a vital freedom which we at Amnesty have a long history of supporting. However, with free speech comes responsibility. If free speech is to flourish there has to be respect on all sides of any debate. We would ask that you respect those that you are in contact with on our site and those that you talk about. Obviously feelings can run high in a debate but always ask yourself if it is fair for you to make the comments that you are making. We take abuse on our Sites very seriously. To help you to understand what we consider abusive behaviour, we have provided the explanation below.

Defamation

A “defamatory statement” is any material or content which harms a person’s or an organisation’s reputation exposing them to hatred, ridicule or contempt; by causing them to be shunned; by members of society thinking less of them or by disparaging them in their profession or trade.

Individuals can sue for defamation, and companies can sue for injury to their trading reputation. In addition, groups of identifiable individuals can sue for defamation, for example clubs and interest groups. If you disparage an organization or a Government the individual responsible for the part of the organization defamed may be able to take an action.

As author of the defamatory statement you may be sued. You will want to avoid this so there are some important things to take into account. The first is are you saying what you mean to? Regardless of whether you intend to or not, if a statement is understood by a reasonable person to be defamatory, you will be liable for defamation. A statement that is apparently innocent may carry an inference that is defamatory, so be extra careful that what you write cannot be interpreted to be defamatory when you didn't mean it to be. Even if a statement seems innocent on the surface, it's possible that it could be interpreted as defamatory to those with special knowledge, so be careful, as innuendo may be defamatory. Just because you are quoting someone else's words does not mean it is safe. You can be sued for repeating a defamatory statement. Even if you are quoting a published work, it is possible that the publisher was sued when they published it, or it is possible that it slipped by unnoticed. Whatever the case, it is not safe to repeat it. As far as the law is concerned, each publication is a fresh publication of the defamation and can be sued upon.

The two main defences to any claim for defamation are Justification (truth – but truth that you can prove in a court of law) and Fair Comment (an honest opinion based on true facts). Both these defences rely on the facts underlying the statement being true. Can you show this? If you can then cite the underlying source of the facts.

Privacy

The right to privacy is a human right and as an organisation dedicated to the support of human rights, we will not tolerate our Sites being used to breach the privacy of others. For example, you should not upload a photograph or personal, private or confidential information of someone other than yourself, and particularly a child, without the consent of the person in question and, if they are under 18, the consent of their parent or guardian.

Intellectual Property

The content which we provide on our Sites, such as images, text and videos, is protected by intellectual property rights, including copyright. You must not therefore use the content on any of our Sites for any purpose other than your own personal non-commercial use. For example, you should not copy and use the content on any of our Sites elsewhere, such as on another website.

You must not submit any content (such as images, text or videos) to our Sites which is not your own original work or which you do not have a right to make available to others. If you do not own the rights to the content which you submit to our Sites, you may be infringing the rights of the owner of the content which could lead to legal action being taken against you.

Extremist or encouraging violent or illegal activity

You must not use our Sites to express the opinions of any extremist or terrorist political party or philosophy and/or which advocate or encourage violence or towards any person, group of people or damage to property.

Obscene, pornographic, sexually explicit

You must not submit to any of our Sites any image, video or text which features any sexual activity or nudity of any adult or child.

Hateful, abusive, threatening or harassing or which causes discomfort

Our Sites are intended to provide a community for like-minded people who wish to share their concern for the protection of human rights. We will therefore not tolerate our Sites being used as a means of intimidating others in any way or to causing them to fear for the safety or well-being of themselves or their families. You may not realise that you are intimidating people but you must consider the effect of what you are doing on the person receiving the message. Thus you must not keep contacting people who are not responding, ask the same question again and again, ridicule or threaten.

Discriminatory

We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with respect regardless of their circumstances. You must therefore not use our Sites to express any opinion or submit any content which shows disregard for others on the grounds of race, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality or mental or physical handicap.

Crude, vulgar or offensive

We will not tolerate the use of swear words or language which is sexually explicit in nature. The use of symbols or asterisks in swear words will not be regarded as an acceptable means of getting around this rule.

'off topic'

Some of the blog pages or discussion areas on our Sites will be dedicated to a particular subject, such as a campaign that we are running or a human rights issue. The subject may either be determined by us or by another user. Out of respect for those people who are using the blog page or discussion board to express their views on a given subject, you must not express views or submit content which do not relate to the subject at hand.

Report abuse on our Sites

If you discover behaviour or content on any of our Sites that is abusive, illegal, or otherwise breaches our Terms and Conditions , please contact us using the contact form provided on the ‘Contact Us’ page of the relevant Site or email our Supporter Care Team at sct@amnesty.org.uk.

Uploading and sharing stuff

How do I upload my photos?

To upload your photos, go to the Galleries page and ‘Create a new gallery’. You’ll then be able to name that gallery, give it some tags so others can find it and populate it with as many pictures as you like.

How do I share photos?

If you see a gallery with photos in it you would like to send to your friends, use the ‘Share it’ button under the gallery and your friends will get an email link to the page.

How do I upload or embed a video?

Go to the Video page and click the ‘Add a video’ button in the right hand side. You’ll be asked to give some information about the video and then copy and paste the embed code from YouTube or confirm that you are the owner of the video if it is an upload. Embedding is when the video is already on another site like YouTube and you are just copying some code to show it on our site (see the image on the right). Uploading is when you are actually sending up a file from your own computer.

If it is an upload, the first thing to check is that your video is less than 10 minutes long and 60MB in size. If your video is very large, you may well be able to save or export a more compressed version using your normal video editing software. We can only accept video in the following formats: Quicktime (.mov), .MPEG 4 (.mp4) and Windows media Files( .wmv). The preferred set up is a screen size of 640 x 360 (widescreen) or 640 x 480 (non-widescreen).

Please make sure the video is actually all yours and does not belong to a TV show, a movie, your next-door neighbour or contain a soundtrack from a commercial artist. Even if it is hilarious. Sorry, but it’s illegal to share content that isn’t yours to start with. And yes, sometimes that is no fun at all but please keep us all out of trouble and stick to stuff that you shot or made.

Once you have your video ready and saved on your hard drive, go to the Video tab at the top of the page and then click the ‘Create video’ link in the top right hand corner of the page. Fill in the text boxes and upload the video.

Now make sure everyone knows that it is there…

How do I share a video?

Just click the ‘Share it’ button under the video, add your friend’s email address and name and send them a link to the page.

Bookmarking

What is bookmarking?

Bookmarking is a way to add links to great sites and the latest news right in the heart of the Protect The Human site for everyone to see. You can do them one by one from the link on the right hand side of the ‘Bookmarks‘ section or use the bookmark gadget (see below).

What can I bookmark into Protect The Human?

Lots of stuff really. If you have seen anything broadly interesting to a community of people concerned with human rights, this is the place to share it. Obviously, there’ll be lots of news and campaigning sites, there may also be a few golden oldies that are always worth a visit. There may even be things that just raise a smile. All we ask is that it is suitable for a site that has people as young as 14 using it and that it does not violate the terms and conditions.

Why is bookmarking content important to Protect The Human?

If you see something that’s wrong, you want to tell people about it. What if the people you tell are the kind of people who tell others? Very soon a lot of people will be aware of something and at that stage governments, the media and other organizations take notice. This is step one in making a change.

What is the Post to Protect The Human tool?

Basically, this little bobby dazzler, means that wherever you roam to on the web, if you see something of interest to the wider Protect The Human community, you can share it with a couple of quick clicks of the wrist.

How do I install the Post to Protect The Human tool?

For many users, it will be enough to visit the Install the bookmarking gadget page and drag the icon to your tool bar of links. If that doesn’t work straight away, you may need to read the instructions for your browser on the page. Don’t worry it is not that complicated.

video

Gayatri Mantra

Realizzazione siti web

The Audition

Steve's video blog round up

The Mighty Boosh - Secret Policeman's Ball 2006

Help

Backstage at the Secret Policeman's Ball 2006: Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Merchant

Backstage at the Secret Policeman's Ball 2006: Andrew Maxwell, Stephen Merchant and Graham Norton

The Removed

Still Human Still Here (promo)

Street War

Sarah Silverman standup at Amnesty's Secret Policeman's Ball 2006

Russell Brand standup at Amnesty's Secret Policeman's Ball 2006

Eddie Izzard at Secret Policeman's Ball 2006

We need an Arms Trade Treaty now

Patrick Stewart on violence against women

Heather Harvey on Stop Violence Against Women