Livestreaming the General Assembly and other Meetings

[AlyssaH]

Livestreaming the General Assembly and other Occupy Chicago Meetings

It is important to insure the safety and respect the privacy of our participants, while still preserving the valuable online access tool that is our livestream. It has recently become clear that law enforcement does watch our livestream. This proposal is designed to work in tandem with the “Proposal to declare Occupy Chicago a Safe Sanctuary for all Criminalized People” to keep our meetings and General Assemblies safe for everyone.
Currently, our livestream set-up mostly has an “opt-out” system, which requires one to be proactive to stay off the stream. Let's instead shift to an “opt-in” system, and let our members make educated choices before potentially being exposed.

(Content note for clarity – this proposal uses “they/them” in a singular sense to keep pronouns gender-neutral)

There are four main parts to this proposal:
1) Create clearly defined “stream” and “no-stream” zones for both crowd shots and stack.

2) Regarding Stack: The stack line will always stay off camera. The stack keeper asks each person in line their preference for streaming before it is their turn to speak. The stack-keeper keeps a written list of preferences of those in line. (A new role could also be created for this task if this is too much for one stack-keeper- temp check this)

3) a) If a person consents to be on stream: They stand in the clearly marked stream zone for the duration of their time speaking.
b) If a person does not consent to be on stream during stack, then the speaker has several choices:
1. Audio only – person stands in a clearly marked no-stream zone and talks without being seen on camera
2. Cut off livestream audio during duration of speaker's time and do not show them on camera
3. The participant can write down their remarks and choose someone else to read them on the stream
4. Potentially set up an off-camera “voice distortion” station– The person is not shown and speaks into a microphone connected to voice-distortion software. (We have the technology, but there may or may not be interest in this.)

4) The moderator thoroughly explains these guidelines for livestreaming at the beginning of each G.A. (or any other meeting where streaming may take place) before the stream is first turned on.
For latecomers, insure clear and highly visible signage in multiple locations defining the stream & no stream zones along with participants' choices (listed in section 3) for participating.

This proposal is open to input on defining and marking off our stream and no-stream zones in unit 700 for the G.A. Let's work together during break-out sessions to try to brainstorm a diagram. All suggestions are welcome as we move forward to be more conscientious about respecting our participants' privacy.

[marymcmahon@clear.net]

OC is has never achieved genuine transparency nor true participatory democracy. These ideals cannot be met so why continue this convoluted exercise and be honest with yourselves and the people of Chicago.

You have too many people and too many of the vitalist issues being already effectively screened from general discussion to build the kind of trust this movement needs to attract the common man. Rather than waste endless hours on a palpable charade, go for what you need to do — conduct your business in privacy.

Create a way to provide a defined transparency:
Make full disclosure tapes and transcripts available at OC Cermak for the public to view, just like the government does through the Freedom of Information Act.

Support and stand in solidarity with neighborhood Occupy groups & gatherings with the same formality, courtesy, and respect, and that you already extend to other activist organizations. Expect them to act independently without your input, monitoring or interference and know they will grow the occupy ideals in a way that suits their community.

This will allow everyone the freedom to get on with their work be that building a bigger better bureaucratic structure, or creating networks of communication with community groups, or mounting single issue initiatives that advance our unifying mission.

Come spring we will stand in solidarity without formal manifestos, principles, codes of conduct, and any other written declarations with the unified focus on our our common enemy not on each other. Let random chaos be our winning strategy. Enjoy what your bothers and sisters bring to the party.

Decide what you need and go for it, evolution for revolution, we'll be remembered for our actions not our intentions.

[AlyssaH]

Mary -
I wrote this proposal to address a specific issue, not the overall idea of transparency in the movement.

We already post GA notes, and the streams are archived online. If you're suggesting that no matter what a person requests, we must record their name, image, and/or audio, then you are excluding a lot of people from the movement, even if the information stays at Cermak and does not go online. Pushing "transparency" to the extreme under our present society's circumstances means that anyone participating must risk exposure to media and law enforcement. Paradoxically, attempting to be so radically inclusive ends up becoming exclusionary. This proposal was written to EXPAND OC, by keeping oppressed populations safe and welcome while preserving our transparency and open access as much as possible. Notice the several options written in the proposal -- do you have any problems with anything specifically written?

Over time, we can always change our system, and anyone is welcome to write a proposal at any time.

[sheryl]

Minutes? Today is February 17th. The last time minutes were posted was February 11th. The time before that was January 30th. There are frequent gaps in minutes and the missing minutes seem no where to be found.

I would love to get a link for the livestream archives. Also if there are any meeting archives or teachin archives as resources I would like to have a link for those as well. I would like that information to be prominently placed on the homepage of OC.

I see that last week there was a prominent posting of upcoming commitee meetings and also GA discussions and voting schedule. This week it is not there. One has to hunt through the forum to find this stuff.

From Mary's post "Come spring we will stand in solidarity without formal manifestos, principles, codes of conduct, and any other written declarations..."

Hear hear! We came to Occupy under one original banner. That was enough for me.

As far as the proposal regarding livestream is concerned, if an individual has reasons to appear off camera and or off audio then fine, but we darn well better get the minutes up. There is too much that is not being shared already, I agree. Occupy in the Chicago area is hopefully much larger than the regular crowd of people who are able to attend the meetings on a regular basis. Those on the "inside" are the stewards for Occupy Chicago and should do everything in their power to keep the flow of information going.

p.s. tech needs to get other folks involved to fix the forum issues. Thankfully I copied my post but once again I found myself logged out while trying to post.

[AlyssaH]

Can we try to stay on topic here? Especially in regards to criticisms, it would really be helpful if we kept our criticisms on-topic. If you have more general complaints, there are other sections of the forum. Let's try to keep this productive.

If someone doesn't want to be included in any form on the stream, then yes, they can/should be included in the notes, given that their name/identifying information is not included.

[marymcmahon@clear.net]

going private

[sheryl]

heh heh, sorry, on the going somewhat off topic, but I did address your proposal, and as you said, suggestions are always welcome.

[marymcmahon@clear.net]

Alyssa, you a addressing a valid concerns with real solutions for which I have NO objection. Since you are leading this initiative it's reasonable to point out and ask that provisions be made for other marginalized people as well. All marginalized people are oppressed and should be included in OC Cermaks outreach. The people who need to be considered, included and provided for are those who cannot attend GA for reasons that some have trouble recognizing as legitimate because of their own life experience and circumstances. This includes people without health, vitality, transportation or time. Those overwhelmed and ravaged by the exigencies of their economic class and don't fit the demographics that we are acculturated to define. The segment I'm referring to is largely older women without children and younger women with children. We must not neglect these people and so I made some suggestion as to how they can be included. With a resource to stay informed of the developments at OC Cermak and the autonomy to act within their means, we can extend your stated objective for greater participation and inclusivity.

With this as context I hope you can reread my initial post. I look forward to you considered response.

Mary -
I wrote this proposal to address a specific issue, not the overall idea of transparency in the movement.

Good, we are on the same page.

We already post GA notes, and the streams are archived online

Reality is "We already post SOME OF GA notes, and A FEW OF the streams are archived online." Insisting that the ideal is being met simply drives people crazy trying to find something that's not there and only damages our credibility as an organization.

[mcsheffe]

ALL GAs should be live-streamed how else is the large majority of us to keep informed.This needs to be done on a consistent basis.And as far as staying on topic one thing leads into another.Sometimes when your points in the past are not addressed and you see a topic getting replies it,s a good time to bring it up again.Like this transparency thing!When are the finances going to be disclosed to the people of the OC.I think when people donate money and other things OC should show an accounting for every penny received.To not do this looks shady.You spent weeks on the OC principles of non-violence and still nothing on finance disclosure!So for all of us that for one reason or another that can not make it to the GAs please keep us informed or you may as well take this site down.SORRY FOR GOING OFF TOPIC PLEASE FORGIVE ME!

[Philip DeVon]

I support livestreaming ALL GA's. If a person does not want to be seen, cover your face. Simple as that.