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Meet the speakers
Fred Petrossians
Online Editor in Chief, RFE/RL Radio Farda
Anastasia Kolobrodova
Project Officer, RFE/RL
Anastasia Kolobrodova works on special projects – including communications, strategy, and digital security – at RFE/RL, a news organization which reports in 23 countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established. Anastasia holds master’s degrees in international and public relations from Syracuse University’s public diplomacy program.
Simin Kargar
Research Affiliate, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Simin Kargar is a human rights lawyer and a research affiliate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society where she focuses on the interrelations of technology and human rights. Kargar studies harmful speech online, gender-based violence and technology, and the interplays of social media, power and propaganda. In addition, Kargar investigates how discourses of geopolitical issues are created and disseminated through social media in the Middle East. Simin has published research analyzing the formation of online movements that led to changes in policies, or to creating tangible social impact.
Amir Rashidi
Internet Security and Digital Rights Researcher, Center for Human Rights in Iran
Amir Rashidi is the internet security and digital rights researcher at the Center for Human Rights in Iran, where he conducts in-depth research, data collection and analysis on internet security and access in Iran, internet policy and infrastructure, and the tools and methods of state-sponsored censorship and hacking. Amir is frequently interviewed on internet freedom issues by international and Farsi-language media and provides detailed briefings to the media, to members of the NGO internet freedom community and to leading private sector companies. Amir was a women’s and students’ rights activist in Iran prior to the 2009 crackdown.
