Human Rights Foundation (HRF)

We promote and protect democracy & human rights around the world, with a focus on authoritarian regimes.

👉 Attend our human rights conference: @osloff

[Human Rights Foundation (HRF) @HRF]

Today marks the third and final day of the 2026 @OsloFF!

Thank you for being part of this global community.

You can watch all theater talks from OFF26 below: https://t.co/wuzez3D8DB

[Human Rights Foundation (HRF) @HRF]

Even in 2026, scores of prisoners of conscience, including Hong Kong lawyer Chow Hang-tung and Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen, remain detained for commemorating the massacre. HRF stands in solidarity with those who remain firmly committed to carrying the torch of truth.

[Human Rights Foundation (HRF) @HRF]

On the 37th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, HRF continues to remember the pro-democracy activists who laid down their lives to express their demands for a free and democratic China. Their stories have been erased from Chinese textbooks, websites, and the greater web in an attempt by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to absolve itself of its own crimes.

[Human Rights Foundation (HRF) @HRF]

With the help of AI-powered censorship, the CCP is attempting to erase these images from search engine results. An analysis from the Firewall Internet Café, an art exhibition and image archive led by Joyce Yu-Jean Lee, reveals how search terms related to Tiananmen Square continue to be expunged from China’s internet.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

She watched Burma begin to open up after decades of military rule, then saw a coup try to drag the country backward.

At the Oslo Freedom Forum, journalist Thin Lei Win reflects on the fear woven into everyday life under dictatorship and why independent journalism remains one of the strongest defenses against authoritarianism. She continues to shine a light on the lives of ordinary people confronting the junta.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

At the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum’s Freedom Tech track, Anaïse Kanimba, founder and director of the Africa Bitcoin Institute, warns that stablecoins are becoming a major obstacle to Bitcoin adoption in Africa. Many builders present them as an easy fix for inflation, payments, and dollar access, but she argues that outsourcing African financial life to foreign-issued digital dollars creates deeper long-term dependence.

Her call is to keep building on Bitcoin to make it easier to use, so people are not pushed toward shortcuts that may solve today’s payment problem while weakening Africa’s financial sovereignty tomorrow.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

During the Freedom Tech track at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, explores how Bitcoin and AI can reinforce each other as tools for human freedom.

She argues that bringing greater freedom to individuals means building open-source AI tools, growing communities that understand why decentralization matters, and using both to dismantle the systems dictators depend on to repress.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

During the Freedom Tech track at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, Janet Maingi, co-founder and COO of Gridless, says the focus for Africa has to be getting Bitcoin mining equipment into more hands. Last year, Gridless launched Juakali, an open-source miner designed to help small-scale farmers and rural operators integrate Bitcoin mining into their existing setups.

This means more people earn Bitcoin, more communities stay powered, and Bitcoin becomes more decentralized, making it harder for anyone to control.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

During the Freedom Tech track at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, @obi, founder and CEO of Fedi, argues that builders cannot understand users from a distance. To build tools that actually work, they need to meet people where they are, listen directly, and drop their assumptions.

He also warns that regulation is coming for financial tools everywhere. In that environment, he says, projects and builders face a hard choice: become fully regulated or become unregulatable.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

During the Freedom Tech track at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, Nostr developer Pablo Fernández explores what he calls the “Wikipedia problem” — how to build shared knowledge without giving one platform, editor, or institution final control over truth.

He argues that Nostr offers a different model. Instead of forcing consensus through a central authority, the protocol lets many people contribute, publish, and challenge information in parallel. For civil society, this protects vital information from being censored or rewritten.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

During the Freedom Tech track at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, @rabble, founder of Verse Communications PBC and an early Twitter developer, explains the core difference between Bitcoin and Nostr: Bitcoin needs consensus on a single financial truth, while Nostr lets anyone publish without asking permission.

That difference makes Nostr powerful for speech and organizing. Apps like Bitchat can run on Nostr without accounts or dependence on a single server operator. For civil society, this shifts power away from platforms and back toward users.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

During the Freedom Tech track at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, Fergus Ryan, senior China analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, examines how authoritarian regimes are using AI to monitor citizens, censor information, spread propaganda, and suppress dissent. Drawing on years of research into the Chinese Communist Party’s information control systems, he explains how AI is reshaping modern repression.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

At the Oslo Freedom Forum, @jsrailton, senior researcher at The Citizen Lab, shows how open-weight AI, now only months behind the big closed models, can run inside encrypted enclaves or fully on a person's own device. This means activists can ask the questions regimes fear most — from nonviolent strategies to safe protest routes — and the regime sees nothing.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

The final day of the Oslo Freedom Forum is underway as three days of dialogue, testimony, and solidarity come to a close. Follow us to learn more!

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

During the Freedom Tech track at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, Ramez Naam, author of “The Nexus Trilogy” and founder of Planetary VC, explores the collision between technology, power, and human society. He looks at what science fiction can teach us about AI and whether emerging technologies will expand or shrink human freedom.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

During the Freedom Tech track at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, @JustinMoon, AI technical lead at HRF, shared an overview of HRF’s AI for Individual Rights Program and its achievements over the past year. He examined how AI can be used to strengthen human rights work, support individual empowerment, and help civil society navigate the risks of a rapidly changing technological landscape.

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

During the Freedom Tech track at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, @EconWithNick, policy analyst at the Cato Institute, warns that programmable money like central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could give authoritarian regimes new powers to monitor, restrict, and control everyday financial activity.

[Samuel Baker BYANSI @SamuelBaker_B]

At the @OsloFF, I joined the @WLCongress on stage - exiles, dissidents and survivors from every continent, standing together.

The logic is simple: dictatorships collaborate to surveil, smear and silence us across borders. So we organise across borders to fight back.

Regimes spend billions discrediting people like the ones beside me on this stage. Sit with that number - then imagine what they spend repressing the citizens trapped inside their borders, with no platform and no exit.

This isn’t a fringe problem. Per @HRF’s Tyranny Tracker, 75% of humanity now lives under authoritarian rule. We are the majority’s voice, not a minority’s complaint.

#WorldLibertyCongress #OsloFreedomForum

[Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza @VictoireUmuhoza]

Ms Ingabire's sons are in Oslo to attend the @OsloFF and advocate for their mother. You can follow the Forum live via the link below.

https://t.co/KRhTwSQTjw

[Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) @OsloFF]

During the Freedom Tech track at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, Farida Nabourema, Togolese democracy advocate and founder of the Africa Bitcoin Conference, explains how financial systems can become invisible sanctions against activists, nonprofits, and ordinary citizens.

She shares what that looks like from the inside: ten years in exile and countrymen imprisoned for years simply for sending money to support the pro-democracy movement. She explains how Bitcoin can be a tool for financial resilience under authoritarian regimes.