Human Rights Orgs & Publishers Launch Initiative to Get Surveillance Tech Copaganda out of Fiction

A new call for short stories will send one author to Taiwan to help build an anti-surveillance resource for fellow creators.

DRAGONCON, ATLANTA, GA—In the hopes of a future that respects the human right to privacy, Fight for the Future, RightsCon, Strange Horizons, and COMPOST Magazine have launched a call for short stories to underpin a forthcoming toolkit at StopCopaganda.org.

Five short stories will be selected for publication in Strange Horizons, and used to inspire and support creation of a toolkit at RightsCon 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan. One story author will also be invited to RightsCon 2025 (February 24-27), with expenses paid, including a flight to and from Taipei, hotel accommodation, a stipend, and a ticket to access the RightsCon venue and platform. This author will be chosen by a panel that includes acclaimed authors Seanan McGuire, T.R. Napper, Chen Quifan, and Yudhanjaya Wijeratne—as well as literary agent DongWon Song.

The toolkit, which will be developed by anti-surveillance activists in collaboration with participants at RightsCon 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan, will feature all five short stories and be published by COMPOST Magazine on IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) so that it cannot be censored by corporations or authoritarian regimes.

The prompt for stories reads in part: “Surveillance technologies are increasingly built into our daily lives without our consent—and are championed in mass media for their power to do so-called good. The truth is, surveillance is mostly used to harm and oppress communities—misidentifying people through facial recognition, targeting families for missile strikes, criminalizing people who seek to assert their bodily autonomy, and facilitating scams and stalkers. Most “positive” uses of surveillance are straight-up copaganda.”

The deadline to submit a story is November 21, 2024. A panel on this issue will be held at DragonCon on Friday, August 30, at 4 pm in room 313-314. See the full text of the prompt, story guidelines, and more at StopCopaganda.org.

The Strange Horizons fiction department said: “We have a long track record of publishing stories that interrogate pressing contemporary issues from underrepresented perspectives, and we’re excited to continue that tradition by showcasing the winners of this contest. We’re looking forward to seeing some great stories that interrogate the ways surveillance tech of all kinds is being used to curtail the rights of communities around the world – stories that open new lines of thought and dialogue for the global SFF community, and which challenge dominant narratives of what technological progress should look like.

Nikki Gladstone (she/her), RightsCon Director, who is co-hosting this effort in partnership with Fight for the Future, said: ‘We are incredibly excited to host the “Stop Surveillance Copaganda” short story contest at RightsCon 2025. This unique initiative blends creativity, collaboration, and artistic expression to highlight the harsh realities of surveillance, propaganda, and the harmful technologies that impact millions of people worldwide. We can’t wait to read all the incredible stories, bring our community together, and explore the tactics and frameworks that will emerge from the toolkit during RightsCon 2025 in Taipei!”

Lia Holland (they/she), an author and activist at Fight for the Future, which is leading this effort, said: “Storytellers are getting so many things wrong about surveillance tech and the way that these supercharged military technologies are being deployed in service of exploitation and oppression. Instead of complaining, the human rights community has decided to do something about it and create a resource so that people who want to justly depict the centralized surveillance tech that’s encroaching on all our lives have a better foundation for getting it right. We’re so excited to read amazing stories, pay and support the publication of talented authors, and bring all our knowledge together with a diverse cohort at RightsCon 2025.”