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The VOST Portugal network – Association of Digital Volunteers in Emergency Situations is a non-profit association dedicated, as its name implies, to providing information in emergency situations. Every day they have 30 volunteers, who are already considered “a family”, but in total there are about 120 people.
Its motto is “to work for invisibility, always with transparency” and for the mission “emergency communication in real time, using social networks during emergencies”, as explained in a note in site.
TO SAPO24, describe that their approach is to “transmit validated, official and reliable information, without bias and at the right time, which can help everyone ”and explain that part of the work also involves the translation of official messages,“ which are sometimes formal and very technical, or which use acronyms that only a small part of the population knows. ”, So that everyone with access to social networks can easily understand the message. The objective is to clarify, simplify and make accessible the information based on official data.
One of the examples of VOST’s work materialized in the development of a video to clarify the “Vespa Velutina” (also known as Asian hornet), created in September 2019 with the technical help of APICAVE and DGAV, and which ended up being disseminated in town halls, health centers and schools.
In the work they are currently doing, they monitor social networks to identify problems, appeals or campaigns and validate them with official entities; Disseminate official information on the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and covid-19 on social networks and develop technological solutions and content on the subject. They are present in the Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and Whatsapp.
They were involved in the development of the site what if application The official “SomosOn” -which collects information from the Government on the performance in the field of covid-19-, carried out initiatives to support health professionals and even developed a platform for aggregation of establishments, the “# Open4Business” . They are also responsible for a site dedicated to covid-19, which was recently updated, reformulating the “DashBoards” tab, where the data is transformed into graphs, making it easier to read.
It was as a result of these initiatives that VOST Portugal and its volunteers, “who anonymously and also in an exemplary way played a crucial role in the digital response to the pandemic”, received public praise from the Secretary of State for Digital Transition, who He praised their “indispensable support.”
With a wide range of activity areas, each volunteer contributes their skills and the time they can dedicate to VOST Portugal, from content creation (wording, design, video), programming, OSINT (Open source intelligence), information gathering and participation in projects at national and European level.
It all started with fires
The initiative began to take shape in 2018, during the Monchique fires. The founders of VOST did not know each other, but at that time when there was little information, they decided to join the social network Twitter and start collecting official and reliable information, which was made available under a hashtag. Then, the volunteers created an account on this social network to add the information collected and initially adopted the username @ CONAC-TW, alluding to the acronym CONAC, which refers to the National Operational Commander of Civil Protection. Now they are known for the account @VOSTPT.
“All projects have their youth stage, and even childhood, and the name ‘CONAC-TW’ was just that: a youth protest, a demonstration of rebellion that, in the end, translated (very) badly the idea that is always has done. behind all of us who are part of VOST Portugal: more than criticizing official entities, we want to provide solutions that allow populations to be better prepared and informed, before, during and after any type of emergency ”, they explain to SAPO24. .
And that is exactly what they have been doing since then: providing solutions and information to the population. Without a concrete plan, the idea of creating a VOST came up.
“After the Monchique layoffs, we didn’t even know if we were going to continue this collaboration, even though we already had a server on Discord [aplicação de mensagens e outros recursos de comunicação, inicialmente criada para a comunidade de gaming] collect information and follow with great interest what the VOST teams were doing in Spain ”.
The storm Leslie, however, got in the way of the group and ended up deciding their future. When the storm hit Portugal, they monitored its passage, looking for information on Facebook, forums and through contact with firefighters and people in areas affected by the storm, always validating the data before publishing it.
They explain that it was here that they realized that the work carried out was “necessary and had a positive impact on the population” and the few followers they had at that time went from around 400 to about 4000, in the space of a few days .
The importance of acting during the storm resulted in an invitation to formally join the international network @VOSTEurope, the European Group to Support Virtual Operations and to form a VOST team in Portugal.
Later, in August 2019, during the strike of hazardous materials drivers, they created the page “Já Não para Abastecer”, which informed the Portuguese where they could fill the tank.
In October 2019, VOST Portugal was established as a formal association.
Action during the pandemic
On January 28, 2020, due to the appearance of news worldwide about the pandemic, VOST Portugal began to “do a more methodical follow-up of the official news and information that were appearing around the world”.
Communication related to a pandemic in the digital age was then completely unknown. On March 2, 2020, the General Directorate of Health confirmed the first two cases of covid-19 in Portugal and on March 11, the association was invited to join the Office of Digital Response to covid-19.
Also in March, the information portal “SomosON” was launched to the public, which reported on the Government’s measures regarding covid-19 and this was the first official collaboration of VOST. The portal was programmed in record time – only 4 days – by the association’s volunteers, who were also in charge of managing the FAQs in the site.
“The invitation, which honored us a lot, came from the Ministry of Economy in the hands of the Secretary of State for the Digital Transition, after a hearing that had been given, at our request, for the presentation of ‘Contract for the Web’ [Contrato para a Web] of the Web Foundation, a contract of which we are signatories and we have the mandate to present to the Portuguese government for that foundation ”.
The web contract aims at a global action plan to make the world online safe and empowering for all and was created by representatives of more than 80 organizations, governments, companies and civil society, establishing commitments to guide digital policy agendas.
With the beginning of the indefiniteness and the reopening of some commercial spaces, VOST Portugal, in alliance with the Secretary of State for the Digital Transition, launched the information aggregation platform “# Open4Business” that allowed any company to inform citizens about their products, schedules and restrictions. The platform was subsequently deactivated on August 19.
In June, the # COVID19PT activation ended, which began on January 28, but VOSTPT continued to monitor the situation of the pandemic in the country and publish daily DGS bulletins. Thus, between June and October they shared “operational attention” with the period of rural fires.
“In June there was a period of indefiniteness at the national level and we thought it was a good time to rest for a few months that were quite arduous and involving,” they explained to SAPO24.
However, on October 31, the Government announced new measures to combat the pandemic and restrictions on circulation, prompting VOST to decide to resume more intense actions.
“The decision to reactivate the site dedicated to covid-19, which, meanwhile, underwent a major remodeling on November 23, is about to once again enter a period in which it is necessary to report clearly and with official data, ”says the association.
Once again, they adopt the attitude of simplifying the message, making it accessible to all. To do this, with the reactivation of site dedicated to covid-19, created the “Dashboard” section and began to transform complex data into charts. The data is updated daily and the sources used are the Directorate General of Health, PORDATA and Data Science For Social Good.
“Time to” fight misinformation
On November 9, VOST Portugal launched a new campaign. “Esta Na Hora De” aims to combat misinformation and warn about risky behavior, recalling the measures that everyone can adopt.
The objective is to dismantle the “denialist movements, that is, with concepts imported from Brazil and the United States that use the exhaustion that we all feel to pull agendas without scientific basis.”
“The campaign is based on this idea, calling attention to critical thinking about the information we consume,” they refer.
Even working daily to spread information about covid-19 in a simple and practical way, VOST keeps other types of topics on the air such as weather alerts, fraud, identity fraud, safety online and even about Black Friday.
* Search and text by Marta Mixão
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