Tor Announces Workshop On Press Freedom, Privacy & Digital Rights at Parallel Society, Lisbon

Parallel Society, the pioneering platform uniting hacktivists, technologists, researchers, activists, and artists to explore civic technology, decentralised systems, and experimental culture, announces a new interactive workshop and discussion lab from Tor as part of its Lisbon 2026 programme. Taking place on March 6th, the workshop will explore the challenges and opportunities facing journalism in the digital age.

Tor’s mission is to advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying privacy and anonymity technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their understanding both scientifically and publicly. Hosted by Pavel Zoneff (Director, Strategic Communications, the Tor Project), the 60-minute session welcomes journalists, newsroom staff, media students, creators, publishers, influencers, policymakers, and civil society participants.

Journalism today operates in an impossible space, and technology has made information more accessible than ever, yet surveillance, censorship, and misinformation increasingly shape which stories reach the public. The first half of the workshop will focus on how free, open-source, privacy-preserving technologies like Tor protect sources, uphold press freedom, and strengthen operational security across media organisations.

The second half of the session opens into a collaborative dialogue between media professionals and open-source technologists. Participants will share insights from their lived experience of newsrooms, explore barriers to adoption, and discuss how these challenges inform future tool design and usability improvements. The session also investigates how media, platforms, and FOSS communities can work together to address the growing narrative war. This session is designed to be accessible to all, regardless of technical background.

Tor will be presented as a case study for how privacy-preserving and anti-censorship technologies can serve as practical tools for resistance, creativity, journalism, and civic participation. In 2026, defending human rights in the digital era will require artists, organisers, journalists, developers, educators, and communities working together across disciplines. Within a global landscape shaped by geopolitical instability, armed conflict, and the erosion of trust, digital rights emerge not as a niche concern but as foundational to human rights themselves.

The workshop takes place on day one, 6th March, at Parallel Society, and provides a space to examine the technical and social work needed to advance digital rights, and the importance of investing in communities most reliant on these tools, including journalists, human rights defenders, and civil society.

Parallel Society, Lisbon:

Dates: 6th-7th March, 2026

Location: Marvila, Lisbon

Tickets: Available Here

Find out more & follow:

Parallel Society: Website | Instagram | Soundcloud

Tor: Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

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NOTES TO EDITOR:

Speaker Press Kits | Venue Images

Festival Artwork | Festival Logos

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​ ​ ​ ​ All Press Enquiries: tom@theeverydayagency.com

About Tor: The Tor Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation. It develops free and open source software for privacy and freedom online, protecting people from tracking, surveillance, and censorship. The Tor Project’s mission is to advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of servers run by volunteers worldwide: it prevents somebody watching your internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.

Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol. The easiest way to use Tor is in Tor Browser, which adds additional privacy protections to your browsing experience. Using Tor can also help you access an open web if you're in a part of the world or on a network where sites are blocked.

About Parallel Society: Parallel Society is an independent, non-profit cross-cultural convergence, initiated by Logos and collectively organised by a coalition of communities, technologists, and activists. Each edition supports local cultural ecosystems and leaves behind open-source infrastructure and shared resources. It’s where technologists, artists, and activists collaborate to imagine new cultural and social infrastructures. Parallel Society Lisbon is set to be the event’s biggest edition yet, with previous culture-driven gatherings taking place in Zanzibar and Bangkok.

About Logos: Logos is a social movement and decentralised technology stack built to revitalise civil society. Building technology empowering people to create resilient, sovereign coordination systems, Logos provides tools for free association, free speech, and self-governance. Logos’ movement is shaped by shared principles cultivated through local meetups, online action groups, and global digital freedom campaigns, all driven by those who join them.