Trial by Timeline Facebook app shows how you’d be punished for being you

What do you get when you combine a Facebook app with data about human rights abuses? That would be Trial by Timeline. Following in the wake of a number of similar interactive Take-this-Lollipop-style sites, this campaign by advertising agency Colenso BBDO for the New Zealand arm of Amnesty International scans your Facebook profile for ‘crimes’ that could get you lashed, stoned, imprisoned or beheaded in countries around the world.

The site, which was originally launched late last year, has been gaining international attention recently for its ability to show you within minutes what it would be like to live in some of the world’s more extreme countries. After granting the site permission to access your Facebook account, it scans everything from your basic info (such as gender, occupation and political and religious beliefs) to your friendships and pages you like to assess which crimes you’d be guilty of.

Once you’ve waited a few minutes in the queue for sentencing, it will take you through your illegal activities and explain how you’d be punished for them. It also lays the crimes out neatly on a worldmap to show you exactly where you’d be tortured and hanged. Female? Chances are you’ll be ‘beaten’ multiple times. Work in the media? The extremists may get you. In some countries, you could be persecuted just for having a Facebook account in the first place.

According to the agency, Amnesty International wanted ordinary people to experience what life would be like to live without basic human rights, and how their everyday activities could have cost them their lives in another location. It’s an extreme example, but one which the group hopes will draw attention to the work it is doing and help encourage donations to its cause.