The press freedom group Rapporteurs sans Frontieres (Reporters without Borders) has recently come out with a “Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents” that’s a great resources for bloggers, whether you are a citizen journalist in Iran or a non-techie wanting to set up your own online diary. The handbook begins with the basics — what is…
Category: Information Society
CSTD – no, not that STD – meeting in May
I just got word that the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) is having their ninth session from May 15-19 in Geneva. The unfortunately acronymed CSTD is a subsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council in 1992 to provide high-level advice on relevant issues through analysis and appropriate policy recommendations or…
Time to shut down the internets, it’s illegal to be annoying
News.com reports that President Bush just signed into law an act that makes it a federal crime to “annoy” someone on the internet if you do not divulge your identity. Where are we, China? Tunisia? Saudi Arabia? Cuba? No, this is the flipping United States of America. We as Americans have a God-given right to…
Will the Internet Governance Forum use the Internet?
Just got word that the Internet Governance Forum, the multi-stakeholder policy deliberation body that came out of the WSIS Tunis conference, will be having its first meeting from February 16 to 17 in Geneva. This is pretty short notice for lots of groups around the world to try and book flights and find hotels to…
How come nobody told me about jazz ringtones?
I will take back every bad thing I’ve ever said about ringtones. Yes, they are a waste of money. Yes, they are silly status symbols. Yes, they serve no useful function other than to annoy your neighbor. But I have to say it makes my day to hear Sarah Vaughn and realize that my phone…
The Times UK quoted me!
I was googling around the net and found out that the October 20 post (“Senator Coleman draws a line in the sand on internet governance”) from this blog was quoted in the Times UK newspaper. The November 12, 2005 story was on “Censorship is at the heart of debate on internet control” where I am…
Dear UN: Please get an RSS feed
The United Nations website is filled with a wealth of useful information and news about the world we live in, from on-the-ground updates on conflicts and security crises to statistical data on every country on the planet. And yet it tends to hoard that information to be mostly consumed by a small population of diplomats…
I am the ruler of Panganibania
I recently surfed across NationStates.net, a huge online community of people role-playing as nation-states. The site was created by author Max Berry to complement his novel Jennifer Government. The idea of thousands of people engaging in virtual statecraft in real-time online is so strange and cool. To play the international politics simulation, you first have…
Civil Society is Dead, Long Live Civil Society
Robert Guerra of CPSR asked on the WSIS plenary email list whether or not the plenary list should continue to exist or not. I will re-state what I said at the close CS plenary in Tunis. All the structures and modalities that were developed over the course of the last four years in the WSIS…
WSIS Civil Society Statement released… 4 weeks after Tunis
A couple of days ago, civil society groups finally finished drafting of a huge omnibus statement on the WSIS. Full text of the statement can be found here. In principle I have no problem with the idea of civil society groups coming out with a statement in response to the World Summit on the Information…