Just found out about the "Freedom to Connect" or F2C conference happening from April 3-4 in DC. Sounds like it will be an important gathering of policy-makers, experts and activists on internet public policy. The goal of F2C:Freedom to Connect is to bring a wide range of thought leaders to Washington, DC to share experience,…
It’s a secret!
My friend Ralf sent me a link to an entertaining flash animation on government secrecy called “In the Dark”. Created under the direction of Matt Wuerker and sponsored by a new coalition called OpentheGovernment.org, the web movie lampoons the US government’s efforts to keep necessary and vital information away from the American people. “In the…
Web conferencing woes
I’m evaluating several web conferencing packages for my organization. In my mind I imagine that there must be one that combines video conferencing, VOIP, traditional teleconferencing, app sharing and recording. And that doesn’t cost $10,000 a year to deploy. I’m quite fond of Elluminate, which is a web conferencing service that comes from the academic…
My cat’s obsession with scarves (videos)
I know it’s not cat blogging Friday, but I was playing around with my new digital camera’s video feature, and I managed to capture my crazy kitten Mole Negro climbing up and forcing his way into my cheap coat closet. He’s quite the climber, and totally obsessed with getting at all my gloves, hats and…
The Internet as Supermarket or Freeway?
The March 20th issue of the New Yorker has a nice "Talk of the Town" piece on the net neutrality debate called "Net Losses." In it they contrast competing visions of what the Internet is to become: Ultimately, Internet providers hope to manage the Internet the way a supermarket owner manages his store, charging companies…
Fair Use explained in comic book form
Here’s an awesome use of a visual medium to convey a complex subject. Bound by Law is a comic book created by the Duke Law School Center for the Study of the Public Domain to teach folks in an entertaining fashion about the principles and pitfalls of the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. The…
Learning about grassroots media activism
I’m at a media reform activist event at the New America Foundation in Washington DC. This series of panels is sponsored by the Media and Democracy coalition, which is being facilitated by Consumer’s Union. The first panel this afternoon is on “Telecommunications and Media Around the World.” The star-studded array of panelists included Jonathan Lawson…
General Assembly Creates New Human Rights Council
The UN General Assembly adopted by a vote today the proposal to replace the much-maligned Commission on Human Rights with the more streamlined and possibly more effective Human Rights Council. The only countries that voted against were the United States (which originally proposed the Council, ironically), Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau. Given how ineffective…
Network-centric views on policy change
I attended an interesting briefing at the Ford Foundation yesterday that featured a couple of researchers who take a network / systems perspective to advocacy and policy change. The first was Richard Rogers, who teaches New Media at the University of Amsterdam. Richard spoke about "issue networks," which he defined as a set of actors…
UNESCO launches online consultation on WSIS implementation
UNESCO has just launched an online space for various actors to post recommendations and proposals on how to implement the various action lines of the WSIS Plan of Action. Basically it’s a discussion board, which I suppose I should be excited about. What’s interesting is see what areas of the WSIS agenda UNESCO sees itself…