February 28, 2006
Using E-Mail to Combat E-Mail Tolls
A group of nonprofit and public interest groups has launched a campaign to protest plans by America Online and Yahoo to charge high-volume e-mailers fees to guarantee certified delivery.
"The campaign is being organized by MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group that uses its list of three million e-mail addresses to influence public opinion and raise money, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties group. They have enlisted about 50 other supporters including the Gun Owners of America, the Democratic National Committee and the National Humane Society." The groups have set up a Web site (www.dearaol.com) which will have an online petition users can sign asking AOL to change its policy.
Continue reading...
Plan for Fees on Some E-Mail Spurs Protest
Posted by Buzz Webster at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 24, 2006
Uganda Catches Online Campaigning Fever
This week’s election in Uganda illustrated just how far-reaching the Internet’s impact on politics has become.
This week’s election in Uganda illustrated just how far-reaching the Internet’s impact on politics has become. The African nation’s first multi-party election in over twenty years took place this Thursday, with the presidency and all seats in parliament up for grabs. Technology played a much more significant role in the proceedings than it ever has before.
Three of the four main political parties (NRM, FDC, UPC) attempted to woo voters with attractive, detailed, and frequently updated web sites. The FDC’s site followed presidential candidate Kizza Besigye on the campaign trail and even offered a blog where supporters could commiserate. The NRM, party of incumbent President Yoweri Museveni, is using email registration to recruit new members and Museveni’s campaign team used SMS to get their message across. The Democratic Party (DP) remains the only party without a website.
But it isn’t all good news. This week the international Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) accused the Ugandan government of blocking internal access to a popular Web site, Radio Katwe, in the weeks before the election. Radio Katwe publishes a broad range of anonymous reader-submitted stories, including extremely critical reports of President Yoweri Museveni and the ruling NRM.
Electoral officials across throughout Uganda reported orderly voting and a high turn out for the elections. Election rules stipulate that results must be announced within 48 hours of when the polls close, which will be 5 p.m. Saturday.
For more information:
“Technology Powers Campaigns"
“Ugandan Government Blocks Critical Web Site Ahead of Polls"
Posted by Buzz Webster at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 22, 2006
China's Great Firewall, to be Continued
The Washington Post has posted a series of interesting articles on China's great firewall.
Bloggers Who Pursue Change Confront Fear And Mistrust
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/20/AR2006022001304.html
The Click That Broke a Government's Grip
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/18/AR2006021801389.html?sub=AR
Reference Tool On Web Finds Fans, Censors
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/19/AR2006021901335.html
Posted by Buzz Webster at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 21, 2006
The Real Story of the Swift Boat Veterans
A professor uses the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as an important lesson to serve for future campaign advocacy groups.
Al May, former national political reporter and now journalism professor at George Washington University, has written a fascinating account of how the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth conducted the single most effective political advertising campaign in the 2004 presidential campaign. Initially comprising a small band of disaffected Vietnam Vets who were angry at John Kerry’s behavior during and after the war, they soon attracted some big-money Texas Republicans.
The national press did not take them seriously enough, soon enough. The article describes a scenario that may be repeated by future independent groups and offers a cautionary tale for the press. ”Swift Boat Vets in 2004: Press Coverage of an Independent Campaign” appears in The First Amendment Law Review (Vol. 4, Fall 2005) and on Professor May’s website at GW: http://www.gwu.edu/~smpa/faculty/albert_may.cfm
Posted by Buzz Webster at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 20, 2006
China Dominating the Headlines
The internet continues to buzz about China, with several new articles speculating about the role of the Internet in the communist country.
Three articles about China hit the press today, taking three very different perspectives.
First, The Guardian argues, "China is in the midst of a guerrilla war, a conflict against the world's biggest censor that is very much in keeping with the information age. In the 1940s, Mao's communist rebels used hit-and-run tactics to sap the morale - and eventually defeat - the numerically superior but morally bankrupt nationalist forces. This time, it is journalists, bloggers and dissidents who are probing the defences of a more powerful but equally despised enemy: the propaganda department of the Communist party."
The Washington Post focuses on the role of Wikipedia in China. The reference site has been blocked in the country in spite of citizen protests.
The Chinese publication Interfax China takes a lighter spin on things with the summary of results of a survey conducted by one of the nation's leading consulting firms. The article claims that although 52% of white collar workers in the country maintain blogs, "Unlike western bloggers who often focus on news and politics [they] see complaining alongside office and personal gossip as their priorities, according to the survey."
Posted by Buzz Webster at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 17, 2006
The High-Tech Protest Movement
The Middle Eastern protest movement against the Danish cartoons satirizing Islam relied on modern technology to spread its message.
The Washington Post published an article this week entitled “Anatomy of the Cartoon Protest Movement”, which includes an interview with a Saudi Arabian plastic surgeon named Hashim Balkhy who participated in the protests. Balkhy’s means of protest included online discussion groups, websites, email, and text messages. For example, he sent out mass emails urging fellow Muslims to boycott Danish goods and write letters of protest to Danish leaders, whose contact information he had found online.
Other news stories have revealed that . The government of Syria has been rumored to have encouraged its citizens to riot via text messaging. In Copenhagen, an anonymous mass text message warning of a Quran burning in the Hall Square prompted hundreds of Muslims to gather. The rumor was later shown to be false. At the same time, other Muslims have used high tech means to discourage members of their community from resorting to violence.
For more information:
“Governments Are Complicit in Violence"
"Danish Muslims Warn of Burning Quran in Planned Rally"
Posted by Buzz Webster at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 15, 2006
Net Firms Face U.S. Congressional Scrutiny
Four U.S. Internet companies eager for a foothold in China will face Congressional questioning today.
Read More and watch a video of the hearing at NYtimes.com:
House Member Criticizes Internet Companies for Practices in China
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/technology/15cnd-internet.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Posted by Buzz Webster at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 13, 2006
Computers for Youth in the Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republican has begun efforts to bridge the digital divide, offering free personal computers to 3000 disadvantaged young people.
The country's president, Leonel Fernandez and others in the government have created two separate programs, the Digital Divide Reduction Program and the Digital Literacy Project. Together these programs aim to reduce the country's current technology gap.
The Dominican Republic's program is merely one small part of an international effort to bring modern technology to children in all areas of the world. Last year PoliticsOnline reported on the "One Laptop Per Child" program as well as MIT's invention of the $100 laptop.
To read more about the program, see the Dominican Today's article "Computers for Youth Program Kicks Off in DR."
Posted by Buzz Webster at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 08, 2006
Islamic Hackers: Rise of the Second Superpower?
In protest of the series of European cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad, Islamic hackers defaced almost 1,000 Danish websites.
The twelve cartoons that inspired international protests were published on September 30, 2005 by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. They show the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in a variety of humorous or satirical situations. For example, one shows the Prophet wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb. In another he says paradise is running short of virgins for suicide bombers. Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet or Allah.
In their article "Anti-Cartoon Protests Go Online", the BBC reported that these attacks typically replaced home pages with pro-Islam messages and condemn the publication of the cartoons. The article quotes Roberto Preatoni, founder and administrator of international hack attack monitoring group Zone-H: "We have never seen so many defacements that are politically targeted in such a short time...What is extraordinary for this Danish case is the speed in which the community united."
Harvard Law School professor Dr. James F. Moore wrote a groundbreaking essay entitled "The Second Superpower Rears Its Beautiful Head," in which he argued that the internet could inspire a "second superpower" of international grassroots activism. Dr. Moore wrote optimistically of the second superpower, but the online anti-cartoon protests could illustrate otherwise. A comparable incident occurred this week in the case of the Syrian protesters who burned and looted the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus. Recent news stories have revealed that the protestors were encouraged to organize by the Syrian authorities and received text messages from Islamic study centres spurring them on.
Thanks to The World's Clark Boyd for referring this story to PoliticsOnline.
For more information on the cartoons, see BBC News' "Q&A."
Posted by Buzz Webster at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Opposition Politicians in Belarus Campaign Online
Politicians in Belarus who oppose incumbent President Lukashenka and others in power have turned to the internet to get their message out.
The internet is one of the only sources of free media in the tiny country, where newspapers, radio, and television are all under state control, and the opposition candidates are taking notice. All four candidates All of the four candidates for the upcoming presidential election, including the incumbent, have launched campaign websites.
In spite of the extraordinary digital divide within the country, opposition candidate Alyaksandr Milinkevich's website, which was launched in November 2005, currently attracts more than 1,000 visitors every day. Where only 2 percent of the population had access to the Internet in the previous presidential election in 2001, now nearly 15 percent do.
What effect will the new technology have on the presidential race? We'll have to wait until March 19 to find out.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 07, 2006
The End of the Internet?
Major cable and phone companies like Verizon, Comcast and Bell South are proposing strategies that could force citizen users to pay fees for virtually everything they do on the Internet.
If these companies get their way, the US Government will have extremely limited control over their implementations. Besides tracking and storing our information in a manner not unlike the National Security Agency, these corporations are devising plans that would force us all to pay more for individual services. From surfing the Net to sending e-mails to streaming videos, these companies want us all to pay a much higher price. Is this a violation of ethics or just business at work?
For more information, see Jeff Chester's article entitled The End of the Internet, published in The Nation on February 1, 2006.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 01, 2006
Who Owns the Name Russia?
The Russian government has demanded to see evidence from Russiatoday.com that it has authorization from the government to use the name "Russia."
Founded in 1996, Russia Today is one of the oldest and most widely read English language Internet sites for breaking news about Russia. The request for authorization of its domain name came from Sergey Frolov, General Director of TV Novosti/Russia Today TV, a Moscow-based media company licensed by the Putin government. This seems to be yet more evidence of the Russian government's crackdown on international media--even on the internet.
For more information, see SYS-CON Media's article "How's This for Russian Press Intolerance? U.S. Internet Firm Russiatoday.com Told It Needs Approval from Russian Government to Use Name 'Russia'".
Posted by Buzz Webster at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
