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Pedro Gonçalves

U.S. Steps Gingerly Into Tumult in Iran - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...17media.html

Iran Iran Elections 2009 US Twitter E-diplomacy Iraq

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jun 09 - Cached
  • on Monday afternoon, a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran.
  • “This was just a call to say: ‘It appears Twitter is playing an important role at a crucial time in Iran. Could you keep it going?’ ” said P.J. Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs.
  • Twitter complied with the request, saying in a blog post on Monday that it put off the upgrade until late Tuesday afternoon — 1:30 a.m. Wednesday in Tehran — because its partners recognized “the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran.” The network was working normally again by Tuesday evening.
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  • The episode demonstrates the extent to which the administration views social networking as a new arrow in its diplomatic quiver. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talks regularly about the power of e-diplomacy, particularly in places where the mass media are repressed.
  • There were also suspicions that some pro-government forces might be using new-media outlets to send out misinformation. One popular opposition site, Persiankiwi, warned its followers on Tuesday to ignore instructions from people with no record of reliable posts.
  • Mr. Cohen, a Stanford University graduate who is the youngest member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, has been working with Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other services to harness their reach for diplomatic initiatives in Iraq and elsewhere.
  • Tehran has been buzzing with tweets, the posts of Twitter subscribers, sharing news on rallies, police crackdowns on protesters, and analysis of how the White House is responding to the drama.With the authorities blocking text-messaging on cellphones, Twitter has become a handy alternative for information-hungry Iranians. While Iran has also tried to block Twitter posts, Iranians are skilled at using proxy sites or other methods to circumvent the official barriers.
  • Last month, he organized a visit to Baghdad by Mr. Dorsey and other executives from Silicon Valley and New York’s equivalent, Silicon Alley. They met with Iraq’s deputy prime minister to discuss how to rebuild the country’s information network and to sell the virtues of Twitter.
  • In addition to Twitter, YouTube has been a critical tool to spread videos from Iran when traditional media outlets have had difficulty filming the protests or the ensuing crackdown. One YouTube account, bearing the user name “wwwiranbefreecom,” showed disturbing images of police officers beating people in the streets. On Monday, Lara Setrakian, an ABC News journalist, put out a call for video on Twitter, writing, “Please send footage we can’t reach!”
  • Journalists were told on Tuesday that they could not cover protests without permission. The restrictions “effectively confine journalists to their offices,” a spokesman for the BBC said.
Argos Media

Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...08moldova.html

Facebook Moldova Politics Politics 2.0 Social Media Twitter Web 2.0

shared by Argos Media on 08 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police.
  • The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, the social messaging network.
  • The protesters created their own searchable tag on Twitter, rallying Moldovans to join and propelling events in this small former Soviet state onto a Twitter list of newly popular topics, so people around the world could keep track.
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  • By Tuesday night, the seat of government had been badly battered and scores of people had been injured. But riot police had regained control of the president’s offices and Parliament Wednesday.
  • Young people have increasingly used the Internet to mobilize politically; cellphones and text messages helped swell protests in Ukraine in 2004, and in Belarus in 2006.
  • The immediate cause of the protests were parliamentary elections held on Sunday, in which Communists won 50 percent of the vote, enough to allow them to select a new president and amend the Constitution. Though the Communists were expected to win, their showing was stronger than expected, and opposition leaders accused the government of vote-rigging.
  • Election observers from the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had tentatively accepted the voting as fair, though they expressed some concern about interference from the authorities. But the results were a deep disappointment in the capital, where Communist candidates lost the last round of municipal elections.
  • Behind the confrontation is a split in Moldova’s population. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought benefits to much of Eastern Europe, but in Moldova it ushered in economic decline and instability. In 2001, angry citizens backed the return of the Communists and their social programs.
  • But Moldova remained desperately poor, and young people flocked overseas to work. They have looked to the West as the best path to economic stability and have defied Mr. Voronin’s government by urging closer integration with Romania.
  • “I wouldn’t necessarily call it an anti-Communist movement,” Mr. Patterson said. “This really is a generational squeeze. It’s not really the Communists versus the opposition. It’s the grandmothers versus the grandkids.”
Argos Media

Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...08moldova.html

Moldova Twitter Facebook Politics Politics 2.0 Social Media Web 2.0

shared by Argos Media on 08 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Russia backed Mr. Voronin
  • At a news briefing, a State Department spokesman, Robert A. Wood, also expressed concern about the violence, but he said policy makers in Washington had not yet assessed whether the elections had been free and fair.
  • Mihai Moscovici, 25, who provided updates in English all day over Twitter, painted a more nuanced picture. He said the gathering on Monday night drew only several hundred people. The protesters agreed to gather the next morning and began spreading the word through Facebook and Twitter, inventing a searchable tag for the stream of comments: #pman, which stands for Piata Marii Adunari Nationale, Chisinau’s central square. When Internet service was shut down, Mr. Moscovici said, he issued updates with his cellphone.
Argos Media

'Twitter revolution' Moldovan activist goes into hiding | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ldova-activist-hiding-protests

Moldova Russia Natalia Morar

shared by Argos Media on 16 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The woman behind the mass protests which rocked the capital of Moldova last week has gone into hiding after the so-called "Twitter revolution" forced a recount of the general election.Natalia Morar, 25, a Moldovan who has already been banned from Russia for opposing the Kremlin, told the Guardian she feared arrest after organising a flash mob which ended with 20,000 people storming the parliament building.
  • The protests began after a conversation between Morar and six friends in a cafe in Chisinau, Moldova's tiny capital, on Monday 6 April. "We discussed what we should do about the previous day's parliamentary elections, which we were sure had been rigged," said Morar, speaking at a secret location.
  • The elections brought a larger-than-expected victory for the incumbent Communist party. "We decided to organise a flash mob for the same day using Twitter, as well as networking sites and SMS." With no recent history of mass protests in Moldova, "we expected at the most a couple of hundred friends, friends of friends, and colleagues", she said. "When we went to the square, there were 20,000 people waiting there. It was unbelievable."
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  • This morningelection officials in Moldova began a recount of votes, which was ordered by President Vladimir Voronin following the protests. The results of the recount will be announced on Friday.
  • "Not only did we underestimate the power of Twitter and the internet, we also underestimated the explosive anger among young people at the government's policies and electoral fraud," said Morar.
  • The demonstrations continued into Tuesday peacefully. But later that day, with no response from the government, protesters swept police aside to storm the parliament building and the towering presidential palace opposite. Fire broke out in one wing of the parliament, and the young protesters vented their fury by wrecking computers and office furniture.
  • Moldova, with a population of 4 million, is Europe's poorest country, and a large number of young people are forced to find work in the west.
  • She does not believe the current vendetta against her is purely the work of the Moldovan authorities, but sees the Kremlin's hand in it as well: "It was when Russia expressed strong support for Moldova's position on the elections, and condemned the protests, that they started targeting us."
  • Morar was expelled from Russia in 2007 after writing a series of articles accusing top Kremlin officials, including Alexander Bortnikov, the current head of the Russian security services, the FSB, of being behind the murder of Russia's central bank deputy head Andrey Kozlov in September 2006.
Argos Media

Moldova forces regain control of parliament after 'Twitter revolution' | World news | g... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...dova-protest-election-chisinau

Moldova Vladimir Voronin Twitter

shared by Argos Media on 09 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Security forces in Moldova were today back in control of the country's parliament, a day after demonstrators stormed the building.
  • One analyst called the uprising a "Twitter revolution".
  • At least 10,000 protesters took part in yesterday's demonstrations.The young crowd carried EU, Moldovan and Romanian flags and shouted slogans including: "Down with communism!" Others demanded the unification of Moldova and Romania.
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  • According to official results, the party took about 49.9% of the votes, but opposition leaders dismissed the result as fraudulent and have demanded a rerun.
  • Despite some economic progress under the communists, who have been in power since 2001, Moldova remains the poorest country in Europe. About 600,000 Moldovans have left to find work in EU countries.
  • Moldova's provinces largely support the pro-Russian communists, but the capital favours the more western-leaning opposition.
  • Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said: "Moldova's violent 'Twitter revolution' is totally different from the peaceful protest of Ukraine's Orange revolution."This time, the crowd are not angry at a stolen election, but at the growing corruption of the ruling Communist party, its recent turn towards Russia and an imminent economic crisis."
  • Russian analysts, however, suggested that the protests were unjustified because western observers had confirmed that the communists were legitimate winners of the election and had certified the poll as fair."This is an active attempt by a small minority to take power," Vladimir Zharikhin, the deputy director of the Moscow Institute for the Study of Post-Soviet Countries, said.
Argos Media

'Twitter Revolution': Fearing Uprising, Russia Backs Moldova's Communists - SPIEGEL ONL... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,618563,00.html

Moldova Chisinau Romania Transnistria Russia

shared by Argos Media on 11 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Monday's Twitter-organized student protest brought some 10,000 people to Chisinau's main square, who accused the government of rigging Sunday's vote. The protest turned violent on Tuesday, with some demonstrators throwing rocks and storming the Moldovan parliament.
  • Moldova's current president, Vladimir Voronin, has belittled the protests and accused neighboring Romania of organizing a coup. He even expelled Romania's ambassador on Wednesday. "When the flag of Romania was raised on state buildings, the attempts of the opposition to carry out a coup became clear," he said. "We will not allow this."
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lined up behind Voronin on Thursday and described the protesters who ransacked the parliament as "pogrom-makers" bent on destroying the country.
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  • "The Moscow authorities are afraid of spontaneous mass protests in the regions … and, for this reason, Russian television is showing what is happening in an exclusively negative light," Dmitry Oreshkin, a Moscow-based political analyst, told Reuters. "It is beneficial for the Kremlin to show the consequences of peoples' protests to justify why it needs to be tough."
  • some of the anti-Communist opposition parties in Moldova want to join the EU, if possible by reunifying with Romania. The two nations were unified for a while before World War II, and about two-thirds of Moldovans claim Romanian descent. Reunification was a campaign issue in Sunday's election.
  • "If Romanians and Moldovans decide in favor of a union," one European diplomat said in last week's run-up to the vote, "the EU will not oppose them."
  • However, the Communist (and anti-Romanian) influence also has passionate defenders in Moldova, since Romanian troops allied with Nazis had a cruel record in Moldova during World War II. Russia is seen as a protective big brother against the Romanian influence in parts of Moldova -- especially Transnistria, a breakaway region with many Russian speakers and its own, but still internationally unrecognized, president.
  • Russian troops have kept the peace in Transnistria since 1992, and Russian support for the region has been compared to Russian support for breakaway regions in Georgia and Ukraine.
  • a large protest in the capital was brewing on Friday -- organized on a Twitter stream tagged #pman, which stands for the initials of Chisinau's biggest square-- with protesters claiming the government would use the threat of a Romanian coup as a reason to arrest people illegally.
  • The violence on Tuesday was a setback for the protesters' cause even within Moldova's anti-Communist community, and some experts wondered if it wasn't orchestrated.
  • "The protests were initially very peaceful, but then a small group, which seemed to be very well-organized, started these violent riots," Igor Munteanu, who runs a think tank in Chisinau called Viitorul, told Britain's Independent newspaper. "My suspicion is that this was provoked and directed from within. Elements of the Communist leadership do not want closer relations with the EU, as it will mean loosening their grip on power. They know that if they provoke a crisis with Romania and the EU, and improve relations with Moscow, they will be able to continue running the country as they please."
  • Some Russian analysts on Wednesday were blaming President Barack Obama for the Moldovan unrest, saying American's interest is to hem in Russia.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - E-diplomacy: Foreign policy in 140 characters - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...magazine-18856295

Social Media Twitter E-diplomacy

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 31 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • The acknowledged leader in this field is the US State Department, which now boasts more than 150 full-time social media employees working across 25 different offices. It uses familiar sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, as well as local equivalents, such as VKontakte in Russia. Ambassadors and other State Department employees are encouraged to establish an online presence.
  • "The State Department is really creating what is effectively a media empire that could soon be the digital equivalent of old school international broadcasters like the BBC," he says. "But they not only see it as part of a broadcasting strategy, they are looking at the wider potential." Social media acts like an early warning system of emerging social and political movements, he says. It is also a way of reaching online opinion formers, and a means of correcting misinformation very quickly.
  • The State Department now has an internal version of Wikipedia called Diplopedia, which has more than 14,000 entries. To encourage internal networking, there is also an equivalent of Facebook called Corridor - in the look and feel, the two are strikingly similar - which has over 6,500 members.
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  • e-diplomacy is the talk of foreign ministries the world over, as foreign affairs is increasingly conducted in 140 characters or less.
Argos Media

Moldova: Romania to blame for Twitter riots - CNN.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...index.html

Romania Moldova Vladimir Voronin

shared by Argos Media on 08 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Moldova's president Wednesday accused Romania of involvement in a huge anti-communist protest, much of it coordinated on Facebook and Twitter, which saw government buildings ransacked and police arrest scores of demonstrators.
  • "Romania is involved in everything that has happened," he said, according to the RIA-Novosti news agency. "Patience also has its limits."
  • Moldova's ties with Romania have become increasingly strained under Voronin, who has steered his country diplomatically closer to Russia since taking power in 2005. The president has repeatedly accused Romania of wanting to absorb his country.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Technology | Google sees voice search as core - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7982763.stm

Technology Google Twitter Voice Search

shared by Argos Media on 04 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Google has said it sees voice search as a major opportunity for the company in building a presence on the mobile web.
  • During a question and answer session, Mr Gundotra was quizzed on rumours circulating in the blogosphere that Google is looking to buy the micro-blogging service Twitter.
Argos Media

Web News Guru Jeff Jarvis on Death of Papers: 'This Year Will Bring a True Sea Change' ... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,623013,00.html

Journalism Journalism 2.0 Newspapers Media Jeff Jarvis

shared by Argos Media on 06 May 09 - Cached
  • The online generation thinks: If the news is that important, it will find me. My son who has never subscribed to a print newspaper, gets his news from Facebook, Twitter or from friends. He no longer treats traditional media as a magnet. People now get their messages by relying on other people they trust.
  • SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what role, in your opinion, can newspapers still play?
  • arvis: They certainly no longer want to be in the paper business because that is dying out. The information business might be fine but there is no scarcity of information and news online. They could, however, be very effective in the collection business -- just find the best of the stuff that is out there online. They could also use their strong brands to compete in the business of elegant organization by creating information platforms or venturing into new markets. The New York Times has just started a new local program in New York enlisting my journalism students to collaborate online with them to report on their communities. That is the right approach. News outlets need to think distributed, they must collaborate with bloggers or social networking sites. On my blog, I have links to Google News or Google Maps. Innovative newspapers like the Guardian in Britain are equally open to cooperation. They make all their content available free online, they link to all sorts of sites, and in turn they receive more links in return.
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  • tremendous efficiencies can be found in the online revolution. Publishers no longer have to pay for expensive presses or trucks. They can operate with a much smaller staff. Start ups can create news and entertain communities at a much smaller cost by forming the kind of networks I described. There are many other new options: A hyperlocal journalism approach, for instance. Or platforms with a whole of networks consisting of bloggers, next to foundations, next to publicly supported reporting, next to volunteers. But we will also investigate whether a paid content model can still work in the digital age.
  • Jarvis: There is simply no scarcity of news online, so it is hard to return to old monopolies from the print era. In discussions, I often hear from media executives that readers should pay for content online. We need to get past such emotional debates. It is not about what should be done, it is about simple economics. When the New York Times stopped charging for content online, visits to its site increased by 40 percent. You will never get the ad rates you got in the past for print for those links. But media outlets can use them to generate other income. In Germany, Axel Springer is making a lot of money from merchandising online. BILD.de just sold 21,000 video cameras to readers who are then using them to take pictures that they send to the newsrooms. Also, news organizations could target smaller advertisers more aggressively for online ads.
  • SPIEGEL ONLINE: Some are calling for government subsidies for print outlets. Others suggest a fee for computer and mobile phone sales because without free media offerings, these devices would be a lot less attractive to consumers. Jarvis: To me, such proposals seem like waiting for the new knight to bail out the industry. Get over it. It won't happen. Media outlets need to face the new economic competition. The same is true for the possibility of government intervention. How should a government decide what outlet deserves support and what does not? The idea is absurd.
  • Jarvis: I like print, but the economics don't add up. I believe this year will bring a true sea change: The one size fits all approach is coming to an end. More and more papers will either close or go solely online. Legendary investor Warren Buffett just said: I would never invest in newspapers. That is coming from a man who sits on the board of the Washington Post. Why should anyone throw money after a dying business model?
Pedro Gonçalves

China orders PC makers to install blocking software | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...web-blocking-software-china

China Great Firewall Green Dam Youth Escort Censorship

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 09 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Computer makers in China have been instructed to pre-install blocking software on every PC hard drive from next month, under a government push to control access to the internet.The new software, which has been developed by companies working with the Chinese military, is specifically aimed at restricting online pornography, but it could also be used to strengthen barriers to politically sensitive websites.
  • China's authorities currently block overseas-based sites they disapprove of, such as those relating to Tibetan independence, or the Falun Gong spiritual movement, with a mesh of filters and keyword restrictions, widely known as the Great Firewall.
  • The new software – called Green Dam Youth Escort – potentially adds a powerful new tool at the level of the individual computer. It updates a list of forbidden sites from an online database, much as network security programs automatically download the latest defences against new worms, trojans and viruses.The software, designed to work with the Microsoft Windows operating system, also collects private user data.
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  • A separate instruction on the ministry's website obliged schools to install Green Dam on every computer in their institutions by the end of last month.
  • Optional programs that allow parents to restrict internet access by their children have existed for some time, but this is the first time the government has instructed that every computer be installed with a single centralised system.
  • China's ministry of industry and information technology issued a notice to personal computer-makers on 19 May that every machine sold from 1 July must be preloaded with the software. Last year 40m PCs were sold in China, the world's second biggest market after the US.
  • The software was developed by Jinhui Computer System Engineering in Henan under a 21m yuan (£2.2m) deal with the government.
  • Bryan Zhang, the founder of Jinhui, told reporters his company was compiling a database of forbidden sites, all related to pornography. He claimed users would have the option of uninstalling the software, or choosing to unblock sites, though they will not be permitted to see the list.
  • China periodically launches campaigns against online porn. In the latest drive more than 1,900 websites have been shut down and search engines, such as Google and Baidu, have been castigated for failing to self-regulate. Rights groups say the same techniques, along with cruder methods, are used to stifle websites that embarrass, irritate or threaten the government.Last week the authorities blocked Twitter and Hotmail in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Pedro Gonçalves

ANALYSIS / Can Iran ever be freed from its religious regime? - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1094648.html

Israel Iran Iran Elections 2009 Intelligence

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Israel - which hopefully is refraining from excessive meddling in the events - has something to gain from each of the scenarios. If conservative rule prevails it will be at the price of a brutal suppression of the protests. The international community, which over the years has developed a disturbing apathy toward Iranian threats to annihilate Israel, is much more concerned about the crushing of democracy in Tehran. This trampling of democracy may bring about a much harsher approach by the United States and European Union if the dialogue over the Iranian nuclear program fails and the sanctions are intensified.
  • The limits of intelligence. It's not much of a surprise, but what's happening in Iran, from the election results to the enormous protests, is a stark reminder of the limits of intelligence. We might even assume that the CIA is getting more information on the events from CNN (constrained as it is by the Iranian authorities), the blogosphere and Twitter, than from its agents deep in the land of the ayatollahs. Western intelligence has been focusing on the nuclear program a lot more than the Iranian regime's stability.
  • One of this week's big questions was why intelligence organizations didn't predict what was about to happen. But the events in Iran have taken the world by surprise, and one wonders if even Iranian intelligence had any idea what was about to unfold. Unlike counting tanks and centrifuges, less "physical" processes like leaders' intentions, election results and nations' willingness to rebel against oppressive regimes are much more difficult to predict.
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