Group items tagged

Scroll down and read the discussion forum paper, "Child Protection and Freedom of Expression Online". The report aims to open discussion and reframe the debate surrounding child protection by bringing together, rather than isolating, advocates of online child protection and those of freedom of expression. It rejects the current moral panics that dominate the debate, particularly in the media, which over-represents the likelihood of harm to children online. It highlights the unproductive nature of framing online protection as a moral panic because it obscures and undermines the work of both freedom of expression and child protection advocates. Rather than keeping these two parties as diametrically opposed the discussion laid the first steps in finding common ground between the two. From here they can work together to advance both of their agendas and therefore achieving a more desirable balance between defending the rights of children and maintaining freedom of expression.

In the words of one infamous US President, Australia - "you are either with us or against us". Australia's proposed mandatory filtering laws runs contrary to stated US foreign policy championing an open internet. Read US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's remarks on internet freedom.

Describes how twitter is being used for citizen participation and "democracy" in various countries from Moldova, Iran and now China. The author proposes that the best way to reduce censorship and promote "democracy" is not political pressure, but to "flood the Chinese market, and those of other countries that restrict freedom of expression, with cutting-edge technology". My opinion: Although Twitter seems to be good at allowing citizens to organise and to create consensus, it does not seem to translate well to actual policy outcome. 

With heavy talks about game censorship and the effect of violent games on young minds and so forth, this article outlines a new "positive" wave of video game that could see it as a true art form and sense of expression. It gives rise to new thought about the nature of interactivity in gaming and the existentialist turn that games have taken in their design and thought processes.

Engaging in social media backfires for Nestle. Due to the Greenpeace protest against the company with regards to how the company uses palm oil in its products, a number of people posted their distaste on Nestle's Facebook page. Unfortunately for the company, the representative in charge of replying to comments was far from being amiable, or even courteous. Sample exchange of comments: Nestle: "You have freedom of speech and expression. Here, there are some rules we set. As in almost any other forum. It's to keep things clear." Paul Griffin: "Your page, your rules, true, and you just lost a customer, won the battle and lost the war! Happy?" Nestle: "Oh please...it's like we're censoring everything to allow positive comments." Social media has significant benefits for companies and how they market the products to consumers. However, if used wrongly, as with this case, massive PR clean-up is inevitable.

Iceland is planning to propose the "The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative" to save freedom of expression on the internet, aiming at press and source protection it would turn the country into a save haven for journalists and bloggers all around the world.

Good article on the social and political uses of social media (sic.) in Indonesia. There have been attempts to filter/censor content, but so far they have been avoided. Uses of Twitter, Facebook by politicians is also described. 

This article show how companies like Google, Facebook, are facing judgments from the public that blame them for the latest cases of Cyber-bulling. They defend themselves arguing that the number of users has grow fast and is impossible to control all the contents. However social networks are using auto regulating mechanism like reporting abuse. The preoccupation raises in how the main idea of free expression that internet provides could be destroyed by the "freedom abuse".

This article is about an intresting hacker attack to the government portal website. The orgnazion Anounymous laughed this attack to express their protest of the forthcoming Mandatory ISP filtering plan. Several government site are down at February 10th 2010 morning. The alleged principle of Anounymous is to fight against the threaten of internet freedom.

Additional information regarding Iceland's initiative. Watch the video, summarizing and explaining the plan, it's really good!

I thought that freedom of expressions, access to information and political and social participation are universal rights, but, maybe, it is just fantasy for some conturies

The Internet is changing every seconds and obviously getting to be worriyng in some aspects. However, free access to information, free expression and participation, and thus free access to the world is now becoming narrowed due to govermental regulations and censorship. And who is going to decide which websites should be banned or not? It seems to be worried that increasingly soficiticated leak could be created by computer geeks to retrieve the freedom of the internet.