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THE MCCAIN NEGATIVE WORDCLOUDWords Not in McCain’s Tech Policy | blog |social network | collaboration | hyperlink | democracy | google | wikipedia | open access | open source | standards | gnu | linux | | BitTorrent | anonymity | facebook | wiki | free speech | games | comcast | media concentration | media | lolcats |

Even if we ignore the cultural, social, and democratic aspects of the Net, even if we consider the Net to be nothing but a way to move content to “consumers” (his word), McCain still gets it wrong. There’s nothing in his policy about encouraging the free flow of ideas. Instead, when McCain thinks about ideas, he thinks about how to increase the walls around them by cracking down on “pirates” and ensuring ” fair rewards to intellectual property” (which, technically speaking, I think isn’t even English). Ideas and culture are, to John McCain, business commodities. He totally misses the dramatic and startling success of the Web in generating new value via open access to ideas and cultural products. The two candidates’ visions of the Internet could not be clearer. We can have a national LAN designed first and foremost to benefit business, and delivered to passive consumers for whom the Net is a type of cable TV. Or, we can have an Internet that is of the people, by the people, for the people. Is it going to be our Internet or theirs?

“Senator McCain’s technology plan doesn’t put Americans first—it is a rehash of tax breaks and giveaways to the big corporations and their lobbyists who advise the McCain campaign. This plan won’t do enough for hardworking Americans who are still waiting for competitive and affordable broadband service at their homes and businesses. It won’t do enough to ensure a free and open Internet that guarantees freedom of speech. It won’t do anything to ensure that we use technology to bring transparency to government and free Washington from the grip of lobbyists and special interests. Senator McCain’s plan would continue George Bush’s neglect of this critical sector and relegate America’s communications infrastructure to second-class status. That’s not acceptable,” said William Kennard, Former Chairman, Federal Communications Commission.

Commerce has since 1997 repeatedly refused to incorporate freedom of expression as a principle guiding the ICANN regime, despite numerous calls for it to do so in public comment sessions. The earliest of these calls came in 1997, during the drafting of the Green Paper leading to ICANN's creation, when the principles guiding the regime were first being formulated. EFF, the Domain Name Rights Coalition and many individuals asked that free expression be written into ICANN's constitution. The most recent reiteration of this call came in 2006, from the Internet Governance Project during a review of ICANN’s status. In each case, Commerce has either ignored or in some cases explicitly rebuffed these calls for recognition of free speech as a part of ICANN’s mandate.

If you are a long-time follower of the Turkish blogosphere you will have undoubtedly heard about the Turkish ban on Wordpress….and the periodic bans on YouTube, and on the social-networking widget site Slide, oh..and now on Dailymotion as well.

It is hard to keep track now-a-days and frustrating. Turkish bloggers feel the same way too, and are protesting the constant banning of sites by voluntarily banning their own. So how are Turkish bloggers protesting these periodic bans on the internet? By putting the following up on their website: Bu siteye erişim kendi kararıyla engellenmiştir which translates roughly into “This site is blocked by [the author's] own choice”.

Another challenge could be a shallow pool of local Chinese translators, production assistants and helpers available to foreign reporters because of the potential for arrest for aiding foreign journalists on sensitive stories.

任何一个组织都是人组成的，一定有缺陷。可只有在一种简单的思维方式下，才会把一切问题仅仅分成好坏两种状态，而忽略了纯粹的好和纯粹的坏是不存在的。 把国内媒体和舆论在这次事件之前和这次事件之后对于这个组织的报道做一个对比，也许是有意思的事情：之前，记者无国界每年评的新闻自由度排行虽然不见得全面和完全公平，但基本上在国内的非官方领域还是受到肯定的。毋庸讳言，大陆的新闻制度很糟糕，如果没有外界的批评力量，改革的动力更小。去年十一月，有媒体报道，“记者.无国界”总干事罗伯特•梅纳德（也就是这次被攻击得体无完肤的人）访问中国，进行了建设性的接触，并分析央府正在逐渐接受记者无国界的理念云云。那时候的记者无国界还是以正面形象出现的。但事隔不到半年，双方就大打出手，建设性的意见完全消失。