Skip to main content

Home/ New Media Ethics 2009 course/ Group items matching "'media" in title, tags, annotations or url

Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url

Sort By: Relevance | Date Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Weiye Loh

Cancer resembles life 1 billion years ago, say astrobiologists - microbiology, genomics, genetics, evolution, cell biology, cancer, astrobiology - Australian Life Scientist - 0 views

www.lifescientist.com.au/..._years_ago_say_astrobiologists

Cancer Evolution Life

shared by Weiye Loh on 17 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • astrobiologists, working with oncologists in the US, have suggested that cancer resembles ancient forms of life that flourished between 600 million and 1 billion years ago.
  • Read more about what this discovery means for cancer research.
  • The genes that controlled the behaviour of these early multicellular organisms still reside within our own cells, managed by more recent genes that keep them in check.It's when these newer controlling genes fail that the older mechanisms take over, and the cell reverts to its earlier behaviours and grows out of control.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • The new theory, published in the journal Physical Biology, has been put forward by two leading figures in the world of cosmology and astrobiology: Paul Davies, director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Arizona State University; and Charles Lineweaver, from the Australian National University.
  • According to Lineweaver, this suggests that cancer is an atavism, or an evolutionary throwback.
  • In the paper, they suggest that a close look at cancer shows similarities with early forms of multicellular life.
  • “Unlike bacteria and viruses, cancer has not developed the capacity to evolve into new forms. In fact, cancer is better understood as the reversion of cells to the way they behaved a little over one billion years ago, when humans were nothing more than loose-knit colonies of only partially differentiated cells. “We think that the tumours that develop in cancer patients today take the same form as these simple cellular structures did more than a billion years ago,” he said.
  • One piece of evidence to support this theory is that cancers appear in virtually all metazoans, with the notable exception of the bizarre naked mole rat."This quasi-ubiquity suggests that the mechanisms of cancer are deep-rooted in evolutionary history, a conjecture that receives support from both paleontology and genetics," they write.
  • the genes that controlled this early multi-cellular form of life are like a computer operating system's 'safe mode', and when there are failures or mutations in the more recent genes that manage the way cells specialise and interact to form the complex life of today, then the earlier level of programming takes over.
  • Their notion is in contrast to a prevailing theory that cancer cells are 'rogue' cells that evolve rapidly within the body, overcoming the normal slew of cellular defences.
  • However, Davies and Lineweaver point out that cancer cells are highly cooperative with each other, if competing with the host's cells. This suggests a pre-existing complexity that is reminiscent of early multicellular life.
  • cancers' manifold survival mechanisms are predictable, and unlikely to emerge spontaneously through evolution within each individual in such a consistent way.
  • The good news is that this means combating cancer is not necessarily as complex as if the cancers were rogue cells evolving new and novel defence mechanisms within the body.Instead, because cancers fall back on the same evolved mechanisms that were used by early life, we can expect them to remain predictable, thus if they're susceptible to treatment, it's unlikely they'll evolve new ways to get around it.
  • If the atavism hypothesis is correct, there are new reasons for optimism," they write.
  • Weiye Loh on 17 Feb 11
     
    Feature: Inside DNA vaccines bioMD makes a bid for Andrew Forest's Allied Medical and Coridon Alexion acquires technology for MoCD therapy More > Most Popular Media Releases Cancer resembles life 1 billion years ago, say astrobiologists Feature: The challenge of a herpes simplex vaccine Feature: Proteomics power of pawpaw bioMD makes a bid for Andrew Forest's Allied Medical and Coridon Immune system boosting hormone might lead to HIV cure Biotechnology Directory Company Profile Check out this company's profile and more in the Biotechnology Directory! Biotechnology Directory Find company by name Find company by category Latest Jobs Senior Software Developer / Java Analyst Programm App Support Developer - Java / J2ee Solutions Consultant - VIC Technical Writer Product Manager (Fisheye/Crucible)   BUYING GUIDES Portable Multimedia Players Digital Cameras Digital Video Cameras LATEST PRODUCTS HTC Wildfire S Android phone (preview) Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GH2 digital camera HTC Desire S Android phone (preview) Qld ICT minister Robert Schwarten retires Movie piracy costs Aus economy $1.37 billion in 12 months: AFACT Wireless smartphones essential to e-health: CSIRO Aussie outsourcing CRM budgets to soar in 2011: Ovum Federal government to evaluate education revolution targets Business continuity planning - more than just disaster recovery Proving the value of IT - Part one 5 open source security projects to watch In-memory computing Information security in 2011 EFA shoots down 'unproductive' AFACT movie piracy study In Pictures: IBM hosts Galactic dinner Emerson Network Power launches new infrastructure solutions Consumers not smart enough for smartphones? Google one-ups Apple online media subscription service M2M offerings expand as more machines go online India cancels satellite spectrum deal after controversy Lenovo profit rises in Q3 on strong PC sales in China Taiwan firm to supply touch sensors to Samsung HP regains top position in India's PC market Copyright 20
Weiye Loh

Libel Chill and Me « Skepticism « Critical Thinking « Skeptic North - 0 views

www.skepticnorth.com/...libelchillandme

Libel Slander Law New Media Skepticism Science Communication

shared by Weiye Loh on 22 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Skeptics may by now be very familiar with recent attempts in Canada to ban wifi from public schools and libraries.  In short: there is no valid scientific reason to be worried about wifi.  It has also been revealed that the chief scientists pushing the wifi bans have been relying on poor data and even poorer studies.  By far the vast majority of scientific data that currently exists supports the conclusion that wifi and cell phone signals are perfectly safe.
  • So I wrote about that particular topic in the summer.  It got some decent coverage, but the fear mongering continued. I wrote another piece after I did a little digging into one of the main players behind this, one Rodney Palmer, and I discovered some decidedly pseudo-scientific tendencies in his past, as well as some undisclosed collusion.
  • One night I came home after a long day at work, a long commute, and a phone call that a beloved family pet was dying, and will soon be in significant pain.  That is the state I was in when I read the news about Palmer and Parliamentary committee.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • That’s when I wrote my last significant piece for Skeptic North.  Titled, “Rodney Palmer: When Pseudoscience and Narcissism Collide,” it was a fiery take-down of every claim I heard Palmer speak before the committee, as well as reiterating some of his undisclosed collusion, unethical media tactics, and some reasons why he should not be considered an expert.
  • This time, the article got a lot more reader eyeballs than anything I had ever written for this blog (or my own) and it also caught the attention of someone on a school board which was poised to vote on wifi.  In these regards: Mission very accomplished.  I finally thought that I might be able to see some people in the media start to look at Palmer’s claims with a more critical eye than they had been previously, and I was flattered at the mountain of kind words, re-tweets, reddit comments and Facebook “likes.”
  • The comments section was mostly supportive of my article, and they were one of the few things that kept me from hiding in a hole for six weeks.  There were a few comments in opposition to what I wrote, some sensible, most incoherent rambling (one commenter, when asked for evidence, actually linked to a YouTube video which they referred to as “peer reviewed”)
  • One commenter was none other than the titular subject of the post, Rodney Palmer himself.  Here is a screen shot of what he said: Screen shot of the Libel/Slander threat.
  • Knowing full well the story of the libel threat against Simon Singh, I’ve always thought that if ever a threat like that came my way, I’d happily beat it back with the righteous fury and good humour of a person with the facts on their side.  After all, if I’m wrong, you’d be able to prove me wrong, rather than try to shut me up with a threat of a lawsuit.  Indeed, I’ve been through a similar situation once before, so I should be an old hat at this! Let me tell you friends, it’s not that easy.  In fact, it’s awful.  Outside observers could easily identify that Palmer had no case against me, but that was still cold comfort to me.  It is a very stressful situation to find yourself in.
  • The state of libel and slander laws in this country are such that a person can threaten a lawsuit without actually threatening a lawsuit.  There is no need to hire a lawyer to investigate the claims, look into who I am, where I live, where I work, and issue a carefully worded threatening letter demanding compliance.  All a person has to say is some version of  “Libel.  Slander.  Hmmmm….,” and that’s enough to spook a lot of people into backing off. It’s a modern day bogeyman.  They don’t have to prove it.  They don’t have to act on it.  A person or organization just has to say “BOO!” with sufficient seriousness, and unless you’ve got a good deal of editorial and financial support, discussion goes out the window. Libel Chill refers to the ‘chilling effect’ that the possibility of a libel/slander lawsuit has.  If a person is scared they might get sued, then they won’t even comment on a piece at all.  In my case, I had already commented three times on the wifi scaremongering, but this bogus threat against me was surely a major contributing factor to my not commenting again.
  • I ceased to discuss anything in the comment thread of the original article, and even shied away from other comment threads, calling me out.  I learned a great deal about the wifi/EMF issue since I wrote the article, but I did not comment on any of it, because I knew that Palmer and his supporters were watching me like a hawk (sorry to stretch the simile), and would likely try to silence me again.  I couldn’t risk a lawsuit.  Even though I knew there was no case against me, I couldn’t afford a lawyer just to prove that I didn’t do anything illegal.
  • The Libel and Slanders Act of Ontario, 1990 hasn’t really caught up with the internet.  There isn’t a clear precedent that defines a blog post, Twitter feed or Facebook post as falling under the umbrella of “broadcast,” which is what the bill addresses.  If I had written the original article in print, Palmer would have had six weeks to file suit against me.  But the internet is only kind of considered ‘broadcast.’  So it could be just six weeks, but he could also have up to two years to act and get a lawyer after me.  Truth is, there’s not a clear demarcation point for our Canadian legal system.
  • Libel laws in Canada are somewhere in between the Plaintiff-favoured UK system, and the Defendant-favoured US system.  On the one hand, if Palmer chose to incur the expense and time to hire a lawyer and file suit against me, the burden of proof would be on me to prove that I did not act with malice.  Easy peasy.  On the other hand, I would have a strong case that I acted in the best interests of Canadians, which would fall under the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision on protecting what has been termed, “Responsible Communication.”  The Supreme Court of Canada decision does not grant bloggers immunity from libel and slander suits, but it is a healthy dose of welcome freedom to discuss issues of importance to Canadians.
  • Palmer himself did not specify anything against me in his threat.  There was nothing particular that he complained about, he just said a version of “Libel and Slander!” at me.  He may as well have said “Boo!”
  • This is not a DBAD discussion (although I wholeheartedly agree with Phil Plait there). 
  • If you’d like to boil my lessons down to an acronym, I suppose the best one would be DBRBC: Don’t be reckless. Be Careful.
  • I wrote a piece that, although it was not incorrect in any measurable way, was written with fire and brimstone, piss and vinegar.  I stand by my piece, but I caution others to be a little more careful with the language they use.  Not because I think it is any less or more tactically advantageous (because I’m not sure anyone can conclusively demonstrate that being an aggressive jerk is an inherently better or worse communication tool), but because the risks aren’t always worth it.
  • I’m not saying don’t go after a person.  There are egomaniacs out there who deserve to be called out and taken down (verbally, of course).  But be very careful with what you say.
  • ask yourself some questions first: 1) What goal(s) are you trying to accomplish with this piece? Are you trying to convince people that there is a scientific misunderstanding here?  Are you trying to attract the attention of the mainstream media to a particular facet of the issue?  Are you really just pissed off and want to vent a little bit?  Is this article a catharsis, or is it communicative?  Be brutally honest with your intentions, it’s not as easy as you think.  Venting is okay.  So is vicious venting, but be careful what you dress it up as.
  • 2) In order to attain your goals, did you use data, or personalities?  If the former, are you citing the best, most current data you have available to you? Have you made a reasonable effort to check your data against any conflicting data that might be out there? If the latter, are you providing a mountain of evidence, and not just projecting onto personalities?  There is nothing inherently immoral or incorrect with going after the personalities.  But it is a very risky undertaking. You have to be damn sure you know what you’re talking about, and damn ready to defend yourself.  If you’re even a little loose with your claims, you will be called out for it, and a legal threat is very serious and stressful. So if you’re going after a personality, is it worth it?
  • 3) Are you letting the science speak for itself?  Are you editorializing?  Are you pointing out what part of your piece is data and what part is your opinion?
  • 4) If this piece was written in anger, frustration, or otherwise motivated by a powerful emotion, take a day.  Let your anger subside.  It will.  There are many cathartic enterprises out there, and you don’t need to react to the first one that comes your way.  Let someone else read your work before you share it with the internet.  Cooler heads definitely do think more clearly.
Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: It Is Always the Media's Fault - 0 views

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...it-is-always-medias-fault.html

Media Science Communication Climate Science Oil Uncertainty Projection Forecast

shared by Weiye Loh on 10 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Last summer NCAR issued a dramatic press release announcing that oil from the Gulf spill would soon be appearing on the beaches of the Atlantic ocean.  I discussed it here. Here are the first four paragraphs of that press release: BOULDER—A detailed computer modeling study released today indicates that oil from the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico might soon extend along thousands of miles of the Atlantic coast and open ocean as early as this summer. The modeling results are captured in a series of dramatic animations produced by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and collaborators. he research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor. The results were reviewed by scientists at NCAR and elsewhere, although not yet submitted for peer-review publication. “I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘Will the oil reach Florida?’” says NCAR scientist Synte Peacock, who worked on the study. “Actually, our best knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood.” The computer simulations indicate that, once the oil in the uppermost ocean has become entrained in the Gulf of Mexico’s fast-moving Loop Current, it is likely to reach Florida's Atlantic coast within weeks. It can then move north as far as about Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with the Gulf Stream, before turning east. Whether the oil will be a thin film on the surface or mostly subsurface due to mixing in the uppermost region of the ocean is not known.
  • A few weeks ago NCAR's David Hosansky who presumably wrote that press release, asks whether NCAR got it wrong.  His answer?  No, not really: During last year’s crisis involving the massive release of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, NCAR issued a much-watched animation projecting that the oil could reach the Atlantic Ocean. But detectable amounts of oil never made it to the Atlantic, at least not in an easily visible form on the ocean surface. Not surprisingly, we’ve heard from a few people asking whether NCAR got it wrong. These events serve as a healthy reminder of a couple of things: *the difference between a projection and an actual forecast *the challenges of making short-term projections of natural processes that can act chaotically, such as ocean currents
  • What then went wrong? First, the projection. Scientists from NCAR, the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, and IFM-GEOMAR in Germany did not make a forecast of where the oil would go. Instead, they issued a projection. While there’s not always a clear distinction between the two, forecasts generally look only days or hours into the future and are built mostly on known elements (such as the current amount of humidity in the atmosphere). Projections tend to look further into the future and deal with a higher number of uncertainties (such as the rate at which oil degrades in open waters and the often chaotic movements of ocean currents). Aware of the uncertainties, the scientific team projected the likely path of the spill with a computer model of a liquid dye. They used dye rather than actual oil, which undergoes bacterial breakdown, because a reliable method to simulate that breakdown was not available. As it turned out, the oil in the Gulf broke down quickly due to exceptionally strong bacterial action and, to some extent, the use of chemical dispersants.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Second, the challenges of short-term behavior. The Gulf's Loop Current acts as a conveyor belt, moving from the Yucatan through the Florida Straits into the Atlantic. Usually, the current curves northward near the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts—a configuration that would have put it on track to pick up the oil and transport it into open ocean. However, the current’s short-term movements over a few weeks or even months are chaotic and impossible to predict. Sometimes small eddies, or mini-currents, peel off, shifting the position and strength of the main current. To determine the threat to the Atlantic, the research team studied averages of the Loop Current’s past behavior in order to simulate its likely course after the spill and ran several dozen computer simulations under various scenarios. Fortunately for the East Coast, the Loop Current did not behave in its usual fashion but instead remained farther south than usual, which kept it far from the Louisiana and Mississippi coast during the crucial few months before the oil degraded and/or was dispersed with chemical treatments.
  • The Loop Current typically goes into a southern configuration about every 6 to 19 months, although it rarely remains there for very long. NCAR scientist Synte Peacock, who worked on the projection, explains that part of the reason the current is unpredictable is “no two cycles of the Loop Current are ever exactly the same." She adds that the cycles are influenced by such variables as how large the eddy is, where the current detaches and moves south, and how long it takes for the current to reform. Computer models can simulate the currents realistically, she adds. But they cannot predict when the currents will change over to a new cycle. The scientists were careful to explain that their simulations were a suite of possible trajectories demonstrating what was likely to happen, but not a definitive forecast of what would happen. They reiterated that point in a peer-reviewed study on the simulations that appeared last August in Environmental Research Letters. 
  • So who was at fault?  According to Hosansky it was those dummies in the media: These caveats, however, got lost in much of the resulting media coverage.Another perspective is that having some of these caveats in the press release might have been a good idea.
Weiye Loh

Diary of A Singaporean Mind: Nuclear Crisis : Separating Hyperbole from Reality.... - 0 views

singaporemind.blogspot.com/...isis-separating-hyperbole.html

Media Representation Bias Apocalyptic

shared by Weiye Loh on 20 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • the media and pundits stepped on the "fear creation accelerator" focussing on the possibility of disastrous outcomes while ignoring possible solutions and options.
  • Nobody can say for sure how this crisis is headed. As of today, the risk of a total meltdown has been reduced. However, if one was listening to some segments of the media earlier this week, disaster was the only possible outcome. Fear and panic itself would have caused a disaster Imagine the mess created by millions fleeing Tokyo in a haphazard manner - the sick, old and invalid left behind, food & water distribution disrupted - would have led to more deaths much worse than the worst case meltdown that would have led to reactors being entombed. It also shows us the importance of leadership we can trust - the Japanese Minister Yukio Edano held 5 press conference every day[Link] to update the nation on the dynamic situation (compare that with the initial handling of SARS outbreak).
  • I hope the Japanese succeed in getting the nuclear reactors under control. Extraordinary crisis requires extraordinary leadership, extraordinary sacrifice and extraordinary courage. In the confusion and fear, it is hard for people not to panic and flee but most of the Japanese in Tokyo stayed calm despite all sorts of scares. If another group of people are put through a crisis, the response may be completely different
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • there is a tendency to conclude that govts with the best expert advice have made this decision because there is a real danger of something sinister happening. But remember govts are also under pressure to act because they are made up of politicians - also they may be making precautionary moves because they have little to lose and have to be seen as being pro-active. How real is the danger of harmful radiation reaching Tokyo and should you leave if you're in Tokyo? There were many people doing a "wait and see" before Wednesday but once the US & UK govt called for a pull-out, the fear factor rose several notches and if you're a Japanese in Tokyo watching all the foreigners "abandoning" your city, you start to feel some anxiety and later panic. One EU official used the word "apocalypse"[Link] to describe the situation in Japan and the fear index hit the roof....then a whole herd of experts came out to paint more dire scenarios saying the Japanese have lost all control of the nuclear plants. All this lead the public to think that calamity is the most likely outcome of the unfolding saga and if make a decision from all this, you will just run for the exits if you're in Tokyo. All this is happening while the Japanese govt is trying to calm the people and prevent a pandemonium after the triple disaster hit the country. In China, people have emptied the supermarket shelves of iodized salt because of media reports that the consumption of iodine can block radioactive iodine from being absorbed by thyroid glands causing thyroid cancer. There are also reports of people getting ill after ingesting iodine pills out of fear of radiation.
Weiye Loh

Geeks at the Beach: 10 Summer Reads About Technology and Your Life - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 0 views

chronicle.com/...127762

Internet New Media Technologies

shared by Weiye Loh on 06 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • we're so excited about checking e-mail and Facebook that we're neglecting face-to-face relationships, but that it's not too late to make some "corrections" to our high-tech habits. It's time to turn off the BlackBerry for a few minutes and set some ground rules for blending cyberspace with personal space.
  • examples such as Wikipedia and a ride-sharing Web site as proof that "the harnessing of our cognitive surplus allows people to behave in increasingly generous, public, and social ways."
  • the transformative potential of the Internet, as more people use their free time in active, collaborative projects rather than watching television.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Mr. Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia and frequent contributor to The Chronicle Review, reminds readers that they aren't consumers of Google's offerings. Rather, their use of Google's services is the product it sells to advertisers. Both books look at the continuing evolution of the Google Books settlement as a key test of how far the company's reach could extend and a sign of how the perception of Google has changed from that of scrappy upstart with a clever motto, "Don't be evil," to global behemoth accused by some of being just that.
  • Is the Internet on its way to getting monopolized? That question underlies Tim Wu's The Master Switch. The eccentric Columbia Law School professor—he's known to dress up as a blue bear at the annual Burning Man festival—recounts how ruthless companies consolidated their power over earlier information industries like the telephone, radio, and film. So which tech giant seems likely to grab control of the net?
  • it feels like we're perpetually on the verge of a tipping point, when e-books will overtake print books as a source of revenue for publishers. John B. Thompson, a sociologist at the University of Cambridge, analyzes the inner workings of the contemporary trade-publishing industry. (He did the same for scholarly publishing in an earlier work, Books in the Digital Age.) Mr. Thompson examines the roles played by agents, editors, and authors as well as differences among small, medium, and large publishing operations, and he probes under the surface of the great digital shift. We're too hung up on the form of the book, he argues: "A revolution has taken place in publishing, but it is a revolution in the process rather than a revolution in the product."
  • technology is actually doing far more to bolster authoritarian regimes than to overturn them, writes Evgeny Morozov in this sharp reality check on the media-fueled notion that information is making everybody free. Mr. Morozov, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, points out that the Iranian government posted "most wanted" pictures of protesters on the Web, leading to several arrests. The Muslim Brotherhood blogs actively in Egypt. And China pays people to make pro-authority statements on the Internet, paying a few cents for each endorsement. The Twitter revolution, in this book, is "overblown and completely unsubstantiated rhetoric."
  • Internet is rewiring our brains and short-circuiting our ability to think. And that has big consequences for teaching, he told The Chronicle last year: "The assumption that the more media, the more messaging, the more social networking you can bring in will lead to better educational outcomes is not only dubious but in many cases is probably just wrong."
Weiye Loh

How Politicians Get Burned by Modern Media - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...13carr.html

Twitter Internet New Media Politics E-mail Celebrity

shared by Weiye Loh on 13 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • “A lot of those e-mails obviously weren’t meant for public consumption,” she told Chris Wallace of Fox News, where she is a source, a commentator and a subject, all wrapped into one.
  • She is of interest not because of what she did as governor but because she has almost perfected the modern hybrid of politician and celebrity: once your daughter appears on “Dancing With the Stars,” your celebrity is far more important that your position on off-shore drilling. That means that all those e-mails are destined for public consumption whether she likes it or not.
  • Like all other celebrities, politicians are expected now to be in constant digital contact with their fans/voters. Ms. Palin has excelled at this with her ubiquitous Twitter messages, her bus tour and her frequent appearances on Fox News. But unlike during the early days of the Internet, when a static Web site was all that politicians needed, communication these days travels not just one way or two, but in all directions. Being in touch means that people can touch you back.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • digital culture is the opposite of private
  • Obama may want to be your friend of Facebook, but he, like every other president, wants to maintain custody of the narrative. Now that he actually has to govern, his ratings — an operative word in both politics and media — have dropped.
  • Weiye Loh on 13 Jun 11
     
    Extensive efforts were expended over the weekend to comb through Sarah Palin's e-mails from her time as the governor of Alaska. Ms. Palin may have thought that she was just chatting with her staff and friends, but now every comma, every aside, every random thought is being picked apart for meaning. There may have been some legitimate news buried in the trove of e-mails, and she remains a person of significant public interest. So the press response makes sense, but she could not be blamed for feeling that she was under attack from a horde of biting ants.
Weiye Loh

Media Reacts to News That Norwegian Terror Suspect Isn't Muslim - Global - The Atlantic Wire - 0 views

www.theatlanticwire.com/...40322

Rightwing Terrorism Extremism Norway Christianity Islam

shared by Weiye Loh on 24 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • The editorial remains up on the Post, "sixteen hours after its claims were shown to be false and hysterical, it's still there, with no correction or apology," according to James Fallows at The Atlantic. Fallows responded to Rubin's piece, in a blog post titled, "The Washington Post Owes the World an Apology for this Item," writing that: No, this is a sobering reminder for those who think it's too tedious to reserve judgment about horrifying events rather than instantly turning them into talking points for pre-conceived views. On a per capita basis, Norway lost twice as many people today as the U.S. did on 9/11. Imagine the political repercussions through the world if double-9/11-scale damage had been done by an al-Qaeda offshoot. The unbelievably sweeping damage is there in either case.
  • Ta-Nehisi Coates, in another Comment at The Atlantic, echoed Fallow's comments on Rubin's piece: As for this case, my golden rule is that as terrible as it is to be wrong, it many times more terrible to pretend that wrong is right. As of this wring, Rubin has issued no correction in any form. That is shameful.
  • In an op-ed at Jadaliyya, Shiva Balaghi calls the events a "Tragic Day for Norway; Shameful Day for Journalism." She summarizes her own view of the reports: I read a story in the New York Times that squarely pointed to jihadi groups angered at the war in Afghanistan...The Financial Times was no better. From the start, it reported allegations of Islamic terrorism, continuing with this view well into its evening reporting by which time an arrest had already been made in the case... Judy Woodruff’s interview with a Norwegian journalist that aired on PBS’s Newshour followed a similar scenario. In this 24/7 news cycle driven even more mad by terror experts who conduct research using google and tweet a mile a minute, journalists should exercise caution... Perhaps today the neo-Nazis in Europe count Muslims among the problems that drive their madness. But to a large degree, these right wing extremist views shaped twentieth century Europe.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Ibrahim Hewitt writes an editoral at Al-Jazeera, where he observes that once media outlets noted that the suspect was not Muslim, they disassociated connections between the suspect's beliefs and his alleged violent actions. ...the perpetrator was a "blond, blue-eyed Norwegian" with "political traits towards the right, and anti-Muslim views." Not surprisingly, the man's intentions were neither linked to these "traits," nor to his postings on "websites with Christian fundamentalist tendencies." Any influence "remains to be seen"; echoes of Oklahoma 1995. Interestingly, this criminal is described by one unnamed Norwegian official as a "madman."
  • ...Anyone who claims therefore, that the perpetrator's "right-wing traits" and "anti-Muslim views," or even links with "Christian fundamentalist" websites are irrelevant is trying to draw a veil over the unacceptable truths of such "traits" and expecting us to believe that right-wing ideology is incapable of prompting someone towards such criminality. Of course, that idea is nonsensical. Right-wing ideology was behind the Holocaust; it has been behind most anti-Semitism and other racism around the world; the notion of Europe's and Europeans' racial superiority - giving cultural credibility to the far-right - gave rise to the slave trade and the scramble for Africa leading to untold atrocities against "the Other"; ditto in the Middle and Far East.
  • Weiye Loh on 24 Jul 11
     
    Jennifer Rubin
Weiye Loh

Bloggers take legal action over Huffington Post sale | Media | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...arianna-huffington-post-sale

Blog Journalism

shared by Weiye Loh on 12 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Arianna Huffington, her website and AOL were on the receiving end of a $105m (£64.5m) lawsuit by a group of angry bloggers unhappy that she sold the Huffington Post for $315m without them being paid a penny.The class action is led by Jonathan Tasini, a writer and trade unionist, who wrote more than 250 posts for Huffington Post on an unpaid basis until he dropped out shortly after the news and comment site was sold to AOL earlier this year.
  • "Huffington bloggers have essentially been turned into modern day slaves on Arianna Huffington's plantation" and said he was bringing the action because "people who create content ... have to be compensated" for their efforts.
  • The complainant and his lawyers estimate about 9,000 people wrote for the Huffington Post on an unpaid basis – and argue that their writings helped contribute about a third of the sale value of the site, the basis of their $105m claim for compensation.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • A spokesman for the Huffington Post said the lawsuit was without merit. He added: "Bloggers use our platform – as well as other unpaid group blogs across the web – to connect and help their work be seen by as many people as possible. It's the same reason people go on TV shows: to promote their views and ideas. HuffPost bloggers can cross-post their work on other sites, including their own."
Weiye Loh

Phone hacking: David Cameron is not out of the sewer yet - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...-not-out-of-the-sewer-yet.html

Murdoch News Politics Power

shared by Weiye Loh on 10 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Murdoch himself was protected by his potent political contacts. Tony Blair, for example, would do anything to help out his close friend and ally. I can even disclose that, before the last election, Tony Blair rang Gordon Brown to try to persuade the Labour Prime Minister to stop the Labour MP Tom Watson raising the issue of phone hacking. And as recently as two weeks ago both Ed Miliband and David Cameron attended the News International (News Corp’s British newspaper publishing arm) summer party, despite the fact that the newspaper group was the subject of two separate criminal investigations.
  • Weiye Loh on 10 Jul 11
     
    For more than three decades the most powerful man in Britain has not been a politician; it has been the brilliant but ruthless US-based media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who burst on to the scene with the purchase of the News of the World in an audacious takeover bid in 1968. Within barely a decade he had built up a controlling interest in British newspapers.But he did not just control our media. He dominated British public life. Politicians - including prime ministers - treated him with deference and fear. Time and again the Murdoch press - using techniques of which we have only just become aware - destroyed political careers. Murdoch also claims to determine the results of general elections.
Weiye Loh

Arab Spring: Join Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State for a "Future Tense" discussion about technology, social media, and democracy. - By Torie Bosch - Slate Magazine - 0 views

www.slate.com/2298585

New Media Internet Democracy Authoritarianism

shared by Weiye Loh on 10 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Weiye Loh on 10 Jul 11
     
    Can social media really spur a revolution? Who benefits more from advances in technology-activists or authoritarian governments? What can the rest of the world do when Big Brother turns off the Internet? How did the successful Arab Spring turn into a complicated, bloody summer in Syria, Bahrain, and elsewhere? Can blogging make a difference in Cuba and North Korea?
Weiye Loh

Letter from China: China and the Unofficial Truth : The New Yorker - 0 views

www.newyorker.com/...-and-the-unofficial-truth.html

China Social Media Politics

shared by Weiye Loh on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Chinese citizens are busy dissecting and taunting the meeting on social media. While Premier Wen Jiabao was pledging that the government would “quickly” reverse the widening gap between rich and poor—last year he said it would do so “gradually”—Chinese Web users were scrutinizing photos of delegates arriving for the meeting, and posting photos of their nine-hundred dollar Hermès belts and Birkin and Celine and Louis Vuitton purses that retail for car prices. As Danwei points out, an image that has been making the rounds with particular relish shows the C.E.O. of China Power International Development Ltd, Li Xiaolin, in a salmon-colored suit from Emilio Pucci’s spring-summer 2012 collection—price: nearly two thousand dollars. Web user Cairangduoji paired her photo with the image of dirt-covered barefoot kids in the countryside and the comment: “That amount could help two hundred children wear warm clothes, and avoid the chilly attacks of winter.” And it appended a quote from Li, of the salmon suit, who purportedly once said, “I think we should open a morality file on all citizens to control everyone and give them a ‘sense of shame.’” (This is no ordinary delegate: Li Xiaolin happens to be the daughter of former Premier Li Peng, who oversaw the crackdown at Tiananmen Square.)
  • Another message making the rounds uses an official high-res photo of the gathering to zoom in on delegates who were captured fast asleep or typing on their smart phones.
Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Mike Daisey and Higher Truths - 0 views

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...-daisey-and-higher-truths.html

Politics Truth Journalism Objectivity News Climate Climate Change Climate Science Balance

shared by Weiye Loh on 19 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Real life is messy. And as a general rule, the more theatrical the story you hear, and the more it divides the world into goodies vs baddies, the less reliable that story is going to be.
  • some people do feel that certain issues are so important that there should be cause in political debates to overlook lies or misrepresentations in service of a "larger truth" (Yellow cake, anyone?). I have seen this attitude for years in the climate change debate (hey look, just today), and often condoned by scientists and journalists alike.
  • the "global warming: yes or no?" debate has become an obstacle to effective policy action related to climate. Several of these colleagues suggested that I should downplay the policy implications of my work showing that for a range of phenomena and places, future climate impacts depend much more on growing human vulnerability to climate than on projected changes in climate itself (under the assumptions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). One colleague wrote, "I think we have a professional (or moral?) obligation to be very careful what we say and how we say it when the stakes are so high." In effect, some of these colleagues were intimating that ends justify means or, in other words, doing the "right thing" for the wrong reasons is OK.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • When science is used (and misused) in political advocacy, there are frequent opportunities for such situations to arise.
  • I don't think you're being fair to Mike Lemonick. In the article by him that you cite, MIke's provocative question was framed in the context of an analogy he was making to the risks of smoking. For example, in that article, he also says: "So should the overall message be that nobody knows anything? I don’t think so. We would never want to pretend the uncertainty isn’t there, since that would be dishonest. But featuring it prominently is dishonest ,too, just as trumpeting uncertainty in the smoking-cancer connection would have been."Thus, I think you're reading way too much into Mike's piece. That said, I do agree with you that there are implications of the Daisey case for climate communicators and climate journalism. My own related post is here: http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2012/03/19/the-seduction-of-narrative/"
  • I don't want journalists shading the truth in a desire to be "effective" in some way. That is Daisey's tradeoff too.
  • Weiye Loh on 19 Mar 12
     
    Recall that in the aftermath of initial revelations about Peter Gleick's phishing of the Heartland Institute, we heard defenses of his action that included claims that he was only doing the same thing that journalists do to the importance of looking beyond Gleick's misdeeds at the "larger truth." Consider also what was described in the UEA emails as "pressure to present a nice tidy story" related to climate science as well as the IPCC's outright falsification related to disasters and climate change. Such shenanigans so endemic in the climate change debate that when a journalist openly asks whether the media should tell the whole truth about climate change, no one even bats an eye. 
Weiye Loh

journalism.sg » Racial and religious offence: Why censorship doesn't cut it - 1 views

journalism.sg/...sorship-doesn%E2%80%99t-cut-it

Community Regulation New Media Hate Speech Censorship Race Religion

shared by Weiye Loh on 11 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • All societies use a mix of approaches to address offensive speech. In international law, like at the European court of human rights and more and more jurisdictions, there is growing feeling that the law should really be a last resort and only used for the most extreme speech – speech that incites violence in a very direct way, or that is part of a campaign that violates the rights of minorities to live free of discrimination. In contrast, simply insulting and offending others, even if feelings are very hurt, is not seen as something that should invite a legal response. Using the law to protect feelings is too great an encroachment on freedom of speech.
  • Our laws are written very broadly, such that any sort of offence, even if it does not threaten imminent violence, is seen as deserving of strict regulation. This probably reflects a very strong social consensus that race and religion should be handled delicately. So we tend to rely on strong government. The state protects racial and religious sensibilities from offence, using censorship when there’s a danger of words and actions causing hurt.
  • in almost all cases, state action was instigated by complaints from members of the public. This is quite unlike political censorship, where action is initiated by the government, often with great resistance and opposition from netizens. In a string of cases involving racial and religious offence, however, it’s the netizens who tend to demand action, sometimes acting like a lynch mob.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • in many cases, the offensive messages were spread further by those reporting the offence.
  • What is the justification for strong police action against any form of speech? Why do we sometimes feel that it may not be enough to counter bad speech with good speech in free and open debate, and that we must instead use the law to stop the bad speech? Surely, it must be because we think the bad speech is so dangerous that it can cause immediate harm; or because we don’t trust the public to respond rationally, so we don’t know if good speech would indeed triumph in open debate. Usually, if we call in the authorities, it must be because we have a mental picture of offensive speech being like lighting a match in a combustible atmosphere. It is dangerous and there’s no time to debate the merits of that match – we just have to put it out. The irony of most of the cases that we have seen in the past few years is that the people demanding government action, as if the offensive words were explosive, were also those who helped to spread them. It is like helping to spread a fire while calling for the fire brigade.
  • their act of spreading the offensive content must mean that they did not actually believe that the expression was really that dangerous in the sense of prompting violence through reprisal attacks or riots. In reposting the offensive words or pictures, they showed that they actually trusted the public enough to respond sympathetically – they had faith that enough people would add their voices to the outrage that they themselves felt when they saw the offensive images or videos or words.
  • This then raises the question, why the need to involve the police at all? If Singaporeans are grown-up enough to defend their society against offensive speech, why have calls for prosecution and censorship become the automatic response? I wonder if this is an example of the well-known habit of unthinkingly relying on government to solve all our problems even when, with a little bit of effort in the form of grassroots action can do the job.
  • The next time people encounter racist or religiously offensive speech, it would be nice to see swift responses from credible and respected civil society groups, Members of Parliament, and other ordinary citizens. If the speaker doesn’t get the message, organise boycotts, for example, and give him or her the clear message that our society isn’t going to take such offence lying down. The more we can respond ourselves through open debate and grassroots action, without the need to ask law and order to step in, the stronger our society will be.
  • Weiye Loh on 11 Mar 12
     
    No matter how hard we work at developing media literacy, we should not expect to be rid of all racially offensive speech online. There are two broad ways to respond to these breaches. We can reach out horizontally and together with our fellow citizens repair the damage by persuading others to reject harmful ideas. Or, we can reach up vertically to government, getting the authorities to act against irresponsible speech by using the law. The advantage of the latter is that it seems more efficient, punishing those who cross the line of acceptability and violate social norms, and deterring others from doing the same. The horizontal approach works through persuasion rather than the law, so it is slower and not foolproof.
Weiye Loh

The liberal media's war on 'trolling' is becoming increasingly intolerant and censorious - Telegraph Blogs - 0 views

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/...ngly-intolerant-and-censorious

Troll New Media Internet Freedom of Speech Feminism Islamophobia Racism

shared by Weiye Loh on 29 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • The respectable media’s war against “trolling” continually mixes together prejudicial spite with political thinking, as if there is no difference between them. So feminist bloggers who rail against misogynistic trolling wring their hands over everything from threats of rape, which are very serious and potentially illegal, to ridicule of feminism, which is just a form of political criticism – often not very sophisticated criticism, but so what? One news report on the problem of misogynistic trolling lumped together commenters who make “threats of rape” with commenters who are “strongly and personally antagonistic towards feminism”. That is outrageous. Feminism is a political ideology and thus must be open to criticism, even stinging, hurtful criticism. To compare ridicule of feminism with the threat to rape a female writer is a kind of censorious moral blackmail, where the aim is clearly to demonise critics of feminism by associating them with foul blokes who get off on writing emails about rape.
  • Web-surfers who criticise Islam and don’t like the ideology of feminism, or respectable media outlets that now denounce pretty much everything they disagree with as “trolling”? The war on trolling is starting to look less like a demand for civility, and more like a demand for conformism.
Weiye Loh

Stock and flow « Snarkmarket - 0 views

snarkmarket.com/4890

stock flow New Media

shared by Weiye Loh on 19 Jun 10 - Cached
  • There are two kinds of quan­ti­ties in the world. Stock is a sta­tic value: money in the bank, or trees in the for­est. Flow is a rate of change: fif­teen dol­lars an hour, or three-thousand tooth­picks a day.
  • stock and flow is the mas­ter metaphor for media today. Here’s what I mean: Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind peo­ple that you exist. Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the con­tent you pro­duce that’s as inter­est­ing in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what peo­ple dis­cover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, build­ing fans over time.
  • I feel like flow is ascenascen­dant these days, for obvi­ous reasons—but we neglect stock at our own peril.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Flow is a tread­mill, and you can’t spend all of your time run­ning on the tread­mill. Well, you can. But then one day you’ll get off and look around and go: Oh man. I’ve got noth­ing here.
  • But I’m not say­ing you should ignore flow!
  • this is no time to hole up and work in iso­la­tion, emerg­ing after long months or years with your perfectly-polished opus. Every­body will go: huh?
  • if you don’t have flow to plug your new fans into, you’re suf­fer­ing a huge (here it is!) oppor­tu­nity cost. You’ll have to find them all again next time you emerge from your cave.
  • we all got really good at flow, really fast. But flow is ephemeral. Stock sticks around. Stock is cap­i­tal. Stock is protein.
  • And the real magic trick in 2010 is to put them both together. To keep the ball bounc­ing with your flow—to main­tain that open chan­nel of communication—while you work on some kick-ass stock in the back­ground.
  • all these super-successful artists and media peo­ple today who don’t really think about flow. Like, Wes Ander­son
  • the secret is that some­body else does his flow for him. I mean, what are PR and adver­tis­ing? Flow, bought and paid for.
  • Today I’m still always ask­ing myself: Is this stock? Is this flow? How’s my mix? Do I have enough of both?
  • Weiye Loh on 19 Jun 10
     
    flow is ascen dant these days, for obvi ous reasons-but we neglect stock at our own peril.
Weiye Loh

Complicit subversions: Cultural new media activism and 'high' theory. - 2 views

firstmonday.org/...2032

new media activism

shared by Weiye Loh on 30 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Weiye Loh on 30 Sep 09
     
    Written by Dr Ingrid. The article discusses how new media activism increasingly disenfranchises the (s)lower class. =)
Paul Melissa

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5142702.stm - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...5142702.stm

'Social responsibility' 'media activism'

shared by Paul Melissa on 30 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Paul Melissa on 30 Sep 09
     
    To me, the article demonstrates how online media activism can democratize the state and illustrates social responsibility. With greater online activism, more alternative views are heard. This translates to a utilitarian society where citizens will have the right to voice their views and also choose which opinions they are more incline to that matter, which is ethical to society as a whole. This also does not promote individualism as an individualistic or dominant idea is not forced onto the whole community. Next, if more media activism is actually allowed, it may promote social responsibility as citizens now have a part to play in society. Online participation will be in areas that matter more, like the country's politics, and economy, instead of trivial matters. Singapore should follow in the footsteps of London in that sense so that citizen journalism here can be more credible.
Chen Guo Lim

POLICE & THIEF - 5 views

According to the readings, one reason why people do not consider illegal downloads as theft is that it does not deprive others of that item. When I download an mp3 file from, the file will not disa...

started by Magdaleine on 26 Aug 09 1 follow-up, last by Chen Guo Lim on 26 Aug 09
Weiye Loh

Skepticblog » Investing in Basic Science - 0 views

skepticblog.org/...investing-in-basic-science

Science Uncertainty

shared by Weiye Loh on 16 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • A recent editorial in the New York Times by Nicholas Wade raises some interesting points about the nature of basic science research – primarily that its’ risky.
  • As I have pointed out about the medical literature, researcher John Ioaniddis has explained why most published studies turn out in retrospect to be wrong. The same is true of most basic science research – and the underlying reason is the same. The world is complex, and most of our guesses about how it might work turn out to be either flat-out wrong, incomplete, or superficial. And so most of our probing and prodding of the natural world, looking for the path to the actual answer, turn out to miss the target.
  • research costs considerable resources of time, space, money, opportunity, and people-hours. There may also be some risk involved (such as to subjects in the clinical trial). Further, negative studies are actually valuable (more so than terrible pictures). They still teach us something about the world – they teach us what is not true. At the very least this narrows the field of possibilities. But the analogy holds in so far as the goal of scientific research is to improve our understanding of the world and to provide practical applications that make our lives better. Wade writes mostly about how we fund research, and this relates to our objectives. Most of the corporate research money is interested in the latter – practical (and profitable) applications. If this is your goal, than basic science research is a bad bet. Most investments will be losers, and for most companies this will not be offset by the big payoffs of the rare winners. So many companies will allow others to do the basic science (government, universities, start up companies) then raid the winners by using their resources to buy them out, and then bring them the final steps to a marketable application. There is nothing wrong or unethical about this. It’s a good business model.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • What, then, is the role of public (government) funding of research? Primarily, Wade argues (and I agree), to provide infrastructure for expensive research programs, such as building large colliders.
  • the more the government invests in basic science and infrastructure, the more winners will emerge that private industry can then capitalize on. This is a good way to build a competitive dynamic economy.
  • But there is a pitfall – prematurely picking winners and losers. Wade give the example of California investing specifically into developing stem cell treatments. He argues that stem cells, while promising, do not hold a guarantee of eventual success, and perhaps there are other technologies that will work and are being neglected. The history of science and technology has clearly demonstrated that it is wickedly difficult to predict the future (and all those who try are destined to be mocked by future generations with the benefit of perfect hindsight). Prematurely committing to one technology therefore contains a high risk of wasting a great deal of limited resources, and missing other perhaps more fruitful opportunities.
  • The underlying concept is that science research is a long-term game. Many avenues of research will not pan out, and those that do will take time to inspire specific applications. The media, however, likes catchy headlines. That means when they are reporting on basic science research journalists ask themselves – why should people care? What is the application of this that the average person can relate to? This seems reasonable from a journalistic point of view, but with basic science reporting it leads to wild speculation about a distant possible future application. The public is then left with the impression that we are on the verge of curing the common cold or cancer, or developing invisibility cloaks or flying cars, or replacing organs and having household robot servants. When a few years go by and we don’t have our personal android butlers, the public then thinks that the basic science was a bust, when in fact there was never a reasonable expectation that it would lead to a specific application anytime soon. But it still may be on track for interesting applications in a decade or two.
  • this also means that the government, generally, should not be in the game of picking winners an losers – putting their thumb on the scale, as it were. Rather, they will get the most bang for the research buck if they simply invest in science infrastructure, and also fund scientists in broad areas.
  • The same is true of technology – don’t pick winners and losers. The much-hyped “hydrogen economy” comes to mind. Let industry and the free market sort out what will work. If you have to invest in infrastructure before a technology is mature, then at least hedge your bets and keep funding flexible. Fund “alternative fuel” as a general category, and reassess on a regular basis how funds should be allocated. But don’t get too specific.
  • Funding research but leaving the details to scientists may be optimal
  • The scientific community can do their part by getting better at communicating with the media and the public. Try to avoid the temptation to overhype your own research, just because it is the most interesting thing in the world to you personally and you feel hype will help your funding. Don’t make it easy for the media to sensationalize your research – you should be the ones trying to hold back the reigns. Perhaps this is too much to hope for – market forces conspire too much to promote sensationalism.
Weiye Loh

Before Assange there was Jayakumar: Context, realpolitik, and the public interest « Singapore 2025 - 0 views

singapore2025.wordpress.com/...olitik-and-the-public-interest

Double Standard Wikileaks Singapore

shared by Weiye Loh on 04 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman’s remarks in the Wall Street Journal Asia piece, “Leaked cable spooks some U.S. sources” dated 3 Dec 2010. The paragraph in question went like this: “Others laid blame not on working U.S. diplomats, but on Wikileaks. Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had “deep concerns about the damaging action of Wikileaks.” It added, ‘it is critical to protect the confidentiality of diplomatic and official correspondence.’” (emphasis my own)
  • on 25 Jan 2003, the then Singapore Minister of Foreign Affairs and current Senior Minister without portfolio, Professor S Jayakumar, in an unprecedented move, unilaterally released all diplomatic and official correspondence relating to confidential discussions on water negotiations between Singapore and Malaysia from the year 2000. In a parliamentary speech that would have had Julian Assange smiling from ear to ear, Jayakumar said, “We therefore have no choice but to set the record straight by releasing these documents for people to judge for themselves the truth of the matter.” The parliamentary reason for the unprecedented release of information was the misrepresentations made by Malaysia over the price of water, amongst others.
  • The then Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir’s response to Singapore’s pre-Wikileak wikileak was equally quote-worthy, “I don’t feel nice. You write a letter to your girlfriend. And your girlfriend circulates it to all her boyfriends. I don’t think I’ll get involved with that girl.”
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Mahathir did not leave it at that. He foreshadowed the Wikileak-chastised countries of today saying what William, the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the US and Iran today, amongst others, must agree with, “It’s very difficult now for us to write letters at all because we might as well negotiate through the media.”
  • I proceeded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs homepage to search for the full press release. As I anticipated, there was a caveat. This is the press release in full: In response to media queries on the WikiLeaks release of confidential and secret-graded US diplomatic correspondence, the MFA Spokesman expressed deep concerns about the damaging action of WikiLeaks. It is critical to protect the confidentiality of diplomatic and official correspondence, which is why Singapore has the Officials Secrets Act. In particular, the selective release of documents, especially when taken out of context, will only serve to sow confusion and fail to provide a complete picture of the important issues that were being discussed amongst leaders in the strictest of confidentiality.
  • The sentence in red seems to posit that the selective release of documents can be legitimised if released documents are not taken out of context. If this interpretation is true, then one can account for the political decision to release confidential correspondence covering the Singapore and Malaysia water talks referred to above. In parallel, one can imagine Assange or his supporters arguing that lies of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the advent of abject two-faced politics today to be sufficient grounds to justify the actions of Wikileaks. As for the arguments about confidentiality and official correspondence, the events in parliament in 2003 tell us no one should underestimate the ability of nation-states to do an Assange if it befits their purpose – be it directly, as Jayakumar did, or indirectly, through the media or some other medium of influence.
  • Timothy Garton Ash put out the dilemma perfectly when he said, “There is a public interest in understanding how the world works and what is done in our name. There is a public interest in the confidential conduct of foreign policy. The two public interests conflict.”
  • the advent of technology will only further blur the lines between these two public interests, if it has not already. Quite apart from technology, the absence of transparent and accountable institutions may also serve to guarantee the prospect of more of such embarrassing leaks in future.
  • In August 2009, there was considerable interest in Singapore about the circumstances behind the departure of Chip Goodyear, former CEO of the Australian mining giant BHP Billiton, from the national sovereign wealth fund, Temasek Holdings. Before that, all the public knew was – in the name of leadership renewal – Chip Goodyear had been carefully chosen and apparently hand-picked to replace Ho Ching as CEO of Temasek Holdings. In response to Chip’s untimely departure, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was quoted, “People do want to know, there is curiosity, it is a matter of public interest. That is not sufficient reason to disclose information. It is not sufficient that there be curiosity and interest that you want to disclose information.”
  • Overly secretive and furtive politicians operating in a parliamentary democracy are unlikely to inspire confidence among an educated citizenry either, only serving to paradoxically fuel public cynicism and conspiracy theories.
  • I believe that government officials and politicians who perform their jobs honourably have nothing to fear from Wikileaks. I would admit that there is an inherent naivety and idealism in this position. But if the lesson from the Wikileaks episode portends a higher standard of ethical conduct, encourages transparency and accountability – all of which promote good governance, realpolitik notwithstanding – then it is perhaps a lesson all politicians and government officials should pay keen attention to.
  • Post-script: “These disclosures are largely of analysis and high-grade gossip. Insofar as they are sensational, it is in showing the corruption and mendacity of those in power, and the mismatch between what they claim and what they do….If American spies are breaking United Nations rules by seeking the DNA biometrics of the UN director general, he is entitled to hear of it. British voters should know what Afghan leaders thought of British troops. American (and British) taxpayers might question, too, how most of the billions of dollars going in aid to Afghanistan simply exits the country at Kabul airport.” –Simon Jenkins, Guardian
« First ‹ Previous 41 - 60 of 282 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page