Exchange 2.0: The Conversation Continues
This is the second post in a two part series on this topic. The first installment was written by TJ earlier in the week. The Exchange 2.0 conference at the U.S. Institute of Peace on 4/27 offered a stimulating discussion that centered on using new technologies to further cross-cultural learning. While it was clearly conveyed [...]
Canadians Protest Election Results Ban Using Social Media Ahead of Monday Polls
On Monday May 2, 2011 Canadians will be voting in the 41st Canadian Federal Election. The election comes as the result of non-confidence vote held on March 25th, 2011 that saw the defeat of the Conservative party’s cabinet in the House of Commons on a motion declaring the Government to be in Contempt of Parliament [...]
Does Chinese Internet censorship have an effect on its ICT industry?
The issue of Internet censorship has cycled throughout headlines, whether it’s Congress interrogating Microsoft and Yahoo! as to why they are selling products that assist Chinese filtration or Google deciding that they are no longer censoring Google.cn. The largest cause for concern has been the violation of human rights, which has lead to new Internet [...]
SwiftRiver: Where Software Meets Social Change
You land in a country that is recovering from a long war. The infrastructure is limited, but there is a nascent democratic government. To make up for the lack of infrastructure, citizens use text messages sent to a central receiver or Twitter feeds to let government officials know what they need. I’m describing E-Democracy, and [...]
Facebook Pulls “Third Palestinian Intifada Page”: Violent Incitement Overrules Free Speech
The first Palestinian Intifada (meaning “Uprising” in Arabic: الانتفاضة) began in 1987 and the second in 2000. With the recent flock of revolution in the Middle East, a third was called for – via social media – to take shape in 2011. The Facebook Page “Third Palestinian Intifada,” which drew in more than 340,000 members [...]
A Personal Encounter with Paraguay’s Tech Progress
Deep in the “Chaco” of Paraguay where farmers live under two dollars a day, resides a budding entrepreneur named Alfonso Parada. “I took out a loan to start my farming business and with the profits I’ll send myself to IT school,” he told me. “I want to become a computer programmer and give a good [...]
Al Jazeera and Others Visualizing Twitter and Unrest
Qatar-based Al Jazeera may be completely responsible for the lack of productivity amongst university students, in many different disciplines, all over the world. Walking through the halls of a local university you may hear, at any one point, one student saying to another “Al Jazeera ate my homework.” The reason for this is what the [...]
What the world can learn from Egypt… so far
2011 has begun as a momentous year in the history and practice of nonviolent civil resistance. Tunisia and Egypt have sparked movements across North Africa and the Middle East as ordinary people rise up to resist the autocracy, corruption, and abuse they have lived under for decades. This method of struggle is by no means [...]
Corralling the Data, Instead of the Data Corralling Us
For those working in the field of conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance, reliable real-time data plays a critical role in staging a successful intervention. As a recent discussion at the U.S. Institute of Peace with Dr. Steven Livingston made clear, the humanitarian policy world is dealing with an environment where data gathering technology is advancing [...]
Is Forcing Open the Internet a Next Frontier for Humanitarian Intervention?
The recent demonstrations in Belarus, Tunisia, Bahrain, and especially Egypt have all recently demonstrated the importance of the Internet and social media as an organizing tool for popular protest. Twitter and Facebook have been crucial tools for organization and mobilization. Governments have noticed this as well, and begun to target the internet.
