Saturday, January 08, 2005

Hoder reports: Friends in Iran, journalists and technicians, are saying that judiciary officials have ordered all major ISP to filter all blogging services including PersianBlog, BlogSpot, Blogger, BlogSky, and even BlogRolling. They have also ordered to filter Orkut, Yahoo Personals and some other popular dating and social networking websites. For ISPs this means a big loss, since much of their recent sales have been because of people writing and reading blogs and surfing Orkut. So the government is effectively eliminating small and private ISPs by bankrupting them, whiteout paying a political price for it. As I had said before, I think we can adopt a three-level strategy for fighting Net censorship in Iran: Technical: using proxies, email, P2P applications, etc. Civil: creating consumer associations for internet users and organizing effective campaigns through them against the censorship. Legal: filing local or even international lawsuits against the government and related organizations or officials for violating the constitution of Iran and international law. While still relevant and potentially effective, I believe they are not enough now. The EU and the US must seriously consider demanding for an end to the Internet censorship during their negotiations with the Iranian government. We also have to look for ways to beam Internet direcly to Iranian users in Tehran and other big cities via cheap satellite connections. I call this "open access" and it's actually one of the projects a few friends and I are working on: to use millions of satellite dishes in Iranian houses to access the net, without interference of local ISPs. UPDATES - As usual, ParsOnline has been the first ISP to obey Telecom, followed by Datak, based on comments in Sobhaneh. - Joi wonders about Typepad and LiveJournal. Actually, they have almost no user in Iran. Typepad for it requires credit card -- which doesn't exist in Iran -- and LiveJournal maybe because it's not localized yet. 5:22:39 PM    comment []

New Berkman White Paper: Content and Control (Donna Wentworth). Check out Content and Control, the Digital Media Project's latest white paper. Copyfighter Derek Slater had a hand in researching and writing the paper; as he describes it via email, it's aimed at helping legislators and others understand the end-game results of policy choices we're making to control filesharing, DRM, and copyright infringement in general. Right up our alley. [Copyfight] 10:55:49 AM    comment []

Bush Administration Invents 'News' and Pays Journalist. USA Today: Education Dept. paid commentator to promote law. Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same. Washington Post: Drug Control Office Faulted For Issuing Fake News Tapes. Shortly before last year's Super Bowl, local news stations across the country aired a story by Mike Morris describing plans for a new White House ad campaign on the dangers of drug abuse. What viewers did not know was that Morris is not a journalist and his "report" was produced by the government, actions that constituted illegal "covert propaganda," according to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office. Given this administration's fondness for fiscal recklessness, war-inducing lies, torture, attacks on civil-liberties and other misdeeds, these seem like minor matters. But the Bush White House's contempt for honest journalism is really something to behold. Worse, it's clear that the adminstration honchos believe the public doesn't care -- and that officials consider professional journalists to be utterly helpless in making anyone care. Williams' previously undisclosed money-grubbing is pathetic, and worse. The National Association of Black Journalists has condemned his actions, and at least one news syndicate is dumping him (Poynter Online). But keep in mind that news organizations, as opposed to individual "journalists," have taken equally sleazy money from the government in the past. As Salon reported in 2000, "At least six major U.S. magazines have submitted anti-drug articles they have published over the past year to the government's Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in an attempt to qualify for thousands of dollars of financial credits under the same federal advertising program that has benefited the television networks." In an age when TV news networks shill for the White House, I suppose we shouldn't be entirely surprised by any of this stuff. But it's pretty depressing nonetheless. [Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism] Also covered at Salon: Pay for play. Armstrong Williams believes in the No Child Left Behind Act so much, it took $240,000 from the Bush administration to get him to say so (over and over again, apparently) on his talk show. 10:54:41 AM    comment []

Principles of Swarming and Counter-Swarming. Jeff Vail published on January 5 a piece about swarming tactics on his blog A Theory of Power (www.jeffvail.net). Jeff writes Smartmobs: "I think you will find it interesting, as it discusses the social aspects of swarming, not just its use as a military tactic, to include its convergence with "flash mobs", its use by anarchist protestors, Iraqi insurgents, etc". Swarming depends on a few very simple principles: achieve them, and it will succeed, but deny these principles to a swarming force and it will be defeated: 1. Elusiveness, in the form of mobility or concealment 2. Standoff Firepower, relative to the opposing force 3. Situational awareness of the local environment, relative to the opposing force Thanks Jeff for submitting the info ! [Smart Mobs] 10:48:08 AM    comment []

TV Host Says U.S. Paid Him to Back Policy. A conservative commentator said Friday that he was paid by the Department of Education to promote its initiatives in the news media. By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK. [NYT > Education] (Following up on last night's post about this additional effort at restoring integrity to the White House.) 10:47:40 AM    comment []

It's Time to Spray DDT. It's tragic that our squeamishness about DDT is killing people in poor countries. By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF. [NYT > Opinion] 10:47:29 AM    comment []

Supreme Court Will Review Conviction of Arthur Andersen. The Supreme Court announced it would review the conviction that drove the once-prominent accounting firm out of business. By LINDA GREENHOUSE. [NYT > Business] And then what? "Sorry. Have your business back." No can do. These could be fun opinions to read! 10:37:58 AM    comment []