Update on Internet Laws
Last month CIMA looked at the SOPA bill and how it compared to similar laws in France, Spain, Italy, and Denmark. Since then, several other pieces of legislation have passed or are being considered, most notably the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). In recent days protests have broken out across Europe against ACTA.
ACTA is a multi-national treaty that aims to combat counterfeit goods and copyright infringement. The agreement was signed by Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States in October 2011, and the European Union signed it in January 2012, but several member states have refused to ratify it, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria. ACTA has been criticized by several net freedom groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which says, “ACTA is the new frontline in the global IP enforcement agenda.”
CANADA: Bill C-11, titled the Copyright Modernization Act, is currently under consideration in Canada’s House of Commons. The bill would provide incentives for ISPs to block users who infringe on copyrights more than once and could target sites that are not pirate sites but could be used for piracy.
IRELAND: Minister of State for Research and Innovation Seán Sherlock has stated that he intends to enact a law without a vote in the Oireachtas (the Irish parliament) that would curtail access to websites and give power to the courts to grant orders against ISPs. Over 80,000 people have signed a petition in protest. Nicknamed “Ireland’s SOPA,” the announcement brought attacks by Anonymous to Irish government websites.
NETHERLANDS: The Dutch government announced plans to target ISPs that give access to file-sharing websites like Pirate Bay. The proposed law would target websites but does not criminalize those who download copyrighted material.
UNITED KINGDOM: The UK’s Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) shut down the file-sharing website RnBXclusive.com this week. This warning was posted on the site:
#mediamonday: How Far a Voice Can Carry
Today is World Radio Day, which celebrates the importance of radio and its ability to facilitate access to information and promote freedom of expression. Recognizing the “transformational power of radio” at its 36th general conference last November, the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization chose to hold the observance on February 13, which marks the day when UN Radio was launched in 1946.
In Africa, radio is the mass medium of choice for 70 to 90 percent of the population, according to Mary Myers, the author of a CIMA report, Voices from Villages: Community Radio in the Developing World. As a low-cost, low-powered medium that is portable and does not require literacy, radio is especially suited to reach remote and marginalized communities, while providing a space for information sharing and promoting public debate. Radio informs and empowers local populations on education, economic, and public health initiatives. And it is an important player in emergency communication, disaster relief, and peace-building.
This is the case in war-ravaged northern Uganda, where radio is playing a critical role in helping stop Africa’s longest running conflict. The fighting began in the 1980s, when Yoweri Museveni, after toppling the regime of Tito Okello, sought to impose his authority on resistance groups loyal to Okello. Most resilient among them was the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), run by Joseph Kony, who made abducting children and forcing them to fight or become sexual slaves his chief weapon. Since 1986, the LRA has been responsible for more than 100,000 deaths, 66,000 abductions, and 2 million displaced people.
While some abductees and former soldiers have managed to escape, many hide in the bush, afraid to return home because of reprisals for the atrocities they were forced to commit. LRA commanders tell their soldiers that UN peacekeepers, as well as their own communities, will kill them for what they have done. In response, the Voice Project has made music its counter-weapon in the fighting.
The Voice Project started in 2008, working with widows, rape survivors, and former abductees who had banded together to support each other and those orphaned by the war. The survivors composed songs, called “dwog paco,” or “come home,” to let former soldiers know that they are forgiven and that it is safe to return. The Voice Project seeks to amplify these movements by working with the UN to build FM radio stations, produce content, and record family members and ex-combatants in their native Acholi to encourage former combatants to come home.
And it’s working.
In the past two years more than 100 soldiers have escaped or defected from the LRA. Many returnees claimed that the radio was the sole reason they decided to leave:
- “We were dispersed in various groups. One of the Acholi songs played on the radio—‘the children of other people have returned home, mine has never resurfaced’—appealed to our hearts and we decided to plan to escape and return home to Uganda.” –Choosing to Return: Challenges faced by the Lord’s Resistance Army’s middle-ranking commander, Conciliation Resources Report
- “A group of 17 dependents came out wanting to surrender in Duru having listened to radio. They knew where to go because they followed the sound of the generator.” –Field Report from MONUSCO, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, November 2011
- “There is at last a chance to defeat the LRA … by expanding the communication campaign that encourages LRA fighters to surrender so it covers the whole tri-border region and continue it until LRA groups no longer pose a threat to civilians.” –The Lord’s Resistance Army: End Game?, International Crisis Group Report, November 2011
Since the first broadcast more than 100 years ago, radio has proven its power as a source for mobilizing social change. Even in the digital age, it remains the world’s most accessible and affordable communication tool. As we celebrate World Radio Day for the first time, see how far a voice can carry.
Learn more about The Voice Project here.
Learn more about the power of radio here.
Special thanks to CIMA intern Brittany Anicetti for her research help.
Digital Media Mash Up Highlights
Weekly highlights from the world of digital media. Sign up here for the full version of CIMA’s weekly Digital Media Mash Up for a comprehensive list of resources on digital media.
The Open Society Foundations’ Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs. The report on Serbia came out in December 2011. Here are some highlights:
Over the past five years, digitization has impacted significantly on the range and consumption of media content in Serbia. An increasing number of Serbians go online, and most media outlets invest in their online presence. Serbia has a strategy for switching over from analog to digital broadcasting, prepared with broad public consultation. Broadband internet has had by far the most significant growth among the available distribution platforms over the past five years. All that said, Serbia remains a television nation, with almost all households owning a TV set and three quarters of the population still using television as their main source of information. But the internet is catching up.
- Internet penetration: 23% of households (2009)
- Broadband: 82% of households with internet (2009)
- Television consumption: (2010) Terrestrial: 50%, Cable: 41%, Satellite: 9%
- Digital broadcasting: (2010) Terrestrial: <1%, Cable: <1%, Satellite: 7.7%
- Social media usage: Facebook: 2.02 accounts (2009)
- Mobile phones: 132% of the population (2010), 3G: 11.5% (2009)
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Journalism in the Digital Age
Should Social Media Be Taught in Journalism or Business School?
Over the last couple years there has been a surge in the number of universities and colleges offering some form of social media marketing classes and/or certificate programs as part of their curriculum. (10,000 Words, 2/6)
Blair Jenkins: Better Journalism in a Digital Age
Journalism is a profession based on trust. The quality of our national debate and discourse is directly related to the integrity and reliability of our news media. Vigilant journalism helps to prevent the erosion of civil liberties and provides significant benefits for wider society. (The Journalism Foundation, 2/8)
The Vital Role of Global Journalism in the Digital Age
A new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists shows the new challenges they face around the world. (The Atlantic, 2/7)
The Role of the Journalist in a Globalized World
VIDEO: Interview with Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University at the PICNIC conference in Amsterdam. (European Journalism Center, January 2012)
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Research
ITU StatShot - Who Can Afford Broadband?
VIDEO: In October 2011, the Broadband Commission for Digital Development set the target that basic broadband service should cost less than 5% of average monthly income in all countries worldwide by 2015. How many countries already make the grade? And what are prices like in the poorest parts of the world, where broadband could be the critical catalyst for meeting the Millennium Development Goals in areas like education and health? (International Telecomms Union, January 2012)
Researchers Reveal What Goes into a Good Tweet
An analysis of 43,738 tweets from 1,443 users offers some valuable insights into emerging communication norms on Twitter. The study (PDF) by researchers Paul André of Carnegie Mellon, Michael Bernstein of MIT, and Kurt Luther of Georgia Tech aimed to uncover what makes for a good message on Twitter. (Reportr.net, 2/6)
The Pulse of News in Social Media: Forecasting Popularity
A new study claims it can predict the popularity of a news story on Twitter with an 84 percent accuracy rate by looking solely at four factors that affect content. The study, led by Bernardo Huberman of the Social Computing Lab Group at the Palo Alto-based HP Labs, examined the content of an article before it was published in determining how popular it would be on Twitter. (Social Computing Lab Group, February 2012)
Mobile Phones Central to Developing Countries’ Economic Success, Quality of Life: Global Poll
BBC World Service, January 2012
CHINA: Internet Companies in China: Dancing between the Party Line and the Bottom Line
The paper starts with an overview of the landscape of the Chinese Internet industry, followed by a review of the developmental trajectories of three important search companies in China – Baidu, Google, and Jike (the national search engine), whose stories are illustrative of the experiences of domestic, foreign and state Internet firms operating in China. The paper then outlines the Chinese government’s regulatory policies towards the Internet industry, which it is argued have undergone three stages: liberalization, regulation, and state capitalism. (IFRI, January 2012)
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Global Censorship Update
View Global Censorship Update – February 2012 in a larger map
Monthly Funding Update
Democracy activists know that a free and independent press is vital to a stable and healthy state. Despite this, there has not been as much attention paid to media development as there has been in other aspects of democracy building. However, funding for media development has increased over the years, largely due to USAID and State Department programs in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. spending has jumped an estimated 56 percent from 2006 to 2010, according to CIMA research. Despite this increase, the amounts devoted to media development were merely 0.4 percent of overall U.S. foreign assistance. Private foundation funding is also increasing, with Open Society Foundations being the largest single private donor. Over the past decade, the U.S. foundation community has grown to include new philanthropies growing out of the West Coast tech industry. The largest and best-known of these is the Gates Foundation, but others include the Skoll Foundation, the Omidyar Network (whose founders were architects of eBay), and Google. The Hewlett and the Packard Foundations are older members of the group. The National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Institute of Peace are also significant donors in the field of media development. Data collected by CIMA show that U.S. media development funders—both public and private—spent about $222 million in 2010 compared to $142 million in 2006.
Collecting data is difficult, however. Traditional media development organizations are no longer the only players in the game. Humanitarian organizations, political party development organizations, labor unions, and other non-media focused organizations have realized the importance of media development to democracy programs and are spending increasing amounts of funding on programs that have a media component to them. Health organizations also play a major role in helping journalists report about health-related issues. A report issued in 2011 entitled Communication for Development by UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO, ILO, and others shows the increasing emphasis placed on media and communications in all aspects of development.
The media development field has seen a decrease in funding for training but an increase in attention is being paid to media literacy and monitoring and evaluation. Digital technology is also seeing increased attention, especially in Arab Spring countries.
For more information on funding trends in media development, see CIMA reports Continental Shift: New Trends in Private U.S. Funding for Media Development and Funding Free Expression: Perceptions and Reality in a Changing Landscape.
#mediamonday: Giving a Voice to Colombian People
Hollman Morris has dedicated his life to giving a voice to Colombians who do not have one. A 20–year veteran journalist, Morris has focused on human rights and issues about armed conflict in his native Colombia. He has concentrated on civilians from outside the large cities, those who do not have the same access to the media as their urban counterparts. He reports from the viewpoint of the bottom ranks of society rather than from the top down.
When conflicts last as long as the one in Colombia, human beings tend to stop seeing the faces of the victims. People become nothing but numbers. For 10 years, Morris has tried to change that through his television show Contravia, a weekly program that seeks to provide a voice to victims of human rights abuses.
“It is important to give people their own voice to tell their stories instead of having journalists tell what they think their audiences want to hear,” Morris said. More than 300 episodes have shown stories about the war happening outside the cities that goes largely unreported. Contravia shows the other realities of Colombia by storytelling, reporting, debating, and interviewing. The program places an emphasis on creating a human rights-based culture, as Morris believes the best way to fight the barbarism of war is to show how it affects the lives of those who must endure it. Watch Contravia online here.
In 2005, Morris came up with the idea to make a documentary film about the trials of paramilitaries who were accused of killing thousands of Colombians. The trials were designed to create “peace and justice” in Colombia, but political and economic interests impeded the process. He came up with the idea after traveling through the country and seeing the drama in the lives of people who were looking for relatives lost in the war. Morris saw how the victims were forgotten by Colombian society. Three years later, Impunity was finished. The film has been shown across the world, but not in Colombia, where political forces have prevented it from being shown in the large theaters.
Morris’ work has come with a price. He has spent 10 years outside of his country after being subjected to arbitrary detentions and threats. A film about his life was produced by Juan José Lozano titled Unwanted Witness. Morris is currently a Reagan-Fascell Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy and will be speaking at a NED event on Thursday: Intercepting Democracy: Colombia’s Intelligence Service vs. Civil Liberties. Morris will recount the illegal actions undertaken by the DAS and discuss issues of political responsibility and the consequences for individual victims, civil society, and the state of democracy in Colombia. He will propose recommendations for addressing past abuses and reinforcing respect for the fundamental rights of citizens.
Read more about Morris in this interview with Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
Working Towards Net Freedom
SOPA, HADOPI, Sinde, ACTA…the list goes on as governments across the world attempt to regulate the Internet. Their reasons vary from piracy to obscenity, but the underlying effect is the same: net regulation affects free speech.
One of the world’s leading experts on net freedom, Rebecca MacKinnon, has recently published a book titled Consent of the Networked: The Global Struggle for Internet Freedom. MacKinnon is a co-founder of Global Voices Online and the Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. She says we should stop arguing over whether the Internet empowers individuals and societies, and address the more fundamental question of how technology should be structured and governed to support rights and liberties across the globe.
Tomorrow MacKinnon will be speaking at MIT Media Lab. (RSVP here.) But don’t fret if you can’t be in Boston. She will be speaking at George Washington University on February 22, 2012.
The New America Foundation is just one of many organizations that is working towards better understanding about and improved policies toward net freedom. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is another. EFF was founded in 1990 after the United States Secret Service had conducted a series of raids “tracking the distribution of a document illegally copied from a BellSouth computer that described how the emergency 911 system worked, referred to as the E911 document,” according to the EFF site. Today EFF takes on cases that affect the rights of people in cyberspace.
The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) “works to enhance free expression and privacy in communications technologies by finding practical and innovative solutions to public policy challenges while protecting civil liberties.” CDT was instrumental in the fight against the SOPA and PIPA bills.
The Global Network Initiative is a diverse coalition of leading information and communications companies, major human rights organizations, academics, investors, and technology leaders that was launched in the 60th Anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Berkman Center for Internet and Society, MIT Media Lab, the Munk School of Global Affairs, and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society have excellent programs that host some of the world’s leading scholars on cyberlaw and Internet issues.
The Open Net Initiative investigates and analyzes Internet filtering and surveillance practices.
Other organizations who work on democracy and tech issues include the National Democratic Institute and Diplo.
Further resources:
Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace
Akamai State of the Internet Report
In the Name of God: Faith Based Internet Censorship in Majority Muslim Countries.
Evgeny Morozov – The Net Delusion
#mediamonday: Can Media Development Make Aid More Effective?
CIMA and Internews held an event titled “Can Media Development Make Aid More Effective?” today, featuring Daniel Kaufmann of the Brookings Institution, Mark Nelson of the World Bank, and Tara Susman-Peña of Internews. It was moderated by Sina Odugbemi of the World Bank.
Susman-Peña talked about the Internews and World Bank Institute project Media Map, found at http://www.MediaMapResource.org. The Media Map project brings together comparable data on how media, technology, and communication intersect with traditional development statistics. She said that one of the findings of the project is that the cultural concept of what media is for varies by country and can be a strong barrier to media development.
Nelson, addressing media development’s place in the aid effectiveness debate, said that one of the major problems with aid is a lack of country leadership and ownership. Media development should be included more in discussions about development in general. Improving the skills of journalists won’t reduce the number of those arrested or killed; changing the media environment requires a change in the political environment.
Kaufmann looked at media aid and press freedom and found that there is less press freedom in the world than there was 15 years ago. Media aid hasn’t improved the environment in countries with low levels of press freedom. However, he said that if done in a smart way, media development can help. But what is media development, he wondered, as there are many definitions for it. The focus should be on media freedom, and while media freedom alone may not be sufficient, it is necessary for successful media development.
Discussion on Twitter was lively. Here is a sampling of tweets about the event:
@Internews Kaufmann: Democracy has expanded around the world; #media freedom has not.
@Theginnie: Kaufmann: Does media development matter? Yes, when done smartly.
@NDITech: RT @_anna_shaw: Kaufmann: Often governments are less informed than the people because of the social media revolution.
@_anna_shaw: Kaufmann: ICTs – even cheap internet – has enormous leveraging potential for media development and governance.
@boomshahkolaka: Kaufmann: media aid recipients are largely countries that have no press freedom
@ijnet: MT @jendorroh: Media aid to countries w/ low press freedom doesn’t improve much- Daniel Kauffman of @BrookingsInst
@NEDemocracy: Kaufmann: If most media assistance goes to “not free” countries, are those countries improving? Generally no
@CIMA_Media: Kaufmann: Not free countries in 1994: 35% Now? 39% #pressfreedom
@Theginnie: Kaufmann: what journalists are not lacking is training, they can train us
@Internews: Kaufmann of Brookings Institution: many definitions of media development; argues media freedom should be the goal. http://bit.ly/yGSywh
@CIMA_Media: Kaufmann: media development should place freedom as center stage.
@Theginnie: Literacy rates in Mali are at 26% media development should pair with education
@info_innovation: Cultural understandings of what media is for can act as barriers to changing it. Recognizing this is crucial for development.
@Theginnie: Nelson: organization like the world bank that have an effect on polices reform need to be in conversations of media development
@Theginnie: Susman-Pena: Kenya mobile phones and radio for governance emerging but needs more study
@Theginnie: Nelson Mandela made a huge impact by saying you need a free media for development
@CIMA_Media: Tara Susman-Pena of @Internews giving an overview of Media Map project. http://mediamapresource.org
@karenattiah: Need to get a to a computer to tune on to the @CIMA_Media live stream on media development and aid!
@doldm: happily stumbled upon @CIMA_Media livestream on media development and aid event happening now in DC
@jonathanmarks: Question for Tara. does your mapping include looking at the overlap between social media, mobile and traditional radio and TV?
@DLA_FA: Insufficient selectivity in dev aid may be tied to lack of valid, reliable, and timely governance data.
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter! @CIMA_Media
Digital Media Mash Up Highlights
Weekly highlights from the world of digital media. Sign up here for the full version of CIMA’s weekly Digital Media Mash Up for a comprehensive list of resources on digital media.
The Open Society Media Program has commissioned background papers on a range of topics that are important for understanding the effects of new technology on media and journalism. The papers accompany a series of reports, “Mapping Digital Media,” on the impact of digitization on democracy in 60 countries around the world. This week, the program published “Social Media and News.”
The incredible growth of social media has dominated the Web 2.0 decade. With research showing that most internet users stumble across news online while looking for something else, news organizations can no more ignore social media than they can ignore the communities they seek to serve (and the markets which its advertisers seek to reach).
News organizations are being sidestepped by newsmakers that use social media to communicate directly with audiences; news products are being unbundled across multiple platforms; and production processes are becoming more networked.
New devices—mobile and tablets—are shifting consumption further into public and private work and leisure spaces, and there is still an enormous amount of innovation to come. Yet social media have not (yet) replaced other media. Television remains the most consumed and trusted news medium.
In this paper, Paul Bradshaw surveys the ways that news occurs in social media, and examines the implications for media-related values. It will, he concludes, become more important than ever to identify what exactly the role of journalists—and the news they report—should be, regardless of platform. Is it to hold power to account, give a voice to the voiceless and a platform for national, international, and local conversations? Or separate rumour from truth, or create well-informed citizens? New technologies provide new dangers along with new possibilities, and it will take governments, media and citizens some time to address them.
Research
The Numbers Just Keep On Getting Bigger: Social Media And The Internet 2011 [STATISTICS]
Did you know that there are now more than a billion social media profiles, representing around half of all internet users worldwide? Or that 44 percent of all online users are in Asia, and that China accounts for 485 million people, even with a countywide internet penetration of just 36.3 percent? (All Twitter, 1/23)
Report from the Internet Privacy Workshop
It’s been a long time coming, but last week saw the publication of RFC 6462, the Report from the Internet Privacy Workshop. The workshop, which was jointly hosted by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and others in December 2010, brought together experts from industry and the Internet standards community to better understand the role of privacy in Internet standardization work. (Center for Democracy and Technology, 1/23)
MENA: From Media Revolution to Street Revolution Twenty Years of Arab Commercial Satellite Television
These proceedings are the result of a symposium titled “From Media Revolution to Street Revolution: Twenty Years of Arab Commercial Satellite Television” hosted by Northwestern University in Qatar. The aim of the symposium was to bring together media scholars and professionals to develop a framework for teaching and researching media in the Arab world. (Northwestern University, January 2012)
BAHRAIN: Justice Denied in Bahrain: Freedom of Expression and Assembly Curtailed
This report documents the findings of a delegation comprised of representatives from six international rights groups (three members and three partners of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, IFEX), which carried out a fact-finding mission between 20-30 November, 2011, in order to gain an understanding of the state of free expression and the status of human rights defenders in Bahrain.1 The 11 recommendations made in this report include calls to end the harassment, imprisonment and prosecution of Bahraini citizens for what essentially amount to persecution of free expression and legitimate human rights work. The mission team was composed of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), Front Line Defenders, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), Index on Censorship, International Media Support (IMS) and the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International.(International Mission to Bahrain Report, January 2012)
ECUADOR: WAN-IFRA Denounces Ecuador Government’s Authoritarian Turn
The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) published a report that illustrates how the government of Ecuador is carrying out “a sophisticated strategy of marginalising all voices independent of state power.” (WAN-IFRA, 1/23)
Global Censorship Update
View Global Censorship Update – January 2012 in a larger map
#Jan25 – One Year Later, Egypt Is Still Struggling for Media Freedom
I’ll never forget it. I received a text message and raced over to meet a friend at a bar on a dark street in the Hamra district of Beirut. The place was packed with young and old alike, their faces stretched with emotion as they experienced a sensation unfamiliar to much of the Arab World–that of hope. A massive screen had been set up in a corner as if we were going to watch a World Cup match. Indeed, the anticipation felt much like that of the start of an exciting sporting event, and the subsequent deflation of spirit that followed was as disappointing as a defeat. But this was far more important than any football game. This was freedom at stake.
Hosni Mubarak did not resign that night as much of the world had expected, but his defiance was only to last another day. The man who had ruled Egypt for three decades, to whom we had referred to as Pharaoh Mubarak, finally gave in to the demands of people who only wanted the most basic of things in life: freedom, dignity, a voice.
Tunisia may have sparked what has come to be known as the Arab Spring, but it was Egypt that burned images of revolution into our minds. Events that led to that night began a year ago today, a day when hope burst forth from the souls of those who had been shackled by oppression for most or all of their existence. But the year has been wrought with setbacks, worry, crackdowns, and death. The media environment has been just one of the many victims of the oppressive tactics of the ruling Supreme Council of the Allied Forces (SCAF) that took the promises of the revolution and kept them for itself.
On the day after Mubarak resigned, Egyptian state television broadcasters apologized on air for lying to the people in their coverage of the revolution, blaming the state for ordering them to report a pro-state narrative, even showing an old video of an empty Tahrir Square. The position of information minister was eliminated in late February 2011, making Egypt, Lebanon, and Qatar the only countries in the Arab world without such a position. Soon after, however, state media returned to the role of propaganda machine, pushing a narrative that further protests were part of a foreign plot, a theme they would continue to promulgate as the SCAF moved to consolidate its power. The National Military Media Committee was created as SCAF’s propaganda arm to counteract what it called “biased coverage” against the military, and the post of information minister was reestablished. Protesters were demonized and portrayed as traitors to the revolution, and democracy activists became agents of foreign interference.
In this atmosphere, Maikel Nabil Sanad, an atheist who was supportive of Israel, was arrested in a calculated move by the military to set an example for other activists. He had written a post on his blog titled “The army and people wasn’t ever one hand,” which enumerated the military’s acts of oppression. “In fact, the revolution has so far managed to get rid of the dictator but not the dictatorship,” he wrote at a time when the military was viewed as heroic for its role in overthrowing Mubarak. On March 28, 2011, he was arrested on charges of “insulting the military.” Despite undertaking a hunger strike in protest of the unlawful detention, Nabil did not receive much support because of his views, and in the international community, his arrest went virtually unnoticed.
Nowhere were the effects of state media propaganda more devastating than at the Maspero media complex in Cairo, when Coptic Christian protesters were portrayed as aggressors, inciting violence that led to the deaths of 27 civilians.
Citizen journalism and social media came to define the movement that the world witnessed in real time, and it is what has kept the spirit of revolution alive. While the Internet may not have been the reason for the movement’s birth, there is no denying it had a major influence on Mubarak’s ouster and the continuing protests. Alla Abdel Fattah, the activist blogger who was arrested last autumn and who was instrumental in rallying support for Nabil, has played a big role in awakening the world to the oppressive tactics of the SCAF. Wael Ghonim, founder of the We Are All Khaled Said Facebook page, and Wael Abbas, another well-known blogger, were both detained at various times. Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy’s arms were broken when she was detained late last year.
The work of Egyptian citizen journalists can be found on the Mosireen YouTube channel. Mosireen is a media collective of filmmakers and citizen journalists that has become one of the most popular non-profit YouTube channels in the world. It has published videos from the revolution and was instrumental in showing the world the truth about the Maspero massacre. Sites like Mosireen show that state media can no longer hide the truth from the world.
The pressure that citizen journalism has put on state media is showing some results. Last week, employees at the state-owned Nile News Channel began a sit-in to demand an immediate end to censorship and to push for reforms in the state media sector. The protest was sparked by a ban on broadcasting the documentary Tahrir Square, which shows the military’s brutal treatment of the January 25 protesters. It is worth mentioning that Nile News Channel is located in the Maspero building where the Coptic protesters were murdered last October.
The SCAF has made some concessions in the days leading up to today’s anniversary. Nabil has been released, along with nearly 2,000 other prisoners. The Supreme Press Council is currently drafting proposals to amend freedom of expression laws and plans to form a committee of professional journalists to help develop mechanisms to “free the media from government domination.” However, many activists believe these moves have been designed to ease tension and are not long-term changes.
Today, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians gathered at Tahrir demanding the same human rights they wanted a year ago. They have sipped from the cup of liberty and seem determined not to give up until freedom is theirs.
Other resources:
For Egypt’s State Media, the Revolution Has Yet to Arrive – Freedom House
National Coalition for Media Freedom
Watch “The Egyptian Revolution,” a multimedia documentary produced by TrustMedia, the media development wing of the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF).
Nile News Channel’s sit-in:
#mediamonday: Changing the Climate of Training for Journalists
Tornadoes touching down in ice storms. Tsunamis wiping out cities. Drought and famine destroying populations. All of these are stories the media has had to report in recent times. Journalists need to know how to write about these events, and training programs on environmental reporting are popping up in universities and media training centers across the warming globe.
The Society for Environmental Journalists’ website contains a wealth of information about the environment and governmental policies. Numerous universities have environmental journalism programs, including the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University, the Center for Environmental Journalism at University of Colorado at Boulder, and the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at Berkley.
Distance learning is becoming increasingly important in the realm of global media development. One of these distance learning initiatives is an online course on covering climate change. The course is an initiative by Internews and the Poynter Institute and is part of the Earth Journalism Network program. The course is designed to provide non-expert reporters and citizen journalists a firm grounding in the science and policy underlying climate change.
Poynter Institute, through its online learning site NewsU, provided the technical expertise in building the course, while Internews is responsible for the content and subject expertise. The site went live in 2009 and there are plans to translate it into Spanish in the near future. Internews is teaming up with regional and national media associations to spread the word about the courses to their members.
What journalists learn from the course:
- How climate change affects various beats in a news organization
- Scientific explanations of how the earth’s climate has changed through time are always subject to revision
- Proposed solutions to global warming and its effects
- How to write an unbiased story
- Examples of stories covering climate change
- Tips, such as where to find resources
As nine of the last ten winters have been the warmest since we began keeping records 130 years ago, there is solid evidence the earth is warming. Because of this, we can be sure we will continue to read about massive storms and tragic disasters. With programs like that of the Earth Journalism Network, journalists can be prepared to write these stories.
A Comparative Look at SOPA and Similar Laws around the Globe
Wikipedia, Reddit, and hundreds of other websites are dark today. Google has blacked out its logo. These steps are in opposition to the controversial bills SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) that stand before the United States Congress. Facebook and other social networking sites also have stated their opposition to the bills.
What are SOPA and PIPA? SOPA is the House of Representatives version of an online piracy bill, and PIPA is the Senate version. Both bills allow intellectual property owners to shut down foreign websites for copyright infringement. The offended party could demand these sites be removed from search engines, denied payments from sites like Paypal, or block ISPs from allowing visitors to the sites.
Take a close look at SOPA. How does it compare to similar ideas in other countries? A few examples:
SPAIN–This month, Spain passed the Sinde law giving the Spanish government broad authority to impose strict penalties on website owners who have copyrighted material on their websites. Unlike SOPA, the law, which is named after Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, targets only those who make money from copyrighted content. Copyright owners can complain to a government commission that can issue and order to block the website.
FRANCE–France passed the HADOPI law in 2009. Known as the “Three Strikes Piracy Law,” HADOPI cuts off internet access to users who have three violations of piracy in defiance of a European Parliament law specifically outlawing cutting off the internet without a court order. The legislation created the Haute Autorite pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet (High Authority for the Diffusion of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet) that has the power to send an email warning at the first violation, followed by a mailed letter. The third violation can lead to an interruption of Internet access for up to a year.
ITALY–The Supreme Court approved a verdict by a lower court that allowed ISPs to block The Pirate Bay website, a site that has seen numerous attempts by governments across the globe to block. In October 2011 the Italian government proposed a “wiretapping” bill that would give anyone who thinks he has been offended by content to challenge the website in question. Wikipedia Italy responded in protest by going blank.
DENMARK–Several court rulings have blocked access to sites accused of copyright infringement. These include the Pirate Bay and Allofmp3.com. In the Allofmp3.com case, the court ruled that ISPs are responsible for the traffic they route.
The United Nations Public Administration Network has a good summary of Internet censorship developments in 2011.
Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom