Someone should advise the government about the nature of web. In fact, the ruling party invests more on the web campaigns than all other ones. But in case of governmentality issues related to web, I haven’t seen any innovative ideas so far… Despite AKP’s great attempts on democratization, nothing happens on the Web scene. Unfortunately, it is quiet conservative when it comes to Web.
There have recently been two news about what Turkish authorities are up to: to create a Google rival and to start an email surveillance from the birth (all news below). While they play with these idiotic plans, a group of Turkish internet users had a creative idea and decided to take to YouTube ban to ECHR. Congratulations! I will try to get news about those users soon.
Turkey to face European Court on YouTube ban
Turkey tests new means of Internet control
Many governments are unhappy about Google, Yahoo and Microsoft: those are too big to bully. It’s much easier to bully local search engines and email providers: they are usually too timid to complain and they have much more too lose (that’s why the fact that more and more Chinese netizens seem to be drifting towards local versions of Web2.0 services – a trend spotted by Michael Anti and others – is a little bit disturbing).
Turkey wants universal email surveillance from birth
Evgeny sez, “The Turkish government has a very disturbing Internet plan, which includes 1) creating a new search engine that would reflect ‘Turkish sensibilities’ (i.e. filter out certain results) 2) supply each of 70 million Turkish citizens with a 10 GB email account that would be linked to their national ID numbers (in fact, they will be provided with an email account from birth). This is all done under the pretense of strengthening national security, as the government doesn’t want communications data to ‘leave Turkey and then come back’.”
Turkey tests new means of Internet control (Thanks, Evgeny!)
Is Turkey’s search engine a backlash against US Internet firms? (ZDNet)
Tactic: Is your voice threatened?
Did you know online journalists and bloggers now represent 45% of all media workers in prison worldwide?
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, this is the first time that online journalists/bloggers represent the largest professional category in prison. The country with the worst record is China.
Global Voices Advocacy has recently published a map ? Threatened Voices ? to visually display these imprisoned bloggers.
Internet as Playground & Factory
Feel bad I haven?t had time to do a decompress on the Internet as Playground & Factory conference recently put on at the New School. I didn?t feel much up for live blogging, for some reason, or even Tweeting, despite enticements to do so.
As a theme, it was intriguing. I was a bit concerned in the discussion that preceded the conference that there would be a particular focus on fairly abstract critical theory. Over the years, my enjoyment of super-abstract cultural theory has given way to tolerance. Too often, I worry that the language has obscured the precision of the ideas. Luckily, the pendulum has swung back from the extreme end of this, where verbal gymnastics was valued more than real ideas, and theorist rock stars attracted audiences not because of what they had to say but how they had to say it.
The three phases of the social web
Web 2.0, a concept created by Tim O’Reilly in 2005, is useful. But it’s only a concept, not a technology.
It’s now possible to see progress within this concept. I suggest three defined phases, though there’s much blurring at the edges.
Wikipedia sees huge decrease in number of editors
Wikipedia has been loosing editors at an alarming rate in recent months, reports the Wall Street Journal. In the first three months of this present year, Wikipedia lost 49 000 English-language editors, as compared to the 4 900 they lost during the same time frame the previous year. This has caused many to raise concern for the future of the fifth most-popular website on the Internet.
Social Networking and the Making of a Civil Rights Movement | Iran …
By IranNewsNow Admin
Hamid Dabashi. A rather peculiar reference to a prominent nineteenth century philosopher made Mir Hossein Mousavi’s letter to Ayatollah Montazeri of some urgent interest. More than three months into the post-electoral crisis of June
Twitter is Word of the Year 2009
With 2009 a month away from ending, is it now safe to say that the year belongs to Twitter? Not only is Twitter the fastest growing website in terms of userbase and eyeballs, but it is also the second most searched term on Microsoft Bing?s top trending topics in 2009. But that?s not all, Twitter ? the word itself has just been named the no.1 Word of 2009. Top Word of the Year was released by the Global Language Monitor based on its analysis which was completed in late November. The analysis used Global Language Monitor?s Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI) ? an algorithm for tracking words and phrases in the media and on the Internet. These includes blogs and social media sites.