A high level EU Commission official led a meeting with Freedom House delegates, whom I belong to at IGF2014.
In principle the EU may be one of the most committed political establishment for digital privacy and they plan to do more on the digital field as they are well aware of growing importance.
Our, in fact, productive meeting also sort of proves what I have learnt at my anthropology of EU readings, particularly Chris Shore‘s. the EU is still overly formalistic and bureaucratic. When I wanted to know whether EU plans to channel funding sources towards digital capacity building, I was told there are already related titles on ICTs in funding statements. The problem is as an outsider I do not withness many EU funded digital field projects that have social aspects. By social I mean they have to have a publicly visible and beneficial outcome. Even the term ICT (Information Communitation Technologies) is outdated. After social media, all digital field is reshaped. I do appreciate what EU does for many projects. But application processes have to be simplified – in order to escape from a particular funding expertise- and the types of projects should be oriented towards actual capacity building…
update:
An African delegate asked whether EU does anything abour European companies selling censorship software to repressive countries. The official said they cannot say companies what to do BUT i believe something should be done…
Critics Talk Turkey At Istanbul Internet Governance Forum
Wall Street Journal (blog)
Tough talking European Union Vice President Neelie Kroes got the ball rolling at a fringe event in Bilgi University. “Stopping people expressing themselves is futile: like telling women not to laugh in public. But I assure you, this is no laughing …
Access at the Internet Governance Forum
Turkey hosts Internet Governance Forum despite questionable record
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