WITNESS, Author at WITNESS Blog

Reviewing how NGOs use vlogs and videosharing sites Beth Kanter has an excellent overview of recent discussions on how nonprofits and NGOs, mainly in the US, are using online video sharing sites, and also experimenting with their own vlogs documenting their activities. Most examples so far seem promotional or fundraising-driven rather than advocacy-driven, and its not yet clear how traffic is being driven […] September 14, 2006
Human Rights Video Hub Pilot Launched Last Thursday, our Human Rights Video Hub pilot project with Global Voices Online launched. Sameer Padania, our Video Hub Editor has kicked it off with a post detailing how video cell phones and distributed networks are helping put an end to police and prison brutality in Malaysia. We will be keeping a close eye on […] September 11, 2006
Josh Wolf out on Bail As a follow up to an earlier post, video blogger, Josh Wolf has been released after being imprisoned for 30 days for refusing to give up footage from a demonstration in San Francisco protesting the G8 summit. September 8, 2006
Blogumentary Last night we went to a screening of “Blogumentary“, by Chuck Olsen. Shot between the years of 2002 to 2004, it provides a great overview of the blogosphere, its impact on society and the colorful people who inhibit this world. A few things that I really stayed with me as I walked home were the […] August 31, 2006
NY Times article on safety of web surfing in public places The most emailed article on today’s online version of the New York Times is called “Web Surfing in Public Places is a Way to Court Trouble.” Although geared at business travelers who are often talking about business or conducting it in very public spaces such as airport gates and business centers at hotels, there are […] August 23, 2006
Human Rights Watch Report on Internet Censorship Human Rights Watch recently published a report on Internet Censorship in China. The report gives details about how corporations like Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google, and Skype are cooperating with the Chinese government censorship efforts. It also gives some good background on the “Great Firewall of China,” which refers to the way in which the Chinese government […] August 22, 2006
China Making Sure That User Generated Content Is Officially Registered Content First Another good post from unmediated originally from techdirt: China has a long history of being a bureaucratic society — and it seems they’re really learned how to apply that bureaucracy to the internet. They have tens of thousands of people monitoring the internet, for example. However, they’re really going to ridiculous extremes in trying to […] August 19, 2006
Top 10 Video Sharing Sites Reviewed Thanks again to the folks at unmediated for pointing out this review from lightreading comparing video sharing sites, something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. Here are the results: 1) Blip.tv 2) VideoEgg 3) Dailymotion 4) YouTube 5) Veoh 6) Google Video 7) Grouper 8 ) Jumpcut 9) AOL 10) Eyespot August 17, 2006
Interview with Jailed Video Blogger Here’s a follow up to my last post about imprisoned video blogger, Josh Wolf. CNET’s interview with Josh Wolf, a video blogger who is Federal prison for refusing to hand over footage he shot during a G8 protest held San Francisco in July 2005. An SFPD police car was damaged during the protest and because […] August 11, 2006
Cellphones in Iraq There was an interesting article in today’s New York Times about how important cellphones are in Iraq, not just for communication, but as a tool for self expression. Iraqis use their cellphones to pass around viral videos that poke fun at the Iraqi government, the US military, and energy shortages among other things. Here’s how […] August 9, 2006
Video Blogger Goes to Jail Today our friends at unmediated posted a story about Josh Wolf, a video blogger who shot some footage of the G8 protests in San Francisco last year which he posted to his blog. Now that footage is being subpoenaed by the Federal Government, and since Wolf has refused to turn over the tapes he was […] August 8, 2006
Propaganda and User Generated Content JD Lasica from OurMedia had an interesting post about a “spoof” of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth. Turns out that Republican PR firms are “users” too. Is this something we should expect on the Video Hub as well? August 8, 2006
The State of Human Rights Tagged Videos I was thinking, maybe a good way to see what might happen w/ the Video Hub is to check out what’s going on on existing sites, like YouTube and Google Video. Doing a quick search on human rights, came up with the following links. Salvor at YouTube Salvor blogs about sex worker exploitation in Spain. […] August 7, 2006