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A brief chat with The Elders for International Human Rights Day…
If you haven’t come across The Elders already, you will soon – not least because we are partnering with them on their Every Human Has Rights campaign. On Sunday morning I sat in on a conference call with three of The Elders – Graça Machel, Mary Robinson and Archbishop Desmond Tutu – and 5 bloggers […]
WITNESS
December 10, 2007
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What really happened in the Burma internet “shut off”? [via John Palfrey]
Next Monday, December 10, is International Human Rights Day, and it seems a good moment do our bit to make sure we don’t forget Burma. COHRE (the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions) has posted two reports – one on Displacement and Dispossession: Forced Displacement and Land Rights in Burma (pdf) and the other naming […]
WITNESS
December 7, 2007
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Egypt videos back up at the Hub
As I mentioned in my last post, a number of the Egypt police brutality videos at the Hub had been embedded from Wael Abbas’ YouTube account. When his account was suspended, these videos on the Hub (and everywhere else they were embedded) stopped playing. We’ve now managed to restore some of the key videos, and […]
WITNESS
December 2, 2007
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Wael Abbas’ YouTube channel suspended [UPDATED – 29 Nov 07]
News just in from Hossam El-Hamalawy…: I’ve just received the following message from blogger and friend Wael Abbas… disaster: youtube disables my account claiming there were complaints about my police torture videos!!! This is un-bloody-believable. YouTube has just disabled probably the most important channel for the Egyptian blogosphere. Wael’s videos have been central in the […]
WITNESS
November 22, 2007
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Free To Speak (on BBC World Service)
[Slight changes below, after a second look at the project…] For me, the 2002 series I Have A Right To… still represents a good benchmark for how the BBC’s World Service can knit together human rights resources of real and lasting value – and that others can use and build on. Now, the World Service […]
WITNESS
November 20, 2007
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NewAssignment.net’s 6 lessons
Another nugget via Andy Carvin – I’d welcome comments on how this might look different when applied to the Hub: Jay Rosen of NewAssignment.net is talking about some of the lessons learned from their first networked journalism experiment with Wired News, which focused on trends in crowdsourcing. He said there were six lessons, but he […]
WITNESS
November 15, 2007
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Habermas, Rheingold and the Internet as public sphere
The upcoming World Electronic Media Forum includes a session called “Explosion and Fracturing of Public Sphere“, featuring my old boss, James Deane (alongside Aida Opoku Mensah of the Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and Sharmini Boyle of Young Asia TV). This Howard Rheingold piece (hat-tip, Ethan Z) is a must-read prior to that, particularly the […]
WITNESS
November 15, 2007
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Panel discussion today
I am on a panel today at the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival in New York City, along with Sara Pollack of YouTube, Michael Smolens of DotSub, Jenny Douglas and Silas Hagerty from KarmaTube, and Mike Wesch, who made The Machine Is Us/Ing Us (which gives its title to the panel) and Information R/evolution. […]
WITNESS
November 11, 2007
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Fair use in UGC / Legal threats database
The Citizen Media Law Project has come out with two excellent resources in the last week, both of which are going to be tools for the Hub: 1. “A report entitled “Fair Use Principles for User Generated Video Content” that sets out six guidelines designed to minimize the collateral damage that copyright enforcement efforts may […]
WITNESS
November 7, 2007
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Call for applications – GV's Rising Voices Grants
David Sasaki, Outreach Director at Global Voices Online, just emailed to alert us to the call for applications for their Rising Voices Grants, which aim to help local citizen media outreach projects around the world. I helped assess the last round of applications, which included some exceptional ideas, and from what I hear, the bar’s […]
WITNESS
November 6, 2007
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National Geographic’s Camera Phone Book
Could be worth checking out…. Plus it’s got a photo essay on Williamsburg shot with cellphone camera. http://www.cellular-news.com/story/22645.php “By combining photography with communications, [the camera phone] has the potential to become the most influential kind of camera,” writes Baldridge. “It offers innovative functions that let you use images to communicate with others, link up with […]
WITNESS
June 26, 2007
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Citizen Media Toolbox
Ran across this from unmediated. JD Lasica from ourmedia.org is trying to put together a set of easy to use tools to get people up and running with citizen journalism. His wish includes: * Out-of-the-box community publishing solution based on an extension of either the base code for Drupal or ArmchairGM (which supports the Openserving.com […]
WITNESS
June 26, 2007
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Amnesty International UK: Censorship ‘changes face of net’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6724531.stm From the BBC News: Amnesty International has warned that the internet “could change beyond all recognition” unless action is taken against the erosion of online freedoms. he warning comes ahead of a conference organised by Amnesty, where victims of repression will outline their plights. The “virus of internet repression” has spread from a handful […]
WITNESS
June 7, 2007
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Personal Democracy Forum 2007 Notes Part I
Last Friday I took the day off from work to go to the Personal Democracy Forum at Pace University. Thanks to Tim Bonnemann for giving me his ticket and Alan Rosenblatt for putting in touch with Tim. Part of the deal was that I “blog extensively” which I’ll attempt to do here. I’m not much […]
WITNESS
May 24, 2007
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Another Good One from unmediated: Why Do Video Platforms Fail?
unmediated posted an article from dembot, which reads like a “where are they now?” VH1 special of online video… TOP TEN REASONS WHY VIDEO PLATFORMS FAIL: 1. Insubstantial library of content 2. Poor bit rates 3. Lack of innovation (clone platform) 4. No share in content ownership rights 5. No exclusivity of content distribution 6. […]
WITNESS
May 14, 2007
