Sami Ben Gharbia, head of Global Voices Advocacy, talks about his struggles against censorship in Tunisia and beyond and the importance of world action on fighting internet filtering. I met Sami during the recent Global Voices summit in Budapest and found him to be a warm and sympathetic person. The movement needs more people like…
Showing all posts tagged blogging
A different kind of cultured
Following the Sydney launch of my book, The Blogging Revolution, last week, Sydney-based Iranian-blogger Nazanin comments on the ways in which Iranian society is fundamentally misunderstood in the West: Of other points he discussed in this meeting was the clash he has observed between Iranian public and private. He brought examples of Iranians behaviour outdoor,…
The web won’t set us free
My following article was published by the Washington Post online on September 26: During China’s milk powder crisis, with tens of thousands of babies affected by the contaminated goods, the country’s blogosphere railed against corrupt officials. One outraged blogger wrote: “What are the people in the Government doing? They just want mistresses, they want cash,…
New ways to make news matter
My following article is published today by the Melbourne Age: During the bruising Democratic Party tussle with Hillary Clinton in April, a citizen journalist recorded Obama saying that he understood why working-class voters in decrepit industrial towns were “bitter” and clung to “guns or religion”. Despite being a paid-up Obama supporter, writer Mayhill Fowler worked…
Highlighting the forgotten
China’s economic development has come at a hefty price: An illegitimate girl of primary-school age in Zhuhai , South China, was turned away by the local schools, because her mother is not able to afford the hefty fine for illegitimacy, according to sohu blogger Han Tao’s report. Just one more way how the Chinese blogosphere…
I blog, you blog, we all blog
The latest statistics about the blogosphere, courtesy of Technorati: 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users). 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007.
Giving respect to bloggers
US organisation the Media Bloggers Association (MBA) has launched a scheme to give bloggers the same access to legal support as traditional media organisations.
Whoring is cheap
How much would you expect to be paid for spruiking the wonders online of your government? (In China, a 50-cent army, estimated to be around 300,000 “soldiers”, are busy spreading propaganda.)
Our democracy isn’t the cure-all
Prominent UK blogger Norman Geras, both pro Iraq war and Tony Blair, is a little confused about the non-Western world. He wrote the following a few days ago (in relation to my book The Blogging Revolution): If there’s a half-baked notion out there somewhere about the West’s comparative disadvantage relative to some other places, you…
Palin, Wahhabist
American Bedu is an American woman who married a Saudi Arabian man and they both live in the Kingdom (she features in my book The Blogging Revolution). Here she offers a unique perspective on Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin: I think there are likely Saudi women who would be much better qualified as a Vice…