Cote d'Ivoire : SMS Service Suspended During Elections to Prevent Violence

By Abdoulaye Bah · Translated by Suzanne Lehn · View original post [fr]

diabymohamed informs on Twitter that in anticipation of the presidential election of Sunday, Oct. 31 in Cote d'Ivoire, the Ivorian Telecom Authority (ATCI) decided to suspend short text message services, a decision that is reasonable for some because of potential messages of violence : “RT @2romeo: #Abidjan closing of SMS services from end of vote until tuesday morning. Great precaution for dispassionate results”.

Taxonomy upgrade extras: 

10 Tactics film screening inspires ideas for Drumbeat San Diego

The film 10 Tactics was screened for the first time in San Diego, California on October 25th, 2010. New Media Rights hosted the event at the local Joyce Beers Center. 10 Tactics is a film about how rights advocates have used digital technologies to turn information into action. To see the film online visit: http://www.informationactivism.org/

New Media Rights is a San Diego based non-profit that offers free legal assistance on topics of copyright and online publishing. We also offer a free public media studio for local creators to use.

Showing the 10 Tactics film and collaborating on Drumbeat San Diego projects are rooted in community building. San Diego, California is a very diverse community of people and many groups were represented at the 10 Tactics film screening. We had activists, web developers, media activists, holistic health practitioners, student activists and many others all in attendance to watch the film and feel empowered to become involved in Drumbeat San Diego.

Laura Lee Thompson, a local compassion advocate said that the movie came at a perfect time for her, when after a feeling burnt out on her activism she was ready to take a new approach, and integrate new media tools more. We heard this time and time again where people were inspired to utilize more digital technologies after viewing the film and were excited to get involved in our local initiative called Drumbeat San Diego.

Drumbeat San Diego will be an event held in January that will mix technologists, artists, community organizations and activists. These diverse communities will come together to build new media projects that benefit the community. One of the great projects is being facilitated by Jed Sundwall of Open San Diego and Lorie Hearn of the Watchdog Institute. Lorie presented the project after the film was shown. The idea behind the project is to obtain publicly available data sets and then have journalists work on writing articles that create a story around the data. One significant way that activists and other local community members could add to this particular project are identifying which data sets would be critical to the public being better informed.

Mera Szendro Bok, Communications and Information officer at New Media Rights emphasized that everyone in the room has skills that could benefit Drumbeat San Diego projects. Drumbeat San Diego projects need the contributions of citizens expressing community needs or getting involved in community outreach and buildup to the Drumbeat San Diego. Check out our How to get Involved page to see what areas of Drumbeat San Diego you would like to work with us on!

 

Lorie Hearn of the Watchdog Institute speaking

here on open data and journalism Drumbeat San Diego project

Mera Szendro Bok speaking on the opportunities available to get involved with Drumbeat San Diego

Find additional articles by

San Diego artist and filmmaker Paul Giret creates art installation, TV Monster

Paul Giret's explanation of the project:

I built a TV Monster that stands 11 feet high and incorporates 15 TVs that are displayed in a cross like fashion and run off 8 DVD Players all playing 45 Minute psychedelic Mix Tapes that I created myself by downloading videos from the Internet and messing with them inside of Pinnacle Studio and burning them onto looping DVDs.
The TV Monster made it all the way up to the La Jolla Indian Reservation and stood all Three Days of the event, however, it shorted out after only 3 hours of playtime in a blaze of gray smoke due to a lack of power being provided to the Monster. 8 out of the 12 TVs are now toast, leaving me with a new game plan and 12 months to prepare more psychedelic mix tapes (as opposed to the 2 weeks i was given to prepare for this event) so I can make the TV MONSTER even better for the Next Burning Man Decompression.

The concept for the project was to take as many images and videos from the internet and throw them into an overwhelming video display in order to give the viewer the feeling of confusion. Too much going on at one time. I took many clips from popular sharing video websites and added visual effects to them. I also transposed like videos together.

Some videos were purposely sequenced together and others were put in a completely random order. All 8 DVDs were almost completely different so that no matter what screen you were watching, something different was on display.

 

Art's two cents: The "feeling of confusion" the TV Monster communicated relies on fair use under copyright law. In this case, the videos have been transformed for the purpose of the artist communicating confusion rather than their original entertainment value.

See Paul's video creations on his YouTube Channel

 

Attendees enjoying Paul's art project

Find additional articles by

Related Types of Content: 

Additional Tags: 

Serbia: Netizens Discuss a U.S. Fighter Pilot's Suicide

By Sasa Milosevic

A screenshot of an article about Lt. Col. Harold F. “Hootch” Meyers's suicide that ran in the Serbian Alo! daily on Sept. 21, 2010

The tragic death of American fighter pilot Lt. Col. Harold F. “Hootch” Meyers, who committed a suicide at his home in Santa Barbara on Sept. 12, echoed in the Serbian media and online communities - and there were strong reasons for it.

According to the Serbian daily Alo!, Meyers was one of the American pilots who participated in the NATO bombing of Serbia and Montenegro in 1999. The bloody statistics published in the article show that the air strikes caused the deaths of 3,500 civilians, of which 79 were children, and this implies Meyers' direct responsibility. Before the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, he participated in operations in the Republic of Srpska, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Serbian newspaper Kurir portrayed Meyers as a mentally unstable person who could not withstand the pressure of conscience and the constant nightmares that plagued him since after the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. He retired a few months ago after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression.

Kurir quoted Meyers' friends stating that the pilot had nightmares for a long time:

“He dreamed about bombing people, their cries, screams. He dreamed of children, the elderly, dismembered bodies.The worst thing was when he could not wake up from his nightmares. It obviously came to his head,” said one of his friends.

Meyers' wife Elisabeth is quoted saying that there were no reasons to suspect that her husband would commit a suicide:

We spent a wonderful day together, we were having lunch and enjoyed it. But he was unusually silent. This was a constant occurrence in the last few years… And when we came home, he pulled a gun and said: ”I'm sorry, I cannot take it anymore,” and then he fired a shot to his temple” […].

Serbian netizens' traumatic memories and unhealed wounds from the times of the NATO bombing initiated a heated online debate about the American pilot’s suicide, splitting the online community into two camps: some were gloating over Meyer's death, claiming he deserved such an end, while others followed the Christian doctrine of forgiveness.

On the Vidovdan.org forum, there are posts by people who lost close family members in the NATO air strikes.

Zoran Milenkovic, whose 15-year-old daughter Sanja was killed in the NATO bombing of Varvarin Bridge, does not regret Meyers' death, saying that his suicide, as well as the fate of other NATO soldiers who took part in the bombing of Serbia, is God’s justice:

The conscience starts to work in them. My daughter was a completely innocent victim. I am a victim together with her. She was a mathematical genius. She had a great future. That wound will never heal in me.

Milsu replied to Mr. Milenkovic's statement:

[…] Little Sanja is turning around in heaven, listening to what her father is saying…

Savle warns Milsu:

[…] There is no greater suffering than the pain for a missing child. No one but this man knows what he has survived. You say well, it is not according to Christianity, but he is human and he should not be judged… In this case, all of them are the victims of America: Sanja, her father and the pilot… For Sanja, all of it ended immediately, while the pilot’s agony lasted ten years, and her father stays to live with the pain.

Vladimir Veliki from Sremska Mitrovica still remembers the day when his wife Ljiljana was killed by shrapnel in the backyard of his house during the bombing of the military barracks nearby:

My daughter and I saw Ljiljana being killed, when that pilot, as a god, sowed her death… We are still suffering. After 11 years… I understand that the pilot carried out his order, but I do not feel regrets for him when he killed himself!… It could be called divine or cosmic justice.

Milsu concluded :

Poor man, he repented and killed himself as Judas. It is a pity he did not have anyone to direct him to repent and find a cure in Christ, the way Peter did.

Broker wrote on Paluba.info:

It was necessary for him to come to Serbia and he could have been forgiven.

Nationalists from the Serbian Stormfront.org forum reacted vindictively, expressing no mercy for the U.S pilot. One of them concluded very bluntly that Meyers “got what he deserved, though he had only been a tool. The devil got what belonged to him!”

The article published in Kurir caused sharp reactions from readers.

Dimitrije, whose son was born three days after the start of the NATO bombings, commented:

For me, it is completely irrelevant whether he was killed or committed a suicide. It is essential that one of the executioners of Serbs got the punishment he deserved.

Mrgud replied:

It happens usually. Justice is slow, but…

Bami asked:

When will Blair and Clinton follow him?

Ratko agreed:

Only this one? Let’s go - Blair, Clinton, others… What are you waiting for?

Sandra addressed other Serbian netizens angrily:

You live in the past and because of that there is no future for this country! Stop using that ridiculous religious ‘curse'.

Taxonomy upgrade extras: 

Chile: Natividad Llanquileo, voice of the Mapuche hunger strike

By Paulina Aguilera Muñoz · Translated by Stephen Cairns · View original post [es]

In September, her name exploded on the net: Natividad Llanquileo, the spokesperson of the Mapuche prisoners at El Manzano prison in Concepción, Chile. She is 26 years old and a law student. The blog Ukhamawa [es] describes her:

Hasta antes de asumir como vocera, Natividad sufría de pánico escénico. Y hoy son pocos los que creen que se ruborizaba cada vez que tenía que hablar en público o daba una prueba oral en su carrera, la que congelara a causa de la huelga de hambre. ‘Pero de un día para otro se me acabó la timidez', confiesa. Esto, luego de que se vio enfrentada a participar en foros, vociferar con megáfono en diversas marchas, dar entrevistas y negociar de igual a igual con ministros y subsecretarios.

Until she became spokesperson, Natividad suffered stage fright. And today, few would believe she turned red each time she spoke publicly or took an oral test during her studies, she would have froze on the spot with something like the hunger strike. “But all of a sudden I stopped feeling nervous”, Natividad confessed. Since then she has faced confrontations in public forums, shouted over megaphones at various marches, given interviews and negotiated on equal footing with government ministers and undersecretaries.

On Facebook, she has a group of men and women following her, “Yo también admiro a Natividad Llanquileo” [es] [I also admire Natividad Llanquileo] and recently a Twitter account was opened (@NATIVIDADLLANQU), where she thanks all the people following her and reports on the Mapuche situation [es]:

Gracias a todos los que han solidarizado con nuestros hermanos, sus familiares y sus comunidades. Natividad Llanquileo.

Thank you everyone that has supported our brothers, their families and their communities. -Natividad Llanquileo.

As soon as the images of the Mapuche hunger strike were published, cyberspace responded quickly. Media outlets and social networks from several different countries have been moved by this girl's image and her steady voice that explains the hunger strike, the demands of the prisoners and the dignity of the Mapuches. An enormous image of her appears in the digital Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelde [es].

Natividad Llanquileo. Photograph by Miguel Méndez, flickr account Méndez_vision, used with permission.

In the midst of the strike tension, voices such as Ulises de Laire's (@udelairep) began to show up:

si me permiten una frivolidad, que guapa es Natividad Llanquileo, la vocera y hermana de algunos de los chicos mapuches en huelga de hambre.

If you'll permit me this silliness, wow Natividad Llanquileo is beautiful, she is the spokesperson and sister to some of the Mapuche guys on the hunger strike.

Felipe Morales (@washingmaquina) declares:

Con todo respeto, un proceso tan complejo como el mestizaje puede ser explicado con una sola persona, Natividad Llanquileo. Que guapa!

With complete respect, a process as complex as racial mixing can be explained with one person, Natividad Llanquileo. So beautiful!

Natividad Llanquileo had two incarcerated brothers during the strike, Ramón in the Concepción prison and Víctor in the Angol prison. But the history of activism in her family is even older: her father, passed away three years ago, joined the indigenous movements of the 1970s, during the government of Salvador Allende.

Her history is one filled with struggles and reflects the reality of thousands of young Mapuches [es]. After finishing high school, Natividad moved to Santiago in order to find a job and earn money. Observatorio Ciudadano [es] describes her story like this:

“Yo creía que Santiago era más bonito y amable de lo que realmente es -recuerda Natividad Llanquileo-. Encontré trabajo como empleada puertas adentro en una casa particular. Cuidaba niños, hacía la comida, el aseo… Una vez a la semana tenía un día libre y me iba a casa de una hermana en Lo Espejo… Me levantaba todos los días a las 6 de la mañana para hacer el desayuno. Y la hora de acostarme nunca se sabía, a veces a las 2 ó 3 de la mañana, cuando los patrones volvían tarde. Es lo que pasa con la mayoría de la nanas”. También le costó aprender el funcionamiento de los aparatos electrodomésticos, adaptarse a los sistemas de transporte público y dominar las tecnologías que encontró en la ciudad.

“I thought that Santiago was more beautiful and friendlier than it really is,” recalls Natividad Llanquileo. “I found a job as a live-in maid in one house. I took care of the kids, cooked meals, cleaned… once a week I had a free day and I would go to my sister's house in Lo Espejo… I woke at 6 AM everyday to make breakfast. I never knew what time I would go to bed, sometimes it would be at 2 or 3 in the morning when my employers came home late. This is how it goes for the majority of nannies.” Also during that time she learned about modern life: the working of domestic electronic appliances, using systems of public transportation and control of technologies she encountered in the city.

Image by Camilo A. Riffo, @camiloriffo, used with permission

The adjectives on the Facebook page in her honor, some tending to be over the top, describe her as “a fighter true to herself [es]” “A smart and beautiful girl is a difficult combination to find. Her struggle and bravery are to be admired. [es],” “She has a profound look in her eyes that is able to reflect something special… it inspires courage and strength[es].” On twitter, @mxmg says that Natividad is “admirable.”

She is considered part of the “new mapuche generation” by Revista Que Pasa, reported by Prensa. Chile: asuntos indígenas [es]:

Cuentan que cuando niños cuidaban animales y vivían en rucas. Hoy estudian en la universidad. Admiran a Lautaro y no a Prat. A diferencia de sus padres, aprenden mapudungun y juegan palín. Están organizados y pretenden convertirse en dirigentes. El conocimiento winka es “una herramienta” para sus fines. Porque, definitivamente, no quieren ‘chilenizarse'.

They say that as children they took care of animals and lived in huts. Today they study at university. They admire Mapuche heroes like Lautaro and not Chilean national heroes like Prat. They differ from their parents in that they learn the Mapuche language and play Mapuche sports such as palín. They are organized and are trying to become leaders of their country. Mainstream Chilean knowledge is a “tool” towards their goals. They definitely do not want to “chileanize” themselves.

Magnetic, hypnotic are some of adjectives used by Patricio Hidalgo in El Quinto Poder [es]:

A diferencia de casi todos los políticos y opinólogos de nuestra patria, habla preciso, justo, ahorrándose los fuegos de artificio y las citas provocadoras. Hay algo de magnético, de hipnotizante en su fortaleza sencilla, en su tono de voz macerado, en su mirada huidiza. El contraste es notable: la pantalla es saturada por políticos que “denuncian” que los comuneros están comiendo, personas que hacen gárgaras con la “amenaza terrorista”, con la atrocidad de “atentar” contra la propia vida, y la respuesta viene simbolizada por una cara lozana, sencilla, inolvidable,

Different from almost all the politicians and talking heads of our nation, she speaks precisely, fairly, keeping herself from faked emotions and provocative quotes. There is something magnetic, hypnotizing in her simple strength, in her marinaded tone of voice, in her elusive gaze. The contrast is notable: the screen is saturated by politicians that “condemn” what the community is eating, people gargle with “terrorist threat”, with the atrocity of “taking” their own lives, and the answer comes symbolized as an unforgettable yet simple, fresh face.

From Youtube the thin but powerful figure speaks with clarity about the rejection of the prisoners' families from the negotiating table, as it was proposed by the government:

With the same clarity she came to the negotiating table, according to an interview [es]:

En una reunión, la primera, al ministro Larroulet lo apunté con el dedo y le dije fuerte: “Usted dijo que nosotros somos terroristas y ahora dice que no. Entonces ¿qué es lo que está pasando?”. En ese sentido, no porque sea ministro hay que tratarlo de otro forma, porque yo soy igual con todos. A quien veo con mucho respeto es al obispo Ezzati. Su rol en este tema ha sido muy importante. Si no hubiese sido por él, tal vez el gobierno hasta ahora no se hubiese sentado a conversar con nosotros. Además, para negociar con el gobierno, debíamos tener un facilitador, que a la vez es un garante, porque si no, no era negociación. Porque ¿quién nos asegura que el gobierno firme o no firme los papeles? Sin garante, una negociación no sirve.

In a meeting, the first thing I did was to point at government minister Larroulet and say loudly: “You said that we were terrorists and now you say that isn't so. So what has happened?” In that same sense, I believe that just because someone is a government minisiter they don't have to be treated differently, because I am the same as anyone else. One person I greatly respect is Bishop Ezzati. His role in this matter has been very important. If not for him, the government might not have felt like opening a dialogue with us until now. Besides, to negotiate with the government, we had to have a facilitator. At once there was a gurantee of follow-through, and if not for this, there would not have been a negotiation. Because who assures us that the government signs or doesn't sign the agreement? Without gurantees, a negotiation doesn't work.
Natividad, spokesperson weichafe [es] [representatives of the Mapuche nation and agents on their behalf] explains the division in the striking Mapuches:

Today, the tales of Natividad's brothers, Ramón and Víctor Llanquileo, from start to finish, are known, whether cheered or criticized. Natividad says that her father always taught them to never feel less than equal. An important lesson that begs the question: If everyone were taught the same thing, how many Llanquileos, how many young men and women of frank gazes and steady voices, would Chile have?

Taxonomy upgrade extras: 

Help us add subtitles to our videos!

It's very important to us that people of all languages are able to utilize our video resources. Thank you for taking moment to help us add subtitles on our videos.

Universal Subtitles is a collaborative subtitling website and a new Drumbeat project. Help them reach the goal of translating 10,000 videos by translating New Media Rights videos, or another video that interests you.

Find additional articles by

Latest on Drumbeat San Diego and our Free Movie Screening on October 25th - October Newsletter

New Media Rights is a hub of creative content, new media legal and how-to guides, policy work and innovative new media projects. Our organization offers the online community a wide range of valuable resources that offer in depth legal analysis (our guides and one-to-one legal assistance) but also have great guides about how to access free music and great creative programs. We also have videos in our playlist section- the latest remixes, videos about subjects we are interested in and much more!

Drumbeat work

There are excellent new media projects forming around Drumbeat San Diego. Please submit your projects through our form and you are welcome to join the Drumbeat Google Group to offer up ideas around new projects. Organizers will be happy to offer up help on shaping the vision of the project and could also help it along significantly.

On October 25 we will be hosting a free film screening of 10 Tactics. This will be the first time in San Diego this movie has been shown. The movie has inspired activists all over the world.

10 tactics for turning information into action is a film that includes stories from 25 rights advocates around the world who have successfully used information and digital technologies to create positive change. To see the trailer and read more about it see our 10 Tactics page.

Executive Director of NMR, Art Neill has posted his project idea and shared it in his latest blog "Data portability policies to ensure an open and competitive internet-an idea whose time has come?"

He writes that: "To maintain a healthy competition amoungt online services heavily reliant on user-submitted datta, it will become increasingly important to make sure user data is easily portable. This will help ensure that popular services make changes according to the interests of their users, and that new services can compete on the basis of their merits and usability, without artificial barriers of competition". To read more visit the blog!

At the latest Drumbeat event, that was held at Bamboo Lounge in Hillcrest San Diego we connected and worked to find answers to some of our logistical questions around Drumbeat as well as find new projects that we feel would be valuable to the San Diego community. Artists, Activists and Technologists came together to mix and mingle, watch videos of Drumbeat projects being speedgeeked.

We are currently organizing with people like you - local leaders, technologists, and artists, to shape Drumbeat San Diego, a participatory event hosted by New Media Rights and Mozilla Foundation. The event needs your ideas and leadership to be successful, so we encourage you to get involved as an organizer or consider proposing a project for the event.

 

NMR Policy Work

New Media Rights works at the forefront of helping offering resources to the public on latest new media policies that effect each of us on a daily basis because it effects the way we receive and use and have access to media.

New Media Rights is a part of the Coalition for Fair Media. The Coalition has recently written an open letter to President Obama encouraging him to heavily scrutinize the Comcast, NBC merger. The merger has far reaching implication on video markets, future innovative strives of entreprenuers working to create new services and applications.

In a recent op-ed, Art explains how the Comcast-NBC merger would effect San Diego.

We also have created a sample platform for representatives to use as a draft that they can personalize, to show support for an open internet. It is very important that we the people engage our policians with the people's needs when it comes to online freedom. Share this sample platform with your representative by emailing them the sample and telling them how valuable an open internet is to you.

Drumbeat San Diego Featured Posts

  • We have created great, new resources on our site so you can get more involved in Drumbeat San Diego!

Ways YOU can get involved! :

Don't forget that we rely on you to help shape our work. We want you to stay involved with New Media Rights, and here's a couple ways you can do so:

- Give us a shoutout on
twitter, facebook, your own blog or website, or other social media

- Comment on the
New Media Rights website and social media presences.

- Share news and links with us as you come upon them

- Take part in events (we are working with Mozilla to host a Drumbeat / New Media Rights
event in SD this fall)

- Suggest new resources, projects, and advocacy efforts for us to participate in

- We are always open to publishing blogs written on new media topics (you can submit those to support@newmediarights.org), and there are
volunteer opportunities as well, some of which can be done remotely. 

Thank you for your continued interest in New Media Rights . We would love to hear your feedback about the newsletters. Write to us at support@newmediarights.org or leave us a comment on our newsletter page.
 

Please connect with us on social media, including our Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube. We invite you to give @newmediarights a shoutout, or write a review on our wall of your experience with New Media Rights.

 

 

 

 

Our website is:

www.newmediarights.org

 

The blog is updated weekly:

http://www.newmediarights.org/blog

 

{domain.address}




This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Icons created by
Komodo Media under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

If you would no longer like to recieve our newsletters you have the option to opt out by clicking the below link:

{action.optOutUrl}

Find additional articles by

Related Types of Content: 

Tim Wu on communication monopolies, net neutrality and the future of new media

Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches copyright and communications. In the video Tim Wu speaks about how communication mediums from the telephone to the internet become controlled by monopolies. Widely knows as the originator of the phrase "net neutrality", he talks about what it is and the history of net neutrality. He also speaks about Google's power and their attempts to take over the smart phone market. He makes some interesting predictions about the future of information technology as well.

Source: The New Yorker online

Find additional articles by

Next Drumbeat meeting: October 12th 6pm at Bamboo Lounge in Hillcrest!

On Tuesday, October 12th we will be having a special organizers meeting, and you're invited!

Who: Organizers of Drumbeat San Diego as well as all other community members interested contributing to Drumbeat projects and the planning process.

What: Drumbeat San Diego is an opportunity for all of us to come together, share new media projects we are developing and collaborate on submitting projects as we lead up to the main January event.

Where: Bamboo Lounge (1475 University Avenue San Diego, California 92103)

When: 6pm

Why: We chose the venue because we want to mix and mingle, think of new ideas and projects and learn more about each other.

Bamboo Lounge is offering great specials that evening, including all night happy hour.

Hope to see you there!


Find additional articles by

Related Topics: 

Related Types of Content: 

Additional Tags: 

Donald Duck vs. Glenn Beck Remix Video by Jonathan McIntosh

Jonathan McIntosh aka Rebellious Pixels has created this amazing remix video about Donald Duck finding out about Glenn Beck. Today Glenn Beck's response the video has been posted! The video is a great example of fair use, which allows creators like McIntosh to use existing, copyrighted works, without permission, for the purposes of commentary or criticism.

Find additional articles by

Related Types of Content: 

Additional Tags: 

Pages