Global Voices Online
Global Voices Online is a website dedicated to giving a voice to bloggers from around the world. Its primary mission is "To call attention to the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens? media around the world by linking to text, audio, and video blogs and other forms of grassroots citizens? media being produced by people around the world".
Back to the CNN program - Blogging - The Fifth Estate. It was a very interesting and lively discussion that revealed, among other things:
- Blogging is changing the way people see the news and will soon be held to the same standards as journalism, thus taking the fun out of it. I firmly believe that if you want responsible journalism, go buy a newspaper instead.
- Blogs and other online discussion forums have become a valuable source of marketing intelligence, where opinions regarding products or events are monitored and gathered.
- Popular blogs can be serious money makers. Is the figure on that site counter high enough for advertisers? Come on people, show me some love!!
- There is some very sophisticated software that allows your ISP to monitor your every word, trace your blog back to your IP address, and report you to the authorities if they feel like it. In other words, no matter how anonymous you think you are.. YOU'RE NOT. I suppose that explains the disappearance of Abu Hafs and God knows who else..
26 Comments:
I caught the CNN piece myself. While it's cool that blogging is finally getting the attention it deserves, this is a double edged sword:
Now that corporations and goverments are noticing the power of blogs for product placement and further brainwashing of the masses it's only a matter of time before they get their filthy hands on the power of the blog.
If anybody is paranoid about their blogging, or internet traffic in general, I highly reccomend TOR (http://tor.eff.org). It's a program that bounces all you internet traffic off a network of proxies especially set up for this task. All this through an encrypted link.
The TOR protocol was thus designed so that your local ISP can't monitor which sites you're browsing, and even the sites your browsing too only see the IP of the outgoing TOR proxy.
Anyway, just my $0,02
14/6/05 11:50 AM
Zaydoun,
1. Thank you for the credit.
2. Your ISP can even tell where you're connected from. There is a way around this, and its PREPAID INTERNET CARDS :)
14/6/05 12:23 PM
That sucks that your identity can be traced. What I find so liberating about blogging is the anonymity... the ability to comment freely in a conservative society that does not allow for much deviance from its archaic conventional wisdom.
14/6/05 12:42 PM
I saw the thing too, and it was nice and simple. Pretty much rehasing what blogs are and having a talk about regular media's way on dealing with them, especially after what they did to Dan Rather.
The Global Voices thing is a great idea and has some promise, but if is is going to ask people to join and blog then it will have issues. It would work best as a reblogger or aggregator collecting the best posts from around the world.
I updated the Kuwait page in their Bridge Blog, just linked to Kuwaitblogs.com and Safat. Yet compared to other blogging communities I think we are pretty damn good. We have a large blogger base, as well as a strong reader base. Just by reading Safats archives you can easily get a good glimpse of what is going on in Kuwait. Then once we get organized then we will be trouble.
And the only way to become anonymous is to become someone else.
Mushi, so what if your identity can be traced. Anyone with enough resources and time can find anything and everything about you. And their is nothing wrong with being a deviant, we are the reason society moves forward.
14/6/05 1:30 PM
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
14/6/05 2:32 PM
Hello.
I think you should check out this link.
http://www.broom.org/epic/ols-master.html
Quite interesting and just a tad bit intimidating.
Enjoy :)
14/6/05 2:36 PM
لقد شاهدت البرنامج الخاص عن المدونات و كان شيق جدا و مفيد
و إن كنت أتمنى لو شاهدت مقابلة مع أحد المدونين من العالم الثالث و طبعا أرشح الأخ زيدون كونه أهم مؤسسى الحركة المدونية فى الشرق الأوسط و فى الكويت بشكل خاص
و إن تكلموا عن المدونات الإيرانية و قضية الشاب الإيرانى الذى سجن بسبب مدونته و هى قضية أتوقع ستتكرر كثيرا فى بلادنا الخليجية و أتمنى أن لا تحدث هنا فى واحة الديموقراطية
ما يهمنى بالموضوع كصاحب مدونة سياسية و إجتماعية ذات صبغة قد يراها البعض ليبرالية و معارضة للحكومة بأن لا يقوم المسؤولون فى أجهزة الدولة من الداخلية و الإعلام بتقليدأقرانهم فى الدول المجاورة بالتضييق على حريات المواطنين والمواطنات فى التعبير
أتمنى فعلا أن لا يحدث ذلك و إن كانت هناك مؤشرات كثيرة على أن المدونات الكويتية جميعها دون إستثناء تحت المراقبة و إن صبر المراقبين قد نفذ أو على وشك النفاذ
هناك من يحاول أن يستغل هذه الحرية و يصطاد بالماء العكر بخلق صراعات طائفية وهمية بين الأخوة و الأخوات فقط لكى يشوه من صورة المدونات الجميلة و الراقية و يخلق حالة من القلق عند المسؤولين فى أجهزة الدولة و نحن نعلم ماذا سيحدث متى تحركت هذه الأجهزة
أرجو من الجميع أن يفوتوا الفرصة على من يريد أن يشوه عالم المدونات الجميل بعدم الخوض فى أى صراعات ذات طابع طائفى كريه
فالكل هنا يشارك بإسم بلده و ليس بإسم طائفته
14/6/05 3:29 PM
شكراً على هذا التعليق الرائع يا بوجيج
أنا أيضاً شرهت على سي ان ان لعدم استضافتهم أي من أصحاب المدونات العربية وخاصة الأخ البحريني الذي سجن مؤخراً، وما كان قصدي عن نفسي بالتحديد... بس عموماً اذا جاءتني دعوة منهم ما راح أطلع بروحي... لازم كلكم تجون معاي
ومن الحين أقول للجميع ترى مالي خلق نقاش مماثل على تلفزيون الكويت أو الراي
14/6/05 3:48 PM
زيدون
إذا استضافوك راح تلبس دشداشة والا بدلة؟
:)
14/6/05 4:19 PM
PREPAID INTERNET CARDS can be traced , they log the phone you used to dail their number
14/6/05 4:30 PM
لا بدلة ولا دشداشة
Just casual geek, I mean chic.. :-)
14/6/05 4:33 PM
Hello!
Thanks zaydoun for the link!
And thank you very much, nibaq, for adding Kuwaiti blogs to the index!! We'll make sure they get into the (still very incomplete) aggregator at: http://www.bloglines.com/public/globalvoicesonline
And nibaq you're right, the value of Global Voices will mainly be with indexing, aggregating, linking and re-blogging. In other words, being a resource and gateway.
We're trying to do daily roundups where we link to noteworthy stuff coming off the world's blogs on any given day, but it's such a daunting task to find everything, we need your help. So please send us your links when Kuwaiti bloggers post things you think are important for the world to know about. More info on where to send the links and how you can get your voices heard at:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/?p=226
Also, if any of you decide to do summaries and translations of material from Arabic language blogs on your own blogs, please let us know. We'd love to link and re-post.
This whole thing is one big experiment, so we welcome your suggestions and criticisms.
Keep in touch!!
Rebecca
14/6/05 11:53 PM
Dear Rebecca.. welcome to Kuwait Unplugged and thanks for the tips.
I am still trying to find a taped copy of the CNN discussion. Do you know how I could obtain one from CNN directly?
15/6/05 12:05 AM
wenasa!
15/6/05 10:58 AM
I was able to catch the last 20 mins or so of the discussion, and it really was interesting!
I have to agree with nibaq about kuwaitblogs and safat being damn good compared to other blogging communities! I think the whole reason blogging is so popular in Kuwait more than many other countries goes back to the excellent organization setup from the beginning to keep everyone linked!
If they ever ask someone to represent Kuwait, without a doubt I would send our blog-o-embassadors Zaydoun & Nibaq!
15/6/05 12:09 PM
Interesting; I would like one too big Z if you get a hold of it, please let me know :)
15/6/05 12:22 PM
Kuwaiti Blogs thanks to Nibaq's efforts last summer certainly reflect all the effort he has put forth into organization and maintaining links.
In addition, although the blogging community has expanded considerably since last year, there are still those bloggers like Zaydoun who are regular and innovative.
One thing that has maintained the success of the Kuwaiti blogging community is the common courtesy and respect between bloggers. And like BoJaij said, it is very important to maintain that respect and not let matters get out of hand by those who wish to create problems and lower the standard of discussion.
Those people should be ignored.
15/6/05 4:34 PM
Arab and Gulf blogs have had quite a year so far with international interviews on radio and in print. I know that the thinktank "Arab Thought Foundation" is organising their annual forums, this time it is probably going to be in Dubai and for the first time ever they will have a special panel and discussion about blogs. Freedman and others are reported to be some of the participants.
I hope that we'll get some luminary Arab bloggers to participate, because I know that the world's top 10 bloggers have been invited to attend too.
Should be an interesting forum and I'll blog more about it once I get more information.
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