Centre for Internet and Society

Networking? Not working

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T11:12:33Z

Concerns about privacy, wastage of time and trivialized communication are some reasons ‘refuseniks’ are going off sites such as Facebook and MySpace, writes Shreya Ray in Livemint.

Pune-based law student Arjun Khera, 24, broke many a Facebook stalker’s heart in April when he announced his decision to quit the network one fine afternoon on his status message. “Guys, I’m deleting my Facebook account. Please send me all your email and phone details,” he said. Almost immediately, there was an explosion of concern in his notification window. Why was the effervescent and popular part-time actor and full-time Facebook enthusiast committing Facebook suicide? “What happenedddddd?” (sic)
“Everything ok, dude?”

“It was eating into my life,” Khera says. “I was always logged on, always leaving or commenting on status messages, waiting a few minutes to see if there had been any responses to my comments, and comment some more. I didn’t go out for a walk any more, didn’t get photographs developed because I was only too busy seeing them on Facebook.” Khera signed up for his account in July 2007.

Then, it was the one platform through which he could locate and reconnect with all his long-lost friends. He loved the fact that he could have a pictorial chronicle of his life; that he could “compare friends”, find out if indeed he was a glass of wine (and not a pint of beer) and fit a Shakespearean insult to his current mood. “With time, I got tired of those lame quizzes. I got sick of what it was doing to my time. I hated how it trivialized communication,” he says.

Khera is part of a growing cult of social networking “refuseniks”. Although figures for sites such as MySpace, Orkut, Facebook and Twitter show an overall increase, some recent statistics suggest that not everyone wants to socialize this way. According to a study by TechCrunch Europe, the number of visitors to MySpace, UK, halved in just six months, from “just under 10 million at the start of the year to around 5 million as of the end of June 2010”, leading to a round of layoffs at its London office. “It would appear to show a pretty staggering decline,” says the report, released on 6 July.

The privacy factor

Environmental researcher Maddipatla Rajshekhar, 33, alumnus of the University of Sussex, UK, used Facebook to keep in touch with former classmates. On 31 May, however, along with the 30,000-odd people who had had enough of Facebook changing its privacy policies, he quit. “It was getting increasingly intrusive. Its latest feature let me see what some of my friends said on the walls of their friends—(who were) complete strangers to me,” he said.

Although the Quit Facebook group wasn’t a success in numerical terms (30,000 isn’t even close to a drop in the 450-million ocean), it successfully sent a message to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who held a press conference in the last week of May on new privacy policies and changes.

A May report brought out by the Pew Centre for Internet and American Life Project (of the Pew Research Centre, Washington, DC) finds that social media plays a “central role” in building one’s online identity. Quite naturally, privacy becomes a big issue. “Many users are learning and refining their approach as they go—changing privacy settings on profiles, customizing who can see certain updates and deleting unwanted information about them that appears online,” says the report. Interestingly, it also finds that young adults are more likely than older users to restrict what information is available and to whom, contrary to popular perception.

The next level

Privacy is not the refuseniks’ only issue, however. What social networking does to actual relationships is another, as Khera notes. Mumbai-based social worker Maya Ganesh, 35, too got tired of the constant blurring between friends and acquaintances, and having to constantly update her “limited” lists. “I regularly ignored friend requests but there were some requests not easy to ignore, especially some work connections. I also wanted a break from all the hectic ‘social activity’ that Facebook is about,” she says of her three-year-old account, which she abandoned in May.

Ganesh had reached what Sunil Abraham, executive director, Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, refers to as the end of the “hype cycle”. All technology goes through a standard process, says Abraham: People get hooked to it, then get tired of it, and it disappears. “Some tend to be sticky and last longer; the particular advantage of social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut and MySpace is that they bring a critical mass of community to individual users. It’s now difficult for people to get off a network simply because all their friends are on it,” he says.

Conversely, though, he cites Harvard-based social networking researcher Danah Boyd, who says the reducing exclusivity quotient has also put many people off. “Parents getting online also... acts as a self-censorship mechanism,” Abraham adds.

Most of the people who have deleted their accounts are happy with the way their non-virtual life now takes centre stage. Khera enjoys sitting at home and doing nothing; Ganesh says she doesn’t miss being out of the loop. It may take a bit more effort to share holiday photographs or write an email every time you feel the need to connect; but as Rajshekhar says, “Anything for not losing touch, anything for richer conversations.”

Varuni Khosla contributed to this story.

See the original article in livemint.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/networking-not-working

Networking its way to better governance

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T15:13:04Z

New policy to regulate Government presence on social media. This article by Deepa Kurup was published in the Hindu on March 28, 2011.

The official Facebook page of the Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department, “DGPCIDKARNATAKA”, is a string of one-sided comments punctuated with official-ese, or newspaper links of some prominent crime or an article by the officials.

The Twitter account, also started around June 2010, has all of 38 tweets, and barely any interaction with “common” men/women. Started with much fanfare, these are among the very few State Government agencies that took to social media, but haven't taken it beyond mere formalities. On the brighter side, blogs by a few Ministers — most prominently, Higher Education Minister V.S. Acharya and Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs S. Suresh Kumar — are lively and even interactive, in spurts. A few government departments too have blogs, but none remarkable.

Though the Indian Government's tryst with social media is fairly new — it took a few Twitter controversies, courtesy former Minister @ShashiTharoor, to make the government sit up and take note — some departments such as IndiaPost, the Delhi Traffic Police, Census India and even the Planning Commission, have been able to take it beyond mere posturing and have interacted with citizens, even tried to solve problems. IndiaPost's Twitter page is a good example of how agencies can engage with stakeholders, at least to an extent.

A draft policy

Twitter recently hit headlines again when foreign secretary Nirupama Sen logged on with an official ID and interacted with Indians stranded in Libya looking to make their way back. All these examples, that have earned these departments accolades, has prompted the Indian Government to come up with a new policy for social media.

The e-governance group of the Department of Information Technology (DIT) held a meeting this week to draw up guidelines to “regulate” Government presence on social media sites.

Speaking to The Hindu, a DIT official said this had been on the Government's agenda because efforts in this direction had been all too scattered, and some of the success stories had convinced them that it could be a good platform for interaction. The official added that the feedback they got on the 12th Planning Commission's Facebook page was seen as a good example of how these tools could be leveraged.

But why regulate at all? Regulating social media use by government officials is imperative mainly to ensure that use of information or data is compliant with existing laws.

Consistency needed

Sunil Abraham, director of the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based non-governmental organisation, points out that with no general rules in place, the use of Twitter or Facebook account varies according to the bureaucrats heading the departments. “This cannot be the case as the channel of communication has to be a continuous thing, and the data shared with citizens has to be accurate; which means the same standards need to be applied to online sharing of data as is applied to offline data handling. Departments should also be obliged to back-up online data periodically,” he says.

For instance, a traffic police department announced that citizens could share pictures of traffic rule offenders on Facebook or on its website, to facilitate tracking of offenders. “Such a move could have huge privacy implications, and may also lead to vigilante activism,” warns Mr. Abraham, adding that we need a policy so that all activity, however casual it may seem, is compliant with existing law governing data protection and privacy.

With the Government jumping on to the 2.0 bandwagon (often under pressure like in Mumbai where citizens created a Facebook page for the police forcing them to create a real one), it is time to really make it official. So, while the idea of giving a face to government agencies and pushing for transparency and greater interaction with citizens, standardisation of social media use is indeed the way forward.

Read the original article in the Hindu here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/networking-better-governance

Networking

praskrishna — 2013-07-29T10:18:13Z

Networking

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Network Neutrality Regulation across South Asia: A Roundtable on Aspects of Differential Pricing

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T02:41:13Z

The Centre of Internet and Society (CIS) in association with Observer Research Foundation, and IT For Change in collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce a roundtable on ‘Network Neutrality Regulation Across South Asia: Aspects of Differential Pricing” that will take place on January 22, 2016 from 11.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. at TERI in Bangalore.

Download the Invite

The objective of this roundtable will be to look into the issue of differential pricing in light of TRAI’s recent consultation process, with the specific intention of research building. The network neutrality debate has gained significant momentum in India during the past year, with competing interests of internet service providers, OTTs and the public giving rise to important questions of ICT regulation and policy.

With Facebook looking to expand its zero rated walled garden, Free Basics, into nascent markets, differential pricing is an important point of regulatory policy not just in India, but in jurisdictions across South Asia. These countries have limited connectivity, large consumer potential and low internet penetration which bring to the fore questions of access, diversity, competition and innovation. To this end, the roundtable will seek to address the regulatory and market aspects of differential pricing as well as the impact on rights. Broadly, the roundtable will be forward looking and seek to build future research agendas.

Draft Agenda

11:00 – 11:30	Tea and Registration
11:30 – 12:30	Roundtable 1: Framing the issue: The practice of differential pricing Examples of differential pricing Stakeholder perspectives Competition and market effect of differential pricing Larger social consequences of differential pricing
12:30 – 1:00	Lunch
1:00 – 2:30	Roundtable 2: Regulatory response: Discerning governmental actions Locating public interest Moving from research to action
2:30 – 3:00	Tea
3:00 – 4:30	Roundtable 3: Impact on rights: Access Freedom of expression Privacy Equity and Social Justice
4:30 – 5:00	Discussion and research agenda building

Roundtable Questions:

Roundtable 1: FRAMING THE ISSUE:

What is differential pricing and how does it work? What are the technical components and policy components of differential pricing? What are examples of differential pricing?
What has been the response from different stakeholders to differential pricing schemes? What are the arguments for/against differential pricing?
What could be the market effect of differential pricing?
What are possible larger social impacts of differential pricing?

Roundtable 2: REGULATORY RESPONSE:

How have governments responded to differential pricing? What can these responses tell us about the position of governments?
What are the different components for consideration with developing a regulatory response? What are different forms of regulation for differential pricing?
What type of policy research around differential pricing can drive meaningful action?

Roundtable 3: IMPACT ON RIGHTS:

How does differential pricing impact the right to access, freedom of expression, privacy, and equity and social justice?
Are there ways to mitigate this impact through regulation? Market incentives? Company policy?
What are forms of redress that individuals could seek in the context of differential pricing?

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/network-neutrality-regulation-across-south-asia-a-roundtable-on-aspects-of-differential-pricing

Network Neutrality across South Asia

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T02:37:52Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/network-neutrality-across-south-asia

Network Culture: Archaeological and Artistic Interventions Public Seminar – Talk by Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfing

praskrishna — 2010-12-01T07:07:07Z

Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfling will give a talk on Network Culture on 8 November 2010 in the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

“Transversal Media Practices”

by Kristoffer Gansing (SE)

Digital network culture (and before it, multimedia) has since at least the mid-1990's often been described as a situation where, through an overarching process of integration, old and new media collide and converge in different ways (Zielinski 1999, Bolter & Grusin 1999, Manovich 2001, Jenkins 2006). This study investigates how the relation between new and old media forms and their associated practices have been critically appropriated in the field of media art, specifically dealing with alternative media and emerging media-archaeological practices.

“Gate Peepin' or a few thoughts on delivering people ...”

by Linda Hilfling (DK)

The countless click-and-agree contracts populating the Web are veritable gate keepers of the communities making up today's net culture, such regulations are, although materially detached from the structures that they govern, powerful means of controlling content on the Net. Through an introduction to the critical design intervention, Gate Peepin' and related projects, this presentation opens up for a discussion on participation, means of regulation and the user's position within social media platforms.

Gansing and Hilfling have collaborated on projects since 1999. Their joint projects include experimental platforms for media production exploring local/global networks and the curating of festivals and exhibitions challenging linear assumption of technological development. They often collaborate with different communities: CUDI in Vollsmose 2000-2002, Oda Projesi in Istanbul 2003, Sarai/LNJP Colony in New Delhi 2004 and currently with the artist-run TV-station tv-tv in Copenhagen. In 2005 they initiated the media archaeological festival The Art of the Overhead, an ongoing project which pays tribute to the almost forgotten medium of the overhead projector.

About Kristoffer Gansing (SE)

Kristoffer Gansing (SE) is a researcher at K3, School of Arts & Communication, Malmö Univ, with a research project on Transversal Media Practices, dealing with the articulation of old and new media forms and practices across art, activism and the everyday in the cultural production of network culture.

About Linda Hifling (DK)

Linda Hilfling (DK) is an artist who works with the premises of participation and public spaces within media structures, with a focus on means of control (codes, organisation and law) and their cultural impact. Her artistic practice takes the form of interventions reflecting upon or revealing hidden gaps in such structures.

Also see [1] and [2]

The two talks will proceed for 30 min for each speaker followed by short Q&A’s. Finally there’ll be a joint discussion. Tea and refreshments will be served.

VIDEOS

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/archaeological-and-artistic-interventions

Network

praskrishna — 2016-06-16T16:15:09Z

Network

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Network.jpg

Network

praskrishna — 2016-09-22T00:55:09Z

Network

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Netizens Rejoice Over SC Ruling to Keep the Net Free

praskrishna — 2015-03-25T15:16:03Z

The Supreme Court ruling to strike down Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act has been welcomed by the city’s netizens.

The article by Parina Dhilla was published in the New Indian Express on March 25, 2015. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.

Sharanya Gopinathan, a recent graduate, was overjoyed at the decision. The youngster, who is now pursuing her masters in London, recalls the time her post on Facebook about Prime Minister Narendra Modi was reported for being offensive.

“It was just a sentence about how I felt about Mr Modi. Nothing obscene but it still got reported,” she says. She believes the Internet to be “the last guard of freedom”, where free speech has real meaning because there is no government and corporate control.

Forums propagating freedom on the World Wide Web too have applauded the verdict.

T Vishnu Vardhan, programme director of Access to Knowledge at the Centre for Internet and Society, says the draconian aspect of the IT Act has finally been removed.

The other laws coming under the IT Act’s ambit too need to be reviewed and changed, he said.

Lawyers told Express that many times, they have advised clients to take down posts that could be construed as offensive under Section 66A.

Lawrence Liang, a lawyer with the Alternative Law Forum, says, “Recently, we were approached by a woman saying she was being harassed by a mob after she tweeted about the beef ban in Maharashtra. We asked her to delete the tweet and lie low.”

“But now, I won’t advise people to take down their posts from the internet. It is a good ruling and gives people their freedom of speech and expression on the Internet,” Lawrence says.

Change on the Horizon

With bans raining down in the country, many believe the apex court’s decision will bring about change.

Yogita Dakshina, a freelance content writer who regularly posts about the hardships faced by the LGBT community, says she has always posted fearlessly but some of her family members were always scared that she would court trouble due to the provisions of Section 66A.

Prabahan Chakravorty, a PhD student, is of the view that this will be a big lift for those in the creative field. “The rights to freedom and expression need to be given to all citizens, especially writers and artists. Some people may consider a few posts offensive, but then, the world is offensive and people need to deal with that.”

On the responsibility that falls upon netizens with this verdict, Ankura Nayak, a student of Mount Carmel College, says, “People are responsible and they know what to post. There were a few people who posted irresponsible content even before this ruling. But these are few in number compared to responsible netizens.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/new-indian-express-march-25-2015-parina-dhilla-netizens-rejoice-over-sc-ruling-to-keep-the-net-free

Netizen's Guide to the Internet Governance Forum

praskrishna — 2011-09-26T08:59:57Z

The Internet Governance Forum is a multi-stakeholder forum where people from all over the world - from government, industry, the technical community and civil society - come together to discuss the Internet's future. The Sixth Annual meeting officially kicks off on Tuesday morning in Nairobi, Kenya. A number of pre-meetings will be held all day on Monday.

The IGF is set up for remote participation, so you do not need to be in Kenya physically to follow the discussions or to ask questions and make your views known. Before the start of each day, IGF staff will post remote participation links for each conference room so that you can participate remotely through the conference's WEBEX system. (Click here to see if your computer is compatible with their system.)

The Monday pre-meetings: Several interesting and important meetings will be held on Monday and four of them are open to everybody on the Internet. Two of them have made their schedules publicly available and promoted them:

The Association for Progressive Communications meeting on access as a right. (10am-6pm Kenya time). Why attend? Click here for the invitation flyer and click here for the full run-down of the day's discussions. Also see APC's briefing paper on priorities for this year's IGF and other short papers on key IGF discussion themes. The final panel of the day, a Roundtable on the State of Internet Rights (17:15-18:15 local time) will be held jointly with the next group. A guest blogger from APC will be reporting from the meeting here on GVA later this week.
Global Internet Governance Academic Network (Giganet) annual symposium. (also approximately 10am-6pm) Many of the papers or abstracts are available for download. See for instance Arresting the decline of multi-stakeholderism in Internet governance by Jeremy Malcolm; The legality of internet blackouts in times of crisis. An assessment at the intersection of human rights law, humanitarian law and internet governance principles by Matthias Ketteman; and Upholding online anonymity in Internet governance. Affordances, ethical frameworks, and regulatory practices by Robert Bodle.

The main conference: So many sessions, which ones to join? At any given time, several different meetings, workshops, and plenary sessions are held concurrently. The IGF organizers have posted the schedule as a rather unweildy Excel file here. Fortunately, other participants have taken the time to post the schedule in more digestible formats. The Diplo Foundation's e-Diplomacy project has an online list of sessions and schedule. The indefatigable Tim Davies has also created a social media page aggregating all tweets, blogs and photos posted by participants. The official hashtag, by the way, is #IGF11.

If you want to get involved with a global community of people working for Internet users' rights whose work extends throughout the year, be sure to join one or more of the “dynamic coalitions.” Examples include the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (meeting on Tuesday from 11-12:30 Kenya time) and the Freedom of Expression Coalition (Wednesday 4:30-6pm).

Many participating organizations have posted lists of the workshops they are organizing or participating in on their websites. Those interested in sessions related to activism, human rights and free expression on the Internet may want to check out session listings by the APC (scroll down below the jump), the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Global Network Initiative, and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, among others.

Kieren McCarthy of dot-nxt has also created a handy practical guide to this year's IGF, with his top session picks. He observes that while the opening session on Tuesday afternoon has “far, far too many speakers,” it will nonetheless be interesting “given all that is happening in the Internet governance world.” No doubt, speeches from Hamadoun Toure (ITU), Neelie Kroes (EC), Janis Karklins (UNESCO), Larry Strickling (US), Rod Beckstrom (ICANN) and Vint Cerf (Google) not be uniform in their visions for the Internet's future.

For those interested in truly doing their homework on the IGF and the current global impasse over Internet governance, see Jeremy Malcolm's post on IGF Watch: Where to develop Internet policy: ITU, G8, OECD or an empowered IGF? Also see his previous posts on twists and turns of the IGF's five-year history.

Written by Rebecca MacKinnon, the story was published in Global Voices Advocacy on 26 September 2011. The original can be read here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/netizen-guide-to-igf

Netizen Report: Transparency Edition

praskrishna — 2011-11-09T04:31:48Z

Global Voices Online has carried a feature story, "Netizen Report: Transparency Edition". We at CIS had filed an RTI application about website blocking. This is reflected in this article by Rebecca MacKinnon which was posted online on 7 November 2011.

Here at Global Voices Advocacy we believe that transparency by governments and companies about how and when censorship and surveillance takes place is a base-line requirement if the Internet is ever to be governed in a manner that is compatible with free expression, dissent, and citizens' right to organize and assemble. Thus we applaud Google's latest Transparency Report - the company's fourth such report detailing government requests for user data and content removal, as well as the traffic flows (or lack thereof) to Google webistes across the world since July 2009. The new data for January-June 2011 contains more detail than in the past, including data on how Google responded to the requests and whether they were honored. The data comes with a list of caveats including that automated content removal is not logged and that some data cannot be released due to local law. Nonetheless, we hope that Google's data will provide an interesting snap shot of the state of Internet affairs and the data could be used to hold governments accountable to their censorship activities. We believe that if all Internet companies disclosed similar data, the world would be further on its way to being a better place. Many articles have been written analyzing the data. A few of them include:

TechPresident: Google Data Shows Government Internet Surveillance Far Outstrips Wiretap Requests
WIRED: U.S. Requests for Google User Data Spike 29 Percent in Six Months
Huffington Post:The 13 Countries That Request The Most User Data From Google
CNet: Google: Governments seek more about you than ever

Adding to the publicly available data about censorship around the world, the Open Net Initiative has released its research data on global Internet filtering, covering seventy-four countries.

Thuggery: Read the latest news on GVA about bloggers jailed in Egypt, Syria, and Kuwait and spread the word.

Surveillance: As GVA and others have recently reported, 13 Internet filtering devices produced by the California-based company Blue Coat have made their way to Syria. According to the Wall Street Journal, Blue Coat executives say that the company will not sell the devices to countries that are under embargo by the United States, and that the devices found in Syria had been sold to a dealer who claimed they were destined for Iraq.

The Wall Street Journal has had several other items related to the role of companies in global surveillance, including a report on how China's Huawei has been peddling its mobile phone tracking and censoring equipment to Iran.

In India, Research in Motion has set up a facility in Mumbai to help the Indian government carry out lawful surveillance of its BlackBerry services including the messenger chat service, but the WSJ reports that India still has no method to intercept and decode BlackBerry enterprise email.

In Russia, bloggers' influence has apparently made the Kremlin nervous. Reporters Without Borders has condemned plans by the Russian government to deploy new software to track “extremist” content on the web, highlighting concerns about an over-broad definition of “extremist,” and the arbitrary and disproportionate approach to punishment and sanctions against websites. For more on the Russian Internet be sure to follow Global Voices' Runet Echo Project.

Moving on the United States, The Guardian has a fascinating report on the super-secret Intelligence Support Systems World Americas conference held recently in Washington DC, at which surveillance professionals shared the latest surveillance technologies and innovations that they don't want you to know about. Hacktivist and friend of GVA Jacob Appelbaum managed to get in, but was thrown out.

On a more positive note in the United States, the Washington Post reports that since 2009 many Internet companies have been more assertive about challenging “national security letters” from the FBI requesting information about users.

The Guardian reports that Civil liberties and privacy groups in the United Kingdom have raised concerns about the deployment by the London Metropolitan Police of a "covert surveillance technology that can masquerade as a mobile phone network, transmitting a signal that allows authorities to shut off phones remotely, intercept communications and gather data about thousands of users in a targeted area."

Techdirt reports on the European Union's desire to have a “black box' built in to operating systems that would store a record of all of the computer's internet usage. The EU argues that this ability would be useful in cracking down on child pornography. The system that the EU is looking at as a possible candidate for role of ‘black box' is called LogBox. The developer of LogBox claims that the device is for preserving the freedoms and privacy of internet users, although Techdirt points out the fact that this device does little to ‘protect' the privacy of online users, it in fact, would make anonymous actions on the internet much more difficult and would provide governments and law enforcement a huge set of data on every internet user.

Censorship: The chief executives of China's 39 top Internet, telecom, and computer companies have agreed to “strengthen self-control, self-restraint and strict self-discipline” in order to “contain the tendency of spreading online rumours, pornography, fraud and other illegal, harmful information on the internet.” The move comes amidst a broader crackdown on the Internet and social media.

In India, the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society submitted a right to information request to the government's Department of Information Technology, asking for more information about website blocking. Based on DIT's response the Centre observes that “The data provided by the government seemingly conflicts with the data released by the likes of Google." Their conclusion: "Either the DIT is not providing us all the relevant information on blocking, or is not following the law."

Courts in Belgium and Finland have ordered ISPs to block the Pirate Bay.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has recently proposed a bill aimed at protecting intellectual property online that some critics describe as the beginning of a "Great Firewall of America". The Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have detailed the bill's problems, including lack of due process, near certainty of over-blocking and abuse, imposition of excessive liability on Internet intermediaries, global legitimization of DNS censorship and potential fragmentation of the Internet, among other things. It is considered even worse than its evil fraternal twin in the Senate, the PROTECT IP Act which is also opposed by many tech companies and non-profit groups. Despite such opposition, the bill draws relatively broad support from lawmakers.

Net Neutrality: South African technology journalist Jan Vermeulen ran the M-Lab's Glasnost Test on South African ISP's to see whether their stated bandwith shaping policies match up with reality.

The growth of bandwidth intensive internet applications in South Korea has made Net Neutrality an important issue there. South Korean ISP's are reporting that it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain neutral practices with content. The three largest telecommunications companies in Korea are worried by the rise of Smart TV's, which use Internet connections as opposed to traditional cable or satellite links to provide content. The ISP's want to charge companies varying amounts depending on the type and amount of content sent.

Internet Governance: ICANN held its 42nd public meeting in Dakar, Senegal late last month. Wendy Seltzer reported here on GVA why the seemingly arcane debates about domain name registrar accreditation is important. Konstantinos Komaitis, an active member of ICANN's Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (Global Voices is also a member), describes the struggle that is taking place took place between governments and other ICANN stakeholders over whether some stakeholders are more equal than others within ICANN's multi-stakeholder governance model. Kieren McCarthy at dotNext also has an in-depth report and analysis on the clash between governments and registrars over law enforcement regarding domain names. Over at the Internet Governance Project Milton Mueller takes an in-depth look at the politics surrounding the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group and related constituencies, and the fight for civil society representation at ICANN.

India has published a formal proposal to put the UN in charge of overseeing Internet governance. For different analyses by three Internet governance wonks see Kieren McCarthy, Milton Mueller, and Jeremy Malcolm.

The International Telecommunications Union has approved a new protocol for relaying biometric information. The protocol is intended to enable doctors to communicate data about patients safely and is geared towards developing countries where the access to medical care in rural areas is poor and communication between clinics and doctors would provide better patient care. You can read the full press release here.

Netizen Power: Lee Yoo Eun at Global Voices reports that the October 26th Seoul mayoral election was swayed by the use of twitter. Read the full article here.

African entrepreneur Herman Chinery-Hesse gave a speech at the Tech 4 Africa conference highlighting what the rise of Internet Communication Technologies has done for Africa. A synopsis of his talk can be found on the Tech4Africa.

Sovereigns of Cyberspace: Facebook has introduced a new “guardian angel” feature to help users restore locked accounts.

The 13th Austrian Big Brother Awards were held on October 25th in Vienna. “Winners” included the CEO of Telekom Austria, the Ministers of Interior and Justice, and the head of the anti-terror police unit. Mark Zuckerberg received the “lifelong menace” award and a “Defender of Liberty” award went to the creators of the “Europe versus Facebook” campaign.

The Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference was held in San Francisco in late October (see GVA's report, Jillian York's report, and The Economist's) and released the Silicon Valley Standard, a set of 15 principles that technology companies should follow in order to protect human rights.

China's Weibo plans to launch an English version in partnership with Flipboard and Instagram. Will they agree to follow the Silicon Valley Standard?

Security Alert: The security researcher Barnaby Jack has found it possible to conduct a blind attack on insulin pumps. While there have been no reports of anyone being harmed by such an attack, this highlights how far behind security technologies are when it comes to wireless devices that are embedded in critical infrastructure and medicine.

Publications: Digital Cameras Reduce Electoral Corruption by Michael Callen and James Long.

Events: Check out this handy calendar of Internet-related events around the world, courtesy of Internews!

Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace, by the OpenNet Initiative, to be officially released in December. Part I of the book (including a chapter by yours truly) can be read online or downloaded here.

Note: This report was compiled with considerable help from Ted Eby and Weiping Li.

Read the original article here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/netizen-report

Netizen Report: The EU Wrestles With Facebook Over Privacy

praskrishna — 2016-02-27T07:39:01Z

Global Voices Advocacy's Netizen Report offers an international snapshot of challenges, victories, and emerging trends in Internet rights around the world.

The blog post published in Global Voices on February 11, 2016 quotes Pranesh Prakash and Subhashish Panigrahi.

In the latest development in the negotiations between the United States and European Union over data transfer rules, Reuters reports France’s data protection authority gave Facebook three months to stop tracking non-users’ Web activity without their consent, and ordered Facebook to cease some transfers of personal data to the United States or face fines. In response, Facebook asserted it does not use the now-defunct Safe Harbor agreement to move data to the United States and instead has set up alternative legal structures to keep its data transfers in line with EU law. Despite this, Facebook was forced last year to stop tracking Belgian non-users after it was taken to court by the Belgian regulator. Last week, the United States and European Union agreed upon a new legal framework to replace Safe Harbor, but as it is not yet operational, several European data protection authorities are still deciding whether data transfers should be restricted.

Big Blow for Facebook’s Free Basics

Indian regulators officially banned “differential pricing”or discriminatory tariffs placed on data services depending on their content. This means that Internet users in India are guaranteed equal access to any website they want, regardless of how they connect to the Internet, ays Global Voices’ Subhashish Panigrahi. The decision is a particular blow to Facebook’s Free Basics application, which uses differential pricing mechanisms to make accessing Facebook, WhatsApp and a limited number of other websites free to users who do not pay for mobile data plans. Though Facebook promotes the program as a means to increasing digital access, it has come under backlash in India and a number of other countries. Internet policy expert Pranesh Prakash emphasizedthat though the ruling is a win for open access in India, these efforts must continue until India is truly and equally connected.

Google’s new scheme to combat online extremism

In an effort to combat groups like ISIS that recruit online, Google has launched apilot schemeto point users who search for extremist terms toward anti-radicalization links. It announced the new effort on February 2 at a meeting with the U.K. Home Affairs Select Committee on Countering Extremism. Representatives of Twitter and Facebook were also challenged by members of Parliament on their role in combatting the spread of terrorist material. Twitter announcedthat it had suspended 125,000 accounts associated with extremism since mid-2015 in response to pressure from the US government. However, as the New York Times’ Mike Isaac notes, “these companies must walk a fine line between bearing responsibility for their platforms and avoiding becoming the arbiter of what constitutes free speech.”

What’s going to happen to Ukraine’s database of ‘explicit content’?

The Ukrainian censorship body, National Expert Commission for Protection of Public Morality, dissolved last year, but its legacy lives on as a database of “explicit content” that no one in the government seems to know what to do with. The database includes a sizeable amount of content “containing elements of sexual nature and erotica,” but the commission was also well known for its attempt to ban Spongebob Squarepants, Shrek, and Teletubbies. Users have suggested the team responsible for dissolving the commission make the content more widely available, so they can see where taxpayers’ money went.

How to protect yourself from government hacking

Hacking human rights workers, journalists, and NGOs has become common practice for governments around the world, according to Amnesty International’s Morgan Marquis-Boire and Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Eva Galperin. In a post for Amnesty International, the two provide a brief history of government hacking and give suggestions for NGOs and human rights organizations to protect themselves.

Taking on Russia’s invasive surveillance

Two Russian Internet service providers are taking the Federal Security Service to court to challenge the surveillance system employed by Russian federal police to spy on Internet use. ISPs play a critical role in making surveillance possible, by installing expensive equipment that provides police access—making this case a significant affront to Russia’s invasive surveillance apparatus.

Telegram in Iran

Messaging app Telegram’s growing influence is being characterized as a major factor in the dissemination and spread of information leading up to Iran’s Feb. 26 parliamentary elections, but the platform’s susceptibility to state manipulation is also becoming more apparent. After the arrest of former BBC journalist Bahman Doroshafaei, the government took over his Telegram account and started to message his contacts. Some believe this was an effort to extract sensitive information or to distribute spyware. Fatemeh Shams, a friend of Doroshafaei, posted the following warning to her Facebook account:

Someone has been talking to me for two hours from Bahman's hacked Telegram account and now is chatting with my friends with my account..If anyone messaged you on Telegram [from my account] please ignore it. I've lost access to my account.

Mahsa Alimardani, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Hae-in Lim and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/global-voices-february-11-2016-netizen-report

Netha's Video

praskrishna — 2013-03-19T06:22:03Z

Netha's video

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/NethasVideo.png

Netha Hussein

praskrishna — 2014-05-22T10:01:31Z

Netha Hussain

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NetGain: Working Together for a Stronger Digital Society

praskrishna — 2015-03-13T02:32:38Z

Sunil Abraham made a presentation at this event.

Join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #NetGain. This was published by the Ford Foundation.

We need everyone’s help to identify the biggest challenges that lie ahead of us. How do we balance security and privacy? How will we connect the entire world’s population? How will we archive all information and make this knowledge accessible? How can technology make democracies more participatory and responsive? Think big, and take the Netgain Challenge: Submit your ideas and help us focus on the most significant challenges at the intersection of the Internet and philanthropy.

Event Information

The Internet has transformed how we work, learn, and express ourselves. It has connected us with each other and sparked bold thinking about how to create a more fair and just world. Building that better world—and living in it—depends on an open, secure, and equitable Internet.

What is philanthropy’s role in addressing the challenges and potential of our digital society? Can we collaborate, as we have in the past on other crucial issues, to bend the arc of progress and ensure that everyone shares in the tremendous opportunity the Internet offers? Have we thought big—really big—about what the digital revolution can mean for the common good?

On Feb. 11, the presidents of the Knight, Open Society, Mozilla, and Ford Foundations—along with a special surprise guest—will come together with leading figures from government, philanthropy, business, and the tech world to launch a major new partnership, explore shared principles, and get ambitious about the next generation of innovation for social change and progress.

Read the press release.

8:45 – 9:30 am
Registration and Breakfast

9:30 – 9:45 am
Welcome
Darren Walker President, Ford Foundation

9:45 – 10:00 am
Keynote Address: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

10:00 – 10:45 am
The Internet, Philanthropy, and Progress: Principles for Future Work
Read the principles 139 KB

Introduction by Jenny Toomey Director, Internet Rights, Ford Foundation
Mitchell Baker Executive Chairwoman, Mozilla Foundation
Chris Stone President, Open Society Foundations
Darren Walker President, Ford Foundation
Moderator Gwen Ifill Managing Editor, “Washington Week”

10:45 – 11:00 am
Break

11:00 am – 12:20 pm
NetGain Challenges
Hosted by:
John Palfrey Head of School, Phillips Academy
Ethan Zuckerman Director, MIT Center for Civic Media

Presenters:
Ethan Zuckerman Director, MIT Center for Civic Media
Emily Bell Director, Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Alicia Garza Co-Founder, #BlackLivesMatter; Special Projects Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance
Sunil Abraham Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society
Chip Pickering CEO, Comptel
Laura Poitras Filmmaker, “Citizenfour”
Chris Soghoian Principal Technologist, Speech, Privacy, & Technology Project, ACLU
Brewster Kahle Digital Librarian and Founder, Internet Archive
Joi Ito Director, MIT Media Lab

12:20 – 12:45 pm
Break

12:45 – 1:30 pm
Lunch Discussion: Celebrating 25 Years of the World Wide Web
Introduction by Alberto Ibargüen President and CEO, Knight Foundation
Tim Berners-Lee Inventor, World Wide Web
Susan Crawford Co-Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University

1:30 – 2:00 pm
Break

2:00 – 4:30 pm
Citizenfour Screening and Discussion
Introduction by Eric Sears Program Officer, Human Rights, MacArthur Foundation
Laura Poitras Filmmaker, “Citizenfour”
Ben Wizner Director, Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, ACLU
Moderator Brian Lehrer Host, “The Brian Lehrer Show,” WNYC

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/net-gain-working-together-for-stronger-digital-society