Broadband Internet is Now a Legal Right in Finland
The EU Parliament has on several occasions stated that access to the Internet is one of basic human rights. Now, Finland has become the first country to actually declare fast (broadband) Internet access a legal right.
Finland makes broadband access a legal right
Finnish citizens now have a legal right to broadband access:
[E]very person in Finland (a little over 5 million people, according to a 2009 estimate) will have the right of access to a 1Mb broadband connection starting in July. And they may ultimately gain the right to a 100Mb broadband connection.
The Down & Dirty of Digital Government
The devil, they say, is in the detail and it is interesting how the debate on e-government is developing in the UK. This article from the BBC website talks about the move on from a starry-eyed reaction to Obama-esque digi-campaigning (or Election 2.0) to a practical, cost-driven desire to drive all access to government and government services online. It is this, they argue, more than anything which is driving Government pressure on suppliers to push broadband out to everyone. It may be exciting to exercise one’s democratic rights online, but it may be more useful to be able to get the bins emptied too.
William Uricchio and the object/subject in participatory media
I’m at the Applied Brilliance conference this morning, a gathering of architects and designers in Bolton Landing, NY, a gorgeous corner of Adirondack State Park. I wasn’t actually scheduled to speak here – my friend Omar Wasow had to pull out of the event so he could be on Oprah’s show today. Since I’m just down the road, I’m pinch hitting. (I guess that the fact that Omar’s known for his work on social networking in the African American community and since I study social networking in Africa, I can talk in his stead…)
Europeans! Call your MEP today to block net surveillance proposal!
Jérémie Zimmermann sez, “The Conciliation committee delegation of the European Parliament on the ‘Telecoms Package’ will meet on October 13th, 11AM. In this informal meeting, they will be presented an outrageous analysis by the legal team of the Parliament aimed at making them accept an extremely dangerous ‘compromise’ text replacing amendment 138, essential safeguard for citizen’s freedoms adopted twice by 88% of the votes. EU citizens must help to convince members of the delegation to start the negotiations with the original amendment 138, adapt its wording if necessary, but reject this ‘compromise’. We must refuse an Orwellian vision for freedoms in EU, where the right to a due process could be restricted for ‘prevention or detection of criminal offenses’!”
Sweden’s Entire Internet Goes Black for an Hour
In one of the stranger cases of internet outages we’ve seen, Sweden’s entire .se domain infrastructure fell to pieces late last night.
According to Royal Pingdom, who is based in Sweden, routine maintenance to the top-level domain — .se — turned into anything but a routine update. An error was introduced that effectively brought down Sweden’s internet as a whole for about an hour, starting at 21:45 local time.
Mapping cultural bloggers and hard bloggin’ in Europe
LabforCulture’s research on Cultural blogging in Europe reaches its midway point, and we now introduce our featured blogger, hard bloggin’ scientist Anne Helmond, but we also launch our much awaited interactive cultural blogging map.
Middle East Bloggers: The Street Leads Online – Reports – Committee to Protect Journalists
from cpj.org
The Why and Who: Cultural blogging in Europe
Ever wondered why people write blogs and who is out there in the cultural blogging scene? With the opening up of media channels in the past five years and independent publishing becoming technically more possible, blogging has become one of the most steadfast mediums to distribute commentary. LabforCulture asked Annette Wolfsberger, a producer, project manager and researcher in the fields of media arts, contemporary & popular culture, to talk to the current cultural blogging personalities heading up cultural discourse online and we are publishing the results in the new Research in focus, Cultural blogging in Europe.
How do European Capitals of Culture affect you?
Ever wondered what European Capitals of Culture really attain? Why all the competition to get the title and what is the lasting impact? LabforCulture and Trans Europe Halles have been thinking through these questions and as a result bring to you a collection of resources exploring the European Capitals of Culture and the communities around the cities.
Security in the network-state, John P. Sullivan Adam Elkus
Questions of state change and sovereignty are becoming intimately linked with issues of global security, with talk of “failing states,” “lawless zones,” and “ungoverned spaces” increasingly dominating public discussion. While valuable, the state decline perspective has come to dominate public discussion at the expense of alternative ideas about change in the state system. Because concepts about state change are increasingly the basis of political-military debate, considering a wider range of futures provides a much wider range of options for current strategy. Security analysts should be aware that it is not at all clear that the state itself is necessarily collapsing-and that many political-military scholars and economic sociologists are analyzing potential state changes with far-reaching implications. We may be, as Paul Rogers observes, witnessing a A World in Revolt but it’s nature is far more complex than many analysts believe.
Tactic: Tweeting for Equality
Description: On Sunday, thousands of gays and lesbians gathered in Washington, D.C. for the National Equality March, which was billed as the largest event of its kind since 2000. While many in the gay community were divided over the reasoning for having such a march, this was also one of the first massive gay rights protests to use social media – tools that are being used by the new generation of LGBT activists. Sunday’s protest was the latest example of the generational shift in how to communicate for social change.
Digital Tools Being Used: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
18 Essential Tools for Every Word-of-Mouth Marketer
by Clay McDaniel
Why Bloggers and Citizen Journalists Deserve A Shield Law
Today in the United States, there is no legislation that allows bloggers to protect their sources. Yet bloggers have become a great way for the public — and journalists in particular — to keep informed about important topics. A survey from Middleberg Communications and the Society for New Communications Research released on September 22 found that 66 percent of journalists use blogs to assist in their reporting. This means blogs play an important role in newsgathering and the press. So why not legally protect bloggers and citizen journalists by allowing them to use anonymity and protect their sources?
Erkan's Field Diary 