BasBasBas.com

Tag: freedom

  • Politics 2.0

    The influence of new media on current day politics

    An essay by Bas Grasmayer

    The 20th century was the age of mass media. The impact of radio during the first half of the century and that of television during the second brought politics closer to home. Starting from people grouping around the one radio in their neighbourhood, to the radio in their street, until the point that everyone had a radio in their home. The same happened for television and through these media politics entered the living room. Through sound at first, but later through moving images which became more detailed and more accurately coloured over the course of the last century.

    We’re now close to ten years into the new century. Television and radio are still important, but there is a new player in the field of mass media: the internet. This essay will look at how the internet has already influenced politics and hopes to answer, in part, the following question:

    How is the World Wide Web as a medium influencing
    politics and the government right now?

    New Media

    In the 2008 US Presidential elections, politicians were seen embracing new media. Barack Obama became microblogging service Twitter’s most followed user and YouTube set up a site called You Choose ’08 dedicated to the elections. On the latter, campaign teams posted videos hoping they would go ‘viral’, a term used to describe the phenomenon of certain content on the internet being spread out through huge networks of users, which is often initially an exponential process. Ron Paul, who was running to become the Republican presidential candidate, had so much support on the internet that TIME magazine at one point commented that due to “his  success  recruiting  supporters  through  new  social  media  channels” he was “the  new  2.0  candidate”.

    (more…)

  • Turkey seeks names of YouTube’s Ataturk insulters from U.S. government

    Hurriyet Daily News reports the following:

    Turkey seeks names of YouTube's Ataturk insulters from U.S. gov't article

    Excuse me? Is this the Soviet Union I’m living in? In the past I’ve made a comparison between Turkey and China regarding the freedom of the press and I also said at the time that it was an exaggerated comparison, as Turkey’s press enjoys a lot more freedom than China’s. But this, this has not been equaled by China, I believe.

    This summer we saw American Tibetan activists hold demonstrations in China during the Olympic games; they could not have done that if they got detained upon entering the country. Yes, they were arrested and deported, but only after committing a criminal fact in China. Most of their names could have and should have been known to the Chinese government. They write about the Tibetan cause publicly.

    What this prosecuter is asking for is detestable and I am shocked and outraged.

    “Those YouTube users determined to be living outside Turkey will be detained upon entering the country.”

    Detained and then what? Imprisoned for insulting Turkey? They did not commit any illegal acts if they published these videos outside of Turkey, unless they are Turkish citizens, which might make it illegal. If I were to say “the US is a big pile of smelly cowdung”, I cannot be arrested upon entering the US. If I however threaten someone in the US, particularly government officials, there’s a good case for them to find out my name and to detain me upon entering the country. What this prosecutor is asking for is to limit the freedom of speech with matters pertaining to Turkey worldwide.

    The whole YouTube ban is pointless anyway. Research in Alexa.com’s traffic ranking system has shown that YouTube is the 10th most popular site in Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan surprised everyone when he stated that even he uses YouTube.

    In other news Hurriyet reports the following:

    ““There was a vigorous internal debate between Wong and her colleagues at the top of Google’s legal pyramid.” Wong, who had to play mediator, decided that Google, by using a technique called IP blocking, would prevent access to videos that clearly violated Turkish law, but only in Turkey. For a time, this solution seemed to work for the Turkish judges, who reopened access to YouTube.

    But last June a Turkish prosecutor made a demand that Google block access to the offending videos all over the world, to protect the rights and sensitivities of Turks living outside the country. Google refused, arguing that one nation’s government should not be able to set limits of speech for Internet users worldwide. As a result Youtube has remained blocked in Turkey.”

    Me: Hey Twitter! Some guy on your network said my site sucks and used some profanity. I feel really insulted. Can you ban the entire network from saying bad things about me? Oh you can just make it so that my IP address can not see it anymore? Well, I’ll be using proxies to see it anyway, but I’d prefer if you would make any insulting depictions of my site invisible all around the world.

    FAIL.

    The vice president of the European Parliament’s Human Rights Sub-Committee, Howitt, criticized the ban, saying that around 1,000 websites are blocked in Turkey and this places the country alongside some of the world’s worst nations for cyber censorship.

    The information age is here and it’s never going away. You’re a really marvelous country Turkey, but it’s time to do something about these ridiculous prosecutions.

    BasBasBas.com is about a Dutch student living in Istanbul. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul and travels in the region. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.

  • Germany Shuts Down Wikipedia, Earthquake Hits Sofia, Brazilian Bloggers Take To Streets

    Thank God I didn’t wake up with a hangover today. Where to begin!

    Germany Shuts Down Wikipedia

    Censorship’s creeping up on us. Just 3 weeks ago I wrote about Turkey’s ban of Blogger/Blogspot, which I didn’t write about because I specifically care about Turkey’s internet, but because I care about the freedom of the internet. I’m sure a lot of visitors were able to stay detached from the situation and not care so much, maybe this time the news will have more impact because even Germany is guilty of web censorship now.

    Lutz Heilmann, a German parliament member, took legal action against Wikipedia, because of an article mentioning his alleged involvement in the Stasi, Eastern Germany’s secret police during communist time. Great job in proving you’ve not been a member or showing that you’ve changed by getting the web censored, it’s almost like if the police called for web censorship after being accused of Gestappo practices. Oh wait, that actually happened.

    What happened in Germany is that www.wikipedia.de no longer links to wikipedia.org, the main site of wikipedia. The German version of Wikipedia is still available through de.wikipedia.org.

    It looks like Heilmann realized what kind of shitstorm his legal procedures were starting to bring down on him and before accidentally flushing his future political career down the toilet and he issued a press release (in German) saying that Wikipedia can make Wikipedia.org accessible via Wikipedia.de again. He also adds that it wasn’t about censorship for him. Hey, guess what, this is exactly what China says too. Good job, Lutz.

    More at TechCrunch.

    Earthquake Hits Sofia, Bulgaria

    Last night after coming home from meeting with Hans, a Dutch expat and international communication specialist in Istanbul, I had an email in my inbox from my girlfriend telling me that there was an earthquake in Sofia. She’s fine, her family’s fine and I believe my friends are all safe, since I already spoke to those living closest to the epicenter. It was a 4.0-magnitude (Richter scale) earthquake lasting 2.3 seconds.

    This morning there was an aftershock, which was less heavy.

    More at Novinite.

    Brazilian Bloggers Take To Streets

    Coming back to the topic of internet freedom, Brazilian bloggers and internet junkies (in the good sense of the word) took to the streets in São Paolo to demonstrate against the Digital Crimes Bill, which defines cyber-crimes and stipulates penalties accordingly. Bloggers feel the bill, which was passed by the Brazilian Senate in July, is too loosely formulated and might lead to over-surveillance of the internet at the cost of freedom of speech and expression.

    More at Global Voices.

    What are some of the best initiatives you have seen regarding the freedom of speech on the internet? Or, completely unrelated, have you ever been in an earthquake?

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  • Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1

    Dutch Christian Democrat minister of Public Health, Ab Klink, has announced the ban of selling and growing ‘magic mushrooms’, or shrooms, will take place on December 1. This knee-jerk reaction follows a media and political hype caused last year by the suicide of a 17-year old French tourist who was said to be under the influence of mushrooms at that time. It was also her second suicide attempt.

    Politicians got riled up as the media started covering every mushroom mishap in Amsterdam. Since nobody really stopped campaigning since the last government was formed – as they’re doomed to fail – they saw this as a good chance to speak up, speak out and win votes. At the cost of liberty and sanity.

    Ab Klink, minister of Public Health, previously asked the Coördinationpoint for the Assessment and Monitoring of new drugs (CAM) to research illegalizing shrooms. They concluded that these are the risks involving mushrooms:

    • Health of the individual: no risk.
    • Public health / society: minimal risk.
    • Public order / safety: minimal risk.
    • Criminal involvement: no risk.

    The CAM advised against a ban on mushrooms for the following reasons:

    • The smartshops selling the mushrooms might replace them by substances which carry more risk;
    • It will lead to shrooms being sold in tablet-form, like XTC pills;
    • Users would pick mushrooms in nature, which could lead to serious problems if they mistake the wrong type of mushrooms for the ones they are looking for;
    • Users might switch to other drugs, which might be more interesting from a criminal perspective and possibly carry more risk for usage… Leading to more danger to the public;
    • The banning of mushrooms is a rather tough sanction given the current problems its causing;
    • Maintaining a ban would bring costs.

    What did Ab Klink do? Ban them! Of course. The CAM was surprised as this is the first time a minister has ignored the advice of this advice organ. Minister Klink is obviously tripping. Or maybe he’d like to see the Bible as our lawbook?

    Dutch ‘smartshops’ that sell magic mushrooms and other legal mind-altering substances are taking this to court. For updates on this matter you can follow Dutch blog Red De Paddo (Save The Shroom).

    Recently a Christian Democrat politician called for the closing of all coffeeshops in Holland and illegalizing cannabis. In a follow-up poll, Dutch citizens expressed their opinions about the Dutch policy regarding drugs. 36% want coffeeshops illegalized, but 34% wants to see them completely legalized. Coffeeshops in Holland are currently in a grey area, more can be read about this in the article below or on Wikipedia. In short the sale of softdrugs is legal in Holland, but supplying coffeeshops of them is not.

    Last year I wrote about the pending mushroom ban in several articles, one of which is reposted below, the others can be found via these links:

    Stay updated. Follow my Twitter feed, or subscribe to this blog by RSS or email.

    Below a repost of my article “Dutch government to ban cultural identity“. (more…)

  • Dutch Police Union Head Calls for Web Censorship

    In response to the intimidation of a Dutch police woman, both on- and offline, head of police union ACP, Geert van de Kamp, has called for web censorship.

    An investigation has been launched into the intimidation of the police woman, who works for the foreign police of The Netherlands. In the night of Monday to Tuesday, unknown people vandalized the front door of the police woman’s house with red paint.

    Also, the tires of the police woman’s car were slashed.

    A group called the Winterschilders (Winterpainters) claimed responsibility for the act by posting a message on indymedia.nl, which included the full name and address of the police woman (and a picture, claims the police union). Their message reads:

    Tonight The Winterpainters visited XXX, foreign police, XXX, XXX. (XXX replacing her personal data which have been removed by indymedia)

    Her frontdoor got some red paint on it; symbol for the blood of the people that suffer due to the practices of the foreigner police.
    We also made sure she couldn’t get to her work quickly today (flat tires).
    This is a warning to all her colleagues of the modern gestapo (foreign police, immigration and naturalisation service, justice dept.).

    You are responsible for what you are doing.
    Stop it.

    The Winterpainters

    Gerrit van de Kamp, head of police union ACP, calls the incident “unheard of”, saying this “absolutely cannot and may not happen again.” And what better way to react to Gestapo accusations than calling for censorship?

    Van de Kamp wants to ask the ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs to make it impossible to publish messages like the above on the internet, saying it should be “technologically possible” to filter such messages.

    Gerrit van de Kamp, you are either unaware of what exactly is “technologically possible” or you are calling for censorship. In a statement on ACP’s website, you call for “preventive measures to prevent name & address data of police people to be posted on the internet”. That’s a lot more nuanced and understandable, yet it is impossible to put such filters in place without seriously endangering the freedom of the citizens you’re serving. You are asking for ISPs to filter what their users are posting to the internet:

    • Should the ISPs report every filtered instance to the police?
    • How will the “technologically possible” filter prevent innocent people from being censored?
    • What prevents the government from adding more and more terms to the filter once it is in place?

    Such a filter would be a step towards fascism. Yes, you have the duty to protect police staff, as do we, as Dutch citizens, but you are calling for a very extreme measure. The internet shall not be filtered, instead, prosecute websites or people that post this data on the internet. Call for tough laws and higher penalties to discourage people from committing these acts. That way it will be the websites’ responsibilities to filter the content posted to them.

    Also, there have been many reports over the last 5 years about ill-treated asylum seekers and there has been a lot of protests about this, this incident being the most extreme protest thus far. Maybe it actually is time for the government to have another look at what’s going on and punish those responsible for incidents.

    The suggested measure in your reaction is disproportionate. Please reconsider.

    That will be all.

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  • One World, One Dream?

    Even though they haven’t caught the spotlight of the big media, there’s quite a bit of ‘Tibetan’ protesting going on in Beijing. One of the protests was on Tiananmen square and lasted for ten minutes before the participants were detained and deported. Have a look at this video:




    Students for a Free Tibet sent the following statements:

    As China kicked off the 2008 Beijing Olympics yesterday, Tibetans and supporters in every part of the world staged hunger strikes, protest marches, solidarity vigils, and other direct actions to highlight China’s oppression in Tibet.

    Just hours ago, five Tibet supporters held a dramatic protest in Tiananmen Square, calling for an end to the Chinese government’s occupation of Tibet. Four of the activists, lying down and draped in Tibetan national flags, staged a mock die-in with the famous portrait of Chairman Mao in the background. A fifth activist spoke about their reason for protesting there today. They were detained by security ten minutes after the protest began.

    Yesterday, three Tibet supporters, including SFT’s Grassroots Coordinator Kalaya’an Mendoza, protested near the entrance of the Bird’s Nest stadium, wearing Team Tibet t-shirts and holding up Tibetan flags in the air. Within 40 seconds, security guards tackled them to the ground. They were detained for several hours before they were deported. We are also happy to inform you that Iain, Lucy, Phil and Tirian – the four activists who were part of the banner hang action outside the Olympic stadium – are safely home after receiving a warm welcome from their friends, family and local Tibetans in their respective home countries.

    Meanwhile, Chemi Dolkar, a Tibetan-American who traveled to Beijing to speak out for Tibetan freedom, was detained at Beijing Airport for 15 hours and eventually deported. Chemi arrived in her hometown Minneapolis last night, and right now she is speaking with the media to keep the Tibetan plight in the spotlight. Many dozens of Tibetans planning to go to Beijing to protest against the Chinese government have been denied entry into China.

    The world is watching China today as the Olympics begin, and with the hundreds of actions taking place around the world – from Delhi to Kathmandu, Brussels to London, New York to San Francisco, Hong Kong to Toronto, and many more – the voices of the Tibetan people will be heard loud and clear despite the attempts of the Chinese authorities to silence them.

    Continue to check out www.freetibet2008.org for further updates on the global uprising for Tibet and to find out how you can join actions in areas near you.

    To support SFT’s continued efforts for Tibetan freedom, please make a donation today.

    Tibet will be free,

    Lhadon, Tendor, Kate, Heather, Han, Amy and the whole SFT HQ crew

    Great message I’d say.

    Meanwhile, during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, some Burmese people were commemorating the 08/08/’88 events.

    The demonstrations of 1988 culminated in a massive nation-wide show of People Power on August 8 in which hundreds of thousands of people marched to demand a change in government. These peaceful demonstrations were violently crushed by army troops who fired relentlessly on the unarmed crowds in Rangoon and other cities killing more than 10,000 student, civilian and Buddhist monk protesters throughout the country. Thousands were arrested. (Burmawatch)

    It’s a shame that we seem to have forgotten about Burma and I’m taking this opportunity to put another spotlight on the situation there. Burma Global Action Network just released an exclusive video from the International Burmese Monks Organisation containing a plea to the international community.



    Visit the sites mentioned and find out what you can do.

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