Wonk Warning: Fast typing, inaccuracies, misspellings ahead. Good grammar and spelling are collateral damage of getting the mind bomb of this live blog from the SXSW conference out fast.

This was a GREAT session.  Smart, dedicated people, and the description from Jasmina, the final presenter, of her experience getting a hand copied “personal diary” out from war-torn Serbia, was a totally inspirational story of courage and using a public identity as a shield against repression or worse from either side in a conflict.  I misted up, and I wasn’t the only one.  These stories are so important for people to remember, for the times when their lives may depend on remembering them.

Blogging Where Speech Isn’t Free

Date: Sunday, March 11

Time: 11:30AM–12:30PM

Location: Ballroom F

Many
nations have no tradition of free speech, and in those contexts,
blogging can be extremely dangerous. How can those bloggers protect
themselves, and how can we help them?

Speaker(s):

• Jon Lebkowsky, Partner, Polycot Consulting LLC
• Shahed Amanullah, Founder, Halalfire Media LLC
• Robert Faris, Harvard Law School – Berkman Center
• Shava Nerad, Exec Dir, The Tor Project
• Ethan Zuckerman, Co-Founder, Global Voices
• Jasmina Tesanovic: Political idiot

Blogging in places where you can have no expectation of freedom of expression.

Faris: First global study of internet filtering in 40 countries, half filtering socially “objectionable” content half filtering politically “objectionable” content. http://www.opennet.net
Interenet filtering is a messy and incomplete science. and impossible. collateral damage inevitable. When Pakistan knocked out yahoo posts they also knocked out 150,000 phone sets.

Will we see a convergance between media censorship and internet? it’s not yet completely overlapping.
Object is clearly to create an environment of SELF censorship, because that’s an achievable aim. Cuba, China, different models. Complete prohibition, partial prohibition.

The rules of censorship are chaning. They´re fluid and not entirely defined.

Ethan: Freedomhouse.org map of press freedom. Zimbabwe and Iran for example and other countries of “medium repression” are where people flock to the internet. Where there is an independent press, they don´t need it. Where there is high repression, they can’t use it. It’s the borders between that are using the tools of the interenet to max advantage. GlobalVoices.org
Bahrain pdf of google maps of large houses owned by the monarchy.

Google map mashup of public and secret prisons in Tunisia and stuff a bout prisoners there.

Alaa Abd el fateh: blog from prison, smuggled out to his wife who posted for him.

Video on youtube protest by Zimbabwean trade union protest being broken up, smuggled out through South Africa.

States freact by: blocking sites, block tools, register bloggers, threaten physically or legally.

In Pakistan, you can’t access Blogger. They were offended by 6 sites on blogger, and in process of supressing them they blockaed the entire site. (Fellow from Blogger in front of me says that ban was just lifted last week)

Free Kareem and the campaign to get him out.

We can’t just advocate for the blogs we want to see, we have to advocate for ALL of them whether we agree or not. We fight for all, not just the people who are pushing for democratic reforms.

Shava, the Tor Project: produces a suite of software that provides identity anonymity and or cirucmvent government firewalls, by connecting through Tor you get routed through a cloud of proxies. People can see what you write, can’t see where they came from.

We talk a lot about people needing free speech right now, and when we talk about repression we talk about an absolute. but in fact, our version of freedom of expression is not absolute either. It’s a live action game of diplomacy and process. We shouldn’t be villifying any side, we should be engaging in the process.

Shahed: altmuslim.com Rise of extremism, grappling with modernity, unelected regimes in many areas. Muslim world deserves press and speech freedom just as much as anyone. There is a need to have open forums in order to deliver moderate and modern forms of islamic culutre and we all have a stake in that battle.

The west can advocate for general rights

Jasmina Tesanovic from Serbia: When I registered here I lost my identity and my country. The letters of my name are unrecognised by the computer. My country, Serbia, was not in the drop down list. Only Yugoslavia, which hasn’t existed for six years. This is the story of my life.

My country were the agreessors in those terrible wars. I wrote letters in three languages to all these people. but then I decided to write one builletin for all. It was more than a personal diary, less than journalism. I put it in the mail. it was a blog before blogs were.  By the end of the process i had a book collecting all these things.  Then when we were bombed by NATO. I had the TV CNN on, I had the surreal situation of seeing myself bombed on TV while I was being bombed.  But this was a breakthrough.  We knew Milosevic lied.  But I discovered NATO lied as well. When a certain town in Serbia was bombed, I called a relative, said I saw cluster bombs in the market and many civilians killed.  Milosevic said no killiing becasue we werent´at war. NATO said there was no collateral damage it was only military targets. this went on for a month or two, a friend wrote and said this is your diary, it doesn´t havre your name on it. A woman from Croation claimed it was hers. ABC called, said we think it is you. Can we give interview I said yes, but they said we can’t because we want to protect you and your identity. Milosevic could kill me anytime.  NATO could kill me.  I decided the Public was my only protection, and I said I am Jasmina Tussenavich I am the Political Idiot and this and only this is the reason I am alive today