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“Democracy Defenders” Urge State Department to Meddle with Palestinian Online Conversations

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has released a study on Palestinian social media entitled “P@lestinian Pulse: What Policymakers Can Learn from Palestinian Social Media.”  Researchers analyzed Arabic-language blogs, news sites, forums, and other resources, the majority of which were said to have originated in Gaza and the West Bank, in an attempt to take [...]

27.10.2010

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Did firing Juan Williams shut down a conversation about Muslims in America?

I don’t believe I live in a country where Muslims are seen as ordinary human beings.  It’s nearly impossible for the media to have a serious discussion of Islam in America; when they try, they’re seen as “sympathizers.”  Journalists with bigoted views toward Muslims are allowed to say whatever they want with impunity; just look [...]

21.10.2010

19 Comments

A Brief Comment on Massachusetts’ “Child Safety” Proposal

I’ve about had it with Massachusetts.  Seriously.  I can’t buy wine on Thanksgiving or in the supermarket, happy hour drink specials are outlawed, and boy, that law about not being able to use tomatoes in clam chowder really gets me. In all seriousness, a law proposed earlier this year really makes me angry.  From the [...]

20.10.2010

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Is Circumvention Really So Important?

Yesterday, the Berkman Center released a paper that attempts to estimate circumvention tool usage globally.  As one of the lead authors, Ethan Zuckerman, explained on his blog yesterday: We were specifically interested in trying to compare usage of different types of tools – sophisticated blocking-resistant tools like Tor and Ultrasurf, ad-supported web proxies like Proxeasy [...]

19.10.2010

14 Comments

A Few Positive Baby Steps for Facebook

Since releasing my paper, Policing Content in the Quasi-Public Sphere, a few weeks ago, I’ve begun noticing small changes to the Facebook platform.  No, I’m not talking about the new Groups (which I’ve duly ignored).  I’m talking about small but pointed changes pertaining directly to items I’ve complained about in the past.  I wish I [...]

18.10.2010

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On Good Customer Service

It’s rare that I blog about a product.  I occasionally tweet (such as the time Zappos refunded me $6 after I pointed out Shoes.com was selling a pair of shoes I’d just bought for $6 less, or the time JetBlue called me after I tweeted about how long I’d been on hold), but I’m almost [...]

12.10.2010

3 Comments

To .ly or not to .ly – that is the question

The big tech news this week (aside from Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel win, which is not really tech news but I needed some way to shamelessly self-promote!) is the deactivation of sex-positive domain name shortener VB.ly, so named for founder Violet Blue, a SF-based sex educator.   The site was launched last year to accolades and existed [...]

08.10.2010

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Morocco’s Nichane Folds Under Royally-Backed Advertiser Boycott

When Nichane launched in September of 2006, it should have started a media revolution.  As Morocco’s first-ever magazine published in the local Arabic dialect, darija, Nichane–a sister magazine to long-running French weekly TelQuel–quickly captured the attention of a generation with its taboo-tackling stories and often humorous approach. But just as the magazine was gaining traction, [...]

04.10.2010

10 Comments

Keynote: Kurt Jean-Charles of Solutions

This is a liveblog post of the keynote speech at the International Conference on Crisis Mapping. Kurt Jean-Charles is the founder of Solutions, a tech company based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, founded in 2001.  Jean-Charles was instrumental in linking together groups and setting up crisis response models after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Jean-Charles begins by [...]

01.10.2010

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Special Remarks: Dr. Choi Soon-hong

Special Remarks: Dr. Choi Soon-hong, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations & 1st Chief IT Officer, at the Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University. Dr. Choi begins by explaining that late last year, a group of UN representatives and people from the ICT4Peace Foundation traveled together to discover the challenges faced by UN [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Nigel Snoad

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. Nigel Snoad of ICT4Peace takes the stage for an ignite talk. Snoad starts by sharing his rules for working on the ground: Rule 1: “Don’t [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Akiko Harayama

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. Akiko Harayama of the UN takes the stage for an ignite talk. Harayma’s goal is to link the humanitarian community with emergent technologies.  She explains [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Jon Nystrom

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. Jon Nystrom, the FEMA Account Manager for Haiti, takes the stage for an ignite talk. Nystrom, of ESRI, notes that ESRI’s goal is to support [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Tom MacWright

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. Tom MacWright of Development Seed takes the stage. MacWright explains that he’s here to talk about offline mapping, which is incredibly important in some places [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Jeffrey Warren

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. Jeffrey Warren of Grassroots Mapping takes the stage. Warren explains that Grassroots Mapping’s cheap kit – valued at around $150 – allows people to create [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talks: Galen Evans

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. Galen Evans of the World Bank takes the stage for an Ignite Talk. Immediately after the earthquake, Evans’s team had a couple of different options: [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: David Stevens

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. David Stevens works at the UN Spider Program. Stevens starts by asking how we can take the Haiti model beyond Haiti to other countries and [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Christina Corbane

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. Christina Corbane is the co-author of a paper entitled: “Can real-time crisis SMS messages help in diagnosing the spatial distribution of structural damage? Analysis of [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: John Crowley

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. John Crowley of Camp Roberts takes the stage. Crowley explains the importance of creating an API between the two worlds of civilians and military. “What [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Jacobo Quintanilla

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. Jacobo Quintanilla of Internews takes the stage for an ignite talk. Quintanilla, based in Sri Lanka, notes that he was pulled into this work because [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Shadrock Roberts

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. Shadrock Roberts of Quartier par Quartier takes the stage for an ignite talk. “Moving data from an individual incident to a more temporal solution” is [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Sabina Carlson

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM10 hashtag. Sabina Carlson takes the stage for an ignite talk. “I’m not here because I speak PHP,” begins Carlson, “I’m here because I speak Creole.” Carlson [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Jaroslav Valuch

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM2010 hashtag. Jaroslav Valuch, of Ushahidi, explains the basis of the Ushahidi platform. Valuch notes how the crisis mapping of Haiti began 5 hours after the earthquake; [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Kate Chapman

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM2010 hashtag. Kate Chapman of Open Street Maps takes the stage for an ignite talk. She starts by explaining that Open Street Maps is like Google Maps, [...]

01.10.2010

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Ignite Talk: Chris Phillips

This is a liveblog post from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM2010 hashtag. Chris Phillips of Map Action takes the stage for an ignite talk. “All disasters are different: Haiti was especially so,” notes Phillips, remarking on both [...]

01.10.2010

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ICCM 2010: Opening Remarks

Today I’ll be liveblogging the International Conference on Crisis Mapping at Tufts University.  You can also follow tweets from the event’s many open laptops at the #ICCM2010 hashtag. Patrick Meier greets the audience, which is over 200 strong.  ”The Crisis Mappers network now has almost 1,000 members in 30 countries; about 100 organizations are represented [...]

01.10.2010

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