When Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy was briefly detained–and beaten–by Egyptian authorities (read her account of that here), there was a concerted and fast-moving effort by her Twitter followers and friends online to quickly mobilize a solidarity campaign for her release, followed–post-release–by much discussion as to whether or not the campaign had actually helped. In Eltahawy’s case, I would wager that her relative fame and dual citizenship played a larger role than anything done online, but the global attention certainly didn’t hurt (for more on this, Zeynep Tufekci has done some fascinating analysis).

Tufekci hints that a campaign like #FreeMona or #FreeAlaa (Abd El Fattah) can improve the situation of other imprisoned Egyptians but doesn’t ask the question of whether campaigns like those can help lesser-known bloggers. As she points out, both Eltahawy and Abd El Fattah are well-known, sympathetic figures. Both received ample attention both from inside and outside of Egypt (by contrast, note how the campaign for Maikel Nabil has lagged). And yet, lesser-known bloggers are regularly made the object of solidarity campaigns: All it takes is one friend, one family member, or one sympathetic blogger from their country to throw up a site and get some attention on Twitter or Facebook. It may take longer, but evidence shows that the majority of these campaigns do result in significant attention. So, the question then, is this: Does that attention really help the individual?

I’ve been wondering this myself for some time, having been involved in numerous solidarity campaigns, including ones where the family of the detainee was somewhat uncomfortable with the campaigning, despite having given permission. There are times when the family or friends think a campaign might make the blogger’s situation worse; in most such cases that I’ve seen, they give in after a few weeks of no changes. Though I don’t think there are any conclusive answers as of yet, I’d like to share what little evidence I have come up with (some of which is, unfortunately, anonymous) to further the discussion.

First, we have a recent interview with Alaa Abd El Fattah, an Egyptian blogger and personal friend who was detained for 56 days, and released on December 25. In it, Abd El Fattah says [ at approximately 11:47]:

They knew that they couldn’t torture me because of the solidarity and the media attention, so they just made sure to try to use every other measure to put me at discomfort or add psychological pressure. But every other person arrested in the Maspero incident were tortured severely, and torture is still very systematic at police stations and in prisons.

In this case, there’s obviously very little to get excited about: Individuals without the benefit of global campaigns were still tortured, and Abd El Fattah was still detained for 56 days and made uncomfortable. And yet, he believes that the solidarity saved him personally from torture.

An account from Razan Ghazzawi’s blog also suggests that Syrian blogger Hussein Ghrer (whom, I should mention, is not well-known outside of the Syrian blogosphere) received better treatment after his case was amplified by the international blogosphere and media:

The 32 year-old blogger was kidnapped in Damascus in an ambush on 24-10-2011 and was taken to security services branches in Al-Khateeb and Kafaقsouseh, then was transferred to Adra prison, a prison that is considered by activists and revolutionaries as “haven” in comparison to security services, or worse, Air Intelligence service- a place where worst kinds of torture is practiced against detainees.

Ghazzawi, detained from 1-19 December, also stated that the campaign on her behalf was helpful in securing better treatment:

A tweet from Syrian blogger Razan Ghazzawi.

Azyz Amami, who was detained in Tunisia in January along with Slim Amamou, recalls that he and Amamou also later declared, on Tunisian television, that the international campaign for their release was helpful.

And speaking to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Azeri journalist Eynulla Fatullayev credited international campaigns with saving his life and securing his release.

I have also interviewed–on the condition of anonymity–three other people who have been detained in various countries, and who have been the subject of solidarity campaigns. Each said a variation on the same theme: That they were treated well, and sometimes even given special privileges, because of their status. One mentioned that it bothered him that the same treatment was not extended to his fellow detainees, a reminder that being a blogger is a position of privilege in its own way. Similar to his sentiment is that expressed by recently-released Bahraini blogger Zainab Al-Khawaja, who tweeted the day of her release:

Zainab Al-Khawaja expresses a desire to give attention to lesser-known cases in Bahrain

Al-Khawaja’s sister, Maryam, had also previously suggested that international support was the reason Zainab was not arrested at an earlier instance:

A tweet from Maryam Al-Khawaja suggesting that international support has been beneficial to her sister

But all of the bloggers I’ve spoken to individually have emphasized the importance of permission from family and/or friends before starting up a campaign (a recommendation cited in a recent post I co-wrote for EFF and Global Voices Advocacy). This isn’t always an easy thing to do, of course, and in some cases, may result in no campaign at all (if friends can’t contact family members, for instance).

There is also, I might add, evidence that some campaigns don’t help at all. Take, for example, that of Tal Al-Mallouhi, the teenaged Syrian blogger now imprisoned for two years, for allegedly spying for a foreign government. Despite ample international outcry, including from such prominent organizations as Amnesty International, Mallouhi remains in prison following an unfair trial. On the flip side, a lack of international attention can be detrimental, as Zainab Al-Khawaja points out:

Zainab Al-Khawaja feels that international attention is crucial

Ultimately, the only definitive takeaway from these cases is that authorities are paying attention to them. And that alone is enough to suggest that, in most cases (taking into consideration a blogger’s personal circumstances), solidarity campaigns that draw on international media are beneficial, if only minimally.

So, how can bloggers who are not as well-connected as Abd El Fattah or Eltahawy ensure that their name won’t be forgotten? At a recent event I spoke at in Istanbul, incidentally, a Turkish blogger asked me just that question. My short response at the time was–and I stand by this–to plug in to international networks, something which social media has made incredibly easy. The aforementioned EFF/Advox post puts forward some other recommendations, but I have no doubt there are others, and I look forward to whatever discussion this might generate.

Latuff's depiction of the martyr Khaled Said

Brazilian activist cartoonist Carlos Latuff, whose work has been regularly featured on Global Voices, particularly throughout the ‘Arab Spring,’ starts the Brazilian panel thanking his country for “bringing Latin America here,” stating that Brazil tends to turn its back on the rest of Latin America.

“In the Arab Spring,” says Latuff, “I’ve used Twitter heavily to communicate with people in Egypt. It was great getting to know [fellow conference attendee Ahmed Bahgat]. Most people in Brazil don’t even know what SCAF [Egypt's Supreme Council of Armed Forces] is.” Latuff then thanks Bahgat for attending, in English.

One of Latuff's inspirational cartoons

“Twitter, just like Facebook, is an instrument or a tool, just like the Internet is just a tool, just like a Molotov cocktail or a mobile phone is a tool – and people use the Internet to accomplish their goals. In 1996, I was sending drawings by fax to Mexico, in 1999 I was in Palestine, which was my defining experience; from then until today, I’ve worked mostly on Palestine. And with the advent of Twitter, something incredible happened: When the protests in Tunisia exploded and when Ben Ali was taken out of office, the people there asked for drawings, but Ben Ali had already fallen.”

One cartoon depicts Mubarak being shot down by lightning

“People in Palestine contacted me before the protests in Egypt and requested I draw cartoons for them. I was afraid that the Egyptian authorities were going to kill them all. But on the 25th, protests began, and the cartoons I had drawn were often printed and shared during protests. It gave me the confidence that I was producing artwork that has relevance for people. This is what leaves me the happiest as an artist.”

“People say I’m an activist and not a cartoonist, as if those things couldn’t come together,” says Latuff. “I don’t care about being promoted as an artist – even if people removed my name, I’d still be happy. I’m not interested in money; anyone can reproduce my cartoons.”

“I have 50,000 Twitter followers, and many of them are from Egypt. No one knows me in Brazil; it’s amazing how many Egyptian press interviews I’ve done,” says the cartoonist. “To me, this is amazing.”

Note: Latuff’s talk simultaneously translated from Portuguese, and thus quotes are imperfect.

“…as a society, we have reached a place where the only way to protect some sorts of speech on the Internet is through one of only a couple dozen core Internet organizations. Totally ceding decisions about control of politically sensitive speech to that handful of actors, without any legal process or oversight, is a bad idea (worse even than ceding decision to grandstanding politicians). The problem is that an even worse option is to cede these decisions about what content gets to stay up to the owners of the botnets capable of executing large ddos attacks.”
From Hal Roberts’ blog post, Amazon’s Wikileaks Takedown

“While the politicians and reporters are getting a fumbling on-the-job education in the architecture of the Internet (an NPR reporter said, hesitatingly, that it appears as if the server is now in Switzerland), the next question is where does the running stop? When does the situation reach equilibrium? What’s the best outcome for the people of the planet?”
From Dave Winer’s blog post, “WikiLeaks on the run”

“What is troubling and dangerous is that in the internet age, public discourse increasingly depends on digital spaces created, owned and operated by private companies. The result is that one politician has more power than ever to shut down controversial speech unilaterally with one phone call.”
From Rebecca Mackinnon’s post on CNN, “WikiLeaks, Amazon and the new threat to internet speech”

“Here’s the premise: My generation — the Digital Natives, Gen Y — and perhaps the one younger than it views the concept of Wikileaks very differently from older generations. We’ve grown up sharing the intimate details of our lives, we Tweet, we post our location on FourSquare, practically inviting stalkers into our lives…as a result, I believe that we expect more of a radical transparency from others…including our government.”
From Jillian York’s blog post, “Scribblings on Wikileaks: Some Thoughts on Digital Nativism and Transparency”

“The rise of internet hypergiants like Amazon that host servers for hundreds of thousands of clients makes these potential conflicts more clear. If you are dissatisfied with the terms of service of your hosting provider, you can always find another… up to a point. There’s been massive consolidation in the web hosting market, and companies like Amazon are likely to control large shares of the market in the future, both because there are economies of scale in providing low-cost service, and because large server farms can more effectively defend from attacks like DDoS. But if large providers like Amazon won’t take on clients like Wikileaks, they’re forced onto smaller ISPs, which may be more costly and less able to thwart DDoS attacks.”
From Ethan Zuckerman’s blog post, “If Amazon has silenced Wikileaks…”

“State secrets exposed this year by whistle-blower website Wikileaks keep causing the world to shudder. A video showing Iraqi civilians killed by U.S forces; a compilation of tens of thousands of documents about the war in Afghanistan; hundreds of thousands of documents about the war in Iraq; and now 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables. On Global Voices, we have looked at worldwide online citizen media reactions. The leaked documents contain so much information, both journalists and bloggers have struggled to make sense of them. The initial excitement is huge. What happens next?” From Global Voices Online Special Coverage section, “WikiLeaks and the World 2010″

Cynthia Wong of the Center for Democracy and Technology introduces the next breakout panel, entitled “Online free expression and the cat and mouse game between bloggers and governments.”

She introduces the session by mentioning the issues of bloggers, governments, and company responsibility, then calls on respondent Esraa Rashid from Egypt to introduce the relevance of this issue in her region.  Rashid believes that we can achieve democracy by using the Internet as a tool, but notes that governments, such as the Egyptian Mubarak government wants to remain in power and continue to suppress the rights of its opposition.  ”The government is so scared of those who can oppose them online, such as the activists on Facebook.”

Esraa Rashid notes the example of Khaled Said, a young Egyptian activist who had taken a video of police officers dealing drugs.  He was at a cyber cafe attempting to upload his videos and photos when police kidnapped and beat him, killing him in the process.  Witnesses took photos of Said’s body, spreading it online.  In the end, the police were held culpable, a major achievement in Egyptian activism.

Rashid believes that the Egyptian government would like to get rid of all of Egypt’s bloggers, but thinks that the US net freedom initiative can be helpful in bringing attention to these issues.

She also notes the reception for potential presidential candidate Mohamed El Baradei, noting that his prominence has also risen due to Internet discussions and campaigning.

Cynthia Wong turns the discussion to Ivan Sigal, Executive Director of Global Voices.  He notes the relationship and differences between online and “traditional” activism.  He says that it’s difficult to generalize about these campaigns but that, contrary to traditional activism, online and blogging efforts are often coming from a non-institutional basis, from individuals without links to NGOs or labor movements.

Sigal notes the example of a house in China where the family was asked to move, whilst an excavation occurred.  The family refused, so the company dug around them, leaving the house intact; this incident brought land rights into the mainstream as a bigger issue.

He asks: “How does an idea like this turn into a movement, or should it?”  He notes the relationship of bloggers and citizens to a “vocal anti-professionalism” and a conception of being citizens, rather than members of an organization, thus making it very grassroots, and opposed to tradition.  Sigal views this grassroots activism as a challenge to traditional concepts.

A third point Sigal makes is the idea of ideas and themes going “viral” online, a concept sometimes called “slacktivism.”  Sigal thinks there’s another way of viewing this; that an idea may have more importance than simply a single voice. Just because an idea isn’t driven forward by a traditional campaign mentality doesn’t mean it’s not a good one.  Sigal notes that ideas are sometimes implemented beyond their original spheres, and that this may have broader implications.

Wong opens up the discussion as an open one for the group, and asks, based on our own experiences, what do we see as the main challenges and obstacles for online activists and bloggers.

Wael, a Jordanian blogger, notes that he took a workshop from an experienced lawyer with specific experience in Jordan, and states that understanding government and legal loopholes is important.  He says that, as governments and regions use their own rules against bloggers, it becomes more and more important for bloggers to understand and utilize the laws as well.

Rita Chemaly, a Lebanese researcher and blogger, jumps in to say that, when causes exist online, many people often join on to them, but are not participatory.  Her question is, “how, in the public sphere, can we change good arguments into political action?”  She also notes that, since Lebanon’s recent president came to power, her Facebook page and blog are reported if she talks about them, and there’s a risk that she can be arrested [note: Lebanon does not block websites].

An audience member from Vietnam asks if bloggers should get paid for working.  She elaborates to say that perhaps bloggers should be funded, that they need a better environment.  She says that bloggers need better expertise and professionalism, and that perhaps civic volunteers are the best to help train them.  She also notes that slacktivism is a negative phenomenon, but that in a closed society, people don’t really have the chance to speak up publicly, so clicking “like” is controversial.  She sees this as a positive development.

In response, Sigal notes that traditional activists often have a stronger sense of the risks they’re taking, whereas people new to activism may find that the risks they’re taking are not reasonable or rational.  He notes that it’s important to articulate goals, and assess risks and concerns.

Regarding slacktivism, Sigal notes that a lot of online organizing is not about structural change, but cultural change, and that some people seek a structural indication of success, but that he sees that as a narrow assessment (using the Armenian protests of last year as an example).

A blogger from the Philippines notes that the government at first viewed them like everyone else, but that they began to view them as threats sometime after.  Bloggers there did not have a unified voice, but as they tackled common issues, they were seen as “speaking one language.”  They tried not to be too confrontational or negative, with awareness that those tactics had not worked in the past.  He says that his blogging community meets once a year to discuss how to further engage the rest of the population, government, and media.

Susan from Internews asks the blogging community what the role of development and funders is.

Mohammed Abdullah, a blogger who works for HRW and has experience arrest (as have members of his family), says: “What is not said is that blocking is not the issue; the biggest threat is blogger arrests.  That is pushing bloggers to practice self-censorship or stop blogging entirely.”  He also notes that every country is different, and that in Syria, because of Emergency Law, you go to prison if you say something wrong, whereas in Lebanon, where rule of law exists, bloggers are rarely held.

Wong jumps in to ask if there’s any role for organizations in blogger campaigns.

[I responded to say that, noticing that most campaigns are bottom-up and grassroots, a) I don't think organizations shouldn't fund bloggers, but that it's important for consent and awareness to be a part of it and b) we need to focus beyond simply "Iran and China" and look to other countries as well.  Biased organizations, lobbies, and power can be an issue.]

Anas Qtiesh jumps in to add that in protecting bloggers, Tor does a great job, but there’s a need for faster, better programs that provide both circumvention and anonymity infrastructure.

Nasser Weddady notes that he’s worked on numerous campaigns, and that the campaign for Ali Abdulemam is successful because we have a large, diverse group with different skills.  We limited the group, and included people with specific abilities (e.g., media, writing, etc).  Weddady thinks that these campaigns have grown in success; Khaled Said is a great example of grassroots activism without traditional, political actors.  ”This in itself is a massive breakthrough.”  On the negative side, Weddady notes that what is relevant is that some of the fundamental questions remain: Why do some countries get more attention than others?  He notes that it’s not simply political agendas, but also outside biases from analysts of the region.  Weddady sees outside organizations’ desires to get involved as an opportunity, and agrees with the idea of training for skills.  ”Those that reach a certain level of growth, capability, and connections.”  He notes that connections were what have helped Ali Abdulemam most.  ”When you have hubs, you get coverage beyond the Arab world.”  He notes that Western media is likely to cover before local or Arab media, thus hubs get results.  ”How can we produce more hubs evenly across the Arab states?,” asks Weddady.

Wong asks if he has any suggestions for building hubs.  Weddady notes that it’s undeniable that the flourishing of civil society in the Arab world puts them in a place to receive attention (and possibly funding) from foreign NGOs.  The question then is what can we do moving forward?  He says that with a lack of internal culture to fund such initiatives, outside funding can be necessary.

Weddady also notes that Arabs are at the forefront of the fight and that Arabs have skills, they just need support: from the media, for capacity-building, but not for strategic planning.

Wong takes the mic again to raise the subject of corporations and what kinds of roles they can play.

Rashid notes the role of the Egyptian government in limiting the creation and reach of NGOs.  Mohammed Abdullah notes that in Lebanon, the government is begging for projects, while activists in Egypt and Morocco, for example, can’t get funds.  He also notes that, regarding whether or not bloggers should get funded, it’s a matter of influence: grassroots, volunteer bloggers have no rules, no restrictions, and no regulations.  He also agrees with me that organizations’ incessant focus on Iran and Syria, due to a political agenda, is harming the human rights sphere.

A blogger from Indonesia notes that the problem in his country is the government has started to pay bloggers (as in Russia and China) to write for the government.  In Philippines, it’s transparent, other places it isn’t.

Hisham Khribchi from Morocco notes that there is little contact between blogospheres in each regions.  He suggests a transnational structure to educate people about legislation, as well as ways in which they can help other bloggers in difficult situations.

Anas Qtiesh notes the idea of passively sharing tools with bloggers globally, but also explains that it needs to be done safely.

Angelina from Vietnam talks about speaking up about freedom of expression; for example, Google helped bring coverage to the situation in Vietnam.

Stewart from the Open Society Institute feels that we need to support legal defense funds for people outside of the traditional media network; these funds already exist, but how can we expand them to more communities?

Lhadon from Tibet notes that in the Tibetan context, strategic nonviolence resistance training would be helpful.  She states that we have the capacity but not the training.

Cynthia Wong thanks participants for attending and says we should continue the discussion online.

In the piece, Khoury questioned the State Department’s role in promoting digital technologies in the region. Anyone who has ever spoken with me at length about this topic knows how I feel: that the U.S. government cannot be taken seriously in promoting digital tools for democracy until it stops supporting dictatorships and policies that undermine their work, such as export controls.

Khoury, in the following statement, echoes my feelings on the matter:

One cannot take seriously the United States or any other Western government that funds political activism by young Arabs while it simultaneously provides funds and guns that help cement the power of the very same Arab governments the young social and political activists target for change.

When the United States government upholds the tyrannical rule of the likes of Moubarak while simultaneously implementing programs in Cairo to help young activists on the ground, that, my friends, is what we call hypocrisy. When the government implements export controls on Syrians and Iranians that prevent their ability to tap into important communications tools whilst simultaneously sending young State Department employees to Damascus to promote the influx of American business, we know we should be questioning their motives. And when the United States government helps young Iranians undermine their government by urging Twitter to stay open at crucial moments but ignores the pervasive online censorship and myriad protests against it in secular ally Tunisia, you know we have a problem.

At the same time, Khoury’s statement that “all the new media and hundreds of thousands of young bloggers from Morocco to Iran have not triggered a single significant or lasting change in Arab or Iranian political culture” is patently false.

There are various examples to choose from: Iran’s Green Movement might not have sparked a Twitter revolution, but it’s an undeniable fact that Twitter, and the media that covered it, helped create awareness of the nascent movement amongst Americans. In Tunisia, offline protests against online censorship rely on the networks available because of social media. In Morocco, each blogger arrested has been released soon after, undoubtedly with the help of online activists, whose loud online protest most certainly sped up their release. Even the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement could not possibly have gained the ground it has globally without the power of new media.

In Egypt, where bloggers and activists can easily be arrested under emergency law, the beating of young businessman Khaled Said by police sparked an online protest that garnered support from around the Arab world and beyond, resulting in real change. As Egyptian columnist Mona Eltahawy stated in a recent Washington Post piece:

Thanks to social media’s increasing popularity and ability to connect activists with ordinary people, Egyptians are protesting police brutality in unprecedented numbers. On July 27, the two police officers connected to his death stood trial on charges of illegal arrest and excessive use of force. If convicted, they face three to 15 years’ imprisonment.

Of course, protest and civil disobedience were around long before the onset of ubiquitous social media. But what social media offers is the ability to more easily connect–not just with people in one’s own community, but with people outside of it as well. Though Egyptians deserve the credit for the tangible results that came from protesting Khaled Said’s death, the mobilization of fellow Arabs–and others–on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs spurred the media into reporting on it.

Another question remains: Do these activists truly benefit from U.S. government support? Again, the pundits are torn. Fellow blogger and activist Nasser Weddady believes that Arab activists are just fine without it:

My answer is very simple, these activists might actually NOT, I repeat, NOT NEED US government’s funds or support. They have done fine for themselves so far and grew their skills tremendously. most of them factor already in their game plans that there is no cavalry that will be forthcoming from DC to do a job they already figured how to do for themselves, thank you very much…

…As of now, it looks to me like Washington DC politicians need Middle East activists a heck lot more than Middle Eastern activists need them…

Sami Ben Gharbia, Global Voices Advocacy Director, echoed Weddady’s sentiments at the Global Voices Summit in Santiago, Chile earlier this year, stating that some U.S.-backed initiatives, such as those by Freedom House, actually do more to endanger the lives of local activists than they do to help. I’m inclined to agree; in some places, collaborating with the U.S. government, even on an initiative you believe in, is to wear a scarlet letter, often T for traitor.

I’m also inclined to agree with Weddady, at least in part. I attended the the session on funding in Beirut that he ran, and heard the same sentiment: “We’re doing our own thing, leave us alone.”

Native initiatives, meaning those launched by local activists or NGOs, are in most cases the ones most likely to gain local support and succeed, certainly. But, in many cases, such initiatives lack funding. So is there room for funding from foreign governments, particularly the U.S.?

For me, it all goes back to my first point; there is perhaps a place for U.S. funding to back democracy-related initiatives, but first the contradictions in policy must be lowered or eliminated. More efforts must be made to protect the safety of those who take part in U.S.-backed initiatives. And funding must be prioritized for native (or native-partnered) initiatives, rather than those implemented by outsiders.

But in the end, we need to accept that digital activism is real. It may not have effected long-term change just yet, but it has made short-term strides, and in any case, with Facebook celebrating its sixth birthday and Twitter barely a toddler, it’s all too soon to tell.

I remember having the same feeling two years ago as I arrived home from Budapest and proceeded to collapse somewhat depressed into my bed for three days, missing even Boston’s fantastic 4th of July celebrations.  This time, there’s no melancholia–frankly, I was kind of excited to get home and see my “people”–but certainly the same sense of changedness.  Each time I return from a conference like this one (you know, the meaningful, heartfelt conferences, not the businesslike, lectury ones) I have this sense of rechargedness, a desire to start fresh, change my habits, and reflect…get down with my om.

When I joined GV in April 2007, I had no idea the path it would lead me on…and even when I attended the 2008 Summit, having just been hired at Berkman, little did I know that two years later, I’d be invited to speak on a panel with YouTube’s head of policy, or to the Al Jazeera Forum, where I’ll be speaking next weekend.  Despite my occasional complaints, mostly related to jet lag or people plagiarizing my shit, I feel truly thrilled every single day, which is more than I could ever possibly ask for.

Two years ago, upon returning from Budapest, I wrote about a sense of unbelonging and a desire to see so much more of the world.  While the sense of unbelonging still creeps up now and again, I feel that in Cambridge, I’ve made my home, at least for awhile.

That day, I also wrote: “My passport expires in 2012 and has 25 stamps and 27 free spaces. Will you help me fill them?”

Since then, I’ve made it to Syria, Japan, Malaysia, Lebanon, Chile, and Canada a few times,  filling up nearly 20 of those 27 free spaces.  After my next two trips, I’ll be forced to fill in my passport with a second set of pages.  For that, I say thank you.

And to my GV friends reading (GVers?  Geevers?), I am once again so thrilled to have met so many of you.  You guys are my global family.  Until next time!

I joined Global Voices in April 2007, about two years and 8 months ago.  As I explain in this video post, I joined because my blog was quoted in GV, as a Moroccan blog.  I’d been living in Morocco for a little less than two years at the time, and had become part of the Moroccan blogosphere in a way.  I saw my blog quoted, began reading GV, then shortly afterward noticed that the posts on Morocco had died off.  So I wrote to the Middle East and North Africa editor who was (and still is) Amira al Hussaini.  She wrote back almost immediately, and within a week, I’d written my very first Global Voices post, which dealt with the recent bombings in Casablanca and the “soul of Morocco.”  A few days later, I wrote about Moroccan bloggers’ reactions to the Virginia Tech Massacre in the United States.  It was while writing that story that I realized how big of a deal citizen media was.

Flash forward to now: I’ve just returned from a trip to Beirut, spent amongst several Global Voicers.  Earlier this year, I spent my second year in Miami with a crew of GVers (at WeMedia), and last year I attended the second GV Summit, in Budapest.  These people, once strangers on the Internet, have become some of my closest friends.  They are colleagues, people I trust, people I go to with questions, for news.

Global Voices is many things: A network, as I mentioned.  Sometimes it’s news, and sometimes it’s storytelling.  Personally, I’m a fan of the times when GV turns out to be news.  In my own, the Moroccan blogosphere, there are times when GV breaks a story–however “small” the story might seem–which leads to Moroccan activists and bloggers getting interviewed by U.S. and international media.  We spread stories.  We spread words.

As we come upon the one-year anniversary of Israel’s massacre of Gaza, I would remiss not to note the crucial role Global Voices played in getting news out.  As Israel continued its horrendous blockade on Gaza, not allowing foreign press to report on the happenings on the ground, citizen media played perhaps one of its biggest roles yet.  People talk about Twitter and Iran, but what they don’t mention is how people like Ayesha Saldanha reported in her blog on text messages received from friends in Palestine, which were then amplified by GV.  I shared stories from my friend Mohammad Alsaafin, who was reporting from Ramallah on texts received from family in Gaza.  Others shared the views and reactions from everywhere from Syria to China.  Global Voices’ coverage on the Gaza attacks were among the best out there.  We managed to share the human side of the story that other news outlets could not muster.

We spread stories.  We spread words.

*****

Seven years ago, which seems more like a lifetime, I made my second trip ever across the ocean.  The first trip, nearly seven years prior to that (at 14 years old), had been to the UK, where I remember being surprised at the subtle differences between Brits and Americans, not necessarily visible on the surface but clear once a conversation started (I came back saying “petrol,” incidentally).  This trip though, as I’m sure I mentioned before, was to a much-farther-away place, a place which occupied nearly no space in my imagination – Senegal.  I remember my surprise – as the plane began its descent – at how many lights lit up the city below.  I guess in my naive 21-year-old brain the “dark continent” really was, well, dark.  (As it turns out, Dakar is still one of the dimmest cities I’ve visited, in terms of actual lighting.)

You see, these friends of mine – from Taiwan and Syria, Lebanon, Bolivia, Bahrain, the UK and the US – they have taught me so much.  About how we are the same and about how we are different, about how our lives can intertwine, weave in and out of one another’s, again and again.  I’ve always been fascinated by the more subtle differences in cultures – not the obvious ones, like architectural styles or traditional dress, but those that creep up slowly from beneath the surface.  The kind that you might face even when the person you’re looking at looks just like you.

*****

In the fall of 2005, I was living in Meknès, Morocco.  It feels a bit odd, in retrospect, that one year out of college I would just pick up and move my life to a city in another country where I knew no one, for a job I had never performed, but I guess that’s youth.

I’d been there for just a few months when, on a deadline to finish a writing project, I took a weekend and went alone to Chefchaouen, in the hopes of getting away from everything and being able to just sit down and write.  On my first night there, I was too excited by the beauty of the little mountain town, however, and decided to venture out to do some snacking and shopping.

My second stop crafts shop, where I was lured in by the young proprietor.  He was impressed that I spoke a little Arabic, and I was impressed at his lack of pressure for me to buy anything.  We ended up sitting together for some time, chatting about travel – he’d been to many more countries than I had, and I was riveted by his tales of places far away.  At some point in the conversation, he asked if I minded if he smoked, then pulled out a fresh pack.  He tapped the pack against his hand a few times, then peeled back the plastic wrapper, popping open the box and tearing the foil.  But before he could take one to smoke, he pulled out the middle cigarette, flipping it upside down.

The look on my face set him into a small fit of laughter.  “What, you’ve never seen anyone do that before?” he asked in the curious mix of Arabic, French, Spanish, and English we’d already established.  “No, no,” I responded, “I have.  Many times, actually.  I just wasn’t aware that people did that here.”

“People do that everywhere,” he told me, taking a drag from his cigarette.  “People everywhere do the same things, we just don’t realize it.”

*****

]]> http://jilliancyork.com/2009/10/30/699/feed/ 2 http://jilliancyork.com/2009/02/14/teaching-my-mom-to-twitter/ http://jilliancyork.com/2009/02/14/teaching-my-mom-to-twitter/#comments Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:43:36 +0000 Jillian http://jilliancyork.com/?p=395 A couple of weeks ago, I made a pledge to teach someone how to blog or use Twitter.  The initiative was suggested in GV’s internal e-mail list and everyone immediately embraced it – and so Valentine’s Day 2009 became Social Media Kisses day.

I was willing, of course – the problem was that I couldn’t think of anyone in my daily life who doesn’t already blog or use Twitter.  After all, I do work at the Internet frontier.

But thanks to the great work from the rest of the GV community, it suddenly occurred to me this morning who to ask…My mom!  She’s very busy, so I couldn’t see her blogging, but she’s also very Internet-savvy (and more knowledgeable about computer hardware and networks than I am), so I figured she could catch on quickly to Twitter.

And, of course, she did:

So go ahead – follow my mom on Twitter!  It certainly won’t be the weirdest thing you’ve ever done.

And if you’d like to join the initiative, sign the pledge and tag your tweets #SMK (social media kisses).

Earlier today, a tweet popped up on my screen from someone I’d just begun to follow.  MeghnaK is a (self-described) 13-year-old blogger from India.  Her blog is what you might expect from a young woman…mostly personal, with some poetry and a few newsworthy stories.  Her grasp on blogging is clearly beyond her years (or is it?  There were no blogs when I was 13) however, and her writing is impeccable.  Anyway, she remarked on Twitter that her blog is often translated into other languages so that people can read it.

Now, I’m not sure how she figured that out, but it is certainly indicative of a growing trend; newsseekers, tired of seeing the same old in the media of their native language, are seeking translated sources more and more.  And MeghnaK’s timing couldn’t have been better, as Chris Salzberg of Global Voices’ Lingua project is speaking at Berkman today on that very topic.  Chris has written a very interesting paper on his experiences with Lingua and Global Voices, published in Translation Journal.

Lingua, allegedly “one of the largest and most active translation communities in the world,” was borne of the Global Voices 2006 Summit in Delhi, India.  The project answered a need from Global Voices readers whose English comprehension was not good enough to understand the stories coming out of GV.  And since Global Voices authors translate blogs from other languages into English on a regular basis, Lingua was a natural extension of that spirit.

Today, Lingua boasts 15 languages, with 7 soon to come.  But what’s fascinating is not that Lingua exists, but how it exists.  Although each language team has an editor (or in some cases, two), the translators themselves are all volunteers. The teams utilize a distributed translation model; some teams translate pieces using a wiki, others farm out translations to individual translators.  All are still working on the process.

Of course, Lingua is not without its challenges. Chris points to “lost context” as the biggest challenge of the project, meaning, when original articles are translated into a foreign language, translators are often stumped on how to translate phrases, concepts or terms. For example, in an article on “genital excision” (also known as female genital mutilation), a Malagasy translator had difficulty translating the foreign concept. She finally settled on “circumcision of young girls.” This is a common occurrence; as a Global Voices author, I’ve had translators contact me on a number of occasions to clarify terms I’ve used in articles on Morocco; terms which are clear in English but may not be in, for example, Korean.

Another challenge faced by Lingua is the discrepancies between GV’s bloggers and its translators; while bloggers are often well-versed in “web 2.0″ and proficient as bloggers, some translators (though volunteers) often have a more professional focus in their translation work and are perhaps less familiar with the Internet.

What is clear, though, is that Lingua is a success. Readership grows by the month, and several languages, including Spanish and Italian, have made it into Google News listings. Many languages used within Lingua (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swahili) cover multiple regions and countries, allowing for a broader reach. And Lingua has a growing number of partnerships with other organizations: GV Arabic and Al Jazeera Talk have linked up, as well as GV Chinese and China Times.

Most of all, Lingua provides one of the world’s best resources for global news and information and is setting a global precedent for distributed translation projects. As Chris wrote in his paper, “With the Internet becoming more multilingual by the day, there is a growing need for local voices to fill in the gaps of ‘global news.’” Just as Global Voices brings local voices to the forefront, Lingua brings those voices to the masses.