Search results for 'censorship'

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Operation: Payback 

To whom it concerns,

Over the past years, we have borne witness to a technological revolution. The individual has become free, in the most extreme anarchistic sense, to share ideas. Some of these ideas are shared behind proxies, darknets, or similar ?closed doors?. Nevertheless, the ideas are out there. There have been similar instances of such revolutions of the mind. Their effects on society are inestimably great. As in past times with the invention of the printing press, so it is today that the people embrace this revolution, this new ?anarchy? of freedom to share, while their autocratic rulers seek to crush this freedom.

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Engineering of Consent 

One of the major challenges facing citizen groups campaigning to prevent, minimize, limit or regulate socially-irresponsible or environment-degrading practices of transnational corporations is how to deal with the corporations' increasing call for 'dialogue' and 'cooperation'. Many transnational corporations say they have seen the error of their ways and have rectified their mistakes. Eager to do their best for 'our common future', they claim to be listen to their critics. Thus 'dialogues' with companies or industry organizations are frequently portrayed as the way ahead for citizen groups seeking corporate accountability, rather than 'confrontational' strategies such as boycotts. What are the dangers and limits of doing so?

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    The Internet Freedom Fallacy and Arab Digital Activism 

    This article focuses on grassroots digital activism in the Arab world and the risks of what seems to be an inevitable collusion with U.S foreign policy and interests. It sums up the most important elements of the conversation I have been having for the last two years with many actors involved in defending online free speech and the use of technology for social and political change. While the main focus is Arab digital activism, I have made sure to include similar concerns raised by activists and online free speech advocates from other parts of the world, such as China, Thailand, and Iran.

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    Recombinant Television 

    VakuumTV was founded in February 1994 on the initiative of Laszlo Kistamas and currently includes Dora Csernatony, Ferenc Grof, Laszlo Kistamas, and Attila Till. Its members presented weekly broadcasts on Monday nights at the most popular cultural club in Budapest, Tilos az A. Between February 1994 and September 1997 Vakuum TV broadcast 52 shows, and after 3 years of rest, started broadcasting again in 2000. Each show blended short films, interactive engagements between the audience and the announcer, and live performances but each used a very different content to create a parallel televisual reality.

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    The Power of Social Media - The Helplessness of Traditional Media and #direngeziparki #direnankara, #direnizmir 

    Residents of Istanbul started a peaceful sit-in as a reaction to the city governments plans to demolish Taksim Square's Gezi Park on the May 29th 2013. The demolition was part of the plan to replace the park and construct a shopping mall on one of the only green areas left in the central cross road of Istanbul. The reaction was sparked by a decision making process that lacked any consultation with citizens. Inhabitants of the city initiated this on-site protest to raise their voices against the demolition plans, but also to exercise their right to freedom of speech and to freedom of assembly in a democratic society.

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    The Saudi Cables 

    WikiLeaks publishes the Saudi Cables

    Today, Friday 19th June at 1pm GMT, WikiLeaks began publishing The Saudi Cables: more than half a million cables and other documents from the Saudi Foreign Ministry that contain secret communications from various Saudi Embassies around the world. The publication includes "Top Secret" reports from other Saudi State institutions, including the Ministry of Interior and the Kingdom's General Intelligence Services. The massive cache of data also contains a large number of email communications between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and foreign entities. The Saudi Cables are being published in tranches of tens of thousands of documents at a time over the coming weeks. Today WikiLeaks is releasing around 70,000 documents from the trove as the first tranche.

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    make world paper 2 

    The World Social Forum, organized twice in Porto Alegre 2001 and 2002, not only prompted a flurry of autonomous self-organization, crossborder organization, and creative media interventions. It also initiated an intense process of analysis and reflection on the tricky question of a 'global' dynamic of self-organization.

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    Small, Furry Mammals 

    The McLibel media strategy arose from a simple premise: this story has to be told. Most people have been affected by McDonald's in one way or another - working in a store, being nagged by children, stumbling through litter, suffering ill-health or enjoying their burgers - and the corporation's influence continues to increase as they relentlessly pursue their "global domination strategy" (to use their own words). Two people investing their lives to stand up to such a force has got to be a great story in anybody's book.

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    3rd ArtLeaks Working Assembly - Belgrade 

    Cultural Center REX, Jevrejska 16, Belgrade, Serbia
    Friday, 31st of August, 7pm, 2012

    Participants: Corina L. Apostol, Maja Ciric, Pavle Cosic / KORNET, Nikola Radic Lucati, Vladan Jeremic, Selman Trtovac, Vesna Milosavljevic / SEEcult.org, Stefan Tiron, Noa Treister, The Bureau of Melodramatic Research, Marica Radojcic, Rena Rädle.
    The 3rd ArtLeaks Working Assembly will be facilitated by Corina Apostol, The Bureau of Melodramatic Research, Stefan Tiron and Vladan Jeremic.

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    Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto 

    In memoriam: Aaron Swartz

    Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

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    Everybody will be TV 

    Programming produced by any big transnational TV network (CNN, BBC, etc.) is, from the standpoint of an Internet user, similar to an Aggregator site distributing video material. It may also function as a portal providing a variety of material of interest to the viewer. Similarities abound - sections of a transnational TV network correspond to parts of an aggregate site: a program schedule is analogous to a web site index, news programs function as general information about the portal's community, shows represent particular web pages or sections on the portal. Most importantly, both TV network and a Web portal try to fulfill the basic media mission: to define its own reality and broadcast it that reality to potential followers - TV viewers or Internet users.

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    Indonesia: The Web as a Weapon 

    CAPABLE OF cutting through time and space, the Internet offers a means of communication not previously dreamed of. It has created important new possibilities as it shrinks distances and provides an astounding volume and variety of information to those who have computer access. One result of these is the acceleration of the development of solidarity networks among peoples, regions, and countries. In Indonesia, it has even managed to help topple a strongman who, until his unscheduled resignation in May 1998, had been Asia's longest reigning postwar ruler. To Indonesia's powers that be, controlling the Internet has become close to being an obsession.

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