My new column for openDemocracy comes ahead of international Day Against DRM (next Tuesday), and starts a thread of thought I want to pursue further – should we fight for our digital rights as “consumers” or “citizens”? I had an interesting conversation over coffee with someone who could be described as a veteran political insider [...]
Categories: freeculture, law, opendemocracy, politics
This fortnight’s column for openDemocracy centres on a book I discovered while researching a paper I am currently writing for the Ford Foundation on freedom of expression in the networked information age. The book is written by Ithiel De Sola Pool, a prolific scholar of political science and sociology. Although it was written in 1983, [...]
Categories: freeculture, law, opendemocracy
With news in today’s UK papers that the Deleting Online Predators Act went down a storm at the House of Representatives last week, this fortnight’s column for openDemocracy asks if legislation is the right response to cases of child molestation involving social networking sites:
“Warning: this article cites language that some readers may find [...]
Categories: law, networks, opendemocracy
Amnesty International released a new report yesterday calling on Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google to stand up to China and come clean to their global customers on web censorship behind the Great Firewall. Here’s my report on it for openDemocracy:
“Could people power stop Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! from doing business with China’s repressive [...]
Categories: censorship, opendemocracy
My fortnightly column for openDemocracy has just gone live, an extension of this post of last week:
“It is nearly two decades since the British government tried to ban Spycatcher, and you would expect them to have learned their lesson. After throwing £2 million in legal expenses after the biography of former MI5 operative Peter Wright, [...]
Categories: censorship, law, opendemocracy
(originally published on openDemocracy)
American free speech is being squeezed by bad case law and the disproportionate power of intellectual property owners. US citizens must be vigilant, says Becky Hogge.
While the Bush administration stands accused of complicity in torture, corrupting the political process, and spying on its own citizens, the average American may find it hard [...]
Categories: censorship, copyright, law, opendemocracy
(originally published on openDemocracy)
The Open Rights Group campaign for online freedom of information, individual liberty and the integrity of the public domain is a new stage in the defence of digital rights, says Becky Hogge.
Tonight, I am following in the footsteps of a Grateful Dead lyricist, Sun Microsystems’ fifth employee and the inventor of the [...]
Categories: copyright, opendemocracy, openrightsgroup, politics
(originally published on openDemocracy)
The debate about who governs the internet will dominate the World Summit on the Information Society meeting in Tunis this week – but the world’s web users have more important things on their mind, says Becky Hogge.
One of the biggest draws of the information technology scene is that, unlike nearly any other [...]
Categories: censorship, development, law, opendemocracy, politics
(originally published on openDemocracy)
Geoff Mulgan sees two ways in which organisational principles borrowed from the world of open source can make the political process more accountable. One is in turning democracy back into a conversation, the other in allowing the people to scrutinise public services. But, he warns, there still needs to be a recognisable [...]
Categories: freeculture, open source, opendemocracy, politics
(originally published on openDemocracy)
On World Intellectual Property Day, Becky Hogge speaks to Cory Doctorow, who has been campaigning for reform at the World Intellectual Property Organisation for two years, about the strains put on the democratic process by the arrival of dissenting voices.
Today, 26 April 2005, is World Intellectual Property Day, a celebration of the [...]
Categories: copyright, law, opendemocracy, politics