Category Archives: Social Media and Interesting Technology

GOVERNMENT INTERNET FILTERING INCREASES IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

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Below is the text of an August 12 announcement from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Cambridge, Mass. – 14 countries in the Middle East and North Africa out of 18 countries surveyed filter Internet content using technical means, according to new studies released by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), a partnership among groups at four leading universities: Toronto, Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. These reports offer an updated view of Internet content controls in the region and a point of comparison to an earlier global survey carried out in 2006-2007. The studies show that Internet censorship has continued apace in the Middle East and North Africa.
“Our latest research results on Internet filtering and surveillance in the Middle East and North Africa confirm the growing use of next generation cyberspace controls beyond mere denial of information,” said Ron Deibert, ONI Principal Investigator and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. “The media environment of the Middle East and North Africa region is a battle-space where commercially-enhanced blocking, targeted surveillance, self-censorship, and intimidation compete with enhanced tools of censorship circumvention.”
“Internet censorship in the region is increasing in both scope and depth, and filtering of political content continues to be the common denominator among filtering regimes there,” said Helmi Noman, the OpenNet Initiative’s Middle East and North Africa lead researcher. “Governments also continue to disguise their political filtering, while acknowledging blocking of social content, and censors are catching up with increasing amounts of online content, in part by using filtering software developed by companies in the U.S.”
Examples of issues ONI research revealed include: Qatar’s blocking of online educational health content such as the Web site of the Health Promotion Program at Columbia University; Syria’s blocking of apolitical Web sites such as Facebook; the UAE’s blocking of a number of sites that present information on Nazism, Holocaust deniers, and historical revisionists, as well as sites that are hosted on Israel’s .il domain; and two Yemeni ISPs’ use of Websense.
Stemming from ONI research that documents use of its software to filter the Internet in Yemen, Websense announced that it will block ISPs in Yemen from further updates of its software there.
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Today’s release of new data and analysis follows the ONI’s May 2007 release of its first global survey, and the subsequent publication of Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering (MIT Press, 2008). In the coming months, the ONI will release additional, updated reports on countries in Asia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Europe, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as on North America and on Australia and New Zealand. These reports will provide the analytical basis for a book to be released in early 2010, Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights and Rule in Cyberspace.

via GOVERNMENT INTERNET FILTERING INCREASES IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA | Berkman Center
The percentage of countries filtering the Internet is not cause for celebration, but on the other hand there have been real advances in freedom of expression in parts of the MENA region.  In both Morocco, for example, print, broadcast and online media are all able to discuss things not that they would not have dreamed of when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the 90s.  Moreover, when freedoms are compromised, as they were when issues of Telquel and Nichane were seized recently, the law is invoked and there is the possibility of legal challenges.  They are seldom effective, but nonetheless, the possibility exists.
Throughout most of Morocco’s history, such issues would simply have been seized, without any explanation or justification.  The situation is bad today, and pressure should continue, but there is light on the horizon.

Wikipedia Will Limit Changes on Articles About Living People – NYTimes.com

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This, folks, is big news.

Officials at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit in San Francisco that governs Wikipedia, say that within weeks, the English-language Wikipedia will begin imposing a layer of editorial review on articles about living people.
The new feature, called “flagged revisions,” will require that an experienced volunteer editor for Wikipedia sign off on any change made by the public before it can go live. Until the change is approved — or in Wikispeak, flagged — it will sit invisibly on Wikipedia’s servers, and visitors will be directed to the earlier version.

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Still the problems that led to this change do exist, so what is to be done?
via Wikipedia Will Limit Changes on Articles About Living People – NYTimes.com.

AT&T's About Face

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While AT&T had previously stated that it has no role in designing or approving applications for Apple’s App Store, the company has now acknowledged in its reply to a Federal Communications Commission’s inquiry that it does, at least in regard to VoIP apps.

“AT&T and Apple agreed that Apple would not take affirmative steps to enable an iPhone to use AT&T’s wireless service (including 2G, 3G and Wi-Fi) to make VoIP calls without first obtaining AT&T’s consent.”
Apple confirmed this in their response, stating: “There is a provision in Apple’s agreement with AT&T that obligates Apple not to include functionality in any Apple phone that enables a customer to use AT&T’s cellular network service to originate or terminate a VoIP session without obtaining AT&T’s permission.”
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via AT&T’s About Face | Free Press.
No big surprise there.

Programming peace. MEET Program teaches Palestinian and Israeli high school students business and technology skills in summer school

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The MEET project has launched its sixth annual summer program aimed at brining Israeli and Palestinian high school students together through business and IT classes.
Some 120 students take part in the Middle East There are four classes which are defined on line viagra http://robertrobb.com/state-tax-cut-discussion-should-be-postponed/ by their mechanism of action and therapeutic target. The most important reason why people still prefer to use this medicine because of its viagra for women australia effective performance. Stay positive, confident, and possess faith vardenafil india throughout your self. Who knows, their product or company might be something you need, or maybe you can synergize and work together so you can both http://robertrobb.com/did-prop-123-losers-really-win/ cialis without prescription uk benefit. Education Through Technology program held in Jerusalem. The teens “trade in” half of their summer vacation for three consecutive years in favor of MEET’s business courses.

via Programming peace – Israel Activism, Ynetnews.

Facebook Deleted the Fanpage of the Exiled Hammas Leader Khaled Meshaal

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via Facebook Deleted the Fanpage of the Exiled Hammas Leader Khaled Meshaal.

Why Online Schools Are Booming

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Here is a provocative paragraph from a Newsweek article on the growth of online education.

Online offerings these days can sometimes even surpass the classroom experience. Aaron Walsh, a professor at Boston College and a former videogame designer, has pioneered Immersive Education, a method of teaching through virtual worlds. Meeting in Second Life instead of a physical classroom, says Walsh, allows for some feats that gravity renders impossible, like having art-history students fly to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or biology majors to take a Magic Schoolbus–like trip through the human body. Using videos, podcasts, live chats, Webcams, and wikis, educators increasingly see online learning as a way to engage the videogame generation with pedagogy that feels more like entertainment than drudgery. Students in the new homeland-security master’s degree program at the University of Connecticut this fall, for example, will have coursework that resembles Grand Theft Auto: dwelling in a cybercity called San Luis Rey plagued with suicide bombers, biochemical attacks, and other disasters. At Arizona State, students in an Introduction to Parenting class raise a “virtual child.” They have to post the progress of their online charge through all the phases of childhood. “The classes are so much more interactive, and I can log on when I’m most ready to learn,” says Jaquelyn Holleran, a junior majoring in family and human development at ASU. “I like that so much better than having to rush to class or sit through a lecture that’s boring.”

Technology and the distance learning it enables opens up so many possibilities for extending the university, and that is incredibly exciting.  The new methodologies and pedagogies it allows, like those listed above, are also reason for educators to rejoice.  I certainly have no doubt that online offerings these days can surpass the classroom experience.
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It isn’t always an either or proposition, either.  The hybrid course is often the site of the most exciting and innovative teaching.  More on that another day.

MacBreakz: I'd Swear by this Program!

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MacBreakz Screenshot

MacBreakz Screenshot

As someone who endures the effects of a poor ergonomic setup and a failure to take regular breaks when I get wrapped up in a project, I strongly recommend that if you, too, have this problem you set up something to remind you on your computer. There are several ways to do this. Many calendaring programs can send regular reminders.
If you own an Apple computer, however, I can recommend an excellent program. Go to this page http://www.publicspace.net/MacBreakZ/ and download a trial of MacBreakz. MacBreakz is a wonderful program that allows you to program the length of time you want between breaks, can provide you recommended stretches, can force you to take breaks by locking the screen, etc. But only if you enable it.
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It’s only available for Mac OS, but there are simial PC programs, but I hesitate to recommend one, not knowing them well.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics in the Health Care Debate

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I strongly recommend that everyone who is interested in the current debate over health care, and let’s face it, all of us ought to be, regularly check out the site FactCheck.org. This project of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy checks claims of politicians, political campaigns, lobbying organizations, etc. against the facts.
And guess what, FactCheck.org has found that proponents of a government administered option for health care are lying to you. This time it is about the record breaking profits of the insurance industry. In four ads from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) targeting specific lawmakers

the narrator says that the targeted lawmaker has received many thousands of dollars in campaign contributions “from the insurance industry.” What do the insurance companies get, the narrator asks? “Record profits.”
We asked the DCCC for back-up on the “record profits” claim. A spokesman sent us citations of several articles, none of which prove the claim. One notes that UnitedHealth Group moved up in the Fortune 500 rankings of corporations, but even that article says the company reaped lower profits in 2008 than in 2007. It’s true that UnitedHealth’s numbers for the second quarter of 2009 beat analysts’ expectations, as we noted last week, but the company posted higher profits in, say, the first quarter of 2008.

via FactCheck.org, Broken Record on Record Profits

And guess what else, opponents of a publicly administered option are lying to, on a lot of things. They are lying about the “death panels.”
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In truth, that section of the bill would require Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling sessions helping seniors to plan for end-of-life medical care, including designating a health care proxy, choosing a hospice and making decisions about life-sustaining treatment. It would not require doctors to counsel that their patients refuse medical intervention.

There is a tv ad in which a senior citizen implies that Medicare coverage will be cut back under a government plan, but that abortion will be provided on demand. This, too, is not true.

In fact, none of the health care overhaul measures that have made it through the committee level in Congress say that abortion will be covered, and one of them explicitly says that no public funds will be used to finance the procedure. Furthermore, none of the bills call explicitly for cuts in Medicare coverage, much less rationing, under a public plan.

via FactCheck.org, Surgery for Seniors vs. Abortions?
There are articles analyzing the claims Obama made in his press conference, those frightening tv commercials from Conservatives for Patient Rights, etc. Check out the site.
This issue is too important for sides to be making false claims or stretching the truth, but sometimes they, themselves, have wrong information. So it is our responsibility to check the facts.

Researchers Say Facebook Can Fuel Jealousy and Increase Time on Facebook

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Amy Muise and Emily Christofides, both Ph.D. candidates, and Serge Desmarais, an associate professor of applied social psychology at the University of Guelph, in Ontario have conducted a study into Facebook the relationship between jealousy and Facebook usage, discovering that spying on their significant others often people question the partners’ honesty and fidelity, and that time spent on the Web site tended to increase as a result.

The undergraduates were asked questions like “How likely are you to become jealous after your partner has added an unknown member of the opposite sex?” and “How likely are you to monitor your partner’s activities on Facebook?” The answer to both of those questions was “very likely” for a substantial number of participants. The respondents said they spent an average of nearly 40 minutes on the Web site each day, with women spending more time than men.
More than three-quarters of the participants said they knew their partners had added as “friends” people with whom they had previously had flings. And more than 92 percent said their partners were at least somewhat likely to have “friends” they did not themselves know.
Rising jealousy can be attributed to the social-networking site, which makes speaking with not-so-close friends easier than before, the researchers say. Many people add as friends people they have met in passing, rather than adding only acquaintances they see regularly. Men in the study reported having 100 more friends, on average, than women did. Women outscored men on the jealousy scale, averaging a score of 3.29 out of 7, while men scored 2.81. Three-quarters of those who completed the survey were women.
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via The Wired Campus – Researchers Say Facebook Can Fuel Jealousy and Increase Time on Facebook – The Chronicle of Higher Education.
For more, see “More Information than You Even Wanted: Does Facebook Bring Out the Green-Eyed Monster of Jealousy?” in the August edition of the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior.

City libraries shut out of broadband stimulus money?

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Millions of Americans are turning to the Internet to look for new jobs. But in many parts of the United States, public libraries are the only free provider of that crucial combo: a computer plus Internet access. This means that low-income job seekers depend on them when searching for employment. sildenafil canada pharmacy The hosts articulate everything clearly for an easy apprehension of the treatment. The question then becomes: levitra australia Are generic drugs as effective as brand name drugs? The answer is a resounding yes. Other Foods- Well, foods like eggs, watermelon, orange juice, side effects viagra apple, bananas, dry fruits, honey, ginger and onion should also include your diet, as they all improve blood supply and cause firmer and fuller erection. Supervised use of DHEA is, however, important because it can also affect viagra 100 mg http://www.midwayfire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/FY19-AUDIT.pdf your emotional and psychological state of mind. Oddly, as library development directors look for funds to beef up their networks, they’re not finding the support they expected from the White House’s $7.2 billion broadband stimulus package.
The first round of stimulus grants “in effect de-prioritizes libraries and discourages them from applying for funding,” complains the American Library Association in a letter sent to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. “The ability of our libraries to meet community needs is in jeopardy—especially when library use has heavily increased across the country in these difficult economic times.”

Read the full story at Ars Technica.