Crooked Timber asks a legitimate question: Can anyone help me understand why some people are so vehemently opposed to certain people (or topics) having entries on Wikipedia? Why do people get so worked up about the mere existence of certain entries? Currently, an entry for Joe the Plumber is being debated. Does it really dilute…
Showing all posts tagged internet
Australia embraces web censorship
My following article appears on the Global Voices Advocacy site: The issue of internet censorship generally involves countries deemed non-democratic or “repressive” (something I discuss in my new book, The Blogging Revolution.) We regularly read reports about the regimes in China or Iran blocking countless “subversive” websites for overtly political gain. Alas, a growing number…
Keep the government out of our lives
October 11 was Freedom Not Fear 2008 across the world, designed to protest the ever-growing tendency of governments to monitor its citizens:
Blogging is in the blood
One of America’s leading bloggers, Andrew Sullivan, explains why he blogs: For centuries, writers have experimented with forms that evoke the imperfection of thought, the inconstancy of human affairs, and the chastening passage of time. But as blogging evolves as a literary form, it is generating a new and quintessentially postmodern idiom that’s enabling writers…
The fading power of Castro
How the internet is changing Cuba into a more open society, despite the best efforts of the regime to arrest this progress.
An assistant to democracy
Leading Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas, who features in my book, The Blogging Revolution, talks about the role of bloggers in a US-backed dictatorship such as his country: Some people say that we bloggers are the real new opposition, the new civil society, the new press. But I do not think so. We will have a…
The Australian Jewish News on The Blogging Revolution
The Australian Jewish News reviewed The Blogging Revolution on October 3. The review is here. An online revolution Reviewed by Sharon Givoni Two years after the release of his controversial book My Israel Question, Antony Loewenstein has just released The Blogging Revolution, which is essentially an account of bloggers around the globe who live and…
The Supper Club goes blogging
On Sunday I was the speaker at a relatively new Sydney institution, the Supper Club. Started by young refugees from the conservative think-tank, The Centre for Independent Studies, the aim is to bring people from the left and right to debate issues of the day. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. The group’s blog post about the…
It’ll take more than a net connection
Does the internet inherently bring a more democratic world? A new Australian report questions this, as do I in my book, The Blogging Revolution.
Digging beneath the surface
In Iran, a consumerist economy and a hardline government have corroded interest in… politics. The blogosphere and campuses reflect the… shift. But Iranians… retain their capacity to surprise, writes Nasrin Alavi.