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DigiActive Memo: US Embargoes Harm Activists

DigiActive’s Mary Joyce, Andreas Jungherr and Daniel Schultz recently created a policy memo on the harmful effects of American software embargoes on digital activists around the world. It was presented for a Congressional hearing before the US Helsinki Commission.

A brief overview:

In the digital age, where a “good” is a string of code that can be delivered anywhere in the world with the click of a mouse, even today’s smart sanctions are not smart enough.  By preventing access to blogging platforms, social networks, and other types of new media, current embargo policies harm the very activists who are furthering our common goals of democracy promotion, while leaving authoritarian governments free to spread propaganda through a range of state-controlled media outlets.

The full version is below.  Click to download the .pdf:

Not Smart Enough:
How America’s “Smart” Sanctions Harm the World’s Digital Activists

by Mary Joyce, Andreas Jungherr and Daniel Schultz[1]
The DigiActive Working Group on Sanction Reform for the Digital Age

A Wave of Attacks on the World’s Digital Activists

In the winter and spring of this year, a wave of attacks on digital activists began.  In Zimbabwe, the web site of one the nation’s strongest pro-democracy groups, Kubatana, was threatened with being shut down.  In Belarus, another pro-democracy web site, this one representing the Belarussian American Association, received the same threat.  In February bloggers in Iran received a similar notice that their blogs would be suspended, this in spite of research by the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society that the Iranian blogosphere is a vibrant arena for both supporters and opponents of the current regime.  In Sudan, aid workers are unable to download Google Earth and its “Crisis in Darfur” map, which would give them important information on sites of violence.  In April users in Syria were temporarily blocked from using the social network LinkedIn, though social networks have played an important role in organizing grassroots citizen movements in countries from Egypt and Morocco to Colombia.

… Perpetrated by United States’ Embargo Policies

Who was behind this wave of attacks?  Was it President Mugabe? President Lukashenko? President Assad?  No.  The perpetrator of these attacks on pro-democracy activists was none other than the United States government and American companies adhering to its embargo regimes.

The United States has several embargo regimes related both to particular products (such as encryption software) and to individuals.  These sanctions were designed to protect US interests while limiting the effect of these measures to our nation’s enemies.  Yet in the digital age, where a “good” is a string of code that can be delivered anywhere in the world with the click of a mouse, even today’s smart sanctions are not smart enough.  By preventing access to blogging platforms, social networks, and other types of new media, current embargo policies harm the very activists who are furthering our common goals of democracy promotion, while leaving authoritarian governments free to spread propaganda through a range of state-controlled media outlets.

… With American Firms Caught in an Untenable Position

These embargo policies leave American firms in a difficult position.  Overwhelmed by a mass of overlapping sanctions, many take the most conservative position and simply cut off all clients in targeted countries, even though sanctions target only a few individuals.  This was the policy of the Utah-based company Bluehost, which was responsible for cutting off users in Zimbabwe, Belarus, and Iran earlier this year.  Especially in light of potential fines, Bluehost decided to play it safe by cutting off all users in embargoed countries, rather than constantly cross-check their users against Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) lists.

Though activists may be frustrated with this kind of corporate decision-making, it is consistent with the firm’s role as a profit-making entity.  American companies may choose to promote ethical activity and protect activists in foreign nations, but this is hardly their purpose.  When protecting activists means potentially running afoul of the US government, it is not surprising that many firms choose to cut off activists to protect shareholder interests.

New Embargo Policies for the Digital Age

In light of these private-sector realities, responsibility for protecting foreign democracy activists falls to the US government.  DigiActive’s Working Group on Sanction Reform for the Digital Age recommends the following steps in order to bring about this reform:

1. Creation of a Single Body of Software Regulations: Members of the government bodies responsible for promulgating sanctions should conduct a thorough review of all regulations and legislation related to embargoes on software including, but not limited to, the Commerce Department’s Export Administration Regulations and the sanctions programs maintained by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.  This review would result in the creation of a single volume of software policies which, at a minimum, will make it easier for US firms to abide by current rules and, by clarifying their responsibilities, would allow them to follow the letter of the law rather than taking the unnecessarily conservative positions they are currently applying to avoid the risk of transgressing unclear embargo regulations.
2. Stakeholder Review of Software Regulations:  Once this single body of regulation is created, stakeholders should be invited to comment and suggest modifications to the existing rules.  This stakeholder group should include, but not be limited to, representatives of the agencies responsible for promulgating and enforcing the sanctions, representatives of American firms who must abide by the sanctions, and experts in digital activism and democracy promotion.
3. Promulgation of New Regulations:  Based on this stakeholder review, DigiActive suggests that a new set of sanctions be promulgated that recognize 1) that software embargoes function quite differently than embargoes on physical goods 2) that any software embargo is highly susceptible to failure because of the ease in circumventing online blocks to digital goods and 3) that access to new media tools is a great benefit to democracy activists, who lack other means of organization and message dissemination, while being of little use to authoritarian regimes, who have entire state apparatuses at their disposal.

We at the DigiActive Working Group on Sanction Reform for the Digital Age are optimistic about the positive outcome of this process and would like to offer our continuing assistance.  You may contact us through our web site at www.DigiActive.org .

[1] This policy memo was originally written for a Congressional briefing panel before the Commission
on Security and Cooperation in Europe (October 22, 2009)

To download the full version, please click

Action Alert: Help Detained Vietnamese Bloggers

Background: The web has become a critical tool for over 20 million Vietnamese internet users to access and share information beyond the censorship of the state-run media.  Since September 2008, the authorities in Vietnam have unleashed a massive campaign against Vietnamese bloggers and cyber activists. In the last 12 months at least 15 bloggers have been arrested and harassed. According to Viet Tan, a Vietnamese pro-democracy group based outside the country, these bloggers  were simply posting their writings critical of the government’s handling of the land sovereignty disputes with China and bauxite mining. For example blogger Sphinx was detained for posting on his blog a picture of himself wearing a T-shirt saying “Paracel and Spratly islands belong to Vietnam. ”

How to Help: People can download the internet freedom poster and publish it on FaceBook, blogs and so on. People who live in America can send a pre-written letter to their Representative and urge him/her to support internet freedom in Vietnam.

Impact: The bloggers do not belong to any association or organization and it will be easy for them to be forgotten. Any international campaign can be helpful to create a virtual shield to protect them or at least keep their presence alive.

Opportunities: Mozilla Service Week ‘09 (Sept 14-21)

We encourage all our readers (and members) to take advantage of the opportunity provided by Mozilla Service Week and its partners from September 14th to September 21st. Non profit organizations, activists and causes can seek tech help from thousands of volunteers who have already pledged more than 9000 hours providing assistance in web design, social media outreach, tech training, etc..

The project website details some ways you can provide and seek help:

During the week of September 14-21, you can make a serious difference in your local community. Here are just a few ideas of ways you can help:

• Teach senior citizens how to use the Web.
• Show a non-profit how to use social networking to grow its base of supporters.
• Help install a wireless network at a school.
• Create Web how-to materials for a library’s computer cluster.
• Refurbish hardware for a local computer center.
• Update a non-profit organization’s website.
• Teach the values of the open Web to other public benefit organizations.

Opportunities for Activists

Searching through #MozService09 opportunities on the Idealist website for “Activism” related projects already turns up about 30 interesting projects internationally including:

1. Graphic Designer
   Wetlands Activism Collective
   New York, New York  United States
   Last updated on: July 24, 2009
   Description: Wetlands Activism Collective seeks a graphic design student, professional, or other graphic skilled individual to design websites, publications, banners, presentations and educational displays. Helpful Skills: * Proficiency in graphic design for w…

1. Human Rights department
   ThirdWay Human Rights & Development NGO
   Amersfoort, Netherlands  Virtual
   Last updated on: September 3, 2009
   Description: One of ThirdWay’s primary goals in the future is to develop a Human Rights Education Centre in Anyako, Ghana. The center will be a beacon of activism and progress for the community. It will primarily focus on providing Human Rights classes that emphasize ..

Follow the Discussion on Twitter:

You can follow the discussion about the service week on twitter by following the #MozService09 hashtag.

The project is also hosting a Twitter chat on Monday, September 14, at 9am Pacific ( 5pm London time, 9:30pm in India) and will last for 1.5 hours.

DigiActive’s Participation:

Members of the (already all-volunteer) DigiActive team who think this is a brilliant idea have pledged to provide 100 hours of help to any organization or activist cause seeking assistance with their online strategies and digital activism tactics through the Service Week.

We also receive daily requests from activist campaigns working on human rights issues asking for technology and strategy assistance and we will encourage them to post their requests & find volunteers through #mozservice09.

Tactic:Twitter and Citizen Driven Info-Sharing

Description: As you all know already, Twitter is all the rage these days, especially among us digital activists. Recent world events such as the presidential election in Iran and the 2008 Mumbai bombings have made many wonder aloud again if Twitter’s powerful citizen-driven info-sharing is actually activism.

Digital Tools Being Used: Twitter

What Is The Topic: Agus Sari, blogger behind The Goose, recently had musings about how the popular social media tool was used during Jakarta bombings.

From Goose Blog:

That morning, 7:51 am on July 17, 2009, my Blackberry buzzed with a new incoming Twitter (via UberTwitter) from my friend Daniel Tumiwa. It says “Bomb Marriot and Ritz-Carlton Kuningan Jakarta.” After a while, another one: “2 boms go off inside Ritz Carlton and Marriott coffee shops! Not kidding. Am here.”. Then another one: “Left location.Shocked. Lots of blood. Breakfast meetings at coffee shops while bombs went off…

…The droves of incoming twitters have something in common eventually, a “hashtag” of #indonesiaunite (”hashtag” is a tag to identify a twitter entry with similar ones so that they all can be identified together as a group). At some point, I forgot when, #indonesiaunite became the number one “trending topic.” in twitter (this means that twitter entries with #indonesiaunite hashtag had the highest number of twitter entries in the world). Even higher than Paula Abdul! What a great achievement considering the relatively small number of Twitter users in Indonesia.”

Based on the tweets, this is digital activism. Like the Mumbai incident, many of tweets were alerting followers about where bombings were happening, and thus telling where not to go. As mentioned, using an easily identifiable hashtag #idonesiaunite create a simple one-stop to finding information quickly.

What Is The Impact: What was unique about this incident were the offline connections made afterward. A local Jakarta radio station hosted a party for all the “Twitterati” who participated in the online activism to put faces to the Twitter handles and hastags, and start “a movement beyond the social network.” There is also a website now dedicated to buidling upon these relationships.

“There are many other ’causes’ that will make use of the new medium,” said Sari. “And with the internet universe being flat, the social network media will also become the democratizing means for Indonesia, and for the world. The tenet “one person one vote” will be closer to your heart, and your Blackberry.”

Tactic:Twitter and Citizen Driven Info-Sharing

Description: As you all know already, Twitter is all the rage these days, especially among us digital activists. Recent world events such as the presidential election in Iran and the 2008 Mumbai bombings have made many wonder aloud again if Twitter’s powerful citizen-driven info-sharing is actually activism.

Digital Tools Being Used: Twitter

What Is Being Discussed: Agus Sari, blogger behind The Goose, recently had musings about how the popular social media tool was used during Jakarta bombings.

From Goose Blog:

That morning, 7:51 am on July 17, 2009, my Blackberry buzzed with a new incoming Twitter (via UberTwitter) from my friend Daniel Tumiwa. It says “Bomb Marriot and Ritz-Carlton Kuningan Jakarta.” After a while, another one: “2 boms go off inside Ritz Carlton and Marriott coffee shops! Not kidding. Am here.”. Then another one: “Left location.Shocked. Lots of blood. Breakfast meetings at coffee shops while bombs went off…

…The droves of incoming twitters have something in common eventually, a “hashtag” of #indonesiaunite (”hashtag” is a tag to identify a twitter entry with similar ones so that they all can be identified together as a group). At some point, I forgot when, #indonesiaunite became the number one “trending topic.” in twitter (this means that twitter entries with #indonesiaunite hashtag had the highest number of twitter entries in the world). Even higher than Paula Abdul! What a great achievement considering the relatively small number of Twitter users in Indonesia.”

Based on the tweets, this is digital activism. Like the Mumbai incident, many of tweets were alerting followers about where bombings were happening, and thus telling where not to go. As mentioned, using an easily identifiable hashtag #idonesiaunite create a simple one-stop to finding information quickly.

What Was The Impact: What was unique about this incident were the offline connections made afterward. A local Jakarta radio station hosted a party for all the “Twitterati” who participated in the online activism to put faces to the Twitter handles and hastags, and start “a movement beyond the social network.”  There is also a website now dedicated to buidling upon these relationships.

“There are many other ’causes’ that will make use of the new medium,” said Sari. “And with the internet universe being flat, the social network media will also become the democratizing means for Indonesia, and for the world. The tenet “one person one vote” will be closer to your heart, and your Blackberry.”

Interview: Tonyo Cruz on Digital Activism in the Philippines

I am in the Philippines this week with fellow DigiActivist Lynn Casper to participate in a training organized by the Computer Professionals’ Union. While here I decided to interview one of the country’s most prolific digital activists – Tonyo Cruz – and ask him about digital activism in the Philippines.

Tonyo Cruz (foreground) at a recent event in Manila on digital campaigning

Mary Joyce: You are a very prolific digital activist – president of the famous mobile activism organization TXTPower, prominent blogger at tonyocruz.com, and  founder of a Filipino bloggers’ organization. How did you first become  involved in digital activism?

Tonyo Cruz: I’d like to think that I started my activism in high school. I was among the students of Manila Science High School who published an underground paper called The MaSci Times in 1991. We used the old program Printshop to design this one page newsletter that poked fun at our school principal and voiced out our complaints, among others. We just had it photocopied and came out with about a dozen issues.

Bayan, the multisectoral group I worked for in 2000-2003, was among the first people’s organizations in the Philippines to go online. Their first website was hosted in Geocities. As Bayan media officer, I introduced email, email groups and text messaging as ways of quickly and surely reaching journalists. Bayan officials later used email,
email groups and text messaging as tools for managing the organization. These tools — mobiles and the web — later proved crucial in the mass actions that led to the People Power uprising of 2001 which ousted President Estrada.

Following Estrada’s ouster, a group called Plunder Watch pressed [now President] Arroyo to prosecute Estrada. The group held a big media event for the launch of its website which contained Estrada’s accountabilities and liabilities. I was also the media officer of Plunder Watch and oversaw the management of the said website.

That same year, my friends and I gathered in Quezon City to form TXTPower. The following years, I was also involved in trying to form Indymedia Pilipinas which gave way to Indymedia in Manila and in Quezon City.

MJ:  Social networking is very big in the Philippines and Friendster is the most popular. According to their Country Sales Manager, Narciso Reyes, there are about 14 million active Filipino users on the site, which is almost 70%
of the total online population of the Philippines. Has this large user base translated into Friendster being used for digital acitivsm in the Philippines? If not, why not

TC: We will see by late this year whether Friendster will get the attention of candidates and parties, or whether voters themselves would use Friendster for their choice of candidates or for election-related causes. I do hope they do so.

MJ: Although there aren’t figures yet available, there is a growing number of Filipinos migrating from Friendster to Facebook, particularly the tech-savvy urban middle class. You recently used Facebook to organize a blogger
meet-up in opposition to President Macapagal Arroyo. Why did you choose Facebook to organize this mobilization? Which is more activist-friendly, Friendster or Facebook?

TC: Friendster has provided limited use to political activists simply because Facebook has overtaken it as the preferred social networking site of the most articulate, most dynamic and most political segment of the lower, middle and upper classes. They may be fewer than Friendster but these Facebook users are more influential. Also, there
are more activists, journalists and politicians on Facebook than on Friendster. Read more »

Action of “Omission” to Protest Chinese Censorship

What: To protest the implementation of the Green Dam Youth Escort filtering program on all computers sold in China, the blogger Ai Wei Wei is asking Chinese  users to boycott the Internet on July 1st, 2009.

When: July 1st is the date on which Green Dam much come pre-installed (or on an attached disk) for all new Chinese computers.

Where: People’s Republic of China

Why: To protest Green Dam in particular and Chinese censorship in general.

Who: We previously wrote about Ai Weiwei’s largely successful effort to collect the names of the children killed in the Sichuan earthquake last year.  He is also a well-known artist, who helped design the Olympic “Bird’s Nest” stadium in Beijing.

How: Via Twitter, Ai asked people to “Stop any online activities, including working, reading, chatting, blogging, gaming and mailing.  Don’t explain your behavior.”  The interesting aspect of this protest is that Ai is trying to create a political action which does not entail risk to participants.  By asking people not to acknowledge they are taking part in a boycott, Ai hopes to protect them from persecution by Chinese authorities.

It is hard to claim innocence when taking part in a political actions of “commission,” even one that is apparently innocent.  (In Belarus in 2006, for example, young people were arrested for assembling to eat ice cream.)  However, an action of “omission” puts the government in a more complicated position.  After all, not using the Internet isn’t criminal.  It will be interesting to see how many people participate in the action and whether or not the action of omission becomes a new strategy in digital activism.

Hat-tip: Stan Schroeder on Mashable

Image Source: Daily News

Images for Advocacy: Green Dam Girl

Green Dam Girl: “That unhealthy information is so gross; I’m a girl worth 40 million”
Mud Grass Horse: “I’m just an alpaca.”  (source: Danwei)

Background: Using pop culture references in an advocacy campaign is an effective way to get non-activists involved.  It’s also a way to subtly push a political agenda in a country where overt political messages are censored or where posting or passing on political messages can endanger the activist.

Because of the Chinese government’s limitations on freedom of speech and persecution of dissidents, Chinese activists have become masters of satire and symbolism.  The image above is a prime example of their techniques.  Originally published by Chinese blogger Hecaitou, this drawing uses on the visual language of Japanese anime while bringing together some of the greatest hits in Chinese political satire: behold…Green Dam Girl.

Tool:  satiric images spread online

How it’s being used: Green Dam Girl is a cartoon avatar for Green Dam, a piece of self-censoring software which will be mandatory on all computers sold in China starting July 1.  She’s also holding a rabbit, which is the software’s logo.  (Read a review of the software from the OpenNet Initiative.)  On her cap is an image of the river crab, a homonym for the word “harmony” in Chinese and a dig at the Chinese government which calls censorship harmonization.  (Read more on river crab from China expert Rebecca MacKinnon.)   Green Dam Girl is carrying a bucket of paint (or maybe soy sauce) to cover up all the filth on the Internet.

Finally, the animal she has chained up is an infamous mud grass horse.  Another great Chinese homonym, mud grass horse sounds just like “f— your mother” in Chinese and is another dig at censors.  A few months ago there was a group of very funny and popular videos with children singing ever so innocently about the exploits of mud grass horse… and sounding completely filthy!  (Read more about mud grass horse here.)   Of course, mud grass horse has been chained up because he’s part of the Internet filth that Green Dam Girl has been sent to destroy, but he says he’s been falsely accused – he’s just an alpaca!

Lessons:  1) Funny travels further than Angry, especially to engage an audience of non-activists.  (The Free Kareem campaign also uses cartoons to get their message across.)

2) Symbols and language tricks are a great way to get around censors and mock them at the same time.

3) Digital activism campaigns need the skills of people who do not have digital skills.  Someone who is good at drawing can help a campaign create great a poster, graphic, or logo and then all you need is a scanner to get it online.

Action Alert: Filipino Activists vs. the Cha-Cha bill

Background:  No, the cha-cha is not a dance move. The Philippine House of Representatives is planning to adopt House Resolution No. 1109, a bill that would allow it to convene as a constituent assembly and amend the Constitution (or, change the charter).   The measure is quite unpopular with Philippine citizens.  According to a statement made by a group of business associations, “The question all Filipinos should ask is: For whose interest was this action taken? Certainly not the Filipino people’s, as there is no widespread clamor to amend the Constitution, especially now that we are less than a year away from a presidential election.”  Activists are not only going to the street to protest but groups like the Computer Professionals Union (CPU) are also asking supporters to take action online using Twitter.

What:  Here’s how Twitter users can show their opposition to changing the Filipino constitution, and solidarity with Filipino activists on the ground in Manila:

1. Tweet a message of opposition using the hashtag #no2conass
2. CPU has developed a tool that posts tweets from SMS messages sent to +639071134503.  CPU invites everyone to send SMS messages to this number and they will repost them as tweets.SMS messages should have <no2conass><space><message> format.

When: Wednesday, June 10th

Why: To oppose amendments to the Filipino constitution which are not supported by the Filipino people.

image credit: filipinovoices.com

Caste Based Communities on Orkut Mirror India’s Splintered Society

One of the main themes of my research on digital activism is that social technologies are value-agnostic.

At each of the four levels of Content, Collaboration, Community and Collective Intelligence, social technologies can lead to both good and bad outcomes.

I have written before about Shiv Sena’s militant approach towards Orkut communities critical of the party, its leader Bal Thakeray, or its Hindutva ideology. Caste-based communities on Orkut are another disturbing example of online communities mirroring the dysfunctions in Indian society.

For instance, there are more than 1000 communities for Brahmins on Orkut. There are 461 Brahmin communities listed under culture and community, 591 under religion and beliefs, 87 under activities and 117 under others.

One of the most popular Brahmin community, with 28, 726 members, randomly claims: “we r clever & hardworking .no one can fool us…” The Brahmans community with 41952 members and the Brahmins of India community with 30588 members are also very popular.

The other popular Brahmin communities are those for the various Brahmin sub-castes like Gawd Saraswat Brahmin (GSB) (12,189 members), Kokanastha Brahmin (4038 members), Deshashtha Brahmin (4083 members), Garhwali Brahmin (3067 members), Daivadnya Brahmin (2654 members) and Gaur Brahmin (2055 members). Another group, Brahmin Culture and Tradition is “dedicated to the purpose of uniting Brahmins to revive, preserve, protect and propagate the Brahmin culture to descendants without intimidation or dilution from anti-Brahminical forces.”

Interestingly, it seems that most of the threads under topics related to Brahmins have to do with defining the different types of Brahmins under various sub-castes.

There are also more than 1000 communities for Yadavs on Orkut, including gems like modern yadav girls and boys (5759 members).

Similarly, there are more than a 1000 Rajput communities on Orkut, including the Rajput the Royal Family community with 35,481 mebers, which asks people to join the group “if your soul justifies that you are Rajput both by soul and by nature.”

Dalits have about 200 mostly small communities on Orkut.

Perhaps, the low number of Dalit communities on Orkut says something about Indian society in general, and Orkut users in particular. Higher, more powerful, castes like Brahmins, Rajputs and Yadavs tend to have more money and easier access to the internet and old disparities are further accentuated by the internet.

Caste-based communities, however, aren’t unique to Orkut.

Brahminsamaj.org is “a global platform for the Brahmin Community where you will learn, share and find lot of information, knowledge and fun.” Thambraas Muhurtham wants that “all Brahmins should come forward to marry breaking the sects and subsects within Brahmins, particularly Brahmins of Thamizhnadu.” It also points out that “the entire sects and subsects of South Indian brahmin population are totally vegetarians unlike certain brahmins of other parts of India.” A couple on the homepage of Marry A Brahmin claim that its “focused approach on Brahmin matches helped us find each other as true soul mates.” Brahmin Connections is “proud to present an opportunity and a platform to our young Brahmins and their parents to connect with each other across the world for the matrimonial purpose.” Brahmins Matrimony says that “it is the right place to search for your life partner!”

There are dedicated websites for sub-castes as well. Sakhdwipi aims “to provide a common forum for the Shakdwipis to know each other and interact with each other.” KeralaIyers aims “to delve into the history, trace the roots, portray the life of modern day Kerala Iyers, and chronicle the achievements of this community.” iKalyanam claims to be “the only exclusive site for Iyer matrimonials.” Shivalli Brahmins wishes “to bring together all Shivalli Brahmins residing in different parts of the world, through meaningful discussions about their traditions.” GSBMatch is a matrimonial website for the Gowd and Saraswat Brahmin community. ModhBrahmin.org and BrahmanSamaj.org claim that “history proves that the people of Modh Brahmin Samaj are very enterprising and very resourceful” and aims to “bring all brothers and sisters of Samaj close.” Jangid Brahmin Samaj is a community for Jangid Brahmins. RSBNet is “a single stop source of information regarding the origin, customs, culture, history of Rajapur Saraswath Brahmins.”

Similarly, there are dedicated websites for other castes as well.

Kayastha Matrimonial is a matrimonial website for the Kayastha community. Rajput Samaj is “presently predominately taking care of the Rajputs of Rajasthan” but in near future aims to be “taking care of the Rajputs living in India, Pakistan and abroad.” JatLand, “the online home for the Jats” is especially proud of its wiki.

The Dalit community is fairly active on the internet, even though it’s miniiscule on Orkut. The International Dalit Solidarity Network, which has the most sophisticated of all these websites, “works on a global level for the elimination of caste discrimination.” Dalit Solidarity Network “brings together organizations and individuals in the UK who are concerned with caste-based discrimination.” Dalit India has “papers on various specific issues of the Dalits of India living in India and abroad.” Dalit Freedom Network “partners with the Dalits in their quest for religious freedom, social justice, and human rights by mobilizing human, informational, and financial resources.” Dalit Solidarity is “committed to the principles of justice and equality for all Indians, regardless of caste, race, gender or religion.” Dalit Voice claims that India is “the original home of racism” as Dalits and Tribals, who “constitute the core of India’s original inhabitants”, are kept enslaved by “alien Aryans”. Dalit Education aims to “transform lives and communities through the Christian message.” Indian Dalit Muslims Voice is a platform to discuss issues concerning Indian Dalit Muslims. Rohit Chopra has written about the tension between the elite Hindu nationalists and the disadvantaged Dalits on the internet.

In terms of content, the majority of these websites are focused on matrimonial match-making, but several of them seek to build international communities based on caste affiliations and offer tools like directories, bulletin boards and forums to their members. I have also noticed a tendency to establish a rather embellished history of the caste, with detailed biographies of the important personalities belonging to the caste. Ashok Kumar at Express India has a great description of the common features on these caste based websites.

Not surprisingly, Facebook has only 46 small Brahmin groups, 60 small Yadav groups, 126 smal Rajput groups and 41 small Dalit groups. The absence of caste based groups from Facebook is in line with its cosmopolitan user base. Orkut, on the other hand, should be a little concerned about its tendency to attract loonies of all types.

In the end, however, the cosmopolitanism of Facebook is an anomaly, and Orkut’s crude caste communities merely mirror India’s splintered society.

Cross-posted at Gauravonomics, my blog on social media and social change.