Tactic: European net freedom lobbyists unite to fight new internet bill

Written by Simon on August 12, 2008 – 11:08 pm -

La Quadrature du NetDescription: The Telecoms Package is a proposal from the EU Commission to reform the EU’s regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services with a view to completing the internal market for electronic communications. It is seen by net freedom activists as a serious threat. Especially some of the amendments brought in related to intellectual property rights would lead to monitoring and blocking of websites and peer-to-peer exchanges by ISPs, permitting ISPs to sanction users by suspending or terminating internet access.
The proposal was due to be voted on by the responsible committees on July 7, followed by the vote of the European parliament as a whole on September 2. Not long before the committees’ votes hundreds of amendments to the package made it impossible to overlook it, which bore the huge risk that members of the parliament would vote for a bill the consequences of which they could not foresee.

Tools Being Used: Blogs, Wiki

How These Tools Are Being Used: On July 1, netzpolitik.org from Germany, La Quadrature du Net from France and the British Open Rights Group published a press release on their respective blogs announcing their actions to stop the Telecoms Package or have it changed in a way that it would not inflict net freedom any longer.
The involved groups subsequently organized the action mainly using a wiki, frequently posting updates on their respective blogs or websites to communicate the progress to the public.

What Are They Doing: Especially before July 7, the work mainly consisted of mobilizing an opposition by contacting members of the European parliament and their respective assistants to inform them about the dangers of the Telecoms Package and to convince them to drop or reject the amendments related to intellectual property rights. The organizations’ tactic included inviting volunteers via their open wiki - and “advertising” that trough blogs - to participate in this effort, which made a broad action possible.

Outcome: The action was successfully publicized in many blogs and subsequently turned massive (mainstream) media attention on the Telecoms Package. As an outcome, many - but not all - amendments inflicting or endangering net freedom were dropped by the committees. Additionally, the members of the parliament decided to postpone their own vote for three further weeks. That means, the decision will now be made between September 22 and 25. Read more »


Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Blogs, Europe, Tactics, Wikis | No Comments »

Campaign: A Protest Movement Against Scientology

Written by Mary on February 25, 2008 – 1:24 am -

Description of Campaign: An online community called Anonymous draws other online users into a global campaign against the controversial religion Scientology. (Note: This post is not a criticism of Scientology, merely a study of the digital means used by its critics,)

Digital Activism Tools: Youtube, Digg (social bookmarking), wikis, online forums

How These Tools are Being Used: After announcing their campaign against Scientology via an ominous YouTube video on January 21st (see below), a group of nameless hackers used open forums like the alternative news site Digg to spread their message of protest against what they see as the exploitive and untruthful practices of Scientology. Their movement is very interactive. As it is based on a wiki, new members were able to leave feedback for the original founders and the founders listened. (In particular, they cut back on the illegal harassment of Scientologists, which many would-be supporters felt was illegitimate “cyber-terrorism.”) Anonymous, whose leaders and members are unknown, experienced a great success on February 10, when 6,000 supporters participated in anti-Scientology rallies in more than 70 cities around the world.

After the break I’ll quote a long passage of excellent background and analysis from Carnegie Mellon student Dan Schultz, originally published on MediaShift Idea Lab under the title “Anonymous vs. Scientology: A Case of Digital Media.”
Read more »


Tags: , , ,
Posted in Campaigns, Social Bookmarking, Video, Wikis | 4 Comments »

Tool: Wikis

Written by Mary on January 17, 2008 – 4:28 am -

Tool Description: A wiki is a web page which users can easily edit and add content to by clicking an “edit” tab on the page.
Activist Application: Following the tumultuous elections in Kenya, a Lithuanian activist, Andrius Kulikauskas, is using his community wiki to offer help and provide information about the situation.
Ease of Use: Fairly easy. You can create a wiki for free at sites like Wikispaces.com. This page explains the basics of wiki syntax (the codes for italics, bold, links, etc.). Here is a video which explains the basics of using a wiki:


Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, Tools, Wikis | No Comments »