Global Voices » Diego Casaes

Blog Action Day 2011: Let's All Talk About Food

Diego Casaes — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:43:04 +0000

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. Its aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion around an important issue that impacts us all.

On Global Voices, we have covered past Blog Action Days and helped share stories about water in 2010 and climate change in 2009. This year the topic is food, as the Blog Action Day coincides with World Food Day, an event organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Global Voices authors have written a lot about food already. Most recently, its special coverage about the United Nations Millenium Development Goals in 2011 includes a series of posts about the struggle to end famine and alleviate poverty. Our community was also commissioned to create a series of posts on Food Insecurity with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Our reports draw on citizen media and are featured on the Pulitzer Gateway to Food Insecurity.

Acarajé is a dish made from peeled black-eyed peas formed into a ball and then deep-fried in dendê (palm oil). It is found in Nigerian and Brazilian cuisine. The dish is traditionally encountered in Brazil's northeastern state of Bahia. Photo by Rita Ribeiro on Flickr (CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 license).

An open invitation to anyone with a blog is on the Blog Action Day website. You can find a list of suggested topics here; some of them include famine in East Africa, hunger and poverty, malnutrition and conflicts over food.

But if you prefer not to get too serious for Blog Action Day, you can also write about your favorite foods, organic food or vegetarianism. There's a lot to say about food, and the topic breaks down in many different occasions and issues:

We use food to mark times of celebration and sorrow. Lack of access to food causes devastating famines, whilst too much is causing a generation of new health problems. It can cost the world, or be too cheap for farmers to make a living.

The way we companies produce food and drinks can provide important jobs for communities or be completely destructive to habitats and local food producers. Food can give us energy to get through the day or contain ingredients that gives us allergic reactions.

Food can cooked by highly skilled chefs with inventive flair, or mass produced and delivered with speed at the side of road. It can be incredibly healthy or complete junk and bad for your health. It can taste delicious or be a locals only delicacy.

Food is important to our culture, identity and daily sustenance and the team at Blog Action invite you to join us to talk about food

If you are interested, read more about food from the perspective of the Global Voices community.

And remember, October 16 is the time to blog about food, whether you want to write about complex issues involving food or just tell your friends about your favorite dishes. You can join this online rally and help raise awareness about the topic.

Brazil: Ministry of Culture abandons Creative Commons

Diego Casaes — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:02:21 +0000

On January 9, Global Voices shared the concern of many Brazilian citizens who wrote an open letter to President-elect Dilma Rousseff and the new Minister of Culture, Ana de Hollanda. The letter urged the Minister to maintain the previous government's policy concerning the inclusive public policies regarding Internet, digital culture and authorial rights.

Two weeks later, on January 20, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture removed a Creative Commons license from its website. The order to remove it was apparently given by Minister de Hollanda and it provoked all sorts of reactions on social networks as well as among bloggers.

Creative Commons Brazil immediately opposed the decision of the Ministry on Twitter (@CC_BR):

Creative Commons Brazil interprets the removal of the #creativecommons license of the Ministry of Culture website as a backpedaling on the support to #digitalculturebr

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure to maximize digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. CC licenses are flexible, and the countries who have legal representation of the institution often adapt such licenses to their own legislation. Their Brazilian representation reposted an article by Revista ARede [TheWeb Magazine, pt] talking about the enormous political meaning of replacing the line “The content of this website is published under a Creative Commons License” - on the website since 2004 - to: “User License: the content on this website produced by the Ministry of Culture can be reproduced, provided the source”:

Da forma que está hoje, o site do MinC não tem uma licença válida, explica Ronaldo Lemos, diretor do Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade (CTS) da Fundação Getúlio Vargas e diretor do Creative Commons Brasil. “Do ponto de vista jurídico, a frase que colocaram lá não quer dizer nada. Quem utilizar os conteúdos do site com base nela enfrenta um problema de insegurança jurídica enorme”, afirma ele. Além disso, a frase que o MinC deixou no site no lugar da licença CC fala apenas em “reprodução”. “Os direitos do CC são muito mais amplos e melhor formulados, abrangendo a produção colaborativa, o desenvolvimento de obras derivadas, a disseminação e assim por diante. Dessa forma, o site do MinC perdeu muito com a mudança”.

As it stands today, the Ministry of Culture website does not have a valid license, explains Ronaldo Lemos, director of the Center for Technology and Society of Fundação Getúlio Vargas and Lead of Creative Commons Brazil. “From the legal perspective, the phrase that they have put there does not mean anything. Whoever uses the contents of that website based on the sentence faces a big problem of juridical insecurity”, he states. Moreover, the sentence that the Ministry used to replace the CC license mentions only “reproduction”. “The rights of Creative Commons are broader and better elaborated, ranging from collaborative production, creation of derivatives, sharing and so on. In this regard, the Ministry of Culture website has lost a lot with the change”.

On the following day, the Ministry responded to the reaction of groups and individuals online with the official note:

“A retirada da referência ao Creative Commons da página principal do Ministério da Cultura se deu porque a legislação brasileira permite a liberação de conteúdo. Não há necessidade do ministério dar destaque a uma iniciativa específica. Isso não impede que o Creative Commons ou outras formas de licenciamento sejam utilizados pelos interessados.”

The removal of the reference to Creative Commons on the Ministry of Culture homepage occurred because Brazilian legislation allows the liberation of content. There is no need for the Ministry to feature a specific initiative. This does not stop Creative Commons or any other form of licensing to be used by anyone who is interested in it.

Leftist blogger Marco Weissheimer commented on the Ministry's response while comparing the current minister's decision with the work done in the mandate of Gilberto Gil, singer and songwriter who served as Minister of Culture from 2003 to 2008. He said [pt]:

A nota não aliviou as críticas e a preocupação com a continuidade da política iniciada na gestão de Gilberto Gil na Cultura. Durante a gestão de Gil, o Ministério da Cultura aderiu ao Creative Commons. Mais do que isso, Gil se tornou, em 2004, o primeiro compositor brasileiro a ceder direitos de uma canção à licença. O governo federal também passou a utilizar maciçamente as licenças. O Blog do Planalto, por exemplo, é licenciado dessa forma.

The note didn't alleviate the criticisms and worries about the continuity of policies initiated during Gilberto Gil's mandate in the Ministry of Culture. During Gil's mandate, the Ministry of Culture adhered to Creative Commons. Even beyond this, in 2004 Gil has become the first Brazilian composer to give in the rights of a song in Creative Commons. The federal government also started to make widespread use of CC licenses. The “Blog do Planalto” [Presidency's Blog], for example, is licensed with Creative Commons.

In an interview at Fatos Etc blog, the sociologist Sergio Amadeu considers the position of the Minister quite unexpected, pointing out the controversy on the new attribution policy. He contends that the minister herself committed an illegal act, and that her position is in contradiction with the new President's governmental policies [pt]:

A Dilma mantém o Blog do Planalto, instalado, implementado pelo presidente Lula em Creative Commons, e que continua em Creative Commons. E ela, a ministra, fez um ato que é afrontar a política de compartilhamento iniciada no governo Lula e afrontar a própria Dilma, que disse exatamente que iria continuar a política iniciada na gestão do Gilberto Gil e do Lula. Então ela, além disso, cometeu uma ilegalidade, porque não poderia tirar as licenças do Creative Commons das matérias e postagens que já tinham sido publicadas em Creative Commons.

Dilma updates the Blog do Planalto –that was installed and implemented by former president Lula in Creative Commons, and it is still in Creative Commons. And she, the Minister [of Culture], has made a move that clashes with the policy of sharing begun in Lula's government, and with Dilma herself, who said she would exactly carry on with the policies from Gilberto Gil and Lula's mandate. Ana de Hollanda then, in addition to that, has committed an illegal act because she could not remove the Creative Commons licenses from the news reports and articles that were already published with Creative Commons.

Some bloggers are discussing whether Ana de Hollanda might be benefiting ECAD (Central Bureau of Collection and Distribution), the organization responsible for distributing tax revenues on copyright media. Geraldine Juárez, writing for the blog alt1040, comments how the new Minister, a musician herself, has profited from the copyright industry and goes on saying [es]:

El único país que apuntaba en la dirección correcta para reformar de una forma justa para toda la sociedad y coherente con los retos que la digitilización implica, era Brasil. El Proyecto de Ley de Derecho de Autoral y su agenda de Cultura Digital creada por Gilberto Gil han sido uno de los factores que definitivamente ayudaron a voltear y fijar la mirada en Brasil.

The only country that set out the right direction towards reform [of copyright law] in a just manner for all of society, and in a manner coherent with the challenges implied by “digitalization”, was Brazil. The Copyright Bill and the Digital Culture agenda created by Gilberto Gil were some of the factors that definitely helped catch and fix all eyes on Brazil.

On the other hand, writing at the blog Ponto e Contraponto, author Len criticized the reaction of the Creative Commons community and its supporters. He argues that the replacement text and the copyright license helps giving a better understanding of what is feasible to be done with the content of the website for the average public [pt]:

Eu vejo como uma mudança positiva. A gente tem que levar sempre em consideração que são os usuários avançados de internet e os nerds que conhecem o CC e o significado das licenças. A maioria esmagadora que usa a internet e tem conhecimento básico não possui a menor ideia do que aqueles selos significam e muito menos em uma sigla em língua estrangeira. A frase grafada no rodapé da página, escrita em português informa melhor a um número maior de pessoas. As pessoas que não conhecem o significado dos selos da CC podem ter seus sites ou blogs e querer usar material do site do MinC, e com essa mudança eles também vão saber que podem usar o conteúdo, desde que citem a fonte.

I see it as a positive change. We have to always take into account that the advanced users of internet and nerds are the ones who know CC and the meaning of the licenses. The overwhelming majority that uses the web and have only the basic knowledge do not have any idea of what those labels mean and especially in a foreign language. The sentence written on the bottom of the webpage in Portuguese better informs a greater number of people. People who do not know the meaning of CC labels could have their websites or blogs, and want to use content from the Ministry website, and with this change they will also know that they can use such content, provided the source.

The outcome of Minister de Hollanda's actions is still uncertain: while a tough position against Creative Commons is being interpreted by some bloggers as a clear move backwards in the debate about digital culture in Brazil, others believe the change is an opportunity to discuss copyright. As a matter of fact, groups such as the community “Transparência Hacker”, a forum of transparency and open data activists in Brazil, have debated whether or not all content created [pt] by the Brazilian Government should rather be in the public domain, following the principle of dissemination of public information highlighted in the Constitution.

This article was proofread by Janet Gunter.

Brazil: Pension rights for gay couples

Diego Casaes — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 15:22:46 +0000

Marcelo Marques in Blog do Bacana [pt] informs of a recent decision by the Social Security Ministry in enforcing a rule that recognizes that the social security benefits to relatives, such as pension in case of death, must include partners of same sex in stable marriage.

Tajikistan: Women's Perspective on Climate Change

Diego Casaes — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:21:11 +0000

Mark Notaras and Citt Williams bring Tajik women's viewpoint on climate change in OurWorld 2.0 blog. “The way that individual people perceive climate change is complex. Climate change impacts are not simply good or bad. They can be both, as demonstrated in this Our World 2.0 video-brief showcasing the perspectives on climate change of Tajik women.”

Brazil: Fighting Back the Digital Crimes Bill

Diego Casaes — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:07:14 +0000

João Carlos Caribé warns internet users that there is another move by the Brazilian Congress to pass the Digital Crimes Bill. He calls a blogging carnival and Twitter campaign [pt] to fight back the bill as part of the Mega Não movement.

Global: Mozilla Drumbeat Seeks to Expand the Open Web

Diego Casaes — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:59:05 +0000

The Mozilla Foundation, creator of the internet browser Firefox, has launched Drumbeat, a project that seeks to gather people with the most diverse backgrounds and from many parts of the world to think up projects that promote the openness of the web. Teachers, technologists, designers, developers, lawyers, translators: everyone who uses and loves the web is invited to help make the web a better place, and keep it open and free.

Drumbeat is all about keeping the web open, and guarding its open nature:

We want to spark a movement. We want to keep the web open for the next 100 years. The first step: inviting you to do and make things that help the web. That's what Drumbeat is — practical projects and local events that gather smart, creative people around big ideas, solving problems and building the open web.

Among the featured projects, Universal Subtitles, a software project and global community to subtitle, caption and translate every video on the web. WebMadeMovies by Brett Gaylor (producer of RIP: The Remix Manifesto), an innovation lab transforming the way we create and experience video on the web, and the P2PU School of Webcraft, a powerful new way to teach and learn web developer skills.

Mozilla Drumbeat in São Paulo, June 2010. Photo by Diego Casaes.

A handful of other interesting projects are also listed on the Drumbeat website. Help me Investigate, a project for crowd-sourcing investigative journalism, breaks the investigation process in small pieces so volunteers can help investigate and verify news information. Check out the current projects page.

Mozilla Drumbeat was officially launched in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in March 2010. In addition to gathering people on the web to work on these projects, Mozilla encourages groups to meet in their local neighborhoods and cities to discuss the open web.

Up to now, there were four Drumbeat events in Brazil; the lastest took place in São Paulo [pt] and gathered individuals from 13 different parts of the country: from the far south to the heart of the Amazon forest. There were also Drumbeat events in Paris, Toronto and Bulgaria. Information on past and upcoming events can be found on this page.

A closed internet slows down innovation and commerce, and stifles collaboration. The open web is threatened by walled gardens, roadblocks, gatekeepers, centralization and lack of privacy control. For this reason, Drumbeat is reaching out for ideas and individuals to make sure the web will be forever open and free. Start a project, or join one that's already rolling!

Disclosure: I'm part of the team that conducts the Mozilla Drumbeat events in Brazil.

Brazil: Nomad Tribe Protest to Prove Its Existence

Diego Casaes — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:21:08 +0000

Altino Machado blogs on the tribe Awá-Guajá, a group of nomad indigenous who emerged from the heart of the Amazon forest to prove their existence [pt] and to demand that their land be protected from invasion. Survival International also reported on the story.

Brazil: Call for the First Progressive Bloggers Meeting

Diego Casaes — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 04:18:10 +0000

Conceição Lemes in Viomundo calls on bloggers for the 1st Progressive Bloggers Meeting, to take place in São Paulo in 21-22 August [pt]. The meeting will gather bloggers from all over the country in order to share experiences on freedom of speech, politics, and democracy in the Brazilian society, in addition to offer workshops of social media tools.

Brazil: Using Cleaner Fuels in Ships

Diego Casaes — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:55:35 +0000

Ambiente Brasil reports [pt] on the bill nº 7006/10 by the parliamentarian Carlos Bezerra. It intends to prohibit the traffic of ships whose fuels contain more than a thousand parts per million of brimstone in Brazilian waters, reducing the impact of pollution caused by them in cities close to the seashore.

Global: The Green Wave 2010

Diego Casaes — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:21:08 +0000

Esse tal Meio Ambiente blogs [pt] on The Green Wave Campaign 2010, to take place on May 21-22 in parallel with the International Day for Biodiversity. The multi-year global campaign promotes the discussion of biodiversity by children and youth and the planting of trees.

Brazil: The Fragility of the Electronic Voting System

Diego Casaes — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:07:26 +0000

Maria Frô republishes [pt] news about a University of Brasília's report uncovering flaws in the electronic voting system: “Let's be aware of this election as they promise unpleasant surprises considering the suspicion of different electoral research institutes.”

Brazil: Blogging Against ACTA

Diego Casaes — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:49:30 +0000

Brazilian cyber-activist João Carlos Caribé calls on bloggers [pt] for a mass blogging against the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). According to the EFF, the ACTA text will be made public this Wednesday, April 21.

Cast your vote for the “Best of the Blogs”

Diego Casaes — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 17:11:56 +0000

Online voting has begun for the Best of the Blogs Awards from Deutsche Welle, one of the most prestigious international blog competitions with nominated blogs in eleven different languages. You can vote for your favorites until April 14, 2010.

The jury will meet in the middle of April to decide on the winners, and the results will be announced on April 15 during the re:publica conference in Berlin, Germany. The winners will receive their awards at a ceremony during the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in June 2010 in Bonn.

Among the Nominees

In the “Best Weblog” category, the competition is fierce between well-known blogs from around the web. Jordanian blogger Osama Romoh currently has over 60% of the votes. He blogs about social issues in his country with ironic humor.

In this same category, AJI - Ação de Jovens Indígenas [pt] from Brazil is designed to accommodate young indigenous bloggers of the Dourados Reservation and help them write about problems in their reservation as well as to address national issues, like the status of native populations generally in Brazil.

Another contender of this category is Han Han, a prolific novelist and race car driver from China who happens to be China's most read blogger and a contender for Time Magazine's Top 100 list.

Global Voices and The BOBs

Global Voices itself won a BOBs award in 2005, but many of the current and former contributors to this website are featured in this year's BOBs for their activities outside Global Voices.

Among the “Best Blog” nominees is Ushahidi, a blog that accompanies a web application that helps map disaster situations via mobile phones and social networking. Global Voices' former authors Juliana Rotich, Ory Okollah helped develop this project, that was initially created to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Recently, Ushahidi maps were deployed in Haiti after the earthquake that devastated the country, as well as after the Chile Earthquake.

HerdictWeb, a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University (where Global Voices was founded) is a nominee in the ‘Reporters Without Borders Award” category. Herdict Web seeks to gain insight into what users around the world are experiencing in terms of web accessibility and censorship.

Talk Morocco — an edited forum intended to encourage intelligent, open, and honest debate on issues relating to Morocco and the diaspora created by Global Voices authors Jillian C. York and Hisham — shares the award nomination in the English weblog category alongside with Voice from Gaza, You Are Not Here and others.

Another Global Voices author, Jorge Gobbi has been blogging travel tips in Spanish on Blog de Viajes since 2003. The blog has already won the Best Spanish Travel Blog Award by travel guide publisher Lonely Planet. Check other blogs in this category here.

Canadian blogger nominee threatened with death

Michelle Blanc, a Canadian transsexual women who blogs in French about her life transformation is among the nominees in the French weblog category. Michelle recently discovered [fr] several disturbing threats on her life posted on YouTube and other websites.

Alongside Michelle's blog, Femme 2.0 ou le parcour transsexuel in the French category, there are many others, such as La Vigie du Web, Chez Gangoueus, Chroniques de la loose, Entendu à Paris and more.

Don't forget to vote for all your favorites!

Also see: Arab World: Pulling all the Stops for the BoBs

Global: World Day Against Cyber Censorship

Diego Casaes — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:07:28 +0000

Internet censorship is still a major issue in many countries worldwide. With that in mind, the Paris-based international organization Reporters without Borders (RSF) is promoting its yearly World Day Against Cyber Censorship on March 12th. On the occasion, RSF issued its latest list of “Enemies of the Internet“, where China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Tunisia are among the most prominent examples of countries censoring the web.

Reporters Without Borders will celebrate World Day Against Cyber Censorship on 12 March. This event is intended to rally everyone in support of a single Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all. It is also meant to draw attention to the fact that, by creating new spaces for exchanging ideas and information, the Internet is a force for freedom. However, more and more governments have realised this and are reacting by trying to control the Internet.

World Day Against Cyber Censorship Around the Web

Jordanian blogger Naseem Tarawnah on Black Iris urged people to join an online rally for free speech. He says that over the past years there are traces that suggest the country is inclining to tough times for internet users, especially because there are “designs that the government may be planning to implement a “Cyber Law” to regulate the online world“. He calls on Twitter users:

For my fellow tweeps, I can only ask that you come together to tweet those posts produced by the blogosphere, or tweet your own messages in support of a free internet. Perhaps we can use the single hashtag of #FreeNetJo to unite our tweets.

And as Ramy Raoof outlined on Global Voices Advocacy:

Do you believe in Freedom of Speech?

Do you think its normal to be profiled or tracked while being online?!

Do you think it’s your right to enjoy uncensored Internet search & blogging?

Do you believe in Freedom of Information? Right to Access Information?

Do you want to defend an Internet without restrictions and accessible to everyone at anytime and anywhere?

Support the World Day against Cyber-Censorship, 12 March…

Spread the Word!

Global Voices contributor Archana Verma has written a post with thoughts and opinions from the Hindu blogosphere on freedom of speech and censorship. She adds:

India doesn't fall in the category of “Internet Black-Holes,” hence Hindi web-writers haven't written much on it because they haven't faced this problem. However, there are some Hindi bloggers who have reflected on press-freedom from different angles.

On Global Voices Online, we're committed to raising voices that often go unheard by traditional and mainstream media. We know that many governments do not allow its citizens to use the web openly and freely, often practicing censorship and regulating content. Below we can see some of Global Voices' projects to promote freedom of speech, cyber-activism and transparency online.

Global Voices Advocacy

Global Voices Advocacy is where we seek to build a global anti-censorship network of bloggers and online activists throughout the developing world that is dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and free access to information online. In this website, you'll have access to a myriad of projects that intend to help people fighting censorship on the web, as well as to blog anonymously in areas where internet users are often harassed by the government.

Threatened Voices

Threatened Voices is a collaborative mapping project to build a database of bloggers who have been threatened, arrested or killed for speaking out online and to draw attention to the campaigns to free them. So far, Threatened Voices has already tracked 213 cases of arrested or threatened bloggers, such as the one of Ahmad Mostafa, an engineering student at the University of Kafr el-Sheikh –the first Egyptian blogger to stand before a military court because of his blogging.

Technology for Transparency Network

On the other side of the coin, from Rising Voices, the Technology for Transparency Network, a new interactive website to track online initiatives that promote transparency, accountability, & civic engagement around the world is an example of how freedom of speech can help monitoring governments and deliver correct and non-regulated information to citizens of developing world, as well as observing politicians movements and actions.

On the website, Renata Avila, a human rights lawyer and blogger in Guatemala, has presented the case of #InternetNecesario from Mexico, an online protest on Twitter and other social networks to fight a tax on the Internet issued by Mexico's Congress. This movement is an example of how a non-censored internet can empower citizens to fight for their rights.

As Venezuelan blogger in Paris, Laura Vidal states in her comment review:

This project is an example of how civil society agrees to organize and reunite efforts to respond to a government that acts without consulting, and a press that doesn’t connect the public opinion with the leaders of the country.

Breaking Borders

Finally, Global Voices and Google's Breaking Borders Award is a new prize created by both organizations and supported by Thomson Reuters to honor outstanding web projects initiated by individuals or groups that demonstrate courage, energy and resourcefulness in using the Internet to promote freedom of expression. The prize will honor work in three categories: tools that promote freedom of expression, outstanding work on policy and activism or journalism that contributed an important voice or argument - each awarded with USD $10,000. Results of the award will be made public in May, during the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2010.

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On this important date for the Internet, we hope for people to urge for change. To fight against censorship and to raise awareness on the importance of a free digital environment. For more highlights on the struggle for freedom of speech on the web visit our page on this subject.

Brazil: The Trees-per-Tweet Reforestation Campaign

Diego Casaes — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:45:47 +0000

Environmental blogger Vivo Verde [pt] highlights a campaign by Brazil's major telecom VIVO promising to reforest one square meter of native forest for every tweet answering the question: “What would you do with lots of SMS messages?” and with the hashtag #oquevcfaria (#whatwouldyoudo) up to March 10th.