Diego Casaes

Latest posts by Diego Casaes

Important Children Activist Dies in Haiti Earthquake

  13 January 2010

Deborah Goldemberg mourns the death of Zilda Arns, one of the Brazilian victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. Dr. Zilda Arns Neumann was a children's right activist and founder of the Child's Pastoral of Brazil. Internet users in Brazil are also reacting to the news on Twitter.

Brazil: 2009 Green Retrospective and COP15

  6 January 2010

Almost one month since the United Nations Climate Change Conference, bloggers discuss still; as well as criticizing its outcome, year-end-blog-retrospectives mention the event as one of the most important of 2009.

Brazil: Net-citizens unite to track floods

  4 January 2010

Blogger Cristiana Soares, in collaboration with net-citizens, launched Projeto Enchentes [Project Floods, pt], a platform for tracking -- and gathering information about -- floods in Brazil. The project counts with a collaborative map created by Henrique Brandão.

Brazil: Can black people drive luxury cars?

  1 September 2009

A black man was assaulted in a supermarket car park in São Paulo when security guards accused him of planning to steal his own car, fuelling a debate by bloggers about the myth of Brazil as a racial democracy.

Brazil: Petrobras Blog Versus Mainstream Media

  16 June 2009

In the first week of June, Brazil's giant semi-public oil company Petrobras created a free blog on Wordpress. Among the posts publicised during the blog's first days were questions and answers of journalists that were going to be part of their respective newspaper headlines and stories throughout the week. This attitude has been seen as an act of transparency by some bloggers, a threat to journalism by some newspapers and led to heated debate on the power of media and blogging.

Brazil: Amplified conversations to fight the Digital Crimes Bill

  11 June 2009

In another demonstration of cyberactivism and acvistim, Brazilian Internet users are gathering around a cause: to fight Senator Azeredo's Digital Crimes Bill. This legal project, which intends to intervene severely in the way people use the Internet in Brazil is being heavily criticized by Brazil's academic field, left-wing parties and the Internet community.

Brazil: When climate change meets cyber-activism

  11 May 2009

In another display of global climate change, Brazil has suffered an inversion of its usual weather for this time of the year. The traditionally dry North and Northeast regions of Brazil have been devastated by floods, whilst the usually wet south of the country is suffering a severe drought. People have gathered together in online social networks to cover the news and create an alliance to aid the populations hit by yet another natural disaster. It is cyber-activism at full speed.