Human Rights @ Global Voices Online
A brief dispatch from San Francisco, where yesterday I spent some quality time with Loic Le Meur, Cathy Brookes and VinVin at Seesmic. As well as a quickfire exchange with users on Seesmic – some of whom are already on the Hub – Loic and I had a quick chat on Seesmic’s rooftop:
More soon on SF and LA (where I will be at the Media Re:Public conference at USC Annenberg tomorrow)…
Monks marching in the streets, students staging sit-in protests, midnight raids by the military, monasteries sealed off, towns and cities sealed off…this is Tibet. The most violent protests in nearly 20 years continue after last Monday’s pro-independence rallies commemorating the 49th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet. The Chinese government reports 16 people dead while the Tibetan Government in Exile, reports at least 80 deaths.
Watch videos of the protests here
International concern is growing as a result of house-to-house raids, imposed curfews, numerous arrests, and increased media repression.
The Chinese government has reportedly placed restrictions on international media coverage in Tibet, blocking or filtering websites like Yahoo! and YouTube and censoring the local feeds of news agencies including the BBC and CNN. However, first-hand accounts, photos, and videos (mostly from cellphones) are making their way out — and onto the Hub. We are collecting these videos on the Hub and linking the latest resources and urgent actions you can take here.
We’re working to feature the latest video, audio and photos coming out of Tibet and linking news updates, resources and urgent actions that concerned citizens can take — but we need your help!
Bloggers and vloggers, help us keep Tibet in the spotlight!
Post about Tibet and embed Tibet-related media from the Hub
2) Upload - if you have or see Tibet-related video, photos or audio that are not on the Hub, upload or embed it now, or email us at tibet@WITNESS.org
3) Spread the Word – help us with our call for cellphone video and images from Tibet. Please help us by spreading the word and urging folks to email tibet@WITNESS.org with their interviews, updates, video and photos. We’ll get them online — and ensure they stay online.
More coming soon…
A quick note here on some online tools I’ve recently come across:
Kaltura – a collaborative video making tool that another colleague brought to our attention (thanks Sam). I realize this is not new to bloggers and videophiles in the know – but its relatively new to us here and we’re considering ways to use it on a project… They also have an interesting collaboration with Wikipedia. Moreover the open-source tools they offer are things that it seems more content creators (and viewers) are going to be clamoring for in the days to come including: video mixing, annotating, and ad serving.
VuVox – this is a mega-mashup tool of sorts allowing for more ‘dynamic’ content (video, animation, sound, still images- let your imagination run wild). Their new tool Collage was unveiled at We Media conference I attended about 2 weeks ago. the exciting promo text on the site reads
“Any real world location can become the launching point for a rich media story that features live media hot spots and embeddable links. A COLLAGE can be published, embedded, and syndicated into any website, blog or social networking site.”
This is still in private beta but interested parties can request to become a tester here. This tool is certainly limited to people with good broadband connections who are looking to creatively use their media, create mashups of mashups (here’s an example done by fans of Sen. Obama). I’m wondering if human rights bloggers could use the tool to provide context to a situation as it happens (after they’ve uploaded the video or embed a live stream of video) and again, yes this wouldn’t be those in places where lack of access to internet is a reality.
Anyone using either of these tools who would like to share your experience? Please let us know here… and thanks.
I just got word via the Oral history mailing list of another one that’s a plug-in for Firefox:
Hi all,
Some list members may be interested in this media annotating tool that can be used for analyzing oral history audio and video files:
Vertov (http://digitalhistory.concordia.ca/vertov) is a free media annotating plugin for Zotero (http://zotero.org), a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. Vertov allows you to cut video and audio files into clips, annotate the clips, and integrate your annotations with other research sources and notes stored in Zotero. It is produced by the Concordia Digital History Lab (http://digitalhistory.concordia.ca) at Concordia University, Montreal, and is developed by Stuart Thiel.
The current 0.7.0.4 release is a stable beta, with a public release planned in April. Minimum requirements include: Firefox 2.0 browser and QuickTime Player for Mac or Windows; Java Runtime Environment (Windows only); Zotero, a Firefox extension. We plan to add more features, including export of clips and collaborative annotating, as well as add support for more file types (currently dependent on QuickTime), web services (such as downloading/annotating YouTube clips) and operating systems, especially Linux. For more information on future development, please browse the Vertov issue tracker
(http://vertov.htmlweb.com/trac/), which allows anonymous viewing of tickets, changesets, and source code.
Vertov is a free, open source Firefox 2.0 extension/Zotero plugin written in Java and JavaScript. If you are interested in contributing to this project, please post on the zotero-dev mailing list (http://groups.google.com/group/zotero-dev). Use Zotero forums (http://forums.zotero.org/categories/) to report problems and suggest new features.
Congratulations to our friends at Psiphon, who have won the Grand Prize at the Forum Netxplorateur in Paris – deserved recognition for a very exciting tool…
What we didn’t know until Psiphon told us is that the Hub was selected too as one of the Netxplorateur 100 – “100 Net trailblazers creating new digital practices with high potential for economic and social impact.”
All 100 Netxplorateurs developed a tangible, innovative and meaningful project in 2007. Together they embody the future of the Web and the digital era as a whole.
The Hub has only been running for three months now, so it’s even more humbling to be in such exalted company, alongside dopplr, MySociety’s e-petitions site, Kiva.org, and Ning – and they didn’t even make the Top 10, which includes Twitter, and One Laptop Per Child. Our thanks to the selection committee, and to the Forum Netxplorateur for their recognition of the Hub’s potential as a transformative tool for human rights.
Over the coming months we’ll be looking to work with other members of the Netxplorateur 100 (among others) to develop and provide more content, tools and expertise for the hundreds of organizations and activists already using the Hub and those yet to, to help facilitate their work to advance human rights worldwide using video. If you’re interested in working with us, we’re always happy to hear from you…
Cardano 00:51 on March 18, 2008 Permalink |
The BBC runs a sly and disgraceful campaign to create the impression that Tibet always was part of China and that the protesters somehow are the villains.
They might think it is just too subtle to be noticed, but in fact it is just not worthy of a so called “free press”.
They incessantly repeat the CCP line that “China says Tibet always was part of China”.
No mention of the International Juror’s finding of illegal occupation of Tibet or the simple fact that Tibet was an independent nation before the Han Chinese Communists invaded the country.
No mention of the obvious fact that Tibet was exclusively populated by a distinct race, with a unique culture, language and its own independent government.
Nor do they offer an account of all the heinous atrocities they’ve committed and continue to perpetrate against the Tibetan people.
By all accounts the Han Chinese Communists are the most racist, barbaric regime in all of human history, and their crimes continue in the 21st century no less!
No, we’re not talking of ancient history, but the 21st century and the year they’re allowed to hold the Olympics; awarded in the spirit of freedom, cooperation, friendship and harmony!!!
But the so called “free press” is just too willing to kowtow to this barbaric cabal in Beijing and is careful not to offend this regime controlling the most populous nation on the planet, after all there is so much trade to be had with 1.3 billion people, and we wouldn’t want to offend the masters controlling this trade.