الرباط - حسن الأشرف
واعتبر خبير إعلامي أن ما قام به "الهاكرز" المغاربة الذين لقبوا أنفسهم بـMorocco snipers يعتبر أداة نفسية تهدف إلى الضغط على الصهاينة، لكنها ناجحة في إبلاغ الضرر بمرافقهم الاقتصادية والمالية والتجارية، مبديا تخوفه من تعقب السلطات المغربية لهؤلاء القراصنة.
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Days after sending aircraft to strike Hamas militants in Gaza, the Israeli government is launching a campaign to dominate the blogosphere.
Among other things, the Israeli military has started its own YouTube channel to distribute footage of precision airstrikes. And as I type, the Israeli consulate in New York is hosting a press conference on microblogging siteTwitter. It's pretty interesting to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reduced to tweets of 140 characters or less ("We hav 2 prtct R ctzens 2, only way fwd through neogtiations, & left Gaza in 05. y Hamas launch missiles not peace?"; "we're not at war with the PAL people. we're at war with a group declared by the EU& US a terrorist org").
The Jerusalem Post quotes Maj. Avital Leibovich, the head of the Israeli Defense Forces' foreign press branch on the digital media campaign. "The blogosphere and new media are another war zone," she says. "We have to be relevant there."
It appears, however, that some of the YouTube posts have already been scrubbed. A note on the page of the pro-Israel YouTube channel reads: "We are saddened that YouTube has taken down some of our exclusive footage showing the IDF's operational success in operation Cast Lead against Hamas extremists in the Gaza Strip. ... It is also worth noting that one of the videos removed had the highest number of hits (over 10,000) at the time of its removal."
Ushahidi, which means ”testimony” in Swahili, is a website that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. We’re working to build a new platform that can be used anywhere in the world, and this blog tells some of that story.
Ushahidi’s roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis.
The new Ushahidi Engine is being created to use the lessons learned from Kenya to create a platform that allows anyone around the world to set up their own way to gather reports by mobile phone, email and the web - and map them. It is being built so that it can grow with the changing environment of the web, and to work with other websites and online tools.
Our goal is to create a platform that any person or organization can use to set up their own way to collect and visualize information. The core platform will allow for plug-in and extensions so that it can be customized for different locales and needs. This tool will be tested and made available as an open source application that others can download, implement and use to bring awareness to crises in their own region. Organizations can also use the tool for internal monitoring purposes.
The core engine is built on the premise that gathering crisis information from the general public provides new insights into events happening in near real-time. It is being developed by a group of volunteer developers and designers, hailing primarily from Africa. So far there are representatives from Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Ghana, Netherlands and the US.
Posted in Uncategorized.
Getting tweets from the war zone is so 2008. The latest social media advance combines tools like Twitter, test messaging, and online mapping to gather up first-hand reports, straight from Gaza.
The effort, from Al Jazeera Labs, just got started; the reporting is still spotting, and the technology is very much in the testing phase. But the idea is for residents of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank to send quick updates about the conflict from their computers or mobile phones, through SMS or Twitter. The results are then verified, and posted to a Microsoft Virtual Earth map.
"Heavy fighting continues in eastern Gaza. Loud explosions, presumed to be artillery, and machine gun fire heard," one report says. "Palestinian medics confirm Israeli soldiers have shot and killed a 20-year-old man during clashes at a Gaza protest in Qalqilya, West Bank," reads another. "Nine Egyptian lorries carrying medicine and aid have entered Gaza," notes a third.
As Zero Intelligence Agents notes, Al Jazeera is using an open-source software tool called Ushahidi(Swahili for "testimony") for the online reporting experiment. The program was created in early 2008, to document the post-election violence in Kenya. Coders in Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Ghana, Netherlands and the United States have contributed to its development.
Meanwhile, that oh-so-old school way to follow war news, Twitter, is bubbling with minute-to-minute updates from both sides of the Israel-Hamas divide.
Now, for the first time, the World Internet Project has published its global findings on the impact of online technology -- a five-continent collaboration creates an international picture of change produced by the Internet.
The World Internet Project report includes:
* New findings about how the Internet is used and how it affects a variety of beliefs, attitudes, and behavior around the world. The data was collected in
* The only report of its kind, the World Internet Project features a comprehensive exploration of:
* 372 pages
* 466 charts of findings
* Nine major areas of study
* 76 specific subjects and detailed responses
The World Internet Project has been exploring the impact of online technology since 1999. The study, which began in the
Audience
The World Internet Project report provides an essential tool for corporate and public agency leaders who wish to understand the scope of change already produced by the Internet, and recognize that the global change inspired by the evolution of online technology has only just begun.
Click here for highlights and charts of the report.
The report will be available for purchase starting November 24. Please click here to purchase report.
To learn more about the World Internet Project visit www.worldinternetproject.net
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The Israel Defense Forces this week extended its airstrikes on Gaza to the Web, posting video footage of its air assault against Hamas militants on YouTube and using Twitter to spread its message.
According to various news reports, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) created its own YouTube channel carrying videos that include black-and-white aerial footage of attacks on Hamas weapon sites, and clips of Hamas terrorists loading rockets into trucks.
An IDF spokesperson said it is using the platform to "help us bring our message to the world," by offering "exclusive footage showing the IDF's operation success" in Gaza.
Israel launched its air assault on Gaza on December 27 in a move to stop Hamas militants from firing rockets into Israeli territory.
The New York Israeli Consulate also initiated a Twitter feed in an attempt to share its viewpoints with a younger audience, garnering more than 2,900 followers since its microblogging service was launched Monday.
Spokesperson for the consulate David Saranga, as quoted in a CNN report, said: "We saw that there is a big debate, a very vivid debate about the situation in Gaza, and we wanted to bring our point of view. We wanted to share it with people on Twitter.
"We wanted to outreach to the young generation, who does not read the conventional media, but is still interested in events in the Middle East, so we thought this is a good way to be an official voice for the questions people are asking," Saranga said.
Videos removed, reinstated
Some of the IDF's videos on YouTube were removed, presumably due to a policy on the video-sharing site that prohibits "inappropriate content." The site provides a feature that allows users to flag videos as unsuitable, and such content will be removed if it is deemed to violate YouTube's guidelines.
Some clips, however, were later reinstated.
While not commenting directly on the IDF videos, YouTube's policy chief Victoria Grand said in the CNN report: "Occasionally, a video flagged by users is mistakenly taken down. When this is brought to our attention, we review the content and take appropriate action, which may include restoring videos that had been removed."
The IDF said in a statement on its YouTube channel: "We are saddened that YouTube has taken down some of our exclusive footage.
"As the state of Israel again faces those who would see it destroyed, it is imperative that we in the IDF show the world the inhumanity directed against us and our efforts to stop it."
According to FoxNews.com, Israel plans to launch an independent blog where videos can be viewed without any restrictions.
Eileen Yu reported for ZDNet Asia.
Approx. 416 pp., 61/8 x 91/4, 26 illus., 1 table, glossary, notes, index
Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks
Rewiring the House of Islam
Exploring the increasing impact of the Internet on Muslims around the world, this book sheds new light on the nature of contemporary Islamic discourse, identity, and community.
The Internet has profoundly shaped how both Muslims and non-Muslims perceive Islam and how Islamic societies and networks are evolving and shifting in the twenty-first century, says Gary Bunt. While Islamic society has deep historical patterns of global exchange, the Internet has transformed how many Muslims practice the duties and rituals of Islam. A place of religious instruction may exist solely in the virtual world, for example, or a community may gather only online. Drawing on more than a decade of online research, Bunt shows how social-networking sites, blogs, and other "cyber-Islamic environments" have exposed Muslims to new influences outside the traditional spheres of Islamic knowledge and authority. Furthermore, the Internet has dramatically influenced forms of Islamic activism and radicalization, including jihad-oriented campaigns by networks such as al-Qaeda.
By surveying the broad spectrum of approaches used to present dimensions of Islamic social, spiritual, and political life on the Internet, iMuslims encourages diverse understandings of online Islam and of Islam generally.
"Many scholars have commented on on-line Islam, and a few have undertaken research, but only Bunt has developed a comprehensive approach to chronicling Muslims' uptake of the full range of cyber-technologies. iMuslims is a significant book for both religious studies and policy studies."
--Jon W. Anderson, coeditor of Reformatting Politics: Information Technology and Global Civic Society
"Bunt demonstrates an unparalleled command of the many and diverse manifestations of Islam on the Internet. Thoroughly comprehensive and up-to-date,iMuslims offers a wealth of examples throughout, allowing the reader to come away with a firm sense of the rich world of 'cyber-Islamic environments.'"
--Peter Mandaville, author of Global Political Islam
