Cultural diversity in cyberspace: The Catalan campaign to win the new .cat top level domain | Gerrand | First Monday

Cultural diversity in cyberspace: The Catalan campaign to win the new .cat top level domain | Gerrand | First Monday: "The history of the campaign to win .cat clearly began as an expression of traditional Catalan nationalism, as shown by the initial preference for a country code .ct that had no chance of being accepted by the ISO Standard 3166 or by ICANN.

Having been thwarted on that choice, the more astute protagonists developed the idea of ‘changing the passport for the dictionary’, putting aside any frustration with current political boundaries in Spain for the goal of achieving a truly global cultural focus in cyberspace for Catalan. Whereas support for .ct would have necessarily been limited to the region of Catalonia, the .cat concept was enthusiastically supported by 68,000 Catalan–speaking individuals and 98 organizations worldwide.

 But the last hurdles to be faced were the cultural ignorance of some key individuals in the ICANN decision–making processes, and the sensitivities of ICANN Board members to the known sensitivities of the U.S. Government, which has the ability to veto ICANN decisions. The same political sensitivities and cultural limitations will face other language communities wishing to use the .cat precedent to win sponsored Top Level Domains for their own global language–based culture.

 Winning a Top Level Domain will not be sufficient to promote much greater use or visibility of a ‘minority language’ in cyberspace. There are a number of important concomitant resources needed to promote the use of any language on the Internet. It is significant that the Catalans have covered all these bases through appropriate policies and investments." 'via Blog this'

Domains are power | The Outline

Domains are power | The Outline: "Top-level domains, or TLDs, sit at the top of the domain hierarchy. In 1985, there were just seven TLDs: .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov, .arpa, and .mil. Today, there are more than 1,000 TLDs running the gamut from .uk to .gucci. One of them is .cat." 'via Blog this'

EU justice commissioner resists calls for legislation on online hate speech

EU justice commissioner resists calls for legislation on online hate speech | UK news | The Guardian: "Vera Jourova condemned Facebook as a “highway for hatred” on Thursday, but the former Czech minister said she was not yet ready to promote EU-wide legislation similar to that being pursued in the UK, France and Germany. “I would never say they [the UK, France and Germany] are wrong, but we all have the responsibility to react to this challenge with necessary and proportionate reaction,” she told the Guardian.

 In Britain, May is demanding that internet companies remove hateful content, in particular that aligned to terror organisations, within two hours of being discovered, or face financial sanctions. In June the prime minister agreed with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, that the UK and France would create a new legal liability for tech companies if they fail to remove inflammatory content.

Under a law due to come into effect next month in Germany, social media companies face fines of up to €50m (£43m) if they persistently fail to remove illegal content from their sites.

 The commission is instead offering further guidance to internet companies about how they improve their record by complying with a voluntary code of conduct drawn up last year and so far adopted by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube." 'via Blog this'

xkcd: Password Strength

xkcd: Password Strength: "Password Strength"



'via Blog this'

PornHub Has Spoken Out Against the Government's Plans for Age Checks on Porn | Gizmodo UK

PornHub Has Spoken Out Against the Government's Plans for Age Checks on Porn | Gizmodo UK: "To sum up, Price is of the opinion that parents are the ones responsible for controlling what their children access online, not the government, and has concerns that the law will not be equally applied to the four million sites that host adult content.

 These concerns also come shortly after PornHub was forced to bow to pressure from the Russian government, and implement similar age verification checks. These checks force Russian porn connoisseurs to log in with the social network VKontakte - which is linked to a user's phone number, which is in turn linked to a Russian passport.

 How the checks will be implemented in the UK has yet to be seen, and it begs the question of whether non-compliant sites will be blocked by the government." 'via Blog this'

2017 is the year we realise we've been doing the Internet wrong

2017 is the year we realise we've been doing the Internet wrong: "But there is a seam of libertarianism in technology which sees it as above and beyond the state in general and regulation in particular. Even as a replacement for it. Who needs a public sector if you have dual core processing?  When tech was the poor relation in the global economy that could be interesting and disruptive. Now tech is the global economy, it is self-serving.

 These apps were developed in a time of neoliberal consensus. The state was beaten and bowed, shrunk to its role of uprooting barriers and getting out of the way of the brilliant, innovative, invisible hand of the private sector.  When I was at Ofcom in the 2000s we strove valiantly, day and night, to avoid any regulation of the internet, even where that included consumer rights and fairer power distribution." 'via Blog this'

We need universal digital suffrage to make technology work for us all | Prospect Magazine

We need universal digital suffrage to make technology work for us all | Prospect Magazine: "Universal Digital Suffrage

Reliable access to the internet is a prerequisite for being a digital citizen—but 14 per cent of adults said they did not have access to the internet at home in 2016.

The Tory/Lib Dem Coalition forgot digital inclusion for most of its tenure—when it finally remembered it demonstrated a poverty of ambition. Its target for inclusion was (and remains) 90 per cent. So one in ten will never have access to digital services.

And the current Government is so utterly unambitious about broadband provision that it has now re-announced the same pot of broadband money three times.

 In the 19th Century the Tories finally came round to the idea that universal suffrage was a democratic prerequisite. The task now is to make them understand the importance of universal digital suffrage—or elect a Labour government that does." 'via Blog this'