fishers, surfers and casters

A few links here from around the place…

• Jeff Sharlet is one of the authors of Killing the Buddha and Believer, beware, and one of my favourite commentator on religion in American history, politics and journalism. He is about to edit a new book on American religious history, by collecting pieces of literary journalism. I look forward to seeing it out. He talks about it here and seeks help from his blog’s readers.
• Pew has released its fourth edition of The Future of the Internet, and it appears to be a test of people’s responses to arguments introduced by Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google making us stupid?” (see my short post on it here).
• Heidi Campbell writes on her reflections on attending a conference called “Theology after Google” and has got some links to interesting thinkers and talkers whom she met.

This media release has been circulated around the place and is of interest to some, especially those in Karachi right this second (or within the next few hours at least)…

Karachi, 20th May 2010

For Immediate Release

Date: 20th May 2010
Time: 5:00 pm
Venue: Karachi Press Club

Defenders of Internet Freedom Protest Against Nationwide Government Ban of Facebook

On Wednesday 19th May 2010, the Lahore High Court ordered the banning of Facebook across Pakistan. Facebook is the world’s most popular social media network and is used by over 400 million globally. In Pakistan, over 2 million people use Facebook to stay in touch with their friends and family, conduct business, manage events, and share photos, news, and other content. A few days ago, a page called "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" was created on Facebook asking users to submit drawings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on 20th May 2010. This page, interpreted as blasphemous, has triggered a nationwide ban on the entire Facebook domain.

While we recognize that sites on the Internet are used to spew hatred and incite violence, we steadfastly believe that governments have no right to control access to information. We believe that every citizen has an inalienable right to freely access information and by censoring Facebook, the Government of Pakistan has taken away that right. This action will have a very negative impact on Pakistan, especially considering that countless small businesses, nonprofit organizations, restaurants, art galleries, magazines, and media outlets use Facebook to conduct day-to-day business and share information with their stakeholders.

In 2006, the Supreme Court of Pakistan banned the entire blogspot.com domain for over 18 months over a similar incident where only one blog carried blasphemous cartoons. Thousands of Pakistani bloggers were deprived of the freedom to express themselves and interact with others. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority now has the ability to block specific pages on the Internet and could have banned just the single blasphemous page. As members of civil society and professionals who depend on social media networks for our daily communications, we demand the immediate restoration of Facebook and an end to Internet censorship by the Government of Pakistan.

We would like to invite you to a press conference to discuss the worrying trend of Internet censorship and the resulting impact on civil liberties and the free and unfettered exchange of ideas and information.

Date: 20th May 2010
Time: 5:00 pm
Venue: Karachi Press Club

http://bit.ly/bzuEzg

Hacking politics: Aleks Krotoski interviews Austin Heap, inventor of Haystack – the tool that introduced Iranians to an open Internet, on his views on democracy, speech and an open Internet. Austin Heap: Revolutionising the internet

Digital nation: One of my favourite authors, Douglas Rushkoff, engages some of the really big names in Internet research (danah boyd, Sherry Turkle. etc) in a roundtable discussion on what it means to be online. Issues include parenting, participating in the economy, you know, all things Internet and social and moral panicky-like. It’s part of PBS’s Digital Nation series and website. Lots of videos to watch.

The new landscape of the religion blogosphere: The Immanent Frame presents a new report on blogging about religion, considering its place within the larger blogosphere and what religious bloggers think about blogging. Another post in the blog introduces some contributors and readers.

Just a note to anyone who is interested, and who obviously have no other life whatsoever, that I suggest either you buy yourself a cat, or head over to this page that I’ve finally completed. It contains a 1000-word summery of my thesis, and a table of contents. There is a form at the bottom to fill out if you’d like to grab yourself a copy of any of the sections. Some sections of my blog are embargoed for publication, so won’t be available online for some time.

I’m not going to buy a cat, because I already iz da flava. But I will be sleeping for a few months, and maybe making a quilt, or joining the Quaker movement, or just mucking around on my Playstation.