Department of redundancy redundancy department

On a more positive note here are short reviews of the talks that made republica very worthwhile for me (in chronological order): Bicyclemark - Twitter and Journalism Bicyclemark is a citizen journalist doing video and audio reports about under-reported news. Check him out, I like his stuff for a few years now. He talked about how he uses Twitter to get in contact with sources and interview partners. Even if he’s fighting with his Macbook for large parts of the talk, he’s a great speaker and I especially liked that he gave a realistic, not hyped, but neither pessimistic view on Twitter as a tool. In this case for journalists. Alvar Freude - Netz-Zensur Alvar is a german digital rights activist and gave a good overview why the current craze to filter the internet in Germany because of child porn is misguided and founded on scaremongering. Interesting side fact: There now is a organization of child pornography victims opposing the net filtering in Germany. Esra’a Al Shafei - Political evolution This was the best talk of the conference and worth flying to Berlin alone. Esra’a is head of mideastyouth.com which gives young people in the mid east free access to a hosted blog among other things. A reminder of how bad things are there (and might become over here) was her wish not to be photographed. She receives dead treats regularly for being a woman that dares to give voices to people that are atheists, Bahá’í or government critics. Esra’a is a powerful speaker and was the beacon of hope that this conference actually can give room to really important issues and how new technology can be used to nurture human rights instead of stifling them. Cory Doctorow - How to survive the net without embracing it Cory just get’s it. That DRM sucks. That graduate response is “like a digital death sentence”. That we need to think about distribution and copying in the internet age a lot more, instead to clinging to old structures. I disagree with his view point that we can make this work in our current capitalism frame-set by adapting our “business model” every other week to what the net wants though. The future will not feature enough work for everybody. I’d like to see Cory think about more radical changes in society. But that would just be icing on a already very delicious cake. Jon Worth - Atheist Buses Jon is fun, high energy and gave a slick presentation of how the atheist buses came together. He’s also involved in aggregating blogs about EU politics and in Anyone But Barroso - three bloggers trying to get rid of the current President of the Commission. So there - awesome guy, awesome talk. Jérémie Zimmermann - La Quadrature du Net Jérémie is head of La Quadrature du Net, an organization that aims to provide a toolbox to better understand european (and french) politics relating to digital rights and to break complex laws down to understandable essentials. I have become an avid fan of lqdn in the last months and think Jérémie does work of utmost importance and is to be commended for that. I’m pissed, angry and depressed that he had to present to a room that was two-thirds empty, because people cared more about some life-style blogging related bullshit. His talk and his work are and were way too important for that.