Media Bits and Bytes - Walk the Talk Edition

Modi Courts Silicon Valley; Offline; Suing for Net Neutrality; High Schoolers Produce Radio Docs; Phones vs. Out-of-Control Cops

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Isandro Malik and Omeed Miraftab-Salo during an interview at WILL. ,Photo via Uni/WIL

PM Modi selling Digital India in Silicon Valley is One Thing, Walking the Talk in Real India is Another

By Sandip Roy  
September 29, 2015
Firstpost

(India Prime Minister) Narendra Modi’s speeches are tailor-made for his audience. His triumphal tour of Silicon Valley was no exception as he charmed the titans of technology by speaking their lingo. There’s nothing that tech whiz kids like better than technological silver bullets for seemingly intractable social problems, attacking poverty, as the Indian prime minister said, by the power of networks and mobile phones.
Free wi-fi at 500 railway stations. 600,000 villages linked by optical fibre network. What was not to love, or at least Facebook-like, about this vision of the future even though it does not mean women’s rights are ensured or that healthcare is truly accessible.
But FreeInternet does not translate to freedom on the Internet. While Modi tells Zuckerberg “Social media helped me gain knowledge, it broadened my horizon”, the irony is far too many ordinary Indians find out the hard way that that freedom is really a minefield.


Taken Offline: Years in Prison for a Love of Technology

By Danny O'Brien
September 24, 2015
Electronic Frontier Foundation

The trend of governments to treat technologists and technology users as unpredictable threats who need to be taken offline is on the rise. Every week sees new incidents of arrests and detentions on the basis of ignorance or suspicion of new technology and its users. From the experience of teenager Ahmed Mohamed in Irving, Texas, to the recent detention by Iranian police of tech entrepreneur Arash Zad, users end up harassed or detained in part because of their "dangerous" knowledge of tech.
Hence, Offline: our new contribution to sharing the stories of imprisoned technologists and technology users.


Free Press Takes the Fight for the Open Internet to Court

By Dana Floberg and Matt Wood
September 25, 2015
Free Press

On Monday Free Press filed a joint brief in federal court with nearly two-dozen public interest groups, tech companies and consumer advocates in defense of the FCC’s historic Net Neutrality order. We “intervened” in the case, which means we joined the litigation as a party even though we’re not the ones getting sued. Intervening enables us to help defend the FCC’s authority against the appeals from big Internet service providers and their lobbyists.
It’s the Internet’s free and open nature that’s allowed ordinary people and startups to bypass institutional gatekeepers and make their voices heard. Communities of color, rural residents and low-income populations — people with the most limited access to the traditional tools of political power — have mobilized for change using social media. Innovative new companies have been able to compete online with incumbent industry giants. These freedoms deserve fierce protection.

That Public Radio Documentary You Just Listened to was Made by High School Students

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By Melody Kramer
September 29, 2015
Poynter

Every year, the eighth graders entering Janet Morford’s social studies class at the University of Illinois Laboratory High School (Uni) learn how to conduct oral history interviews.
After learning how to write and prepare oral histories, the 8th graders work with older students at the high school to prep, conduct and record interviews around a particular topic. Those interviews are then transcribed and pieced together to create short radio spots and an hour-long documentary, all of which air on local public radio station WILL.


VIDEO: Citizens Order Cop To “Drop the Gun” After He Pulled it on an Unarmed Woman — It Worked

By Johnny Liberty
September 19, 2015
The Free Thought Project

A video uploaded to YouTube Friday shows a Boston police officer attempting to arrest a woman on a city bus in Dudley Square. The woman was allegedly under arrest for a petty theft, according to the video’s description.
During the incident, the woman begins to resist the officer’s advance and within seconds the officer recklessly draws his service weapon to use against the unarmed woman on a bus full of passengers. During the altercation, at least four passengers can be seen recording on their cell phones. As the situation progressed, this level of accountability proved extremely valuable.
Immediately after the trigger happy cop draws his gun, several bystanders can be heard ordering him to drop his weapon informing the officer that the woman, while resisting, obviously had no means of escape. The officer, after repeatedly being commanded to disarm, begrudgingly holstered his weapon. The onlookers then proceed to instruct both the officer and the woman to “relax” and “chill.” Several passengers can also be heard telling the woman to calm down, offering reassurance by saying “we’re here.”