User blogs

One measure of the success of a conference is the attendance and engagement in the afternoon of the last day. And even that simple metric confirms the success of the 2014 Geneva Internet Conference since at least 100 people joined the closing panel, addressed by Philipp Metzger, Director-General, OFCOM. As one of the sponsors, Metzger was in a good position to assess whether the conference served one of it's main aims, to bring together key players in Internet Governance (IG) from Geneva and around the globe.

Jovan Kurbalija, Diplo Director, has been tweeting live updates from 1914, marking the suddenly acceleration of history after the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand on 28 July 1914.  "Slow developments taking months, if not years, evolved into a rush with the picture changing hour-by-hour. Contemporaries of the time experienced 'Twitter time' 100 years before the invention of Twitter" explains the site where the tweets are being recorded.

Online crowd funding is deeply fashionable so we ventured into this new world with some trepidation. Just how valuable is Diplo’s work in supporting small and developing states develop capacity for effective engagement in international meetings and negotiations? Is it valuable enough for people to support a scholarship fund financing participation in Diplo’s programmes from such states? How would the Diplo message resonate with a global audience, mostly unfamiliar with the realities of diplomacy and our brand of online learning?

"After two days of intensive negotiations with more than 1300 comments and proposals, the NETmundial summit in São Paulo concluded Thursday evening with the expected Multistakeholder Statement. But the document involves numerous compromises and tradeoffs, feeding frustrations and sparking questions about the future."

From the corridors of negotiations to the end of the night discussing principles and a roadmap for an acceptable summit declaration, Jovan Kurbalija and Vladimir Radunovic give us their insight on this promising summit.

60% of the world's population is not online. Michael Moller, Acting Director General of UNOG, was the first to raise the issue during his opening remarks at the launch of the Geneva Internet Platform (GIP) on 8th April. But the fact that in 2014 this is still the stark reality for so many of the world's people made it one of the key issues emerging from the event. Ambassador Yvette Stevens of Sierra Leone asked how the GIP planned to engage with the issue.

“Internet Governance is at a cross-roads.” There is, “an urgent need for the international community to address growing risks and vulnerabilities faced by Governments, corporations and citizens while still ensuring digital growth and innovation”. So said Ambassador Alexandre Fasel in his opening remarks at the inauguration of the Geneva Internet Platform (GIP) on Tuesday 8^th April. 

Twitter use in Turkey dropped when a ban on the platform was introduced. This simple fact was obscured by the excitement and celebration that in the days immediately after the ban Twitter traffic increased as people found ways around the block. But, as the figure illustrates, usage dropped after that first spike. Circumventing the ban required extra effort, and some technical knowledge, both significant barriers to a service part of whose USP is ease of use, and immediacy.

So we all like a good laugh, especially at the expense of important people, which is why pricking pomposity and mocking self-importance has become such a popular sport online (and why anxious, threatened politicians who wish for a more controlled world, in the sense of controlled from the centre, continue to try and ban the spaces like F