The internet, the world’s greatest distraction:

The Internet is an interruption system. It seizes our attention only to scramble it…we start to read faster and less thoroughly as soon as we go online. Plus, the Internet has a hundred ways of distracting us from our onscreen reading.

This sounds right to me!

OK. We’ve been through this before. Many, many times before, in fact. Technology is a medium, not a force for that favors good or evil. What matters is the intent of the user.

I had a great idea after listening to Secretary Clinton’s speech on internet freedom. I wondered whether it would be possible to use mobile phones to improve governance in Africa. Today I found out that not only is the answer yes, but that someone is already doing it.

I know that the ‘internet’, Twitter, Facebook, etc are not the solution to all the world’s problems.  Really, I do.  But every once in a while, it’s wonderful to read about how they’ve solved one problem: Natalie Nakatani has a bone marrow donor match.

Nathalie is the inspiration for @SaveNatalie, an extreme bone marrow donor drive run by Adriel Hampton, a Gov2.0 expert from San Francisco.  In addition to trying to find a specific match for Natalie, the efforts focused on recruiting minority donors.  This drive, in addition to saving Natalie, the drive has likely helped dozens of others.

There’s more information available online thru the Save Natalie Facebook site.

Earlier in the week China Beat featured a script from a talk given by Ying Zhu, professor of Media Culture at CUNY Staten Island, at Google’s New York offices. The piece teases at themes to be covered in depth in her upcoming book on China Central Television co-authored with Bruce Robinson. Focusing on recent news stories, Zhu argues that the size of the internet community, an increased access to information and a better-educated citizenry have created what she terms a “critical mass”. This term has three parts: (1) the mass has grown to the point where the Chinese government’s ability to put down a popular rebellion is limited, (2) the mass is able to articulate preferences and force a government response, and (3) the mass forms passive online associations ready to be organized into “active participation” should they be provided a catalyst. Read the rest of this entry…

Denis Blair, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), testified today to Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the DNI’s Annual Threat Assessment.  The first item on the list shocked me: “Far-Reaching Impact of the Cyber Threat.” From the report:

The national security of the United States, our economic prosperity, and the daily functioning of our government are dependent on a dynamic public and private information infrastructure…This critical infrastructure is severely threatened.

This cyber domain is…enabling those who would steal, corrupt, harm or destroy the public and private assets vital to our national interests…

Malicious cyber activity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication…the existing balance in network technology favors malicious actors…Sensitive information is stolen daily from both government and private sector networks…We cannot be certain that our face infrastructure will remain available and reliable during a time of crisis…

We face nation states, terrorist networks, organized criminal groups, individuals, and other cyber actors with varying combinations of access, technical sophistication and intent. Many have the capabilities to target elements of the US information infrastructure for intelligence collection, intellectual property theft, or disruption. Terrorist groups and their sympathizers have expressed interest in using cyber means to target the United States and its citizens…

Internet freedom indeed.

I have been writing a lot about the internet lately, primarily as a result of Secretary Clinton’s speech last week on internet freedom. It’s important to recall, however, that technology is typically neutral. Whether it is good or bad for democracy is a function of who uses it and for what purposes. Recent violence in Nigeria makes this clear:

Text messages that urged people to murder and then burn their victims’ bodies helped stoke inter-religious violence in central Nigeria that killed hundreds of people last week, police and rights activists said overnight.

Rights activists have identified at least 145 texts that circulated on mobile phones in the central city of Jos, the epicentre of four days of Muslim-Christian clashes that authorities said killed 326 people.

“The messages helped escalate the violence in Jos in that some of them instructed people on how to kill, dispose of and burn bodies,” said leading rights activist Shehu Sani.

The texts were aimed at “spreading rumours and inflaming tensions”, said Mr Sani, who heads a coalition of 32 Nigerian civil and human rights groups called the Civil Rights Congress.

One of the messages seen by AFP read: “War, war, war. Stand up … and defend yourselves. Kill before they kill you. Slaughter before they slaughter you. Dump them in a pit before they dump you.”

Moreover, this is not an isolated incident. For example, people used SMS’s for similar purposes following Kenya’s flawed election in 2007.