Arabic Wikipedia vs conspiracy theories?

One of the reasons why the Youtube anti-Muslim video became the source for massive, violent demonstrations last year was because people could not believe it wasn't 'government approved', a conspiracy.

A Demos researcher, Jamie Bartlett, wrote last year for the New York Times:

When Americans visit the Middle East or the broader Islamic world, they are often struck by the vitality of public interest and discussion about world affairs. Less comfortably, they often find the public to be cynical about Western interests, and quick to believe that shadowy groups control the world: that a cabal of Jews was responsible for 9/11 or that the C.I.A. instigated the Arab Spring for oil access.

This is not a stereotype, but a fact of Middle Eastern cultures – and a fact that Western nations must reckon with. Conspiracy theories of this type are ubiquitous in the region.

Conspiracy theories are not the only reason such people might distrust 'the West', as Stephen M. Walt points out angrily here in Foreign Policy. But it is nevertheless pleasing to read in Global Post of a massive expansion in Arabic Wikipedia and a rapidly growing project linking academia with the encyclopedia.

Bartlett points out that:

Skepticism is usual and healthy, but conspiracy theories inspire a generalized, knee-jerk cynical mistrust.

That Wikipedia is linking up in this way, in this part of the world could have the potential to seriously undermine the conspiracy brokers.

The Post article says that universities in Ukraine, Poland and Egypt are encouraging their students to post their thesis as Wikipedia entries.

Although critics warn that Wikipedia articles are no substitute for rigorous academic papers, supporters say more than simply putting more information at public disposal, erasing boundaries between the internet and academia will invigorate scholarship by enabling it to benefit everyone.

"Contributing to Wikipedia considerably increases students' motivation since their articles can be read by the whole world, not just their teachers or supervisors," argues Sergei Petrov, one of the Wikipedia project coordinators in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute ran a test program during its last fall that produced 23 new or expanded articles on Wikipedia Ukraine.

Since anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry, point out mistakes or improve an article's structure, the argument goes, thousands of reviewers could lighten the load for college professors by helping out.

The one area, critics say, in which this idea may not work is social science.

Launched two years ago, the Wikipedia Education Program encourages professors around the world to assign writing entries as class work.

The program has helped produce nearly 6,000 pages of published content in its first year and almost double that in the second, thanks to a growing flock of volunteers and more than 3,500 trained new editors.

Says the Post, maybe a little hyperbolically:

Twitter arguably started the Arab Spring, but it will be up to Wikipedia to keep it going.

HT: Andy Mabbett

What's the point of the IWF?

Rory Cellan-Jones reports on a small ISP which is challenging the Internet Watch Foundation's anti-paedophiles methods.

This is their idea of a black list, compiled from reports by the public, which ISPs are asked to use, somehow 'protecting children online'. The blacklist onto which a Wikipedia page found itself and was then withdraw after a justified uproar.

Zen Internet, a small Rochdale-based ISP, Rory reports, "has not yet implemented IWF's recommended system because we have concerns over its effectiveness. Our Managing Director, Richard Tang, is going to meet Peter Robbins the Chief Executive of the IWF to discuss these concerns."

Rory also says that children's charities are pressuring for the few ISPs who don't automatically follow the IWF's line to be forced to do so.

He quotes an IWF critic, Dr Richard Clayton:

"Everybody thinks they've done something by blocking this stuff but in practice it makes very little difference to who sees it and it's quite expensive."

The Wikipedia episode just highlighted what webbies already know - the blacklist is just a waste of time.

Why? Because most of this material is held abroad and the IWF is ineffective about getting it removed.

But it would obviously suit government to give into the children's charities and pressure ISPs because they would be 'seen to be doing something'. But the material and the pedophile networks exist on the 'dark net', a place you're unlikely to inadvertently stumble on. Those distributing it aren't going to have it in places where law enforcement might easily find it.

So this beggars the question which I made during the Wikipedia episode: 'what is the proven value of the IWF?'

What - exactly - are they achieving?

If you're trying to stop criminality and the exploitation of children, why aren't the police funded to do the job? Where else do you see amateurs, like the IWF, being presented - and being funded - as our best hope to 'protect children' ?

I think it's time for webbies to really step up and demand the government stops faffing about and that the IWF funding spent on this pointless blacklist goes to specialist police who can really challenge the distributors of material that exploits children.

• Past post, Privatised censorship and actually protecting children

POSTSCRIPT

Comment from another small ISP on Rory's blog, nailing the IWF's dodgy business interest:

1) They only provide a list of Child abuse Images hosted outside the UK. They issue takedown notices to anyone hosting this content in the UK but this has an interesting side effect, see later.

2) This list contains only a few thousand http urls - nothing more and an insignificant fraction of the amount of website urls in the world.

3) They don't provide any technology to enable this filtering, they leave the technical implementation to the ISP

4) They refuse to allow an open source implementation of the filtering because of concerns that it would allow the list to become public.

5) They charge a minimum of 5000 pounds per year for access to the list (going up to 20k+ for people who want to use the IWF approved branding etc).

6) There is no oversight on what goes on to this list, we only have the word of the IWF that it contains Child Abuse Images that infringe the appropriate laws. No ISP is going to risk looking at the sites on the list to check. There is nothing to stop them from adding sites critical of the IWF to the list, or for the scope of the list to be increased to block other types of sites.

7) The preferred method of blocking is to pretend the file could not be found and not to draw attention to the IWF list.

From this you can see that you are paying a significant sum for the list plus have to then spend additional cash and resources on a filtering system which then only blocks a tiny fraction of sites and adds overhead to every single page request.

....

* If you don't block these images you are supporting Child Abuse - How would your boss feel if we told him you supported Child Abuse (Direct quote from an IWF "saleswomen")

Postscript: IWF give up

IWF statement regarding Wikipedia webpage

Following representations from Wikipedia, IWF invoked its Appeals Procedure and has given careful consideration to the issues involved in this case. The procedure is now complete and has confirmed that the image in question is potentially in breach of the Protection of Children Act 1978. However, the IWF Board has today (9 December 2008) considered these findings and the contextual issues involved in this specific case and, in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove this webpage from our list.

Any further reported instances of this image which are hosted abroad, will not be added to the list. Any further reported instances of this image which are hosted in the UK will be assessed in line with IWF procedures.

IWF’s overriding objective is to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect. We regret the unintended consequences for Wikipedia and its users. Wikipedia have been informed of the outcome of this procedure and IWF Board’s subsequent decision.

Postscript: IWF row back

Is this 'extreme pornography'?

There was some sense of a rowback yesterday and today it's happened:

The Internet Watch Foundation [IWF] says it is still reconsidering whether its ban should remain on the image of a young girl used on the Scorpions' album Virgin Killer, after that ban prevented a number of British users accessing Wikipedia.

A spokeswoman for the IWF said that to her knowledge it was the first time in its decade-long history that any image or page banned by the IWF had been reassessed, and the first time that any page or image on Wikipedia had been banned. The IWF normally bans more than 10,000 images and associated web pages every year.

Here's Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales saying "C'mon! Do your wurst!" (And sounding a mite ignorant of their exact legal position).

And the IWF leader paddling furiously:



And I feel sorry for this poor mite! He's in over his head but trying, trying to do the right thing.

And a good comment from out-law underlining my critique of Wikipedia's libertarianistic bent:

Web hosts must not wait for an image to be declared unlawful by a court when they receive a complaint, albeit only a court can declare an image unlawful. If they wait, there is every chance that the declaration will come at their own trial.

Wales told Channel Four:

How do we draw up a boundary line that allows both routine internet expression and not pedophilia? The Internet Watch Foundation's system has been in operation for a number of years. Is it out of date?

Gonna help, Jimmy?

So what next?

This is really, purely a technocognisenti furore, despite its brief reign as top read story on news.bbc.co.uk. Although I can imagine the Mail et al bent out of shape trying to take it all in. Grey is the colour rather than back'n'white. The Rebekkah Wade's of this world are now a wee bit lost.

But it's truly much simpler. Simply put: what does the IWF actually do to combat online child abuse? If that scourge has moved on from their simplistic techniques, what use are they?

I still doubt that much will be made of this point but the answer is simple: resource those who can excise these bastards from the net. Amateurism is a waste of time.

Is Britain capable? From January IWF, the charity, will be assessing 'extreme images' on behalf of the government (they already assess 'race hate', bet you didn't know that). Having read of a woman who asked of her local plod whether a 'borderline' image (now's there's a truly British tradition) was 'illegal' - she was referred on to the IWF then the Ministry, no one could give her a 'straight' answer - I have not much hope. The borderline' image is at the top of the post.

Privatised censorship and actually protecting children

NB: in about fifteen hours since this screenshot another 370,000 have viewed the page.

Today's furore over the Wikipedia block by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has already done its job: the IWF has rowed back and will (hopefully) face much scrutiny of its operation.

Mere moralistic calls when faced with the 'collateral damage' to Wikipedia (UK users blocked from editing it due to an inept process) and the availability of the image in numerous other places clearly haven't and won't work. In fact they've created 'the Streisand effect' yet again - thousands more viewing something 'they' don't want you to see.

No doubt someone will try this line but faced with a Wikipedia editor on Radio 4's Today this morning, the IWF spokesperson could only sound flustered and annoyed - and more than a little technically lost.

For me, this episode highlights the issue with privatising censorship which I've written about before (tagged posts). The IWF may be a charity but their decisions, like those of the companies which manufacture filtering software, take place away from any process which can be effectively challenged by you or I. They're unaccountable.

They have four staff 'trained by police' who have five URLs an hour (and probably hundreds more after this episode) to review. Much like YouTube etc. this will result in many 'false positives' and my second point about 'censorware' regimes such as this.

'Over-blocking' is what happens with software filters and it happens with badly thought through systems like IWF's. 'Over-blocking' causes collateral damage, often to those who won't know what's going on or have the resources to do something. The classic example is blocking of vital sex education information to teens and educational materials to teens and the rest of us. Art censorship is another by-product.

Two comments, one from The Register and another from the Wikipedia editors thread show how this happens:

I'm a member of the EFF, FSF, Liberty and Amnesty International, and a founding member of the Open Rights Group as well. (I mention this not by way of boasting, but to demonstrate that I'm not one of the knee-jerk, Daily Mail-reading, "hang teh peedos!!1" brigade; and incidentally that's also why I'm posting anon on this occasion.[1]) ... the reason for filtering images like this; the notion that (a) paedophiles will use them for sexual gratification, and that (b) men (or more likely adolescents) in the early stages of sexual development may get imprinted with a sexual response to the image, such that they become in effect paedophiliac themselves.

~~~~~

Hey guys. I work for a company in the UK which contracts to the police to forensically process computers in child protection cases ... I can tell you now that this image is *not* classified as CP (the IWF are mislead somewhere along the line). The image would be classed (on the UK Copine scale) as "Relevant" - which means alone would not allow for a conviction on CP charges but it indicative of intent. Viewing images like this in a non-sexual context (such as this article) or as *part of the arts* (music cover) is not classed as an offence.

Further more: the original image is NOT CP because it is covered by "for artistic purposes" (whereby the image makes a statement as part of a work of artistic merit) - it is extremely possible that the photograph of the cover is similarly classed. Plus I also believe there is a little used classification of "for informational merit" where the image can be justified as educational or informational (for example a text book on human development etc.).

Summary: this image is legally not a problem.

Pro-smoking early C20th poster

If you want to see truly 'problematic' images which most definitely are art and definitely meant to be 'problematic' check out Balthus (on Wikipedia). Collected by Picasso, Balthus had societal approval in spades but wouldn't pass an IWF harassed staffer:

Prime Ministers and rock stars alike attended the funeral of Balthus. Bono, lead-singer of U2, sang for the hundreds of mourners at the funeral, including the President of France, the Prince Sadruddhin Aga Khan, supermodel Elle McPherson, and Cartier-Bresson.

Or Nan Goldin's work, found legal after being seized from Baltic Modern Art gallery, Gateshead.

It is not good enough to have 'police trained' staff essentially randomly blocking images following the 'just-in-case' line of the the first commentator from The Register.

The IWF's original statement on the Wikipedia block makes crystal clear that they will over-block (my emphasis):

The specific URL (individual webpage) was then added to the list provided to ISPs and other companies in the online sector to protect their customers from inadvertent exposure to a potentially illegal indecent image of a child.

Another comment on The Register shows the pointlessness of their URL blocking staff and the actual need for real police, funded properly, to track down actual child abuse images and those who distribute them:

I have had dealings with the IWF before. A couple of years ago I came across a fellow trading child porno on a torrent site. I wrote to the IWF and the Met in London and included IP addresses and all info I could muster. RESULT: TOTAL DISINTEREST! The met wrote back saying inform the IWF and the IWF wrote back saying tell the police. I got the feeling that unless the target was easy nobody bothers.

IWF cannot pass on a URL in a torrent case to ISPs to add to their list (because there is no URL), therefore they are useless against actual child abuse. The police, apparently, cannot take action because they are underfunded/don't have the staff.

Blocking URLs as IWF seem to be spending at least four salaries on doing is mere sticking plaster and just not doing anything about actual child abuse. Hopefully this episode will see much closer societal examination of what they actually do.

Wikipedia don't come out of this well either.

They have discussed the image themselves before and it was interesting to note on their editor's thread one lonely editor trying to get internal work done on a policy about such images. He faced nothing but rants from libertarians and comparisons about hosting such images with those of Muhammed and adult 'erotic images'.

Postscript: in email discussion the following points have come up:

I wrote recently - and actually clumsily - about how Jacqui Smith's anti-prostitution drive would side-swipe gay men. Actually it will side-swipe fellow women (I'm drafting a follow up).

One of the things I pointed out was how they'd just defunded an anti-trafficking unit.

Another prostitution law is really about ideologically "removing the demand" (Smith's said as much) and as equally ineffective in stopping real trafficking as the IWF's actions are in stopping real child abuse. With the IWF, it's also about being seen to do something rather than actually doing it. Remember, this is an ISP-funded body set up to stop criticism and regulation.

In one fell swoop the major source for the world's spam (and a child porn host) was recently taken down. This is the sort of action which actually combats online child abuse - how well-funded is that work?

How is the IWF's true effectiveness being judged? How much has been wasted on IWF? This should be part of the accountability, which is clearly missing and no-one has the guts to ask.

• Postscript: IWF row back

Clay Shirky on Colbert Report

Not a Stephen Colbert fan (shiver) but he does have some interesting guests (and he roasted GW Bush, to his face).

• Shirky's Wikipedia page.

Online marketing and UK eGov Frontierspeople

In January my fabulous egov webbie colleague Jeremy Gould organised the first UK Barcamp for government, held at Google HQ. BarCamp is a newish way of organising gatherings that's a breath of fresh air over the usual stale conferences.

It was an enormously successful event, for the first time drawing in a significant non-government input from the, often isolated, other people in NGOs, SMEs etc as well as bloggers with an interest. I was very sorry I missed it, not the least because it's exactly the sort of event I've wanted to see for - actually - years.

However ... and not having been there I recognise the limb I'm climbing onto (I used to review concerts and this is a classic, don't review if you weren't there) ...

One subject which I noticed was absent from discussion and follow-up and also didn't appear in the stated interests of the attendees was online marketing although I'm sure Search was discussed - it was @Google UK HQ after all.

Of course this is a first, so everything wouldn't make it in, although the 'agenda' at a BarCamp is all about what interests attendees, but it wouldn't surprise me if marketing was completely absent as my experience is that the area just doesn't register in the UK GovWeb scene. It wouldn't have been a focus for attendees because Social Media (in particular), online democracy and similar 'frontier' areas are 'subjects du jour' and there hasn't been the prior resonance, the history, with marketing as a topic for the people in this scene to put it on the agenda.

Elsewhere, it's never been a subject of interest within eGov. What there has been has been either irrelevant or dated (see DirectGov marketing and paulcanning posts passim) but - largely - notable by its absence. There is still no basic advice for government webbies on basic webbie things like Search Marketing / Search Optimisation (though government will advise SMEs on it!).

I hate to reuse the same word but here we go ... this is another disconnect. Marketing and especially Search Optimisation is an absolute essential for any web project.

Simply put, the 'findability' of any site is dependent on it and if something can't be found it won't be used. It precedes Usability.

I can't put it any simpler: if you don't market, how are you going to get used?

The eGov prism through which this topic is missed can be seen in something like discussions about whether councils or specific services (like Youth) should have a Facebook or Bebo page. The eGov discussion would revolve around what you would do with it, how you would use it to 'engage', policy etc. Wonky stuff.

But look at how Presidential candidates (and now some UK candidates) use these huge sites — it's mainly about extending their web presence. Making themselves more 'findable' because they are there in as many places as the potential voters might find them. That first, then maybe they might actually do more with that presence. That's how candidates have behaved online.

Never mind what you might do with a Bebo page, for example, if you simply stick one up that links to somewhere else that helps someone - especially the Youth - find you, boosts your overall presence and promotes your landing page(s). Just doing that is credible to audiences, anything more is pre-empting and assuming attitudes - you don't need to do more.

This is just the beginning, the very basics of online marketing - extending your presence.

Any web site manager looking through their logs will see a host of traffic sources. Looking at my blog; it's bits of traffic which adds up. Different posts finding different audiences through me pinging, links I've asked for and links which self-generate, referral, even one Wikipedia link which has brought lotsa traffic. And Email isn't insignificant as a traffic source. This is exactly how any other site builds traffic.

I've written a lot about how massive efforts like DirectGov really don't help punters through thinking themselves 'special' and not behaving like the rest of the web. How people use lots of different search terms and most won't find them what they want from government via Google, (which is how most people find anything online). Search is not easy (the mighty BBC is screwing it up right now) but it's not like others don't know how to do it and it's not like government doesn't have inbuilt advantages (trust).

The simple fact is that marketing is largely absent from the projects not just devised by big bad bureaucratic government but also those of the Frontierspeople: hence the gap at BarCamp. (Relative) successes tend to come from unsought viral promotion or exclusivity. They don't come from any thought through online marketing strategies because - put bluntly - there are none in eGov.

Any comparison with other sectors just shows this gap in its sharp relief. Who else would keep building sites with no strategy to drive traffic, let alone target an audience?

What actually is depressing is that, without wanting to sound martyrish, I'm scratching around to think of who else is raising the topic. There just seems to be very little resonance for marketing within eGov.

Am I wrong?

I'm scratching around for reasons and the only one I can think of which makes sense is look at the personnel. Who is coming from online marketing backgrounds into eGov? How does this knowledge make its way in? By contrast geeks. tekkies and wonks (of which I'm at least one meself) we have a-plenty.

Solutions? Again, I'm scratching but I think the quickest is to connect with the Frontierspeople equivalent in online marketing and not wait on the bureaucracy. I would also guess that this sector - being citizens and tax-payers themselves - wouldn't all be disinterested in contributing. It's just a shame that we'd (eGov) be coming from such a low base in that potential engagement.

But first we, eGov, just need to recognise online marketing as a vital, core part of creating websites. That hasn't happened yet.

This is Web power · Kenyans need blogs

Back from a break and some new-ish sites to tell you about, all of which show more new tricks and more great uses for the web (and they're truly inspiring). More to follow, first to Kenya.

NAIROBI — Dipping in and out of the headlines but far from resolved, the Kenyan crisis has shown up many media organisations and quite a few journalists in their ignorance about Kenya. Many have actually openly said that they don't 'get' it.

One good example was China's first statement, issued on Monday (14th). They, rightly, criticised colonialism's legacy, but also said:

"The Western 'democracy' transplanted to Africa is unsuited to local conditions and has sowed the seeds of disaster."

African bloggers have already picked this up and called it 'racist' — western media have so far missed it entirely.

What interested bystanders can now do though is get a wide range of Kenyan opinion and reporting 'on the ground' via blogs. If you really want to get some idea of what's happening and why, blogs are your best source.

There are dozens of Kenyan blogs. Some are by white people but most aren't, many are by expats. Some support President Kibaki, many the opposition but most aren't political. Many are religious or business blogs. Across the range you get endless eye-witness accounts and background, including from members of the Kikuyu, and one incredible photo-journalist's blog.

Saying far more in a few photos than yet another news-free monotone sob story from the BBC's Orla Guerin or ITV's Neil Connery (many Kenyan bloggers have praised Al-Jazeera's coverage), Joseph Karoki's blog has been documenting what's happening since the stolen election.

Joseph Karoki

Karoki has been sourcing photos from all over - I noticed today that a New York Times photographer is now contributing. And linking to others such as this Flickr collection.

He, along with the other bloggers, have managed to build up a fact-heavy network which is trying to talk peace and preach calm. Anything else, particularly 'tribalism', is being shouted down by other Kenyans in their blogosphere - it's great to watch this network evolving, even if the circumstances are appalling.

Kenyan blog Mentalacrobatics, has another positive angle - which, again, I'm not seeing in the MSM:

I have been expecting many of the younger voters to come and express their anger at me for getting their hopes up that their vote was as powerful as anyone else’s vote. Instead what I have seen is very encouraging; people are engaged in the political process as never before.

For example, earlier on Tuesday a group of youth were busy calculating how many votes you need to be elected Speaker of parliament. At petrol stations you hear debates about whether Nominated MPs are nominated before or after the speaker is elected, people come up to me and ask if there is anything that can prevent Kibaki from stealing all the Nominated MP positions for his own party in defiance of tradition which states the nominated positions are given out in proportion to the number of seats won, and the most requested document request I receive by email these days is for the Constitution.

Tuesday’s parliamentary proceedings were broadcast live on TV and the whole country was watching and taking note. When Marende [opposition candidate] was elected speaker we could hear shouts of celebration from Kibera and Kawangware [Nairobi slums]. This engagement is not exclusive to the middle class. It looks like stealing an election is a fantastic way to get the public engaged in civic education. Now that is a massive silver lining!

The exasperation with leaders is constant, as is the demand for fair elections. One sign of blogging's growing power in Kenyan politics is that they've rapidly developed as an avenue for counter-opposition propoganda.

Another rapidly growing angle is the use of video. This has been circulating news of acts of police violence — The following video may disturb you - which have transferred to MSM.

• More video

All of which gives the lie to the opinion expressed not just by the Chinese but by many Westerners - that democracy won't work in Africa. Online you can watch Kenyans trying to build their democracy. I find this inspiring and the cynical, sometimes racist, attitudes to their efforts somewhat depressing and lazy.

Karoki and other bloggers are working with Mama Mikes - the big electronic money transfer business - with an appeal for Kenya. There, you can buy a shopping voucher which will be used by Kenya Red Cross for food, water, blankets, clothes, sanitary products, toys for children etc. (And maybe condoms).

There's also another excellent blogger initiative called Usahidi (Swahili word for 'witness') which is recording all acts of violence (on a Google Map).



As many bloggers have explained, what's happening - especially with the continuing total news media blackout imposed by the government - has shown exactly why the Internet is so important for Africa.

• Kenyan blogs aggregator
• Mashada (online chat which connects with SMS)
  

Addendum: Wikipedia is a good source on British colonialism in Kenya (stuff you wouldn't know from school). Did you know we (the British) had over a million Kenyans in concentration camps within living memory - during the 1950s uprising?

• Kenya Wikipedia page

• Postscript

This is Web power · Challenging Cosa Nostra

Don Tapscott on Newsnight

Postscript: BBC have added the report/interview to Newsnight video highlights.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Unambiguously positive lead in by Paul Mason on Newsnight to an interview with Don Tapscott about Wikinomics. What a great communicator:

We talk to the author of a new book called 'Wikinomics' who says we've barely begun to see how the internet will effect the way we live and work. Social networking is passé and will be replaced by collaboration in which individuals will be given the opportunity to become the professionals - leading to greater innovation and changing the way business and scientific problems can be solved. Is this a cheap way for businesses to carry out research or are we entering a new era in which the power of the consumer is on a more equal footing with big business?

Newsnight blog with extract and comment

• Newsnight video
  
  

Search is Editorial

Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia in the Times, arguing that they'll overtake Google with Wikia Search:

“People think of search as some kind of computer function but it’s really editorial – it’s journalism. If I type ‘Martha Stewart’ into a search engine and I get 10 results back, those results are an editorial judgment whether or not it’s made by a computer.”

A lot of the developments beyond Wikipedia are building themselves up. Wikimaps had a lot more entries to the point of being overwhelmed last time I look, for example.

The Geo offerings are great, but a bit unwieldy. The travel content is interesting and growing. (Plus Wikipedia dominates search engine results ... )

Oregon: Smoke rising from one of Google's server farms

You've got to think that Jimmy may have a point, but search professionals are ga-ga at the moment with how strong Google indexing is.

Even if Google carries on improving at the rate it has we weren't here with this scenario in the 90s with a serious community-based challenger to a corporate.

Wikipedia Edits Cause Australian Political Scandal

This is too good to be true. Dorothy, we're back in Kansas ...

Techcrunch

Duncan Riley

5 comments »

The Australian Prime Minister’s Office have been caught editing Wikipedia, the latest in a growing line of Wikiscanner entrapments.

• Those Wikipedia edits in full ...

Those Wikipedia edits in full ...

CalTech graduate student Virgil Griffith built a search tool that traces IP addresses of those who make Wikipedia changes.

WikiScanner is the work of Griffith, 24, a cognitive scientist who is a visiting researcher at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. Mr. Griffith, who spent two weeks this summer writing the software for the site, said he got interested in creating such a tool last year after hearing of members of Congress who were editing their own entries.

Mr. Griffith said he “was expecting a few people to get nailed pretty hard” after his service became public. “The yield, in terms of public relations disasters, is about what I expected.”

Mr. Griffith, who also likes to refer to himself as a “disruptive technologist,” said he was certain any more examples of self-interested editing would come out in the next few weeks, “because the data set is just so huge."

Here's Wikiscanner. It's slow but persist — I found edits done from my work PC (these were legit!).

It has "editor's picks" — showing the latest body to be 'outed' using WikiScanner.

The Independent has helpfully done a round-up of what's been discovered thus far about who's editing Wikipedia.

Exxon Mobil and the giant oil slick
An IP address that belongs to ExxonMobil, the oil giant, is linked to sweeping changes to an entry on the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. An allegation that the company "has not yet paid the $5 billion in spill damages it owes to the 32,000 Alaskan fishermen" was replaced with references to the funds the company has paid out.

The Republican Party and Iraq
The Republican Party edited Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party entry so it made it clear that the US-led invasion was not a "US-led occupation" but a "US-led liberation."

The CIA and casualties of war
A computer with a CIA IP address was used to change a graphic on casualties of the Iraq war by adding the warning that many of the figures were estimated and not broken down by class. Another entry on former CIA chief William Colby was edited to expand his cv.

The Labour Party and careerist MPs
An anonymous surfer at the Labour Party's headquarters removed a section about Labour students referring to "careerist MPs", and criticisms that the party's student arm was no longer radical.

Dow Chemical and the Bhopal disaster
A computer registered to the Dow Chemical Company is recorded as deleting a passage on the Bhopal chemical disaster of 1984, which occurred at a plant operated by Union Carbide, now a wholly owned Dow subsidiary. The incident cost up to 20,000 lives.

Diebold and the dubious voting machines
Voting-machine company Diebold apparently excised long paragraphs detailing the US security industry's concerns over the integrity of their voting machines, and information about the company's chief executive's fundraising for President Bush. The text, deleted in November 2005, was very rapidly restored by another Wikipedia contributor, who advised the anonymous editor, "Please stop removing content from Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism."

The Israeli government and the West Bank wall
A computer linked to the Israeli government twice tried to delete an entire article about the West Bank wall that was critical of the policy. An edit from the same address also modified the entry for Hizbollah describing all its operations as being "mostly military in nature".

The dog breeders and fatal maulings
A dog breeders association in America removed references to two fatal maulings of humans by the Perro de Presa Canario dogs in the US. In 2001 a woman was attacked and killed by two Presa Canario/Mastiff hybrids in the hallway of her apartment building in San Fransisco. Last year a pure-bred Presa Canario fatally mauled a woman in Florida.

The gun lobby and fatal shootings
The National Rifle Association of America doctored concerns about its role in the increase in gun fatalities by replacing the passage with a reference to the association's conservation work in America.

Discovery Channel and guerrilla marketing
A source traced to Discovery Communications, the company that owns the Discovery Channel, deleted reference to company's reputation for " guerrilla marketing".

MySpace and self-censorship
Someone working from an IP address linked to MySpace appears to have been so irritated by references to the social networking website's over-censorial policy that they removed a paragraph accusing MySpace of censorship.

Boeing and a threat to its supremacy
Boeing has made it clear that it is not just one of the world's leading aircraft manufacturers, but is in fact the leading company in this field.

The church's child abuse cover-up
Barbara Alton, assistant to Episcopal Bishop Charles Bennison, in America, deleted information concerning a cover-up of child sexual abuse, allegations that the Bishop misappropriated $11.6 million in trust funds, and evidence of other scandals. When challenged about this, Alton claims she was ordered to delete the information by Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori.

Amnesty and anti-Americanism
A computer with an Amnesty International IP address was used to delete references accusing the charity of holding an anti-American agenda.

Dell computer out-sourcing
Dell removed a passage about how the company out-sourced its support divisions overseas.

Nestle and corporate criticism
Someone from Nestle removed criticisms of some of the company's controversial business practices, which have all subsequently been re-added.

The FBI and Guantánamo
The FBI has removed aerial images of the Guantánamo Bay Naval base in Cuba.

Scientologists and sensitivity
Computers with IP addresses traced to the Church of Scientology were used to expunge critical paragraphs about the cult's world-wide operations. On biography pages for dead celebrities, links were added to articles by a Scientology front group suggesting that pharmaceuticals were responsible for their deaths.

News International and the hypocritical anti-paedophile campaign
Someone at News International saw fit to remove criticism of the News of the World's anti-paedophile campaign by deleting the suggestion that this amounted to editorial hypocrisy. The original entry reminded readers that the paper continued to "publish semi-nude photographs of page three models as young as 16 and salacious stories about female celebrities younger than that."

Oliver Letwin and his great disappearing act
An edit linked to the Conservative Party IP address expunged references to The MP Oliver Letwin's gaffe during the 2001 general election when he reportedly said he wanted to cut "future public spending by fully 20 billion pounds per annum relative to the plans of the Labour government" . The accompanying paragraph, explaining that when his own party failed to support the move he took a low profile on the election campaign, was also removed.

Some more:

• Someone from SeaWorld's owners removed a paragraph about criticism of SeaWorld’s “lack of respect toward its orcas [Killer Wales]”.
• Ebay deletes criticism of Paypal.
• Last year, someone at PepsiCo deleted several paragraphs of the Pepsi entry that focused on its detrimental health effects.
• Someone inside Wal-Mart Stores changed "Wages at Wal-Mart are about 20 percent less than at other retail stores," citing the author Greg Palast as the source, to "The average wage at Wal-Mart is almost double the federal minimum wage", citing Wal-Mart.
• Last year, someone using a computer at the Washington Post Company changed the name of the owner of a free local paper, The Washington Examiner, from Philip Anschutz to Charles Manson.
• A person using a computer at CBS updated the page on Wolf Blitzer of CNN to add that his real name was Irving Federman. (It is actually Wolf Blitzer.)
• Someone at The New York Times Company changed the page on President Bush repeating the word “jerk” 12 times. In the entry for Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, the word “pianist” was changed to “penis.”
• A member of Pope Benedict’s staff changed Gerry Adam’s entry to remove links to newspaper stories written last year that claimed Mr Adams was involved in a double murder in 1971.
• A BBC employee changed US President George W Bush’s middle name from 'Walker' to 'Wanker'.
• Someone from Al Jezeera changed Israel's entry to add: "Jews believe that they are chosen by God and that they are better than other people."
• Someone from the United Nations changed the late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci's entry to describe her as a “racist whore.”
• Two Spanish TV stations exposed for performing an 'experiment' on John Lennon and Elvis Presley's entries.
• Games trade association ESA removed references to mod chips which can be used to play pirated game software.
• Apple employees editing the Microsoft page.
  
• Someone using a Connecticut Police computer added " the holocaust is fucking awseome."
• Editors from Christian-right Liberty University deleted the fact that Moral Majority leader and Liberty founder Jerry Falwell was fined in 1987 for illegally transferring funds for his ministry to his political action committees.
• Someone in the South African Government added "'I think that was all bullshit, thats why I deleted it. Thank you motherfucker!" on being discovered editing the HIV/AIDS entry.
• Someone at the ACLU added "during the Pope's final illness, he carried out many of the Pope's functions as leader of the Catholic Church, such as molesting young boys and degrading women."
  
• FoxNews removed references to misquotes, legal brushes, bad ratings, and gaffes by personalities — and, once exposed, responded by attacking Wikipedia's credibility.
  

The only people who seem to have come out clean from Griffith's 'disruptive technology' are Microsoft.

In another blow to Andrew Keen, FoxNews and other anti-Wikipedia credibility types, they are now adding 'nofollow' tags to all outgoing links, thereby destroying Search marketeers attempts to 'game' Wikipedia.

Postscript: According to TechCrunch, Google also come out clean.

World eGov survey · UK 5th

Equatorial Guinea eGov bests France, Japan, Italy and former colonists Spain.


PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University], July 24, 2007 — Asian countries continue to dominate international e-government ratings, taking three of the top four spots in a global e-government study undertaken by researchers at Brown University. South Korea earned the top rank, followed by Singapore, Taiwan, the United States, Great Britain and Canada. The study shows that 28 percent of government agencies around the world are offering online services, about the same as in 2006.

• Report [Pdf 700kb]

Global e-Government: 198 Countries Ranked

Rankings from 1 to 50

RANK COUNTRY RATING 1. (1) South Korea 74.9 (60.3) 2. (3) Singapore 54.0 (47.5) 3. (2) Taiwan 51.1 (49.8) 4. (4) United States 49.4 (47.4) 5. (6) Great Britain 44.3 (42.6) 6. (5) Canada 44.1 (43.5) 7. (48) Portugal 43.8 (31.3) 8. (12) Australia 43.5 (39.9) 8. (27) Turkey 43.5 (33.7) 10. (8) Germany 42.9 (41.5) 11. (7) Ireland 42.4 (41.9) 12. (16) Switzerland 42.3 (36.9) 13. (38) Brazil 41.1 (32.1) 14. (11) Dominica 41.0 (40.0) 15. (65) Bahrain 40.3 (29.6) 16. (40) Equator. Guinea 40.0 (32.0) 16. (32) Liechtenstein 40.0 (33.0) 18. (133) Andorra 39.0 (24.0) 19. (14) New Zealand 38.4 (37.6) 20. (35) Italy 38.0 (32.9) 21. (10) Spain 37.7 (40.6) 22. (20) Hong Kong 37.5 (35.4) 23. (19) Finland 37.3 (35.6) 24. (30) Vatican 37.0 (33.5) 25. (36) Malaysia 36.9 (32.7)

RANK COUNTRY RATING 26. (15) Netherlands 36.8 (37.4) 27. (46) Czech Rep. 36.7 (31.7) 28. (106) Brunei 36.5 (26.8) 29. (84) Cyprus (Rep.) 36.4 (28.3) 30. (40) Liberia 36.0 (24.0) 30. (56) Austria 36.0 (30.6) 30. (17) Azerbaijan 36.0 (36.0) 30. (143) Sierra Leone 36.0 (24.0) 30. (39) Bhutan 36.0 (32.0) 30. (175) Costa Rica 36.0 (20.0) 30. (73) Eritrea 36.0 (29.0) 30. (166) Ethiopia 36.0 (22.0) 30. (137) Gabon 36.0 (24.0) 30. (17) North Korea 36.0 (36.0) 40. (9) Japan 35.9 (41.5) 41. (28) Malta 35.8 (33.6) 42. (23) France 35.6 (34.7) 42. (24) Qatar 35.6 (34.5) 44. (67) Israel 35.5 (29.4) 45. (88) Croatia 35.0 (28.0) 46. (51) Iceland 34.6 (31.1) 47. (77) India 34.2 (28.7) 48. (54) Peru 34.0 (30.8) 48. (150) Zambia 34.0 (23.5) 50. (68) Mexico 33.9 (29.3)

According to Wikipedia, the PM website is the closest to a Japanese national government portal.


Common services include voter registration, visa application, passport application/renewal, job listings and online application, and requests for statistical reports.

Online tax filing was very prevalent, and was found on the Belgian Portal Site, the Pakistani Customs site, the Philippine Portal, and the French Economic Ministry.

Many departments offer online complaint forms. For example, the Malaysian Portal site has links to many of these forms. The Netherlands has a dedicated site for their Ombudsman, which accepts online complaint submissions. The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs lets you complain about the presence of “objectionable material”. Several Philippine sites, such as the Portal page, Armed Forces, and Public Works have complaint forms. The South African Public Protector has an online complaint form.

Applying for and renewing licenses and permits is another common area where services are offered. The Mauritius Portal lets you apply for work permits and learner’s licenses and the New Zealand Economic Development website lets you renew an electrical workers or radio license. Many departments allow you to apply for government jobs online, including the New Zealand Portal.

Many sites allow you to order publications, including the Slovenia Tourism Board, South African Department of Environment & Tourism, Australian Portal site, Slovakia Industrial Property site, and the Swiss Intellectual Property Institute.

Several sites allow users to apply for grants online, including the New Zealand portal and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Various websites allow for electronic document filing. The New Zealand portal lets you file various corporate documents (including annual returns). The Slovakia Industrial Property uses a digital signature system to enable its e-filling of documents. The Swiss Intellectual Property Institute offers the ability to file trademark applications through “e-Trademark” The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has the EDGAR Service, which allows for the online filing of 116 different forms.

Several sites are unique in their attempt to encourage electronic government.

The Swiss Intellectual Property Institute offers the “e-Trademark” service to help file trademark applications, and the fees for electronic filing are less than those for submitting paper copies. The Slovakia Industrial Property also offers online filing of documents for reduced fees online.

Several countries offered unique online services. The Republic of Congo offers a means to send SMS text messages from its site, for a fee. The New Zealand Portal and Conservation site allow online booking of huts and campsites in national parks. The Australian Toilet Map found at the National Continence Management Strategy lets you browse and pinpoint public toilets throughout Australia and see toilets along a planned route. Visitors can suggest additions to the toilet database.



Uluru .. There are 5 nearby toilets:

The Philippine Portal offers a link to an online betting site for basketball games run by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation. The Luxembourg Education Ministry has a link to its mySchool Portal where students can take online classes and tests and receive help with homework.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Administration allows users to search the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database for case studies of injuries to people by consumer products. Mexico’s Ministry of the Economy site has an online “conversation forum” available to visitors where you can have an instant message conversation with agency officials.

Colombia’s Ministry of Education allows users to elect to erase all cookies placed on their hard drive periodically as they log in with their username and password. Guatemala’s Ministry of Agriculture site has a webshots.com page embedded in their government web page that shows albums documenting the programs they put on and their service projects.



NUEVO - Fotos Proyectos

Turkey’s Portal has webcams of streets and squares all around the country on a live feed via the internet. Peru’s Portal site has an interactive online video that shows a mouse clicking on different things and what each click would accomplish plus a tutorial showing how to navigate pages while a voiceover explains the different services.

Ecuador’s President site has a youtube.com website with videos and an entire user profile for the President of the country. Czech Republic’s Portal site has a new “Did you know?” fact at the top of each page. The page contains a unique “conversation bubble” theme that allows for links to interesting services and a “quick review” that gives current time and date, weather, and exchange information at a glance.

India’s Department of Commerce site holds regular online chat sessions, with pre-designated topics either a few times a week or daily for one hour. They broadcast the topics and their schedule on a scrolling banner at the top of the webpage for every visitor to see.

OnLine Chat Date : 20 Nov 2006

On 'Special Economic Zones Policy' on every working day between 17.00 - 18.00 Hrs | "Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs)" on Monday, Tuesday between 11 AM and 12 Noon | "WTO(Doha Round of Negotiations)" on Thursday, Friday between 11 AM and 12 Noon

One feature that has slowed the development of online services has been an inability to use credit cards and digital signatures on financial transactions. On commercial sites, it is becoming a more common practice to offer goods and services online for purchase through the use of credit cards.

However, of the government websites analyzed, only 5 percent accept credit cards and 1 percent allowed digital signatures for financial transactions, similar to last year.

For our test, we used the Priority Level One standard and evaluated each government agency regarding whether it complies with the W3C guidelines. Sites are judged to be either in compliance or not in compliance based on the results of this test. According to our Bobby [sic] analysis, 23 percent of government websites are accessible to the disabled, the same as last year.

Disability Access
2004 2005 2006 2007
14% 19% 23% 23%

The most basic means to ensure accessibility is to maintain compliance with WWC standards. However, there now exist other ways to aid accessibility. Many sites how allow users to change the size on the text, to accommodate those with poor eyesight. Other pages have applications that will read the entire page to the user. The most extreme example of this trend can be seen on the Swedish Government Portal (
http://www.sweden.gov.se/), which not only will read to page to you, but lets you
customize the text size, spacing, and coloring. Advances in technology have made these types of aids possible, and government website should begin implementing them In order to improve electronic government, the report suggests that governments take several steps to reach their full potential in terms of accessibility and effectiveness. The ultimate goal of e-government is to provide citizens with services, information, and interactive features. To this end, sites need to be well-designed, easy to navigate, and accessible to a wide variety of users.

The researchers suggest the following steps be undertaken:

• standardize templates with consistent navigation;
• have accessibility aids;
• list when pages are updated;
• organize pages by user type;
• create “most popular” lists;
• have an online services menu;
  
• have interactive technical assistance;
• make it interesting!
• avoid commercial advertising;
• fix faulty links;
• improve language accessibility;
• do not sell domain names; and
  
• have a secure and stable server.
  
  
  

And so, the Macaca turns ..

From Wikipedia

Macaca is a pejorative epithet used by francophone colonialists in Central Africa's Belgian Congo for the native population. It may be derived from the name of the genus comprising macaque monkeys. The word macaque has also been used as a racial slur. The macaque's genus name, Macaca, is a latinization of the Bantu (Kongo) ma-kako,^[3] meaning "monkey".

Allen points to Webb aide, Sidarth, referring to him as "Macaca."^[18]

In the 2006 Senate election in Virginia the Republican Senator George Allen lost, in part, because of a video showing him directing the Macaca slur at an opposition campaign worker, S.R. Sidarth, whose ancestors came from India.

TechPresident reports that:

Videos of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani making gaffes have been circulating to potentially damaging effect. Romney's video, in which he seems to equate volunteer military service with working for his campaign, was shot (actually, it's just audio) at a campaign stop in Iowa [it's an official video]. In Giuliani's video, in which he compares himself to the 9/11 rescue workers ("I'm one of them"), Giuliani is speaking at press conference. But while the George Allen/Macaca video captured an unguarded Allen speaking off the cuff at a fundraiser, these captured candidates speaking on the record, directly to cameras.

So they wonder if the moment's hitting when candidates should justly have a 'Fear of Macaca?'

The macaca video hit because someone happened to shoot it and upload it, and others took notice and it began to spread virally. In these cases, however, it didn't take a tracker to spot the videos and promote them; instead, an online, distributed network is efficiently spreading them upward making them into a bigger and bigger issue.

This is about the size of the network compared to just last year and also the ease of connecting, with search improvements and online video visibility etc.

In my town a clip caught on a mobile phone of a local Councilor caught off-guard is doing the rounds - a local campaign has been slowly developing video as documentary evidence so it's as one with that - and much being made of it by the opposition.

It's not going to spread upwards like Romney's but the implications are possibly serious and only going to get more so for all elected officials. And probably some unelected ones too.

Romney video


Guiliani video

Great Firefox add-ons

I'm a big fan of Firefox and have started using a new add-on which is just brilliant.

Using SEOpen, from one right-click, I can check a page's:

• Yahoo Backlinks
• Pages in Yahoo Index
• Google Backlinks
• Google Cache
• Pages in Google index
• Google Translate to English
• Google Related
• PageRank Check
• MSN Backlinks
• Pages in MSN Index
• Alexa Overview
• Alexa Traffic
• Alexa Related
• Alexa Backlinks
• "Mass Check" multiple sources at once
• Check DMOZ Inclusion
• Keyword Density
• Page Size Checker
• HTML Validator
• Server Header Viewer
• Wayback Machine
• Check robots.txt
• Whois Info

Fab.


This is a bit specialist (ahem) but some of the other add-ons I love can be useful for everyone:

TinyUrl Creator
Very easy copy'n'paste for a shorter URL

Tabbrowser Preferences
Useful things like retrieving closed tabs, copy tab URL

Snipshot
Edit images easily, simple crop, resize

Show Screen Captures
Displays thumbnail screenshots next to external links on a web page, this one I think I'll disable

ScrapBook
Extremely useful to clip pages or text but be even better if I was saving to my web repository, not my hard drive

Plain Text Links
Lets me open a URL from text

Menu Editor
Edit right-click menu

Image Zoom

IE Tab
Shows a page as it would appear in IE

Groowe Search Toolbar
Combines Google, Wikipedia (I use that a lot), Yahoo, de.li.cious etal

Greasemonkey
Great developer tool. More >

Advanced Dork

DOM Inspector

LinkChecker

ColorZilla
Copies any colour from a page.

DownThemAll!
Speeds up + manages downloading

deskCut
Puts a shortcut on your desktop

Adblock Plus
Blocks ads (except those served from the site, which some do)

What am I missing?

Bytes · Right on Miss America - MS tortoise/Google hare - Wikipedia Story

• I agree with Miss America [could she be any perkier?] — she wants mandatory Internet safety classes for kids.

• The Guardian's website has a new Science section, very useful when mass media (the Beeb, sheesh) and politicians push nonsense like concerns about WiFi.
  
  
• AJAX is a technology underpining many dynamic web 2.0 apps, so it's good to see this accessify post suggesting that the well-used Screen reader JAWS is including language about support for AJAX in it's next version.
  
  
• When web accessibility is not your problem (MP3, 28MB) - Joe Clark [session notes]
  
  
  
• Scott Karp: Online Publishers Need To Stop Selling Space.
  

  Google doesn’t sell any space. It sells user intentions, i.e. what’s on people’s minds. And that’s a scare resource — there’s a finite number of people thinking about buying a digital camera today.
  
  So what else is a scarce resource online? Locality.
  

~~~~~~~~~~~


NYT: Microsoft Offers a Web-Based Strategy

“We’re not moving toward a world of thin computing,” said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, referring to systems in which simple processing takes place on a PC, but more complex processing is moved to a centralized computer through a network connection. “We’re moving toward a world of software plus services.” Nearly every Microsoft software application will be transformed with the addition of a Web-services component within 3 to 10 years, he said.

SEL take:

Even as Microsoft says it's defending its home turf, the company is of course trying to aggressively compete in the world of search and online advertising, which is Google's core franchise. Recent purchases of aQuantive/Atlas (for $6 billion) and AdECN, as well as high profile deals with Facebook and Digg, show how serious Microsoft is about being a major player in both arenas ... my guess is that "3 to 10 years" is too long for Microsoft to wait to web-enable its critical applications; because by then the free, online options will be much better.

~~~~~~~~~~~

If you missed it, Clive Anderson's great take on The Wikipedia Story is still on Radio 4's website

The NeoConservative Oliver Kamm responded on his blog and distilled the objectors - to them, Wikipedia represents "an anti-intellectual exercise".

(Gawd knows what's going on with the BBC at the moment. Withdrawn digital services + the complicated sounding iplayer. And have you used their website search lately? Whenever I've used it it consistently fails the same comparison test against Google that DirectGov does)

Search Wikia is Jimmy Wales' latest.

Our Four Organizing Principles (TCQP) - the future of Internet Search must be based on:

• 1. Transparency - Openness in how the systems and algorithms operate, both in the form of open source licenses and open content + APIs.
• 2. Community - Everyone is able to contribute in some way (as individuals or entire organizations), strong social and community focus.
• 3. Quality - Significantly improve the relevancy and accuracy of search results and the searching experience.
• 4. Privacy - Must be protected, do not store or transmit any identifying data.

Active areas of focus:

• Social Lab - sources for URL social reputation, experiments in wiki-style social ranking.
• Distributed Lab - projects focused on distributed computing, crawling, and indexing. Grub!
• Semantic Lab - Natural Language Processing, Text Categorization.
• Standards Lab - formats and protocols to build interoperable search technologies.