IGF

IGF: Moderation, frustration and making people uncomfortable

October 31, 2006

You reach a certain level of frustration and then, suddenly, you relax. The struggle becomes impossible and then you realise that, ultimately, it’s not that important. You’re still breathing air, you still have legs, this will come to an end.
What on earth am I talking about? The mild insanity of hosting a global, revolutionary Internet [...]

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IGF – Setting the scene quick review

October 30, 2006

I don’t know how it happened but Vint Cerf’s on his feet, Paul Twomey is being pulled into the conversation and despite a panel of 16 people, all pretty much determined not talk about ICANN, we are talking about, yes, ICANN.
I’ve not been able to get a feel for how this first session of the [...]

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IGF: Setting the Scene – quick review

October 30, 2006

The inaugural Internet Governance Forum (IGF) opens in Athens. And, despite everyone’s best intentions, it begins with a conversation about ICANN.

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Greek blog aggregator arrested

October 28, 2006

The Internet Governance Forum will start on Monday morning but already the debate has started – and it is surrounding freedom of speech online.

There are several reports that the Greek authorities arrested a man for linking – not writing, but linking – to blog posts that had satirised a businessman (possibly a TV evangelist). The businessman complained to the police and the police picked up the adminstrator of blog aggregation site blogme.gr – and charged him.

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Experience the Net how you never want to again!

October 27, 2006

At the IGF meeting this week, developing countries will try yet again to make their point about problems with Net access, while everyone else gallavants ahead with flashy new technologies.
I think one useful workshop would be to make everyone experience the Net the way, say, an African does. And, as luck would have it, I [...]

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New poll and IGF2006.info troubles

October 24, 2006

I was out and about in London yesterday. Late for a conference on Cybersecurity because of a huge car crash on the M40, then off to Westminster to meet this Parliamentary aide who has been asked to produce a four-page info booklet on Internet Governance for UK MPs and Peers (god help him).
And then off [...]

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Why you’ll always regret not going to the IGF

October 17, 2006

I was grabbed after the recent IGF meeting in London by a young bloke who told me he was from some organisation in London that tried to involve and educate about various developing country issues. He wanted to involve “southern” journalists – by which I assumed he meant south-of-Equator – in the IGF.
I told him [...]

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Nominet IGF meeting audio recordings

October 14, 2006

Nominet held a meeting over the IGF on Monday which has attracted a fair amount of attention, most of it revolving around Nitin Desai’s remarks at the end, picked up by the BBC.

I have grabbed the audio from the meeting and produced a series of MP3 files which you can download and listen to here. I will also post them on the IGF200.info blog. All files below:

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IGF London meeting: rushes, worries and lessons

October 11, 2006

So Nominet held a big meeting in London on Monday covering the new Internet Governance Forum that will meet for the first time at the end of this month in Athens.

Nominet IGF meeting

In some ways, it was a sort-of mini IGF in that it took the same free-ranging panel approach and that it explictly held two panels on two of the four main themes of the IGF – “security” and “openness” (Nitin Desai pointed out that had the meeting been in a developing country, the panels and debate would have been on the other two themes – diversity and access).

It was also similar to the real meeting in the role that I have been asked to play: “chief blogger” – meaning scouring the Internet for interesting comments and reading them out to the room. Actually, this term “chief blogger” has led some to ask whether I’m some of kind of official IGF blogger, which I certainly am not, so I will refer to my role as “blog watcher” from now on.

The general feeling is that the meeting was a success.

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We need you! Here is how you can help the Net

October 9, 2006

We need you!There is a big meeting on the future of the Internet in London tomorrow, run by Nominet, where I will be acting as the “chief blogger”. As such, I need your help.

In fact, I am the official chief blogger for the Internet Governance Forum itself in Athens at the end of this month. That basically means that I will spend a good chunk of the conference reading what others have to say about the meeting online and I will occasionally be asked to summarise to the room what is being said by the rest of the world. At which point I will read out the most interesting and incisive blog posts to the assembled masses.

I actually see this as a vitally important role as it gives a voice to the people that haven’t flown to Athens and who have nothing more than a Net connection and a good point to make. That’s why I accepted the role and now I need your help to make the most of it.

Update: You can now see exactly what is happening at the IGF meeting, and simply and easily interact with events there through a website at IGF2006.info.

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