על חוק הטוקבקים ותרבותיות הדיון

הצעת חוק הטוקבקים של ישראל חסון עברה בקריאה טרומית במליאת ×”×›× ×¡×ª ×œ×¤× ×™ יותר משבוע. הצעת החוק קובעת שעל כל אתר בעל תפוצה × ×¨×—×‘×ª אחריות מלאה לתוכן תגובות הגולשים בו. על פי הצעה זו, כל אתר בעל מעל 50,000 ×›× ×™×¡×•×ª ביום יחשב ל”עיתון”, ועורכו ומפעילו ישאו באחריות × [...]

Visualization of User-Generated Comments on US Elections

Here’s a glimpse of a work-in-progress. A little project I’m working on (check out the live version) that takes user-generated comments from the LA-times Campaign ’08 page into a visualization powered by processing. It looks something like this:

The background red/blue colors are directly correlated to the text => the more written about the democrats, [...]

My point-of-view on Israel’s new Talkback Law

I’ve been enjoying discussions around the new Talkback Law proposal and following the situation in Israel closely. Currently, all Israeli News Sites allow commenting on every one of their online posts. They are extremely successful, drawing hundreds of people to write their thoughts and opinions for every post. But as one can imagine, having a [...]

Local News – two initiatives

Alive in Baghdad is a video blog describing Iraqi everyday life from a local perspective. Brian Conley,a journalist and film director, is its creator. It is a great example for new methods to support citizen journalism around the world.

Brian is an American who trained a small group of Iraqi journalists who prepare the articles [...]

Reuters: Were you there when the news happened?

I’m still not convinced at the effectiveness of this service. Almost a year ago, Reuters in collaboration with Yahoo announced the Youwitness News platform. If you see a newsworthy event, you are asked to send the picture to YouWitness, either by emailing it to pics@reuters.com or visiting the YouWitness site. Reuters editors review the pictures [...]

Help [digg] against: internet censorship law proposal in Israel

I’ve been reading and writing about this insane law proposal for internet censorship by the ultra-orthodox Israeli party shas which passed the initial voting stages in the Israeli knesset. The proposed law requires from the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block adult content-based sites (sexual, gambling and violence) from children. The ISPs will require some [...]

Ethan Zukerman Talk

Went to an inspiring talk by Ethan Zukerman today. He touched very interesting points, and had numerous details about African countries that I know nothing about.

It is less useful to speak on behalf of people. We need to point to them and let them speak. Today’s internet connects 1 billion people. The next billion [...]