Plotting to Save the World, One Blog at a Time

Last night, I had the privilege of dining with Rebecca MacKinnon, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis and Hossein “Hoder” Derakhshan at Tempus, a Persian fusion restaurant on Yonge Street here in Accordion City.

After hearing about how Hoder and I came to Canada, Jay quipped “Isn’t history so rude, the way it just interferes with lives like that?”.

Hoder’s life was pretty much altered after the 1979 Revolution in his native Iran, while mine was changed mere weeks after my family moved back to the
Philippines in 1972, when President Marcos had his dictatorial flip-out.

In commenting on my write-ups of the PJNet conference on public journalism and blogging
(which he complimented — thanks!), he asked if my reporting style was influenced by my training as a computer programmer. I told him that I couldn’t imagine it not being influenced by it, as I’m the sort of
person who likes his information well-organized.

We also talked about the excellent but short-lived television show Max Headroom, which Jay, Jeff and I loved. Jeff said that he gave it a great review (I’m not sure if it was in TV Guide or People — he worked at both in the 1980s).

We also talked about software and hardware usability and the conceptual gaps between programmers and the people who use their software, self-expression and cultural gaps, beer, journalists’ perception of
blogging, getting Rebecca set up with a Blogware blog, Tucows and Asia.

The big topic of discussion was what I like to think of as “Changing the World”, through weblogs. It was inspired by Hoder’s blogging; he’s almost single-handedly responsible for starting a blogging revolution
in Iran. The hope is to foster the exchange of ideas, international understanding and free speech through blogging. We came up with these requirements (which I’ve cribbed from this entry on Jeff’s blog):

1. Promotion. Hoder says it is important to get prominent people, like journalists, blogging in these countries to bring attention to it. He wants to set up an award for Iranian blogs — not for the best blog but for the best post, which is appropriate to the medium. We talked about the need to create a blog news service that would translate and reblog notable posts from around the world: Hey, big news guys, here are the stories you’re missing but here’s a link to where you can get them. And hey, powerful politicians, here is what the people are reporting in your country. And hey, readers around the world, here’s a new perspective on a country you’re not seeing in thepaper or on TV — either because it’s not coverered or it’s covered from a high altitude and not from a human level.
2. Tools. We need to get tools and instruction translated into Arabic and other local languages. They need to be the appropriate tools — so, for example, bloggers can post via email when they can’t get Web access. For blogging to take off in a country, it has to be done in the native language. Efforts are underway.
3. Hosting. If rich folks want to help the cause of freespeech and understanding, providing free and anonymous hosting that’s not under the control of repressive governments will help.
4. Detours around censorship. The web technical community needs to invent new ways to get around government censors, who regularly block access to specific blogs and to blog domains (e.g., Blogspot and Typepad). Hoder’s site is now blocked in Iran, which lost him a lot of traffic that matters, but he also found that more people are now subscribing to his RSS feed instead. Separate RSS feed services, cacheing of blogs, clever redirects, and other means need to be created to keep free speech free.

It has happened in Iran. It is happening in Iraq.
Rebecca says it’s exploding in China (though I wish that news service existed so we could get an idea of what people are saying there). Where else should it be happening? Afghanistan. Turkey. Egypt. Saudi Arabia. Indonesia. Central Asia……

Thanks for dinner, Jeff, and it was great dining and talking with all of you!