tv Today in Washington CSPAN May 3, 2011 6:00am-9:00am EDT
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put so many close to the brink the next time around. >> i wish i could say we have. i'm not sure that we have. we are facing that very issue now with the debt ceiling as we were discussing, and as bad and as serious as the consequences of the government shutdown would be, the consequences of not making good on our full faith and credit would be even worse. it wasn't my words. it would be catastrophic for the economy. so, we're going to face this issue when it comes to the debt ceiling. and then, of course, at the end of this fiscal year, the fiscal year for the federal government ends at the end of september, we have to have in place the budget beginning october 1. and it looks right now that it is shaping up to be the same kind of showdown that we saw for
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the budget just recently over the continuing resolution. now, the question is whether or not there's something that changes between now and then or the next couple of weeks that could affect that dynamic. and that is why the president asked the vice president to convene this group. there's also a group in the senate called the gang of six that's been working on trying to put together a bipartisan approach. it's unclear exactly where they are now. that could provide some positive momentum to the process. so that really is questions whether or not either of these two forms at least in the short term provide some change in the political dynamics that would allow us to move forward. i hope so, but i can't, i certainly can't provide any, i can't provide any assurances.
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[inaudible] i did take it here at georgetown in 2011 after six years of crises, unfortunately i was only able to start -- unemployment insurance was exhausted. i want you to address the workers training situation. may be review a little bit about what paul brian was saying about the budget. i am a democrat. i agreed about reducing spending and make medicare private. i disagree with him about the medicaid cuts. i guess compromise on social security. but i think president obama should work on reducing defense spending on libya and addressing the concerns of the d.c. liberals who are criticizing the budget deal too much.
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i know montgomery has worked with the government and i think obama seems to be losing a little bit of the liberal wing of the party, but i was all for the deal, just reaction to a few of those points. this lady raise some of my concerns. >> thanks. you cover a lot of area. let me take a couple of things. number one, in terms of the approach to deficit reduction, the president's proposal does include cuts. it includes cuts, not just domestic programs but also on the defense side. that's what it's a more balanced approach, just as the other approach was. what he said in addition to taking cuts in there, we also need to deal with -- if you try to do all on the cutting side you cut and slash those important investments i talked about to make us competitive,
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and youtube -- [inaudible] programs like medicaid. that's what you need a more balanced approach the entrance of the workforce investment act, that is something that is neglected by the congress right now. we need to reauthorize it, strengthen and improve and reform. but again, all those things require at least some support to provide that. [inaudible] budget proposals that have been advanced on the republican side we greatly hinder those efforts. >> congressmen, welcome to georgetown. >> thanks. >> there are members of your party who think. [inaudible] that inevitably we start negotiating between the obama plan and orion plans will end up somewhere between.
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that would be a fairly conservative -- [inaudible] especially the non-defense, especially not enough in terms of raising revenue. in a box himself in on that promise not to raise revenues. [inaudible] there are alternatives like the progressive caucus which we may agree or disagree on lots of things, but the fact. [inaudible] was cut, we are to consider a broader set of revenues, perhaps closer to the clinton rates. i'm wondering if in your deliberations you would be willing to look at some of the progressive caucus recommendations and use those a starting point in negotiations? >> thanks for your question.
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when you said the president cut the deal too single are you talking about on a continuing resolution or the ardor tax cut or the most recent -- >> his budget proposal. at least nominate calls for three quarters of the deficit reduction from the inside. that includes tax expenditures as well as other kinds of government spending, that could have raised a good deal more revenue if he had been willing to. [inaudible] tax cuts beside those at the top in. >> just for clerk occasion, it also includes in that number, as did the bowles-simpson commission, interest payments on the debt which is a significant number. and, unfortunately, rising. but in terms of the revenue peace, the president as you said, he said let's go back to the clinton rates for the folks at the very top. he also said. [inaudible] putting in place on the ideas
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for both fiscal commissions that you could raise additional revenue. you're right, the levels done by the progressive caucus budget which, if i recollection is correct, i think is about $6 trillion in revenue. i could be wrong there. [inaudible] revenue has got to be a part of the mix, and again, the president most recent proposal, he did put more revenue on the table. that is something that these people. [inaudible] going forward. i'm hoping to looking at any proposal that makes in simple terms of reducing the deficit, are economically competitive and strong. as i said in my remarks, i certainly think that the republican idea that return to the clinton -- [inaudible] will somehow hurt the economy is
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just totally blind by the facts of history. we know that's not the case because we saw the growth during the clinton administration. so look, i think we should have a very open discussion. i think there is opportunity on a bipartisan basis going forward, a little longer-term, to achieve potentially some significant -- [inaudible] because your question sort of, the political challenge here, frankly, is going to be getting republicans to do something on the revenue side. and i agree with you that there's a danger of saying -- [inaudible] and then we'll just deal with the investment side, spinning site. that would be a mistake. i agree with you on that point.
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it's on a balanced approach. i thought the speech he gave result on the budget issue was the a very clear and articulate -- [inaudible] of what i think on the democratic side we would like to see, you know, a budget. it was a balanced approach to you can talk about changing some the details in terms of the exact mix, and open to any discussion, but i thought he carried the conversation a long way. and as forcefully the reaction he got from our republican colleagues -- [inaudible] but i was pleased the simpson-bowles commission, the co-chairs, said in comparison to the house republicans -- [inaudible] >> unfortunately we've already gone over and another congressman has another up on the. i hope you will enjoy -- i hope you will join the in thanking
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>> for over two decades bin laden has been al qaeda's leader in simple. has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. the death of bin laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al qaeda. >> watch the president's announcement plus reaction from cabinet officials, capitol hill and around the world, all in their entirety whenever you want online with the c-span video library. search, which, click and share. it's washington your way. >> now a discussion on how new media tools are being supported or suppress around the world. this event on world press freedom day includes panelists from egypt, iran, china and thailand are cohosted by the state department and the united nations, this is a little less than an hour and a half.
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>> good afternoon to our audience here in the studio and around the world. i met bob pearson, the president of one of the organizers of the world press freedom day in washington, d.c.. and we on the organizing committee of the world press freedom day want to express our appreciation to ap, "the associated press," ap television news, hosting this important discussion of the new challenges that journalists and citizen journalists face worldwide. with journalists in 300 locations around the world, the ap is well aware of the series and changing nature of threats to media freedom today. as the president of a nonprofit international development ngo, we see every day the sacrifices
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our media partners make in their efforts to provide news and information free of state control. when we began working at media development nearly 20 years ago, many of our partners at that time were being jailed, fired, or in some cases murdered just because they would not censor their reporting. back then, harassment consisted of sabotaging printing presses and transmitters, stolen newsprint, and burned the studios. and still today in many countries this part of the battle continues as broadcasters and print journalists refuse to silence their voices. what is dramatically new, the rapid expansion in the ranks of those who can and are bringing prudence to life. explosion in technology allows almost anyone in the world to
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become a reporter, and we now count not only professional journalists, but also many citizens as those at the forefront of the freedom of expression of the battle. as we've seen in its own words, the end of a just of these technologies has been driven by activists, by journalist, and citizens who were creatively seeking new ways to gather and share information free of censorship. mobile phones, social media, digital mapping, crowd sourcing arches some of the tools and techniques now employed by those pursuing the fundamental human right for the freedom of expression. states afraid of their own citizens have redoubled their own digital attacks on this new phenomenon. the period during which activists and journalists use
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these tools without governments fully understand what was happening is over. whether it is the blood approach of switching off the internet, or the more subtle tracking of cell phones or green social media of their own, repressive governments are themselves innovating. and it is no longer just professional journalists who are being thrown in jail, injured, or murdered. they are joined by bloggers and citizen journalist imposed social media, send messages and contribute to online news sites. i'm looking forward to our panelists this afternoon helping us understand how the cat and mouse game is played out in their regions. and welcome the discussion from our studio, and virtual audiences. which will help us all as we develop our own urgent to do list for preserving and expanding access to information in the digital age.
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it is a vital but those are trying to exercise free expression through the new channels, and we who support them, keep public attention focused on the new threats. we must do this while also developing the tools, the strategies and the advocacy to keep this game changing expansion of free flowing is growing. leaving our discussion this afternoon will be a piece of kimberly dozier. she knows only too well the cost of pursuing the stories so important to an informed citizenry. not only has she reported for many years from around the world as a foreign correspondent, but while based in baghdad as the chief reporter in iraq for cbs news, she was critically injured in may 2006 in an explosion that also killed two of her news colleagues. kim join the ap in 2010 and now specializes in covering
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intelligence and counterterrorism issues. i can think of anyone better today to lead a cutting edge town hall discussion from the front lines of digital journalism about how modern heroes deal with the new dimensions and the new dangers inherent in standing up for media freedom. kim, thank you very much. >> think about. and i have to say thank you for supporting this kind of an event. the importance of new media has really been driven home today because overnight as some of you may have heard one of the first words we got that osama bin laden had been killed was through a tweet someone saw the american helicopters come in, didn't know what they were saying, and tweedy didn't like the it took us a while to catch up with that. now, i want to introduce the palest tea but i also want to welcome our audience vote live and virtual to world press freedom day's town hall.
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we hope to have an interactive and provocative discussion. let's start by introducing the panelists. over to my far right we have wael abbas turkey is one of each is best known bloggers and journalists. he has won several awards that has recognizes role as an egyptian watchdog. among them using one of the bbc's most influential people five years ago. earlier this year he was arrested by the mubarak regime during a protest in egypt. we'll get him to tell us about that letter. seated next to wael is nazila fathi, covering every major story from the year 2000-2093 weeks after iraq's possession election she fled the country. as a nieman fellow, nazila's --
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and the seeming for change. next is an 11. a bilingual website and at the university of california, berkeley. is also the principal investigator of the countup our lab. that's the intriguing name of a faculty student group which focuses on the intersection of social media and digital activism and internet freedom. xiao was recipient of a macarthur artist at the he was profiled in the book of sole purpose, people are changing were for the better. finally, we have thailand's chiranuch premchaiporn. she is the executive director of an online newspaper sponsored by the foundation for community educational media to the organization promotes freedom of expression in thailand. she's also filled with a network which has been called a civil
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movement in cyberspace. she's also an activist and his work against hiv/aids in time. in 2009 she was charged for violating sections of time and computer crimes act and are cases now before court. we'll ask about that later. now, i want to give you all sometime to think about your own questions. so i'm going to kick off the conversation with the question of mine for the panelists. i want to ask you all starting with wael, how has new media proliferated in each of your countries? could you give me like a personal story of how it's impacted how you do your job? >> i didn't start as journalists. i started on internet. the internet gave me an opportunity to express myself and my opinions on the internet. and later, like i was able to get in touch with some journalists. i worked in the printed
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newspapers and international news agencies, but the beginning was always on the internet. >> so you learn by doing and then you improved by actually of what you're reporting? >> yet. actually i was -- i used to write my opinions, but then it was action in the streets and lots of things were happening that was around 2004. we are having demonstrations. in my opinion they were not getting enough attention of the media. so i decide to go there and take pictures and post them on my blog. so i provided is that i was providing to the people with evidence that these are authentic and true. this has created a ability and is how it started getting attention for the blogging phenomena in egypt in general. >> nazila, how have you seen it open up in iran?
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>> well, first let me say that i'm a big believer in technology, and what the new social media, along with much more traditional tools like television, satellite television have done throughout the years, and together they play an important role in bringing out massive numbers of people in 2009. and the anecdote i can say is like about 10 days after the election, when the government had, they internet threat across, the salad television want to welcome the people in very far to the country couldn't get the program. one night the persian language was showing this program that is teaching people how to hold their cell phones to capture video. it was telling people to hold a cell phone with one hand, stretch of the arm and then with the other hand, just hold the other arm like a tripod. i wasn't sure how many people
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were watching this. and a lot of foreign reporters had already been expelled from the country. the ones were based in the country, we had received letters from the government that we would not allow to leave our offices. the next day there was supposed to be a massive demonstration because people did not have access to the internet, it was not posted on the face that or the location would be. so i went to the place that had been produce an ounce, and then i saw people whispering to one another to move to a different location. i didn't go. i lingered around. and then the programmer forces came. they were telling each other about this massive protests that have been a little bit farther on. so we moving there, and there were hundreds of thousands of people who were there, they had gone there just based on the traditional word-of-mouth. and then there were thousands of people standing on the curbs with her arms stretched holding
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their mobile phones. >> wow. spent and when i got home i called editors and i told them that their hundreds of thousands of people. and they said that the official in a agency was nothing there were only a few thousand people. i said no, i saw there were hundreds of thousands. a few minutes later they called and they said the videos were posted on facebook. spent and they believed you? >> of course. >> xiao, tell us how has media opened u of expression in china and? >> well, the china which i was born and grew up doing, during the '60s and '70s and came to this country in the middle '80s as a student of physics, my ph.d was in astrophysics, i became an activist. that was the time that china has changed in essence of becoming a repressive.
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of course, it is always been. and i became exiles, and activist. 10 years later internet started becoming into a part of china's economic development. and now today china is the most wired country in terms of population, over 400 million people online, over 900 million people have cell phones. over 1 million minutes -- major changes in chinese society. and for myself i was a human rights activist after tiananmen square for 14 years, and in year 2003 i came to uc berkeley journalism not only to teach but to learn the new frontier, the new media, the digital media. and now i'm only working on the reporting but also working on access and delivery, such
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content to the people of china. said today i'm sitting here with my friends from egypt and iran and thailand, but i'm also hoping i'm talking to some people stay up until 2:00 in the morning in china, my fellow bloggers at i hang out with you in united states all the time. >> chiranuch, you said i can call you chiu. so can you explain how has opened doors in thailand's? >> i think since 2006, the people like felt upset with -- they're looking for authentic information. and the internet is kind of fear. the people get more input through internet platform and
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for the social media, and thailand i think we come popular last two years. twitter, facebook and youtube. it's our has a tie like positive roles in the. myself, i started interest in social network like facebook or twitter. for my come by, website, we looking for some like tools that will promote introduced to the citizen media that our website, like want to work with them. from my personal experience, once i arrest, first arrest, the first news alert is through twitter that my friends speak they tweeted you were arrested? >> yes. and the second time i arrest at
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the airport. i think twitter, like can get some kind like a big news among twitter sphere, like the people already tweet and no, like right after i return from the conference internet. and then i got arrested at the airport. >> do you see a change from 2006 intel now anyway political unrest is communicated online? >> yes, pretty much. like, people already start to play the roles, like citizen media. then they feel like not rely on misread media. take the photo, and to challenge an article to the facebook and alert to twitter. >> so it is sinking in.
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>> it's that easy for governments to censor, like when they want to censor my website, it easily. but once they want to censor facebook or twitter, it's hard harder. and once we use the facebook as the authenticity source for spreading out our board. >> get around the wall. i would love to invite members of the audience to come down and ask any questions you might have. and while we wait for inspiration to strike, i have questions for wael. now, you were arrested by the secret police? >> during the revolution i was arrested. >> you are arrested by thugs, okay. that's the technical term. >> yeah, they are people are loyal and people who believe what they told indie media about
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the square is full of spies, people from iran and the states in israel and kind heart and so all these people are working together to tumble the bark. if you can imagine the israelis and americans working together. some people voted and they were looking for foreigners all over the streets in cairo. i was with a group of friends, for others, two girls and two guys, and the girls were like wearing trendy clothes. there was a guy with us who had earlier. we looked a bit different. we looked a bit we. they thought we were foreigners so they stopped us and they searched us and they arrested us. >> did they present any identification? >> no, they don't. you cannot argue with them. you cannot reason with them at all. they gave us to the army and were able to communicate better with the army. but with them, they were like they found a bar of chocolate with the and they were yelling at me like you are in the square
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eating chocolate and we are dying of starvation here. so you are a spy, basically. >> was it american chocolate? >> i had a pencil, so i was a journalist. maybe they figured out that crime in your opinion. so i had to be given to the army. we were staying with the army for like two hours and then a friend came to pick us up and take us to curfew. on our way back speed so the army didn't hold you? with a polite to you? >> the army was nice, yes. but there are others -- there are other of torture and execution. we have a blogger who is in jail now after he posted something about the army on his blog. >> did you wisely not post anything about the army on your blogs because i post a lot of stuff on twitter, not on the blog. it's only facts that he was arrested.
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they were tortured spirit was this someone that was with you? >> no. he was arrested the same day but in a different incident. they were like, this dvd with spreading it it among the egyptians. so they were like beating and mugging and arresting foreigners all over egypt. not only in cairo. >> did you stay off the streets for a while? >> no. i went there the next day. i couldn't stay away. i know the city very well so i can move around and avoid the dangers places, but it was fate that i got arrested twice in one day bad day. >> i also want to point out we will be taking questions from the state department website. people are able to watch these events streaming live there. my colleague at ap will be taking those as they come in and
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relaying them to us. now, i want to revisit the iranian revolution, revolution that never really took off. what happened as far as you know to all of those people who were posting those videos, who were tweeting online? how was that writing government able to shut them down a? >> well, first of all, i don't think the 2009 sort of uprising was about having another revolution. i think that's one thing that writing people can say the majority because i can talk about all of them, wanted to be very cautious about, the memories of the 1979 revolution and then eight years of war are still very much alive in the minds of many people. so they get any kind of political instability, any kind of institutional breakdown.
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what happened was people are extremely anger at what happened after the election. they felt that they were deprived of the minimum rights that they were given. and a minimum right was making a choice between the bad and the worst but it was not a democracy. and they felt that intelligence had been insulted. then afterwards, mr. ahmadinejad came and called people dirt and dust. so they were very angry. they came out to protest what was happening. they did not have an agenda. they did not have a leadership. so it is hard to say whether they want another revolution or not. all they wanted was for the election results to be nullified and new elections to be held. and the protest went on for over six months. they didn't have the same results that they had in less than a month, in 17 days in egypt. partly because people in egypt had an agenda they want to get rid of the bark.
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in iran they just want to get rid of ahmadinejad. there are major, major differences between egypt and iran. i mean, most important of all the was a cartoon resort on the websites that should ahmadinejad calling mubarak and think how may times to tell you to set up your own our forces? >> they did and they have. >> but they decided the another way. now we have a question from the audience. i would like you to introduce yourself and find a way. >> i met gene, of global internet freedom. i have questions for professor. how do you get your information to the ultimate users? do they use free gates and other means of? >> short answer is yes. let me elaborate.
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with a rising population and practice of new media insider china, there is a growing city boys in the political and expression. no, the chinese bloggers themselves. that itself extended the political fear, far larger and they can imagine 10 years ago, five years ago. so today online new digital media actually is setting agenda of even official me. despite all the control. among those private citizen voices are the contents, there are a significant portion of it are being marginalized. they cannot be totally suppressed because of the internet by nature is information all over the place and. a government can suppress them into the smaller pocket places, and can completely delete it. so those marginalized blogs were deleted content start to appear
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overseas, including my own china digital times. and then the question is how the digital inside is accessed. whether they are from voice of america bbc, free asia or from other websites. and there are the tools and other methods that access the information matters. and your organization, one of the groups actually produced a set of very effective circumstantial tools, along which other practices that contributed to this greater information flow inside of china and outside of china, back to china again because that's the people who are expressing it and who are people using it. >> i have a follow-up question. whenever i go to any sort of cyber intelligence review our press conference, they talk about how china reasons the greatest threat to the united states because they are training several hundred thousand
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engineers, far more than the u.s. has in school, cyber engineers, computer programmers. how can these cyber bloggers get away with it with that kind of engineering force against them looking for them? are not cached or are they not looking for an? >> they are looking for them but they have their own limits, as i describe. this censorship is more than other content stuff companies to outsource those censorship to the companies that they have to take care of. otherwise it will be fine, punished by the government. they cannot do global business. then this censorship also is about self-censorship, people are free of the consequences. they will not access information. but censorship is also done it technology level. block information, cyber
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attacks, e-mails. china's government has trained and build very sophisticated technological teens to do ultimate above, still chinese bloggers and chinese activists far outnumbered what government can do. they control the chinese content to a point, yes. they are effective to appoint. but within that limit where if you see political expressions and civic voices inside china. so we see the clash between the sensor and a growing will of expression and chinese cyberspace. >> chiu come in thailand is there any sort of comparable attack by the government on the technical ability to get your message out? you said they could shut down some of the sites individually. >> yeah. we heard some kind, like rumors
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and news that they had some, like, private hackers to do something. and our website also been attacked, but cannot say this company government are not. >> how fast it take you to get back online? >> actually, we can still, like, online, but it's like consume a lot of money. because, like, we have to move our servers overseas. >> got it. so you have to take defensive measures by moving overseas start and it is difficult for our readers to access our website. they have to find out. >> so they also have to hunt around to find where you're going? >> yes. >> i just want to take a question from our virtual audience. my colleague from ap as one
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ready for us. find a way. >> yes, we do. it's an interesting question in terms of censorship. and the voices of poor people who don't have access to the internet. the question is, for people that don't have, is it not a form of censorship of many voice. in china, young wealthy and internet. in egypt may be the same. and in other countries. so is not poverty the greatest form of censorship? how could the poor access the internet in these types of media if they don't have access to it to begin with? >> that is a good point. i we only saturate the upper-middle-class and whoever can afford to have a computer? >> i don't think so. in egypt we have statistics that say approximate like 45% of the people of access to internet. >> twenty-five people in each of? >> 45%.
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>> isn't like 50 to 60% of the egypt and below poverty line in? >> wait until i tell you how many cell phone lines we have. we have 60 million cell phone lines. so the poor people, they borrow phoned. >> even if the secret police could monitor all those phones they don't have enough people to listen to conversations because no, of course not. so the word is spread out very fast, and technology is advancing, and this is making technology cheaper for people, making phones, receivers come computers, even those, most people can't afford to buy a computer they can go to an internet café and you can sit on the internet for an hour for like approximate 20 cents, 20 american cents. it's very cheap. you don't have done a computer. you need only have the knowledge to log onto the internet and
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read whatever you want. and other than that, people print out what they want from the internet, or downloaded to the phone it and then they swap it using the bluetooth technology. so we are seeing lots of pictures and lots of videos have been find a way out of the internet. and also, videos from the streets. eyewitnesses and videos like the torture the of the police for separate they were used as evidence, and they came from egyptians from the street and then they found a way on the internet where they have a bigger impact and resulted in investigations about torture. so it's not limited to the internet. it reached out. i went to publish a sort of the internet. journalist from printed newspapers calling your journalist from news agencies also. so, my obvious growth. i have my reach than the rage
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that i have on my own blog. >> chiu? >> i think like actually and trim of like internet in thailand, the thing is like in the darkness, the candle is still very, very shine. the people are looking for any sign of life. so the candle is now. >> do you mean just a few people having access is enough to spread the word? >> they want to, like, looking for some kind of authenticity source of information, and then connect online and off-line. like that people uploading into you to come and the people download from the youtube. like copies into the cd and like to copy to those who don't have
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access to internet. people use this. the feeding, that more important. >> how many people do think have access to the internet in thailand? >> about 24 million. >> 21 million? that's a large chunk of the population. so basically it becomes a repeating device, and then it spreads through, what, more traditional ways? >> yes. >> cd, but is also real? >> yes, radio, like access and reach out to the people in rural area. and the people come to radio, also get information to internet. >> and that information that they're getting is how do you that your sources? to the people trust what they're hearing these internet sources
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more than the state television station our state radio? >> when the people already, like take sides, they already can't like him have some kind, like bias what they want you to believe. so that's action for thailand i think that's important, the media should play the role how to tell people, how to get reliable information. but people start, they know they should not believe everything that is published to the internet. but they also questioning about it in that are rebroadcast to the state tv are published in the newspaper as well as. >> so it gives as. >> so it gives them another point of view, and they're becoming educated media consumers. they are comparing them. >> new media already fill the gap. people already, they always
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believed like, oh, everything that reporters say, is riding is true, but now they start questioning and they have way too seeking the information by himself. >> xiao, i've got to ask china to which the saturation like in the rural areas? >> as i mentioned, 900 million cell phone users, way more than urban users, but even in innovative solutions of cell phone penetration, in china bypass the seed area, talking about for this is the prevalent come back to it that one just said. the information and credibility issue you mentioned, because in china since one party monopoly, all the power including automated control the last 60 years. so people know that the state
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with a central tv doesn't have a credibility. that has been come anybody, if your data, then you have to know that. but people didn't used to have alternative sources of information to compare. yes, today's chinese internet has full of information, advertising, the rumors, violation of privacy, you name it. anything can happen on internet can happen pretty much on chinese internet. but on top of that there is also very main function of just having a review, otherwise people don't see in this society, even including what we call director minister of truth, instruction to the media that what you said you want to promote, has always been behind the scenes over the past 60 years. but now because of resistance to chinese journalist, those kind of information also be called by
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the other people up much better sense that what they're not being told and where they can see other entire information. >> now, nazila, how about for you in terms of vetting of sources question on the ground in iran able to get out to a lot of the information. but you mustn't be getting some of his stuff from remote places. sometimes we get pieces of video at "the associated press." we got the election photos of osama bin laden dead after the navy s.e.a.l. raid on his compound. and we had to study them because we couldn't prove that it was really him. at some photography study them closely and decided they had been photoshop. year on the ground in tehran with low internet speed and not access to great technical sources. how do you prove that some of the stuff coming to you is something you can trust and
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report? >> that's very true. it was one of the biggest problems i was faced with. and that's why i did that rely on what was on the internet. a lot of it turned out to be false. a lot of it turned out to be posted by people are not even in the country and they were claiming that they were in the country. so i tried to reach out to local reporters who in tehran or in other cities. i had lived there for almost all my life. eye contacts with other reporters. so that is my source of news, but it was hard in iran when i was still there for the first three weeks after election because the phones were tapped. a lot of journalists were being arrested. and it became much easier for me after i left the country and went to toronto to cover iran, because people were reaching out to me much more eagerly. a were trying to reach me through other means that they that were safer to communicate. so i would see videos that were posted on youtube and i could
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recognize which area of town by way in the country they were and are tried to reach out to people who they are, or they tried to reach -- >> you could get multiple sources in a given neighborhood. >> all the time. i think that what appeared on the internet was not always -- a lot of it was not -- it was very interesting was result berkeley center at harvard to study, compared to stay between iran are russia and i think brazil to get look at the number of internet users. iran had the largest, the most dynamic user to enter a small percentage of them were focused on political news. the majority, 70%, were taking the internet for sports for social news, for literature. very small politically literate community was on the internet producing the news, consuming the news, raising arguments,
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conversing. and i think what was coming out of this is being amplified by satellite television which was being reached millions of people throughout the country. satellite tv has a very widespread reach. al-jazeera had the same experience. and people to going back to the question, it's not that poor people to access to internet so they're not getting the news over there being deprived. poor people in very remote areas in iran, and iraq, i was traveling, i would always see the satellite dishes on the rooftops and really remote areas, on mud houses. people had access to news, and most of the news was coming from what first appeared on the internet was verified and then amplified. >> i'd love to invite another question from the audience. and while i wait for someone to walk down to the microphone, i'll take another question from our virtual viewer. >> we have a question from bucharest for the entire panel.
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someone would like to know what to the panelists think about free press and developed countries? is that the model that you follow or do you have your own model for free press? >> well, who would like to kick that often? >> let me say very simply, in the case of china, it's not an irrelevant question. free press, china doesn't have. and censorship is violence against humans. and it doesn't matter you'd are in development or developing country. and so-called developed countries shortly have a constitutional protection or infrastructure among other things, to more or less guarantee the space, the degree of freedom. but in every different country, you have your own economic, own
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economic empowerment on your own political context. but come to very basics, freedom of expression cannot be compromised, simply by economic condition or a political context. china today, i'm going to name three people sitting in prison right now. number one, the online one who can only write articles published website outside of china. nobel peace laureate sitting in prison in china. number two, an online writer, blogger, does nothing but write his political critiques online now in prison. third one, internationally known artist and it has lots of his activism online using twitter. he is in prison today. china has developed or developing or developing doesn't meant that these people should be free. >> does anyone else want to
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answer the questions because i think there are wonderful models in the west that could be copied and there's nothing wrong with it. annuitize the "washington post" but i don't see anything wrong with making these wonderful publications as a role model. >> and, of course, "the new york times" often goes in and work with in bush land which newspaper interest different countries teaching them to use that format. and i know that every time we go as journalists to a foreign country and open up a bureau, and you hire fixers. for instance, come in iraq or afghanistan, you were teaching people who would never been reporters before how to go out and be your eyes and ears. so every time international news organization does that, that's spreading that model. either like to take a question from the audience. could you introduce yourself and tell us what you would like to. >> i am drew sullivan insoluble.
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there's a sense i think of some people do in iran, that the government's closing off of the new media and the cracking down on people and cracking heads was somewhat effective in bahrain. is somewhat the same thing. is that true or is that just a pessimistic view of what works against this? >> so essentially, did fear and violence work. >> i think that's a very hard question to answer. i like to say no, it didn't work. you might disagree. i think the reason that the protest emerged again in 2011, in february come in massive numbers it is a sign that the protests haven't died that i think the anger and frustration is there. it is simmering beneath the surface. from 1999, iconic protest in
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iran, the first massive protest that emerged. first they were in thousands. in 2002, 2003 day weekend tens of thousands. and in 2009, at one point the government acknowledged that 3 million people had come out. they were really hundreds of thousands seas of humans that blocked the streets. so the protest is not dying. it's just growing. sometimes you see it in shape a protest. sometimes it is not visible. it's just a brewing in society. i think it is very dangerous if the iranian regime does not respond to the needs of people. they are talking about very legitimate economic, political, social freedom. the next response might be explosive. >> it sounds like what you're describing is people have the mindset of fighting the long war. >> exactly. the thing is that iranian people, the majority, do not want a bloody change, do not want any kind of instability and chaos.
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they have to. they had almost for the first decade after the revolution. and it's been expressed by many activists, by many leaders that they want slow but grassroot change. >> wael, why immediate do think the protesters not give up? >> because they were already there and are already in huge number, and they realize they are dealing with regime that is cowardly. i, when i was there, i realized that they were attacking us. our work are the only for money. they are not really defending work. you are not defending a cause. they are there because they were given money to do so. and once their money is finished, they will go back. i was very sure that they will leave once they are not getting any more money. and they did. and i think all the egyptians in the square were well aware of
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that. besides the fact that people were killed on the first day of the revolution, angered people more. and we have an upper egypt system of vendetta. so i think that people had this kind of vendetta that they want to get to the regime, but not violently but by removing mubarak, and his regime from the office. >> and, of course, in egypt and tunisia the army side against the dictator. >> the army did not take sides. the army was neutral. ..
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>> and the army had to violently disrupt the sit-in in tahrir. that was few weeks ago after the revolution was over and after mubarak stepped town. >> before i take the next question, did you have anything to add to that one? >> i think it's important to compare different countries' experience and events. there is a lot of concrete differences. but i also find something in common. what i find really intriguing, the egyptian experience, is that the whole protest -- the protesters remained peaceful and restrained despite people died, and there's no really identified leaders, organizing committees or infrastructures with an
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organizational capacity behind such a mass mobilization and achieved as a political goal, you know n a short period of time. i don't think i have seen that in anywhere else before the new media era. and i think that is a signal not only to all the activists in the world, but it also, for example, alerted the chinese authority big time. yeah. they realized even though there's no visible oppositional party, that kind of organization was possible. >> because they were aware the massive numbers were out there, even though they couldn't necessarily see them in the street. >> sure. coordinating action, and that's another thing. you mentioned the berkman center study. only a small portion of the people consuming political news, that's probably true everywhere. but in the time of crisis, in a time of social disdon't was coming to -- discontent was
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coming really acute, then social groups became the communication channels to, like, let's go to the street, right? let's do something together. will become, transform a normal commercial or social network into a political work in a moment of that kind of time. and when that time coming, it's determined by many other factors, not by technology. >> so as you mentioned before, the government doesn't want to shut it down because it helps the economy, it helps drive the economy, these networks do. but on a dime they can become the enemy of the state. >> that's right. and egyptians' experience also telling us, by the time you kill the switch, you shut down, too late. you're still gone. >> i totally agree with him. even people didn't consume, like, the political news much but once in the crisis, people will jump in.
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and one can die, 100,000 born, so it seemed like when the people been, like, suppressed and killed, the more they'll come up. >> especially when they have a way of spreading word. >> yes. >> thank you for your question. please, introduce yourself. >> hello, my name is jennifer, and i'm a journalist from niger. first of all, i'd like to commend you for all you're doing. your work's an inspiration to most young people all over the world. my question is directed to anyone who wants to answer. the revolution that took place in egypt is being used as a model for most other african countries, and young people are beginning to see how powerful digital media is in expressing themselves. so the government, using niger as an example, the government
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leaders, they are panicking because they realize the digital media is not being funded by anybody. so the form of censorship they are using is to pay others to monitor what people are saying online. i'd like you to share your view on your experiences. do you usually deal with attacks on your views, and how are you able to insure that your views are accepted by leaders? >> so the government in nigeria pays counterbloggers -- >> that's interesting. >> yeah. >> we have an administration where people come in and arrest you and take you to jail. >> so what you saying is, basically, instead of arresting you or somehow shutting down your access, they attack your rep take, they attack the content of what you are reporting. >> yes.
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sometimes they try to make your blog or your personal platform appear as, you know, they try to discredit the information. not directly through other people. >> you could say that's a form of psychological operations, or you could say that's like washington, d.c. politics. [laughter] >> anywhere. >> so have you all seen that? nazila, do they do that in iran? is. >> yes. they created their own cyber activists, they allocated cyber budgets, the government allocated a huge budget for the same reason because a lot of bloggers had moved out of the country, so there was no way for the authorities to arrest them and put them in jail. so there are a lot of secret bloggers now. >> [inaudible]
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>> cyber -- >> [inaudible] >> okay. yeah. they're calling for the war on terror to inform the content posted on facebook -- >> ah. so they have people spying on you and turning you in -- >> yeah. >> -- if you publish something in a nontraditional forum that the government isn't watching. >> yes. and already make, like, a climate of fear through the facebook. some of my friends have to deactivate their account and change the use names like something that is very, very, i think it's quite powerful. >> have they attacked your reputation? i mean -- >> for myself, i didn't, i didn't face that problem, but the others of them and also -- [inaudible] >> and you're facing a court case right now. >> yes. >> what did you do to land yourself in court?
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>> because i didn't do -- >> what you didn't do, okay. [laughter] >> they accuse me as i didn't remove the unlawful content. that the use of -- >> ah, the unlawful content is what they disagreed with. >> yes, i use in my forum discussion. >> okay, all right. >> so i've been accused of that. >> got it. >> in china it's the same thing that the government deploy all these strategies. actually, in chinese cyberspace there's a name called 50 cents which is sort of a nickname for those government internet commentaries who are the government paid and train the people attacking or the government stings online with a false identity. they don't say i'm paid by government or i'm coming from the government. they say i'm pretending to be an ordinary citizen. but they work in a content in favor of the government at different levels. of course, in china we also have this internet police or censors.
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river crab. >> river crab? >> crab in chinese means a pulley. means someone get their way by force -- bully. it also exactly the same as harmony. chinese government say harmony society, harmonious society. so if they censor somebody, they harmonize content. [laughter] >> oh, i see. by taking out the wrong note. >> right. however, i'm showing a picture. this is a glass horse which is sort of the chinese -- this little animal cute -- >> i can see from here it looks like a little cat. >> it's really apache, but the -- sorry, i couldn't pronounce. but it's a fake animal. it's pronounced asian sound exactly like very vicious chinese curse. i'm not going to repeat it in chinese here. [laughter] but they tran formed this little
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image into an online story, video satires and songs saying this glass horse is defeating river crabs in this imagined land. so become an icon of -- [inaudible] in chinese cyberspace. >> so that's the good guy. >> that's a good guy. >> o okay, all right. yeah, that's a much -- it looks like a cute little version of, like, felix the cat. >> don't pronounce the chinese name in front of your chinese friends. >> okay. well, we have another question from the audience. sir, could you introduce yourself? >> yes. good day to all of you, i'm from swaziland. my question is two-pronged, actually it's two, one for my egyptian colleague and perhaps the ore for my other colleagues. the first one is the recent inspiration we all draw was from tunisia and of course, egypt,
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particularly in press i have societies -- oppressive societies like my country in particular. having watched the revolution in egypt and the experiences of people particularly coming from the media outlet, you know, recently on the 12th of april there was huge protest in swaziland which they earmarked and called the april 12th uprising, perhaps mimicking the egyptian style. now, i would like to know were you able to use the media, particularly unorthodox, to galvanize people and to make them to come to the street without alerting the government to then begin to clamp down even before the protests could start. in our country, for example, the protests were announced, and it gave the government time to plan and survey and block all avenues the to those --
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>> when you say it was announced, how was the protest announced? and you said it was a huge protest. i mean, how many people ended up showing up? >> no, what happened is i'm sure we had learned from other experiences in particular. there was a date put on the 12th of april to say this would be the biggest protest march in swaziland. perhaps taking the same route and the same euphoria as the ones in the north, the government crashed them violently. now, i would like to know in the experiences of each, for example -- egypt, for example, how were they able to communicate information of this uprising without alerting -- >> without tipping off the government. yeah. i was just wondering how the protest was communicated, by phone, by mouth -- >> it was facebook. >> by facebook. >> all the others are
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government-owned. one is independent. so i would like to know basically from the experiences and perhaps even looking forward to future experiences, like, how do they use the alternative media like your twitter, like your facebook to mobilize people but at the same time making sure that the government does not get as much information that it can begin to cut down. >> so what type tips are you going to suggest, communicating by twitter or hush mail? >> it's, actually, you build this through experience. we build this over, like, five or sick or seven years or committing failures and successes and stuff like that. at some point we would tell people that we are going to have a demonstration in this specific place, and then we find out that the police is waiting for us there. so we instantly send out messages to people, so we move the protest to somewhere else.
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>> so you faked them out. >> well, we actually reacted to them reacting to us. [laughter] sometimes we give them fake dates and places of demonstrations and go there and shoot them while they are waiting for us. there was no demonstration at all, but we just enjoy that. [laughter] because it costs them money and effort, and the officers, they stay in the street for long hours -- >> standing in the sun, no water. >> sometimes they complain to us that they were not able to take off their shoes for, like, two days and is tough like that. so we get back at them. but we use different techniques. sometimes it's okay to tell the authorities you're going to protest in front of the syndicate, and it's okay for them to encircle us, and it's okay for the media to shoot us while the police is encircling
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us. during this last revolution, it was -- we were sure that lots of people are going to join, so we decided that the demonstrations are going to be in only one place. they are going to erupt in different squares in front of different mosques and churches all over egypt -- >> so you made it too many places for the security forces to be able to stop it. >> yeah. they can't handle that all. and we kept the places secret until few hours before. like, we announced it at night, and then the next morning people are out. so it doesn't give the police time, enough time to plan how they are going to deal with because if they know that the musician is going to be in so and so square, they will plan the entrances and exitses and how to stop people and how to crack down on them. but when we do that, it doesn't give them enough time. >> got it. well, we have another question from the audience. ma'am, could you introduce yourself? >> yes, my name is jeanette, i'm
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a freedom of expression consultant from south africa, and i work in various african countries. listening to you, it strikes me that this form of organizing with new social and communications tools cuts across political parties. it's almost as if it moves political parties out of the picture. so, in other words, people are mobilized or convened not by opposition political party, not by a liberation movement, not by somebody with a particular message, but it call on people who, obviously, share a certain sense of context and grievance and across political party beliefs and divisions. so my question is, do you think over time that new media will start changing how democracy works in the sense that will we start moving away from defining political parties and are we really moving closer to real people's power on the ground? is. >> got it. so does this cut the political
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parties out of the picture, or does it simply, perhaps, make it impossible for those parties to ignore -- >> it replaces them in a way because in some countries you have those fake political parties that are giving permission by a reweek to practice politics and only to make the regime look good. so they have to be replaced by real people. and the internet, it's a very democratic tool because it allows a lot of people to state their opinion and to interact with each other without anybody censoring them or telling them to shut up, or you are not qualified, or you are not in a position in a party in order to -- because in a political party you have a hierarchy, and people will speak for the party, and people were not allowed to speak to the media. but anybody can speak, anybody can interact, and it's more democratic than political parties. >> more democratic, and yet it's not very scientific, it's not as scientifically done as a poll would be done trying to take
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cross-sections with a control group, etc., to figure out opinions. what do you think? >> i think that is the pew thety of it, that people find a platform to converse, to argue and raise counterarguments and so political parties wouldn't be able to sort of hijack the events like what happened in iran in 1979. the islamists simply hijacked the revolution while there were so many different groups involved in the revolution, but i think the danger of it emerges when something happens, and the lack of agenda, the lack of leadership emerges. for some reason people think that the internet or the satellite tv or facebook can assume the role of leadership. they can give people tips where to go, what to do. but what happens after that? like, hundreds of thousands of people were coming out since early 2000.
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i mean, in those days the numbers were not that huge, but channels were calling on people the come out and stage protests. people were coming out in huge numbers, tens of thousands. now there were hundreds of thousands. they were coming out, and they were faced with violence. but then the question is, what happens after that? are people supposed to stay there and fight or get killed? >> so if something doesn't step in to fill the void, say one of those political parties takes advantage of this or is elected by the people on the street as the organization they want to take forward, it can fall apart which is what they say has been happening in libya. >> yeah. >> you had some government organization among the opposition in the rebel-held part of the country, but they couldn't seem to coordinate together with the people who had weapons to really organize the fight back. and that' struggling.
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>> in china we haven't gotten to the point of multiple political parties. only have one party only. other than decoration parties, there's nothing. so china political issue in terms of new media is about political expression and participation. and here's a couple of different angles to look at this. for example, microblogging or blogs and online behavior and political expression. if you want -- in chinese case -- if you want to compete with how secretly you technically can transmit your message, if you want to compete with state agents, you're going to lose. if you want to compete with the hide your identity and sort of mobilizing something that authorities really want to kill in china, at this point it's not going to succeed. but what you can do is express yourself in other ways. you can retweet something, you
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can send your friends an e-mail. what we call a microparticipation of a political speech. each the numbers adding it up, it's already a significant matter in chinese public sphere and making the political game changes. so at least as a first step. >> so it becomes a precursor to civil society and possibly form ago political opposition when one would be with allowed. >> that's correct. ip formally, however, those incremental progress matters. and from the government side or from the controller side they actually lack the means to crack down what i call the microbehavior. yes, somebody did retweet somebody. so what? they can know it. there are too many people that they can only have to adapt to that situation rather than crack down on who. >> ironically, the chinese government cracking down on some of this retweeting, they could create the very opposition that they are trying to --
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>> that's right. they do, they do arrest bloggers. they do arrest journalists. they do come down to the harsh physical and technical punishment online. still, within that atmosphere people's expression is facilitated by those new technologies. >> we have another question from the virtual world. lila, bring us up-to-date. >> yes. do the panelists feel hopeful about the future, and will the freedom to speak increase? >> anyone can dive right in. you must be hopeful about the future. >> not really, but we have to be hopeful, or else we're going to stay at home and do nothing and don't stop working because we are pessimistic. but the optimism is what drives us. it's not really about optimism,
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it's about being realistic and willing to do what you can to make a change even if you feel that it's very hard. i personally felt that this revolution that happened, it could have never happened unless there was awareness in the people, and i gave it, like, ten years. so i said, let's wait ten years until people are aware enough, but i was surprised by what happened. so i was pessimistic, as you can see, but people surprised me. >> now, i just have to follow up. you're not optimistic because you haven't seen the promise of the revolution play out as quickly as -- >> i know it takes time, but i'm seeing the revolution move anything a direction that i don't like -- moving in a direction that i don't like which is it's now being controlled by the army, and the army is cracking down on some freedoms like freedom of the press, for example. a blogger has been sent to jail for three years for criticizing the army. >> have they sent you any -- >> not yet, but e was told that
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they were asking about me. i don't know why, but we'll see. we'll see when i get back. [laughter] >> asking who? >> asking people who are filming a documentary, do you know this blogger, wael abbas, stuff like that. and also the state tv, this guy who is now responsible for the state tv has issued an order to cut off all the scenes that contain kissing in the egyptian movies and drama. so they are -- >> yes. egypt is the hollywood of the middle east. that's a lot of edits. >> yeah, i know. [laughter] so we were, we have a revolution, again, it's censorship, oppression of freedom, and now we are facing it again. and so it's really worrying. this book, "the prophet," one of the versions of the book was banned from entering egypt because it contained nude
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drawings by the author himself in the book. the book was available in the egyptian market for, like, 100 years now and nobody said anything about it, but this copy, because it contained these nude paintings, it was banned. it's really worrying that these things are all happening after the revolution that we had. >> you think that means they could be sliding towards the muslim brotherhood, more -- >> or competing with them or trying to satisfy them or i don't know. trying to satisfy conservative society. >> reason to keep reading your blog. did anyone else want to jump in on that one? >> question of hope. >> hope. optimism for the future. >> let me answer this question not from my academic capacity of china observer or even journalism professor. let me answer this question as a chinese living in exile in the last 22 years. i have met and worked with some
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activists live anything exile. someone returned to east timor and became president. someone else returned to taiwan on the power and removed of power now. someone from tunisia now returned to his country. and i am still here. from berkeley. but technology ghei -- gave me hope because i spent all the time in the chinese cyberspace. in that space i'm with all the chinese bloggers in china, and i hear their voices. i'm with them despite all the censorship. i saw the hope, i see the hope. i know that awareness are growing. i know they're willing to a greater freedom in china is growing. and for that reason i have hope for the way people use technology to advance their freedom and dignity. >> do you have hope that the chinese government would see
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your sentiment the way you're building civil society as a force for positive change? >> many people in china and outside of china working towards that goal including the people inside of the government. but as a regime it preserve it own interest and at this point has no plett call reform agenda -- political reform agenda whatsoever. so all we can do is continue to work towards for that. it's not a choice -- well, it probably is a choice. it's not an objective description, it just a matter of a choice that you have to keep your hope. >> i don't believe much in technologies, but i hope in people. and i think like in thailand just like we are in the transitional period like the people, we just --
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[inaudible] that we are not in the open society, we are not in the free could country. actually, we already been in the conservative, we just admit these kinds of true. and from when we admit the truth, the people start to, like, fighting back. and i think now once the people have that experience, the freedom of expression is something that you should not, okay, you have to have the freedom of expression. but it's something that people have to have their own experience. and i think right now the technology gives them chance for that experience. >> to draw on your earlier example, once a candle l is lit, people realize how much darkness they were sitting in. >> yes. >> nazila? is. >> i'm very positive. i think the information technology has provided people with a chance to learn, to have access to information, and when people have access to information, they make wiser choicing. >> we have time for one last quick question from the
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audience. ma'am, could you introduce yourself? >> sure. i'm with the international center for journalists here in d.c., and following the uprisings in the middle east there was this big debate which still goes on about who to give credit to, the social media tools and the new media tools or the people. and it's like a back and forth. is it the people who had the courage to go out in the streets, or is it the tools, the technology that allowed them -- >> [inaudible] >> oh, really? >> they had this discussion in the green room. >> so i would like to hear from each of you how much credit you give to each, and why does it matter? >> what do you think? is it the people or the method of delivery? >> i wouldn't give the internet too much credit, but i won't take, also, the credit, all the credit from the internet. i believe that the internet and the social media worked as a fuse or as a catalyst that has made the process speed up. if we did not have it, we could
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have had revolution because it's, after all, the will of the people. it's the people who decided to revolt. but without the social media, they could have had the revolution, but maybe later, maybe in a less organized fashion. so the social media tools helped it to be fast and in a more organized manner. >> the fuse by which the flame spread. >> yeah. >> well n egypt 900 people were killed during the revolution. in iran last year about 80 people were killed. i don't think people come out in running shoes knowing that they are face violence and bullets based on a message on twitter or facebook. there are other conceptions that are behind it, other frustrations, so i think it's a combination of everything. people's will, coordination tools, other mediums that have shaped public opinion year after year. >> and yet do those tools now
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give them the feeling of safety in numbers in. >> no, i don't think so. i think it's the will, the will to -- >> the will -- >> the will not to fall from the race for freedom. >> it is important to different shade ourself -- differentiate ourself from technology determinist point of view. since there is twitter or facebook or internet, then there will be democracy. or too pessimistic. since they stayed the oppressors can use technology, there are, internet -- therefore, internet irrelevant. i think none of it's true. we have to watch closely on the ground how people use it. their only interest building up quality of life including the political participation, dignity, freedom of expression and in those areas. so from my observation in china i would say that internet or the
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social media in particular are certainly a critical factor, yeah, to catalyze the civil society building and expanding the level of political expression and participation in china. would that naturally lead to democracy? no. there are so many factors against it, and it's always a struggle for the people to use it. >> technology, i think like internet or the social media is something quite like we can call a decentralized media. >> decentralized media. >> yeah. it's difficult for anyone try to monopolize. so this is a good one. and another way is like it help people to find other people who have common interest, and then they can, like, have chats so
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that why the social media can help to mobilize the protests. because if it only just one person, probably they don't have enough to go out. but when they can find someone through the virtual world or online world first and then they come up together. >> chu, i have to ask one thing i neglected to ask. so, when they accused you of -- in the thai courts of breaking the law by not taking down unlawful information, how did you plead? is. >> i just, like, say i didn't do anything wrong, so i deny and try to defend. and my case still resume again in september. >> so you said not guilt. >> yep. >> not guilty. okay. so we'll be staying tuned. watching your blog. i want to thank everybody for coming here today and sharing what you all have gone through
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and seen on the ground. and also for the risks you take, have taken, will take, and i wish you safe journeys. hopefully back to china someday, for instance. >> thank you. [laughter] >> and i want to thank everyone for coming here today and, um, for -- to the organizers for sponsoring this forum. it has changed the way we all do our jobs for the better. we live in interesting times. thank you very much. [applause] >> more, now, from the state department and united nations event marking world press freedom day. this panel of foreign correspondents focuses on so-called citizen journalists and how news reporting is evolving in the digital age. this is a little less than an hour and a half.
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>> welcome and good afternoon. i'm deputy assistant secretary of state, i work for the united states department of state, a proud sponsor of world press freedom day. it's almost 40 years since bob woodward redefined the balance of power between the press and the state, breaking a story that would lead to the resignation of a u.s. president. his dogged fearlessness have set a standard that has helped show the world that press freedom is an essential part of even the best system of checks and balances in a modern democracy. his work has also demonstrated that threats to freedom of the press come not just from thugs in russia or dictators across africa, but even from the corridors of the white house. we all know his storied career and the tangible ways he has shaped the history of press freedom. but bob has also transformed lives. i have the honor of knowing him
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because one of those lives is my husband's, david greenberg's. david's fist -- first job was working with bob. together they interviewed witnesses, pored through files at the national archives and sifted through all of it in an office upstairs in bob's home. you don't have to look hard to see bob's influence on david's life and career. david's written a book about richard nixon and is now hard at work on a book of presidential spin. but he's only one of the thousands of journalist worldwide who's been inspired by bob woodward. bob's work is a constant reminder of the indispensable value of in-depth, meticulous reporting and information gathering. his steady stream of headline-grabbing, page-turning accounts of the most challenging episodes of america's governor nance and policy making are testament to whether it first
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breaks online, on air, in the print or in a bound volume, the most come telling insight -- compelling insights are the products of hard work, careful thought and multiple viewpoints weighed and assessed. bob's latest book on the war in afghanistan which dominated the chatter in the state department for weeks is just another example of how his unique brand of access, in many-depth reporting -- in-depth reporting can change the conversation. in an era of continuous messaging and spin, bob woodward is an ash temporary of what can be believed, what should be questioned, who's deciding and what lies beneath the most complex and contested policy making. last night we heard the breathtaking announcement that osama bin laden had been killed, but there's still a lot we don't know about the story. if we're lucky, this coming months and years bob woodward will let us in. for these reasons we couldn't
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fathom a more important person to lead off this critical discussion on how press freedom is being threatened and transformed by technology. it's my great honor to introduce bob woodward. [applause] >> thank you. it's nice to be here. is this picking up? okay, great. they said i'm supposed to talk 20 minutes, i'm going to talk less than 15. and sheila's promised to give me the hook and stand up. i just want to make a kind of few random observations about the media and the press and what's going on and be then the context of the truly astonishing story of the killing of osama bin laden. the handbook that was handed out for this gathering said the following: digital media tools
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have fundamentally changed the nature of reporting and the meaning of transparency. no. [laughter] i disagree. i disagree strongly. i think that the digital media tools have supplement inside a very significant way -- supplemented in a very significant way how we do our job. this handbook also said citizens now have instant access to the source material reporters use in their stories. no. not so. just is not the case. some of the information and, again, there's more and better data, buts it is just not so that there has been a total revelation or a total revolution in the way we do the reporting business. and i want to take an example. "the new york times" last year
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when they started publishing the diplomatic cables that they got from wikileaks, in a note to readers november 28th of last year the editor said that there's an important public interest illuminating the goal, successes, compromises and frustrations of american diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match. no. not the case. then this note went on in rather astonishing form to say concern and i would agree -- and i would agree with "the new york times." i thought they did a masterful job in sorting through the wikileaks material and presenting it. i think it's important. i think it adds a dimension of understanding. but like people in government or business, sometimes people in
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the media take a success and overstate it. and this is in the note to readers that ran in "the new york times". but the more porn reason to publish -- more porn reason to publish these documents is that the cables tell the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money. no. that's not the case. if you look at the wikileaks documents, they're middle classification documents in many cases, the ambassador meeting with a head of state and sending a secret cable saying this is what the head of state said, this is my interpretation. all valid, important news, but if you understand the white house -- which i attempt to do -- you realize those
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documents do not get to the white house, that they have very little stand anything the white house -- standing in the white house. that the white house has its own intelligence channels and gets information that is much more heavily documented and authentic and the kind of raw information that is the in top secret or code word documents that the wikileaks people at this point got. the fact is, i think we're not in a world of radical journalistic change, that we still have to rely on human sources. the best sources. documents can help, contemporaneous notes, but human sources, people who are witnesses and participants in
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these, the biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money. sometimes those are in documents, but you really need the human sources. and i want to tell a story about what i think the problem has been in the business of journalism and the free press. going back decades, and it still exists. and this was several, a good number of years ago. my wife, elsa, and i were watching panel in colorado at one of these conferences on aging. now, because i'm now 68 it is a subject that interests me a whole lot. [laughter] really interested in aging. and on the panel they had physicians and psychologists and real experts.
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and jake watson, the co-discoverer of dna. james watson. and everyone talked about aging except watson. and after about an hour you know in a situation like this power of silence. here's the guy who's won the nobel prize, conceivably knows a great deal about aging saying nothing. finally, the moderator said, dr. watson, what do you think? what's the best way to deal with aging? and he looked up, and he said, the best and only way to deal with aging is stay away from old people m. [laughter] very good advice. in the course of -- after the panel they handed out these sheets, kind of a self-scoring about your life lifestyle. and you would answer the
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questions and it would be how often do you exercise, how often do you eat red meat, have you ever smoked, personal questions. and it was quite extensive, and you would then get point or not get points for certain answers. and at the end you would total it all up, and it would tell you how many years you had to live. now, this is something i wish i had copies of this to hand out. it's really, it's an interesting exercise. elsa and i were sitting behind dr. henry kissinger who was the secretary of state and national security adviser for president nixon and ford. so being believers in the free press, we got on our toes and looked at what dr. kissinger was doing.
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and he was, i tell you, this mattered to him. this was a big deal. and he answered all those questions and then got down and totaled it all up, and it turned out he died eight years ago. [laughter] not happy. not happy at all. and so what did kissinger do? he reached into his diplomatic tool bag and opened subtle diplomacy with the questions and got out his e eraser and rescored. well, it turned out he a hadn't eaten red meat since 1949. turned out he exercised several times a day. turns out all of these things. and he rescored it all. and at the end it turned out after the rescoring that he had
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eight years to live. now, that's what we fight in journalism everywhere in the world, the rescoring that takes place by people in government, particularly in business, in the media. in working on my last book, "obama's wars," i know i would interview people sometimes hours or days after an event and then six months ago you would revisit the decision point, ask they'd say, oh, yeah. well, my view was the following. huh-uh. you know, four hours after the meeting you said this. rescoring. everyone is trying to rescore history and be -- and reality. that is what we're fighting against, it is, it's inherent in the white house whether democrats or republicans.
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everywhere in the world there is the rescoring of history by people who make the decisions. the journalists have to come in with a method that will provide a more authentic version of what occurred. the key, you know, i love the internet, love all of the information that we get from the new digital access and tools. it's about going to human beings. and getting the honest story. when e was working on the -- when i was working on the fourth bush book, there was a general who would not talk to me. and i sent e-mails, phone message, intermediaries, radio silence, wouldn't talk. so i found out where he lived. and what's the best time of night to stop in on a general without an appointment? is -- anyone have an idea? 8:15 is the --
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[laughter] because they haven't gone to bed unless they're george w. bush. [laughter] they have eaten, and the evening is still kind of young. so i knock on the door. the general opens the door and looks at me and says, you? are you still doing this shit? [laughter] didn't care for the characterization of what i do. [laughter] but there was a moment there of -- and you have to, i didn't kind of do anything, kind of stand there. it was obvious. i was needy. i needed information, needed his cooperation, and he kind of looked at me, and i was either going to get the door slammed in my face. and finally after a few seconds he kind of, come on in. and three hours later i left with answers to the questions.
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questions are not the answers -- the answers are not on the internet, are not in social media. they are in the experiences of firsthand witnesses. now, the what's going on in the convulsion in the middle east and north africa may be the 9/11 for the world. it's something we've got to figure out, the government has to figure out, the media has to figure out. there is truly the beginning of the emergence of the civil society in many of these countries, a public consciousness and a public conscious. we're learning that people discover that benign dictatorships are often not that benign, if benign at all. the movements, the collective
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movements if you look at al-jazeera, you see where they do one of their split screens, two or four screens. the same slogans, the same ideas are being expressed in countries that are not collected. how you -- connected in any way. how do you report all of this, what's the challenge? one of the challenges is that the traditional elites don't matter as much. you're going to have to find the people, the opposition, the renegades, if you will, in these countries. the digital media tools are key, but the best answers are going to come from human beings. but as an example of using the new digital media tools i've got a google map of pakistan.
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and this is where obama ordered the killing of osama bin laden. t about, i guess, 35 miles north of islamabad. about the same distance as tarbella which is where, it turns out, the pakistanis keep many of their nuclear weapons. it is a sacred, well-protected area. it's about 15 or 20 miles from where osama bin laden was living. and you look at this map, and you ask the question, wasn't anybody curious? didn't anyone go up route n35 as it's labeled here on the google map and say where is this, what is this house here that is different and more secure and more hidden? and you just look at the geography of this, and you realize that the pakistanis have
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an immense, an immense amount to answer for. last point is what should we worry about as journalists as we attempt to find out what's going on, and my answer to that question is secret government. that the secrecy of government, this is what nixon try inside watergate, in all of these administrations all over the world, in government too much unnecessary secrecy. whoever said it, got it right. democracies die in darkness. and if we lose the means and the capacity to really find out if those of us in the business of journalism don't have the method and the luck and the persistence to really get the story, we're going to miss out. because the real story is not on
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the internet. it is in often the secret records of government, in the secret memories of those who participate in making these decisions. thanks. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> my name's sheila mcvicker, i'm your moderator for a panel discussion on reporting sources and information in a digital world. joining bob woodward, an award-winning columnist and investigative reporter for the dawn newspaper group in pakistan and is currently the pakistan scholar at the woodrow wilson international center. among other things, her weekly column in this dawn focuses most often on terrorism, foreign policy and international relations. you can imagine she's been having a very busy day today, so we're very glad she is with us.
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she has also done a lot of reporting on another summit we're going to talk about -- subject we're going to talk about later on and that's the problems faced by bloggers, legal penalties, lawsuits and other kinds of difficulties bloggers are facing. the bureau chief for al-jazeera here in washington, he hosts a weekly political affairs show which talks to newsmakers about political and current cultural topics. like -- >> like him, bob. [laughter] >> and elena. she was awarded the allison te forges award for extraordinary activism. in ten years you said six of
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your colleagues at gazeta have been killed. >> yeah. >> and many more -- six killed. >> yeah. during the putin era. that's exactly. >> and those are fellow reporters, journalists at your newspaper. >> they were journalists who were killed. >> and many more of your sources and fellow activists have -- >> many more of civil activists and other journalists were threatened, were beaten cruelly. the latest probably the world knows about -- [inaudible] daily newspaper who was cruelly beaten. and a lot of people, actually, were. that's the way how regime of putin treats people. not only journalists, those who actually try to tell the truth. so a lot of bloggers right now
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in russia who are trying to do journalistic work, who are trying to deal with corruption or russian bureaucracy, they afraid for their lives because t very easy to find -- it's very easy to find him or even to kill them. pleasure and in a long time i know a few cases when the actual killers were punished. >> elena, you heard bob's story of going to the general's home at 8:15 at night hoping he'd have a good dinner and would be in a receptive mood for conversation, could you imagine doing that in your work, going to the home of a russian general looking for information? >> well -- >> i bet you have to. maybe they're only lieutenants or majors. >> well, you know what? the first big story of my career was probably you know. in 2000 of august there was
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tragedy with russian submarine korsk with 180 sailors on it, and i was investigating it for several years. and i knocked on the door of many generals and admirals, russian admirals who helped me, who gave me interview. and it wasn't nighttime for them because i ask, like you said, right questions and very hard questions for them. the main theme of this story was they never tried to save people who stayed alive on the submarine, and they were lying at the beginning that they did. and i would say, well, ten years, like 11 years ago the russian --
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[inaudible] was not developed like it is now. i doubt blogger can ask questions which professional journalists ask and should ask. >> ladies and gentlemen, please, feel free to come down and join the discussion. we hope you will do. huma, in your work in pakistan you reported off and on national security matters. we were talking before where there had been executions carried out by pakistani special forces. is that a story -- and that's not a one-off. that is something that has occurred in the past and has, but is extremely difficult to report. how were you able to report it in this instance, and what made the difference? >> what the made the difference was citizen journalism because pakistani journalists work in an extremely con constrained environment. they can't say anything about the pakistan army, they can't say anything about terrorists, militant organizations. they're working under the threat of their life. what happ
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