Ellery Roberts Biddle [mid-sentence]: ...Our weekly video hangout series!
I think - let's see, we started a little bit off time
so I'll say it again:
Ellery: Welcome to GV Face, our weekly video hangout series!
Today, we are celebrating the 25th birthday of the world wide web.
Pretty exciting. That was on Wednesday.
Um, we've got a really all-star lineup of guests
on today's program.
Um, moving from left to right, we have:
Alan Emtage, a very special guest who is
gonna talk to us about his very special creation
of, uh, the first web browser...
Um! We have Jeremy Clark, in Montreal -
Jeremy is a technical director at Global Voices.
Josh Levy, from Free Press,
in Massachusetts, in the U.S.
and Renata Avila, campaign manager for the Web We Want
Creative Commons extraordinaire, and
GV star, who is joining us from Berlin!
Welcome, everybody!
Um. So we wanted to start today's show
by talking a little bit about the World Wide Web
and the internet.
'Cuz a lot of people think that they're the same thing
when actually, that's not quite true.
I want to first turn to Jeremy
and just ask, Jer, could you
break it down for us, like,
I thought that the internet was invented in the 70's
but, if it's the 25th birthday of the web,
what does that mean?
Jeremy Clark: Okay, well, the
best place to start, I think, is
the internet - it has existed in various formats
since the 1970's, as you said,
but it was the web that really made it
enter our homes.
and, so, understanding the relationship is important.
So, the internet was invented by
the U.S. Government in a lot of senses...
...a mix of military and science funding
that developed the network of actual computers
that can communicate with each other
over wires.
Now, another related technology that is also compri--
[amends] uh, built in to the web
is called hypertext. And that is the notion
of documents that can link between each other
immediately, without having to go and fetch
a separate document. Um.
So there were lots of systems since the 1960s
that were trying to implement hypertext, like,
Xanadu is an example,
uh, but all of them were commercial, expensive, closed,
and none of them were very popular.
So, Tim Berners-Lee, who is the "inventor of the internet,"
[corrects himself] of the web, obviously, the World Wide Web -
Um. [Tim Berners-Lee] put those two things together
by building a service that runs
on top of the internet, and he
called it the World Wide Web.
So what the World Wide Web is, is the
decentralized hypertext engine
that we use to communicate between
computers' web pages.
So what makes up WEB is three things:
URLs, or URIs - Universal Resource Locator,
which are the addresses we use to find things on the web;
HTML, which is the
HyperText Markup Lanuage
which is the way that the information
is stored and sent
so that we can then use browsers
to view HTML, and then
all the documents can be understood
and then also they display the links
so that the hypertext part of it works
and we can jump around from page to page.
Um, the final part is HTTP, which is
the HyperText Transfer Protocol
which is the communication method
by which the different computers can
talk to each other and send the
HTML documents back and forth
depending on the URLs.
Um. So, when he built it, there were some
very important things that he built into this system
that didn't exist before.
And the main one is
universal authorship.
So he always intended that anyone would be able
to access these webpages,
and anyone would be able to
add their own webpages,
without asking for permission.
With the very explicit special condition
that anyone can link to any other webpage
without permission.
Previous hypertext systems required that
basically, for you to link to me,
I have to accept that link,
and probably create a link back to you,
and that wasn't required on the Web,
which gives us a lot of freedom to link to people
who wouldn't want us to be able to link to them, for example,
so no one can say "I'm putting up free content..."
"...but you can't send your readers here, because I hate you," et cetera.
The other one is that he made it completely, completely free.
So in the world of inter--[fumbles for words]--programming
the most free thing is generally considered
to be the GPL [General Public License]: open-source, free software licenses.
uh, and Tim Berners-Lee actually almost used
the GPL, because he wanted the web software
he was building to be free.
But at the last minute he actually changed his mind
and made it full public domain,
because in certain ways, the GPL is actually more restrictive,
because it forces other people -
like, certain commercial actors
wouldn't have wanted to use web technology if it were GPL,
so he made it full public domain,
and then from there went on to make all of the standards
as open and, uh, general and free as possible.
Uh. So that's my extremely brief history of the internet.
If anyone is curious, he wrote a wonderful book
called "Weaving the Web" about his experiences
[enticing tone] As you can see, it's short!
And he has lots of interesting technical information in it
without being overwhelming.
It's very approachable
and he's a really interesting person
and it - the book is much better than his tweets,
which are usually incoherent.
[one of the participants huffs out a "whew"]
Ellery: Ouch! Jeremy [?]: A few minutes?
Ellery: Thanks, that was - that was great, Jer!
Ellery: I mean, I think that that helps
um, in conversations about internet policy,
and internet governance, there's a lot of emphasis
on the ability to, kinda, create and innovate without permission?
Like, for everybody to be able to build parts of the web.
And what you just laid out for us makes it clear
how important [expansive gesture] the Web piece of the infrastructure is
for that, for that capacity to become
a real tangible thing, and somebody that - [amends] something that now
we can do - we don't have to have
technical expertise to kind of build our own spaces there.
Ellery: Um. So, I wanted to - Jeremy: So um.
Jeremy: If I could add just one more thing, sorry -
Jeremy: I just wanted to give a couple examples
of things that happen over the internet
that aren't the web,
because that was the actual initial question.
So, one example would be torrents,
where you're the - two computers connect to each other,
and stream information directly, without any URLs
being mixed into the process.
Um, another one is - email, at its core,
is its own communication protocol
that doesn't have to use the web,
although we often use web sites to access and manage our email.
Umm. And then another one was the one right before the Web came out,
a very popular protocol was called Gopher,
which people liked, and sort of worked like the Web
- you surf around and find things -
but it actually became commercial right around the time that the web came out,
so people would've had to start paying,
and instead of starting to pay,
they switched to HTTP, HTML, and the World Wide Web.
Ellery: Thank you.
Ellery: So I want to move to Alan, now... Um,
Alan built the first search engine.
And I'm kind of... like, overwhelmed, and feel sort of
like, giddy and nervous having him here.
Ellery: This is just - [Alan laughs]
Ellery: This is, like, a really big deal!
Ellery: So, Alan, just - if you could tell us -
'cuz I think a lot of people don't know about Archie -
um, it would be really cool just to hear
about how you sort of - what you were doing
that made you decide to, to do this
and kinda what it was like, and then, I mean, everything you've seen since...
Unfortunately we're time limited, but...
Alan: Right. Ellery: You know.
Alan [coughs]: Well, um, uh, well, that was back in
1989, and, I was working as a system administrator
for uh, McGill University - I was a grad student
for McGill University - and um, I was responsible
for getting software for - one of my responsibilities
was getting software for the faculty and the students.
And at the time, the three major protocols on the internet
- this was pre Web, ummm -
was, uh, Telnet, which would allow you to log in
to a remote machine.
Email, ah, which would allow you to communicate
ah, with another - as we do now, with a, with a
remote machines, plural,
and, and FTP, which was the File Transfer Protocol,
which allowed you to move, ah, data files, or files
from one machine to another.
And at the time what we had was - people had made
- remember it was a non-commercial internet at the time -
- actually, commercial traffic was forbidden on the internet at the time,
because it was run by the National Science Foundation
and it was using educational money
and therefore other than companies with
research arms, like IBM and HP and those kinds of things,
we didn't have any commercial traffic on the internet,
which nowadays seems kind of amazing to even think about -
and, ah, so what people did, were to provide
to provide free space on their machines
- and remember, you know, at the time,
a big disc would be a megabyte, you know -
and so people would provide common repositories
that you could deposit programs that you had written
datafiles, and documents, and that kinda stuff.
into these central repositories that were
spread around the internet.
Then other people could then retrieve them.
And so I spent a lot of my time trying to locate
software, or the information that my, the students and the faculty were trying to find,
and I got tired of it.
and since I'm lazy and a geek, I...
I automated the process.
I got - instead of doing it manually, I had a bunch
of scripts wake up in the middle of the night every night,
and go out and index these files.
Now remember all of this was just file listings.
It's not like Google, it's not like a search engine would be today,
it is just... filenames. All it was, was filenames.
And so what it would do
was it would go out every night,
list all the filenames in all the repositories,
and allow you to search lists of filenames.
And I only used it for myself!
I only used it, um, uh, for my own personal use.
Um, and at one point my boss,
who was also a student, a grad student at the University,
let Peter Deutsch let it be known that, um,
somebody was asking for, you know,
could they, could somebody tell them where, um,
y'know, a particular piece of software was.
And, uh, uh, we, um, uh... we, you know,
he came and asked me, he knew we had this database
and he came and asked me if I could help out.
And I gave it to him, and if, y'know,
half a sec- half a minute later I had the information,
and so he put this posting online, and, umm.
People then started asking,
"Well, can you find this for me?"
And, you know, all these manual requests!
Basically - either through email, or UseNet postings -
- which is what we were using at the time -
we thought, well, this is silly,
there's no point doing these things manually
when we can just allow people access to the database itself.
And in a moment of insanity,
we had to come up with a name for it,
and I said, "Okay, well, let's just call it ARCHI-E,"
which is "ARCHIVE" without the V
And, ah, and within about three or four months
we were consuming about half
of all of the traffic to eastern Canada [where McGill University is]
as this search engine became - as people, y'know -
- word of mouth -
you know, people who know about Archie
are generally people of a certain age...
...I won't mention what that age is, but
it's generally people who were in university
or working on the internet, so it would have been
so it would have been research people,
people in academia in the early nineties.
So Archie lasted for about, uh, [hems and haws]
Five years. Four or five years.
And, um, it only indexed FTP archives.
It never indexed the web.
Now, I went on, as Archie became popular,
and I got more involved in the standards process
and that kind of stuff,
I worked, uh, fairly closely with Tim Berners-Lee
to, uh, to standardize - for example,
I did the - I ran the committee
at the standard-setting body for the internet,
which is the IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force]
to standardize URLs.
Because Tim had come up with
a set of rules for URLS,
and as we looked at expanding that
to a larger range of resources,
we realized that those rules did not cover
all of the cases.
So, we worked, for, uh - Tim brought the,
the specification, his original specification,
to the group, and we worked on it for,
I don't remember, nine months to a year or so,
to come up with a standard for URLs.
So all of those URLs that we use,
day in and day out,
were, were standardized as a result
of that committee.
So, it was, um, it was a really exciting time,
it was a time of, y'know - the question I always get
is why didn't make a billion dollars off of it?
And I keep reminding people that
most of the people who were pioneers -
with the exception of Marc Andreessen [who co-founded Netscape]
uhm, didn't make a whole lot of money off of these, these original things.
We were working in an environment which, uh,
put a premium on getting the technology out there
making it as widely available as possible -
Tim's big coup with CERN, [European Organization for Nuclear Research]
which is the organization that he worked for when he first developed the web ,
was to get CERN to put, um, the web software
that he had created into the public domain.
So it wasn't even his to give away,
it was CERN's property.
As an employee [of CERN], [Tim's work] would actually belong to CERN.
Uh. He, he actually convinced them to put it in the public domain
and that's what really, uh, y'know
set [amends] lit a fire under the whole thing.
At the time, the philosophy behind it
was really, "Let's get this out there,
"..this is a brave new world,"
"..we don't know what all of this technology's gonna be used for!"
I don't think any of us - including Tim -
imagined what it would become.
Y'know, he, he always had a much grander vision of it
but I don't - I can guarantee you -
I've spent many, many, many, many an hour
with drinks, in bars, drinking with Tim,
and I can guarantee you that he did not
- Sir Tim, by the way, Sir Tim -
Um. I should - y'know, he even, he,
I don't think, had any idea that it would basically
take over the world.
and half the world's population would be using
the system that he created, twenty years later.
[corrects himself] Twenty-five years later.
Ellery: Thank you so much.
Ellery: I mean, so, speaking of which, yeah,
it has changed, and, I guess, [chuckles], taken over, in a way,
um, that we, I'm sure, wouldn't have expected.
I wanted to now move to Josh and Renata,
who are both [something falls to the floor]
very [she looks at the fallen object, winces]
committed, involved leaders in what has now
become a global effort to - I mean,
the way that we're sort of putting it
is "save the internet"
or, preserve and protect the openness
and all of the rights to free expression, access, um,
and also privacy, that we all feel are embedded
actually, in the way that it was built.
So, Josh, I wondered if you could explain to us
really briefly what your role is in your organization
and then also, um, tell us about
the Web We Want campaign, and explain, y'know,
how you think this rights movement is shaping up
and if you could kind of link it with everything that
Alan just laid out for us,
that would be really wonderful.
Josh Levy: I'll do my best.
Josh: So, my name is Josh Levy,
Josh: I'm from Free Press,
we're a U.S.-based organization,
we advocate for better technology and media policy
that allows for an open internet,
for better representation of people in the media,
including in, in media that's online,
and for open access to information.
And this issue that we're talking about -
the anniversary of the web -
is really central to our work,
because we've been fighting, for example,
to pass strong Net Neutrality policies here in the U.S. for years.
Basically ever since the issue first came up, in the mid-2000s,
when we saw big internet service providers
blocking traffic coming from certain destinations.
And that fight is ongoing.
The FCC, the Federal Communications Commission here in the U.S.,
which is charged with overseeing communications and technology policy,
passed rules in 2010
that were intended to protect Net Neutrality
but were passed in a way that we knew wasn't gonna hold up in court.
And we were - unfortunately,
we saw that happen earlier this year,
when a court in Washington, D.C., threw out those rules,
effectively throwing out any Net Neutrality protections that people have.
And so this gets back to what Jeremy was saying
the "internet" versus the "Web," right?
So when we're talking about Net Neutrality,
which I hope a lot of people have heard of,
this concept that we should be able to access any information that we want online
without anybody getting in the way, whether that's a big company or the government -
that is, essentially, that's a policy that applies to the internet:
to the ways in which all of our computers connect to each other.
And we have this basic understanding that the internet should be free and open,
meaning that my computer should be able to connect
to yours in this global network of computers
without any entity inspecting the traffic,
trying to understand what you're trying to access,
and, based on that understanding, block it.
So if it doesn't like the video you're watching, [it would be] slowing it down;
or, if it doesn't like the application you're using, blocking it -
- that, that should be totally unacceptable.
We should be able to connect to whatever we want in whatever way we want.
And that includes using the Web, right?
So the Web is basically an application that rides over the internet.
The internet's this global network,
the Web is just one application that uses that global network.
And so it's essential - Net Neutrality is essential to using the web,
because as we've seen today,
using the web is so essential to all of our lives
and big companies, and governments, have so much power over it that they can block all kinds of things:
political speech, videos that we wanna watch, pictures of cats, et cetera.
So. Um, anyway, so that's what Free Press is doing,
in large part, trying to protect that notion of Net Neutrality.
And out of that fight came a number of campaigns,
including the campaign to stop SOPA [Stop Online Piracy Act]
- which was the bad copyright bill a couple years ago here in the U.S. -
and out of that came a realization, I think,
here in the U.S. but [also] around the world,
that we all needed to kind of talk to each other a little bit more,
those of us who have been advocating for a free and open internet for a long time.
And so we started doing that:
Free Press led the development the drafting of
something called the "Declaration of Internet Freedom"
which was a simple statement of principles about our right to access information online.
And out of that came a really fruitful relationship with Tim Berners-Lee's organization,
- the World Wide Web Foundation -
and we discussed ways in which we could move that effort forward,
this Declaration effort,
to involve more groups around the world, more people around the world,
and to guarantee that we all have access to information
and that that access, and the principles behind it,
are not the domain of any one country, or any one group of individuals.
So, out of that came this great project, the Web We Want,
which Renata's gonna tell you more about.
which is seeking to do just that:
to pass laws, around the world, that will protect people's right to access the internet
and to access content on the Web without anybody getting in the way,
and, uh, it's building steam very, very quickly:
we are working with countries around the world to develop their own set of principles
regarding the web and our rights on it,
and organizing lots and lots of organizations that are really excited about getting involved in this effort
and our dream of uniting groups who are all fighting the same fight but in different parts of the world
is kind of coming to life.
So, I'll let Renata tell you more about that.
[Caveat: Renata is not a native English speaker, so verbatim transcription of her speech doesn't always make perfect sense.]
Renata Avila: Eum, hello everyone, everybody,
it's really good to be here? [she tends to uptalk]
Renata: Ah, so: the Web We Want.
The Web We Want is a coalition of [gestures as she searches for words]
very important groups of organizations from civil society
I will mention of them:
Access, that many of us are familiar with; [AccessNow.org]
APC; [Association for Progressive Communications]
Free Press, from the U.S.;
7iber, in Jordan; the Open Source Association, in Jordan as well;
[ums and ers]
Consumers International; Article 19; Fundação Getulio Vargas, in Brazil;
IT for Change, in India; Public Knowledge, in the U.S.;
and we, we have a - we got the confirmation that Open Knowledge Foundation,
which has affiliates all over the world, will join as well.
So, basically, the campaign...
..what we are trying to achieve here
is to move from the reactions,
the constant reactions that the civil society/ we have,
to a proactive approach.
To have a positive agenda, to have the safe first, in different countries.
And also globally.
And what happens is usually that we come together last minute -
we react to bad legislation being proposed,
by either specific groups of interest, or a very creative but not so well informed legislator...
And so, in the last, let's say, five years,
we have seen so many mobilizations against, against, against.
So we think that yes, it's good to have a reaction to bad legislation,
but it's much more effective to have a proposal coming from civil society.
And not only - like, civil society understood as a -
a more extended way as we usually use it in internet governance -
but civil society involving everyone in a fight for our rights.
And so we have different activities and different actions to achieve that.
The first would be intense work in specific countries where we [gestures]
together, all the advisory committee, so that there's something going on,
some movement in civil society, and there's some action there.
So, the list of the countries that we have decided will be like the first "grant-ees"
of um, more stronger support from the punt, uh, the, the, where we want manages...? will be:
Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, the U.K., Tunisia, Nigeria, Kenya...
...and South Africa.
So, as you see, it's mostly countries of the global south.
Also the U.K., because we saw an opportunity there,
and we also saw a regression of rights.
It is very interesting to see how the deterioration of rights in a country -
- even in a democratic country -
in the last ten years, has been very extreme.
And this is really affecting the region.
Apart from this intense work that we are planning to do,
having national dialogues in these countries I informed you of,
we have also - we are launching, on the 21st of March, a mini-grant round.
The mini-grants are for everyone to apply,
so you don't need to be an NGO, [Non-Governmental Organization]
you don't need to be an expert to apply for these grants.
What we want is normal people -
- artists, musicians, everyone -
to be involved in this and to, eh, [unintelligible] to celebrate, to party for the Web!
But at the same time that we celebrate the Web,
we start a conversation on what is the web we want?
What is - [struggles for words]
- which values, which form we want, which way we want to protect the Web in our countries.
The free and open Web.
And so it can be something as simple as a screening in a public space?
It can be more elaborate, like a talk at your local library?
It can be anything you want,
it can be even a sculpture in the middle of a city.
ah, telling people what the Web represents [means] to you.
But also, we know that we cannot abandon those fighting "against."
So we have rapid response grants.
And these rapid response grants are for, eh -
we, we have identified that sometimes to make something happen,
you need some resources.
Especially in some countries in the global south.
So. For example, ehh, think about a very bad surveillance law,
about to be passed in, oh, Nicaragua.
So, this rapid response -
- which will be open during the whole year -
- will allow activists to say, "Hey, listen. This very bad thing is happening..."
"..and we think that if we gather a group of people together..."
"..and we print, uh, leaflets, and we make a short video about that..."
"..we have a good chance to shift the opinions to our side..."
"..the side of right."
And so that will be open as well.
that will be open on the 21st of March, and remain open the whole year.
And what we will achieve at the end of the year is a very interesting collection of experiences.
We will see that - [finds her words]
what is the Web people want, in the specific countries,
with more intense follow-up mechanism and dialogue.
We will also see which techniques are the best for rapid response
when there's a threat to the open internet.
by the collection of experiences from the rapid response grants.
And also we will learn from ways to engage the broader public in our topics and in our issues.
So I am very hopeful that especially artists, or very creative activists,
will find ways to engage the broader public.
Because we need - this is ours.
The future of [the open internet] depends on us preserving it.
And the more people invited to this fight, the stronger we get.
At last, I will... I would like to invite everyone to be engaged the way that you can engage.
And to apply for these grants!
But not only to apply for these grants - also, to make things your own.
If you want to write an article, if you are an expert on specific topics,
please write articles, please share your knowledge with people,
and please engage, and don't be apathetic.
Because the Web offers us -
- and the internet offers us -
- this opportunity to communicate and connect beyond borders,
and I think that, slowly, we are building this platform -
- which is not a website but is a platform made of [amends her description] collective –
- that is ready to jump and to take actions to save the web any moment that it is under threat.
So. Yes. That's it.
Ellery [laughs]: Thanks.
Ellery: It's really - I think it's great to sort of, to have that out there,
for people to understand all the ways that they can get involved.
One thing I - so, in thinking about how can we make a little show today that would celebrate the web,
I couldn't help but think about Global Voices,
because that's what brings us all together here,
and, I think that our community, in so many ways -
I mean, we couldn't exist, wouldn't exist, without the Web,
but there are also so many particular attributes of it,
when it comes to access and openness,
that allow us to do all the things that we do,
like, including this hangout, right now.
Um. So I wanted to ask -
- although we're really short on time,
so I'm gonna have to ask you to be super brief, but -
Jer, you, I kind of, I said, is there...
...could you talk a little bit about what, if you look at Global Voices,
and sort of the way that it's grown up, um, with the internet -
- you've been here since the beginning,
so you can kind of - just, just tell us a bit.
Jeremy Clark: Okay, well, uh,
Jeremy: I actually haven't been with Global Voices since the very beginning,
but I joined near the start.
So, maybe you can see on my screen -
- Global Voices was started actually in 2005, um,
and one of the great things about the story is that
it was started quickly and easily by Ethan Zuckerman
who set up the original site, uh,
along with Rebecca McKinnon, who worked on the idea and the content,
and so, they actually used WordPress, which is the system we still use today,
and which is very similar to the Web in a lot of senses
because it's a distributed project,
people all around the world develop it,
it's open-source, and it's free,
and it is so not by convenience but very explicit philosophy and they're very active in defending that,
and also in another way: uh, originally, at the time,
there was a very popular free software called Movable Type
which became commercial,
and instead of starting to pay for it, people switched to Wordpress.
So, this was our original website.
We later redesigned it several times.
And over the years, we have grown with WordPress
to add - take advantage of the new features, and, uh...
[gestures] - keep running our site.
And so running our whole infrastructure on this very decentralized open-source model has been
a really rewarding experience for us, just as using the Web has.
And obviously, the, uh, one of the most interesting things is that
Global Voices is all about the web.
Without the Web, without that decentralized authorship,
- anyone can write to it -
there would be no Global Voices.
Uh, the whole point of Global Voices was to
recognize that people all over the world
were taking advantage of the benefits of the Web,
and create one place where you could find it,
sort of like Archie was with the pre-Web TelNet days
a archive of things happening all around -
- that's what Global Voices did.
Um. So. Yeah!
And, y'know, we've tried a lot of different
infrastructure based around the web over the years;
uh, we've used Drupal,
we've used a lot of different online services...
Obviously, like everyone else,
the temptation to take advantage of Google's
free offerings has always been part of Global Voices' DNA:
we use Google mailing lists,
we use all the different things that they make for free
which is an interesting part of the web,
because it's not the Web, that's Google,
just happening to give it away,
but as a company, they have a tendency
to follow the spirit of the Web, uh,
even though they're doing so for commercial reasons.
But - yeah!
That's my very brief summary
of the history of Global Voices
and how it parallels the Web!
Ellery: Thank you!
Ellery: I'm afraid we're gonna have to wrap up now
but, just, to do that, I wanted to ask for
a couple of, kind of, final thoughts...
...from Alan, and perhaps also Josh, just -
- Alan, I guess I'm especially interested in
if there are, kinda, thoughts that you have
on all of the activism and advocacy
that's taking place around fundamental rights on the Internet,
from your own unique historical perspective.
And then I wanted to close, um,
by asking Renata to just tell us a very little bit about Bassel
since there's also an important anniversary this weekend.
So, I'm gonna just let you guys go,
and then we will close out!
Alan Emtage: Okay, well, y'know,
Alan: I haven't been involved as an activist
for, uh, for quite some time now.
I sort of burnt out after a while! [laughs]
- flying around the globe, and doing all the stuff that I did in the nineties.
But I certainly pay a lot of attention to that stuff
y'know, I'm currently involved in Barbados, right now,
and it has been really interesting to try and,
for one example,
try and access content from the United States
- entertainment content, that kind of stuff.
And, I mean, I knew about this stuff in theory,
but in practice, the antiquated models
of content distribution that we're still holding onto
in this day and age,
where, you know, geographical boundaries and national boundaries and that kinda stuff
are still very much at the center of these business models.
Y'know, things like BitTorrent and that kinda stuff
are wiping them away, and they don't even realize it.
The music industry has seen this happen, now, for decades -
Certainly from the activist point of view,
in terms of keeping the Internet free and available,
it's gonna be a real challenge.
And, I mean, it's such an important technology now.
You have things like the Great Firewall in China...
You have, you know, Russia, who recently -
- as of yesterday, today -
- shutting down, using new laws to shut down access to dissent against Putin...
They realize the power -
- Egypt was a real wakeup call for a lot of people in the use of social networking
to organize and activate people and bring them out onto the streets,
so governments are scared of this technology
and it's important that we work really hard
to keep it as free as it is,
because they realize that, you know,
information - how you control the information, you control the people.
So, um, I think it is extraordinarily important
that people like Josh [unintelligible]
continue to work very hard to stop the bad laws,
to inform the legislators -
- some of them are just doing it out of ignorance!
I mean, you know,
"Never ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to incompetence."
And, uh, a lot of these people are just
incompetent, not malicious.
But there are people who are malicious, as well [laughing a bit]
so we have to deal with them as well.
But, um, you know, it's vitally important
because, uh, nowadays, these technologies
really sit at the core of our culture
and the way that we communicate with one another.
[long silence]
Josh [wondering if he should speak next]: ...Me?
[Josh laughs silently]
Josh: I'll just add one thing real quickly -
- I think that we're at an interesting moment
where so many of us acknowledge the importance of the Internet and the Web,
and the impact that it's had on every aspect of our culture,
and because of that,
I think we as the users of the Web, and of the Internet, have a duty
to hold governments around the world and companies around the world accountable
and to urge them and pressure them
to protect the openness that lies at the core of this entire thing.
And to protect, not just openness, but
also this notion of a Commons.
That's - in our opinion - quickly being lost.
This notion that the Internet, and the Web, are publicly owned,
and that the activity that takes place on them
is activity that we undertake
and that is ours.
And that is not the domain of the big companies' platforms.
We undertake the activity.
So, for example,
Google has allowed us to do a lot of things.
Google allows us to find a lot of information extremely quickly,
to connect to each other extremely well,
to use Google Hangouts as we're doing right now,
but Google's doing all of this at the -
- while mining the data that we give it, selling off that data -
- that data is also creating this historical record
of everything that we search for and say online,
which as we know, can be exploited by governments,
- but also by companies -
and so I think it's time for us to think about that relationship
between us and these big companies,
which is becoming the central part of our online experience.
And how can we decentralize that?
How can we decouple ourselves from these giant companies
and take back a portion of the Web
so that we own this experience in a deeper way
and it's not experienced as purely commercial,
a commercial transaction between us an a big company.
So that's a big question,
and it's going to take years to unravel it, to find solutions,
but we're hoping that we can start that conversation now.
[long silence]
Renata: Well, now I will go back to something that Jeremy said.
It was about him being stopped in the border, the Canadian border
because of "hacker."
And what I want to talk about is that,
at the end of the day, there's, ah -
we reduce the number of people who can actually,
in some countries, not control the internet,
but understand the infrastructure, and use it in a way that they can increase public good.
and they can help people in extreme situations.
And one of these people is my friend Bassel Khartabil -
[fondly] Bassel, Bassel is the internet. Basically.
Basel is a Palestinian-Syrian activist,
he's an activist of Greek culture,
and he's a global citizen, you know?
He's not super nationalistic, he, he,
he has traveled a lot, extensively,
he has friends all over the world,
and he likes to spend time learning how things work, how things operate,
so he's very good with computers -
he learned himself how to code, thanks to his uncle -
He knows a lot about hardware as well,
and he knows a lot about Greek culture and design.
And so during his travels he saw all these wonderful things happening
and so he decided, with a group of friends,
to create a hackerspace in Damascus
I don't know how translation works,
but apparently "hacker-space" was a very scary word for the Syrian intelligence services,
and they saw it as a threat -
like, people in power view technology as a threat to their plan to control people.
So on the 15th of December, two years ago,
the hackerspace was raided...
All the computers were taken away,
all the things were dismantled -
- can you imagine one of these Syrian police looking at the 3D printer, oh my god,
[derisively] probably thought they were like nuclear weapons, or something like that -
and, sadly, he has been away, he has been in prison.
He was in a very, very bad prison, subject to torture treatment.
But then he was - thanks to the advocacy of thousands of people,
he was re-transferred back to the civilian prison.
Which, you can imagine, how, even if it's a civilian prison, how this prison looks like.
I mean, it is... the conditions get bad to worse as time goes by,
as the Syrian government runs out of resources.
The last people they will feed, the last people they will take care of, are the prisoners.
On top of that, Bassel, he has a health condition...
It is all really sad.
But, what we have been trying to do during these two years
is to keep him peaceful.
And to keep reminding him that we haven't forgotten
and to keep reminding him that we embrace the values that he embraces.
And we support the causes that he supports.
So, instead of, you know, just being sad, and doing nothing,
we are a doing a Free Bassel Day.
On the 15th of March.
Well, some things are already starting today!
And what we want is, ah, joint action -
- doing things, doing anything you can do to remember Bassel.
And not only Bassel. To remember Syria.
Because it seems that because of the news,
we just, we don't hear about Syria anymore!
I mean, it's like, it is on, you know, in the parking lot,
and if we have some time, we go, "oh, okay, something is going badly there."
But, uh, we seem to have forgotten about all the suffering.
And together with Bassel there are
lots of system administrators, computer experts, and hackers who are in prison,
and sometimes we only care about journalists!
But, you know, there's lots of people, valuable people for the future of Syria,
who are in prison now, who need our solidarity.
I would also like to... if you live in a country which has received Syrian refugees,
please show your solidarity.
I know that sharing your computer might not sound appealing,
but maybe crowdfunding and giving a computer with internet access to this refugee camp
so they can stay in touch with their relatives abroad...?
Maybe doing a short talk or short gathering near them...?
I think that those are good ways to help Bassel.
Because that's what Bassel probably would be doing if he was free.
So my appeal is that - to not forget Syria, to not forget Bassel.
The free internet is a free internet with free Bassel and free Syria!
And that's - [laughingly] - the Web I want, actually!
Ellery: That is the Web she wants!
Ellery: The Web many of us want.
So, there's a lot of work to do,
and there are lots of ways to get involved, as we've heard about.
Thank you, everybody, so much
for coming on today,
and, umm, we hope to see everybody here and out there, next week on GV Face!
Thanks so much!
our weekly video hangout series.
I think... let's see, we started a little bit off time so I'll say it again.
Welcome to GV Face, our weekly video hangout series.
Today we are celebrating the 25th birthday
of the World Wide Web. Pretty exciting. That was on Wednesday.
We've got a really all-star lineup of guests
on today's program.
Moving from left to right we have
Alan Emtage, a very special guest who is
gonna talk to us about his
very special creation of
the first web browser.
We have Jeremy Clark in Montreal. Jeremy is a technical director at Global Voices.
Josh Levy from Free Press
in Massachusetts in the U.S., and Renata Avila,
campaign manager for The Web We Want
Creative Commons extraordinaire, and
[?] Starr who is joining us from Berlin. Welcome, everybody!
So we wanna just start today's
show by talking a little bit about
the World Wide Web and the Internet, 'cause a lot of people think that they're the same thing
when actually that's not quite true
wanna first turn to Jeremy I'm
and just ask chair could you break it down for us
like I thought that the internet was invented in the seventies but
if it's the 25th birthday have the weapons
what does that mean okay
well the best place to start I think is
the internet who has existed in various formats
since the 1970s as he say up but it was the web that made it really enter our
homes
and so understanding the relationship is important
so the internet was invented by the US government in a lot of sense is
a mix of military in science funding I that developed the network at the actual
computers
that can communicate with each other over wires
arm now another related technology that is
also comprise that built into the bad
is called hypertext and that is the notion
out documents that can link between each other immediately
without having I to go and fetch a separate document
arm so there were lots of system since the nineteen sixties
that we're trying to implement hypertext like that to do with an example
up but all of them where commercial expensive closed
and none of them were very popular so Tim berners-lee
who is the inventor of the Internet I I
though web obviously the World Wide Web arm
put those two things together by building a service that runs
on top of the Internet and he called it the World Wide Web
soul what the World Wide Web is is
be decentralized hypertext I
engine that we used I to communicate between
computers our web pages so
what makes up web is three things
URL's or you our eyes universal Resource Locator
which are the addresses we use to find things on the web
Bob HTML which is the Hypertext Markup Language
I which is the way that be information is stored and sent
so that we can then used browsers to
view HTML and then all the documents
can be understood and then also
they display the links so that the Hypertext part if it works and we can
jump around from page to page
I'm the final part is HTTP which is the Hypertext Transfer Protocol
which is the communication method by which the different computers
can talk to each other and send be
I HTML documents back and forth depending on the URL's
arm so when he built it there were some very important things that he built into
this system
that didn't exist before and the main one is
universal of worship so he always intended
that anyone would be able to access these web pages
and anyone would be able to add their own web pages without asking for
permission
I with the X very explicit special condition that anyone can link to any
other web page
without permission previous hypertext systems
required that basically for you to link to me I have to accept that link can
probably create a link back to you
and that was the required on the web which gives us a lot of freedom to make
the people we who wit wouldn't want us
to be able to link them for example so no one can say I'm putting up tree
content but you
can't send your readers here because I hate you et cetera
are the other one is that you made it completely completely 3
so in the world a mentor in world them programming
the most free thing is generally considered to be the GPL
open source free software licenses and Tim berners-lee actually almost use the
GPL because he wanted that what web software he was building to be free
but at the last minute yes he changed his mind made it call public domain
because in certain ways the GPL is actually more respect
restrictive because it forces other people like certain commercial actors
wouldn't have wanted to use
web technology if it were GPL so he made a full public domain
and then from there when I'm to make all of the standard size
open and I general and three as possible
are so that's my extremely brief history internet if anyone is curious
he wrote a wonderful book called weaving the web about his experiences
as you can see its short and he
highlighted interesting technical information in it without
I'll it being overwhelming it's very approachable and he's a really
interesting person ended the book is much better than his tweets which are
usually
in procuring all
crowded thank coach that's great chair
I mean I think that that helps on in conversations about
internet policy in Internet governance there's a lot of emphasis
on the ability to kinda creepy
innovate without permission like for everybody to
be able to build parks a the web and
and what you just laid out for us makes it clear how important
a web peace up the infrastructure is for that
for that capacity to become a real tangible thing and somebody that
something that now we can do you know we don't have to have
technical expertise to kindness build our own
our own spaces there I'm so I'm
if I can add just one more thing sorry I as want to give a couple examples the
things that happen over the internet that arent to bad
because that was the actual I miss a question so
one example would be torrents where York the cookie to computers connect to each
other
and stream information directly without any URL's
being mixed into the process I'm another one is email at its core
is its own communication protocol that doesn't have to use the web although we
often use
web sites to access and manage our now
arm and then another one was the one right before the web came out
them a very popular protocol was called go for which
people liked and sort it worked like the where'd you just surf around and find
things
but it actually became commercial right around the time
that the web came out so people have would have had to start paying and
instead of having to pay
they switched to using HTTP a shemale and the world but
thank you so I want to move to Alan now
I'm how I couldn't bill the first
search engine
and I'm kinda like
overwhelmed and feel sort of like giddy and nervous
having apparently speaker her big deal
I'm salome just I
you could tell us cuz I think a lot of people don't know about archie
on it would be really cool just to hear about
E all you sir what you were doing that made you decide
should to do this and kinda what it was like and then
mean everything you've seen sense unfortunately
where time limited but welcome you know therapy
well arm I well that was lacking that
19 I 89 and
a I was working out as a system and mentorship therefore I am getting worse
there's no cracks chips
McGill University and I'm I A
was responsible for getting all software for one on my responsibilities
getting software for the faculty and the students
are and at that time there it three major protocols on the internet this is
pretty where
I'll was I world's
telnet which would allow you to log into a remote machine
email I which allow you to communicate
I with one what we do know 10
me more machines your and
FTP which was the File Transfer Protocol which allowed you to move
Wow data files or file was from one which
one sheet to another and at the time what we had was
people had me it remember it was a non commercial Internet
time actually commercial traffic was forbidden on the Internet
time because it was run by the National Science Foundation
was using educational money and therefore
other than companies with research arms like ID and I'll
and HD and those kinds of things we didn't have any commercial traffic on
the Internet which
why would a seems kinda amazing to even think about
and I so what people who did
were out to provide are three states on your machine
remember you know at the time a big a big
this will be a megabyte you know I'll and so people would provide
common a or depositary still
that that you could deposit I'm
programs that you had written and I'll data files
and documents back in stock into the central repositories
that will spread around the internet that other people can then
you cheaper and so I spend a lot of my time trying to locate software
or the information that means that students in the Faculty are trying to
find
and I got tired and since I'm easy and the geek
I A arm I A I
automated the process a got instead of doing it manually
I had a bunch in scripts wake up in the middle of the night every night
and go all index these files
now remember all of this was just file listings it's not like we will it's not
like a
I'll search engine will be today I if yes
just I just found it's all it was bonds
and so what they would do with it would go out every night
yes all the file names and all the repositories allow you to search
those lists a plummets I only used it for myself
I only used it I'm for my own
for my own personal use on at one point my eyeballs was also
all students at your grad student at University I'll
let peter deutsch lettin you know that
I'm somebody was asking for you know to date could
somebody tell them where arm
emails pretty creepy software was and
I we from we see
you know he came in ASCII you at this database iniki mostly
if I I could help out tonight gave it to him in it you know
Pakistan pack a minute later I had the information and so he put this
yeah posting online and I'll
people then started asking well you know
can you find this from Ian in all these manual request
basically either through email or Usenet postings which is what we're using
time and he thought was a silly that's not quite doing these things manually
one week just allow people access
to the database itself and in a moment of insanity
I we have to come up with a name for it and I said okay well let's just call it
archie which is our client without be and dad are
and with a no vote so out both here for months
we were consuming what's happened all high quality traffic to Eastern Canada
on as this search engine became his people
you know work now I you you know people who know RGR
generally people up a certain age I won't mention what what ages but
and it's generally people who were in university or working
on the internet so it would have been researched people people in academia
I in the early 90s orgiastic for
about I am a.m.
five years for five years %uh and
only in next st PE archives it never
I'll index where now I went on
as or TJ popular and I got one ball in the standards policies not gonna stop I
worked
of very closely with Tim berners-lee to I am
to standardize for example I did the and Graham
media the standard-setting body to the Internet DCI 88
I to standardize URL's because
10 had come up with a set of above rules the world and the
as me looked at expanding that's larger range
out %uh resources we realize that what rules did not
on a ver all cases so we worked
for our 10 brought that specification his original specification to the
to group and we worked on it for I don't remember
might not see a year or so it come up with a standard for you or else so all
of those you're also use
day in and day out world were standardized as a result
all what many so it was I it was a really exciting time
it was at time out by you know the question I always get is why did
I make a billion dollars of a bit and I keep reminding people that
are mostly people who are pioneers with the accepted Mr
edmark and Jason arm or
didn't make a whole lot of money off with the squirrel
the switch in the plains we were working in an environment which
I'll put a premium on I'll
you're getting the technology out there making it is widely available as
possible
I tens big coup with Sharon which is the
organization that work for when we first develop where
was two guests earned to put I'll
the the HDD where software that he agreed
into the public to me all so it wasn't even choose to give away
it was surgeons property as it as an employee
he it was actually belong to Sir and down
I she he actually convince them to be able to
but in the public domain what's what really all
17 Center with a firearm with the whole
so I'll at the time the the
philosophy behind it it's really let's get this out there this is a brave new
world we don't know what's what all this technology can be used for
I don't think any of us including 10 imagine what it would become
a you know he he always had a much grander vision a bit
but I don't I I can guarantee you I spent many many many many in our
and I with David sandbar is changing it then and I can't guarantee you that
he did not suit anymore certain
I'm I should dare and
you know he even he I don't think having idea that it would
a CD take over the world attack the world's population will be using this
system or
he created twenty years later to anybody
or thank you so much I mean so
speaking and threats yeah it has I'm
changed and I guess
taken over in a way I that me
that mean I'm sure wouldn't have expected a
I wanted to now move to Josh
and judge were not I'll cool are both
perini I'll who
very committed involves
leaders and what is now become
a global at for two
mean the way it was surprising in to save the Internet or preserve and
protect
to open this on and all up to
right to tree expression access
on and up also privacy that have
that me all would feel are embedded actually
in the way that it was bill so
Josh I wonder if you could explain to us really briefly what
your where your role is in your organization and then also
on tell us about the web we want campaign
and explain you know how you think this
rights movement is is shaping up and
and if you can kinda link it with everything that Allen just laid out for
us
out to be really wonderful although my best so
my name's Josh levy I'm from Free Press where
us-based organization we advocate for
better technology media policy that allows
or an open Internet or better representation
people in the media including in and an immediate
thats online and for open access
information and this Asian ever talk method
anniversary at the web has really central to our work because we've been
fighting
for example to you at past
strong mentality policies here in the US for years
at basically ever since the issue first came up with the mid 2000's
missile big internet service providers blocking
trafficking coming from their destinations and
that fight is ongoing the FCC to better communications commission here in the US
which
is charged with overseeing communications and technology policy
past rules in 2010 they were intended to protect me chali but we're passing our
in a way that we knew what was gonna hold up in court
anywhere as unfortunately we saw that
happened earlier this year when I court in Washington DC
throughout those roles effectively throwing out any net neutrality
protections that people have
and so this gets back kinda but Jeremy were saying
the internet versus the web right so when we're talking about net neutrality
which I have a lot of people
heard about this on Sat that you should be able to access
any information on why online without anybody getting in the way
out with it that's a big company or the government
an that is essentially
that's it a policy that applies to the Internet to the ways in which all are
computers connect with each other and we have this basic understanding
that the internet should be reno it meaning that my computer should be able
next yours into this well networked computers without any entity
inspecting the traffic trying to understand what you're trying to access
and based on that are in a blog so it doesn't like the video watching slowing
it down our
denied application using walking it that that should be totally unacceptable we
should be able to net
to whatever we want in whatever way we want and that includes using the web
rights to the web
is basically an application that ride over the Internet
the internet says global network the weather is just one application that
uses that
or network and so it is essential net challenged essential using where the
as as we've seen today using the web is so essential to all our lives
and big companies and governments have so much power over it
bad at the inn block alright things political speech
video that you want to watch features a cat there so
I'm anyway so that's what the press is doing in large part is trying to protect
that notion
net neutrality and wall added that fight
came a number campaign link their at me
stock so it was that bad copyright they'll your get your the US
and after that you know realization I think here the US around the world that
we are needed
I each other a little bit or those of us who have been
advocating for reopen it for a long time and so we started doing that
repressed led the development and wrapping up something called the
decoration etc reno
which was a simple statement of principles out they are right to access
information online
and Adam backing up really fruitful relationship with Tim berners-lee
organization the world wide web foundation
and we discussed ways in which we could move that effort
forward this you that declaration effort
to involve more troops around the world more people around the world
and shit guarantee that we all have access to information
and that that access and the principles behind it
are not a demanded any one country or anyone
it also added that in this great project the web we want which we're not going to
tell you more about
which is seeking to do just that to you
pass laws around the world that will protect people's right to access the
internet
into to access content on the web without anybody getting in the way
and its its building steam very very quickly
we are working with countries around the world developed their own set of
principles regarding the webinar rights on it
and organizing lot smarter organizations that it really excited
by getting involved in this effort and art remote uniting
gross we're all fighting the same by departs the world is
had come to light so I let me not to tell you more about that
and hello everyone everybody'd 3d
want me here a solo the way we want
it would be set luncheon of a
a very important group of organizations FMC society and we'll
mention other then and Eve access
that many of us are from you every EPC
athlete Brett from the US its leader in jordan Eberle
the open-source Association dorgan as well
and a consumers international
and article nineteen that's the only thing about God's mercy O
I V 40 gb/s public knowledge she in the US
and me we have the we got the confirmation that
Open Knowledge Foundation which has affiliate is over
war doing this book ASO
basically they can be what we are trying to achieve a here
you do and more from their reactions because the
reactions that lets users say you you outcropping approach
you have a positive agenda like this a first
in different countries and a note so nobody
and what happens is usually the we got together let me know and we reacted
badly to his nation be
alls a everybody either and
specific purpose a interest what very creative
but not so well-informed legislator
and in so you the last
let's say five years we have seen so many mobile stations
against against against so we think that
yeses want to have a a reaction bad legislation but he's much more effective
the
also people to use the Site a nobody
XTS is a be understood us the whole
18 works Bentley FB you should be using the Internet government but seems as a
few
moline everyone enough I well rights
and so and we would have a deeper and
DVD sandifer Nationals it to achieve that
their personal be in Ben's work in specific countries
wieder it we a you get all the Advisory Committee
so that there's something going on there some movement in society in there so
action there it is sOooo believe the country's between the
week at that decided you get that first it
and got to use a button and more stronger support
from the one a what we won by Jenson would be
just bad Indonesia Philippines India found that they expressed to you
it with your YouTube the UK Nisha aunty react Kenya
and so happy so as you see each other
mostly condition that no one cell outside the UK be good you
a saw an opportunity there yes well so that every Christian
rights and be very interesting to see how the deterioration
rights in the country even had been taken in a democratic country villa
in years has been very extreme is that is really
affecting the region Anna apart from you
a in Ben's work that we have blended national dialogue scene is going to say
warm it well and we have also and we are left
1820 parts of March a meeting routes as well
at the meeting Lance %uh it for everyone to apply
so you don't need to be an NGO you don't need to be a
a an expert like that for these plants when we will these
normal people Archies musicians everyone
it to be involved in the simple a.m. request once the celebrated are key
or working with but at the same time that was celebrated with
the start a conversation on what we do what we want what he's in what do you
think that
what a which by any means and which a.m.
for we want it you which way we want to protect it with no
wanted that free and open when and so it can be something
ass as a symbol that that screen and in the published
week space it can be something more elaborate it like that like a
well at your local library it can be anything you want you can be given that
spoke during the meeting love with Celia
a it dozen people whether whether a person's
in it for you and what also
we know that we can know the bottom a those fighting against
so we have a but it would response a
grants and these rapid response plans have for
it we it have I didn't buy that sometimes the make some be
happened in its own resources especially in some punches in the levels out so
for example did think about that very bad surveillance local
last Ian nicaragua so these rapid response
a which will be open during the whole give me love activist see
nascent me very bad things happen
and we think that if we it got another Google
people together and we read the
and it lets in the evening get assure PD about that
we have a good chance to as she that their opinion
our site there's decided rights and so that would be open as well
it would be that would be up in the or so at my and March
and you will be we may not be too late for year
and what we will at she but the end of the year is that very interesting
and when it should have experience we will see it
and that web it went well
people won't in a specific country with more intense the
follow-up mechanism and I N O win as a scene which techniques
I did this for rapid response went their separate you know of any Burnett
it by adding the collection experiences from the rapid response plans
and as a wee wee letter from at ways to engage
uploader Monique use a in our topics in our issues
so I I am very hopeful that especially artists
very creative activists it went for
I'm ways to engage in a broader public because the
need a he's ours and their
future eat the Benson also Serafini and more
it people invited me despite more was the strong and you get
a a at last I i will.
and we'll elected by everyone to
to being a slick here the way that you can gauge to use
i'm nina and need to apply for these grants will
not only pure bedford is Lansing to make in 20
I it you only if you want to write an article
you are an expert in specific topics it he's great articles
News shared knowledge with people and peace it engage in that
them yet but that the egos headed
here where author sauce and the Internet offers those
use them for two people communicate and panicking and borders and they've been
there
it's lonely here a.m. the list that phone
it which is not that a website but he said that
on and made of the connecti that he's ready to
jumper and and do
think actions to say that with any moment that using in the
let so yes
what's it you well
thanks that's really I think it's great to serve to have that out there for
people to understand
all the way so they can get involved
wanting right so in thinking about how can we make
a little show today that would celebrate the web
I couldn't help but think about Global Voices
because that's what brings us all together here
and I think that our community and so many ways
I mean we couldn't exist we wouldn't exist without the web
but doctor also so many on particular
attributes ovett in when it comes to access and openness that
allow us to do all the things that we do like including this
hang out right now I'm so I wanted to ask
although we're really short on time so I'm gonna have to asking to be super
presh
but chair you I kinda I said is there could you talk
a little bit about what with if you look at Global Voices
answered the way that it's grown-up on
with the Internet you've been here since the beginning so you can kinda wish
just tell us tell us a bit
okay well I I actually haven't been
where at Global Voices since the very beginning
but I joined near the start so maybe you can see on my screen
Global Voices we started actually in 2005
I and one of the great things about the story
is that it was started
quickly in easily I by ethan Zuckerman
arm who set up the original site I
along with Rebecca MacKinnon who out worked on the idea content and so
they actually used word press which is this system we still use today
and which is very similar to the web in a lot of sense is
I because it's a distributed project people all around the world develop it
its open source and it's free and it is so
not by convenience but by very explicit philosophy and they're very active in
defending Mac
arm and also in another way I originally
I at the time there was a very popular free software called movable type
which became commercial and instead sign a paper at people
switch to Word Press I'm so this was our original website
we later redesigned it several times I
and over the years we have grown with
I Word Press to at take advantage of the new features
and I keep running our site and sell running are
our whole infrastructure on this very decentralized open source model has been
I really rewarding experience for us are just as
using the web has then obviously I there what are the most interesting
things is that Global Voices is all about the web without the web without
that
decentralized of the ship anyone can write to it there would be no Global
Voices
the whole point in little ways as well as to recognize that people all over the
world were taking advantage of the benefits of the web
and create one place where you can find it sort of like a archie wise
I with GE pre web telnet days
a archive things happening all around
I've got Google Voice is dead arm
so yeah no and
you know we've tried a lot of different infrastructure based around the web over
the years
I we you strip all reviews a lot of different online service that is
obviously like everyone else
the temptation to take advantage of Google's free offerings has always been
are part of Global Voices DNA we use Google mailing lists we use
I all the different things that they make for free
which is an interesting part of the web because it's not the web that Google
just happening to give it away but at the company they have a tendency to
follow the spirit of the web
I even though they're doing so for commercial reasons
up but yeah that Mike
it very brief summary of the history always given how to parallel the web
thank you I'm afraid we're gonna have to wrap up now but
just to do that I wanted to ask for
a couple love kinda final thoughts um
from from Allen and perhaps also Josh just
I'm Alan I guess I'm I'm especially
interested in if there are kinda thoughts that you have on all of the
activism and advocacy that's taking place around
fundamental rights on the internet kinda from from
your own
unique historical perspective and then
I wanted to close on by asking or not it's just tell
ass very little bit about Basle
I'm since there's also an important anniversary this weekend
%uh so I'm gonna just let you guys go and then we will
close-up won't end well arm
you know I'll I have I haven't been involved
awesome activists for a for a quite some time now
year a sort of bernard hogan-howe patrol biatch
I'll lying around the globe and and at the mall except maybe the nineties
I but I certainly is its to pay a lot of attention to that stuff
a I am currently in Barbados right now
and down it has been really interesting to
trying out for one example trying to access content
from United States om all your entertainment content action star
and II manual to study read but
a real it but in in practice the
antiquated models I'll %uh of content distribution
that we are still holding onto om in this day in age
where no geographical boundaries and national boundaries not
on Sat are still very much at once entropies business models
a get you know our are not things like
but our internet esta whiten way at it on
well I see no music industry a seamless happen now for
ethnic I'm I would certainly from the actors
on you in terms of keeping the the Internet I'm freaking
and unavailable its are it's going to be a real challenge I mean it's such a
important technology now and you have things like a great
wall are the Great Firewall of China Omni power
you know russia recently as a while yesterday today
shutting down I'll using got new laws to shut down access to
guess at I against hooting I'll
you know this getting reelected are I'm
egypt was a real wake-up call for a lot of people on the use of social
networking
I'll juju organize an activity on
people and bring them up onto the sheets so governments are scared this
technology
and it's important that we worked really hard to keep it is
this reason is because they realize that not for me chin
are you talking to mention you control the people so I'm
I think it is a strange journey partner people I
let's just do not want to continue to work are very hard to you
to stop the battle Austin form below the Legislature's
summer just another eight rats I mean you know never ascribe to malice what
will be
ascribed to incompetence and on these people are just incompetent not not
malicious
I'll but they are people who are malicious as well so we have to deal
with them as well
but top it's you know it's vitally important the yes
I nowadays not be these technologies reset
at the core or culture and the way we communicate on may
I me others at 10 quickly at
I think that we read in your interesting moment where
so many basic knowledge the
importance on the internet and no nowhere ands
be impact it's had a on every aspect of our
culture and and because of that I think we as the
users at the where into the internet have
a duty to hold the government
governments around the world in companies around the world accountable
and to you its
urge them and pressure them to protect the openness
that lies at the core I'll this entire
name and to protect not just openness but
also this notion 0 comments thats
I in our opinion quickly being lost
this notion that the that the internet and that the web are
I'll are publicly on and that
it the activity that takes place on them as activity that we
undertake net me it that is ours and that is not baby
mean up the big companies on his platforms
me undertake the activity so for example
google has allowed us to do a lot of things Google
lost by a lot of information extremely quickly
to connect to each other extremely well he is not working at
are doing right now but Google's doing all this and
at while mining the data to get
selling of that data that data is also creating this historic all
record up everything then search warrants a online which has been no
exploited by governments but also by companies as I think it's time for us to
think about that relationship between us
and these big companies which is becoming essential part of our
online experience and have to me the centralized that happen we
decouple ourselves from these giant companies and take back
or should I wear so that we are all in this experience in a deeper way and that
it's not and experience is purely commercial and a commercial transaction
between us and
and if a company so that that's a big question spent eight years for travel it
right solutions but we're hoping that we can start it our station now
well now now I'm not and now and we go back to something that
germs set and he left a but that he met means that you did in the
border Canadian border because the happier
and now with a while I want to talk about the set that up
at the end of the day yourself we've reduced
a number of people who can actually
eat some countries and not control the internet but you see
Eden you understand the infrastructure and use it in a way
that the weekend increase public who and they can
to help people in extreme situations and 10 did
it these people he said my friend but he kept happy
battle back to lead the Internet basically
Mathai said a and palestinian Syrian activities
and he said i think is the food culture and your clothes he said you know he's
not that he had not super nationalist
you keep keep he had trouble lol extensively
here Rams over two were and he liked that he likes to spend time
and learning how things water I'll in separate so that you think will
the computers and he has learned it himself healthy
up to the gold that it brings the own goal
then he was a he knows a lot about hardware as well and he knows and
about we coach or and and he said I'm
and when he so hey there You or was he so all these
wonderful things happen and and said he thought the
Britain's the create hacker space in the baskets
I don't know how translation what's what in the
apparently hackerspace what's a very scary Lord forgive CBN
as is to be and you don't answer me this:
and they saw it as a threat the people in power grid technology acid great
who don't plan to control people paso's
here on the 15 up December
two years ago they hackerspace with greater
all the computers where they cannot wait all the things with this month opened
him up
and united in wanna be set up Syrian please looking at that
reedy reader only goal well the nato the delaney
nuclear weapons or something like that %uh and
73 he have enough a weighty and he had been
recently was that he see West the
in a very very bad reason so did
orchard treatment but then he was a things through that book I feel
at thousands of people he was it we passed
her back to his VM recent we each
you can imagine how even deep is the civilian prison
how is this looks like and you he said a
the conditions get but worse
a that goes by and the Syrian government once
out all were resources the last people really
feed the last people they would take care all are the prisoners
on the book that last release it has a a health condition
he's all relief that but
me yeah what we me happy intrepid building at least it two years
is the keeping baseball and didn't keep reminding him that we haven't forgotten
and to keep reminded you that we yeah
in braided values that he embraces the that support the cause is that he
seen supports school a been up to
think you know the you know just been saddened but nothing
we have been deeply baffled they the 15 of March
what some things are already starting today and what we want is that joint
action
a Bleezy mean and
you can be it do remember bottle and not only battle
but remember Syria because it seems that because if the new laws media's
it we don't we don't be a hear about Syria and more
I mean it's is like good in December been on the popular
and we we will if we got some timely
were OK and something is good but neither the symbol
have well but then a vote no on the suffering and together we to
wood bats and I'm not sober system administrators
computer experts and had a fierce
what I recent so that we only care about journalists in others lots of people
that somebody will people
for the future Syria and who would increase in our
what the we need our solidarity
I mean let's elect to even you're leaving a gun T
air which has received a Syrian refugees
you show your solidarity I know that share on your computer
mind some appealing but maybe go won the nineteen a computer
with internet access this refugee camp so they can
stay in touch with their reluctance that growth may be
do enough to shark tall coach ashore gathering
your day I think that that there was no with ways who
help battle because that's what what but it probably will be between if you must
be
so my feeling is that not forget Syria
not forget that so that free internet if the
up the internet with the bath and this year and that's
we might want action what is the web she wants
where many about on so there is a lot of work to do
I'm and there are lots of ways to get involved
Street right about I think you everybody so much
for coming on today and um
we hope to see you everybody here and
out there next week on GB face thanks so much