About search engines, digital civil rights and more
The Dutch digital civil rights organisation Bits of Freedom has been relaunched. I have been lucky to be able to contribute to the relaunch as a board member. Many have already welcomed the announcement of Bits of Freedom’s renewed efforts to make a change for freedom in the digital age. The announcement speech (in English) by our new director Ot van Daalen received a standing ovation at Hacking at Random 2009. That is a great start!
Yesterday I borrowed a tent and I just started to finalize the slides for my presentation at HAR 2009, the Dutch Hacker Camp. I will speak about censorship in the search engine context, coming Thursday, August 13th, 20:00, Dutch time. Everybody who managed to get a ticket (the event was sold out in one day), please feel free to join me after dinner in the Monty Hall!
Rosalie Marshall reports for V3.co.uk that the Global Network Initiative, which was launched in the end of 2008, still did not find qualified staff. The result is that the initiative is failing to really take off. What could stand in the way of finding a qualified director, if the network of participating companies, non- profits and research institutions includes some of the biggest names in their fields?
As the principles that have been adopted by the initiative could probably help to bring this global discussion about freedom of expression and privacy in a global environment to a higher level, this is quite a pity.