In my January 2009 column I encouraged readers to make opening the media in Canada their 2010 resolution. I asserted that 2010 would be a pivotal year for communities working to open communication in Canada and beyond. And so here we are at the end of the year, and it appears that indeed there is a growing community focused on openness, with the open Internet at its core.
open media
Let's infiltrate the CBC
On Oct. 21, the brisk morning air met an assemblage of the media innovation vanguard as its members made their way into the CBC/Radio-Canada's Annual Public Meeting (APM) in Vancouver. The plan was unspoken, but the wry smiles exchanged amongst us were more than enough to acknowledge our purpose. After all, while insidious, our goal was quite simple; infiltrate the CBC and make it more community based, participatory, and awesome.
Media Democracy Days: MPs May and Davies discuss the need to democratize media
In 1996, a coalition of citizens, researchers, academics, and activists in Vancouver emerged in response to the takeover of much of Canadian Press by Hollinger's Inc. The coalition, later re-named Openmedia.ca, started a one-day event called Media Democracy Day in 2001 where issues including the impact of the concentration of media were discussed.
Now in its 10th year, Media Democracy Days has evolved into a three-day event in three different locations, allowing different communities and panel speakers to tackle topics such as copyright policy, media representations, and documentary film productions.
Taking the Internet back is a work in progress
Canada has an internet "openness and access deficit." That was the starting point for OpenMedia.ca's Casting an Open Net report published earlier this year. The report noted three disturbing practices employed by several of Canada's dominant Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
1. Many Canadian ISPs (Bell, Rogers, Shaw) selectively limit access to certain online services in a practice known as "throttling," or slowing down of Internet traffic. This renders certain services almost unusable, as expressed in the recent complaint against Rogers, submitted to the CRTC, regarding the ISP's throttling of World of Warcraft, a popular online game.
All-encompassing surveillance or 21st-century citizenship?
It's time to re-imagine the role of both citizens and government. We need a future where governments are more permeable and where citizens are better equipped to govern themselves.
Why Internet monitoring is bad for Canada
I want to start this column with a statement from the Office of the Privacy Commission: "Privacy is often viewed as a fundamental human right and, arguably, the right from which many other essential freedoms flow: individual autonomy and decision making, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of thought."
The government has promised to push through an invasive, anti-Internet set of "Lawful Access" electronic surveillance laws within the first 100 days of Parliament. If passed, these laws will turn Internet service providers (ISPs) against their own customers by making them collect our personal information without court oversight.