【連続シンポ】第2回公共放送NHKをめぐる2つの市民運動~ 原点はETV2001番組改変事件 ~=NHKとメディアを考える会 JCJ共催 

2 months 4 weeks ago
 2018年、外部企業・郵政三社からの抗議を代弁してNHK経営委員長(当時は代行)が番組に介入するという放送法違反のあってはならない事件が起こり、真相解明を求めて市民が「NHK文書開示等請求訴訟」に立ち上がり、7月から控訴審が始まっています。 22年末、NHK会長の改選期には、前川喜平氏を候補に推し立てて市民によるNHK会長推薦運動を展開しました。NHK会長の任期は3年、26年1月には新しい会長選びが待っています。(パネリスト) 永田 浩三氏(武蔵大学教授・NHK会長推薦運動..
JCJ

EFF Awards Night: Celebrating Digital Rights Founders Advancing Free Speech and Access to Information Around the World

2 months 4 weeks ago

Digital freedom and investigative reporting about technology have been at risk amid political and economic strife around the world. This year’s annual EFF Awards honored the achievements of people helping to ensure that the power of technology, the right to privacy and free speech, and access to information, is available to people all over the world. 

On September 12 in San Francisco’s Presidio, EFF presented awards to investigative news organization 404 Media, founder of Latin American digital rights group Fundación Karisma Carolina Botero, and Cairo-based nonprofit Connecting Humanity, which helps Palestinians in Gaza regain access to the internet.

All our award winners overcame roadblocks to build organizations that protect and advocate for people’s rights to online free speech, digital privacy, and the ability to live free from government surveillance.  

If you missed the ceremony in San Francisco, you can still catch what happened on YouTube and the Internet Archive. You can also find a transcript of the live captions.

Watch Now

EFF Awards Ceremony on YouTube

EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn kicked off the ceremony, highlighting some of EFF’s recent achievements and milestones, including our How to Save the Internet podcast, now in its fifth season, which won two awards this year and saw a 21 percent increase in downloads. 

Cindy talked about EFF’s legal work defending a security researcher at this year’s DEF CON who was threatened for his planned talk about a security vulnerability he discovered. EFF’s Coders’ Rights team helped the researcher avoid a lawsuit and present his talk on the conference’s last day. Another win: EFF fought back to ensure that police drone footage was not exempt from public records requests. As a result, “we can see what the cops are seeing,” Cindy said.

EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn kicks off the ceremony.

“It can be truly exhausting and scary to feel the weight of the world’s problems on our shoulders, but I want to let you in on a secret,” she said. “You’re not alone, and we’re not alone. And, as a wise friend once said, courage is contagious.” 

Cindy turned the program over to guest speaker Elizabeth Minkel, journalist and co-host of the long-running fan culture podcast Fansplaining. Elizabeth kept the audience giggling as she recounted her personal fandom history with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and later Harry Potter, and how EFF’s work defending fair use and fighting copyright maximalism has helped fandom art and fiction thrive despite attacks from movie studios and entertainment behemoths.

Elizabeth Minkel—co-host and editor of the Fansplaining podcast, journalist, and editor.

“The EFF’s fight for open creativity online has been helping fandom for longer than I’ve had an internet connection,” Minkel said. “Your values align with what I think of as the true spirit of transformative fandom, free and open creativity, and a strong push back against those copyright strangleholds in the homogenization of the web.”

Presenting the first award of the evening, EFF Director of Investigations Dave Maass took the stage to introduce 404 Media, winner of EFF’s Award for Fearless Journalism. The outlet’s founders were all tech journalists who worked together at Vice Media’s Motherboard when its parent company filed for bankruptcy in May 2023. All were out of a job, part of a terrible trend of reporter layoffs and shuttered news sites as media businesses struggle financially.

Journalists Jason Koebler, Sam Cole, Joseph Cox, and Emanuel Maiberg together resolved to go out on their own; in 2023 they started 404 Media, aiming to uncover stories about how technology impacts people in the real world.

Since its founding, journalist-owned 404 Media has published scoops on hacking, cyber security, cybercrime, artificial intelligence, and consumer rights. They uncovered the many ways tech companies and speech platforms sell users' data without their knowledge or consent to AI companies for training purposes. Their reporting led to Apple banning apps that help create non-consensual sexual AI imagery, and revealed a feature on New York city subway passes that enabled rider location tracking, leading the subway system to shut down the feature.

Jason Koebler remotely accepts the EFF Award for Fearless Journalism on behalf of 404 Media.

“We believe that there is a huge demand for journalism that is written by humans for other humans, and that real people do not want to read AI-generated news stories that are written for search engine optimization algorithms and social media,” said 404 Media's Jason Koebler in a video recorded for the ceremony.

EFF Director for International Freedom of Expression Jillian York introduced the next award recipient, Cairo-based nonprofit Connecting Humanity represented by Egyptian journalist and activist Mirna El Helbawi.

The organization collects and distributes embedded SIMs (eSIMs), a software version of the physical chip used to connect a phone to cellular networks and the internet. The eSIMS have helped thousands of Gazans stay digitally connected with family and the outside world, speak to loved ones at hospitals, and seek emergency help amid telecom and internet blackouts during Israel’s war with Hamas.

Connecting Humanity has distributed 400,000 eSIMs to people in Gaza since October. The eSIMS have been used to save families from under the rubble, allow people to resume their online jobs and attend online school, connect hospitals in Gaza, and assist journalists reporting on the ground, Mirna said.

Mirna El Helbawi accepts EFF Award on behalf of Connecting Humanity.

“This award is for Connecting Humanity’s small team of volunteers, who worked day and night to connect people in Gaza for the past 11 months and are still going strong,” she told the audience. “They are the most selfless people I have ever met. Not a single day has passed without this team doing their best to ensure that people are connecting in Gaza.”

EFF Policy Director for Global Privacy Katitza Rodriguez took the stage next to introduce the night’s final honoree, Fundación Karisma founder and former executive director Carolina Botero. A researcher, lecturer, writer, and consultant, Carolina is among the foremost leaders in the fight for digital rights in Latin America.

Karisma has worked since 2003 to put digital privacy and security on policymaking agendas in Colombia and the region and ensure that technology protects human rights.

She played a key role in helping to defeat a copyright law that would have brought a DMCA-like notice and takedown regime in Colombia, threatening free expression. Her opposition to the measure made her a target of government surveillance, but even under intense pressure from the government, she refused to back down.

Karisma and other NGOs proposed amending Brazil’s intelligence law to strengthen monitoring, transparency, and accountability mechanisms, and fought to increase digital security for human rights and environmental activists, who are often targets of government tracking.

Carolina Botero receives the EFF Award for Fostering Digital Rights in Latin America.

“Quiet work is a particularly thankless aspect of our mission in countries like Colombia, where there are few resources and few capacities, and where these issues are not on the public agenda,” Carolina said in her remarks. She left her position at Karisma this year, opening the door for a new generation while leaving an inspiring digital rights legacy in Latin America in the fight for digital rights.

EFF is grateful that it can honor and lift up the important work of these award winners, who work both behind the scenes and in very public ways to protect online privacy, access to information, free expression, and the ability to find community and communicate with loved ones and the world on the internet.

The night’s honorees saw injustices, rights violations, and roadblocks to information and free expression, and did something about it. We thank them.

And thank you to all EFF members around the world who make our work possible—public support is the reason we can push for a better internet. If you're interested in supporting our work, consider becoming an EFF member! You can get special gear as a token of our thanks and help support the digital freedom movement.

Of course, special thanks to the sponsors of this year’s EFF Awards: Dropbox and Electric Capital.

Karen Gullo

[B] 学校給食が危ない!?~チャオ!イタリア通信(サトウノリコ)

2 months 4 weeks ago
長い長い小学校の夏休みが終わりました。やっと始まった学校ですが、娘のクラスでは、保護者たちのグループチャットである問題が炎上。というのも、一人のお母さんが「息子が給食を食べないけど、皆の子どもたちはどう?」というメッセージを書いた途端、その日のうちに100通ものメッセージが・・・。(サトウノリコ=イタリア在住)
日刊ベリタ

余波続く「令和の米騒動」 日本の歴史的転機になるかもしれない

2 months 4 weeks ago
 前号掲載の拙稿「じわり広がる「令和の米騒動」 これは日本の「暗い未来予想図」か」(http://www.labornetjp.org/news/2024/0824kome)には大きな反響があった。記事をレイバーネット日本に転載したところ、右翼と見られる人物からレイバーネット日本に対し、私をライターから解任するよう要求があったという。「自民党が“保守”“愛国”を標榜しながら、舞台裏では、激しく攻撃している「左翼」以上に亡国的な政策を長年にわたって続け、日本と日本の市民を破滅の崖っぷちに追い込んでいる」実態を暴露されたことが、右翼・保守陣営にとっていかに打撃だったかを余すところなく物語っている。フランスの経済学者ジャック・アタリ氏に関する「ウィキペディア」(インターネット百科事典)日本語版の記事には、「日本人はいずれ雑草や昆虫しか食べる物がなくなる」という氏の発言が紹介され、レイバーネット日本に掲載された拙稿が出典として脚注に掲載されるに至った。この発言は「食料自給率が低い日本がこの先、どう生き残れば良いのか」を問うNHKのインタビューに答える形で行われた。アタリ氏は、高齢化が進んでいる農家の実態に触れ、農業が失われないよう農家になりたいと思う条件を整えることや、食生活を変化させ別の食材に切り替えることを提唱。その流れの中から飛び出したのが件の発言だったが、日本社会に与えるインパクトは私の想像をはるかに超えていた。

[B] 中国民族主義の危険性     Chuang Liang 翻訳:稲垣豊

2 months 4 weeks ago
中国・深センの日本人学校の付近で、日本国籍の児童が登校途中に刃物で襲われ、死亡するという事件がありました。日中双方の市民社会に衝撃を与えたこの事件を軸に、中国社会の状況を考察し、習近平体制下の中国ナショナリズムのいまとこれからを分析した論文が、亡命香港知識人・民主活動家らで構成されている言論プラットホーム「無國界社運 Borderless movement」で発表されました。市民運動グループATTACJapanの稲垣豊さんの翻訳で紹介します。(大野和興)
日刊ベリタ