[atlarge-discuss] Recruitment, the Web and Internet (lack of) rights

[espresso@e-scape.net]

The messages quoted below are exactly the sort of thing that I think an Internet users' organization should be monitoring, publicizing and commenting upon in the right quarters to effect change. 

As far as I'm concerned, they're a good reason why ICANN's notion of excluding ordinary people and allowing (a limited number of) governments to control Internet structures is a serious mistake to be prevented by all means at our disposal. 

Those means are precious few, admittedly, but the BIG one is plain old e-mail ... which makes it possible for me to receive a French news agency's report on China from a fellow-activist in Nunavut who got it from a professor in Australia, while that same message has no doubt followed other routes around the world dozens of times since yesterday. 

The networks for widely distributing information are there and ready-to-use.  They have proven their value in dealing with every kind of issue that matters to the public but is not adequately covered by the mass-media, and enabled the formation of world-wide coalitions and collaborative efforts like this list. 

Web sites are wonderful, of course, for making longer documents or groups of documents available, for showing the power of linking between groups of widely-dispersed people, and for collecting the all-important sign-ups from members/volunteers. But in reality people have to know your URL and what you're for before they will visit your site, at least unless there are many links to it from sites where people are likely to go.

I'm very glad there is a site for this organization but, having finally managed to register myself, I have to confess I am not impressed by its accessibility. I use an elderly Mac, not a newish Windows box with a large high-resolution screen, and a dial-up connection rather than broadband. Even with display of graphics turned off, some of those pages load rather slowly. The text is set wide, making it necessary to scroll horizontally for each and every line. The registration page itself wouldn't be bad ... but it says the blue fields are mandatory and nothing showed up in blue (even though I've got a working colour monitor and was using it rather than my other machine whose display is full-page but monochrome) and the drop-down list for choosing one's country merely highlights instead of scrolling. (This latter problem is fairly common, even on pages like that one which have other drop-down lists which work fine.) It took several tries to submit the form successfully, and I'm just lucky that apparently the country is not one of the mandatory items.

I'm known to be a nitpicker about things like that and I often get the response that it isn't worth the trouble to make sites fully accessible because most people use equipment less than four years old, Windows and MSIE or Netscape with all the latest bells and whistles, and fast or broadband connections; also, most people don't have handicaps which require screen-readers or other special help using the Web. It's a common response from government departments, the World Bank, etc. and most companies who are, after all, on the Web to sell something to more affluent consumers. 

For an organization like this one, though, I believe it's a MAJOR mistake. At the very least, if we can't manage a site that "degrades gracefully' and poses a minimum of obstacles for the visitor who has managed to get that far, we should be thinking about an alternative procedure for registration, ordering copies of documents, etc. by e-mail. As can easily be seen from moves to monitor Internet use in some countries and from the calls for donated equipment which can be sent to countries like Haiti and Ghana, any work to build a worldwide and democratic organization will need to accomodate people whose access is limited and/or precarious.

Personally, I'd like to see the site itself made fully accessible to even the first-generation text browsers, and an e-mailed newsletter (naturally including instructions for subscribing to this list by e-mail and on the Web, joining, etc.) which covers the major events related to the organization's mission. Personally, I can't see recruitment being terribly successful unless the organization is committed to doing what it takes to make sure the Internet is there for everyone.

Regards,

Judyth la pomme
--


<< start of forwarded material >>

From: "George(s) Lessard" <media@web.net>
Organization: http://mediamentor.ca
To: mediamentor@yahoogroups.com, caj-list@eagle.ca,
   workForWriters@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 00:05:24 -0500
Cc: devmedia@listserv.uoguelph.ca, cyberculture@zacha.org,
   cpi-ua@vancouvercommunity.net
List-Id: <cpi-ua@vancouvercommunity.net>
List-Owner: <mailto:cpi-ua-request@vancouvercommunity.net>
List-Archive: <http://vancouvercommunity.net/lists/arc/cpi-ua>
Subject: [CPI-UA] First P.R.C.dissident jailed for online 'violation & Chinese Internet Cafe Pioneer Closes All Cafes


------- Forwarded message follows -------
Organization:   	The University of Adelaide
To:             	chinese internet research 
<chineseinternetresearch@yahoogroups.com>
From:           	Gerry Groot <gerry.groot@adelaide.edu.au>
Date sent:      	Tue, 06 Aug 2002 00:17:48 -0700
Subject:        	[chineseinternetresearch] First dissident jailed for online 
'violation'
Send reply to:  	chineseinternetresearch@yahoogroups.com


Tuesday, August 6, 2002 SCMP

First dissident jailed for online 'violation'
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

 A dissident has been sentenced to 11 years' jail for downloading
"reactionary" material from the Internet, the first such conviction in
the country, his relatives and a Hong Kong-based rights group said
yesterday. 

 Li Dawei, 40, a former police officer from Gansu province, was given
the sentence at the Tianshui Intermediate People's Court in late July,
his sister said. 

 Li was punished for downloading information from the Internet,  making
it the first sentence of its kind, the Information Centre for Human
Rights and Democracy said. 

Previous instances of online dissent have invariably involved groups or
individuals posting "reactionary material" on the Web, according to the
centre. 

Li, who was arrested in April last year, was condemned for downloading
about 500 "reactionary articles" and compiling them into 10 volumes, the
centre said. Another charge consisted of contacts with "reactionaries"
abroad via e-mail and telephone. 

China is seeing an increasing number of dissidents being arrested and
punished for their online activities, the crackdown coinciding with
growing official sensitivity to subversive potential on the Internet.

Last week, a group of 18 dissidents and intellectuals published a
"declaration of Internet users' rights" in protest at new Internet
self-censorship rules. 

The declaration demanded the freedom to put together Internet pages,
with the only restrictions placed on "evident and real" slander,
pornography or certain "violent attacks or behaviour". 

-- 
Dr Gerry Groot
Centre for Asian Studies
The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005
Ph    : +61 8 8303 4312
Fax   : +61 8 8303 4388
e-mail: gerry.groot@adelaide.edu.au

--------
[snip]

------- End of forwarded message -------


and

Chinese Internet Cafe Pioneer Closes All Cafes
http://www.cnd.org/Global/02/08/01/020801-91.html

BEIJING, Aug. 1, 2002 (Xinhua) -- Sparkice Inc., one of China's earliest
Internet cafe chains, has closed its 14 Internet cafes throughout the
country, six years after they first opened here.

Thursday's Beijing Youth Daily quoted Sparkice Inc. Chairman and CEO
Edward Zeng as saying that the company intends to focus on the B-to-B
(Business to Business) e-commerce business.

It cost 40 US dollars per hour to get on line in China when Sparkice
opened its first Internet cafe in 1996 and now costs from two to four yuan
(0.24 to 0.48 US dollars) per hour.

Insiders note the Sparkice Internet cafes charges were higher than average
and fewer people are now going to Internet cafes as more and more people
can get on line at home.

Sparkice Internet cafes, once legendary in the industry, have hosted US
former president Bill Clinton and ex-secretary of state Madeleine Korbel
Albright.

Zeng regards the closing of Sparkice outlets as a strategic business shift
even though the company has managed to turn money-losing Internet cafes
into profitmakers.

The company has been eyeing the B-to-B e-commerce and believes it can have
a leading position in the field and wants to put all its eggs into one
basket, he said.

The government's attitude towards Internet cafes remains guarded, compared
with the obvious support for B-to-B e-commerce, Zeng added.

Sparkice Inc., with total assets estimated at 100 million US dollars,
changed its business focus from Internet cafes to Internet service
provider, then to Internet content provider and Business to Customers
e-commerce and finally settled as online trade facilitator.

HSBC Holdings plc, one of the world's largest banking and financial 
services organisations, invested an additional 5 million US dollars in
Sparkice last month, increasing its interest from 5 percent to 10 percent.

Some 711 deals are underway on Sparkice's online trading platform and its
supplier database has grown from 2,000 last year to 10,000.


-- *** Via / From / Thanks to the following :  
Bobson Wong
Executive Director
Digital Freedom Network
1372 Broadway, 20th Floor
New York, NY 10018
U.S.A.
Phone: +(1-646) 223-1282
Fax: +(1-646) 223-1290
E-mail: bwong@dfn.org
Web: http://dfn.org


<< end of forwarded material >>



##########################################################
Judyth Mermelstein     "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC           <espresso@e-scape.net>
##########################################################
"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once 
they have exhausted all other alternatives." (Abba Eban)
##########################################################



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