Media in The Media

Find this article in The Tyee, rabble.ca, and VUE Weekly.

There is something uniquely powerful about everyday people having access to the Internet from tiny devices in their pocket. That ubiquitous access to each other creates possibilities that are worth fighting for and saving. The mobile- and wireless-accessed Internet, combined with emerging open web and open-data applications, has the potential to usher in a new era of connectedness and, with it, dramatic changes to social practices and institutions. If we get digital public policy right, Canada could become a leader in mobile communications, leading to empowerment, job creation and new forms of entrepreneurialism, expression and social change.

To harness this opportunity, politicians and policy makers will need to develop a digital strategy for Canada with a central focus on mobile communications and Canada's broadband infrastructure. To be successful in the long term, we'll need a "made in Canada" strategy that captures the imagination, vision and ingenuity of people from across Canada.

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Prime Minister Harper will be answering questions on YouTube over the next week, providing a chance to raise digital strategy issues in a digital environment

The Australian government has stated that it does not expect to make any changes to its domestic laws due to ACTA, hoping to persuade others to follow the Australian approach.

The Canadian Press reports that the Ontario government is adding Internet safety to the provincial elementary school curriculum.

[Guest post by karenatcmg.]

Could a robot do your job? A lab on the Northwestern University campus near Chicago already has a prototype artificial intelligence program that can report on baseball games and will soon develop programs to cover football and basketball.

“It’s the dream of every managing editor: a reporter who is cheap, works fast and isn’t moody,” writes Le Monde correspondent Yves Eudes, who recently visited the lab.

The “Stats Monkey,” as it is known, will also soon turn its digital brain to reporting on financial markets.

The inventors of "The Machine," which is the byline on the prototype reports, gush that the product reads the same as AP wire copy. But without typos! (The machines – no kidding – are able to reproduce the same pat sentences that every reporter rushed for time uses to express the same range of outcomes). The benevolent inventors say they are not out to replace humans with machines and put them out of work. Of course not. They say their program could relieve journalists of the boring, repetitive work to allow them time for the noble part of the calling: field reports, investigations and analysis. Besides, they add, the purpose of the program is to report on minor league and varsity games and the stock market performance of smaller companies, which don’t currently get coverage in the mainstream media.

By the way, down the hall from the Stats Monkey is “News at Seven,” an AI project that puts together an online newscast, complete with animated male and female co-anchors (Zoe and George!), based on the preferences of the viewer. It gathers and summarizes relevant reports from a series of news sites and then “voices” them.

Frankly, the AI machines seem a day late and a dollar short. What can they do that we don’t already do, compiling and relaying data within seconds on a wire desk or producing newscasts according to a formula, primarily using secondary sources?

Besides, if news organizations aren’t devoting resources to high-school leagues and small business stock performance today, why would they invest in machines to do it tomorrow?

And who is to say that, once they had them, our employers would rehumanize our work? After all, if they wanted the fulsome product of human brains – if that’s where they saw the quick buck – they could have it already,couldn’t they?

Obviously the machines will solve nothing. It’s not even clear that they will be more productive (ie. produce more at less cost) or that they will create fewer headaches than regular human journalists. I mean who has NOT worked with temperamental IT systems?

But news of them alone is perhaps enough to scare us into working that much faster, with that much more accuracy, to avoid being replaced by a reserve army of computer chips.

The European Parliament today overwhelming approved a resolution on ACTA calling for transparency and raising concerns about substantive elements in the treaty such as the prospect of three strikes and personal border searches.  The final vote was 633 in favour, 13 against, and 16 abstentions.  The final approved text raises further issues:

• the European Parliament "deplores the calculated choice of the parties not to negotiate through well-established international bodies, such as WIPO and WTO, which have established frameworks for public information and consultation"
• It says "further ACTA negotiations should include a larger number of developing and emerging countries, with a view to reaching a possible multilateral level of negotiation"
• provides that "any agreement must include the stipulation that the closing-off of an individual’s Internet access shall be subject to prior examination by a court"
• warns that "ACTA provisions, notably measures aimed at strengthening powers for cross-border inspection and seizure of goods, should not affect global access to legitimate, affordable and safe medicinal products – including innovative and generic products – on the pretext of combating counterfeiting"

As for next steps, the European Parliament clearly wants action as the resolution also states that it "stresses that, unless Parliament is immediately and fully informed at all stages of the negotiations, it reserves its right to take suitable action, including bringing a case before the Court of Justice in order to safeguard its prerogatives."   This marks a major step toward ACTA transparency, highlighting the near-unanimous discomfort with the process and substance of ACTA to date.

Allam, speaks about the Iraqi election

With the increasing shift from analog to digital, some elections officials are unsurprisingly chomping at the bit to move toward Internet-based voting.  My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that last year, Elections Canada officials mused about the possibility of online voting trials, noting the potential benefits of increasing voter participation, particularly among younger demographics.

More recently, the province of Alberta opened the door to incorporating new technologies into their voting processes as part of an electoral reform package.  New trials would require the approval of a legislative committee, but the province's Chief Electoral Officer acknowledged that online voting may be coming, noting "online voting is something that's on the forefront of people's minds. . . people say, 'I can do my banking online, but I can't do my voting online'."

The enthusiasm for Internet voting is understandable. At first blush, there is a certain allure associated with the convenience of Internet voting, given the prospect of increased turnout, reduced costs, and quicker reporting of results.  Moreover, since other security sensitive activities such as banking and health care have gravitated online, supporters argue that elections can't be far behind. Yet before rushing into Internet voting trials, the dangers should not be overlooked.


Democracy depends upon a fair, accurate, and transparent electoral process with outcomes that can be independently verified.  Conventional voting accomplishes many of these goals – private polling stations enable citizens to cast their votes anonymously, election day scrutineers offer independent oversight, and paper-based ballots provide a verifiable outcome that can be re-counted if necessary.

While technology may someday allow us to replicate these essential features online, many of them are currently absent from Internet voting, which is subject to any number of possible disruptions.  These include denial of service attacks that shut down the election process, counterfeit websites, phishing attacks, hacks into the election system, or the insertion of computer viruses that tamper with election results.

These concerns are based on real-world experience.  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that administers the domain name system, ran an online board of director election in 2000.  The experience was fraught with technical difficulties, leading a reviewer to conclude "the technical weakness in the registration system made it virtually impossible to assess the integrity of the voters' list, the security of the PINs, and secrecy of vote."

More recently, the Netherlands used Internet voting as part of its 2006 parliamentary elections.  The online option was an alternative for Dutch citizens working or living abroad.  Nearly 20,000 valid Internet votes were received at a cost of approximately 90 euros per Internet voter.  Two years later, the country implemented a ban on Internet voting.

The Canadian experience is limited primarily to municipal elections.  Several Ontario municipalities have offered Internet-based voting, enabling local residents to vote without leaving their homes.  Residents were required to pre-register for Internet voting and were provided with detailed instructions on the technical requirements to "vote anywhere."

Caution on Internet voting appears prudent, since experts have identified a long and costly list of necessary precautions, including random spot checks and post-vote verification programs to preserve anonymity.  Given the security risks, opening the door to provincial or federal Internet voting seems premature.  In the zeal to increase voter turnout, the reliance on Internet voting could inadvertently place the validity of the election process at risk.

InternetNZ has just announced that I will be the keynote speaker at PublicACTA, an ACTA conference scheduled just prior to the next round of ACTA negotiations in Wellington, NZ.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has launched a public consultation on encryption controls. Comments are due by April 30, 2010.

Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Ebay, along with the UK's largest internet service providers, are arguing that changes to the UK Digital Economy bill poses a theat to free speech.

Rabble's latest entry on MakerCulture describes socially concious, sustainable and environmentally friendly production. The article explores sustainable DIY housing and furniture and includes an interview with Dean Reeds who built a 3 bedroom straw bale cottage which he currently rents out weekly. The article also details the creations of Maker's in Nunavut, as well as politically aware 'craftivism' in which artists use their crafts to raise awareness for pressing social issues.

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A recent report compiled by the BBC World Service has revealed that "79% of Internet and non-Internet users said that they felt that internet access should be 'the fundamental right of all people'". The results from this poll taken across several countries reiterates yet again the significance of the Internet in people's lives as well as the need to increase internet access in currently unconnected areas.

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