Freedom on the Net 2011: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media Freedom (2011)

In order to illuminate the emerging threats to internet freedom and identify areas of opportunity, Freedom House created a unique methodology to assess the full range of elements that comprise digital media freedom. This report examines internet freedom in 37 countries around the globe. The study’s findings indicate that the threats to internet freedom are growing and have become more diverse. Cyber attacks, politically-motivated censorship, and government control over internet infrastructure have emerged as especially prominent threats.

Editors: Sanja Kelly, Sarah Cook
Published by Freedom House, Washington DC, 18 April 2011
410 pages

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EDRi: Shadow evaluation report on the Data Retention Directive (2006/24/EC) (2011)

In advance of the European Commission the publication of its long overdue evaluation report on the Data Retention Directive, EDRi has published its own “shadow report”. This Directive currently requires long-term indiscriminate storage of records of every electronic communication of every person in the European Union. European Digital Rights (EDRi), concludes in a parallel ‘shadow report’ that European citizens have gained nothing from the Data Retention Directive, but lost their privacy. EDRi urges the Commission to respect the Charter on Fundamental Rights and reject data retention in Europe.

Nothing gained
In its evaluation report, the Commission fails to prove that data retention is a necessary instrument to fight serious crime. The statistics provided by Member States indicate that the vast majority of data used by law enforcement authorities would also have been available without obligatory data retention. The absence of data retention legislation in countries such as Germany and the Czech Republic (where national Constitutional Courts rejected transposition laws of the Data Retention Directive as an unjustified restriction on fundamental rights) has not led to an increase in crime or a decrease in the ability to fight crime.

Privacy lost
Meanwhile, 500 million European citizens have been confronted with an unprecedented and unnecessary infringement of their fundamental rights. In 2010, the average European had their traffic and location data logged in a telecommunications database once every six minutes. According to the European Data Protection Supervisor, the Directive constitutes ‘the most privacy invasive instrument ever adopted by the European Union’.
In addition, several Member States fail to fully respect the data security obligations of the Directive. Some do not even have a process for deleting the data after the retention periods, nor of overseeing this deletion. The Commission has accused unspecified Member States of breaches of legal process by exploiting domestic telecoms companies to obtain data from other EU Member States, thereby circumventing agreed legal procedures.
European citizens, and Europe’s hard won credibility for defending fundamental rights, have paid dearly for this Directive, both in terms of a reduction in the right to privacy and also in the chaotic and lawless treatment of personal data. The Commission report and our shadow report show that the Directive has failed on every level – it has failed to respect the fundamental rights of European citizens, it has failed to harmonise the European single market and it has failed as a necessary instrument to fight crime.”

What next?
The Commission’s evaluation report will serve as the basis for an impact assessment of policy options to annul or amend the Directive. EDRi will send its shadow report to the European Parliament, calling on its members to stand for the fundamental rights of 500 million EU citizens and repeal the Data Retention Directive.

Published by Digital Civil Rights in Europe on 17 April 2011

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Geert Lovink, Rachel Somers Miles (eds.): Video Vortex Reader II: Moving Images Beyond YouTube (2011)

“Video Vortex Reader II is the Institute of Network Cultures’ second collection of texts that critically explore the rapidly changing landscape of online video and its use. With the success of YouTube (’2 billion views per day’) and the rise of other online video sharing platforms, the moving image has become expansively more popular on the Web, significantly contributing to the culture and ecology of the internet and our everyday lives. In response, the Video Vortex project continues to examine critical issues that are emerging around the production and distribution of online video content.

Following the success of the mailing list, the website and first Video Vortex Reader in 2008, recent Video Vortex conferences in Ankara (October 2008), Split (May 2009) and Brussels (November 2009) have sparked a number of new insights, debates and conversations regarding the politics, aesthetics, and artistic possibilities of online video. Through contributions from scholars, artists, activists and many more, Video Vortex Reader II asks what is occurring within and beyond the bounds of Google’s YouTube? How are the possibilities of online video, from the accessibility of reusable content to the internet as a distribution channel, being distinctly shaped by the increasing diversity of users taking part in creating and sharing moving images over the web?”

Contributors: Perry Bard, Natalie Bookchin, Vito Campanelli, Andrew Clay, Alexandra Crosby, Alejandro Duque, Sandra Fauconnier, Albert Figurt, Sam Gregory, Cecilia Guida, Stefan Heidenreich, Larissa Hjorth, Mél Hogan, Nuraini Juliastuti, Sarah Késenne, Elizabeth Losh, Geert Lovink, Andrew Lowenthal, Rosa Menkman, Gabriel Menotti, Rachel Somers Miles, Andrew Gryf Paterson, Teague Schneiter, Jan Simons, Evelin Stermitz, Blake Stimson, David Teh, Ferdiansyah Thajib, Andreas Treske, Robrecht Vanderbeeken, Linda Wallace, Brian Willems, Matthew Williamson, Tara Zepel.

Publisher Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2011
Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works 3.0 Netherlands License
ISBN 9789078146124
378 pages

Publisher

PDF, PDF (updated on 2017-4-11)