#080808

I like the date, I like the day - last day of work before my holiday trip to Budapest:)
China is celebrating, Chinese Twitter users are celebrating too. Check this article, and their blog for more info.

I joined, so follow me on Twitter:)

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Amnesty (again) and Google...and blogging ethics!

There is an interesting article on Amnesty's activities (mainly in Australia) before Beijing here. It also links to something that we all think about nowadays and touches upon privacy issues - Google Street Mapping. (see Stilgherrian's post). I would be very interested to hear what you think. On Twitter opinions are skeptical, still I personally have nothing against it - we do live in CCTV age and if I need to loose a bit of my own privacy but gain on my security - I would agree - I think I agreed long time ago, actually. The thought of having on-line view of my flat windows available doesn't scare me - mine faces one of the main squares of our little town, other one of the main paths. (I would be interested to know what EU and UK law states about privacy in Google's case though. Any lawyers around?)Browsing around all those Amnesty sites I have found an interesting guide to blogging (fresh, March 2008, great graphics btw) including few notes on ethics written by Dan Gillmor (interested in privacy issues, as far as I can see) , who finds basis for blogging ethics in journalism: 'There are pillars of good journalism: thoroughness, accuracy, fairness, transparency and independence.'I thing it's a valid point - according to Fromm, there are two types of ethics - modern ethics (due to the commercialism and tolerance based development of societies this set of rules is based on our subjective judgments, i.e. code of ethics must be agreed on by majority of us) or traditional ethics (set of rules given by superior 'powers' - however we define those - always objective). If we want to follow modern approach, we still need traditional (journalistic) point of view at least to start developing our own codes of blogging ethics.

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Beijing and Social Media

OK, I have moaned about it and how skeptical I am but the more I read about the Olympics web coverage the friendlier the idea becomes. Today Lolly drooped me a link to Buzz Attitude article describing Lenovo team of bloggers and their WOM activities covering Olympics. Check out the Voices of the Olympic Games site - it really looks impressive, and I am surely going to keep my eyes open for more info there, mainly on their interactive guide. At the same time Read Write Web posted great article about other sponsors and their involvement here. McDonald's The Lost Ring made me stop for a sec - that's how far I get involved in gaming:) - since it doesn't look bad. More on-line, just do a good Google search:)


I can't wait to see the result of Chinese web surveys in few moths time, but I was told already today by someone experienced in Asian marketing that Chinese audience will escape the challenging really and start using web more (this might be a simple personal opinion though, wouldn't make a bet). Let's see...

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Amnesty News...

Dear Sylwia , 

Torture. Long-term detentions without charge or trial. Censorship of the internet and media. Does this sound like a country that’s trying to improve its human rights record? 

Ye Guozhu, a human rights defender in Beijing, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for taking action against forced evictions related to the Olympics. Amnesty International fears he has been tortured while in detention. He was due to be released on Saturday, July 26 but will now remain imprisoned until October, after the end of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Chinese authorities have stepped up their repression of human rights defenders in order to “clean up” Beijing. With the Olympics only 10 days away, take action and urge China to create a positive human rights legacy. 

In 2001 China made a promise to improve its human rights record if given the honor of hosting the Olympic Games. Instead, China has become increasingly repressive with crackdowns on dissent and the rounding up and arrest of human rights defenders. Citing "security", China has imprisoned individuals for doing nothing more than drawing international attention to ongoing human rights violations.

President Bush will attend the opening ceremonies of the Games on August 8. Before he leaves for Beijing, tell President Bush to make a public statement condemning the human rights violations perpetrated in preparation for the Olympics.

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