Interview with Founder of Geekcorps

cynical writes "WorldChanging has a new interview up with Ethan Zuckerman, founder of Geekcorps, fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and editor of BlogAfrica, the best source of access to African bloggers around. Zuckerman talks about the growing role of blogging in the developing world, fighting corruption and censorship online, the emerging world of "social source software," and a lot more. It's a long, wide-ranging conversation; clearly, this guy is thinking big about the power of the web, especially outside the United States."

Comments

Third world blogs

[kundor]

I'd think that the problem with using the internet to combat censorship and corruption is that the censored and oppressed people are precisely those without internet access. Those who have it are already in the privileged classes.

the world-wide-web as a tool

[tobi-wan-kenobi]

first: i admit to not having read the whole article, since it really is a bit long for the hour. second: his notion about "social source" software is really interesting. commonly, the wide-spread use of the internet is said to diminuish face-to-face contact between people. the other side that often is neglected is demonstrated by this article: the internet can also be used to enable communication, as a means for a war against "corruption" and especially "censorship". what people often forget is that, no matter how big, the internet still is nothing more than a tool. and most tools do not tend to be either "good" or "bad", but achieve their quality by the way they are used. this is an excellent demonstration on how to do it right. my 2 pence, n'tn more

The first time

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

You know, this is the first time I've ever seen what could be called a viable use for blogs. The idea of posting your day to day affairs, life and opinions on the web for any stranger to see strikes me as being at best social networking, at worst repulsively narcissistic.

However using blogs to speak out against corrupt regimes etc. does seem to fill a niche that needed filling (although I don't see how it differs greatly from setting up a protest website). It gives an insight into the day to day life of a person living under such conditions, which we would otherwise not have. Its one of the reasons I enjoy chatrooms so much-where else can you get a real insight into the lives and cultures of people hal a world away?

Outside?

[Tetsugaku-San]

There's a web outside the US? wait - There's an outside the US?