Skype used to open 'fierce but respectful' discussions about the Mideast
By
Howard Wolinsky on October 10, 2008 in In the news.
Over the past year and half, there has been a series of frank discussions about the Middle East between a group of global studies students from York Central High School in York, Pa., USA, and people living in the region.
Just on Friday, the group spoke with an Israeli and a Palestinian about such things as the U.S. presidential race, media coverage of the region and life in their countries.
It all happened under the sponsorship of MideastYouth.com, founded and run by a 22-year-old Bahraini woman, Esra'a Al Shafei. And it was done on Skype audio conferencing.
Al Shafei, who has a communications degree from Franklin College in Sorengo, Switzerland, said she started Web site in 2006 to increase understanding in "one one of the most misrepresented places in the world."
She said Mideast Youth encourages "fierce but respectful" discussions.
She said Skype has been an invaluable tool for bringing people together. "It's more immediate and personal than e-mail," said Al Shafei.
Al Shafei runs several other campaigns, including "Free Kareem," aiming at winning the release of a student who went to prison in Egypt, for among other things, calling Egypt's leader a "dictator" and criticizing the Islamic faith. "He got kicked out of the university and got four years in prison," she said.
She used Skype to organize protests on Kareem's behalf around the world.
"Skype has been a dream come true," she said. "I couldn't afford international calls. Skype was like a dream come true. You send a text message and tell people you plan to meet at a certain time."
There can be technical and political issues.
She said because of unreliable electricity in Palestine, a participant there was connected to the conference via his cell phone. Also, she said because of government filters in Iran, there were problems in including Iranians.
Al Shafei also has been working on migrants rights in the region along with rights for Kurds and Baha'is.
In May, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University honored Mideast Youth for "outstanding contributions to the Internet's impact on society." The recognition was given bringing about social change with podcasts, blogs, social networks, and online video.
Al Shafei is using the $10,000 Berkman prize to encourage reporting from remote Afghan villages.
Mideast Youth makes its podcasts from Skype conferences available online.
Comments
Interesting to document this but being a Skype staff, would that be recommendable to engage in such senstive topics ? It's a fair and open question right ? I always thought that telecom-look-a-like (Skype is getting there) would simply comply with governments rules and regulation in order to get the maximum number of paying customers (after user conversion) on a given territory.
"Over the past year and half, there has been a series of frank discussions about the Middle East between a group of global studies students from York Central High School in York, Pa., USA, and people living in the region. Just on Friday, the group spoke with an Israeli and a Palestinian about such things as the U.S. presidential race, media coverage of the region and life in their countries. " source : Skype used to open 'fierce but respectful' discussions about the Mideast
It's all about ARPU... Not about enabling people freedom of speech. Skype is not a liberty fighter (not anymore, since they have left their role as underdog long time ago and the main underdogs were removed from their position).
The point is that it is funny to read see Skype staff being busy talking about 'fierce but respectful' discussions about the Mideast and on the other Skype and Tom.com is walking on thin ice in China having brought something on the market there that does not protect the right of certain Chinese people... Talking about inconsistency... In my humble opinion, phone-seller and VoIP provider should act as weapon-dealers. They would provide according to rules and regulations (they keep saying they want to comply right, for the sake of doing proper business) with the governments they deal with and provide the tools, nothing more nothing less.
Certainly it would not be a good thing to even mention anything about very sensitive political issues, because this might give the wrong impression that you are taking sides in favour of one party... The China privacy breach is such an example. It's a case full of twisted thinking.
Here is how it works : first bring something to China that is 256-aes encrypted perfect one time pad communication (so perfect for dissidents, spies and Chinese Crime Syndicates or who-ever who wants to conduct covert communications - don't tell me it's not possible...) and then wait till the chinese tom.com problem is highlighted, get all the human rights activist on your neck because the content on the chat was exposed via some not so secure webserver. As if the latter was the issue at hand.
The issue at hand is that chats are being recorded while this was not clearly mentioned in the end user licence agreement. A PR stunt had to be pulled off afterwards by choosing the right words to explain all this... after the damage was done.
tropicaljantie | Friday, Oct 10