The Cyberactivism session was re-scheduled a few times and became one of the couch sessions, though with about 10-14 being in attendance. My point of hearing wasn't the best but I could make out some of it.
One of the facilitators came prepared with a double-sided photocopy about the UK government's attempts to subvert research spending away from academics.
Corbyn, Z. (2 April 2009) Labour 'usurps' scientists in setting priorities, Times Higher Education
Gill, J. (3 April 2009) Funding will shift to drive government aims, Times Higher Education
The issue of government control ovre what gets funded, with an uncertainty about how that can be freer in academic terms. This was discussed briefly at the start of the meet, and a heated discussion towards the end of the afternoon.
On how people defined Cyberactivism, a few agreed that it could be something as simple as Amnesty International postcards and campaigns.
Talk move into how social networking sites provide transparency that seeps into the real world. In cases were data protection wasn't applying to governments lobbyists through Facebook shot the changes down in acts of direct democracy. To paraphrase, if something is out of your scope, you don't think about it - If someone puts it on the agenda, you can offer your opinion about it. This is one of the great advantages I know were social media informs personal agenda.
Digital identity and analysis by the government of Facebook and other social networking sites (Guardian link) raised the issue brought up in the Facebook? session on generationally different approaches. Largely the real problem was one of connections, content and communication. How it doesn't work, was given in the example of an arrested terror suspect in police raids who had contacted a paramilitary advocate muslim cleric to tell him hes full of shit. The point was made that these things have to be based on some sort of intelligent data. The fella was later able to establish through his archives, the contents of this email and charge were dropped, but by then, well harm and disruption done.
http://www.jenitennison.com/blog/node/100
Possibly Sylwia Presley dropped Avaaz.org into the mix and this was discussed in terms of its strong creation of viral networks. Very quick, open platform.
There was also some talk about the work of Global Voices Online, "a non-profit organization of bloggers (and advocates), includes commentary, translated commentaries, RSS feeds, links and contact information." (website) It was commented on that Global Voices allows different skills to promote activism online. International locals writing about issues: a strong community of people with great knowledge about social media - a challenge for them as a team to promote it.
Mark Lizar arrived to talk about mapping CCTV, and his project sounded so interesting many of us took it onto the meeting room. However, out of the discussion came the idea of a Transparency Camp, theres already been quite a bit of chat about it on Twitter
Marcus Povey and Sylwia have already set up a wiki for it.
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