🚨 We are pleased to announce that Farzaneh Badiei (@farzdusa.bsky.social), a leading expert in Internet governance and digital rights, has joined us as a Senior Research Fellow.

He wasn’t American ;)

Went to an AI governance and copyright event and the judge kind of said: get it out of your head that the judges and legal systems ban all sorts of scraping and crawling because of some copyright quarrels! In a way he was the only voice for end users!

It’s not just child-unfriendly, it’s massively anti-human.

That’s what optimising for profitable efficiency gets you - a world of rampant corporatism in which the role of humanity is to serve, feed and offer sacrifice as necessary to prop up brand valuation.

This week the UN ITU's Radio Regulations Board is meeting on IRI’s demand to disable Starlink in Iran. This will set an important precedent for one of the key ways people are circumventing Internet shutdowns.

Read the full breakdown by @farzdusa.bsky.social:
iranianwomen4internet.org/blog.html

Seriously ... please don't use war terminology for things that aren't war. "Sniper" tactics for cyber scam? really? Meh

Donate to Help Fund A Sophomore Film Thesis: "The Graduation Dinner", organized by Rojina Kalbasi Hi! My name is Rojina. I'm a film student at Purchase College… Rojina Kalbasi needs your support for Help Fund A Sophomore Film Thesis: "The Graduation Dinner"

Amidst of all the heart wrenching news… here is a fundraising campaign for a short movie by a budding director. gofund.me/dabc7985c

You know you can be pro-war and condemn war crimes.

Iran Wields Wartime Internet Access as a Political Tool In an effort to disseminate its preferred message, the Iranian regime is offering a simple transaction: connectivity for amplification.

By keeping millions of people in a digital blackout but granting connectivity to a select few, Iran’s regime is openly using Internet access as a political tool.

@mahsaalimardani.bsky.social explains: carnegieendowment.org/research/202...

The Supreme Court Just Heeded One of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Sharpest Dissents These may sound like small wins, but they are wins nonetheless.

slate.com/news-and-pol...

Roya Pakzad wrote this after the supreme leader was found and killed by Israel: "You see how the tools used as a system of oppression become a fragility for the oppressor?" On the irony of cameras built to police Iranians becoming the regime’s Achilles’ heel royapakzad.substack.com/p/youre-welc...

No regime under any circumstances should be given the benefit of the doubt to shut the Internet on its own people.

This is why the west should be worried about the future of its own connectivity.

One thing that crawlers and scrapers do.

What islamic republic is doing is not just whitelisting its supporters to have access to the Internet. It’s Internet apartheid system. Just like it did to the women, does it to access to the Internet too.

A manifesto by some of us dreamers aka Iranian Internet freedom lady nerds fed up with the internet shutdowns endangering the lives of our loved ones and our people in Iran. @azadehakbari.bsky.social @farzdusa.bsky.social @royapak.bsky.social & Afsaneh Rigot.

Manifesto for a Free Internet Manifesto for a Free InternetIranian Women’s Coalition for Internet Freedom Today, people inside Iran are living through a near-total Internet and communications blackout imposed by the Islamic Repub...

This is "our" Manifesto for a Free Internet. We are Iranian Women's Coalition for Internet Freedom. Happy International Women's Day!
initiated by @azadehakbari.bsky.social @farzdusa.bsky.social @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social @royapak.bsky.social & Afsaneh Rigot

We should have a warning label somewhere: nation states kill.

Chatbots provide essential information for some of the most vulnerable communities. Governments don't and can't provide that kind of support, ever because it's too expensive. And now they want to take away this essential service from people. Licensing costs money! The providers will charge people!

so when people say policies should have "teeth" what do they mean? They should have teeth to bite people so that they get hurt and bleed? Such great governance mechanisms we think of!

Set up a conduit-psiphon so that people can connect to Internet service. only a few peers from time to time. I cannot bring myself to shut this down thinking I am depriving people of a vital service. And the Islamic Republic sabotages millions of people's Internet.

Conduit - Join the internet freedom movement. By running a Conduit Station, you immediately help people in censored countries access the free and open internet around the world.

set up conduit.psiphon.ca and help people connect. A window of connectivity has activated in Iran that enables Iranians to have access.

Yes thank you. I got some reports that people managed to briefly connect.

Another sleepless night! We are on a never ending roller coaster which nobody stops…

An extremely important thread for everyone who does digital governance especially UK experts.

Set up a conduit-psiphon so that people can connect to Internet service. only a few peers from time to time. I cannot bring myself to shut this down thinking I am depriving people of a vital service. And the Islamic Republic sabotages millions of people's Internet.

It is important not to misframe what Wikimedia has done as a "license" deal even if free. Licensing will restrict smaller actors and individuals. It creates a host of “export” and “import” issues. We need to be very careful about this otherwise we are going to create a digital divide in access.

How Digital Sovereignty Will Lead to The Slow and Fast Erosion of The Internet Sovereignty is not a synonym for autonomy; it is instead the uncompromising authority to impose a single will upon others.

Stop whatever you're doing and read @farzdusa.bsky.social rejoinder to "digital sovereignty" at @futurefreespeech.org's Bedrock Principle:

Madonna and a bunch managed to win a few UDRP cases early Internet times