Category — Uncategorized

I was looking through newsfeeds, and the one thing that popped up constantly was the blackout of Wikipedia, #SOPA, #PIPA, and the list goes on. Apart from the complaints by university students that they can’t get on reddit for procrastination’s sake, or they can’t do “research”, what do these protest movements point to? A growing need to define the rights to intellectual property, especially in the realm of cyberspace, hence the new term: digital democracy.

While “radical” measures have been taken up by SOPA and PIPA, another movement, named OPEN, has just commenced, endeavoring to offer a “more moderate” approach to the amendment of the newly introduced piracy act. It is perhaps the less known of all three initiatives.

“The OPEN Act differs in that it would make the International Trade Commission (ITC) the agency responsible for fighting online piracy. The ITC already handles all cases involving foreign imports that are accused of copyright infringement, so it would seem a more natural fit for dealing with foreign websites, according to Issa and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the bill’s other main co-sponsor”. (To read more, click on: http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/the-open-act-introduced-can-it-kill-sopa-and-pipa.php)

On the other hand, SOPA and PIPA acts “give the U.S. Attorney General the power to seek court orders to take-down foreign websites when those websites are accused of piracy by copyright holders, like Hollywood and the recording industry”.

More importantly, “the agency could only force U.S. advertisers and payment companies to cut-off business with the foreign website, NOT search engines or Internet Service Providers, as had previously been required by both SOPA and PIPA. The OPEN Act also narrows the definition of what can websites can be targeted, saying that only those foreign sites that have “a limited purpose” aside from piracy or are clear piracy centers can be considered”.

http://whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/18/the-open-act-as-an-experiment-in-digital-democracy/

The major selling point is the niche:

“The full text of the proposed bill is available at an easy-to-use website, KeepTheWebOpen.com. And, most important, people who go to that website can annotate the bill with comments and suggestions for its author, much like they would a Wikipedia document. There’s a field where you can submit your e-mail address to receive updates about changes to the bill and its path through the maze that is our legislative process”.

It is a form of participatory democracy, wherein, the participant can go on the website and give direct comments and suggestions, and annotate the bill. It appropriates the concept put forward by Wikipedia. Out of this frenzy, is the birth of the term Digital Democracy.

This brings me to the discussion on Collier and Levitsky’s article named “Democracy with Adjectives”. They insist on the necessity for subtypes of democracy to assess the causes and consequences of democracy in order to ensure conceptual validity of Democracy. The question I pose is, how does digital democracy score on “The Ladder of Generality”? I argue that we are entrapped in a society where technology, especially the “digitized” world is in fact the platforms for communication between governments, and certainly the electorates and the elected. The merits and quality of communication aside, it is still a forum for generation of ideas and civic participation. In fact, “digital democracy” can fit into almost any kind of democracy. On the scale of generality, it scores high on the ladder for broadness. In fact, one may argue that these subtypes are “more general than the concept of democracy, this approach [might] lead to a loss of conceptual differentiation” (pp.437). Of course, this kind of democracy will be completely different, having no overruling authority, since it transcends boundaries. Initially, there must be an intrinsic value to this kind of democracy in order for it to be able to “self-police” in various nations. There will somewhat be controls by that of either the “US Attorney General” or the bureaucracies in domestic politics, in examples cited above. However, it essentially should be monitored and judged the people engaging in it. Any thoughts on this?

To read more on this article, please visit:

Collier, David, and Steven Levitsky, “Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research,” World Politics 49 (1997): 430-51. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/25054009

When one speaks of Democracy, one automatically connects it to the “rule of the majority”. The often forgotten implication is that the majority’s dominance only has authority with the existence of a minority. Or else, that authority loses it meaning. The problem is that the developed nations are endeavouring to assimilate developing nations in the name of “democracy”. Ironically, the voice of minorities is being muted in the process of promoting Western-centric notion of democracy.

A recent article in The Guardian is entitled, “The UK has a vital diplomatic role to play on the global stage”. One might assume that the interference of democratic nations like the UK is a noble and good initiative. Through this discourse, the political agenda and propaganda of Western nations is euphemized and lost. The article states,

But now the game has changed. It is time to recognise the immense good that western power can play, and often has, in the promotion of decency and tolerance, and to develop strategies to undermine the reactionary forces in other great powers, namely Russia and China. Because it is Russia and China, not the west, that has not only vetoed action against the horrific Burmese regime but supplied it with military and other support. Other beneficiaries of the Russo-Sino diplomatic forcefield include a Syrian dictatorship that is currently massacring those of its citizens seeking a more democratic future. While continuing to bash the west hard and often, it will be increasingly important for an international community of human rights activists to hold the other great powers in check.

To see the full article, please click on the link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/jan/10/uk-vital-diplomatic-role-global-stage

Many scholars have also noted the role of the United Nations, who are the key promoters of democratization. In response to the criticisms and skepticisms of scholars, in response, the United Nations published a document named “An Agenda for Democratization”, where it proclaimed that,

The United Nations is, by design and definition, universal and impartial. While democratization is a new force in world affairs, and while democracy can and should be assimilated by all cultures and traditions, it is not for the United Nations to offer a model of democratization or democracy or to promote democracy in a specific case. Indeed, to do so could be counter-productive to the process of democratization which, in order to take root and to flourish, must derive from the society itself. Each society must be able to choose the form, pace and character of its democratization process. Imposition of foreign models not only contravenes the Charter principle of non-intervention in internal affairs, it may also generate resentment among both the Government and the public, which may in turn feed internal forces inimical to democratization and to the idea of democracy.

(To see the entire document, please click: http://www.un.org/fr/events/democracyday/pdf/An_agenda_for_democratization.pdf)

The “reluctance” of the United Nations to indulge in internal affairs of the governments is an ideal that is far from perfect during implementation.  The interference with domestic affairs seems inevitable, especially during reconstruction period of a nation. Moreover, the conditionalities that are attached to that of foreign aid makes it impossible for that to occur.

If you need Wikipedia or Reddit, use it NOW before midnight: These Websites Are Going Dark to Protest SOPA tomorrow (January 18th). You’ve only got a few hours.

List of websites going dark:

http://mashable.com/2012/01/17/sopa-companies-dark-list/?utm_source=TweetMeme&utm_medium=widget&utm_campaign=retweetbutton

How long will the site (Wikipedia) be blacked out?
The blackout starts at 12:00 a.m. eastern time (5:00 a.m. GMT) on Wednesday morning and will last until 12:00 a.m. eastern time on Thursday (also 5:00 a.m. GMT).

For more information regarding the Wikipedia blackout movement, checkout: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/17/why-is-there-going-to-be-a-wikipedia-blackout-and-what-is-sopa/

Dear readers,

This is a blog that was initially commenced for the use of a class at UBC, POLI333D, on issues on Comparative Politics, with Professor Nyblade. Throughout the course, I will be sharing with you interesting articles and issues on Democracy, and anything interesting for that matter.

To tell you a little about me, I am a fourth year Political Science major, with a minor in Philosophy. I am an aspiring Law Student. To gain experience, I have recently started working as a Legal and Judicial Court Interpreter. Also, I am the founder of the UBC Undergraduate chapter of Phi delta phi International Legal Fraternity. Feel free to ask any questions regarding that.

Fun facts about me: I have a variety interests including basketball, tennis, playing the harp, the piano. Recently, I participated in the Miss Chinese Vancouver pageant 2011, and was crowned first runner up, Miss Photogenic, and Miss Elegant Model.

Thanks for visiting my site, and I hope to see you around!

You can follow me on twitter @vthechan

There’s an app for everything nowadays. How about one to measure our Gross National Happiness Index? http://apps.facebook.com/gnh_index/ From where is my iPhone, to Brotips, What men/women really want?, Groupon. Social media really has a massive, personal and direct impact on our lives.

Status updates like “Worst morning ever. Starbucks messed up my order” or “Forgot my umbrella today”, may have more implications than you think.

A study conducted through Twitter reveals that during times like Osama bin Laden’s death, Michael Jackson’s death, H1N1 pandemics, the happiness index plummets. What constitutes the indicators of the index, are words with negative or positive connotations like “greed” or “laughter”. The accuracy of studies conducted in such an unconventional way is still being debated. However, it certainly provides a large-scale and quite personal outlook towards the nation’s well-being. It certainly has a higher turnout, either voluntarily or involuntarily, than elections!

In the article, the author writes, “As we have seen in both the work of others and ours, Twitter and similar large-scale, online social networks have thus far provided good evidence that scientifically interesting and meaningful patterns can be extracted from these massive data sources of human behavior,” Dodd and his co-authors wrote. “Finally, the era of big data social sciences has undoubtedly begun. Rather than being transformed or revolutionized we feel the correct view is that the social sciences are expanding beyond a stable core to become data-abundant fields.””

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/happiness-is-down-twitter-study_n_1162644.html?1324482418&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

I worked as an intern at BBN3 under contract to CHEK news, during the Vancouver Olympics. My job was a researcher, to find relevant and interesting stories to report. While everyone was scrambling to search for a “hook” and catching glimpses of hockey games, I figured out that the best place to check out where everyone was congregating or meeting up, was actually Twitter. Interesting Tweets about coca cola can collections, pin-trading were prevalent in the posts. This is the power of the media. Instead of letting it control your life, why not make good use of it and apply the theories you learnt in school? The trend is to explore social trends via these platforms. Instead of reading irrelevant articles upon articles on happiness and studies, why not try it out and conduct an empirical survey on your own?

With the flourishing of Twitter, Facebook, and the worldwide web in general, media now plays a big role in defining our discourse on Democracy. The question that now follows is, “Do these popular modes of communication increase an individual’s level of democracy, or does it diminish it?

Surely, it is not hard to answer that for China. Why, diminish, of course! Tian Men Square Massacres were deliberately blocked from the web, censored in schools. “China Censors: The Tiananmen Square Anniversary will not be Tweeted”. The extent of censorship reaches to magazines like The Economist, Financial Times, popular sites like Microsoft’s Hotmail, Twitter and Flixr. “BBC viewers in China also saw their screens black out when the news service broadcast stories about the anniversary, and foreign news crews have been barred from filming in the square. Readers of the Financial Times and Economist magazine found stories about Tiananmen ripped from their pages” (Wired article, please see link below). I was in Hong Kong on July 1st,  2003. I was one of the 500,000 protestors against Article 23, which would limit the rights of a citizen in the following ways:

1. Citizens will no longer be allowed to monitor and critique the government. “Article 23 Law” stipulates that what is against the “government” is against the “state” and is punishable by law

2. Article 23 gives the police total power. Police won’t need a court order or evidence to search homes or to arrest law abiding citizens.

3. Article 23 stipulates that organizations banned in Mainland China can be banned in Hong Kong at any time. Falun Gong practitioners, Catholics, Free Trade Union members and many others lives are at a huge risk!

The perils are taken from: http://dawn.thot.net/Article_23.html

Surely that won’t happen in North America, right? Think again.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/china-censors-internet-before-tiananmen-square-anniversary/

Countries like India are following in the footsteps of China. A headline from today, January 14^th, 2012, “Indian authorities demand censorship from Google and Facebook”. This also implies that all future content will be pre-moderated. (Please see link below). Well, North American governments are still more liberal than India. Or are we?

http://rt.com/news/india-facebook-google-censorship-801/

The United States recently introduced a bill in the House of Representatives named SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). While the lawmakers claim that this bill’s main objective is to ensure that no intellectual property is being stolen, speculations about the implications of this act are still ongoing. Stephen Colbert, as a content provider, in an episode urged for the rejection of this bill. The content of this bill has great implications. Not only will this give the government the right to censor foreign material that is “illegally copied”, it will allow search engines to modify search results to exclude from websites that host illegal content. This means that when you go on Youtube, and try and search for footage on the Iraq war, the government could possibly deem it to be “illegal”. Of course, you may not want to watch footages of bloody wars, but what about that clip that you want to show your class from Boston Legal for a presentation? Sorry, that’s illegal.

http://fightforthefuture.org/colbert-sopa/

The notion of democracy is founded on principles like freedom of expression. When that vanishes, the other freedoms like freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc deteriorates proportionally. The ominous thought of having someone monitor your actions and even personal thoughts is surely not new. The Orwellian phenomenon, however, is ever so pervasive. “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”. This is precisely the reason why the media’s power is increasing exponentially, and why there is much government interest in interfering. From the words of V from V for Vendetta, “[a]nd where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror”. Ultimately the only way to alter the course of falling into the trap of un-democracy, is the reflection of every citizen on their rights, and to safeguard them against the governmental powers as much as possible.