[NCUC-DISCUSS] LINK to an interview about internet access in India by Anja Kovas of the Internet Democracy Project

[DeeDee Halleck]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Greg Macdougall via Indy-share <indy-share at la.indymedia.org>
Date: Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 7:59 AM
Subject: [Indy-share] Interview with Anja Kovacs now online
To: Indy-share <indy-share at la.indymedia.org>



I'd sent this out yesterday to the indy-converge list, but hear this one
(indy-share) is the more appropriate for this type of thing ...


PODCAST: Interview with Anja Kovacs, Internet Democracy Project, at World
Forum on Free Media (24min audio)

https://equitableeducation.ca/2016/podcast-anja-kovacs-wffm


Key chronology / issues discussed in interview:

    0:45 – Begins by talking about the net neutrality issue of ‘zero
rating’ internet access packages – proposals for which have been a major
issue of debate in India, whereby companies offer people packages (paid, or
possibly free) of certain websites and those people’s intenet access then
consists solely of those packaged sites, with additional costs to access
any websites not in the package. This may seem foreign to North American
internet users, but zero rating was part of the United States net
neutrality debate as well, although to a much lesser degree.

    3:30 – The net neutrality conversation also goes into the role of
capitalism and ‘political economy’ and differences in consciousnesses /
awareness of such issues between India and elsewhere, versus North America:
“In general when you talk about rights issues, there is a much stronger
sense of how your ability to enjoy rights, to exercise them, is always
underpinned by political economy.”

    10:00 – Issues around the internet and capitalism, neoliberal pressures
in India and other developing coutnries tying in to state surveillance and
privacy issues

    13:00 – The World Forum on Free Media and importance of connecting
around issues of rights, the Internet and communications in general –
includes an explanation of what is meant by political economy.

    14:50 – Concerns around privacy and surveillance: do people really
care? Looking at the complexities of the issue, especially with respect to
social media, especially Facebook – and also, what do we do about it, with
the dominance that such corporations have through their position in so many
peoples lives?

    20:50 – Relating the issues around Internet, communications and free
media with a “sense of despondency with where activism is at right now –
not things that come up spontaneously, [but] people who have been
organizing over long periods of time struggling to build connections in a
world where increasingly global capital is back on the rise, and culturally
– as people here have been pointing out – there is also more and more
across the world a move to the right: that means there is a set of values
that is dominant that’s not really hospitable to the activists that are
here and the work that they do. And I think that’s maybe a question that’s
just as important: How do you win people back to that language of
solidarity, justice, and a different humanity to respect people in their
totality, including their difference? I think that might be a bigger
battle.”

    24:00 More around the issue of growing dissatisfaction with the power
that companies like Facebook and Google have.



-- 
Media freelance; grassroots education; community organizing
Phone: 613-656-5498
Website: http://EquitableEducation.ca

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come
alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have
come alive." - Howard Thurman

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