Evoliuvo

Today around 13h40 a friend of mine Fadi Gedeon’s personal facebook profile was disabled.
Fadi’s status that obviously caused this:

“ISRAEL don’t f*** with our army, we’ll sweep your ass.”(Note: This sentence was censored on our blog)

According to facebook:

You were disabled because you created or posted content (i.e., photos, groups, shares, etc.) that violated Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Facebook explains more their policy by mentioning in their email:

Types of content that are prohibited from Facebook include, but are not restricted to the following:

• No nudity or other sexually explicit content
• No content that contains hate speech or directly attacks an individual or group
• No content that contains self harm or excessive violence
• No content that contains illegal drug use

What tops this is the fact that the decision is final and cannot be appealed:

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to reactivate your account or respond to your email directly. This decision is final and cannot be appealed. You can visit the Warnings section of the Help Center for more information: http://www.facebook.com/help/?topic=warnings

Obviously Fadi did violate these terms, but that doesn’t mean they have the right to definitively delete his account. They should have issued a warning, suspended the account for a while, and later on deleted it or something…

I leave this story to your comments…

Almost a month ago, a New ICT e-transaction law was sent for approval by the Lebanese Parliament.
This law, which apparently has many flaws and inadequacies was drafted from a much complete version carefully crafted by professionals in policy making and law earlier in 2005. This law also contradicts with several other laws.
The law creates a body called the «Electronic Signatures and Services Authority» and grants this body unlimited powers which overpower related ministers, other official/public institutions and even Judicial system:

“Employees are entrusted inspection functions as a specialized judicial police within the scope of the Authority’s work.” (Article 82)

That is of course without consulting any Judge at any point of the inspection’s process.

Without going more into further details, many helpful articles are present at the bottom of this document including some other blog posts of friends and/or bloggers. You can also notice the initiative that directly and indirectly affected the postponement of the the approval of the law, without forgetting the twitter hashtag #StopThisLaw

The reason all this happened is the lack of multistakeholder approach within the policy making procedures in Lebanon. This multistakeholder approach means the inclusion of government (public sector) , business entities (private sector), civil society, academic and technical communities in the policy making processes of the country, region and/or globally. Several entities have adopted multistakeholderism during the last decade including countries(e.g: the recent Draft Bill Proposition on Civil Rights Framework for Internet in Brazil ), organizations (e.g: ISOC), corporations (e.g: ICANN) and unions (e.g:European Union); however, one of the primary multistakeholder innovators was the direct result of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) with regard to convening a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue – the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
During next September, the 5th Internet Governance Forum will be held in Lithuania. During these 5 years, the Lebanese participation in this major multistakeholder forum was slim and only limited to few individuals. No Government, private sector or civil society participation whatsoever. Such participation, its consequences and takings could make a revolution in a country where policy making is of great urgency.

The good news is that more and more awareness is spreading within the Lebanese community especially after the recent activities related to the new ICT Law and the awareness it has created towards ICT policy making and its importance. I would like to mention 2 very important elements which hold lots of promises in this context:

• The newly incorporated ISOC Lebanon Chapter
  

  CONGRATULATIONS LEBANON! The Lebanese ISOC Chapter has been incorporated. To join ISOC Lebanon Chapter, please complete and submit the online membership form or (http://www.isoc.org.lb/member.htm) or send an e-mail to membership@isoc.org.lb

• The National Democratic Institute’s Public Policy Initiative (NDI PPI):
  

  NDI is working with the Youth Shadow Government (YSG) of Nahar al-Shabab to assist them in drafting and presenting evidence-based policy reform plans to relevant Cabinet Ministers. The Policy Development Program draws on NDI’s extensive local and international practitioner network, as well as in-house expertise, to train and support participants in developing policy papers and communicating them strategically and effectively to decision-makers. Through an intensive and focused training and consultancy process, the program aims to increase civil society’s participation in the policy-making process.

  Here is a link (in Arabic) to a followup on this: متابعة قانون تكنولوجيا المعلومات

At the end, I would like to address all Lebanese stakeholders to get more and more engaged in Internet Governance Processes especially policy making.
All the best,
Bernard.

Resources and helpful articles:

• Very helpful translation of some articles of the law: https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddjmntbp_110dcr8tmds
• Arabic Report on OTV Lebanese TV Channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVIbRVmvPRc
• BBC Arabic جدل في لبنان بشأن تنظيم تكنولوجيا المعلومات

List of related blogposts(you can add your post):

• ACT NOW: Postpone the Vote on the E-Transactions Law – SMEXBeirut
• Major Pain points in the e-Transaction Law – Gabriel Deek
• Missed Call Nation – Qifa Nabki
• مجنون يحكي وعاقل يفهم… – عماد بزي
• Internet joke – Maya Zankoul
• قانون تكنولوجيا المعلوم مات – خربشات بيروتية
• Lebanese E-transactions Law Dilemma – The Identity Chef
• Stop the new Lebanese Internet Law – Independence05
• Lebanese Bloggers Are Furious Over Proposed Internet Bill – Beirut Spring
• Stop this law, and start working on something else – Sarah Hilal
• Lebanon’s Internet to Get Worse Unless You Stop It –Jad Aoun
• Lebanese E-Transaction Law - Riham Berjaoui
• ESSA proposed costume – STOP THIS LAW-   ARCHANGELUS
• A stand againt ESSA and the new Lebanese E-Transaction law-   PLUS961
• Stop This Law – Lebanese NightS
• علم وخبر – Dany Awad
• قانون يعزف ألحان، قانون يقمع أفكار – سليم اللوزي
• Gino’s Blog
• Lebanon: Outrage over Blocking of VoIP – Global Voices
• Lets make the Streets our Public TimeLine – Abir Ghattas
• قانون تنظيم الإنترنت في لبنان: نحو نظام بوليسي Hanibaael
• Stop this law! This is Beirut!
• المعركة على قانون الانترنت في لبنان: حصيلة الجولة الأولى مدونة نينار
• Corruption spreads as Government blames People Blogging Beirut

There was a recent debate among Lebanese on what hashtag to use to greet-The Lebanese way- in the morning.
Some people chose #sabaho while others chose #saba7o
what is your choice?
vote now!

Following an earlier post we posted involving the regional twitter trends in the Arab/MENA region, and the fact that this regional trends do not exist, #ArabNetME Just broke the trends and is currently globally trending!

Keep the good work Flowing!

Lets swim with the Twitter wale!

In less then 4 hours, the biggest arab web event ever to happen is taking place in Beirut: ArabNet.

Quoting the website:

“ArabNet 2010 is the first international conference for the Arab web industry, bringing together leaders from across the MENA, Europe and Silicon Valley to discuss cutting-edge trends and emerging opportunities.“

The event will be covered by all media and will embrace all sorts of live coverage; from live video stream, to TV, interviews, and last but not least social media including live blogging, microblogging and illustrated blogging.

An event this big is a certain trend, however while investigating twitter trends, we just noticed that there are no trends convering the Arab or MENA Region:

Weird no? For a number of countries that have heavy users, and for a big amount of trending trends and web industry boom, it is strange how we can’t even know what is trending on twitter in the Arab World or MENA region.

Will twitter find its way to work this around?

Will #ArabNetME ring the bell for the twitter geeks and awaken them from the stupidity of not doing this?

Will #ArabNetME hit the charts in the next couple of days?

Lets see if we, the Online Arabs, could send a direct message to twitter and maybe swim with their famous overload wale…

See you at ArabNetME, the best event, the best team and the best trend!

Bernard Sadaka (@sdkaaa) @ArabNetME Ambassador

ArabNetME Useful Links:

• Website
• Registration
• LinkedIn Group
• Facebook fan page
• @ArabNetME(Twitter)
• Official Hashtag #ArabNetME

In collaboration with its supporting partners and media partners, ArabNet organized groundbreaking pre-conference workshops in 7 MENA countries to foster a sense of community, and instill continuity and longevity in the ArabNet experience.

Register now to ArabNetME at: http://arabnet.me/rform.php

Ways to interact with ArabNetME on:

ArabNetME Website is http://arabnet.me (All you need to know about ArabNetME)

ArabNetME Blog is http://blog.arabnet.me/

ArabNetME LinkedIn group is her here (Great discussions there about event’s sessions)

ArabNetME facebook is here (Fan page and great place to network)

ArabNetME twitter is @ArabNetME (Official Twitter Account- Use Hashtag #ArabNetME)

I have shared with the online community this coveritlive session where we all track #ArabNetME; Enjoy!
To view this is mobile version go this link.

If you can’t post from coveritlive, or if the session is on standby, simply go to twitter and post a status from there with the Hashtag #ArabNetME, it will automatically appear here.

In an early discussion on facebook, following my retweet of @AskLEBGov tweet:

“Don’t ask what ur country can do for u, but what u can do for ur country “JFK tweet with #AskLEBGov, we will channel it to the Gov!

found here, my friend Rihab El Hélou drew my attention that this quotation was in fact created by Khalil Gibran our famous Lebanese Writer and philosopher 36 years before JFK!

Quoting Rihab:

Actually, Khalil Gibran published the above saying in his 1925 work titled “The New Frontier”, Thirty-six years before President Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address.

“Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.” Khalil Gibran

I’m not pretty sure how can we correct this, what we can do is to circulate it!

We are great Lebanese! And I’m proud of that! Who will be the next Gibran? The Next JFK?

“The official website for Lebanese Elections” is not compatible with Firefox!”الموقع الرسمي للإنتخابات اللبنانية”!!

Well, I’m glad they are using some open source “php”, but not being compatible with Firefox is a big issue.

What do you think?

Check the irritating picture… lol

So what is all the Buzz about?

Few hours ago, Google announced the launch of Google buzz…

It is supposed to show under your Inbox!!

If you want to activate your Google Buzz, here is what you have to do:

First, you should have a Google account.

Second, you should at least be subscribed to 2 google services, such as gmail and reader for example.

Third, you should have an online photo Gallery, like Picasa or Flickr (Your DropBox Pictures would work too).

Fourth, you have to go to http://www.google.com/profiles and register with your google account.

Fifth, fill in as much info as you can until it tells you your profile is now eligible to be searched.

Sixth and last, go to google reader and click on “Your stuff”;

“Have some thoughts to share?” Share something and it will come up as a Google buzz status…

All you have to do now in order to see your buzz, is to go to your profile, you will see a tab for Buzz!!

Congrats, you are on Google Buzz!!!

…

Few hours or days later on you will notice the buzz under your inbox!!

It is helpful to follow people the way of twitter…

P.S: Remember the secret to get rid of several email notifications from buzzes you buzzed earlier: The magic mute key “m” from your Gmail inbox!

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