In search of Public Truth online! – Building a case for ICT Software Freedom

As the Shuttleworth Foundation’s Go-Opensource Episode 2 Video states that blogging is not dark and smelly, it’s fresh and new and it’s incredible and magnificent. It’s on the internet and has got journalists in a frill. Usually people are used to getting news through newspapers, magazines, television or radio broadcasts, and news publisher websites. Behind the scenes, international journalists and editors are preparing news and links for syndication of news stories and those stories go through a process of editing and vetting before they appear on printed page or other forms of mass media. But amidst this process, a relatively new phenomenon has introduced the

element of anarchy and self expression in to the world of journalism and proponents say that it’s changing the way we get our news.

Journalism for the People by the People
Blogging is journalism for the people and they can write whatever they want, people have a voice now through blogging, they don’t have to go through large vetted articles made by someone else. Blogging gives people the opportunity to write articles that they want, their own opinions and anyone can comment on it, anyone can read it if they want, they can share it with other people and can derive new information or knowledge from them thus sharing the principles of freedom from the Free and Open Source Software Movement.

Where did Blogs come from?
The word blog is short for Weblog, and it can be about virtually anything, from an online personal diary, travel story, cooking recipes to public policy and political campaigns. A blog is to the world of online publishing what Free and Open Source is to Software.

What do blog readers feel?
Readers can feel in the same way the writers are feeling through their Blogs, you can virtually write and share the bare truth or be as funny as you want and the best part of it is that people can actually participate through posting comments and sharing their opinion, it gives nourishment to the phenomenon of free speech and open public debate sometimes even influencing public policy development and change.

Blogs and public participation?
The problems with television and paper based news is that you can only write letters or drop a call to the editor and it is in his power to accept or reject or choose what gets printed or is sent on air. Through Blogs, people can actually participate in the news sharing their point of views and getting the feel of news as it happens. Feedback has always been necessary for human change and need fulfillment; it’s a basic form of human self expression indicating feelings and response towards opinions.

Are all Blogs truth and nothing but the truth?
The sense of community and interactivity offered by Blogs gives birth to a new form of transparency of information. If you’re posting garbage and false facts online, obviously readers will see directly through and have the freedom of rejecting the Blogger’s blog and searching out the facts from other Blogs and online sources so the Blogger may immediately loose credibility and interest of online readers. Successful Blogger are people with a sense of responsibility of providing timely and accurately true information so that they can enjoy public participation and sharing of thoughts on account of their information. The whole concept of the blog publishing ecosystem is to provide an environment where false information doesn’t see the light of day and nothing but the truth and open truth reaches all corners of the globe.

A medium to extend or call for help?
Blogs extend new ways of sending voice to other parts of the world including the bare facts of super imposed rules and discrimination. Blogs help send the voice of human right violations and call for relief worldwide within seconds or a short duration of the activity taking place. Blogs help lobby and create adequate support from social actors’ worldwide thus enabling help that was otherwise not easy to mobilize in the past through tele or printed mass media.

To Blog or not to Blog, what really is the question?
The biggest need for Blogs is to link to articles and related material that are sharing similar points of views, may be against the views, or provide further support as evidence to the thought provoking information at hand or discussion. These links may from be from the legitimate media like video clips from CNN and BBC showing the same footage but portraying different points of view from American or European critics and analysts, the online community may have a totally different point of view and may reference to these footage materials building the case that why both CNN and BBC may not be right or wrong. Having links pointing to the sources of what actually initiated the whole discussion and comments gives credibility automatically to the blogging activity.

Boring or Interesting Information
That depends on the context of the information being presented as well as the fact that Bloggers tend to share their moods and problems while initiating the discussions at hand. Some Bloggers may be sharing no news and just their assignments and homework, some may be sharing online discussions regarding improving public access to public infrastructure and some may be discussing politics. Some Blogs may also be creating conflict with the authorities in the target countries or region and may face bans like the case of China where Blogs have actually been banned. Blogs may be personal opinions or public opinions or just information for the common good or information to pass time or information that actually provides humanitarian good at large. The point of be boring and interesting goes back to reader choice or the type of author of the blog and more or less, Blogs start sharing information mostly between the authors friends and then grows outwards to becoming recognized by a wider range of reader community. Once again, the success of Blogs may be influenced by the vast majority of its readership that may belong either to one region or may attract a global audience.

Where does one draw the line between journalism or blogging
A blog does not imposter an editor like a piece of journalism, revolutionizing online journalism, Blogs are a revolutionary form of online publishing but may not necessarily be journalism, even though this may be the stance of some journalists, there have been cases where online blogging has evidently crossed the line in to global journalism like in the case of Bloggers from the Iraq conflict have provided inside account of stories and coverage of news from the conflict areas of what the Iraqi people and the forces are facing.

You as your own editor
Its information lying online ready to be accessed by anyone or everyone, everyone can be an editor, anyone can participate, everyone can share the content on one blog with another by just linking to it or what the blogging community calls as Blogrolling. The blogging phenomenon is building a spider web of its own and the future may see just blog communities being accessed for most of the information being offered for interested readers. An example may be that someone may maintain a family blog that gives only a couple of people the right to read, post or exchange links and they may be the authors family relatives and friends thus the author may identify and control his own readership, a trait normally found on the news desks where the editors choose and edit news they deem fit for their readership, it actually shares perceptions of a wider or confined space of choices.

Spicing up blogging with RSS
Is RSS a new aircraft or weapon technology, no its value addition to the way we used to get our news and how we share news with others on the World Wide Web. RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication helps readers get or distribute the news they want by providing them customization of their own online news websites and Blogs, so how about throwing printed paper news out and grab your computers?

Simplifying a really simple syndication technology
An RSS feed (feed is the term for defining information acquisition or distribution) can be a standalone software program or a web browser plug-in, it automatically updates news and blog websites that the reader subscribes to without the reader having to login to them, if something is interest catches the reader’s eye , they immediately read it, share it, include it to their own blog or even reference it in their research.

A source of new online income
Yes, Blogs and RSS technologies are transforming in to money making ventures for people around the world. People actually get paid by companies today to write articles to the company’s blog network. Entrepreneurs are also receiving angle money and venture capital funding to build and promote Blogs. Blogs are now perceived as communities of learning and knowledge networking, where information is in context, it becomes knowledge and knowledge facilitates innovation and better delivery of services and products. In fact the time is not far when most educational and business resources will be available through Blogs and commercial business websites will be made via blog and RSS technology.

Catching the FOSS Mullah red handed
If you want to catch the FOSS Mullah red handed, he has a blog titled “Copyrights & Copylefts” that is in search of ICT Software Freedom. This article is part of his research series about “Building a case for ICT Software Freedom” and you can actively participate and comment on the FOSS Mullah’s blog. Of course, that happens to be me!

References
1. Shuttleworth Foundation “Go-Opensource” video episode 2 http://www.go-opensource.org
2. Copyrights & Copylefts – Building a case for ICT Software Freedom”
http://fossmullah.wordpress.com
3. Word Press Blogs http://www.wordpress.com, http://www.wordpress.org
4. Typepad http://www.typepad.com
5. Drupal http://www.drupal.org
6. Blogspot http://www.blogger.com
7. Free Press http://www.freepress.net
8. FOSSFP http://www.fossfp.org
9. Free Software Foundation http://www.fsf.org
10. Open Source Initiative http://www.opensource.org
11. Association for Progressive Communications Blog http://blog.apc.org
12. APC Asia ICT Policy Meeting Blog http://www.apcasiaictpolicy.net