Activismo Digital. Kony. Univision goes neoconservative. Washington, DC - It's not often that Univision, the leading Spanish-language television network in the United States, releases its content in languages other than Spanish.
It is, after all, a Spanish-language television network. But earlier this month the broadcaster did something out of the ordinary, screening an English version of a recent report on Iran that's received a rapturous reception from neoconservatives in Washington. And it at least appears to have done so at the behest of its hawkish new fan club. Why would a network best known for sappy telenovelas shift to producing sloppy war propaganda - and English-language propaganda at that?
Perhaps, as is usually the case with the corporate press, Univision's bias and peculiar programming choices are best explained by simply noting who owns it: Israeli-American businessman Haim Saban, a self-described “one-issue guy” - that issue being Israel - who has been up front about purchasing media outlets to promote his own political views. We are the media, and so are you. Change like this needed a fresh set of voices.
The established tech giants may have newfound political influence, but their fights are still the same closed-door tussles over minor details. They have been at the table, and they have too much invested in the process to change it. More important, they are constrained by obligations to their shareholders and investors, as well as by the need to maintain relationships with their advertisers, partners and customers. Wikipedia, its users and its contributors don’t have the same constraints. We don’t rely on advertising dollars or content partnerships. Wikipedia is not opposed to the rights of creators — we have the largest collection of creators in human history. We are not interested in becoming full-time advocates; protests like the Wikipedia blackout are a last resort. It’s absolutely right that Congress cares about the content industry, recognizing its ability to innovate, to create wealth and to improve lives.
The miracle generation. Editor's note: This article is the third of a series of excerpts that Al Jazeera will be publishing from The Invisible Arab: The promise and peril of the Arab revolutions.
You can also read an excerpt from the preface, and from chapter one, L'Ancien Regime. Social media for social justice In the wake of Khaled Said's death at the hands of the Egyptian internal security service, a Facebook group entitled "We are all Khaled Said" was created and maintained by geeks and bloggers. It soon became a rallying cry for a popular movement intent on bringing those responsible to justice, be they security men or political leaders. At the beginning of 2011, there were twenty-seven million Arabs on Facebook, including six million Egyptians, comprising just more than five per cent of the population.
More than sixty million people in the Arab world are online. The Arab youth increasingly comprise a modern, transnational tribe that bypasses borders, religion, and social strata. Robo-Signing Forgery Charge Hits First Top Executive In Financial Crisis. For the first time since the start of the robo-signing crisis, a senior executive has been indicted on criminal charges of forgery and faces jail.
The forgery charges against a mortgage processing executive come as the nation's largest banks attempt to close the books on a civil investigation into widespread document fraud and could spark further federal criminal cases. A grand jury in Missouri handed up the 136-count indictment late last week charging Georgia-based DocX -- a subsidiary of the massive mortgage processor Lender Processing Services -- and its founder and former president Lorraine O. Brown, with forgery. The indictment alleges that DocX employees fabricated signatures on hundreds of real estate documents, some used in foreclosures. "This is the first time any grand jury in the country has indicted a corporation or a high-level executive at a corporation for 'robo-signing,'" Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster told The Huffington Post.