Revolution on Hold
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Online helpPhysical systemSolitary confinementGroup actionDimensional analysisRight angleConformal mapQuicksortExistenceState of matterImaginary numberSpecial unitary groupMultiplication signPrisoner's dilemmaMeeting/Interview
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:14
Isaac, maybe you could sketch the situation there, explain to us what the government
00:21
is doing, we saw a bit of it in the video, what the government is doing to prevent the, what is it now, 300 million, 500 million, how many Chinese are actually active online, blogging, twittering, posting? Definitely, it's a long story of censorship history in China and with the uprising of
00:41
the internet users, I mean, we call it netizen, it's internet citizen that they are trying to express online, trying to share content online, including those talking about social issues and the political systems, but the censorship system, they are getting smarter and smarter as well, we can call it censorship 2.0 because it's not only related to technology,
01:05
we call it great farewell system to block people from accessing facebook, twitter, youtube, etcetera, it's a long list of websites around the world, adding the very deep censoring of those keywords, whenever you access a website, a webpage with those keywords hitting,
01:24
it will be turned into blank page, so it's very interesting phenomenon, if you travel to China, go hotel and open your laptop to connect the internet, the speed is okay, but it will hit many blank pages like this, and it's not only technical, there
01:42
are many monitors around you, if you go to internet cafe, if you use your landline to connect internet, broadband, your IP address will be always recorded, whenever you publish something, your information will be definitely traced back to your home, and where you are,
02:01
and then there's also some, we call it 50 cents party, is the government guided human resources to pollute the internet content, to put noises, to try to distract people's attentions on those, you know, talking about some real issues, so all these
02:21
methods work together to, I mean, to stop people's trying to be mobilised, trying to talk, collaborate, talk to each other, you know, this kind of, I mean, it's a kind of hurdle, but it's still very much, you know, I mean, going to an effectiveness,
02:42
I mean, slowly, because many young people, they are creating new ways to share information online, to well use the social networks, to use joking ways, creative works, like pictures, cartoons, et cetera, to spread out the information. Because there can't be filters, there can't be... It's not so easy, I mean, the sensors definitely give them burdens and hard works to try
03:06
to find out which piece of content, maybe 140 words, characters, is dangerous to the government, is something very hard to judge, you mean, for those sensor teams.
03:21
So, Arash, in Iran, we know, having talked earlier and much reading the situation, that Iran is also learning from China, and many of the practices we see in China are already being employed in Iran. What is the situation like in Iran? In the film, we saw this new network, the internet, the Halal network that they're trying to set up, what is
03:41
the government doing in Iran right now to prevent that free access of information? Sure. To go into this discussion, I think one way to get here is to just go through a bit of very brief introduction. Number one, the matter of fact is when internet came to Iran and was something that people could use, a lot of people actually started
04:03
blogging, started using all the... Orkod was a social network which was available back at the time, and then when other social networks came in, people started using them. And in the media landscape of Iran, which is very much state controlled, this was a new phenomenon and is a new phenomenon. And so the state also knows that and wants to have their hands on it, and that's exactly where it gets to the Halal internet,
04:22
or the clean internet, and all the other names which are given to it, which are essentially a closed off, sealed off internet that content in it can be traced and tracked and monitoring sort of criteria can be implemented quite easily rather than content really flowing easily and sort of caps on it being hard to put. But is that realistic that they can actually block down, clamp down on an entire internet community?
04:46
We can look at that question from a number of perspective. Number one, technically speaking, yes, you can do that. You can have an internet. In Iran, it has been that sharks around Iran actually tend to chew on internet cables. It actually happens. So internet gets cut off. There is the intentional slowdown of
05:03
internet speed. So technically speaking, you can do all of that. But then, there is a cost associated with any one of that. I mean, you slow down the internet or cut it off from the outside world. So for example, Gmail is not accessible. That's a cost. So any average Iranian goes, tries to type up gmail.com and sees
05:20
it's filtered, that's a cost. That's like, it's bleeding for the government. So from a social perspective, that may not really be a possibility. And then, just to sort of finish my statements, it's interesting to look at the situation in China. I was just writing down and familiar with these concepts and how they translate into Iranian case. For example, the 50-cent party becomes a $4 party in Iran. And they actually
05:43
admit it, that they are paid to produce content, publish posts, put contents, and just put together false arguments and all of that. That will bring us later to a connection to Russia, we see. They also are very similar. Yes, yes. I think I'll stop there. I can keep going about Iran. It's very interesting.
06:01
We have an hour's time. I'd like to go to Russia because it's a different situation there. We don't have a blocking a censorship of the internet. That's amazing. So what is going on there in Russia, Matas? Well, I think that that's definitely the biggest difference between the three, the Russia and the other two countries that you don't have official censorship of the media. And if you talk to the now, almost again, President Putin, he will always point out that
06:29
the media are free. Everyone can say what they want. And people can go demonstrate. The only problem is that they don't get airtime on state television, which is state-controlled,
06:42
to present their views. I think Putin himself also, you know, has no problem criticizing the few remaining independent media, like the radio station, He says they sent diarrhea from morning
07:00
until evening. And I don't think that that's something that a leading politician in any country that claims to have media freedom would say. I think the main problem is that the critical mass just hasn't been reached. And that in the protests that have been going on after the
07:21
parliamentary elections in December and leading up to them, and also now leading up to the presidential elections in March, you see people participating that are part of what some people refer to as the avant-garde of the middle class. That sort of show what might happen in five to ten
07:43
years on a much larger scale that could then lead to real change. But for the time being, you just have a majority of the population that is either still content with the way things are going or is too dependent on the state because they get their pensions from the state, they're
08:03
in the military, to feel, you know, comfortable enough to ask for change. And so if you look at the surveys that came out recently also after the presidential elections, Putin is still supported by a large majority of the population. So you don't think we're going to see any
08:24
widespread mass uprising then? Not unless the economic situation really starts changing and takes a turn for the worse. And not even through the internet, through a more intensified networking of social activists, similar to what is not possible in China and Iran. There it's
08:46
possible. Yeah, I mean the internet is very prevalent. You have actually, Russia now has the largest number of internet users in Europe and 43% of the population regularly use the internet, but they're still using it less for political activity and more for social interaction. They're
09:06
also starting to use it for social causes, but that's still a step away from this political engagement that we were not seeing yet in Russia. Mr. Löning, the German government has
09:22
of course come out very strongly in recent weeks. We had Azerbaijan, Ukraine has said some statements about human rights. Looking at the situation in these three countries, China, Iran and Russia, are we seeing an increase in repressive activity at the moment in these three countries?
09:42
Well, I would definitely say that in Iran, since the green movement, we've seen an incredible increase of repression. We've seen pictures of Evin prison here, which is one of the worst places probably on this earth, where people are tortured and killed every day. And I have myself met
10:03
people that had just fled Iran. I met them in Turkey and there was this one guy, he was telling me what happened to him and how they shot his friend because they said, well, this this last election was falsified and how he had to flee in the middle of the night. He took his family. And the stories you hear about the brutality of the repression are really
10:25
heartbreaking and it's really a different Iran now than even five years ago. So I think it's very, very bad what is happening in Iran right now. And I think the thing on the internet is just one expression of the absolute paranoia of this regime and the absolute will also to suppress
10:46
any kind of opposition. So I definitely think that Iran is in a very dark place at the moment. In China, I see there is a lot of repression on political bloggers, on political opposition
11:01
activists. Then I see more signs of hope also in China. I see bad side, I see repression, but I see that the activity of people will move things. If I think of this train accident, for example, which they tried to cover up and then there was so much activity on the
11:24
Chinese Twitter that they had to look at it. And you see, so there's more of a, although the situation is bad and there is a lot of very harsh repression, I have a lot more hope that these social issues, the sheer mass of people that are active on the internet will be able to
11:44
change their country one day. In Russia, I have very little personal experience, I must say. What I can see is, let's say the political freedoms of opposition groups and so are less
12:01
than they used to be and slowly they are taken back. And personally, I have less hope for a movement of change in Russia because I feel there is a very cynical leadership. And a lot of the young people seemingly leave the country because they find that in other places they can
12:22
have a better life and it's easier for them to move, to leave the country and not to work on change in their country. So I don't know where this Russia is going to go. Well, let me ask you something because one of the issues is that these individual, these courageous voices are suppressed. We saw yesterday, for those of you in the audience who
12:44
attended some of the sessions talking about the role that media, social media, this new media ecology plays in connecting people, giving them the sense that they're not alone, that there is a wider community out there and the fear tactics that the governments employ to suppress that
13:03
little sense of hope out there. It's so important that that little sense of hope, you said in China, there might be possibility that it is not completely extinguished. What is a possibility or what are the possibilities for enabling those few courageous
13:23
voices to come out, to be open? What type of technology can we employ? What can we hear, you know, collected here in the middle of Berlin, in Germany, as bloggers and netizens do to help enable that to come alive? Do any of you want to comment on that, Arash?
13:43
That is a very good question. I mean, that is the key question because the situation in Iran, as was mentioned, is one of denial of the existence of the dissent voice, right? So the assumption there is that there is a state and there is a population which is in conformity and agreement with the state and so whoever is saying other things is essentially just a sort of a fringe
14:05
group and a small group, right? The population is happy, they have their own supreme leader and they essentially worship him in a sense and so happiness and agreement and all of that, right? So the problem would be if anyone, as my friend Isaac said, would use 140 characters to voice that,
14:21
hey, I'm not happy, this doesn't make sense, right? So that is dangerous, that's poisonous in such a system and what the system would do in the society is very much what they do in the Evan prison that you mentioned very correctly. When they arrest someone in Evan, they would put them in solitary confinement and the reason being for that, to isolate that person and then they would give him false news about the Green movement having been crushed and
14:43
his friends having confessed and so they would put that person in an imaginary isolation, would tell him you are the only person who is thinking this way, the rest of the population is essentially finding you insane, right? And through that they would try to sort of, you know, work that person out of the situation he is in. The same thing happens for the population,
15:02
the population has to, you know, the regime wants the population to think that there is a state which is good and everyone is happy with it and you have to be happy with it as well, right? So what they would do on the other hand is essentially to sort of talk about this dissent, talk about other things, there are other possibilities not only in the political aspects
15:21
but also the social aspects of it, there are other things that you can do. Internet becomes one of them, the 140 character message is one statement of that, the Green band is another statement of that, you would want to wear it to show that, hey, I have an interest in change and you cannot silence me, right? So you would essentially use any means that you have, whatever
15:43
small physical or real show what it is. To get to the second part of your question, what can be done from the outside and essentially I am also in the outside, right? I'm an Iranian but when I leave Iran and I'm not inside Iran, I have to be very careful what I'm doing, how I'm relating with the people, what is my vocabulary, what am I doing, the concept
16:03
and what is my approach and all of that. We need to be able to find out where these voices are and give them the sort of the medium for them to be able to talk. If we have blogs outside Iran, we should allow Iranians inside Iran who would not really be willing to publish the content on their own blog, to publish on our blogs, to set up sort of repeating sources, sort of to
16:25
repeat their message, right? To relay their message, these individual blogs to put them there, to give them coverage. Bloggers who have left Iran, a lot of them went through Turkey, my friends went through Turkey, a lot of them were shot and a lot of them had significant issues, right? To get them into the mainstream media, the individual,
16:40
give them a voice and let them be the connecting point between the population. Okay, you mentioned mainstream media. Mr. Loening, how important is the media in drawing attention to this? What role can the media play? Not just social media but like you said, mainstream media, that is an important aspect. I'll give two other examples. I'll give the example of Azerbaijan and Ukraine. I mean,
17:05
you can see how much power these normal media can develop acting, let's say, on top of social media in highlighting the situation in Azerbaijan now. And a lot of the information that is brought into the mainstream media now comes from social media. I'm, for example, in very close contact
17:24
with a lot of people in Azerbaijan about the situation, about the real situation and about how they see the things and what is published in their media and translations and all of that. And it's extremely important to have these, let's say, direct person-to-person connection
17:41
every day, minute-to-minute, and to transport that into the mainstream media. And for the first time, I have seen a situation in Germany, at least, that mainstream media look at the country because there was an event there and they highlight the situation of human rights. And that's unprecedented. And I think that is really great.
18:02
And social media have given that a boost simply by providing contacts and information. Contacts, information, important aspect in China. How do these people get out? How do they get their message out so that the traditional media can latch onto it, can amplify it, can
18:22
broadcast it essentially to a wider audience? Yeah, with the fast development with China, I mean, economy and the internet were introduced for at least 15 years already commercially. And so many people were already connected. And after the censorship system were introduced back to 10 years ago, and people found many ways to try to circumvent the internet, like using different
18:46
tools invented from United States, from Europe, from some other, even some tools from Iran. And Iran users also use Chinese-invented tools. But we're talking about the individuals, we're not talking about the government because they share tools too.
19:01
Yeah, so it's from the grassroots layer, definitely. And Chinese users, I mean, we can divide Chinese users into two layers. The first layer we call very savvy internet users. I mean, there are only maybe less than 2% of them back to 2008. But today,
19:23
just maybe in four or five years, I mean, this number has increased to 10% of those internet users. So they can easily get across the grid firewall system to access information daily. And they transfer the information from outside world to the inside world. And the inside, there are Weibo and social networking, local social networking services,
19:45
because the international ones have been blocked. So the information dumped into inside users then spread over there, being censored, cut off, whatever. And however, there are still a lot of information exists there. And people try to mention it, talking
20:03
about it in different ways. So it's a kind of cascading fact back to China. The same way that many Chinese activists, they're using those Twitter or Facebook by using circumvention tools, talking and conversation with international community, mainstream media reporters,
20:22
journalists, et cetera. And Chinese local media reporters also use those social media tools to mention something cannot be talked on their mainstream media coverage. Like recently, a central television reporter, he leaked some information that the CCTV, the central television
20:42
didn't report it on the food safety, and the pharmacy safety issues. And then he was stopped work there, but his messages has been spread all over this country. And the whole country was in a panic for several days. It directly challenged the authority a lot, because they
21:01
always try to hide this kind of information to be spread over. And also, I think the international collaboration, like I mentioned, is so important. Some websites was blocked in Iran, some websites were blocked in China, but we all have this kind of communication online. Like two years ago,
21:20
when Iran has the Green Revolution, many Chinese people talk about Iran. They don't talk about China, they talk about Burma. This is always a reflection to educate, to enlighten the people, and the rest of the 90% of Chinese people, because we need them to try to get the future
21:48
change. Good. At this point, I see some questions here. Do we have a microphone?
22:02
Hi, my name is Ulrike, and I would like to ask one question regarding this relationship, traditional or mass media, and blogosphere whatsoever. If you look at Al Jazeera, or if you look at The Guardian, what they've been doing the last two years, they really
22:23
embraced this blogosphere, they integrated it into their entire news process, and what basically happened is that all of a sudden Al Jazeera became the number one channel for US media, what's going on in the Arab world. So there are pretty clear and pretty successful examples
22:47
out there what can happen if traditional media embraces netizens and really integrated into the process of news media. So my question for Isaac and also Arash would be, what happened if
23:01
you would have something like Al Jazeera for China or for Iran? Al Jazeera is very active reporting China issues, like the recent blind lawyer case, which is still happening in China now. This moment, you can see through those timelines how those grassroots are buzzing this,
23:25
how those reporters are following this, how those officials, especially US ambassador people, they have a strong team in China using social media to tracking and following people and have conversations there. I think it's very much possible to form a very large community of,
23:48
I mean, new media community, including traditional professional journalists and amateur journalists. Many people, back to one year ago, many people still arguing with me that the
24:02
Arabic Spring is rather an internet revolution. I would argue it's definitely, it is. Don't ignore the function of internet and mobile phone, new technologies there. There's no such layer. Whatever people went to the street, went to the square, there's nobody care about them.
24:26
There's only one region thing, but instead we see an international buzzing about these things. Everyone resonates this kind of information from the world to the international. So why don't we admit that? I think I would have two answers. Number one is,
24:47
I'm a blogger, I've been blogging for a long time, but professionally speaking, I'm an electric engineer, a computer scientist, right? So I'm not a journalist. And there have been many examples in Iran that bloggers make mistakes that journalists are trained to not make,
25:01
so at the core of it, a blogger and a journalist are not necessarily the same thing, and so there needs to always be sort of a pre-question of how the mixture would work. Yes, that would be, absolutely, yes, yes. Well, I'm pointing out this to say it's not easy. It's a very complicated task. There have been a lot of examples of, in Iran, false news being
25:24
reported and all of that. And then I will go to the second part of my question. Actually, that is happening. You would see that the conventional mainstream media, Deutsche Welle and BBC Persian and Voice of America, they have very good connection with the blogosphere. And you also have news websites. Unfortunately, they're in
25:41
Persian. We have Mardomack, we have C-mail. There are many of them, and what they do is that they do their sort of conventional journalist work, and in addition to that, they would have sort of reporting of what's happening in the blogosphere or recreation of blog posts. So that is happening. There are some obstacles for it. How the mixture would
26:00
look like, how should it be sort of put together. So that's sort of what makes it hard, but my understanding is it is happening. Okay. Any other questions, or anybody here on the stage want to answer it? I have one comment I'd like to make, too, because it's something you told me earlier, exactly about this issue of getting the word out,
26:21
spreading words, false information. Yes. That it can work on the one hand to get the message out to alert people to false information printed out by the government, but it can also be turned and the government can use these channels. And they do use it. And they do use it. There have been examples of, and it's not exactly interesting, but it could be a topic of
26:42
subject of a study, how Iranians actually imported this know-how to Syria. So what Iran did, Syria did later. And this is sort of the plan is you would essentially put together a piece of a news item, which has emotional elements. In the case of Iran, there's this girl,
27:02
she has been arrested, she has been raped, and then burnt with acid. So the story is very emotional. It catches on. The social networks keeps talking about it. The blogosphere keeps talking about it. And they let the story grow. And after two or three months, they come out and say and give evidence that proved that the whole story is wrong. So that's intentional. You would sort of attack the credibility of the social media. This is a tool. This is a
27:25
method. And then you sort of package this and export this. So sort of the, as Isaac Mao said, there is a collaboration of bloggers, but there is also this business of suppression. We could call it the suppression industry. It works at the know-how level, at the software
27:40
level, at the hardware level of selling these methods and tools. Matus, do you want to comment on that? Does that ring true of some practices in Russia? In a way, maybe. I mean, you definitely have pro-Kremlin bloggers and people out there that are posting in social networks and are trying to sort of back the government. But quite frankly,
28:07
that might have something to do with the fact that President Putin or incoming President Putin is not a big fan of the internet. They just got off to a late start and never really took the internet that seriously because they concentrated on the mass media like TV, which is still the main
28:26
source of news for 95% of the population. So you do see there's rumors about people getting paid for posting pro-government blog entries and rooting for the party line in social networks,
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but it's not really big enough to sort of counterbalance the bloggers that are against the government. They, of course, however, unfortunately don't have enough following from
29:01
the public to really make a big difference. I think this is very interesting because if we look at the situation in Libya during the war or now in Syria is that on one hand, of course, we want any kind of any bit of information, especially from a country like Syria or Iran,
29:21
because they are so closed off and every bit of information we can get is useful. But then, of course, it is just someone videoing with his mobile and putting that on TV. And we don't know the source. We don't know the time. We don't know the circumstances. So it obviously
29:42
can be easily abused. And we have to take that into account. And on one hand, there's a big need for this kind of information. But then that opens up the possibility of, of course, of falsifying or abusing this kind of information. But I think we will find ways of dealing with that.
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And there has been this case. I mean, for example, I made a statement on this girl, on this case. I've been fooled too. You know, that's it happens, but it doesn't change anything. We need to go with this. We need to find ways how to deal with the possibility of
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abuse. But we shouldn't cut off this source of information because it is so useful to us. We have a question here from the audience. What I really want to know is what is the perspective looking like? So is there the possibility that the regimes just contain their information policy, their censorship policy? And I would really like to know it from the different
30:44
corners of the region, so from Russia, Iran and China. And my second question is, you're working from Canada, Arash, the best Bob's, the best, the best block from the Bob's competition. He also works from the US now. So how important is the role of the migration
31:05
bloggers? So the bloggers come, the voices from outside, especially in Iran. So question number one, the perspective, just a disclosure, I'm a very optimistic person, end of disclosure. The situation is Iran is grim. A lot of people are being tortured,
31:24
a lot of individuals in prison, a lot of them had to flee their country. So the situation is very bad. The current situation is very bad, but I think it's going forward. I mean, you cannot push any society down forever, right? So that the society is showing
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sort of signs of sort of a parallel life being developed. Iran has a very fantastic underground rap music movement. There are concerts underground. So people find their medium. If you filter the internet, if you block the internet, they do it somewhere else. So people sort of do this. And my understanding is that more than the political aspects of the
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issues which we always hear in the news, there's a social aspect of it. You want the civic society, the social networks, not the virtual one, not Facebook, the social networks actually exist, the connections, the interpersonal connections. You want those to grow and you want sort of the social capital to increase. And I think that's happening in Iran
32:22
at a very slow pace, under a lot of pressure, but my understanding is that it's happening. To the second question, that is a very good question and at the same time very challenging. So we have Arash Sigarchi, the winner of the best blogs by the Bob's jury. He lives in the U.S. He's actually a journalist for the mainstream media. So the fact that these individuals
32:41
are outside Iran, that's a good thing because just imagine if all of us were inside and no one would actually hear about us and essentially around North Korea, I assume. So it's good. These nodes of connection have moved outside of the country and can become nodes. But then it is also very important that we as the people who are outside actually recognize what we can
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do and what we cannot do. If we assume that, hey, I just left the country and I am the leader of the movement, right? Everyone please listen to me. Then first thing that happens is that everyone would stop listening to me and would label me as what this person is thinking, right? So when you leave Iran, you have to, one, stay in Iran. I haven't left Iran. I mean, I'm reading Iranian blogs. When I'm writing any post, I have to read it again and
33:24
again and again. That post has to sound native to an Iranian living in Tehran, in Isfahan, in Yazd, in Shiraz, right? When they look at it, they know I'm in Canada, but they have to be able to identify with me, not that I'm this person even using English words, right? So it is a very important point. We want to be a node in here for connection,
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but then understanding who we are and that the population inside Iran changes organic. We cannot impose it. We are sitting down. We have to be aware that we are outside. We do not get a lot of information. What we get is filtered. We want to be helping them. So in short, they are the boss. We are not the boss, right? They tell us what to do and we do
34:03
it for them. Okay. Isaac, the situation in China, perspective, what does it look like in the next couple of years and how important are Chinese bloggers outside of China? Yeah, there are a lot of, I don't think that anyone, like me, I travel around, you know, back and forth. Anytime
34:21
I go in China or go out of China, I feel very, you know, like beating to worry about if I could be stopped there, whatever. That's the, everyone, I think that's why China is not a normal country. Definitely, we need to move forward. We need to make it normal, you know,
34:41
to adapt to international stand out, you know, in not everything, you know, in one night, but step by step to do this. But I think that the international communication, collaboration is so important. I always emphasize this from media level, from technology, from even from business level, we need to try to get into China and get information out all the time in the
35:06
bidirectional way and to try to make Chinese people to understand the world, try to understand what's the human rights norms, you know, everyone, the universal value, you know, that Chinese people are not different from the other people. The same, they are the same. But I think that, you know,
35:26
there are a lot of information we need to break the barriers, like language barriers, for example. There are many, many German tweets, many Chinese tweets that were didn't discovered
35:40
by people, you know, from the different sides, you know. So we need these kind of bridges to help people to understand what's happening there and people, the traditional media need to follow up those kind of real-time happenings instead of reported after two weeks, after two months, you know, to let the world know. It's totally changed. I mean, the world is in a very
36:05
dynamic and real-time, you know, changing status and we need to do many improvements for many, I mean, layers of things. So this is kind of something, I mean, to China, I can see that
36:22
no more than maybe three years, I mean, the censorship system won't work, whatever they invite, how much money they invested in this system because many people, they find so many ways to communicate with the outside world. Many people ask me, how about if China cut off the internet?
36:41
I said, it's okay. Let it be. We have many ways to access the information. Young people will go to street if they found that their lifestyle has been totally break, you know. So this is something we are very optimized. The only thing we need to encourage people is to share
37:01
all the time, not just waiting for something happened and then we started to tell people, oh, is something wrong to me, to my family, whatever. I encourage all those people to become vlogger, to become, to go into social media, to share your cute cat, your flower, your daily meals. It doesn't matter but once you have something happen, people will have the chance
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to notice you, to help your voice to be heard. So that's the sharing things. Matas, in Russia, how does the situation there look? You said five to ten years. I mean, we have an open exchange. It's not an issue of getting information out or finding out what
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the West is or the other countries are thinking. I think we'll have to see what happens next week after Putin takes over again. I think there are early signs that there is a tendency towards more control of the Internet as well. The Interior Ministry, for example, has set up a department on extremism in electronic media. The police force has been termed a social group,
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which means that anyone who criticizes the police can be accused of inciting hatred. So these are things that will affect bloggers and could lead to arrests and have led to arrests also in connections with the demonstrations. I think it's difficult to sort of come in from
38:25
the outside and try and change things there because that's also used by the government as an excuse to show that the West is trying to tell the Russians what to do and the government can sort of convince the population that we need to stand up and be proud Russians and not
38:46
have others tell us what to do. What we try to do at Deutsche Welle Akademie is in our projects, for example, right now we're doing a project with traditional journalists, bloggers, and NGO activists about the topic of migration, which is a big issue in Russia, trying to
39:06
help activists and bloggers find ways to bring their issues into the traditional media as well and help them find their voice and be able to carry their voice. We'll do the same in a similar
39:24
project about human rights in a more general setting. I think these are ways for us to help raise these voices in Russia, which of course is not as restrictive as China or Iran, but it's not looking too good, I'm afraid.
39:44
You cannot possibly cut off 1.3 billion people from the rest of the world. That's physically impossible. Your country is modern, it's growing, it's dynamic, people are moving in and out all the time. That's impossible. How can you possibly even think of the idea of
40:05
cutting off all of these people from the rest of the world? The same is true for Iran where I see so many people in exile that are so active and so much in contact and so lobbying for their country. It's a crazy idea by these dictators that they believe that they can do that. They
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haven't understood the concept of the modern world, of people just being in contact with each other. That's right. I think the bottom line of the regime to maintain itself is trying to maintain the economy or maybe something logical to themselves. If they cut off the internet,
40:45
basically it's a cut off their own self. North Korea can do it, Burma could do it to some extent, but any country that's bigger than that or that has a more educated population, so it is simply not possible because you will cut off your country from
41:02
any kind of economic development. Questions from the audience? Here's one right up here. One back there waiting. Hey, my name is Matthias. Thanks guys for the great insights. I have a question
41:20
that Matthias has sort of tackled upon in his last answer, but I would like to hear some more on how Western governments or what Western governments can effectively do to support free speech in countries like Iran and China and Russia because what we hear a lot of times,
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for example if Chancellor Merkel or before that even Chancellor Schröder was in Russia or in China, they always reminded the governments there that free speech is an important thing, but after that it went on business as usual and nothing really happened. So maybe from Mr.
42:07
Learning it would be interesting to hear sort of the German inside view, but also from Isaac Aras and maybe Matthias, or if there is anything that can be effectively done from the political side. Maybe we address that one to Mr. Learning first to answer what the German
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government is doing now. Well first of all I share your frustration because of course I would wish that if I or if the Chancellor says free speech in China that then the next day it would happen. I mean that's what we're all working for, but and everything you do seems to be too little.
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On the other side feedback I get from people that are opposition people, dissident people, they always say it is so important that you raise the subject. I mean we know you have other issues with our governments, you have economic issues, security issues, what have you,
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but it is so important that you raise the issue because it helps us, it protects us in a way. So that part of my work is for example I try and visit people that are in jail, which most of the time is difficult but sometimes it works. I will, when I'm in China,
43:20
I try to meet opposition people, sometimes secret police prevents them from meeting me, but I try to do that and to give some support. And I think that making statements may seem from a Western or from our European perspective may be seen seem ridiculous or so, but it's not. It is important
43:41
to make statements on these issues that free speech is important again and again and again. And then of course we have the normal tools of our diplomacy, of our foreign policy that we need to use to pressurize people, be it in international fora like the UN. And you don't
44:01
believe that a person like Mr Ahmadinejad is impressed by that. But we get feedback again and again and I get feedback from opposition people from they say thank you for writing a letter or for raising my issue, I was released from prison because of the international pressure.
44:20
So I believe we sometimes underestimate the impact words and public statements have that the West is making. But it's never enough. It's important to do it, but it's never enough. More words on that topic. Any questions from the audience? Yeah, here right up front.
44:48
I've got a question for Mathis because it sounds all a bit black and white how you portray who's the culprit and who's the warrior for freedom of speech and liberties.
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And I don't know so much about the blocking sphere so maybe you could tell me about that how the development isn't there but the opposition movement, the liberal part is actually quite a small percentage and there's quite a big rise of ultra-nationalism within the opposition movement
45:24
and even Navalny was like connected to ultra-nationalist opposition groups. And I was wondering, I mean I can see how at the same time the state can use that to say it's like oh we actually have to protect our population because this is ultra-nationalist
45:44
movement. But then if I look at groups like the National Bolsheviks and the political agenda, um sometimes make Putin look like a rather nice person in comparison if you see what I mean.
46:00
So I was wondering how you, whether you have um data on developments in the in the um blocking, blogger sphere or also what your strategy towards these ultra-nationalist movements are. Thank you. I I that's that's definitely a point and that's that's as you said the
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point that they're using to to say we need to control extremism and terrorism and and people that are that are a threat to society. Um I'm not I'm not trying to say that uh the bloggers are all good and uh and the government is all bad. I'm just saying that um you know as I said before I think I think the big the the the most basic as thing that one has to
46:46
acknowledge when when you look at Russia is that a majority of the population is still happy with with their leaders and um and are not uh willing to support anyone else. Never mind the fact that there isn't any other leader out there that that could get enough backing from
47:04
from the majority of the population. So um I don't I don't I'm I'm not sure what what what kind of I think I think we're really looking for in there. Well I think that the point was in in in Russia it's not so much of a black and white situation. Uh it's very diffuse a lot of
47:25
fine lines there which makes it so complicated. I think that's basically what I was trying to say basically is that you have um as far as the media is concerned um the the traditional media are by and large controlled and uh and you have very little space for for dissenting views
47:45
um which also include these these ultra nationalist and and extremist views um but um you know there's there's there's very little space for the for the public to to form their own opinion because they're not they're not these these dissenting voices aren't really heard.
48:04
Again that might also be the problem of the public that they're not interested in these dissenting views because they have access to the internet and are are not are not trying to find them or or are not interested in in listening to them. Okay do we have time for more questions? I think so. Any more out there? Oh yeah sorry. Go ahead. If you stand up a microphone will come to
48:29
you. Uh can we get a microphone? The microphone has left. Thank you for your talk um I just wanted to follow up on the question that was raised
48:47
earlier of what western government can do to aid internet oppression and the question that sorry to aid internet sorry to prevent internet to combat.
49:01
Don't prevent it please. Um what Marcus Lötting just sketched out seemed to me um to be quite passive and with the Ukraine we've just seen that there can be there are ways of exerting pressure so again can you sketch out what would be useful ways to for example look at um
49:23
surveillance um software to look at providing infrastructure what do you think would be helpful from the German perspective but also from the perspective of people in Iran or China? Thanks. I can I'm not a technician but but I believe that if new software or hardware is developed
49:45
that can also be used for uh surveillance I think it is important that uh I mean we are free country and if things are not forbidden they're they're allowed also for export so we it's important to to put these kind of technologies on on the dual use lists where
50:03
export needs to be um specifically um allowed so I think it is important that these technologies are looked at just like other dual use uh technologies that can be used for civil use but can also be used for repression and if these new technologies are developed I
50:24
believe that that is what needs to happen but something else also needs to happen and it's not it's of course it's good to call for the government and for for a legal framework but it is I think it's also very important that western societies call on the responsibility of their stakeholders and big big companies like I don't know
50:45
however whoever you you you're talking about are stakeholders of these societies and I believe they need to uh they need to be called for their responsibility they are not living on the moon and if you know they're they're living in these society in our free societies and they
51:03
have responsibility with their products and I don't quite understand why why Ukraine is situation on Ukraine is passive I think that that there's a very good movement at the moment a lot of attention and I think it's a there's a very active moment momentum at the moment
51:24
concerning Ukraine it's not what's okay okay so issue of software yes the software that is export sorry oh oh okay yeah we're a bit in a hurry I'm sorry I'm the bad guy right now
51:42
yes okay well I want to let me just give a couple of closing statements then I'm sorry you know more about these issues than I do yes they do and that would be really grounds for a whole new conversation if we had the time because it is interesting the role that technology on the one hand plays in a useful sense of of helping people to to use the
52:05
internet better but also can be turned around and used on the negative side to uh monitor what's going on and we know from from speaking that often this this technology of suppression is is a very valuable commodity on the market among dictators and is passed from
52:21
China to Iran to now Syria North Korea is probably involved in and who knows else down the line so it's definitely important for us to be aware of what's going on there and to I'm convinced to also remain in contact with those individual voices those courageous people who are standing up and and speaking with a voice of dissent because if we can connect to them
52:42
and communicate conferences like republica um are a great opportunity for that I think and then having the government also give words of uh reminding people what we need to do come out on freedom of expression freedom of speech is also very important so I think to basically remain aware to remain connected and to remain uh vigilant then also of of those abuses is really
53:07
important here so I thank you all for coming uh Arash, Isaac, Matheson, Herr Luening uh Mr. Luening thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it.