Getting Global
One of the barriers the web has been slow to knock down is language. While Google and others offer decent translation services, most are clunky and inconvenient to use. The conversations taking place online should be international, but we continue to be limited by geography. To borrow a phrase, we need to tear down this wall.
The web offers an opportunity to bring new potential for education and financial improvement to areas that have few other resources. And it is especially important that the conversations taking place include those who can most benefit from them.
This is why Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC program is so important, and why freedom of speech must become a global right and obligation now that everyone is a content producer.
Several weeks ago, the Saudi government arrested the country’s leading independent blogger Fouad Ahmed al-Farhan. Al-Farhan was informed earlier this month by a Saudi official that he would be detained “because I wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia and they think I’m running an online campaign promoting their issue.”
Considering how much influence the U.S. government has on the Saudi kingdom, this is a perfect example of the interconnectedness that demands a global conversation. Accountability more than ever is now a global thing, and it demands vigilance and action by every member of the world community.