Ethan Zuckerman,  Global Voices Project
Told us about Hao Wu, who was disappeared by the Chinese government for his blog.  He did not know Hao, he had 8 emails from him.  When Hao was detained, they were hesitant about advocating for his release, because of the family’s fears. But that changed, and they mounted a full court press, including getting and posting photos of his life.  

Don’t speak. Point.  It is getting easier for people around the world to speak on behalf of themselves.  Advocate’s best strategy is often just to point to those who are speaking on the web, and get out of the way.

Then character of the net is changing.
 36 years for first billion to log on:  36% of users in Asia, 23% in N. America

The next billion will be in China, India, Brazil in Africa.

1995   users read email
2000 users read content
2005 users create content

The next billion users will be authors, content creators.

If we assume that people speak for themselves, we must focus on:
-    access to tools:  not as hard today as you might think;  everyone with a cell

-    phone now has some access to networks and many to the internet

-     knowledge to use them:  as tools become ubiquitous, the knowledge of how to use them becomes ubiquitous.

-    translation:  the net is multilingual and getting more and more away from English.  Web sites now emerging that can translate languages on the net quickly and accurately.  This opens the world up to the world.

-    context:  the key to understanding.  The best example of context he has seen is a child’s drawing of war in their country.  It said more than any words what is happening and why.
-    amplification:  the ability to link and viral a message around the world to thousands and millions of people

Ethan shows us examples of each provided over the net and by bloggers to demonstrate that once you open yourself to the notion of listening to what people have to say, the world opens up to you and change happens.