Eben Moglen on The One Laptop Per Child and Citizen Journalism

As I mention here, I finally watched Eben Moglen's keynote from the 2006 Plone Conference that my friend Jon has been raving about for weeks. Moglen made some great comments on the potential of the One Laptop Per Child project to affect citizen journalism:

"What is journalism like when every village has a video camera and is on the net? ...

What does it mean if the next time somebody starts some nasty little genocide in some little corner of the Earth the United States government would prefer to ignore, that there's video all over the place all the time in every living room?

What does it mean when children around the world are networking with one another over the issues that concern them directly without intermediation, everybody to everybody?"

Every OLPC is specified with a video camera. Here's a recent New York Times article on the One Laptop Per Child project.

It made me happy that I released most of my work from the past two years to the open source community this week.

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Comments

[Anonymous Skeptic]

The OLPC project has noble ambitions, but the global reality of poverty stricken areas of the world make the likelihood of a better tomorrow through technology an unlikely prospect. Computers began life as instruments of war. Today, computers fund organized crime more than anything else, including drugs. Now throw millions of computers into the hands of the desperately poor in places with no rule of law and see what happens. For most recipients, it will be seen as a handout that they will immediately try to convert to cash. Many of those smart enough to keep them will form or fall into organized fraud syndicates to raise money to fund the wars they wage. OLPC is more likely to hurt children than to help them.

[Sinudeity]

Being a South African, unfortunately I know how corrupt the continent can be. I doubt an increase in online fraud, or the laptops being used in wars. But I definitely agree with the comment that the laptops will be converted to cash.

[Jeff]

In last season's Lost, vaccine shipments were converted to cash too.

Not saying that Lost is reality-based but people convert a lot of things to cash, even people.

[Tony]

To the Anonymous Skeptic. Baloney. Computers fund industry and its investors more than anything else, not organized crime. Bill Gates's billions are going to the Gates foundation for the betterment of mankind. The amount of money organized crime makes pales in comparison.

[Charles-A. Rovira]

I also think it might be given as a "consolation prize" to new patients to keep a copy of their medical records (on a USB dongle) for those who need it.

I'm sorry that we've been ripped off by the telcos and cablecos (we've been paying for 'fiber to the home' since the eighties and they've delivered 0 inches of it,) but we got screwed.

[Anonymous Tony]

Tony, A.S. meant that organized crime now gets more money via computers (phishing scams, fradulent bank transfers, etc.) than from selling drugs.

As to his other points, remember that OLPCs must be bought by governments for their citizens. Most of your desperately poor countries have governments that are very unlikely to spend money on anything but guns to fight the inevitable rebellion and palaces for their leaders.