Tunisian bloggers win annual Net freedom award

Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa



(Cross-posted from the Google European Public Policy Blog.)



Last week we blogged about the annual 2011 Reporters Without Borders Netizen Prize, which recognizes bloggers or Internet activists who defend freedom of expression on the Net. This year’s prize went to Nawaat, a group of Tunisian bloggers.



The independent jury of press specialists agreed that Nawaat’s online reporting played a significant part in helping to depose Tunisia’s longtime dictator, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. It chose Nawaat as the winner from a strong field of finalists from Bahrain, Belarus, Thailand, China and Vietnam.



Created in 2004, Nawaat.org is an independent collective blog operated by Tunisian bloggers as a platform for all “committed citizens.” The bloggers played a crucial role in covering the social and political unrest in Tunisia that began on December 17. Nawaat recently created a special page for the WikiLeaks revelations about Tunisia, and another one about the recent events in Sidi Bouzid, which were not covered in the traditional media. The site also warns Internet users about the dangers of being identified online and offers advice about circumventing censorship.

Photo © Mat Beaudet

Pictured above from left to right are: Jean-François Julliard, Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders; Former French Foreign Minister and founder of Doctors Without Borders, Bernard Kouchner; and Nawaat co-founder Riadh Guerfali, accepting the awards at a ceremony in Paris’ Salon des Mirroirs.



“We are deeply honored by this prize. It will help to strengthen the citizen journalism that we have been practicing for years at Nawaat, despite all the risks involved,” Guerfali said in his acceptance speech. “This award is not only a tribute to Nawaat but to all our fellow journalists who often risk their lives to keep working in countries where freedom of expression is suppressed.”



Google sponsors the annual Netizen prize. First awarded in 2010, it forms part of our commitment to support the free flow of information and free expression online. Last year, Iranian women’s rights activists Change for Equality became the first recipient.



Update: Here's a video of Google's Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf saluting the 2011 Netizen Award winners –

The freedom to be who you want to be…

Posted by Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering



Peter Steiner’s iconic “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” cartoon may have been drawn in jest--but his point was deadly serious, as recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have shown. In reality, as the web has developed--with users anywhere able to post a blog, share photos with friends and family or “broadcast” events they witness online--the issue of identity has become increasingly important.



So, we’ve been thinking about the different ways people choose to identify themselves (or not) when they’re using Google--in particular how identification can be helpful or even necessary for certain services, while optional or unnecessary for others. Attribution can be very important, but pseudonyms and anonymity are also an established part of many cultures -- for good reason.



When it comes to Google services, we support three types of use: unidentified, pseudonymous and identified. And each mode has its own particular user benefits.

Unidentified. Sometimes you want to use the web without having your online activity tied to your identity, or even a pseudonym—for example, when you’re researching a medical condition or searching for that perfect gift for a special someone. When you’re not logged into your Google Account (or if you never signed up for one), that’s how you’ll be using our services. While we need to keep information like IP addresses and cookies to provide the service, we don’t link that information to an individual account when you are logged out.

Pseudonymous. Using a pseudonym has been one of the great benefits of the Internet, because it has enabled people to express themselves freely—they may be in physical danger, looking for help, or have a condition they don’t want people to know about. People in these circumstances may need a consistent identity, but one that is not linked to their offline self. You can use pseudonyms to upload videos in YouTube or post to Blogger.

Identified. There are many times you want to share information with people and have them know who you really are. Some products such as Google Checkout rely on this type of identity assurance and require that you identify yourself to use the service. There may be other times when it’s more desirable to be identified than not, for example if you want to be part of a community action project you may ask, “How do I know these other people I see online really are community members?”

Equally as important as giving users the freedom to be who they want to be is ensuring they know exactly what mode they’re in when using Google’s services. So recently we updated the top navigation bar on many of our Google services to make this even clearer. In the upper right hand corner of these Google pages, you will see an indicator of which account, if any, you are signed into.

We’re also looking at other ways to make this more transparent for users. While some of our products will be better suited to just one or two of those modes, depending on what they’re designed to do, we believe all three modes have a home at Google.