Kamla Bhatt

Here is a belated write-up about the China panel from the WeMedia conference in London. Thanks to WordPress.com, I had to abandon my write-up since WP went into some kind of an endless loop and I had a hard time getting a stable screen. Does this happen to anyone else? I am curious. 

Day one of the WeMedia conference was a bit of a disappointment. Two people who made some relevant points included Nitin Desai from the UN and actor and activist Richard Dreyfuss. 

Day two appears to have started on good note. Currently the China panel discussion is under way. An interesting fact or trend that was highlighted is how mobile phones are being used to access information and content.  Mobile phones are being used for blogging in China.
The role of government and the Internet in China.  David Schlesinger of Reuters pointed out there is a narrow range of topics that is a "no go" zone for Internet users and that includes democracy, and falun gong. Ruby Chan, previously CEO of China.com says that the Internet is relatively free in China. People are free to do what they want on the Internet says Chan.

Rebecca McKinnon of Global Voices, who is moderating this panel, brought up the case of Hao Wu, who has been detained by the Chinese government and no charges have been filed against him so far.  Hao is GV's China regional editor. Rebecca mentiioned that just before he was detailed Hao had been working on a doumentary movie.

I will have another write-up about the conference and the people I met. I met an interesting group of MSM (main stream media people), bloggers, activists, entrepreneurs, and others. So, stay tuned.