This is “Chicago”, the fake Arab town built in the middle of the Negev desert by Israel to train its military forces in urban warfare.
Though artificial, our hometown's dessicated twin is “highly realistic.” Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, whose photographs of “Chicago” collected in their eponymous book and replicated here, wrote: “To create this alternative universe, Palestinian architecture has been carefully scrutinized. Roads and alleyways have been constructed to mimic the layout of towns like Ramallah and Nablus. In one corner the ground has been covered in sand, a reference to unpaved refugee camps like Jenin. Graffiti has been applied to the walls with obscure declarations in Arabic: 'I love you Ruby' and 'Red ash, hot as blood'. Burned-out vehicles line the streets.”
Perhaps more interesting than its spatial authenticity is the fact that the history of this ghost town “directly mirrors the history of the Palestinian conflict.”
The first and second Intifada, the Gaza withdrawl, an attempted assassination of Saddam Hussein, the Battle of Falluja; almost every one of Israel's major military tactics in the Middle East over the past three decades was performed in advance here.
This is where generations of Israeli soldiers rehearse over and over again like actors in a Hollywood studio set, with props on hand or littered about, before stepping out in front of live television cameras, the whole world their captive audience, to play out their well-choreographed routines.
Meanwhile, “Chicago” is so named because its bullet-ridden fake walls apparently recall the punctured real walls of Al Capone's Chicago. While still acknowledging the dizzying complexity of Arab-Israeli relations, one wonders if a small yet meaningful step towards lasting peace could be taken if, on Israel's side, it stops vicariously engaging with the Palestinians in secret, replicant cities after first exorcising this mythological, gangster-infested Chicago from their collective memory and replace it with something real and true?
Not everyone was a mobster then, the same way not everyone offered something to our former governor for Obama's senate seat. The same way not all Palestinians are terrorists.
In any case, should the ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman and his party's racist ideology get their way in a ruling coalition with Benjamin Netanyahu, and all Israeli-Arabs get expelled from Israel, their homes and cities dismantled and resettled over, at least part of history, albeit one written by others, has been recorded for future archaeologists to reconstruct.
Un peu hors topic, mais cette fausse ville esquissée et pourtant bâtie, quelque part entre le terrain d'entraînement et l'environnement de jeu vidéo (et qui en passant commente sur la nature de la relation entre israéliens et palestiniens) dégage une atmosphère suffisamment étrange pour être postée ici, une sorte de Las Vegas noir, remplie de clichés.
More than 82 million people in the US created content online during 2008, a number expected to grow to nearly 115 million by 2013 according to numbers released by eMarketer.
Looking inside of those numbers, it’s not surprising that the bulk of content creators are simply social networking users that do things like post photos or links, but there’s also a quickly-growing number of people participating in more involved activities like blogging or uploading their own videos.
As you can see in the above chart, 71 million people created content on social networks last year, while 21 million posted blogs, 15 million uploaded videos, and more than 11 million participated in virtual worlds. Overall, eMarketer arrives at the 82 million number – which counts everyone who generated content at least monthly - by accounting for the overlap within the respective categories measured.
Beyond the current numbers, the growth forecast makes us happy, as it means there will be a lot more to write about in the years to come Hopefully it’s encouraging for you as well, as in the big picture, even if you’re new to the party, you’re still well ahead of the curve.
That was quick. A day after trying to defend changes to its Terms of Use, Facebook has pulled a 180 and decided to revert to its previous terms.
Earlier today, the company began polling its users about the controversial changes, with only 6 percent supporting them and 56 percent opposing (the other 38 percent simply responded “don’t know”). We posted the same poll on Mashable and the results were far more decisive – 88 percent voting to revert, 7 percent to keep, and 5 percent indifferent (as of 11pm PT).
Once again, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the one breaking the news. In a blog post, he writes, “Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.”
In a smart response to what I’ve previously characterized as a breakdown in communication more than anything else, the company has also established a Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities group, where members are encouraged to “give input and suggestions on Facebook’s Terms of Use.”
Smart move, Facebook. Unlike the breakdown over Beacon, which lasted for weeks, Facebook has diffused this crisis in a matter of days. Of course, it could’ve been prevented in the first place by clearly explaining the changes before posting them, but it appears Facebook has taken steps to ensure that this issue doesn’t plague the social network in the future.
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Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:
Today’s hoopla over changes to the Facebook Terms of Service have prompted a rare blog post from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In the post, Zuckerberg falls short of apologizing for the changes, but rather, uses the opportunity to explain why Facebook more or less keeps your content indefinitely.
He writes, “When a person shares information on Facebook, they first need to grant Facebook a license to use that information so that we can show it to the other people they’ve asked us to share it with. Without this license, we couldn’t help people share that information.” This is true – without making this part of the Terms of Service, someone could technically claim they didn’t know anyone would see their Status Updates, as silly as that may sound.
Continuing, Zuckerberg explains why the site keeps content indefinitely. “When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work.”
That makes sense as well, but I don’t think it gets to the heart of the issue that has people so concerned about Facebook’s terms of service, as the company fails to answer the question of why this piece of the TOS was removed: “You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.”
Ultimately, Facebook’s stance can be summarized as “trust us, we won’t do anything bad.” Zuckerberg writes, “In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work.”
In the end, this fiasco isn’t going to change the way I use Facebook, and I imagine it won’t do much to alter other user’s plans either. Their terms of service, like those of any other company operating on the Web, are designed to put their interests first, and eliminate just about any potential legal risk that their lawyers can think up.
Once again though - like with Beacon and the Facebook re-design revolt - Facebook has done a poor job of communicating the changes, leaving Zuckerberg on the defense instead of proactively keeping users informed on potentially controversial moves the company is making.
Chances are Facebook won’t abuse the privileges they are granted under their TOS. The backlash over doing something insane like using member photos without permission would be enormous and Facebook is smart enough not to do it. But as a user, it’s another reminder that what you do on the Internet is probably permanent, and much of it, probably outside your control.
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Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:
Mais quand même, le "terms of service" de Facebook stipule donc dorénavant que les données ne sont pas effacées lorsque l'on ferme son compte et que, surtout, tout le contenu déposé sur le site de Facebook lui appartient, "pour toujours"! On ne pourra pas se plaindre de ne pas avoir été mis au courant chers "friends"...
The Consumerist has noticed a seemingly slight but very important (and disturbing) change in Facebook’s terms of service, regarding user-generated content.
In short, all of the content you’ve ever uploaded on Facebook can be used, modified or even sublicensed by Facebook in every possible way - even if you quit the service.
The TOS says the following:
You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.
It also used to contain another bit that is now missing.
You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.
This is also reinforced by the “Termination” section:
The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.
Sure, most users don’t really care (or think they don’t care) about all this, but the idea that you now cannot stop Facebook from using your content should you ever want to is frightening to say the least.
Is Facebook Connect the reason?
Commenter OrtensiaCadmium on Consumerist finds a probable reason for this change in Facebook TOS.
“That’s fairly common language in terms for various sites such as Facebook. While it gives Facebook some far-reaching and scary possibilities, the basic idea is that things you upload may end up residing on servers outside of Facebook’s direct control. These broad rights make it so that you can’t sue Facebook for some cached content on some other server…”
Yes, with Facebook Connect in place, it’s likely that Facebook simply must do this in order to avoid possible lawsuits over content that isn’t even stored by them anymore. However, the same commenter rightfully notices that “…yes, it also means they can sell your photos or use them in advertising with no recompense to you.”
It’s not just your stuff, it’s everyone’s stuff
The possible implications of this TOS change go beyond these concerns. Sure, you can choose not to use Facebook at all, but that doesn’t mean a thing. Someone can still take your photo, slap it on Facebook, and now neither you nor the author of the photo can stop Facebook from using the photo in whichever way they please.
Looking at it globally, millions of people are uploading bits of information on everyone and everything, to a huge online database, and by doing so they’re automatically giving away the rights to use or modify this information to a private corporation. And not only that; they now also waiver the right to ever take it back from it.
Facebook should take a long, deep look into how it treats its users. Until now, users had options with regards to how the data they generated on Facebook was used. Now, they have no options whatsoever, rather than quit the service altogether. It’s a major difference; I’m not going to take it lightly, and neither should you.
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Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:
Wow! Assez gros, fallait oser... Ca va chauffer sur FB, c'est certain! Un/Des groupe/s a/ont bien entendu été créé sur FB pour contrer cette modification du TOS (c'est une attitude assez légere tout de même --et une très mauvaise communication--, puisqu'elle est de facto imposée aux personnes déjà membres du site et qui s'étaient inscrites sous d'autres "terms of service"...)
Autant donc dorénavant considérer FB comme un espace public... et de s'y comporter comme tel. Nous avions avancé une telle idée dans nos projets Knowscape et Knowscape mobile il y a 6 ans de cela. A la différence près que les données en question étaient certes publiques, mais également open source (n'appartenant donc pas à une société privée, mais à tout le monde!).
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