International media coverage of The Global Square
- February 18, 2012
Anarchism & Autonomy
With Wikileaks and several other major players throwing their weight behind the project, a vaporware press release has made The Global Square go viral.
- Author
Ever since a group of activists released the original proposal for The Global Square on ROAR back in November, the collaborative endeavor to build an alternative peer-to-peer social network has generated considerable media attention. After featuring in a major story in Wired last year, a recent call for coders by our friends and partners at Wikileaks Central has once again propelled the project into the global public discourse.
The Global Square has gained traction in recent months as we have secured the support of an independent team of developers, coordinated by Ed Knutson of the Occupy movement in the US and Johan Pauwelse in the Netherlands. Pauwelse directs the Tribler P2P research team at the Technical University of Delft, which — with a budget of 26 million euros — is the world’s largest experimental research group working on self-organizing internet systems.
Meanwhile, we are being assisted by the legendary hacker and free-software activist Richard Stallman, who as the main author of several copyleft licenses, including the GNU General Public License — the most widely used free software license in the world — has agreed to contribute his GNU platform to the project. Furthermore, we are now drawing on the direct support of a number of hackers and free software activists associated with Wikileaks and Anonymous.
From April 27 until July 1, The Global Square will be featured at the 7th Berlin Biennale, where we will organize a ‘hackathon’ with leading online activists, coders, developers and designers from around the world to build the platform and ensure its resilience against attempted crackdowns. The decentralized P2P nature of The Global Square will make it virtually impossible for governments to neutralize the network without completely shutting down the Internet.
With Heather Marsh of Wikileaks Central (the Wikileaks-endorsed news site) and Pedro Noel of Take the Square (the international commission of the Spanish indignados) throwing their weight behind the project, we now have a powerful international coordination team in place. However, we remain in need of coders to help us turn dreams into reality and live up to the expectations currently being created by the international media.
For information on how to contribute to this exciting project, scroll down to the bottom of this page for more details — or contact Heather Marsh (our project spokesperson) here. Meanwhile, below you will find links to some of the international media coverage of The Global Square in recent months:
The Global Square in the International Media
Original proposal:
The Global Square: an online platform for our movement
Reflections on a Revolution, November 2, 2011
English:
‘Global Square’ the Wikileaks backed activist platform sends out call for coders
Patricia Lantz, The Examiner, February 16, 2012
‘Global Square’: Wikileaks-Backed Activist Platform Launching in March
Common Dreams, February
(Also published at Infoshop News)
Wikileaks is dabbling in social networking
Thom Hartman, Truthout, February 16, 2012
Wikileaks-backed Global Square P2P activist platform due in March
John Ribeiro, PC World, February 15, 2012
(Also published in Computer World, UK Computer World, TechWorld)
P2P Insurrection: Coders needed to build The Global Square
Adbusters, February 14, 2012
Occupy Geeks Are Building a Facebook for the 99%
Sean Captain, Wired, December 27, 2011
Occupy Facebook: Protesters Planning Their Own Social Network
Slate.com, December 29, 2011
‘Occupy’ Protestors Building Activist-Only Facebook
Devin Chanda, Complex, December 29, 2011
Good Luck Occupiers, But Here’s Why “Facebook For Protesters” Won’t Work
Josh Constine, TechCrunch, December 29, 2011
Would you join a Facebook-style Occupy social network?
CBC News, December 28, 2011
Occupy Facebook: Social Network for Protesters in the Works
Zoe Fox, Mashable, December 28, 2011
(Also published in the Sydney Morning Herald)
Occupy Facebook: A New Social Network
Ashley Baylen, Shalom Life, December 28, 2011
Occupy Wall Street Builds Facebook Alternative
Lorien Crow, Mobiledia, January 2, 2012
(Also published at Forbes, MSN)
Spanish:
Trends 2012: La fusión definitiva de lo virtual y lo real
Bernardo Gutiérrez, TICbeat Trends, February 17, 2012
Occupy Wall Street prepara su propia red social: «Global Square»
Ernesto de Casas, Canal 311, January 1, 2012
Global Square será la red social de los indignados
Nerea Bilbao, The Inquirer, December 30, 2011
Global Square: los indignados de EEUU trabajan en su proprio Facebook
EuropaPress, El Confidencial, December 30, 2011
Global Square, la red social de los indignados
Mónica Tilves, TechWeek Europe, December 30, 2011
Los indignados de Wall Street tendrán su proprio Facebook
ABC, December 29, 2011
La red social de ‘Occupy Wall Street’
El Mundo, December 29, 2011
Global Square, la red social de los indignados de EEUU
Jose Fernández Román, El Referente, December 29, 2011
Occupy Wall Street construye su propia red social
Juan Carlos Garrido Curbeira, dTecn, [date unknown]
Portuguese:
The Global Square: o Facebook dos Indignados
Ana Rita Guerra, Dinheiro Vivo, December 30, 2011
The Global Square – a rede social do movimento Occupy Wall Street
Paulo Maurício Machado, Matéria Incógnita, December 29, 2011
Occupy Wall Street cria rede alternativa ao Facebook
TVI 24, December 29, 2011
Global Square, a futura rede social do movimento Occupy Wall Street
Fibra, December 29, 2011
French:
Global Square, la nouvelle plate-forme de Wikileaks
Hélene Guerin, Studio Vitamine, February 17, 2012
La plateforme d’échanges de Wikileaks sortira en mars
Véronique Arène, Le Monde Informatique, February 15, 2012
Occupy Wall Street ne veut plus occuper Facebook et crée son réseau alternatif
Michel Mestrallet, IT Espresso, December 28, 2011
Italian:
Global Square, gli attivisti di Occupy Wall Street lavorano a un loro Facebook
Federico Guerrini, La Stampa, December 30, 2011
Occupy Wall Street lavora a Global Square, un Facebook al riparo da occhi indiscreti
Fabbio Deotto, Panorama, December 28, 2011
German:
Netzwelt-Ticker: Neue Internet-Plattform: Occupy Facebook
Der Spiegel, December 29, 2011
Global Square: Occupy-Bewegung startet soziales Nerzwerk
Werben & Verkaufen, December 29, 2011
Indonesian:
The Global Square, Jejaring Sosial untuk Aktivis dan Demonstran
Aditya Panji, Kompas, December 30, 2011
Russian:
Сеть оккупантам: Occupy Wall Street захватывает интернет
Citizen K, Komersant, February 6, 2012
Cоциальная сеть «The Global Square» от движения «Occupy Wall Street»
Massimo, December 29, 2011
Polish:
Facebookowi nie można już ufać – twierdzą aktywiści. Stworzą własny portal
Łukasz Matusik, IT Tech Blog, December 29, 2011
Oburzeni uruchamiają Global Square – własny serwis społecznościowy
Vbeta, December 29, 2011
Croatian:
Nova društvena mreža za prosvjednike koji ne vjeruju Facebooku
Net.hr, December 29, 2011
The Global Square za generaciju prosvjednika
ZaMirZINE , December 29, 2011
How to Help Us Build the Global Square
For such an effort, we must count on the community of coders and developers. We are going to use a Tribler kernel based on Python. We urgently need the help of the community in order to implement all the features planned for The Global Square. If you have expertise in Python and P2P protocols you still have time and opportunity to join our project, a project which will hopefully change the dynamics of interaction among global society.
Various jobs require a combination of the following:
- Experience with Open Source project basic operation;
- Python programming;
- Network protocols, UDP message transfers;
- Cryptography, pub/priv key management;
- SQLight, performance, transactions;
- Epidemic gossip protocols, for global dissemination of crypted info;
- Self-organising network programming;
- GUI in WxWindows;
- Android developer, mixed .py build chain (for later smart phone .apk).
To join:
- Take a week to read the Global Square wiki and the other documents and understand the existing code;
- Possibly work for a few weeks on prototyping;
- Feb – March 2012 availability;
- Join the mailinglist: theglobalsquare@lists.takethesquare.net;
- Introduce yourself : )
General Contact:
Pedro Noel (“connecting people”)
info@theglobalsquare.org
Press Contact:
Heather Marsh (spokesperson)
press@theglobalsquare.org
Developers Contact:
Johan Pouwelse and Ed Knutson (development coordinators)
dev@theglobalsquare.org
Source URL — https://roarmag.org/essays/global-square-wikileaks-media-social-network/
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