Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory at ETech

Speaking at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference this past week, Berkman Fellow Ethan Zuckerman shared his "Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism" on how repressive governments are increasingly targeting activists using Web 2.0 tools for information dissemination and organizing. Wired has the story:

"What happens when the governments wake up?" Zuckerman asks.

He sees a future online world that will increasingly look like the world the press currently works in -- free in the United States and other Western democracies, but heavily censored around the world.

Most worrisome is China, according to Zuckerman, and not simply because it blocks more communication tools wholesale than any other country.

They also have more Web 2.0 startups than almost any other place in the world, including Silicon Valley.

Read more about Ethan's presentation at Wired's Epicenter blog, and don't forget to join us on March 14 for the release of the OpenNet Initiative's Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, which addresses a number of the issues Ethan touched upon in his talk.