Le Web 3: A Broader Defenition of Internet Censorship

I haven't had a chance to follow the aftermaths of Le Web 3 conference in Paris. But I think despite its minimal organization team, it was a success on many levels, especially the logistics.

The first day was more a platform for businesses to market their brands and products, to be honest. But there is nothing wrong with that, I suppose, in a business conference. After all, the conference was not an academic one.

But the second day was more interesting. Even though I missed the first half of the second day, including Shimon Peres' surprise speech and a few other interesting panel, such as the one about the future of gaming and Danah Boyd's presentation on teenagers' use of the internet.

Loic had suggested me to meet with Peres and take some photos, but I didn't feel comfortable, to be honest. I was not sure meeting with a former senior official of Israel, who has actually said quite harsh stuff against Iran lately, would be a wise thing to do -- at least in that context. But the reason I missed his speech had nothing to do with that.

The reason was the party the night before which was one of the highlights of the whole event, and also the fact that I was still preparing my presentation in the last hours.

The party (some pictures) was actually quite funny. It was in a place called Bodego which was about to officially open a few days later.It was reserved for the conference attendees that was , predictably, dominated by men. So the first couple of hours the club was full of men. The bar was so busy it took half an hour for me to get a drink. (There was a gorgeous bartender there, by the way, called Colleta, I suppose, that I think had fascinated all the internet addict crowd. She's the one on the left here.)

The few women who were present, didn't dare coming to the dance floor in the beginning. But after many of the men left for different reasons, the crowd reached to a more or less balance and people started to feel comfortable -- and obviously drunk -- and started to dance to the music which was quite eclectic. I specifically liked a remix of the famous Pink Floyd song, Another Brick In The Wall, which I don't usually like, for I've heard it too many times. I wish the DJ had played more rock songs. Dancing to punk-rock, indie-rock, electro-pop, etc. is most fun for me. I get bored dancing to other types of music.

Anyway, the fun night ended with my sexy broken laptop., doing research for my presentation about internet censorship. I wanted to look at censorship in a different way and provide a broader definition of it and breaking some stereotypes, especially on Iran. (Check out a short report about it, plus some reactions from bloggers and some pictures -- Yes, i was wearing my I love Tehran t-shirt again.)

Later I'm going to write an article about it somewhere, but before that I'm going to post the presentation file here.

It was quite late when Loic added me to the program. I'm happy he didn't ignore the the more important non-commercial issues facing the web today in this conference. I hope he continues doing that in the coming years.