Nicholas Kristof, of the New York Times, recently pointed (on twitter: 10:19 7/7/09) to two articles, one in the Washington Post and the other in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which together argued for money to be supplied by the US Government to help tear down Internet blocking in Iran, China and other countries.

There are two ways to go about doing this. One is the Real World way. The Editorial department of the Washington Post spreads information about small organizations like this – quoting from the Post article -

The Global Internet Freedom Consortium, a small, non-governmental organization, provides access to almost 1 million users daily and, according to recent statistics, to more than 90 percent of anti-censorship traffic from China and Iran.

Senator Arlen Specter writes in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The United States must fight fire with fire in finding ways to breach these cyberwalls, which dictatorships use to control their people and keep themselves in power. Tearing down these walls can match the effect of what happened when the Berlin Wall was torn down. No one understands this better than the dictator states.

These actions support what must be the aims of good Digital Inhabitants everywhere. So the debate could grind on here and there, individuals in the Real World making efforts and eventually calls for other countries to be involved and who should that be and so on. I think that will make for slow progress.

Or we could could do this another way, with the digital world leading the way and coordinating the effort.

At the moment the digital world has no way to do that. I have described why and how we need a digital world foundation to be the voice of the digital world in this post.

For example, wouldn’t it be great if the dwf already had a plan published detailing how to setup a global anti-Internet-censorship program, how much that would cost and who should fund it? And wouldn’t it be great if that had been promulgated through the digital world/Real World two years ago? And then put into action?

See what I mean? The digital world is being reactive, not proactive and I think it’s doing us harm that could be avoided. When I say “us”, I mean, of course, Real World people, because, in the end, we all live in the Real World.

But this is just one example of how a dwf could be useful.

The way the digital world works is different than the Real World and it might be helpful to have some kind of forum in which to discuss those issues particular to it – to bring together all the players and pieces. The dwf could be a place to host such forums.

So, all having agreed that such an organization will be useful how much will it cost and how will we fund it? I don’t know. I’m just the ideas man.

The Real World, via twitter:

RT @forthehomeless after over 40 job apps to fast food places around austin & a LOT of work, one of our clients got a job at whataburger! we’re so proud!