24 May. Eric Besson, Frederic Mitterrand, Christine Lagarde, Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation.

Around 1000 persons gathered at the eG8 forum that took place in Paris this week, on 24 and 25 May. Key players of the Internet, among them CEOs of Google, Eric Schmidt, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, eBay, John Donahoe, Free, Xaviel Niel, participated to the event together with French Minister of Economy, Christine Lagarde, French Minister of Industry, Energy and Digital Economy, Eric Besson, and French Minister of Culture, Frederic Mitterrand. Some members of the civil society were also present like Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. The event was organized by the French major communication group Publicis, mandated by French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to provide input for the G8 (ending today in Deauville) where Internet has been for the first time an item on the agenda.

The aim of the meeting was to discuss how Internet, the digital world and mobile communication can accelerate growth: this summit was resolutely placed under the aegis of the economic growth in developed countries and mainly attended by the private sector. However, some issues of utmost global importance were tackled: Internet regulation, intellectual property, open data and public services, privacy, new economic models, innovation, consequences of mobility, Internet and the media…

The opening speech of the French President tool place in the middle of a hive of ICT users: a public of around 1000 people massively concentrated as much on their iphones and iPad tablet, facebooking and tweeting, than on what was going on the stage, always here… and there.

French President stated that freedom of expression on the Internet was “the red line between democracy and dictactorship: nothing today can be done in the silence of the international community (…) things have changed more deeply than we think”. He also smoothened his position from what he used to mention as a “civilized Internet” to a “responsible Internet”: “no one can control or stop Internet but it needs a minimum of values and rules (…) the addition of individual aspirations does not create a social contract (…)”

The issue of regulation was given a paramount importance since the very beginning of the debates.  The first session on the Internet and Economic Growth started with the observation that Internet critical growth is a huge accelerator for the economy, especially at the level of small businesses. Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, stated that “private sector's technical solutions to problems on Internet will be faster than governmental on regulatory solutions”. The fact that governments should not regulate content but provide access and ensure broadband was highly debated. French Minister of Economy, Christine Lagarde (as well as French President in his opening speech) emphasized on the need for regulation as a “backbone”, especially on issues like corruption and security.

Eric Schmidt mentioned that Internet “has a bias: empowering individuals, most of governments have trouble with that shift of power”. Some freedom of expression activists criticized the fact that the conference protected the idea of intellectual property (debate on Intellectual Property and the Culture Economy in the Digital Age with Frederic Mitterrand) but did not deal with freedom of expression issues and Sarkozy was pinned down by Reporters without Borders for neglecting the issue of freedom of expression and cyber dissidents.

Voices of activists for a free and open Internet like la Quadrature du Net, Telecomix, Chaos Computer Club, are growing, criticizing the event as an operation of communication for multinationals and governments. Jérémie Zimmermann from la Quadrature du Net puts forward the contradiction of private sectors main operators: the lack of privacy of data in Google and Facebook and operators opposed to a free and open Internet. However, Gilles Babinet, from the recently created Conseil national du numérique, stated that there was a growing global consensus on non intervention. Maurice Levy, Publicis CEO found the activists’ statements “ironical” stating that the goal of the conference was to gather free discussions among Internet actors so that they could influence the G8 by providing food for thought to Chief of States.

As the Internet Governance Caucus (IGC) denounced the participation by only a small group of developed countries to decisions regarding the Internet and particularly its governance, Sarkozy mentioned the idea of going as far as the UN General Assembly.

Six main themes have been examined at the G8 yesterday and today: broadband access to all, privacy, health, security, education, and intellectual property. A synthesis should be provided at the end of the Summit. Freedom of expression is already one of the most important points of the common declaration that should recognize the role of Internet in the Arabic revolution. There is still no consensus on net neutrality (principle which advocates no restrictions on consumer’s access to all networks). The document should also agree on the necessity of intellectual property and privacy while leaving sufficient space for entrepeneurship and innovation, taking into account the impact of Internet in economic growth.

 

25 May. Maurice Levy, Publicis CEO talks to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder & CEO.

(c) Bob Edme/AP

 

 

Free information = reliable information?

The consequences of “free” information financed by publicity are that printed media are on the net but also a lot of information is broadcast through websites and blogs. The drawbacks are many: “infobesity”, a lack of hierarchy in the information, a growing use of cut and paste leading to considerable repetition, “light” information that is not contextualized, information as a consumer good: the need for curation (see Blog post on 7 April) is growingly perceived as a necessity.

Mathieu Pigasse, banker and business man, is one of the three new shareholders of the Le Monde Group with Pierre Bergé (who among others is a UNESCO’s goodwill Ambassador) and Xavier Niel (founder of Free, inventor of the box’ triple offer). Pigasse states: “media is the only sector in the world where I have seen the opening of two stores: one where you have to pay, the other one where everything is free, I call it suicide”.

On the other hand, Mediapart is one of the first French paying media primarly created on the web. The idea was to make the website accessible through financial contributions. At the beginning people were more than skeptical about its success that would rely on heavy, long and costly information. However, it has worked, and very well.

This new kind of journalism is also financed by private donators and sponsorships like the Pulitzer Prize winning on line newsroom ProPublica that produces “investigative journalism in the public interest”. However, journalists and editors admit that they would rather have readers to pay for information.

Geek + hacker + reporter = ?

Why does it work? The way these journalists see information is very new. They deliver raw information as much as they do investigative reporting: a kind of “wikileaks way of reporting”. They favour “sideration” working with stunning raw material, raw cuts (eg. Wikileaks’ videos showing attacks on civilians in Iraq), raw sound recording (Mediapart on the French Bettencourt case) that would be stronger, according to them, than retranscription and analysis.

A “technoid” and subversive journalism. In an interview given by Kristinn Hrafnsson, Wikileaks’ spokeperson, a former Icelandic investigative journalist, gives a compelling impression: Wikileaks journalists consider themselves as working on a “pure” journalistic form.

A non readable and non controllable future

Within ten years, all media will be read on Internet. What is expected: A forest revival! More technologies that will keep on changing the media environment such as digital paper. A race for more and more new applications, media brand content development and a diversification of journalism related jobs… However, on the aspect of media landscape, predictions are impossible, the future is un-readable.  And reactions to some “mutant” kind of journalism are violent because it is uncontrollable.

Should we keep in mind two issues, the following are of paramount importance:

• we are experiencing a moment of void in the life of media without a well organized economic foundation, if the notion of information value and costly information is to be kept then a financial model is to be found;
• and how do you finance, in the Internet age, quality information essential to a democratic debate of quality?

 An interview of Bob Woodward on the evolution of journalism