La radio internazionale targata USA conquista 106 milioni di audience

BBG, l'organo che gestisce la programmazione delle stazioni radiotelevisive finanziate dal Governo americano ha pubblicato i suoi dati di audience. Su scala mondiale, i programmi di VOA, Radio RFE/RL, Radio Sawa e altri raggiungono ormai 187 milioni di persone. Strabiliante il dato relativo alla radio: 106 milioni di ascoltatori, contro i 10 che utilizzano Internet. I risultati sono stati ottenuti in un arco di tempo piuttosto lungo, cinque anni, attraverso 172mila interviste in una ottantina di nazioni.

Come si vede la radio rappresenta il mezzo principe dell'offerta BBG, che raggiunge anche una audience di 97 milioni di telespettatori. Come si sa, una discreta percentuale di questa offerta radiofonica oggi viaggia sulle onde corte, che però vengono percepite come un medium troppo costoso e desueto. In effetti molti programmi viaggiano ormai sulle frequenze FM frutto di accordi con emittenti e gruppi editoriali locali e il piano di rinnovamento recentemente introdotto dal Board of Governors prevede un ridimensionamento dell'intero comparto onde corte.

BBG Broadcasts Reach Record Audiences

(WASHINGTON, D.C.—November 15, 2011) U.S. government funded international broadcasters reached an estimated 187 million people every week in 2011, an increase of 22 million from last year's figure, according to new audience data being made public by the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

“We are pleased that people the world over are responding in unprecedented numbers to our high-quality journalism and active audience engagement,” said BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson. “The ability of our broadcasters to inform, engage and connect audiences through traditional and social media alike lie behind these impressive results and will be essential to driving future audience reach and impact.”

The record numbers, released in the BBG Performance and Accountability Report (PAR), measure the combined audience of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio and TV Martí, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa). The report details impact on audiences around the globe including people in the world’s most repressive media and political environments.

The BBG’s PAR follows on the heels of BBG’s latest strategic plan, Impact through Innovation and Integration, which sets an over-arching objective of making BBG the world’s leading international news agency working to foster freedom and democracy with the goal of reaching 216 million people weekly by 2016.

This year there were significant audience increases in Afghanistan, where RFE/RL and VOA together reach 75% of adults weekly; in Egypt, where Alhurra TV doubled its weekly audience to 15% in tandem with the Arab Spring; and in Indonesia, where VOA’s aggressive affiliate strategy has boosted weekly audiences to some 38 million adults.

Audiences in many other strategically relevant countries held strong. In Nigeria, VOA retains its position as a news source of record with 23 million weekly listeners. In Burma, VOA and RFA reach 26% and 24% of adults, respectively, amounting to a weekly audience of 10 million.

Audience declines took place notably in Iran, where the government continues aggressive jamming of every BBG transmission platform, including satellite uplink jamming; and Pakistan, where the media market is increasingly fragmented and use of radio is declining.

While radio remains the BBG’s number one media platform, reaching 106 million people per week, television’s growth puts it 97 million people. The Internet audience was approximately 10 million, with the largest online audiences measured in Iraq, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt and Iran.

· Download 2011 Performance and Accountability Report (PDF)

· BBG 2011 Audience Overview (PDF)

· BBG Research Methodology (PDF)

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent federal agency, supervising all U.S. government-supported, civilian international broadcasting, whose mission is inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. BBG broadcasts reach an audience of 187 million in more than 100 countries. BBG networks include the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa), Radio Free Asia, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and TV Martí).

BBG, forti tagli in vista per le onde corte di VoA e altre emittenti

Cambi sostanziali nel modo di distribuire i contenuti, ancora legato a un mezzo, le onde corte, che sono sempre più desuete. Il Broadcasting Board of Governors, l'entità che gestisce le attività radiotelevisive della politica estera americana, ha appena reso noto il suo piano strategico 2012-2016. Il rapporto si può scaricare qui ed è stato attivato anche un apposito sito Web. Il succo è che le trasmissioni della Voice of America e di altre emittenti verrano veicolate attraverso le onde corte solo "per una mezza dozzina" di Nazioni. In tutti gli altri casi il BBG si concentrerà sulla televisione, la radio FM e i social network.

We will make wholesale changes to the way we distribute our content. We are currently configured largely as we were in the 1980s, with substantial resources devoted to shortwave broadcasting. Global media use now strongly favors TV, the Internet, and FM radio as well as social media. Shortwave is vital in a half-dozen countries. But elsewhere we will sharply draw down our shortwave capacity to reallocate the resources to the new platforms our audiences are using.

Il discorso non fa una grinza, anche se assomiglia molto a una situazione uovo-gallina, in cui i broadcaster internazionali riducono l'impegno su una risorsa che gli ascoltatori potenziali perdono di vista proprio per le riduzioni delle ore di trasmissione. Ma il vero problema di fondo è squisitamente finanziario. I soldi non bastano più o comunque non vengono stanziati con la stessa solerzia di un tempo. Per reggere ancora queste organizzazioni ripiegano su piattaforme di distribuzione più "sexy", ambiti come Internet, che hanno più appeal e visibilità soprattutto agli occhi dei politici che hanno l'ultima parola su tutti questi servizi. Le onde corte in realtà sono molto più efficienti della banda Web e non sta scritto da nessuna parte che i trasmettitori debbano utilizzare le potenze necessarie trenta o quaranta anni fa, quando bisognava superare le barriere del jamming, le interferenze e la scarsa sensibilità dei ricevitori. I costi si potrebbero abbattere ulteriormente riducendo le potenze e impiegando risorse rinnovabili per alimentare gli impianti. Ma sono tutte considerazioni tecniche troppo sensate perché possano diventare la base di un ripensamento. La fine del broadcasting internazionale è ormai definitivamente segnata.

Voice of America e il viale del tramonto delle onde corte

Questa volta è Boing Boing, autorevolissima voce online della cyberculture (ma prima ancora, fin dal 1988, fanzine, anzine "neurozine" culto della prima bit generation) a occuparsi del declino delle onde corte. L'argomento è un rapporto tecnologico della Voice of America, reso pubblico grazie alla legge americana sulla trasparenza della legislazione da Government Attic. Nel report, scaricabile da questa pagina del sito (insieme a un ghiotto catalogo degli archivi audio storici della VOA), si afferma che l'ente trasmissivo deve avviarsi verso il sunset, il tramonto delle onde corte. Per la verità la parole dell'autore del report non sono tagliate col coltello, c'è ampio margine all'interpretazione, l'invito sembra semmai orientato allo smantellamento degli impianti di proprietà a favore di formule di affitto e condivisione di risorse con altri broadcaster. Il grosso del rapporto riguarda l'infrastruttura interna, la rete Ip della VOA. In ogni caso i tagli sono già avvenuti, a incominciare dalle trasmissioni verso la Cina e hanno ricevuto aspre critiche, come questo articolo di Helle Dale per la Heritage Foundation a proposito di public diplomacy.

Voice of America operator plans "sunset" for shortwave radio broadcasts

Rob Beschizza

monday, Jun 6, 2011

The sun is setting on Voice of America's shortwave radio service, heard worldwide in dozens of languages for 70 years.

A strategic technology plan prepared by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the federal agency responsible for Voice of America, Alhurra, Radio Free Asia and other international stations, concludes that it should end many shortwave broadcasts in favor of "more effective" media such as internet radio.

"The intrinsic high cost of operating high powered shortwave stations is constantly being weighed against the rapidly diminishing effectiveness of shortwave within a growing number of countries," the report states. "... the cost effectiveness of shortwave transmissions continues to wane and is expected to be circumscribed to a very small number of target countries in the relatively near future."

The "sun-setting strategy" proposed will reduce the number of stations owned by the BBG in favor of lease or sharing arrangements with—or outsourcing to—independent broadcasters. A "long-term analysis" of each country and language, and in-house research on shortwave's effectiveness in each, would determine which areas retain service.

The report, released following a Freedom of Information Act request by Government Attic, took six months to surface and it isn't clear to what extent its recommendations have been implemented. In February, however, Voice of America ceased shortwave broadcasts in China.

Its authors anticipate "political pressure" to continue widespread use of shortwave radio broadcasts. The BBG's own 2012 Budget Request (PDF) reported that it "must continue to broadcast via traditional technologies such as shortwave [because] the impact of not investing in infrastructure improvements will be the loss of capability and the loss of audience." It noted Burmese listeners as particularly dependent on shortwave service.

Titled 2010-2012 BBG Technology Strategic Plan, the report claims that BBG-funded broadcasts reach 101.9m people worldwide by radio, 81.5m by television, and 2.4m via internet. Internet broadcasts accounts for 1.4 percent of the unduplicated total audience.

The largest internet audiences are in Iraq, China and India, with large percentages of the population listening online in Oman, Kosovo and Morocco. The report notes that Voice of America's audience in Iran was about half that of the BBC World Service during recent electoral unrest there. A brief overview of anti-censorship software the BBG supports, such as Freegate and Tor, was also offered.

Much of report, however, is dedicated to describing the upgrades and management shake-ups required to address problems within the BBG's apparently shambolic I.T. department, whose failures are covered in detail and illustrated with photographs.

Throughout, the complexities of maintaining and staffing a worldwide, multilanguage broadcast media network weigh heavily on the report's author. But criticisms often fall upon particularly egregious lapses such as servers hidden under nests of network cabling, major software choices determined by the "dogmatic beliefs" of influential staffers, and redundant systems standing idle.

"The most serious situation presents itself at the heart of the BBG IT network," the report states. "Currently, the network is dependent on a single enterprise-class Cisco core router whose failure would severely cripple the entire agency for an extended period of time."

Adds the author: "Many other such situations exist ... such as servers equipped with dual power supplies but with both power cords plugged into the same electrical circuit."

While the engineering section is said to be well-functioning, disaster recovery plans rely on "the presence of key individuals." The department lacks "baseline operational discipline" and labors under "several historical and personality-related 'accommodations' designed to isolate certain individuals and maintain legacy reporting relationships."

Even the email system is outmoded, according to the report, which recommends platform consolidation, virtualization, systems colocation, cloud computing to cut the number of physical servers in use, "clear standards and expectations for interpersonal behavior," and adoption of MPEG-4 for broadcast and archive use, as part of a two-year plan to fix the problems while trimming costs.

The report was released after a FOIA request from Government Attic, which posted it in full at its archives early Monday morning. One paragraph of the report, concerning disaster recovery, was redacted.

La guerriglia totale informativa colpisce la VOA

Lunedì scorso il sito di notizie gestito dalla Voice of America Voanews.com, è stato "deturpato" da un sedicente "Cyberesercito Iraniano". La nuova home page invitava la Signora Clinton a smettere di interferire con le nazioni islamiche. L'attacco è stato più subdolo del previsto e ancora martedì mattina c'erano visitatori che non riuscivano ad accedere alla pagina originale. Si è capito dopo che gli hacker, quasi sicuramente di matrice iraniana, hanno preso di mira non i server della Voa ma quelli del sistema DNS, effettuando un vero e proprio dirottamento verso un sito farlocco.

La storia viene raccontata in questo comunicato stampa del Broadcasting Board of Governors, la agenzia governativa che regola e finanzia la programmazione radiotelevisiva americana per aree come l'Iran o il Caucaso. E che proprio in questi giorni è finito su tutte le prime pagine dei giornali USA a causa della decisione di sopprimere le trasmissioni in onde corte dirette alla Cina.

Iranian Cyber Army Claims Credit for Cyber Attack on VOA and Interference of U.S. International Broadcasting Increases

Note: This press release is updated to include reports of the Iranian Cyber Army taking responsibility for the hacking and news of an attack on the RFE telephone system.

The Iranian Cyber Army has taken credit for a cyber attack on the Voice of America, according to reports by Iranian state media outlets Press TV and Fars News Service. VOA suffered a web Domain Name System (DNS) attack, while VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN) and RFE Radio Farda programs have faced increased satellite signal interference, and RFE faced a “denial of service attack” on its telephone systems in an effort to keep Iranians from contacting Radio Farda.

As popular protests unfold across the Middle East and audiences for U.S. international broadcasting surge, efforts to interfere with the networks have increased.

“Our broadcasters are at the forefront of reporting the most tumultuous events we have seen unfold since 1989,” said Walter Isaacson, chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which oversees all U.S. international broadcasting including the Alhurra TV, VOA and RFE. “It is a testament to their vital role that they are subject to the work of hackers and signal interference.”

On Monday, February 21, an unknown party hacked the Voice of America’s primary domain name (VOANews.com), and other related domains, redirecting visitors to a website claiming to be run by a group called the “Iranian Cyber Army.” Yesterday, Iran’s Press TV reported a statement by Ali Saeedi Shahroodi, an official with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claiming, “The hacking of a VOA homepage by the Iranian Cyber Army … shows the power and capability of the Corps (IRGC) in the cyber arena.” Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency also credited the Iranian Cyber Army, in a February 22 report, explaining that the attack was in response to VOA’s reporting on events in Iran.

The attack did not affect internal systems or servers, nor was any data lost or compromised. The BBG is working with appropriate authorities to investigate further.

“There's a saying that a hit dog hollers - that can be applied to whoever tried to cut off access to VOA News by attacking the domain provider on Monday. The fact that the sites were redirected to the Iranian Cyber Army certainly raises an eyebrow or two,” said Dana Perino, a member of the BBG. “Technology is chipping away at the stranglehold on free and fair information inside Iran. VOA and RFE are strongly committed to providing the news at it happens in a variety of ways so that every Iranian that can get access to the free media can benefit from our journalists' reporting.”

Last week RFE’s Radio Farda faced a variation of a “denial of service” attack on its phone lines with a flood of automated calls aiming to clog its answering machines. Calls played just over one minute of a looped recording of speeches and sermons in Persian before hanging up.

Since February 13, there has been intermittent but frequent interference of VOA PNN and Radio Farda satellite signals with programming in Persian for audiences in Iran.

As of the morning of February 21, there has been a continuous service interruption on one satellite channel carrying VOA’s PNN. PNN is carried on three other satellite paths as well as online, including its popular TV satire, “Parazit.” Millions of the show’s fans use proxy servers to access the program through social media sites like Facebook and YouTube. Similarly, Radio Farda's website has seen an approximate 50 percent increase in web traffic over the past two weeks.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent federal agency, supervising all U.S. government-supported, civilian international broadcasting, whose mission is to promote freedom and democracy and to enhance understanding through multimedia communication of accurate, objective, and balanced news, information, and other programming about America and the world to audiences overseas. BBG broadcasts reach an audience of 165 million in 100 countries. BBG broadcasting organizations include the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa), Radio Free Asia, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and TV Marti).

Si registra dunque una comprensibile escalation di una guerra propagandistica che definire "fredda" sarebbe profondamente irrispettoso per le centinaia di vittime dell'ultima ondata di proteste nel Maghreb e in Medio Oriente. Una guerra che un tempo utilizzava gli strumenti convenzionali, la radio, la stampa. Ma che oggi è diventata totale e abbraccia un arsenale mediatico senza precedenti, fatto di radio, tv digitale satellitare, canali giornalistici su Internet, social network. E gli strumenti, dal jamming agli attacchi DDS o i filtri, che servono per bloccare le attività dell'avversario. Oggi Repubblica aveva un bell'articolo di Arturo di Corinto sugli strumenti di guerriglia e antiguerriglia sul Web. Il sito di Radio Free Europe racconta invece un'altra storia di hacker, questa volta schierati contro il regime iraniano, intervistando "Asher", un componente del gruppo di cyberattivisti di Anonymous (lo stesso gruppo che ha recentemente preso le difese di WIkiLeaks attaccando siti come Paypal). Asher spiega alla stazione radio americana le motivazioni di attacchi rivolti ai siti Web delle massime istituzioni iraniane.

[...]

This is where Anonymous and its "Operation: Iran" come in.

The collective is providing users with special advice forums and tools to fight the Iranian government's censorship. The group has also encouraged Iranian users to use distributed-denial-of-service attacks (DDOS) in order to take down key government websites like khamenei.ir, the website of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, as well as leader.ir and president.ir.

Arash is a hacker who works with Anonymous to fight government censorship and cybercontrol in his native Iran. It's hard to pin down what exactly Anonymous is. The organization has no leaders and no headquarters and grew out of image-sharing forums in the United States.

Arash describes the group as a "fluid movement." In a video, the group explains itself:

Arash describes the group as a "fluid movement."

While Arash and hackers like him have been targeting Iranian government websites and state media, the authorities are fighting back with high-tech monitoring and filtering equipment. Just weeks ago, the government announced the launch of a new cyberpolice unit.

Arash explained "Operation: Iran" to Radio Farda's Hannah Kaviani by way of the organization's media chat room in an interview on February 16. The group then recorded Arash's responses using their signature narration style for the following Q&A:

Radio Farda: What inspired Anonymous to start Operation Iran?

Arash: Recently, Anonymous has been assisting people in various countries where freedom of speech and freedom of information is restricted. In Iran, for instance, they have very few freedoms and very strong Internet censorship. This is why we initially became involved with Iran's protests. One of the main goals of Anonymous is to defend freedom of speech, and this is one of the biggest problems inside Iran.

Iran's government not only censors media inside Iran but also in other parts of the world. For example, in the last few days, even people in Europe have had problems watching BBC Persia and other Persian channels. This is because of the Iranian government jamming the satellites.

Radio Farda: Can you describe Operation Iran's strategy?

Arash: Anonymous's only rule strictly bans attacking the media. I personally do not believe that IRIB [Iran's state television and radio] count as media, however. They are state brainwashing systems, at best. The operation's official focus was on three government websites and the government's mail servers, which were all down yesterday.

Radio Farda: What other ways does Anonymous help Iran's online protest movement?

Arash: The Tor project is a project designed to give people a safe way to use the Internet anonymously and securely. But Iran is the first country to block that software. We know how powerful Iran's Islamic regime is, and we know it's hard fighting against them. But we have hope. And we are lucky because we are fighting on the side of the people of Iran. There are other anonymity tools, which the government has not yet blocked.

Arash says one such tool is the anonymizing network I2P.

In 2009, Anonymous -- a group Arash says is funded entirely from donations -- helped launch the opposition support website Anonymous Iran. The site was launched as a platform for exchanging information between Iran and the world and now claims over 15,000 users.

But Anonymous has a controversial past. The group was accused of being behind a spate of 2008 attacks on an epilepsy support forum, which triggered migraine headaches and seizures in photosensitive and pattern-sensitive epileptics.

The group drew criticism more recently for reportedly masterminding attacks against Amazon.com, PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and others as part of "Operation: Payback," a campaign that came out in support of WikiLeaks after the companies cut services to the controversial group.

Authoritarian regimes are increasingly targeting hackers, online activists, and bloggers in an attempt to maintain control over the information narrative in their countries -- a narrative that, thanks to the rising availability of the Internet, is becoming ever more difficult to tame.

Hindu Kush: guerra di onde nella lingua dei pashtun

Radio Free Europe dai ieri trasmette un nuovo programma di due ore verso la zona di confine tra Afghanistan e Pakistan, la valle dello Swat. L'obiettivo della nuova Radio Mashaal, Radio Fiaccola, è contrastare l'azione delle stazioni pirata in FM gestite dagli esponenti religiosi talebani attivi in territorio pakistano. A questo proposito vi segnalo uno splendido servizio trasmesso il 10 gennaio dagli Speciali TG1, con molti riferimenti proprio a questo tipo di guerriglia radiofonica Con il suo "Hindukush", dal nome della catena di monti che segna il confine tra i i due Stati, Duilio Giammaria ha fatto un lavoro accurato, andando a intervistare molti responsabili regionali e tribali, indagando nei limiti consentiti da una situazione ad altissimo rischio personale e formulando interrogativi scomodi, senza timore di tirare in ballo le respnsabilità militari e politiche degli occidentali. Bravo Duilio, considerando che anche in patria, coi tuoi capi, rischi parecchio...
Si comincia con due ore al giorno, curate dagli studi di RFE/Radio Liberty di Praga, e da un nuovo studio in Pakistan, ma l'obiettivo è arrivare a settembre a trasmetterne molte di più, in onde corte e con ripetitori FM locali. Tra le star della nuova emittente ci sarà Haroon Bacha, musicista molto popolare che nel 2008 aveva scelto l'esilio negli Stati Uniti dopo aver ricevuto molte minacce dai talebani. Con Radio Marshaal l'offerta radiofonica americana nella regione dell'Afghanistan e più in generale della zona linguistica del pashtun si moltiplica. Secondo alcuni diventa ridondante. RFE trasmette già due canali di Azadi Radio (Radio Free Afghanistan) in pashto e dari. Voice of America trasmette in entrambe le lingue - in pashto e dari - e dal 2006 ha aggiunto la programmazione di musica a notizie, sempre in pashtun di Deewa Radio.

RFE/RL Launches Radio Station in Pakistan's Pashtun Heartland
January 14, 2010

(PRAGUE, Czech Republic) On January 15, RFE/RL will begin broadcasting in the local Pashto dialects to Pakistan and the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The new station - called Radio Mashaal ("Torch" in Pashto) - will offer an alternative to the growing number of Islamic extremist radio stations in the region.
"There is an urgent need for accurate, objective news and information in Pakistan's tribal areas," says U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke. "Radio Mashaal's commitment to professional journalism in the local language will be an important contribution toward peace, reconciliation and democracy in the region."
Veteran Pakistani journalist and author Ahmed Rashid says he hopes Radio Mashaal "will provide people the kind of information they need to make the right decisions about their lives."
One surprise in store for listeners will be the reappearance of Haroon Bacha, a popular Pashtun singer who fled the region last year amid death threats from the Taliban. The 36-year-old recording artist - whose dozens of albums, music videos and television appearances made him one of the most famous entertainers in the region - will be hosting a cultural affairs show for Radio Mashaal. [see The New York Times: "U.S. Refuge for Singer Fleeing the Taliban," 10/12/08]
There is an urgent need for accurate, objective news and information in Pakistan's tribal areas
The first broadcast will air live on January 15 at 4pm local time. Radio Mashaal's correspondents will be covering local and international news with in-depth reports on terrorism, politics, women's issues, and health care (with an emphasis on preventive medicine). The station will feature roundtable discussions and interviews with tribal leaders and local policymakers in addition to regular call-in programs aimed at giving listeners the opportunity to be heard.
Radio Mashaal will operate out of a new bureau in Pakistan and broadcast from RFE/RL's Prague headquarters. The station will share a frequency with VOA's Radio Deewa and transmit via FM and shortwave. Online, Radio Mashaal's website will provide a live stream of its broadcasts.

Shortwave broadcast at frequencies:
(LOCAL BROADCAST TIME [UTC +4,5 o +5?])
every day 9395 16:00 - 18:00
every day 11605 16:00 - 18:00
every day 13700 16:00 - 18:00

VOA, la radio via email, contro la censura su Internet

A metà strada tra la cross-medialità e la lotta alla censura su Internet, l'emittente internazionale Voice of America sta studiando l'uso della tecnologia Feed Over Email (FOE) per fare arrivare ai suoi ascoltatori le notizie che nazioni non democratiche come Cina e Birmania bloccano alla fonte controllando i canali Web percorsi dai normali flussi di notizie, podcast e feed RSS. FOE permette di inviare i feed in modalità criptata via e-mail, anche utilizzando servizi come Google Mail o Yahoo Mail. Attualmente in fase di beta-testing (qui trovate per esempio la pagina dedicata al progetto FOE da Google Code), a quanto rivelato in questi giorni dalle agenzie di stampa il sistema dovrebbe prossimamente essere applicato alle notizie diffuse dalla VOA verso la Cina.

U.S. tests technology to break foreign Web censorship
Fri Aug 14, 2009
By Jim Finkle

BOSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is covertly testing technology in China and Iran that lets residents break through screens set up by their governments to limit access to news on the Internet. The "feed over email" (FOE) system delivers news, podcasts and data via technology that evades web-screening protocols of restrictive regimes, said Ken Berman, head of IT at the U.S. government's Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is testing the system.
The news feeds are sent through email accounts including those operated by Google Inc, Microsoft Corp's Hotmail and Yahoo Inc. "We have people testing it in China and Iran," said Berman, whose agency runs Voice of America. He provided few details on the new system, which is in the early stages of testing. He said some secrecy was important to avoid detection by the two governments.
The Internet has become a powerful tool for citizens in countries where governments regularly censor news media, enabling them to learn about and react to major social and political events. Young Iranians used social networking services Facebook and Twitter as well as mobile phones to coordinate protests and report on demonstrations in the wake of the country's disputed presidential election in June. In May, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the Chinese government blocked access to Twitter and Hotmail. Sho Ho, who helped develop FOE, said in an email that the system could be tweaked easily to work on most types of mobile phones.
The U.S. government also offers a free service that allows overseas users to access virtually any site on the Internet, including those opposing the United States. "We don't make any political statement about what people visit," Berman said. "We are trying to impart the value: 'The more you know, the better.' People can look for themselves."
In addition to China and Iran, targets for the FOE technology include Myanmar, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, he said. Berman, however, said there would be modest filtering of pornography on the system. "There is a limit to how much (U.S.) taxpayers should have to pay for," he said.