Mexicans and its fight agains taxing the use of Internet

On Monday night Mexicans began to use a hashtag (#) on Twitter, #InternetNecesario, meaning "Internet is a Necessity". This hashtag was a form of protest against a new tax for telecommunications in Mexico, including Internet.

This hashtag pretends to show anger against this measure, since the Mexican government says this tax is made because Internet is a luxury, not a necessity. Mexicans who use the web to work, communicate, research, learn and many other uses disagrees with this idea.

According to the blog Isopixel, citing the World Bank, an increase of 10% in broadband availability has been shown to help developing countries to climb a 1.3 % of their Gross Domestic Product.

It's impossible not to see that Internet is a tool that makes information easily available, gives people a window to see what's outside their countries, and helps people to have all kind of opportunities they didn't have before because they can increase their education, their chances to do business, etc.

Why our government doesn't seem to see this? Because they are more concentrated in getting money for their particular agenda, but increasing taxes they only slow our economy. And taxing Internet is the worst kind of tax they have ever come up.

I hope this online protest has some influence in the lawmakers decision today, in my blog in Spanish (http://detras-de-mi-cristal.blogspot.com) I posted the letter that I wrote to one of this congressman (the one that represents my district) hoping more people protest and see that they are working for us, not against us.

ONEDROP Foundation organizes mission for water

Al Gore, a peak behind the scenes

Just as it has been doing since its creation, ONEDROP Foundation will try to create awareness in the population about the lack of equal access to water in the world.

His mission, “Water for all, all for water”, summarizes the idea of fighting against poverty by giving everyone enough access to safe water.

Guy Laliberté, founder of ONEDROP and owner of Cirque du Soleil, will try to impact people’s minds so more actions are done to solve this problem.

This time he will promote from space the Poetic Social Mission. Laliberté is aboard the International Space Station (ISS) because he became the seventh special tourist. He traveled in the Soyuz TMA-16 on September 30th, and the rocket docked safely to the ISS.

For this travel, Laliberté started his preparation since May 9th in Star City, near Moscu, Russia. After tests and intensive physical training, done for 5 months, the artist and entrepreneur arrived to the ISS on October 2th.

Since the launching Laliberté showed his artistic roots and called himself “the first clown in space”, donned a red nose and carried a small package with more red noses for the members of the crew.

But even if Laliberté presence has changed the humor in the ISS, his mission is no joke.

The most relevant moment of this travel will be on October 9th, when the event Moving Stars and Earth for Water will be broadcasted, with international celebrities reading a poetic tale in 14 cities around the world. These celebrities include Al Gore, U2, Tatuya Ishii, Peter Gabriel, Shakira, Salma Hayek, Lila Downs, Patrick Bruel, A. R. Rahman, among others.

The event will be transmitted around 7:00 p.m. (time in Mexico City, -4 GMT). People will be able to see it through http://www.OneDrop.org, and the cities that will participate in this effort will be Montreal, Durban, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Mexico City, New York, Sydney, London, Marrakesh, Mumbai, Osaka, Santa Monica, Tampa and Moscow.

Democracy and Internet

Recently, talking with Gabriel Adame (@Gabo_Adame on Twitter, who invited me to his last radio program in Plaza Network -@plazanetwork-) we were discussing how Internet could help democracy in various countries, including Mexico.

One of the tools that have helped people looking to improve democracy in their countries is Twitter. This social network has helped people to know what is happening in the world before the mainstream media even reports it and it has been used to events that traditional media considers unimportant or because there are controlled by the government and dissidence is punished with jail or even death.

Recently this happened in Iran and its election, called fraudulent by opponents to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and in China, where a conflict with Uighur, an ethnic group that was violently repressed. Both events were known in the world thanks to dissidents who managed tospread images and videos about what happened in both countries on Twitter.

What @Gabo_Adame said was that he considered possible that Internet improves democracy in our country in the same way other countries has done this: improving the information about government's abuses.

My question is how long is possible to do this? How can you influence through Internet so people reacts and starts to defend their rights?

To begin with, I think more access to the technology of Internet is necessary, so people can learn to use this tool and all his possibilities. This would be possible in Mexico when almost all schools, public or private, teach to use and give access to Internet.

Besides, people has to be able to use it easily outside schools and universities, in places like libraries, public square and places where people spends time with others.

In Mexico nearly 27 persons have access to Internet and it isn't clear if they use it in all its potential (for example, they use it mostly to check their e-mail and chat on instant messengers) and there are a lot of ways to get benefits from them if they know how to use it and spend some time understanding the Web.

But there are obstacles too: people who want to improve our democracy, if they don't know the internal operation of government and bureaucracy, at least as I see it, have a difficult task: make people participate and move so they can find a legal way to improve things. This is a difficult task not everyone would try.

It's a difficult matter and, nevertheless, I can help but feel that there's a little hope that, as soon Internet is widely used in our country and people begins to use it more for other things than studies, work or entertainment, all will begin to move.