VISIONSHARE

Hey, Murilo's in Budapest


photo by Joi Ito


[UPDATE: There's a very thorough report on the Citizen Media Summit at Open Democracy.]

Our good friend Jose Murilo is Budapest where he has been attending the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008.

In addition to being the Global Voices Portuguese language editor, Murilo manages information technology and Internet stuff for the Brazilian Federal Ministry of Culture and is the Vice President of the Ceu do Planalto Santo Daime community in Brasilia.

Here's Murilo's early report in English and here's where you can listen to the world everyday at Global Voices Online. The voices at GVO are truly starting to be listened to. For example, Andrew Sullivan whose column appears at the online Atlantic Magazine recently reposted Murilo's report from Brazil on the first black president.

At the Citizen Media Summit, Murilo says that he was especially drawn to the probing discussions about Internet censorship, and amazed by the deep integration that was achieved by the Global Voices community of managers, editors, authors and translators in debating the solutions for today's constraints and the vision for the future of this young organization.

He thinks Joi Ito -- one of the world's first bloggers and now the chairman of Creative Commons and the newly created Stitching Global Voices -- really captured the spirit of the conference when he said,

I think that by providing voices to all over the world, we have the ability to connect people and get people to care more.

I also believe that voice is probably more important than votes or guns. I believe that combating extremism is most effectively done by winning the argument in public, not by censorship, elections or destruction. I believe that providing everyone with a voice to participate in the global dialog is key.

Murilo just sent these "wind up" photos:


A table of "Global Booze" for the final party.


Some happy faces of the global voices.

And here's the flickr link to
everyones' photos.