Category: Culture

Everything cultural that interests me: music, reading, science, arts in general, news, photography…

Berlin, Belgrade: Two Contrasting Airport Experiences [en]

[fr] Je déteste vraiment la sécurité dans les aéroports. C'est d'une hypocrisie primaire et le résultat principal en est une péjoration du comfort des voyageurs. Je raconte dans ce billet deux expériences contrastées (mes deux derniers vols).

L'aéroport Tegel a Berlin, où tout s'est passé comme sur des roulettes, même si j'ai eu bien peur de rater mon vol (imaginez: je me suis pointée au faux aéroport, moins de deux heures avant décollage). A Tegel, le taxi vous dépose directement au terminal. Le check-in est à 5m de la porte. Le contrôle des passeports est à côté (vraiment) du check-in (disons 3m). Le contrôle sécurité est droit derrière. Et la zone d'attente pour la porte est juste après. De check-in à salle d'attente, 10m et 5 minutes à tout casser.

A Belgrade par contre... Ce fut moins fun. Personnel peu agréable, renseignements médiocres, vilain sandwich tout sec... et pour couronner le tout, "double" sécurité. Eh oui, non seulement faut-il faire la queue pour faire passer aux rayons X toutes ses petites affaires avant le contrôle des passeports, mais encore faut-il passer par le même cirque à la port, pour accéder à la zone d'attente. Je vous passe les chaises en métal et les courants d'air...

Inutile de dire que je suis ravie de rentrer à Lausanne en train depuis Paris, et que j'espère que les grèves continueront à ne pas avoir d'influences sur les TGVs à destination de la Suisse!

Flying out of Berlin could have been a nightmare. It actually turned out to be a rather smooth experience. The nightmarish bit is that I went to the wrong airport to catch my plane. I flew in to Shönefeld (?), so naturally assumed that I would be flying out from there two.

When I arrived at the airport less than two hours before take-off, I checked the departure board and couldn’t find my flight. Suddenly, it hit me: this wasn’t the only airport in Berlin. A brief panicked enquiry at the airport information desk later, I was grabbing a taxi, calling the JAT office in Tegel Airport to explain the situation (they had my ticket waiting there for me), and deciding that 70€ to take the predictable but longer motorway route (it was peak hour and the town was gridlocked) was better than missing my flight.

My taxi driver was nice, reassuring, and cut quite a few lines to get me there on time.

Here is where it became smooth. Like most of you I guess. I’m used to airports where you need to wait in line for check-in, then walk to passport control, wait in line again, then walk to security, wait in line again, then finally, walk to the gate.

None of that nonsense at Tegel Airport. I had been given the terminal number by the person I spoke to at the JAT office, who told me my ticket would be waiting for me at check-in. My taxi dropped me off at the terminal.

I went through the door.

I walked 5 metres.

I waited 2 minutes at check-in, was greeted by a smiling hostess, given my ticket, and checked in.

The door to security — no kidding — was just next to the check-in desks. 10 steps away. And passport control was just before the door to security. And the gate itself (the waiting area) was just behind security. From check-in to the gate: less than 10 meters. Within 5 minutes I was through all of it.

And I wasn’t (by far) the last person to check in. I was early, actually.

Contrast that with my departure from Belgrade, five days later. (Oh, let me mention in passing that I had the most frightening landing of my life in Belgrade. I’m not a frightened flyer, but the weather was really very rough and stormy, with the plane rocking left and right and dropping abruptly as we were approaching the landing strip. And once on the ground, it didn’t stop either — precisely because the plane wasn’t slowing down, and was making dreadful noises. We stopped OK in the end, but from my point of view we were moving way too fast on that runway for way too long.)

Back to my experience this noon in Belgrade Airport. First, I have to say it was overall not very friendly.

I asked the check-in woman where I could change money and eat. She indicated two places for that, which meant I had to change money (lots of dinars) first and eat (paying in dinars) second. Great. Then, the change office didn’t have Swiss francs. Even greater (I now have enough euros to settle down in Paris for a month, nearly.)

I got a really nasty sandwich for a small fraction of the money I had been advised to keep for the meal, and then realised that I could change money on that floor too. They had Swiss francs, but with the amount of dinars I had it was more interesting to change in euros. Then, once I’d gotten rid of all my dinars, I noticed there was at least one other food place — nicer than the one I’d been to, of course.

Oh well.

I queued through security, did my usual Empty Half Your Bag And Get Half Undressed stunt, waited in my socks while the person at security control searched the bags of the woman before me (one person per machine, takes care of searching too, so when a bag is searched, the machine stops too — efficient, isn’t it?), and headed to passport control.

A rather unfriendly woman there gruffly asked me for my boarding pass (it had slipped out of my travel documents into my bag) and put a nasty wet stamp on it before folding it back into my passport. I had to wipe the wet ink off the (thankfully plastified) page with all my personal details.

Once in the “sterile” area, I noticed there were another two places where I could have eaten (oh, well) but no board with flight numbers and gates. I asked a member of staff who was passing by, and she pointed me to the travel information desk where I got the answer I needed.

I walked down the corridor to the gate and was quite surprised to find the place rather empty (this was about 10 minutes before announced boarding time). There was an open door with a corridor leading somewhere cold, and a closed door next to the flight details for the gate, behind which I could see a security machine and a bored young man in a uniform.

There were a few metal seats in the draughty corridor.

I tried to open the closed door, but it was — closed. I made interrogative signs to the young man, who got up to open the door and tell me that this was the right place, only later.

I therefore sat on a draughty metal seat and waited.

Slowly, more people arrived. Airline and airport employees, too. The door opened. Closed. Opened. Closed. Passengers got up and started to form a line (boarding time passed), so I got up too.

And waited in the cold. And cursed at the security machine I could see through the glass door.

You probably know I’m sick of airport security. It’s hypocritical (there mainly to cover some people’s precious arses), basically abusing poor passengers and making our lives miserable when we travel under pretense of keeping us safe from “terrorists”.

Right. So when you make everybody entering one part of the airport (what I call the “sterile area”) go through security and show ID… and you do the same thing again later on… what kind of message are you sending?

You’re basically saying: oh, well, our sterile area isn’t really sterile, you see — we don’t trust our own security screening. So please, let us screen you again. You know, just in case one of you entered this part of the airport without going through security, or managed to sneak a gun or explosives past us.

What do you think my opinion of airport security is now?

The cabin crew went through first, and for a wild moment I thought that maybe this was just for them, because for some reason they might not have had to go through the same long line of waiting for bags to be searched as us.

But I was wrong. One by one, 15 minutes after announced boarding time, we put our stuff in the X-ray machine again. Did I mention it was cold and draughty? I wasn’t happy to be in my socks again. And no, I didn’t feel bad about holding up the line because I put my stuff in four different trays to make sure I don’t raise any flags (got searched for cables in my bag, once — now they go through separate).

Colour me grumpy.

So, now that everybody had been doubly screened and that we were doubly safe, we got to sit down in more draughty metal chairs and wait. And then, stand up in line again and wait.

I am so glad I’m going back to Lausanne by train from Paris.

I just hope the strikes in France continue to not affect connections to Switzerland…

Blogopen in Novi Sad, Serbia [en]

[fr] Je suis allée en Serbie donner une conférence sur "être une consultante en blogs" lors du festival "Blogopen" qui a eu lieu samedi à Novi Sad. La conférence s'est extrêmement bien passée, mais n'a malheureusement pas été enregistrée. Les retours ont été assez incroyables, au point que c'était presque pas forcément évident à gérer.

For the last few days I’ve been getting weird digital looks on IM and IRC. You’re in Serbia? What on earth are you doing there?

Simple answer: I came here to give a talk during Blogopen. A few months ago I was contacted by Tatjana Vehovec. Pedja Puselja, a popular Serbian blogger living in Strasbourg, had recommended me as a speaker. Well, past the initial surprise, I happily accepted. That’s how, Saturday just past, I ended up giving a talk on what it is to be a “Blogging Consultant” to a room full of Serbian bloggers and other interested people.

Those of you who give talks regularly know that all “performances” are not equal. I’m happy to say this was a good one. (I was quite happy with the one I gave at Web2Open too, come to think of it.) It was streamed live on Blog.tv by Pedja, but unfortunately (and to my great frustration) it was not recorded. (Had I known it would be broadcast, I would have let you know…) I really need to remember to organise recording for future speaking engagements.

But then… wow, the feedback I got was almost overwhelming. At least three people came up to me saying my talk had really inspired them. A publisher in the room asked me if I would write a guide to being a “blogging consultant”, which would be translated into Serbian. I had put what was left of my Moo cards on the table, thinking a dozen or so people would take one — they all disappeared. I got interviewed on Croatian national TV (the journalist was very nice and promised to send me a copy of the raw interview — I hope he does, because I was very happy with it and would like to be able to show it to you).

Basically, I felt like a superstar or an extraterrestrial which had just descended on planet earth. A very mixed feeling, I have to say — somewhat pleasant, but mainly disturbing to me. I felt like it created a huge distance between me and other people. Hence my use of “overwhelming” to try and describe it. I was very very happy to have my lovely host Sanja by my side during that day. (I’ll write more about that in another post.)

Reading The Black Swan [en]

[fr] Notes de lecture de "The Black Swan", sur l'impact des événements hautement improbables.

One of the things I did yesterday during my time offline was read a sizeable chunk of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

It’s a fascinating read. (Thanks again to Adam Hill for saying I should read it.) I just find myself a little frustrated that I can’t effortlessly copy-paste quotes from the book into a text file or my Tumblr as I read. (And no, I wouldn’t want to be reading this online. I like books. They just lack a few features. Like searchability, too.)

Anyway, I’ve been twittering away while I read, and here are a few things I noted. These are not exact quotes, but paraphrases. Consider them “reading notes.” (And then a few me-quotes, hehe…).

  • oh, one quote I did copy to Tumblr (check it, if you’re lucky, you might find more quotes!)
  • Finding Taleb’s concepts of Mediocristan and Extremistan fascinating and insightful.
  • Probably in Extremistan: number of contacts, length of relationships? Not sure.
  • High-impact, low-probability events (Black Swans) are by nature unpredictable. Now apply that to the predator problem.
  • We confuse ‘no evidence of possible Black Swans’ with ‘evidence of no possible Black Swans’ and tend to remember the latter.
  • ‘No evidence of disease’ often interpreted as ‘Evidence of no disease’, for example.
  • Taleb: in testing for a hypothesis, we tend to look for confirmation and ignore what would invalidate it.
  • Interesting: higher dopamine = greater vulnerability to pattern recognition (less suspension of disbelief)
  • So… Seems we overestimate probability of black swans when we talk about them. Terrorism, predators, plane crashes… And ignore others.
  • Anecdotes sway us more than abstract statistical information. (Taleb)
  • That explains why personal recommendations have so much influence on our decisions. Anecdotes, rather than more abstract facts or stats. (That’s from me, not him.)
  • Journalists according to Taleb: ‘industrial producers of the distortion’

Update: Anne Zelenka wrote a blog post taking the last and, unfortunately, quite incomplete citation as a starting-point. Check my clarification comment on her blog. And here’s the complete quote:

Remarkably, historians and other scholars in the humanities who need to understand silent evidence the most do not seem to have a name for it (and I looked hard). As for journalists, fuhgedaboutdit! They are industrial producers of the distortion. (p. 102)

Update 2: Anne edited her post to take into account my comment and our subsequent discussion. Thanks!

A Day at the Frankfurter Buchmesse [en]

[fr] Etat des lieux sur mes recherches de fonds et exploration du monde de l'édition pour mon livre sur les ados et internet. Envies de publier (via internet) des livres avec mes photos, aussi.

A month or two ago, I was chatting about my book project and decision to find funding to Joi. He suggested that a trip to the Frankfurt book fair might be useful.

First on, the Messe is just huge. I spent a morning there and just walked, and walked, and walked. Overall, I found my visit rather disappointing, though I did learn some useful things (though they weren’t exactly what I wanted to hear). Here’s the information I gathered, from a visit to the Swiss booth and discussions with a few people.

  • I have a list of Swiss (French-speaking) publishers, and a shortlist of 4-5 who could be suitable for my project.
  • Publishers, distributors, and bookstores are all part of the same organisation (in CH).
  • The market is saturated, publishers are swamped with manuscripts, and it’s even worse in France than Switzerland (so, I should stick with local publishers — the fact I’m already recognised as a local authority also pushes in that direction).
  • I can forget about a deal with an advance, so I need to look at other sources to finance the writing part (Loterie Romande, educational associations, foundations… I’ll hunt around a bit to compile a list.)
  • Swiss publishers don’t like agents, and having one might make it even more difficult for me to find a publisher.
  • The publisher deals with the printing guys to get the book published, and deals with the distribution guys to get it distributed. Hunter, a seasoned bookwriter, tells me that unless I’m getting a huge advance, having a publisher is not worth it — I can deal with printers and distributors myself. Will just have to check if this is a viable approach in the Swiss market.
  • The publisher is precious for the editing process, because he knows what is good and what is not, the head of this Swiss association tells me. Hunter, on the contrary, tells me this mostly gets in the way. A good editor can be precious but chances are I won’t be getting one.
  • If I go the self-publishing way (offline), then I’ll need funding for the printing, which could be a problem.
  • One option, which Joi suggests and I’d been getting at, is to start off by online-self-publishing (Lulu, Blurb, or another), and once there is enough buzz, sales, reviews, etc, approaching publishers.
  • I really need to work on a proper proposal, and I have a better understanding of what such a proposal needs to look like. I got some advice from talking with a publisher over dinner (thanks again!) and Chris Webb left me a pointer to his interesting series on book proposals in the comments to my previous post. From what I gather, the more there is in the proposal, the better.

So, where do I go from now?

  • Write a proper proposal in French (as the book will be in French). This obviously needs to be broken down into manageable pieces (GTD-style), and I realise that the big nasty bit for me is the outline. I have tons of ideas of stuff that I want to put in the book, but I’m not sure how to organise it all yet. I’ve been mind-mapping, but it’s a bit overwhelming and messy. So I’ll start by writing all the rest (the easy bits).
  • Write a project funding proposal which will probably not be as detailed as the one for the publisher.
  • Ask around for leads to getting funding, compile a list, send out funding requests with proposal.
  • Send the proposal to the 4-5 publishers on the list, once it’s done.

Language? Isn’t it kind of weird I’m speaking about this in English? On the other hand, I don’t want to “cut out” my English network by blogging exclusively in French about this book project.

All this thinking about self-publishing has given me the desire to put together one or more photo books. I’ve barely been printing since I went digital, and it’s nice to have photos in physical form too, as Moo‘s success demonstrates. My friend Andrea Lindenberg has put together a collection of her best riding show photographs — if you like horses, you should definitely check it out. She’s very talented.

My Flickr photo collection is approaching 10’000 photos. So, again, the inevitable choice problem. I’ll certainly make a book of my best Indian photos at some point (most of them aren’t on Flickr but are either slides (first trip), negatives (second trip), or digital-dumped-in-directories (third trip). I have a set called My Favourites, but it’s very out-of-date and doesn’t contain any recent photos. I can probably dig out the photos I use for Moo cards or stickers and add them, though.

Any opinions? If you see any photos of mine that you think deserve ending up in the (a) photo book, don’t hesitate to tag them “forthebook”. Thanks!

Vilain cafard ou jolie blatte forestière ambrée ? [fr]

[en] I thought we had cockroaches in the house, but it turns out to be a harmless, outdoor variety which sometimes gets lost inside (ectobius vittiventris). Here is the explanation leaflet we got from the company we contacted -- in hope that it might be useful to others.

Depuis que j’habite ici, je vois régulièrement voleter autour de la porte d’entrée de l’immeuble, surtout la nuit, des insectes qui ressemblent furieusement à des cafards. Après mon retour des États-Unis, j’en ai tué plusieurs dans mon appartement, et j’ai décidé qu’il était temps de prendre le taureau par les cornes et d’alerter concierge et gérance.

Après capture et analyse d’une des bestioles, il s’avère que nous n’avons pas affaire à des vilains cafards, mais à des jolies blattes forestières ambrées inoffensives. Elles vivent à l’extérieur et ne se retrouvent à l’intérieur que par mégarde, n’y survivant pas. Je reproduis ci-dessous l’information qui nous a été communiquée (par l’entreprise contactée j’imagine) au sujet de ce petit insecte, puisqu’il ne semble pas se trouver déjà en français sur Internet. J’espère qu’elle pourra être utile à autrui!

Blatte forestière ambrée / Ectobius vittiventris

Une blatte sauvage, qui n’est pas un parasite de l’habitat, est de plus en plus signalée en Suisse romande. On la trouve égarée à l’intérieur des bâtiments, mais elle ne peut survivre sans l’humidité et les conditions qu’elle trouve dans son environnement naturel, jardins ou parcs, sous la végétation. Originellement située dans le bassin méditerranéen de l’Italie à la Turquie, elle était très présente au Tessin ces vingt dernières années.

Au nord des Alpes, elle est en forte augmentation ces dix dernières années, particulièrement en milieu urbain et jusqu’à une altitude de 700 mètres environ. Elle recherche la chaleur des façades ; capable de voler, par temps chaud elle pénètre dans les immeubles par les fenêtres ouvertes. Ces dernières années en Suisse, sa présence sur ou dans des bâtiments a été signalée durant tous les mois de l’année, mais c’est surtout entre juin et novembre que son activité a été observée, avec un maximum en août.

Aucun piège connu ne peut valablement la capturer et l’usage d’insecticide est inutile étant donné que cette blatte est sans danger et meurt rapidement à l’intérieur (un à trois jours maximum). Le seul moyen connu de limiter les incursions de cet insecte dans l’habitat est la pose de moustiquaires.

Le problème réside dans sa ressemblance avec la blatte germanique, redoutable parasite très prolifique bien connu dans la restauration, l’hôtellerie, l’industrie alimentaire et l’immobilier en général. Elle lui ressemble par sa taille. Sa coloration est légèrement plus claire et nous pensons qu’il est important, lors de découverte, de confier sa détermination à un spécialiste éclairé.

Source: I. Landau – H. Baur – G. Müller – M. Schmidt, UGZ Zürich — Max Hagner SA

Two Panel Submissions for SXSW Interactive (Language Issues) [en]

[fr] Il y a deux propositions portant mon nom pour SXSW -- merci de voter pour elles! Sinon, dates et description de mes prochaines conférences.

Je cherche aussi un "speaking agent" -- faites-moi signe si vous en connaissez un qui travaille avec des personnes basées en Europe. Merci d'avance!

Oh. My. God.

I just realised, reading Brian’s post, that I haven’t blogged about the two panel proposals I’m on for SXSW Interactive next March in Austin, Texas:

  • Opening the Web to Linguistic Realities (co-presenting with Stephanie Troeth)
    ** A basic assumption on the Internet is that everybody speaks and understands one language at a time. Globalism and immigration has created an even more prominent trend of multilingualism amongst the world’s inhabitants. How can the WWW and its core technologies keep up? How can we shift our biased perspectives?
  • Lost in Translation? Top Website Internationalization Lessons (panel I’m moderating)
    ** How do you publish software or content for a global audience? Our expert panel discusses lessons learned translating and localizing. Leaders from Flickr, Google, iStockphoto and the Worldwide Lexicon will tackle various marketing issues; how to translate the ‘feel’ of a Web site, and; best practices for software and content translation.

As you can see, both proposals revolve around the use of languages on the internet — and as you know, it’s one of the topics I care about nowadays. I’ve spoken on this topic a few times now (BlogCamp ZH, Reboot9, Google Tech Talks) and I’m looking forward to taking things further with these new chances to toss these problems around in public.

80 or so of the 700+ panel submissions to SXSW Interactive will be selected by public voting and actually take place. That’s not a lot (roughly 10%). So please go and vote for these two panels (“Amazing” will do) so that they make it into the selection. I really want to go to Austin! (Can you hear me begging? OK, over. But please vote.)

Other than that, I have a few more talks planned in the coming months:

My proposal for Web 2.0 Expo didn’t make it, it seems, but I’ll probably submit something for Web2Open.

And, as you might have heard, I’m looking for a speaking agent. If you can recommend any good speaking agents who work with European-based speakers, please drop me a line or a comment.

Retour au Dragon [en]

[fr] Each time I go through a bad bout of RSI, I can be certain that my speech recognition setup breaks down. This time, my microphone died, and I had to buy a new headset, which seems to be working correctly, as you can see. Business seems to be slowly picking up again after the summer break, but there's nothing really solid for the moment. I will be travelling beginning of October and beginning of November (conferences I've been invited to speak at, and others that I'm attending), but things are unfortunately too uncertain financially for me to make definite plans about the trip in India I was thinking about for this winter. As for my book project, I decided that I actively need to seek a way to finance it at least partially, so that I can relax enough about the money issues to really get to work on it. If you have any ideas or contacts that could help me in that direction, they are most welcome.

Comme toujours, lorsque mes douleurs aux mains reprennent, le Dragon se met en grève. Là, en l’occurrence, c’est le microphone de mon casque qui semble avoir rendu l’âme. Après une bonne prise de tête en ligne il y a déjà quelques semaines, un peu de troubleshooting à l’aide d’un casque prêté (merci Pierre !), j’ai acheté ce matin un casque Logitech (modèle 250, USB) qui semble très bien marcher, preuve en est le texte que vous êtes en train de lire.

L’été touche gentiment à sa fin, c’est la rentrée scolaire, j’ai quelques rendez-vous pour discuter de projets possibles, mais rien n’est encore très concret. J’ai des voyages prévus à l’étranger, début octobre et début novembre, des conférences auxquelles j’ai été invitée à faire une présentation, et d’autres auxquelles j’assisterai simplement. J’ai caressé l’idée de partir un mois en Inde cet hiver — je n’y ai pas encore tout à fait renoncé, mais les mois à venir sont trop incertains (financièrement, bêtement) pour que je prenne des engagements de ce côté-là maintenant.

Et puis il y a le livre, oui, le fameux livre. Je dois me rendre à l’évidence : entre autres obstacles à son écriture, le stress de l’incertitude financière liée à mon statut d’indépendante ne me laisse pas la disponibilité d’esprit dont j’ai besoin pour m’atteler à une tâche pareille, même si je pourrais objectivement libérer le temps nécessaire. Je vais donc activement me mettre en quête de solutions pour financer au moins partiellement ce projet. Du coup, si vous avez des idées, des tuyaux, des relations, ils seront les bienvenus.

Another RSI Break [en]

[fr] Vilain accès de TMS. Utilisez le téléphone ou skype si je dois vous répondre. Le Dragon est en panne, je serai de retour une fois qu'il sera réparé.

This post will be brief, obviously: I’m suffering from another very bad bout of RSI (with a proper tendonitis in my right arm, it seems).

To top it all, my dictation system has broken down (maybe just a dead microphone, hopefully). Basically, I’m mute. Think “losing one’s voice” or “having to spell words out rather than speak” to get an idea.

So, skype or call if I need to answer. I can read, though.

Will be back when things calm down or the Dragon starts working again.

MySpace supprime les profils de 29'000 "délinquants sexuels" [en]

Il y a quelques jours, on a attiré mon attention sur cet article de la BBC, qui rapporte que le site MySpace (une sorte de super-Skyblog d’origine américaine) a supprimé de son site les profils de 29’000 “délinquants sexuels” (“sex offenders”).

J’ai écrit deux billets à ce sujet en anglais, qui ont reçu pas mal de couverture dans la blogosphère anglophone. J’ai aussi été interviewée par la radio BBC World suite à mon message leur signalant ma réaction.

Ces deux billets comportent un résumé bref en français que je reproduis ici pour plus de commodité.

MySpace exclut de son site 29’000 “sex offenders” (des gens qui ont été accusés de crimes sexuels) enregistrés. C’est problématique d’une part car suivant l’Etat dans lequel elles ont été condamnées, ces personnes enregistrées peuvent être coupables de choses aussi anodines que: relations homosexuelles, nudisme, uriner dans un lieu public, faire l’amour dans un lieu public, etc. D’autre part, je rappelle les chiffres provenant d’une récente étude sur les crimes sexuels impliquant des minteurs, qui vont à l’encontre de l’idée qu’on se fait habituellement de ce genre de cas. En agissant ainsi, possiblement poussés par la paranoïa ambiante, MySpace contribue à cette paranoïa. Je regrette que la presse joue systématiquement le jeu de la peur et ne se fasse pas l’avocate d’une attitude moins paniquée face à la question des prédateurs sexuels en ligne. (En résumé: les enfants courent plus de risques hors ligne qu’en ligne, et probablement bien plus à chaque fois qu’ils montent dans une voiture ou traversent la route…)

Stephanie Booth, MySpace Banning Sex Offenders: Online Predator Paranoia

Conseils aux parents (après mon interview à la BBC ce soir au sujet des “sex offenders” bannis de MySpace):

  • pas de panique, les prédateurs sexuels tels que nous les présentent les médias ne sont pas légion, votre enfant ne court pas des risques immodérés en étant sur internet;
  • dialoguez avec votre enfant; intéressez-vous à ce qu’il fait en ligne;
  • souvenez-vous que fournir des informations personnelles n’est pas un très grand risque; par contre, s’engager dans des relations de séduction avec des inconnus ou des amis adultes en ligne l’est.

J’ai écrit relativement peu en anglais à ce sujet jusqu’à maintenant. En français, lisez Adolescents, MySpace, internet: citations de danah boyd et Henry Jenkins, De la “prévention internet”, les billets en rapport avec mon projet de livre sur les adolescents et internet, et la documentation à l’attention des ados que j’ai rédigée pour ciao.ch.

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p class=”sig”>Stephanie Booth, Parents, Teenagers, Internet, Predators, Fear…

Donc, en faisant ma tournée sur technorati, pour voir qui a mentionné dans son blog l’article de la BBC, je suis tombée sur un billet en français qui se réjouissait de la nouvelle. Mon long commentaire à ce billet devenant trop long, j’ai décidé de le faire ici, sur mon blog, et du coup, de parler un peu de cette histoire pour mes lecteurs francophones:

Bonne nouvelle signée MySpace qui vient de supprimer 29.000 profils de délinquants sexuels américains errants sur son espace qui compte 80 millions internautes. La suppression a été effectuée grâce à son partenariat avec le bureau de vérification Sentinel Tech Holding Crop qui développe une base de données nationale de délinquants sexuels. La législation américaine facilite cette tâche car elle permet de consulter librement les fiches de ces déliquants sur le site du ministère de la justice…

M/S, MySpace a les yeux sur les délinquants sexuels

Comme je l’explique donc dans ma réaction à l’article de la BBC ce n’est pas une si bonne nouvelle que ça. Ce sont les états qui définissent ce qu’est un “délinquant sexuel”, et suivant où, on peut être sur une de ces listes pour avoir montré ses fesses en public. De plus, les profils supprimés seraient ceux où l’adresse e-mail fournie correspond à celle qui se trouve dans le dossier des délinquants sexuels. Vous pensez vraiment qu’un “pervers à la recherche de victimes” (et encore, voir plus bas pour ma réfutation de la forme qu’on donne au problème) serait aussi bête?

Aussi, la problématique des prédateurs sexuels sur internet est dramatisée et déformée par les médias. Tout d’abord, on perd de vue que la grande majorité des crimes sexuels sur mineurs impliquent la famille ou des amis proches de la famille (et non des inconnus ou “connaissances” provenant d’internet). Les cas faisant intervenir internet sont une minorité, et sont plus de l’ordre “relation de séduction d’ados” que “duperie et enlèvement d’enfants”. On peut légitimement se demander si une telle action de la part de MySpace est vraiment utile (il s’agit en fait plus de sauvegarder leur image), et si on n’est pas en train de se donner bonne conscience tout en évitant de faire de la prévention utile, mais quelque peu plus complexe (puisqu’il s’agit d’aller plonger dans la façon dont les adolescents vivent l’éveil de leur sexualité et de leurs premières relations amoureuses). Voir à ce sujet De la “prévention internet”, billet qui, au milieu de mes grands questionnements, aborde cette question.

Mon ami Kevin Anderson, journaliste américain vivant à Londres, a écrit un excellent billet au sujet de toute cette histoire suite à un interview assez frustrant qu’il a donné à la BBC: ‘Think of the children’. Yes, but also think about the journalism. Entre autres, il en appelle à la presse, qui couvre systématiquement ce genre d’événement selon l’angle “mon Dieu, ça grouille de pédophiles sur internet, enfin on fait quelque chose, mais est-ce suffisant?”

I am taking an issue with the format and the journalistic assumptions made. Yes, there is a problem here, but it’s not the one that is being shouted in the headlines. The facts don’t support the sensationalist story of a predator lurking behind every MySpace profile or blog post. As Steph points out in her posts, the threat to youth isn’t in them having blogs or being on social networks. The problem is one of emotionally vulnerable teens being preyed upon by opportunistic adults. It’s more complicated and less emotive than saying: Keep the paedos off of MySpace.

Kevin Anderson, ‘Think of the children’. Yes, but also think about the journalism

Après mon interview à la BBC il y a deux jours, j’ai envoyé à quelques (3-4) journalistes romands de ma connaissance un e-mail contenant un appel à une couverture plus “réaliste” que “sensationnelle” de cette histoire. Voici à quelques variations près le message que j’ai envoyé:

Vous avez peut-être entendu parler du fait que MySpace a “viré” de son
site 29’000 personnes se trouvant sur les listes de délinquants
sexuels tenues par les Etats aux USA. J’ai écrit une assez longue
réaction à ce sujet (en anglais) et me suis également faite
interviewer par la BBC.

En deux mots:

  • la définition de “sex offender” est problématique (dans certains
    états, on peut finir sur ces listes pour avoir montré ses fesses ou eu
    des relations homosexuelles)
  • une telle action de la part de MySpace (pour sauver leur image,
    principalement) est problématique d’une part car elle renforce la peur
    (peu justifiée) ambiante autour des prédateurs sexuels en ligne, et
    d’autre part car c’est une mesure peu utile car elle est déconnectée
    de la réalité des “problèmes/agressions à caractère sexuel” que
    rencontrent les ados en ligne.

[liens vers mes deux articles]

Je ne sais pas si c’est votre rayon ou non et si ça vous intéresse,
mais si vous connaissez quelqu’un qui serait susceptible de couvrir
cette histoire sous cet angle (un angle qui manque cruellement dans
les médias “traditionnels”) n’hésitez pas à leur dire de prendre
contact avec moi (+41 78 625 44 74).

Deux réponses intéressées à ce jour (une personne en vacances qui a retransmis le mail, et un quotidien local pour qui ce n’est peut-être pas évident de couvrir un tel sujet international). Je réitère donc ici mon appel: y’a-t-il une publication romande qui veuille relever le défi?

There's No Place Like Home [en]

[fr] Qu'il fait bon être de retour chez soi!

I’m home.

  • I know how the oven works and the temperatures on the dial mean something to me.
  • The water in the shower is hot immediately, no need to wait.
  • Bagha is there.
  • Dressing-gown.
  • Sleeping in my bed. With my nordic-style bedsheets. Mmmh.
  • Frozen lasagna from Migros, tastes “just like it should”.
  • Quiet. Calm. Silence. (Just a bit of thunder now and again.)
  • Shopping on auto-pilot with no surprises. Price tags indicate how much I’ll pay, tax included.
  • Spotlessly clean busses.
  • Dreadful grumble winter-like grey grumble weather.
  • Paying my bus fare with my CASH card. No need to convert bills into quarters.
  • A fridge filled with familiar food.
  • Did I mention the calm and silence?

It’s been a long time since I was away from home for so long.