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THE European Union has offered 500 000 euro to fund operations of the Zimbabwe Media Commission and implement a raft of activities, including MDC-T's proposed media reforms.

According to documents seen by The Herald, the EU will use Unesco as a conduit to convey the money. It is understood that the EU chose to deal with Unesco to circumvent sections of Government they claimed to be unhappy with.

EU charge d'affaires in Harare, Mr Carl Skau, yesterday confirmed that the European bloc was supporting various institutional processes in Zimbabwe.

However, according to the documents, the EU would not fund ZMC's strategic plan approved by the body at its retreat in Kadoma last year.

Instead, the EU through Unesco had come up with conditions that ZMC should follow to access the facility.

As part of the conditions, the EU demanded that the ZMC secretariat inherited from its predecessor the Media Information Commission be dissolved.

In the event that the same staff was hired for the new ZMC secretariat, the document noted they should be trained and reoriented to work in line with the new ZMC's mandate.

Through the fund, the EU also wanted ZMC to assume legislative powers and overturn the country's media laws such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Broadcasting Services Act.

The EU said the environment in Zimbabwe needed to be reviewed because it was not conducive for media development.

It argued that the continued existence of AIPPA was a threat to media freedom because it was the same legislation that Government used to shutdown some media houses.

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Zimbabwe: EU Dangles 500 000 Euro to Control Media

The ninth annualRIMC(Reykjavik Internet Marketing Conference) took place March 9. Theannual conference, which takes place in Icelands capital,is organized byKristjan Mar Hauksson, SES speaker, SEMPO board director, and founder ofNordic eMarketing.

Here's a wrapup of some of the highlights from RIMC 2012.

The morning welcome was delivered by the President of Iceland. Without slides and in a very relaxed tone, the president talked us through his personal experiences of new media; in particular about how instrumental social media had been as a tool for the people of Iceland to organize and protest after the fall of the banks in 2008.

Prior to the Arab Spring, the people of Iceland had used Facebook and Twitter to petition the government to reject various referenda. President lafur had quickly tuned in to the power of social media, and the ability for him to use such platforms to speak directly to the Icelandic electorate and for the past 18 months has rejected traditional media and global news appearances (on broadcasters such as CNN, Fox, and Reuters), in favor of social media.

President lafurs speech was quite emotive, certainly inspirational, and helped set the theme for the day, which was You are Not in Control. In this perspective the point was that technology has been a genuine and powerful tool for social change; facilitating democratic movement, greater and more personalized communication, plus mass organization and collaboration. It was clear that for President lafur that social media has helped to remove control from the hands of the few powerful leaders and media owners.

The President of Iceland opens the conference (Image Credit: Jackie Hole)

I was interested to see Pariser's keynote; having read the book "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You" a few months ago. The book and Parisers talk concerns personalized behavioral algorithms and the inherent dangers of content and behavioral clustering, in how this can lead to ring-fenced views of the world.

Pariser first began to see the most tangible effects of this personalization around the time of the last U.S. elections. Up to a certain point Pariser had seen content shared by people in his Facebook network that represented their own varying left and right-wing interests.

Over time the algorithms at play had learned through Parisers own re-shares, likes and interactions of his own political leanings; then suddenly and close to election time he was presented only with the content that matched his own political preferences. Thus being a completely one-sided view of content from his network. Thinking about this to its logical conclusions Pariser noted a number of concerns with this method of filtering content.

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You Are Not in Control – #RIMC 2012 Highlights

Blacked out ... a temporary shield was erected last year at a Christmas Island detention centre to prevent media from photographing detainees. Photo: James Brickwood

THE Immigration Department developed its new, highly restrictive policy on media visits to detention centres with reference to US military arrangements governing media access to the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention centre.

Documents released under freedom of information show the ''deed of agreement'' that Immigration insists journalists and media organisations visiting detention centres must sign was ''informed by the current US Department of Defence media access policy for its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay''.

The department also justified extremely tight media control and censorship to the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, as ''the right balance'' in circumstances that included ''the current climate associated with media ethics, media 'phone hacking' [in Britain]''.

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Access denied ... media have argued it was easier to visit Guantanamo Bay (pictured) than to gain access to an Australian immigration facility. Photo: Reuters

In an email to a reporter who was consulted on the policy, Immigration's national communications manager, Sandi Logan, said, ''I reckon while the phone hacking scandal is all the rage, what else would the media expect of us? Trust you say? Gimme a break, sorry!''

The Greens' immigration spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, said yesterday ''the idea that [media access] guidelines have, even in part, been inspired by Guantanamo Bay is absolutely appalling - it really shows the attitude of Immigration and [the] government - they have forgotten that they are dealing with asylum seekers, not criminals or terrorists.''

The policy requires that journalists visiting detention centres must be escorted at all times by Immigration officers. There is a bar on any ''substantive communication'' with detainees, a right for officials to censor recordings, and the right for Immigration to immediately end any visit.

The chief executives of the largest media organisations, including Fairfax Media's Greg Hywood, News Ltd's Kim Williams and the heads of all TV broadcast networks last month condemned the agreement as ''unacceptable censorship''.

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Detention centre policy based on Guantanamo

Customers can now control their Roku players using their Android smartphones.

With this free software, users can turn their mobile devices into a control center wherethey can launch Roku channels, navigate the Roku player, control media playback, and find new channels to view.

Theapp also turnsthe Android-running handset into a touch remote control that includes instant replay, back, and option buttons as well as a keyboard.It can also be usedto control and switch between multiple Roku players.

To use this app, just simply download it from the Google Play store, install, connect to the same network as the Roku player, and sign-in witha Roku account. Once signed in,users willbe able to controlany Roku player on the same network.

Roku released a Roku App for iPhone late last year that acts similarly to the Android app.

More about RokuRoku boxes are specially-designed devices for streaming video from online services. They offer channels such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, and many more, and have become popular among those who have given up cable television service.

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Control Your Roku Player with the Free Roku App

The new policy was partly based on rules governing journalists' access to the Guantanamo Bay prison. Photo: Reuters

THE Immigration Department's tough new policy restricting media visits to detention centres was partly modelled on US military rules governing journalists' access to the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Documents released under freedom of information show that Immigration's new ''deed of agreement'' that must be signed by journalists and media organisations visiting immigration detention centres was in part ''informed by the current US Department of Defence media access policy for its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay''.

The department justified tight media control and censorship to Immigration Minister Chris Bowen as ''the right balance'' in circumstances that included ''the current climate associated with media ethics, media 'phone hacking' [in Britain]''.

Advertisement: Story continues below

In an email to a journalist who was privately consulted on the new policy, Immigration's national communications manager, Sandi Logan, explained: ''I reckon while the phone hacking scandal is all the rage, what else would the media expect of us? Trust, you say? Gimme a break, sorry!''

Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said it was ''absolutely appalling'' that Australian media access guidelines had been at all inspired by arrangements at Guantanamo Bay.

''It really shows the attitude of Immigration and [the] government - they have forgotten that they are dealing with asylum seekers, not criminals or terrorists,'' she said.

Under the new media access policy, conditions of entry to detention centres include that journalists be at all times escorted by Immigration officers, a prohibition on any ''substantive communication'' with detainees, a right for officials to censor audio and video recordings, as well as the right for Immigration officials to immediately terminate any visit.

Last month the chief executives of Australia's largest media organisations, including Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood, News Limited CEO Kim Williams and the heads of all TV broadcast networks condemned the deed of agreement as ''unacceptable censorship''.

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US prison inspired media rule