P2P Innovation from the Periphery: an interview on Smari McCarthy’s Iceland

Metahaven talks to Smári McCarthy about his agenda, urgencies, and interests.

“In October 2008, the Icelandic banking sector collapsed. This momentous event was, relative to country size, the largest banking crisis ever suffered by a single state. Iceland’s recovery has been a case of democratic and ethical reforms. A 25-strong Constitutional Assembly re-wrote the constitution, together with a crowdsourcing effort which introduced thousands of comments and hundreds of concrete proposals from citizens directly into the legislative dialogue. Committed radicals could start making policy, rather than critiquing it.

Smári McCarthy is the executive director of IMMI, the International Modern Media Institute, Smári oversees the gradual implementation of the world’s most far-reaching transparency and Internet freedom legislation, made in Iceland. IMMI’s proposals entail both Iceland’s own Freedom of Information Act, as well as media freedom and source protection it provides to others in its sovereign data space. IMMI’s policies are designed to be adopted by other countries – currently, the institute’s representatives travel across the globe to convince governments and private parties of the urgency of doing so. Much of IMMI’s future impact depends on its capacity to have Iceland successfully set new international standards, and to attract companies and organizations to inhabit its media freehaven.”

From Volume’s 2012 “Centers Adrift” issue, http://volumeproject.org/blog/2012/07/18/volume-32-centers-adrift/

Iceland: A Radical Periphery in Action. Metahaven interviews Smári McCarthy

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