Guardian Activate 2011: Live coverage from New York

Guardian Activate summit makes its overseas debut in the Big Apple, featuring an extra-special array of speakers primed to change the world through the internet1.57pm: The lawyer on the panel, Graham Hann, head of technology at Taylor Wessig, says there's two things you should never watch being made: a McDonalds cheeseburger and legislation.Hann says that the UK's long-delayed Digital Economy Act isn't "consistent with freedom of expression" and is a "crazy set of laws" that needs to be changed.1.49pm: Next is Krishna Bharat, founder of Google News, who has the temerity to explain what Google News is. There's an opportunity online to collect all of the information when you need it: "The value of diversity is immense".The process of consuming information has changed since the advent of the web, Bharat says. Now you have all kinds of social aggregation, the whole process is not very streamlined. Bharat likes the idea of a "rich information preview" where people can sample where they're about to go on the web before they go there, to make "information more efficient for consumers".1.48pm: Schneier: "We're seeing the death of ephemeral conversation, where someone's high-school comments are going to show up in a newspaper. For the first time in our history, we never forget. The social lubricant of forgetting doesn't exist anymore."1.44pm: Bruce Schneier, founder of BT Counterpane, says that data is the "byproduct" of the information society and that there's a "sea change" in world of personal data. Things that five years ago companies would have thrown away, it's now easier to save.But Schneier warns that this is also allowing a "ubiquitous surveillance."1.42pm: Rusbridger says that the regime of "writing one story, putting on your coat, going to the pub and then that being that" is an inadequate form of reporting, unfit for the digital age. Now external voices are given equal weigh to the single correspondent within the paper.1.16pm: Right, lunchtime, For those who would rather snack on Jeff Jarvis's incisive soundbites than actual lunch, we have an hour-long panel to fill the break.Titled "the future of information and the status quo," Jarvis moderates a discussion featuring Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media; Bruce Schneier, founder of BT Counterpane; Krishna Bharat, founder of Google News; Graham Hann, head of technology at Taylor Wessig; Danah Boyd, social media researcher at Microsoft Research.1.07pm: Asked about governments selectively acting on public concerns, Pandith says: "One can be very sceptical about what I just said, but I am in this job because I care very much about what's happening to people under the age of 30 who happen to be Muslim. "I'm not trying to win hearts and minds. I'm trying to go deep and go wide."Activate delegate Linh Do points out:12.58pm: Morozov concludes: "Internet does have potential, but have to make sure to minimise harms and don't just think that a change is happening digitally, that the real world can play a part in social movements."12.55pm: Chinese deadline to respond to any dissident storm brewing online is two hours, says Morozov.We have to go beyond building tools that will allow us to hide what we do online. There should be more conversation between bloggers and governments about why this is happening at all.Morozov: "Have to make sure online activism doesn't just happen in online world and stays there. Have to make sure it's connected to real world struggles." There's a danger that young people will think that the only way they can affect change is online, Photoshopping a picture of the president's face.12.48pm: Assumption that once we empower people with digital tools they will become more engaged is naive, says Morozov, rebutting many of this morning's speakers.Impact of internet is two-fold – it is undermining certain regimes, but there are more and more ways that these governments are reacting to that. In the Middle East, many of these governments weren't particularly savvy before the Arab springs uprising, now it is.12.45pm: Evgeny Morozov, author of the Net Delusion, up now.Governments are increasingly reliant on technology "as a strategy of control". The reason why we as citizens have to be critical about areas that put internet into centre of political change, is not because contraryism sells, it's because governments then won't spend as much money on facilitating democracy in other areas.Morozov: "Internet has enabled many things, but have to evaluate it's contribution in relative terms."12.40pm: Rasiej: I'm very very worried that technology is moving so fast that governments cannot make laws fast enough. And the internet is private – the sole purpose is to make money.The third reason Rasiej is worried because "the public itself doesn't understand what's going on" – there's no terms of service, we don't know what we're giving up. Telcos are putting hundreds of millions of dollars in the pockets of Westminster lobbyists – that's why we should be worried.12.32pm: Andrew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, wants to retire the phrase "Government 2.0".He says people using social media are the "new pamphleteers", and that governments are realising that citizens now know more about what's going on than they do.12.31pm: "The US government has to do more to embrace technology – we're not perfect yet – but we're doing more than we have ever done in history to be accessible to people in communities and onthe ground," concludes Pandith.12.26pm: Pandith: "In last few years we've seen a paradigm change in how communities responding to extremist messages out there. People are moving into walled gardens where extremists aren't welcome, people are creating strong relationships."She says there's a "strengthening of moderation by peers online" pushing back against extremism, and putting a new framework on worldwide events. Extremists are being forced to "cloak extremist policies with pop culture" to make it accessible to others.12.26pm: In the next 20 years, government is only going to be one voice among many, meaning they have to compete for attention. WE have to be more connected and cooperative, says Pandith.She adds: "Government will be increasingly forced to earn trust rather than enforce it."12.21pm: Young People are tired of being talked about from afar, says Pandith. "They are the change agents of the future. It's unbelievably important that we think about how things will shape up in the next decade."She adds: "It's as important for us to listen to what citizen is saying as a foreign minister. We need to be accessible and transparent."In next 10 to 20 years, we have to be looking at two main things: 1) relationship between government and civil society; 2) how negative stuff on the web, like extremism, affects what government does.12.19pm: Pandith: When we talk about Muslims around the world, most are under the age of 30. It is "extremely important" that US listens to these people.12.17pm: Farah Pandith, special representative to Muslim Communities at the US Department of State, gets off by thanking the Guardian for mentioning her on a front page article from the WikiLeaks cables. Yikes!12.14pm: Kirkpatrick is doing three things: Trying to develop new analytical methodology, developing a free and open source platform to use these technologies, and opening a network of innovation labs for developers to implement this on a country level.12.12pm: Using mobile services as human sensor networks: when our lives change, we change how we use services, like SMS, mobile backing, health hotlines and citizen reporting. "There's an immense amount of information being generated" through looking at how people are using these services, Kirkpatrick says.12.08pm: Robert Kirkpatrick, the director of Global Pulse, an innovation lab at the UN which is targeting more efficient ways to respond to crises around the world.He asks: "We're swimming in an ocean of ambient data. Can we mi