Reimplementing Usenet over the phone

Radio Watanda is broadcast from a basement in a suburb of Kabul. It has no presenters; just music and a jingle that counts out a phone number. When Watanda went on air in 2004, listeners were baffled. Those who rang had their confused calls broadcast. Those who asked for songs found their requests ignored. But the first person to realise he could use the station as a platform rang in to harangue the authorities about the capital's crippling electricity shortage. Thousands followed, expressing any view they wished.

Three years later, unstructured on-air debates have become Afghanistan's talk radio. A caller recently complained that the dress of Kabuli women was too revealing. For days callers, including many anonymous women, talked of little else. “In Afghanistan the media has always been controlled by the literate,” says Mirwais Social, the station's youthful manager. “On Watanda there is no presenter to intimidate people. We have removed everything to prevent them talking.”

(From The Economist)