Lolcats and Digital Activism

There’s a really neat, if long, post on WorldChanging about the relationship between cute pictures of cats and digital activism.
The Cliff Notes version:
1. The original internet (Web 1.0, back when it was pure Geekland) was invented to allow physicists to share research papers.
2. The current internet (Web 2.0, Myspaceland, Facebookland, Onlineshoppingland, like we all use) was invented to allow people to share cute pictures of cats.
3. Many of the tools people use to post cute pictures of cats (and their grandkids, and their friends drunk at a party, you get the picture) can be used by activists in oppressed countries to spread the Good Word and fight Injustice and generally be the anonymous crusaders for Freedom that we know and love.
4. Oppressive governments want to oppress these activists, and take away their means of disseminating information.
5. Joe and Jane Average may not know about the Revolution, or care, but if, all of the sudden, you take away the means to post cute pictures of their cats online, they will be seriously PISSED!!!11! and may, in fact, join the revolution because, suddenly, they are feeling personally oppressed.
6. In the interested of not pissing off Joe and Jane Average, the Oppressive Government, whose power relies in part on the Average Family accepting the status quo, is forced to do a half-assed job of censoring the dissident web content.
7. Ergo, real Activists get away with more than they would otherwise, and Joe and Jane Average, in order to better post cute pictures of their cats in places that they otherwise may not be allowed to post said cat pictures, learn some of the tools of the Activists, in order to get around the system better, thus preparing them to be miniActivists, or blossom into full blown Activists, when they start feeling the oppression.
8. Freedom of Speech, and the accompanying Positive Change, forces its way up like grass through a crack in the sidewalk. Dissidents become like dandelions, albeit less tasty in an Organic Salad, and ideally, big, Oppressive Governments come crumbling down like great big...crumbly things.
9. All men become brothers, we learn to get along, and even those of us who aren’t really Cat People come to appreciate the usefulness of cute pictures of cats.
10. It’s a lot more complicated, in real life, people get shot, imprisoned, or post pictures of their cats that, really, aren’t all that cute, but you get the idea.

Can’t stop the signal.

M

Can't Stop the Signal

There's a Web site called Wikileaks, a site for corporate whistleblowers, anonymous sources and the various informants that make investigative journalism possible. What Wikileaks does is post leaked documents anonymously, allowing these people to let the information out with some degree of safety.
Recently a Swiss bank, Julius Baer, which is based in the Cayman Islands, filed a suit trying to get the site shut down because somebody leaked documents that allegedly make the bank complicit in money laundering and other dodgy endeavors.
The bank went to a California judge and, after what appears to be some pretty shady manuevering, got the domain name shut down. Now, if you go to Wikileaks.org you get nothing.
But, since the actual servers, and IP address (http://88.80.13.160/) are not in the California judges jurisdiction, you can get to the site by typing it in directly, or going through several overseas mirror sites.
To make it even more fun, and amusing, there was this article on the New York Times Web site which describes the situation and, in the seventh paragraph provides not one but four hyperlinks for alternate routes to the site.
Journalists tend to be a little bit hostile to people who try to burn out their sources. And that First Amendment thing? They take that seriously. There's a lot of talk that there may be some unconstitutional action going on here.
Another interesting point: this whole thing about the alleged dirty dealing of Julius Baer? Not too many people might have known or cared if not for this story (which I am, I hope, helping to spread a little bit more through viral journalism).
Now, it's making headlines all over.

I only hope, and this is speaking not only as a journalist, but as an American citizen and great believer in free speech and transparency, that this kind of thing is going to keep happening, that the internet is going to continue to be harder to control, and the power will lie spread out among the millions of users, rather than falling under government or corporate control.
It's not perfect, and there are dangers, but I think the free flow of information has benefits that far outweight the risks.
Here's an attempt to censor something on the internet, which, in the words of one journalist, the Web saw as a kind of a "wound" and proceeded to heal around.

To steal a tag line from a recent sci-fi movie, "Can't stop the signal."

Cheers!