Wednesday - Jan 19, 2011
A remarkable event happened last week. After 23 years of ruling Tunisia with an iron fist, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled the country, seeking refuge in Saudi Arabia. It was the dramatic culmination to a month of street protests across the North African nation.
The fuse was lit when an unemployed university graduate doused himself with gasoline, lighting himself on fire. Fueled by anger over growing unemployment (one-third of college graduates have no work) and rampant corruption, Tunisians took to the streets, confronting the repressive regime.
It’s no state secret that the government is corrupt. Relatives of the president and his wife have reaped vast fortunes and live in opulence. But documents revealed by Wikileaks added evidence to the simmering outrage.
Remember the secret U.S. diplomatic cables released late last year? Here’s one from 2008 written by an American diplomat in Tunis: “Corruption in Tunisia is getting worse. Whether it’s cash, services, land, property, or yes, even your yacht, President Ben Ali’s family is rumored to covet it and reportedly gets what it wants.”
And there’s more: “The numerous stories of familial corruption are certainly galling to many Tunisians, but beyond the rumors of money-grabbing is a frustration that the well-connected can live outside the law. One Tunisian lamented that Tunisia was no longer a police state, it had become a state run by the mafia. ”
You can read the dirty details on Tunileaks, a site created by dissidents to expose state corruption. Although the government tried to take down the site, the juicy details have already circulated widely in the Arab world.
Tunisia, a former French colony, has a large middle class and an educated, technology savvy population. Since the protests began, organizers have used Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and blogs to spread the word.
The government applied its formidable censorship apparatus to block these channels with limited success. The key to the regime’s longevity was its ability to suppress information. Those days are over. The new interim government has pledged to dismantled state control of the media.
While it’s tempting to credit the Internet for the overthrow of the government, as one writer tweeted, “The Internet facilitates communication, but it alone doesn’t keep people in the streets for four weeks.” The courage of the Tunisian people deserves full credit.
As word of the uprising spreads, fear has rippled across the Arab world. Which dictator will be next? Protests have now erupted in Egypt, ruled by another iron-fisted despot. The revolution will not be televised; it will be tweeted.
Thursday - Nov 18, 2010
I’ve done a bit of editing to the news article below, but you can probably guess where it’s from:
“The latest group of netizens has been named and shamed for spreading online rumors and disturbing public order by a website that assesses Internet credibility.
The details of 14 netizens, including their online user names, real surnames, IP addresses, real addresses and legal violations from the period of June through October were posted on a website run by the Information Network Security Association and supported by the municipal public security bureau.
The latest entry was about a man who on Oct 6 spread online rumors about fake murders. According to the entry, he has since repented following police intervention.
Other violations exposed include spreading rumors about bombing a government building, posting articles on how to make explosives and promoting the flying of model planes when the city had banned flying objects.
Three of the 14 exposed were fined, while the rest were cautioned by the police, according to the website. No one was detained or jailed.
Earlier this year, the website publicized the details of 66 netizens who committed similar violations between April 2007 and May 2010.
However, many netizens have expressed concern that such exposure means their online activities are under surveillance.
In contrast, some other netizens find that exposure is beneficial to maintaining a healthy Internet environment. “More exposures could help reduce fake information online,” said another netizen.”
If you guessed, China, you’re right. Despite making huge economic advances that have created 875,000 multi-millionaires, freedom of speech remains out of reach in this nation of 1.3 billion, which also has the world’s largest online population.
Censorship is not confined just to what one posts online. The top 3 U.S. websites, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are blocked in China; Google now operates from Hong Kong to avoid censoring search results.
Will the Great Firewall eventually crumble? What do you think?
Monday - Oct 11, 2010
For years, security experts have warned of the danger of cyberwars. By attacking critical computer systems a nation can be brought to its knees by disrupting the power grid and financial, transportation and communications systems. It’s not as far-fetched as you may think.
Recently a computer virus forced Iran to delay the launch of a nuclear power facility. Iranian security experts have charged that the Stuxnet worm is a state-sponsored attack that may have originated in the United States or Israel. More disturbing, however, is a growing movement by governments to ban the spread not of viruses, but of ideas–ideas that they claim threaten their very survival.
Lead by Russia, a group of countries that includes China, India and Brazil, wants to combat “information wars” — ideas used by one country to destabilize the government of another. Russia has introduced a resolution in the United Nations that would ban state-sponsored “information terrorism.” For instance, under the resolution, promoting the idea of democracy in North Korea would be banned. I suppose that promoting capitalism in China would also qualify as “information terrorism.”
According to James Lewis, an adviser to the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, “An official from one of those countries told me [that] Twitter is an American plot to destabilize foreign governments. That’s what they think. And so they’re asking, ‘How do we get laws that control the information weapon?’ ” Fortunately for those who value free speech, it may not be so easy.
The other night I went to see “Howl”, a film that tells the story of arguably the most famous poem of the 20th century written by its most influential poet, Allen Ginsberg.
In 1957, a small San Francisco publisher, City Lights Books, published “Howl and Other Poems” by the then obscure poet. In an attempt to ban the sale of the book, the city of San Francisco prosecuted the publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, alleging that the poem was obscene.
Although the prosecution objected to certain “dirty words” contained in the poem, it was really trying to suppress the ideas expressed by the rebellious writer. “It was that it was a direct attack on American society and the American way of life,” said Ferlinghetti. Sound familiar? Not so different than the argument now being made by Russia and China.
More ominously, if the case against “Howl” was successful, the censors had other books in their crosshairs. The trial was just the opening shot of a culture war.
In a landmark ruling Judge Clayton Horn dismissed the charge, ruling that “Howl” had “redeeming social importance” and was therefore protected by the First Amendment. In an ironic twist, the failed prosecution of “Howl” not only made Ginsberg famous, but paved the way for the publication of other books that might have faced similar charges. The floodgates had opened, affirming Americans’ right to uncensored information.
Will Russia’s attempt to control the Internet backfire as well? Only time will tell, but I bet that right now, there’s some ingenious teenager working on the next Twitter–a technology that will terrify and subvert the established order.
For another perspective on the power of new media, check out Malcolm Gladwell’s article in the New Yorker, “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted.”
