I am so NOT trying to start a debate about Wikileaks, Julian Assange, their philosophy or political reactions over the last couple of weeks.
What I am fascinated to see is how fragile the Web has turned out to be, once real challenges to general perceptions of free speech were made.
I was a little dismayed to see the Library of Congress ban Internet access to the site but, honestly, I can see some elements of truth in both sides of the debate. (If you want to see a reasonable, generally well-reasoned and relatively insightful discussion about it you could do worse than checking out their own blog site http://bit.ly/eN4hom )
What caught me off guard was the swift and strong responses by elements of the Web: Paypal took away Wikileaks ability to get money through them; different hosting services refused to host Wikileaks; a primary DNS service denied Wikileaks IP resolution services (now that was new and very scary -I've not heard of that happening before) and banks froze Wikileaks funds.
It's a strong reminder that, although we think of the Web as virtually unassailable and a haven for all forms of expressions and free speech, in the end there is still a lot that can be done by governments and corporations to limit what the average citizen can see.
Here is a pretty good summary of the issues http://rww.to/gkETu2
I would like to re-iterate I am not willing to discuss the rights or wrongs of Wikileaks actions - I don't think this blog (set up as part of my job) is the appropriate forum for that discussion.
But, I do feel that we are now watching "The first serious info-war...", given the reactions by a loose association of hackers operating under the name 'Anonymous', who, over the last 24 hours, have used the Web to launch attacks on banks, the Swiss legal prosecutors, Facebook, Twitter and others in what appears to be retaliation to the way Wikileaks has been treated.
It's all a bit grim.
EDIT: Up-to-date, financially oriented, follow-up article here http://bit.ly/gLeG7w
If you are interested in digital rights, I'd recommend looking into the Electronic Frontier Foundation- eff.org.
ReplyDeleteI have followed Wikileaks for quite some time, and so have been very interested in the reaction to it all. What makes me sad is that people are focusing on everything but the information which has been published.
The potential for a change in attitudes towards access to information really excites me, and I think come of the reactions to companies like Paypal/MC/Visa might make companies think differently about the potential backlash against their ethical decisions. Direct action, crowd sourcing and real time information exchange will certainly change businesses. Hopefully for the better.
It does seems like the way in which the information has been released and people's reaction to it for and against is what is interesting about the whole Wikileaks saga rather than the information that was actually leaked. Diplomats and politicians saying bad things about each other behind closed doors, whodathunkit?
ReplyDeleteI'll check out some of those articles attached. I enjoyed reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteJust saw this article in my twiiter feed
ReplyDeleteWhy Wikileaks Matters to Libraryland - http://lisnews.org/why_wikileaks_matters_libraryland