Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Wiki This!

Society has no idea what changes this huge publicity for Wikileaks is about to bring... There's a good discussion over at Big City Lib on this subject.

We're in a new info age, and most governments and corporations still operate in the "fax me in the morning" age. We will continue to see more and more secrets coming out.

In the 60s protest amounted to camping out in front of government buildings, standing up to authority physically (but non-violently), and having "love-ins". In the 00s and beyond, we're seeing a new wave of protest... If laws and paranoia today have created a society where protesting is dangerous, and freedoms have been so stomped on that gathering in public is considered a crime in some cases (see G8, etc.), then the only alternative is to head "underground". The net lets you do this amazingly well.

"Leaks" against corporations and governments are the new form of social protest. As more social activists learn these tools, we are only going to see a rise in such action... Imagine the tool many disgruntled employees have just found! Wikileaks was not known to most of the World prior to the initial Gulf War leaks. Since then millions around the World have bookmarked the site.

As we slowly slip from democracy to "Corporat-ocracy", we will see more and more champions of access to information step up and use these tools. Company secrets won't be so secret anymore. As a former senior management employee in several businesses, I can certainly say that "disgruntlement" is not the bastion of the frontline staff only. People who have access to "Top Secret" info are often "iffy" on their futures... Interesting to see how this continues to develop in the corporate world (Wikileaks already is home to thousands of leaks from the corporate world).

Wanna know why your newspaper chose to publish a particular slant on a story? Check Wikileaks (or the 100s of copycats sites). Need to know what REALLY was said at recent global summits? Try the Wiki...

New age indeed.

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