The Wiki man cometh
The mighty should quake before the Wiki man
New technology has the power to transform democracy
‘And politicians are beginning to embrace it in quite a serious way — whether it’s the US government opening up all its websites to search engines so that people can just search within government websites for information — that’s a profound change — or whether it’s the Lib Dems’ branded channel [on] YouTube, which they use very actively, whether it’s David Cameron answering letters on his Webcameron site or whether it’s the Foreign Secretary speaking to very niche issues because people have raised it on their blog.’
Fine: but what about the ordinary voters operating at the so-called ‘netroots’? In Oxford, the 18-year-old Laurie Pycroft has used blogging to devastating effect in defence of animal testing for scientific research, translating links to other websites into a demonstration of almost a thousand people.
The most exciting example of grassroots web politics I encountered was the campaign led by a young East Londoner, Saif Osmani, who set up a website to save Queen’s Market in Upton Park from redevelopment. A traditional campaign stall had not done the trick: so Saif went online, as he put it, ‘to get a mishmash of different people with different angles’.
That ‘mishmash’ raised a sufficient e-fuss to force Asda, Newham Council and the developer to back down — a testament, as Saif told me, ‘to what local people can do on the ground and what is possible through the internet’.
Or, more specifically, through mobile phones. Howard Rheingold, the American author of the seminal book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (2002), told me that mobile telephony (or, rather, the mass availability of hand-held computers) is already transforming the scope for collective action: witness recent demonstrations in China involving tens of thousands of people outraged about a chemical plant on a river that was laying waste to agricultural land, who organised their action through phone-power.
Rheingold added a cautionary note: ‘Just as the printing press did not guarantee that people would be nice to each other, the democratisation of the ability to organise activity, that empowers terrorists and criminals as well as grass roots democracies.’
That’s true. The web, like any technology, holds a mirror up to humanity. It can be a university for terrorism and a haven for fraudsters and cheats. What’s more striking is how many reasons there are to be cheerful about its impact. Here is an incredibly powerful medium that is more or less unregulated, accessible to all, and free to use. And for every person using it for malicious, exploitative or even murderous ends, there’s another ten who want to use it for legitimate and often benign ends.
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Kare Anderson
November 22nd, 2007 11:18pmYou inadvertently offer a primer for politics everywhere - how cool here's to more coverage of Me2We methods.. my neighbor, Howard "Smart Mob" would love to observe http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/
Cogito Ergosum
November 22nd, 2007 11:31pmBefore the twentieth century we had the London Mob. Nowadays we have the comprehensive rabble. None of these would interact with the Internet in the way the author supposes. (P) I am afraid the Internet has captured his imagination but drained him of his powers of observing ordinary people.
Lucan C. Heraclitus
November 23rd, 2007 12:28amYou speak for yourself Cogito and I'll speak for mine. Comprehensive rabble indeed! Rubbish, Sir! Rubbish! For the past forty years the politics of our country has been dominated by networks of neo-marxist cliques and now the web is washing out their covert webs. The totalitarian movements of the twentieth century depended upon the use of the mass media to manipulate the public opinion but the use of force to silence opposition. The w.w.web has made it very difficult for political cliques - a point underlined by Blair's distressingly distressed attack on this 'feral' world of ours that he made shortly before he went on his way somewhere or other.
alan
November 26th, 2007 7:13pmLast week my organisation had some Web 2.0 "Experts" in the office, attempting to convince some of the older elements of the office of the value of the internet, of the web, of new media tools and techniques. Some of it fell on some very deaf ears. I've only listened to the first show, but i will be sending the Radio 4 Listen Again link to my superiors, as it is an excellent primer to some of the ideas and concepts you present so well and so simply.
ATFlynn.
November 27th, 2007 10:43amI wrote to Professor Peter Cochrane, Head of Research at BT, on the 20th Aug. 1999. about this subject. And I have posted many comments on BBC Actionnetwork and other places. This is the ultimate power to put a Check Rein on any Politician. The power of all and any government, rests in its ability to levy Taxation. It is legally possible today, to move all income beyond the jurisdiction of the government and quite legally avoid all Direct Taxation. My suggestion is for all working TaxPayers to come to an agreement on the amount of Taxation to be paid, and then use their Parish and Town Councils as their Tax Collectors. In this fashion, the government of the day, has only the power to spend the money that the TaxPayer agrees to allow. Regards, ATFlynn.
Bu on U
November 28th, 2007 4:07pmThe www works in another, surprising way to battle totalitarianism by overzealous police action - people can post them on YouTube, and the official line of the police officer that he was acting appropriately, or that the citizen was resisting, or that the protesting mob was about to riot, are utterly destroyed. Let a transparent justice reign!
Andromeda
November 29th, 2007 12:23pmHas anyone visited http://www.1party4all.co.uk the opinion-polling direct democracy website where you can vote on its many provocative polls? Its conceit is that it is a VIRTUAL protest party with "policies" influenced by its ENTIRE membership. It also has 2 systems of voting: OMOV (One Member One Vote) and OMMV (One Member Multiple Votes - earned through an internal award system that is designed to be meritocratic). You can change your mind at any time and vote the other way. Membership is free requiring only the minimum of personal information. Its current poll concerns the very topical issue of party funding and suggests a radical alternative of no representation without taxation and greater representation with greater taxation.
Christian Egners
March 7th, 2008 1:31amVery true, a lot has changed with the internet, giving lots of people immediate access to information and communication. However, the authorities are uneasy about it, trying to use information technology against us (DNA-databases, etc.), reducing each and every user of the internet to potential terrorists that must be monitored. We all ought to be very aware and wary of state interference that pretends to interfere in our privacy for the sake of security (quite a buzz word since "9-11"). Let's all watch out for Big Brother, who is no ,longer content with just watching us...