This is really delicious. One of America’s self-appointed leading foreign affairs columnists, the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, shows himself to be a rather insecure and technologically clueless man. And this is the guy who praises globalisation? Truly insulated: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman ’75 questioned the ethics of WikiLeaks and technology in journalism…
Showing all posts tagged internet
New tools of dissent in the internet age
The always provocative Evgeny Morozov writes in Foreign Policy about the politics and ethics of online dissent in the form of civil disobedience. What are the limits? And why is it so different from the real world? This is the post-Wikileaks new paradigm: First – and I briefly touched upon this subject in my previous…
Shut down the web or face a Wikileaks inspired future
A wonderful piece by John Naughton in the Guardian from early December that perfectly captures this Wikileaks moment: What WikiLeaks is really exposing is the extent to which the western democratic system has been hollowed out. In the last decade its political elites have been shown to be incompetent (Ireland, the US and UK in…
Wikileaks bastard children are growing
Wikileaks has made a call for similar websites to spring up and pry open the workings of nations. The call is being answered.
An info-struggle that we must win
An open letter published in the UK Guardian this week: We are writing this statement in support of democracy. Since Sunday, 28 November, WikiLeaks and five major newspapers from around the world (the Guardian, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El Pais) have been publishing redacted versions of leaked US diplomatic cables in…
Just watched Pilger’s The War You Don’t See
It’s a powerful indictment of journalists keen to sell war. Many reporters and officials admit they were propagandists for conflict and occupation, defending the state to get close to power and good access. Pilger weaves devastation of Iraq/Afghanistan/Palestine with reporters who embed with the state to sell the message. Little shame there. New interview with…
Perhaps Facebook should change its focus
Facebook head and Time person of the year Mark Zuckerberg on Julian Assange and Wikileaks: We definitely don’t wake up in the morning and think about toppling institutions.
How Wikileaks has unleashed massive online dissent
UK Observer publishes a piece that outlines the new info war with Wikileaks and the world. Call it cyber anarchism, payback to corporations, pro-Wikileaks rattling or just online revolution, there’s a new world out there: He is one of the newest recruits to Operation Payback. In a London bedroom, the 24-year-old computer hacker is preparing…
This is what online civil disobedience looks like
Yesterday’s Guardian editorial tackles the first round of the new info war: In a cyber attack known as Operation Payback, a group of online activists called Anonymous targeted the websites of companies that had treated WikiLeaks like a bad smell. Visa, MasterCard, Paypal and Amazon have all had their websites, and in some cases their…
Guess which two countries are most angry towards Wikileaks?
Watch the world laugh at American reactions to Wikileaks (and Australia is of course following our Washington masters step by step): For many Europeans, Washington’s fierce reaction to the flood of secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks displays imperial arrogance and hypocrisy, indicating a post-9/11 obsession with secrecy that contradicts American principles. While the Obama…