The Occupy movements across the globe are a good thing. Each local movement targets the evil in the society it spanned from. But, as I was writing yesterday, divided we stand.
Each local Occupy movement counts as an individual and the things they focus on as details.
Far from me to say details don’t matter. But where is the big picture?!
The occupiers would not have had the influence they did without a vital tool nowadays: the Internet. After 20 years, the Internet has become the one place where people all over the world can meet and share ideas and ideals at very low costs. It has been used by revolutionaries, human and civil rights activists, and the Occupy movement.
It is used every day by many people to shop, pay bills, read information, find entertainment.
Yet, there is no “Occupy the Internet” unless you account for a few more or less formal hacker & pirate organizations. There are many places nowadays where the ISPs simply stop people from accessing certain websites. There are many places where the ISPs would hand you over in a heartbeat if you were a journalist that upset the “powers that be”.
There are many places where investigative articles, even as old as five years, have been taken down. Libel, they say. Fine, truth and digging for it is libel. Pointing out that some things are not quite as they look can get you in prison or paying some not-so-honest company/person for the rest of your life.
There are governments and parliaments looking into laws that will end up being corrupted, like many others before, and instead of protecting us from fake merchandise and fraud will end up blocking our access to information. I doubt the Patriot Act was thought as an excuse for illegal detention and as shit in the face of all principles of law where one was presumed innocent. But it is suspected it became such a tool.
Not that many people know how to go around roadblocks put in place by ISPs at the request of governments and law&order institutions.
So I am asking Occupiers: When will you occupy the Internet? Some initiatives out there are great: Tor, IMMI (hope it succeeds, although some Iceland courts ruled truth was not defense against libel) and many more I may have not found or heard of. But are they enough? Is there one big fat movement that combines them all? Will there ever be one?
I want to read unbiased, real news on a site that aims to “Occupy Online News” where journalist identities are protected if needed, information is verified and free of advertising, where sources are protected, where the servers are locked tight and tested against intrusion by the best and most fearsome of hackers. I want these journalists to have hacker proof emails and instant messaging, tested again by the best hackers out there. I want journalists to be able to stand up and say the names of those who warn them on what they write, who send them threats. And when I say “journalist” I don’t mean just the person with a journalism degree in their backpack – I mean people who want to get the truth out there, with photo, video and audio proof, even if they generate typos.
Will it ever be that hackers, programmers, activists for human rights and for freedom of speech will rally under the same banner, leaving their pride and brands aside, with journalists and editors? Will there be some Knight of the Free Interwebz, helping out with funding and infrastructure? Will there be a law firm to advise these occupiers from vulnerabilities that will put them in the same crapper as Wikileaks and Assange is now?
I believe we have enough experience to bring together now. We’ve seen how Wikileaks rose and we’ve seen it fall. There are lessons to learn from that. Will there be plenty of people to apply all that under one strong movement?
I guess I’ll be left wondering for ever and ever. It’s my own fault for not being an A-list blogger in my own country, my country of residence and even less so on the www. By the time this reaches many of you, the damage will be done. I hope I’m wrong and I hope the Internet is wild enough to break free of any shit censorship they try to impose anywhere, everywhere and anytime.
LE: A friend of mine said that the above is very much valid but that I forget that parliaments, even where they work right, are a bunch of old people dumb in internet and technology matters who also don’t take young advisers. This way, the parliamentarians will swallow Big Business line on how bad piracy is and and shit like that without reading between the lines. This friend of mine is right. But exactly because this is the case, we should have enough public opposition to stupid laws regarding access to content and information. If they don’t have advisers, they should at least have so many voices and so loud to yell at them “NO to that!” that they would be impossible to ignore.
Been thinking allot about this. I was following a group of occupyers in my city here Rotterdam. They stayed for a long while but now after along period they left. I think they got a good point, and certain things they pointed out on our Media in how they portrayed them was correct. Something that was always kind of there to be noticed.. way earlier. I was really hoping this movement would bring some change but allot of websites were created and groups fell apart there was no structure in the organisation of it. I know the truth is something that was sold to lucifer a long time ago
. But there were many people out there just as passionate as waking people up like George Carlin. I think the problem is how our mindset is… and partly just human.. following orders. History always has some way of repeating itself… its as if we fall back into the same patterns time after time.. even if we make a big change. Eventhough I believe the occupy movement is a sign of the people brewing and moving; I don’t think we are there yet. Perhaps I sound a bit like a debby downer about how humanity works… but I think our behaviours and patterns are hard to break once its learned to us, we do as were ordered. Some of us don’t but they are usually a minority and minorities will always struggle to get their point across or to get people to support them with their arguments. I’ts a bit late and I suck a bit at what i’m trying to say here. I guess what I mean is I feel there are new movements now that are strong and organised but they’re NOT there yet.. and luckily allot of amazing hackers like Anonymous are doing ALLOT of work.. but these gifted people or leaders sort of speak need more back-up from the people. Also Occupyers ( the ones I saw in Rotterdam ) were just chilling and singing bob marley songs all day from their tents and forget about the image they create of themselves and completely help flushing “the point” through the toilet of those that are serious. I just think this “revolution” needs more time and people need more insight on things. Luckily in the time we live now, people grow up with allot of access to sources of information ( internet,wiki(leaks)-blogs, official published documents, email, social media etc etc etc ) There are camera’s everywhere and tools everywhere to use.. I guess we still need the right formula for it.