Turning the Internet Off
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Turning the Internet Off
1–10 of 31 posts
Re: Turning the Internet Off
#2"But also don't delude yourself into thinking that tweeting and facebooking are revolutionary acts. They're about as revolutionary as watching CNN. "
I totally disagree. Spreading knowledge is always better than simply receiving it. Actually doing something is better yet, but let's face it: Most of us can't do more than stand in traffic and get noticed. Getting other people to notice is the point, and spreading the message on the internet does that just as well.
I can't count the number of things in the past year that I've told my parents about (avid news watchers) and they had never heard a peep of it.
Re: Turning the Internet Off
#3"But also don't delude yourself into thinking that tweeting and facebooking are revolutionary acts. They're about as revolutionary as watching CNN. " I totally disagree. Spreading knowledge is always better than simply receiving it. Actually doing something is better yet, but let's face it: Most of us can't do more than stand in traffic and get noticed. Getting other people to notice is the point, and spreading the m…
> I can't count the number of things in the past year that I've told my parents about (avid news watchers) and they had never heard a peep of it.
And what were the results?
Re: Turning the Internet Off
#4Agreed. Using Facebook, Twitter or any service that can disseminate information quickly for the purpose of spreading knowledge is always a good thing. If done wisely or at least with enough propaganda it may even inspire others to act. However, that knowledge and/or inspiration should not be confused with the act that needs to follow that knowledge in order to effect a change.
Re: Turning the Internet Off
#5>> And in some cases, they are using the Internet to disorganize the organizers.
Yes. That's what they did in Tunisia and it worked out well. People are not well educated and they can be easily mislead. They unleashed thousands of Internet Militia that started working on Facebook, groups, pages, forums, blogs... spreading a plethora of wrong information.
Re: Turning the Internet Off
#6Who owns the infrastucture will always have the ultimate control.
No matter how revolutionary your communication service is the guys with the cables can shut you off in a snap if needed. The Egyptian case is emblematic.
When a country is in chaos and internet and everything are still online it means that the government have control on much more than the infrastucture. And that is far more scaring than a shut down.
Re: Turning the Internet Off
#7Seems appropriate here to bring back Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker piece from October 2010, "Small Change: why the revolution will not be tweeted":
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_...
Re: Turning the Internet Off
#8Seems appropriate here to bring back Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker piece from October 2010, "Small Change: why the revolution will not be tweeted": http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_...
The revolution has been tweeted, as shown in Egypt.
But that whole statement is wrong. It's not whether the revolution will be tweeted. It's will it be tweeted, facebooked, shown on YouTube, blogs, TV news, radio, newspapers, recorded for Wikipedia, etc.... Twitter is just one part of the new global information system.
Re: Turning the Internet Off
#9"But also don't delude yourself into thinking that tweeting and facebooking are revolutionary acts. They're about as revolutionary as watching CNN. " I totally disagree. Spreading knowledge is always better than simply receiving it. Actually doing something is better yet, but let's face it: Most of us can't do more than stand in traffic and get noticed. Getting other people to notice is the point, and spreading the m…
> I can't count the number of things in the past year that I've told my parents about (avid news watchers) and they had never heard a peep of it. And what were the results?
A friend from HN (whom I'll leave anonymous, simply because I don't know if he wants his part in this to be known or not) was sharing information about what was going on in Libya with another friend, and mentioned that a virus was spreading through the opposition chat rooms. The virus made its way over to me for analysis, since its first stage was .NET (which I've got a good bit of experience dealing with). I broke the protections, wrote an antivirus, and within 48 hours or so, we had a detector/removal tool spreading throughout the opposition.
That is what spreading information is for. It's connecting the right people to the right problem.
Edit: I left out one key piece of information. The virus was explicitly written not to cause damage, or join a botnet, or anything of the sort; its sole purpose was to gather usernames, real names, and as much contact information as possible for the user hit with the virus. While we don't know who created this virus, it's entirely possible that it was created with the express purpose of identifying/locating certain members of the opposition.
Re: Turning the Internet Off
#10"But also don't delude yourself into thinking that tweeting and facebooking are revolutionary acts. They're about as revolutionary as watching CNN. " I totally disagree. Spreading knowledge is always better than simply receiving it. Actually doing something is better yet, but let's face it: Most of us can't do more than stand in traffic and get noticed. Getting other people to notice is the point, and spreading the m…
And what did your parents hear, from numerous sources other than you?
The problem is that it is not enough to hear the truth. One must also fail to hear the falsehoods. When those falsehoods are cheap to create, and cheap to distribute, and the people pushing them have more resources, it's pretty difficult to consistently tune them out.