the Armchair of El Diablo

Overstating Twitter in Tunisia

This is an interesting article about the current turmoil in Tunisia and Twitter’s role facilitating social movements versus its responsibility for causing them. 

Its a critical distinction to make. We’re starting to get a more sophisticated understanding of the role of social media in changing and initiating behaviours … it’s probably time to challenge some of the blanket assumptions about what constitutes ‘influence’. 

FROM TODAY’S CRIKEY.COM.AU….

Tunisia and Western obsessions

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes: 

It’s a little sickening watching the Western media suddenly start trying to “explain” events in Tunisia. For weeks they blithely ignored what was happening in that country — presumably because the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali wasn’t despised like the butchers of Iran’s theocratic-military complex are. Indeed, Ben Ali was a Western ally in the fight against terrorism, and the recipient of generous US military aid.

Despite the rampant corruption “revealed” by the WikiLeaks cables and Ben Ali’s mammoth internet censorship (which attracted the attention of Anonymous via a series of effective DDOS attacks on Tunisian government websites) perhaps that’s why Western governments were conspicuously quiet before Ben Ali’s fall.

In any event, the commentary and analysis (today’s facile editorial in The Australian is a good example) has mostly been a mash-up of traditional Western cliches about the Middle-East — the innate instability of Arab society, the dangers posed by al-Qaeda, the vague call for greater freedom — although not of course at the risk of doing anything to encourage “Islamists”. Whether generalist or expert media, the events in Tunisia seem to get clumsily shoehorned into whatever narrative Western journalists and commentators want to run.

The argument over the role of social media and WikiLeaks is a particular example of this shoehorning. Ben Ali’s plane was still in the air to that noted retirement home for dictators, Saudi Arabia, when commentators turned the revolution into a debate about Twitter and WikiLeaks.

I suggested in a piece on Saturday that social media played three roles in recent events in Tunisia:

1. An information role — Facebook, Twitter and blogs were used as organisational tools for protests, and exchanging critical information during and after them.
2. A motivational role. Videos and photos of what Tunisian authorities had done to protesters — there are several profoundly distressing photos videos of shot protesters — appears to have played a role not in deterring but in inspiring them, as did coverage and discussion of the self-immolation on December 17 of Mohamed Bouazizi, whose actions set off the unprecedented wave of protests.
3. A media role — in the virtual absence of Western media coverage (some honourable exceptions such as the Guardian’s Brian Whitaker) social media and al-Jazeera — became the only way for those outside Tunisia without contacts there to monitor what was happening. The Twitter hashtag #sidibouzid — named after the central Tunisian town where Mohamed Bouazizi lived — became the primary way to keep track of events on the ground in Tunisia as protesters — having seen Ben Ali blink last week with a range of concessions — moved to force him out altogether.

I called these roles “facilitative”, and suggested they not be confused with causation, which several commentators appear to have done. To talk about a Twitter revolution, or a WikiLeaks revolution, I think, does a very great disservice to the hundreds of thousands of Tunisians who risked their lives standing up to Ben Ali’s forces, and particularly to the scores who died at the hands of Tunisian police, and their families, and most especially to the memory of Mohamed Bouazizi. It smacks of infantilising Tunisians, as though they were incapable of acting themselves until cool Western technology or Julian Assange enabled them to throw off their chains.

That hasn’t stopped a furious debate breaking out between critics and opponents of social media and WikiLeaks — right up to the US State Department, which yesterday took the extraordinary and highly-revealing step of explicitly rejecting any suggestion the reviled WikiLeaks could played a role in what is happening in Tunisia.

Even Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi — now facing his own riots over housing — bought into the debate with a bizarre rant in the aftermath of Ben Ali’s flight attacking Facebook, Youtube and “Kleenex” (although Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to link Tunisia and his refusal to negotiate with Palestinians was almost as ludicrous).

One of the fiercest disputants has been Evgeny Morozov. Morozov has recently released a well-received book, The Net Delusion, which has received a charmed run from the mainstream media because, one suspects, one of its basic contentions — that online media tools ultimately benefit repressive regimes and social media advocates are guilty of cyber-utopianism — gives the MSM an excuse to dismiss social media as irrelevant.

Apparently mortified that events in Tunisia seemed to undermine one of the premises of his book, Morozov rushed out not one but two pieces attacking any links between social media and the outcome on the ground. The second, “What if Tunisia’s revolution ended up like Iran’s?” (Answer: Um … well, it didn’t) was a quite bizarre attempt to prove his point by arguing that the opposite may very well have happened in Tunisia.

I’m fundamentally with Morozov on the need to debunk the idea of any “Twitter revolutions”. But he appears guilty of the same thing as social media advocates. Both sides appear to be obsessed with media platforms — Twitter and Facebook — or an internet phenomenon — WikiLeaks — to the extent of seeing far more important issues purely through the prism of how they feel about social media or Julian Assange. Whether it’s Morozov, or the US State Department, or Andrew Sullivan, it all looks like Westerners fitting what’s happening in Tunisia into a mental framework constructed around issues they’re familiar with and predisposed to debate.

Blogger Karin Kosina was intrigued by the issue and decided to obtain a Tunisian perspective on the debate. It’s only one person’s view, but as they say, “we are living it. We are the witnesses.” The rest of us are mostly just Western observers with our own obsessions and agenda.

FROM TODAY’S CRIKEY.COM.AU

17 January 2011

• Tags
• Twitter

Decisions about scissors

‘Do no evil’ was Google’s philosophy. Tongue in cheek at first, it has now grown into a watchword for those halcyon days of innocence, when Google was just a really good search engine.

The Web was developed as a haven for free thinking and sharing of ideas. Now, as it matures, we are watching many of the former free-information-love hippies scissor off their pony tails, accept the job as bank manager, and vote Tory.  

The idea of ‘freedom’ on the internet has, inevitably with time, split into two camps.

On one side, you have the freedom of the free market. Google, Facebook. Freedom to innovate and push social boundaries for the cause of building digital businesses; all powered by the ruthlessly tasty sugar of capitalism. 

On the other side you have the freedom of anarchy. Wikileaks. A rejection of the social contracts surrounding information and our right to it. They reject, because they can. And because the morality on both sides is unclear, so it is flexible. 

Today, Wiklileaks was taken off Amazon’s servers, so that residents of the US and Europe can no longer access it.

I don’t recall Amazon ever claiming a great vision of freedom; but they were born in the original internet Wild West, a business born in the free ranging days of the first internet gold rush. They broke and created new rules, as part of the vanguard of internet freedom. And today they made a choice to shut Wikileaks down. 

Possibly they were forced to, and I make no judgement on either Wikileaks or Amazon. Yahoo, Google and Microsoft found themselves in a similarly creepy smelling corner in China. 

It’s clear the stark divisions between these two evolving concepts of internet freedom are forcing choices, and possibly the creation of a new kind conservatism; a conservativism by comparison. But the choice between ponytails or profits is one many internet brands would rather not make.

So watch closely: and you’ll see the violence of tomorrow’s politics forming in the business ideas of today.

2 December 2010

• Tags
• ideas
• wikileaks

Broadband wins the country cook-off for Labour

Stilgherrian writes in today’s crikey.com.au newsletter…

What the NBN will deliver to Windsor’s mob 

“You do it once, you do it right and you do it with fibre,” independent MP Tony Windsor said of broadband yesterday. From his New England vantage point, the differences between Labor’s National Broadband Network (NBN) and the Coalition’s late entry are stark.

Instead of the glossy hand-waving of the government’s TV adverts, here’s a few examples of how ubiquitous metropolitan-equivalent broadband could transform regional Australia.

Office jobs are no longer limited to the Big Smoke, or even the nearest regional centre. Or even an office. You no longer have to herd people into the same room so they can collaborate. And while the workplace certainly has a social aspect, always-on high-bandwidth video links can provide co-workers with much the same level of ambient intimacy as if they were in adjacent cubicles.

Internet service provider iiNet has discovered that call centre staff are happier and more productive working from home. It saves them building a call centre, and they can hire people who only want to work three hours a day.

Same for education. Students needn’t abandon their family and friends. University tutorials can take place via video conference. Indeed, tutors needn’t be based at the university. They can work from wherever there’s a data link. As can the lecturers. As can administrative staff.

If your vision of regional Australia can’t move beyond farming, then consider the online livestock auctions already starting to happen. Farmers upload high-def video of their stock, bidders participate from their offices, and transport is only called in once the final destination is known. Saves fuel, saves carbon, saves stress on the livestock. Better meat, cheaper. Even Bob Katter’s bananas can be sold more efficiently.

And yes, there’s e-health. Consulting with a specialist from your local GP’s office rather than travelling to a city hospital is the canonical example. But it also means nurses can stay in touch with outpatients without having to bring them into a hospital, and without burning the road miles. Consulting with a psychiatrist can be done from home.

Indeed, with emerging low-cost medical sensors, people need only stay in hospitals when actual physical assistance is required. Again, the herd-everyone-together need is reduced. The very concept of ‘hospital’ will be transformed.

Cities are all about sharing resources and collaborating in factories and offices on a massive scale. Ubiquitous broadband and more flexible transport systems reduce the need for this urbanisation. Could the regional decline be reversed? That’s what Windsor is seeing.

Of course these benefits — plus the ones we haven’t thought of yet — would come from any kind of broadband. Except…

The NBN is rolling out now, with published coverage maps, and Labor just promised to fast-track rural Australia. The Coalition’s plan is still just a plan.

The NBN makes gigabit fibre available to 93% of the population, no ifs or buts. Not everyone will need or even want the full capacity, just as not everyone buys today’s top broadband plans either, but it’s there if it’s wanted. The Coalition’s plan leaves it up to the market. Regional Australia knows what that means.

The NBN’s fibre is much closer to an equal two-way data path. You can send that high-def video just as easily as receiving it. You’re a participant, not merely a passive viewer. The Coalition’s plan to bring just ADSL2+ to the regions, or wireless, just can’t deliver the same kinds of uplink speeds. No matter how often they repeat their mantra of “wireless is getting faster”, the physics can’t be avoided. Fibre already is faster. Both ways. And always will be.

But most importantly, the NBN provides regional towns with exactly the same broadband connections as the capital cities, at the same price. For a rural Australia that’s sick of enduring second-class infrastructure, they finally get to catch up. And Windsor knows if you want to win a race, and you’re starting from behind, you need to sprint faster than everyone else.

For Tony Windsor, that means an advertising production company could just as easily operate from Uralla rather than Ultimo, the architect could be in Tenterfield not Toorak — and with much lower real estate prices.

Stilgherrian in today’s crikey.com.au newsletter

8 September 2010

• Tags
• Aus
• elections
• NBN