#arabspring and the social network revolutions

The #arabspring #mena lecture would have to have been one of the most interesting I have attended so far in my university career. On ya Ted. To be honest, although I had heard about the revolutions and uprising in the areas, I really knew very little about it.

Dubbed the ‘social network revolutions’, revolutions in many countries continue as citizens battle with their governments, police forces and at times, each other. Revolutions throughout Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Yemen have all been highly influenced by social media, which provided a role of mobilisation, coordination and dissemination of information. Those who were previously overlooked were suddenly empowered, as seen through the various women featured as leaders throughout the events.

Citizens took to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to get their message across, battling with governments shutting down Facebook groups and in some cases, access to the entire internet. Now I don’t know about you, but the fact that a government is able to basically shut down the internet to a country is amazing and incredibly scary to me. Although there were measures put into place to surpass this (such as the SMS to Twitter function) the immense effect a government can have to access to information is astounding. 

Although I will not argue as some are that social media was the cause of the revolutions, I do indeed believe social network can allow us to be heard in a way we never were before. The internet, being dialogic by design, possesses incredible political potential in the way of fast mobilisation, openness, involvement and civic engagement through decentralising information and allowing wide access.

Google and Apple. And the winner is...

The Apple vs Google debate is, in retrospect, one I knew little about. Yes, I knew Google had acquired Motorolla, however I was not aware this was because they had the patents from the first ever mobile device. The histories of both companies are dynamic, interesting, and quite different, each choosing different key philosophies and core business models. Apple, a considerably longer running business, has a walled-garden philosophy built around ‘closed appliances tethered to a closed system’ (Mitew, 2011). With a disregard for cross-platform development tools such as flash, Apple have created a system where you use only Apple products for a complete technological experience. With progression from the iMac (with many applications still used today such as Safari, iTunes etc) to the iPod, iPhone, iPad etc, the Apple family has expanded hugely. However, its much younger competitor Google, although not a manufacturer, has now obtained a huge market share of various online platforms. From the introduction of the Google Search engine, to maps, Chrome, Google Plus, ownership of YouTube, Blogger etc, and the introduction of Android, the Google brand has spread prolifically far. With a core business model of connectivity as a product and a philosophy that emphasises that information flow is the key, Google have come to dominate a much broader market.

A quick summary of the information given by Ted regarding Apple vs Android here, for a better understanding.

Information Appliance	VS	Computing Device
Apple	VS	Android
Closed devices Walled garden of apps (App Store) Complete control over platform, device and operation system 2007 iPhone Proprietary island Platform	Vendor Control	Open and free platform Open garden of apps (Android Market) No control over platform, content and user à300 000 activations/day 861% growth YOY 615% yearly growth in global market    share Generative Net Content

As can be seen through the table, the Google philosophy seems to be working out quite a bit better for them. Within the lecture, the question was raised however, do you choose comfort or freedom? Being an iPhone owner myself, and with many if not most of my friends also owners, the news that Australia is one of the last markets where the iPhone is the market leader was surprising to me. However, I am still a PC user, which appears to generally be behind the times. So, my answer to the question was, I choose comfort, and by that I mean, sticking to what I know. I am very comfortable in using both my current devices, and being fairly technologically illiterate, will probably re-purchase them.

Having said that, after the clear comparison between Apple and Android as platforms, maybe I will have to rethink. Stay posted.



Note: I find it interesting that to find any information on Apple, I first 'Google it'. Coicidence? I think not.

Hacktivism or Identity Theft; Wikileaks and the battle with institution.

The mainstream media representation of hackers, online activists and whistleblowers as a whole appears to generally have negative connotations. Although as a generation we are becoming more educated and sceptical about mainstream media in general, this is still often our primary source for receiving information regarding events and issues globally. When you think of hacking, do you think of people trawling through your personal information to steal your money or identity? Or do you think of people trying to explore and make sense of the information withheld from us, mainstream society. Although we, as digital communication students may consider both, I think often people would jump to the first conclusion when discussing hacking. To me, it appears our generation has come to value and even expect a level of transparency, and when we are shown evidence that this is not the case (for example, the ‘Collateral Murder’ video) we feel somewhat betrayed by whoever is concealing the information; whether it be governments, corporations or even our parents, we expect to know what is going on.

WikiLeaks can be considered an organisation of hackers, whistleblowers and online activists, attempting to reveal hidden information to society to make a point. Ethics and values of the group can be seen as rights to access, lack of secrets and authority, and a freedom of code and information. Through decoding encrypted information and leaking it to the public, Assange and his team of hackers (mostly volunteers) seek to change society through empowering the public with knowledge. WikiLeaks is currently being blocked by many of the banks in America, stopping people from donating and hence funding the organisation. Consistent attempts to stop the organisation from running have been undertaken, from governments, the army and through litigation, however so far none have been effective.

Wikileaks Banking Blockade

It is interesting to note within the Khatchadourian article (2010), Aftergood states;

‘The overclassification of information is a problem of increasing scale—one that harms not only citizens, who should be able to have access to government records, but the system of classification itself. When too many secrets are kept, it becomes difficult to know which ones are important’.

In the information economy that is today, this raises questions of both the organisations in question and the amount of information they are withholding.  Khatchadourian reasons in regard to this; ‘Unlike authoritarian regimes, democratic governments hold secrets largely because citizens agree that they should, in order to protect legitimate policy.’

So I will leave you with this thought; do you think we (general democratic society) are part of the problem? Do you think if we, as a whole, argued for greater transparency we would be effective in generating change? Do you believe hacking can be for the greater good, or secrets are secrets to protect us? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Khatchadourian, R 2010, 'No Secrets: Julian Assange's mission for total transparency, The New Yorker, June 7