“It is no myth that repressive regimes are becoming increasingly more savvy in their ability to effectively employ sophisticated filtering, censoring, monitoring technologies (often courtesy of American companies like Cisco) to crack down on resistance movements. In other words, political activists need to realize that their regimes are becoming smarter and more effective, not dumber and hardly clueless.
That said, there are notable—at times surprising—loopholes. During the recent election violence in Iran, for example, facebook.com was blocked but not facebook.com/home.php. In any case, repressive regimes will continue to block more sites impose information blockades because they tend to view new media and digital technologies as a threat.
Perhaps technologies of liberation are a force more powerful?
In order to remain on the offensive against repressive regimes, nonviolent civil resistance movements need to ensure they are up to speed on digital security, if only for defense purposes. Indeed, I am particularly struck by the number of political activists in repressive regimes who aren’t aware of the serious risks they take when they use their mobile phones or the Internet to communicate with other activists.” — Patrick Meier (iRevolution via walker)
Related:
- How the west enabled Iran’s censors (guardian.co.uk)
- Victory requires Facebook friends (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Jessica Olien: Dispatches From a Twitter Revolutionary (huffingtonpost.com)
- Social Media is STILL Stupid (clearcastdigitalmedia.com)
Another article along the same vein..
The article was written by Eric Holdeman who is the former director for the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management and now blogs at http://www.disaster-zone.com.
Interesting article about EM and social networking and communications.
http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/697201?id=697201&full=1&story_pg=1
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