Tag Archives: Technology

Wiki-leaked

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Mr.Assange just lost his appeal in UK against the extradition to Sweden. What now? The last hope is the Britain’s supreme court. Assange’s hope appears bleak, the world (read governments) is literally against him.

So what’s great? The fact that he did something different? Or because he cracked some of the most secure layers of communication and made confidential  information public?

Some say is he all talk no shock (you get the drift). Maybe he is only talk, maybe he likes to create a hype about himself, how brilliant he is in getting these whistleblowers/ sources, how he is the single most courageous man to reveal all in public through the world wide web.

I wonder if it will create the same buzz and express outrage if Assange is apprehended just as when Steve Jobs passed away? Both represent technology associated milestones. While one created the technology worthy of sharing information, the other sourced information worth sharing through technology. If it hadn’t been for the iPads, iPhones, Macs, people around the world wouldn’t share the way they do now, and if it hadn’t been for Wikileaks, the technology wouldn’t be used to its full potential in spreading Assange’s message. It’s a comparison based on philosophy not on methodology or personality.

Some feel Assange risked the security of nations through his cable leak. Governments will try and do everything to maintain confidentiality, it’s basic risk management, but does Assange have the right to take charge of what information should be made public, or he wants it all public regardless? Seldom do governments react the way they did when the cables were made public.

All I can say is the most important lesson taught in media theory-

Medium is the message. 

Some people invent it, others deliver it.

Elections in Tunisia – the first Arab spring nation

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Remember when Tahirir Square in Cairo was echoing with chants of protestors? Well something happened before to trigger it. A small north African nation, which was buried under its President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s rule.

Yesterday, Tunisia went to polls. According to Al-Jazeera’s report, some of the voters were going to election booths for the first time in their lives!

African elections have never been easy for its citizens. Eruption of violence, foul play in campaigning, tampering with votes etc. have been very common in African elections. Once elections are underway, the masses live with the underlying fear of instability and violence. On one hand we can look at Kenya in 2007-2008, it was torn after post electoral violence, thousands of people were killed, women were raped and families were displaced. It took some time for the nation to recuperate from these scars.

On  the other, Ghana represents the success of African democracy like no other nation. It endured military coups in the late 60s, but sprung back to democratic reforms, and conducted a successful election in late 2008. A close election which went to several rounds before the final decision was made. The Ghanians took to the polls fearlessly each time, and displayed the right of the people stands supreme. Fears of rigging were common, so journalists started taking advantage of technology. Every time a voting number was released the journalists would record it over their mobile phones and post it on the news website immediately.This vastly helped the observers to keep track of the first original numbers that released before they could be manipulated. Small forms of democracy led to a victorious elections in Ghana.

Egypt and most recently Libya have similar challenges lying ahead. The revolutions are just the beginning of the battle, the passion and patriotism of the people during the revolution should be used to fuel free and fair elections. Without them, the revolutions would just become any other event as part of our history textbooks, and probably given few entries on Wikipedia.

Voter turn out has been 70%, this is a good beginning.