

Turning the Internet Off - locopati
http://scripting.com/stories/2011/08/02/turningTheInternetOff.html

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psawaya
I don't understand articles like this, they seem to be attacking some
nonexistent strawman that says using Facebook and Twitter for dissent is
_enough_ for a revolution. Those tools aren't revolutionary, but the people
are, and the Internet acts as a catalyst. Using the tools as they do is more
revolutionary than just watching CNN, because the Internet is a read/write
medium.

And then the blog post ends with "So if you want to create change, in 2011 and
beyond, at least some of your time is going to have to be spent off the
grid.", which is obviously true, but not the same as saying we have to turn
the Internet off if we want to take to the streets.

~~~
hack_edu
Very true.

Its quite unfortunate that Dave Winer's career has devolved into one where all
he does anymore is blog like this.

------
wccrawford
"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.

~~~
gwern
> 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?

~~~
daeken
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.

------
gbrindisi
Who 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.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Modern economies cannot function without the internet. Too much commerce
happens through it. Shutting off the internet is suicide.

~~~
omh
I'm not so sure of that. A quick search put the figure at just 3.4% of GDP
[1]. Even if a lot of sales do happen online, many of them could shift back to
phone calls relatively easily.

Obviously there would be a significant impact, but I think the Internet is
still a long way away from being something that simply _can't_ be turned off.

[1]
[http://www.mckinsey.com/features/sizing_the_internet_economy...](http://www.mckinsey.com/features/sizing_the_internet_economy.aspx)

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I was more referring to credit card transactions at just about any store. Even
if the store's processing machine uses dial-up, there's a good chance that the
vendor's backend is dependent on an Internet connection.

I admit that this is biased towards the West, and it's possible that in places
Egypt cash might be more popular than it is in the West.

That's just one small piece of the puzzle though. You also have to think about
sales that take place through email communication. You have to think about
stocks being bought/sold online. Not that some of these things can't be
replaced by more primitive means, but that is an undeniable huge hit to an
economy that has to suddenly adjust to do things by analog means.

------
jokermatt999
Relevant: Slacktivism <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism>

That's not to say that doing things on the Internet are never useful activism,
but often times they are used in place of actual action. Think "change your
Facebook picture for the cause!" vs spreading information about a relatively
unknown story.

------
greenpaint
Seems 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_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all)

~~~
dendory
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.

~~~
locopati
Saying 'as shown in Egypt' handwaves over the real story - the preparation
that went into being ready for the moment when it arose.

[http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/16/revolution_...](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/16/revolution_u?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full)

[http://maidhcocathail.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/the-junk-
bond...](http://maidhcocathail.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/the-junk-
bond-%E2%80%9Cteflon-guy%E2%80%9D-behind-egypt%E2%80%99s-nonviolent-
revolution/)

Social media was used but it was tool in the hands of already prepared people
who were willing to risk their lives.

------
csomar
>> 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.

------
lukifer
The internet is just a medium, and one of many. What I see is an arms race
between "compliance professionals" (advertisers, election strategists, PR
firms, et al) and the rest of us. Though the population is getting smarter and
more media-savvy (good luck finding a millennial who'll fall for a political
attack ad), the professionals keep getting smarter too, because they're paid
immensely to get results by any means necessary. (Interestingly enough, the
internet also gives them the rich data and feedback loops they need to evolve
their tactics more quickly.)

Frankly, it's something that would take such a large cultural leap to change,
that I'm not expecting it anytime soon.

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tomkarlo
Is there a "cranky old man tag"? The OP just seems to lack vision.

This post is along the lines of the old "everything that will be invented has
been invented" saw. Social activity / interconnection of the twitter/facebook
type is just in its early days. To say that we somehow fully understand
everything that will arise from that, just 4-5 years in, is amazingly (if not
link-baitingly) shortsighted.

------
epenn
Agreed. 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.

------
Vivtek
Talking, by itself, is not revolutionary. It's when you talk about revolution
that things change.

