

The Digital Dictatorship: The Myth of the Techno-Utopia - grellas
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983004575073911147404540.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEADNewsCollection&mg=com-wsj

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jsm386
Technology can be used for good and bad. Who knew? But more seriously, an
article this long, addressing this question should have looked at recent
events like the Orange Revolution in Ukraine as a counterpoint:

Text messaging played an integral role in Ukraine's pro-democracy protests in
late 2004 and early 2005, known as the "Orange Revolution." As in the
Philippines, protesters used mobiles to help organize a massive protest
against fraudulent election results, which eventually led to a re-vote.
Hundreds of thousands of voters -- particularly young people -- were able to
coordinate their activities through the use of SMS. Gene J. Koprowski, of
United Press International, writes, "The court-ordered election rematch in
Ukraine this past Sunday, featuring opposition presidential candidate Viktor
Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, probably would not have
happened were it not for mobile phone technologies."

From <http://mobileactive.org/mobiles-in-mass-organizing>

More from the BBC: Text message-obsessed Filipinos used SMS to help bring down
President Joseph Estrada in 2001. Organisers say text messages accelerated the
scandal-ridden Estrada's exit by two months to two years.

In March, opposition leaders in Lebanon used telephones, e-mail and text
messaging to organise massive anti-Syrian protests after the assassination of
former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4496163.stm>

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barrkel
It's the usual story of every technology: it's an amplifier. For non-technical
users, it's very easy to be lulled into a false sense of anonymity, yet
actually be monitored more closely than has ever been possible.

And this is not only happening in authoritarian states, but in supposedly free
ones, and there isn't much in the way of public outcry because the general
public doesn't even notice.

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rbanffy
When an IT professional allows his or her work to be turned into tools for
oppression, it diminishes us all.

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fnid2
Don't work on anything open source then. How can one stop another person from
using open source to oppress people?

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rbanffy
And how can anyone stop someone from using proprietary software to oppress
someone else? Do you really believe that if Oracle decides they won't sell
Peoplesoft licenses to, say, General Zod, that would create as much as a minor
inconvenience?

License terms only work when all parts agree they have to respect them.

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akkartik
This article had multiple points; I found it useful to take notes and
summarize: <http://akkartik.name/blog/2010-02-20-23-55-51-soc>

Tell me what I missed.

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hristov
This is one of those WSJ articles that is wrong in so many ways you don't
quite know how to start refuting it.

