Oh So Very Jaded

It takes a lot of energy to be a keyboard warrior. To begin with, you have to care about things. These things usually appear abstract to most people because they are what you would call ‘ideas’ and ‘principles’. “But I have to go to work tomorrow”, people yawn. “Who cares about children playing with unexploded ordnance in Iraq or drone attacks in Pakistan? I have a massive rego bill to pay and I have no freakin’ idea what I’m gonna wear on Saturday night.”

Well, allow me to quote Plato (it makes me sound intelligent):

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Be Afraid. We Have Been Warned.

If a Martian was currently observing Western countries from afar, he or she (or whatever gender applies) would wryly surmise that we are far more comfortable with bemoaning the tyranny of foreign regimes than we are with protesting against our own governors. Many advocates of citizen journalism and anti-censorship activists (usually cut from the same cloth) have endlessly pointed to such countries as China, Burma, Iran and Cuba as perennial bugbears of online freedom of information and privacy.

Yet a worrying trend is gathering lightning-speed momentum. Democratically elected governments, from London to Canberra, are voting to enact laws which explicitly tell the polity they are a threat when they use the internet. This transition appears to have gone largely unnoticed by these citizens, to this writer at least. This is somewhat understandable. For quite a few years, we had it good. We had some semblance, or appearance, of relative online freedom. Then, much like a typically warm Australian summer’s day, the sky got dark very quickly and is now threatening to open up.

Freedom of information and communication on the internet is not, by definition, restricted to what you can and cannot access – it is also very much about what information can be accessed about you. As measures to access and retain web browser history are becoming (or have become) law in Europe, Australia and the United States, you may wish reconsider that politically incendiary or personally revealing blog post right now – for you may no longer be as anonymous online as you thought you were.

However, the true scope of such a scenario broadens to ever more disturbing horizons when these proposed data retention laws are examined under a spotlight. In his November 1 post on Zdnet, Australian journalist Stilgherrian has helpfully constructed a podcast with excerpts from a recent Senate inquiry explaining what these new laws will mean for all Australian internet users. It is recommended reading and listening for all who spend even minimal amounts of time online. It is also terrifying.

The effects of the erosion of privacy are ultimately psychological - if you know that your every online search, email, blog post, social network status update and photos are being logged, the resulting behavior is inevitable – you will start self-censoring yourself.

Citizen Journalism? We Reserve The Right To Complain

Hi there, welcome to my inaugural blog post!

In the spirit of citizen journalism, I will expound on what I think it means for all of us.

As film critic Molly Haskell once observed, “The Internet is democracy’s revenge on democracy.” With that in mind, the same can be said for citizen journalism. In essence, it is a reclamation of our own history. The power to record history without having to be part of an established media, academic or government institution or elite is nothing short of revolutionary. This newly-created power is the defining watermark of early 21st century history.

That said, the new opportunities to overcome our default status as passive media consumers comes with its flipside. Abundance of this said opportunity has awesome potential, but can also be somewhat underwhelming. I say ‘underwhelming’ because of the sheer information overload of the internet itself. A straw poll of everyone you know who is frequently online will confirm one of the massive pitfalls of citizen journalism: Separating the wheat from the chaff can be a full time job on all its own. With (relatively) complete freedom to post your opinions, observations and research online, comes the fact that much of it is total junk. Citizen journalism can be very poorly written, contain little or zero fact, overt bias, logical fallacies, and various other examples of lazy punditry. (Much like traditional journalism itself!)

Despite these pitfalls, many internet users would also agree that we must accept the cons along with the pros. It’s far too late to turn back the clock on the information revolution anyway. What we should now be concerned with now is: How do we retain and protect these new-found capabilities to record & interpret history ourselves?