Technology & Political Revolution

Technology & Political Revolution

How technology is being used to take down governments and lift up the people

1Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Intros

Revolutionairy Icon Game

http://www.embassyofheaven.com/newslett/horse.gif

Shout outthe name of your favorite revolutionary!


user participation. everyone shouts outmy favorite is named after a beastie boys song...



Zimbabwe


for the past decade, inflation has been spinning out of control~$25 if converted but in dollars probably closer to $60

Zimbabwe


From January to December 2008, the money supply growth rose from 81,143% to 658 billion percentin june more than 900 Quadrillion dollars - kept lobbing off zerosmade me an easy billionaire

Zimbabwe


results? activist charged and sought. violent backlash. growing fear of social protest in CIS.

Zimbabwe


results? activist charged and sought. violent backlash. growing fear of social protest in CIS.

Zimbabwe


heʼs been in power since independence. he was viewed as a liberation leader in the 1980s. the ensuing decades saw him turn into a corrupt dicator with no ability to rule the country30 years of corruption. not easily overcome. its a process.election was a kind of revolutionstory about activistsresults? activist charged and sought. violent backlash. growing fear of social protest in CIS.

Government Citizen

Zimbabwe Accountability

White African - http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/

Photo: Harry


the fist of government - disapperances mobile phones - taking a picture of the front page of teh newspaper during elections to verify results. Morgan Tsvangirai is the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.[1] He is the President of the Movement for Democratic Change - Tsvangirai (MDC-T) and a key figure in the opposition to President Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe on 11 February 2009.[2] He sustained non-life threatening injuries in a car crash on 6 March 2009 when heading towards his rural home in Buhera. His wife, Susan Tsvangirai, was killed in the head-on collision accident.[3]

5 ElementsObama1. Empowered volunteers

2. Social networks

3. Bloggers

4. YouTube viral videos 5. Micro-donations

5 Elements Hip-Hop1.B-Boying

2.MCing

3.Graffiti

4. DJing

5. Knowledge


Proving itself successful, this model of change is now being replicated. Yet there are few organizations that understand how to implement this kind of project. While most are currently trying to catch up, we have built strong connections with our target population and explored their internal technological capacities, external network capabilities and their needs and interests in this type of work. *or did obama change the game?? *representative democracy: not necessarily accountable to votersa

Government Citizen

US Accountability


in US we check our representatives and whether theyʼre lying to usmerely having a change in government isnt enough. theres stilll a responsibility for citizens to be vigilent

By: Shepherds Fairey

Burma / Myanmar11Wednesday, July 22, 2009

burma is a country that has been under dictatorship even longer than zimbabwe. a nation of over 50 million is kept under tight control. Orwell anecdote.state law and order restoration councilstate peace and development council

Saffron Revolution12Wednesday, July 22, 2009

In Sept. 2007, price of gasoline rose more than twice, people took to the streets.

the largest protests the nation had seen since 1988. 20 years ago, the military killed over 3,000 protesters. This time, the loss of life was much less because of cell phones, which played a role in both reporting and coordinating.

Closed society. On the reporting side, monks carried camera phones and they and other citizen journalists sent mobile images, video and voice information to the outside world.

Coordination also happened through mobiles, thanks to trusted networks between contacts inside and contact on border. example: joining protest 1km away and not knowing.


In Sept. 2007, price of gasoline rose more than twice, people took to the streets.





BURJ AL ARABIn Sept. 2007, price of gasoline rose more than twice, people took to the streets.





next step? what does a free burma look like? would it have been better off to be successful? what does a free iraq look like? (i wont show that). networking groups and creating a virtual civil society can be a powerful tool. but only if done correctly


next step? what does a free burma look like? would it have been better off to be successful? what does a free iraq look like? (i wont show that). networking groups and creating a virtual civil society can be a powerful tool. but only if done correctly

Twitter Revolution

http://www.flickr.com/photos/creepysleepy/3429118253/


people used twitter to organize a flash mob. but networked!*results? activist charged and sought. violent backlash. growing fear of social protest in CIS. *digital refugees

*anti-communist demonstrators set a bonfire on the steps of parliament, Tuesday April 7, 2009, in Chisinau, Moldova, during protests against the declared results of Sunday's parliamentary elections. Many thousands of demonstrators attempted to storm the presidential palace and parliament in a violent demonstration against what they said were fraudulent elections. Associated Press/John McConnico*"Help Twitter the Revolution in Moldova" protest outside the UN - http://www.flickr.com/photos/creepysleepy/3429118253/

Iranian Revolution18Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Facebook? Twitter? etc?


what does the blogosphere look like?sizable Iranian blogosphere (40,000-100,000 active blogs), it's hardly obvious that Twitter is the most important tool for Iranians involved in sharing information about their country's future.


in the video stream, the same way digital cameras include encoding on photographs listing such things as device make and model, and date and time of capture--but we need to be really careful not to create tracking information that would expose individual users. *8,000 Iranians were native Twitter users prior to the election, and that in her reading, less than two dozen twitterers from inside the country were genuine and credible primary sources of information *Videos from street protests that took place on a Monday, for example, were being posted to YouTube or Vimeo or Flickr on a Thursday, which was a recipe for confusion over what was actually taking place in Iran. Then there was the fact that many of the most powerful photos of the events in Iran were posted to Flickr under a traditional copyright license, rather than, say, Creative Commons*footnoting & misinformation*changing our Twitter icons green to launching distributed denial of service attacks on Iranian servers to setting up Internet proxies for Iranians to use?

Revolution?


21Wednesday, July 22, 2009You could make the case that just as accurate a story in Iran is that network-based political organizing has a fatal flaw: networks have choke points. revolutionaries distributing pamphlets or riding around on horseback yelling "the Redcoats are coming!". do to, but we can protect against those by 1. defining technology broadly. a horse is technology. a cellphone is also technology2. understand how to circumvent barriers before they go up. for example...



Tools

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/2736565604/

SMS - MARKB to 41411 on your mobile

Tor Onion Routing


want to help? there are options



D 2

Mark Belinsky

[email protected] - @mbelinskyDIGITAL-DEMOCRACY.ORG

Digital DemocracyWorking with local partners to connect people through new technologies that encourage education, communication and civic participation.


Intros

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Technology & Political Revolution