Did Wikileaks, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube bring about Tunisia's revolution

Story so far: Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the Tunisian leader who fled the country after more than 23 years of dictatorship rule, may have fallen because of WikiLeaks and Facebook and the whole social media revolution.  This is what the Telegraph has to say "Mr Ben Ali may also have been the first victim of Wikileaks. Cables by an American ambassador giving colourful descriptions of the lives of luxury pursued by his family, and the business empire it controlled, were eagerly emailed around the country, despite a repressive system of censorship.

Descriptions by other ambassadors of other leaders' political and personal attitudes have not been much less graphic.

On the plus side, protesters also seemed to understand that despite the deaths of scores of rioters, there were limits to how far modern leaders could go in maintaining their rule by force. Maybe that was also a lesson of the crushing of Saddam Hussein, who knew no such limits, by George Bush and Tony Blair."

Protesters have now taken to Social Media to share the latest happenings in Tunisia. Facebook pages have been created, Tweets on Twitter have started flying and YouTube has videos on the riots and protests in Tunsia. t's really nice to see how far dictators can go in a modern world. Well, not too much, as we can see from the way events are headed.

Tweets from Twitter.
Tonight We Are All Tunisian http://www.counterpunch.org/ridley01142011.html #SidiBouzid #Tunisia

Deadly riots engulf Tunisia as interim leader sworn in http://on.msnbc.com/gAqZMT

LA Times has this to say:
As such, the Internet has been the largest source of documentation of the protests, much of it provided  by the demonstrators themselves, despite Tunisia's strict censorship of the Web.

Of course, given the nature of the Internet, information about the protests can range from propaganda to earnest documentation of the reality on the streets, and a critical, skeptical eye is needed to intelligently take in the flood and diversity of reports online.

The blog NDItech DemocracyWorks remarked on the situation, writing that despite remarkable levels of censorship the protesters "have been assisted by external online activists, notably the collective known as Anonymous. Allies of the regime have reportedly engaged equally enthusiastically, utilizing phishing, censoring, and hacking against activists."

 



[Images Credit: LA Times]

An original post by

Sociolatte

Wikileaks: How does it work

This post seeks to shed light on What is Wikileaks and how does it work. 


Wikileaks is constantly in the news. Newspapers, blogs and TV channels are covering it relentlessly.


So what is Wikileaks? WikiLeaks is a multi-jurisdictional public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public. 


This material being leaded on Wikileaks is essentially material that powerful men and governments would not want leaked to the general public. 



How does WikiLeaks operate?
"WikiLeaks combines the protection and anonymity of cutting-edge cryptographic technologies with the comfortable presentation style of Wikipedia, although the two are not otherwise related. Our network also collects materials in person and from postal drops. We also run a network of lawyers and others to defend our work and our sources.
WikiLeaks information is distributed across many jurisdictions, organizations and individuals. Once a document published it is essentially impossible to censor". (Source: Wikileaks)


Wikipedia has this to say: "Wikileaks is an international organization, based in Sweden,which publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive documents while preserving the anonymity of sources. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press.The organization has described itself as having been founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Newspaper articles and The New Yorker magazine (June 7, 2010) describe Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and Internet activist, as its director. Within a year of its launch, the site claimed a database that had grown to more than 1.2 million documents.Video posted on a website called Collateral Murder established Wikileaks as a prime portal for unauthorized, accurate accounts, documents and video from distant battlefields".


Wikileaks maintains its own servers at undisclosed locations, keeps no logs and uses military-grade encryption to protect sources and other confidential information." Such arrangements have been called "bulletproof hosting.


So put all of this together. How does Wikileaks work? and how will they help the public?


Wikileaks seeks to give it's users complete anonymity and maintain their privacy while leaking sensitive documents that powerful governments usually want to hide. People who use the site are also protected in a way. Information leaked from distant battlegrounds make their way to Wikileaks and then become totally available to the public. Ordinary citizens can then see for themselves wrongs or rights that might have been done.  Ordinary citizens are privy to information that is usually listed as classified and hidden away from public view. 


Wikileaks seeks to break all this and bring corrupt governments and officials into the limelight and not allow them to hide behind a veil of secrecy. For all this to work however there need to be whistleblowers, people willing to tell their stories while remaining unknown for obvious reasons. These leaks are them seen by ordinary citizens who get to know things that could come as a real shock. Wikileaks says that they facilitate all this because they believe Governments need to know that they can be held accountable. Ordinary citizens need to know what their government is up to and people of other countries also need to be aware. 


Well the thing that brought Wikileaks the media attention they needed was the Wikileaks Afghanistan War Logs. Also known as the Afghan War Diary, (2004 -2010). Which brought to the forefront lot's of issues including General Hamid Gul if the WikiLeaks Afghanistan war logs are to be believed, he is also behind a secret network helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda strike at U.S. forces.


What do you think about all this, use the comments section to let us know. 

Visit Wikileaks at www.wikileaks.org

An original post by

Sociolatte