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A Promise and a Threat: WikiLeaks’ “Anonymous” and the Shaping of Online Protest
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About two months after Malcolm Gladwell’s notorious (and notoriously dismissive) proclamation, “The revolution will not be tweeted,” we find ourselves in the middle of the Wikigate scandal. There is a metaphysical lesson in there, I’m sure. Now that WikiLeaks — legitimately or otherwise — has leaked a massive amount of confidential information, and now that different agencies of control — legitimately or otherwise — are trying to punish its founder and indirectly intimidate those who might attempt something similar in the future, a different kind of battle is being shaped: the battle over who gets to control the digital space. From our point of view, this mean means: who gets to voice their opinion online and how will online protest techniques be shaped? How can we make them have the largest impact possible?