Cyber Activism: The iRevolution

What is cyber activism? It is the use of the internet to organise, distribute information and campaign. It is a legitimate form of activism a different form of activism!

The internet is an amazing tool that gives you the ability to communicate with someone on the other side of the world in the blink of an eye. It has created a world that has now shrunk to an unbelieveable smallness. What is even better about the internet is the anonymity. That wonderful feeling that the person you are communicating with doesn't know who you are (unless of course they do). The internet gives limitless possibilities in distributing information, organising and agitating, except those imposed by Internet Service Providers and now growing numbers of Governments around the world.

In Australia cyber activism has been relatively dorminant, not readily utilised to organise like-minded people to conduct activities. Cyber activism does not necessarily lead to people getting in the streets to demonstrate, to rally or to agitate. It is purely about the internet and using the internet to highlight an individual's or group's issues, concerns or grievances. The cyber activist uses email, electronic flyers, websites, electronic groups, electronic bulletin boards, activist sites and online independent media outlets to highlight issues, to recruit like-minded individuals and to distribute information.

There are many ways that the cyber activist can then use the internet to engage in civil disobedience (referred to as electronic civil disobedience). But why would you use the internet for civil disobedience? Governments, big business, and banks are shit scarred about cyber activists stopping or slowing peoples access to their websites - this is referred to as a Denial of Service (DoS) action although governments would call them attacks. But what's the big deal about that? Well big business and banks can't engage in business and can't provide you another way of taking your money. There are some forms of cyber activism that involves defacing websites or redirecting the visitor to other sites. These forms of cyber activism are even more hated by governments and in some countries are considered acts of terrorism.

The Australian government has outlawed electronic action declaring them crimes against the Australian people. They have denied Australians the right to voice their dissent via the internet even though that this is a legitimate form of action. But where is the real harm done to governments with the use of DoS actions? The real answer is none...big deal if they are not able to get that extra percent of propoganda out of the internet for a period of time. The reality is that governments do not want any dissent and do not want anyone questioning their policies. They don't want anything that gets in the way of their propaganda machine that is on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. They try to make out that the cyber activist is engaging is some clandestine war against their goals that are for the peoples benefit. They try to give the public an image of someone that hates and discriminates that will stop at nothing to bring down the world.

The truth is that cyber activists legitimately organise, agitate and activate - instead of sitting around a room organising, agitating and marching in the streets they use the internet. It is legitimate and is successfully used around the world by various lobby groups to get their grievances heard. The last major global online action took place over the illegal war on Iraq. The electrohippies collective successfully used DoS actions to bring down the websites of the of US president and UK prime minister. In Australia the savehighered collective successfully used the internet to stop access to the Dept. of Education, Science and Training's website on 3 separate occassions during their 1 hour action.

Big deal you say. Who cares. At least it is a few more people that know about the grievance. And that is the point. The more people that know about the issue the more they are going to call, write, fax and email their representatives in government. Cyber activism is the internet revolution...the iRevolution