Revolutionary tools bring power to the people

Christopher Poole, founder of 4chan. Photo / Bloomberg.

The Chinese Government is the most infamous of web censors, but there is evidence that even its great firewall is collapsing at its foundations.

On Christmas Day, 1990, in a lab in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee finished building the tools to create the World Wide Web. This act, 20 years ago, set the agenda for far-reaching transformations in the political sphere, in economies everywhere, in social interaction, even in concepts of our own identity. And Berners-Lee succeeded in doing so for one reason: he released the technology for free.

This simple decision, taken by a computer scientist used to working in environments that promoted openness and transparency, eclipses any hype about subsequent Twitter revolutions, Facebook campaigns or political protests ascribed to the platform since. The invention of the web is comparable to Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1450.

Like the printing press, the web has already been credited with ushering in an age of enlightenment; it is hailed, too, as the most powerful harbinger of social change the world has ever seen. But this isn't the first time such claims have been made.

Tom Standage, author of The Victorian internet, has argued that the telegraph, in the 19th century, inspired rampant technophilia.

"The telegraph was the first technology to be seized upon as a panacea," he wrote. "It was soon being hailed as a means to solve the world's problems. It failed to do so, but we have been pinning the same hope on other new technologies ever since."

In the 1990s, when the web was in its swaddling clothes, revolution meant building a website brandishing the word "Revolution" in flashing red comic sans capital letters on a bright yellow background.

Unfortunately, e-radicalism required a degree of technological capability. And political protests online were often no more effective than a giant billboard people might drive by on the way to work or the shops. But everything did change in 2003 with the advent of a crop of publishing platforms, blogs and social networks, that net pundits described as an entirely new phenomenon.

Among web revolutionaries today, there's a shift in emphasis from virtual pamphleteering to radical actions that take seed in grassroots communities and are nurtured by technologists.

The power, as 20-year-old blogger and political activist Jody McIntyre puts it, is with the people.

Panic-stricken authoritarian regimes around the world have tried to hold back the tsunami of information that flows around the networks in their countries by shutting off access to dissident websites but, almost instantly, new tools emerge that open the pipelines again.

For example, Walid al-Saqaf developed an encryption technology called "alkasir" when the Yemeni Government closed down his news aggregation site, YemenPortal.net.

As the son of a campaigning journalist who died in mysterious circumstances, al-Saqaf felt it was important that he use both his journalism and IT skills to get around the blockade, "because I felt it would have been a betrayal to my own profession to simply manipulate what people see. Information freedom is essential if you're really going to live a dignified life," he argues.

The Chinese Government is the most infamous of web censors, but there is evidence that even its great firewall is collapsing. The country's most popular blogger is Han Han, a 28-year-old who posts treatises openly critical of the Government, but because he speaks in the youth vernacular and enjoys a tremendous following, his personal politics are generally overlooked by the powers that be.

Says Han: "Although the internet is controlled, when compared with traditional media, it better reflects reality."

Other activists I spoke with are using the web's hyper-connectivity and plug-and-play capabilities to crowdsource action.

Kenyan-born Ory Okolloh helped create the website Ushahidi in the aftermath of her country's disputed presidential election in 2007; it collected eyewitness reports of violence sent in by email and text-message and placed them on a Google map, and the open-source software has since been released freely and used elsewhere for similar projects.

Christopher Poole is the American creator of 4chan, an image-centric bulletin board he set up to discuss Japanese anime; now some of its users are making use of the anonymity that the site affords them to campaigning ends.

By contrast, Peter Sunde is the co-founder of the Pirate Bay, a site that allows peer-to-peer sharing of computer files of any kind, but was set up with an explicitly political purpose. Sunde now has a jail sentence hanging over him.

What today's crop of cyber-radicals demonstrate is that power does reside in the hands of the people, thanks to the foundations laid by Berners-Lee 20 years ago.

And a new generation of social activists are exploiting the technological tools available to them for their own agendas.

Six young radicals from around the world:

Christopher "moot" Poole
4chan
Created the site 4chan in his New York City bedroom in 2003, aged 15, subsequently posting on the site using the pseudonym "moot". He intended the site to be a place to discuss Japanese comics and anime, but it soon morphed into something far bigger.

What is 4chan?
4chan is an image-centric bulletin board. It's based on a Japanese site called Futaba. Their code was publicly available so I downloaded a copy of their source code and translated the text from Japanese to English from an online resource. It's me, a handful of volunteer moderators and a part-time developer.

How has it evolved?
We've never advertised the site, it's been word-of-mouth. Now our traffic is about 12 million unique visitors per month. People see a funny or provocative image, send it to their friends, and their friends come to 4chan. The community has a very distinct culture and language, and it's responsible for creating and propagating internet memes like Rickrolling [a prank involving the video for the 1987 Rick Astley song Never Gonna Give You Up]. All of a sudden, it's not just something spread as word-of-mouth by video game nerds, it's hit mainstream consciousness. Users can post anonymously, and some have also organised themselves as a collective, using the name "Anonymous".

What does that actually mean?
The rise of social networking is an assault on the free, the open, the anonymous web. Anonymity is something to be protected. 4chan is one of the last places for this type of interaction. That's important. That's why I've decided to be hands-off.

Are there any rules?
There is a set of codified rules and we do enforce them: don't break the law or post anything illegal. Past that, the users are left to their own devices.

Ory Okolloh
Ushahidi
Kenyan activist, lawyer and blogger, and co-founder of Ushahidi, a crowdsourcing technology. She is 33 and lives in Johannesburg.

What is Ushahidi?
It is a non-profit technology company that specialises in developing free and open-source software for crowdsourcing and interactive mapping. We build tools for democratising information and increasing transparency - we're lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories.

It started out as an ad hoc group of technologists and bloggers hammering out software in a couple of days, trying to figure out a way to gather more and better information about the post-election violence in Kenya in January 2008. Since then, the platform has gone open-source and it's free, so it's now being used by organisations big and small all over the world.

How did digital technologies best meet your needs, rather than the traditional avenues of publication and dissemination?
Digital technologies offer the ability to get up and running in a low-cost way, and the possibility of reaching a much wider audience.

What is it about the web that makes it such an effective platform?
Its accessibility and the low barriers to publication of information - plus the ability to be who you are.

What can't the web do to change our attitudes and behaviour?
The web can't change our behaviour - it can influence us, but it's individuals who change.

Where will the web have its greatest effect over the next 10 years?
No question: Africa.

Peter Sunde
the Pirate Bay
The 32-year-old Swedish co-founder of the Pirate Bay, the world's leading file-sharing site, allowing users to exchange music, games, videos and more. Found guilty, along with his colleagues, of assisting others in copyright infringement in 2009; currently appealing against a one-year prison sentence and a fine of $5.9 million.

What is the Pirate Bay?
The Pirate Bay was a project developed as part of an "anti-anti-piracy group" started in Sweden. Pirate Bay blew up because other file-sharing sites were being shut down because of legal pressure from Hollywood. Most of the other sites were run by 16-year-old guys, and when you're that age and you get a letter from a Hollywood attorney saying they're going to sue you for all the money in the world, you shut down your site. We wanted to make a statement and take on the fight.

What makes you think that the free sharing of files online can be right?
I grew up with computers. I got my first computer when I was 9, and everything I learned about computers was from copies. I wouldn't be able to program if it wasn't for illegally copying my first programming language compiler.

How did your attitude develop?
Copyright is based on the notion that there are certain companies who should be able to profit from culture. It's not based on the idea any more that people who create things should be able to benefit. But the internet removed the middleman. I don't understand why that's a bad thing. I see the situation in the same way as discovering a car that runs on water and the oil companies forbidding water to be used in cars.

Why is the web important?
It means there are no gatekeepers any more. You have the power to influence people as quickly as you can connect with the internet.

Han Han
blogger
The 28-year-old Chinese professional rally driver, bestselling author, singer, creator of a literary magazine and China's most popular blogger - indeed, possibly the most popular blogger in the world.

What are your greatest criticisms of the Chinese Government and the current political climate there?
The Chinese Communist Party puts keeping their political position above everything. Of course, this is the wish of many political parties around the world. For the Chinese Government, the reality is that regardless of whether the people are satisfied or unsatisfied, the party's position will always be secure. However, they are sometimes nervous, sometimes arrogant and this attitude has caused many tragedies.

What impact do you hope your web activity will have on the political system?
Although China has many idealistic journalists and media figures, the media is still controlled and censored. Although the internet is controlled, it better reflects reality. Extreme views or false information may sometimes appear on the internet, but it's only because traditional media fails to take the responsibilities it should take.

How do you think internet-based social change is different in China?
The only difference is English-speaking countries treat the net as technology, while Chinese-speaking countries treat it as medicine.

Why do you feel you can get away with statements against the Government that other people wouldn't?
The atmosphere is not as terrifying as people in the West think. Sometimes my articles do get censored, but besides those who advocate policy changes and democratic reform, the Government actually doesn't often control or censor writers.

Jody McIntyre
Life on Wheels
A 20-year-old British blogger and author of the site Life on Wheels, Jody was born disabled and campaigns worldwide for justice in Palestine.

Where does Life on Wheels come from?
The site was born out of anger and frustration - as with the birth of every revolutionary movement. Essentially, I was going to college every morning and bus drivers wouldn't let me on the bus because I was in a wheelchair. I began writing the blog, detailing my experiences.Why use the web?If you're not given a platform by others, you'll make your own.

What is it about digital tools that make them effective in galvanising people?
I don't think the internet is some kind of grand solution that will solve all our problems, but it helps because of its capacity to reach people across the world. With the web, people in power can't edit or co-opt what we've said. I can publish whatever I want. They can't censor our voices any longer. You can say whatever you like about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, but you can't change the video or the images that a million people saw in one day of American soldiers eager to kill Iraqi civilians. People see those images and know the truth is in front of their eyes.What are its shortcomings?We need to realise that most people in the world don't have access to the net. The internet is just the first step. The movement we want to build, the revolutionary movement for equality for all people, can only happen through direct action, and direct action on the streets. The internet can play a role in our political education, raising our political consciousness, but as long as people remember that this is a way to plan action, to organise ourselves, to connect people, but not the solution, then we'll be okay.

Walid Al-Saqaf
Yemen Portal
Yemeni activist, 37, creator of Yemen Portal and of software used to circumvent firewalls.

What is Yemen Portal?
YemenPortal.net is a news aggregator. More than 90 per cent of the content is in Arabic. It gathers information released on both official and dissident or independent sites, and puts them together to present a comprehensive view of what's happening in Yemen. This has allowed people to look into dissident content they didn't know about.

Why was this necessary?
The traditional media in Yemen is very restrictive, and the broadcast media is monopolised by the state: you wake up in the morning in Yemen and turn on the TV and all the news is about the President's meetings and the Government's meetings.

How did the Government respond to the fact that an increasing readership was discovering dissident content through Yemen Portal?
They simply blocked access to it within Yemen. So I had three choices: give way and let the Government control what did and didn't appear on my site, shut it down altogether; or keep the controversial content and find ways to allow people to access the site. I chose the latter, because I felt it would have been a betrayal to my professsion to manipulate what people see. I developed a piece of software called alkasir. If you were browsing the net and wanted to open your Gmail, your Gmail would go through the regular internet service provider. But when you open a blocked website, it activates itself and changes into the encrypted proxy mode. That's better than anonymising everything because if you do that, you give the impression to the monitors at the ISP that there is a fishy connection.

- Observer