IMO information doesn't have the impact most people think it does. It seems to play much more of a role in shaping long-term views rather than driving immediate short-term responses. One would have expected the Snowden revelations to trigger a monumental response. They did not, and so a cynic might say people mostly didn't care. But that also seems wrong. Rather it seems to have played (and is playing) a significant role in shaping people's views of the world over the long-term. Instead of driving people to do some radical action, it instead drove things like a great anti-establishment type sentiment, and more people to acknowledge the role of realpolitik in the world.
Things like the Arab Spring weren't really driven by information such as by well organized Western trained individuals organizing efforts to overthrow their governments. Those groups were largely just waiting for some event to use as a justification for a planned action. And in any large country those events will inevitably happen. This [1] article from the times is quite amusing. In a nutshell, 'No we didn't fund them to start protests, we simply recruited people who despised their government, and trained them in organization, networking, and other forms of advocacy. And then we made sure the protests that did happen received 24/7 positive coverage. But really we played no role whatsoever in these completely organic movements.'
So the point I'd make with this is that information itself is something that should be free. Because it shapes views. Where things get dodgy is in 'inorganic' organizing and promotion. Inorganic is always tough to define both because we live in a global world, and because behind any revolution there are always genuine and real grievances. But I think everybody can agree that the Romanian people overthrowing Ceaușescu after he called everybody into a square for a propaganda rally was completely organic [2], and the CIA overthrowing Iran over oil in 1953 was completely inorganic [3]. Lots of things are going to fall in between those two extremes, but the more foreign involvement (and propaganda), the less organic something is.
But information? Information wants to, and should, be free.
Really nice insight:
> So the point I'd make with this is that information itself is something that should be free. Because it shapes views. Where things get dodgy is in 'inorganic' organizing and promotion.
It is this that I would like journalists and even states to protect the people against. Not censor but a nice little banner like Youtube and Twitter saying this media comes from <something> and is part of a campaign. In that banner then publish the analysis and criteria used.
Youtube does it for in-video advertising so the logic exists even in the commercial space. I find it plausible it would be valuable in the virtual agora.
The US employs the largest psyop operations investment in the world, why would you trust the government to manage info authenticity and integrity for the public?
I can see the allure of a parental figure where the state makes sure its citizens are protected from bad stuff but I think you’ve got it backwards, it’s the state itself which is not only bad but has all the power and leverage for that badness to materialize itself. Unfortunately it’s not so simple when you want to give all the power to a group to wield over you, you’ll find they’re more interested in that power than protecting you with it even if they’re peformative about it
Things like the Arab Spring weren't really driven by information such as by well organized Western trained individuals organizing efforts to overthrow their governments. Those groups were largely just waiting for some event to use as a justification for a planned action. And in any large country those events will inevitably happen. This [1] article from the times is quite amusing. In a nutshell, 'No we didn't fund them to start protests, we simply recruited people who despised their government, and trained them in organization, networking, and other forms of advocacy. And then we made sure the protests that did happen received 24/7 positive coverage. But really we played no role whatsoever in these completely organic movements.'
So the point I'd make with this is that information itself is something that should be free. Because it shapes views. Where things get dodgy is in 'inorganic' organizing and promotion. Inorganic is always tough to define both because we live in a global world, and because behind any revolution there are always genuine and real grievances. But I think everybody can agree that the Romanian people overthrowing Ceaușescu after he called everybody into a square for a propaganda rally was completely organic [2], and the CIA overthrowing Iran over oil in 1953 was completely inorganic [3]. Lots of things are going to fall in between those two extremes, but the more foreign involvement (and propaganda), the less organic something is.
But information? Information wants to, and should, be free.
---
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution#Revolution...
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat#...