The rise of the so-called New Media, the decentralized network
of non-traditional news gatherers, such as blogs and camera/cell
phone-wielding, on-the-spot “reporters,” has generated much
discussion over its implications for the established media.
Certainly this is interesting. But perhaps a more consequential
query is: What impact will the New Media have on human liberty?
For the world’s mixed bag of tyrants, despots, and other
assorted authoritarians, the recent wave of information technology
may have offered these corrupt rulers a first glimpse at their own
mortality. As the ability to share and analyze information en masse
and under the radar flourishes, dictatorial regimes everywhere will
become more endangered as their ability to operate in the shadows
is diminished.
Because all crooked governments rely to some degree upon
dishonesty, transparency is inevitably destabilizing. North Korean
political officers, for instance, have always sought to
indoctrinate their people with stories about America’s hatred for
North Koreans and its determination to sink their country beneath
the sea.
There is a correlation between civil liberty and a free press:
the more disreputable the ruler, the tighter he must control the
press to legitimize his actions. A recent example occurred last
week, when 46-year-old Samir Kassir, a Lebanese newspaper columnist
known for his staunch criticism of the Syrian regime and its
military occupation of his country, was assassinated. Lebanese
authorities wasted no time pegging the blame for his car bombing
death on Syrian military/intelligence agents.
Syrian President Bashar Assad did not exactly project an image
of innocence when, only four days after the assassination, he spoke
publicly to his party’s congress about the need to quash emerging
media outlets. Assad warned that “These many inputs, especially
with the evolution of communication and information technology,
made the society open, and this opened the door for some confusion
and suspicion in the minds of Arab youth.”
Mr. Assad inveighed, in particular, against what he sees as the
hidden agenda of this new technology: “The ultimate objective of
all this is the destruction of the Arab identity; for the enemies
of the Arab nation are opposed to our possessing any identity or
upholding any creed that could protect our existence and cohesion,
guide our vision and direction, or on which we can rely in our
steadfastness.” This fiction drawn by Mr. Assad is precisely the
sort of fiction most vulnerable without a state-controlled
press.
Mr. Assad, no doubt, resents the popularity of the New Media in
the Middle East. When American forces entered Iraq, the embedded
journalists were not the only sources from which Americans obtained
on-the-ground reportage. As soon as Saddam’s grip on the Iraqi
people was broken, Iraqis went to computers and finally began
speaking their minds with unfettered candor. Popular blogging
brothers Omar and Mohammed Fadhil of Iraq The
Model were immediately embraced for picking up where American
correspondents fell short: they published personal accounts of
Iraqis experiencing the euphoria of liberation. If you peruse the
“blogrolls” of Iraq The Model and other popular Iraqi blogs like
Mesopotamian and Iraq at a
Glance, you’ll see a vast network of freedom-minded Arabs
excitedly sharing news and ideas about what’s transpiring in their
backyards.
Last fall, Iran attempted to put a stop to this burgeoning,
Internet-driven, reformist movement by shutting down popular
websites. Many of Iran’s 15,000+ bloggers responded by changing
their sites’ names as a form of protest and evasion, signaling that
the Internet was not within government control. Three of the sites
that were shut down — Emrooz, Rooydadnews.com, and Baamdad.tk —
were later re-launched in stripped-down form, one as a blog.
Apparently, Iranian officials are now contemplating replacing
Iran’s Internet with an Intranet, which would cut them from the
rest of the worldwide Web. For their part, Iranian bloggers express
confidence in their ability to circumvent any new controls.
Chinese political leaders must sympathize with the Iranian
mullahs. Almost as soon as the Internet blossomed, Chinese agencies
were assigned to censor any information deemed damaging to the
solidity of Communist Party power. To this day, websites in China
are required to register with the government. Last year, in Tibet,
Chinese authorities implemented a new rule requiring local
residents to use specially issued ID cards for Internet access.
This week, the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII)
announced that by June 30, all bloggers must register with it the
identity of the person responsible for a site.
After trying to register with MII, one Chinese blogger reported
to the BBC that an official told him not to bother, because, “There
is no chance of an independent blog getting permission to
publish.”
What’s been dubbed the Great Firewall of China is that regime’s
attempt to filter the information that flows into Chinese
computers. To date, their success has been, at best, marginal. Many
Chinese techies have managed to sidestep these blockades by setting
up proxy servers, which can disguise the origins of websites.
The State Department, meanwhile, has had some success with their
Voice of America e-mail broadcasts. These VOA electronic
newsletters deliver a collection of articles relating to current
events on the Chinese mainland that the people in the PRC would not
otherwise hear. Chinese officials are constantly trying to block
these VOA transmissions.
For the many Chinese-oriented Web sites based in America, the
Great Firewall of China has proven to be as impenetrable as its
famously porous namesake. The Web site GlobalSecurity.org attributes the rulers’ futility to
“poor interagency coordination and very poor links between the
central government in Beijing and the various layers of local
governments that are build into the system.”
Not surprisingly, the most tyrannical regime in the world, that
of North Korea, allows no freedom of the press at all. In April of
last year, two trains were destroyed when freights filled with
flammable gas and explosives erupted in a terrifying inferno.
Initially, the blast was said to have been set off during an
assassination attempt on Kim Jong Il. While hundreds perished,
thousands were injured, and the surrounding town of Ryongchon was
destroyed, the world was kept in a media blackout, with no camera
crews permitted access. North Korean officials were hesitant to
even confirm the disaster. Finally, satellite images of the
devastation were acquired and widely disseminated around the world.
But in North Korea, the state-run TV prohibited its citizens from
seeing any images of the reality, airing instead video of military
processions and patriotic music.
During Ukraine’s recent “Orange Revolution,” many Americans
suffused traditional TV broadcasts with New Media reporting. By
plugging into the dozens of Kiev-based blogs, people could see
images and anecdotes imbued with the elated earnestness that comes
with being an eyewitness to history. It’s an interesting phenomenon
and demonstrably true: Excitement can travel thousands of miles
through small, fiber-optic cable (or: can be uploaded, bounced off
a satellite, and downloaded onto computers 20,000 miles away). For
tyrants, the proliferation of communication technology is becoming
their worst nightmare. Try as they might, even slick, practiced
Chinese bureaucrats cannot keep pace with technology. For the
world’s oppressed, New Media is transforming liberation from
fantasy to a dream ever more real.
