Hillary Clinton adviser compares internet to Che Guevara

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/22/hillary-clinton-adviser-alec-ross



Hillary Clinton's senior adviser for innovation at the US state department has lauded the way the internet has become "the Che Guevara of the 21st century" in the Arab Spring uprisings.

Speaking at the Guardian's Activate summit in London on Wednesday, Alec Ross said "dictatorships are now more vulnerable than ever" as disaffected citizens organise influential protest movements on Facebook and Twitter.

The US has pledged to back the pro-democracy movements that have swept the Middle East and north Africa since January. Ross welcomed the "redistribution of power" from autocratic regimes to individuals, describing the internet as "wildly disruptive" during the protests in Egypt and Tunisia.

"Dictatorships are now more vulnerable than they have ever been before, in part – but not entirely – because of the devolution of power from the nation state to the individual," he said.

[Jazz Ambassador]

1. And this just in...

Undergraduates across America will be sporting Internet t-shirts when they return to college this fall.

[bemildred]

2. Just because you are talking, that doesn't necessarily mean you are thinking.

What the Internet does in erode monopolies of information, monopolies of knowledge, and secrecy.

[4lbs]

3. The "internet" is just the transport medium. It has no political bias.

Now, it would have been better to liken Twitter and Facebook to Che Guevara, because the postings on those social networking sites can and are often political in nature.

Any old-timers remember BBS systems? They were the Twitter and Facebook of their day, and they didn't operate on the "internet". They were accessed through the phone lines and a modem.

[bemildred]

5. Yeah, I remember BBS systems.

The original genuinely free speech medium. I wonder if any are left out there, or did they all switch to the web?

[avebury]

4. K&R

[Politicalboi]

6. I thought it was a

Series of Tubes where you send things through. LOL!

[nichomachus]

7. Does that mean the CIA is going to kill it?

[BiggJawn]

8. Huh?

Teh Intertubes smokes cigars and wears a beret?
Well, I suppose there are similarities... The CIA could kill the internet, too..