Guest Post: The Emperor’s New Modem
Dan Nolan, one of the brilliant bloggers from Ultimate Science Team, and previous ALS guest blogger, has provided us with his libertarian perspective on online activism, triggered by the “anonymous” campaign. I should note that my posting of this guest blog in no way means I endorse, support, or agree with, any of the points made within. So with that out of the way, read on:
In March 2007 in Thailand a Swiss man named Oliver Jufer, was convicted of the crime of lese majeste. He had drunkenly spray-painted over posters of the king in Chiang Mai. Lese Majeste is the crime of insulting the sovereign of a nation, and the mere existence of this crime is an offense to those who support free speech in all of its forms. One month later, on the 4th of April 2007, Thailand blocked the popular internet video website YouTube for hosting a video of the king having spraypaint put on his face. Within hours the internet exploded, as thousands of people uploaded their own videos mocking King Adulyadej of Thailand in response to the Thais’ ridiculous attempt to censor free speech.
This is another variation of the Streisand effect (named for Barbara Streisand) which is a massive internet backlash in response to perceived attempts of censorship. The effect was named for Streisand after she attempted to have aerial photos of her house removed from a popular photo sharing website by filing a suit against the site and its proprietor. Streisand had attempted to stop people from viewing the photo but ended up motivating an incredible amount of traffic due to the publicity of her lawsuit. The Streisand effect is one of those beautiful phenomenas that brings together thousands of disparate individuals in support of free speech.
The Thai example was particularly interesting because it wasn’t just the normal instantiation of the Streisand effect. Normally in a Streisand situation individuals just help to disseminate or republish material that individuals, corporations or governments want quashed. An example that I can speak to from personal experience was the leaking of the ACMA Blacklist earlier this year. Senator Conroy and ACMA went on the record to say that those found republishing or disseminating the list could be fined or imprisoned, whilst, oddly enough, denying that the list was the actual blacklist. I, like thousands of others, republished the list which I obtained from wikileaks onto my blog UltimateScienceTeam a few minutes after I was alerted to it being released. This is how the Streisand effect works, it distributes the information to so many sources that it becomes an impossibility for normal legal channels to be used to quash the information and punish people. An element of the ACMA blacklist section that was particularly heart-warming and wonderful was the threat of the Wikileaks to Conroy who outlined that if he attempted to track down and punish the individual who leaked the information to Wikileaks, he would be in violation of Swedish law and they would refer it to the Swedish Constitutional Police (I know, I squeed) to have him extradited and tried. Read more »
What Is Libertarianism/Classical Liberalism?
For the simple reason that we’ve been getting some new traffic from people who are curious about libertarianism recently, I thought I’d post a few lines on what libertarianism is.
On the webpage of the Liberty & Society Program (which I encourage all young persons in Australia interested in the ideas of freedom to attend), there’s a section entitled what is classical liberalism. They have, what I think are some good quotes there:
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
‘The heart of liberalism is the absence of coercion by others; consequently, the liberal state’s commitment to protecting liberty is, essentially, the job of ensuring that citizens do not coerce each other without compelling justification.’
The Libertarian Reader edited by David Boaz (Free Press, 1997)
‘It is easier to define libertarian ideas than to agree on a proper name for those ideas. The advocacy of individual liberty against state power has gone by many names over the century . . . In the first years of the 19th century the term liberalism came into widespread use in France and Spain and it soon spread, but by the end of that century the meaning had undergone a remarkable change. From the leave us alone philosophy, it had come to stand for advocacy of substantial government intervention in the marketplace. Eventually people began to call the philosophy of individual rights, free markets and limited government – the philosophies of Locke, Smith and Jefferson – classical liberalism.
For classical liberals, liberty and private property are intimately related. From the eighteenth century up to today, classical liberals have insisted that an economic system based on private property is uniquely consistent with individual liberty, allowing each to live their life – including employing their labour and their capital – as they see fit.’
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