Silencing cyberspace?
Really annoyed about something? Want to get your message across,
but you don't own a newspaper, radio or television station? You can always
buy a can of spray paint and find a local wall.
That sounds simplistic, but the ability of people excluded from media
ownership to get across their views is extremely important to the progressive
movement. Spray painting, chalk-ups and posters have defied hostile governments,
from democratic regimes to military dictatorships.
The emergence of the internet in the past few years represents an extension
of existing geography. In the next few years an increasing proportion of
information consumption will take place in “cyberspace”.
What is the equivalent of graffiti on the walls of cyberspace? At present
there are quite a few. The simplest method is to place a message on a bulletin
board anonymously. Alternatively you could launch a web site without providing
any obvious indications of who you are. If you know how to do it, you can
also break in to someone else's space and post a message.
In the past the issue has not been a significant one. Today, however,
there are many attempts to block out any such messages.
There is an argument that people shouldn't be able to post anonymous
information on the internet. Regardless of issues of honesty, responsibility
and similar things, there is a simple fact: the ability of people to release
information anonymously, including leaking government and corporate information
(such as whistleblowers), plays an important part in the flow of information
within capitalist society.
Attempts to block anonymous postings include attacks on sites which
allow this information to appear. One of the growing areas here is criticism
(anonymous and otherwise) of corporate and government policy.
Part of the opposition to this takes place under the guise of the fight
against “cybersquatting”. Originally cybersquatting referred to individuals
who registered a known brand (such as Coca Cola) and then asked the company
for money in exchange for the name. Because these names were supposed to
have no inherent value, any such trade was considered a form of blackmail.
Now the issue moves on, and anyone using the name of a company in their
web site is accused of cybersquatting. For example, if a group of workers
get together and launch a site called “companyXsux.com”, and publish criticisms
of the employment practices of company X, they may get a letter threatening
them with legal action for stealing the company name.
At present this is very hard to police. But as technology improves,
it will become much easier to police all activity over the internet.
Another recent trend is for companies to use their firewalls (the devices
that block unwanted internet traffic including hackers) to block sites
that contain criticisms of the company. (On a larger scale, with the assistance
of US corporations, the Chinese government uses its control of access to
the internet to block sites critical of Chinese government policy.)
If we have seen anything in the internet it has been its flexibility.
In response to these controls a new service has emerged which provides
users within companies the ability to get to these sites, by disguising
the destination of the web surfer and encoding the content downloaded from
the site. One I recently came across is safeWeb (www.safeweb.com).
And so the battle continues. Companies police their workforce. Workers,
software writers and free service providers work their way around this.
Combined with the recent move of unions to organise internet workers, the
class struggle shows its face in cyberspace.
BY GREG HARRIS (<gregharris_greenleft@hotmail.com>)
