Re: Re: filling its 404 error logs with the names of the men, women and

[Valerie Taraska <vtaraska@cprn.org>]

[: hacktivism :]

You wrote:
>>Isn't activism always a way of challenging institutionalised power without 
>>going through accepted channels? 

I would have to disagree with you on this point.  There many activists who
are law-abiding citizens.  The energy and vigorous action or "activism" is
often legal and through regular channels.  Consider all the special
interest groups and the citizen democracy groups who simply try to empower
people through exchange of ideas.  They can affect change simply through
educating - citizens, government and corporations.  By organizing on the
Web, their task has become eaiser and more cost effective.  Consider an
online petition (although it does not carry much weight with leaders), but
if sent to nine people and then those nine do the same, the 9th itieration
can reach 1 billion people.  That creates a large audience.  The Web is
making it easier for groups who do not have a lot of money do be as
effective as a big time lobbying firm (ok maybe we are not there yet!).  Of
course groups are always looking for creative ways to get support and
change goverment's, and sometimes citizen's minds (let's not forget that
the actions is not always against a government) however, many would
question using it if it were against the law.

However, I do appreciate that Hacktivism does imply something quite
different.    I joined the list because I run a citizen democracy site and
was interesting on any new techniques of organising on the web.  I thought
this group would have a technical knowledge above other lists on this
subject.  I also thought I would learn how to use my site to a better
advantage.  I hoped that the exchange of ideas would help change things,
not suppression of them.




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