Tribute to Cyberactivism:

We understand cyberactivism (as we have seen in class) as a group of techniques of communication, which are used basically on the Internet, associated to collective action or civil disobedience. We also have studied the dimension of its action, and the very high importance that has in countries as Cuba or North Korea. So, because of the relevance of this way for fighting injustice, I must write this post focusing on the action of Anonymous and Wikileaks, and the relation between them.

“Knowledge is free. We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.” With this motto, Anonymous defines its philosophy. They fight against those who don’t want freedom in the network, especially against the censorship that the copyright frames (this means a direct connection with my last post). They attack unconditionally to anyone who violates the liberty of expression. The most recently Anonymous attacks have been to Tunisia websites during the political crisis this country suffered, or to Egyptian ones during the revolution against Mubarak. Attacks to Governments websites boosted the revolution, and maybe, thanks to them, these countries could live in a democratic system in a short period of time. This kind of examples brings into light the necessity of the existence of these organizations.

Wikileaks is another organization which tries to get a more transparent world. They publish documents that show non-etic activities of governments, religions or big companies. With the motto “We open governments”, the main objective of this organization is to show the population the information that governments hides. I think that Wikileaks has a very important role in the network society. I am not sure if they could be defined as cyberactivists, but they have the same (or more) importance than them. It also exist a strong debate about if it is journalism or not… From my point of view it is not. It is something much better.

Why Wikileaks and Anonymous? I like that they fight for the same purpose without having any kind of relation between them. I find in the help that each organization offers to the other one a very beautiful fidelity on their ideas, on their objectives. And this is not very usual in the world we are living in nowadays. The terrible attack that Wikileaks had suffered since the publication of thousands of documents about the miseries of our politicians is the worst act of censorship I have ever seen in “democratic” countries. It is unacceptable. A group of people who has worked for years with the purpose of make a more transparent world, and who has had the courage to show the information that lots of countries hide, does not deserve such a treatment. They look like terrorist, when they are completely the opposite.

And then, when Wikileaks was being attacked by Visa, Mastercard, governments, etc. appeared Anonymous to defend de freedom of expression, attacking . We must be firm against those who wants to control the world by silencing cyberactivists.