With the organizational power provided to citizens by the Internet, it has become easier than ever to protest and petition corrupt governmental proceedings. One does not even need to leave their computer and gather on the mall of our nation’s capital, or in the streets of LA any longer to feel like a crusader for Emanuel Goldstein. This new breed of “slacktivists,” has a new found faith in words to combat corruption in the constant Orwellian battle. To our generation this justifies our declined physical mass mobilization. This is in absolutely no way a harmful trend, but one that must be looked at critically. It is worth mentioning right off the bat that these slacktivists accomplish amazing feats of civil disobedience and exercise massive control over elected officials and are something worth respecting in some instances.
The most current and potent example would be the American “online protests” against SOPA and PIPA. The bills would give federal government unprecedented control over Internet content and were compared by many to Stalinist like censorship. Of course these bills came into quick and fierce conflict with many Internet based tech firms across the nation. Big name corporations such as Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit teamed up to release public condemnations of the bills on their respective websites. Some even blocked use of their site for 24 hours to hammer home their opposition. The market that these firms command was powerful enough to make legislatures sit up and notice as handfuls of congressmen and congresswomen pulled their support for the bill leading to the eventual tabling of the legislation within the period of the 24 hour blackout.
On the underground side of this popular protest there was also seen cyber-civil disobedience.The group Anonymous, a “hacktivist” organization that originated on the underground site 4chan and is supported and perpetuated by more populace friendly sites like 9gag and Reddit, led this tactic. When the government shut down Megaupload, the hacking clan in turn hacked and shut down high profile government sites such as the CIA and FBI. Their idea was simple, “you take away stuff from the people, and the people will take things from you.” Their actions were a modern twist on the old adage that a government should be scared of their people.
These two tactics, major internet blackout and hacking government sites, were quickly galvanized into a single battle against the big brother American government. Popular support was rampant and loud. On any culturally oriented site (Reddit, 9gag, 4Chan) people from all over the globe posted pictures of Guy Fawkes masks, quotes from cultural icons against the bills, and pictures of the bills’ author with hate language accompanying it. George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece provided the basis for large amounts of this language as people talked about big brother and the underground revolution. It was a mobilization that Orwell would probably be proud of. There is however another side to biopower control than the Orwellian method that did not fall into the dialogue of SOPA and PIPA.
George Orwell had a literary mentor named Aldus Huxley in his early career. Huxley wrote a book semi in response to Orwell’s 1984, titled Brave New World. In this novel, Huxley presented an alternative to Orwell’s “boot in face” government with a “T.V. in face” one. In short he advocated that a government has an easier time controlling us when it hides behind a jumble of irrelevant cultural bombardment, than stand for all to see as the source of coercive power. It should be said that both are incredibly dangerous but one is significantly more insidious, especially in our current cultural framework. It is important to fight against possible Orwellian nightmares, and the U.S. government does lend us a hand in this fight. Lemar Smith, the author and main force behind SOPA, can easily be searched on the Internet. On many publicly run sites a concerned citizen can find a picture of the congressman, the district that elected him, his main campaign contributors, and several methods of contacting his office. Someone could just as easily find out the same information about opponents and supporters of the bill and voice their concerns. This is important, as in conjunction with the Internet, citizens of the U.S. can rapidly learn about harmful legislation and target those who are putting it forward. With these resources the fight against the bill continues. It is sexy, it gives a sense of community with the populace and it has very catchy slogans.
An important question must be asked though: do the people leading the charge against the U.S. government grant you the same transparency? The people making up Anonymous are taking it upon themselves to make large and potentially dangerous acts claiming free speech as their justification. And if one were to protest their method how could they reach this group of hackers? We do not know who these people are, what their motivation is or even who supports them structurally. This fact also brings into question the legitimacy of their civil disobedience. Too often civil disobedience is used to justify breaking a law, but it is too important of a tool in a free citizens’ pocket to be simply that. Civil disobedience must have responsibility and purpose behind it for the action to ever move a community forward. Anonymous has purpose, and a purpose that many agree with, but it is completely lacking responsibility. Without the women and men stepping forward and showing their faces to the world stating that they have knowingly violated the law for a just purpose, how can their act be anything more than disruptive. The rhetoric behind the organization is that they are a symbol for change, but as of now they hide behind a mask as others suffer, refusing to take their punishment from the government and become a tangible symbol people being oppressed can actually stand behind, thank and join.
I am not saying that Anonymous is a malicious group or has bad intentions but that their methodology is not conducive to their supposed morals. To a large extend we all fall into the Anonymous trap as well. The Internet facilitates this problem. A large portion of the Internet is populated by ambiguous user names, tied to fictitious information. We all have the ability to put forth cultural ideas and we no longer need to even stand by them. Our credibility thus no longer rests in who we are, our legitimacy, or our knowledge, but instead on how entertaining we are. People cannot gauge whether posters have an ax to grind or what their motives are and thus these ideas tend to get ignored. If the picture is funny who cares if it is true? If the rhetoric is hot who cares if it carries moral weight? In essence all popular chatter going around on the Internet boils down to entertainment. We can feel accomplished by actually doing nothing, the perfect atmosphere for a big government to work. Like say for example while the internet is cheering a job well done on SOPA and PIPA, the government can try and push through a similar bill with a less sexy name: HR 1981. As you can see it is happening. Though it is not sexy to fight Huxley’s nightmare like it is to fight Orwell’s, it is necessary. We must all be critical of what entertains us, who fights for us, and who leads us. We must all stand in the light next to our ideas we put forward. Otherwise we will find ourselves in the same mess we are desperately trying to fight just with cake in hand.
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