There's been a lot of discussion of Wikileaks and it's high-profile founder, Julian Assange, recently. Some of it tittle-tattle led mainstream news stuff, and some more reasoned critical analysis.
I've come acoss a few good blog posts that have spurred me to spend time thinking about Wikileaks and the deeper implcations the site-cum-organisation might have for contemporary media and politics.
As often happens, my intention to post short, pithy comments in response fails and I end up postng longercomments than planned.
So I thought I'd round them up into a couple of blog posts about Wikileaks and a couple of central themes.
In this first post, I responded to a couple of big questions Jed Hallam asked about Wikileaks and its effect on transparency, particularly from the perspective of the individual.
Jed asked whether the fall-out from Wikileaks will mean that people (and I'd presume this term can apply at both a individual and collective, organisational level) start "behaving themselves [...] thus destrying any risk of being found out".
Or perhaps things will go the opposite way with people becoming "ultra-concerned about their privacy" online as possibly evidence by phenomena such as whitewalling (amply demonstrated by Drew)
FInally, Jed asked whether "the world will totally change and people will become totally relaxed about who they are and what they do – every tweet and Facebook update will become accountable for and Eric Schmidt will die a happy man."
I argued that we'll end up with a mixture of two and three. There's a possiblility Julian Assange will see the effects of his "secrecy tax" come to fruition but I'm not too sure in my comment:
Yes, people can leak documents on the web. But they have to get them first. Geert Lovink’s 10 Theses on Wikileaks is relevant here as he makes the claim that Wikileaks only offers a quantitative difference to existing whistle-blowing, not a qualitative one.
Plus, Wikileaks is the antithesis of transparency. We don’t know if the leaks are accurate or planted. Nor do we know how WLs operates, how it chooses or edits material, for example.
Secondly, how likely in realist terms will it be for the government or state or even corporations to become ‘squeaky clean’ in case they’re exposed?
Cory Doctorow wrote a great Comment is Free piece after the G20 protests in London where crowd-sourced citizen journalism content exposed police involvement in the death of Ian Tomlinson, despite their initial flat denials.
Doctorow argued that transparency is nothing unless justice is done. What happened next? The policeman in question was acquitted and faced no further charges.
Transparency in this context only *reinforces* the feeling of disempowerment, helplessness and frustration with existing power.
WIll the US will clean up its military and diplomatic procedures as a result of Wikileaks?
Sadly, I think not. Although I do agree the web will demand some changes at the edges of organisational behaviour, it will outdone by a reliance on information management - both internally and externally - rather than drive significant - and certainly ethical - changes to corporate and organisational behaviour.
For example, the media were circulated D-Notices ahead of the #Cablegate release so it’s very possible what gets reported in the press is still only half the story – and what I’ve read so far isn’t really “news” (e.g. middle eastern leaders wanted to invade Iran (Shock!) and the US urged diplomats to spy on UN members?
Hardly ground-breaking when it was reported years ago that MI6 is/was actively spying on UN delegates.)
I do however, agree, that the web may well change the ability of governments/states and corporations to censor information (Trafigura was a good case in point from a corporate perspective) but of course, all governments and states need to do is move up the food-chain and start blocking/censoring the source of information.
See this very recent story of the UK police applying direct to Nominet to gain take down powers for websites engaged in “criminal activity” as a perfect example.
Of course, criminal activity is subjective but I would imagine that as long as websites are engaged in publishing harmless entertainment they'll be fine.
Which leads me to your third proposition. I agree…. people are ncreasingly opening up and putting more and more personal information online.
And at a day-to-day level I like this idea. I do believe it will force the public and private sector to adopt similar approaches and further push transparency as a tool/outcome to a certain degree.
But equally, I don’t think this will ultimately make for a more equal or even balance of power. The use and abuse of this by corporations, governments and states will no doubt over-ride any greater benefit for the greater good. The Cybernetic Hypothesis has more to say about this.
And this, I think, might bring us full circle.
George
I am moved by your candid argument to respond - and we should acknowledge the Guardian for giving you the space - and yet for the first time in many threads I am, frankly, quite perplexed by the commercial paradox you identify.
There are some alternatives, but none of them are entirely satisfactory or perhaps commercially practical. Some are not consistent with the ethical requirements you describe and with which I broadly agree. But in the first place, let us enjoy for a moment the irony of taking money from the airlines, the automotive industry and their ilk, in order to sponsor an MSN outlet that consistently criticises them and pays for people like you to do so. It does sweeten the pill a little, but perhaps not enough.
Some suggestions then - not so much as things I think can be done, but as catalysts that might lead to constructive discussion and better solutions than I can offer:
1) Recent news suggests that some quality MSN websites will attempt to institute subscriptions. If the Guardian moved in that direction but limited advertising according to content that met published ethical standards, it would make subscription more meaningful. I would pay to support a news site that placed ethical behaviour at the core of its business model, because that is exactly what I find is virtually absent from commercial concerns, and much to our detriment both as consumers and members of society.
2) Try such a scheme as an alternative site and trial it for a reduced sub in the first year. If it took off, move the enterprise in that direction and reward those early supporters with a discount on the second year - or something.
3) Ban only the ads that meet the ethical standard. This is not a moral exercise but a commercial one, but where virtue is rewarded. Ethical standards should be applied to products or services, not companies per se, and when certain products enjoy more ad space than their counterparts, their importance to the companies that produce them shifts in their favour, simply because they sell more. Advertising usually targets the consumer, attempting to modify their behaviour; here advertising could target the companies and do the same. It is in the boardroom that this message needs to be understood - the market is changing and ethical behaviour will be rewarded by consumers. (And when it's all hat and no cattle, you have new fodder for the column).
4) Develop more flexible price strategies and find more innovative ways to deliver the adverts. Perhaps a rate card with weighted price bands depending on gross revenue, where smaller and more ethical concerns can also take some space in the paper or the site, thus increasing opportunities for ad sales. I suggest this because I think taking the ethical stance will cost the Guardian some revenue. Quite how much it loses is in part dependant on the ad sales team, because there is also a strong marketing advantage in the ethical stance, especially if the Guardian is the first to adopt is. Very newsworthy, and worth trumpeting in any ad campaign. It must also be true that properly exploited, there may be some additional market share to be gained through it, so it's not all downside.
5) Keep discussing the option of going completely digital. I'm sure this is discussed and the Guardian management understand this much better than I, but there are important implications for the environment as well as the economics. It must include a subscription, but that has benefits since it would probably be annual or semi-annual, which is more reliable income than variable sales of print copies. (I'd like to see the management's thoughts on this. Things change, as the Guardian demonstrates with this very site. Where are they now on this?)
Prudence would dictate money will be lost, so the Guardian must ask the same question it does over page 3 girls: what is it prepared to do in service of Mammon rather than its founders like Scott? Tits are out of bounds, yet they would bring in more money, as would the sex trade ads, but the Guardian has taken a moral stance at the expense of profit. Morality cannot be parcelled out or striated by expediency. Either the Guardian is wholly responsible and doesn't want to assist in destroying civilisation, or it may as well start looking for busty women and brainless men to leer at them, since that readership will always put their hands in their pockets - if you know what I mean.