e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Using Online Video to Bypass Media Filters

November 1st, 2006

At e.politics, I mostly talk about how organized campaigns and advocacy groups use technology to communicate and to organize, but we should never forget that the same tools are available to everyone with a computer or even a cell phone.

For a recent example, watch this video, in which a random guy explains why NSA wiretapping won’t catch terrorists because it’s too easy for the bad guys to use wifi phones and laptops to create their own private, encrypted phone networks. As long as no one using the system calls a normal phone number, the rest of the world never even knows the network exists. And since the conversations are encrypted, eavesdropping would be pointless anyway.

In the world of traditional media, a citizen with a message this far outside of the typical scripted political talking points would be shouting unheard in the wilderness. In the new world, he can interview himself, post the video, get picked up on Slashdot and have his presentation viewed (at last count) 71,275 times. THAT’S the kind of power that the new media give everyday people. Thanks to my father, who is a true subversive at heart, for passing this along.

– cpd

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