Information Overload?

Wikileaks. It’s on everyone’s lips and laptops and risks becoming the first real flicker of life in some rudimentary form of global democracy. Or not. Until recently social collaboration and networking had their strongest point in the immediacy of transmission of information. Students rallied in record time and revolutions of the oppressed could be masterminded and managed over twitter and other social networks. Local (and national) scenarios have for some time included information centres that set up as an alternative to the traditional MSM and provide different information to the realities being spun in accordance to tradition (or requirements of the centres of power).

Enter Wikileaks and controversial founder Julian Assange. The man is now the subject of a virtual death warrant. It’s actually an arrest warrant by interpol issued on the basis of an allegation of rape. The timing of the arrest warrant could not have been better fuel for conspiracy theorists – it comes at a moment when Wikileaks is busy embarrassing the world’s largest superpower (at least military). Having said that it is interesting to observe the different stakeholders in the battleground over information sources. Amazon has just dumped Wikileaks from its servers : a clear sign of “go it alone baby”. While the leaking of diplomatic cables and information has been described as life threatening it is also prudent to wonder who or what benefits from these leaks exactly.

In a clearly functioning democracy, of the separation of powers kind, new information thrown into the public domain by third parties can serve to uncover the ruthlessness or corruption that might be setting in at the top. How does that work in a quasi-anarchic global system? Is outing American notions on Berlusconi’s lascivious entertainment preferences of benefit to anyone? I am sure it is but the question is to whom? To the Italian electorate? To the US electorate? And what message does it send to someone in (spin the wheel)… Tajikistan?

The question I am asking here is not so much the black or white “Is the Wikileaks good or bad?” but rather whether such random leakage actually has an effect beyond the sensational. Sure the press will have a free run for a while and the diplomatic centres around the world will have a new topic on their social agenda. Spies have been rendered redundant for a while (a very short while) and so on. But is Assange justified in stating that he has made the US in any way more accountable? On a more local (or national, pace Tonio) scenario you could compare the leaks to the random bandying of information on government contracts: sometimes the bull is hit and things get going. Most times the allegations and hunches serve simply to get the press heated for a little while. My concern is more on how a leak could be channelled to be less of a leak and more of a substantiated form of information that can hit where it hurts if necessary.

Otherwise leaks will just do what leaks always do… create a mess for which nobody is prepared to take responsibility and ones that nobody is prepared to fix. And we’ve got enough of that kind of shit on our hands.

addendum:

From Wikileaks: Lack of Information isn’t the problem (Steve Richards, Independent) :

Their words are reported in the brightest of colours because they were not written for public consumption. A locked door is open. As we look inside we discover that one of the revelations about the Wikileaks publications is that they are not revelatory. They confirm publicly available information and take us behind the scenes, like a tour of a theatre for an audience that has already seen the production. If the stories of recent days are reversed, they would have been mind-blowing exclusives: “Mervyn King called for increases in public spending!”; “Israel relaxed about Iran’s nuclear ambitions!” Instead, the mechanism of a leak generates excitement over predictable and unsurprising information. In this case the leak is on such a gargantuan scale that the intake of breath is even greater. But it is the mechanism that is sensational, not the words that arrive as a result.

Related articles

• Interpol Issues Warrant for Wikileaks’ Julian Assange (brainz.org)
• Interpol issues ‘Red Notice’ for Wikileaks’ Assange (politics.ie)
• Interpol issues global arrest warrant for Julian Assange – Sydney Morning Herald (news.google.com)
• WikiLeaks founder appeals Swedish arrest order (theprovince.com)
• Wikileaks: Julian Assange’s mother ‘distressed’ by Interpol warrant (telegraph.co.uk)