The internet is a relatively new conception, being invented in the mid-20th century, some of us remember before it was developed (and most of us remember it not being a part of our lives). Like most inventions, it has been used by both the ‘Establishment’ or ‘The Powers That Be’ and by ordinary people. The internet and computers in general have both empowered people to take control of their own lives and created a whole new level of surveillance and ‘The Big Brother State’.

Ever since the personal computer has been in mainstream use and since Microsoft bought the DOS operating system, Microsoft has had an iron grip on the computer market. Their vision was that everyone would have a personal computer and they would be the ones to let them use it (for their price and under their control), while IBM envisioned great servers around the world that would be controlled by individuals’ terminals, they would not need Microsoft’s software and so hardware was where the money was. As we know, Microsoft were correct in their analysis and the idea that people could have their own computer that they thought they could control was popular. But some people didn’t like that they had to pay £100 just to use their computer and that if they wanted to do useful tasks such as write letters or store information for an organisation or group they would have to pay yet more. Microsoft have made it harder and harder for anyone to use software other than their own and increased the price accordingly.

Some have turned away from Microsoft’s model of “every extra thing you want to do costs extra” and turned to Apple who will give you most things that you need but you have to buy everything from them. Others have created a community where people make software for themselves. The idea is that if ordinary people all around the world make our own software, it can be as good and even better than its commercial counterpart. This software does not have its code encrypted like Microsoft’s and Apple’s but is open for all to see, this is the world of open source software.

For many years this movement has been small and its products have been pale in comparison to their mainstream version. For years after most people were using a mouse to control their computer through a graphical user interface, these people were still typing out commands. But over that last decade their numbers have grown and their progress accelerated, most open source operating systems now use advanced graphical user interfaces and have more and more advanced programs to match. Linux is the most common type of software within this world and its browser ‘Firefox’ has become quite famous for its ‘Port’ to Microsoft Windows and is accepted by most to be better than Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer, even on its native Windows. This is just an example of the powerful software that is produced by the open source movement and now that the UN has chosen ‘Ubuntu’ (a Linux operating system) for its under $100 computer, to distribute in underdeveloped countries. A lot, if not most, of the movements resources are now focused on Ubuntu’s code.

Compatibility has long been an issue as with all non Microsoft software and OpenOffice has had problems creating Microsoft Office documents due to Microsoft office’s closed source nature (Microsoft obviously made no effort to read any file other than their own). The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) worked with Sun Microsystems to create a standard format for word processing documents and came up with the Open Document Format, which was then accepted as the standard word processing and office suite file format by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Microsoft refused to accept the new standardisation and Microsoft Office was still not even able to open, never mind create OpenDocument Format files. They were inundated with complaints by angry customers who were not able to use any of the standard files they were receiving and so Microsoft relented and Microsoft Office is now able to read and write OpenDocuments from Microsoft Office 2007 (from service pack 2).

People within this moment have mainly been technical in nature and have mostly let companies hold the copyrights to the names of their software, due to there being no individual creator to hold such rights. OpenOffice’s copyright was held by Sun Microsystems but when Sun were purchased by Oracle, a company with a history of commercialising and tampering with open source software, without permission from the community. The leading creators of OpenOffice became worried that the same would happen to OpenOffice so they created the document foundation to hold the copyright of OpenOffice and any other open source software that wishes to use it. Anyone can join the document foundation who agrees with its values and can take part in its democracy (based on a meritocratic, skill based division of labour). After which the developers continued to improve the software although they no longer had rights to the OpenOffice name, then owned by Oracle. The name LibreOffice was chosen for the continuation of the project until such time that the copyright of the OpenOffice name be reacquired. Oracle decided to keep offering OpenOffice and have even posted updates, but have since donated the name to Apache.

It will be interesting to see how many other software projects go down the same route and hold their copyrights in the document foundation or form similar structures. If projects continue to allow commercial entities to own and sway their products, they will likely be pushed and assimilated into commercial software such as Windows and the war will be lost.

Freedom of information goes further than just source code in this war, Wikipedia has become the largest encyclopaedia in the world and is created by specialists and knowledgeable people all around the world. Its accuracy is doubted by many due to the lack of credentials needed to modify or create an article. However Wikipedia and its users routinely remove false, unreferenced material and lock pages that have been continuously changed to the most accountable, previous state. Pages go through a hierarchy or locked states, where only the most certified users can request a change. While vandalism and incorrect posts do occur, it is a very good source of information where cross-referenced properly, as with any other source. Wikipedia recently undertook a ‘Blackout’ on the English portion of its site in protest to bills going through the US Congress. It was not designed to block users from information as they were shown how to bypass the blackout but meant that users read about the bills that implicated any site, with a link rout to illegal copyright material, as liable. Google also showed its support for the campaign by censoring its logo on Google.com.

With Google web search using a version of the Linux kernel, the engine behind Linux operating systems, and Android phones using another version of the Linux kernel, the future looks bright for open source software. It is now very possible to move away from Microsoft’s empire. Ubuntu has a very nice interface and integrates social networking far better than Windows; while those who are less techno savvy might like Linux Mint which is simpler than Ubuntu or Windows. Office files can be created by the powerful LibreOffice and free programs like Gimp can be used instead of Photoshop. Maybe one day, if this revolution is won, taxation will pay for the effort that people put into these projects, but until then, they rely upon donations based on the ability to pay and give time, from its users. The Future is ours, if we just choose to take it.

Originally published in the August 2010 issue of Leftfield, we today republish the following article  in tribute to the dearly departed, friend of the people and bullwark against imperialism, Kim Jong Il. Long live Juche!

The Dear Bieber: JBiebz hangin at some crazy procession thing in downtown Pyongyang

Earlier this year, users of cult online messageboard 4Chan struck a strategic alliance with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. In return for a supply of tactical nuclear weapons, the internet memesters rigged a competition on the website of teen popstar Justin Bieber. The competition invited fans to vote for the country that they wanted Bieber to tour nexact, and in proof of the glorious success of the Democratic People’s Republic, North Korea won out top! Here, Leftfield brings you an exclusive look at Justin’s tour diary in the land of the Dear Leader:

“Yo, what up, this is JB, live from my tour of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea. I arrived in through a place called the DMZ, don’t know what it stands for but it sounds street. Probably NK is doing what I do and just calling things names or saying stuff for their credibility, so it’s cool with me. I know how hard it is to convince people that you really are straight street, when you come from somewhere like Ontario or NK.

The border guards were all tense and straight, they could do with a lesson or two from my swagger coach, and maybe Usher telling them how to act.

We went to meet the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il, and I was like woah, cos the North Korean shorties be going wild for him, just like they do for me back home. I explained to KJI that I believe if I stay humble and keep following the right path, I will achieve my goals and keep reaching success. He said that he believes the same thing, and calls it the Juche ideology, which apparently a whole philosophy that he came up with by himself with a little help from his Dad!

Then we went to see some Korean mass games, which made me think that KJI must have caught Bieber-fever, the way they straight took my love of hot choreography to the next level. KJI asked if I’d perform with his 10,000 personal dance crew, and I was like “Whatever you want, JBiebz will give it to you.”

KJI was so happy he told me that alongside his Dad (the Great Leader) and himself (the Dear Leader), I was going to get the honorary title of the Dear Bieber of the DPRK.

So now, after 6 months of intense rehearsals at gunpoint, I think I’m bout ready to represent for the people’s homeland. I think the true North Korean Beliebers are going to have a Biebergasm when they see what we’ve put together.

Hopefully KJI will be satisfied, I been trying to get him to say when we can actually end the tour, but he never really answers the question and starts talking about rice harvests instead. I love the paradise on Earth that is North Korea, but I can’t wait to touchdown for all my sweet fans on the next stops of the tour, Afghanistan and Somalia. Plus I’ve been wondering what’s happened to Usher, I haven’t seen him since KJI told me he’d gone to a holiday camp for a relaxing vacation breaking rocks and making rifles.

Until then, I’m going to leave you, live here in North Korea. Peace! (But never with the American Imperialist Pig Dog Aggressors Who Will Be Crushed by the United Efforts of the Heroic Korean People, Juche is Invincible!)”

(JBiebz was speaking to Jack)

Where the internet and protests collide

Political activism has been in the news more in the last year than in all the years since the 2003 Iraq war. Revolutions in the Arab world, occupations in America and beyond, and student protests and social unrest in the UK have all been hailed as ’social networking revolutions’. To understand the importance of information and communication technologies to these examples of political activism, we must examine the extent to which these events were actively driven by new technologies.  By discussing these cases, we can see that increased use of social networking software and other technological advances is not necessarily a root cause of these events, but rather simply an aspect of them.

There can be no denying that, in the West, if your political event is not advertised on the internet, it is probably not going to be considered much of a success in 2011. In terms of promoting activism through the internet, a small number of websites have basically cornered the market, most prominently Facebook and Twitter. Almost every political event, from protests to organising meetings, to even attempted riots, now comes with a promotional Facebook event. Twitter updates followers in real time of what is happening in volatile situations, and provides a new media platform to activists as it becomes journalists’ first stop for ready-made quotes. Twitter has even spawned its own new form of activism, sometimes called the ‘Twittermob‘, where users can come out of seemingly nowhere to force action from previously near untouchable institutions such as the courts or powerful newspaper outlets. This has been seen prominently in the News of the World hacking controversy, the anger at offensive newspaper articles such as Jan Moir’s homophobic Stephen Gately treasure or the Sunday Express’ insensitive Dunblane article, and the Trafigura oil spill/Ryan Giggs being a mad shagger super-injunction cases.

It is important however not to overstate the importance of websites such as Twitter in recent political events. Reading newspapers and watching television news, it would seem like Twitter is incredibly important to modern day political activism, or indeed pretty much any mundane news story about anything ever. However, we shouldn’t mistake media portrayals of social networking software for reality. The traditional media frequently hype social networking in their reports, but in part this is because they are convenient to access, easy to understand, and important for news output in a world where traditional media is fighting to maintain its relevance and readership. Twitter provides user-generated content for traditional media to exploit while simultaneously cutting the number of paid journalists on their staff, and in this sense it can feed a capitalist agenda.

Read the rest of this entry »

You almost have to feel for the police in Scotland over the past few days. Unable to spend their week beating up kids on bikes, shooting each other, executing men in taxis, and ensuring that teenagers are locked up for heinous crimes like stealing bottles of water from Lidl and swearing at cops, polis north of the border have faced something of an identity crisis, unable to join in the spree of attempting to justify their own existence as the upholders of all that’s good in society and thus undeserving of massive spending cuts.

However, to say that the lack of any riots in Scotland has left the polis sitting around twiddling their thumbs would be vastly underestimating their own resourcefulness. No, so eager were they for some of the action, they actually went out and invented some imaginary riots. And so it is that now a number of teenagers across Scotland are sitting in prison – remanded in custody for naively making Facebook pages  for “riots” in their hometown – with, in all likelihood, no intention of ever actually rioting, looting or doing anything more than pissing about on Facebook.

Few would dispute that making a Facebook page calling for a riot on your local high street is, in the current political climate, a pretty stupid thing to do. However, it’s also true that creating something that most people with any vague sense of how online social media works would construe as no more than a prank is not a crime worthy of potentially weeks of imprisonment.

But this clampdown – hailed in typically self-aggrandising fashion on the Tayside Police website – comes part of wider steps to control and legislate over social media and the internet, particularly in light of recent hysteria over encrypted Blackberry messages being used to co-ordinate disorder in English cities. This culminated in an announcement from David Cameron today that the government may seek to disrupt and disable social media networks including Blackberry messaging and Twitter during periods of civil unrest – on par with moves taken by faltering dictatorships in the Middle East over recent months. Of course, attempts to censor the internet are doomed to fail – if people are unable to communicate using one website, they’ll simply move elsewhere, and short of shutting down the entire internet and mobile networks, the authorities will struggle to stifle communications.

But it’s worrying the extent to which the Scottish judiciary have vastly overreacted to these cases, in their successful attempts to deny bail to, so far, two teenagers accused of inciting riots on Facebook. A further three – aged 14, 16 and 18 – will appear in Dundee Sheriff Court on Friday morning. Where perhaps some friendly guidance or a few stern words would’ve been appropriate, the police have instead opted to pin heavy charges on several young people who, we’re being led to believe, are criminal masterminds organising mass disorder from their bedrooms. If that seems fantastical, it’s because it is.

A moral panic has set in among the political and legal establishment across the UK, with any sense of leniency thrown out of the window amid a clamouring for dehumanised “looters” and “rioters” to be locked up, have access to welfare cut off and be evicted from their homes. This failure to even acknowledge that there are reasons for the riots beyond “criminality pure and simple”, as David Cameron put it, will only serve to increase antagonisms that whole layers of alienated young people feel towards the authorities and society at large.

The Facebook sweep this week does, however, reinforce the need for everyone – political activist, wannabe rioter or internet prankster alike – to be vigilant in what they post on all social networks. In the current climate, even an unauthorised demonstration could be viewed as inciting disorder, and in another classic case of old people not getting the internets, weeks in jail could await.

Facebook can be a great place to get on your political soapbox. It gives you a chance to vent, you can share great articles and you can find yourself in a genuinely interesting discussion about certain issues.  As someone relatively new to socialism and who is still learning a lot about the issues surrounding it, I find my comrades’ political posts an insight and an education.

However, personally there are far too many daft cunts on my friends list for Facebook to be a consistently positive political experience. As someone yet to partake in a cull of my friends list, barely a day goes by where some prick I’ve never had even an iota of affection towards before  posts something ridiculously out-of-order. Hence barely a day goes by where I don’t delete such disposables, from my life as well as my news feed.

So, with the inauguration of the new Facebook polls, the platform for dafties has predictably widened. In most cases it’s simply another annoying app that fills up your news feed, telling you boring information about people you don’t like. Although I must say my life has drastically improved upon discovering my cousin prefers Coke to Pepsi. Thanks for enlightening me, pal. Also, answering ‘Charlie Sheen’ PURE RANDOMLY to any question was hilarious the first time and it continues to be funny, you have such a sparkling wit! If you keep doing it it will only get funnier.

However, there are a lot of, let’s say, ‘moral’ questions springing up, ones I observe the results of with a keen eye. It might make cunt-culling a whole lot easier (if you’ve voted that you don’t support gay rights, for instance, it’s fair to say I want you to get tae fuck out my life), but venture further into the comment sections and it will really give you something to despair or fume about.

One particular question, the eternal toughie that is “‘Which hurts more, giving birth or being kicked in the balls?” has already been excellently assessed and the idiotic comments annihilated by Brogan, one of this blog’s own contributors, in her own blogpost .

Then there’s the simply bemusing poll that poses the question: “Do you support gay rights and weed legilisation?” The wording is what gets me. Although they are both, don’t get me wrong, prominent left issues, it’s a bit of an odd coupling – gay rights and drug laws are hardly two issues that go hand-in-hand with one another (unless I’m going to all the wrong parties). It’s a bit like asking “Do you agree with veganism and electoral reform?” or “Do you want a dessert or are you having a bath when you go home?”

In the interest of democracy, the poll offers the answers “yes (gay rights)”, “no (gay rights)”, “yes (weed legalisation)” and “no (weed legalisation)”. Here’s the catch: you can only vote once.  I’m not sure how people are supposed to prioritise their decision-making here as the two aren’t exactly mutually exclusive. I’m certain that everyone in SSY is fully behind gay rights, and I’d vouch that most support some kind of progressive reform regarding cannabis law (whether that be legalisation or decriminalisation). I’m sure I speak for many of my comrades though when I say some human beings having the same rights as OTHER HUMAN BEINGS is a slightly more pressing issue than being able to buy weed legally.  I can’t really imagine the thought process of those who think the opposite”; “Well, gay rights I can give or take, as long as I can buy an eighth and no get the jail!”

The comments section is dangerous territory. As you can imagine the discussion centres primarily on the gay rights issue. Those from the people who do support gay rights are truly quite heart-lifting, and are refreshingly well-reasoned and compassionate compared to the homophobic bile coming from those against gay rights.

Such gems as “you aren’t born gay, it’s a choice” make frequent appearances amongst the homophobic trolls. Oh aye, they choose to be gay, just like they choose to suffer all the torment they get about it from scumbags, and just like they choose to be put under scrutiny from cunts like you who, if I had my way, wouldn’t be allowed a say in the matter. It gives them a kick, so it does, to see you disregard their status as a FELLOW HUMAN BEING all because they fancy folk who’re the same sex as them (which, just so you know, they can’t help.) It is pleasing, however, to see that the good guys well outnumber the wanks for a change!

Perhaps the most provocative of the moral conundrums is the question: “Should soldiers get paid more than footballers?” Almost a million have voted yes whilst fewer than 50,000 have voted no. I’m sure many, like me, have refrained simply because they couldn’t give much of a fuck about the plight of soldiers or footballers. Not to mention the multitude of problems that any rational economist, socialist or pacifist could point out with such a proposal.

Quite simply, it’s economically unfeasible. Whether you like it or not, footballers are paid for through private companies (aka by rich bastards) and soldiers are paid for through taxes (aka by poor bastards). If soldiers were to receive even a quarter of a top footballer’s wage, paid for through the public purse, the so-called ‘grave recession’ we keep being told we’re in would probably actually occur, and nae cunt wants that.

As many participants in the poll have so earnestly pointed out, to solve this, all that’s needed is a rewording of the question. Many have appealed it should be posed as “Should footballers be paid a soldier’s wage?” which, fair enough, I could contend with. I fucking hate flashy footballer and their smug grins, parading around in their nice cars whilst the little folk struggle to provide for their families.

However, I wonder why I’ve just spent two paragraphs pointing out the menial errors with the question when, quite simply, I just fucking hate the British army a lot more. That is, not individual soldiers, of which I’m sure some are perfectly nice people and might just be trying to make ends meet and are only doing the work our government makes them, but British soldiers as a collective. As a collective, British soldiers are violent and unpleasant weapons of the state, prepared to brutalise and oppress innocent civilians and to imperialise entire nations in the name of oil. I want no hand in supporting their efforts in any modern conflicts but unfortunately I am required to do so financially through state taxes (or I will be, once I become an eligible taxpayer). And no, I don’t think anyone deserves a wage for being capable of murder and torture of innocent people, let alone a footballer’s sky-high salary.

Again, it’s a seemingly harmless question, presumably intended to provoke reaction from those with a ‘moral conscience’, that is, those who think the British army are brave freedom-fighters, and that they stop the UK from being ruled under Sharia law. That is, those who believe the work our armed forces do is noble, courageous and heroic, and somehow deserving of a millionaire’s salary. That is, essentially, the Daily Mail’s target audience.

It’s not really even people voting that soldiers should be paid millions that irks me – to loads of folk it’s a perfectly harmless enough idea – but the comments which have spawned from the question. Many have gotten up on their pedestal to deliver impassioned passages about why those who don’t think soldiers should receive a footballer’s wage are evil and morally corrupt. The results are, quite frankly, hilarious:

“If I had time I would track all the cunts who said no down” – what’s this, a fan of the army supports oppressive murder! Who’d have thunk it?

“Footballers don’t die protecting our country!!” – no, neither do they die waging illegal wars on government bidding, one reality check please.

“Whoever votes no is really harsh” – this one lacks any serious conviction, bless him.

“Whoever votes no should be crucified” – lol, retro!

“Footballers don’t benefit humanity” – yeah, humanity really benefits from our armed forces. Our military presence in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan has done wonders for humanity!

“Footballers are just gay anyway” – excellent counter-argument, I bet this one supports Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and all.

“But soldiers save lives!” – um what? I’m sure all those Iraqi and Afghan families grieving over their murdered children or parents would contest to that.

“Soldiers put their lives on the line for us” – um, if I may, I’d rather British soldiers didn’t do anything on my behalf.

“Those who said no… you’re heartless!” – yeah, those of us who give enough of  a fuck about the lives of innocent civilians are heartless, nice one.

“32,794 people think sports is more important than peacekeeping.” – hahaha! Peacekeeping, the army; hahahahaha!

I’m going to stop there before my rib cracks. Have a look for yourself though, it’s a right laugh how clueless some folk are.

All in all, what I’m trying to say in this never-ending tangent is that these polls just give dafties extra opportunities to broadcast their pish, and they have more than enough outlets to do so already. I for one have blocked the polls from appearing in my news feed, and I anxiously anticipate the day they are done away with! Don’t even get me started on the evil cunts who call the outsider slice in a loaf of bread an ‘ender’..

NO! Hugo Chavez is going down the line of filtering Venezuela’s internet! The parliament has passed the law on filtering any messages which have incement or hateful material (politically or religious).
This seems like a fabulous idea at first, but it is the opposite. Developing countries like Venezuela need freedom of access to all information on the internet. Chavez states that:

“We aren’t eliminating the internet here, or censoring it.What we’re doing is protecting ourselves against crimes, against cybercrimes,”

Now Chavez, I’m a fan, but WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Fighting Cybercrime. Chavez Style.

I understand his fear that the general opinion of him on the internet is pretty low, but this is not what the country needs. Look at North Korea and China! Clearly someone needs to get their internet know-how on. I mean, of course he’s going to get slated in Youtube comments or god forbid, Daily Mail comments. And of course, his people will see all the mental stuff that he supposedly done but didn’t. (You know, cause the papers keep lying about him). But really, it will NOT be detrimental to his country’s socialist development if they can access the whole internet, because everyone knows that the key to socialism is free education, freedom of information, and a platform to express yourself. The Internet can easily facilitate that.

Wide access to the Internet will vastly aid primary, secondary and tertiary education for the whole country. Children can play and learn, while adults use it as a tool to their careers. The Internet makes it easier to organise movements and action, while it also acts as a place for people to put out ideas and get a sort of ‘rough copy’ of the reaction they’ll get in real life.

Yes, when it comes to Internet security, you are always at risk, but that is a thing that can only be solved by education folk. Not shutting them away from the rest of the world. Yes, you are almost always being watched by the various governments, but there isn’t any clean cut way around that. Personal vigilance will help though, but no one can learn this if they don’t have any access to this type of material.

So what I’m saying is, that’s a huge FAIL from Chavez. I’m disappointed.

In a move with potentially hilarious consequences, the government is moving ahead with plans to turn the most popular online petitions into parliamentary bills. The most popular petition on the government’s website, or those that reach around 100,000 signatures, will be introduced as private member’s bills to be debated in parliament, and possibly passed into law.

At first this sounds like a good idea – any increase in direct democracy is good, and it could potentially be a useful way to give important issues publicity. However, scratch beneath the surface and you can see that this is just another meaningless “look-honestly-we’re-not-evil” proposal from the tories.

All this means is that popular issues will be debated in parliament – there’s no requirement for the government to take into account public opinion beyond this. Before the Iraq war, huge demonstrations were held, with millions taking to the streets – far exceeding the government’s e-petiton threshold. They were ignored. Opinion polls show that the majority still oppose the war in Afghanistan – the troops are still there. The new proposals are just another way to hide the fact that our “democratic” system isn’t very democratic at all, and the same elites will continue to run things the way they want to. Even if MPs are forced into debating an issue they don’t like, it won’t take much to vote it down and ignore it.

The plans also don’t take into account the nature of the internet – if this goes ahead we can look forward to debates on the merits of Justin Bieber gigs in North Korea, or on if we should make Top Gear knobhead Jeremy Clarkson prime minister. The government has said that the petitions will be moderated for eligibility to counter jokes like this – but if the government is deciding what petitions get debated or not, isn’t that the exact same thing as not having a petition system at all?

The important thing to remember in all of this is that if e-petitions were really going to let people directly influence government, the government wouldn’t be introducing it. Just like letting the public decide “which cuts they want” on Facebook (How about none?), this is an empty gesture to make it look like the government cares what we think.

Ever had something go missing from the internet? Whether it’s a Facebook event or a photo on Flickr, we usually don’t have any control over our data online. Most of us take this for granted – but when 4000 of Bill Barrol’s tweets mysteriously vanished, he wanted compensation. Working on the premise that he is normally paid around $1 per word, he worked out that his tweets were valued at around $62,000, and demanded that Twitter cough up the money. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t pay out – his tweets were restored a few days later, and I don’t think he would have been getting a penny anyway!

Despite not actually receiving a payout, Bill’s quest for damages over his lost data illustrates bigger issues about control and the internet. In the past, people’s data would almost always be stored on their own computer, meaning they were responsible for keeping it safe and making sure no-one was able to illicitly access it. However, as high-speed internet connections have become more and more common, this has changed dramatically. Most people use webmail, in which email is stored on a web server rather than on the user’s hard drive. Websites such as Google Docs means documents are now frequently stored and edited online. More and more of our information is being stored in the cloud. This means that we leave responsibility for it being accessible, and secure, in the hands of private companies.

The biggest example of how this can be a problem Facebook – millions of people (me included!) will happily tell the website our name, age, job, interests, who our friends are, what events we’re going to be at, and rely on it as one of our main methods of communication. Advertisers love this, and pay facebook millions of pounds to target ads based on all of these details. Ever noticed how the adverts o your page seem to sometimes correspond creepily to your interests? That’s because Facebook has been flogging off what it thinks you like to whatever company wants to pay for it! As useful as services like Facebook can be, we should take into account how much we want these companies, other people or Facebook itself, to know about us, given their less than perfect record on privacy.

Mark Zuckerberg - The face of evil

As political activists, control over the internet poses even bigger issues than personal privacy. More and more, social networks are being used to organise large-scale protests and demonstrations. The UKUncut actions against Vodafone and Topshop, which SSY has taken part in, were originally organised through Twitter, and recent national student days of action have been called using Facebook events. There’s no question that this has been a huge boost in some respects – large events can be called with far less work than was required in the pre-internet era, and it gives a way for people who aren’t normally involved in radical politics to easily find out about, and take part in, political activity. However, there are also serious problems with this. If an event is organised only through Facebook, and Facebook decides to delete the event, what happens then? Just after the election, a Facebook event for a “Party Against The Tories” in George Square in Glasgow, which had hundreds confirmed as attending, mysteriously vanished. Whether you put this down to sheer coincidence (unlikely) or a police intervention (more than possible) it highlights perfectly the problem with these new ways of organising.

So what’s the solution to this? Saying that we aren’t going to use social networks anymore isn’t an answer – they’re far to useful, and have become a huge part of many young people’s lives. We need open networks, in which we are in more control. There’s already been an attempt at building something like this with status.net – an open-source alternative to Twitter. Anyone can set up their own status.net server, and users on any server can subscribe to any user on another. Another project, Diaspora, is aiming to build a similar alternative to Facebook. Although these don’t represent perfect solutions – not everyone has the resources or the know-how to run their own server – it’s a big improvement over the situation in which one company controls everything.

The internet is often praised as a great tool of democracy, and this is true – whether it’s governments being held to account over information from wikileaks, mass protests organised over twitter, or even websites like this, it has let us share information in ways which were never possible before, and the world is a better place for it. But we shouldn’t forget the fact that a lot of the internet is controlled by large corporations whose interests lie in money-making before user privacy, and that it doesn’t take much for a government to get a facebook event removed or a blog shut down. In the future we will hopefully see more open networks and ways of sharing information emerge, but until then, we need to be careful about how much we rely on websites that we can’t control.

Al Qaeda recruiting sergeant

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS MENACING ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

Paul Chambers is a man who has suffered one of the worst reactions to a joke of all time. Back in January, sitting cold in South Yorkshire’s Robin Hood airport (no, it’s not a joke, it really is called that), he was frustrated that his flight had been cancelled by snow, and so tweeted:

“Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”

In a spectacular sense of humour failure, this tweet led to him being prosecuted for sending a “menacing electronic communication.” As a result he was fined £1000, and lost his job. He appealed on the basis of this being the most blatant miscarriage of justice since they jailed Deirdre Rachid. However, the wannabe Judge Dredds refused to uphold his appeal, then fined him another grand, and also ordered him to pay costs of £2600!

This would be completely hilarious were it not for the fact for that it has ruined this unfortunate guy’s life – in addition to all this cash he’s been fined, he’s also lost his income. It’s a farcical escalation of the increasing tendency to employ thought police to monitor people’s internet activity and try and see terrorism from harmless jokes, writing silly poems or just being curious online.

On top of that, it’s also yet another example of PEOPLE WHO DON’T UNDERSTAND THE INTERNET TRYING TO CONTROL IT. Apparently Chambers had to explain Twitter to the police who came to arrest him because they’d never heard of it.

The outrageous conviction has generated a wave of solidarity online, with #twitterjoketrial becoming one of the top trending topics worldwide, then today masses of people putting up #IAmSpartacus. Even better though was the idea of the Left Outside blog, who has promised “I’m going to post something threatening every day until Paul Chambers is acquitted or I get bored.”

In a display of blatant joke stealing solidarity, we’ve decided to do likewise. We can’t quite match their level of commitment, but in this post we will post a series of MENACING ELECTRONIC JOKES in protest at this judicial clampdown on laughter. Several SSY blog authors will get the ball rolling, but we openly invite you to join in on the comments. We are firmly convinced that NOTHING CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG.

Behead this sick filth

I’m going to nerve gas the panto at Glasgow Pavilion because Dean Park’s gender bending offends my religious sensibilities and I want Big Break back on the telly.

Sarah is going to take every Brown Owl in the country in the hostage, unless every Brownie, Cub, Girl Guide and Scout in the UK becomes a Jihadi/IRA child warrior. She’s also going to take George Galloway hostage and force him to be the cat 24/7 and eat tesco value cat food instead of the Whiskas he’s accustomed to.

Liam T is going to steal 1000 police man’s hats, and use them as fuel to burn the transport minister at the stake cos his train was late. He’s also going to drive a mobility scooter loaded with semtex into the Sunday Herald building in protest at them only using a tiny pic of him being a student protester and didn’t use his quotes. He’s also going to take a shit on the servers that keep up Louis Proyect’s blog cos he’s really fucking boring. (Captain Radical has a high standard of terrorism to uphold.)

Andy Bowden is going to lace cheesy wotsits with HIV because they contradict McCoy’s/Allah. McCoy’s are the one true crisp.

What menacing electronic threat will you make? More to the point, how long before the SSY site is down and we’re in Guantanamo Bay? It’s up to you, get involved in the comments!

"Are you going to poke me the next time you're on or what?"

Hey Kids! Guess how cool and funky the ConDem government can be?! They’re going to ask YOU on Facebook about what you think should get cut from our public services! Neat, huh?

Do you often think about how your local leisure centre is a waste of money? How about all those lazy disabled people that need care at home, surely they could do a bit more for themselves, right? What about libraries, who needs boring old books when we can all go on FACEBOOK and get connected with the Tories!

This new era in justifying government policy super cool direct democracy is the result of a deal that’s been struck between the government and Facebook. They’re planning to set up a “spending challenge channel”, that’ll come up when you login, inviting you to make suggestions on where the government should make spending cuts.

The idea behind it is to con people into feeling that they’ve been given a say. But if this was really democratic, you’d have the chance to say you don’t want ANY cuts, something that won’t be an option. In fact, the whole thing is about making everyone believe the lie that the cuts are an inevitable and inavoidable part of reality, like a rainy day, instead of what they are: a calculated attempt by the rich to make themselves even wealthier at our expense.

Britain's rich

Chancellor George Osborne, writing in the home of sound economic thinking, The Sun, says: “As every family knows, when you’ve got less money you have to spend it better. That means getting your ideas.” Talking about Britain as a family goes along with the Tory slogan of “We’re all in this together,” implying that we’ll all be sharing the pain of the new age of austerity.

This of course is bollocks, as the millionaires, including most members of the government, continue to stack the cash while they make the poor majority pay more tax, get less benefits and have more of their essential needs ignored. If Britain is a family, it’s a fucking dysfunctional one where some fat cousin we barely know has turned up and started spending all our money on himself while the rest of us starve.

Not only is the option that most people want (no cuts) not going to be included, even the crappy Labour Party argument that “We need cuts but not just yet,” won’t be included either. The Facebook PR move by the government won’t open up a debate about if we need cuts, or even when they should be made or how deep they should be. It will simply be about what you think you could live without. It’s like giving a prisoner on death row the choice of which execution method they’d like.

Shortly after turning a baseball cap back to front, Prime Minister David Cameron said: “We are really excited about having Facebook involved in the spending challenge. There’s enormous civic spirit in this country where people want to take control and do things in a different way. We are giving people an opportunity with Facebook and I am sure that they will take it.” Of course, he didn’t add, “take just enough control to make the people who are really in control look good.”

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg (one of the youngest billionaires in the world thanks to the amount of time you spend logged into his website) was also loving the government linkup.

“The government’s willingness to reach out and engage with Facebook users is going to go a long way because I’m sure that all the people using Facebook in the UK have a lot of great ideas on how they could do this,” he gushed.

“It’s really innovative to open up policy making and engage the public in this way to try and create more social change.”

His enthusiasm isn’t surprising when you realise that the people who own and operate Facebook have got a political agenda themselves, one that fits quite well with what the Tories are trying to do to the UK. Zuckerberg and friends are all members of neoconservative right wing groups that want to see a total free market, no government support for the poor and complete global capitalism. They are super rich venture capitalists themselves, who have made themselves billionaires thanks to your use of their services, such as Facebook and PayPal. Now they’ve got an ally in the UK government, and together they’re teaming up to try and make us cut our own throats.

Let’s not let them get away with it. If you’re a member of Facebook, take two minutes just now to join the group ‘Vote on what cuts we wants? No thanks, we don’t want ANY cuts!’

We’re still waiting to see how exactly the finished “spending challenge channel” will look, but make sure you tell everyone you know to refuse to take part in it, and refuse to endorse the lie that we must make cuts. If you are going to post a suggestion, here’s a few that perhaps the government ought to consider, but never will:

1. Cancel Trident and all of Britain’s weapons of mass destruction.

Head of the Royal Bank of Scotland

2. End the war in Afghanistan and drastically cut military spending.

3. Crack down on the rich tax dodgers, like, errr. . . the guy who paid for you to get into power!

4. Tell the banks that seeing as we paid for them, we want some say in what their Scrooge McDuck style heaps of profits get used for.

5. Get rid of the monarchy, and send the Queen and her fellow benefits parasites on the Civil List out to work for a living!