I don't think we've quite made that conceptual breakthrough with the Internet, and we can give ourselves a few years to figure it out. But we need to work on it. Publicize the e-mail addresses of companies that transfer military weapons to oppressive governments. I have little doubt that these beginnings of high-tech activism will continue to develop and that in the future we will invent new ways of building networks of concern that will, in retrospect, seem as obvious as shooting a film from multiple angles seems to us now. But no survey of this brave new world would be complete without taking note of the enormous and increasing disparities of access in different areas of the globe, and the futility of building cyberspace communities that exclude most of the real communities of the world.
Access is primarily available to the traditional elite who are educated, urban, and generally male.
Information flow from the South to the North is a tiny trickle, barely noticeable against the flood of information from the North. It is axiomatic that creation of a civil society capable of resisting repression begins with a grassroots population that is fully informed about what their situation is, what their situation should be, and who their allies are. Governments count on ignorance and silence, and information and communication are our best weapons. I am a first generation Chinese American. I am sooooo ashamed of the Chinese government for what it is doing to Tibet.