p2pnet news view | P2P:- The CBC has a fascinating feature slugged The rise of Facebook activism.

It’s all about how Facebook is changing the world because it allows people to effectively organize online.

“Copyright reform must have seemed an unlikely hot-button issue in the winter of 2007 — that is, until 50 protesters arrived at Industry Minister Jim Prentice’s constituency office in Calgary in December,” says the post, going on

They were there to voice their complaints about the government’s plans to introduce a bill that would, among other changes, allow copyright holders to place digital locks on content, thus preventing copies from being made.

The small protest got a huge boost when, in a matter of days, 20,000 people joined a group protesting the rumoured legislation on the popular social networking website Facebook.

In part because of the opposition, the introduction of the legislation, Bill C-61, was delayed until June.

The group, which now has more than 90,000 members, was the brainchild of University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist, an outspoken critic of both the substance of the bill and what he says is the government’s lack of public consultation on the issue.

After 7,000 new members joined the group within days of the government’s introduction of the bill, Geist said it was the beginning of a new wave of political activism on the internet.

“What we’ve seen over the past 24 hours has been nothing short of remarkable,” he said. “Literally tens of thousands of Canadians are speaking out with an element of shock that the government would introduce this legislation in the manner that it has.”

Geist’s group, “stands as one of the most successful examples of ‘Facebook activism,” tapping into, “the ready-made structure of online social networks to make joining a group as quick as a click of a button,” say sthe story.

It has that right. But Facebook is a commercial enterprise operated solely for profit and although there’s not the slightest question members use it for entirely noncommercial activities —- a fact deeply regretted by its creators —- it would be a mistake to credit it alone with the massive changes which are taking place thanks to the fact people around the world are now able to communicate with each other, completely by-passing the traditional media which until the World Wide Web, were responsible for 99% of everything people heard and saw.

Facebook is only one element of online P2P (people to people) communications. There are other formal and informal social networks and equally powerful, but less visible, are IM, chats, blogs, web sites and even cellphones.

People talking to people. One-on-one, and group-to-group. By whatever means.  And they’re what’s making the difference.

Will Facebook survive?

For the first time in history, politicians (and others) have to answer directly to the people who elected them, a reality that’s creating shock-waves which are rocking the Powers that Used To Be to their cores.

It used to be that government or corporate “leaders” could hatch a scheme knowing it’d be a done deal before the public had time to react. But time is no longer on their side. Almost immediately after the latest infamy is announced, the Net is buzzing with the news and minutes later ………

“One way or another, p2p technologies will be the primary backbone for communications in this century,” I said in a discussion with Slyck three years ago.

“Thousands of new people are going online every day meaning for the first time in history, ‘we’ have a voice ‘they’ have to listen to. Look at what’s happening in the entertainment industry, for example. They’re going blue trying to avoid the issues, but they’ll eventually be forced to acknowledge their customers as active participants rather than mindless cash-cows.”

Facebook doesn’t depend on its members. It relies on advertisers who are beginning to learn they’ll have to stop treating the people they’re trying to reach a lot more respect than hitherto.

Will Facebook survive? At the moment, it and others of its ilk are examining Dubbed Engagement Ads, each of which, “encourages users to interact with brands and share that interaction with their friends – without requiring them to visit brands’ profile pages or exit the site”.

Whether Facebook or any of the other commercial social networking sites will still be around in another two or three years remains to be seen. But if they’re not, the Net and P2P are here to stay because Facebook is only just the beginning —- the edge of the envelope.

And there’s another factor that’s rarely, if ever, taken into consideration.

The companies and governments forget the people they’re threatening in various ways are also the ones who are conceiving, developing, servicing and administering the very systems which keep the wheels turning and the money coming in, I said in the Slyck item, adding:

“Think about it. So world corporate community and governments really will soon have to mend their ways.”

And IMHO, what that means is, we, the people, are being recognized as active collaborators instead of cash cows to be cynically exploited at any and every opportunity.

Tip of the iceberg

The CBC has Geist saying online and offline activism play off each other and spawn a more far-reaching kind of protest and, “For that reason, he expects these kinds of protests to grow in popularity.”

It’s, “the tip of the iceberg,” he wrote, says the story, adding:

“I think we will see far more online activism and all organizations — both business and government — working to respond to the online activity.”

And there’s even more to it than that.

The online spokespeople and activists today of today are the government and corporate leaders of tomorrow. And they know only too well the people they’re dealing with are no longer a shapeless mass to be safely kept out of sight and at arm’s length.

Instead, they’re billions upon billions of individual men and, women and children and eventually, they’ll all be online in one way or another.

Then, the shapes of ‘government’ and corporate enterprises will be changed forever.

(Thanks, Luvie)

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 2:23 pm and is filed under P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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