Rebecca MacKinnon
Rebecca MacKinnon
Rebecca MacKinnonis an author, researcher, Internet freedom advocate, and co-founder of the citizen media network Global Voices Online. She is notable as a former CNN journalist who headed the CNN bureaus in Beijing and later in Tokyo. She is on the Board of Directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a founding board member of the Global Network Initiative and is currently director of the Ranking Digital Rights project at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth16 September 1969
CountryUnited States of America
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The potential for the abuse of power through digital networks - upon which we the people now depend for nearly everything, including our politics - is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age.
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It becomes dangerous for somebody who doesn't want their boss to know their sexual preference to use online networks to push for laws supporting gay marriage or same-sex partner rights if they can't do so with a pseudonym.
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In the wake of the Internet getting shut down in Egypt - something that also happened in Xinjiang - I know that there are groups working on ways to help people get online when domestic networks get shut down. This could also be of use to some people in China.
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I am well aware of the facts presented by numerous security experts on the many ways in which the United States' digital networks have come under siege by cybercriminals and under daily assault by hackers in league with various foreign governments.
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In China, Vietnam, Russia and several former Soviet states, the dominant social networks are run by local companies whose relationship with the government actually constrains the empowering potential of social networks.
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It would be normal for anybody running a high-profile, politically controversial operation in China to anticipate worst-case scenario, and to do everything possible to guard against them.
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The way I think liberties get eroded is not that all of a sudden you become an Orwellian state, but gradually it becomes harder for people with unpopular views to speak out without being in danger, be it from the state or just from the majority of the people who don't like them.
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Pretty much anybody who does creative work in China navigates the gray zone. People aren't clear about where the line is any more, beyond which life gets really nasty and you become a dissident without having intended ever to be one.
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QQ is not secure. You might as well be sharing your information with the Public Security Bureau.
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Public trust in both government and corporations is low, and deservedly so.
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Radio was used powerfully by Josef Goebbels to disseminate Nazi propaganda, and just as powerfully by King George VI to inspire the British people to fight invasion.
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Professional camera crews are rarely there when a bomb goes off or a rocket lands. They usually show up afterwards.
technology
We like to think of the Internet as a border-busting technology.
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Bottom line is, it's good they're in China. . . . But there's a lot more they can do when it comes to thinking through the human rights implications of their business practices. If high-tech companies are serious about doing the right thing, they can join together and lobby for more transparency and accountability in the way in which Chinese officialdom deals with Internet services.