The Power of the Internet

This past week two issues came to my attention.  One was a global issue and grabbed the attention of newscasters, bloggers, and generally the world’s media.  The other however was just as important yet by Monday had received almost no coverage or indeed support.

Saturday 15th April 1989 ninety-six football fans lost their lives at the Lepping Lane end of Hillsborough football stadium.  One of these fans was 15 year old Kevin Williams.  He went to a football match and never came home.  His mother Anne was told he had died at 3.15pm but eye-witnesses have him asking for his mum at 3.55pm.  More than forty ambulances were held outside locked gates at the stadium for more than an hour and denied access to the scores of people who were dying just yards from them.

Basic medical assistance would have saved Kevin’s life.

The cover-up in this case reaches beyond Kevin’s death but the facts remain that had police let the ambulances into the ground some of the 96 would not have died.  The police also made witnesses lie on record cover up their mistakes.

Anne set up an online petition to ask the Attorney General to grant her request for a new inquest into her son’s death.  The petition required 100,000 signatures by 4.00pm Thursday 19th January.  By Monday 16th the e-petition had slightly more than 8,000 signatures.  A campaign began on Twitter to bring attention to it, and the need for lots of signatures in a very short space of time.  Liverpool fans and indeed football fans of all clubs took the issue in hand and tweeted links to both background articles and the petition itself.  Celebrities as diverse as Joey Barton and Piers Morgan tweeted and re-tweeted pleas for signatures and the petition had the required number of names by early Thursday morning. At the cut-off time the number had swelled to 117,420.

This is a testament to the power of the internet and what can be done when enough people get behind a cause that goes beyond tribal and partisan lines.  It is the first step in a long journey for Anne which began twenty-two years ago, and hopefully will end with Justice for a mother who lost her son.

Anne Williams, You’ll Never Walk Alone.

The second issue was one of a global nature and centred on the Internet itself.  The US government wanted to push through Congress two pieces of legislature,  the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), which would forever change how the internet was to be used and controlled.   The Bills were created to prevent piracy but as they are financed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to the tune of $94million, they smack of being firmly in the interest of corporate America, and this is not what the Internet was created for.

A campaign, more aggressive than Anne’s has been underway for quite sometime to prevent these acts being made law.  The internet is not the property of the US or any other government and should not be policed as it is.  The campaign is with this in mind.  Websites like Wikipedia and Reddit went dark for twenty-four hours, Google and Yahoo replaced adverts on their sites with links to information on the bills, and almost every site with upload facilities (such as YouTube and Facebook) are opposed to the bill.

These bills are more than an attempt to clamp down on online piracy, it is a blatant coup d’etat by America on the international governance of a free an open internet.  It will do little or nothing to prevent online piracy but will, for millions of ordinary users, destroy the internet forever.  The only winners will be the massive media corporations whose interests are, despite what they would have us believe, not as much about the ownership of ideas as the ownership of the revenue generated by these ideas.

Sites used by millions on a daily basis by almost every internet user will be changed forever.  You will no longer be able to post photos on your facebook status, or share YouTube videos on Twitter unless you have express permission from the creator.  Every post will be regulated and controlled and the internet will become a police state at the control of the federal US government.

The massive protests and responses forced the two Republicans who created the bills to pull their support effectively ending them as an immediate threat.  It is a testament to how strong the feeling was about this issue, and like Anne Williams cause was carried through on a tide of public opinion.  Perhaps more important for Anne, because had these acts been passed the twitter campaign would never have been.

The internet is the most powerful tool many of us have at our disposal and we must protect it.  My blog is still in its infancy but I believe in it and I hope it grows and grows.  It is not lost on me that I am using the internet to put across my ideas and I hope whoever is reading this feels free to share this blog with as many people as they can.  After all the sharing of ideas is what the internet was created for and it is not up to anyone to decide how that should be done.

Once again thanks for reading.