Scaling Up AAP Model And New Politics

Picking up the thread from my last post, Aam Aadmi Party's tremendous success in Delhi polls and speculations on its ability to deliver dominating the public discourse indicates that AAP may be Delhi based party, it is now a pan-Indian phenomenon. Support for AAP all across India and even abroad suggest a positive anti-establishment sentiment. Mostly, anti-establishment moniker is applied to subversive elements,especially the Naxalites and secessionist which seek to overthrow the state but AAP's anti-establishment posture is more about going back to the fundamental principles the Indian State was founded on and against the predatory system that has now become the establishment. During the high decibel negative campaign against AAP,the competitors charged the latter for negativism which is both ironic and somewhat ridiculous, the Delhi voters interpreted it as such. The fact is, AAP is heralding new politics which is difficult to understand when looking at it from traditional point of view.

The country it seems, is ready for the new politics but Arvind Kejriwal has ruled out going national now. Yet, AAP already has dedicated volunteers in all across the country. So the most pertinent  question would be , is AAP's model of new politics scalable ? If the party itself doesn't expand aggressively, can other parties emulate its model of politics and electioneering , especially regional parties, some of which even openly came out in support of AAP, even though the latter never solicited it.  Can political parties reconcile their respective ideologies with that of AAP ?  Does AAP even have a neatly defined ideology ?

Posted By Danish 6:50 PM

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Facebook Profound Changes' Profound Implications

For sometime now social media as well as traditional media sites have been buzzing with information on Facebook undergoing profound change. Lately, creating a media hype before release of a product (Google+) or a major Facebook upgrade (video chatting feature)  has become an indispensible strategy but in this case I would wager that the change may really be profound. Facebook hasn't just changed the layout of the profile page, it has reinvented it too, incorporating various social web behaviour like listening to music or reading a book. The Gesture concept when properly applied may take us a whole level forward towards the Semantic Web. However,the idea of Facebook incorporating so much users data in their profiles is alarming , the privacy issue on Facebook gets more complicated and then there is the chance of Zuckerberg locking the users in.

Posted By Danish 5:17 AM

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Facebook,Google Pwning The Web: Why You Should Care ?

The current phone-hacking controversy is a reminder that in the age we live in information is power. Well, my emphasizing it doesn't make it a breaking news,this has been known throughout history which is why the flow of information has been controlled by the powerful (which also means that they powerful because they controlled information). The Internet brought with it new means of communication,World Wide Web made the flow of information to ordinary people easy but it is its evolution into a communication platform called Social Web that broke all barriers to the free flow of information. The investigation into phone-hacking controversy has revealed how much political power media moguls like Rupert Murdoch possess but Wikileaks and its fallout and social media showed the power of information in motion. From Arab Spring revolution to crisis management to raising quality of life, information systems have been playing key roles in our lives and society.

Impact of Wikileaks
A key characteristic of the Web and most of its services is that they are unplanned, serendipitous which in turn makes them popular as they are designed as per user demand, but Julian Assange probably knew what he was doing when he founded Wikileaks. The impact of Wikileak has been much greater than is visible because it is too subtle. Leaked  embassy cables and other confidential correspondence documents presented to us,a picture of the world much different than we were accustomed to from traditional media. Interestingly, in the Arab world a lot of people already suspected the double-speak, corruption and despotism prevalent in ruling circles but Wikileaks making it public as well as global gave them the impetus to revolt and bring the despots  down.

Role of Social Media
Social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook played very important role in the protests as most people active on Web are acutely aware of. Facebook provided an excellent platform for the protestors to organize against  the brutal regimes more fearlessly. Twitter had already proved itself as a potent politcial tool during the "Twitter Revolution" in Moldova, for the Arab protestors it was the holy grail of communication and coordination. Videos of police brutality on civilians circulating through Youtube and the uncensored reports and opinions through blogs brought the reality to the fore. The fact that the protestors knew that the global community was aware as well as in solidairity with them, is what turned a spark to blazing fire,two powerful dictators were brought down within days.

The Battle For Social Web
If you are not living under a rock you might be aware of Google's new Social Web service Google+ which is doing pretty well in comparison to its previous two attempts. For little less than a decade, Google has been the most dominant player on Web but the threat it now faces from Facebook  is a serious one, especially since it seeks to make Google's mostly-algorithmic base, redundant in comparison to its own people powered base.Google has hit back at Facebook with Google+, a service that resembles most Facebook core features and given the wide range of services it owns,it's cosiness with Twitter, and the fact that it already has a vast user-base in its search engine users and those using Gmail as primary mail account,  Google has a fairly good chance of pwning Facebook.        

The Ungoogly Alliance
However, Facebook is not alone, Microsoft seems to have thrown its lot behind Facebook by not only investing in Facebook but also collaborating with it through the newly acquired Skype to bring in-browser video chatting. Besides, Microsoft is also upbeat about the yet to be released features of its search engine, Bing which is already indexing Facebook 'likes'. Further, Microsoft's 2009 alliance Yahoo and its latest alliance with leading Chinese search engine Baidu reflects the animosity with which it is trying to eat into Google's user-base even if it means losing millions of dollars. An alliance as formidable as Facebook-Skype-Microsoft-Yahoo-Baidu may be capable of defeating Google even pwning it if Google wavers a little in maintaining lead in search industry. Corporate rivalries are not new,but they are now taking an ugly shape, Google is already sitting over loads of user data gathered through tracking visitors and websites, Facebook on the other hand has a treasure trove of social data, either of them getting pwned would mean the winner taking over the entire web. The battle between the companies has become so fierce that I am sorely tempted tempted to quote  the tagline of the last Harry Potter flick - neither can live while the other survives. (Prof Trelawny's prophecy).

Why Should We Care ?
What should concern us more is not the economic fallout of such an event, the socio-political fallout could be unimaginable. Now while we gloat over the power of social media and the Internet's role in democratizing the world, we tend to overlook the fact that social web services are created and owned by companies and much open to abuse at various levels.We have discussed above on the power of information and the effect Web has over our social and political lives,any corporation that can control the flow of information would become a superpower in itself, perhaps the first non-territorial entity that could change governments, regulate market prices, dictate government policies and pretty much do everything it wants to. It is a bit hard to believe but we have too many evidences to ignore beginning with the fact the none of the companies have been politically neutral.

In the ongoing Arab Spring Revolution the social media companies are just not only passively assisting protesters through there web-based  services,they have gone ahead and provided innovative means to help the protesters communicate after the government started blocking the conventional means of communication and later even the Internet. Of course, we applaud them for taking proactive steps to help liberate oppressed people break free from tyranny and transition towards a  democratic society. However noble their intentions might be and more importantly, in complete harmony with our own ideology, the fact remains that the companies do take sides which also means that they can be willingly or unwilling be used as tools by the dominant powers as is likely to have happened during mass protests in Iran, against alleged electoral fraud (remember GW Bush's controversial  electoral victory in 2000 ? ) Considering the support the regime still possessed,it could well have been a crowdsourced  black operation.

It doesn't really matter if Google triumphs or Facebook,Microsoft and allies do,its the web users and common people who lose. May be not. If wisdom of crowd and democratization of information has enabled the masses to topple dictators without taking up arms, Murdoch's News of the World had to be shut down completely as the information proliferated through each and every nook and corner of developed world, a corporate superpower too can brought down using the same platform. If everything fails, there is still an  option,the reset switch ;)

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Reference:
    Pwn : A Leetspeak slang used especially in online gaming environment to mean something more than defeating. It originated from a typographical error by a writer who intended to use the word "Own". Ironically, the word "Own" or "Owning" wasn't adequate enough to describe the act, which meant thoroughly destroying the opponent and take over everything. ( remember Carthage ? Tyre or recent Palestine?) as to make it seem that they didn't exist in the first place. 
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pwning

Originally composed on 6/15/11   

Posted By Danish 7:47 PM

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Haiti Needs You

As most of the readers would already know, a massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, leaving behind what could perhaps go down as the one of the biggest natural disaster and humanitarian crises in recent history. But  before proceeding further, i should also mention that since i had been traveling the whole week and facing major connectivity issues, i wasn't very aware of the magnitude of the disaster until a couple of days back. However, this fact does not in any way, dilute my sentiments towards the victims or the disaster. In fact, a very few people can, IMHO, relate to the pain and suffering of the victims than those of us who have faced the super-cyclone that devastated Odisha (then Orissa) in 1999. It has been more than 10 years now, and i have still not been able to find words to express the experience. In nutshell, it was a nightmare..those of us who survived were mainly because we were relatively better off economically, socio-politically. Neither the government nor the media were able to capture the extent of damage.

Anyway, coming back to Haiti, the visuals,news reports coming in are more than just nightmarish! Haiti has has been devastated and its likely to take a lot of time and effort to get the Caribbean nation back on its feet. On the brighter side, this epic disaster has also shown how useful social media can be, in responding to major catastrophes as quickly as possible. Twitter in particular has not only been the main source of  getting the getting news and images from the ravaged country, it is also helping in coordinating rescue teams.  

If the sight of such human suffering depresses us, it is also heartening to find people all over the world extending their hands for the rehabilitation of the quake victims. Google has pledged $1 million for relief work and has also put up a special page, Google Crisis Response page with links and information on how you can do your own bit. You can Donate via Google Checkout or you can find links to donate to organizations like UNICEF , Care, Red Cross ,
Doctors Without Borders , Habitat for Humanity  and other organizations working to help the victim rebuild their lives and communities.

Mashable has put up a list of trusted organizations that you could donate to without having the nagging doubt if your money did reach the victims. However, if you wish to do more or feel you cant donate enough, there are ways you could help directly. For instance, you could Help map Haiti or help find missing people through Person Finder: Haiti Earthquake  or help identify missing people by comparing and matching photos. Let me assure you, you dont have to spend more time or resources than most of us already do in Farmville or Mafia Wars but the difference we could make is huge.

Inspired by : http://steal-ideas.blogspot.com/2010/01/bloggers-should-help-victims-of-haiti.html#ixzz0cuU4Af8Y

Posted By Danish 5:53 PM

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Tweeting a revolution or is it a black operation ?

For the past 24 hours #Iranelection and hash tags related to Iranian election has been trending on Twitter . What it essentially means, (for those unfamiliar with Twitter) is that the election in Iran and its fallout are the most talked about topic on Twitter. We have already seen the profound impact ¹ that Twitter has had on socio-political events in the past but this could be the biggest one considering the fact that the mainstream media was late in reporting the protests and has since been lagging behind the micro-blogging service. ( Please check out, Dear CNN, Please Check Twitter For News About Iran )

However, what really intrigues me is the question, whether the protest in Iran truly reflects the aspiration of the nation as a whole or is just a partisan struggle fueled by external powers. Once again the sources of most these news are either almost anonymous twitterers or those belonging to the opposition camp. The truth perhaps lies somewhere in between, the call for probe by Ayotallah Khameini indicates it. Ironically, Ashton Kucher, who has the largest following in Twitter, has likened the issue to the controversy around G.W. Bush's electoral victory in 2000!

Either way it is Iran's internal issue, it is, after all, the only country in the region that has some sort of democracy (that has not been forced on). So why is the global social media so obsessed with Iranian election results ? I guess it has more to do with the fact that the West is not comfortable with the fact that a hardliner like Ahmadinejad came so close to defeat and still survive. Of course, i am just speculating that he survived but anyway, this was an opportunity that a lot of people would have hated to let go of. That would also explain why the opposition is on the street but euphemisms like "tweeting revolution", coming from American and West European "social media activists" seem to me part of propaganda warfare in the lines of black operations. Only this time the agenda has been outsourced to the crowd populating the social web. John Robb has in his earlier blog posts discussed various 4GW strategies and manoeuvres that the US could adopt to bring down Iran, some of the proposed ones have been black operations of these nature.

At this juncture ishould confess that i don't have much love for Ahmadinejad nor for the ruling elite of Iran, but i cannot deny the fact that he has considerable support from the Iranian electorate as the numerous pro-Ahmadinejad demonstrations indicate. So all talks of freedom and democracy by activists on web sound hollow when one considers the fact that there was hardly any murmur of protest when China banned nearly all major web sites and services on the anniversary of the Tianmen massacre. Similarly, the torch-bearers of liberty and democracy were conspicuously silent when just few weeks back the Burmese junta filed fresh case against the famous Burmese pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi just days before her 13 year old detention was about to expire! As i have already mentioned what we are witnessing might well be a crowdsourced black operation, not unlike propaganda warfare except for the fact that in this instance its far too decentralized and viral in nature. The majority of the participants may actually have no clue about the underlying agenda if at all there is one !

Update:
1. Twitter one hour maintenance downtime has been postponed as demanded by bloggers/twitterers.

Posted By Danish 4:06 AM

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