The Internet: Hypocrisy 2.0 vs Revolution 2.0

Wikileaks frontman and founder, Julian Assange, is still fighting extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges that coincidentally arose shortly after the unprecedented leak of hundreds of thousands of US military documents. 

As the fallout from the Leak spread across the world claiming victim after victim, World Governments, and the US in particular, cowered in fear of the most powerful weapon of all: knowledge. People began to taste what true freedom of information was and the kind of power the collective force of whistleblowers, tech geeks and a listening public could wield. But the euphoria surrounding the power of the Internet to facilitate knowledge and freedom of speech was short lived - at least in the case of the US and its Allies. 

The fall of Mubarak has been hailed as a great victory for the power of the Internet, along with social media like Twitter and Facebook. The role of Google exec, Wael Ghonim, has been highlighted by the media and the group Ghonim allegedly formed, along with other tech savvy young Egyptians, became known as Revolution 2.0 - not unlike the spontaneously formed Anonymous born out of frustration with the vilification of Wikileaks and its enigmatic founder. But why is Revolution 2.0 heroic while Wikileaks irresponsible and even terrorist?

It depends on who the target is, and this shows who really controls the media and the Internet itself. Mubarak attempted to shut down cyber portals and was condemned for it. The same was done to Wikileaks with seemingly no sustained public or State response to speak of. Some Republican senators even demanded that Wikileaks even be named a terrorist group. The current lull, and even silence of Wikileaks, as well as the virtual neutralization of Assange, seem to suggest that it has indeed been deemed a threat though not officially (or legally) so.

Western hypocrisy knows no bounds and the Internet has made it possible for that hypocrisy to spread far, wide and fast. To the credit of the relevant US authorities, it was acknowledged that no laws were broken by Wikileaks. Freedom of Speech was the only 'crime'. But it turns out that Freedom is a commodity which the US seems to have purchased, patented and copyrighted. And they seem to have cornered the market and restricted supply, and only the currency of those who say what is in accord with the American agenda is any good.