+- Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora)
+-- Forum: Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/forum-1.html)
+--- Forum: Applied Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and Framing the Discourse (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/forum-35.html)
+--- Thread: CO-OPTING Corporate Strategy & The Shock Doctrine To Fight For Internet Freedom. (/thread-5027.html)
CO-OPTING Corporate Strategy & The Shock Doctrine To Fight For Internet Freedom. - Magda Hassan - 06-12-2010
CO-OPTING Corporate Strategy & The Shock Doctrine To Fight For Internet Freedom.
December 5, 2010
There’s a massive ‘shock’ rumbling through the world wide web as we watch governments and corporates wage a war on the truth. Two massive fronts are bearing down on us in the form of internet censorship laws and the war on Wikileaks. Many of us feel powerless as we watch huge corporations bowing to government pressure to shutdown Wikileaks’ ability to function normally.
Corporate strategy and The Shock Doctrine have long been used to turn us, the people, into victims of those with the power, but now is our opportunity to flip the equation.
Large corporations are using their might to try to silence Wikileaks and maintain the status quo. But in doing so they are unwittingly opening up huge gaps in the market for other companies with values more aligned with ours to step in. Now is the time, when we the people, can force a massive change.
There are companies out there who are desperately trying to break into the market and who want our custom. While this ‘shock’ is happening, it’s their opportunity to make their move. If they share our values of truth and freedom, then this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for them to gain market share and for us, the little people, to perhaps even bring some of most powerful players to their knees should they try to deny us our rights.
An Example
Should Facebook do what we’re all dreading and shutdown the Wikileaks page, it could be their downfall and the rise of the new open source, privacy respecting, social networking tool, Diaspora. Let me explain how:
It’s a generally accepted strategy in marketing that appealing to ‘early adopters’ is the key to getting any new service or product off the ground. Early adopters are usually network hubs and when they find something they like, they are almost evangelical in spreading the word. Early adopters also tend to be tech savvy and left leaning. In the land of the www this translates into open source, privacy and anti-censorship.
- At last count Wikileaks had 700,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook.
- Wikileaks’ followers are likely to be early adopters.
- Early adopters like privacy, open source and are anti-censorship.
- Diaspora is open source and privacy friendly (their stance on censorship is unknown to me)
- If 700,000 highly motivated, early adopters jumped to Diaspora and then shouted their approval to their networks, well that would be a pretty amazing display of people power and quite possibly the annihilation of the Facebook empire.
Another potential example of this potential co-opting is Kobobooks. This Canadian based ebook seller is seeking to gain market share from Amazon’s Kindle. Their main selling points are their anti-monopoly pricing policy and non- proprietary devices and files. Unlike Kindle if you buy a book from Kobo, you can read it on any ePub reader and if you buy one of their readers, it will read any ePub book. Should they also have an anti-censorship stance, then this is the perfect opportunity for them to gain massive ground against Amazon by targeting the growing #boycottamazon movement.
Once again the US govt has shown a mind-boggling lack of understanding about the process of radicalisation. In just a few days, their bully-boy tactics have transformed hundreds-of-thousands of people from ‘mildly concerned but too busy to do anything’ to ‘fucking angry and ready to act’, while also exposing the true breadth and scale of where their current attempts at censoring the internet will lead us.
If you have other examples like the above, or any updates, please leave a comment for inclusion in this article. If anyone has an alternative to Paypal, which I am currently forced to use, also PLEASE leave a comment.
Any useful comments/updates to this article will be tweeted via @ChrisMGoebel
This entry was posted in Free Internet. Bookmark the permalink.
CO-OPTING Corporate Strategy & The Shock Doctrine To Fight For Internet Freedom. - David Guyatt - 06-12-2010
I would like to think that clear and popular alternatives to Paypal and Amazon also develop out of the Wikileaks affair.
Only via our purchasing power and choices can we have any impact these days (our democratic vote now being meaningless). If Paypal and Amazon Execs feared that sales and the global impact of their businesses might be seriously harmed as a result of pulling the plug on Wikileaks, I suspect they wouldn't have done it.
CO-OPTING Corporate Strategy & The Shock Doctrine To Fight For Internet Freedom. - Ed Jewett - 06-12-2010
David Guyatt Wrote:I would like to think that clear and popular alternatives to Paypal and Amazon also develop out of the Wikileaks affair.
Only via our purchasing power and choices can we have any impact these days (our democratic vote now being meaningless). If Paypal and Amazon Execs feared that sales and the global impact of their businesses might be seriously harmed as a result of pulling the plug on Wikileaks, I suspect they wouldn't have done it.
I disagree. I'd like to agree, but in this case, my skepticism remains unrestrained, as both would likely see an infusion of capital, investments, "bailouts" or even a trickle of loose narco-dollars to compensate for the temporary downturn in their fortunes. Or maybe I've been ready too much lately...