So apparently there is a German law that can find one guilty of treason merely by publishing leaked documents, even if one did not participate in the initial leak.
This kind of stuff, but also for example the nowadays common threats issued by the anti-liberty masses to journalists/bloggers/cartoonists with unpopular and politically incorrect views, makes me wonder if we’re heading for a future where only anonymous/peusodonymous “free” speech will exist.
Freedom is coming that is not government sanctioned freedom. We ought to expect that governments will try to fight back. You are either free or unfree – If you are “as free as the government allows” then you are not really free.
The problems that governments face is that when people utilize their real freedom and the governments fight back, it exposes the facade, and people begin to see the truth.
The government is as powerful and malign as society allows it to be, so in a way you are as free as society allows you to be. I think that freedom outside of society is a given, so the only kind of freedom worth discussing is the one that can be denied somehow.
That is a list that technologies like MaidSAFE and bitcoin will make smaller and smaller all of the time.
Governments can still be thugs, but being thugs won’t get the results they are aiming for…
In a way, but at the same time, it is only possible because we are not stopped from having complete control over our computers and communicating encrypted data. My point is that being free while living in a society is alway something that you are only because you’re not stopped from being free by others.
Anonymous and free from sponsorship and bribery. If we could we want trustless systems that will get rid of the process of building up trust to sneek in the lie.
Media always has more credibility when they put their neck on the line. Anonymous media would be mostly birther, chemtrail 9/11 inside job GMO alarmist conspiracy theory junk.
We just need accurate information we do not need credibility and we don’t need media personalities. We need a system that simply shunts better information into the public awareness- end user opt in of course. We can have public organizations (non state) verify it once its out. Groups like the free and open software community uses to verify code and render an opinion.
The process of distributing info and analysis of it need to be separated. The distribution can be almost mechanical I’d think. We need to get rid of the media in my opinion and replace it with something automated and trustless. Its really tied to search. We expect search to help us focus on the information we are seeking to find that culling and actual access are most of the job. It just we don’t want conflict search like Google.
Compared to what? Overpopulation, global warming, terrorist and false flag alarmist and government propaganda junk?
I’ll take my freedom radio with the birthers, 9/11 inside job, organics and freedom fighters thank you very much. You can keep the government propaganda. But isn’t this the joy of decentralization?
Just because an agency retains anonymity for their contributors, it doesn’t mean there is no reputation to keep. Any idiot can spout alarmist junk, but that doesn’t necessarily grow a readership.
In short, market forces still apply.
We need to get away from trusting media organizations and personalities. The media is not forever we need to get to the post media period.
That’s just the thing, there is no “post media” era. Just a post centralized media era. We ARE media sources. What do you think we’re doing right now writing these posts? We’re publishing content which other people are reading! We are producing media. We’re relatively small sources but we’re still sources and content producers. So really the more apt phrase is post centralization era.
There is more to being a journalist than writing a story.
Because stories are complicated and have many moving parts that often don’t even know about one another.
If I knock on the door at some random place and start asking questions, do you figure I will get answers? Will I even get the time of day? Probably not. If I have a reputation as a reporter? Yes. Perhaps. If I am a well respected journalist? Most likely so. Anonymity gets you none of that. Being a journalist means fighting for the truth, and often that does come at a cost. But without a warrior that is willing to fight the battle courageously, Journalism will not happen, and neither will the truth be revealed.
It is easy to take one cog of the machine of reality and report “Its moving clockwise” or “It’s moving counterclockwise” That is what MSNBSC and FoxNew do respectively. But if you don’t back up enough to see the whole machine , Your stories are really just the squeaking of a belt…
Some will be anonymous, some will put themselves right out front. There are places for both.
There will be propaganda operations of both types, as well as those genuinely concerned with real news.
The difference is that–similar to the current internet only more so–choke-hold news doing the political narrative that has gotten to be a choreographed thing, will likely retreat to much more subtle stuff. It will likely be some time before current structures are impotent, but the erosion has already started. SAFE will help it along. And in the meantime, those who wish to do things differently, and win at it, will have much betters tools to create something different, and those participating in that way will grow.