#pacuis2015

Information Activism means that the release of information out to the public and people who releasing these information is known as Anonymous. Their goal is to get attention from people to many different issues that they release. These anonymous is trying to get the secrets information reach out to people and they believe that people have the right to know about these secrets. They are struggling against with political censorship and these activists are fighting for people’s right of freedom of information, freedom from surveillance and privacy.

The main point of this article is to study how the protocols of Twitter activity relating to WikiLeaks and how WikiLeaks works with the hidden information of the government. The author mentions about the process between the pirate culture and hacktivism mostly in the article. Pirate culture is the social contexts online where the information is sharing and remixed and re-circulated and then therefore emerging source of power. It takes to develop in different forms of doing media and politics such as radical citizen journalism, remix culture, and copy left, peer-to-peer. The WikiLeaks, also known as hacktivist, is an organization posting secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous sources. This organization works with some clusters for each different topic.  Some groups are posting about general issues of censorship and democracy, others are asking for donation, and others are posting about specific leaks. Eventhough it seems like this organization is doing illegal thing on the Internet, yet everyone has the right to know about these secrets and hidden information. For the organization to organization and mobilize to people, the organization needs to speak a common languages, agree on the definition of the situation and formulate a shared vision on the information that they post; this practice called ‘cognitive praxis”. Moreover, it easier for the organization to mobilize the information and reach-out to larger groups of people through Twitter, so that they could have more followers.  The issue that they are struggling against with is about the censorship of government. Because the information that they post are the secret information and people could not able to see it publish on news.

'Twitter. An online social networking service that enables users to send and read short messages called "tweets"...Registered users can post tweets, but unregistered users can easily read them.'

It should go more like this.. 

'Twitter. An online social networking service that enables users to identify as whoever they chose to portray or be - whether for professional, recreational, or political use - in an array that they will find other twitter users who either think as they do or have a similar thought on the tweet.'

Social networking sites (such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus) allow you to create whatever online identities you want. Whether or not you choose to take on your physical identity or create an entirely new identity that represents your virtual self is completely up to you. People use these networking sites for a variety of reasons. Whether it is a way of self expression or confession or even for the mere purpose of contacting with friends that exist in the real world as well. But have you ever thought about the users that use these as a way to relay information? And no I'm not talking about the information that relates to your life personally, but the information that everyone deserves to know (information that some people want to hold confidential when in actuality, it is the people's information.) The kind of information that leaks through anonymous users on Twitter, viral YouTube videos or bloggers who don't leave their trace. These people often disguise their identities because they don't want to get in trouble by the major capitalist companies or the government for sharing this information. They just strongly believe that the people deserve to know this information. 

The occupy Wall street movement is a movement that quickly grew by using Twitter. Protesters and supporters of the movement used their platform on twitter to inform the public about the demonstrations. People would tweet out about where protests were being held, and those tweets were being retweeted. Eventually more and more people would get the information and the protests grew rapidly. Another use of twitter for the OWS movement was that people who were actually at the events, could live tweet was was happening at the event for people who couldn't make it or just to inform people of what is going on. Supporters also use hashtags on their tweets to archive them correctly so more people can find them.

The picture above is a tweet from an occupy wall street account that contains information telling people when and where a protest will be happening. This user helped get word out about the movement by using a hashtag. This tweet, has 57 retweets so the more people can get the information. 

In the article, Burning Man at Google: A Cultural Infrastructure for New Media Production, Fred Turner goes into depth about not only the Burning Man festival itself, but why Google chooses to support and thrive on this festival so much. 

Now if you're anything like me you might be asking yourself, why the hell is there a festival all about a burning man? Well this is where symbolism comes into play. In the late 1980's a couple of guys decided that they wanted to burn a man (a 9-foot wooden interpretation of one - not a real one!) as an act of radical self-expression. Over the next 30 years, this event made it's way to becoming one of the biggest Arts festivals on the Globe. Now known as the Burning Man, this week long festival draws over 65,000 people to create this alternative and experimental city known as Black Rock City, NV. 

This festival draws creative people from all different types of backgrounds. From dancers and musicians, to software geeks and computer hackers, these people all come to Black Rock City for the same mutual purpose - to push their creativity and their minds to places never having been before. Those who have been to the Burning Man festival say that it is an experience like none other.