Quote Originally Posted by Presley Cannady View Post
Really? Which one?
Hacktivism originated as a concept in the late 90's, & the goals at the inception were to use technology to do things like expose the activity of authoritarian regimes. Initial uses included using digital means to compile witness accounts of war crimes in a number of conflict zones. Previously this had been an entirely paper process, & was vulnerable to everything from document seizure to weather ruining the data. Since it's possible to transfer data faster, & less obviously than it is to move it around on paper or on printed photos, there's an element of risk reduction that goes with using electronic means to report problems that make it quite useful.

What's new is social networking being widely available and useful as a tool to do those types of things.

The kind of message in that video was aimed at young people, and I'm not quite clear on why you found it too sweet. I suppose spicing it up with some putrid mass graves would have made it more gritty and palatable for you, but that wouldn't do much to inspire conflict reduction would it.

I'm not unrealistic about conflict, & there's quite a lot of bad guys out there that I'd rather see dead than much else. The fact though is that war is always the last worst choice, and too often violent insurgencies end badly, or worse, don't end at all, so I'm all for creating change that results in peace. Conflict reduction efforts can be just as much of a weapon against repression as any other weapon if used when there's an opportunity to do so, & I think dismissing them is a bad choice.