The Internet has been around for quite sometime, but it is in the last
5 years that its spread has really picked up speed.
The reduction of the cost of access, means millions of people in
poorer parts of the came online, and newer applications made the
online experience richer for those in the West.
However, this democratization of information access, and increasingly,
reporting of events raises some serious concerns.
Not so long ago, if you wanted information, you turned to CNN or the
BBC. Monopoly of coverage of events worldwide by these outlets meant
history was recorded and analyzed from the perspective of the West.
The entry barrier to news creation and propagation have now been
virtually erased. You just need an internet connection and you are in.
Google and other websites offer free web hosting services, for people
to record the world they way they see it. Photographs can be stored
online forever, and linked to articles.
You no longer need to be tied to a specific source of information. You
actually become part of the story.
You just need to take a look at popular websites like the Huffington
Post, where some of the most popular features are the comments
section, where people interact and offer their opinions on various
topics.
The major powers have a problem in their hands with this new
disruptive technologies. It has become really difficult to rally
support for simple humanitarian tasks, which just a few years ago
would have been moot.
In Libya, which is seeing an uprising that seeks to eject strongman
Muammar al Qaddafi, it has proven tricky to get an International
coalition to aid the protestors pushing from the east of the country
toward the capital, Tripoli.
The Libyan government has blocked access to the internet, and puts the
spin on the uprising that started in Benghazi - saying thay are allied
to Al-Queada, and Osama Bin Laden.
Conflicting accounts from the Libyan government and the protestors
overfloods the airwaves and makes it impossible to make heads or tails
of the situation in the country. The international coalition the USA
wants to constitute to aid the Libyans has not taken root because it
is hard to choose which side to believe.
A similar situation is taking place in Cote d'Ivoire. Alassane
Ouattara, widely believed to have won the UN supervised election has
been holed in a hotel in Abidjan, while the incumbent refuses to cede
power. In the past, it would have been a swift and clean operation to
dispatch Mr Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent, into exile, and have Mr
Ouattara installed as president just as the people of the country
wish. But there has been a lot of controversy, with both camps
producing images of atrocities they claim the other committed.
The only places where the UN seems to have been successful for the
past year have been areas where there is some paucity of information.
South Sudan is a success story that in part may be attributed to the
lack of bloggers and sketchy internet access in the country. It would
have been another long and messy story had there been a big and noisy
debate online about the merits of splitting up the country.
Since then, the International Community has been bogged down whenever
it came to taking humanitarian action, because there is not only good
intentions that are needed, but good and decisive collective action,
taking into account all points of views, but not limiting action
because of a few dissenters.
The world powers need to step up and decide what is reliable and
credible information when they have to decide on important
humanitarian and security issues.
The way forward may not yet be clear to all, important lessons will be
learned from Cote D'Ivoire and Libya.
