Wild Webmink

With two weeks to the UK parliamentary elections, digital liberty issues are still almost completely missing from the UK political debate, despite the fact there are so many of them. The political debate is anodyne and assumes its consumers – for consumption, not engagement, is the order of the day – wouldn’t understand that word. I looked through all the major party manifestos and found almost no mention of:

• the Digital Economy Act and its consequences for WiFi availability and internet filtering,
• the consequences of widespread data triangulation precipitated by surveillance,
• the need for open data formats and not just “open data”,
• the reasons why the publication of the ACTA draft doesn’t clear up many concerns despite the people behind it claiming there are no problems.

Despite grave words from the LibDems, it’s the Tories who have the most to say, but even their technology manifesto has no acknowledgment of these deep issues and sticks to superficialities, suggesting that the people with subject expertise are at least once removed from the policy-makers.

These are all complex issues. Even among my well-informed readership, I am sure each issue needs substantial explanation before even being recognised. I’m going to have a go at that (not least at OggCamp), but it may be that a better approach is irony and satire. The people I have shown this video to get the point really quickly, without any explanations of shared-key triangulation!

This is from a delicious satirical site, pass it on!

Filed under: Issues | Tagged: Satire, Video |