What seemed impossible only ten years ago has become reality! Finding like minded people without leaving our homes has become reality. Internet, blogosphere, Twitter, Facebook, chat rooms allow citizen from remote places of our planet to meet, communicate and fathom the most amazing ideas and ideologies. Genius minds do meet as much as lawlessness begets dangers and threats! Real on time communication is here; Twitter, Facebook and Social Media were being used to report on last year’s Egyptian turmoil and demonstrations. Joseph Goebbels once said “The effective propagandist must be a master of the art of speech, of writing, or journalism, of the poster and of the leaflet. He must have the gift to use the major methods of influencing public opinion such as the press, film and radio to serve his ideas and goals, above all in an age of advancing technology. . . It may be good to have power based on weapons. It is better and longer lasting, however, to win and hold the heart of a nation”.
Let’s imagine the present technological availability to create “niche” threats to the peace and harmony peaceful and democratic nations of this world are struggling to maintain and uphold. Real time “propagandists” could get hold of social media networks, create fan pages instantly, rally forces and fans from all over the planet without geographical boundaries creating a “virtual” threat none of us can truly envision! Let’s imagine what could have happened if Joseph Goebbels would have had the availability of Internet and social media with instant free blogging and vlogging amenities such as YouTube? Joseph Goebbels could have had a global entourage, rallying not only his own people but people from all over the world, He could have downloaded videos on YouTube and create all sorts of groups and sub-group meeting around the clock and without any boundaries in time or space. Virtual communities possess now the technology to foster any sort of ideas or ideologies with any form of imaginable or unimaginable objectives. It seemed only yesterday when eight years (now nine) old little Saudi girl Juju’s message was aired to Egyptian President Osni Mubarak! Follow Mr. & Mrs. “Anybody”’s speech on YouTube, Flickr or Vimeo! The virtual world may very well be the door to reality and the training ground for ideologies to come and to spread them instantly, globally and viral thanks to instant modern communication technology.
Berlin’s physical hidden city of the 40s with more than twenty five miles of tunnels may now be built virtually and faster than ever! Digital tunnels longer than ever, well hidden and providing instant communication and meeting rooms located in any part of the internet galaxy with real time communication and meeting opportunities regardless of geography!
Let’s remember how Twitter and Facebook were instrumental into staging the January the 25th of 2010 demonstrations on Cairo’s Tahrir square. A resentful Egyptian population, fed up of being abused by ruthless leadership, was ready to explode and social media technology was supporting such “popular movements” or may be not so “popular and democratic” at all as we now fear the Egyptian ultra conservative election-results! It is nowadays technically and virtually possible for helping or non-helping forces to rally regardless of a good or evil intend! Some for the best intend of the people concerned but some for the sake of using the moment to gain control and seize power!
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Bruno Gebarski
Bruno Gebarski 