It's been a few weeks since we had to think about Internet security, ethics, and Wikileaks in this class. But recently I asked my CS Ethics class to view two TED Talks videos, one of Julian Assange of Wikileaks and the other of Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who triggered the Egyptian revolution by starting a Facebook page. I asked them to compare and contrast the two videos and summarize their thoughts. I was so thrilled to see them engaging in the current issues, attempting to divine the fine but uncertain line between the ethical and the illegal, but really thinking for themselves. I have to share this post from Joshua:
"In many ways, the goals of Wael Ghonim and Julian Assange were the same - free people by giving them information. In the case of Julian Assange, he created and used wikileaks to expose the secrets of governments that he believed kept people from being free. On the other hand, Wael Ghonim's facebook page allowed people to share information that each of them had, the fact that they were all discontent with the status quo. I think this illustrates the largest difference between their approaches. Wikileaks put Assange as the arbiter of what should or shouldn't be released, whereas Ghonim merely facilitated the exchange of information. This is further borne out by the fact that where Assange was adulated by the crowd as a "hero", Ghonim said 'there were no heroes, because everyone was a hero.'" I say amen to that.
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