And furthermore
Posted 17 June 09 by Scott AndrewsBridget Kendall at the BBC weighs in with a thoughtful and informative article on the methods of state supression and concludes:
“there are two key issues to watch: whether a government is prepared to use force, and whether it can effectively control the information space. And it could just be, for all the power of cold metal bullets, that it is the second virtual tool that is the most crucial.”
I would add prepared and able to use force, which brings us back to Tank Commander.
She also relates this fascinating anecdote which testifies that controlling the information space has been impossible for nigh on 20 years:
“I remember Mikhail Gorbachov’s former ideology chief, a liberal reformer called Alexander Yakovlev once recalling how his bosses in the old Soviet Politburo ordered him to cost the business of jamming all satellite TV. This was the mid-1980s, in retrospect the last dying decade of the old USSR.
“Mr Yakovlev said he looked into it, and reported back: radio jamming was expensive but just about doable. But when it came to TV jamming, it was just too expensive. The genie was effectively out of the bottle. The Politburo had to accept that the USSR could no longer practically enforce an isolated information space. ”
A blunt instrument like satellite TV was impossible to contain; the constantly mutating, nimble footed hydra of the internet just laughs at the attempt.
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