WikiTron

Over the weekend I decided to watch the 1982 film, Tron.  It was a very entertaining movie and had a more complex plotline than most movies, not to mention the very 80's special effects were a hoot!  The invlovement of digital technology in the film kept my mind interested in the bigger picture the film was trying to make.  In fact, once about halfway through the film, I begun to be reminded of the WikiLeaks controversy.

This was very obvious in the characters, not necessarily in their personalities, but in their roles in the movie.  The film's main character Kevin Flynn could be representative of Julian Assange based on his role in the film as the software wiz and hacker.  In the film Flynn has to retrieve his code stolen by a senior executive who is taking credit for his accomplishments and becomes blocked by the Master Control Program that controls a massive software mainframe called ENCOM.  A similar analogy can be made that Tron (a program that will make communications between the Master Control Program more accessable to the world) could represent the WikiLeaks program. 

Now the motivations may be indeed different between Flynn and Assange but the end results are similar in creating a better digital nation, at least in their views.

In my understanding of the WikiLeaks controversy it is all about a man (Assange) and his followers who feel good exposing secrets to the public. In other words they feel as if they are doing the people a favor to let them in on the behind the scenes action going on in the world.  I agree to certain exposure of documents such as corruption of governments, worldwide problems, abuses of power, however I disagree strongly with any documents that make the U.S. military look bad. Such as for example, the video footage WikiLeaks has of the military killing civilians in Afghanistan.  How much is true? Were the U.S. soldiers being attacked by the cilivians?  Were the soldiers defending themselves?  Were the cilivians caught in the crossfire between U.S. forces and Afghani forces?  What's the point of turning the U.S. people against their own military?  Then what? 

There is much power is the way a document is titled.  This is how everyone in the media can sway opinions.  For example, if a video is released entitled "U.S. forces kill innocent lives in Afghanistan", it immediately gives the public something to expect in the video and are more able to take the media's point of view of portraying the military to be savages even if the opposite happens to be true.  With internet users using methods of skim reading on the internet, it is actually embarressing to hear the parroting of controversal statements spread all around the internet without people fully grasping the facts. 

As far as I'm concerned the difference between Flynn, the hero of Tron and Assange, the spokesman of Wikileaks is that Flynn was just trying to get credit for his success that was taken from him; Assange is trying to, on one speculated extreme, provoke people to turn against their governments and military, or on another viewpoint, criticise government actions based on revealed documents.  Now I strongly believe that the people of a society need to be aware of their elected officials' actions but to what degree is Assange provoking the public is the question.