Do Mobs Rule?
Fury over Danish cartoons – A cell phone is held aloft as protesters angry over caricatures of Muhammad burn Danish and U.S. flags in Amman, Jordan. Digital communication has become a lifeline for protest organizers. (Photo by Ali Jarekji — Reuters – published on the The Washington Post). [via textually.org] The Washington Post article details how text messages and email were used to further anti-Danish demonstrations and mobs. Quote: “From London to Kabul, Afghanistan, to Jakarta, Indonesia, the digital revolution has given unprecedented access to information — accurate or not — to anyone with enough money to buy a secondhand cell phone. Where faxes and coffeehouse leaflets were once the lifelines of protest organizers, a new generation of technology has taken hold, doing for the speed and scope of global communication what airplanes did for travel. Real-world conflicts such as the cartoons controversy almost instantly echo in cyberspace. Radical Islamic Web sites feature photos of
