mobs

Online mobs and its effects on anarchy

The internet is ruled by a mob, redefined everyday (with each new user, every minute). Those "huddled masses are yearning to breathe free," the "teeming, unwashed masses" have been able to (god forbid) Italic textorganize. For the first time, the mob has become virtual and deterritorialized.

It's in the internet that the promise of a real egalitarian, anarchic society can become possible. The technology of the internet provides for non-hierarchical systems that work through collaboration from many people, regardless of where they are around the world. Some examples include: peer-to-peer file sharing, open source software, and of course listservs, blogs and wikis. The wiki is becoming one of the major anarchist tools of the future: a software that allows anyone to edit or add entries to existing webpages. Wikis implicitly create systems that share decentralized information and that help develop online communities formed around specific topics. Despite recent controversy over Wikipedia (or because because of it) -- wikis are growing everyday. (Visit the World Wide Wiki at [1] for a comprehensive index.)

The potential of the internet and these collaborative systems have enervated the anarchist movement, providing a new virtual space to discuss and organize. It is vitally important to see the psychic and spiritual potential of wikis and other collaborative systems while using and modifying the technology that creates them, especially in our conception of the mob as a driving collective force for change. Long live the online mob!