GUEST BLOGGER: AUSTIN HEAP, creator of the Haystack program

Get Off My Internet, Censorship!

Growing up in a small town in Ohio, a 2400 baud modem was my only connection to the rest of the world. I sat behind my 25mhz computer, dialed up to the local free Bulletin Board System and started typing. Chatting with the admins about when they were going to add another phone line so more people could connect and waiting what seems like days for simple text to load. I’ll never forget skipping out of class in the 4th grade (said I had to use the restroom) to run to the computer lab, dial-in for a moment to check the news, when I read about the Oklahoma City bombing which had happened moments before. “Wow,” I thought, “this Internet stuff is fast!”

From New York to Ohio, my link was to amazing people like Daniel Colascione. one of the many fighters of open-source, and a fore-front defender of democracy. Dan has made it possible to fight for the dream of free speech. 

I didn’t realize it then, but this wonderful thing called the Internet would become the place where I made friends and a place where a mere teenager could be innovative and find his voice.

Online, never once did I have to stop and wonder: is it okay to be me, okay to share my thoughts. I found courage, strength, beauty, validation, joy, life and so many other things online. It may sound lofty, trite and grandiose in a nerdy sort of way, but for me, it’s true.

As an adult, the Internet would become even more influential in my life and the lives of others, bigger than anyone could have ever imagined a decade ago. The Internet has created social forums, information sharing, enhanced creativity, and shrunk the world. It allows me, an American living in San Francisco, to easily communicate and learn more about my friends in Iran, Europe, and elsewhere around the world. And through these communications and understandings, it has strengthened our sense of humanity and common bonds. The problem, however, is that the internet is under siege.

There are so many groups of oppressed people in the world but the Internet can be a tool for them to find their own power. People have droned on for centuries about how “knowledge is power.”  But the Internet is the first thing that gave that cliché any real meaning. Unfortunately, its potential brings pitfalls with it.

It all started at 10:40 p.m. on an otherwise quiet Sunday night. After talking about the Iranian election on and off for several hours, I saw a tweet in my Twitter feed that pointed out CNN’s failure to cover the story. As an obviously rigged election in one of the world’s most important countries was being perpetrated, America’s oldest 24-hour news network was reporting primarily on consumers’ problems with digital TVs in this country.

The Iranian people used the Internet to communicate their frustration with their government, express their democratic ideals, and organize for greater freedom and democratization.  When their government began shutting down newspapers and imprisoning journalists, Iranians turned to the Internet as the most trusted source for news. Students and advocates turned into street journalists and bloggers. And the Iranian government, understanding that information is power, particularly when it reveals the crimes of the government, began cracking down even harder on Iranians who expressed themselves online.

Using social networking, individual Iranians were also able to mobilize each other. Twitter hashtags created an instantaneous collectivity that could never be created by mainstream media. When the government realized what was happening, it tried to shut it down. Members of the tech community across the globe did what they could to support it.

This is when we stepped in and made Haystack, an anti-censorship tool for those Iran.

Oppression is even more insidious in countries where governments use the Internet as a tool against its own people, a way of controlling, instead of opening, minds. When the Iranian election happened in the summer of 2009, I couldn’t stand by and let that oppression win: I couldn’t stand by and let the government use the thing that has brought such freedom to my life to destroy the hopes and dreams of others.

Why do it? I have to.

The commitment to freedom runs deep in my blood, but not the “freedom” of George W. Bush. I’m talking about freedom that allows people to define their own freedom, to think their own thoughts, to take their own actions. If I, and the group I’m so privileged to be leading (the Censorship Research Center), can be any part of protecting the voices of students, women, gays and lesbians, religious and ethnic minorities, the diaspora—then that’s what we must do.

It is the job of each and everyone one of us to do whatever we can no matter how small or how large to protect human rights of our fellow human beings from being crushed or diminished by evil people who do not respect but fear that freedom we all deserve.

That’s my job and that’s your job too.

So let’s start with sanctions, let’s start with rebuilding our laws to reflect the 21^st century. Roger Cohen wrote a great piece in last week’s International Herald Tribune that goes into the details. It’s the next big step to get on.

Keep on keepin’ on.

—Austin Heap

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Austin’s blog

the Censorship Research Center

Haystack

Roger Cohen on Austin Heap (NYTimes)

Austin at the San Francisco rally (video)