Russia and LinkedIn-global governance, corporations and the search for new territories.

In response to Africa Tech Roundup. 

Understanding the Russian Position

The biggest earners for a Nation that is itching to reassert itself on the global stage are oil and gas. But with the current difficulties that she is facing with LinkedIn, we argue that the world may be readying itself for the emergence of a new mover-Data. Yes data is the new oil and rightly so given everything we have spoken about regarding the information age. 

So we expect many fights regarding security, cryptography and intelligence all attempting to deal with the forces of Nationalism on one hand and Globalism on another. 

Corporations realize the need for statehood

This is the dilemma that most of the corporations are having to tackle. How big can get without needing and demanding a space through which you can assign your sovereignty (a la Waterworld with Costner or Elysium with Jodie Foster and Matt Demon-both of which are at least in part set on alternative territories) . Can and should big business groups begin to claim statehood especially in defense of their well earned and growing citizenry. Should they stand by and watch as governments raid their platforms in search for wild geese?

A few months ago, a business man floated the idea of buying an Island and creating a new nation where we could place all those refugees who were struggling to find a country that was willing to take them in. Around the same time this debate was taking place, google and yahoo were working in creating better Internet using untraditional means like floating balloons and non-stop Internet cloud powered solar planes. In addition to this there was a suggestion (by Elon Musk...if memory serves me right) about the need to begin to claim territory that is technically no man's land (in International Waters). 

You can tell that there are frustrations over statehood and data and business and global citizenry. Maybe this is also a weakness that the UN has to deal with especially given the absence of an independent spot on the earth upon which to claim its strength. 

Corporations and the defense of Human Rights

Ideally, the corporation should be able to protect the rights of the user especially because the agreement we sign is with them and not necessarily with our governments. Who should we trust more with our information especially if we should need direct protection from the nations to which we claim citizenship? After all the contributions that have been made by Whistleblowers, it is still very difficult to find a country that will take in Assange or that was willing to take in Snow. We saw a little of this when for example Apple struggled to give out access to its precious code when the security services in the U.S were trying to break into the secure IPhone. Yahoo also has had some difficulty trying to figure out the nature of the threats that it has faced regrading data breaches. It is more imaginable to think of and salute a cartel based and designed in support of oil producers but will we see the emergence of a data cartel? Sponsored or supported in part by hackers and whistleblowers (CC anonymous). What do you as governments do when the CEO of a technology company has more valuation than some countries or states in your own territory? 

Maybe what the Russians have done is to realize and to claim rights over data that LinkedIn is responsible for exploring and extracting and now want to be able to claim access to the pipeline? 

We leave that to you. 

African Tech Roundup.

Who did more to make Donald Trump the First Citizen of America? Julian Assange and his not so subtle disdain for Hillary Clinton or Facebook and it's algorithms (with the claim of filtering content to suit the subscribers)? 

Wow great question. 

I think to understand the question you need to go back to 2008 and the message of change and hope that was introduced and harnessed by Barrack Hussein Obama. Then you need to step back a little further to the Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Mickail Gorbachev. 

All three were important transitional figures who were dealing with forces beyond the control of their traditional governments. The needs of business and the globe were coming to the surface and it was becoming increasingly clear that the Colonial Powers would have to fade in the background. The cold war and almost over and possibilities for business were going to begin to come to the fore. The British were facing an exhaustion that was draining their traditional revenue sources and soon they were about to engage a foreign force on a long disputed Island. The Americans were over extended and were still reeling after the pressure of Vietnam and a loss of confidence driven in part by President Nixon and the Watergate Scandal. You could argue that this was the start of a trend that would favor Journalists and whistleblowers and in a sense place patriots on one end of a skirmish in a direct confrontation with traditional politicians. 

The world was also becoming much smaller and the control that governments had over Information and the monopoly long enjoyed over truth and education was ending. Kingmakers were vanishing and becoming less important and spin doctors were beginning to feel less relevant. The idea that one man however brilliant was in charge of Foreign policy in U.S-China Relations for so long should have Troubled us but we instead preferred the experts fighting on our behalf an someone else taking the blame. Which is really what democracy is about. We do everything we can to place one man in office and then go crazy when he or she makes an error. 

So this is what in my view the FBs of this world represent. It is an attempt to use media and business and data as a filters and to regain the older monopolies around Information. By use of algorithms these spaces can give users the illusion that they have a voice while harvesting tonnes of personal private pieces of information about them which can be dished out an internals in psychological damaging ways. So we can let the machines do the work that educators and propagandists were doing ages ago. It is much more simple now to watch and participate in an engagement and feel as though you area making a difference when really all you are doing is being dulled over. Those of the faith used to complain about the need of followers to get access to the word of God. These days though you do not need to burn the book you need only create a migraine of versions through which you can conceal the truth. In a sense it is the saturation of information that could be the curse of this age. 

Assange in my view has been placed in a corner and finds himself stuck in a fight between powers that are feeling increasingly less significant in an time of reduced Nationalism. His views are probably skewed because he is under attack. It is also important to realize that if the Americans want you they can get you. There are bound to be several losers in this fight. Larger economies were still going to win even if the forces of globalization were asserting themselves because many of these economies already has massive presence globally with some of their multinational companies and the massive investments they had in education. Sometimes it has proven useful to release certain bits of information at appointed periods of time to 'test the waters' not in order to make any significant changes but to further develop and create more intrusive systems. The furor has died down and the world has moved on to the next news item. 

Some have made changes but we were all probably silly to trust the Internet in the first place even when we knew that it was created by the Defense Department in the U.S. 

So there was really nothing impartial about FB. The democrats knew that they needed the youth to win the W.H. They knew that they needed Silicon Valley and it's revenue to and enthusiasm to progress. They knew that the dynamics around popular votes and electoral colleges would still matter and more importantly the need to draw out of hiding disillusioned voters. Then there was the issue of the Undocumented not so much in the power of their votes but in their effect on business by providing cheap labor. The election process and the tyranny of numbers and the troubling facts that favor immigrants were challenges for another day. 

What Trump has attempted to do is use the same vein of change and align himself with an agenda that favors business. What he will Ty and do with the business Obama has done with the Law. 

We saw a few conflicts between traditional giants like FB, Google and Yahoo and Apple as they attempted to push back against the intelligence community but that is a space that is still in contention. 

Now here is a question for you. 

How would you feel as an American (John Stuart) when one of your most popular Saturday night shows was replaced by a South African mixed race host whose first jokes include references to Nazi Germany and Apartheid?