<nettime> Internet for the people

[Ivo Skoric <ivo@reporters.net>]

Internet is a remarkable tool of democracy. The wealth of information 
available and easily accessible, the rapid exchange of opinions between 
people from various backgrounds, living on the opposite sides of the 
planet, the transparency of ideas and opinions presented: never before in 
the history were so many people involved in the process of opinion 
making as there are today, and primarily due to the technology of 
Internet.

One can maybe even argue that Internet is ‘guilty’ for NATO deciding to 
bomb Yugoslavia. You don’t need CIA or NSA to tell you that the mood 
on Internet discussion lists, forums, newsgroups, chat rooms and web 
sites concerned with the situation in the Balkans, was generally 
supportive of the West taking initiative to stop Milosevic’s ethnic 
cleansing policies. Today, all the leading U.S. media, non-governmental 
organizations and non-profit foundations dealing with funding, 
executing, monitoring and reporting on human rights, press freedoms 
and democracy building abroad, are connected to and exchange 
information on the Internet. At some point this Spring, they were all 
ready to part with their habitual dovish pacifism and accept stopping 
Milosevic by any means necessary. Since the exchange of opinions on 
the Internet is a public domain, that trend could not get un-noticed by 
the State Department and the Pentagon. More importantly, from the point 
of the Internet as democracy building tool, is that the trend creation was 
largely helped by people who would traditionally have no influence over 
U.S. levers of power: random interested individuals around the world 
who relentlessly posted their philippics against Milosevic.

With the bombing getting out of control (bombs falling on passenger 
trains, refugee convoys and foreign embassies) the mood on the Internet 
swung back and sites that sharply criticize NATO bombing mushroomed. 
Internet behaves in a sense like a trading floor for ideas. Idea that 
Milosevic has to be stopped by any means necessary was a hot buy in 
March, but it became nearly worthless as an afterthought in September. 
The stock value of the missile manufacturer Raytheon rose and fell in 
sync with the value of that idea.

There is still a question why Serbs got so ostracized by the U.S. media as 
well as by Internet tools. The answer to that is that Serbia never 
diligently prosecuted their marketing abroad. Croatia, Bosnia and 
Kosovar Albanians all hired a U.S. public relations firm to represent their 
cause to the global media. In 1991 when the war in Croatia started, 
Croatia immediately formed Foreign Press Bureau staffed with American 
born college-educated youth of Croatian ancestry to address the needs 
and whims of American prima donna journalists. While Albanian Internet 
activists, for example, engaged in the “cyberwar” by organizing a 
consumer boycott against the products of companies that advertised 
with beograd.com, a proSerbian site managed from Toronto, Canada 
(Beograd.com opened a special "war edition" and competed for visitors 
by trying to be the first to post a NATO hit and debunk lies by the 
combatants. The consumer threat was ultimately succesful forcing 
advertisers to withdraw their support and starve the website of funds.), 
their Serbian counterparts crudely hacked NATO sites and e-mail 
bombed Albanian lists and newsgroups with messages like this:
"Hello motherfuckers! If you don't know where to go, come to Serbia. We 
are known as land full of hospitality, sharp knives, strong arms to hold 
your necks tight and fire in our hearts to burn your motherfucking 
families all together. Right now, we are searching for a big, big field to 
prepare it for your last rest. Hope you won't mind if we make just one big 
hole in ground and put you together. Anyway, we are just sitting here 
and sharpen our knives, drink sljivovica and sing a song "Sprem'te se, 
sprem'te Cetnici". Hope to kill you soon. Your's trully Zoran and Kole 
(called butchers from Croatia) "

Milosevic concentrated his propaganda efforts only domestically: 
Serbian government never seriously addressed foreign public, which is a 
serious mistake in today’s globalized world. Furthermore, in 
contradiction to the Serb professed hospitality, Serbian government 
nearly went out of its way to treat foreign human rights observers and, 
especially, journalists as unwelcome intruders at best and possibly spies. 
That costed Serbia dearly: even sympathetic U.S. journalists learned to 
think that their government might have a point in not liking Milosevic 
after what they had experienced with Serbian authorities.

ivo

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