Revolutionist, Julian Assange.

 “Information is the currency of democracy.” – Thomas Jefferson.

These days, the importance of information continues to become greater and greater. The information business has grown with the development of IT technology and it holds great portion in our life now. And modern people are unable to live without IT technology. This phenomenon explains why the two main candidates for TIME magazine's  “Person of the year” in 2010 were Mark Zuckerberg and Julian Assange. Both are professionals about the information, managing it with power and influence. However, Zuckerberg and Assange have a different approach toward information, and their views are quite different.

 First of all, let's examine Facebook. It is one of the biggest social network systems in the world, and many people use Facebook each day of their life. Also its economic profit is enormous. It earns 800 million dollars in 2008. And the question we naturally ask is - How does Facebook But, what makes Facebook to earn a lot of earn this fortune? Although Facebook is large and there are many users, it is unable to earn money through its SNS system. In other words, Social networking itself, it is not profitable. The thing that helps Facebook earn money is advertisement. Since the website has many users, Facebook is very attractive place for advertising since it is efficient for mass advertise. With this advantage Facebook owners have contract with advertisement companies. Usually they earn money by showing the advertisement in their website, they also get big profit by giving the information about the individuals to company. Can this be morally accepted?

 

There is a question as to what sort of information is important in the world, what sort of information can achieve reform. And there is a lot of information. So information that organizations are spending economic effort into concealing that is a really good signaling that when the information gets out. Because the organizations (including facebook) that know information is best, that know it from the inside out, are spending work to conceal it. Julian Assange called this phenomenon as the monopoly of information. Information itself is neutral, and should be opened for everyone. For equality, the actions that Facebook did to monopolize the information cannot be accepted. Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook is not a proper person for the Time’s “The man of the year” also.

On the opposite, there is Julian Assange. People have to know about Assange’s effort to spread information to many people. He struggles for the “right to know.” According to the journal about the Pentagon and the U.S government, since 9.11 the U.S government, through presidents Bush and Obama, has increasingly told the US public that “State secrets” will not be shared with citizens.

 The work that Assange has done is to “leak” these state secrets. Some might criticize Assange as anarchist, and person who destructs the social order by leaking dangerous information. Especially outraged politicians are claiming that the release of government information is the criminal equivalent of terrorism and puts innocent people’s lives at risk. But, we should know that Assange’s direction is justifiable.

“Information” is the lifeblood of democracy. Information about government contributes to a healthy democracy also. Transparency and accountability are essential for government. However, the US has been going in the wrong direction for years by classifying millions of documents as secrets.

WikiLeaks reports these so-called secrets will embarrass people. Assange also warned through the interview that the some of the reports can be very shocking. It is true that WikiLeaks and other media will make leaders uncomfortable. But embarrassment and discomfort are small opportunity cost to pay for a healthier democracy.

Assange’s failure of being “The man of year” shows that the Time magazine is also dependent to the politics and economic power. WikiLeaks and Facebook. Both have strong impact to our society. But which plays positive role for us? Wikileaks has the potential to make transparency and accountability more robust in the U.S and the whole world. Which can lead the development of the real democracy.

Let’s think of the our future for a moment, will be the future is more likely to be Big Brother exerting more control, more secrecy, or people watching Big Brother. It’s hard to predict. There are enormous pressures to harmonize freedom of speech legislation and transparency legislation around the world and their anti-power also.

But the most transparent thing is that we must support Assange to get rid of the Big Brother’s ruling.