Netpolitique : According to your definition, today's interactive and mobile technologies empower individuals to communicate and organize efficiently for politically-driven collective action. Is this bad news for traditional political parties and labor unions? Are they still relevant in the long term?

Howard Rheingold : It's bad news for those political parties and other interests groups who don't use smart mob technologies to mobilize and coordinate lobbying, electoral tactics, and demonstrations. I'm concerned about the rate at which the disruptive technology of mobile peer to peer communication technology is infiltrating the electoral process all over the world. I'm concerned because our social institutions strain and fracture when the pace of behavioral change is faster than the pace of institutional change.


Netpolitique.net : From London to Manilla, from Seattle to Seoul, we have seen examples of the considerable power of 'smart mobs'. Obviously, this is something that should worry Government and law enforcement authorities, notably in countries like China for example where the Government has been imposing strict controls on all internet communications on its soil. It seems 'smart mobs' are their worst nightmare of dictators. This may be a bit far-fetched, but could you picture a 'smart mob' version of the Tien an Men demonstrations for example?


Howard Rheingold : Dictators who use modern disinfotainment propaganda effectively and use modern communication media effectively can learn to counter smart mob tactics. Most of them have probably read Netwar. However, it does mean that if OTHER social forces can motivate a sufficiently large, sufficiently technology-literate population to undertake collective action, the costs of trying to keep a lid on these forces rises beyond the ability of a centralized control apparatus to keep pace. In part, this is what contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern European satellites.

It's easy for a dictatorship to wipe out all its opponents when they all gather in a square -- unless the dictatorship's police and soldiers switch sides. It's much harder to control 10,000 demonstrations that happen spontaneously, unexpectedly by the police, as thousands of demonstrators coalesce, meet, and disperse, coordinated by mobile peer to peer communicatin networks.


Netpolitique.net : Last -and ritual- question of our interviews, could you share with us your top 3 web sites?


Howard Rheingold : I use http://www.google.com a hundred times a day and check www.boingboing.net a dozen times a day. I don't check it until I need to, but, www.burningman.org represents my favorite virtual-community/temporary autonomous zone/ecology of smartmobs.

More references on SmartMobs.com :
http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/000490.html#000490 Kenya elections
http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/000494.html#000494 Korean elections
http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/000497.html#000497 Karl Rove and US elections
http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/000601.html Hungarian elections
http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/000596.html Mobile lobbying: my forecast

And
Les Philippines à la pointe de l'activisme en ligne : http://www.netpolitique.net/php/newsletter/newsletter06.php3
Le SMS à l'assaut de Westminster :
http://www.netpolitique.net/php/articles/tradejustice.php3


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