Running For The Hills

We've struck up a slightly cynical tone about the internet. I've decided to give that a rest. While I don't disagree with some of the points made so far this semester, here's a story that made me happy we discovered that which is the Internet. It's about politicians, the things they do, and how cyberspace reacts.

A regional governor buying up diamond-studded watches; a government ministry ordering a gilded bell made of rare wood; a city buying over sixty thousand dollars worth of mink; the President's administration purchasing over ten million dollars' worth of BMW's; an absurd photoshopped image of local bureaucrats examining a road they were supposed to inspect. These are different examples of thick & thriftless politicians' actions. Though these politicians were located across two continents, with little in common but their corruption, spending habits, and boneheadedness, their actions led to the same results: their own embarrassment and regret.

As citizens in the politicians' countries (China and Russia, in this case) began to adapt to the conveniences that the internet was bringing them, some of them saw the opportunity to do more than expedite their communications and general life functions. They saw the chance to take back some of their country, if only a small part. They took to their blogs, to their websites, and their Twitters (the Chinese equivalent is Weibo; access to Twitter is blocked by the Chinese government), and found ways to expose some of what their government was doing to the country and the people's trust. 

In some of the above cases, the orders were cancelled mere hours after they were blogged about. The Chinese politicians who were involved in the photoshop scandal instantly became pariahs in their country. The Chinese weibo-sphere even used humor to aid in its battering of the officials, as you can see in the above picture. The sheer number of reposts and retweets these blogs garnered caused the politicians to leave their cocoons of corrupt comfort and see reality.  Even in their environment where corruption is largely tolerated, the embarrassment these politicians have suffered has made few of them wanting to seek reelection. Simply put, the politicians were sent running for the hills by people whose identity they didn't even know.

The argument can be made that the internet removes us from reality and keeps us in a fantasy world of ease. But as the above cases show, the internet is the only antidote to fantasy we have for some members of our society. Those who govern us--those who, theoretically, should face reality to a greater extent than anyone else--all too often find themselves living in a world of no consequences. Fortunately for the common folk out there, the internet is here to save their overlords from chimera.

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009957/Photoshop-picture-Chinese-officials-inspecting-road-ridiculed-world.html

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/04/110404fa_fact_ioffe?printable=true&currentPage=all