Here are examples of more leaking wikis. These are much better than Wikileaks, because they they more closely respect the basic process rules that will ultimately determine success in this space. They are not trying to turn themselves into institutions or flaming bolts of truth that streak across the sky.
Clay Shirky has just published some thoughts on Wikileaks. He makes some very good observations, not least the importance of ensuring that we use legitimate democratic means to work out how, as a society, we will deal with Wikileaks. But perhaps the article skirts around the difficult and necessary question of determining exactly what Wikileaks, and the forms of leaking wikis that may be to come, actually are. And this is an important question to resolve as part of working out what to do about it / them. Continue reading
The recent Wikileaks / US cables saga, and the previous Iraq leaks saga, illustrate very neatly the problems ahead as we struggle to come to terms with the social media revolution. We are in a place where the world is changing, but we have yet to develop the rules and processes we need to adapt to this new world.
This new world is the world of greater transparency, where almost everything must be considered to exist in the public domain. Like it or not, this world is not going to go away; it follows inevitably from the fact that information cannot now be locked up and contained within institutionalised channels. The ability to publish information is now, as Clay Shirky says, “global, social, ubiquitous and cheap”. Continue reading