"I
call you because I'm ashamed and I needed to tell it to you. I was a
student of yours, but what could I do, this was the job I found".
This was, more or less, the start of a telephone conversation with a
graduate of my department (in Athens University) a few hours after
uploading an article for a specific bank concerning the cover up of
bank's illegal activities (furthermore, bank's reward with public
property) from the government, bank of Greece and troika.
The article
was written the day before, and to my surprise, although it has been
sent on time, it was not uploaded. Someone from the editor in chief's
team of the website told me that they somehow "hesitated"
to upload the article, since the specific bank was a sponsor of this
website. Two hours later, after my intense response, they told me
that it was a "misunderstanding" and the article would be
uploaded with one day delay, as indeed happened.
Just imagine
my big smile when I realized that the banner over my article, when it
was published, was advertising this bank! But this was not the end of
the story. In five minutes, not enough time for someone to read the
article, twitter was flooded by hundreds of "deconstruction"
messages of me and my article. While I was watching those messages
flooding internet, I smiled and returned to my work until the phone
rang and I started talking with my former student.
After he
told me that he was ashamed, he explained: "I work a few
months now at the press office of the bank for which you wrote the
article. Yesterday, sometime during the afternoon, people of the
bank distributed the article to all of us (before its publication),
and asked us to prepare tweets and comments for your
"deconstruction". They also asked me if you were my
professor at the University because they knew that I was graduated
from the Kapodistrian University of Athens. I lied, denying this.
Today, after your article was uploaded, three of us continuously
upload tweets of these comments since 8 a.m. and respond obscenely to
everyone who will dare to defend you. I had to say this to you. I
feel guilt about this, but what can I do Mr. Varoufakis, this is the
job I found with my degree of your department".
I told him
that I don't blame him and that I suggest to keep his job in such
hard times under the condition that he will not try to persuade
himself that his work in the bank's press office is something good
and right.
This
incident, beyond what tells us about the quality of the public
dialogue and democracy in Greece of crisis, can be a general lesson
for all the world. We tend to consider the internet as a mean to
democratize society promising new forms of electronic democracy. It
is true that internet gives the opportunity for everyone to express
himself freely and spreads the information and opinion in every
corner of this world with the speed of light.
However, not
only democracy is enhanced by this, but also her enemies. When
organized interests are threatened, they have the power to "kidnap"
internet, maximizing what engineers call as "signal-to-noise
ratio". Like hackers bombing a website with access requests,
until they crash it, trolls destroy public dialogue into a sludge,
until everything turns brown and nothing can be separated as true. In
Greece, where work became cheap through contracts, the danger for the
democracy is bigger.
Key
parts from a story by Yanis Varoufakis published under the title
"Troll with working contract" at
http://www.lifo.gr/mag/columns/6364
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