Facebook Status: Upset about the election.

Tweet: Taking a break from fomenting a revolution to enjoy a scone.

The unkempt country of Moldova had a small revolution recently. And normally, if we’re being honest, I wouldn’t care. Moldova came into existence after the fall of the Soviet Union. It’s a small and struggling democracy — the kind of place I’d have cared about 10 or 12 years ago when the US was in reasonable shape.

Here is a summary of the article from CNN.com: Moldovians, mainly students, assembled outside of their Parliament to protest a recent election they felt was fixed. Things turned from a peaceful spontaneous mob assembled by  Facebook and Twitter to an angry spontaneous mob assembled by Facebook and Twitter. In the end the revolutionaries failed, some were hurt and some were arrested.

What interests me is how they used Facebook and Twitter (just in case you don’t know: Twitter and Facebook offer instant brief update features — the intention of which is to let people know how/what you’re doing). I’d have loved to read the Facebook status updates: raising insurrection; overthrowing my corrupt government; angry about the obviously rigged election. Or the Tweets (if you use Twitter you Tweet — send messages — and Follow — receive messages): going to the capital to sort this out; walking to revolution; still walking to revolution; lightly jogging to revolution; if I had known Parliament was this far I’d have rented a car, etc.

Both status updates and tweets are low-character messages, maximum of 140 characters, which are sent to EVERYONE ON YOUR FRIEND’S PAGE. In other words, what was probably the politically discontent grumblings of say six people with 100 friends each was quickly echoed to 600 people with 100 friends each and snowballed from there. In the end, they estimate more than 10,000 people went to the protest, which concluded with the insurrectionists battling the authorities for physical control of the capital building.

Status update: At the revolution!

Tweet: Stuck in Parliament, surrounded by cops, and enjoying the tear gas.

People are stupid. Large numbers of stupid people can become dangerous, especially when two of their primary social outlets are telling them everyone is ready to revolt. In reality everyone you know in cyberspace is ready to revolt. Much like at a party, the students got out of hand. Only instead of bingeing on alcohol they were coping with disillusionment in democracy for the first time and instead of puking and hangovers it resulted in a riot, police siege, and a new level of Internet based social networking.

Status: In trouble with the cops.

Tweet: Contemplating how the term “night stick” came about?

What astounds me is their level of digital freedom. In America people can be fired for having inappropriate pictures on Myspace. I shudder to think what Homeland Security would do to 10,000 Facebook users openly discussing a revolution. Now, it could be argued that the messages dealt with a peaceful protest, but I somehow doubt that everyone kept things G-rated. And this raises a startling question: I know the government monitors us through certain organizations, but does the US government monitor us more closely than other governments monitor their citizens?

For years I’ve listened to people discuss what could happen when the government started monitoring our email, or phone calls, etc. This was exasperated in our post-911 world. But, I accepted it as a part of life. Now, I want to see a list of most and least monitored people, by country. The technological advantage in the US undoubtedly gives us the potential to be on the most list. And who could blame them? It’s free and easily transferable information. At least a dozen websites have my credit card information on their secure server; in addition to the card itself, the information includes my name, address, and phone number. There are easily 25 or 30 organizations that send email to my junk-mail accounts. Medical records and vehicle information are already compiled in databases; if they aren’t on the web it’s a matter of time.

Of course I’m complaining about this in a blog. Excuse me while I pour myself a drink. 

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