Digital Resistance, Digital Liberties and Digital Transparency

Abstract

This Chapter introduces the concepts of “digital resistance”, “dissidents” and “collaborative electronic transparency”. The first part concerns the importance of the technology in critical contexts (“liberation technology”), with an analysis of the controversial “Haystack” case. The central part faces some topical case studies: cyber-resistance in Saudi Arabia, e-resistance among Palestinian women, digital resistance as an art form, and soldier photography of detainee abuse in Iraq. The last portion concerns open government, collaborative transparency and civic hacking as a form of digital resistance. Moving from the idea of government as a platform, the Chapter outlines the idea of collaborative transparency, the importance of citizen engagement for the oversight of political activity, actions of monitoring public spending and expenditure mapping, the importance of monitoring political and legislative activities, the use of collaborative mapping as a form of digital resistance, active election oversight, monitoring projects of violations of human rights and the concept of digital transparency as a weapon to combat public sector corruption.