Written by The Great EqualizerWhat makes the web so powerful? It is the one platform where everyone has an equal voice. Everyone on the web starts out with the same size soapbox. It doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you have. I will admit that while we start on the same size soapbox, money buys access and access gives you a bigger voice. That is not to say that a single person won’t eventually rise, quickly, to the same visibility of the major Internet players.
It is such an equalizer that several countries limit access to it and feel threatened by its potential. Taken to the extreme one only needs to look at the ruckus this website has caused: http://213.251.145.96/ otherwise known as WikiLeaks. I won’t go into my thoughts on WikiLeaks just yet.
In the case of WikiLeaks, a single person with web access is an international headliner. Let’s look at what WikiLeaks might have looked like 20 years ago. I don’t doubt that it would have risen to the top of the headlines like it has today, but it would have taken longer and more importantly we would not have instant access to the thousands and thousands of pages of information.
I like the Internet, because it is the great equalizer. It gives me choices when I look for information. I am not limited to word-of-mouth, a newspaper, the radio or television. I have the choice of listening to some person blasting out a blog from their basement in the middle of Uganda if I choose. That is powerful.
On the Internet we are all equal and we have the choice to get as big as we want.
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