G20-economy-events-technology-internet
Armed with micro-cameras and hung over the micro-blogging Twitter, the anti-G20 protesters and police compete with smart tools to anticipate enemy movements during protests against the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.
At any time of day and night, so Thursday that Friday, protesters and organizers of rallies exchange a wealth of alerts on Twitter, the micro-network of blogs: "Warning! The police attack on students at the University of Pittsburgh "" Warning! All garbage district of Oakland have been removed.
Hundreds of photos and videos filmed with cell phones or micro-cameras are flooding the media sites for live coverage of the movements of protesters and police.
"We had too many videos to show you go on our site," the presenter said Thursday the local channel wpxi.com.
The police, too, became a master in the art to monitor the network of micro-blogging. "We use Twitter as a surveillance tool, not to dialogue with the protesters," said Lt. Sue Kerver, the U.S. Coast Guard, one of several formations called police to the rescue in Pittsburgh to monitor the anti-G20.
"By watching and observing what happens on the field, we can compare information and anticipate what will happen to our workforce," says Sue Kerver AFP.
In this electronic surveillance, added the police helicopters, equipped with cameras, flying over the movements of protesters.
Tracking demonstrators via Twitter is a first for the U.S. police who use it to the summit of Pittsburgh "as a tool for collaboration between different agencies" police said Sergeant Lavonne Bickerstaff, the municipal police.
"Protestors broadcast a lot of information. This source information is still a very useful," says Sgt. However, Twitter is already a tool for the police in its collection.
These new technologies are "a new tool for democracy, for its part says Ravi Singh, president of Electionmall.com, an American company specializing in the use of these media during election campaigns.
"These new media give power to citizens and can help them protect their rights," says Singh, joined Friday by Ukraine when he teaches the use of these new tools to Ukrainian political parties. "The Internet has become the great equalizer. This ability to communicate in real time at that speed, and through social networks like Facebook or Twitter itself is revolutionary," says he. "But we know that the opposing sides want to control all these messages," he says, recalling the use of the Internet and Twitter during demonstrations after the Iranian elections.
This expert warns against the ethical excesses of these new technologies. "We do not really know what is true or not in these messages. They do not replace real journalism," said he.