The truth about the WikiLeaks Afghanistan documents is that the platform has the potential to make visible the scale of brutality, violence, and horror of warfare and military conflicts. WikiLeaks can be seen as an alternative media project: it tries to provide information that uncovers the misuse of power by powerful actors, it is an Internet-based medium that enables critiques of power structures. The problem of the WikiLeak self-description is that in the first third of the text, only documenting government corruption is mentioned, whereas documenting corporate irresponsibility and corporate crimes is not. The problem that remains is that in the WikiLeaks self-description, corporate crimes and corporate corruption are only mentioned late and that the notion of civilizing corporations is adopted.
WikiLeaks – Alternative Internet Medium and Watchdog Platform – and the Critique of the Power Elite
christian fuchs, August 4th 2010