A small blog for thoughts and notes of a design student.

Taken from Aleks’ Website/Blog.

The second episode of the Virtual Revolution series broadcasts tomorrow night at 20:15pm on BBC2. The programme, Enemy of the State?, looks closely at how individuals are using the powerful Web tools against governments and in support of them, how governments are (successfully and unsuccessfully) using the Web to control individuals, and the many groups who are using the agnostic Web to create their own politic – from the good to the downright evil.

Here’s what it says on the official site:

Aleks charts how the web is forging a new brand of politics, both in democracies and authoritarian regimes.

With contributions from Al Gore, Martha Lane Fox, Stephen Fry and Bill Gates, Aleks explores how interactive, unmediated sites like Twitter and Youtube have encouraged direct action and politicised young people in unprecedented numbers.

Yet, at the same time, the web’s openness enables hardline states to spy and censor, and extremists to threaten with networks of hate and crippling cyber attacks.

If this has you hankering for more before the show airs, check out the excellent and in-depth piece about the issues covered in tomorrow night’s film for BBC News from Rajan Malhotra, programme 2’s awesome assistant producer. Here’s a taster:

As the web empowers the ordinary citizen and gives a voice to the masses, so it has equally strengthened the hold of governments around the world. Freedom versus Control is an age old battle that has now moved to the web…

Twenty years ago, as the web was born, it would have been difficult to imagine that it would start to evolve into such a powerful social and political tool.

But that is just what the web is becoming – from the Chinese government’s attempt to control the blogosphere through its own “50 Cent” army of bloggers to tweets and status updates from the Iranian protestors, the web might be on the way to becoming one of the most powerful weapons of our time.

If you’d like to see the film in action before tomorrow, head to The Guardian, where they have an exclusive clip of what happens in the beating heart of the Web.

And, of course, you can play ‘spot the programme 2 behind-the-scenes photos’ while you’re watching on Saturday night or catching up during the repeat on Monday 8 February at 23:20, or with iPlayer, with my Flickr Virtual Revolution set.