WikiLeaks takes social media to another level

January 7, 2011|Seth Liss, Sun Sentinel Columnist

The debate over whether WikiLeaks should be releasing classified government information rages on. But what's clear to me by now is its contribution to the evolution of social media.
The Internet gave everyone a platform to publish, and social media gave us ways to discuss, share and contribute stories and information. When people went to Twitter and YouTube to demand more media coverage of election fraud in Iraq, we got it. The buzz on social media also helped keep coverage of the Gulf oil spill stay in the news.

WikiLeaks created a firestorm recently when it started releasing classified information in November about U.S. diplomats and their roles in gathering information for the government. But the situation gives us a glimpse into the potential of social media to push the role of the press and people in power as gatekeepers of information.
"WikiLeaks has shifted power away from the monoliths that once determined what is news and toward the people who, before the Web, would have been stopped in the newspaper lobby before they could see a reporter," Steve Myers, Managing Editors of Poynter Online, wrote in July.
WikiLeaks, a non-profit media group, is considered by some to be a type of social media journalism because it relies on people with inside information to anonymously submit information to the site. Its goal, according to the website, is to "publish material of ethical, political and historical significance … providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices"
After WikiLeaks employees go through the submissions and post them online, they use social media to distribute the information. WikiLeaks has well over 1 million fans on Facebook and over 500,000 followers on Twitter.
WikiLeaks has posted video showing Iraqi civilians and journalists being killed by US forces. It released thousands of previously undisclosed documents on the Afghan and Iraq wars. Last month, the site began releasing a trove of U.S. State Department diplomatic messages. The messages included orders for diplomats to collect data from the leaders of the country where the work, such as DNA samples and iris scans; world leaders' perspectives on Iran and North Korea; and the diplomats' own evaluations of various international figures.
The leaks led to stories that may not have appeared on the front pages of mainstream newspapers. In the social media world, WikiLeaks and others can release information to millions, perhaps forcing the mainstream media to cover what their readers are already talking about.
Maybe if social media was more popular before the Iraq war, the articles about the scant evidence of weapons of mass destruction that were buried in American newspapers would have spread like wildfire.