The Fifth Estate
The film The Fifth Estate is a prime example of how communication technologies can impact individuals, groups and institutions. The film focuses on the Wikileaks saga that occurred between 2008 and 2011. To assess how communication technologies can impact individuals, groups and institutions the following will be discussed: What the Wikileaks site is about, How the wiki leaks issue impacted individuals and institutions, How technology advances have impacted the way we communicate and how the Wikileaks issue is an example of 'the problem that can arise.'
Wikileaks is a site that was designed to receive and broadcast sensitive information. Its main aim is to provide a website in which journalists and citizens can upload private information without their identity being compromised. In the film The Fifth Estate Julian Assange and Daniel Bruhl develop a Wikileaks site allowing whistle blowers to anonymously leak highly sensitive data such as government secrets and cooperate crimes. Under the banner of Wikileaks, Assange and Bruhl had made public over 1 million secret documents. Leaking information about corrupt …show more content…
banks and more than 500,000 classified US military files about the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As individuals we expect that private information we provide, such as our name and address, for a specific purpose will not be made public.
However as demonstrated in The Fifth Estate, Wikileaks compromises an individual's personal information which can have devastating effects. For institutions Wikileaks has the capacity to severely restrict their operations. For example in The Fifth Estate, Wikileaks published documents about a Swiss (Julias Baer) bank's offshore accounts detailing the names and address of individuals in an attempt to expose tax evasion. Wikileaks is changing how the world views and utilises the Swiss banking system. Swiss law forbids bankers to disclose the existence of your account or any other information about it without your consent. They are very careful about protecting privacy, and Wikileaks comprises their ability to do
this.
Advances in technology has transformed the way we can communicate. Technology such as internet, video conferencing and email contribute to our ability to connect with each other despite physical distance. In The Fifth Estate members of Wikileaks were required to change the names and addresses of those individuals who were mentioned in the private US documents to protect their identities. They were also required to decode the documents. Through the use of webcams and private chat rooms, they were able to achieve this task quickly and effectively. Without this advancement in technology this task would have been impossible to accomplish quickly.
Wikileaks provides a platform for whistle blowers to reveal corrupt practices and illegal operations. However in that process often individuals private information is revealed to the public which can have far reaching implications. This is demonstrated in the film, The Fifth Estate when Julian Assange published uncensored documents revealing the names, villages, relatives names and GPS locations of Afghan's cooperating with Nato forces. This directly put people's lives at risk forcing them and their families to flee in fear of their safety. This is a clear example of the problems that can arise as a result of the existence of Wikileaks. While it is important to have a method by which corruption can be exposed anonymously, this has to be balanced against the safety of individuals and their families.
Communication technologies impact individuals groups and institutions and the film The Fifth Estate clearly demonstrates this phenomenon. Individuals privacy is no longer secure, institutions reputations can be destroyed and lives put at risk due to advancements in technology. Conversely we are now able to communicate readily with each other instantly despite our physical distance. The film The Fifth Estate demonstrates that this can have positive and negative consequences.
Wikileaks is a site that was designed to receive and broadcast sensitive information. Its main aim is to provide a website in which journalists and citizens can upload private information without their identity being compromised. In the film The Fifth Estate Julian Assange and Daniel Bruhl develop a Wikileaks site allowing whistle blowers to anonymously leak highly sensitive data such as government secrets and cooperate crimes. Under the banner of Wikileaks, Assange and Bruhl had made public over 1 million secret documents. Leaking information about corrupt …show more content…
banks and more than 500,000 classified US military files about the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As individuals we expect that private information we provide, such as our name and address, for a specific purpose will not be made public.
However as demonstrated in The Fifth Estate, Wikileaks compromises an individual's personal information which can have devastating effects. For institutions Wikileaks has the capacity to severely restrict their operations. For example in The Fifth Estate, Wikileaks published documents about a Swiss (Julias Baer) bank's offshore accounts detailing the names and address of individuals in an attempt to expose tax evasion. Wikileaks is changing how the world views and utilises the Swiss banking system. Swiss law forbids bankers to disclose the existence of your account or any other information about it without your consent. They are very careful about protecting privacy, and Wikileaks comprises their ability to do
this.
Advances in technology has transformed the way we can communicate. Technology such as internet, video conferencing and email contribute to our ability to connect with each other despite physical distance. In The Fifth Estate members of Wikileaks were required to change the names and addresses of those individuals who were mentioned in the private US documents to protect their identities. They were also required to decode the documents. Through the use of webcams and private chat rooms, they were able to achieve this task quickly and effectively. Without this advancement in technology this task would have been impossible to accomplish quickly.
Wikileaks provides a platform for whistle blowers to reveal corrupt practices and illegal operations. However in that process often individuals private information is revealed to the public which can have far reaching implications. This is demonstrated in the film, The Fifth Estate when Julian Assange published uncensored documents revealing the names, villages, relatives names and GPS locations of Afghan's cooperating with Nato forces. This directly put people's lives at risk forcing them and their families to flee in fear of their safety. This is a clear example of the problems that can arise as a result of the existence of Wikileaks. While it is important to have a method by which corruption can be exposed anonymously, this has to be balanced against the safety of individuals and their families.
Communication technologies impact individuals groups and institutions and the film The Fifth Estate clearly demonstrates this phenomenon. Individuals privacy is no longer secure, institutions reputations can be destroyed and lives put at risk due to advancements in technology. Conversely we are now able to communicate readily with each other instantly despite our physical distance. The film The Fifth Estate demonstrates that this can have positive and negative consequences.