Ugly rumours

  People are always pointing out when they believe the Internet has taken a significant step. Well, I believe it has has taken another one today. Outside my electronic life I’m also interested in music, and in todays top 30 chart announced by the BBC a political track sold only as an mp3 has entered the chart at no.21. The track is a cover of the old Edwin Star song ‘War’, purportedly covered by Tony Blair’s student group Ugly Rumours. In reality of course it was performed by a group of supporters of the Stop the War Coalition, and all proceeds have gone to that cause.

  I don’t want to get into the politics of this, but I think it is significant that the charts and the Internet are now being used as a form of political protest.  It can probably be linked to the massive response received by the petition against road charging on the no.10 website. There’s long been an element of politics in some people’s websites and blogs, but these are the first internet-based collective action I’m aware of. Probably another symptom of the spreading of access to the web from a thing used only by academics and techies to something used by most of us, like the spread of mobile phones. How it will develop however, is something to watch…..

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