Indymedia is 10 Years Old
Last Updated (Saturday, 28 November 2009 20:06) Written by IMC Saturday, 28 November 2009 18:54
Ten years ago massive demonstrations brought the worlds attention to a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. Tens of thousands of students, environmentalists, and labour union activists clogged the streets bringing the meeting to a standstill in a mass expression of disillusionment with the global economic system. During the protests, a group of media activists created an online open-publishing news wire that enabled anyone to get news from the street, onto the web, they called this news source Indypendent Media Center (IMC)
Before the demonstrations were over Indymedia.org was getting the truth out about political prisoners, police brutality, illegal arrests, and provided a vehicle for people to express themselves that the corporate media was not providing. After the tear gas cleared IMC activists were still busy keeping the ball rolling and expanding their network by creating new independent collectives in other cities. Ten years later, IMC has seen its fair share of problems, IMC has been the target of countless hackers (1,2,3...), as well as attacks from governmental and legal entities, all for the crime giving the people a voice, and space in the media sphere. What started as a small collective of five or six people has since become a global network of media activists, reaching tens of thousands of people daily, with IMCs' in most major cities in the world.
This interview was filmed one week after the "Battle of Seattle" with IMC founder Jeff Perlstein.