Leaktivism is defined as the action of distributing confidential documents to the public in an attempt to directly impact the socio-economic and political spheres. The term Leaktivism was popularized by Micah White, the co-founder of the
Occupy movement
The Occupy movement was an international populist socio-political movement that expressed opposition to social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of "real democracy" around the world. It aimed primarily to advance social and econo ...
The Panama Papers are a collection of 11.5m leaked files from one of the world's largest law firms,
Mossack Fonseca
Mossack Fonseca & Co. () was a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider. A German newspaper called Süddeutsche Zeitung was able to obtain the database from an anonymous source. The different files demonstrated the manner in which the different wealthy individuals are able to take advantage of secrete offshore tax regimes.
Twelve national leaders are included among the 143 politicians impacted within the leak. The Russian president, Pakistan's prime minister, the former Vice-President of Iraq, the President of Ukraine, the father of the British Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister of Iceland are some of the politicians that were incriminated by the leak.
The information leaked in regards to the Panama Papers is considered one of the largest leaks in history. This leak is considered to be larger than both the US diplomatic cables distributed by
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...
in 2010 and the secrete intelligence documents released by Edward Snowden in 2013. In total there 11.5m documents along with 2.6 terabytes of information taken from the
Mossack Fonseca
Mossack Fonseca & Co. () was a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider.
Establishment of Leaktivism
Micah White is the co-founder of Occupy and a democratic activist. His article in
the Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
states that the Panama Papers illustrate the rising of leaktivism. He argues that the Panama Papers show that leaking information can be an impactful form of protest. White argues that the leaks have the ability to destabilize numerous governments throughout the globe, impacting the credibility of powerful world leaders.
White states that the Panama Papers have resulted in positive social change. He uses the example of the Prime Minister from Iceland, who was forced to resign from his position. However, he does argue that while the resignation of some corrupt political leaders is progress, it does not solve the larger problem; namely, that our world is being run by the top 1%. He says that individuals must go beyond traditional activism and try different methods of protest, developing the manner in which our society protests in relation to the technology that is developing.
White concludes his article by stating that the main problem that the Panama Papers illustrates is a questions concerning the governance of our world. The leak demonstrates who is actually in power. He further argues that the distribution of the papers will only be successful if it bring upon change."
See also
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Hacktivism
In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and ''activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hac ...