Pirate Parties, what are they? And what are they trying to accomplish? Well, Pirate Parties are small political groups in a number of countries that are trying to bring in a direct democracy to their states. All Parties believe in little violence and defend the freedom of expression, communication, and education. They also completely respect the privacy of citizens.

Here’s one of the videos I watched to learn about the subject:

Over the Christmas break we were all assigned to read the novel Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Without spoiling the book, it’s about a teenage boy who rebels against the new security laws in San Francisco after the bombing of the Bay Bridge. Marcus (the main character) uses The Swedish Pirate Party to get a fake email address to use over his private server.

The driving question for this new unit we are working on is “How has technology acted as a disruption with its creation throughout history?“ Pirate Parties fit this question perfectly. As every party used technology as a disruption to the government to try and bring in their beliefs. For example in the book the Pirate Party of Sweden is a big disruption to the US a Government as the Pirate Party is the way Marcus got his fake email address. Pirate Parties also believe in what at the moment is considered illegal file sharing. For example sending a song you bought to a friend who hadn’t bought it would be illegal, however the Pirate Parties have ways to do that exact thing. Same with movies and other files deemed unshareable. Therefore the Pirate Parties are a pretty big disruption to governments around the world.