You’ve heard of Google bombing. Here’s instant classic piece of Google Earth bombing, courtesy of the Tunisian opposition to a rather nasty dictatorship:
The premise: That even despots like Tunisia’s Ben Ali want check out their house in Google Earth:-) His palace is smothered in YouTube videos of testimonies by political prisoners (turn on the YouTube layer if it isn’t already).
It’s remarkable how little Google Earth bombing there’s been, considering the high profile of the application. There’s been the Spanish flag on Gibraltar, while a Google Earth Community layer of destroyed Palestinian villages in Israel could also be construed as Google geobombing, depending on your perspective.
Time to define “Google geobombing” or “Google Earth bombing”, then. How about “Adding user-generated content to Google Earth via a tool that has a default layer in the application (Youtube, Panoramio, Google Earth Community, 3D Warehouse, Wikipedia…), making a political point by pinning the content to a location linked to an adversary so that visitors to this location cannot help but notice the protest content.”
Even if the definition is a bit dry, there’s not doubt that Google geobombing is great cheap guerrilla PR.
Firstly, this is the kind of childish abuse of GE that will devalue it.
Secondly, Tunisia may be a one party state, but it is the most liberal and tolerant and has the best standard of living in MENA as a result of the “regime”. Read Fareed Zakaria’s “The Future of Freedom” to see what I mean.
You want multi-party democracy for Tunisia? Look at neighbouring Algeria for what that might bring. Or Iraq.