Peter,

I can certain appreciate that you have strong feelings about the war in Iraq. Many people do. But it’s quite a jump to argue that PBwiki is helping Americans to kill Iraqis.

The role and responsibility of technology in warfare is often a grey area. Clearly, if you’re a weapons manufacturer, your business is based on conflict. But war requires many things beyond weapons.

I know that military planners rely heavily on PowerPoint for their plans and presentations. It’s probably safe to say that most of the decisions made by the U.S. military are based on PowerPoint presentations to senior officers.

Does this mean that PowerPoint has been helping Americans to kill Iraqis since 1991?

In the case of the University of Wisconsin, PBwiki is actually being used on a project that is defensive in nature. If you view that as helping kill civilians, then what about the manufacturers of Kevlar vests? After all, they are worn by soldiers (who sometimes kill civilians) and police officers (who sometimes shoot innocent people).

Or how about the doctors who treat wounded soldiers, allowing them to recover from their injuries, and eventually return to the frontlines? By saving lives, are they helping to kill?

I noticed from your blog that you support the efforts of LaVena Johnson’s parents to fight the cover-up of her murder by her fellow soldiers in Iraq. Among other things, people are using a Wikipedia page to distribute information about the case:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaVena_Johnson

Wikipedia also has an extensive, largely positive article on the U.S. Army that could serve as a recruiting tool:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army

Is Wikipedia helping kill civilians? If so, should efforts to uncover the truth about Lavena’s death be using it as a tool?

It’s possible that U.S. soldiers could use PBwiki to coordinate attacks on Iraqi insurgents, and it’s possible that Iraqi insurgents could use PBwiki to coordinate attacks on U.S. soldiers. Given our commitment to privacy, we can’t really do anything about that. We aren’t about to scan our users’ private data to determine what they’re using our product to do.

For example, the Movement for Democratic Society in Austin used PBwiki to help organize its protests against the Iraq war:

http://mds-austin.pbwiki.com/

There are probably folks out there who would prefer we not support the MDS…but we don’t support the MDs. We provide a collaboration environment.

Our philosophy is that we strive to make it easier for people to collaborate and accomplish their goals. Since I am an optimist, I believe that most human goals are positives, and on the balance we are helping the world be a better place. If some of our users have goals that I disagree with, that is something I have to accept in the context of performing a greater good.