Text and Hubris

The difference between Apple as an evil empire and Microsoft as an evil empire player is simple. Where Microsoft’s technology was often a cheap imitation of what was already available in superior products, Apple’s technology continues to be solid, forward-thinking, and well designed. The game has changed and advocates of the open Internet as a creative platform need to step up.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Microsoft has changed a lot. I am no longer embarrassed to dual boot and I do find MS Office 2010 to be a fantastic suite of applications. In a lot of ways, Microsoft has done a lot to repair an image that needed it. That impetus for change didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t happen without an economic incentive. The same is true of Apple. If you want to help stop the proliferation of dumb licenses, help make the competition better. I am not asking you to code. I am not asking you to become a software designer. I am not even asking you to switch operating systems. I am just suggesting you look at the tools available and decide what works the best not just in the short term, but for the long haul. Use the open tools that are available or push your vendors to create standards-compliant products that can compete.

I know it is hard to compete with a free product. Then again, I don’t really think Apple’s iBook Author software is free. It is, potentially, the most expensive software available today. It pre-emptively takes full commercial control of any creative work designed in the software. I keep reading these arguments that try to liken it to a publisher buying a book and sharing the profits. Some point to Amazon’s publishing its restrictions that I would also strongly suggest everyone pay careful attention to. That said, as far as I am aware, Amazon isn’t dictating licensing based on a software package. I am able to create my work using whatever software I see fit. I can then shop my work to other publishers or sell my creation myself. Amazon only cares when they are the method by which I choose to sell, and that (like choosing Apple as a channel) is purely the author’s prerogative. More realistically, Apple’s stance would be like Microsoft demanding the right to sell and publish every commercial novel that was written with MS Word.

Hmmm….on second thought, let’s not give Microsoft any ideas. I am not so sure they have changed that much.

Jaron Lanier (author of You Are Not a Gadget) had an interesting take on the SOPA blackouts and Web activism. His article, “The False Ideals of the Web,” led to the reflections below.

I know that Lanier has his axe to grind and that is all well and good. We all do. I even agree with most of what he has to say. It is dangerous to frame any discussion in regard to regulating the Internet purely in terms of black and white. This is especially true when we are talking about battles between corporate interests. Several of the companies that oppose SOPA have less than stellar track records when it comes to supporting an open Internet community. In their continued attempt to enact a form of modern day enclosure on the content their users create they often end up working against the very ideals that first allowed them to grow and prosper. He and I have no disagreement in this regard, whatsoever.

Since we agree that much of the opposition to SOPA comes from companies with specific economic goals, I have to admit I was surprised by the direction his piece took. Lanier’s assumption that the argument against SOPA is somehow about the maintenance or worship of “free” content is completely off the mark. In fact, I would say just the opposite. Opposition to SOPA is about making sure that content creators, of any size, can continue to reach users. For some, this is merely about switching corporate gatekeepers where “new media” behemoths take the place of “old media” behemoths. For others, it is about preserving a creator’s ability to openly share content free from any gatekeepers without the fear of costly lawsuits that would essentially eliminate any chance they would have to share their work.

Google and Facebook do not oppose SOPA because they are the “good guys.” They oppose SOPA because it’s costly. That’s it. They may blanket us in the pretty rhetoric of openness and freedom but, ultimately, they’re talking about the bottom line. In all honesty, they probably could survive a post-SOPA world albeit in much different capacity. They have the financial strength to create licensing agreements with the MPAA and RIAA. The rest of us don’t have that luxury.

The Internet is bigger than Google or Facebook. It is bigger than any single company and, personally, I hope it always remains that way. In this case, the profits of these powerful companies align with the best interests of the Internet community and that works in everyone’s favor. We already know that this won’t be the case forever, though. Indeed, that is why I am heartened by the very thing that seemed to scare Lanier: the backlash against companies that supported SOPA. I am ardent supporter of free speech, but free speech involves responsibility. I believe organizations and people have a right to choose where they spend their money. If a company supports practices that I disagree with, I have the right to not patronize that company. I also have the right to share that disagreement with others. Is this behavior the beginning form of some sort of orthodoxy? Perhaps, it is. Is it any different than refusing to sign up for a website because you disagree with it polices? Not so much.

Lanier is right in arguing that there needs to be an aggressive look at models of payment for content beyond advertising. Information isn’t free even for those sites that provide content without cost. That’s one of the reasons why Wikipedia spends so much time asking for donations. I agree that we do sometimes get caught up in the “everything must be free” mentality and that there is still a long way to go in providing solid solutions to content creators of all sizes. Blaming “free” content, however, does nothing but play into the hands of those who support measures like SOPA. This not about an Internet without rules where content is merely a pointless commodity to be traded on the nearest torrent site. This is about an Internet where practical and sane content protections do not displace or harm a growing, vibrant, and increasingly important creative community that continues to push our boundaries and the possibilities of what technology and art can do regardless of their size of their pocketbooks or their lobbying firms.

I took my lunch in order to listen to Justin Reich speak at the Berkman Center. He is the author of an upcoming study that examines how the proliferation of open and free educational resources online could affect the educational divide in terms of income equality. Specifically, he looked at wiki creation and use across a variety of schools at different socioeconomic levels. These wikis were then scored against a standardized metric in order to determine their value.

What he determined was not terribly surprising. Schools with a higher socioeconomic demographics made better use of the wiki technology and more directly targeted that use to student achievement and development. Does this mean these free resources are a problem? Absolutely not, and Reich went on in-depth discussing how the data itself raises more questions than answers both in terms of data collection and analysis. One area of particular note was the need for intra-school research where technology use is evaluated in various economic strata within the same school.

What it does indicate is that we can’t simply expect free resources to suddenly be the panacea to a much deeper problem. It also indicates the need, as Reich mentioned, for targeted and developed educational strategies as opposed to a “dump and hope” method. Without a structure to encourage and develop the skills to utilize material presented, those who might benefit the most will simply continue to be left behind.

Child of the ‘net as I am, I was hoping his presentation would already be available from the Berkman Center. Unfortunately, physics and the duties of interns don’t follow the same schedule. That said, there are several incredible talks already available from their archive [ http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive ]. I strongly suggest watching Justin’s talk when it becomes available.

Justin’s blog can be found here: [ http://edtechresearcher.org/ ]. It includes his Wiki Quality Instrument tools used for evaluating educational wikis.

Now here’s the thing.

I believe in privacy. I believe that tracking where a person goes and what a person does and then using or sharing that data is a violation of privacy. I also believe that creating a web site or some connected device that gives the appearance of privacy but which, in reality, leaks data all over the place is also a violation of privacy. These actions occur often without user knowledge and can be potentially serious.

I tend to think it silly, though, when people want to post publicly and then expect that the data will not be tracked. The Internet does remember. That is its nature. Anything you post publicly will remain and can be found and tracked. I don’t find this some egregious violation of user privacy. Rather, I find this to be the fact of the medium.

It is easy to find radicals on all sides of the privacy debate. Right now, I have been reading the heavy pro-privacy groups. While I agree with a huge portion of what they say, it is easy to leap from practical personal privacy to something bordering on the bizarre. That’s a place that I don’t want to go to. There has to be balance between privacy and sharing. After all, most of us post online in an attempt to communicate and share.

I suppose my ultimate belief is in full disclosure. I believe a user has the right to know, in clear terms, what is being tracked, what is accessible and by who, and what rights they give up by creating the account. After that, it is purely buyer beware. Yes, we need better education when it comes to privacy risks online, but let’s not pretend that the medium isn’t any different from our other mediums. We need to find ways to live with the technology we have and still protect user privacy in practical ways. It can be a fine line sometimes, but I think finding that balance is a far better option than any of the alternatives.

So I have a bit of a confession to make. For all the fantastic literature I have read in my time, I still have a special place in my heart for those old choose-your-own-adventure style books. That’s right! I loved those crazy, stilted stories that paused at random points to give the reader a choice between two similarly misguided options that only slightly make sense in the larger scheme of the plot. As hokey as they were, these little books were more than mere stories. They were mazes of text. I would find one ending only to turn back to the previous “choice” page, carefully indexed by another finger until the very act of reading the book became a feat of manual dexterity. Eventually, I would find my way through all the twists and turns of the story until I knew every option by heart.

I have a reason for sharing this. The Iowa Youth Writing Project along with the generous support of Public Space One is transforming the whole concept of the choose-your-own-adventure novel into a performance workshop for children ages 8-11. You read that right. This is a performance workshop. This means that the kids will not only get to craft the script and the many choices available in the plot, they will also get a chance to perform that script for their friends and family in special culminating event. It almost makes me wish I was a kid again!

I wrote my first choose your own adventure story when I was in the fourth grade which is right in the sweet spot for the ages the IYWP is hoping to help. I remember that I even drew pictures, a practice I studiously avoided due to lack of talent, to help make the text more accessible. It was the first time I was proud of something of something I wrote. I can still remember the strange sense of trepidation I felt when I turned the paper in to the teacher. I still feel it today when I send in a piece to a potential publisher. Unfortunately, she didn’t like the piece nearly as much as I had hoped. She considered it “mere plagiarism” (It wasn’t and that little 4th grader in me still screams at the accusation!) and handed it back without a grade. I remember walking away in a hazy blur as the tears threatened to spill. I was devastated.

Luckily, I had a family there to help nurture my wounded creative spirit and my own stubborn nature to drive me forward. I am pleased to know that, for children in Iowa, that support runs even deeper. Not only can they turn to their family for support but they can also look to organizations like the Iowa Youth Writing Project and Public Space One to inspire and encourage their creativity and their confidence in their own vision and creation. If you have kids in the age range, go sign up! Otherwise, offer the IYWP your support in terms of a donation (all classes are priced as “pay what you can” so your donations help!) or through volunteering.

The choice, as you might have guessed, is yours!

*Note: The book from the image above can (and should) be bought here.