Text and Hubris

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.

If Text and Hubris generated enough page hits to make a “going dark” protest practical and valid, this site would already be dark. Frankly, it doesn’t and while I can understand the value of sites like Wikipedia going dark, I feel that the best thing smaller blogs can do is act to inform people about the severe risk this type of legislation (SOPA, PIPA) poses to the Internet, economic and creative communities, artists, and our society as a whole.

Go here [ https://blacklist.eff.org/ ] to take action!

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 much for that morning, eh?

After a chaotic week I found myself on the edge of a long weekend without my usual access to the Internet. I was, for several days, disconnected (I think I just shuddered a little). I could connect and interact in very basic ways but anything beyond that was all but completely impossible. Essentially, my communication stream became read-only. For a fellow used to living in a read-write universe, this was a true tragedy.

» Read the rest of this entry «