Freedom of expression exists on a scale. It has two poles, two extremes. On the one end, you're alone in the middle of an empty forest, as far away from everything and everyone as possible. On the other end, you are literally centimeters from someone's ear.
With this image in mind, it's very easy to intuit that you can scream as much and as loud as possible when alone in the desolate forest. It's just as easy to grasp that you might want to tone down your volume as you get closer to the ear. You can common sense your way into an understanding of when it is appropriate to scream and when it isn't.
Just to be absolutely crystal clear: your freedom of expression does not include the right to scream into random people's ears. You are free to express yourself with screams, albeit at a distance.
If you don't take this into account, you get into strange territories when discussing freedom of expression. It does not limit your freedom to use common sense. You can easily understand why you'd not want people to scream in your ear, and with a bit of empathy you can just as easily understand why others wouldn't want it. Yet if you don't, even the most mild-mannered suggestion to please tone it down will be recast as a limitation of your freedom of expression.
Which brings us to the topic of blockbots.
Blockbots are what the name implies: bots for blocking (in this case social media accounts). It's a hassle to block large numbers of accounts, and to boot you have to keep doing it if you want to keep the blocklist updated. It's as easy as apple pie to create new, unblocked accounts, and while it is just as easy to block them as they appear, it gets old after a while.
Why would anyone need a blockbot? The answer is not subtle: because a large number of people are screaming at one's ear, and won't stop no matter how politely one asks them to.
Just as when it comes to sound, volume matters. In this case, it matters in terms of numbers rather than decibel. When a large number of people send what amounts to the same message over and over again, the volume is unbearable. Even more so when responding to any one of them only results in more of the same, and in a sense only serves to pump up the volume.
When a voluminous group of people assemble outside one's residence, it is only prudent to close doors and windows in order to keep the noise out. The same goes for social media: volume speaks louder than words.
Blockbots are, to put it bluntly, volume control.
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
New media, old class
One of the things I've written least about is that I'm brutally conservative. As in, I don't think things have changed all that much the last decades. Or, rather, things have not changed as much as they'd seem when looking at what people have said about how much things have changed.
Let's take an example: crowdfunding.
Now, I'm the first to say that it's all well and good that people can create alternative ways of financially supporting good things. There are too many good ideas not realized due to the lack of funding, and too many ideas are subverted by crony corporate funding. Getting away from that is unequivocally a good thing.
However. There's a distribution as to which things gets funded and which does not. And this distribution has striking similarities to old lines of class, gender, ethnicity and all that jazz.
The net result is not the abolition of these factors, as some cyberutopians have suggested, but rather a slight shift as to the conditions under which they operate. Which is visible not least in the case of Sarkeesian, who indeed got funding, but also a whole slew of other things to go along with it. Things that are not explained (away) by the net, nor caused by it. Merely amplified by it, moving along the path of same old same old.
We might also assume that not everyone will get a $55k potato salad.
Now, to reiterate: it is a good thing that crowdfunding exists. But there's virtue in not overselling just how much of a difference it will make. The new world is still the old world in many respects, and even more so in its lack of respects. -
Let's take an example: crowdfunding.
Now, I'm the first to say that it's all well and good that people can create alternative ways of financially supporting good things. There are too many good ideas not realized due to the lack of funding, and too many ideas are subverted by crony corporate funding. Getting away from that is unequivocally a good thing.
However. There's a distribution as to which things gets funded and which does not. And this distribution has striking similarities to old lines of class, gender, ethnicity and all that jazz.
The net result is not the abolition of these factors, as some cyberutopians have suggested, but rather a slight shift as to the conditions under which they operate. Which is visible not least in the case of Sarkeesian, who indeed got funding, but also a whole slew of other things to go along with it. Things that are not explained (away) by the net, nor caused by it. Merely amplified by it, moving along the path of same old same old.
We might also assume that not everyone will get a $55k potato salad.
Now, to reiterate: it is a good thing that crowdfunding exists. But there's virtue in not overselling just how much of a difference it will make. The new world is still the old world in many respects, and even more so in its lack of respects. -
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
I have read and agree with YOU'RE WRONG
If you've spent any time whatsoever on the social part of the interwebs, you have without a doubt stumbled across this truth about human nature:
People suck at agreeing.
You've seen it happen. I'd even wager that you've seen it happen several times. It goes like this: someone writes something, and someone else disagrees with it. Or, rather, they agree with 96% of it, and disagree with this one particular detail. And they proceed to tell the world that they, in fact, disagree with these 4%, and will fight anyone who challenges them. Including the original author.
Now, if you get into a fight with someone you agree 96% with, you're doing it wrong.
The reason for this happening is that only the disagreement is communicated. All that other stuff is simply understood as going without saying, and is thus left unsaid. And is thus not a part of the conversation, leading to the interaction being all about those four lousy percent.
People suck at agreeing. This is why.
In order to avoid getting in to this same situation ourselves (or, at least, to mitigate the risk of getting in to them), it is advisable to communicate this ratio between agreeing and disagreeing. Which can be done with something as simple as saying "I agree with just about everything you've said, and appreciate you've taken the time to say it, but I wonder about this one aspect" or something to the same effect. Whatever wordage is appropriate to communicate that the disagreement is a minor one, and that this is not an invitation to a fight.
If it is a subtle point, you might find that it takes quite the wordage to expound the disagreement over it. Which might lead you to calculate this extra reaffirment of agreement as an unnecessary expense of energy. To which I reply: it might be. It might also be less energy that getting in to a fight. It might, moreover, also be an indication that it is a proper moment to just say "+1" and move on to other things.
Agreeing is harder than it looks. Don't you agree?
People suck at agreeing.
You've seen it happen. I'd even wager that you've seen it happen several times. It goes like this: someone writes something, and someone else disagrees with it. Or, rather, they agree with 96% of it, and disagree with this one particular detail. And they proceed to tell the world that they, in fact, disagree with these 4%, and will fight anyone who challenges them. Including the original author.
Now, if you get into a fight with someone you agree 96% with, you're doing it wrong.
The reason for this happening is that only the disagreement is communicated. All that other stuff is simply understood as going without saying, and is thus left unsaid. And is thus not a part of the conversation, leading to the interaction being all about those four lousy percent.
People suck at agreeing. This is why.
In order to avoid getting in to this same situation ourselves (or, at least, to mitigate the risk of getting in to them), it is advisable to communicate this ratio between agreeing and disagreeing. Which can be done with something as simple as saying "I agree with just about everything you've said, and appreciate you've taken the time to say it, but I wonder about this one aspect" or something to the same effect. Whatever wordage is appropriate to communicate that the disagreement is a minor one, and that this is not an invitation to a fight.
If it is a subtle point, you might find that it takes quite the wordage to expound the disagreement over it. Which might lead you to calculate this extra reaffirment of agreement as an unnecessary expense of energy. To which I reply: it might be. It might also be less energy that getting in to a fight. It might, moreover, also be an indication that it is a proper moment to just say "+1" and move on to other things.
Agreeing is harder than it looks. Don't you agree?
Monday, May 19, 2014
Endless wonder, endless mysteries
In just a few hours, Warehouse 13 comes to an end, as the last episode is aired. It is the end of an era, and -
Wait, what?
I've already seen the last episode? Before the end? What is this magic?
It is a question I often ask myself. Not because the last episode is available out there if you know how to procure it (no help from me), but because it doesn't happen all that often. Somehow, the last episodes of things - indeed, all episodes of things- are strictly kept under wraps until they are aired. And then they leap out, available to everyone who knows how to procure them (still no help from me).
Why is this? What's the secret of this strict discipline?
In theory, episodes of television series could and/or should appear long before they officially air. This is because they are recorded long before they officially air (Lost does not count). Since copying files is as easy as opening a newspaper, it stands to reason that someone should happen to get a hold of a file that will soon become an early release.
It's basic computer security. And human nature. If and when secrets are kept, someone will eventually unkeep it, and then it is loose upon the world. For all to see, as it were.
"All" being people like me. Who know how to procure such things.
And yet, it rarely happens. It happened this once, but I can scarcely remember it happening at any other times.
What's the secret? How do they do it? What sorcery is this?
Do you know?
Btw: the last episode is a good last one. Do enjoy it. It is one of the defining moments of the series. All of it.
Wait, what?
I've already seen the last episode? Before the end? What is this magic?
It is a question I often ask myself. Not because the last episode is available out there if you know how to procure it (no help from me), but because it doesn't happen all that often. Somehow, the last episodes of things - indeed, all episodes of things- are strictly kept under wraps until they are aired. And then they leap out, available to everyone who knows how to procure them (still no help from me).
Why is this? What's the secret of this strict discipline?
In theory, episodes of television series could and/or should appear long before they officially air. This is because they are recorded long before they officially air (Lost does not count). Since copying files is as easy as opening a newspaper, it stands to reason that someone should happen to get a hold of a file that will soon become an early release.
It's basic computer security. And human nature. If and when secrets are kept, someone will eventually unkeep it, and then it is loose upon the world. For all to see, as it were.
"All" being people like me. Who know how to procure such things.
And yet, it rarely happens. It happened this once, but I can scarcely remember it happening at any other times.
What's the secret? How do they do it? What sorcery is this?
Do you know?
Btw: the last episode is a good last one. Do enjoy it. It is one of the defining moments of the series. All of it.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
The on/off relationships of social media people
Social media is all about conversation. Or, rather, conversations, in plural. If it was just the one conversation, we could apply the old standard conventions to it and go from there. But it isn't, and we can't.
Instead, there are several emerging new conventions, most of them emerging in parallel and with some overlaps and areas for conflicting expectations.
One thing everyone seems to be on board with is that there are, in fact, several conversations going on at the same time. Not one, not two, but a whole bunch of them. No conflicts here. Until it's time to end one of these conversations, for whatever reason.
Some people (me included) are of the opinion that you can't reasonably be expected to talk to everyone all the time, and that conversations naturally fade away, only to be reopened again when new topics arrive. It's not so much one single conversational thread going on from start to finish, as it is a continuous string of interaction about whatever comes along. Sometimes, exchanges happen; sometimes, they don't. But whenever something pops up, the social space includes the option of saying "hey, look at this, what do you think?".
The subtle shift from "conversation" to "social relation" inherent in this view are not coincidental. It is the very essence of the social media thing.
Not responding to a particular input is not a big deal in this view. There will be more inputs, and more things will be said. The social relation will endure when any one particular conversation ends.
As you might imagine, there are other opinions, other conventions. Some of which are much stricter on when you can legitimately not respond to things, and which social markers you need to employ to disengage from a conversation in a proper manner. In fact, they closely resemble the old style rules of conversation: you are talking to someone, with someone, and this deserves the respect the situation warrants. No matter the number of conversations.
The analogy here would be to hang up on someone mid-sentence - that simply will not do.
I've already proclaimed myself partial to the first way of looking at things. This doesn't mean it's the right, only and true way - it's just useful information for those who want to talk at me (@sargoth, hi, talk at me). I'm just the one person, and by no means in a majority. But you will run in to people from my neck of the woods, and you will run in to people from the traditional woods of the neck, and you will most likely have social media conversations with both of them at the same time. Knowing that there is a difference will help you avoid those subtle social transgressions that so often happen when different conventions meet up and talk to each other.
Social media is all about conversation. And conversations. And conventions. And [the blog post fades to a close, opening up a social space for commenting and conversing]
Instead, there are several emerging new conventions, most of them emerging in parallel and with some overlaps and areas for conflicting expectations.
One thing everyone seems to be on board with is that there are, in fact, several conversations going on at the same time. Not one, not two, but a whole bunch of them. No conflicts here. Until it's time to end one of these conversations, for whatever reason.
Some people (me included) are of the opinion that you can't reasonably be expected to talk to everyone all the time, and that conversations naturally fade away, only to be reopened again when new topics arrive. It's not so much one single conversational thread going on from start to finish, as it is a continuous string of interaction about whatever comes along. Sometimes, exchanges happen; sometimes, they don't. But whenever something pops up, the social space includes the option of saying "hey, look at this, what do you think?".
The subtle shift from "conversation" to "social relation" inherent in this view are not coincidental. It is the very essence of the social media thing.
Not responding to a particular input is not a big deal in this view. There will be more inputs, and more things will be said. The social relation will endure when any one particular conversation ends.
As you might imagine, there are other opinions, other conventions. Some of which are much stricter on when you can legitimately not respond to things, and which social markers you need to employ to disengage from a conversation in a proper manner. In fact, they closely resemble the old style rules of conversation: you are talking to someone, with someone, and this deserves the respect the situation warrants. No matter the number of conversations.
The analogy here would be to hang up on someone mid-sentence - that simply will not do.
I've already proclaimed myself partial to the first way of looking at things. This doesn't mean it's the right, only and true way - it's just useful information for those who want to talk at me (@sargoth, hi, talk at me). I'm just the one person, and by no means in a majority. But you will run in to people from my neck of the woods, and you will run in to people from the traditional woods of the neck, and you will most likely have social media conversations with both of them at the same time. Knowing that there is a difference will help you avoid those subtle social transgressions that so often happen when different conventions meet up and talk to each other.
Social media is all about conversation. And conversations. And conventions. And [the blog post fades to a close, opening up a social space for commenting and conversing]
Friday, February 7, 2014
The zombie bots have arrived
The zombies are loose! The apocalypse finally happened! We are living past the end times, and our fellow humans are trying to eat our brains!
...or, well, not quite yet. But the zombie bots are loose on Twitter, and they are legion. As in, hundreds upon hundreds of them, chainfollowing people like so many cigarettes.
Why?
Money, mostly.
Somehow, someone got the bright idea that their next viral marketing stunt would be to create zounds of zombie twitter accounts, and have them all floodfollow selected persons at the same time. Not one, not two, not three, but hundreds of them. All at the same time, all at once, to simulate the authentic zombie experience.
Subtle. Not.
It's about as subtle as walking up to strangers on the subway employing very threatening body language, to create a tense situation where violence seems to be imminent, and then break out in an enthusiastic "aha! fooled ya! Watch our special on domestic abuse we're sending later this week!".
They did just that. In no uncertain terms.
The zombie bots have arrived. In force. And in great numbers.
As this is a marketing move, the only thing to do is to act like good customers and let them know that we've received the message. And that we no longer are nor will be their customers in any capacity ever again.
The zombie bots have arrived. And as everyone who's ever watched a zombie movie where the word "viral" is used, there is only one appropriate strategy to use when the time has come:
Scorched earth.
...or, well, not quite yet. But the zombie bots are loose on Twitter, and they are legion. As in, hundreds upon hundreds of them, chainfollowing people like so many cigarettes.
Why?
Money, mostly.
Somehow, someone got the bright idea that their next viral marketing stunt would be to create zounds of zombie twitter accounts, and have them all floodfollow selected persons at the same time. Not one, not two, not three, but hundreds of them. All at the same time, all at once, to simulate the authentic zombie experience.
Subtle. Not.
It's about as subtle as walking up to strangers on the subway employing very threatening body language, to create a tense situation where violence seems to be imminent, and then break out in an enthusiastic "aha! fooled ya! Watch our special on domestic abuse we're sending later this week!".
They did just that. In no uncertain terms.
The zombie bots have arrived. In force. And in great numbers.
As this is a marketing move, the only thing to do is to act like good customers and let them know that we've received the message. And that we no longer are nor will be their customers in any capacity ever again.
The zombie bots have arrived. And as everyone who's ever watched a zombie movie where the word "viral" is used, there is only one appropriate strategy to use when the time has come:
Scorched earth.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
The copyright that wronged your soul
Sometimes, discussing copyright is an outright surreal experience. It would seem that the difference between copyright issues and copyright law is one of the least understandable differences since the invention of sliced bread.
Which is not only a mixed metaphor, but also the reason why so many get stuck in their underfinanced trenches. Often without knowing that they are either in a trench or underfinanced.
It tends to go something like this: someone writes a long, comprehensive argument about the need for reform in copyright law, wherein they point to such things as the consequences of the ever more draconian punishments for everyday copyright infringements. Consequences such as a diminishing lack of respect for the institutions of the law; a youth generation that grows up taking for granted that they will be viewed as criminals (because they are); a private sector that actively avoids investing in anything digital due to fear of crossing the line between innovation and criminality; a stifled creativity among artists who put ever more effort into making sure they are not sued for making something that reminds of anything copyrighted; archivists who refrain from preserving unreplaceable works of art due to fear of copyright claims eating their ever diminishing budgets - and so on and so forth.
Whereby someone responds with the question: but how shall the artists get paid?
I'm sure you immediately notice two things here. Both the surrealism and the trench. Not least in the assumed premise that it somehow would stop being a problem that everyone younger than me have committed crimes on a daily basis (and assumed the mentality that follows from an unreflexive life of crime) - if artists got paid.
Yeah, right
A tragic aspect of this is that all these tougher measure against copyright crimes doesn't lead to these artists in question getting paid. Putting young people in prison won't make them put more of their non-existent budgets into buying more culture. Neither will the threat of putting them in prison or of giving them enormous fines increase their willingness to consume. And if we ask the artists themselves if their intent is that their productions are to be enjoyed under the thread of legal violence, they will think the question absurd. Because it is.
The problems for artists is not that people pirate things. Their problem is that they sign lousy contracts, and that those organizations that could collectively bargain for better working conditions are busy lobbying for harsher measures on piracy.
This does not have to be. There's no need for this nonsense. It can change. But only if those who pay lip service to working for the artists get their act together and put their money where their mouths are. If they get to work on ending the cynical exploitation of the artists by the corporations that have the loudest mouths regarding the importance of harsher measures against piracy.
Therein lies the difference between copyright issues and copyright law. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Originally posted August 11, 2013
Which is not only a mixed metaphor, but also the reason why so many get stuck in their underfinanced trenches. Often without knowing that they are either in a trench or underfinanced.
It tends to go something like this: someone writes a long, comprehensive argument about the need for reform in copyright law, wherein they point to such things as the consequences of the ever more draconian punishments for everyday copyright infringements. Consequences such as a diminishing lack of respect for the institutions of the law; a youth generation that grows up taking for granted that they will be viewed as criminals (because they are); a private sector that actively avoids investing in anything digital due to fear of crossing the line between innovation and criminality; a stifled creativity among artists who put ever more effort into making sure they are not sued for making something that reminds of anything copyrighted; archivists who refrain from preserving unreplaceable works of art due to fear of copyright claims eating their ever diminishing budgets - and so on and so forth.
Whereby someone responds with the question: but how shall the artists get paid?
I'm sure you immediately notice two things here. Both the surrealism and the trench. Not least in the assumed premise that it somehow would stop being a problem that everyone younger than me have committed crimes on a daily basis (and assumed the mentality that follows from an unreflexive life of crime) - if artists got paid.
Yeah, right
A tragic aspect of this is that all these tougher measure against copyright crimes doesn't lead to these artists in question getting paid. Putting young people in prison won't make them put more of their non-existent budgets into buying more culture. Neither will the threat of putting them in prison or of giving them enormous fines increase their willingness to consume. And if we ask the artists themselves if their intent is that their productions are to be enjoyed under the thread of legal violence, they will think the question absurd. Because it is.
The problems for artists is not that people pirate things. Their problem is that they sign lousy contracts, and that those organizations that could collectively bargain for better working conditions are busy lobbying for harsher measures on piracy.
This does not have to be. There's no need for this nonsense. It can change. But only if those who pay lip service to working for the artists get their act together and put their money where their mouths are. If they get to work on ending the cynical exploitation of the artists by the corporations that have the loudest mouths regarding the importance of harsher measures against piracy.
Therein lies the difference between copyright issues and copyright law. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Originally posted August 11, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Be careful with that axe, Eugene!
Consider the accident.
The common way to think about it is to consider it something that happens despite all precautions of safety. You try to do everything right, but sometimes, out of statistical necessity, things just go wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.
This is a rather backward way of going about it.
Paul Virilio proposed we see accidents happening because, not despite. Train accidents don't happen because we failed to do those things that prevent train accidents; they happen because we're running a train system.
The accidents are built in to the system.
And so it goes for all other things. We have automobile accidents because we have automobiles. We have nuclear power plant accidents because we have nuclear power plants.
We have computer accidents because we have computers.
The power of this way of looking at things lies in its shifting of focus. It's very easy to fall into the thinking that things only work in the way they're supposed to work, and everything else is the exceptions that proves the rule. A limited number of uses are identified as legitimate, and the rest are illegitimate - accidents.
Needless to say, this limits one's analysis of things. For instance, file sharing becomes piracy. Those who designed the internet didn't envision the file sharing behaviors we see today, but as accidents would have it, it happens. And it won't go away, no matter how hard one tries, as it is inherent in the very nature of things.
Another computer accident: people gathering together spontaneously become a terrorist threat. As they suddenly move too fast to keep track of.
It has been said that the best ways to prepare for an accident is to do things that are good even if it doesn't happen.
There might be something to it.
The common way to think about it is to consider it something that happens despite all precautions of safety. You try to do everything right, but sometimes, out of statistical necessity, things just go wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.
This is a rather backward way of going about it.
Paul Virilio proposed we see accidents happening because, not despite. Train accidents don't happen because we failed to do those things that prevent train accidents; they happen because we're running a train system.
The accidents are built in to the system.
And so it goes for all other things. We have automobile accidents because we have automobiles. We have nuclear power plant accidents because we have nuclear power plants.
We have computer accidents because we have computers.
The power of this way of looking at things lies in its shifting of focus. It's very easy to fall into the thinking that things only work in the way they're supposed to work, and everything else is the exceptions that proves the rule. A limited number of uses are identified as legitimate, and the rest are illegitimate - accidents.
Needless to say, this limits one's analysis of things. For instance, file sharing becomes piracy. Those who designed the internet didn't envision the file sharing behaviors we see today, but as accidents would have it, it happens. And it won't go away, no matter how hard one tries, as it is inherent in the very nature of things.
Another computer accident: people gathering together spontaneously become a terrorist threat. As they suddenly move too fast to keep track of.
It has been said that the best ways to prepare for an accident is to do things that are good even if it doesn't happen.
There might be something to it.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
The internet is for porn
Much is said about internet and porn these days. Actually, much is always said about internet and porn, both individually and in various combinations of the two. It's in the nature of things: the internet is by its nature feminine (why else would so many young men swarm so longingly around it?), and porn - well, that goes without saying.
All too often, discussions about porn tend to get caught up in the negative connotations associated with the word. All it takes is for one (or two) persons to storm into the conversation, and suddenly it's all about decency and dignity and cultural qualities and other such what have yous - anything that diverts from the subject matter of sexually active images and pictures.
This is, of course, not the most optimal way to go about talking about it. It's not even that interesting, after the nth variation on theme. It's way more interesting to look at it it through the lens of history - in particular if we combine the porn with the internet and get internet porn. Did you, for example, know that porn sites had figured out how to monetize online content years and years before more conservative businesses started to wrap their heads around how to pronounce "www."?
If you want to insist on being a puritan about it, do consider that the systems you use to pay for things online more often than not were developed by entrepreneurial porn distributors.
All too often, discussions about startups, market creation and market innovation tends to ignore such embarrassing details. It ain't kosher, and moreover it's a drag when one wants to project an image of serious business. One would much rather retouch this aspect of one's ethos.
The thing - the inescapable thing - is of course that this isn't specific to the internet. It goes for any and all new media. First someone invents it, and the very next thing that happens it that someone uses it to make porn. And a short moment later, the wheels of porn monetization are rolling.
About ten years later, the notion that maybe the porn distributors shouldn't be given a monopoly on this here new media thingy slowly starts to take root. Kind of like the notion of trickle-down economics, only in reverse: when the unmentionable dregs of society invents something profitable, it slowly emerges as a benefit to society as a whole over time.
Eventually. When the news that the media is not the message has done its eternal recurrence. Again.
Originally published June 17, 2011
All too often, discussions about porn tend to get caught up in the negative connotations associated with the word. All it takes is for one (or two) persons to storm into the conversation, and suddenly it's all about decency and dignity and cultural qualities and other such what have yous - anything that diverts from the subject matter of sexually active images and pictures.This is, of course, not the most optimal way to go about talking about it. It's not even that interesting, after the nth variation on theme. It's way more interesting to look at it it through the lens of history - in particular if we combine the porn with the internet and get internet porn. Did you, for example, know that porn sites had figured out how to monetize online content years and years before more conservative businesses started to wrap their heads around how to pronounce "www."?
If you want to insist on being a puritan about it, do consider that the systems you use to pay for things online more often than not were developed by entrepreneurial porn distributors.
All too often, discussions about startups, market creation and market innovation tends to ignore such embarrassing details. It ain't kosher, and moreover it's a drag when one wants to project an image of serious business. One would much rather retouch this aspect of one's ethos.
The thing - the inescapable thing - is of course that this isn't specific to the internet. It goes for any and all new media. First someone invents it, and the very next thing that happens it that someone uses it to make porn. And a short moment later, the wheels of porn monetization are rolling.
About ten years later, the notion that maybe the porn distributors shouldn't be given a monopoly on this here new media thingy slowly starts to take root. Kind of like the notion of trickle-down economics, only in reverse: when the unmentionable dregs of society invents something profitable, it slowly emerges as a benefit to society as a whole over time.
Eventually. When the news that the media is not the message has done its eternal recurrence. Again.
Originally published June 17, 2011
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Information underload
Every minute some forty-eight odd hours of video are uploaded to Youtube.
Every minute, hundreds of songs are written.
Ever minute, thousands of blog posts are posted.
Every minute, hundreds of thousands pictures are taken.
Every minute, millions of thoughts, ideas and opinions are exchanged.
With this in mind - how come we constantly see the same reruns on television, hear the same songs on the radio, read the same old recycled opinions in the newspapers, see the same stock photos everywhere, and on the whole fail to be confronted with all those things that were not always-already the default mode of the mainstream media?
How do the radio stations get away with playing the same playlist over and over and over again? How on earth does the mainstream media get away with limiting their repertoires to the ridiculously narrow array of repeated repeated repeated? How is it possible to maintain this information underload?
I do not understand this.
Originally published June 7, 2012
Every minute, hundreds of songs are written.
Ever minute, thousands of blog posts are posted.
Every minute, hundreds of thousands pictures are taken.
Every minute, millions of thoughts, ideas and opinions are exchanged.
With this in mind - how come we constantly see the same reruns on television, hear the same songs on the radio, read the same old recycled opinions in the newspapers, see the same stock photos everywhere, and on the whole fail to be confronted with all those things that were not always-already the default mode of the mainstream media?
How do the radio stations get away with playing the same playlist over and over and over again? How on earth does the mainstream media get away with limiting their repertoires to the ridiculously narrow array of repeated repeated repeated? How is it possible to maintain this information underload?
I do not understand this.
Originally published June 7, 2012
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Your social computing is no good here
Another day, another police raid. I have lost count of them - by this point, my reaction upon hearing about them is a shrug and a tired acknowledgement that it happened. It's no longer a thing out of the ordinary, but more and more a part of the digital status quo.
This time it has happened to undertexter.se [subtitles.se], a page where those who so wishes could find subtitles to movies. Swedish subtitles, translated by the fans, for the fans. Not the movies as such, mind you, but the files that contains the translated subtitles to these movies. That is to say, text files containing the translated transcripts of the dialogue within these movies.
We have therefore taken another step up the ladder of abstraction when it comes to internet related crimes. We know from the Pirate Bay-trial that it is de jure illegal to provide a bulletin board (physical or digital) that contains information as to where the files are. That is to say, to in any way, shape or form assist the accessories of the crime in question - be it in the form of a link, a word or a pointed finger. This has now been extended to things that might in any way, shape or form be related to the assisting of these accessories. Such as fansubbing.
This is not a step in the right direction. For three reasons.
First off, the general vagueness of this legal situation is very detrimental to the social stability. If handling things that are peripherally related to piracy is criminalized to the point where police in the mood for a raid can show up at any time, then there's a very present incentive for ordinary people to start thinking like criminals. Because they are, in the eyes of the law. And, moreover, there's an incentive to start to raidproof one's home, workplace or digital hideouts - the police might after all show up at any moment, and if they find something suspicious, they both can and will use it against you.
Under such conditions, applied paranoia pays off.
Secondly, this stifles innovation. Things that might be seen as creative and innovative leap when it comes to collaborative computing, might also be seen as organized crime. Or as facilitating said organized crime. Which, quite straightforwardly, makes it rational to be hesitant when it comes to innovate in these areas - especially when these innovations includes the sharing of information. Those policemen are not kidding around once they get into their raiding gear.
To slightly paraphrase a famous phrase: any sufficiently advanced application of collaborative computing is indistinguishable from piracy.
Thirdly, this is a direct and unmistakable message to the digital business community. Or, rather, it's two messages, one domestic and one international. The domestic message is this: don't mess with computers. The international message is this: don't come here if you are a company that messes with computers. Since every action that in any way, shape or form relates to collaborative computing can be interpreted as abetting organized criminality, and since actions undertaken on a commercial scale are always punished harder than those undertaken on a hobby basis - just don't do it. Stay out. It's not worth the hassle and the legal fees. Keep your business elsewhere.
It goes without saying that this is quite the opposite of conducive to a prospering digital business community.
There are two ways to react to this. The one way is to shrug and keep on keeping on, as if this is the way things are supposed to be. The other way is to get mad. To get out of your chairs, open your windows to the internet and yell: this legislation kills innovation, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!
It's your choice. Don't let the threat of the next police raid leave you too unaffected.
Originally published July 10 2013
This time it has happened to undertexter.se [subtitles.se], a page where those who so wishes could find subtitles to movies. Swedish subtitles, translated by the fans, for the fans. Not the movies as such, mind you, but the files that contains the translated subtitles to these movies. That is to say, text files containing the translated transcripts of the dialogue within these movies.We have therefore taken another step up the ladder of abstraction when it comes to internet related crimes. We know from the Pirate Bay-trial that it is de jure illegal to provide a bulletin board (physical or digital) that contains information as to where the files are. That is to say, to in any way, shape or form assist the accessories of the crime in question - be it in the form of a link, a word or a pointed finger. This has now been extended to things that might in any way, shape or form be related to the assisting of these accessories. Such as fansubbing.
This is not a step in the right direction. For three reasons.
First off, the general vagueness of this legal situation is very detrimental to the social stability. If handling things that are peripherally related to piracy is criminalized to the point where police in the mood for a raid can show up at any time, then there's a very present incentive for ordinary people to start thinking like criminals. Because they are, in the eyes of the law. And, moreover, there's an incentive to start to raidproof one's home, workplace or digital hideouts - the police might after all show up at any moment, and if they find something suspicious, they both can and will use it against you.
Under such conditions, applied paranoia pays off.
Secondly, this stifles innovation. Things that might be seen as creative and innovative leap when it comes to collaborative computing, might also be seen as organized crime. Or as facilitating said organized crime. Which, quite straightforwardly, makes it rational to be hesitant when it comes to innovate in these areas - especially when these innovations includes the sharing of information. Those policemen are not kidding around once they get into their raiding gear.
To slightly paraphrase a famous phrase: any sufficiently advanced application of collaborative computing is indistinguishable from piracy.
Thirdly, this is a direct and unmistakable message to the digital business community. Or, rather, it's two messages, one domestic and one international. The domestic message is this: don't mess with computers. The international message is this: don't come here if you are a company that messes with computers. Since every action that in any way, shape or form relates to collaborative computing can be interpreted as abetting organized criminality, and since actions undertaken on a commercial scale are always punished harder than those undertaken on a hobby basis - just don't do it. Stay out. It's not worth the hassle and the legal fees. Keep your business elsewhere.
It goes without saying that this is quite the opposite of conducive to a prospering digital business community.
There are two ways to react to this. The one way is to shrug and keep on keeping on, as if this is the way things are supposed to be. The other way is to get mad. To get out of your chairs, open your windows to the internet and yell: this legislation kills innovation, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!
It's your choice. Don't let the threat of the next police raid leave you too unaffected.
Originally published July 10 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Strange Twitter? Probably
Twitter is loosely based on probability theory. Just as the chance that a die will roll a six is equal every time it is rolled, so it is that the probability of you losing a follower is the same for every tweet you post.
This process has no memory. If you post five tweets without losing a follower, then the odds are not stacked up for a lost follower at the sixth tweet - the odds are the same as always, no change. And just as a die can be rolled for hundreds of times without a single six facing up, so you can tweet the longest of rants without a single unfollower.
And then you do one random retweet, and poff! Someone no longer has you in their life.
There doesn't seem to be any way to predict when this happens. The closest one gets is an estimate of the mean time to happen, which doesn't tell you all that much. "It will most likely maybe happen every x tweet, but it might also not happen" is not a paradigmatic statement of probabilistic determination. In fact, the word "uncertain" is more appropriate.
Strangely enough, this description does not seem to apply to gaining new followers. They don't have a mean time to happen; they only have good times to happen.
Strange, strange Twitter.
This process has no memory. If you post five tweets without losing a follower, then the odds are not stacked up for a lost follower at the sixth tweet - the odds are the same as always, no change. And just as a die can be rolled for hundreds of times without a single six facing up, so you can tweet the longest of rants without a single unfollower.
And then you do one random retweet, and poff! Someone no longer has you in their life.
There doesn't seem to be any way to predict when this happens. The closest one gets is an estimate of the mean time to happen, which doesn't tell you all that much. "It will most likely maybe happen every x tweet, but it might also not happen" is not a paradigmatic statement of probabilistic determination. In fact, the word "uncertain" is more appropriate.
Strangely enough, this description does not seem to apply to gaining new followers. They don't have a mean time to happen; they only have good times to happen.
Strange, strange Twitter.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Accessorize those criminals!
Strange things are afoot.
I awoke today to the news that my local Pirate Party has been subjected to legal threats. The conditions are simple: stop providing bandwidth to the Pirate Bay, or face the legal consequences.
Which provides any number of legal conundrums. For one thing: since when is it illegal to provide bandwidth? For another: who makes the call as to which things are illegal to provide bandwidth to? For yet another: if providing bandwidth is a crime, then what other things are criminal as well?
Is it time to, perhaps, investigate the postal service for their distribution of illegal goods? Or the municipal services who provides maintenance for the road systems?
The legal basis for their threat is the crime of being an accessory to an accessory to an accessory to the one actually committing the crime. Which is vague indeed. And opens up for many an interesting lives of crime.
You know, the easy thing to do might just be to reform the actually existing copyright framework. Make communication a little less criminal and a little more communicative.
Communication is hard as it is. No need to make it harder than it should be.
I awoke today to the news that my local Pirate Party has been subjected to legal threats. The conditions are simple: stop providing bandwidth to the Pirate Bay, or face the legal consequences.
Which provides any number of legal conundrums. For one thing: since when is it illegal to provide bandwidth? For another: who makes the call as to which things are illegal to provide bandwidth to? For yet another: if providing bandwidth is a crime, then what other things are criminal as well?
Is it time to, perhaps, investigate the postal service for their distribution of illegal goods? Or the municipal services who provides maintenance for the road systems?
The legal basis for their threat is the crime of being an accessory to an accessory to an accessory to the one actually committing the crime. Which is vague indeed. And opens up for many an interesting lives of crime.
You know, the easy thing to do might just be to reform the actually existing copyright framework. Make communication a little less criminal and a little more communicative.
Communication is hard as it is. No need to make it harder than it should be.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Everything will be hacked
Everything. Absolutely everything. It is just a matter of time. If there is a security flaw, it will be found, exploited and shared. For as long as it is not fixed or dealt with.
Fixing and dealing with a security flaw is not always the same thing. Sometimes, a hole is more than just a hole.
A worrying tendency of our times is the criminalization of those who find security flaws. Even obvious ones. The reaction to someone pointing out that there is a security risk should be something along the lines of "oh my, thank you for pointing this out, we will be right on it!". Instead, the response people actually get seems to go something more along these lines: "OMG, a hacker, to jail with you for pointing out these hacker secrets!".
Knowing enough about security to know about obvious security risks becomes a security risk in itself. For the knower, that is.
The criminalization of hackers amounts to a criminalization of knowledge as such. Because hacking is knowledge, and knowledge is hacking. Once you know something, you can hack these things - and the only way to keep yourself "safe" from hackers is to make darned sure that no one knows everything.
Needless to say, there are obvious downsides to this approach.
The results of a continued policy along these lines are easy to predict. For starters, people will inevitably find out how to hack it anyway. And they will most likely use this knowledge to great advantage. More so since the "solution" to the hacker problem is to send them to jail rather than to actually solve the security flaw itself. In larger institutions, such as public institutions, the flaw can remain for years while the criminal courts duke it out with the criminal minds.
Less security, less solved problems, more criminals and more legal expenses. Lose-lose all around.
If you've ever nodded in assent to stock phrases about how we need to base our society on knowledge rather than on old-style factory production, you now have a very clear picture about where to start putting these stock phrases into action.
Happy hacking!
Fixing and dealing with a security flaw is not always the same thing. Sometimes, a hole is more than just a hole.
A worrying tendency of our times is the criminalization of those who find security flaws. Even obvious ones. The reaction to someone pointing out that there is a security risk should be something along the lines of "oh my, thank you for pointing this out, we will be right on it!". Instead, the response people actually get seems to go something more along these lines: "OMG, a hacker, to jail with you for pointing out these hacker secrets!".
Knowing enough about security to know about obvious security risks becomes a security risk in itself. For the knower, that is.
The criminalization of hackers amounts to a criminalization of knowledge as such. Because hacking is knowledge, and knowledge is hacking. Once you know something, you can hack these things - and the only way to keep yourself "safe" from hackers is to make darned sure that no one knows everything.
Needless to say, there are obvious downsides to this approach.
The results of a continued policy along these lines are easy to predict. For starters, people will inevitably find out how to hack it anyway. And they will most likely use this knowledge to great advantage. More so since the "solution" to the hacker problem is to send them to jail rather than to actually solve the security flaw itself. In larger institutions, such as public institutions, the flaw can remain for years while the criminal courts duke it out with the criminal minds.
Less security, less solved problems, more criminals and more legal expenses. Lose-lose all around.
If you've ever nodded in assent to stock phrases about how we need to base our society on knowledge rather than on old-style factory production, you now have a very clear picture about where to start putting these stock phrases into action.
Happy hacking!
Saturday, December 29, 2012
The tragedy of the common internet
Often when discussing file sharing, the notion of the tragedy of the commons is invoked. Often as an argument against it - the one person having access to most of human culture is no big deal, but as more and more entities gain this access, stranger and stranger things start to happen. In the end, tragedy occurs.
For those of you who for whatever reason might want a reminder of what the tragedy of the commons is all about, here's the gist of it: imagine a public space, open for everyone. Any one person using it won't make that much difference, so the implicit imperative for any one parcitular person is to use it to the max. Which, eventually, leads to a critical mass of people using it to the max. Which, in turn, ends in tragedy, as the usefulness of this public space is diminished or even destroyed, due to everyone overusing this public space.
The implied relevance to the issue of file sharing being that even though the one person engaging in it can be written off as collateral damage, the effect of the multitude of people doing it is a radical shift in consumer behavior that will destroy the common good. Which, according to this logic, means that any and all cultural activities that also happens to be a commercial enterprise will in effect shrivel and die because no one is willing to pay for anything anymore.
Why pay for anything when everything is free, right?
Wrong. Evidently wrong, too. My proof for this claim is as follows: the internet exists.
This is the entirety of my claim. The alpha, omega and all in between. Nothing added, nothing subtracted - this is it, in sum total.
So, what does it mean that the internet exists? And, moreover, that it has existed for so long that those born on this side of the millennium bug don't know what a world without it looks like?
It means that the fact that people are still willing to pay for culture is a brutal argument against the validity of the invocation of the tragedy of the commons. Because - and be sure to notice my stressing of this point - even though most of what's produced in terms of commercial culture is available for free these days, people still pay for it. And, moreover: if you ask them about it, they will most likely tell you that this is the right and proper thing to do.
Soo.
Can we get past this moot point now, and get back to the business at hand? There's a whole lot of business going on on this internet thingy, after all, and I dare say that most of it has something to do with culture -
For those of you who for whatever reason might want a reminder of what the tragedy of the commons is all about, here's the gist of it: imagine a public space, open for everyone. Any one person using it won't make that much difference, so the implicit imperative for any one parcitular person is to use it to the max. Which, eventually, leads to a critical mass of people using it to the max. Which, in turn, ends in tragedy, as the usefulness of this public space is diminished or even destroyed, due to everyone overusing this public space.
The implied relevance to the issue of file sharing being that even though the one person engaging in it can be written off as collateral damage, the effect of the multitude of people doing it is a radical shift in consumer behavior that will destroy the common good. Which, according to this logic, means that any and all cultural activities that also happens to be a commercial enterprise will in effect shrivel and die because no one is willing to pay for anything anymore.
Why pay for anything when everything is free, right?
Wrong. Evidently wrong, too. My proof for this claim is as follows: the internet exists.
This is the entirety of my claim. The alpha, omega and all in between. Nothing added, nothing subtracted - this is it, in sum total.
So, what does it mean that the internet exists? And, moreover, that it has existed for so long that those born on this side of the millennium bug don't know what a world without it looks like?
It means that the fact that people are still willing to pay for culture is a brutal argument against the validity of the invocation of the tragedy of the commons. Because - and be sure to notice my stressing of this point - even though most of what's produced in terms of commercial culture is available for free these days, people still pay for it. And, moreover: if you ask them about it, they will most likely tell you that this is the right and proper thing to do.
Soo.
Can we get past this moot point now, and get back to the business at hand? There's a whole lot of business going on on this internet thingy, after all, and I dare say that most of it has something to do with culture -
Friday, December 21, 2012
Why end the world when we can change it?
So. The world ends today.
Or, well. It doesn't. But I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in having a blast bonding with people in the hyperbolic and utterly ironic preparations for this supposed end of the world. I've talked to people I rarely talk to otherwise, met some new people, and on the whole been on a socializing binge.
Good times, these endtimes.
It's hard not to think of the saying that it is easier to envision the end of the world than a minor change to the modes of production. That it is easier for everything to end than to change.
Somehow, this idea lingers, even though the world as we know it has changed radically over the last years. You already know the list - the Soviet Union fell, the internet arose, cell phones happened and so on and so forth. In short, we moved from a world based on the active (and, to be sure, passive) restrictions on what people could communicate, to one based on the fact that these restrictions do no longer apply.
This is a brutal change in both the means and the modes of production. And most of us remember living through it, and can still feel obligated to know the answer to questions such as: when was the first time you used a computer?
We've been there, done that, got the scars. And remember the time before that.
Despite this brutal revolution in the ways to go about things, it still seems like it's easier to imagine the end of the world than a minor change to the state of things.
Why is this the hegemonical thought? And how do we remix this into something more realistic?
Or, well. It doesn't. But I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in having a blast bonding with people in the hyperbolic and utterly ironic preparations for this supposed end of the world. I've talked to people I rarely talk to otherwise, met some new people, and on the whole been on a socializing binge.
Good times, these endtimes.
It's hard not to think of the saying that it is easier to envision the end of the world than a minor change to the modes of production. That it is easier for everything to end than to change.
Somehow, this idea lingers, even though the world as we know it has changed radically over the last years. You already know the list - the Soviet Union fell, the internet arose, cell phones happened and so on and so forth. In short, we moved from a world based on the active (and, to be sure, passive) restrictions on what people could communicate, to one based on the fact that these restrictions do no longer apply.
This is a brutal change in both the means and the modes of production. And most of us remember living through it, and can still feel obligated to know the answer to questions such as: when was the first time you used a computer?
We've been there, done that, got the scars. And remember the time before that.
Despite this brutal revolution in the ways to go about things, it still seems like it's easier to imagine the end of the world than a minor change to the state of things.
Why is this the hegemonical thought? And how do we remix this into something more realistic?
Sunday, December 9, 2012
The political divide: socially mediated opinionmaking and you
It would seem there is something of a catch 22 when it comes to politics. Or, rather, the relationship between citizens and their politicians.
On the one hand, we have citizens who actively want their politicians to make and take stances against the current order of things. There is no shortage of the sentiment that the political process is too slow, and that it would do well to speed things up in terms of getting things done. The citizens are waiting for the people to do things, to make a difference – to be the difference, as it were.
On the other hand, we have politicians who feel that they cannot act because they perceive a lack of public interest in a certain issue. While they might be ever so ready to bring out the political big guns when the time is right, they won't do it as long as the public is less than storming the proverbial barricades.
Which is the whole crux of the catch. The one hand waits for the other, and vice versa.
Clearly, this is a less than optimal situation.
The reasons for things being this way are many. One of the biggest one being that citizens and politicians live in different lifeworlds. Citizens see the issues in the abstract concreteness of ordinary life, where a problem is a problem. Politicians see the issues in the concrete abstractness of the political world, where problems are divided between separate political entities and where you have to navigate the intricate webs of institutional inertia in order to get things done.
To take this to the streets: if there is a pot hole somewhere, the ordinary person will think to himself that it needs to be fixed. The pathway from problem to solution is as straight as the street itself. The politician, on the other hand, will think about which department or institution that has authority over street fixing, what their budget is, what their current order of business is and who one should talk to in order to get them to get to work. And, moreover, how one should talk to that person.
Not quite the straight and narrow.
The thing here is that the politician way of thinking isn't wrong. The world we live in is governed by an intricate network of institutions, and being able to navigate these is a necessity for getting things done. Short of a major governmental overhaul, we are stuck with the institutional setup we have, and knowing who, where and why is a large step in the process of making change.
Needless to say, the sentiment of the people and the political situation within and among these networks of governmental bodies - don't always align. There may be a gaping hole in the street, but if the deciding body is in uproar over something completely different, the chances for fixing that hole are slim. And, conversely, that very same body might be on the cusp on launching the biggest street fixing campaign ever, eagerly awaiting a popular support that is nowhere to be seen - support it would need in order to amend the budget.
I believe you're seeing where I'm going with this. The divide between the public will and the necessities of actually existing institutions.
There are of course moments where these two align perfectly. I would be committing a great sin if I didn't mention ACTA in this context. It is the one, best example of when the two worlds unite in singular action -when public opinion and institutional logic speak the same language.
For every such victory, there are thousands of losses happening in the dark. Not because they don't matter, but because it's hard to make complicated bureaucratic matters of brutal subtlety matter to those who do not know the first thing about the institutional makeup of their government.
Sometimes, the two worlds meet. More often than not, they don't. Remember Occupy.
If you happen do be thinking "but how does blogging relate to this", now is the time where you will get your answer. I propose, suggest and support the notion of the blogging politician. Not only because it brings them closer to their electorates, but also because it brings the intricate world of political necessity down to an understandable level. The networks of governmental organizations is not impossible to understand, it's just darned hard to get a grip on it when coming from the outside. (Especially for those who spend their lives doing the necessary hard work of the working people - not everyone reads up on constitutional theory after working eight hours in the factory.)
If the politician plays their blog right, they can invite the people to take appropriate action when the time is right - i.e. organizing demonstrations coinciding with important votes, building opinion before important sessions, those kinds of things.
Coordinating what happens inside with what happens outside, as it were.
What do you think about this? Is it something I should be pushing on the politicians I know - and, more importantly, something you would be willing to recommend to yours?
Do tell!
On the one hand, we have citizens who actively want their politicians to make and take stances against the current order of things. There is no shortage of the sentiment that the political process is too slow, and that it would do well to speed things up in terms of getting things done. The citizens are waiting for the people to do things, to make a difference – to be the difference, as it were.
On the other hand, we have politicians who feel that they cannot act because they perceive a lack of public interest in a certain issue. While they might be ever so ready to bring out the political big guns when the time is right, they won't do it as long as the public is less than storming the proverbial barricades.Which is the whole crux of the catch. The one hand waits for the other, and vice versa.
Clearly, this is a less than optimal situation.
The reasons for things being this way are many. One of the biggest one being that citizens and politicians live in different lifeworlds. Citizens see the issues in the abstract concreteness of ordinary life, where a problem is a problem. Politicians see the issues in the concrete abstractness of the political world, where problems are divided between separate political entities and where you have to navigate the intricate webs of institutional inertia in order to get things done.
To take this to the streets: if there is a pot hole somewhere, the ordinary person will think to himself that it needs to be fixed. The pathway from problem to solution is as straight as the street itself. The politician, on the other hand, will think about which department or institution that has authority over street fixing, what their budget is, what their current order of business is and who one should talk to in order to get them to get to work. And, moreover, how one should talk to that person.
Not quite the straight and narrow.
The thing here is that the politician way of thinking isn't wrong. The world we live in is governed by an intricate network of institutions, and being able to navigate these is a necessity for getting things done. Short of a major governmental overhaul, we are stuck with the institutional setup we have, and knowing who, where and why is a large step in the process of making change.
Needless to say, the sentiment of the people and the political situation within and among these networks of governmental bodies - don't always align. There may be a gaping hole in the street, but if the deciding body is in uproar over something completely different, the chances for fixing that hole are slim. And, conversely, that very same body might be on the cusp on launching the biggest street fixing campaign ever, eagerly awaiting a popular support that is nowhere to be seen - support it would need in order to amend the budget.
I believe you're seeing where I'm going with this. The divide between the public will and the necessities of actually existing institutions.
There are of course moments where these two align perfectly. I would be committing a great sin if I didn't mention ACTA in this context. It is the one, best example of when the two worlds unite in singular action -when public opinion and institutional logic speak the same language.
For every such victory, there are thousands of losses happening in the dark. Not because they don't matter, but because it's hard to make complicated bureaucratic matters of brutal subtlety matter to those who do not know the first thing about the institutional makeup of their government.
Sometimes, the two worlds meet. More often than not, they don't. Remember Occupy.If you happen do be thinking "but how does blogging relate to this", now is the time where you will get your answer. I propose, suggest and support the notion of the blogging politician. Not only because it brings them closer to their electorates, but also because it brings the intricate world of political necessity down to an understandable level. The networks of governmental organizations is not impossible to understand, it's just darned hard to get a grip on it when coming from the outside. (Especially for those who spend their lives doing the necessary hard work of the working people - not everyone reads up on constitutional theory after working eight hours in the factory.)
If the politician plays their blog right, they can invite the people to take appropriate action when the time is right - i.e. organizing demonstrations coinciding with important votes, building opinion before important sessions, those kinds of things.
Coordinating what happens inside with what happens outside, as it were.
What do you think about this? Is it something I should be pushing on the politicians I know - and, more importantly, something you would be willing to recommend to yours?
Do tell!
The right to link
Is it a crime to link to something?Some would say the answer is yes.
"Some", in this case, being the judicial system, which apparently is about to try a certain Barrett Brown for the crime of linking to certain information. If you want details on what, you can crime your way over it from here.
"Some" is also, believe it or not, the Swedish copyright law. It is in fact a crime to link to things, under certain conditions. Not because of malign intent, mind you, but because of something that is about to become very common in the years to come: changed circumstances.
You see, the relevant laws regarding this were written back in the early 1900s. As you may well know, things were different back then. The laws say that 1) copyright is automatically given to someone once they have created something, that 2) they have the right to choose when and how they make their creation public and that 3) to make something public without the creator's permission is not allowed.
Under the conditions of early 20th century, this was as good a copyright law as one could make. No fuss with paperwork, no fuss with different types of works, and in general less fuss than one would expect from copyright regulation. If you created something, you got the copyright to that thing, and that was that. Simple, plain and easy to understand.
Back in those days, the means of production were not quite what we know today. Whatever any one person could do was of limited scope, and couldn't in any relevant way threaten those who mass produced copyrighted works. If you typed out a whole book on your typewriter, you had to put in a lot of effort just to produce that one copy. If you copied a painting, you essentially had to paint it by hand, which again took a long time for that one copy. And so on and so forth - things took quite a while to do back then, and if one person did it it didn't really have an impact on the market as such.
Or, put another way: it's hard to set up a factory cranking out pirate goods by accident. You really needed to know what you were doing and do it on a large scale in order to be relevant for copyright law back then.
These laws are, by and large, still in force. And they produce strange results when they are applied to the current state of things. Linking to something, for instance, has been compared to making something available to the public, which (as we saw in 3 above) is a crime. There actually was a big case a while back where someone was charged for linking to an unencrypted access point for a digital television stream. The stream itself was unencrypted and open for anyone who knew it, and the one thing this guy did was to link to it - therefore making it (more) available to the public.
An extension of this line of reasoning is that it may, in fact, be illegal to tell someone the names of things. If you know the name of something, you can search for it in a search box, and the person who told you the name made the search results available to you. Absurd, yes, but laws don't have to make sense - they just have to cohere.
Again - this state of things is not due to malign intent. It's just the result of good lawmaking not quite remaining good in a society where people have weapons of mass productions in their homes.
You and I take our right to link for a given. But there are forces in the world out there trying to make it something less than given. Good legislation turned bad is one thing, and the interests behind the case of poor Barrett is another.
Let's keep this right a given. Let's keep fighting those things that tries to take this right away from us. With legislative reform where possible (the Swedish Pirate Party is hard at work on that), and through ever more awesome feats of cryptography where it isn't (Telecomix and others are hard at work on that).
Don't let the dead hand of history take away the most potent weapon you have: the right to talk to your fellow human beings. If we lose that, we lose everything.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Wifi ethnography
Every now and then, I check up on the status of wifi networks in and around my apartment. This for two reasons. The one being that I'm kind of lazy when it comes to moving files around, and if it can be done without me actually having to move actual things around, then I will prefer that option. The other being that it is interesting to see what kind of names people assign to their networks.
So far, two things has revealed themselves to me. One is that there's a definite increase in the number of networks around here. Two is that there is less randomness in the naming than one might expect.
There are, of course, the default names. The "we never bother to name our network, so now you know what router o mobile phone we use" names.
The name name. A name that's also a name. Sometimes combined with the above - especially when it comes to phones, where the resulting name is a variant of the [name] [device] formula.
The family names. The x family. Often with an added explanatory word, like "network". Just to make sure to both family and neighbor friends that it's indeed a network that is indeed belonging to the family.
The local entrepreneur, who uses their company name. (If they are smart about it, they don't bother with passwords. Free is good advertisement.)
The local wannabe hacker, with the leet skills and the üb3r1337 haxxor name.
The local real hacker, who comes around to ask you to please stop trying if you show up too many times in the logs.
And, of course, there's always IPREDIA. Which is shorthand for "yarr! welcome, pirate friend!". A clear example of how legislative efforts sometimes backfire into more of the unwanted behavior, and of countercultural reactions to perceived threats to their way of being. -
From the basis of this, I feel as if it might be warranted to suggest that there might be more to the naming of wifi networks than one might initially think. That there might be more things to say if one but takes the time to invest them with discourse.
Who's up for it? Who's with me in thinking that wifi ethnography is a thing?
So far, two things has revealed themselves to me. One is that there's a definite increase in the number of networks around here. Two is that there is less randomness in the naming than one might expect.There are, of course, the default names. The "we never bother to name our network, so now you know what router o mobile phone we use" names.
The name name. A name that's also a name. Sometimes combined with the above - especially when it comes to phones, where the resulting name is a variant of the [name] [device] formula.
The family names. The x family. Often with an added explanatory word, like "network". Just to make sure to both family and neighbor friends that it's indeed a network that is indeed belonging to the family.
The local entrepreneur, who uses their company name. (If they are smart about it, they don't bother with passwords. Free is good advertisement.)
The local wannabe hacker, with the leet skills and the üb3r1337 haxxor name.
The local real hacker, who comes around to ask you to please stop trying if you show up too many times in the logs.
And, of course, there's always IPREDIA. Which is shorthand for "yarr! welcome, pirate friend!". A clear example of how legislative efforts sometimes backfire into more of the unwanted behavior, and of countercultural reactions to perceived threats to their way of being. -
From the basis of this, I feel as if it might be warranted to suggest that there might be more to the naming of wifi networks than one might initially think. That there might be more things to say if one but takes the time to invest them with discourse.
Who's up for it? Who's with me in thinking that wifi ethnography is a thing?
Sunday, December 2, 2012
The theory of social media in practice
If you've seen the spoof on social media experts that the Onion recently made, then we share a certain thought space. If not, then by all means do go on and watch it. I'm going to refer to it later on, and it catches the general drift of a certain critique of social media experts that is all too common these days.
Go ahead. I'll wait until you return.
If you're more of a reader than a listener, then this article by Wasserman makes a fairly good job of explicating things in text form. Once again, I encourage you.
Are we on the same page? Good. Let's get down to business.
I do have to agree that most of what social media experts - both in terms of experts and "experts" - provide is old hat. Their ideas are, in fact, less new than one might imagine. The "experts" mostly copy found advice commonly occurring just about everywhere on the net these days, which may be curated in ever so efficient ways, but at the end of the day it's a slightly more advanced version of copy and paste. The experts, in their part, don't have anything new and original to say either.
This is where I will have to disagree with both the Onion and Wasserman. It's not that social media experts don't have anything to contribute to the world - on the contrary. It's just that just about everything they are saying was formulated back in the days of the ancient Greeks, and what the social media experts are doing is to apply the ancient wisdoms to the problems of today.
Not being new is not the same thing as not being useful.
Wasserman makes a case for the irrelevancy of social media expertise by pointing out a well known fact about consumers: they will crawl over broken glass in order to get a better deal. He may not have used those particular words, but a certain CEO of Ryan Air did. And as you might well know, the business model of Ryan Air is to make everything as difficult as possible for the consumer in order to make things cheaper. If anything can be outsourced to the consumer, it will be outsourced to the consumer - and for as long as the price is right, the consumers will remain consumers.
When it comes to a certain group of costumers, price is the one thing that matters. And, indeed, social media maneuvering won't make these people budge an inch in any one direction what so ever.
Enter Aristotle.
In his famous work on rhetoric, he goes on to define rhetoric as the art of finding the means of persuasion suitable to any situation. In some situations, these means are words and verbal actions. In others, it's a price tag.
Or, rephrased: sometimes, what you need is someone like the CEO of Ryan Air. Sometimes, a social media expert. Most times, you need both doing their separate things in parallel - the one making sure your business is competitive pricewise, the other making sure that those people who actually are affected by social media are affected in a positive way. So that both those with hard noses and those with sensitive browsers will take notice of you. And for the rest - well, if you can't make people pay attention, they're not going to pay anything else anyway.
As you can see, this is not a new insight. Aristotle has been around, so to speak, and while we may not want to take him at face value on all matters (things have changed somewhat over the last two thousand years), we do want to acknowledge that not everything is new under the sun. The rhetorical situation is still rhetorical, as it were.
Which does put those social media experts on the spot. If they don't provide anything new, what do they provide?
Mostly, something useful. Especially if an organization really don't know the first thing about being present on the internet, and needs someone to bootstrap them into existence. Even if what they are given is the most standardized and formulaic of unimaginative solutions, it's still way better than going about it blindly and hoping for the best. Sometimes, the most useful thing is also the least innovative.
Again, that difference between newness and usefulness makes itself known.
If there is to be made a case against social media experts - and, to be sure, the "experts" as well - then it is more fruitful to base it on the general lack of theoretical backing. There's a whole lot of running around in circles going on in social media circles, most of which could be avoided with a quick application of ancient Greeks. Yet the practitioners insist on reinventing wheels which the rest of the world has happily used for thousands of years.
I'm looking at you, dark social.
Social media experts need to be reminded that they are part of the same world as everything else, and that ancient wisdom proven through the ages has not simply disappeared only because internet phenomena such as lolcats has made an appearance. While there is much to be said about the workings of the discursive modes of production that enable lolcats to be a viable social strategy, these modes of discursive production were not invented by the internet, and the understanding of these should not be based on the assumption that they were.
In short, the whole notion of "it's all new, and the newer the better!" has to be replaced with something a tad bit more useful. Go back to basics, do your homework and read up on the Ancients. You'll be surprised about how much they really have to say about social media, once you really get to know them.
Like this.
Go ahead. I'll wait until you return.If you're more of a reader than a listener, then this article by Wasserman makes a fairly good job of explicating things in text form. Once again, I encourage you.
Are we on the same page? Good. Let's get down to business.
I do have to agree that most of what social media experts - both in terms of experts and "experts" - provide is old hat. Their ideas are, in fact, less new than one might imagine. The "experts" mostly copy found advice commonly occurring just about everywhere on the net these days, which may be curated in ever so efficient ways, but at the end of the day it's a slightly more advanced version of copy and paste. The experts, in their part, don't have anything new and original to say either.
This is where I will have to disagree with both the Onion and Wasserman. It's not that social media experts don't have anything to contribute to the world - on the contrary. It's just that just about everything they are saying was formulated back in the days of the ancient Greeks, and what the social media experts are doing is to apply the ancient wisdoms to the problems of today.
Not being new is not the same thing as not being useful.
Wasserman makes a case for the irrelevancy of social media expertise by pointing out a well known fact about consumers: they will crawl over broken glass in order to get a better deal. He may not have used those particular words, but a certain CEO of Ryan Air did. And as you might well know, the business model of Ryan Air is to make everything as difficult as possible for the consumer in order to make things cheaper. If anything can be outsourced to the consumer, it will be outsourced to the consumer - and for as long as the price is right, the consumers will remain consumers.
When it comes to a certain group of costumers, price is the one thing that matters. And, indeed, social media maneuvering won't make these people budge an inch in any one direction what so ever.
Enter Aristotle.In his famous work on rhetoric, he goes on to define rhetoric as the art of finding the means of persuasion suitable to any situation. In some situations, these means are words and verbal actions. In others, it's a price tag.
Or, rephrased: sometimes, what you need is someone like the CEO of Ryan Air. Sometimes, a social media expert. Most times, you need both doing their separate things in parallel - the one making sure your business is competitive pricewise, the other making sure that those people who actually are affected by social media are affected in a positive way. So that both those with hard noses and those with sensitive browsers will take notice of you. And for the rest - well, if you can't make people pay attention, they're not going to pay anything else anyway.
As you can see, this is not a new insight. Aristotle has been around, so to speak, and while we may not want to take him at face value on all matters (things have changed somewhat over the last two thousand years), we do want to acknowledge that not everything is new under the sun. The rhetorical situation is still rhetorical, as it were.
Which does put those social media experts on the spot. If they don't provide anything new, what do they provide?
Mostly, something useful. Especially if an organization really don't know the first thing about being present on the internet, and needs someone to bootstrap them into existence. Even if what they are given is the most standardized and formulaic of unimaginative solutions, it's still way better than going about it blindly and hoping for the best. Sometimes, the most useful thing is also the least innovative.
Again, that difference between newness and usefulness makes itself known.
If there is to be made a case against social media experts - and, to be sure, the "experts" as well - then it is more fruitful to base it on the general lack of theoretical backing. There's a whole lot of running around in circles going on in social media circles, most of which could be avoided with a quick application of ancient Greeks. Yet the practitioners insist on reinventing wheels which the rest of the world has happily used for thousands of years.
I'm looking at you, dark social.
Social media experts need to be reminded that they are part of the same world as everything else, and that ancient wisdom proven through the ages has not simply disappeared only because internet phenomena such as lolcats has made an appearance. While there is much to be said about the workings of the discursive modes of production that enable lolcats to be a viable social strategy, these modes of discursive production were not invented by the internet, and the understanding of these should not be based on the assumption that they were.
In short, the whole notion of "it's all new, and the newer the better!" has to be replaced with something a tad bit more useful. Go back to basics, do your homework and read up on the Ancients. You'll be surprised about how much they really have to say about social media, once you really get to know them.
Like this.
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