The Death of the Web

Is the internet dead? Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff’s article The Web is Dead. Long Live The Internet. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1 says the web as we knew it is. Both explain how the sleeker face of the web (apps, smart phones, IPads) are steering the web towards capitalistic use and further opportunity for profit. Our post-modern condition seems to be primarily concerned with material matters, validation and maximum efficiency. Portable web devices allow for all of these things: we can buy online with various apps created by food, clothing and service companies at the touch of an icon, we can update our thoughts, locations and actions on-the-go and we can do all of this while at work, school and just about anywhere else in a matter of seconds (maximum efficiency.) Gone are the days where we need to sit down and take time to access what the web has to offer…we carry it around everywhere with us. Anderson describes the “new web” as such:

‘It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule. And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen). The fact that it’s easier for companies to make money on these platforms only cements the trend. Producers and consumers agree: The Web is not the culmination of the digital revolution.’

As technology evolves, it seems the focus is marketing to an ever-growing crowd of multi-taskers who want a service brought to them-in their own environment. The article goes on to explain that the new web has no room for Google or Wikipedia where open-source reigns. When we look at advertising of a product, we realise there is a “buyer beware;” when we read online we need to realise there is now a “reader beware” with information we come across. Although there is so much more information available to us, it allows for more false information to become available. When something is published in an academic journal or a textbook, or an accredited book, it goes through so many hands to assure accuracy. One less level would be news websites and newspapers and magazines, these are usually accurate but we need to take with a grain of salt. Websites however, need to be taken with lots of salt.   What makes open source web so phenomenal is also what is detrimental to it. Non-discriminating, no restrictions, free distribution; these allow the democratization of enterprise and distribution but it could also threaten to kill free information and knowledge in the good sense of those words if we continue to let people with money change the information to their benefit. I don’t think the open-source model is dying, I think the dynamics are changing. New interfaces allows for more corporate participation-and the facilitation of buying online pushes us to think of the new web in a business sense rather than its other qualities.

There should be walls put up preventing this from happening, but it is also our role as consumers to be aware that these things are going on, and understand that information is not necessarily truth, especially on the web. A website should be a base, like Wikipedia is used as a base, for information and further research. Things like check book journalism (paying money to obtain the most accurate information or quote) or paying money to change information online are not morally right-but we know they are done. Because of the advent of open-source, everyone can be a journalist, a historian, a political critic and so on which is great but the web doesn't discriminate against good or bad and truthful or untruthful information: anything goes. It is said that due to this, “truth becomes a commodity.” It is a service we can pay for, or pay to make untruthful to a benefit or detriment to an someone or something . This puts a price on information, which is quite the opposite of what open source web is supposed to be all about: free flow of information. Is this where Web 2.0 is headed? Does the “new” web operate solely by a commercial and promotional agenda? It only appears that way.

The Tao of Pirates

In the second chapter of Matt Mason’s book The Pirate’s Dilemma “The Tao of Pirates”, he examines the question: What is a pirate? With conflicting opinions about the benefits and harms of piracy (or as some like to call it, stealing) we must ask ourselves: how do we determine what is good piracy and what is bad piracy? Mason takes a clear standpoint in his novel, arguing that piracy will drive free culture, push towards innovation and democratize enterprise. We tend to think of piracy only in entertainment- but it has very clear benefits in many areas outside of this niche. A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted to an inventor for an assigned period of time which allows them to claim monetary gain from all uses of their product. Patency is useful in the sense that it protects intellectual property and makes sure that the right person gains from their hard work. I am going to focus on a certain problem that patents pose and some of the negative effects of piracy. Mason mentions a particular niche in which piracy is clearly important

“Medicine is an industry where the social benefits of piracy are clear, and the social costs of putting profit and intellectual property rights before people are horrifying.” (65)

This is true in the sense that Western drug companies are selling pharmaceuticals at such an inflamed price that it is impossible for people in developing countries to afford them, costing millions of lives. When the ingredients of drugs are available and slightly changed to create the same effect, scientists have been able to get around patent laws, creating generic drugs and selling them at a significantly lowered price, saving millions of lives. Registered drugs made from companies can be granted patents for up to twenty years; but what about non-registered medication in developing countries?  MAL, a pharmaceutical company, is only one amongst many that have placed a patent on nature, stealing from indigenous knowledge to create medication. Members of MAL visited a tribe in Peru, used indigenous ingredients and knowledge to develop pharmaceuticals and then later sued the tribe for violating the patent. This is classified under the term biopiracy. This is clearly wrong, but where is the line drawn?  We need to take an ethical perspective: this behaviour is clearly unethical according to several ethical perspectives except for one, moral legalism. It is legal and therefore it is moral. This seems to be the ethical perspective that large companies operate by when doing business. Clearly our laws need to be changed to prevent this type of stealing. But, it is difficult to determine what is stealing and what is not. I thought the best way to think about it is from a utilitarian point of view. But upon reconsidering this, I realized that by that rationale, it would probably be okay for MAL to steal from this small tribe since the medication probably did more good for people, and was only detrimental to the small tribe and the indigenous people it may have helped around the area. Biopiracy is being opposed by worldwide groups against corporations putting patents on seeds, genes, animals and humans. They are essentially stealing from farmers and indigenous people, creating what seems to be a global food and health crisis. However, piracy can be viewed in a different light of course. It is a great thing when scientists in India have been able to make generic drugs from the recipes found in western drugs made by pharmaceutical corporations and sell them at affordable costs, saving the lives of millions. This way, we avoid millions of unnecessary deaths.  There is a difference between biopiracy and finding indigenous ingredients in nature to create medicine without stealing the knowledge of locals and natives for profitable gain. Patents were designed to protect intellectual property, but loose laws allow for the patency of things that are not intellectual property-but global resources. Patenting is useful in the sense that it protects vital information from being used in detrimental ways. Piracy allows for anyone to take information and innovate. There needs to be policies put into place about how people can use information, what parts of the information and for what ends. Just like we essentially give government and corporate parties permission to “spy” on us by showing them that we condone the behaviour, the same thing is happening with piracy. Companies are fighting back. Some forms of piracy create innovation, creativity and democratize the flow of resources while other forms are globally detrimental. The Pirate’s dilemma is a moral one, and a very difficult one. Piracy can be justified from different perspectives-but this is because we are generalizing. We need to take the time to look at specifics and understand what their benefits and harms are, what their potential is in terms of finding ways to use other’s intellectual property for the greater good and what is used for the greater bad.
We need to find a way for individuals and corporate conglomerates to share knowledge that is useful to one another (for the GOOD) while making sure the right people are accurately compensated and/or recognized for their work. This is probably a difficult task, but we have no shortage of resources.

Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance

In Anders Albrechtslund’s article Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance,found here online: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2142/1949,

 he examines the rise in surveillance, lack of privacy online and outside and who is to be held accountable. Surveillance on the internet seems to be actively participated in and surveillance on the streets appears to be approved because of the notion that it is only there for our safety; to protect us. The cause and effect and this “creeper” culture can be traced back to our own behaviour and frequent failure to read “the fine print.” Albrechtslund explains the extent of what is available to us to see

“This entails an interesting new relation between cyberspace and physical places, which adds to the already extended information infrastructure of Web 2.0. Online social networking sites already give insights into users’ thoughts (blogging software), their likes (social bookmarking services), what music they are listening to (e.g., Last.fm), and the practice of geotagging means sharing information about the whereabouts of the user and, in some cases, the people in the vicinity of the user.”

Despite being an obvious threat, upon deeper analisys, online surveillance cannot be thought of as a larger threat than surveillance "in the real world."  Firstly because they can be thought of so much as 2 separate things-the online world and the "real" world are the same in this circumstance, especially when considering our personal profiles and activity. Secondly because online we do it knowingly: we are participators in the surveillance of others and being under surveillance-and we know it. There is a certain expectance that we have a right to some privacy in our lives. Placing cameras in public spaces might not always be solely in the interest of catching criminals but to keep tabs on what is going on within an area. Just like online, the captured images from these street cameras can be incriminating. The mere fact that we accept being photographed and filmed while going about our everyday activities (online OR outside) makes it seem like we do not value privacy and this is worrisome because where does it stop? Where is an acceptable place to put a camera and where is not? Right now there seems to be no clear rules. There is an idea that surveillance has positive social benefits; we see this in commercials telling us that cameras on the streets will help fight crime.  This constant knowledge of what the other is thinking or doing creates a sort of weird relationship between the cyber world and the physical world.

“When you operate under this watchful eye, your entire life becomes meaningless.”

In John Berger’s novel Ways of Seeing , which can be read online here: http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=DuEOAAAAQAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA107&dq=how+we+look+at+ones+we+love&ots=XbOAKGHLYT&sig=vpO1vFFxy6I2fo51uKb8RN9SUC0#v=onepage&q&f=false

he explains that “women act, men appear.” What he means by this, and he was writing about past historical periods, was that traditionally men were the dominant viewers, and women acted as they would like to be seen in their eyes. He went on to explain that while men act, women are constantly thinking of how they appear when they act. He uses the example of a weeping woman at her father’s funeral. While she sincerely feels grief for her deceased father, she is thinking about what her weeping looks like to the men she knows are watching her. The way in which we are living now, under this watchful eye, people are no longer acting, they are appearing. Always.

“In public opinion and academia, many people have voiced concern and amazement about the openness, or perhaps thoughtlessness, expressed in the behavior of social networking site’s users. As Jon Callas, chief security officer at the encryption software maker, PGP, puts it: “I am continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves” (quoted in Marks, 2006).”

I’m going to draw on a personal experience. I spent 2 years travelling and one thing I observed in so many people was that when they were at a historical site, a museum, beautiful landscape scenery or out at a party, they were seldom experiencing the moment. People were snapping photos constantly without stopping to look at anything. They were continuously thinking about their Facebook albums and missing the experience, making it meaningless. As soon as I would go into the hostel, I would see everyone lining up for the three computers and immediately uploading their day’s worth of activities for everyone to view and comment on. At the time I found it completely ludicrous but when I returned I observed that this is the norm in our society. People seem to have a need for validation. We are no longer passive lookers. We actively participate in others lives and at the same time give them permission to participate in ours.

We express our concern about being “lurked” and “creeped” but we condone it at the same time. We get what we encourage. There are many complaints about “infotainment” news taking up most of our magazines and newspapers but this is what sells; which means this is what we encourage. This surveillance epidemic cannot fully be blamed on companies and governments but also on us because we show them that it’s ok, we encourage this behaviour.  This raises another issue: accountability. We are now accountable for things we would never be accountable for in the past. There used to be a separation between people’s social, work, education and love life but now these lines are blurred. This allows for disciplinary action for activities happening outside the previous boundaries of these formerly separate entities. Soon it will not only be our university, spouses or bosses punishing us but the government and the law. This is something that should be thought through before submitting any personal information to the web and we should always know what we are getting into i.e. reading the fine print and re-reading the fine-print when the terms of use change (because they frequently do.)

Search 2.0

In Michael Zimmer’s article The Externalities of Search 2.0: The Emerging Privacy Threat when the Drive for the Perfect Search Engine meets Web 2.0, available online here: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2136/1944,

 he explores the search for “the perfect search engine”, one that will organize our results to tailor to the individual performing the search. Although its utility makes a lot of sense, the means of getting this information to create this “perfect search engine” are troubling. By capturing the information that flows across the platforms of Web 2.0, search engines, primarily Google, are able to create personalized, tailored and ideal results when we make a search query online. That said, look how far the search engine has come. I remember when no matter what you tried to search, it could be something as straightforward as “cat breeders”, somehow the search engine would come up with a list of pornography as a result…which was only relevant for a select few people. This will never happen when the perfect search engine meets Web 2.0-we will always get results applicable to us. But kind of like those days, we will now be given our results up front in the way they would like them to be presented, wrapped up with a bow, telling us this is the result we wanted.  Zimmer describes what Web 2.0 is primarily built upon, and how this encourages us to allow our personal information to become public.

“Much of Web 2.0 is based upon – indeed built upon – increased personal information flows online. Inherent in Web 2.0 evangelism is an overall faith in the logic of the networked masses to be vehicle to provide meaning to your otherwise solitary existence – to give up your information to the Web, and allow various services, APIs, and communities capture, process, and mashup your information flows to make them more useful, more social, and more meaningful."

This monitoring of online social and intellectual activities poses a serious threat to our privacy. It reminds me of that saying “there’s no free lunch;” we may get the results we want faster but we’re giving up a lot in return. Zimmer divides his article into three parts: the perfect search, the perfect reach and the perfect recall. He explains that in order for the perfect search engine to function ideally it must have “perfect reach” and “perfect recall.”

“The result is Search 2.0, a powerful Web search information infrastructure that promises to provide more extensive and relevant search results and information management services to users. But not without a price. Inherent in the Search 2.0 infrastructure are two key externalities: one, the deterioration of what I call “privacy via obscurity” of one’s personal information online; and two, the concentrated surveillance, capture, and aggregation of one’s online intellectual and social activities by a single provider.”

This somewhat compromises our freedom. When we are given the results that a search engine presumes we want, we will be more inclined to click on these results rather than do some further research and stumble upon some potentially interesting information in the process of finding our own perfect result. As a result, our intellectual searches and queries become the intellectual searches and queries of the companies and corporations putting certain links forward, furthering the dynamic of us getting all of our information fed to us through the filter of certain groups and individuals. Yes, we benefit from faster, better, tailored results that fit what our likes and interests are-but they benefit from gathering our personal information, and once again, making a profit off of it. With the perfect reach, they will be able to better place the ads of their sponsoring companies so that they are viewed by the best possible market audience, increasing both the company’s sales as well as their revenue from them. With this service, we also get lazy. It encourages us to search incoherently and make decisions based on the results. If we look at this from an ethical perspective with a utilitarian point of view-its utility is not beneficial to the greatest amount of people and therefore this practice is immoral. This is also not for the greater good of society, as it is presented. We may be more inclined to accept all the information we are given since it has been presented to us as the most useful, relevant information available. This is troubling as well since we should always be sceptical of images and information found on the web because of the technology available to alter and change those things-potentially altering and changing our perspective on the world. The things we read and see are powerful-I’m not sure we want someone dictating what we will be seeing and reading.  

Loser Generated Content: From Participation to Exploitation

Loser Generated Content: From Participation to Exploitation, found here online: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2141/1948, an article written by Soren Mark Peterson, highlights the ways in which corporations can “piggyback” on our labour as well as how they use us as a means to an end in order to sell.  In the introduction of the article, Peterson explains the topics he will be covering.

“The examples in this paper outline two different strategies within the architecture of exploitation that capitalism can benefit from:

1.      Through a distributed architecture of participation, companies can piggyback on user generated content by archiving it and making interfaces, or using other strategies such as Google’s AdSense program.

2.      Designing platforms for user generated content, such as Youtube, Flickr, Myspace and Facebook.”

A valid example of this is in Clay Shirky's video, found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu7ZpWecIS8  he refers to two different platforms (Lolcats and Ushahidi) that were very effective in demonstrating the extremes of what our potential is with "cognitive surplus." He described people as "rational self-maximizing actors"; which probably means that we are largely using our time to add to these platforms in ways that will enhance and add pleasure to our own lives, for our own entertainment and for the entertainment of those viewing and using the same platform. Not to say that this is a bad thing, but the web space could be enhanced by adding more of a different type of value. He emphasized twice in his speech that there is 1 trillion hours a year of participatory value to be added to these platforms and that that time and the participators will only grow. Using this time to put the cognitive surplus into projects with civic value, such as Ushahidi and many other projects that are going on could completely change the way in which we see and talk about the web. Imagine if we could turn the focus from online ads from companies to ads for causes, civic action, political and social awareness....If more of the web's space was taken up by these projects, it would be inevitable that we would see them and read them just as it is inevitable that we read and see product and service advertisements now. This could mean for example that more people would be informed about their government and therefore more inclined to vote, which is huge considering our generation has the lowest number of voters ever.

“The demography of the people I interviewed places them on the left side of the political spectrum; they are at times directly anti–corporate/capitalist in the pictures they upload and their comments. Nonetheless, most of them do not see a problem in having such close ties with a particular company. This can only be explained with reference to the immense joy and pleasure they get out of sharing photos online. The huge amount of work that goes into each personal site is paid back in an affective currency: the joy and significance these sites bring to their users.”

Numerous blogs, for example, are dedicated to anti-establishment causes; but operating on the platforms of the establishment they may just be up against. In our effort to have our voice heard and put out ideas of our own, we essentially pay companies (by generating revenue through advertising and hits to their sites) to submit the fruits of our labour out into the world-and it doesn’t seem to bother the majority of people using these platforms. There is something about interactive sites that ground us to them and make it harder and harder to walk away: the content. If we cannot take all of our hard work with us elsewhere, why would we leave? Even though we’ve put so much in, because we’ve submitted it to this website that is not completely open-source because it does not allow us to take our material, we accept that essentially they own our work and will continue to own our work until we are ready to walk away from it, letting them keep it.

“It is when the technological infrastructure and design of these sites is combined with capitalism that the architecture begins to oscillate between exploitation and participation.”

The commercial face that has been put onto these websites allows us to continue to participate, but threatens exploitation of our work. When I was thinking about Chapter 5 of Vincent Mosco’s book ‘When Old Myths Were New: The Never Ending Story’, I wrote that the myths surrounding web 2.0 are not entirely false, they just highlight the best aspects. This is reinforced in Petersen’s point-the potential we have with the current freedoms we are given allow for change. We literally have the power to inform people enough for them to want to change their vote when deciding what kind of government will run their country. Yet, is this what is going to happen? Although we are aware of these possibilities it seems many of us prefer to spend our time creating our own version of music videos. Not that this isn’t a valid creative outlet; it’s actually quite amazing… but it’s not the limit.