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P2P News Syndication?
Buggernut writes "According to an article at BBC, news may be the next major item to be passed around through P2P networks, thereby escaping the grasp of the censors' attempts to control the spread of forbidden information."
The problem is lack of attention. Censorship is a problem too, but there certainly are sources out there, albeit obscure ones, that cover all sorts of stuff that "mainstream" sources don't touch.
The problem is lack of attention and publicity. Mainstream sources cover mainstream things because that's what the mainstream wants: it's what sells. While stories are sometimes neglected due to their being taboo, I'd say the main obstacle is lack of interest. The stories may be taboo at CNN, but they're probably being covered elsewhere. It's just the elsewhere (Indymedia, foreign sources, what-have-you) is unpopular: people aren't interested.
A P2P news network might ironically solve that problem, though, as it would likely get a fair amount of press in and of itself.
Isn't this already happening in the world wide web? (which by the way is the first p2p system)
One might say that's not terribly different than what some news organizations already do.
GPG signing. Problem solved.
Wherever you go, there you are!
Problem is that I no longer trust the "trustworthy" news sources. CNN tries to sound balanced but just ends up repeating whatever the US administration said today. FOX is so absorbed in jingoist dogma that they repeat whatever the administration said today and then gush about how wonderful it is. ABC/CBS/NBC/whatever don't cover enough actual news to be worth noticing.
Honestly, for all their faults I'm finding weblogs of various sorts more directly valuable than TV news (too politically charged and beholden to advertisters to be truly objective) AND print news (too late, and too beholden to advertisers to rock the boat).
What we need is a system with PGP signatures. That way, a reporter can build a reputation over time. If a news article is signed by a source reporter that you trust, you can warrantedly more secure of its validity. Just ignore crap that is unsigned, be cautious with stuff from a newbie, and give as much credence as warranted from someone who hasn't steered you wrong in the past.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Equally, how does one know this "media sanctioned information" appearing on the T.V. screen is from a credible source rather than just placed in there by someone who made it up?
The whole reason why news works is because people trust newspapers. I know it's stupid, but there are people out there that trust FOX!
P2P news doesn't really seem to have that same trust value. Personally I am happy with the Guardian newspaper in the UK to generally get things right. It is their job to go out and read stories from around the world and present the facts to me in a way that I feel is relatively objective. I know they like (think it's their job) to screw the british government so I take that into account.
I can't see how p2p would be any better. I would just get a massive influx of information that I don't have time to sift through. News syndicates not only do the sifting job for us, but they hopefully do it in a trustworthy fashion.
But how does this reporter know the source is trustworthy? A real web of trust always has leaks..
With P2P you just have no clue what you are getting. It might be true, might not be. If you've seen the story before then you could be sure that it was true, but that would defeat the purpose of news- reading stories you haven't read before.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Anonymity is not the key though. I personally don't want my news reporters
to be anonymous. I want them to be accountable. A reputation tied to public keys
is what we need. I suppose an anonymous news reporter could eventually
build up a reputation as credible. That would be tough.
(The public key thing was discussed above, but seemed pertinent here.)
-- "It was as if the paint factories had decided to deal direct with the art galleries." - Thursday Next
I think the sins of the news media today are mostly ones of omission, rather than active misinformation.
Most news reporters still like to think of themselves as objective seekers of the truth - but they also know what is "appropriate" or "practical" to talk about and what "crosses the line". This is the real ghost in the machine - the unspoken areas of omission. They're often pretty critical to understanding context.
It's okay to read mainstream American or otherwise Atlanticist news. But don't read just it. That's how you fall victim to the propaganda. Read some news from other countries. Try reading some from India or Germany. The stuff's not poison people. And just because it says things that contradict what you hear on CNN and the BBC doesn't mean you should stop reading it just to keep your cognitive dissonance low. It was former CBS president Richard Savant who said:
"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have."
It's nice to have an alternative method of news, but I don't think you could believe anything sent in such a network. There is "NEWS" that people can run cars on water and aliens walk among us.
"Consider the source" means a lot when your trying to decide if a news story is believable. P2P removes the credibility. News will bubble to the top based on how many people share it.
P2P news will end up a worthless collection of lies and urban legends. Most of my family is already is part of such a network via email and no matter how many times I tell them otherwise they still spread the made up news stories, "HUGS" and prayers. I search out and refute almost every piece of crap my way, but no one sends that out 20 times to everyone they now.
What news needs is peer review and feedback. P2P in it's current form doesn't offer anything like that. You would end up with worthless POP news that people bother to keep and share. News needs a reputation system.
At least now I can see something comes from Fox News and know it's likely distorted, on P2P there is no trust at all.
I don't consider any news source trustworthy. I simply have to gather the "facts" from as many news sources as possible and then formulate an opinion. I may watch Fox (although I try to avoid doing so at all costs, the people I live with love it and I hear it in passing), CNN, and BBC News; read the Guardian, Le Monde, NY Times and The Daily Mail or Telegraph (UK) in order to examine an issue.
Each newspaper has an agenda. American journalism aims to be objective which makes for dull reading. I love to read the Guardian because of its blatantly left-leaning nature, for example. The agenda is always there, even in so-called "objective" news sources, it is just not as blatant.
Critical reporting often mandates anonymity, especially in oppressive countries like Iran, China and Italy. I like to think that anonymous writers could post news and opinions online and build up a reputation and be heard, like Locke and Demosthenes in "Ender's Game".
However, Freenet is not necessarily about anonymity. People could still post on Freenet using their full names and sign cryptographically. An equally important part of Freenet is censorship resistance. Once something has been posted, it cannot be taken offline as long as there is demand for the content. That's information availability, a cornerstone of democracy.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
And the BBC... anyone remember that Linux thing they did while back. I don't really, but I remember it was so error ridden that it made Slashdot. The problem with the "trustworthy-ness" idea is two fold. 1) Respected reporters can plain get it wrong. 2) Respected news media companies get bought out. 3) People lie.
It's better than the current system, but it's really just a collectively identifying gossip mill. And while it'll be useful, the masses probably won't know about anyway.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
"CNN tries to sound balanced but just ends up repeating whatever the US administration said today."
That's because what the US administration says is news. CNN doesn't claim it's the truth. They are only reporting what is said.
Actually most things in the western world are censored, we just dont realise it. Look at Diebold coverage in the general media - its almost zero, when it should be making the front page of every paper and be the hot topic of every channel. Beef scares and wardrobe malfunctions get more coverage than a nations most basic principles and beliefs and you dont call that censorship? And dont get me started on tv censorship, in America you cant even say shit on tv. yes the western world might seem more open than other parts but we have just as much censorship - its just more advanced - instead of killing people for having some political leaflets, we have a nice advanced hierachy of various people paying eachother off for not mentioning things.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I like to think that anonymous writers could post news and opinions online and build up a reputation and be heard, like Locke and Demosthenes in "Ender's Game".
Please recall that the two characters you mentioned were consummate liars whose only agenda was to gain power for themselves. An agenda they advanced, incidentally, by manipulating the masses by telling them what they wanted to hear.
That's information availability, a cornerstone of democracy.
The big challenge facing democracy in the 21st century is not the availability of information. If we've learned anything in the past fifty years, it's that information is like sand: it finds its way in through cracks and openings that were far too small to see, and fills your tent, your bunk, and your boots. The ubiquity of information is not the problem.
The problem is thought. Have you ever heard the expression, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing?" It's true, it's true. To be partially informed and to think yourself wise is far, far worse than to be ignorant and to know it.
When you figure out how to write a computer program that makes people aware of the limits of their knowledge, please let me know. That'd be something worth having.
I write in my journal
Which raises the issue, what is censored now? Anything? I can already visit Al Jazeera to see all the bloody babies and anti Bush views I might care to read.
The barrier to individuals broadcasting news isn't censorship, it's credibility. The problem is, no one person's view constitutes "the news," even if they were there firsthand. Reporting news well requires access to the places and key figures, that's what news agencies offer.
yes, yes, the technology is interesting and so forth, but to me p2p news doesn't look much like progress. look: 1. people get news from anyone who happens (or claims) to know slightly more than they do. news is decentralized, not to say anarchic. 2. paid messengers and town criers bring news to specific people or groups. news is partly centralized, and targeted. 3. the newspaper, radio, tv are invented and anyone can buy relatively cheap, reliable (as far as they know) information. news is centralized. 4. the internet comes along, people think centralized news is censored and decide to distribute news via p2p, which is. . . 1. people getting news from anyone who happens (or claims) to know slightly more than they do.
You can photoshop images, but it's far more difficult to photoshop a video of some Iraqi kid videotaping a bunch of americans blowing the crap out of their parents
But it IS pretty easy to just clip off the beginning where the parents shot at the Americans. I'm just saying. This rush to trust "anyone else" is a foolish thing. To each their own I guess.
Great! Now teenagers and old ladies can get sued by another content industry for sharing.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.