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Like Democracy, the Web Needs To Be Defended
climenole tips a great article by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in Scientific American. Quoting:
"The Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles and because thousands of individuals, universities and companies have worked, both independently and together as part of the World Wide Web Consortium, to expand its capabilities based on those principles. The Web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. Some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments — totalitarian and democratic alike — are monitoring people's online habits, endangering important human rights. If we, the Web's users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want."
"As an evolved system that facilitates the propagation and security of the underlying principles of democracy, the Web needs to be defended."
'competition' ?
this is like saying 'is one world really the best thing ? lets break it up into smaller parts'. or, saying 'is one huge global market is a good thing ? lets break it to smaller parts'.
its stupid. human civilization has been trying to achieve planetary scale on everything. it would be beyond moronic to revert back, when a state of that is reached in some technology ; namely, information exchange.
hey, while we are at it, why dont we go back to feudalism ? at least, there can be competition in between the lords.
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I dislike the analogy between "large social networking sites walling off your data" and net neutrality infringement/censorship/monitoring. Walled gardens are a perfectly acceptable consequence of a FREE web; net neutrality infringement is the opposite. Would you complain if your
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
nothing will happen until after it's too late.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
He mentions the idea that some ISPs are considering a plan where they only deliver content from their site. That's not Web access. Anybody who buys that is not on the web. And that's their own lookout.
When it comes to democracy, you can lead the horse to water, but it's gotta drink all by itself. You can yell, scream, cajole, etc. but in the end voters will make whatever decisions they want to make. They may be mind-numbingly stupid, but mind-numbing stupidity is a part of democracy. I wish it weren't, but the alternative is some mechanism of excluding people, and there's no fair way to do that. Whoever sets up the standards is the dictator.
As a threat to democracy, call me when they start forbidding plain Web access to users willing to pay a reasonable sum for it. The state technology means that you can get the kind of access needed to read (but not watch) the news for a nominal sum practically anywhere. I'd like to see that improved; the price of access in the US is higher than it should be. But it's not a threat to democracy.
Well said. However, I would add that there is a flip side to the equation.
The internet has ALSO allowed for information sharing which has until now been impossible at the rates, speed and depth currently available. There are channels of information and networked communication now instantly available which allow for a very high level of awareness for those seeking it. Citizen journalism is nothing to sneeze at, and being able to hash out subjects on forums like this one, having people call my bullshit and point me at truth has been invaluable to me. The web offers itself as a fantastic crucible if you want to use it that way. But I agree; the pull of mind-wasting entertainment on the Web IS ridiculously strong.
Though, personal choice in how the medium is used is important to consider. I don't know that people would be any different without it. In fact, in terms of strict biological/behavioral interference I'd put more blame on cell phones and WiFi devices than the content for numbing awareness and fuzzing people out; for making the poor choices easier to feel satisfied with.
The medium IS the message, a wise man once observed.
-FL
You laugh, but there are a surprisingly large number of people who really don't believe in democracy. And a lot of them aren't in China.
Many of them think that they are part of the privileged minority. Others think they have a good chance of becoming part of the privileged minority and want to make sure they'll be on top when they get there. Others have been convinced that the privileged minority will improve the lives of the non-privileged majority. Others think that they need to be willing to sacrifice their democratic rights in order to keep the ideals that they believe in alive.
Heck, not even Socrates thought a democracy would yield just results (and in his case at least, he was probably right).
I am officially gone from
Your post is a little vague, but it appears that you're arguing that social networking sites shouldn't be allowed to "wall off." Signing up for a service on someone else's server and then demanding that they open up all their data to everyone else is silly. If you don't like their service, don't use the service. They're under no obligation to make sure everybody can read what you're submitting to their site. You act as if people are forced to use Facebook.
I'm not entirely sure the 'planetary scale' objective you're referring to is as great as you might thing. Separation of powers is very important if you want to maintain freedom and curb oppression. If you can't vote with your dollar or your ballot, you ought to be able to vote with your feet.
The important concept is openness, not uniqueness or monopoly. Nothing is more terrifying than planetary government for example... Because when that government goes bad (they all do at some point), you have nowhere else to go.
When you remove competition in an environment, you might be better off on the short term but the absolute best you can hope for on the long term is stagnation, and you're way more likely to get corruption and a system that preys on the people it is supposed to serve. This is true for standards, corporations, governments, religions or just about any other system.
Mind the frickin' laser...
some person's private information is NOT the resource of the site that stores it. a person's private information belongs to that person alone. there can be no other argument to that.
Facebook doesn't operate on wishes and thin air. Their server farms are paid for with the understanding that they will use and exploit the information you give them to make money. It's not "your private information" after that point...you sold it to pay Facebook for the service they provide to you.
The Internet is an infrastructure. People have figured out a long time ago that infrastructure is not something where you want people to create competing markets. That merely results in huge inefficiencies as duplication and underutilization abounds.
Furthermore, the Internet is ALREADY an network of networks. Hence the "Inter" in Internet. No need to build multiple Internets,unless you have some specific reasons why you don't want to hook up to the rest of the world - in which case, you build an Intranet.
Remember folks - free markets are never really free, and more competition is not always the answer.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.