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Infamous French Hacker Calls Internet a "Digital Shantytown" (medium.com)
An anonymous reader writes: French hacker and security expert Anthony Zboralski calls social media networks a "digital shantytown" in his most recent blogpost. While fellow members of hacker collective w00w00 have formed successful billion dollar startups, he claims that the rewards for creating content and use are unfair and suggests a better solution would be like the successful creation of land title for slum dwellers — partial ownership for users on social media.
He's arguing for gay tranny hooker blowjobs on the intertubes.
I'm fairly certain that it's an analogy fail, similar to "the Internet is a series of tubes."
I'm as lost as you and the summary only confused me more.
Phew, at least it's upgraded from Internet = AOL
What the hell is this submission about?
Just another variation on the communist/socialist idea of taking property from the "rich" (in this case, Google, Facebook,etc) and giving it away to others.
He recognizes that the value of social media is entirely created by the people who use it. Twitter, for example, has created basically nothing, or at the very least their contribution is negligible next to that of their user base. They just declared that they were a place to talk, and people showed up. The practical concern that creating a place to talk that can reach the entire world costs a pretty substantial amount of money still places Twitter's meaningful contribution to its own value very, very low compared to that of the users. The users create the content, and this guy believes that such creation should entitle them to a reward more substantial than gold star stickers. They should be able to make decisions about and profit from the platform they've made relevant.
I think he has a point. Most people (especially non-technical people) primarily only post and interact with others using sites owned by strangers (typically big companies). Just look at the URLs - is the domain is owned by someone other than the poster? If it is, then that other organization decides what you can do or not do. I've long owned my own domain, and I can post what I please on my webiste. If I want to move sites, I can just move hosting organization - the URLs come with me, because I own the domain. I don't think the problem is the existence of big companies at all - the problem is the difficulty of exiting. I don't mind others hosting my material as long as I can leave. If you can't practically leave, then you're no longer in control. Currently it's impractical always own the domain, but even in those cases, it's worth considering the exit cost. For example, git makes it *easier* to move to other hosting organizations (though by no means trivial).
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
It threw me a little too. The metaphore is about building on land you don't own. The post is about not owning the content you post on social media sites. That's my interpretation, at least.
It's about 95 percent bs. That answer your question? His argument is as stupid as saying that because you eat at a restaurant, you should have a say in it and/or a cut of the profits. Success has many parents, but failure is an orphan, and he thinks that users have a claim on someone else's kids.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
In Pale Moon, belua.com comes up with a totally blank page for me, even in a clean profile with no extensions active and with a working Flash plugin installed. However, it does load in Vivaldi. That would suggest an incompatibility with at least some versions of Firefox.
Moving towards Internet *ownership* for all citizens, (as opposed to mere *access*), is an intriguing concept to be sure. However, perhaps publicity for the idea ought to have been delayed until the basic infrastructure for promoting it was a little better developed. For the site to fulfill its implied mandate, it needs to be universally accessible.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Internet != "social media"
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This guy is soooo right on!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have now been permanently banned from the following sites for mentioning well-sourced facts (unlike, say, a Noam Chomsky douchetard): rawstory.com --- disinfo.com --- commondreams.org --- boingboing.net --- seatteweekly.com --- thestranger.com --- every Canadian site out there, etc., etc. etc.
Whether this guy is a crackpot or not, imagine someone did set up a site like facebook that only took enough to run, allocating healthy fair market salaries to all the staff and instead it allocated all the extra billions to the users. Facebook wouldn't last very long.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I'm for that!
Or the fascist idea of taking money from the people and giving it to corporations to protect them from their own incompetence or prop up their profits, or the taking of someone's land for the benefit of a corporation or two sets of rules: one for the plebes and one for the corporations.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Why haven't I heard of you?
Sounds like a form of digital marxism, it's the workers (users) really creating the value not the owners of the means of production (website) and they're being exploited. Can't really say I agree though, if you want to create a non-profit cooperative Twitter clone by the members, for the members there's very few barriers to entry. If users in generally are happy to "donate" their speech in return for the service they get I'd call that a fair and voluntary exchange.
Actually I'm a bit surprised that such coops aren't more common on the Internet, like instead of dealing with commercial companies like Google (YouTube) and Spotify you could upload your music/videos to a website that'd offer it to the public with transparent terms and open books. You'd think for the people who actually want to make money and not just get a free service that'd be a better deal, but I guess it's hard to get the momentum going.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No, that is not Marxism, merely socio-economic views that Marxism shares with other systems. Marxism proposes a solution to that perceived problem with violent revolution and equal ownership for all. What is proposed here is closer to a profit-sharing or corporate-interest granting arrangements.
Exactly. Just set up a server and you become a rancher [and a Peer in the UK]. My internet possessions are so vast that I am called Duke.
Oh yeah? MY internet possessions are so fast that I have been named Chief of Apache! Attempts at emulation will fail as no one can beat the speed of my native code.
Facebook has about one billion monthly active users, pretty much guaranteeing that your "share" or "stock" in Facebook will be all but meaningless.
Facebook is peripheral to the lives of its users, not central. You will never see the level of involvement that ownership demands. That is where the "shantytown" analogy breaks down completely.
The geek applauds the changes in Slashdot. That doesn't necessarily translate into enough money to keep the site from going on the auction block again. Someone has to pay the light bill --- and that someone, whether subscriber, advertiser, or charitable foundation will have the final say on how the site is managed.
Attention is a currency. Right now Facebook, Google and co are making fortunes by converting our attention to cash through advertising. All we get in exchange is being tolerated on their properties as long as we are willing to be fed crappy adverts. We're not even consumers, we're like serfs of the medieval ages.
As it stands, both merchants (ad-buyers) and peasants (consumers) are being screwed, and the nobility (Google, FB & co) takes it all.
The merchants buy ads with cash hoping it will translate to sales so they get their money back from peasants, but it's a perverse system where the merchant that spends the most in ads gets to push and sell its product - however crappy it is. If you can't pay enough cash to nobility, they make your life as a merchant very difficult. Peasants have it even worse as they end up giving both attention to ads for (mostly crappy) stuff *and* money to the merchants (of which a good chunks end up with the nobility). It's a vicious circle where both merchants and peasants are indentured to the nobility which has no incentive in figuring out a better way for everyone.
But what if we got payed for our attention? What if there was a marketplace where we could signal what we think has value for other people and get payed if we where right? Suddenly we would have a system where true value would be recognized and where people who helped point out that value (by giving it attention first) would be rewarded. This seems like a much better system for both merchants and peasants but, of course, not for the current nobility.
Maybe it's time for the revolt of the serfs...
What is proposed here is closer to a profit-sharing or corporate-interest granting arrangements.
But if there is something to retain from Marx, it is the point that capitalists will not give up their profits without a fight. How can this proposed system prevail?
Not necessarily Marxism, French IP laws are marked more in favor of content creators. Droit D'Auteur is enshrined in French copyright laws and allows an author/artist significantly more control over works after they have been published than many other systems of IP law. It seems this person just wants such rights to be applied to social media content. Whether or not it workable is another question.
Google or Amazon could do it pretty easily. People would use Google+ if they were paid to..... maybe.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I wish I had more mod points. I would give you all of them.
And I suggest you read Das Kapital by Marx and Capital in the 21st Century by Piketty, before you get way too far up your own capitalistic ass.
Eat the rich.
"...partial ownership for users on social media."
So let me get this straight. The generation who gave up their privacy in order to demand that every online service be magically free is now somehow deserving of the title of business partner?
You've got to be fucking kidding me. You really can't get any more entitled than that.
Last time I checked, those on YouTube generating millions of hits are not paid in gold stars and emojis. No, those turning six figures making an ass out of themselves online for the sake of calling it entertainment are paid in cold hard cash doing that "job" and even making a career out of it. For a group who essentially invested nothing into starting the service that birthed them a career and demands that service be provided for free, perhaps we can kindly dispense with this bullshit notion of ownership.
No, at its core, fascism is an ideology that places the needs of "society" above the needs and liberties of individuals.
No, it isn't. It is a right-wing ideology. It places the needs of *some* individuals over the liberties of others. It specifically is at odds with socialist ideologies.
Infamous French Hacker Calls Internet a "Digital Shantytown"
French hacker and security expert Anthony Zboralski calls social media networks a "digital shantytown"
These two things are not the same thing.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It's about 95 percent bs. That answer your question? His argument is as stupid as saying that because you eat at a restaurant, you should have a say in it and/or a cut of the profits. Success has many parents, but failure is an orphan, and he thinks that users have a claim on someone else's kids.
When you not only eat at the restaurant but cook the food as well, perhaps he's right.
Do you even have a slashdot account, Dan?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
in America, "Marxism" and "communism" are synonyms, and they both mean "something I don't like and which i can't imagine myself profiteering from."
this conjunction is, of course, even worse than merely not liking something, which is why nothing changes. even rental of goods or services is called communist here sometimes, let alone lending or mutual cooperation.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Actually, it's called a co-operative and it is a very old business model.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
And at the same time people complain about 'greed'.. Well you either have sharing or you have greed.. Pick your poison.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Actually I'm a bit surprised that such coops aren't more common on the Internet, like instead of dealing with commercial companies like Google (YouTube) and Spotify you could upload your music/videos to a website that'd offer it to the public with transparent terms and open books. You'd think for the people who actually want to make money and not just get a free service that'd be a better deal, but I guess it's hard to get the momentum going.
Companies like facebook and twitter have the incentive to spend lots of money to get the momentum going as they can profit from all the free content afterwards. Look at the money google has spent on googleplus. I think part of the problem is that the way the internet currently works, facebook, twitter, etc... hold the world hostage once they have the critical mass. This critical mass acts as a moat that prevents people from leaving. Email providers have the same. They give you a "free" email address but you don't actually own it. It is on their domain and they control what you can and cannot do with it. What we really need is a way for people to get email addresses, facebook pages, etc... outside of walled gardens where if I wanted to transfer my social profile from facebook to googleplus that I can transfer it without giving up all my friends and contacts that I have amassed. This is similar to how phone numbers used to work where everytime you switched from one provider to another you lost your phone number. We now have number portability where we can take our number with us. It would be nice if we could somehow take our email address or our friends list with us when we changed providers.
I've had thoughts of something similar... more along the lines of a wall wart type device that is purchased totally configured. Plug it in and you're connected. Unplug it and you go dark. But same kind of connectivity idea.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.