Slashdot Mirror
'An Apology for the Internet -- from the People Who Built It' (nymag.com)
"Those who designed our digital world are aghast at what they created," argues a new article in New York Magazine titled "The Internet Apologizes".
Today, the most dire warnings are coming from the heart of Silicon Valley itself. The man who oversaw the creation of the original iPhone believes the device he helped build is too addictive. The inventor of the World Wide Web fears his creation is being "weaponized." Even Sean Parker, Facebook's first president, has blasted social media as a dangerous form of psychological manipulation. "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains," he lamented recently...
The internet's original sin, as these programmers and investors and CEOs make clear, was its business model. To keep the internet free -- while becoming richer, faster, than anyone in history -- the technological elite needed something to attract billions of users to the ads they were selling. And that something, it turns out, was outrage. As Jaron Lanier, a pioneer in virtual reality, points out, anger is the emotion most effective at driving "engagement" -- which also makes it, in a market for attention, the most profitable one. By creating a self-perpetuating loop of shock and recrimination, social media further polarized what had already seemed, during the Obama years, an impossibly and irredeemably polarized country... What we're left with are increasingly divided populations of resentful users, now joined in their collective outrage by Silicon Valley visionaries no longer in control of the platforms they built.
Lanier adds that "despite all the warnings, we just walked right into it and created mass behavior-modification regimes out of our digital networks." Sean Parker, the first president of Facebook, is even quoted as saying that a social-validation feedback loop is "exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors, creators -- it's me, it's Mark [Zuckerberg], it's Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it's all of these people -- understood this consciously. And we did it anyway."
The article includes quotes from Richard Stallman, arguing that data privacy isn't the problem. "The problem is that these companies are collecting data about you, period. We shouldn't let them do that. The data that is collected will be abused..." He later adds that "We need a law that requires every system to be designed in a way that achieves its basic goal with the least possible collection of data... No company is so important that its existence justifies setting up a police state."
The article proposes hypothetical solutions. "Could a subscription model reorient the internet's incentives, valuing user experience over ad-driven outrage? Could smart regulations provide greater data security? Or should we break up these new monopolies entirely in the hope that fostering more competition would give consumers more options?" Some argue that the Communications Decency Act of 1996 shields internet companies from all consequences for bad actors -- de-incentivizing the need to address them -- and Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, thinks the solution is new legislation. "The government is going to have to be involved. You do it exactly the same way you regulated the cigarette industry. Technology has addictive qualities that we have to address, and product designers are working to make those products more addictive. We need to rein that back."
The internet's original sin, as these programmers and investors and CEOs make clear, was its business model. To keep the internet free -- while becoming richer, faster, than anyone in history -- the technological elite needed something to attract billions of users to the ads they were selling. And that something, it turns out, was outrage. As Jaron Lanier, a pioneer in virtual reality, points out, anger is the emotion most effective at driving "engagement" -- which also makes it, in a market for attention, the most profitable one. By creating a self-perpetuating loop of shock and recrimination, social media further polarized what had already seemed, during the Obama years, an impossibly and irredeemably polarized country... What we're left with are increasingly divided populations of resentful users, now joined in their collective outrage by Silicon Valley visionaries no longer in control of the platforms they built.
Lanier adds that "despite all the warnings, we just walked right into it and created mass behavior-modification regimes out of our digital networks." Sean Parker, the first president of Facebook, is even quoted as saying that a social-validation feedback loop is "exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors, creators -- it's me, it's Mark [Zuckerberg], it's Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it's all of these people -- understood this consciously. And we did it anyway."
The article includes quotes from Richard Stallman, arguing that data privacy isn't the problem. "The problem is that these companies are collecting data about you, period. We shouldn't let them do that. The data that is collected will be abused..." He later adds that "We need a law that requires every system to be designed in a way that achieves its basic goal with the least possible collection of data... No company is so important that its existence justifies setting up a police state."
The article proposes hypothetical solutions. "Could a subscription model reorient the internet's incentives, valuing user experience over ad-driven outrage? Could smart regulations provide greater data security? Or should we break up these new monopolies entirely in the hope that fostering more competition would give consumers more options?" Some argue that the Communications Decency Act of 1996 shields internet companies from all consequences for bad actors -- de-incentivizing the need to address them -- and Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, thinks the solution is new legislation. "The government is going to have to be involved. You do it exactly the same way you regulated the cigarette industry. Technology has addictive qualities that we have to address, and product designers are working to make those products more addictive. We need to rein that back."
already got 'em. use 'em.
They don't invent shit, they didn't even contribute anything to the development of the internet after it was created beyond invasive advertising, spyware, and a host of idiotic JavaScript frameworks/anti-patterns.
This is the reason why trolls and SJWs exist. It's why nobody can say anything, no matter how innocuous or how much it's made clear that it's just an opinion, without someone picking it apart.
I used to really enjoy having discussions with people on BBSes. When I first had internet access back in the late 80s, I really enjoyed having discussion there too. As time went on, the internet gradually became a more hostile place where civilised discussion mostly ceased and people only try to insult, one up or vilify other people. It's at the point where I very rarely bother starting or joining conversations because I know it's going to become an endless chain of negativity and I don't feel like I have the energy or enthusiasm to deal with it any more.
I'll call it. This very post is going to kick off that kind of chain.
"Ethan Zuckerman, MIT media scholar. Invented the pop-up ad."
This immediately came to mind:
"My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament."
A liberal is one who is willing to apologize for not foreseeing something, then changing as a result to try and build something better over time.
A conservative is someone who, when faced with the disgrace of Nixon, chooses to wait a while, then select the next person as someone even LESS likely to apologize, while conducting larger and larger crimes each time.
As a result, conservatives get power - then proceed to prove that they can't govern, but never apologize, but instead shrink back each time to plan to do the same thing, but worse each time.
For further reference, libertarians/communists simply label all others as insufficiently libertarian/communist, and function as conservatives in terms of never apologizing, since their ideals are never tested as true or false from their viewpoint - since no one is as libertarian/communist as they want them to be. And all failures only "prove" that not exactly matching their ideals is the cause of failure.
The iPhone comment is highly disingenuous to the point of self aggrandizement. He wants to sell you more so he's saying we made a highly addictive product and in reverse psychology he is saying buy more.
The guy that proposed subscription models as the answer is even more so off the mark as his will result in some super rich entities that collect massive amounts of data (like Facebook does now) while lesser entities struggle. That's massively disillusioned.
The only solution is to start businesses that consult and train consumers to implement tools and procedures to stop the collection in its tracks. Not for selling to businesses that collect but to the consumer gaining support services to dead-end collection at their internal network.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
We saw many of the people who worked on the Manhattan project lament the uses of what they invented. It is not the tool we should regret but the choice of application. Cookies were designed with a valid and good application in mind, the fact that they have been severely perverted to serve the dark side is not the fault of the creator. Samuel Colt is not responsible when some nut job today shoots people, nor are the inventors of the car at fault when some drunk asshole runs someone over.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
We have a technically illiterate public. To a degree that illiteracy has been enabled by the nature of the technology we build, where basic concepts like "where does your data reside" are obscured to line the pockets of some companies like Google and Face Book.
Much like civics, the way to preserve the long term freedom and health of the internet is by having a population capable of making good choices. The population cannot do that if it is technically illiterate.
That does not mean we need a society of programmers, of course not. But we do need a society of people who are able to think about their choices in a way that's more insightful than "that's a picture of a kitty cat, I should click on it because it is cute". We need thinking about centralization, about data ownership, about censorship and control, about preserving openness and freedom. We need ability to tie the concepts to concrete choices and actions.
Without widespread technically literacy the internet is doomed, no matter what regulations are passed. And whose regulations anyway? The US? China? Saudis?
Really?
Last I looked, lawmaking is at least as habit-forming, if not more so, than "social validation" or any of the other alleged sins of the net.
Hyperlinking already existed by the time Tim Berners-Lee re-invented for it the THIRD time.
Hyperlinked was demoed first in 1968, 1987, and last in 1993 according to Alan Kay - Normal Considered Harmful
* 1968 Mother of All Demos
* 1987 Hypercard
* 1993 Mosaic
--
"Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists stand on each other's toes." -- John Cook
Sean, if you really meant it, and lamented the monster you created, you would disassociate every last dime of the billions your monster made you.
Or at the very least, spend every last dime, every last breath, trying to put it back in the bottle with appropriate legislation.
till then, you're just a pontificating jester on a golden throng earned in position of all the ideals you spout.
Did Al Gore apologize? /s
The Internet, as an idea, and for the most part is still amazing.
The scum crawling out of the woodworks to index/monetize every click and hover in a browser? Not so much.
What else is new?
Things were fine back before normal people invaded our utopia...
This reads like misdirection news. This is "big centralized corp"'s issue not the Internet's, the Internet is not inherently evil, the Internet does not inherently set out to exploit your information and mislead you. But big corp and advertising does.
This is just a new lesson the general public has to learn given the relatively new possibility of disseminating their personal information in massive quantities, they have to learn not to automatically give it to big shiny companies and trust them with it. I'm not give facebook a pass - i think they are disgusting and always have, but it's also the nature of that business so it's kind of inevitable.
It was said once, if we are able to talk about a problem, we already know the solution. Humanity has been through a lot worse. People are already going off the grid more and more. It's a cycle.
I expect the coming decade to be far less focused on consumer stuff like curved phone screens and (sorry but have to say it) VR, and more on fundamental research while said consumers work on regaining sanity in their everyday lives. Or, in case of Millennials, experiencing it for the first time.
Please, don't ruin everything that is great about the net because a vocal minority has no damn self control. It seems the same people that have been blowing off a decade of warnings have suddenly decided we were right all along, and now they need to make a few power moves to save face.
Please guys, enjoy your expensive coffee, your avocado toast, and your 6 figure salaries while they last, but don't bring the rest of us down with you when the chickens finally come home to roost. Believe it or not, even though YOU'VE BECOME ADDICTED to your own supply, the majority of us have been quietly avoiding the dumpster-fire that is social media. You don't hear us because we are not playing. Please don't invite governments to "fix" whats not broken. Fix yourselves.
Go outside. I hear the weather is nice in CA.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
and you're just a designer. As for 'Weaponized' internet, when I was a lad they called it propaganda. It hasn't changed. It hasn't even gotten easier.
Meanwhile the internet is doing one truly great thing: eliminating the concept of mysteries. Yeah, the baby boomer's don't get it, and even a lot of my gen, but my kid does. My kid knows that there is literally nothing in this world that is magic. Nothing that isn't a google search away from at least an _attempt_ at a scientific explanation. And at this point anything anyone who isn't a Steven Hawkins grade physicist can''t understand is pretty well explained. Tide goes in, tide goes out. It's a google search away.
More than anything else the end of superstition and ignorance is going to fix humanity. The only risk is that somebody who benefits from ignorance will put a stop to it all. But as long as that doesn't happen then folks are just plain going to get less and less dumb until they stop allowing the kind of dark age crap that's been going on since the Romans fell.
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Sean Parker, Facebook's first president, has blasted social media as a dangerous form of psychological manipulation
Well, it is. It feeds off social anxiety and insecurity on the part of its users. It keeps them coming back to reaffirm their positions relative to their peers and to feel like they're more socially differentiated and therefore more important than they really are.
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, thinks the solution is new legislation.
Now this is funny as hell since they profit by pushing marketing, SaaS, social media, and other rubbish onto the network.
The only solution is to start businesses that consult and train consumers to implement tools and procedures to stop the collection in its tracks. Not for selling to businesses that collect but to the consumer gaining support services to dead-end collection at their internal network.
That's not particularly likely; if nothing else, I'd expect those businesses to eventually get suborned by those making money off of collecting personal data. I'd suggest legally treating personal data as a form of personal property--and have it be one which you need explicit, specific consent to collect & use, and possibly flat-out ban sales to third parties without at least an actual money payment to the person(s) to whom the data belongs. Require the payment be a non-negligible percent cut of the sale.
Have these rules apply to both civil and criminal aspects--after all, if you're stealing somebody's property...
A few big players will tend to dominate any arena, that is just what happens. Let's take one activy that ought to be incorruptible - Yoga. Originally a way of achieving spiritual enlightenment and a healthy body, yoga is now one of the best methods for separating women from cash. In other words, give people any tool and they will find a way to either make money off it or kill someone. Don't blame the inventors, there is no way you can stop business being dicks.
...enough businesses realize they've been sold a bill of good by their ad agencies and that they're not getting their money's worth for everything they're spending on web ads?
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Since when has it been necessary to absolve people of their own agency and self-responsibility?
It's not the fault of those who invented the Internet. They simply created one of the most comprehensive data sharing mediums to-date.
It isn't their fault that a raft of other companies and governments usurped it, gamified, propaganzied and turned it into crack.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Stallman is quite confused. A "police state" is one that imposes its will on the people via laws. If someone wants to start a company like Facebook and consumers decide to use that company's services in exchange for giving up personal information and being tracked, only a police state would prevent that voluntary arrangement. I have virtually no footprint on Facebook because my reluctance to let them track me exceeds my desire to use their services. However, why should the government pass a law that prevents those that feel otherwise from acting on their desires?
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
is that people act on them, even when they're wrong (and yes, opinions can be wrong. It was the opinion of our founding fathers that Slavery was either good or at least tolerable).
In the last 20 years we've seen a lot of pretty opinions previously thought too barbaric to make a comeback gaining traction. We have a national judicial nominee who refused to go on record that Brown vs Board of education was right. Our last president supported torture and our current one thinks it's OK to murder civilians. In light of all this I think a reasonable person would start getting nervous at things that are 'only an opinion'.
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Then Albert Gore should apologize...
But as usual, the real problems are only rising to the top of the attention of the general populace because the abuses have become so commonplace and so extreme.
Still a ways to go before there is a serious pushback though.
And this is just 1 on a pretty large list of live social experiments we have going too, I expect the next few decades to be pretty interesting.
Warmongers vs. pacifists, fascists vs. communists, polarization is nothing new. It's not so long ago that Europe still had honest to god anarchists bombing shit ...
They are simply dreamers who think progress is inevitable and as such the world now has to be a better place and any significant ideological clash like in the bad old days should be impossible. Anyone with opinions different from the liberal norm must have had their mind distorted by the evil ad chasing social media. Everything is sun shine and getting better. Except global warming of course ... that's the one catastrophe you are allowed to see coming.
Unfortunately white genocide, peak everything and (regional) overpopulation are bearing down on us as well. Some of us feel kind of upset about it, we'd feel upset about it without the internet too. Dark times ahead.
It's fashionable nowadays to bemoan the state of whatever. They did the same thing back when Gutenburg started churning out porn on his printing press. They did the same when TV came out.
Give it up, this isn't really that important.
It's GLOBAL and our laws don't apply to other countries.
All of the other clowns in the article's car were responsible for creating one variety or another of so-called "social media" - which is a mere subset of the vast collection of resources known as the Internet, rather than being the thing itself. Social media (very much including the zombified remains of Slashdot) has, in fact, evolved into something of a plague. It didn't have to be that way, but the Zuckerbergs of the world chose to focus on monetizing their platforms, rather than managing them for the benefit of their users - so money talked and social responsibility walked, instead.
So, here we are, our privacy compromised beyond recovery, our public forums awash in trolls and manipulators, and our society increasingly polarized and enraged - all in the name of ad revenue.
It's not the Internet that's broken, folks. It's social media. Let's not conflate the two ...
Check out my novel.
...invented the Internet. (The only person who comes close is Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the *World-Wide Web", not the Internet.
things generally were awful before the scientific method took over. We called it the dark ages.
And re-read my post please. It's not the collection of facts themselves or the access. It's how it's all used together. It's how people become inquisitive. Questioning. Unwilling to accept authority because when authority gives them answers it's so easy to fact check those answers. Both superstition and faith require a person to be willing to accept things without evidence. That's how you get authoritarianism. It's how you get people to do things without questioning. Instant access to knowlege does away with that. You can't tell me lighting is God's wrath when I can google what lighting is in 30 seconds. It makes it harder and harder to appeal to a higher power in order to justify blind obedience. That can't help but be a good thing.
Also, you're falling back on a classic scam: Science can't prove everything therefore magic. Here is a much better explanation than I ever could give. While I don't agree with everything on that guy's channel, his points regarding reason and evidence are well founded.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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Done your part for what? Hastening the heath death of the universe by hammering people's CPUs?
Yes, it's me, and fuck you.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
the recent adoption of DRM by W3C? Or the new standards by industry giants for mandatory biometric authentication? Or the increasing censorship and restriction on free speech on the web?
Internet was never perfect, but it definitely was better before it started turning people into ignorant a**holes, with no respect for any authority, and filled with hate for everything that differs from their person.
I don't know if the centralization of web service providers played a critical role in this: it's easy to argue that the mechanism of monetization of outrage has contributed a lot, but... on the other hand I don't know whether not having a Google or a Facebook would have made a difference.
Perhaps it's a matter of how people are wired, and having more chances of contact with other individuals automatically means having more chances for herd behaviour to surface.
It has also been shown that even the best amongst us have very near horizons with regards to the implications.
We've seen powerful demonstrations of social media behaviour revealing peoples' previously private and inners thoughts. In the information age, privacy is dead, information what's to be free. We can't change that, we can prevent it's weaponisation against us with regulations. We need to see something like EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) adopted world wide.
It's clear from their discussion and their list of internet architects that what they really mean is not just "internet" but "social media" or perhaps, "redefinition of 'internet' as an entertainment and advertising platform."
There's no need to smear (or overlook) the guys working in the 60s and 70s designing the internet.
We have pure mob rule now with all these keyboard warriors, especially the ones that normal society generally shunned or made fun of before there were all these computers and users connected. Kind of natural selection for societal influences.
Before if you were a loser, couldn't achieve any outward success, language proficiency, educational diligence, home ownership, functional family, healthy body, grooming standards, or address your body odor, society in general would, for the most part, just rightfully ignore your negative influences as meaningless.
Now, any keyboard warrior from any failed circumstance can band together with like-minded failed losers, post away rocks at some other successful person and try to destroy their life, as if they should be ashamed of being successful.
Because we don't really understand this phenomenon right now, especially among the non-uber techies unlike us that don't know the amplifying effect of millions of Internet trolls (human ones), these SJW keyboard warriors are winning and mob rule is fully underway.
We invented the Slashdot effect as a joke. We had those high-end corporate network admin passwords and browsed the weakest website referenced in a /. post, albeit with the coolest content, and saw those servers crash. We knew it was wrong, but we were only looking for good information. Now, the mob is non-techy losers hell-bent on making everyone as miserable as they are.
I don't want pure democracy where the fads and whims of the latest flash mob crowd can sweep into my life. I'm just fine with a transparent set of content filtering people protecting me from the mob, virtual or real.