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'It Is a Challenging Time for the Internet: We Must Not Let It Be Undermined' (internetsociety.org)
Andrew Sullivan, CEO and President of Internet Society, a decades old nonprofit organization which works on internet-related standards, education, access, and policy, writes: It is a challenging time for the Internet Society, because it is a challenging time for the Internet. For most of the Internet Society's history, the expansion and development of the Internet could be regarded as an obvious good. There were always those who simply opposed technological development. There were always those who wanted their own interests protected from the Internet. But Internet users historically benefited so much, so obviously, that skepticism about the value of the Internet itself was rare.
Things have changed. Every technology can be used for negative ends. The Internet still, plainly, brings gains in efficiency, convenience, and communications. Yet in the recent past, some of the negative uses have become apparent, which leads some people to ask whether the Internet is just too dangerous. This environment has produced a golden opportunity for those who always preferred a sanitized, tightly-controlled utility to the generative, empowering Internet. These forces claim that only national governments, treaties, laws, regulations, and monopolies can protect us from the problems we face. They do not want the extraordinary collaboration of the Internet. They think there is some mere political choice to be made between the Internet we have known on the one hand, and a tidy, regulated network on the other. If these forces are successful, we will all lose.
The Internet connects people because of its basic design. Each network that joins the Internet does its own thing, but together they are all richer and more reliable. A network of networks cannot be centrally controlled because it has no centre. This is not some accidental design choice we could alter: without this essential feature, we do not have the Internet at all. For that very reason, we -- all humanity -- must not let this technology be undermined. We must face, realistically, the challenges that the Internet produces for us all; but we must face them collaboratively and together. The Internet is for everyone, because only everyone can make the global network of networks.
Things have changed. Every technology can be used for negative ends. The Internet still, plainly, brings gains in efficiency, convenience, and communications. Yet in the recent past, some of the negative uses have become apparent, which leads some people to ask whether the Internet is just too dangerous. This environment has produced a golden opportunity for those who always preferred a sanitized, tightly-controlled utility to the generative, empowering Internet. These forces claim that only national governments, treaties, laws, regulations, and monopolies can protect us from the problems we face. They do not want the extraordinary collaboration of the Internet. They think there is some mere political choice to be made between the Internet we have known on the one hand, and a tidy, regulated network on the other. If these forces are successful, we will all lose.
The Internet connects people because of its basic design. Each network that joins the Internet does its own thing, but together they are all richer and more reliable. A network of networks cannot be centrally controlled because it has no centre. This is not some accidental design choice we could alter: without this essential feature, we do not have the Internet at all. For that very reason, we -- all humanity -- must not let this technology be undermined. We must face, realistically, the challenges that the Internet produces for us all; but we must face them collaboratively and together. The Internet is for everyone, because only everyone can make the global network of networks.
The internet is the source of all knowledge, true and false. We'd once thought that by giving people access to both in the marketplace of ideas, with no gatekeepers, the "true" would drive out the false.
We're now realizing, however, that this may not be the case. The false can drive out the true, because it can be crafted to play to people's wants and needs and prejudices.
This is a problem. Does it have a solution?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
A network of networks cannot be centrally controlled because it has no centre. This is not some accidental design choice we could alter
Irony is the "negative uses" in recent past are all due to _centralisation_, which is entirely the product of the commercialisation of the internet and not it's _design_ ... assuming "negative uses" is referring to targeted manipulation on facebook, but also widespread censorship particularly China, Egypt etc which is due to ISPs + government being able to pressure or outright control such entities.
The biggest threat is the anti-intelectualism movement.
There is a growing population who just doesn't trust the experts. Either because their finding conflict with their belief structure (such as Evolution vs Creationism), or will find that it demands changes to their lives (Global Warming), or from people realizing what they learned in 8th grade science isn't actually fully true.
Conspiracy theories are now trying to discredit almost all science. Flat Earthers, Moon Landing Hoax. Expert in fields are being ignored for bar room half drunk talking points...
The internet seems to be spreading this movement by repeating and making these points more complex filling with half hearted examples to fill their minds with doubt.
Now the intellectuals are not innocent either, they will often have opinion in fields that they are not experts in. Like this Jellomizer guy who keeps on posting on Slashdot in areas that he hasn't any experience in, but is relying on summaries of expert opinions and not being able to really defend such viewpoints.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Wow, that was a great satire of the ridiculous views of modern progressives!
The destruction of the internet has commenced with the censorship of certain political views and other information deemed too dangerous to allow the unwashed masses to see. Some of these things are known as "hate speech" and then there are the supposed dangerous things like data files that can be used to build an "undetectable" plastic gun. None of these things should be censored either by the government or the private enterprises that are doing it. But it is being done, it will probably grow in commonality, and in 10 - 20 years there will likely be no real political discussion on the net, nor the sorts of things "dangerous" that you see now. There are detailed videos on Youtube for making TATP, triacetone triperoxide, the terrorist's favorite explosive. The stuff is so unstable that you don't want to look at it funny or it will blow up. We had a female EOD Army member that picked up a terrorist's device made of TATP, didn't know what it was, and accidentally dropped it. It blew off both her arms. Should the making of such a thing be banned? One would think maybe, but there are so many other ways to commit mayhem it seems futile. The very familiar gasoline can be made to blow up and it is universally available. Should something's ability to be dangerous allow it to be banned? Such banning will, as it always does, work to the advantage of the powerful and lead more easily to the sort of slavery and genocide that some groups commit mostly out of fear of the other. No one can control fear, it is there and we have to deal with it, and courage sometimes runs short, and then terrible things can happen. Should the oppressed have this information to fight back with? I think yes. So, I am against banning any information or opinion on the internet.
For most of human history, deception and secrecy have been foundations of power. Secrecy: If people don't know what's going on, they can't oppose you. Deception: lying is extraordinarily powerful if you can't speak back. These two concepts have been used by elites for millennia to keep and maintain their power over us, and they like it that way.
Now, the internet is threatening to upset the whole apple cart. People can view with their own eyes and make their own decisions. These decisions are frequently not in the interests of our ruling class, so they must not be allowed to be discussed. Since the tech giants were recently elevated to ruling class stature, they are expected to do their part along with the media, and keep the masses under control. We can't have a free and open internet, because that would mean that our ruling classes might have to change. Brexit and Trump were clear warnings of what will continue to happen in the future if we don't change the internet from a free and open platform into a curated, walled garden where only approved opinions may be discussed.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
When AOL connected to the internet, the internet never recovered from the influx of stupidity, aka the Eternal September.
The only way to preserve sanity on the internet is to require some demonstration of basic competence, similar to how we require a license to fly an aircraft. We expect that you know what you are doing.
The internet we're getting is the one voted on by those AOL^h^h^hMyspace^h^h^h^h^h^h^hFacebook people who cared not a bit about the destruction they have wrought through their insistence on centralization and commercialization.
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
So the solution is to destroy the world.
No, maybe just slowing down the speed of lieght.
Or switching to skirts.
It became exceptionally apparent to me in 2012 (jesus years) that the empowering aspect of "network of networks" was toast. Specifically, Google, including its chief internet evangelist and so called 'father of the internet' Vint Cerf, failed to defend the importance of the ability for ordinary users to host servers at home under the protection of Network Neutrality. In addition an active duty (afaik) US 'Navy Information Warfare Officer' 'shouted down' my arguments with 'doublespeak' here on slashdot by both simultaneously agreeing with everything I had argued about network neutrality to the fcc in a 53 page complaint against google, but ALSO implied that trying to compete with slashdot itself was something that just "OUGHT NOT BE DONE". Pure bullshit.
The game is over. In our heart of hearts we always knew the powers that be would eventually stop being clueless, and instead learn, adapt, and adjust. They have. OTOH a relative of mine once defended Germany's censorship (blocked commercial sales?, whatever it was it expired a few years back) of Hitler's Mein Kampf(sp?). The argument was that if the racist supremecists had equal access to free speech, they would ultimately succeed with genocide. It's not a view of humanity and free speech I agree with, but I accept how it has disempowered the internet generally.
https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7522219498.pdf
We swallowed asymmetric lines long time ago. Which basically means we accepted to consume more than we offer. It took me more than 10 years of participating on the Internet (I'm purposefully not using the phrase "using" Internet), to come to the conclusion that it's as important, if not more important what you offer than what you consume. It's time not only to restore "Net Neutrality" but also ban ISP-level NATs, port filtering and asymmetric links. Restricting and throttling uploads is restricting free speech. Want to listen what we say? It's cheap. Want to say something? Gonna cost you more than you can pay.
“We must not let it be undermined”
Wide spread censoring - Check
Limited access in rural areas - Check
Subscribers held captive by the communications cabals - Check
Tainted targeted search results-Check
Oversight organization headed by industry lobbyist - check
FCC actively stomping out competition and user rights - Check
Undermined? oops, too late.
...that is doing the undermining. Insert eyeroll emoji here:
You mean the fake news about Fake News. The deranged conspiracy theory that Putin knew years in advance that a failed game show host could be president, and set out to get him elected by spending a few thousand dollars on Twitter trolls in a $9 billion election.
Are you stupid? The entire purpose of the media narrative I'm criticizing is to excuse Hillary's loss to a failed game show host, and establishing censorship so the next Hillary will win.
I can't be arsed to find the source but a wiser person than me opined:
- Liberals believe people are intrinsically good, and that the environment around them makes them bad - whether that's society, the government, corporations, etc somehow they are pressured into doing the wrong thing when their basic nature is to do the "right" thing.
- Conservatives believe that people are intrinsically bad, and that people are prevented from exercising their base instincts & compelled to make better choices by society - whether that compulsion is fear, financial, social, or religious pressures, for example.
The fretting about "what the internet should have been" or that we somehow missed the Utopia we should have gotten relies exclusively on that former view, while that reality of the result more or less confirms the latter: that we're little more than deeply-tribal hairless apes, who when out from supervision, generally want to whack off, fling shit at anyone we can call "our enemies" and watch cat videos / "Ow my balls" 24/7.
Greater internet dickwad theory: it's really a thing, but if you think about it explains a lot of behaviors wherever humans gain some anonymity - not just the internet, but their cars, or as a citizen of a massive city.
https://knowyourmeme.com/photo... (thank you Penny Arcade)
-Styopa
Sounds like they're asking for Libertarianism - small amounts of government to maximize the potential of people rather than to ensure maximum safety. We pay private companies for the roads (ISPs) ,we're responsible for our own protection or hire someone to protect us.
Russiagaters have precisely as much evidence to back up their ideas as the Birthers, Chem Trailers, Lunar Conspiracy Theorists and Flat-Earthers do for theirs. But at least those fuckwits weren't desperately trying to start WWIII.
Pro tip: assertions, accusations and pleas that have nothing to do with Russiagate are not evidence.
You mean the fake news about Fake News. The deranged conspiracy theory that Putin knew years in advance that a failed game show host could be president, and set out to get him elected by spending a few thousand dollars on Twitter trolls in a $9 billion election.
Yep, that's the one, a ridiculous conspiracy theory thrown out to discredit the criminal investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. You know, the one that Trump isn't even denying any more. He's switched from "it didn't happen" to "I didn't know about it" to "it wasn't illegal". I guess the next logical step is a Nixon style "It's not illegal if the president does it".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Fake news is a lot older than the presidency of Donald Trump.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
FTFY. It's not people who learned a damned thing about Iraq claiming that that Putin is such a master chess player. One that he started grooming a lecherous businessman between one of his several bankruptcies to be president, yet completely unable to anticipate the blowback. Oh, and that genius Putin was dumb enough to collude with someone as dumb as Trump, which means the NSA/CIA/FBI would know, and so too would have President Hillary. Who had the election in the bag until she simultaneously slapped her base in the face while not bothering to campaign in a third of the country.
It's alllllll Russiagaters.
Which it isn't, if you're referring to the meeting between Junior and the Russian lobbyist who offered to give dirt on the Clintons. Which didn't actually give any dirt to the Trump campaign, but said lobbyist met Fusion GPS founder both before and after going to Trump Tower. You know, the same law firm behind the Steele Dossier. There's also more dembot swiftboating here, as the Clinton camp was perfectly happy accepting dirt on Trump from Ukrainians.
Pointing out democratic hypocrisy is invariably met with "she lost, get over it" or "that's whatabboutery". Tough cookies. Either you want Hillary indicted for collusion and actually paying foreign intelligence agents to swing an election (see Steele Dossier again), plus money laundering for the Hillary Victory Fund, or you're a partisan hack.
Yeah, sure - if there was no break in at the Watergate hotel, no secret tapes recorded in the Oval Office, and no Saturday Night Massacre. Just an unhinged conspiracy theory from Democrats and never-Nixon Republicans that Nixon was a crook.
Another plot hole: why would Russia try to interfere in an election were both parties have been virulently anti-Russian for over a century. Bush tore up the ABM treaty and ringed Russia with missile "defense" systems that would allow the US a higher chance of launching a first-strike and surviving the counter-attack. Obama overthrew a democracy on Russia's border, starting bringing it into NATO and had the largest number of troops in eastern Europe since WWII. To contain Russia's "aggression".
You guys have as much evidence as the Birthers and Chem Trailers have to back up their nutjob theories. But at least those wackos weren't trying to start WWIII.