[...] your heart is in the right place [...] Thanks for that. I also recognize what you say here while posting in another recent article. I would love nothing better than that proponents of internet freedom should be as enthusiastic (and willing to give money) as proponents of gun rights. Yet since the article was chiefly concerned with the industry, I directed my comment to the same. I really do dislike how the media speaks of "the gun lobby" and "the gun industry" in the same breath, as though the NRA didn't also represent a load of genuinely concerned citizens. Indeed, the NRA's attack ads against politicians as 'anti-gun' would be to little avail if voters didn't care about the issue. Yet as much as it will take out individual efforts to ensure that our first and fourth amendment rights remain secure (I guess I should also add fifth given the recent encryption question), it would also be a great boon if we had industry support. For the moment, freedom lovers, privacy advocates (at least from government intrusion) and many of the large internet companies have a shared interest in preserving freedom online. Would that all recognized common interests when they converge!
You're getting the surveillance efforts mixed up--perfectly understandable given how fast this stuff's been coming out. He's talking about PRISM, a program whereby the NSA is able to obtain "email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice over IP conversations, file transfers, login notifications and social networking details." This is what the apologists would have you think does not cover everyone. You're thinking of the related FISA requests to Verizon, which covers more or less everyone.
If you're concerned about customer pushback from this surveillance, support the EFF like the gun industry supports the NRA. May the EFF be as effective in defending our first and fourth amendment rights as the NRA is at going after any opposition to the second.
Or... sorry, the other way around. The NRA has been fantastically successful at defending second amendment rights. (Full disclosure--I'm a former member, having quit during the Bush years when they repeatedly failed to hold Republicans, esp. the president, accountable according to the same standards.) While many will say that the NRA's success is predicated on gun industry funds, this is only part of the story. They've 5 million members, regular citizens for the most part, who pay into their coffers. If everyone of these paid annual dues (many pay a larger lump sum to become lifetime members, but just to get an idea of what they might be working with) they'd end up with a gross income of 175 million. They've got the cash. They've got members who care passionately about gun rights. Above all, these members are happy to give to an organization that will generously support or strongly oppose a candidate on the basis of their treatment of the second amendment.
I've given money to the EFF and I hope you have as well. But I wonder what might be done to enhance its profile. With enough support for the EFF, could we turn it into the NRA (in terms of efficacy) for the first and fourth amendments?
Scenario: Subject A once saw a certain XKCD comic. Wanting more details about the comic, subject A searched the internet and found out it was about a website of which he had been ignorant called 4Chan. Thereupon, he clicked the link. Headline: Subject A, currently under government investigation, visited websites featuring racist and homophobic language, anti-government propaganda, and child pornography.
fact is, if you judge the things from the perspective that a criminal might benefit from it while a law abiding citizen has nothing to worry.. well, fuck, you might just as well throw every fucking amendment and right out of the window.
This is absolutely correct. The way the final problem of the summary is posed applies equally well to the fourth amendment.
The traditional rights embedded in the U.S. Bill of Rights are not based on questions like, 'does the existence of this right make the world a better place?' Rather, they proceed from the assumption that certain rights are the natural possession of free men and that the burden of proof is on government and civil society that any infringement of these rights should occur.
If a man asked to testify against himself, he is asked to do so when he is still presumed innocent of the crime for which he is asked to testify. (If he is already convicted of the crime, it is pointless to ask him to incriminate himself for one cannot be more guilty than guilty.) To try and compel a free and (presumed) innocent man to testify against himself is a disparagement of his freedom, an attempt to control his body as you would a criminal's, and denial of his innocence (for it assumes he no longer has rights over his body).
Of course, my response, that his whole line of questioning proceeds from the wrong premises, qualifies for his "fail". Well, if these are the kinds of answers he gets then maybe he really should reevaluate his lines of thinking. But, perhaps he just makes this demand because he is more clever than those who respond to him.
That's because you're a clever fellow, Thrasymachus. You knew very well that if you ask someone how much twelve is, and, as you ask, you warn him by saying "Don't tell me, man, that twelve is twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, for I won't accept such nonsense," then you'll see clearly, I think, that no one could answer a question framed like that. And if he said to you: "What you are saying, Thrasymachus, am I not to give any of the answers you mention, not even if twelve happens to be one of those things? I'm amazed do you want me to say something other than the truth? Or do you mean something else?" What answer would you give him?
No. Soldiers haven't been quartered yet. You have to punch all the amendments in you Bill of Rights appreciation card to qualify for a coup. The good news is that if the eleventh amendment is violated we qualify for a free hoagie.
Although the Panopticon prison design did not come to fruition during Bentham's time, it has been seen as an important development. It was invoked by Michel Foucault (in Discipline and Punish) as metaphor for modern “disciplinary” societies and their pervasive inclination to observe and normalise. “On the whole, therefore, one can speak of the formation of a disciplinary society in this movement that stretches from the enclosed disciplines, a sort of social 'quarantine', to an indefinitely generalizable mechanism of 'panopticism'.” The Panopticon is an ideal architectural figure of modern disciplinary power. The Panopticon creates a consciousness of permanent visibility as a form of power, where no bars, chains, and heavy locks are necessary for domination any more.
Civil rights and liberties, cannot exist without economic rights and liberties. The policies of ever increasing regulation and rules are not expanding our economic rights and liberties.
I concur. But that's not what I was talking about. Free-trade means something quite specific. To his credit, Paul (the younger although this applies equally to the elder) is critical of the so-called free trade agreements like NAFTA, which are really a kind of managed trade not structured for the benefit of most Americans. And I largely agree with him that truly free trade would be preferable to the bilateral and multilateral managed trade agreements we have. Even so, I think neither free trade nor managed trade agreements are best for every industry and they should be abhorred across the board if trading partners are not playing on a level field (currency manipulators, those who rely on slave labor/sweatshops, those who do not have at least somewhat similar environmental concerns, etc., all have a competitive advantage in our market and not for the common good). I would argue that treating free-trade as an unqualified good is less thoughtful policy than dogmatism.
Still, priorities. And, in spite of the irritating shenanigans with Chuck Hegel, I'm happy to have Paul as my senator--a man who attacked the 2012 NDAA, went after drone policy, opposed Libya hawks and continues to give grief to Iran and Syria hawks, wishes to end the drug war, supports internet freedom (and the Bill of Rights), etc. I think he's a bit dogmatic about free-trade and certain of his views about capitalism, but maybe it takes someone who's dogmatic to actually retain principles in Washington. For that he earns my gratitude and vote. I'll just have to vote locally for someone with a more down to earth view of economics. Pity Gatewood died.
What a shame that there is such hate on Slashdot to independents now that my post is buried.
Maybe. I think your statement was taken to be a bit more partisan than you might have intended (as though (D) were really the problem given (R) was not mentioned; or maybe it was the "suckers" bit). This is why I highlighted the bit about "Libertarian or Green". Few rabidly partisan trolls would treat (D) as the problem and suggest Green as a solution. "Still, man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
Given advances in technology, LOC is no longer a clear, effective or sufficient unit of measurement. I propose we move instead to fractions of an NSA data center. Of course, the fraction would approach 1 as one gets near the capacity of the whole internet and all current communications, so it would always be useful.
Of course they're bored stiff. That's not the point. My boring life is my own. I'm no man's slave; no man's property. Yet with so much surveillance over people, control becomes possible. We become an increasingly servile state as we become a police and surveillance state. Not because we're necessarily doing anything wrong, but precisely because we are watched. The whole world becomes Foucault's panopticon.
I don't care for his free-trade fundamentalism, but at some point civil rights and liberties must take precedence over economic concerns (a job doesn't make one happy if it's in a hard-labor camp). I'm as glad to have had an opportunity to vote for him as I have been to vote against our senior senator.
The "instead of Libertarian or Green" is a saving grace. It would be naive to suggest that voting (R) rather than (D) would get you anything different.
(Full disclosure [why not? NSA knows it anyway]: I'm registered as an (R) so I can vote in primaries in my red state, but I've never voted (R) in a presidential election. I cannot justify voting for either head of the beast, as much as I might loath whichever one is in power at a time.)
I've heard people say repeatedly that complaints about privacy make little sense in the age of Facebook. After all, the line goes, when people willingly share so much about themselves on the internet why should the government requesting phone logs matter? You've nothing to hide, do you? At least, nothing you've not already shared on Facebook.
I've never joined Facebook because I find the whole system rather intrusive. But these days, being on FB is so expected that you can't even arrange an office party without having to confirm on FB. At some point it becomes a great inconvenience not being on FB. If I didn't dislike the hassle of FB (or its corporate) I might now even be willing to entertain the opposite of the above argument: When the government so regularly spies on all of your activities, no matter how private you might deem them, why should joining Facebook matter?
Don't be silly. I mean, yeah, the first might be practically moot; the second, no longer a matter of common consensus; the fourth, a memory; the fifth, a cliche; the sixth, given way to vacations in sunny south Cuba; the seventh, dronestruck; the eighth, enhanced out of existence; the ninth, elastic and commerce claused from the public consciousness; and the tenth, a lost cause. But the people would really get worked up if they lose their third amendment rights! Then they'd stop voting for one of the two worse evils.
Although Verizon is not required to hand over caller subscriber information under the order, this doesn’t mean the NSA can’t identify the owners of phone numbers on its own. Intelligence and data collected from other sources can help match the names of accountholders to the numbers collected in the sweep.
This is a puzzle. What magic line would they cross by demanding names as well, when the amount of information they already require is enough to determine the individuals involved in a call and then some. This smells of a careful exclusion crafted by the AG or some such to skirt a law.
How many such casualties are you prepared to accept?
This seems a wise question until you apply it to any other sphere of life. Then perhaps you can see that it could be used to justify anything. Household knives are often used in domestic disputes. How many casualties are you willing to accept? Drunk driving leads to many deaths, but alcohol can be bought in public places from which people drive. How many casualties are you willing to accept? I can guarantee that fires sparked by household wiring has killed more people than Swiss Army Knives on planes. How many casualties are you willing to accept? Not so many when they are measured by the cameras which film a burning house containing a four year old girl dying by fire.
It is an unhelpful question--a rhetorical flourish really which attempts to set up a false dilemma rather than have a serious conversation--because it does not allow for the honest evaluation of risks relative to other risks we accept in everyday life. It advances rather that if you disagree, you must willing to accept the [emotionally affecting statement here, such as the brutal death of an innocent] for the sake of your [in comparison relatively small convenience, such as the ability to cut string with a Swiss Army Knife]. Let's have a more honest discussion than that.
I don't get the outrage over "privacy rights" when users willingly go to and use a free platform that they should know is fully sponsored by ads and data mining. Personal responsibility. End of story.
If the way you're speaking here is any indication, is not surprising that you do not get it. Expressing ignorance of other people's views and subsequently declaring that your simplistic response is the end of the discussion indicates that you're not interested in understanding the views of others. Yet in the ever optimistic hope that I've misunderstood you, and that you ask because you wish to understand, allow me to offer a few thoughts.
Those in favor of information freedom and privacy rights understand the problem differently from the way you do. Your proposed solution indicates an atomized view of human action and choice-making. An individual chooses this or that option and is responsible for the consequences of those choices. That is all well and good, as far as it goes. But that an individual can act thus in a vacuum, freely choosing from a free market of options, is a myth--perhaps even the founding myth of Western liberal capitalist civilization. The problem those for information freedom and privacy rights (IFPR, hereafter) have in mind is not individual, but structural.
An individual's choices are constrained by the structures of his environment. This is true online, but it can sometimes be easier to see in the physical world. When and where I grew up, there tended to be numerous small towns, each having small shops, grocers, banks, etc. The available items for consumption were fewer, but whom one chose to purchase from was more diverse. Over the years I've seen people gravitate ever closer to the cities, while retail in the smaller towns has increasingly been dominated by big-box stores like Walmart. In some ways people now have more choices--e.g. one can get at a Walmart today what he once would have had to special order. In some ways there are fewer choices--e.g. one can only get anything at the Walmart and even if he moves to another town he'll still find little more than a dead Main Street and a bypass dominated by another Walmart. It's a mixed blessing and curse, but regardless the choices one can make in the new environment verses the old one are different not because of the decisions an individual can make (i.e. not because of 'personal responsibility') but because of larger changes in the environment.
The concern for IFPR is not that a few people might choose to surrender their privacy or that someone might lose track of every post he's ever made on a social network. The concern is that the web might cease to be an open platform, that it might be changed structurally to the benefit of a few corporations and for easier exploitation by governments. If this latter happens, the web could become the antithesis of individual choice--or personal responsibility--as available options are restricted to a few approved items. IFPR advocates wish to encourage corporations like Facebook to be allies of a free and open internet, but this is only possible if people can migrate from platform to platform, retaining their own data. Sure, that may make it easier for users to leave but if they provide a superior product then they needn't worry about that, do they?
And lest you think IFPR is only a concern for Facebook users (which, as an aside, I am not and never have been), you should know that they track non-users all over the net as well. If we really want individual choice, we must do what we can to resist the balkanization that threatens to undermine the freedom and diversity of the web.
Indeed. If this kinda thing is crowdsourcing, then at some point those fund-raisers you participated in to raise money for the band trip in high school can be called crowdsourcing too.
As an alternative revenue stream to ads, this might make sense for some websites. Many of the flashier (so to speak) ads waste many resources as well, but to no productive end other than getting your attention.
Slashdot Mirror
[...] your heart is in the right place [...] Thanks for that. I also recognize what you say here while posting in another recent article. I would love nothing better than that proponents of internet freedom should be as enthusiastic (and willing to give money) as proponents of gun rights. Yet since the article was chiefly concerned with the industry, I directed my comment to the same. I really do dislike how the media speaks of "the gun lobby" and "the gun industry" in the same breath, as though the NRA didn't also represent a load of genuinely concerned citizens. Indeed, the NRA's attack ads against politicians as 'anti-gun' would be to little avail if voters didn't care about the issue. Yet as much as it will take out individual efforts to ensure that our first and fourth amendment rights remain secure (I guess I should also add fifth given the recent encryption question), it would also be a great boon if we had industry support. For the moment, freedom lovers, privacy advocates (at least from government intrusion) and many of the large internet companies have a shared interest in preserving freedom online. Would that all recognized common interests when they converge!
You're getting the surveillance efforts mixed up--perfectly understandable given how fast this stuff's been coming out. He's talking about PRISM, a program whereby the NSA is able to obtain "email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice over IP conversations, file transfers, login notifications and social networking details." This is what the apologists would have you think does not cover everyone. You're thinking of the related FISA requests to Verizon, which covers more or less everyone.
They'll all know when they start getting bills for back taxes from the IRS.
If you're concerned about customer pushback from this surveillance, support the EFF like the gun industry supports the NRA. May the EFF be as effective in defending our first and fourth amendment rights as the NRA is at going after any opposition to the second.
Or... sorry, the other way around. The NRA has been fantastically successful at defending second amendment rights. (Full disclosure--I'm a former member, having quit during the Bush years when they repeatedly failed to hold Republicans, esp. the president, accountable according to the same standards.) While many will say that the NRA's success is predicated on gun industry funds, this is only part of the story. They've 5 million members, regular citizens for the most part, who pay into their coffers. If everyone of these paid annual dues (many pay a larger lump sum to become lifetime members, but just to get an idea of what they might be working with) they'd end up with a gross income of 175 million. They've got the cash. They've got members who care passionately about gun rights. Above all, these members are happy to give to an organization that will generously support or strongly oppose a candidate on the basis of their treatment of the second amendment.
I've given money to the EFF and I hope you have as well. But I wonder what might be done to enhance its profile. With enough support for the EFF, could we turn it into the NRA (in terms of efficacy) for the first and fourth amendments?
Scenario: Subject A once saw a certain XKCD comic. Wanting more details about the comic, subject A searched the internet and found out it was about a website of which he had been ignorant called 4Chan. Thereupon, he clicked the link. Headline: Subject A, currently under government investigation, visited websites featuring racist and homophobic language, anti-government propaganda, and child pornography.
as well the Bill of Rights. Turns out this guy is a Ron Paul supporter. If you are too, don't bother sending in that resume to the NSA.
This is absolutely correct. The way the final problem of the summary is posed applies equally well to the fourth amendment.
The traditional rights embedded in the U.S. Bill of Rights are not based on questions like, 'does the existence of this right make the world a better place?' Rather, they proceed from the assumption that certain rights are the natural possession of free men and that the burden of proof is on government and civil society that any infringement of these rights should occur.
If a man asked to testify against himself, he is asked to do so when he is still presumed innocent of the crime for which he is asked to testify. (If he is already convicted of the crime, it is pointless to ask him to incriminate himself for one cannot be more guilty than guilty.) To try and compel a free and (presumed) innocent man to testify against himself is a disparagement of his freedom, an attempt to control his body as you would a criminal's, and denial of his innocence (for it assumes he no longer has rights over his body).
Of course, my response, that his whole line of questioning proceeds from the wrong premises, qualifies for his "fail". Well, if these are the kinds of answers he gets then maybe he really should reevaluate his lines of thinking. But, perhaps he just makes this demand because he is more clever than those who respond to him.
Apparently, "superfail."
No. Soldiers haven't been quartered yet. You have to punch all the amendments in you Bill of Rights appreciation card to qualify for a coup. The good news is that if the eleventh amendment is violated we qualify for a free hoagie.
I concur. But that's not what I was talking about. Free-trade means something quite specific. To his credit, Paul (the younger although this applies equally to the elder) is critical of the so-called free trade agreements like NAFTA, which are really a kind of managed trade not structured for the benefit of most Americans. And I largely agree with him that truly free trade would be preferable to the bilateral and multilateral managed trade agreements we have. Even so, I think neither free trade nor managed trade agreements are best for every industry and they should be abhorred across the board if trading partners are not playing on a level field (currency manipulators, those who rely on slave labor/sweatshops, those who do not have at least somewhat similar environmental concerns, etc., all have a competitive advantage in our market and not for the common good). I would argue that treating free-trade as an unqualified good is less thoughtful policy than dogmatism.
Still, priorities. And, in spite of the irritating shenanigans with Chuck Hegel, I'm happy to have Paul as my senator--a man who attacked the 2012 NDAA, went after drone policy, opposed Libya hawks and continues to give grief to Iran and Syria hawks, wishes to end the drug war, supports internet freedom (and the Bill of Rights), etc. I think he's a bit dogmatic about free-trade and certain of his views about capitalism, but maybe it takes someone who's dogmatic to actually retain principles in Washington. For that he earns my gratitude and vote. I'll just have to vote locally for someone with a more down to earth view of economics. Pity Gatewood died.
Maybe. I think your statement was taken to be a bit more partisan than you might have intended (as though (D) were really the problem given (R) was not mentioned; or maybe it was the "suckers" bit). This is why I highlighted the bit about "Libertarian or Green". Few rabidly partisan trolls would treat (D) as the problem and suggest Green as a solution. "Still, man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
Given advances in technology, LOC is no longer a clear, effective or sufficient unit of measurement. I propose we move instead to fractions of an NSA data center. Of course, the fraction would approach 1 as one gets near the capacity of the whole internet and all current communications, so it would always be useful.
"Bored stiff" + "entertainment using the resources at hand". Heh.
Of course they're bored stiff. That's not the point. My boring life is my own. I'm no man's slave; no man's property. Yet with so much surveillance over people, control becomes possible. We become an increasingly servile state as we become a police and surveillance state. Not because we're necessarily doing anything wrong, but precisely because we are watched. The whole world becomes Foucault's panopticon.
I don't care for his free-trade fundamentalism, but at some point civil rights and liberties must take precedence over economic concerns (a job doesn't make one happy if it's in a hard-labor camp). I'm as glad to have had an opportunity to vote for him as I have been to vote against our senior senator.
The "instead of Libertarian or Green" is a saving grace. It would be naive to suggest that voting (R) rather than (D) would get you anything different.
(Full disclosure [why not? NSA knows it anyway]: I'm registered as an (R) so I can vote in primaries in my red state, but I've never voted (R) in a presidential election. I cannot justify voting for either head of the beast, as much as I might loath whichever one is in power at a time.)
I've heard people say repeatedly that complaints about privacy make little sense in the age of Facebook. After all, the line goes, when people willingly share so much about themselves on the internet why should the government requesting phone logs matter? You've nothing to hide, do you? At least, nothing you've not already shared on Facebook.
I've never joined Facebook because I find the whole system rather intrusive. But these days, being on FB is so expected that you can't even arrange an office party without having to confirm on FB. At some point it becomes a great inconvenience not being on FB. If I didn't dislike the hassle of FB (or its corporate) I might now even be willing to entertain the opposite of the above argument: When the government so regularly spies on all of your activities, no matter how private you might deem them, why should joining Facebook matter?
Don't be silly. I mean, yeah, the first might be practically moot; the second, no longer a matter of common consensus; the fourth, a memory; the fifth, a cliche; the sixth, given way to vacations in sunny south Cuba; the seventh, dronestruck; the eighth, enhanced out of existence; the ninth, elastic and commerce claused from the public consciousness; and the tenth, a lost cause. But the people would really get worked up if they lose their third amendment rights! Then they'd stop voting for one of the two worse evils.
This is a puzzle. What magic line would they cross by demanding names as well, when the amount of information they already require is enough to determine the individuals involved in a call and then some. This smells of a careful exclusion crafted by the AG or some such to skirt a law.
This seems a wise question until you apply it to any other sphere of life. Then perhaps you can see that it could be used to justify anything. Household knives are often used in domestic disputes. How many casualties are you willing to accept? Drunk driving leads to many deaths, but alcohol can be bought in public places from which people drive. How many casualties are you willing to accept? I can guarantee that fires sparked by household wiring has killed more people than Swiss Army Knives on planes. How many casualties are you willing to accept? Not so many when they are measured by the cameras which film a burning house containing a four year old girl dying by fire.
It is an unhelpful question--a rhetorical flourish really which attempts to set up a false dilemma rather than have a serious conversation--because it does not allow for the honest evaluation of risks relative to other risks we accept in everyday life. It advances rather that if you disagree, you must willing to accept the [emotionally affecting statement here, such as the brutal death of an innocent] for the sake of your [in comparison relatively small convenience, such as the ability to cut string with a Swiss Army Knife]. Let's have a more honest discussion than that.
If the way you're speaking here is any indication, is not surprising that you do not get it. Expressing ignorance of other people's views and subsequently declaring that your simplistic response is the end of the discussion indicates that you're not interested in understanding the views of others. Yet in the ever optimistic hope that I've misunderstood you, and that you ask because you wish to understand, allow me to offer a few thoughts.
Those in favor of information freedom and privacy rights understand the problem differently from the way you do. Your proposed solution indicates an atomized view of human action and choice-making. An individual chooses this or that option and is responsible for the consequences of those choices. That is all well and good, as far as it goes. But that an individual can act thus in a vacuum, freely choosing from a free market of options, is a myth--perhaps even the founding myth of Western liberal capitalist civilization. The problem those for information freedom and privacy rights (IFPR, hereafter) have in mind is not individual, but structural.
An individual's choices are constrained by the structures of his environment. This is true online, but it can sometimes be easier to see in the physical world. When and where I grew up, there tended to be numerous small towns, each having small shops, grocers, banks, etc. The available items for consumption were fewer, but whom one chose to purchase from was more diverse. Over the years I've seen people gravitate ever closer to the cities, while retail in the smaller towns has increasingly been dominated by big-box stores like Walmart. In some ways people now have more choices--e.g. one can get at a Walmart today what he once would have had to special order. In some ways there are fewer choices--e.g. one can only get anything at the Walmart and even if he moves to another town he'll still find little more than a dead Main Street and a bypass dominated by another Walmart. It's a mixed blessing and curse, but regardless the choices one can make in the new environment verses the old one are different not because of the decisions an individual can make (i.e. not because of 'personal responsibility') but because of larger changes in the environment.
The concern for IFPR is not that a few people might choose to surrender their privacy or that someone might lose track of every post he's ever made on a social network. The concern is that the web might cease to be an open platform, that it might be changed structurally to the benefit of a few corporations and for easier exploitation by governments. If this latter happens, the web could become the antithesis of individual choice--or personal responsibility--as available options are restricted to a few approved items. IFPR advocates wish to encourage corporations like Facebook to be allies of a free and open internet, but this is only possible if people can migrate from platform to platform, retaining their own data. Sure, that may make it easier for users to leave but if they provide a superior product then they needn't worry about that, do they?
And lest you think IFPR is only a concern for Facebook users (which, as an aside, I am not and never have been), you should know that they track non-users all over the net as well. If we really want individual choice, we must do what we can to resist the balkanization that threatens to undermine the freedom and diversity of the web.
Indeed. If this kinda thing is crowdsourcing, then at some point those fund-raisers you participated in to raise money for the band trip in high school can be called crowdsourcing too.
As an alternative revenue stream to ads, this might make sense for some websites. Many of the flashier (so to speak) ads waste many resources as well, but to no productive end other than getting your attention.