My world on the web
When the state allows the online world to become the near-exclusive domain of a small coterie of tech execs, with the power to decide on matters of speech – to say nothing of all the other ways in which our rights are impacted by the policies on their platforms, everything from employment to education to romance to (obviously) privacy – for all the rest of us, they are making policy.
Because inaction in the face of danger is a form of action.
A restored internet is one that values pluralism (power diffused into many hands) and self-determination (you get choose which tech you use and how you use it). Achieving a pluralistic internet of technological self-determination will be a long process.
This is a part of Doctorow’s wider discussion of adversarial interoperability. It is also interesting to consider this alongside John Harris’ investigation of the punk rock internet.
Doctorow also recorded an audio version of the essay.
WELCOME
Youth Never Forget
Digitally Lit #227 – 1/4/2020
Hi all, welcome to issue #227 of Digitally Literate. Welcome to 2020. I hope the new year…and the new decade treat you well. You’re more than welcome to review these materials on the website. Please subscribe if you would like this to sh…
One of the key critiques of the study is that the researchers didn’t log in. That is to say that they could not experience the full impact of the algorithm as it impacts their findings.
As Becca Lewis suggests, is the problem with measuring radicalisation of YouTube associated with methodology? This reminds me of some of the discussions associated with social media and teens. The examples I have read ‘How YouTube Radicalized Brazil‘ and ‘The Making of a YouTube Radical‘ are anecdotal. I assume this is why Arvind Narayanan says that we do not have the vocabulary to make sense of complexities generated via algorithms.
Also, in regards to Kate Eichhorn’s post about the internet that never forgets (and the subsequent book):
Kate Eichhorn, an Associate Professor of Culture and Media at The New School suggests that people are now forming their identities online from an early age, and in the process are creating a permanent record that’s impossible to delete.
I am reminded of a post from Katia Hildebrandt and Alec Couros from a few years ago in which they suggest that in a world where there is digital record for everything somewhere then we need to learn to consider intent, context, and circumstance when considering different artefacts that may be dredged up.
Given that Tor is compromised and bad actors can see the real IP address of Tor users, it would be wise to take extra precautions. This includes hiding your real IP address before accessing the Tor network.
To hide your IP address when accessing Tor, simply connect to a VPN server (through a VPN client on your computer) and then access Tor as normal (such as through the Tor browser). This will add a layer of encryption between your computer and the Tor network, with the VPN server’s IP address replacing your real IP address.
Note: There are different ways to combine VPNs and Tor. I am only recommending the following setup: You > VPN > Tor > Internet (also called “Tor over VPN” or “Onion over VPN”).
via Ian O’Byrne
Quick: Can you think of a picture of yourself on the internet from before 2010, other than your old Facebook photos? How about something you’ve written? Maybe some old sent emails in Gmail or old Gchats?
But what about anything NOT on Facebook or Google?
Most likely, you have some photos that are lost somewhere, some old posts to a message board or something you wrote on a friend’s wall, some bits of yourself that you put out there on the internet during the previous decade that is simply gone forever.
The internet of the 2010s will be defined by social media’s role in the 2016 election, the rise of extremism, and the fallout from privacy scandals like Cambridge Analytica. But there’s another, more minor theme to the decade: the gradual dismantling and dissolution of an older internet culture.
This purge comes in two forms: sites or services shutting down or transforming their business models. Despite the constant flurries of social startups (Vine! Snapchat! TikTok! Ello! Meerkat! Peach! Path! Yo!), when the dust was blown off the chisel, the 2010s revealed that the content you made — your photos, your writing, your texts, emails, and DMs — is almost exclusively in the hands of the biggest tech companies: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, or Apple.
The rest? Who knows? I hate to tell you, but there’s a good chance it’s gone forever.
Accessible tips for people to protect their privacy – billfitzgerald/personal-privacy-security
It took a while for the internet to turn into a major global force, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. (Peter Gabriel deserves at least some of the credit.)
dave (davecormier.com)There are three streams to this model that eventually leads towards people being able to function as good online learning facilitators. The top stream is about all the sunshine and light about working with others on the internet. It’s advantages and pitfalls, ways in which to promote prosocial discourse. The middle stream is about pragmatics. The how’s of doing things, it starts out with simple guidelines and moves forward the technical realities of licensing, content production and tech using. The bottom stream is about the self. How to keep yourself safe, how to have a healthy relationship with the internet from a personal perspective.
I remember discussed the idea of digital literacy as a series of levels a few years ago. In more recent times, I have come to wonder if what matters is being informed and whatever that might mean for users. However, Doug Belshaw would probably argue that it is about an interaction of elements, rather than a linear progression.
Other interesting posts on this topic include Ian O’Byrne’s attack on the online disinformation war and Mike Caulfield’s four moves.
In my mind, the web will end up being just like automobiles. Everywhere. Dominating our life. Believing we can’t live without. While also polluting, destroying our environment, health, impacting our physical lives, but yet we will keep doubling down. Everyone keeps declaring that Internet technology is inevitable and will just keep marching forward, with endless innovations just off on the horizon. Perpetually looking forward, rather than ever pausing for a moment to look at the state of things. And, like commuters isolated I our automobiles, we will never truly acknowledge just how shitty this technology has actually made our lives, and refuse to ever accept there is any other to live.
Kathleen Fitzpatrick (Kathleen Fitzpatrick)If the problem has not been the centralized, corporatized control of the individual voice, the individual’s data, but rather a deeper failure of sociality that precedes that control, then merely reclaiming ownership of our voices and our data isn’t enough. If the goal is creating more authentic, more productive forms of online sociality, we need to rethink our platforms, the ways they function, and our relationships to them from the ground up. It’s not just a matter of functionality, or privacy controls, or even of business models. It’s a matter of governance
Analysts say that many countries and companies will soon be forced to make a decision between the Chinese version of the Internet and the liberal, Western model – both models have a very different underlaying philosophy and understanding of governance.
Dark forests like newsletters and podcasts are growing areas of activity. As are other dark forests, like Slack channels, private Instagrams, invite-only message boards, text groups, Snapchat, WeChat, and on and on. This is where Facebook is pivoting with Groups (and trying to redefine what the word “privacy” means in the process).
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dave (davecormier.com)Please participate. Do it well. Put your values on the internet. Our society is literally being shaped by the internet right now, and will be for the foreseeable future. We are all watching the web we’re building. The web is us. Help build a good one.
I am not sure what the ‘answer’ to the current situation is. I like your hopeful suggestion. For me it is about participating on my own terms, whether this be via webmentions or in a shared space that allows for more ownership, such as a social media space using Edublogs. I am not sure if this is the positive participation you are thinking about. I am mindful that this may not be for everyone, but it at least moves to something other.
As countries begin to think about how to regulate cross-border e-commerce in the future, they have found their work complicated by competing visions of what the internet is, and what it is for.
And a bonus one, Moscow mule model.
It is interesting thinking about this after the EU’s recent decision to sign off the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. Casey Newton proposes that there may come a time when we may need digital passports.
The web’s founders fully expected some form of digital payment to be integral to its functioning. But nearly three decades later, we’re still waiting.
For all the talk of disruption, today’s internet is still young and hugely underinnovated. While it’s difficult to predict all the details—that’s the point of disruption!—I have little doubt that it’s technically possible to build a digital infrastructure that rewards creativity at many scales and protects our privacy. Bitcoin is not the answer, for a variety of reasons, but a blockchain scheme, along with a mixture of more conventional systems and cryptographic tools, might play a part. Whatever the solution is, we just need a combination of vision, smart regulation, and true innovation to advance it.
Right now, we’re stuck where the automobile industry was when cars were still “horseless carriages,” wagon-wheeled monstrosities with high centers of gravity and buggy seats. We’re still letting an older technology—credit cards, designed for in-person transactions, with high fees and financial surveillance baked in—determine the shape of a new technological paradigm. As a result, that paradigm has become twisted and monopolized by its biggest players. This is one of the modern internet’s greatest errors; it’s past time that we encounter “402 Payment Required” for real.
Below is an early attempt at an “Rules for Online Sanity” list. I’d love to hear what you think I missed.
- Reward your “enemies” when they agree with you, exhibit good behavior, or come around on an issue. Otherwise they have no incentive to ever meet you halfway.
- Accept it when people apologize. People should be allowed to work through ideas and opinions online. And that can result in some messy outcomes. Be forgiving.
- Sometimes people have differing opinions because they considered something you didn’t.
- Take a second.
- There’s always more to the story. You probably don’t know the full context of whatever you’re reading or watching.
- If an online space makes more money the more time you spend on it, use sparingly.
- Judge people on their actions, not their words. Don’t get outraged over what people said. Get outraged at what they actually do.
- Try to give people the benefit of the doubt, be charitable in how you read people’s ideas.
- Don’t treat one bad actor as representative of whatever group or demographic they belong to.
- Create the kind of communities and ideas you want people to talk about.
- Sometimes, there are bad actors that don’t play by the rules. They should be shunned, castigated, and banned.
- You don’t always have the moral high ground. You are not always right.
- Block and mute quickly. Worry about the bubbles that creates later.
- There but for the grace of God go you.
The internet is not a revolutionary technology, but it makes revolution more possible than ever before. That’s why it’s so important to defend it, to keep it free and fair and open. A corrupted, surveillant, controlled internet is a place where our lives are torn open by the powerful, logged, and distorted. A free, fair, and open internet is how we fight back.
On this episode we’re joined by Anil Dash and Allison Esposito. Anil is CEO of Glitch, a friendly community where developers build the app of their dreams. Allison founded Tech Ladies, a community that connects women with the best jobs in tech.
We reminisce about the good ol’ days of IRC, Friendster, AIM, and MySpace. A lot has changed since then, yet they continue to exhibit some of the same dynamics and challenges of today’s massive social networks. We also talk about the challenges of building a healthy community on the internet in a time when careers and reputations can be destroyed in an instant. Of course, we’ll also cover some of our favorite products that you might not know about.
There’s something about community that if you’re doing it right, it should feel like a mix of it just happened and it’s natural. – Allison
It turns out the hosting of the video wasn’t the thing, the community is the thing and it has a value. Whether you create an environment that you feel people can express themselves in is a rare and special and delicate thing. — Anil
via Greg McVerry
