neticulum

Hey, the internet actually does effect real world politics! I watched the Colbert Report for the first time in months this week to observe the  the pop culture commentary on the Republican National Convention, and discovered this little gem: the hype that led to Sarah Palin being picked as McCain’s vice presidential candidate originated with and was generated by a 21-year-old conservative blogger.

This political science student created a website suggesting that Sarah Palin be drafted as the vice presidential nominee. The “Draft Palin” movement picked up hype in the mainstream media, and the idea circulated, spiraling out of control and into the hands of the McCain campaign, who ultimately took it to heart. Thanks to the internet’s archiving of various media, we can actually trace where her name shows up in relation to being on the McCain ticket, and thus observe the evolution of the political phenomenon from thought into reality.

This serves as a counterexample to Cass Sunstein’s argument that the internet serves as a platform for mainly likeminded poeple to communicate, thus creating “echo chambers” in which no actual activism or critical dicussion is acheived.

New York  Times Magazine ran a great article this week on hackers, trolls, and other tech-savvy tricksters who make a living – or at least a hobby – out of, for lack of a better word, fucking with the internet. Some use complex loopholes in the infrastructure of the web to gain access to sensitive information or manipulate economic transactions to turn a profit. Others simply gain pleasure from engaging in social activities that, in essence, make fun of people who take the internet too seriously. These projects can range from the wicked – such as posting flashing videos on epilepsy websites or making fun of friends and family mourning a dead acquaintance – to the hilarious – such as jamming the cell phones of CEOs’ daughters and demanding ransom. 

Here’s a link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=1&ei=5058&partner=IWON&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

It is easy to see the financial benefits that can be achieved by hacking (despite their illegality). But why do these trolls, who spend long hours posting false information under false identities within a technological tool that is intended to promote the spread of real information, do what they do? Some do it for shits and giggles. But the more philosophically-minded do it out of principle, maintaining that they are trying to reduce silly behavior on the internet by replicating it and shoving it back in the faces of the worst perpetrators. 

But does it work? In an ideal world, such tomfoolery would show those who take the internet a bit too seriously the error of their ways, reducing the trite banter and meaningless postings that pollute the web. Trolls who post false wikipedia articles may seem to reduce the credibility of wikipedia, but following deeper consideration, it might actually benefit wikipedia in the long run.  This kind of vandalism reminds people that wikipedia is not the gospel truth, which is a good thing; people should not take it as objective knowledge, but rather as a collection of subjective viewpoints. That is part of the contract of a wiki; it is a bargain that all readers and contributers (albeit tacitly) agree to. But at the same time, it could mobilize the members of the wikipedia community to create better standards for posts, better and more fair regulation of troll activity, and new methods of conversational logic. The hope is that the community, not the wiki-authorities-that-be, will be the ones to hold the trolls accountable, for the former has just as much (if not more) of a stake than the latter. 

Any other ideas on what role trolls play in the media’s function within a democracy?

Wikipedia is a subject of great controversy amongst observers/participants of Web 2.0. We must give credit to the fact that Wikipedia represents the first attempt to survey and capture the knowledge of the entire human race, as opposed to its scientific and academic elite. Its proponents see it as the democratic version of accepted knowledge; they believe it illuminates an essential departure from classically Liberal views of knowledge and power. Social network researcher Mark Pesce explains, “In Liberalism, knowledge is a scarce resource, managed by elites: the more scarce knowledge is, the more highly valued that knowledge, and the elites which conserve it. Wikipedia turns that assertion inside out: the more something is shared the more valuable it becomes. These newly disproportionate returns on the investment in altruism now trump the ‘virtue of selfishness.’” (his entire blog post can be viewed here: http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/)

Yet criticism of Wikipedia is fierce. There is much evidence that Wikipedia is far from democratic. Its “anybody can edit” appeal is an illusion; in reality, authority over Wikipedia entries is hierarchical and is concentrated in the hands of hyperconnected “Wikipedians” who tightly regulate the additions and revisions to the so-called “citizen’s” enyclopedia. One stark example is the the successful attempt of political organizations to influence wikipedia editors to promote pro-Israeli and anti-Arab stances on certain Wikipedia entries (don’t remember where I heard this, need the site to back it up).

Wikipedia has made a great fuss about how the United States Federal Government has edited several of its entries on topics like Guantanamo Bay and the War in Iraq to downplay criticisms of these violent ventures and promote pro-government, pro-military propaganda. Wikipedia was able to trace the IP addresses of several of these edits to various Pentagon offices as well as Guantanamo’s very own computer lab. Yet Wikipedia engages in these same biased editing practices on its own websites to protect its own assets and reputation. You can read about it here: (http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_censoring_Wikinews)

Basically, Wikimedia (the parent company of Wikipedia as well as Wikinews and other various and sundry Wikiventures) censored a couple of posts made on Wikinews regarding a lawsuit levied against Wikimedia as well as controversial statements made by the Deputy Director of Wikipedia. Both edits were made in an attempt to protect Wikimedia’s reputation. Apparently even the supposed harbringer of democratic information can’t resist engaging in a little propaganda.  What is especially important to note here is that WIkimedia is supposed to be editorially independent from Wikinews. This is not just a matter of journalistic integrity and good reputation – although those are important too – but might be a cause for legal action. In one of the few laws the government has actually passed regulating the oft-murky jurisdiction of Web 2.0. Rhe US Communcations Decency Action (CDA) section 230 gives providers of Internet services immunity from legal action regarding user-generated content, provided they do not exercise “pre-publication control.” In other words, sites that host web 2.0 technology are supposed to let the community run free. If they edit content before it’s published, or cherry-pick what does and doesn’t get published, then there’s gonna be some legal trouble. Good to know that the government is tacitly upholding the rights and integrity of grassroots journalists! I wonder if anybody has ever gotten in trouble for this… or if Wikimedia will end up paying the consequences.

This reminds me a lot of Sam Han’s critique of the “blackboxing” of Web 2.0 technology; he argues that the uber accessible user-friendly format of web 2.0 hides the real technology that goes behind web production, concentrating too much power into the hands of the webmasters while satiating users with the illusion of control. Wikimedia’s apparent corruption speaks to our gullibility as well as their power, and is a phenomenon we should be wary of.

P.S. Props to Wikileaks for uncovering and posting this knowledge!

I’ve mentioned the phenomena of sock puppets in a couple of previous posts. Sock puppets refer to bloggers or readers who post comments on blogs and other news/information websites (including Wikipedia) under a false identity in order to promote a certain viewpoint or create the illusion of having strength in numbers regarding that viewpoint. The anonymity of the internet, combined with the miracles of web 2.0 technology, allows these puppeteers to covertly spread propaganda under false monikers. This poses a threat to the reputation of Web 2.0 technology as a reliable news source and undermines the public debate and critical group reasoning that the comment and forum sections of these sites are trying to foster. The perpetrator in this article (http://www.lonestaricon.com/absolutenm/anmviewer.asp?a=3038&z=263) was a GOP blogger and campaign director who harassed and intimidated bloggers on a liberal site through almost 80 posts under a false identity.

Fortunately, netroots activists have acknowledged that sock puppets are a major threat to the health of web 2.0 and have committed to using whatever means possible to expose and eradicate them. The liberal bloggers in the article were able to trace the identity of the sock puppet because the email address he listed was the same one he used in high school, but it’s not always so easy. I know that Wikipedia has traced sock puppets using their IP addresses (sometimes even exposing covert attempts by the US government to protect its reputation via propaganda-esque edtis on unflattering posts), and there are probably other crazy ways to trace the sources of internet posts that I don’t even know about it. It’s definitely an issue for web 2.0 and will probably continue to be for quite awhile, but overcoming denial is the first step to recovery…

It seems that the anonymity of the internet creates mixed consequences for infodemocracy. On the one hand, it is the ability to remain anonymous that has allowed whistleblowers the chance to reveal classified or otherwise sensitive information to the world at large. This contrasts with the way most mainstream media operates; they often choose to withhold sensitive information to the public because they fear the wrath of government subpeonas or, even worse, their advertisers who pay the bills. This is the reason why the New York Times knew about Bush’s widespread wiretapping a year before it was printed and publicly acknowledged. Which is fucked up. But when whistleblowers don’t have an obligation to reveal their identities – and even have their identities protected by encryption software, a la Wikileaks – they are more likely to publicize this kind of information, which I dare say is good for nurturing a truly informed public. More often than not the information that the government doens’t want us to know is some of the most important knowledge we need to know.

Yet this same anonymity allows sock puppets to terrorize websites, misrepresenting public opinion and mitigating the effectiveness of the internet as a forum for public reasoning. Are we smart enough to ignore these sock puppets? Do they do enough damage to actually undermine the usefulness of these technologies? Or, like with all web 2.0, is it just too much of a mixed bag and too soon to tell? Yeah, that sounds about right.

http://www.lonestaricon.com/absolutenm/anmviewer.asp?a=3038&z=26

This just in: Google has released its own version of Wikipedia, but with a few twists. Knol, a so-called “wiki with bylines,” is, like Wikipedia an attempt to survey human knowledge via written articles on a variety of subjects. But unlike Wikipedia, the authors of articles cannot remain anonymous – and edits are made via suggestion box,  not chronologically and in real time. Authors who are experts in various fields write articles on their subjects of expertise, and readers vote for which articles they think are the best. Revisions to articles are not made in real time, but rather are sent to the author, who makes the  final decision on what gets published.  Authors can also grant certain readers the rights to edit or otherwise revise their articles.

I’m really interested to see how this pans out. Knol’s creators hope that the emphasis on reliable authorship will forge a more trusting relationship with its readers than, say, Wikipedia has with its own. They also hope that the suggestion-box model will yield more balanced articles, instead of immediate edits on controversial topics which can lead to a last-voice-wins scenario. The ability for readers to vote on their favorite articles gives Knol points for democracy, and should encourage a healthy competition among authors to have the most reliable and accessible information. Knol calls its model ”moderated collaboration,” meaning that any reader of a specific topic page can make suggested edits to the author or authors, who retain control over whether to accept, reject or modify changes before they are published. So what kind of collaboration would Wikipedia be? Unmoderated collaboration? Ivory-tower moderation? 

Though Knol is being hyped as a competitor to Wikipedia, its creators insist that the two sites are not mutually exclusive; rather, they each fill different roles in the great opera of the internet. Wikipedia is useful for determining competing viewpoints on certain topics and is more comprehensive in general, but Knol may be more of a go-to site for authoritative information. As Knol expands its information base, I’ll be interested to see how the public responds to it, and how it will compare to Wikipedia. 

I’ve been a bad blog mommy this week, so here’s to making up for lost time. 

The reason I’ve been a bit absent is because I’ve been spending a lot of time reconsidering the direction and focus of my thesis. The more I learn about Web 2.0′s interactions with democracy, the more baffled I am. I guess it all depends on what aspect of democracy we’re talking about. In terms of citizen participation, Web 2.0 has been a blessing. More citizens than ever are on the internet, writing about political issues, expressing their opinions, and making their voices heard. People have new opportunities to organize and fundraise over the internet, making citizen political organizations more complex and, dare I say, effective.

But the media’s role in democracy is not simply about giving citizens a forum in which to express themselves. It also concerns providing people with the information to develop political opinion, increasing the transparency of government activity, and endowing citizens with the knowledge to better their own lives and those of others. In terms of this function, Web 2.0 has had mixed effects. While there is certainly more knowledge available to the average person than there ever has been before in history, the reliability of that knowledge is questionable. Critics have complained that journalistic standards of integrity and accuracy, from fact-checking to reputation, have declined with the surge in grassroots media and the blogosphere. They argue that quality has been forsaken for quantity. So does the increase in news sources allow people to become more politically informed, or were they better off with less news sources that were more reliable? Then again, the actual reliability of mainstream news sources has also been historically questionable. There is also something to be said for the benefits of having a diversity of news sources – people are exposed to more competing perspectives and are encouraged to use critical reason to develop their own opinions. But can the citizenry be relied upon to be proactive enough to weed through news sources and find the ones that are the most accurate? Can we also rely on other mechanisms, such as comments/discussion and name recognition, to help seperate the good news sources from the bad? Is there any other way to focus the flow of information given the proliferation of its tributaries? 

For those of you who haven’t read the very first post in this blog, you’ll probably want to do so before you read this one, as it makes far more sense in context.

Contrary to one of my personal life mantras “please keep your destination in mind” (the motto of Norton Juster’s logical opus of a children’s book The Phantom Tollbooth), when I started my thesis research, I had a very firm idea of the topic I wanted to study (web 2.0 technology and the evolution of the media), but didn’t really know where I was going to go with it. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing; I was still working on developing my ideas and arguments as I learned more and more about the intricacies of web 2.0 as well as historical theories of the media.

My early research focused on developing a theoretical history of the media, which induced me to read philosophers such as Habermas and Kant. Kant is the epitome of enlightenment philosophy; the term might as well be named after him – it probably is. Writing in a period of great scientific and technological advances – the advent of modern medicine, for one – Kant had great faith in rationality and the ability of humans to reach an objective understanding of the world through the use of practical reason. He believed that the rational order of the world as known by science is not a result of the fortuitous accumulation of sensory perceptions, but rather a product of synthesis, a rule-based activity of deliberation. Sensibility supplies the mind with intuitions, and understanding allows individuals to judge these intuitions and place them into different a priori categories. As Kant believes these categories, like the laws of nature and other methods we use to organize knowledge, are objective, being able to place our subjective perceptions within the categories yields objective, universal knowledge. By this method, Kant predicted that the human race would eventually reach enlightenment. This, of course, is a very hierarchical view of knowledge; his a priori categories had to have been developed by a scientific and academic elite, who basically crafted the framework by which all perceptions were to be submitted. Individual, subjective observations which did not readily fit into an a priori category were given far less credence than those which made it into the canon

Habermas, about a century later, revisited Kant’s theories in light of his historical account of the growth of of communications media and its role in the development of communities over time. Habermas argued that the rise of newspapers, novels, and other publications raised public awareness and education, as well as introduced them to critical viewpoints they may not otherwise have been exposed to. This intellectual shift spurred individuals to develop public reason, akin to Kant’s practical reason, whereby individuals refined their ideas and realized new ones via discussions within public forums; the media provided both content and venue for public reasoning. And though it hinted at a more democratic canon (as long as you could get people to agree with you, your views were considered) than Kant’s a priori principles would allow, Habermas’ view of knowledge was still hierarchical and top-down in nature; objective knowledge was a product of deliberation amongst educated individuals. Indeed, Habermasian public reason held headquarters in new coffeehouses and pubs, maintaining a sense of elitism; who really had the luxury time to read and argue about art criticism in the 18th century?

In terms of liberal-democratic theory, the more informed a citizenry is, the more fruitful the democracy; as a democracy is rule of the people by the people, the most well-run democracy is the product of people having the knowledge and wisdom with which to use public reason to arrive at the best form of governance. The media is a means by which to distribute information to the masses as well as conduct debate over public issues. Thus, the more access citizens have to diverse media sources as well as mediated outlets by which they can express their own voices, the more healthy the democracy will be.

When I first began developing the actual argument of my thesis, I focused identifying the ways web 2.0 would affect the way the media operates within a democracy. Namely, I studied ways in which the internet has made more information accessible to individuals, from the proliferation of news sources thanks to e-magazines and the blogosphere to the advent of whistleblowing websites like Wikileaks to Wikipedia, the first attempt to document the knowledge of the entire human race instead of just its scientific and academic elite.

It was this last point that caused me to stop in my tracks. I realized that liberal-democratic theory is contingent upon the liberal conception of knowledge – the canon, if you will. The scholars I had been reading were all very optimistic about the internet’s capability of transmitting the intellectual fruits of the academic elite to all corners of the globe. Yet this model did not seem to fit the Web 2.0 technologies I was studying, which allowed any non-expert with a keyboard to promote their own beliefs on the web and, in doing so, threw into question the nature of knowledge and how it is derived.

Wikipedia is a perfect example of this departure. I had previously conceived of Wikipedia as a project that could one day yield a comprehensive survey of human knowledge, always edging towards completion. Yet the “truth” that Wikipedia has delivered is not objective knowledge at all.

If there is anything that globalized communications has taught us, it’s that the world – and the ways in which people see and categorize the world – are vastly more complex and diverse than we imagined. Postmodernism has by and large rejected the Kantian conception of objective knowledge; as our awareness of other cultures and ideals grows, so does the sentiment that knowledge is subjective and often relative to those cultures. Of course, some knowlege is more objective than other knowledge – the findings of the scientific and academic communities are often more broadly accepted than, say, political and social views. But this knowledge is still the result of deliberation within these communities and between these communities and the general public. Knowledge is not a decree; it is a conversation. Wikipedia is a constant work in progress; its entries are always being revised and added to as new events arise and as new members join to express their views. But this speaks to a critical aspect of the nature of knowledge. Wikipedia entries are always changing because the way we see the world is always changing because the world is always changing. If everything is in a constant state of flux, then how can there be objective knowledge?

Web 2.0 has illuminated this phenomenon in many ways. Wikipedia is a particularly interesting case study, because it provides a way for these conversations to be recorded and preserved in the form of Wikipedia edit histories and the forums that house debate over said edits. It has become a primary battleground for the semantic and cultural wars of our generation. It allows individuals from a variety of cultures to edit articles, and observing which types of opinions come from different types of backgrounds illuminates the cultural differences in opinions of public issues. Case in point: compare the Wikipedia article on Cuba written in English to the one written in Spanish – they have vastly different approaches. When we can clearly delineate the different aspects of a cultural conflict, we can better understand its nature and thus have a better idea of how to resolve the conflict – or at least reach a compromise.

Web 2.0 has ushered in the era of hyperconnectivity. For the first time in the history of civilization, mediated communications has fallen completely out of power structure’s control. The human network forged by the internet and other new media has certainly been utilized by governments, corporations, and other authorities, but their attempts to regulate it have been futile. Even the Chinese government has admitted that their “Great Firewall” is ultimately useless in the face of the vast loopholes the internet – and its army of hackers – have to offer. Until now, knowledge has mainly been transmitted via one-way media – that is, it has been broadcast from a centralized source to the general public via mediums such as radio and television. But today, web 2.0′s promotion of user-created content has forged two-way media for information transmission – instead of coming from a centralized source generally controlled by the elite, a hierarchical structure of knowledge, information comes from and travels to millions of different sources. Certain discourses which were once privileged under one-way media are not so privileged anymore. The intellectual hierarchy which was once vertical is now horizontal; different information nodes are interconnected via new media, and the entire structure is in constant flux. To use Deleuze and Guittari’s terminology, this is a rhysomatic thinking.

The ways in which this new conception of knowledge affect the way we conceive of democracy, and the media’s role in democracy, will be the topic of my next post. Your predictions and/or criticisms are welcome.

I really dig this quote from the 2008 book “Here Comes Everybody,” written by Internet analyst Clay Shirky. 

“The increase in the power of both individuals and groups, outside traditional organizational structures, is unprecedented.Many institutions we rely on today will not survive this change without significant alteration and the more an institution or industry relies on information as its core product, the greater and more complete the change will be. The linking of symmetrical participation and amateur production makes this period of change remarkable. Symmetrical participation means that once people have the capacity to receive information, they have the capability to send it as well. Owing a television does not give you the ability to make TV shows, but owning a computer means that you can create as well as receive many kinds of content, from the written word through sound and images. Amateur production, the result of all this new capability, means that the category of ‘consumer’ is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity.”—(Clay Shirky,Here Comes Everybody, 107-108)

People can now use the Internet to organize grassroots movements, promote DIY culture, fundraise, spread awareness, and coordinate volunteer opportunities. People do not need the help of power structures likes coporations, the government, or the church to see the changes they want to make in their lives. Contrary to popular belief, we are not all doomed to be consumer whores. Internet coordination fosters an entirely different breed of organization than traditional structures; whereas classical organizations that promote social change require large overheads and operate through inefficient bureaucracies (think the State Department, or Greenpeace), the Internet’s organizations are largely nonhierarchical, cost free, and decentralized. Yet internet group’s members are generally highly motivated; consider how much the digital “people’s encyclopedia” has flourished over the past view years due to the voluntary efforts of its readers. 

The real question is: will people actually take advantage of this newfound power at their fingertips? Are the technologies that make such organizing possible accessible enough to the average person? 

Journalists are now utilizing web 2.0 technology as a means of collaborating with other journalists. Halfway between Wikipedia and the blogosphere, the Center for Media and Democracy’s project SourceWatch is a collaborative directory of people, organizations, and issues shaping public life. It’s key focuses include tracking the activities of PR firms that specialize in manipulating public perception, profiling think tanks, nonprofits, and other political organizations, and documenting the other various actors (media outlets, journalists, politicians, etc) involved in public debate.

Check it out here: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch

CongressPedia is a side project of SourceWatch which profiles members of Congress, keeps tabs on legislation in the Senate and House, and focuses especially on members of Congress who are under investigation. Organizations and journalists are encouraged to post their research and reporting, and the mass of accumulated knowledge is a good educational tool for students, teachers, and other interested individuals. In Habermasian terms, sites like these are ways to advance public reason on specific issues – in this case, journalism & the public sphere – as they sustain and encourage discussion, and allow participants to synthesize the collected information in a collective forum.

Accessible here: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Congresspedia

Unlike some other wiki sites, SourceWatch and CongressPedia have a policy of strict referencing (as in, you gotta be able to back up what you’re saying) and are overseen by a paid editor who has added authority over additions and revisions. Though this does make the wiki’s discussion somewhat less democratic, it does alleviate the problems of inaccuracy and bias suffered by other wikis; only posts that are well-researched and appropriately referenced are allowed. While the quantity of participants may be lower due to these restrictions, the quality of discussion is presumably higher.

So what is more important to a democratic media? Is it better to have a more democratic structure with less reliable reporting? Or a less democratic structure with more reliable reporting? The latter is prevalent in the status quo (think intellectual authority: the supremacy of encyclopedia authors). Sites like the two referenced above represent a democratization of hte status quo, though not a full democratization (in lines with Wikipedia’s not-quite-realized ideals of free culture). But opening up reporting for discussion with other reporters and researchers (if not the public at large) is definitely a move in the right direction.

Expanding the free culture movement into politics? Free online course material for students of all ages? Making Wikipedia easier for the average person to edit? Laptops for everybody? Sign me up.

http://news.cnet.com/Wikipedias-Wales-touts-free-culture-movement/2100-1038_3-6102279.html