Like Democracy, the Web Needs To Be Defended 108
climenole tips a great article by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in Scientific American. Quoting:
"The Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles and because thousands of individuals, universities and companies have worked, both independently and together as part of the World Wide Web Consortium, to expand its capabilities based on those principles. The Web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. Some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments — totalitarian and democratic alike — are monitoring people's online habits, endangering important human rights. If we, the Web's users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want."
How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
"As an evolved system that facilitates the propagation and security of the underlying principles of democracy, the Web needs to be defended."
Sorry, no. (Score:2, Insightful)
Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web
That has never been different. There is no right to someone else's resources. If you host your site, nobody should be allowed to make you publish anything other than what is required for technical reasons. The internet is a network of networks. Network operators have ASNs, autonomous system numbers. The web exists because there are only rules which ensure technical compatibility. That's it. If you want content rules, get cable TV.
Re:Devil's Advocate: What about competition? (Score:5, Insightful)
this is like saying 'is one world really the best thing ? lets break it up into smaller parts'. or, saying 'is one huge global market is a good thing ? lets break it to smaller parts'.
its stupid. human civilization has been trying to achieve planetary scale on everything. it would be beyond moronic to revert back, when a state of that is reached in some technology ; namely, information exchange.
hey, while we are at it, why dont we go back to feudalism ? at least, there can be competition in between the lords.
not the same issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop being a web user (Score:1, Insightful)
Start being a web owner
Not true (Score:2, Insightful)
The Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles
The Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it is a marketing platform for selling something else. Democracy is a fancy name for political marketing as well. Don't overestimate your own belief or religion.
Re:bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bullshit (Score:1, Insightful)
A person's private information is not on a social network. The argument is that social networks should not be allowed to "wall off" information from the rest of the web. That's bullshit. First of all, that would not be defense but offense, because you'd have to change the status quo, not maintain it. Secondly, that would require telling a social network operator what they must publish in order to be allowed on the web. The users can do whatever they want with their own information, but they do not have the right to force anyone else to do anything with their data. If they don't want their data in walled-off parts of the web, then they should not put it there. It is hypocritical to pretend that someone else ruins the web when you're one of the users who so carelessly support walled gardens by subscribing to them.
And like democracy... (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to disagree with Sir Berners-Lee, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
He mentions the idea that some ISPs are considering a plan where they only deliver content from their site. That's not Web access. Anybody who buys that is not on the web. And that's their own lookout.
When it comes to democracy, you can lead the horse to water, but it's gotta drink all by itself. You can yell, scream, cajole, etc. but in the end voters will make whatever decisions they want to make. They may be mind-numbingly stupid, but mind-numbing stupidity is a part of democracy. I wish it weren't, but the alternative is some mechanism of excluding people, and there's no fair way to do that. Whoever sets up the standards is the dictator.
As a threat to democracy, call me when they start forbidding plain Web access to users willing to pay a reasonable sum for it. The state technology means that you can get the kind of access needed to read (but not watch) the news for a nominal sum practically anywhere. I'd like to see that improved; the price of access in the US is higher than it should be. But it's not a threat to democracy.
Re:Defend something meaningful (Score:4, Insightful)
Well said. However, I would add that there is a flip side to the equation.
The internet has ALSO allowed for information sharing which has until now been impossible at the rates, speed and depth currently available. There are channels of information and networked communication now instantly available which allow for a very high level of awareness for those seeking it. Citizen journalism is nothing to sneeze at, and being able to hash out subjects on forums like this one, having people call my bullshit and point me at truth has been invaluable to me. The web offers itself as a fantastic crucible if you want to use it that way. But I agree; the pull of mind-wasting entertainment on the Web IS ridiculously strong.
Though, personal choice in how the medium is used is important to consider. I don't know that people would be any different without it. In fact, in terms of strict biological/behavioral interference I'd put more blame on cell phones and WiFi devices than the content for numbing awareness and fuzzing people out; for making the poor choices easier to feel satisfied with.
The medium IS the message, a wise man once observed.
-FL
Re:However (Score:1, Insightful)
Defend it from paper-thinking too (Score:1, Insightful)
6 pages? The web isn't a magazine. You should never have to click "next page" when reading an article. Really, my computer isn't going to run out of memory; it's ok to treat it like one page.
Re:not the same issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If the web is like democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
You laugh, but there are a surprisingly large number of people who really don't believe in democracy. And a lot of them aren't in China.
Many of them think that they are part of the privileged minority. Others think they have a good chance of becoming part of the privileged minority and want to make sure they'll be on top when they get there. Others have been convinced that the privileged minority will improve the lives of the non-privileged majority. Others think that they need to be willing to sacrifice their democratic rights in order to keep the ideals that they believe in alive.
Heck, not even Socrates thought a democracy would yield just results (and in his case at least, he was probably right).
Re:bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Your post is a little vague, but it appears that you're arguing that social networking sites shouldn't be allowed to "wall off." Signing up for a service on someone else's server and then demanding that they open up all their data to everyone else is silly. If you don't like their service, don't use the service. They're under no obligation to make sure everybody can read what you're submitting to their site. You act as if people are forced to use Facebook.
Re:Devil's Advocate: What about competition? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not entirely sure the 'planetary scale' objective you're referring to is as great as you might thing. Separation of powers is very important if you want to maintain freedom and curb oppression. If you can't vote with your dollar or your ballot, you ought to be able to vote with your feet.
The important concept is openness, not uniqueness or monopoly. Nothing is more terrifying than planetary government for example... Because when that government goes bad (they all do at some point), you have nowhere else to go.
When you remove competition in an environment, you might be better off on the short term but the absolute best you can hope for on the long term is stagnation, and you're way more likely to get corruption and a system that preys on the people it is supposed to serve. This is true for standards, corporations, governments, religions or just about any other system.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
some person's private information is NOT the resource of the site that stores it. a person's private information belongs to that person alone. there can be no other argument to that.
Facebook doesn't operate on wishes and thin air. Their server farms are paid for with the understanding that they will use and exploit the information you give them to make money. It's not "your private information" after that point...you sold it to pay Facebook for the service they provide to you.
Re:Devil's Advocate: What about competition? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet is an infrastructure. People have figured out a long time ago that infrastructure is not something where you want people to create competing markets. That merely results in huge inefficiencies as duplication and underutilization abounds.
Furthermore, the Internet is ALREADY an network of networks. Hence the "Inter" in Internet. No need to build multiple Internets,unless you have some specific reasons why you don't want to hook up to the rest of the world - in which case, you build an Intranet.
Remember folks - free markets are never really free, and more competition is not always the answer.
Re:bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
If it's really private information which belongs to that person alone, then how did the site get it? Do they steal it from people on days when people forget to put on their foil hats?
Re:not the same issue (Score:3, Insightful)
not the same issue
Walled gardens are a perfectly acceptable consequence of a FREE web; net neutrality infringement is the opposite.
It depends on which issue you are referring to.
If "the issue" is "things the government should regulate", you are correct that these are not (or at least may not be) the same issue.
If, however, "the issue" is "things which threaten the web because of inefficient distribution of power", then these are the same issue. Whether it is government power or oligarch power -- in the context of "threats from inefficient power distribution" -- is irrelevant.
Walled gardens are not a problem when there is significant competition and limited barriers to entry. That is not the case with many major information service providers. There is a great deal of inefficiency in the distribution of power in the marketplace. This may be a temporary phenomenon, as posited in this recent Wall Street Journal article [wsj.com], or it may be longer lived. It may be the sort of thing in which the government can/should be involved, or it may be best solved in the free market. Time will tell. None of those things change the core fact: low competition markets which have self-reinforcing inefficient distribution of power tend to result in lower long-run GDP growth than high competition markets without such barriers. That is not some left-wing boobery, it is straight out of Adam Smith.
So while I completely agree that it is a valid perspective to say these two things are different under the characteristic "require government participation/interference", these things are the same under the characteristic "inefficient distribution of power threatens long-run prosperity". Not because they are harmful right now, nor necessarily because they are unregulated, but because the free market operates most efficiently when there are no barriers to entry and perfect competition. We do not have those things right now, in part because of the way these markets function, and that is a danger we should be cognizant of as lovers of the free market.
Re:Devil's Advocate: What about competition? (Score:2, Insightful)
Is "just one web" really the best thing? What about competition?
There is already competition between ISPs, who give you access to the web -- that's why we're getting cool things like LTE, LTE-Advanced, WiMAX, etc. If you meant splitting up the resources that make up the web, like the web sites, I don't see what benefit that would bring -- and there is no incentive to be the first one doing it... since that means no one is going to be able to see your site.
If they attack ONE OF THE WEBS, there is the possibility of switching to the other network when that happens.
The nature of the Internet is that most attacks are only going to affect an isolated portion of it. "THE WEB" is not a single entity. BGP is as close as you could get to massive disruption (without silently owning thousands of individual ISPs), but if someone really is being malicious with BGP (rather than the occasional "oops"), they can always be blacklisted. That would still be disruptive, and we could make a global backup network to combat it, but the real solution there is to secure BGP.
Backup networks work for "small scale" networks (read: large companies, governments). This is for internal use for that organization (remember your history: US DoD and the Internet). A global backup network for public use will have big problems, especially if we want to be able to count on *it* being available if the other is *not*.
Also, for any kind of security between the two networks in the event of some huge theoretical attack, the networks would need to be physically separated. This means nothing on one network can access anything on the other network. So you have two isolated PDAs, ISPs have two sets of racks of isolated gear, two sets of intercontinental fiber...
Device manufacturers would be the only ones happy with that.
Re:I hate to disagree with Sir Berners-Lee, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
He mentions the idea that some ISPs are considering a plan where they only deliver content from their site. That's not Web access. Anybody who buys that is not on the web. And that's their own lookout.
When it comes to democracy, you can lead the horse to water, but it's gotta drink all by itself. You can yell, scream, cajole, etc. but in the end voters will make whatever decisions they want to make.
Ah, but there is one thing you can do: fight fraud, or to put it more nicely, "confusion in the mind of the consumer." If they're not selling web access, then it should be plainly obvious to someone before they buy it.
Suppose Comcast or Verizon were to offer a service that can access their servers at 300 Mbps or the rest of the internet at 80 kbps. If someone buys that with the expectation that they're going to have 300 Mbps access to the internet, then (assuming they're not just stupid and can't read) something has gone wrong, in a way that government force should prevent.
We have already (mostly) accepted having a bunch of laws that govern advertising, labeling, etc, all based on a very simple idea that even the furthest right-wing libertarian would agree with (the ideas, if not the implementation). A free market requires informed participants. Maybe this would be the best solution to Net Neutrality: if someone isn't selling internet access, then they shouldn't be allowed to call it internet access. Or if it's limited internet access (80 kbps in the above example) then that limit should be required to be what they most prominently refer to it as, in their ads. Not as part of a complex ever-nebulous and subjective half-assed attempt to serve the public good, but simple truth in advertising to prevent fraud/confusion.
Let's let the horses know what they're drinking.
Re:If the web is like democracy (Score:3, Insightful)
There are many reasons not to believe in democracy even if you aren't a part of the privileged minority.
Democracy has very few actual advantages to people living in the state barring a decreased risk of a maniac taking all control, and that can be achieved through other means.
Now, remember, that democracy doesn't mean all the sweet things that we want it to mean like freedom of speech, it doesn't mean human rights, in fact, it doesn't mean anything except that the people are in some way made responsible for the acts which the actual elite make.
That is, unless you are talking about direct democracy, something which is partially practiced in Switzerland but in no other country with an actual population greater then a thousand members.
The reason democracy works well in the western world is primarily due to the fact that we are bloody rich, in actuality, relatively benign dictatorship (kinda like chinas) would in fact produce about the same results in all probability.
Remember, it's only when there is poor people going hungry that there is true social unrest, so as long as the people are fed and have decent livings, any type of government will stay in power and the people won't complain too much unless the government tries to do other things to stifle the peoples happiness (like totalarian control).