Google, China and Anti-Features
Monday, February 1st, 2010Yet again, people are seeking technological solutions to problems that are social in nature.
So far, Internet activist Perry Barlow’s affirmation that ‘the Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it’ remains true. But with the increasingly evident willingness of corporate and government agents to create and use what MIT researcher Benjamin Hill terms ‘anti-features’, we may soon find that there’s nowhere else to route to.
Selling Democracy – ctd.
Sunday, June 28th, 2009Farhad Manjoo says the Revolution will not be digitised. His recent Slate column, subtitled “How the Internet helps Iran silence activists” makes the obvious point that technology makes all aspects of communications easier – even the unpleasant ones. But his lazy analysis misses the import of his own observation.
The key to all this is his failure to distinguish between the network and the protocol. Manjoo says that the Internet helps Iran’s repressive efforts. That’s not true, at least not nearly to the extent he thinks. The network – the physical infrastructure of cables, switching and routing equipment, is what’s trapping people right now. If it weren’t for the end-to-end nature of the software protocols that make up what we conveniently call the Internet, little if any news at all would have emerged from Iran.
Go With the Flow
Saturday, May 30th, 2009Widespread distribution of once-scarce information and the changing nature of expertise will inevitably present some challenges to Vanuatu society. It will always be in the interests of some to limit access to certain kinds of knowledge.
This tendency needs to be resisted. No matter what we may feel about certain kinds of information, we cannot afford to act in ignorance.
Now, we as a society might decide collectively that we don’t want to access some information sources. That’s perfectly fine; every society does this. Indeed, the inflationary effect of common knowledge is negated when we pool our collective intelligence and will and apply it to a common cause. It was the universally held idea of independence, after all, that created Vanuatu in the first place.
But when we delegate access to information itself to others, no matter how well-intentioned they may be, they will inevitably come to realise that, the more they enforce scarcity on the information economy, the more their own power is reinforced.
Whose Success?
Friday, June 6th, 2008[This week's Communications column for the Vanuatu Independent.]
I don’t often talk about my motives. Newspapers, in my opinion, make lousy confessionals. I’ll make an exception today, because it helps make a point.
I recently experienced a curious moment. I’d spent a sunny Port Vila Saturday at the office catching up on email, news and whatnot. There [...]