The battle for control of the internet

March 3, 2011 4:56 AM

"We may argue again and again whether the Internet is changing our brains, elevating us, lowering us, making us smarter, or making us stupid. But at the end of the day, it seems the real argument is about control — who has it, who shares it, and who wants it." What people who worry about the internet are really worried about. Via naked capitalism.
posted by londonmark (24 comments total)

I'm really worried about big media corporations and net neutrality, which I was hoping to see but did not.
posted by cashman at 5:09 AM on March 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

the linked article says: It’s vital to note here that the Internet is different than any other communications medium precisely because it’s the first that nobody controls

Um, what? The Internet certainly IS controlled, and there are a number of barriers to use. I think it's a mistake to confuse the ability for limited anonymity online with "no control".
posted by dubold at 5:22 AM on March 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Broadcast radio wasn't controlled either. At first. For that matter, neither was the written word, unless you count deliberate illiteracy as a kind of control (which I guess it is).
posted by DU at 5:25 AM on March 3, 2011

This strikes me as a remarkably reductive way of characterising any discussion about the internet.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 5:32 AM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think this is the bit that really resonated with me:

Throughout history, this fear of losing control has been consistently masked as concerns for higher, even altruistic interests.

There's a lot of noise about the internet that obstructs the public debate. My family, for example, haven't even heard of net neutrality because they have been told instead that they should be worried about pedo stalkers and Russian hacker anarchists. As usual, big business controls the agenda.
posted by londonmark at 5:38 AM on March 3, 2011 [9 favorites]

Going to riff off a quote from Jeff Jarvis:

We triumphalists—I don’t think I am one but, what the hell, I’ll don the uniform—argue that these tools unlock some potential in us, help us do what we want to do and better. The catastrophists are saying that we can be easily led astray to do stupid things and become stupid. One is an argument of enablement. One is an argument of enslavement. Which reveals more respect for humanity? That is the real dividing line. I start with faith in my fellow man and woman. The catastrophists start with little or none.

That may be more true than he thinks. Remember, most of Western culture has its roots in pre-modern Christian Europe. Every Christian tradition has the doctrine of original sin in its background, even if some traditions have moved away from that in the last century or two. There's a fundamental belief, even if poorly understood and unexpressed, that people, when left to themselves, are lacking in virtue at best and downright evil at worst. The idea is that it takes control, both internal and external, to restrain the corruption of the human heart.

With that in our intellectual heritage, it shouldn't be surprising that there are people who are worried about the erosion of social control, and given the depressing degree to which many people are ignorant of their own basic assumptions, it's even less surprising that this concern winds up being masked by shrill warnings about particularly unrealistic dangers.
posted by valkyryn at 5:43 AM on March 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

One is an argument of enablement. One is an argument of enslavement. Which reveals more respect for humanity?

This Jeff Jarvis person...is he a (spokesman for a) media company? Because this is exactly the kind of muddying deliberately-obtuse reasoning that puts communication channels into private hands.

The question is not: Will the internet enslave us? The question is: Will the internet be yet another tool by which the rich enslave the poor?
posted by DU at 5:53 AM on March 3, 2011 [11 favorites]

That's an interesting view valkyryn, it feels right to suggest that we are all, more or less, optimists or pessimists. It's a tendency that the internet seems to encourage, and modern media seems hellbent on amplifying and manipulating.
posted by londonmark at 6:03 AM on March 3, 2011

Attempts to regulate the Internet and previous communications technologies appear to be the focus of the linked book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. I might have to add this one to my reading list.

Broadcast radio wasn't controlled either. At first. For that matter, neither was the written word, unless you count deliberate illiteracy as a kind of control (which I guess it is).

Yes! The written scribal word absolutely was a center of control - it's the backbone by which various Churches dominated for millenia. Scribal texts such as scrolls and codexes were archival mechanisms, which allowed text to be retransmitted via oral reading to a group - "silent reading" didn't exist, because of the precious and fragile nature of the physical text. As oral language drifted, scribal language stayed relatively static, and therefore frequently the written language would not only be unreadable by the illiterate masses, it would not even be understood read aloud except to the inducted, as it was a different language altogether. This was a bug, but also a feature, as education in the scribal arts became an easy way to perpetuate class distinctions.

The written printed word was also a mechanism of state control, censorship being conceived almost immediately as one of the great benefits of the printing press - the Star Chamber started banning books almost as soon as they had been invented, and was frequently concerned with managing their content to ensure public accounts of news events made the state look good. The mass production of text offered a new means for centralization and control as the middle and lower classes became increasingly literate. It effectively moved the mechanism by which text was reproduced moved out of their (literal) hands and back into the control of the state. Of course, this simply reinforced the need for scribal text, and the main mechanism for the transmission of news became the "separate," handwritten pages of rumours and news which were passed from individual to individual in the 16th-19th century. (These had a big resurgence in the 20th century USSR - see the samizdat.) Printed newsbooks were often whitewashed or censored, and that Star Chamber link notes all news publications were banned England-wide from 1632-1638. This note-passing tradition was eventually obsoleted by the recentralizing effect of the newspaper... I'm beginning to sense a pattern here.

Anyway, what were we talking about?
posted by mek at 6:06 AM on March 3, 2011 [9 favorites]

Amen! All arguments for restricting information technology have the desire for continued control by established interests baked into their very foundations.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:36 AM on March 3, 2011

Of course no one "controls" the packets, and no one can successfully censor the net. (at least not currently) But the parts many use - and must use - are controlled by surprisingly few entities. Facebook makes decisions affecting how its millions of users relate to each other online. Google's algorithms decide the first thing someone sees when looking for information on a local political campaign.

It is entirely possible for an "open" and "uncontrolled" internet to be dominated by undemocratic interests. The government, ostensibly, is responsible to its citizens. Facebook, Google, et. al., are not.

And unlike the article, I don't think raising concerns about the values a technology fosters is inherently an argument about control either.

Related:
Jacques Ellul's 76 Reasonable Questions to ask about any technology
posted by Wemmick at 6:54 AM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just some datapoints for reflection on this topic of conversation:

1. This is the english language internet yes? Content, not conduit?
2. Content and conduit, imho, are being mashed together in these kinds of debates. Unless what you want to control is conduit, in which case one wonders if content has forgotten its independence?
3. Emerging market interwebses are at the point where "this" internet was back in the late 1990s. For example, this is a new success story but would be redundant in most 'advanced' locations.
4. Here's a snippet from someone sitting in Africa that gives food for thought on the whole conversation:

What's the Future for Social CRM in Africa?

Internet penetration is still low relatively low in Africa. In fact, telecommunication companies across the continent have identified data as the next frontier as voice revenues continue to thin due to increased competition and regulatory intervention. The vast majority of Africans still do not have Internet access and an even smaller number is present in social media spaces. Egypt, Tunisia and teach us that this minority connected to the Internet is able to use their online presence to influence offline realities. Can they be ignored? Should businesses ignore them? I don’t think so. Malcolm Gladwell thinks their influence is overrated. I posit that they have influence none the less.


Selective freedoms or discriminatory controls?
posted by infini at 6:59 AM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

sigh.

"Net Neutrality" is government control over the internet. If you're worried about 'altruistic' camels sticking their nose under the tent of the unregulated internet, step one would be to not ask the government to regulate the internet.
posted by empath at 7:03 AM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

When the author mentions the influence of the Internet on politics at the end of the article, I'd say in response, we've only begun to see the possibilities of what can be done.

Think of contemporary campaigning for a presidential election in the US...

What are the barriers to creating an online platform for campaigning? More specifically, why does one need to spend millions of dollars traveling across fifty states when a network exists to disseminate information to nearly every individual in the United States directly?

Imagine being able to log on to a website/app that uses a well-designed format to effectively communicate what each presidential candidate brings to the table. Debates could occur online between candidates, and questions could be filtered and fielded to the candidates to determine how they would propose to solve various issues of national importance.

My question is, in this day and age, why is it still the case that only the wealthy (or those that are severely indebted to lobbying groups) that run for president?

Naturally, you wouldn't want anybody to be a presidential candidate, but that's a very solvable problem. Candidates could be required to take competency tests before being accepted. Colleges at the undergraduate level, as well as at the graduate level, have devised methods of determining whether a given student is qualified. A president, for example, should have a sound understanding of how all the major branches of government work together, as well as how to act effectively as a president.
This should definitely be a prerequisite.

Much in line with what the article states, one of the highest promises of the freedom of the Internet is its potential to use flows of information to reach higher levels of functioning that were previously impossible. When a government of a country with over a billion people severely restricts flows of information on the Internet, it effects everyone. Unseen human potentials and grand achievements are "greyed out", and the price of such loss is unknowable. Some losses might be relatively insignificant, others could have changed the world for the better.

Think of the promise of Paypal and what it could have been. Think of the promise of so many ideas that never were, because people feared the flow of data and what they didn't understand.
posted by lemuring at 7:21 AM on March 3, 2011

*falls off soapbox*
posted by lemuring at 7:22 AM on March 3, 2011

"Net Neutrality" is government control over the internet. If you're worried about 'altruistic' camels sticking their nose under the tent of the unregulated internet, step one would be to not ask the government to regulate the internet.

Sorry. So what's step two?
posted by cashman at 7:25 AM on March 3, 2011

My question is, in this day and age, why is it still the case that only the wealthy (or those that are severely indebted to lobbying groups) that run for president?


I'm no expert, but I think you're underestimating the power of traditional media, particularly TV, to shape and influence public opinion. And of course, the people that control traditional media are the ones with all the power. They're certainly not going to back a Rick-rolled independent over someone that is indebted to them and will act in their best interests. See Bush and oil, Obama and banks, etc. Plus, I don't think a two-party (or three, for that matter) system leaves much room for independents. It would be very tough for a new philosophy to take root in the current political environment.
posted by londonmark at 7:55 AM on March 3, 2011

This reminds me a bit of Marshall McLuhan. Is the medium the message? Are our fears about the distracting, fragmenting nature of internet communication really about control, or are they about the way new technologies change our ways of thinking and relating to each other.

Well, I think it's both. I think fears about control are real and important. However, it is also undeniable that the invention of television changed the way we imagine the world, and that the invention of the telephone change the way we communicate with each other, and so on. These changes are not necessarily bad or necessarily good. There will always be those that argue that the new possibilities inherent in new technologies mean they are a definite good and those that argue that the changes they bring about are a definite bad. But actually I don't see any reason why we think so simplistically.

I hate twitter because it tends to lead to people talking about banal stuff in a banal manner, reducing even interesting novelties to nuance-less blurbs. I like cell phones for the most part because my housemates don't have to take messages for me. But I am not a fan of people who text at parties. I can think all these things simultaneously, there's no real contradiction.
posted by mai at 8:29 AM on March 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sorry. So what's step two?

Breaking local internet monopolies (verizon, comcast, etc) by encouraging more competition in the ISP market, metro wireless, etc...
posted by empath at 8:37 AM on March 3, 2011

My question is, in this day and age, why is it still the case that only the wealthy (or those that are severely indebted to lobbying groups) that run for president?
---
I'm no expert, but I think you're underestimating the power of traditional media, particularly TV, to shape and influence public opinion.

Old people vote. Old people don't tweet.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 9:42 AM on March 3, 2011

I've seen this same chronological reveal of bias towards change in the field of grammar. I wish I could find a link right now, but basically if you look back to the beginnings of standardized grammar (a form of language control) you can see any number of commentators bemoaning the loss of traditional writing and grammar skills. You know, like how txtng iz recking teh purity of teh lingo yo.
posted by madred at 11:11 AM on March 3, 2011

Metafilter: teh lingo yo
posted by mmrtnt at 11:58 AM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think that defining technophobia as a fear of loss of control is an interesting angle, but limited. Maybe the unfamiliarity with this new media represents a loss of control, i.e. the mastery of communicating through traditional grammar syntax, but I think that also misses something.

A lot of this "new media" forces us to be increasingly disembodied; sure, we form new communities online, but we lose the connectedness with our immediate surroundings. You could make that argument for the telephone, but even that had a limiting factor (the fact that you had to deliberately call someone in order to speak to them).

So maybe a lot of this internet angst comes from its unlimited, amorphous nature. If one is raised in a world in which he only experiences his immediate world, of course he's going to gnash his teeth when his kids' world is largely contained online and passively accessible at all hours.

I'm sure our ancestors said the same things about telephones, books, & etc., so barring some kind of brain collapse, I'm pretty sure our society will adapt to this new normal. Like it always has.
posted by Turkey Glue at 12:31 PM on March 3, 2011

As a semi-luddite who works all day with technology, my main concern is that we hardly consider how any of this stuff changes social life. I mean running water is a great thing for convenience and public health but it also means that people no longer have to talk to each other while doing the laundry at the village well. Being hunched over a laptop in a bathrobe looking at photos of the "best party eva" is nothing like being there.
posted by mr.ersatz at 12:44 PM on March 3, 2011