Let's Get Down to Business: To Defeat Tyranny

I spend most of my blogs complaining about how the internet and digital media is creating problems for society.  It can cause ‘drama’, illegal pirating, social disconnect, and privacy invasion.  But one positive effect has been most prominent in politics.  Now, I’m not one to talk about my political beliefs, because to me that’s just not important in defining a person.  However, I think we can all agree that dictatorship is bad.  This was especially the case in the Arab Spring, a revolution in the Middle East which is still going on today.

The problem over there was and is that their rulers have absolute control.  While not as bad as in North Korea, the leaders put themselves up on pedestals, asking for worship and power, killing anyone who opposes them.  Their gluttony kept them from seeing the people’s sufferings.  The people were on edge, waiting for a spark to overthrow these terrifying masters and regain their humanity.

So where does technology lie in all this?  In the youth, who were the inheritors of both the corrupt society and the saving power of global connection through the internet.  They could reach out to anyone who was willing to watch, which was also risky.  If the government found out, they could shut down the net, and their only means for help.

This new digital age is more than just iPods.  It has allowed for people to reach out, as a way to mobilize action against corruption and wrong.  While many claim that the internet is a breeding ground for lies and misinformation, it can also help to spread the truth.  When the information comes first hand, in the form of video blogs in a street full of gun fire, there’s no way to deny the reality of the situation.  The Arab World started a revolution, but the internet helped them achieve victory.

Of course, not all revolutions turn out to be good.  In this week’s reading, we learned of the ‘smartmob’, a networked group of people who can reach anyone anytime.  This was the case in the Arab Spring, London Riots, and many other recent uprisings.  While this can be used to overthrow injustices, it can theoretically be used to start them too.

Let’s take the Arab nations, Tunisia or Libya, it doesn’t really matter.  If, once the people had reclaimed the country for the people, they wanted, the people could have kept the country in a state of anarchy.  Being tired of rulers and government, they chose instead to govern themselves, with no man ahead of anyone else.  This state of chaos would therefore have come about due to the mob like mentality that smart mobs inherently have.  While it’s true that for the most part, smart mobs are benevolent in nature, the intentions can change depending on when the right to stop comes.

Celebrities and internet stars employ this kind of behavior at times too.  While not necessarily intent on changing anything, Youtubers such as Tobuscus, and especially Pewdiepie, employ an elitist view when naming their viewership.  Tobuscus calls his viewers ‘Audience’, while Pewdiepie goes so far as to call them the ‘Bro Army’.  As I said, no real significance is applied with these terms, other than identifying yourself as a fan of them, but you never know.  With viewers reaching the millions, it wouldn’t be that far to mobilize them to some sort of action.  Just some food for thought.

Privacy and Morality

The world is a dangerous place.  The sooner this is realized, the sooner we can grow up and face it.  The people in it can change our lives: for better or worse, through the mind or physically.  In all this chaos of struggling through an uncertain future, the internet has only amplified the problems.

This amplification has occurred mainly through invasions of privacy.  While the growing concern of large internet companies taking our information online is a big deal, we can’t turn a blind eye towards our friends.  Sometimes, they are the cause of our misfortune.  We can spend so much time blocking unwanted attention from prying eyes, but in return we divulge our greatest secrets to the people outside of that realm.

I say this because of two examples of cyber-bullying that lead to suicide that we read this week.  The cases of Megan Meier and Tyler Clementi show just how real a virtual world can be.  [Please read/watch the video, because I’m about to go on a rant]  While it may be easy for strangers to say things to us, painful comments have a much greater sting when coming from people we trust.  This especially was present in Megan Meier’s story.  She trusted an internet friend, one whom she thought was the one bright spot in her life, and that person completely crushed her.  What makes the situation worse is that the boy she grew feelings for didn’t even exist; it was just an angry teen’s mother.  This not only crosses the line of trust in friends, but also shows just how sick the world can be.  Let’s start with the ‘feud’ between the two teenage girls.  Supposedly, they were friends before some event that separated them, which caused the other girl to say that Megan was mean.  At the age of 13, any type of debacle between friends is probably insignificant.

So now we’ve got a young girl crying about her friend that did something ‘bad’, and her mother wants to help out.  Instead of being an adult, doing the responsible thing and consoling her child, or conferring with Megan’s parents, she creates a false profile to get revenge on a teenager.  This is just unfathomable to me.  I’m positive that no matter what age I was, I would just say ‘move on’.  Revenge is a vicious cycle, and pointless.  No one wins.

The case with Tyler Clementi is a bit harder to put myself in.  The whole notion that someone could be watching you in your own room is a definite invasion of privacy.  But what sets it overboard is that he was caught in the act of something sacred to him: his sexuality.  It’s easy for me to say, regardless of sexual preference, that I wouldn’t be as drastic as he was in this situation.  I’d be embarrassed, have a talk with my roommate about his tendencies, but I wouldn’t commit suicide.  It’s not the end of the world.

But we’re all different people.  Some are open with their lives, leaving no detail out of public space.  Others rarely show their true self, only to a handful of their closest friends.  It’s a sensitive area for sure, but with the new innovations of video cameras, private and public lives can be crossed instantaneously.  His roommate had no right to broadcast Tyler’s affair, or even see it for himself.  Some things are on a need to know standard, and shouldn’t be crossed.

What I ask the most when thinking about this case is: What does Dharun Ravi (the roommate), have to gain by doing this?  Entertainment?  At what cost?  Things like this are what make me lose faith in humanity.

In the end, the problem is hard to solve.  On one hand, you could just quit the internet, and deal with the already enormous amount of problems in day to day life.  On the other, you can continue the usage of social networking sites, while always watching your step in what you say or do.  Both paths aren’t perfect solutions, but unless there’s a paradigm shift in the attitudes towards other people’s privacies, or just morality in general, there won’t be a better answer.

While I’m not one to shove ideas down throats, I will say this: wait.  As much as the musical Sweeney Todd isn’t for life lessons (unless slaughtering people for meat pies in a path for revenge against the man who took your daughter is now ok), there’s a line in one of the songs that says “Good things come to those who wait”.  Whether you’re waiting for that one person to come along and make your life better, or waiting to get out of the shadow of our past, the future is hope.  Life goes on, and so should you.

Who Wants to Rule the World?

When we think of major corporations in the digital world, ones that come to mind are Apple and Google. Apple's claim to fame was the iPod, revolutionizing the world of music storage, eventually leading to the Mac computer and iPhone technology. Their empire has been growing in the eyes of the public, seemingly creeping into every aspect of our lives, turning anything we own into a possessive noun (iTV, iCar, iHuman). But Google has been creeping into our lives also, albeit much more subtly.


Think about it: it’s the first place you go when you have a question, or want to browse for pictures, or pretty much do anything on the internet.  It’s a gateway to other websites, therefore allowing and blocking access to anything it sees fit.


Not to say this is a bad thing.  It knows when to block the most malicious of sites, yet still keeps risky sites, simply cautioning us before moving forward.  Google muddies up searches sometimes, but it doesn’t forbid.


Because of this, I would rather have Google take over the world, than Apple.  Apple shoves ‘new’ products down our throats every couple of months, forcing us to spend money to buy a somewhat faster device than the previous one.  Google, on the other hand, invades our privacy by displaying advertisements that pertain to our interests.  People might be alarmed by this, but it’s true and less dangerous in my opinion.  Apple has us in hypnosis, tricking us into wanting whatever they make, regardless of necessity.  Google is upfront, explaining their intentions and giving us some freewill (Privacy Policy).


I can’t deny that Google isn’t reaching into the corners of our daily life either. While only recently they added interfacing to Youtube, Google has had the internet’s video storage in their wings since 2006.  They also are reaching into our hard drives, creating Android technology for phones, and Chrome, an operating system for specialized netbooks.  They’re even developing glasses straight from a science fiction movie.  Nicknamed ‘Project Glass’, the technology would be a way to basically do any features of a phone or computer in virtual reality terms. 


While all this expansion may seem scary, the companies don't hold the power; we do.  These powerhouses have come to where they are today because of our support of them.  In the end, their endless expansion into new territory can be stopped by our simple response of no.  If they breach a sector of our privacy they aren't allowed in, we step in and tell them this won't be stood for.  Apple and Google aren't self-sufficient machines; they rely on outside sources for their resources.  And if the farmers go on strike, and king and his castle will crumble.

He Sees You When You're Sleeping

                One major concern people have nowadays is that of privacy.  With more and more technologies being developed that can track where you are, when you were there, and other personal information, this fear is justified.  In one reading this week, the chapter ‘The Challenge of an Open Society’ from David Brin’s The Transparent Society, the dilemma was posed of which society to choose when both are straight from Orwell’s 1984.  Both of these cities have cameras round every corner, always watching.  In one city, only law enforcement or other government personnel can watch the video tapes, while the other one lets everyone view the cameras.  This difficult decision poses the question, is it better to have some privacy with the ‘safety’ of the government, or live freely but be stalked by the public?

                It’s a difficult choice to make, but I personally would choose the second society.  While it may seem easier to choose the first, and have the safety of knowing the police are watching out for us, they may be watching us doing things we don’t want to get out.  Whether illegal or embarrassing, they’re looking at us more diligently, and thus are more likely to be watching you at any given time.

                In the second society, however, everyone can watch each other.  It is easy to think, “Well, that means that all the stalkers will be watching our habits”, but I’m a bit of an optimist in this situation.  Even if we are being watched by malicious people, I believe that there would be someone benevolent that would also be watching, who could help in times of need.  For every bad person, there are two good people.

                Brin would agree with the second society.  He later argues that accountability is the way that we can strive in such a cautious lifestyle.  If we ask questions, and somewhat distrust government, this gives us a skeptical lens with which to peer into the lives of others.  As he says, “Whenever a conflict arises between privacy and accountability, people demand the former for themselves and the latter for everybody else” (331).  As an individual, privacy is our main goal, and it’s everyone else’s job to make sure we have it.  But it’s a two way street: we need to reciprocate this idea.

                This is precisely the reason why society two could flourish.  Supposing that, to quote Plato, we all minded our own business, living with 24 hour surveillance would be just fine.

                In a way, we’re already living in this society.  Our internet usage and phone call history can be accessed by non-government folks.  Yet no consequence befalls either end of this viewership.  This is simply because of the accountability.  They can watch us, and make sure nothing illegal occurs, but in the end, what is the point in observing an upstanding citizen?  If nothing of note is going on, why waste time watching for a slipup?

Avast, Ye Maties

For this week, let's talk about something serious: pirating.  We hear it all the time, about people getting songs or movies for free off the internet.  And why not?  You could pay ten dollars to see a two hour film at the movie theatre, or fifteen for the latest album of your favorite band, but it’s so much easier to just go online and find it for free.  While in my heart, I abhor this behavior, sometimes I’ll just go to Youtube and find a song that I can’t be bothered with finding in a store.  It’s infinitely replayable, and I don’t have to waste hard drive space on it.  But this is where the buck stops for me.

            Some people take it further, having a whole library of songs, into the thousands, of files found on torrent sites.  As a fan of music, I want to support my favorite artists by buying their albums.  When you bypass the marketing aspect of media, you’re hindering the musicians, producers, composers, and anyone else involved, possibly making it so they don’t make any more albums.  No one wins.

            But piracy can also be seen on the creative side, not just the consuming side.  This is the world of taking sound bites and using them in a new song, of taking characters from one show and putting them in another; in essence, remix.  By definition, it is taking pre-existing material and using it for something new.  While some consider it creative, others consider it piracy.  Take for example, Nelly’s ‘Just A Dream’, and a cover of it by Youtubers Sam Tsui and Christina Grimmie, which is shown below.


The original version of the video, while hosted by Vevo and thus doubly sponsored, has twice as many views as the cover.  Still, the cover version has 50+ million views, meaning we can safely assume that it’s been seen by legal companies.  This is piracy, and yet it’s alright by legal standards.

            As how it should be.  Most problems nowadays are focused so much more on the money, and about ‘this is mine, pay me’.  What should be the focus is on the art, about seeing that both are valid in their own way, and we can recognize that Nelly is the original creator of the song.  So long as that’s agreed upon, there shouldn’t be any troubles.  But in a society where money comes first, we start to stifle creative input, and shut down potentially groundbreaking art.

            Another example of this comes from a few years back, when some original content was being put on Youtube, and George Lucas wasn’t very happy about it.  This is to be expected.  Putting out media that you should be paying for shouldn’t be seen for free.  The interesting thing to note is that he is alright with parody material on Youtube.  It’s basically free advertisement, so why demand for that being taken down?  It’s piracy, taking intellectual property and creating something new with it, and yet major corporations allow for it.

            This is an ideal system.  So long as everyone gets the credit they deserve, everything is alright.  If we just ousted with the desires for money and glory, and focused on the entertainment value, we could turn to more pressing problems, instead of trying to shut down 3^rd party media sites.

            In all, piracy is bad.  We’re taught all through our educational life that plagiarism is wrong, and that’s just what it is.  But so long as you acknowledge that, yes, I didn’t make this song, but I did a karaoke version of it, then that’s fine.  It’s our creative outlet.  We all want to leave our mark on the world, but we have to remember the people who helped us get there.

Amateurs Make the World Go Round

This week, we were tasked with reading articles on some websites that make the internet world turn. Specifically, how both Youtube and Wikipedia do what they do efficiently. They're both new communities that developed from the Web 2.0 revolution. But while most people accept and love these resources, there is some dissatisfaction with them. One of these naysayers, Andrew Keen, argues in his book, The Cult of the Amateur, that with the addition of these 'anyone can do it' websites, we are losing our culture, and declining in artistic prowess.

In reality, however, not much has changed.  While there are new technologies to facilitate easier access to knowledge of topics, the understanding of them is still the same.  Look at Wikipedia.  While it does allow for anyone, presumably non-experts, to create a ‘wikiality’, the facts must still be checked with concrete knowledge.  At the bottom of every Wiki page is a list of resources used, kind of an internet bibliography.  So while it is true that amateurs – “a hobbyist, knowledgeable or otherwise, someone who does not make a living from his or her field of interest” (Keen, 36) – make up the bulk of the editors on Wikipedia, the facts come from the experts themselves.

                Keen’s other problem arises in the land of citizen journalism.  He sees this as one of the many reaches of amateurism that erupted from the internet.  The way he sees it, only the people who went to college for journalism, or has a background in writing is allowed to report on events.  But those people can only report on so many things.  They’re paid to talk about certain things, and are allowed only that.  Citizen journalists, however, have no jurisdictions (besides the law, of course).  With the power of the internet, they also helped bring mainstream news to a wider variety of people.

                While he doesn’t mention Youtube and its creations, I’m sure he has some negative views on this video sharing site.  It’s the definition of amateurism.  Whereas Wikipedia required knowledge of something, anything, Youtube just requires a camera.  Even I have a Youtube account, in my vain attempt to become noticed.  But that’s what it’s all about.  The millions of people on that website aren’t trying to destroy culture, and make a farce of art and expertise.  They’re trying to develop their expertise into a profitable venture.  Based on just the Youtubers I subscribe to, the talents these entrepreneurs have range from video arts (Vincent Cyr, FreddieWong), to actors/comedians (Toby Turner, Ryan Higa, Kevin Wu), and musicians (DavidChoi, Chester See, Destorm Powers, etc.).  Some of these artists, such as Freddie Wong and Toby Turner, have mentioned in their videos their educational background in videography and acting, respectively.  Yet in mainstream media, it’s rare to see these professional, amateur Youtubers.  Just because they haven’t been hired by a record company or film studio, doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified.

                In all, the internet isn’t a place for only the professional and expert.  It’s a melting pot of ideas, talents, upbringings, and intelligence.  From Wikipedia to Youtube, culture isn’t being destroyed; a new one is simply being born.

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Bibliography:

Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture. New York: Doubleday/Currency, 2007. Print.

Real or Roleplay

When we were asked to read a couple chapters from Sherry Turkle's Alone Together, I was surprised to find that A. The text wasn't boring, and B. I could relate to some of her frustrations.  I say some because although I agree that as a whole, people are afraid of the telephone, resorting to calls as a last resort, when Turkle points out that we create virtual identities to substitute our own lives, I just can't stand with her.  Sure, there are people out there who live vicariously through their online 'avatars', but Turkle explodes this idea into massive proportions.

The example in particular that Turkle uses is that of a girl named Audrey, in chapter 10, 'No Need to Call'.  This teenager is used as a representative example to show that a majority of not just youth, but beings in general develop and cultivate an alternate world for themselves, as a stand-in of sorts when their real life day to day isn't great.  In the real world, Audrey is 'one of Elaine's shy friends who prefers texting to talking'.  Turkle goes on, describing Audrey's strained family relationship, and how Facebook and Myspace help her to be a happy, flirty teen and not the struggling 'woe is me' high school girl.  The problem is, she is one of a small minority who behave this way.

Take a step back and look at your own tendencies on social networking sites.  In my own immediate circle of friends, I notice that none of them show a side that I haven't seen in person.  They use Facebook as a way to stay connected, not develop a fantasy realm.  I also use it as a supplement, not a substitute, to the rigors of day to day life.  While the anonymity of the internet does let us be bolder, (I have ranted to it more than I would dare to in real life), the fact is, most people don't suffer from a Jekyll/Hyde complex.

Another case that I can speak with experience are the worlds of roleplay and MMO's (Massively Multiplayer Online [games]).  Having frequented both, I can understand Turkle's fear of losing yourself in a fantasy environment.  As I said earlier, there are people who do 'become their character', speaking with a certain dialect or having it transfer to their real life personalities.  But overall, people understand that what they're doing is fake.  Pretending you're slaying dragons or are a samurai in modern Japan is just that: pretend.

In all, I'm not complaining about Turkle's incentives for writing Alone Together.  Her arguments of the disconnectedness of humans today is spot on, and surely will get worse before it gets better.  But she's fooling herself and others when she claims that we lose ourselves in an online realm.  She doesn't factor in that although we prefer to live inside our minds, and think that it's the real deal, we know that it's fake.  The real world will be here after our imaginary worlds end, and that's where we love to live.