A new book is making waves by challenging the idea that open-source is a positive force for good. It looks like becoming one of this year’s most talked about “manifestos” and like last year’s ‘Free: The Future of a Radical Price’, ‘You Are Not a Gadget’ is also penned by an ex-Wired journo.
The book’s writer Jaron Lanier wonders if the web’s structure and ideology is nurturing nasty group dynamics and uninspiring, derivative collaborations.
He rallies against the way we celebrate open-source software, free information and collective work at the expense of individual creativity.
Lanier blames the web’s tradition of “drive-by anonymity” for fostering a vicious pack behaviour on blogs, forums and social networks.
Although Lanier gives credit to examples of collaborative achievement such as Wikipedia, he argues that the idea that “information wants to be free” has produced a destructive new social force.
“Reciprocity takes the form of self-promotion. Culture is to become precisely nothing but advertising,” he writes.
Lanier is not alone. Quite a few people have questioned the wisdom of web 2.0, and we’ve made our own noises about the troll phenomenon, which some think is becoming more prevalent.
Lanier also takes issues with digital theft, whether it’s music downloading or newspaper articles. He describes a world in which “digital peasants” provide free content for “lords of the clouds” such as Google and YouTube.
In the self-described “mainfesto”, Lanier takes his thesis to its logical end by proposing a complete rethink of the web’s ideology and the introduction of a universal system of micro payments. Music to the ears of Rupert Murdoch.
Still, Lanier’s idea for a new online system is arguably not as severe as some of the ideas being mooted in the UK, which could see those caught in the act of illegal downloading having their broadband access cut off.
It’s difficult to see Lanier’s proposal gaining any traction, when it appears that the train has already left the station so to speak. How do you treat an illegal downloader like a house burglar when the burglars vastly out number the house owners because there are a lot more consumers of digital content than producers of it.
It’s like trying to stop a mob of looters in the midst of a riot. When the majority of people feel that it’s their firmly entrenched right to take or repurpose someone else’s content, who is going to stand in their way?
Elsewhere, here’s College Humor’s take on the internet troll … “out of his parents’ basement, into your fairy tales”.
Nice post Darren and love the vid. FYI Jaron Lanier is speaking next month at the RSA http://rsalanier.eventbrite.com/
Absolutely it is. The problem is that the prediliction to troll is based upon very natural human impulses, such as a negativity bias and the desire to rally around something, even if that something is an angry mob.
The twist is the anonymity element – but it’s not a new question. Plato brought it up in The Republic with the Story of the Ring Of Gyges: a ring that makes you invisible. If you did not fear the consequences of your actions, what would you do? The internet answers that: petty theft, and being a bit more sarky than you normally would.
So far so shameful, but the really dangerous ingredient is the social element. It’s this that takes our bad impulses and sets them in a petri-dish to breed.
The important thing to realise is that the first ingredient – a person’s reaction to something – is human and natural. It’s only the way we’re interfering with and accelerating these impulses that’s the problem.
(I made a more cogent argument on this a few months ago – have a look at http://planningplusone.blogspot.com/2009/10/twitter-and-protestant-militanism.html. Cheers
)
Love that comment James. Social part is dangerous and particularly agree we primitively accelerate negative social behaviours in anonymity, yet hand in hand must also mention we outrageously progress the more humane positives when we live transparently in public. Through my own self-mediating online I’ve forced myself to learn things I’d never have cared to (to try and avoid looking like a fool), and on the empathy side, sought to care about people I’d never have cared to.
Hopefully technology and social integration advances so much that anonymity becomes no longer the tempting option it currently is. Still waiting for when social networks will be like air – http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2008/03/the-future-of-s.html
@Furory – cheers and thanks for the direct.
@James M – I love the Plato example and thanks for the direct to your blog. I agree about the dangerous ingredient being the social element … when anonymity and mob behaviour result in a witch hunt it can turn ugly and become quite destructive. A good recent example came when a new poster campaign for the OAA by new start-up ad agency Beta got a negative reaction on blogs and forums. What started as a constructive debate about the modern day stresses of being a working Mum soon turned into a vicious witch hunt and v personal character assassination of one of the guys running the agency. It wasn’t pretty or useful in anyway, shape or form.
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Trolls are sometimes mistaken for people who are simply caught up in the effect known as Godwin’s Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law)
Having said that, interesting that I read this article today: http://www.whatconsumesme.com/2008/posts-ive-written/enough-is-enough-youtube-trolls/ ; a call for there to be a random troll comment generator on Youtube to save them from wearing their neuron out….
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