A few weeks ago, Robert Darnton – the Director of Harvard’s libraries – wrote an editorial for the New York Times. Recently, a judge overruled the now (in)famous Google Books settlement, and Mr. Darnton wisely reiterated what appears to be everyone’s vision. A universal, free, and public digital library. I suggest you take a moment to reflect on this vision.
It’s the public library movement of our time.
The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University has an interesting podcast from last month. From their Digital Campus website:
“In this edition of the podcast Tom, Amanda, Dan, and Mills considered whether recent news stories about spammers gaming the Google search engine algorithm herald the end of big search as we know it. Is it really the case that Google engineers are being out-coded by their counterparts at “content farms” and other spam generating locations? And if they are, what does that mean for educators, students, and cultural institutions like museums, libraries, and archives?”
Check it out at: http://digitalcampus.tv/.
For a free country, the United States is a bigger fan of censorship than it likes to admit. Sure, the Constitution protects free speech. We have an independent judiciary, and we govern ourselves through elected representatives. But, Americans censor themselves everyday without realizing it. 
Most importantly, our ultimate fear of a strong and centralized power may not be worth the attention that we lavish on it.
There’s another threat out there, and we ignore it all of the time.
Big Brother, in our current situation, isn’t who we think he is. He can be an overly powerful person or group, but in America I’d argue that he doesn’t just take this form. He’s us. And we love him.
Take the Tea Party. Championing small government and free markets, this group of conservatives have hyperventilated over the past two years about an alleged infringement of our liberties by the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. Conversely, liberals routinely are up in arms about powerful monied interests like the Koch brothers… who, they argue, wield a disproportionate amount of power.
In each case, there is a fear that “other” groups are trying to control what we see, know, and hear. Be it Rupert Murdoch or NPR, Americans distrust other people’s interpretation of fact. We’re vigilant for external censorship, but never seem to be when looking in the mirror.
Over the past few years, I’ve railed against what I see as technology-enhanced information biases. Among their problems and causes:
Yes. I know that this is an argument that I’ve repeated ad-naseum, but reading Wired today I came across another example that changed my perception of the problem.
In a TED presentation, Eli Pariser argued that the Internet has allowed us to encase ourselves in “information bubbles.” Taking my assessment of bias, he attacks it from another direction by highlighting ”junk food algorithms.” You see many web tools are behaviorally driven. Using Facebook as an example, if I click on links from liberal friends then it will eventually learn to show only links from my liberal friends.
Pariser argued, essentially, that we as a society have moved from an age were people acted as the gatekeepers of information to one where programs do.
Next, he pointed out his desire for developers to make sure that their programs ensure diverse and representative information continues to be shared. A diversity of viewpoints is, after all, necessary to arrive at an informed conclusion.
While his point is interesting, I’d argue that he still opens himself to a dangerous counter-argument.
Algorithm driven or not, web search results are queried by people. Not programmers. Ultimately, people are responsible for the material they search for; both past and present. Since this is the case, doesn’t tinkering disregard their ability to choose? Doesn’t it amount to censorship? Here is where my perception shifted.
The answer, I would argue, depends on how “freely” you believe that people can choose to search for information, and how biased they can be.
On one hand, if people can independently and freely choose what they search for, then creating an algorithm which “learns” preferences isn’t a bad thing. Adjusting to ignore past choices must then amount to censorship. But, on the other hand if they are like I argued – they have biases and habits (exacerbated by new media) which create a self-reinforcing cycle – then the answer is no.
The answer is no because algorithm programmers aren’t choosing winners and losers. Instead, they are directly combating censorship. They’re targeting self-censoring behavior.
Sometimes, people get so caught up in the pursuit of personal liberty that they fail to realize it’s possible to censor oneself without consciously choosing to do so. In a way, then, we arrive at an instance of Big Brother not being an external person. It’s one where Big Brother is us.
It’s ironic then that the mirrors and televisions from 1984 were windows into people’s lives; a tool for direct censorship. In America today, the same is true but it just as quickly reveals a rarely noticed source. Oneself.
You can’t search for what you don’t know about or want to see. And if you can’t search for anything, then you aren’t truly free.
I’ve been a faithful Daily Show watcher since high school. So, when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert – two comedians from Comedy Central – announced their “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” the announcement didn’t strike me as odd. These two men were going to host a rally in Washington, D.C.? So what?
It was obvious that the rally was going to be an extension of their shows. The two have made a career of openly spoofing the media for it’s worst failures. 
Sure, Stewart and Colbert are liberals, but at the core their criticism has never been one of ideology. It’s been of messaging.
A lot of people don’t realize that.
Keith Olberman, for example, disliked the rally’s message to “take it down a notch.” Apparently, that would risk conceding to Fox News and the right.
Others have argued that the rally accomplished nothing. Or, that it simply mocked legitimate activism by Glenn Beck and the Tea Party.
David Carr’s piece in the New York Times was one of the few that caught the rally’s point while countering that Stewart is wrong in his analysis. TV pundits only reach a small audience. We really are in serious times.
Browsing though the blogs out there, everyone appears to have their own interpretation. That makes sense. Satire is complex. It thrives on individuals drawing their own conclusions. To crystallize things though, I’d like to highlight a few key passages from the rally’s closing.
So, uh, what exactly was this? I can’t control what people think this was: I can only tell you my intentions.
This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear — they are, and we do.
But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus, and not be enemies. But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke.
The country’s 24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire.
[...]
The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker.
[...]
We hear every damned day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done. The truth is, we do!
Reflecting on these passages, Stewart’s point should be clear. The press and the media are guardians of our national discourse. And, for whatever reason they don’t always communicate properly. They mess up. This mislead us. They blow things out of proportion. They sometimes cater to the lowest common denominator, and if you need evidence?
Well, just watch the Daily Show.
Stewart is thriving because the media is seen as failing. And, if anything Saturday’s rally showed that he doesn’t necessarily want them to. Neither does this librarian.
I said it once. I said it twice. I even said it a third time. Now, the internet utopians have shame on their hands. The message, as they say, might be the medium but what happens when a medium encourages people to stop double-checking their facts?
I’m talking here, of course, about the failure of the media, the government and the “blogosphere” to handle the Shirley Shirod case.
In case you aren’t familiar, three weeks ago a conservative pundit posted an online video of Mrs. Shirod, a Department of Agriculture official, speaking on race and racism. A previous victim, Shirley spoke candidly about her experiences but several statements were used to claim reverse discrimination. 
To make a long story short, the media picked up on the clip, she was fired, and nobody verified anything. Then the truth came out – her story was a tale of redemption. The clips where out of context.
Over the past year or two, Nicholas Carr has been arguing with journalists and new media advocates about the merits of the Internet. His argument isn’t so much that the Internet is bad as that it encourages short-sighted behavior.
This is the basic idea:
The net allows for quick, easy access to information. Moreover, it’s easy to produce, publish and edit electronic material. Part of new media’s success is due to it’s ease of use and web accessibility. But, in making things easier and more accessible an over-reliance on the internet encourages users to think superficially. Sources, facts and opinions are questioned less.
In short, Carr’s thesis is that the internet works well because it feeds into human nature. Interactivity is an impulsive behavior. But, our innate proclivities often result in negative consequences. Like people getting fired. The fact that a book titled “Don’t Make Me Think“ epitomizes a mainstream approach to web development speaks volumes about it’s merits and demerits.
At it’s best the web is intuitive to users and creates a democratizing effect. We can all act on instinct, skim a page, or post to Facebook. It is also true, however, that an over-reliance on intuition does not lend well to careful observation.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the Internet is a great thing. It’s perfectly feasible for people to learn to use it in a responsible way. To do that, though, I think requires the careful cultivation of our habits. Once upon a time focused thought was encouraged. Now, we rush to use computers as a “time saver.”
Being able to read does not make one fully literate. Neither does being able to use the internet. Yet, we continue to be obsessed with accessibility and being able to find information as quick as possible.
Bad idea. Here’s why.
Once upon a time publishing was a controlled, one-shot process. A lot of time and effort went into printing material. Now, anyone can publish to the web and it’s easy to have trouble distinguishing between “good” and “bad” information. There’s so much! Format, or creator, doesn’t necessarily determine quality but we aren’t taught how to identify quality information. I never took a class to tell the truth from lies. Most people don’t underlying mechanisms that make new media function either.
Unfamiliarity limits perspective.
Moreover, as companies like Google emphasize ease of use… finding quality information takes a back seat. The nature of the web is open and free, but that can be a bad thing. Especially, when you don’t realize what you’re dealing with.
