ah the internet. so large, varied, wily, untamable. is it possible that in the next ten years all this wonderful free exchange of information and pseudo-information will be clotted to a close by corporate and government interests? why of course it’s possible you sweet naive soul, actually as things stand now, it seems probable.
read this article on the msnbc web site this morning (yes, i know it seems somewhat ironic, especially the ms part) called a net of control. it’s not a particularly deep article truth be told. the paper the digital imprimatur, by john walker, which they refer to in the article is more compelling.
the idea that the freedoms of the internet, the anonymity, will be greatly reduced, more strictly regulated, and recast as something entirely different than what we now enjoy seems almost obvious in todays climate. under the auspices of fighting spam, improving security, reducing copywrite infringement and piracy, the mechanisms can be put in place to shape the internet’s future, mutating it from a tool of the masses toward being a tool to track the masses. it can become a perfect demographic analyzer, a more efficient source of court evidence, a better tuned movement tracker, and of course, above all, a better money maker. all the while making it easier to keep dissenting views and information in check. i know it sounds like conspiracy theory to some people, because really so long as they can get their entertainment, they don’t care. an interactive television and arm chair shopping mall is all they see anyway. obviously the concerns about spam, security, and piracy are warranted, but the parallels to the world outside of cyberspace is obvious, and we need to be careful. don’t we? with the digital millennium copywrite act, and the powers granted the government by the patriot act how long i wonder before a department of on-line security is created, with a color coded alert system to warn of threats? how long before the books i read have my machine targeted for pharmaceutical ads? how long before the things i say have my machine targeted with denial of service attacks? how long before we’re all on some fucking list somewhere? aaargggh! orwellian world here we come.
an interesting side of this issue is the fact that the government has long said that the internet “poses an insurmountable threat to authoritarian regimes”, and has said that its proliferation in places like china would “bring freedom”. (this paper analyzes the issue using china and cuba as case studies and comes to an interesting conclusion) but if this is so, if they are so enthralled with the internet’s democratizing effects, why did the us (represented by a decidedly second string delegation) poo poo the idea put forward at the recent world summit of information society of a u.n. backed fund to help develop tech in the poorest countries? money of course, and control (the “democratizing effects” be damned). the same reasons they balk at the idea of a u.n. based regulatory commission for the internet. we pretty much own the internet as it stands now in the form of icann which is the defacto body of internet governance. while largely ignoring the concerns of poorer countries at the conference it was put forth again and again that keeping governance in the private sector (the western private sector) is the way to maintain freedom of expression on the internet. but it does not take a great leap of imagination to see that if mainly american companies govern the internet the freedom of expression is thus itself governed by the u.s. government. there were concerns that “nations like China, Egypt, Pakistan, Tunisia and Vietnam were hoping to use the summit to gain power to censure the dissemination of information” (from this article), which may be legitimate, but as everyone ought to know by now the only government with a right to censure the dissemination of information is the u.s. we’re a democracy and thus the jewel of the world. we value freedom of expression over all else! right? anyhow, don’t get me wrong, i’m all for us keeping our money, for us continuing to be powerful. i’m not retarded after all. i live here. but through what methods and to whose benefit? all the rhetoric about freedom seems a bit disgusting when those freedoms are constantly being chipped away at and re-molded here at home to be freedoms of corporations and agencies rather than freedoms of individuals. it’s the same rhetoric used to get us frothing to war isn’t it? maybe i’m just cynical, maybe it’s just a quality of youth? fine. hot air? i’m a moron? fine fine fine. nothing would make me happier.
if you’d like to read up on any of this or keep track of the trends here are some links:
digital right management and the breakdown of social norms