Tagged: Media Technologies

My Take on Morozov’s Net Delusion

Because of Hurricane Sandy, my New Technologies class had to make up the class in some productive way. I assigned the students the Evgeny Morozov book, Net Delusion: The Dark Side of the Internet. In addition to reading the book, each students had to write a 200-word response to a question I posted about the differences between Morozov’s argument about Internet freedom and what Clay Shirky’s utopianism of the creative possibilities afforded by global digital networks.

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I recorded a twelve-minute summary of the book’s first three chapters, hoping that I would reinforce the students’ perceptions of what they read. I even recorded my summary as a talking-head video, but then I got the idea about editing the video into short segments, along with titles. However, the video was recorded as H.264 HD video, and it was almost impossible to edit on Final Cut Pro. I tried iMovie, but I kept getting import errors so I gave up. Thankfully, I had also set up a USB microphone to record the audio on my computer. I was able to edit this audio very easily, sadly without the visual chapter markers.

If I didn’t have flu and had more time, I would tried harder to edit the video. But then again, it was just a talking-head video. Aside from my sweaty brow and my gaze directed off the screen, what else could you see from the video? After all, didn’t someone say that they preferred radio to television because the pictures were better?

N.B.: I am way out of practice with speaking to a microphone.

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“Internet” Before the Web Was to Connect

A few days ago, I came across an episode of a long-running TV series, Computer Chronicles, about the Internet from 1993. (I don’t remember seeing this during its twenty-year run, between 1983 and 2002, but man, I wish I had!)

Throughout the program, the hosts do a commendable job at explaining the Internet (or “internet” as almost everyone on the program refers to it). One of the first things they do is distinguish it from commercial networks, such as Compuserve and Prodigy, and from closed networks, such as those run by NASA and (D)ARPA. The Internet, they imply, is free and is open. It is “open” in that there is no central authority controlling it, and it is “free” after one invests in a computer, some software, some networking infrastructure (basically, a modem and a phone line), and sign up with a service (for $10–20 per month, they explain).

The Internet in this 1993 episode predates the web, but the features of the Internet are nonetheless compelling. The guests showcase a handful of Internet technologies: gopher, telnet, finger, and file transfer protocol (FTP), which in 2012 are all deprecated. We also see a demonstration of The Well, a very old but still operating online community. Each of these technologies were independent of a commercial system. They were all contributed by an eager community of early users of the Internet. It is as if they understood that in order to make this network great, there must be some measure of personal sacrifice. The Internet was not a way to get rich. It was a place to connect.

Or at least it seemed that way.

Algorithms Awry: Pump and Dump…and Fake Google News

It appears that PRWeb, a public relations outfit that allows companies to distribute news releases to media outlets such as newspapers, websites, etc., distributed a report that Google was acquiring ICOA, a small WiFi company, for $400 million. The report was false.

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The fake news of the acquisition was picked up by several news outlets, which often will reprint news releases without modification, and spread throughout the worlds of technology and finance. An irony was that one of the propagators of this false report was Google. The report was prominent on its own Google News service, which itself is a clearinghouse for news organizations.

While it’s not clear at this time why someone created a false report on this acquisition, one can imagine that there might be a financial motive. For those unfamiliar with the workings of the stock market, a company such as ICOA sells pieces of its company as shares to the public. The total value of these shares represent the value of the company. If the company is to be acquired for, say $400 million, the value of the owned shares of the company would reach at least that amount. In other words, each share of the company would increase dramatically once there was news of an impending acquisition. If someone held these shares before a company was being acquired, it could presumably make all the investors rich because their shares have increased in value.

Someone could presumably craft a fake news release and distribute it through PRWeb for a small fee. PRWeb will then distribute the news release to search engines, such as Google, and to news wire services, newspapers, and other news websites. Once news outlets around the web publish the fake news about the acquisition, it could set off a frenzy of investors buying the stock which will drive up the price. (The stock market works like an auction, where the most recent price of a share is the value of the share.) If the person who crafted the fake news report had shares of the company or had conspired with someone who held those shares, that person could sell his/her shares for a greatly inflated price and pocket a nice sum of money.

This practice is pump and dump. One pumps up the company by spreading positive news, and then dumps shares of the company once the news inflates the value of the shares. Because of the speed at which information can spread on the World Wide Web, the fake news of the acquisition can become the story, without allowing reporters enough time to verify the story, and it could drive up the share price very quickly. This allows the pumper of the company to dump the shares in a very short amount of time.

The manner in which the fake news release hit the web appears to be a case of humans surrendering to the almighty algorithm. It appears that PRWeb did not verify the story with Google or ICOA. Google’s algorithm does not appear to verify sources, either. And once this news began to appear on websites for major newspapers, via the Associated Press, the story was taken as true and became actionable information for investors.

(Image from Wikipedia.)

Republican Study Committee Offers Real Copyright Reform…But Then Retracts It

From Ars Technica:

The memo, titled “Three Myths about Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix it,” is a direct assault on the relentlessly pro-copyright worldview dominating Washington for decades. “Most legislative discussions on this topic are not premised upon what is in the public good or what will promote the most productivity and innovation, but rather what the content creators ‘deserve’ or are ‘entitled to’ by virtue of their creation,” the memo says. That’s a problem, it argues, because the Constitution says the point of copyright is to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”—not merely to line the pockets of incumbent copyright holders.

We discussed this issue of copyright reform in my New Technologies class in the context of Lawrence Lessig’s book, Free Culture. One of the central arguments in that book was that there is a dire need for copyright reform in the face of new, digital technologies. Our copyright laws have been less a way to promote a free culture, but instead to stifle innovation in favor of profits.

It’s disheartening to see sensible reform was retracted almost as quickly as it was drafted, circulated, exciting a supportive audience.

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The Costs of Being Programmed

One of the arguments in Douglas Rushkoff’s Program or Be Programmed was the ontological argument that computers are inherently binaristic, capable of only understanding on or off while humans are more complex and nuanced, to say the least.

Another argument that I found compelling was really the rallying call Rushkoff makes here: that we must all be programmers. Perhaps I misunderstood it when I read the book the first time, but it appears that he does indeed call for digital citizens to learn programming. He says this in a passage in the final chapter of the book: “the irony here is that computers are frightfully easy to learn. Programming is immensely powerful, but it is really no big deal to learn.”[1] Once you look at some computer code, you can make some sense of it. Learning a computer language is really not much different than learning a “foreign” language. There is a vocabulary, and there are rules of syntax and grammar. The only difference is that you must be precise in writing code because computers are terrible at nuance and interpretation. They only faithfully follow instructions and panic when they don’t understand those instructions.

My interpretation of Rushkoff’s argument was more that we should understand how computers work and how digital technology is inherently biased. I unknowningly appropriated in class his example of automobiles. He responds to the point I was trying to make: that almost all of us own and operate an automobile but don’t actually understand how they work. He writes:

Throughout the twentieth century, we remained blissfully ignorant of the real biases of automotive transportation. We approached our cars as consumers, through ads, rather than as engineers or, better, civic planners. We gladly surrendered our public streetcars to private automobiles, unaware of the real expenses involved. We surrendered our highway policy to a former General Motors chief, who became secretary of defense primarily for the purpose of making public roads suitable for private cars and spending public money on a highway system. We surrendered city and town life for the commuting suburbs, unaware that the bias of the automobile was to separate home from work. As a result, we couldn’t see that our national landscape was being altered to manufacture dependence on the automobile. We also missed the possibility that these vehicles could make the earth’s atmosphere unfit for human life, or that we would one day be fighting wars primarily to maintain the flow of oil required to keep them running.[2]

Our collective failure to understand automobiles as machines, rather than as tools, has led to real, high costs. We spend the equivalent of a full day each week supporting our automobiles, we devote scarce tax money to building and maintaining roads for them, and we poison our air with their exhaust. In other words, not understanding automobiles has programmed us to work for our cars rather than the other way around. If we understood how our cars actually work, we’d look for an alternative. A friend used to say, being a former car owner is like being a former smoker: you ignore all rational thinking to keep doing it.

But this is not a call for all of us to become mechanics. It’s a call for us to become informed and understand that for all their utility, digital technology has real costs.

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  1. Rushkoff 133.  ↩
  2. Rushkoff 131–132.  ↩

New Technologies Fall 2012 Syllabus

The syllabus for my Fall 2012 New Technologies course at CUNY Queens College is now available online.

New Technologies examines the social impact of emerging technologies such as the Internet and new telephonic and audiovisual media. In it, students survey the origins of digital communication and the Internet and engage closely with contemporary scholarship on digital technologies and institutions. We will also consider the impact of the digital revolution on our culture.

Students can enroll through CUNY First.

Textbooks for Fall 2012 New Technologies Class

With the fall semester coming up less than two months away, I had to order the textbooks for my New Technologies class at CUNY Queens College.

The required readings for the course are…

I have kept most of the books from the Fall 2011 class but abandoned the textbooks in favor of creating an environment closer to that of a graduate seminar. To do that, I selected books that make specific and compelling arguments about contemporary digital media. I tried that last year, and we had some brilliant and engaging conversations. If I have to do any remedial explanations of how specific technologies work, such as explaining how the web works, I’ll do that in class as a lecture.

Although the book list might appear long (and expensive), these books are pretty easy read, and it is very easy to procure these books for a reasonable price on the used market. Students with ereaders can get every title for an average price of $10 each.

The above links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy something through those links, I will earn a commission fee.

Large Format Ads on Facebook

Why do I see an ad on Facebook.com when I log out?:

When you log out of Facebook you may see an ad that looks like a Page timeline on the homepage. This allows advertisers to show larger format ads on Facebook without interrupting your experience when you’re logged in and connecting with your friends. Advertising keeps Facebook free for everyone.

I certainly don’t have any data on this, but I imagine that very few people actually log out of Facebook instead of just closing or quitting their browser window. And if they do, it’s probably about once a day.

Does this seem like a good use of advertising dollars? I also like the closing line as it implies that users better like the big ad or pay for Facebook.

Too Metaphorically Perfect to Be True

Too Metaphorically Perfect to Be True:

The video is fake. We’re guessing the whole thing is an anti-Shell Yes Men stunt. (Logan Price, the guy who shot the video, was once quoted in a Yes Men press release.) Good one, guys.

Yes, it’s a fake, but I wouldn’t consider this deceptive. This is a great use of public relations tools—a pseudo event, press releases, a real-looking website for a public relations firm, and, of course, a viral video—to bring a Shell Arctic oil drilling project to public attention.

(Via Daring Fireball)

Tell HBO How Much You’d Pay For a Standalone Streaming Service

Brilliant!

To help raise awareness of the demand for a standalone HBO streaming service, a new site — Takemymoneyhbo.com — has sprung up, allowing members of the public to say (and tweet) how much they’d pay for the service each month.

I said $8 because that’s the same price as Netflix streaming and a Hulu Plus subscription.

(Via The Next Web.)