Blogging Demotivated
I must share this:
"Blogging : We're Going To Need More Monkeys"
[Original source: ishkur.com, hat tip discourse.net]
[Off-Topic?] - Why All The Website Search Traffic? [Solved]
[Update - never mind - found]
The search traffic to my site skyrocketed this evening (Aug 21), for reasons I'm curious about. Did an A-lister mention my name somewhere, but misspell it? (FinkELstein, not FinkLEstein). If anyone knows the reason, please let me know, I'm extremely interested (sethf at-sign sethf.com, or you can post a comment below).
Bogospheric Calvinism, or Unread != Unworthy
I've been attempting to keep my head down, trying to make myself a relatively small target in the aftermath discussion, since I'm an ant among elephants. Additionally, one of the problems with blog evangelism is that since A-list status is proof of God's grace on Earth, I mean, merit, non-A-list status is therefore proof of unworthiness. So whatever I wrote next had better be damn good, otherwise it would just go to show I could not meet the high standards of posting about the hot conference/UnParty, and who was there. Fortunately, in response to one gatekeeper's protest, Dave Rogers provided some evidence:
If you use Google to search for the term "censorship" on Doc Searls weblog, you get about 109 hits. [...] Now, if you search for the term "Finkelstein" on Doc's weblog, it appears only twice on February 12th and 18th 2006, rebutting the charges of "gatekeeping."
Not all of those links where Doc mentioned censorship dealt with "net censorship" per se. But one gets the impression that censorship is an issue Doc is concerned about, and opposed to, yet he never happened to stumble across a blog post by Seth Finkelstein he felt worth pointing to. [...]
It's not that Doc is actively conspiring to keep Seth Finkelstein in obscurity, he's not and nobody is making that claim. It's just that Seth's relative obscurity, in relation to his authority on what is perhaps a niche, although important, topic is due to the fact that high attention-earners have not had occasion to use their attention-directing authority to point to Seth's efforts.
Now, I suppose someone can blame Seth for that, but that's not the point. The point is that it is a myth that if you write well about a topic that people care about, you will receive attention, you will have the opportunity to be influential by virtue of your authority on the topic. That's simply not the case. While I won't go so far as to say it's a patronage system, it's not far removed from that when people advocate that lesser attention-earners link to high attention-earners in order to receive reciprocal linkage.
Or as, in a different post, Kent Newsome put it:
I'm not so much interested in having the blogosphere operate differently as I am in calling bullshit when people try to say it operates differently than it actually does.
From another angle, as Shelley Powers noted the irony:
So, here's a brain teaser: what sentences can you derive from the following words: Shel Israel, blog evangelist, naked conversationist, tells Nick Carr to sit down shut up.
I should back up for a moment and note that in my original comment, I was assuming an oligarchy, and talking about why one might continue banging your head against the wall. The answer wasn't necessarily the shiny happy "to connect with people", but perhaps the reverse, more like why people stay in a bad relationship.
So I wasn't on a grand quest for links. Rather, I was being a part of examining the driving frauds behind blog evangelism. I could enumerate fallacies, but that doesn't seem to do any good.
Anyway, Doc Searls wanted to know:
What more can I do going forward than what I've always done, which is try to link to as many people as I can who have interesting things to say?
Frankly, I don't know how to reform society, even the bogosphere, to make it more egalitarian. And my own activism efforts have ended pretty badly overall for me. But (not singling out any individual person here, but making a general statement) the standard A-list reactions of denying the mathematics and attacking the critics, are not a solution.
Update: Read all of Dave Rogers follow-up
People like Seth write with authority about important issues and they thought the blogosphere would help them find their voice and reach an audience that would allow them to be influential. Well, it doesn't work that way and it never did.
Nick Carr - "The Great Unread"
Nick Carr has a post "The Great Unread" examining some of the myths of blog evangelism, versus reality of bogosphere oligarchical structure:
A blog-peasant, one of the Great Unread, comes to the wall of the castle to offer a tribute to a royal, and the royal drops a couple of coins of attention into the peasant's little purse. The peasant is happy, and the royal's hold over his position in the castle is a little bit stronger.
I'm quoted for a comment I made on an earlier post by Kent Newsome about people's reasons for having a blog:
A handful of people responded to Newsome's post, among them the long-time blogger Seth Finkelstein. Finkelstein's tone was much darker. You sensed not only the resignation but also the bitterness that is always left behind when a fraud is revealed:
To be more personal here, I wrote because:
1) I was suckered into the idea that blogs were a way to "route around" media power, and to be HEARD.
2) I had delusions of influence.
3) The random-payoff of attention makes it seem far more effective than it actually is.
4) It's painful to admit that you've wasted so much time and effort and pretty much nobody is listening.
Blog evangelism is very cruel, as it preys on people's frustrated hopes and dreams.
My blog is read by a few dozen fans ... I've come close to shutting it down at times, and will finally reach the breaking-point eventually.
[And I meant every word of that!]
In Carr's comments, I mentioned a few other people's writing in a similar vein which I recommend:
Jon Garfunkel on The New Gatekeepers - "I will argue here that gatekeepers are inherently needed by the architecture of the blogosphere", and Promoting Women Bloggers.
Shelley Powers "some of my best friends are Z-listers", and good girls ask nicely
Dave Rogers on the "con" in "Markets Are Conversations"
I've made this point many times now, perhaps too often. But the hucksterism of blog evangelism still bothers me. While I treasure being complimented for my writing, it sadly just doesn't matter compared to the huge effect of the very tiny concentration of power which determines who gets past the gatekeepers.
"Race to the Bottom" - Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship
Human Rights Watch has released a new report "Race to the Bottom" - Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship
It's a thorough examination of the topic. I won't attempt to extensively summarize, since that'll be done by many others.
I'm mentioned (with regard to Google censorship) at the bottom of page 61, in very good company:
For more on this issue see Bill Thompson, "The billblog: Google censoring web content," BBC News, October 25, 2002 [online], http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2360351.stm; Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, "Localized Google search result exclusions," October 26, 2002 [online], http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/google/; Seth Finkelstein, "Google Censorship - How It Works," Sethf.com, March 10, 2003, http://sethf.com/anticensorware/general/google-censorship.php; and Philipp Lenssen, "Sites Google Censors," Google Blogscoped, January 25, 2005, http://blog.outercourt.com/archive/2005-01-15-n50.html (all retrieved July 12, 2006).
[Hat tip: Philipp Lenssen
AOL Data Real-World Logs Experiment Yields New York Times Privacy Proof
"A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749" is the New York Times' proof of concept of privacy invasion from search data:
Ms. Arnold, who agreed to discuss her searches with a reporter, said she was shocked to hear that AOL had saved and published three months' worth of them. "My goodness, it's my whole personal life," she said. "I had no idea somebody was looking over my shoulder."
You can just see the upper levels of the policy and punditry elite digesting this concept, as it becomes valid for them. There's a teachable moment happening right before our eyes, where conventional wisdom is being changed. Concerns about the implications of data retention, search logs, privacy invasion, etc, are suddenly moving from the outer reaches (ie. civil-libertarians) of polite society, to be respectable issues-of-the-day.
For unique material which is not being said dozens of times over by other people, I'll point out that Daniel Brandt at GoogleWatch has been making this case for years now, and even running "Scroogle", an anonymizing search proxy. This supports my points about activism - without media support, without a certain level of insiderness, you will talk forever about an issue, and not make any (or very little) progress.
AOL Search Data Launches World's Biggest Experiment On Privacy Invasion
AOL Search Data has been released for more than half a million users:
This collection consists of ~20M web queries collected from ~650k users over three months. The data is sorted by anonymous user ID and sequentially arranged.
While it'll be well-discussed, I'll observee: AOL has just given us the world's biggest real-world experiment as to whether privacy invasion can be done from search-engine data. Previously, when discussing the Google Search subpoena, all people could do was speculate - the data might have this, it could include that, maybe possibly someone could do this from it. Now we have both a huge amount of data, and many interested geeks playing with it and mining it.
I joked we'll now see a huge distributed reverse-engineering collaborative effort to track down as many anonymous user ID's as possible. At least, I hope that was joke. Maybe it wasn't.
Note this data is being far, far, more widely released than the subpoena data, which would have been under confidentiality agreements and protective orders. Worrying about Big Government can be a distraction over far worse Big Corporations.
Circuit City says it does not violate DMCA, does not copy commercial DVD's
According to a story making the rounds of the bogosphere, "Circuit City Flouts The DMCA For A Tenner"
Well, well, well! Look who's violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act! For only a couple of fins, Circuit City will take your DVD and an iPod and flagrantly breach copyright at your behest.
When I read that story, it struck me as unbelievable. I could not imagine a large chain store setting up a DVD duplication service, without authorization. These people aren't going to fight the MPAA just for fun.
So I called Circuit City for some fact-checking.
According to Bill Cimino, Circuit City Director of Corporate Communications:
"The sign is incorrect and not authorized and we are in the process of making sure the sign is removed"
"We offer two services. In a small number of stores, we will transfer your commercial CD's to a DVD, and in other stores, we will transfer your home VHS to a DVD. We do not transfer pre-recorded VHS or DVD, to DVD"
Folks, apply common sense. It's a lot more believable that someone got service details wrong, or even did some under-the-table moonlighting, than that a large corporation has an official DVD-copying service.
Quoted on "DOPA"
National Journal's section Technology Daily August 1 roundup had a small quote from me (regrettably behind a subscriber wall)
Blog Bits
Bloggers Blast Lawmakers Over Various Tech Bills
...
Another pending measure, one the House passed last week, also sparked blog criticism. The bill would require schools and libraries to block student access to online social networks. Seth Finkelstein at Infothought argued that the measure "[legislates] against interactivity."
That's an accurate quote, as far as it goes. Though the excerpt didn't fully convey that I playing off the expression "legislating morality". The full sentence was: "But "DOPA" is dramatically beyond legislating morality - it's legislating against interactivity."
Not that I'm complaining, merely elaborating. All (positive) mentions gratefully accepted. Though I received perhaps two referer hits from National Journal, so my tech pundit status remains down in the Z-list.
"DOPA" and What Is A "Social Networking Website"?
In some "DOPA" discussions, the issue of "what is a Social Networking Website?" gets examined. The legal language is:
(J) COMMERCIAL SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES; CHAT ROOMS- Within 120 days after the date of enactment of the Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006, the Commission shall by rule define the terms `social networking website' and `chat room' for purposes of this subsection. In determining the definition of a social networking website, the Commission shall take into consideration the extent to which a website--
(i) is offered by a commercial entity;
(ii) permits registered users to create an on-line profile that includes detailed personal information;
(iii) permits registered users to create an on-line journal and share such a journal with other users;
(iv) elicits highly-personalized information from users; and
(v) enables communication among users.'.
My contribution: While people can have fun coming up with the most twisted interpretation possible, as a kind of party-game ("it bans all ISP's, because ISP's collect personal info, generally have free webpages, and enable communication among users"), I'm virtually certain that the eventual answer is going to be pretty simple:
A "Commercial Social Networking Website" will be whatever the censorware company puts on the blacklist for "commercial social networking websites". End of story.
Why is this true? Simple. Because that's what happened the last time regarding FCC censorware compliance regulations. They basically amounted to saying that the censorware companies could do whatever they wanted. There's no reason to think it'll be any different this time.
"DOPA" - HR 5319, Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006
The "Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006" (DOPA) act was recently passed. To quote Library Journal for a summary:
"This unnecessary and overly broad legislation will hinder students' ability to engage in distance learning and block library computer users from accessing a wide array of essential Internet applications including instant messaging, email, wikis and blogs," said ALA president Leslie Burger. "Under DOPA, people who use library and school computers as their primary conduits to the Internet will be unfairly blocked from accessing some of the web's most powerful emerging technologies and learning applications. As libraries are already required to block content that is "harmful to minors" under the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), DOPA is redundant and unnecessary legislation." DOPA would extend CIPA by tying receipt of E-rate funds to blocking social networking and other sites. The legislation now will go to the Senate, which ALA said may or may not have time to vote before their session ends for the year.
I was going to sit this one out because of preaching-to-the-choir, but Kent Newsome asked my thoughts (disclosure: he's said nice things about me), so here's a rundown, and an attempt to say a few thing not everyone else has said.
1) We've been here, this is called "moral panic"
Set the WayBack machine for ten years ago, and you'd see similar articles about AOL. Here's a good one, from *1995*
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1995/09/21/DD22231.DTL
AOL wants to have its cake and eat it, too. It wants a family system that appeals to kids. It also wants to keep making money off the hotchat crowd. And it's terrified that the Microsoft Network is going to eat its lunch, so it's selling harder than ever.
Unfortunately, in the process it's built a system that makes it easy for predators to operate, and has then turned around and aggressively marketed it to prey. AOL had better figure something out. As it stands, this is not going to end well for it.
2) Observe the slippery slope in action
I don't know how many times the point has been made that once censorware was woven into the fabric of school and library Internet access, racheting up the blacklists would be very easy. The next moral panic, the next political campaign to pander to social conservatives, the next time a demagogue needs a hot button to push, it's just the flip of a switch. Here's another proof.
3) However, this particular law matters less than one might think
Broad application of censorware blacklists is already in place
* Federal law requires Internet blocking only of sites with certain visual depictions -- such as "obscenity" -- yet, some libraries have gone beyond this obligation, choosing to censor other types of material as well, including such ill-defined categories as "gambling" and "illegal" sites.
* The minimum blocking level that the software system for the state's public libraries has adopted for all computers exceeds what federal law requires, so that even libraries opposed to unnecessary filtering are forced to deny patrons access to protected material.
* Many libraries in the state [of Rhode Island] have done little to make patrons aware of their legal right to gain access to information blocked by the deeply flawed "filtering" software now in use.
People just don't hear much about it, since the civil-libertarians generally have no money to publicize the issue. Which brings us to:
4) Politically, Republicans fighting _Fox News_ is a sign of desperation
I suspect this bill is part of the Republican election strategy, of pandering to the right-wing base. Flag burning, gay marriage, the recent "Teen Endangerment and Grandmother Incarceration Act", it's all red meat for the campaign. However, MySpace (social networking site) is owned by the same enormous corporation which owns Fox News, and they can fight back. If anyone is able to exploit this potential wedge between the theocrat and plutocrat wings of the Republican party, the result could be interesting indeed.
5) Singing "What's The Matter With Kids Today?" never goes out of style
Just on general principles, there tend to be few arguments more futile than lecturing about what youth *should* do. And the youth are usually not around to defend themselves. But "DOPA" is dramatically beyond legislating morality - it's legislating against interactivity.
Quoted About Deleting Wikipedia biography
I'm quoted in The Register: School sues over Wikipedia posts (by Andrew Orlowski) - thanks:
Wikipedia's problems with vandalism have percolated to the top of the hierarchy within the organization. One of the most prominent evangelists for the site, Angela Beesley, recently resigned from the board of the non-profit that runs Wikipedia, the WikiMedia Foundation, in the hope of having her own entry removed from Wikipedia. "I'm sick of this article being trolled. It's full of lies and nonsense," she wrote recently. "Given that this was previously kept on the grounds I was on that Board, there is no longer any reason for this page to be kept. This has already been deleted on the French and German Wikipedias."
(With co-founder Jimmy Wales, Beesley remains on the board of the for-profit corporation Wikia, which recently received $4m in venture capital)
Seth Finkelstein, who recently tried to have his own entry from Wikipedia removed recently, described it as "a pretty stunning vote of no-confidence. Even at least some high-ups can't eat the dog food."
I should note, to explain again my reasoning, that in certain cases I consider Wikipedia biographies to be a kind of "attractive nuisance":
What is an "Attractive Nuisance"?
A widely-known legal principle is that landowners have no duty to keep their land in a safe condition to protect trespassers. The "attractive nuisance" doctrine, which most states have adopted, is considered an exception to this rule.
An "attractive nuisance" is a potentially harmful object on or condition of the land that, by its features, tends to lure children. Children, because of their age, do not appreciate the danger and can be at risk. "Attractive nuisances: are typically not natural land conditions found on the land, such as a pond, but rather are conditions created by someone. Over the years, a classic example has been a swimming pool.
Very apropos, especially - "by its features, tends to lure children ... conditions created by someone".
Google Germany Censored Sites vs. Germany's Voluntary Self-Monitoring Blacklist
Philipp Lenssen asks Why Is Stormfront.org Missing in Google Germany?, discussing Google censorship:
How does Google know which sites they need to censor? One thing Google and others in Germany do is to access blacklist data on a server by the Association for the Voluntary Self-Monitoring of Multimedia Service Providers, FSM("Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter eV") ... Stormfront.org, however, is not on this BPjM blacklist module, according to the BPjM.
My comment on this was that he hasn't found a bug in Google's censorship, he's found a bug in the "BPjM blacklist" :-).
The response he got from Google was unhelpful as usual.
One of the reasons I've opposed censorware is that secret blacklists preclude judicial review. This may be a commonplace now, but it's acquiring new resonance with, let's say very prominent cases involving claims of secrecy and national security:
pp.39-40, "If the government's public disclosures have been truthful, revealing whether AT&T has received a certification to assist in monitoring communication content should not reveal any new information that would assist a terrorist and adversely affect national security. And if the government has not been truthful, the state secrets privilege should not serve as a shield for its false public statements. In short, the government has opened the door for judicial inquiry by publicly confirming and denying material information about its monitoring of communication content."
But then, we're back to the same problem - I'm preaching to choir here, and marginalized to anyone else :-(.
