Author: mklang

Democracy in action: Why @Sweden is brilliant when its bad

In an interesting marketing strategy Visit Sweden decided that Sweden cannot be defined by a single voice and began letting “ordinary” Swedes have control over the @Sweden twitter account. It was cute, it was fun – but basically it was boring.

Recently 27 year old Sonja Abrahamsson took over the account and things began to heat up. Her comments are earthy and borderline questionable. None of the ones I have seen are directly racist but they may be seen by some as politically incorrect.

This was too much for several people and the so called scandal was a fact. Just check out the headlines

CNN writes Foul-mouthed Bieber-hating mother takes over @Sweden

Adland writes Sweden – the Worlds most democratic twitter account dissolves into pure anarchy

CIO writes Sweden teaches us how not to do social media

MSNBC writes Swedens democratic twitter experiment goes haywire

But is this really a problem? It feels like the world media is working hard to feel truly insulted over nothing. Sure the author may be non-pc, maybe a person I would prefer not to talk to or read but so what? The whole point of allowing “ordinary” Swedes to take over the account was to demonstrate that Sweden cannot be represented by one voice. Those who would argue that only a specific brand of politically correct Swedes should be allowed to talk miss the whole point. If you come to Sweden you will meet all kinds of people – the same is true if you visit any other country.

The main difference is that instead of a bland mix of picture perfect illustrations that ordinarily bore us with the falsehood this marketing of Sweden shows that ordinary people exist here. The fact that the experiment with @Sweden has achieved little public debate abroad shows that it was not really an exciting thing to do.

Those who argue that Abrahamsson is causing bad publicity for Sweden should think again. How may of those who are insulted (if there are many of those?) are actively cancelling trips to Sweden? Visit Sweden should stand by their choice and behind their idea – in Sweden we believe in freedom of expression. This means that often we hear about stuff we would prefer to avoid.

The critique is more amusing than relevant, a storm in a tea-cup. Unless Abrahamsson has broken any laws then I salute her ability to create a discussion about Sweden that goes beyond the boring stereotypes.

Posted on by mklang

Could Facebook be a members only social club?

What is public space? Ok, so it’s important but what is it and how is it defined? The reason I have begun thinking about this again is an attempt to address a question of what government authorities should be allowed to do with publicly available data on social networks such as Facebook.

One of the issues with public space is the way in which we have taken it’s legal status for granted and tend to believe that it will be there when we need it. This is despite the fact that very many of the spaces we see as public are actually private (e.g. shopping malls) and many spaces which were previously public have been privatized.

So why worry about a private public space? Who cares who is responsible for it? The privatization of public space allows for the creation of many local rules which can actually limit our general freedoms. There is, for example, no law against photographing in public. But if the public space is in reality a private space there is nothing stopping the owners from creating a rule against photography. There are unfortunately several examples of this – only last month the company that owns and operates the Glasgow underground prohibited photography.

Another limitation brought about by the privatization of public spaces is the limiting of places where citizens can protest. The occupy London movement did not chose to camp outside St Paul’s for symbolic reasons but because the area land around the church is part of the last remaining public land in the city.

Over the last 20 years, since the corporation quietly began privatising the City, hundreds of public highways, public pathways and rights of way in place for centuries have been closed. The reason why this is so important is that the removal of public rights of way also signals the removal of the right to political protest. (The Guardian)

This is all very interesting but what has it got to do with Facebook?

In Sweden a wide range of authorities from the Tax department to the police have used Facebook as an investigative tool. I don’t mean that they have requested data from Facebook but they have used it by browsing the open profiles and data available on the site. For example the police may go to Facebook to find a photograph, social services may check up if people are working when they are claiming unemployment etc.

What makes this process problematic is that the authorities dipping into the Facebook data stream is not controlled in any manner. If a police officer would like to check the police database for information about me, she must provide good reason to do so. But looking me up on Facebook – in the line of duty – has no such checks.

These actions are commonly legitimized by stating that Facebook is a public space. But is it? Actually it’s a highly regulated private public space. But how should it be viewed? How should authorities be allowed to use the social network data of others? In an article I am writing right now I criticize the view that Facebook is public, and therefore accessible to authorities without limitation. Sure, it’s not a private space, but what about a middle ground – could Facebook be a members only social club? Would this require authorities to respect our privacy online?

Posted on by mklang

Logical Fallacies

Just came across an excellent educational resource online called Your Logical Fallacy Is it’s basically a whole list of logical fallacies. Each fallacy has its own symbol and a brief explanation. I just can’t wait to begin annoying people by linking directly to the right fallacy page!

The education doesn’t stop there. They also provide free posters so that anyone can print it out and remember the different arguments. Well done!

Posted on by mklang

You can hear dead people

I have just listened to Einstein explaining his most famous theory. It’s still rather complicated and I really should read more about it – but listening to his voice is… thrilling.

Recently I listened to a 1938 recording of Sigmund Freud.

Sure, these recordings existed before the Internet – but the ease of access is what makes it all work.

For every time I despair about what the internet has done wrong, things like this make it all better.

 

Posted on by mklang

Facebook is the box, not the content

A major focus of discussion recently has been about the value of Facebook. This is kind of obvious as they have an ongoing Initial Public Offering, where the company is selling shares to the public based on an estimated value of around one hundred billion dollars.

The first question is whether the company is worth the money? But then again value is just what the market thinks its worth so its basically a consensual hallucination, which is fine if you share it and odd if you don’t. But the more interesting issue is what the value is after the shares have all been sold. This is still part hallucination but it’s also about performance and this is where it gets interesting. Techcrunch has an interesting article with shiny figures and tables but what makes me think is these quotes:

In terms of Facebook’s overall ad pitch, the company’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said that the company’s long-term goal is to be the place where 70 million businesses worldwide go to offer personalized, relevant advertising…She said, “Every day on Facebook is like the season finale of American Idol times two,” in a reference to the home page

The company really needs to sell to advertisers that they are One place, One market with access to billions – this follows the usual rhetoric of “if Facebook were a country”. But the problem with this is that we are not on Facebook for Facebook, we are there for the content. Facebook knows this and tailors the experience for the user. But with this tailoring there is really no Facebook, at least no one version of Facebook. And if there is no one version then the comment that its like the final season of American Idol is pointless. Facebook may be the box, the television we are all staring at – but we are looking at different channels.

The problem is that this makes Facebook less trendy. It turns it into an infrastructure, nobody wants to invest in infrastructure, its too untrendy. That’s why Facebook insists on talking about itself as ONE place were 800 million people meet.

Posted on by mklang

Granny's Dancing on the Table

Three years ago Hanna Sköld did a bold and daring thing. She took out a private bankloan to produce her film Nasty Old People and when it was done she made things worse by releasing it under a Creative Commons license and spread it via The Pirate Bay. The prophets of doom were wringing their hands and predicting her eternal financial, artistic and commercial doom.

The film quickly spread across 113 countries and was downloaded more than 50,000 times. It was translated, remixed and screened all around the world. She made back her money and established herself as a filmmaker to keep your eyes on both in Sweden and internationally. Naturally people with an interest in CC thought she was pretty cool too.

Now she is launching her new project its a story about a grandmother called “Granny’s Dancing on the Table”. Her early experiment in licensing and radical distribution continues, this time she has begun with kickstarter funding. Check it out here:

Together with you, we will create a granny-invasion! Because this time we are not only creating a film, we are creating a whole universe – the GRANNIVERSE – which includes a feature film, a psycological adventure game and International Grannyday.

Also consider the Granny Philosophy!

1. DREAM TOGETHER!

We do believe that stories can change the world.

2.CREATE TOGETHER!

We do believe that the world should be seen from different perspectives.

3.FUND TOGETHER!

We do believe that everyone can contribute with something. Money, ideas, energy, sharing, support, beers……

4. SHARE TOGETHER!

We do believe that freedom of speech and stories should be carried by people, not by big companies.

5.TALK TOGETHER!

We do believe that shared information is a way to create a more equal world.

6.LISTEN TOGETHER!

We do believe that by listening to each others stories we will expand our world.

7. DANCE TOGETHER

And preferably on the table.

Let your own Granny be part of The Granny Invasion at www.granniverse.com. Join the #granniverse!

Posted on by mklang

Performance Lifestyle & Coffee Sadism

One of the enduring myths about Social Media is that it is somehow about connecting friends, colleagues or contacts. The reason I call this mythological is not the fact that people can have 100s or 1000s of friends on Facebook – even if that is a bit weird (see Dunbar Number) – no my gripe is that friends, colleagues and even contacts have the right to make demands on you and even if they behave badly cannot simply be unfriended or unfollowed without social repercussions. Aside from that Social Media can naturally be used to support and strengthen friendships.

But if the crowds online are not my friends – what are they? Well, as Facebook would say, “its complicated”. But one aspect of our relation to them is that they are a perceived audience and we are constantly (well at least when we broadcast online) perform for them.

The Abnormality of Normality

The problem is that most of us are normal. It’s kind of a definition about who we are. Most people have to be normal – or else the concept of normality would not work. So aside from the miniscule number of abnormal or outstanding folks most people online are normal.

This normality raises a problem in the concept of performance lifestyles. How do we publicize our normality? Well, the answer is often that we don’t. Or rather, we do, but we cheat. The trick for many users is not to create a fictitious life (which nobody would believe) but to present our ordinary (normal, boring) lives in just a slightly odd way.

The simplest way of doing this is to enhance the ordinariness of the situation. So nobody watches a film or reads a book but we watch an excellent film, read an awesome book. Or a terrible book and a horrible film. This is because there is little or no value in publicizing the ordinariness of a situation – so it must be made extra ordinary in some way.

Another strategy is to constantly, almost manically, repeat the same activity. Several years ago I came across a blog that was only pictures of the persons toothbrush with toothpaste. Two pictures per day (morning and evening I guess). Now one image was boring enough but the sheer weight of all this toothpaste made the photoblog extraordinary and oddly fascinating.

The problem is that this takes an obsessive investment. It’s much easier to publish odd things that happen around us, things that stand out from our everyday experience. For the most part this is relatively harmless but in certain situations it isn’t. What is extraordinary in healthcare? Whatever it is, it violates patient privacy to put it on Facebook. Unfortunately this doesn’t always stop people from posting.

The Unhappiness of Others

Every now and then we can read reports that Facebook or Social Media is making people unhappy. For example The Anti Social Network or “They Are Happier and Having Better Lives than I Am”: The Impact of Using Facebook on Perceptions of Others’ Lives. This is an obvious effect of the performance lifestyle on others. Since nobody writes about the daily drudgery of normality it may seem to others that their own lives are boring in comparison.

This is why the absolute highpoints of performance lifestyles seem to be weddings and children. Both provide ample opportunities for photographs and other information spreading. They are both (relatively) extraordinary experiences while remaining in the realm of what is considered OK to boast about. Imagine if I was to boast about my new car in the same way as others boasted about their weddings? Information about the car would be considered bragging and people would ignore or unfriend me. Information about the wedding may still be seen as bragging but people will keep this to themselves and congratulate me.

Actually in one way this is one of the motivations for my own performance lifestyle project: My coffee sadism project

Most mornings when I have time I enjoy coffee at my local cafe. Not a take away but actually sitting down a couple of minutes with a real newspaper, drinking real coffee out of a real cup. This is a perfect start to the day. It has an additional bonus. I take photo’s of my morning coffee and post them to Facebook. Some images I also post to my Flickr set where I maintain a collection.

When I am being nice I call this a photo project, when I am being researcher I call it an experiment in social media. But when I am honest I call it my sadism project… as it annoys the hell out of my co-workers and some of my friends. Performance lifestyle is the need to publicize elements of your life in order to enhance the quality of it. Naturally it does not have to be at others expense – but it often seems to be.

Posted on by mklang

Cybercontrol 2.0

In a continuing discussion (original & response & reply) on the battles over Internet regulation. Both Nicklas & I are taking points from the past and drawing lines into the future, while taking into consideration the changes created by new technologies. In his last post Nicklas summed it up beautifully:

But as technology becomes more and more powerful, the control over technology will slowly converge with control over people.

Actually for me, control over technology has always been about control over people. Control over technology alone is unimportant. But Nicklas’ point is that our technology is creeping deeper into our lives and minds and therefore control over this technology will not only control the bodies but also the minds of the populous.

The point where we disagree is where we are turning at the moment. For Nicklas

The thing that sometimes worries me is that the alternative is not the status quo. It is not tinkering with the net as is. Because the net will continue to evolve and technology will make us even more powerful. The second time around the alternative to Barlow is not Lessig or even Wu&Goldsmith. It is Solzhenitsyn.

The thing is that Solzhenitsyn is too “easily” seen and eventually resisted. I fear a world where the alternative is Rupert Murdoch an intelligent and powerful man who happily(?) feeds the world Fox news and other trash – knowing that by entertaining us with garbage he controls us and our incomes. Increasingly I think we do not need totalitarian states to control us, its much cheaper to feed us garbage, entertain us with varying levels of porn and gossip and debase politics into punchlines. When the majority is busy with this, the minorities of protesters will not have the power to engage us into major social change.

As an aside: I like the fact that online regulation retains the cyber prefix. It’s dated but ties nicely back to the period when the question was still hotly debated.

Posted on by mklang

Regulation is everything, or power abhors a vacuum

Can we really control the Internet? This is question has been around long enough to be deemed a golden oldie. But like a fungal infection it keeps coming back…

The early battle lines were drawn up in 1996. In an age where cyberspace was both a cool and correct term lawyers like Johnson & Post wrote “Law And Borders: The Rise of Law in Cyberspace” and activists like John Perry Barlow wrote his epic “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace“.These were the cool and heady days of the cyberlibertarians vs cyberpaternalists. The libs believed that the web should & could not be regulated while the pats meant that it could and should. (I covered this in my thesis pdf here) Since then the terminology has changed but sentiments remain the same.

I miss the term cyberspace. But more to the point the “could/should” control argument continues. Nicklas has written an interesting point on the could part:

Fast forward twenty years. Bandwidth has doubled once, twice, three times. Devices capable of setting up ad hoc networks – large ones – are everywhere. Encrypted protocols are of state-defying strength and available to everyone. Tech savvy generations have grown up to expect access to the Internet not only as a given, but as unassailable. Networks like Anonymous has iterated, several times, and found topologies, communication practices and collaboration methods that defy tracking. The once expensive bottleneck technologies have become cheaper, the cost of building a network slowly approaching zero. The Internet has become a Internet that can be re-instantiated for a large swath of geography by a single individual.

So far so good. Not one internet but personal portable sharable spaces. The inability to control will lead to a free internet. But something feels wrong. Maybe its a cynical sadness of having heard this all before and seeing it all go wrong? From his text I get images of Johnny Mnemonic and The Matrix basically the hacker hero gunslinger fighting the anonymous faceless oppressive society. Its cool, but is it true?

The technology is (on some level) uncontrollable (without great oppression) but the point is that it does not have to be completely controlled. The control in society via technology is not about having 100% surveillance and pure systems which cannot be hacked. Control is about having reasonable amounts of failure in the system (System failures allow dissidents to believe they are winning).

The issue I have with pinning my hopes on the unregulatable internets is that they are – in social terms – an end to themselves. Who will connect to these nets? Obviously those who are in the know. You will connect when you know where & how to connect. This is a vital goal in itself but presents a problem for using these nets in wider social change. Getting information across to a broader section of the population.

Civil disobedience is a fantastic tool. But if the goal is disobedience in itself it is hardly justifiable in a group. If the goal is to bring about social change: ie. the goal is for a minority to convince a majority then the minority must communicate with the majority. If the nets are going to work we need to find ways for the majority to connect to them. If the majority can connect to them then so can the oppressive forces of regulation.

On the field of pats & libs I think I am what is a cynical libertarian. I am convinced of the power, value, social & individual power of non-regulation of technology but I don’t believe that politicians and lobbyists will leave technology alone. It’s an unfortunate truth: power hates a vacuum.

Posted on by mklang