Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Anonymity is driving the uncivil ways of the Internet, I believe. I'm proud to say that most of the people who publish at this site (both those who post and those who comment) do so in their real life names. I am convinced that this choice to disclose who we are facilitates conversation. It recently occurred to me that a good illustration of the corrupting power of anonymity comes from "The Wizard of Oz." Remember the rudeness of the Wizard while he was anonymous? "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" Progress was possible only when the curtain was pulled back and the parties could work together face-to-face. Tom Tomorrow provides yet more insight into the corrosive power of Internet anonymity.

Continue ReadingPay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Knowledge and Focus

At Edge.com, Researcher David Dalrymple discusses the effect of the Internet on knowledge and focus:

Before the Internet, most professional occupations required a large body of knowledge, accumulated over years or even decades of experience. But now, anyone with good critical thinking skills and the ability to focus on the important information can retrieve it on demand from the Internet, rather than her own memory. On the other hand, those with wandering minds, who might once have been able to focus by isolating themselves with their work, now often cannot work without the Internet, which simultaneously furnishes a panoply of unrelated information — whether about their friends' doings, celebrity news, limericks, or millions of other sources of distraction. The bottom line is that how well an employee can focus might now be more important than how knowledgeable he is. Knowledge was once an internal property of a person, and focus on the task at hand could be imposed externally, but with the Internet, knowledge can be supplied externally, but focus must be forced internally.

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Diluting the Internet

My pet peeve today is Answers.com, which runs "WikiAnswers" (I refuse to link to these sites). They are apparently run by marketing geniuses who founded these deplorable companies thanks to the ability to have their vapid link-less "answers" appear high up on Google searches. I have learned my lesson, though--no more will I follow a Google page to these sites. They have quite clearly been created to gain market share by jamming key words into barely thought-out "answers." In short, the idea is to pump the sites full of link-barren word-salad garbage authored by know-nothings purely for the purpose of selling ads. I base this opinion on reading dozens of such "articles," but no more. I'm finished with answers.com. I refuse to be one of the 54 million monthly visitors to these sites any more. Barely better is ehow.com, which has published one million articles. I've got to give a little bit of credit to ehow, however. At least you'll find at least ONE link in these barely helpful "articles." The end result is always the same, however. Thousands of ehow "articles" are dashed off in one sitting by non-experts who are whoring their writing skills so that ehow can gain market share for its buckets of ads--enough ads to take in $200,000,000 in revenue in 2009. Consider an example - do you think that this took more than five minutes to write? Do you think anyone reading this article didn't know how to shop at a grocery store, but now knows? Here is the inside scoop on ehow published by Time Magazine. In this article, we learn that the authors of ehow articles are paid between $3 - 15. And it shows. Don't trust me on this. Go take a look. By the way, the above article about ehow was written by a guy named "Dan Fletcher" who seems to crank out an endless stream of tiny articles for Time (plug his name into Time's search field and you'll see what I mean). It's quantity over quality for Dan, who sometimes writes 5-10 articles in one day for Time. I'm sure that he's thinking, "Well, it's a living." I know that the Internet doesn't belong to anyone in particular. People have the right to write anything they want and I have the right to try to not read articles that are created solely for the purpose of filling web pages with keywords that attract Google. More and more, however, serious sites are being shoved downwards on Google's results pages by keyword laden ad-machines that are portraying themselves to be journalistic endeavors, and it's a shame.

Continue ReadingDiluting the Internet

FCC caving on net neutrality

Josh Silver of Free Press is reporting terrible news on the issue of net neutrality:

On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that the Federal Communications Commission is expected to abandon its pledges to protect Net Neutrality and to ensure universal, affordable broadband. The story cites anonymous insiders confirming that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is "leaning toward" siding with the most powerful phone and cable lobbyists on a crucial decision: whether the FCC will have any authority to protect an open Internet and make it available to all. It is a testament to the phone and cable industry's overwhelming influence that they seem to have convinced the nation's communications agency to swear off authority to protect Americans' right to open communications. But it is stunning that Genachowski would even contemplate allowing it to stand, given President Obama's repeated pledge to ensure fast, affordable, universal Internet broadband for every American.
The FCC has the power to correct the damage done by a recent Court of Appeals decision that has heightened this crisis. Josh Silver explains:

In early April, a a federal appeals court ruled that, based on decisions by the Bush-era FCC, the agency lacks the authority to regulate broadband providers. In so doing, the court effectively handed control of the Internet to companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon -- allowing them to slow down or block any website, any blog post, any tweet, any outreach by a congressional campaign. The FCC no longer has the power to stop them. Fortunately, the FCC does have the power to easily fix the problem by "reclassifying" broadband under the law. All it would take is a vote by its five commissioners -- and Genachowski already has the votes.

This is your chance to take action--it will take you 3 minutes to write to Chairman Julius Genachowski--remind him that he represents the People of the United States, not the telecoms. Or as Art Brodsky of media public interest group Public Knowledge says,
The telephone and cable companies will object to any path the chairman takes . . . He might as well take the one that best protects consumers and is most legally sound.

Continue ReadingFCC caving on net neutrality

Ross Perot, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin?

I'm perforce following the antics of the Tea Party movement. This organization couldn't have snowballed without the Web 2.0 social networking system to enable it. Perot didn't have any access to such power in 1992. Ron Paul tried, but it hadn't yet reached critical mass. This is probably the answer to a question I recently posted as a response on (facepalm) FaceBook:

Where was that Tea Party 7 years ago, after the president declared "Mission Accomplished" in that elective war? That excursion from reality was a significant factor in converting the budget surplus he inherited into record debt. As was his creation of the largest government bureaucracy ever (Homeland Security) nominally to do what other agencies were already supposed to be doing. Then his decision to roll back those pesky banking regulations established in the 1930's to prevent lenders from packaging bad debts as good bets, sure has worked out well.

But now there is a coordinated effort to undermine the legacy political process by uniting people of disparate intentions under a single banner. Anarchists, Libertarians, Christian-nationists, assault-rifles-for-the-kids, and anti-taxers now gather together in front of cameras from every corner of the nation. Who is the current figurehead of the movement? Sarah Palin. Not that Ron Paul is yet out of the running. But certain faith-based reports count him out of Tea Party support. Maybe I'm just confused, but I'd really like to see an actual Tea Party party in the next big election. This would be a true referendum on how much support they have. But as near as I can tell from my casual reading, the Tea Party goal is not to take responsibility, but rather to sink candidates from the other parties who disagree with their very particular simple positions on complex issues.

Continue ReadingRoss Perot, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin?