Posts Tagged ‘networks’

My friend Ben pointed me to a post about how privacy in today’s world is alive and strong, and while I agree with the main sentiment, I think the post is ultimately misguided.

The argument, basically, is that people historically did not have a lot of privacy; the small communities into which we were born, where everyone knew everything, did not leave space for privacy. In fact, the much heralded “death of privacy” brought about by digital networks is really just a return to the traditional state of affairs. Laurent, the blogger in question, adds to this by saying that we are actually better off than our ancestors because:

“If you can’t control the conversation improve it! Become the one stop source of info about yourself. Have a profile, more active than any other profile for all matters related to you. This way your content will always beat others’ content, and you get your control back. Then it’s up to you to not being photographed while drunk at that Spring break party. But that was a good ideas (not being photographed) well before Facebook right?

Now that you are back in the driver seat, you have your privacy back. Just of a different kind. You have built a space that could be called “publicy”, or “the plausible me”. It is a credible space where people expect to see information about you. Whatever credible information you say in there will be taken as true by the world.” [Emphasis pre-existing.]

It’s a seductive argument, right? “Stop complaining, and start doing something!” And he’s right, but only if he had stopped there.

Instead, he encourages people to actively mislead people on their public profiles to “build [their] private” self. However, the rise of ubiquitous sensors and citizen reporting will make your efforts futile, and as soon as your credibility is shot, your public profile you spent so much time building will be useless. In fact, it might be useless already, because we live in a world of gatekeepers, there is no guarantee that your active profile will out-rank those photos from Spring Break.

And finally, he ignores a whole class of people who need to be private – dissidents, journalists, etc. It is very simplistic to think that an individual can successfully lie about their activities when digital networks are becoming so pervasive. Although in the past we could tell our small community that we were doing something else, today, GPS, CCTV, RFID and a bunch of other acronyms make your activities known to a wide range of third parties who can suck all the data up and store it for far longer than the memory of a tight-knit community. And best of all? Today, you cannot leave the tight-knit community which is the world.

Ari Melber, writing in The Nation, discusses the options Obama’s administration will have given the persisting digital connections between voters and his presidency – the phone numbers, email lists, MyBO members and the existing desires, manifest on Change.gov, to be involved and heard by the transition team.

He touches on a worry I’ve had, given Obama’s support and his unprecedented network to them.

Many Obama supporters want the network to turn from electoral politics to lobbying. After the election, half a million activists responded to an e-mail survey about the road ahead. The most popular goal was to help the administration “pass legislation,” according to campaign manager David Plouffe. If Obama’s initiatives stall in Congress, these activists will presumably back him instead of their local representatives. Combining the White House bully pulpit with constituent lobbying could have a dramatic effect on Obama’s presidency. Previous presidents have gone over the heads of Congress by appealing to the public, of course, but never with a parallel whip operation targeting representatives in their backyards. If the pressure works, the experiment could even alter the conventional balance of power. After all, citizens typically lobby the legislature for their own policy goals–not on behalf of another branch of government. While George W. Bush boosted executive power by routing around Congress, Obama may fortify executive power by mobilizing citizens to roll right over Congress.

The worry is that because local representatives do not have the digital Rolodexes stretching into the millions, they will not be able to motivate their constituents to the same extent Obama will. Any basic civics course will teach why slow deliberation is desirable, but Obama’s potential ability to force the hand of legislators will continue the consolidation of power in the executive branch that George W. Bush has so forcefully done.

Melber rightly points out, though, that the network isn’t merely a push medium – as Clay Shirky and Yochai Benkler have so convincingly shown in Here Comes Everybody and The Wealth of Networks, respectively, digital tools empower the individual, as well. He points to MyBarackObama members using the campaign’s social network to protest against Obama’s support for warrantless wiretapping. The example, though, points to the unfortunate reality: although Obama heard the dissidents, he didn’t change his upcoming vote.

What remains to be seen, though, is whether other political offices can take advantage of the same tools. Are local representatives able to attract widespread attention for their social networks? It certainly makes sense to have an agora where all politicians could hear the voice of the people without CNN’s filters or Fox’s bias. Does it make sense for Congress to have a social network? Or, as the article points out, will that only be one more node that organizers have to address? Perhaps data portability can become a democracy 2.0 theme?

What do you think?