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HumzaDFirstEssay 4 - 14 Feb 2016 - Main.EbenMoglen
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| | | This advertisement’s susceptibility to abuse and some users’ opposition to relinquishing their data necessitates the second requirement that all advertising be optional. Websites should always give users a realistic choice (beyond “don’t use this service”) to opt out of selling their information for otherwise free content. These users, on the other hand, should be willing to pay a couple of dollars to bypass ads to preserve their privacy.
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You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines: | | | | |
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< | Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules for preference declarations. Make sure you preserve the three spaces, asterisk, and extra space at the beginning of these lines. If you wish to give access to any other users simply add them to the comma separated ALLOWTOPICVIEW list. | >
> | I don't understand the point of the piece as revised. Whether one
agrees with your arguments about the nature of writing for the Net
or not (and I don't, I think they are completely meretricious),
digital media are filterable, and people who want to remove
advertisements from their information stream are perfectly capable
of doing so, using whatever technology is most useful to them. (It
would in this context have been useful if you had included some
facts, as I suggested in the last round, rather than a product
review of AdblockPlus. There are lots of ways of filtering ads
before they ever reach the browser, so a description of how blocking
works would have been productive for the reader.) So the actual
outcome of the process isn't based on your personal opinion, and you
haven't shown here why, whether we agree with you or not, it makes a
difference. You may be entirely wrong about how the order of
culture works in the Net, and I think you are, in which case all the
pro-advertising arguments are junk. Or it may be that as people
choose individually to remove the tracking bugs, the ads, the
platform hooks and so on from what they read and watch, that the
order of culture will collapse because only this constant stream of
poison directed at the human mind made the culture "economically
viable" to produce. Either way, however, your normative
speculations, right or wrong, are merely predictions about the
results of the changes under way. Is the point of the piece that
these speculations are yours, and therefore important, or that
there is something about the nature of your speculations that makes
them important without regard to who is holding them? Either's
fine, but the genre is surely different. | | | | |
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> | | | | | |
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I think I may need to split this into two essays. The targeting lives section feels incomplete without a discussion of how an assumption of monitoring plays out in a free society where public opinion may lead to censure and self-censorship, and whether this self-censorship (a result of utter transparency) is a loss of freedom. Not sure whether I should trim down the consumer section and try and squeeze this in or try to split these three topics ((1)consumer monitoring, (2) opinion monitoring in an unfree society, (3) opinion monitoring in a free society) into two essays.
(Apologies for the delay. My cat showed my machine the same contempt it shows me and knocked a glass of water onto it yesterday, forcing me to start from scratch on a new machine.)
-- HumzaD - 03 Nov 2015 |
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HumzaDFirstEssay 3 - 02 Feb 2016 - Main.HumzaD
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< | Loss of Privacy Need not be Loss of Freedom | >
> | Acceptable Advertising | | | -- By HumzaD - 03 Nov 2015 | |
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< | Privacy is Already Dead | | | | |
<
< | Although fully accepting the appalling extent to which our privacy is being invaded online and by our contemptuous machines, I have been grappling all semester with the question of whether this loss of privacy necessarily implies a loss of freedom. I remain unconvinced that the assumption that everything is being watched necessarily means a loss of freedom. But this is perhaps because I also remain unconvinced that there is any possible future without such monitoring and data collection. Whether or not we can resist the theft of our online identities or change the terms on which it is stolen (i.e., given away), there is no future in which I will ever be certain that no one is watching everything I do (or do not) do. This bleak outlook pushes me to convince myself that it is possible to remain free in the post-privacy era. | | | | |
>
> | Fed up with annoying, ugly, and obstructive online ads, I recently joined the ranks of the adblockers. Whether driven by privacy concerns or mere annoyance 198 million internet users used adblocking technology in 2015, up 41% from 2014. Publishers lost an estimated $22 billion because of the surge in adblocker usage. Those numbers are likely to rise in 2016 with the recent release of Apple’s iOS 9, which, for the first time, supports adblocking technology. While I enjoy the new uncluttered internet experience my adblocker offers, the surge in adblocker usage is an existential threat to the free content model on which the internet has subsisted. | | | | |
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> | Examining the merits of this model, I argue that (1) using adblockers does more harm than good, and (2) the ad industry has been presented an opportunity to overhaul both its business model and its treatment of its clients. | | | | |
<
< | That will be merely a word game. You have decided, apparently, that
people were wrong to suppose themselves unfree in totalitarian
societies, and should have known they really weren't unfree after
all. Of course, no totalitarian society ever had surveillance as
good as the depostisms of the 21st century will, but if you can
convince yourself that people were free in the Soviet Union, why
shouldn't they also be free in 21st century China? And, of course,
you also have the additional assumption that everyone in the world
lives in the US, which is also very helpful to you. | | | | |
<
< | In other words, are you really sure this isn't empty blather? | | | | |
<
< | | >
> | Adblockers Make the Internet Worse | | | | |
>
> | The harm caused by adblockers is due to three main problems, one obvious, two less so. The obvious reason is that ads have paid for an internet where services are accessible by people who could not pay for those services. These services include search engines that bring an endless amount of information to the masses, thereby democratizing knowledge. They also include communication and social media platforms that connect billions of people around the world. Adblockers, and the stifling of ad revenue, threaten the the ability of providers to continue to offer these services without charging in some other way. At higher costs, these services would have struggled to garner the massive user bases that have helped them thrive. | | | | |
<
< | Sacrificing privacy for convenience certainly leaves us incredibly vulnerable to people out to take our money or our lives. But the people intent on such attacks have always been intent on such attacks. Bearing ourselves online brings a change in the degree of this threat, but it does not seem to bring a change in kind. Our promiscuity with our information simply gives a much bigger gun to our attackers. | >
> | Ad revenues have also given a soap box to mom-and-pop publishers. Ads allow these publishers to devote all their resources to improving the quality of their content, rather than worrying about subsistence, thereby allowing them to compete with the behemoths. While larger publishers are likely to generate revenue from alternative sources and continue to thrive, these smaller publishers will have a harder time in a society where we all free ride with adblockers. They would have to hope that they could raise enough through either subscriptions or Wikipedia-style donations, both options which would heighten the hurdles to getting their messages out. | | | | |
<
< | The gun analogy is apt in other ways. | >
> | The second problem with adblockers is that their use indirectly supports information controllers such as Apple. Apple’s recent endorsement of the technology was not benevolence, but rather its latest move in its war with Google, which is much more dependent on ads than is Apple. When online content ceases to generate ad revenue, providers will funnel through to new platforms such as free Apple apps, where ads are not blocked and where their content will make money. | | | | |
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< | | >
> | The final problem with adblockers is that their use encourages extortion and a sort of advertising aristocracy. AdBlocker? Plus, owned by German Eyeo, is the most popular adblocking extension, downloaded over 300 million times. Although it blocks most ads, it creates a whitelist of “acceptable ads” that still make it through to a user who fails to opt out of receiving those ads. While the general standards for what ads are acceptable (e.g., not disruptive, transparent, etc.) can serve as a model for the ad industry, the company also accepts payment to add ads to the whitelist. The result so far has been enormous payments by companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google that privilege their ads and allow them to circumvent the adblocker, and thereby creating an advertising elite that can afford to part with a cut of its profits to preserve its ads. | | | | |
<
< | Actually, it isn't apt in any way. Projectile weapons and
data-mining are surely as disparate as chalk and cheese,
apples and oranges, grandmothers and frogs, or any other
pair that a language uses to warn its denizens against
immaterial comparison. You mean to assert, it appears, that
nothing qualitative has changed in the social situation,
only a quantitative change of some kind. That's
self-evidently untrue, so far as I'm concerned. What facts
have you to show? | | | | |
<
< | | >
> | Content Providers and the Advertising Industry Should Adapt | | | | |
>
> | Internet users, tired of being lied to about where their data is being sent and of obnoxious reminders that half naked women in their zip code want to meet, have begun to protest through the use of adblockers. The online advertisers and content providers should view this onslaught of adblocker use not as a death sentence, but rather as a wake up call and an opportunity to respond to these pleas. This means revamping the online ad industry to both create ads that respect users and to give user the choice to opt out of ads altogether. | | | | |
<
< | It is probably true, for example, that the instruments that collect our information were designed to attack us in much the same way guns were designed to kill. But literal guns do not do much beyond killing, whereas their metaphorical counterparts provide us a few additional benefits. Some frustratingly push us towards laziness and ignorance, but some are laudable. Facebook, for example, helps give the semblance of a small village to our increasingly globalized world. Village life is connected such that villagers are inevitably kept abreast of the goings on of their neighbors. There is no risk, for example, that I will not hear that my Cousin Larry is getting married. By sharing this information with Facebook, Larry can similarly disseminate this information through his network, which is now much larger and much more spread out. Larry can avoid having to choose between calling 3,000 different people and snubbing someone who was interested. | >
> | Ads that respect uses would be honest with their users, rather than trying to exploit and trick them the way most popup ads and clickbait does today. This honesty would include honesty about what information is being stored about the users, what is being done with that data, and with whom it is being shared. Honest ads should also be transparent about the fact that they are ads, and not other content. | | | | |
>
> | Respectful ads also refrain from being obnoxious. As Eyeo’s manifesto on Acceptable Ads makes clear, this includes duties to: (1) not be annoying; (2) not disrupt or distort the page content we’re trying to read; and (3) be effective without shouting at us. This means no more screaming videos with a hidden off button covering the story we want to read. | | | | |
<
< | So? It would
be desirable, if this illustration has analytic value, to
explain to the reader what that analytic payoff is.
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> | Finally, respectful ads are relevant. This means showing us things we are interested in. Ads can achieve this by advertising information relevant to the site they advertise on. It could also mean collecting user data to tailor. In order to respect users, it is crucial that advertisers maintain the utmost transparency in such data collection and in the presentation of tailored ads, fully disclosing to users why they are shown the ads they are shown. In practice, native advertising such as the type with which BuzzFeed? is experimenting could fit this model well, if advertisers stringently adhere to principles respecting their users. | | | | |
<
< | Targeting Bank Accounts
That the vultures also get wind of Larry’s wedding is not necessarily a bad thing either. Larry, presumably, would welcome more informed advertisers that are privy to what wedding venues are within Larry’s price range. Such suggestions are infinitely more useful to Larry than ads for wart cream when Larry is sifting through the massive amounts of information on wedding planning now available to him. If the advertisers really do know more about Larry than does Larry, perhaps they do him a service by pointing him towards things he is more likely to choose. I am not convinced that such suggestion, which could certainly be called manipulation, constitutes a loss of freedom. If we as a society can educate Larry to be a consumer that is aware of the potential manipulation, we can use such advertisement to guide more efficient consumption.
The argument form in
use here is to disprove a general proposition by offering a single
instance of your own choosing in which (their being no facts that
could inconvenience you) your analysis comes out your way. The
evident fallacy involved in inferring anything about the general
proposition from your specific invented factless case should be
apparent.
But the position of power these advertisers hold does come with an obvious potential for abuse that could lead to a real loss of freedom. For one, if Larry is not an educated and informed consumer, such suggestions may influence him in ways that preclude choice. Or, more sinisterly, if the people selling to Larry actually restrict his access to those options (particularly the more expensive ones) they think he is most likely and able to buy, they do preclude his ability to choose and strip him of his freedom as a consumer.
Both of these problems can in theory be prevented if the sellers maintain the same level of transparency their consumers afford them. In this sense, Larry can protect his freedom as a consumer precisely because he assumes everything is being watched and by being keenly aware of how such monitoring is being used against him. In practice, however, this complete reciprocal transparency is unlikely since it diminishes the power of the sellers to manipulate and influence.
But it also seems unlikely that sellers would unduly restrict consumer choice, since such restrictions would presumably lower the chances of sales. Sellers can probably catch more fish if they cast a wider net. Instead they are likely to preserve consumer choice while also nudging buyers towards the products those buyers are most likely to buy, based on an assessment of that buyer’s information. This ability of the seller to know the buyer better than he knows himself is a little disconcerting, and it does open potential for abuse and loss of freedom. But the intimate knowledge and tailored suggestions do not seem to constitute a loss of freedom per se, as long as consumers remain informed. Instead, they are useful tools in an overwhelmingly cluttered electronic market.
So we have now finished analyzing the single, factless, made up situation in which you think you can identify the range of human trade-offs involved in the larger general proposition you are discussing. In my view, you have just established that even on turf of your own invention, in which no fact can be inconvenient because you haven't furnished any, your own proposition is dubious. Why is it more important to you to prevail in a sterile argument of this kind than to encounter the actual ideas of other real people in a factual context taken from the real world?
Targeting Lives
Assuming everything is being monitored has more troubling implications in the context of people targeting our lives. While this assumption in the consumer context is not likely to significantly alter behavior, if people think they will be killed for their beliefs, they are likely to censor themselves. Here, the larger gun given those with our information is much more dangerous. For example, a despotic government will have much less trouble tracking and gunning down legal activists. The assumption that everything is being watched is therefore likely to strongly discourage such activism in these societies.
But these heightened barriers to activism are not a new type of threat. They simply amplify the fundamental lack of freedom in such societies. These killers have always and will always use the tools available to kill. Even without the mass collection of citizen data, these governments will develop other means of monitoring the populace. For example, with cameras in the sky that can take multibillion pixel pictures of entire cities, these governments do not need Twitter to kill their enemies. They will find ways to do that, as they always have.
I think a stronger draft would contain some facts, and would deal
with the actual ideas of people whose thinking you are responding
to.
| >
> | This advertisement’s susceptibility to abuse and some users’ opposition to relinquishing their data necessitates the second requirement that all advertising be optional. Websites should always give users a realistic choice (beyond “don’t use this service”) to opt out of selling their information for otherwise free content. These users, on the other hand, should be willing to pay a couple of dollars to bypass ads to preserve their privacy. | | |
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HumzaDFirstEssay 2 - 16 Nov 2015 - Main.EbenMoglen
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< | It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | | Loss of Privacy Need not be Loss of Freedom | | | Privacy is Already Dead | |
<
< | Although fully accepting the appalling extent to which our privacy is being invaded online and by our contemptuous machines, I have been grappling all semester with the question of whether this loss of privacy necessarily implies a loss of freedom. I remain unconvinced that the assumption that everything is being watched necessarily means a loss of freedom. But this is perhaps because I also remain unconvinced that there is any possible future without such monitoring and data collection. Whether or not we can resist the theft of our online identities or change the terms on which it is stolen (i.e., given away), there is no future in which I will ever be certain that no one is watching everything I do (or do not) do. This bleak outlook pushes me to convince myself that it is possible to remain free in the post-privacy era. | >
> | Although fully accepting the appalling extent to which our privacy is being invaded online and by our contemptuous machines, I have been grappling all semester with the question of whether this loss of privacy necessarily implies a loss of freedom. I remain unconvinced that the assumption that everything is being watched necessarily means a loss of freedom. But this is perhaps because I also remain unconvinced that there is any possible future without such monitoring and data collection. Whether or not we can resist the theft of our online identities or change the terms on which it is stolen (i.e., given away), there is no future in which I will ever be certain that no one is watching everything I do (or do not) do. This bleak outlook pushes me to convince myself that it is possible to remain free in the post-privacy era.
That will be merely a word game. You have decided, apparently, that
people were wrong to suppose themselves unfree in totalitarian
societies, and should have known they really weren't unfree after
all. Of course, no totalitarian society ever had surveillance as
good as the depostisms of the 21st century will, but if you can
convince yourself that people were free in the Soviet Union, why
shouldn't they also be free in 21st century China? And, of course,
you also have the additional assumption that everyone in the world
lives in the US, which is also very helpful to you.
In other words, are you really sure this isn't empty blather?
| | | Sacrificing privacy for convenience certainly leaves us incredibly vulnerable to people out to take our money or our lives. But the people intent on such attacks have always been intent on such attacks. Bearing ourselves online brings a change in the degree of this threat, but it does not seem to bring a change in kind. Our promiscuity with our information simply gives a much bigger gun to our attackers. | |
<
< | The gun analogy is apt in other ways. It is probably true, for example, that the instruments that collect our information were designed to attack us in much the same way guns were designed to kill. But literal guns do not do much beyond killing, whereas their metaphorical counterparts provide us a few additional benefits. Some frustratingly push us towards laziness and ignorance, but some are laudable. Facebook, for example, helps give the semblance of a small village to our increasingly globalized world. Village life is connected such that villagers are inevitably kept abreast of the goings on of their neighbors. There is no risk, for example, that I will not hear that my Cousin Larry is getting married. By sharing this information with Facebook, Larry can similarly disseminate this information through his network, which is now much larger and much more spread out. Larry can avoid having to choose between calling 3,000 different people and snubbing someone who was interested. | >
> | The gun analogy is apt in other ways.
Actually, it isn't apt in any way. Projectile weapons and
data-mining are surely as disparate as chalk and cheese,
apples and oranges, grandmothers and frogs, or any other
pair that a language uses to warn its denizens against
immaterial comparison. You mean to assert, it appears, that
nothing qualitative has changed in the social situation,
only a quantitative change of some kind. That's
self-evidently untrue, so far as I'm concerned. What facts
have you to show?
It is probably true, for example, that the instruments that collect our information were designed to attack us in much the same way guns were designed to kill. But literal guns do not do much beyond killing, whereas their metaphorical counterparts provide us a few additional benefits. Some frustratingly push us towards laziness and ignorance, but some are laudable. Facebook, for example, helps give the semblance of a small village to our increasingly globalized world. Village life is connected such that villagers are inevitably kept abreast of the goings on of their neighbors. There is no risk, for example, that I will not hear that my Cousin Larry is getting married. By sharing this information with Facebook, Larry can similarly disseminate this information through his network, which is now much larger and much more spread out. Larry can avoid having to choose between calling 3,000 different people and snubbing someone who was interested.
So? It would
be desirable, if this illustration has analytic value, to
explain to the reader what that analytic payoff is.
| | |
Targeting Bank Accounts | |
<
< | That the vultures also get wind of Larry’s wedding is not necessarily a bad thing either. Larry, presumably, would welcome more informed advertisers that are privy to what wedding venues are within Larry’s price range. Such suggestions are infinitely more useful to Larry than ads for wart cream when Larry is sifting through the massive amounts of information on wedding planning now available to him. If the advertisers really do know more about Larry than does Larry, perhaps they do him a service by pointing him towards things he is more likely to choose. I am not convinced that such suggestion, which could certainly be called manipulation, constitutes a loss of freedom. If we as a society can educate Larry to be a consumer that is aware of the potential manipulation, we can use such advertisement to guide more efficient consumption. | >
> | That the vultures also get wind of Larry’s wedding is not necessarily a bad thing either. Larry, presumably, would welcome more informed advertisers that are privy to what wedding venues are within Larry’s price range. Such suggestions are infinitely more useful to Larry than ads for wart cream when Larry is sifting through the massive amounts of information on wedding planning now available to him. If the advertisers really do know more about Larry than does Larry, perhaps they do him a service by pointing him towards things he is more likely to choose. I am not convinced that such suggestion, which could certainly be called manipulation, constitutes a loss of freedom. If we as a society can educate Larry to be a consumer that is aware of the potential manipulation, we can use such advertisement to guide more efficient consumption.
The argument form in
use here is to disprove a general proposition by offering a single
instance of your own choosing in which (their being no facts that
could inconvenience you) your analysis comes out your way. The
evident fallacy involved in inferring anything about the general
proposition from your specific invented factless case should be
apparent.
| | | But the position of power these advertisers hold does come with an obvious potential for abuse that could lead to a real loss of freedom. For one, if Larry is not an educated and informed consumer, such suggestions may influence him in ways that preclude choice. Or, more sinisterly, if the people selling to Larry actually restrict his access to those options (particularly the more expensive ones) they think he is most likely and able to buy, they do preclude his ability to choose and strip him of his freedom as a consumer. | |
>
> | | | | Both of these problems can in theory be prevented if the sellers maintain the same level of transparency their consumers afford them. In this sense, Larry can protect his freedom as a consumer precisely because he assumes everything is being watched and by being keenly aware of how such monitoring is being used against him. In practice, however, this complete reciprocal transparency is unlikely since it diminishes the power of the sellers to manipulate and influence. | |
>
> | | | | But it also seems unlikely that sellers would unduly restrict consumer choice, since such restrictions would presumably lower the chances of sales. Sellers can probably catch more fish if they cast a wider net. Instead they are likely to preserve consumer choice while also nudging buyers towards the products those buyers are most likely to buy, based on an assessment of that buyer’s information. This ability of the seller to know the buyer better than he knows himself is a little disconcerting, and it does open potential for abuse and loss of freedom. But the intimate knowledge and tailored suggestions do not seem to constitute a loss of freedom per se, as long as consumers remain informed. Instead, they are useful tools in an overwhelmingly cluttered electronic market. | | | But it also seems unlikely that sellers would unduly restrict consumer choice, since such restrictions would presumably lower the chances of sales. Sellers can probably catch more fish if they cast a wider net. Instead they are likely to preserve consumer choice while also nudging buyers towards the products those buyers are most likely to buy, based on an assessment of that buyer’s information. This ability of the seller to know the buyer better than he knows himself is a little disconcerting, and it does open potential for abuse and loss of freedom. But the intimate knowledge and tailored suggestions do not seem to constitute a loss of freedom per se, as long as consumers remain informed. Instead, they are useful tools in an overwhelmingly cluttered electronic market. | |
>
> |
So we have now finished analyzing the single, factless, made up situation in which you think you can identify the range of human trade-offs involved in the larger general proposition you are discussing. In my view, you have just established that even on turf of your own invention, in which no fact can be inconvenient because you haven't furnished any, your own proposition is dubious. Why is it more important to you to prevail in a sterile argument of this kind than to encounter the actual ideas of other real people in a factual context taken from the real world?
| | | Targeting Lives | |
<
< | Assuming everything is being monitored has more troubling implications in the context of people targeting our lives. While this assumption in the consumer context is not likely to significantly alter behavior, if people think they will be killed for their beliefs, they are likely to censor themselves. Here, the larger gun given those with our information is much more dangerous. For example, a despotic government will have much less trouble tracking and gunning down legal activists. The assumption that everything is being watched is therefore likely to strongly discourage such activism in these societies. | >
> | Assuming everything is being monitored has more troubling implications in the context of people targeting our lives. While this assumption in the consumer context is not likely to significantly alter behavior, if people think they will be killed for their beliefs, they are likely to censor themselves. Here, the larger gun given those with our information is much more dangerous. For example, a despotic government will have much less trouble tracking and gunning down legal activists. The assumption that everything is being watched is therefore likely to strongly discourage such activism in these societies. | | | But these heightened barriers to activism are not a new type of threat. They simply amplify the fundamental lack of freedom in such societies. These killers have always and will always use the tools available to kill. Even without the mass collection of citizen data, these governments will develop other means of monitoring the populace. For example, with cameras in the sky that can take multibillion pixel pictures of entire cities, these governments do not need Twitter to kill their enemies. They will find ways to do that, as they always have. | |
>
> |
I think a stronger draft would contain some facts, and would deal
with the actual ideas of people whose thinking you are responding
to.
| | |
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
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HumzaDFirstEssay 1 - 03 Nov 2015 - Main.HumzaD
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
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- Loss of Privacy Need not be Loss of Freedom
- Privacy is Already Dead
- Although fully accepting the appalling extent to which our privacy is being invaded online and by our contemptuous machines, I have been grappling all semester with the question of whether this loss of privacy necessarily implies a loss of freedom. I remain unconvinced that the assumption that everything is being watched necessarily means a loss of freedom. But this is perhaps because I also remain unconvinced that there is any possible future without such monitoring and data collection. Whether or not we can resist the theft of our online identities or change the terms on which it is stolen (i.e., given away), there is no future in which I will ever be certain that no one is watching everything I do (or do not) do. This bleak outlook pushes me to convince myself that it is possible to remain free in the post-privacy era.
- That the vultures also get wind of Larry’s wedding is not necessarily a bad thing either. Larry, presumably, would welcome more informed advertisers that are privy to what wedding venues are within Larry’s price range. Such suggestions are infinitely more useful to Larry than ads for wart cream when Larry is sifting through the massive amounts of information on wedding planning now available to him. If the advertisers really do know more about Larry than does Larry, perhaps they do him a service by pointing him towards things he is more likely to choose. I am not convinced that such suggestion, which could certainly be called manipulation, constitutes a loss of freedom. If we as a society can educate Larry to be a consumer that is aware of the potential manipulation, we can use such advertisement to guide more efficient consumption.
- Assuming everything is being monitored has more troubling implications in the context of people targeting our lives. While this assumption in the consumer context is not likely to significantly alter behavior, if people think they will be killed for their beliefs, they are likely to censor themselves. Here, the larger gun given those with our information is much more dangerous. For example, a despotic government will have much less trouble tracking and gunning down legal activists. The assumption that everything is being watched is therefore likely to strongly discourage such activism in these societies.
It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
Loss of Privacy Need not be Loss of Freedom
-- By HumzaD - 03 Nov 2015
Privacy is Already Dead
Although fully accepting the appalling extent to which our privacy is being invaded online and by our contemptuous machines, I have been grappling all semester with the question of whether this loss of privacy necessarily implies a loss of freedom. I remain unconvinced that the assumption that everything is being watched necessarily means a loss of freedom. But this is perhaps because I also remain unconvinced that there is any possible future without such monitoring and data collection. Whether or not we can resist the theft of our online identities or change the terms on which it is stolen (i.e., given away), there is no future in which I will ever be certain that no one is watching everything I do (or do not) do. This bleak outlook pushes me to convince myself that it is possible to remain free in the post-privacy era.
Sacrificing privacy for convenience certainly leaves us incredibly vulnerable to people out to take our money or our lives. But the people intent on such attacks have always been intent on such attacks. Bearing ourselves online brings a change in the degree of this threat, but it does not seem to bring a change in kind. Our promiscuity with our information simply gives a much bigger gun to our attackers.
The gun analogy is apt in other ways. It is probably true, for example, that the instruments that collect our information were designed to attack us in much the same way guns were designed to kill. But literal guns do not do much beyond killing, whereas their metaphorical counterparts provide us a few additional benefits. Some frustratingly push us towards laziness and ignorance, but some are laudable. Facebook, for example, helps give the semblance of a small village to our increasingly globalized world. Village life is connected such that villagers are inevitably kept abreast of the goings on of their neighbors. There is no risk, for example, that I will not hear that my Cousin Larry is getting married. By sharing this information with Facebook, Larry can similarly disseminate this information through his network, which is now much larger and much more spread out. Larry can avoid having to choose between calling 3,000 different people and snubbing someone who was interested.
Targeting Bank Accounts
That the vultures also get wind of Larry’s wedding is not necessarily a bad thing either. Larry, presumably, would welcome more informed advertisers that are privy to what wedding venues are within Larry’s price range. Such suggestions are infinitely more useful to Larry than ads for wart cream when Larry is sifting through the massive amounts of information on wedding planning now available to him. If the advertisers really do know more about Larry than does Larry, perhaps they do him a service by pointing him towards things he is more likely to choose. I am not convinced that such suggestion, which could certainly be called manipulation, constitutes a loss of freedom. If we as a society can educate Larry to be a consumer that is aware of the potential manipulation, we can use such advertisement to guide more efficient consumption.
But the position of power these advertisers hold does come with an obvious potential for abuse that could lead to a real loss of freedom. For one, if Larry is not an educated and informed consumer, such suggestions may influence him in ways that preclude choice. Or, more sinisterly, if the people selling to Larry actually restrict his access to those options (particularly the more expensive ones) they think he is most likely and able to buy, they do preclude his ability to choose and strip him of his freedom as a consumer.
Both of these problems can in theory be prevented if the sellers maintain the same level of transparency their consumers afford them. In this sense, Larry can protect his freedom as a consumer precisely because he assumes everything is being watched and by being keenly aware of how such monitoring is being used against him. In practice, however, this complete reciprocal transparency is unlikely since it diminishes the power of the sellers to manipulate and influence.
But it also seems unlikely that sellers would unduly restrict consumer choice, since such restrictions would presumably lower the chances of sales. Sellers can probably catch more fish if they cast a wider net. Instead they are likely to preserve consumer choice while also nudging buyers towards the products those buyers are most likely to buy, based on an assessment of that buyer’s information. This ability of the seller to know the buyer better than he knows himself is a little disconcerting, and it does open potential for abuse and loss of freedom. But the intimate knowledge and tailored suggestions do not seem to constitute a loss of freedom per se, as long as consumers remain informed. Instead, they are useful tools in an overwhelmingly cluttered electronic market.
Targeting Lives
Assuming everything is being monitored has more troubling implications in the context of people targeting our lives. While this assumption in the consumer context is not likely to significantly alter behavior, if people think they will be killed for their beliefs, they are likely to censor themselves. Here, the larger gun given those with our information is much more dangerous. For example, a despotic government will have much less trouble tracking and gunning down legal activists. The assumption that everything is being watched is therefore likely to strongly discourage such activism in these societies.
But these heightened barriers to activism are not a new type of threat. They simply amplify the fundamental lack of freedom in such societies. These killers have always and will always use the tools available to kill. Even without the mass collection of citizen data, these governments will develop other means of monitoring the populace. For example, with cameras in the sky that can take multibillion pixel pictures of entire cities, these governments do not need Twitter to kill their enemies. They will find ways to do that, as they always have.
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I think I may need to split this into two essays. The targeting lives section feels incomplete without a discussion of how an assumption of monitoring plays out in a free society where public opinion may lead to censure and self-censorship, and whether this self-censorship (a result of utter transparency) is a loss of freedom. Not sure whether I should trim down the consumer section and try and squeeze this in or try to split these three topics ((1)consumer monitoring, (2) opinion monitoring in an unfree society, (3) opinion monitoring in a free society) into two essays.
(Apologies for the delay. My cat showed my machine the same contempt it shows me and knocked a glass of water onto it yesterday, forcing me to start from scratch on a new machine.)
-- HumzaD - 03 Nov 2015 |
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| Revision 4 | r4 - 14 Feb 2016 - 16:26:20 - EbenMoglen |
| Revision 3 | r3 - 02 Feb 2016 - 03:50:13 - HumzaD |
| Revision 2 | r2 - 16 Nov 2015 - 18:03:36 - EbenMoglen |
| Revision 1 | r1 - 03 Nov 2015 - 19:33:11 - HumzaD |
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