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<big>'''Syllabus'''</big>
'''March 20'''
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* [[Politics and Technology of Control: Introduction|Jan 24]]
* [[Paradigms for Studying the Internet|Jan 31]]
* [[New Economic Models|Feb 7]]
* [[Peer Production and Collaboration|Feb 14]]
* [[Collective Action and Decision-making|Feb 21]]
* [[New and Old Media, Participation, and Information|Feb 28]]
* [[Law's Role in Regulating Online Conduct and Speech|Mar 6]]
* Mar 13 - ''No class''
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* [[Regulating Speech Online|Mar 20]]
* [[Internet Infrastructure and Regulation|Mar 27]]
* [[Copyright in Cyberspace|Apr 3]]
* [[Control and Code: Privacy Online|Apr 10]]
* [[Internet and Democracy|Apr 17]]
* [[Internet and Democracy: The Sequel|Apr 24]]
* [[Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare|May 1]]
* [[Final Project|May 8]] - ''No class''
|}
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'''February 21'''


Mass collaboration and the aggregation of information enable potentially profound changes in business and politics. In this class, we will compare and contrast the transformations in economic life and collective decision-making processes brought on the information revolution.  The discussions will also explore the role of open information systems on business and the scope for greater transparency and participation in government, politics and public life.
Mass collaboration and the aggregation of information enable potentially profound changes in business and politics. In this class, we will compare and contrast the transformations in economic life and collective decision-making processes brought on the information revolution.  The discussions will also explore the role of open information systems on business and the scope for greater transparency and participation in government, politics and public life.


 
'''[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/sites/is2013/images/IS2012-03-20.pdf Slides]'''


==Assignments==
==Assignments==


[[Assignments#Assignment_2:_Prospectus|Assignment 2]] due
[[Assignments#Assignment_3:_Project_Outline|Assignment 3 due]]


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* James Surowiecki, [http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowds/excerpt.html Wisdom of Crowds (excerpt)]
* James Surowiecki, [http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowds/excerpt.html Wisdom of Crowds (excerpt)]
**[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/22/books/review/0523books-mclemee.html?ex=1400644800&en=43bc95eb638bfed2&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND NYT Review]
**[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/22/books/review/0523books-mclemee.html?ex=1400644800&en=43bc95eb638bfed2&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND NYT Review]
* [http://ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=1125 Ethan Zuckerman's blog review of Infotopia] Great summary of the issues in the book.
* [http://ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=1125 Ethan Zuckerman's blog review of Infotopia] Great summary of the issues in the book.


== Optional Readings ==
== Optional Readings ==


* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers Federalist Papers] published under the pseudonym Publius.
* [http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseer.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.59.9009%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&ei=IHRnT8TLOe-00QHH5YSHCA&usg=AFQjCNERO0GwXWc7DLWZwSaqnjjjMTWMYg Divided They Blog] - a paper showing trackbacks between political blogs, mentioned by Ethan Zuckerman in his review of Cass Sunstein's Infotopia
* [http://www.blogpulse.com/papers/2005/AdamicGlanceBlogWWW.pdf Divided They Blog] - a paper showing trackbacks between political blogs, mentioned by Ethan Zuckerman in his review of Cass Sunstein's Infotopia
* On a similar topic: [http://webuse.org/p/a22/ Cross-Ideological Discussions among Conservative and Liberal Bloggers], by Eszter Hargittai, et al.
**Abstract: With the increasing spread of information technologies and their potential to filter content, some have argued that people will abandon the reading of dissenting political opinions in favor of material that is closely aligned with their own ideological position. We test this theory empirically by analyzing both quantitatively and qualitatively Web links among the writings of top conservative and liberal bloggers. Given our use of novel methods, we discuss in detail our sampling and data collection methodologies. We find that widely read political bloggers are much more likely to link to others who share their political views. However, we find no increase in this pattern over time. We also analyze the content of the links and find that while many of the links are based on straw-man arguments, bloggers across the political spectrum also address each others writing substantively, both in agreement and disagreement.
 
 
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== Class Discussion ==
== Class Discussion ==
This week’s readings prove that groupthink is a powerful but not infallible force.  Surowiecki tells us that the average of group answers always outperforms individuals over time.  (He uses the example of how the audience of Who Wants to be a Millionaire was right 91% of the time when polled.)  Zuckerman, citing the Condorcet Jury Theorem, retorts that the case is true only if the individuals in the group tend to be right more often than not.  (Otherwise the group answer would probably be wrong 91% of the time.)  Collective decision making works only when each individual is more likely than not to make the correct decision on her own.
We expect an informed individual is better equipped to make a correct decision than an ignorant one, so where do we get our information?  The distinction between the Federalist Papers and the political blogosphere is telling.  While today’s political pundits advocate for their positions with at least the same fervor (if not eloquence) as Hamilton, Madison and Jay, their audiences receive messages differently.  In the 1700’s newspapers printed federalist and anti-federalist letters alongside each other while their readers evaluated both sides of the question.  Today’s blog readers select their feeds which likely matches their predispositions.  The “information cocoon” is real. [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 22:27, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
I found the readings to highlight the differences that have become so polarizing in our society.  Is this because the "crowdsourcing" attitude is working against strategic thought and boosting mob mentality instead?  Maybe, to Yu Ri's point, people are being more closed in their beliefs because there is just too much information and we are on overload.  Humans in their natural way will always regroup and go to where the comfort level is....my hope is that a middle ground is found so that true intelligent discourse may again be as prevalent as it was when a man got on a soapbox in a town square one hundred years ago.  [[User:Camcloughlin|Camcloughlin]] 21:40, 22 February 2011 (UTC)  camcloughlin
I have praised the emergence of personalized media, so-called "The Daily Me," as the contribution to efficiency in information gathering and classifying. Thus, it was an perplexing confrontation of reading Sustein's assertion on information cocoon dwellers. It is true that people like to hear and see what they want to hear and see and that principle applies to the online activities to some degree. While I was pondering on this notion, a certain idea came up to me: now there is this platform for diversity to spread its wings, but aren't people being more obstinate about their beliefs and tenets? It is just that I could hardly find the interchanges between liberals and conservatives in the Internet forums, except those with acrid animosity. --[[User:Yu Ri|Yu Ri]] 01:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
I understand the concern over collective action and whether it lowers the quality of the project. My paper has a lot to do with this and the term homophily. Homophilic groups are everywhere but are they beneficial? I'm tackling this in my final paper. camcloughlin mentioned above how polarizing they are.How can we address this? Also, what about the decision making especially when the views are public? I know the old saying, "There is safety in numbers", but we have to ask ourselves why do we continue to crowd source? Websites such as urbandictionary and Wikipedia rely heavily on such action. But what happens then they are wrong? [[User:Elishasurillo|Elishasurillo]] 20:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
I think that the posted below concern about the purpose and structure is fair enough to draw our attention to the meaning of the curriculum; the meaning that makes a difference between well-informed person and well-educated person. No objections, of course, to the administrators of this course, they did marvelous research on relevant literature, but as some of us began noticing, the material does not follow logically to build up a skill. I know that in some countries people are spending many years to learn how to properly relate material to students, not simply make them memorize everything. In order to guess on our own what pedagogy might have been behind this giant sheer volume, we must align the material in order so that each concept will serve as a preamble for the next one, and all key terms then will be logically connected to the main scheme. It seems that after sorting out all major concepts from the minor key terms, we are aiming to arrive at the issue of ideological, society based, differences within one giant infrastructure called the internet. After examining most ideologically conflicting dimensions, we must derive a method that will keep catalytic reactions between those most extreme ideologies under control. This method, I assume, should include political, policy-based, and technological instruments. In order to build these instruments we must rely on our predecessors whose remarkable writings we have at our disposal. As some of you have already noticed that some of the writings are of a high caliber and some are of a low and average; nevertheless, they do contribute substance to the sphere of the course. It is therefore crucial to distinguish a high caliber conceptual pieces of writing from the low or mediocre type of writings. Then, we should align them in the right sequence so that we can apply our reasoning, not only memory. I guess this is as far as I should go because as we know, some of the writers are working at the Berkman Center - the host of the course. It will be unethical from my side to point out on the perplexity they may create.
Perhaps for those who has enough imagination, imagine that after all readings that we read so far, we are exposed only to several stones on a giant planet in the giant universe with many other planets connected to it. There are terabytes of books on the net. There is so much to read about and discover. Take the DARPA Internet Program archive alone [http://www.darpa.mil/internetbibliography.html] or the internet society resources [http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/cerf.shtml] and they will extrapolate our horizons even farther. If we will search the archives of other countries, we would have not enough lifetime to read everything that is equally worth reading as our class material. It is important however, to have a wise conventional opinion not only about the modern concepts, but also about classic definitions, and Wisdom of Crowds by Surowiecki is an excellent emitter of the "old school" discoveries. His book ''Wisdom of Crowds'' so as ''Wealth of the Networks'' is built on the original concepts he interprets. In the book ''Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds'' the Scottish journalist Charles Mackay writes about the first conglomerates of people, not connected with internet, but infatuated by the same idea of rapid enrichment through the stock market. In the first hundred pages author describes the most devastating financial bubbles and schemes instigated by John Law, the son of the banker and a creative financier, who in his ''Proposals and Reasons for Constituting a Council of Trade'', which he presented to the British Parliament, proposed to issue a loan-for-shares based instrument which has failed a number of times and at several countries due to the rapid and large demand for one type of shares issued for sale. If we think of a stock buyers as of the web sight users, we can understand better the concept of the collective action and decision making process. Surowiecki, of course, makes an excellent example of the bias in the herd instinct when he describes the authority bias in the decision by investigative group of the shuttle's catastrophe and in the coordination of other groups of people driven by the common goal. I am confident that the experts opinion and the seer-sucker theory is in value when the majority is trying to think. It is exactly what people are trying to do in this course: people are trying to find a cognizable way to comprehend the material by cooperating and coordinating within the group. Nevertheless, I personally believe that ''Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds'' is by default the strongest platform to base our understanding both of the concepts of the internet and of the digital economics of the society.  --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 01:30, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Link to article in today's NY Times regarding Egypt's shut down during the revolution of internet within its borders:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/technology/16internet.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp
<<[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 15:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)>>


In reading the Surowiecki excerpt and the summary on Zuckerman's Infotopia I think it is apparent that they are discussing apples and oranges.  Surowiecki is concentrating on the crowd's ability to accurately determine a correct answer to a specific question governed by a certain criteria (e.g. how many beans in this jar or which one of these four possible answers is correct).  Zuckerman, on the other hand, is looking at the human behavior and ideology aspect which has no defined criteria or "right" answer.  When asking the crowd what their opinion is regarding a particular issue the answers will undoubtedly depend on the individual's personal beliefs and past experiences which vary greatly from person to person.  If the ideological question is framed in such a way that there is a limited selection of answers, such as in polling, the individuals will gravitate towards the answer which most fits their personal belief.  While this will allow for an analysis of what the "majority" of the crowd prefers it does not necessarily mean that majority is correct.  Once the human condition is allowed to enter the equation the ability to determine what is correct vs. what is preferred is gone.
March 20: Collective Action and Decision-making
--[[User:Rakundig|Rakundig]] 10:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


'''Dear''' Fellow Internet and Society Classmates:
James Surowiecki's excerpt on the wisdom of crowds presents some really compelling ideas. 


I am writing with a proposal.  February 22 will be our forth meeting as a class which marks the milestone that we are more than one quarter of the way through the material we will study during the semester. During the last several classes we have studied examples of commons based production including Wikipedia and we are using a wiki based tool for asynchronous class discussions. Not to take anything away from the quality of the content of those contributions, one thing that has been missing is a structure and purpose.
It would seem that crowds are more likely to arrive at collective decisions that are closer to the hole than individuals would be to do on the whole. For the most part, this makes me think of how crowds are manipulated through mass consumerism, media and so forth. The collective mind, so to speak, is plugged in and then guided towards certain suggestionsThey are told continually to purchase something, or to do something. So we are part of a slow conditioning process as is witnessed through orchestrated mass consumerism.  This seems to be a beneficial thing for the perpetuation of free market exchange, as many western societies have not had to resort to communism. Who wants to be a millionaire when money flows through the collective already?  In this sense, we are collectively rich as a society. Whatever a citizen may need is available to them if they want it.  Just as the long tail profits, the newness is there when you need it.
   
My proposal is that starting this week we begin to put into practice some of the things that we have learned to date. That is, below I have constructed a set of notes on what I have taken away from the class. I invite you in the spirit of Wikipedia to edit, comment upon, contribute to and in other ways improve what I have written in a collaborative search for a common understanding of the materials presented in this course. If you are so inclined, I ask you to follow a small set of basic tenets that are described on the [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/edit/Talk:Collective_Action_and_Decision-making Discussion page].
 
I hope that you will join me in this project. I believe a commons based approach to summarize what we have learned so far will benefit us all in translating the great information Rob and David have introduced to us. No two of us have walked away from any class discussion nor reading, nor listening, nor viewing with the exact same perception of what has been discussed. Below presents a opportunity for us all, those who gather in Cambridge and those who participate at a distance, to come to a closer mutual understanding.  


Join me below to flesh out what I have begun. Add references that I have missed, correct statements that are in accurate, add your unique insight so that we can all come to a better common understanding.  
I don't know if I completely agree with Sunstein or Surowiecki's suggestions entirely, though. I think that in certain situations leaders develop and then it simply becomes a game of following the leader for the group.  And that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think that, collectively society is becoming a much richer place to engage in and is not just exposing someone to something they might not otherwise know about.  And I witness this shift primarily across generations with knowledge differences.  For example, something I may assume is common within pop culture knowledge is unheard of by my mother and her generation.
Thank you in advance for your willingness to participate.  


Guy --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 04:06, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
I do think that Habermas adds an interesting idea in that it is the quality of the idea which is more important than the individual.  To a certain degree, this is mostly how I conduct myself when people ask me my opinion about a certain topic.  I will contend for an idea.  I’m not interested in what I believe in, more so than the idea.  Primarily, as a student I am concerned with exploring ideas, and then there is the style placed on top of that – which is what I think many people have a hard time discerning.  Sometimes I will play the devil’s advocate on a subject of debate, because I understand that an idea is not about me – I am just a transporter of that knowledge, which has nothing to do with me personally.  For example, most of my work here at Harvard has been based around ideas, not my personal beliefs.  I could care less what I actually believe about a subject.  What I am concerned about is ideas.  Personally, I have no personal beliefs about what it is I'm working on.  I work on a project, using the idea as the base and then overlay a style.  Aesthetics are really a lot of fun to play around with.  That is not to say that I am not interested in generating my own original ideas.  However, as a student my role is primarily to learn the material.  Although, I do think that ideas do not always become common knowledge amongst the collective.  This is because crowds can be influenced by the leader.  In the case of mass media, MTV will dictate the idea, and then teenagers will simply follow it.  Then individuals fit into simple categorical groupings. 


Zuckerman's comments on Republic.com seem to suggest that collective decision making, through mass consumerism, is a good thing in that it makes people feel more connected. 


You can certainly count on my support and participation! I think it's a great idea to summarize what we have learned 'in a mass collaboration approach'; nonetheless, I consider that it would be much better if we can create another page to aggregate all the information from lectures apart from opinions or questions of the discussion section. I might have interpreted your purpose in an unexpected way, so please do not hesitate to share your brilliant ideas! Thank you. --[[User:Yu Ri|Yu Ri]] 08:04, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Here is an interesting quote relating to this: “Sunstein seizes on this possibility and offers a strong caution: if we can choose our own media, it’s possible we will use this power to insulate ourselves in an information cocoon, where we systematically avoid dissenting voices and have increasingly less common experience with our fellow citizens. Sunstein worries that a society of these isolated individuals will have difficulty participating in a democracy because citizens need a) some exposure to materials they would not have sought out and b) some common experience as a precursor for joint decisionmaking.” 


"If each of us have less than a 50% chance of being right about a decision, a group of us will be worse at making a correct decision, with our probability of accuracy increasing towards zero as the size of the group increases." [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/11/30/cass-sunsteins-infotopia/]
What I also think is interesting here is this notion of increasingly broadened scope of exchange of information.  Whether it is through blogs, or controlled means such as Wikipedia, what we are seeing is a collective that is becoming seemingly more connected and more able than before.


I thought this quote highlighted what could be a hurdle for Wikipedia, insofar as the potential for an unlimited pool of contributors. While it does not appear to be a problem at present (if anything, they seem eager to include more individuals in the project), I'd be curious if and when they will reach a tipping point. - [[User:Jsanfilippo|Jsanfilippo]] 18:19, 22 February 2011 (UTC)  
So this is interesting how both Zuckerman and Surowiecki seem to go back to this metaphor of a collective consensus on the number of jelly beans in a jar. It’s like asking how many neurons are in a person’s head that collectively allow that person to make a decision.  Collective decision making is like this.   


Dear [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/User:Yu_Ri Yu Ri] , Thank you for your kind words. You have interpreted my purpose exactly. Are you suggesting that the topic of Internet and Society would make a good Wikipedia article? If so, I agree.  I checked and someone looks to have begun [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_and_Society one on this exact topic], but contributed only a small amount and has not been modified the informing since 2009. Would you suggest we pick up where that author left off? --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 00:24, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
The only thing that I think might interfere would be over-socialization and government intervention with this form of trade that Hayek seems to touch on. And this is also interesting, because as people become more connected and able they are more likely to form more direct democracies. For example, there are protesters who use cell phones and websites to announce when and where a protest will take placeSo I think that governments will want to make sure than even protesters remain within the architecture that is already in place. As everyone knows, too many protesters demanding a state of anarchy could potentially overthrow a state just as easily as when monarchies were overthrown throughout most of Europe and Russia.   


Dear Guy,That sounds awesome! Probably we can reconstruct the contents of the article and start filling out relevant information in no time. I would be happy to contribute my effort in improving or re-editing this article on Wikipedia. Feel free to contact me with any suggestion regarding this project. --[[User:Yu Ri|Yu Ri]] 02:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)  
[[User:Just Johnny|Just Johnny]] 17:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
++++


To use the term from economics, this course is built “on the shoulder of giants.” The three main giants are [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zittrain Jonathan Zittrain], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig  Lawrence Lessig], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yochai_Benkler Yochai Benkler]. The course is also supplemented by a number of other influential thinkers who will be mentioned below.


Each of these individuals has contributed a block in the foundation of a set of tools that we students can use to understand the effects that digital technologies are having on our society, culture, government and personal lives today and into the future.


Rob told us that the best way to absorb this material is to begin with Zittrain, progress to Lessig and build to  Benkler. Along the way we will interject relevant references to other influential thinkers.
The question whether a group will take a better  or a worse solution is an interesting one in the context of Internet, social media, etc. I am thinking also in terms of real world with presidential election or death penalty. Is the group decision the best? How the process is different from online decision making? As for Internet, I think we can do more than Amazone, Facebook, that we did not explore all the capacities of mass decision or decision making. I am wondering about a world republic...--[[User:Sab|Sab]] 22:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


In his book, [http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/6 The Future of the Internet: and how to stop it] Jonathan Zittrain begins by describing how the Internet emerged at a time when inexpensive fully customizable multiuse computers became available to large numbers of technology tinkerers. The proliferation of these plastic (in the sense of the word that means malleable) platforms combined with unexpected success of the Internet Protocol for connecting these powerhouses of innovation together to link people across time and distance allowed the property of Generativity to emerge.  
In the Johnson’s experiment of the maze, I like the idea that the group had discovered the optimal solution, and it would be interesting to demonstrate that it applies to the real world and not only in laboratory settings and classrooms. I think it would be even more interesting to analyze the relation with the phenomenon of the social networks, in which the mass decision and participation primes over a handful of people making what they think is better for the society. I think this experiment has more sense than the Victorian notions that humanity, as a group, is just a dumb herd. I don’t think this is a correct statement, nevertheless experiments like Sustein’s in which was demonstrated that people find it difficult to defy the will of a group, and may polarize to avoid interpersonal conflict are facts that should be carefully thought. The question is if in fact this applies also for Internet communities, in which there’s no personal contact and people feel freer to express whatever they want without fearing opposition and being different. In any case, what I like more in the Ethan Zuckerman Blog review of Infotopia is that in some cases the predictions are proven wrong, like the Sunstein’s predictions that if we can choose our own media we will isolate ourselves in an information cocoon. Therefore, deliberation could be proven to be an effective way to accumulate information.[[User:Fabiancelisj|Fabiancelisj]] 20:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


Defined as, “[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generativity an independent ability to create, generate, or produce new content unique to that system without additional help or input from the system's original creators]” the generative properties of the Internet allowed it to attain “[http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/8#2 mainstream dominance] over [http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/8#1 proprietary barons such as AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy.]”


Zittrain describe the following five properties of generativity as important to our discussion: Leverage, Adaptability, Ease of mastery, Accessibility and Transferability. Important to beginning to build our model, Zittrain describes how the “[http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/13#1 hourglass architecture]” of the internet facilitated generativity through a layering property that broke the network into three logical layers. The hourglass is an intellectual concept and not a tangible thing. It helps people who wish to create innovations to focus on their specialty without needing to be concerned how other pieces of the puzzle that are necessary to make things happen work. Layers communicate with each other based on a set of properties that are native to each layer and understood by the others. In essence a digital [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto Esperanto] or commonly understood language between layers.
Even though group intelligence is more difficult to measure than individual intelligence, I do believe that a crowd can outsmart a genius. Imagine for example, if a very intelligent physicist is isolated and only surrounded by other physicists, he/she maybe outstanding in this field, but is limited to what he/she can do. However, when allowed to collaborate with cell and molecular biologists, chemists, mechanical and electrical engineers, medical doctors, veterinarians, etc… a physicist learns to conduct cell mechanics, biophysics, molecular and biochemical experiments, and has the potential to solve health problems, such as coming up with a drug to relax airway smooth muscle cells during an asthma attack. When a group of diverse individuals collaborate, they can solve problems that they otherwise cannot solve individually. The internet has allowed this collaboration to increase globally through technologies such as Skype and E-mail. In some instances, group intelligence depends on its structure and dynamics. For example, Megan Garber, from Nieman Lab, reported that MIT researchers found that “[g]roup intelligence is correlated…with emotional intelligence, http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/mit-management-professor-tom-malone-on-collective-intelligence-and-the-genetic-structure-of-groups/. The researchers concluded that a group is more intelligent and is more likely to solve difficult problems when there are more women in it. Simply placing very smart individuals together in a group does not make a group smarter.
When I think of a very intelligent individual or genius, I think of my lab principal investigator, who has the ability to lead his lab members and make important decisions. However, he would have not made an informed decision without hearing the lab members deliberate. [[User:Qdang|Qdang]] 15:52, 19 March 2012 (UTC)


The model features “[http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/13#3 an ‘application layer,’ representing the tasks people might want to perform on the network].” The foundation of the hourglass is “[http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/13#3 the ‘physical layer,’ the actual wires or airwaves over which data will flow].The middle layer is where the true ingenuity of the model lives. It is “[http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/13#3 the ‘protocol layer,’ which establishes consistent ways for data to flow so that the sender, the receiver, and anyone necessary in the middle can know the basics of who the data is from and where the data is going].”
Qdang raised an interesting idea of group intelligence. At the same time, group think can be counter-productive. The question to ask is how to move forward with collective speed and vigor, yet not work the group into isolated silos that are irrelevant to surrounds or reality. [[User: Harvard212|Harvard212]] 15:18, 8 May 2012 EST


Combined the power of the plastic processing platforms on the edge and unrestrained flow of information across the digital network unleashed a wave of innovation and creativity never before seen in the history of humanity. There is more important information in Zittrain’s about how the combination of economic, cultural security concerns and other forces are today combining to extinguish the generative nature that the Internet created. I am sure we will return to these topics later in the course.  
I like the connection between the reality of crowd intelligence in "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" or marble-jar guessing and the concept of blog aggregates and online communities.  It seems like this is a good argument against the dangers of cocooning at some levels. While a given blog/website community is likely there because they all subscribe to a certain set of interests or views, at least you know that if you're going to a big one you're probably getting the very best and most cohesive expression of those concepts.  It may not make them right, but it adds value to them as a tool for educating yourself.  Aggregates also will provide a balance to the problem that 1 or 2 of every group of 50 people will actually be more accurate than the group at guessing the number of marbles... but only in that one specific trial.  If you follow one blogger religiously you are susceptible to their blind spots and moments where they were simply wrong.  If you follow a collection of sites and blogs you will be exposed to the correct answers to most questions; whether you realize which is the correct answer is up to you haha. [[User:AlexLE|AlexLE]] 14:04, 19 March 2012 (UTC)


The next element of our foundational model comes from Lawrence Lessig. In his book [http://codev2.cc/download+remix/Lessig-Codev2.pdf  Code: version 2.0] professor Lessig describes that the Internet is what it is because of decisions that have been made by the designers of the system about how the system will work. This means that the Internet is not of some natural evolution or from some divine design, it is a creation of human invention.  
The level of expertise and information distributed through these channels of information is a consideration. In addition, cultural norms may also stand against the validity and movement towards adopting thoughts. For instance, a group of trained skeptics may be much more wary of early information that has not be substantiated. Whereas another group that relates to each other on a more communicative or trust-base dynamics may adopt 'truths' on the simple notion that one or two group members have accepted these 'facts' as 'truths'. I almost feel like to be ethically solid, blogs should have disclaimers and opinion makers should remind their audience, they are voicing their opinion -- just to maintain neutrality and fairness of information filtering. Might get cumbersome though. [[User: Harvard212|Harvard212]] 15:23, 8 May 2012 EST


In the early days of the Internet there was an overriding ethos that the Internet was ungovernable and beyond regulation. Notable thinkers including [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Perry_Barlow John Perry Barlow] spoke “behalf of the future” to say, “[http://ww2.cs.mu.oz.au/~zs/decl.html no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement .]
The articles that we had to read for this week were very interesting to me. I really enjoyed how the first article focused on statistics regarding various experiments and “Who wants to be a millionaire”, a program which I personally loved watching. Even though I respect and find very interesting the point made regarding the percentages being higher and closer to the correct answer for groups and less accurate for individuals, I don’t agree. Math and Statistics aren’t my field and I must admit that I’m not very good at any of them but I feel off the top of my head that it is quite obvious that a group would obtain a higher and more accurate score than an individual because the general population or “average Joe” is likely to get fairly close to the right answer which can be higher or lower but of course adding all the higher scores to the lower ones, I find it to be mathematically obvious that we shall obtain an approximately correct average score. Therefore this being said I find the “Condorcet Jury Theorem”, mentioned in the third article to pretty much respect my personal opinion on the subject. In conclusion I very much enjoyed these articles and I find that in some way these theories emphasizing on group work and force are exactly what Democracy is about. [[User:Emanuele|Emanuele]] 18:12, 19 March 2012 (UTC)


Lessig defeats the claim of no methods of control by describing a combination of factors including commercial motivations, user acquiescence to improve convenience, security, regulatory and other concerns that have resulted in innovation in the application layer that in turn has resulted in the implementation of features that are creating the opportunity for significant control.


We also discussed how [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Goldsmith Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu Columbia Law School Tim Wu] showed not only do laws of local jurisdictions impose regulation on the internet and its users  so do local geographical cultural and other factors [http://www.legalaffairs.org/printerfriendly.msp?id=961].
Collective action affects us everyday (or at least those of us that read news, shop, or blog online). For instance, if you use Reddit, most likely you're reading posts on the front page that were up-voted--a form of collective action. Zuckerman's article also points out "Amazon's collaborative filtering recs and Google's page rank algorithm." This had a huge effect on business (as we read in the long tail article, for example).


Lessig describes how the cumulative effect of Markets, Laws, Social norms result in the equation that Code = law. In other words, the decisions made by those who create the underlying code that makes the Internet possible result in a cumulative effect of establishing governance. The format of that governance is a direct result of the conscious choices made by those who design and implement the system. The decisions on what goes into the code are a result of Markets, Laws and Social norms.
Sunstein has a valid point with ideological cocoons, but does seem flawed. I agree with Zuckerman and the others who labeled his idea as "alarmist." While it's entirely possible (as "Divided they Blog" suggests) for people to seek out news and sites with similar ideologies and have their beliefs continually reinforced, that is not necessarily the way most people 'read the news.' Greater exposure to new ideas or newspapers/news from far away, like the readings said, is a benefit that far outweighs the risk of people forming an ideological cocoon.  [[User:Aberg|Aberg]] 18:24, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


The third element of the foundation of the way we are describing the effects of digital technologies on our society comes from the seminal work by Yochai Benkler, [http://yupnet.org/benkler/ The Wealth of Networks]. Benkler informs us that digital technologies are creating an environment in which a, "[http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/396 radical decentralization of capitalization and computing resources is allowing every connected person, some 600 million to a billion people, to have the means to engage in info knowledge and cultural production].” Benkler argues that the “industrial information economy” is giving way to a new model of human contribution based upon a “commons” approach to innovation.
He painstakingly documents how the system for protecting  what is commonly known as intellectual property  that was originally  meant to foster economic growth is actually considerable less efficient on a macroeconomic level  than a model in which innovation is freely contributed. 


Benkler argues that the prevailing theory of protecting an individual and organization’s right to control how their innovations are used (and influence how they are compensated for such use) creates such considerable transaction costs for those who might otherwise build upon previous innovations to create new products, services, works of art and other contributions to the betterment of society as a whole that they choose not to do so because of the imposed cost burden.
I realize we'll probably dig deeper into the topics of collective action and decision-making in the "Internet and Democracy" classes but I'd love to have a longer reading list on this topic. If anyone has any additional recommendations, please share. Thanks! [[User:Aditkowsky|Aditkowsky]] 13:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Benkler provides numerous examples that show how a commons based approach has resulted in significantly better, richer and more beneficial layers of innovation.
 
[http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php#  Kevin Kelly] demonstrates that in a “Benkleresque” world where information might be freer and ideas less subject to the artificial scarcity created by “Intellectual Property and Copyright” laws overall wealth in the economy would be greater due to the generative effects discussed by Zittrain. Kelly states that  producers would still be enriched because people are still be willing to pay monies associated to various factor involved in the conveyance of information.  In additional new forms of distribution would further increase overall good.


Along the way we have also talked about several recurring themes. These include:
"There is a certain notion of rationality that starts from the assumption that each of us is, in essence, a monad designed to maximize profit and pleasure." For me this quote by Scott McLemee (NYT Review) summed up the concept of collective action and decision-making communities have on the internet. This brings up the concept of 'public good' again and reminds me of why Wiki remains so successful - we, as an internet society/community, are acting collectively to produce the most 'public good'. --[[User:Hds5|Hds5]] 21:04, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


- Internet infrastructure which is foundational, multipurpose;
I wonder what the limitation is of this type of input from a group compared to a crowd. There will be a limitation if this is applied towards democracy when the overall good of the people may not affect the desired motives of the individual voter. Overall in the general studies referenced in the article it's not too surprising these results occurred but I was surprised at the accuracy of the averages. I will research limitations of these practices (or downfalls) and see what effects they may have on the digital world and it's users. I'm guessing the advantages outweigh the negatives, but imagine there must be some. [[User:Brendanlong|Brendanlong]] 21:15, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
- Innovation and public spaces
- Networks, openness, distributed, decentralized
- Digital disruption: challenges to existing institutions


Under the topic of Digital disruption, we talked about how the "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble dot-com bubble]" a surge in financial speculation in digital technologies from roughly 1995 to 2000 resulted in a financial market crash that disrupted economies across the globe.
That is very compelling evidence for group intelligence, but I see it play out in my own work.  I usually work in groups, and most decisions have to be taken by counsel and vote, because we’ve found it’s safer that way.  We’ve also noticed that when the group is together to discuss something, it is important to listen, to pay attention to opposing opinions, and that sometimes there is one person who has “bucked the tide” of the majority opinion, but that person turns out to be right.  We later realized that the majority had influenced itself so that each individual was not thinking for himself or herself.
Applied to the internet, the mathematics of the mean having a good chance to be right, makes sense, and because not everyone knows each other on the internet, and no one is looking at you, people might feel more free to express what they really think because they can be anonymous, avoiding the peer pressure effectThe majority has a better chance to be right.[[User:Mike|Mike]] 21:46, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


We discussed how Chris Anderson, author and editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine has shown how digital technologies have unleashed a “[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html long tail of innovation]” that is resulting in fundamental shifts in markets.
Finding knowledge through the collective crowd is an interesting question to pose given that there will usually be polarizing figures in any collective argument who will sway the "middle" (a group which should constitute the heavy majority of the crowd and which does not automatically invoke polarizing arguments) and which leads to mixed results much of the time (since they do not constitute anything more than a sophistication of passionate arguments). I agree with Sunstein that public debates and this polarization often leads to a distortion of the "middle" consensus (which is quite evident in the political sphere). The direction of constructive collective knowledge must come through a middle-of-the-road movement in which the polarized voices are either dampened in respect to their numbers, or received with a certain level of skepticism that comes with some challenge from the opposing side of the argument during its reception. Collective knowledge must only come from those who can separate a charismatic or loud argument from the polarized voices which can dictate the debate through techniques common to winning all types of debates...--[[User:Jimmyh|Jimmyh]] 00:20, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


[http://forum-network.org/lecture/boston-ideas-2005-eric-von-hippel Eric von Hippel]  shows, in relative parallel to the Benkler proposition, that digital technologies are empowering society and increasing social welfare by shifting innovation up into the user layer. That is digital technologies are shifting the source of innovations from the traditional manufacturer to user generated creation.  He shows how end users, who know intimately more about the ways something is important and how it can be improved are becoming a dynamic source for new creation and improvement.
The article, "The Wisdom of Crowds': Problem Solving Is a Team Sport", painted an excellent picture of the contrast between certain views that crowds may have "mob mentality" or may be sources of true wisdomCrowdsourcing is clearly and excellent resource for gaining data, extracting innovative ideas and for engaging the public at large for collaborative projects. All of which may yield greater results than certain activities or projects performed in isolation. Others question, however, the limits of crowdsourcing regarding certain projects or sectors. Foreign policy and politics have become recent areas for debate as to whether crowd sourcing would be effective and reliable.  In certain instances, some argue that crowd sourcing would add great value in that the population, and not a select few, would influence policy and actionIn other instances, like those which require in depth knwoledge of highly sensitive data, others have argued that crowdsourcing may be unreliable because crowds may not have the level of understanding of complex issuesTime will tell as to how our generation best harnesses the power of crowdsourcing so that it may be best utilized to provide reliable, effective input for policy. [[User:Cfleming27|Cfleming27]] 11:33, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 
(New post) Ethan Zuckerman's review of ''Infotopia'' made me want to read Sunstein's book. The breadth of topics that Sunstein explores is impressive. From my organizational behavior perch, I especially liked the coverage of group think and cocooning. As an added bonus, Zuckerman contributes another layer of insight in his treatment of Sunstein's themes.--[[User:SCL|SCL]] 03:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 
 
Indeed, I was happy to see groupthink mentioned as well. It is a serious problem in decision-making (however large or small) and so common. The worst has got to be when a whole country succumbs to it. A friend from Cuba was telling me about the strict internet laws over there (he has some family there). It's sad. I read this article too: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/27/v-fullstory/2085943/cubas-internet-repression-equals.html
[[User:Myra|Myra]] 20:45, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 
 
Hey all!  I found this really interesting little study I found on a woman's personal blog, which she called "[http://kirbybits.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/here-is-a-project-troll-data-analysis/ Troll! Data! Analysis!]," that I thought might be interesting to share.  Courtney Stanton wrote a post on her WordPress blog about women, haters, and rape culture in online gaming, and was so astounded by the responses to the post that she decided to do a wee study on the trolls of those comments.  I thought it was neat to see her methodology, how she broke things down and the conclusions she came to - basically, that trolls contribute nothing (which we all already knew, but now we know the characteristics of their nothingness), and that allowing thoughtful responses to a contentious topic, whether or not you agree with them, can actually foster respectful conversation and be good for you and your blog.  I thought this was particularly relevant giving the theme of "cocooning" in this week's readingsWould it be appropriate for me to add this under the "Links" section of this page, with a little description and a disclaimer that it is student-submitted and not from the profs/TAs? --[[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 19:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 
In earlier discussions today, there was a mention of manufacturers such as Apple trying to ensure that customers do not modify/hack their products.  They faced the potential of having their phones (IPhone) shut off by their carrier.  This atmosphere of fear seems to be pervasive across manufacturers to keep their customer “in line” at times. The “fear” of potential safety issues is one that has worked on me more than once. Naturally if customers can modify existing products on their own, they may not need to buy the next version of a manufacturer's product. [[User:Earboleda|Earboleda]] 00:24, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 
Hai folx -----=:) In light of a seemingly negative perception of what hackers do, and also as a demonstration of positive collective action I thought that I would share a bit about a primarily European hacker group named Telecomix that recently rallied to provide low tech communications such as fax numbers, dial-up modems, and even HAM radio coms for the Egyptian people during the internet blackout days of the anti-Mubarak protests.  This was a video they made at the beginning of the uprising: "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz4ECbj3dkY| Telecomix Message to North Africa and the Middle East]".  Later they were mentioned by the Electronic Frontier Foundation along with the French Data Network as organizations that provided technical workarounds and support during the black out.  The EFF article can be found here: "[http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/02/egypts-internet-blackout-highlights-danger-weak | Egypt's Internet Blackout Highlights Danger of Weak Links Usefulness of Quick Links"].  Telecomix is currently providing a variety of similar technologies for the people of Libya.  They are about the datalove and keeping it free and flowing. (:=----- kthxbai [[User: deinous|deinous]]
 
 
Hai again! In class last night I had mentioned the two different approaches that Microsoft and Sony are taking toward hackers hacking their gaming consoles. In a recent Mashable article, "[http://mashable.com/2011/02/21/kinect-sdk/ |Xbox Kinect vs. Sony PS3: How 2 Companies Handle Hacking]", they described these approaches.  Microsoft is encouraging hackers to innovate and push the limitations of their new motion sensoring peripheral, Kinect, by hosting hacking contests and the upcoming commercial release of a developing platform, SDK, for hacker to use. About a week after the public release of the Kinect last fall there was a huge buzz in the gaming community that the Kinect had been hacked to play World of Warcraft. Being an avid member of the WoW community I was very excited about this and searched to find out what the hack did.  As it turned out the Institute for Creative Technology of USC had created a customizable user interface and had applied it to the game controls for WoW.  The result and explanation of this inspiring hack can be seen in their YouTube video here: "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62wj8eJ0FHw | World of Warcraft with Microsoft Kinect using FAAST and OpenNI']. There is also already a commercially release development platform for creating homebrewed Xbox360 games, and again, there are many hosted contests for talented hackersConversely, companies like Sony do not encourage hacking their systems, and are currently suing George Holt for jailbreaking the PS3 for homebrew game design. This closed attitude raises the important question: if you purchased the product, why are you not allowed to do with it as you please? Recently, at least in the common practice of jailbreaking Apple's iPhones and iPads for open development, and unapproved software from Apple, it is not illegal to do so and will not result in lawsuits or terminations of your phone and data servicesIt does however void Apple warranties.  I personally am in support of the "you buy it, you can do what you want with it" argument, and look forward to more companies adopting attitudes and policies much like Microsoft has with their releasing of commercial developing tools that promote the generative process of creating new hardware uses and homebrew game design.  If these consoles and gadgets remain so closed I agree with Zittrain that there will become a stagnation with in creative technology. ---=:) kthxbai [[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 20:43, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


== Links ==
== Links ==
*  [http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html/ Clay Shirky TED Talk]
* [http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/feb2007/id20070201_774736.htm goldcorp story] (worth reading)
* [http://kirbybits.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/here-is-a-project-troll-data-analysis/ Troll! Data! Analysis!] - Courtney Stanton's study of responses to a blog post about women and rape culture in gaming, focusing on the content of the comments and comparing civil discussion to trolling.  A quick read, interesting analysis.  --[[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 22:01, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* some links on Apple's new subscription model:
** [http://mashable.com/2011/02/15/apple-subscription-model/ Apple's New Subscription Model]: Christina Warren, Mashable
** [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apple_subscription_model.php The New New Media: Apple's Subscription Model]: Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb
** [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380742,00.asp Top 4 Publisher Objections to Apple Subscriptions]: Peter Pachal, PCMag
** [http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/apple-offers-subscriptions-for-all-ipad-publications/?partner=rss&emc=rss Apple Offers Subscriptions for Apps]: JEREMY W. PETERS and MIGUEL HELFT, NYTimes
* Ethan Zuckerman on [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/04/25/homophily-serendipity-xenophilia/ Homophily, serendipity, and xenophilia] -- an interesting response to the "silo" theory (aka homophily) we discussed in class. --[[User:RebekahHeacock|RebekahHeacock]] 00:15, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
* Here is a link from yesterday's New York Times, http://nyti.ms/fBtKpz more wikileaks this time referring to the Qaddafi family’s exploits [[User:FMRR|FMRR]] 16:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
*  Interesting talk tonight (24 Feb), open to the public from what I can tell.  Video will be posted afterwards, if you can't make it:
**  [http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/online_news.html#abstract ONLINE NEWS: Public Sphere or Echo Chamber?] - 5-7pm, [http://whereis.mit.edu/?go=3 3-270]  ~~[[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 20:00, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I found this article that discusses the purchasing power of the masses. [[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_25/b3938601.htm The Power Of Us] [[User:Joshuasurillo|Joshuasurillo]] 15:28, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 17:50, 17 January 2013

March 20

Mass collaboration and the aggregation of information enable potentially profound changes in business and politics. In this class, we will compare and contrast the transformations in economic life and collective decision-making processes brought on the information revolution. The discussions will also explore the role of open information systems on business and the scope for greater transparency and participation in government, politics and public life.

Slides

Assignments

Assignment 3 due


Readings

Optional Readings

  • Divided They Blog - a paper showing trackbacks between political blogs, mentioned by Ethan Zuckerman in his review of Cass Sunstein's Infotopia
  • On a similar topic: Cross-Ideological Discussions among Conservative and Liberal Bloggers, by Eszter Hargittai, et al.
    • Abstract: With the increasing spread of information technologies and their potential to filter content, some have argued that people will abandon the reading of dissenting political opinions in favor of material that is closely aligned with their own ideological position. We test this theory empirically by analyzing both quantitatively and qualitatively Web links among the writings of top conservative and liberal bloggers. Given our use of novel methods, we discuss in detail our sampling and data collection methodologies. We find that widely read political bloggers are much more likely to link to others who share their political views. However, we find no increase in this pattern over time. We also analyze the content of the links and find that while many of the links are based on straw-man arguments, bloggers across the political spectrum also address each others writing substantively, both in agreement and disagreement.



Class Discussion

March 20: Collective Action and Decision-making

James Surowiecki's excerpt on the wisdom of crowds presents some really compelling ideas.

It would seem that crowds are more likely to arrive at collective decisions that are closer to the hole than individuals would be to do on the whole. For the most part, this makes me think of how crowds are manipulated through mass consumerism, media and so forth. The collective mind, so to speak, is plugged in and then guided towards certain suggestions. They are told continually to purchase something, or to do something. So we are part of a slow conditioning process as is witnessed through orchestrated mass consumerism. This seems to be a beneficial thing for the perpetuation of free market exchange, as many western societies have not had to resort to communism. Who wants to be a millionaire when money flows through the collective already? In this sense, we are collectively rich as a society. Whatever a citizen may need is available to them if they want it. Just as the long tail profits, the newness is there when you need it.

I don't know if I completely agree with Sunstein or Surowiecki's suggestions entirely, though. I think that in certain situations leaders develop and then it simply becomes a game of following the leader for the group. And that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think that, collectively society is becoming a much richer place to engage in and is not just exposing someone to something they might not otherwise know about. And I witness this shift primarily across generations with knowledge differences. For example, something I may assume is common within pop culture knowledge is unheard of by my mother and her generation.

I do think that Habermas adds an interesting idea in that it is the quality of the idea which is more important than the individual. To a certain degree, this is mostly how I conduct myself when people ask me my opinion about a certain topic. I will contend for an idea. I’m not interested in what I believe in, more so than the idea. Primarily, as a student I am concerned with exploring ideas, and then there is the style placed on top of that – which is what I think many people have a hard time discerning. Sometimes I will play the devil’s advocate on a subject of debate, because I understand that an idea is not about me – I am just a transporter of that knowledge, which has nothing to do with me personally. For example, most of my work here at Harvard has been based around ideas, not my personal beliefs. I could care less what I actually believe about a subject. What I am concerned about is ideas. Personally, I have no personal beliefs about what it is I'm working on. I work on a project, using the idea as the base and then overlay a style. Aesthetics are really a lot of fun to play around with. That is not to say that I am not interested in generating my own original ideas. However, as a student my role is primarily to learn the material. Although, I do think that ideas do not always become common knowledge amongst the collective. This is because crowds can be influenced by the leader. In the case of mass media, MTV will dictate the idea, and then teenagers will simply follow it. Then individuals fit into simple categorical groupings.

Zuckerman's comments on Republic.com seem to suggest that collective decision making, through mass consumerism, is a good thing in that it makes people feel more connected.

Here is an interesting quote relating to this: “Sunstein seizes on this possibility and offers a strong caution: if we can choose our own media, it’s possible we will use this power to insulate ourselves in an information cocoon, where we systematically avoid dissenting voices and have increasingly less common experience with our fellow citizens. Sunstein worries that a society of these isolated individuals will have difficulty participating in a democracy because citizens need a) some exposure to materials they would not have sought out and b) some common experience as a precursor for joint decisionmaking.”

What I also think is interesting here is this notion of increasingly broadened scope of exchange of information. Whether it is through blogs, or controlled means such as Wikipedia, what we are seeing is a collective that is becoming seemingly more connected and more able than before.

So this is interesting how both Zuckerman and Surowiecki seem to go back to this metaphor of a collective consensus on the number of jelly beans in a jar. It’s like asking how many neurons are in a person’s head that collectively allow that person to make a decision. Collective decision making is like this.

The only thing that I think might interfere would be over-socialization and government intervention with this form of trade that Hayek seems to touch on. And this is also interesting, because as people become more connected and able they are more likely to form more direct democracies. For example, there are protesters who use cell phones and websites to announce when and where a protest will take place. So I think that governments will want to make sure than even protesters remain within the architecture that is already in place. As everyone knows, too many protesters demanding a state of anarchy could potentially overthrow a state just as easily as when monarchies were overthrown throughout most of Europe and Russia.

Just Johnny 17:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


The question whether a group will take a better or a worse solution is an interesting one in the context of Internet, social media, etc. I am thinking also in terms of real world with presidential election or death penalty. Is the group decision the best? How the process is different from online decision making? As for Internet, I think we can do more than Amazone, Facebook, that we did not explore all the capacities of mass decision or decision making. I am wondering about a world republic...--Sab 22:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

In the Johnson’s experiment of the maze, I like the idea that the group had discovered the optimal solution, and it would be interesting to demonstrate that it applies to the real world and not only in laboratory settings and classrooms. I think it would be even more interesting to analyze the relation with the phenomenon of the social networks, in which the mass decision and participation primes over a handful of people making what they think is better for the society. I think this experiment has more sense than the Victorian notions that humanity, as a group, is just a dumb herd. I don’t think this is a correct statement, nevertheless experiments like Sustein’s in which was demonstrated that people find it difficult to defy the will of a group, and may polarize to avoid interpersonal conflict are facts that should be carefully thought. The question is if in fact this applies also for Internet communities, in which there’s no personal contact and people feel freer to express whatever they want without fearing opposition and being different. In any case, what I like more in the Ethan Zuckerman Blog review of Infotopia is that in some cases the predictions are proven wrong, like the Sunstein’s predictions that if we can choose our own media we will isolate ourselves in an information cocoon. Therefore, deliberation could be proven to be an effective way to accumulate information.Fabiancelisj 20:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


Even though group intelligence is more difficult to measure than individual intelligence, I do believe that a crowd can outsmart a genius. Imagine for example, if a very intelligent physicist is isolated and only surrounded by other physicists, he/she maybe outstanding in this field, but is limited to what he/she can do. However, when allowed to collaborate with cell and molecular biologists, chemists, mechanical and electrical engineers, medical doctors, veterinarians, etc… a physicist learns to conduct cell mechanics, biophysics, molecular and biochemical experiments, and has the potential to solve health problems, such as coming up with a drug to relax airway smooth muscle cells during an asthma attack. When a group of diverse individuals collaborate, they can solve problems that they otherwise cannot solve individually. The internet has allowed this collaboration to increase globally through technologies such as Skype and E-mail. In some instances, group intelligence depends on its structure and dynamics. For example, Megan Garber, from Nieman Lab, reported that MIT researchers found that “[g]roup intelligence is correlated…with emotional intelligence, http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/mit-management-professor-tom-malone-on-collective-intelligence-and-the-genetic-structure-of-groups/. The researchers concluded that a group is more intelligent and is more likely to solve difficult problems when there are more women in it. Simply placing very smart individuals together in a group does not make a group smarter. When I think of a very intelligent individual or genius, I think of my lab principal investigator, who has the ability to lead his lab members and make important decisions. However, he would have not made an informed decision without hearing the lab members deliberate. Qdang 15:52, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Qdang raised an interesting idea of group intelligence. At the same time, group think can be counter-productive. The question to ask is how to move forward with collective speed and vigor, yet not work the group into isolated silos that are irrelevant to surrounds or reality. Harvard212 15:18, 8 May 2012 EST

I like the connection between the reality of crowd intelligence in "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" or marble-jar guessing and the concept of blog aggregates and online communities. It seems like this is a good argument against the dangers of cocooning at some levels. While a given blog/website community is likely there because they all subscribe to a certain set of interests or views, at least you know that if you're going to a big one you're probably getting the very best and most cohesive expression of those concepts. It may not make them right, but it adds value to them as a tool for educating yourself. Aggregates also will provide a balance to the problem that 1 or 2 of every group of 50 people will actually be more accurate than the group at guessing the number of marbles... but only in that one specific trial. If you follow one blogger religiously you are susceptible to their blind spots and moments where they were simply wrong. If you follow a collection of sites and blogs you will be exposed to the correct answers to most questions; whether you realize which is the correct answer is up to you haha. AlexLE 14:04, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The level of expertise and information distributed through these channels of information is a consideration. In addition, cultural norms may also stand against the validity and movement towards adopting thoughts. For instance, a group of trained skeptics may be much more wary of early information that has not be substantiated. Whereas another group that relates to each other on a more communicative or trust-base dynamics may adopt 'truths' on the simple notion that one or two group members have accepted these 'facts' as 'truths'. I almost feel like to be ethically solid, blogs should have disclaimers and opinion makers should remind their audience, they are voicing their opinion -- just to maintain neutrality and fairness of information filtering. Might get cumbersome though. Harvard212 15:23, 8 May 2012 EST

The articles that we had to read for this week were very interesting to me. I really enjoyed how the first article focused on statistics regarding various experiments and “Who wants to be a millionaire”, a program which I personally loved watching. Even though I respect and find very interesting the point made regarding the percentages being higher and closer to the correct answer for groups and less accurate for individuals, I don’t agree. Math and Statistics aren’t my field and I must admit that I’m not very good at any of them but I feel off the top of my head that it is quite obvious that a group would obtain a higher and more accurate score than an individual because the general population or “average Joe” is likely to get fairly close to the right answer which can be higher or lower but of course adding all the higher scores to the lower ones, I find it to be mathematically obvious that we shall obtain an approximately correct average score. Therefore this being said I find the “Condorcet Jury Theorem”, mentioned in the third article to pretty much respect my personal opinion on the subject. In conclusion I very much enjoyed these articles and I find that in some way these theories emphasizing on group work and force are exactly what Democracy is about. Emanuele 18:12, 19 March 2012 (UTC)


Collective action affects us everyday (or at least those of us that read news, shop, or blog online). For instance, if you use Reddit, most likely you're reading posts on the front page that were up-voted--a form of collective action. Zuckerman's article also points out "Amazon's collaborative filtering recs and Google's page rank algorithm." This had a huge effect on business (as we read in the long tail article, for example).

Sunstein has a valid point with ideological cocoons, but does seem flawed. I agree with Zuckerman and the others who labeled his idea as "alarmist." While it's entirely possible (as "Divided they Blog" suggests) for people to seek out news and sites with similar ideologies and have their beliefs continually reinforced, that is not necessarily the way most people 'read the news.' Greater exposure to new ideas or newspapers/news from far away, like the readings said, is a benefit that far outweighs the risk of people forming an ideological cocoon. Aberg 18:24, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


I realize we'll probably dig deeper into the topics of collective action and decision-making in the "Internet and Democracy" classes but I'd love to have a longer reading list on this topic. If anyone has any additional recommendations, please share. Thanks! Aditkowsky 13:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

"There is a certain notion of rationality that starts from the assumption that each of us is, in essence, a monad designed to maximize profit and pleasure." For me this quote by Scott McLemee (NYT Review) summed up the concept of collective action and decision-making communities have on the internet. This brings up the concept of 'public good' again and reminds me of why Wiki remains so successful - we, as an internet society/community, are acting collectively to produce the most 'public good'. --Hds5 21:04, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I wonder what the limitation is of this type of input from a group compared to a crowd. There will be a limitation if this is applied towards democracy when the overall good of the people may not affect the desired motives of the individual voter. Overall in the general studies referenced in the article it's not too surprising these results occurred but I was surprised at the accuracy of the averages. I will research limitations of these practices (or downfalls) and see what effects they may have on the digital world and it's users. I'm guessing the advantages outweigh the negatives, but imagine there must be some. Brendanlong 21:15, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

That is very compelling evidence for group intelligence, but I see it play out in my own work. I usually work in groups, and most decisions have to be taken by counsel and vote, because we’ve found it’s safer that way. We’ve also noticed that when the group is together to discuss something, it is important to listen, to pay attention to opposing opinions, and that sometimes there is one person who has “bucked the tide” of the majority opinion, but that person turns out to be right. We later realized that the majority had influenced itself so that each individual was not thinking for himself or herself. Applied to the internet, the mathematics of the mean having a good chance to be right, makes sense, and because not everyone knows each other on the internet, and no one is looking at you, people might feel more free to express what they really think because they can be anonymous, avoiding the peer pressure effect. The majority has a better chance to be right.Mike 21:46, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Finding knowledge through the collective crowd is an interesting question to pose given that there will usually be polarizing figures in any collective argument who will sway the "middle" (a group which should constitute the heavy majority of the crowd and which does not automatically invoke polarizing arguments) and which leads to mixed results much of the time (since they do not constitute anything more than a sophistication of passionate arguments). I agree with Sunstein that public debates and this polarization often leads to a distortion of the "middle" consensus (which is quite evident in the political sphere). The direction of constructive collective knowledge must come through a middle-of-the-road movement in which the polarized voices are either dampened in respect to their numbers, or received with a certain level of skepticism that comes with some challenge from the opposing side of the argument during its reception. Collective knowledge must only come from those who can separate a charismatic or loud argument from the polarized voices which can dictate the debate through techniques common to winning all types of debates...--Jimmyh 00:20, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

The article, "The Wisdom of Crowds': Problem Solving Is a Team Sport", painted an excellent picture of the contrast between certain views that crowds may have "mob mentality" or may be sources of true wisdom. Crowdsourcing is clearly and excellent resource for gaining data, extracting innovative ideas and for engaging the public at large for collaborative projects. All of which may yield greater results than certain activities or projects performed in isolation. Others question, however, the limits of crowdsourcing regarding certain projects or sectors. Foreign policy and politics have become recent areas for debate as to whether crowd sourcing would be effective and reliable. In certain instances, some argue that crowd sourcing would add great value in that the population, and not a select few, would influence policy and action. In other instances, like those which require in depth knwoledge of highly sensitive data, others have argued that crowdsourcing may be unreliable because crowds may not have the level of understanding of complex issues. Time will tell as to how our generation best harnesses the power of crowdsourcing so that it may be best utilized to provide reliable, effective input for policy. Cfleming27 11:33, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

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