Technologies of Politics and Control - User contributions [en]

Assignment 1 Submissions

2013-02-19T21:41:38Z

Douglas Forbes: /* Submissions */ Link to Doug Forbes Assignment

{{AssignmentCal}}

===Submission Instructions===
Please make sure the name of your file includes your name or pseudonym (example: Name_Assignment1.doc) to avoid overwriting someone else's assignment. Grading for this assignment is on a 5-point scale; late assignments will be docked 1 point for each day they are late (final deadline: Tuesday, February 12, 5:30pm ET).

Upload your file here: [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/Special:Upload Upload file]. After you upload your file, please post a link to it in the "Submissions" section below in the following format:

* Your Name or Chosen Pseudonym:
* Link to rule: (URL of the Wikipedia editing policy you chose)
* Link to article: (URL of the Wikipedia article you edited)
* Link to report: (URL of the file you uploaded)

If you have trouble finding the file you uploaded, check the [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/Special:ImageList list of uploaded files].

Alternatively, for this assignment, you can e-mail your file to the instructors at is2013+homework@cyber.law.harvard.edu. We are offering this option for Assignment 1 only, as a backup as you become familiar with uploading; future assignments will need to be uploaded per the procedure above.

Need help editing? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page Check out this guide]

===Submissions===
Please post your link to your report below, in the following format:

* (Name or Pseudonym)

* (Link to rule)

* (Link to article)

* (Link to your submitted report)

[[User:Jeff Hermes|Jeff Hermes]] 09:44, 7 February 2013 (EST)
******

Mattyh (Matthew Haney)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Third_Reich

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/sites/is2013/images/Matt_Haney_-_Assignment_1%2C_02102013.docx

***

Admits

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlization

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Asmith_Assignment1.doc

[[User:Asmith|Asmith]] 00:10, 11 February 2013 (EST)

*****

Dear Alice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Extension_School

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Internet_Assignment_1_(Dear_Alice).docx

--[[User:Dear Alice|Dear Alice]] 15:42, 11 February 2013 (EST)

'''Initials In Name:''' TAG Student ID#10789842

'''Pseudonym:''' interesting comments

'''Link to rule:''' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

'''Link to article:''' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation

'''What the rule is?'''

Neutral Point of View (NPOV), means representing fairly without bias the information that is published, which is supported by reliable sources. This deals with creating and maintaining a neutral point of view on internet. Disputes or any sort of controversial subjects, such as religious believes or abortion, aim to be described as opposed to take a biased stand on the subject. The explanation of the subject should be neutrally informative and factual and not stray towards an opinion.

'''Why this matters?'''

Neutral Point of View matters because this rule established by Wikipedia, establishes a check and balance to provide the parameters of control to protect the integrity of the platform. With these protections and controls in place it not only protects the integrity of the platform and its participants, but it also protects the rights and freedoms of the owners of the content referenced. It is vital to discover a blend of technical and economic modernization The challenge that face Neutral Point of View is the Wikipedia is written by open and transparent consensus It can take a substantial amount of time before a correct "neutral approach can be established for all parties to agree on (Poe 2006). The purpose of this will be for implementing representation fairly, proportionately and and as much as possible, unbiased for all articles published by reliable sources (Poe 2006).

'''How it relates to other rules, and comments on the details/subsections of the rule.'''

Neutral Point of View has several related issues. Two examples of this are:

'''Verifiability''" This individuals who are reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source that has been published such as books or newspaper.

'''No Original Research:''' The term is a prohibition against original research and means that all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable published source, even if not actually attributed (No Original Research! 2013). This rule is the third rule in content policies and determines the type and quality of material acceptable in articles. Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should familiarize themselves with all three.

'''What is the article you chose?'''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation

'''Why you chose it?'''

In 1997 the term “Disruptive Innovation” was created by a Harvard Professor Clayton M. Christensen and published a book on the topic. Throughout my professional career I have strived to bring to market paradigm shifts in technologies, some would classify as disruptive innovations. Three classic examples of disruptive innovations that sacrificed quality for the ability to have mobility are:
- The Transistor Radio
- Pocket Calculators
- Mobile Phones

'''What edits you made?'''
The edit I made was by adding the example of the pocket calculator, which was a form of disruptive innovation.

[[File:LSTUEdit]]

'''Did users made edits in response?'''
None

'''Rule for the article: How the rule played out in practice (if it did)'''

Neutral Point of View did not play a significant role in this particular article, but it has the possibility of future violations. As new technology enters into the market there could be a cause for the technology being replaced to attempt to promote the inadequacies of this new technology in an attempt to keep market share. An example of this is how Rockefeller spent millions in an attempt to promote the inadequacies of electricity when it challenged his oil lanterns as the primary source of power.
Rule for the community: How you think the rule plays a role in maintaining Wikipedia.

In reporting or educating being neutral and unbiased is critical in forming free minds that can shape the world through their own interpretations and innovations.

'''How does it benefit/harm the Wikipedia community in any way?'''

The Neutral Point of View allows for the advancement of society, technology, and innovations.

'''Why is it important for Wikipedia?'''

This is important for Wikipedia so it sets the environmental parameters to establish them as a reliable informational resource, instead of a platform to promote individual’s political motives. It also encourages cooperation among encyclopedia's contributors (Poe 2006).

'''Bibliography'''

Kempf, J. March 2004. The Rise of the Middle and the Future of End-to-End:
Reflections on the Evolution of the Internet Architecture. ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3724.txt

No Original Research! 2013. http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-liberal/2013/01/no-original-research-2454120.html

Poe, Marshall. September 2006. A Closer Look as Neutral Point of View (NPOV). http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/09/a-closer-look-at-the-neutral-point-of-view-npov/305120/

Robertson, Jordan. November 11, 2008. Software Aims To Uncover ‘Data Discrimination’.http://www.nbcnews.com/id/22013943/ns/technology_and_science-internet/t/software-aims-uncover-data-discrimination/#.URVFKaVX3MA [[User:Interestingcomments|Interestingcomments]] 14:34, 8 February 2013 (EST)
[[User:Interestingcomments|Interestingcomments]] 16:14, 10 February 2013 (EST)

***

User777
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_truth

Assignment #1 – Neutral Point of View
Class user: user777
Wiki user: user55462*
February 12th, 2013
Internet and Society: Technologies and Politics of Control

For this first assignment, I chose to edit Wikipedia’s “Neutral Point of View” (NPOV) rule. NPOV stands that users of Wikipedia that edit an article should “fairly represent all sides of a story, and not make an article state, imply, or insinuate that any one side is correct”. Therefore, the cause of Wikipedia’s social and political bias, establish a quantitative benchmark for examining the presence of that bias. NPOV mainly defines the terms of objectiveness, bias and neutrality that provide a framework for considering neutrality within the Internet arena. In my view, however, the main questions would arise are: what is meant by neutrality? Is it fairness or perhaps positive opinion? What are the definitions of fairness and/or neutral?

The article that I chose was “Wikipedia and the meaning of truth” which was published by MIT technology review. I found this article by searching different entries in wiki, and this article was linked via Wiki tools.
Here is the link to this article: http://www.technologyreview.com/review/411041/wikipedia-and-the-meaning-of-truth/page/2/, however it is mainly a support to the main article, which is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_truth

I chose this article because it greatly illustrated the clarifications of truth and fairness that was perfectly aliened for this assignment that supported the idea of NPOV. What is fairness? How to be fair? Moreover, what is considered to be truth? According to Wikipedia’s entry on the subject, “the term has no single definition about which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree.” But in practice, however in “Wikipedia’s standard for inclusion has become its de facto standard for truth, and since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it’s the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received as the consensus view of a subject” (article chosen). Within this rule, I edited the idea of fairness and opinion. I stated that fairness’s tone should be presented within competing views with a consistently fair and sensitive tone. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization, for instance, refuting opposing views as one goes along makes them look a lot worse than collecting them in an opinions-of-opponents section. Moreover, I have added few edits about the manner of option: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

Furthermore, after my edits, I have placed it on “watch-list”, however I have not received any comments and/or edits. In my view, this rule is neutral in maintaining Wikipedia’s community. Due to cultural and social diversification of options and thoughts, this rule could play a neutral role within its community. Also, I read few other articles, and it’s interesting to note what Princeton’s reviews are about this rule: “NPOV is especially important for the encyclopedia's treatment of controversial issues, where there is often an abundance of viewpoints and criticisms of the subject. In a neutral representation, the differing points of view are presented as such, not as facts”. [[User:User777|user777]] 12:36, 11 February 2013 (EST)

AaronEttl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:AaronEttl_Assignment1.docx

[[User:AaronEttl|AaronEttl]] 16:38, 11 February 2013 (EST)

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Maria Paz Jurado
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
* http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobierno_abierto
* http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Maria_Paz_Jurado_-_Assignment_1.docx
--[[User:Maria|Maria]] 17:19, 11 February 2013 (EST)

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Milenagrado
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia
*http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Assigment_1.doc

***

Rebekahjudson
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin
*http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Judsonassignment1.rtf
***

Your Name or Chosen Pseudonym: Joshua Henderson, joshywonder
Link to rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
Link to article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
Link to report: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Assignment_1_-_Joshua_Henderson_-_Joshywonder_-_Feb11.13.docx

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HGaylor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-sided_argument
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Hunter_Gaylor_Internet_Article_.docx

***

* Name: Zak Paster
* Link to rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
* Link to article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universities_and_higher_education_in_Brazil
* Link to report: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Zak_Paster_Assignment_1_Universities_and_Higher_Education_in_Brazil_2-12-13.docx
[[User:Zak Paster|Zak Paster]] 10:02, 12 February 2013 (EST)

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J6428

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_AI

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/sites/is2013/images/A1_JULIAN_J6428.docx

[[User:Julian|Julian]] 10:53, 12 February 2013 (EST)

[[User:Caroline|Caroline]] 11:02, 12 February 2013 (EST)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Seasons_Hotels_and_Resorts#History

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:G%26M.doc

Rich Cacioppo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_pool_cleaner

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Assingment_1_Wikipedia_article_Feburary_12_2013.docx

GregB23

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Romeo_8C_Competizione

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Assingment_1_Wiki

Michael Keane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_flight_rules#Instrument_flight_rules

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Michael_Keane_Assignment_1.docx
[[User:Michaelekeane|Michaelekeane]] 12:38, 12 February 2013 (EST)

Kaley Sweeney
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Uganda
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/sites/is2013/images/KaleySweeney_Assignment1.docx
Kaley Sweeney 12:44, 12 February 2013 (EST)

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Phildade (Phillip Dade)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norb_Vonnegut

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:DADE_-_LSTU-120_Assignment_1.doc
[[User:Phildade|Phildade]] 15:50, 12 February 2013 (EST)
***

Raven

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driven_to_Distraction_(Inspector_Morse_TV-episode)

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Raven_Assignment_1_Due_February_12_2013.docx
[[User:Raven|Raven]] 16:02, 12 February 2013 (EST)
******
Tessa May
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Academy_of_Information_Technology
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIT,_Academy_of_Information_Technology
* http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Tessa_May_Assignment_1.pdf
[[User:Tessa May|Tessa May]] 16:32, 12 February 2013 (EST)
**
Update - The “Tamar Frankel” article which I also edited, has had the “orphan” designation removed.[[User:Tessa May|Tessa May]] 19:14, 16 February 2013 (EST)
****

Johnfloyd6675

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonegap

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:IS2013FloydAssignment1.txt

[[User:Johnfloyd6675|Johnfloyd6675]] 16:37, 12 February 2013 (EST)
***

Susan Goldstein
Rule: Ownership of Articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles
Article: Synchronous learning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_learning
Report: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/sites/is2013/images/Goldstein_Assgn_1_Wikipedia.docx
[[User:Susan Goldstein|Susan Goldstein]] 16:56, 12 February 2013 (EST)

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CyberRalph

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ababi

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/sites/is2013/images/Martins_Assignment1.docx

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Muromi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/sites/is2013/images/Muromi_Assignment_1.doc

****

****

AliciaPhan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Charms

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:AliciaPhan_Assignment1.docx
--[[User:APhan|APhan]] 17:20, 12 February 2013 (EST)

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JW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_yogurt
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:JW_Assignment1.pdf[[User:JW|JW]] 17:29, 12 February 2013 (EST)

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Jax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggalo

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Wikipediafinal.docx

*****

Rmcharv [RobMcLain]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Charms

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:RobMcLain_-_Assignment_1.docx

*****

Baughller

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoArmy

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/sites/is2013/images/Baughller_Assignment_1.docx

******************

1303E7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitter_bombing
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:Wikireview.docx

[[User:Douglas Forbes|Douglas Forbes]] 16:41, 19 February 2013 (EST)
Doug Forbes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace
https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2013/File:ASSIGNMENT_1_WRITE_UP_WIKKIPEDIA_ADDITIONS,_MYSPACE.docx

Assignment One

In 2004 I was looking for a person to help me make a web site for my business. A cousin of mine had a friend Laura who was making sites for people so I talked with her. At that time Myspace was very new and while it seems unthinkable now, she wanted to make a page on Myspace for me for a small fee. She sent me links to some examples she had done for some people. Being an opera singer herself, she had set up pages for other musicians. I didn’t like the concept at all because it seemed to me that only affiliates of the site would be likely to go there and I didn’t like the brand dilution of having a host who’s site was a visible shell around mine. I had someone else help with my first site but because of this introduction, I figured Myspace to be more of a hosting site for artists or people doing some similar notable thing and their followers, a little more like Linked in with fans. I didn’t know they were also a competitor to facebook, especially in the “friends” arena. I didn’t realize they were even still around at all until a couple of weeks ago I got a email or facebook entry with a reference to a Myspace page and felt that my reservations were vindicated. Having been introduced to Mysape through a Jewish opera singer I was quite surprised to read Boyd’s “white flight” article. Even more so because almost all of my black friends who are on anything are on facebook, with the exception of one Linkedin user, I figured the myspace had positioned itself wrong as described above and fallen prey to peoples desire to be with the latest trends.

My college educated black friends aside, Boyds’ research is pretty compelling and of course several people who’s research she includes note that race, class, buying tastes, fashion and homophily are all tied together. (I won’t site these as they are all in Boyd’s article but for the benefit of anyone reading this who hasn’t read her article it can be found at this link): http://www.danah.org/papers/2011/WhiteFlight.pdf
Still I was particularly surprised to find myself in a pool of white bread on facebook, I see myself as pretty progressive and have a black wife, so to be totally unaware of that divide was disturbing. This made me curious to see what the Wikipedia on Myspace page had to say and I thought it would be a good choice for a page to make an edit on. I would have considered it a real coup if they had none of Boyd’s research there and to add the “white flight” element but she was already quoted there. I noted that the sections they included did not include the fact that a lot of the perceived dangers that led people, especially parents to encourage some flight to a safer site such as facebook were actually untrue and that seemed a little unfair at best and worth mentioning as her research suggests that to a large extent, the media which often likes to exaggerate and create fear and their by parents-were largely responsible for the flight to facebook. I found it particularly telling that students that Boyd interviewed thought of facebook as safer but couldn’t explain why which suggested to me that they had gotten this from a trusted source, their parents. Lastly I thought it was important to note that some of this misplaced fear was around sexual predator apprehension, a pretty big disincentive.

With all of the above in mind, I directly copied the following two originally non-sequential segments after some “white flight” discussion in the article. The only change being that I added, “Boyd continues” because she goes into the first person after that point (highlighted in yellow below). I went back to check on the writing and they added the citation with the same number as some other Boyd quotes so it looks like it will remain as part of the article. This means I’m now a successful contributor to Wikipedia. : )

WIKKIPEDIA MYSPACE PAGE ADDITIONS:

Safety – or rather the perception of safety – also emerged as a central factor in teen preference. While teens believed Facebook was safer, they struggled to explain why.

MySpace was once a cultural center for youth culture. As Myspace grew increasingly popular, a moral panic emerged over the potential risks of sexual predators (Marwick, 2008). While the risks were overblown (Shrock and boyd, 2009), fear spread. Involved parents – typically from more educated and wealthier communities
began looking closer and they didn’t like what they saw. Boyd continues, while my examination of MySpace profiles revealed that more teens referenced God, Jesus, bible quotes, and other religious symbols than uploaded scantily clad self-¬‐images, parents typically assumed that the latter dominated MySpace and this upset them. Furthermore, these parents were often horrified by the practices of the urban 20somethings, especially those from different cultural backgrounds who appeared to have different moral codes. The media helped produced a techno-¬‐panic, often by leveraging adult fears of urban black signals such as bling and hip-¬‐hop.

Missing in my assignment zero paper: I wanted to include the full name of the Marshall McLuhan book that I mentioned, the title of which contained the phrase Global Village. I think I revised the paper in the process of submitting it so I don’t have the latest version so I’ll take the time to mention it here. It is “War and Peace in the Global Village” (1968)
[[User:Douglas Forbes|Douglas Forbes]] 16:41, 19 February 2013 (EST)

Talk:Main Page

2013-01-29T22:03:30Z

Douglas Forbes:

Doug Forbes
Assignment Zero
1 29 13

From the 50’s thought the 60’s there was a communications theorist named Marshal McLuhan. He devoted a lot of thought and writing around the invention of Television, noting that the existence of the medium itself had impact beyond any specific content coming across it. He coined a phrase, “The medium is the massage.” He felt that the ability to bring images of experiences in real time across vast distances would bring an awareness of each others circumstance in an unprecedented way and that cold lead to deeper understanding of one another as people and as countries. He referred to this as a “Global Village” and wrote a book in 1968 that included that phrase in the title. However, by 1964, he had already written in his book “Understanding Media” that the networks of the day were “timid giants,” there position was so important and so visible that they had become very weary of promoting non-mainstream positions because they could so readily create chaotic responses.

Looking at the class readings so far, I’d say that the advent of the Internet made for very similar expectations in, promoting unrestricted speech, moving it across borders and across economic boundaries as well. Barlow’s Declaration of Independence in Cyberspace makes it clear that people felt they had an area of total free speech but unlike our founding fathers, he forgot to shoot the opposition. The most notable change that around the Internet in the readings is that those expectations which seemed almost inevitable to begin with have, to a very large extent not come to fruition. So to me the most important challenges that presents are in achieving some kind of balance in the areas of accessibility, governmental censorship as well as economic censorship.

Taking these in order, Hargittai’s writings on the Digital Divide make it pretty clear that Barlow’s “World that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth,” was wildly optimistic. With third world countries lagging behind, and minorities and the elderly behind as well, those things could be improved on a bit but some of the statistical information has probably been improved on in some areas since his latest stats which are around 2004. In particular India seems to have made very good use of the Internet and related telecommunications technologies to improve their economic status, just call Dell for tech support and you’ll get a good idea. Hargittai also points out that user skill level is crucial to making use of Internet access. Her suggestion that education is around this is perhaps the most important one as we only have so much control over what happens in other countries. The NYC school system has done quite a bit of experimenting with this with very favorable results, as a videographer, I did several video’s that demonstrated very good results when students had access to laptops and also one teacher in particular was big on having younger students use small, relatively affordable tablets, noting that third graders became enthusiastic to do rewrites of papers for the first time. Zickuhr and Smith point out that “Both African Americans and English-speaking Latinos are as likely as whites to own any sort of mobile phone, and are more likely to use their phones for a wider range of activities.” Which may make for an opportunity to flatten the digital divide a bit so that may take care of some of the access point issues in the U.S. but it still remains important to teach our youth to be good searches and Internet savvy, which may not be as easy to accomplish using cell phones.

Regarding Government censorship and control, Goldsmith and Wu point out that while countries such as China may go way to far in their blocking of Internet, countries like Frances’ opposition to a Nazi auction site may be perfectly reasonable given their history and culture and a one size fits all set of laws would not be desirable. The challenge here is very similar to all other media, holding governments to their standards where we can. I must say I thought Google and Yahoo missed on opportunity. Goldsmith and Wu quote Yang of Yahoo as saying, "To be doing business in China, or anywhere else in the world, we have to comply with local law." As proponents of free speech, just deciding that one must operate within the laws of a country like China and at least in Google’s case hoping that they would loosen up a bit by themselves, missed the fact that to be a major world power as the Chinese are clearly achieving, they would have to have a search technology and I think our search engine people could have demanded some reform. Instead they wimped out or got greedy and got hacked in the process. That was part of the challenge the Internet posed and they did not meet that part which is a human as well as political great loss as we might have benefited greatly from some loosening of controls on there part. It’s interesting to note that the ability to censor sites was not even discovered until it was brought into light in the Yahoo/France case. The technology had a built in capability that was discovered by a commercially developed technology.

This leads to the last and greatest challenge of the set, the role commercial censorship of Internet information. This is most challenging in part because our corporations are so pervasive, partly we don’t have a say in their goings on much and partly because as one reading points out, companies are beholden to their share holders and not to the general citizenry and sometimes these appear to conflict, at least in a short term view. MacKinnon has a great example of this in the Julian Assange happenings. Here we have someone very much in the business of providing otherwise hard to obtain information and with no conviction or even start of due process, his provider and I believe also his credit card processors pull out on him. We seem to have the most difficult time coming up with answers to this area of problems, it’s the one way in which the Internet is living up to it’s promise of eluding solutions to control. What would “taking back the Internet” look like? More Government intrusion? That is not always such a good idea and the antithesis of what it’s earlier proponents hoped for. Can you imagine that a company would be required to keep an account with someone who has just published national security secrets? Even if someone discarded the Assange case as an outlier, one is still left with the troubling mechanics of censorship of information by companies and corporations some of whom may be very savvy at Internet manipulation. Hargittai states that censorship or gatekeeping [in this country] is now occurring at the level of information exposure. MacKinnon calls for vigilant activism in keeping the Internet as free as possible, but it is very hard to regulate or in any way control gatekeeping at the level of information exposure. We used to have a fairness in reporting doctrine for the televised press, that was based on running an opposing view to any story, but with billions of pages, this type of legislation provides only a partial solution.

In conclusion, while the Internet may not have lived up to the expectations of proponents such as Barlow, it may still be the closets thing we have to what he envisioned. Of the three challenges discussed, the digital divide may suffer from some Mathew effect, but my sense is that as time goes on, this will lesson, especially here in the U.S. for the reasons discussed above.

Balance in Government regulation will continue to be an issue that we must be aware of and influence where possible as the situation warrants. While we should keep as much freedom as possible, should we really be able to skirt existing laws about background checks and buy six thousand rounds of ammunition in hundred round belts?

Corporate Censorship which mostly takes place at the level of information exposure is very problematic and perhaps can only be combated with counter information exposure. I would say that the Internet does provide a counterbalancing force. Lots of news items and discourse emerge from it, such as those of Matt Drudge, Jullian Assange just to name a couple of the most notable ones. If one really feels strongly about an issue that is buried in reams of digital masking, posting to your social media site, posting to blogs, calling and discussing with friends and colleagues, or, by whatever means is available. As the recent internet and telecommunications involvement in the Arab Spring Uprisings suggest, I believe that the Internet still provides the closest means possible to achieving it’s touted mandate of getting muffled voices heard across as many borders and obstacles as possible and as we think about legislation and control, preservation of that freedom should be paramount.
[[User:Douglas Forbes|Douglas Forbes]] 17:03, 29 January 2013 (EST)