Googlization Self Control Delete

            In this weeks reading of Googlization of Everything, author Siva Vaidhynathan explores the issues surrounding the amount of control Google has on the Internet.  Vaidhynathan shows that Google’s settings allow for a massive collection and documentation of data throughout the Internet.  This can lead to an issue of people’s privacy in the digital realm.  Google can store harmful information of people allowing strangers to access it at any time.  As Vaidhynathan argues, “Google always gives the victim of exposure the opportunity to remove troubling information from Google’s collection.  But the system is designed to favor maximum collection, maximum exposure, and the permanent availability of everything.”

            The dangers with Google arise from our desire to share and create material on the Internet.  Google makes copies and files this information away in its database for anyone on the Internet to interact with.   Google claims that these databases are collected to help spread information, but in reality all of our activities that we enjoy are being stored each time we search, leading to an invasion of our privacy without our consent.   The extent of the information available is compounded due to how many features Google offers, but Google doesn’t keep a close filter on the content being displayed.  Their privacy policy is very weak with the majority of the privacy efforts being placed on the users to manage what is put online.

The Colbert Report
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            Stephen Colbert took a stab at the invasion of privacy that flourishes on Google.  In his witty take on the matter Stephen brings about many points that are eye opening to the general public.  He shows that the information placed on Google is invasive and costly for people looking to enter the workplace since there may be inappropriate pictures posted online.  Imagine Googling your name only to find drunken Facebook pictures.  This is one of the concerns, that Stephen points out, because Google now uses a feature to scan unlabeled online photos and match them based on facial recognition. This allows for any type of photo to be loaded into the search engine for anyone to see.  On top of this Stephen shows how Gmail tracks our friends and family as well making it even easier for companies to do some digging to find information out about us.  Clearly this upholds Vaidhynathan’s argument of the invasion of our privacy and shows how Google is looking to gather and collect information for its own financial gain.  Unfortunately, inappropriate images can easily be placed online with essentially no protection from the company. As CEO Eric Schmidt states, “ If you have something that you don’t want someone to know maybe you shouldn’t do it in the first place.”  This is a lazy approach of protecting the users who are essentially the product of the company. Since some of the content may be posted without our own permission, Google’s blind eye approach leads to a surveillance of nearly everything in our lives.  This will only increase with time and technology as things become more and more advanced our protection of our rights may become weaker and weaker. 

The Absurdity of Piracy

            This weeks reading involved the issue of piracy in the digital age.  In Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture he delves into the issue of culture is formed by commercial and noncommercial means. Lessig points out that noncommercial culture has an impact on how the culture is formed and progresses.  He states that, “the ordinary ways in which ordinary individuals shared and transformed their culture—telling stories, reenacting scenes from plays or TV, participating in fan clubs, sharing music, making tapes—were left alone by the law.” Lessig sees that our very culture may be threatened due to, “This rough divide between the free and the controlled has now been erased.”

            Lessig fears that the newly established permission culture threatens to undermine “the right to build freely upon their past.”  This as a result threatens to take away the creativity of our culture, and the past times that the people enjoy. The inability to separate the commercial from the noncommercial acts of piracy has lead to problems within our culture.  According to Lessig, “The consequence is that we are less and less of a free culture, more and more of a permission culture.”  This effect threatens novice creators as they spread ideas that affect our culture.

            For instance the Colbert Report covered a story on the “Underground Piracy of Warren Michigan” headed by the pirating “kingpin” Fred-Merle.  Stephen’s hilarious satire of the events shows the problems that Lessig has worried about.  Here is a man who is in charge of running the “Polka Party” which is a public access program in Warren.  He decided to make some DVDs for the people who enjoyed the music and charged them 15 dollars per DVD.  This resulted in him being arrested and forced to pay $450 dollars to the court.  This is a driving point behind Lessig’s argument, as the lines between the commercial and noncommercial thin, the ability to charge someone for spreading a pastime such has polka has increased.  Before the age of the Internet people spread content fairly easily by recording a movie on vhs and giving it to a friend to enjoy.   Now due to the developing permission culture law enforcement is stepping in on the free culture and its ability to spread enjoyment, such as polka music.  This enforcement of the spread of culture with nearly zero financial implications are absurd and shows how irrationally the laws are now written.  If people are charged for spreading ideas then creativity will take a backseat to big corporation financial gains. According to Lessig, this “will also rid our culture of values that have been integral to our tradition from the start,” and no one in America wants to see that. 

The Colbert Report
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Flickr Blog

           Our Flickr story was called The Attack of the Purple Dragon.  The first scene depicted a peaceful evening on campus as the group is dropping a friend off at the grill.  On the way back, the peaceful evening is changed as the second scene revealed a tipped over bicycle, followed with a dragon shadow against the moon.  This leads to a panic of our group, which is depicted by the scared expressions on their faces when confronted by the beast.  Unfortunately, in the next scene the first of the three deaths are shown.  Luckily for Lawrence University, a courageous student fights off the dragon. The student then makes the front page of the Lawrentian the following day.   

            While preparing for the project we brainstormed ideas eventually deciding on a dragon attack.  We thought that it would be interesting and would provide some cool action shots.  From here we met and began to write out a template of how the story would go and what type of shots would be included for each frame.  We found Flickr to be a really easy tool to use and had the photos uploaded, described, and tagged in less than 15 minutes.  The tags we chose to use were usually a word that described the scene or what was in the scene.  We used these tags so that if people searched for those keywords our photoshoot would show up.

             I could see where Flickr could be a great tool to get ideas and images across the web for other people to see. Photos are randomly cycled through each time the page is refreshed, and by searching for a phrase allowing users to find tagged images.   Since it is a free website people can easily upload images, arrange them in any order, and then share them via Facebook, email, or Twitter. The tool allows for people to set shots, and get the right feeling or emotions for what they would like to convey to the audience.  It also allows for many shots to be uploaded from more than one user, the uploaders can pick and choose which shot worked best. For instance our group could have separated into two teams and taken shots at different locations, the same can be done with any two people, anywhere, who share the same account. Flickr offers a way of self-expression, collaborative photography, and even practice for aspiring photographers. Like Youtube, Flickr provides people a way to go from a no name to a professional photographer. Overall Flickr was an effective, fun, and easy to use for our project.

Everyone is a Media Outlet: Twitter's impact on news

            The readings of Clay Shirky’s Everyone’s a Media Outlet, was a very interesting topic.  Shirky states that, “control over the media is less completely in the hands of the professionals.”  Shirky sees that the mass movement of news online through social media such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook on the  “web created a new ecosystem.”  Shirky argues that due to the information on the web that; “news can break into public consciousness without the traditional press weighing in. Indeed, the news media can end up covering the story because something has broken into public consciousness via other means.” 

            Shirky provides us with the example of Trent Lott, who received negative press coverage following comments regarding hiss support of Strom Thurmond.  While this may not seem unusual the fact was that the story was first spread online, if not for this the corporate media may have never picked the story up.  This clearly shows the impact of amateur journalists in creating and spreading news.  In fact, not only do they spread news, but sometimes web users can capture images of news stories before the press.  Social media outlets provide anyone who witnesses an event with a smartphone to capture images and tweet, upload to facebook, or blog about them. 

            Such is the case of the Hudson River crash in 2009. This happened when the plane struck a flock of geese, lost power in both engines, and was forced to make a crash landing in the Hudson River. This became known as the Miracle on the Hudson, and thrust Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger into the national spotlight for his safe landing.  When the plane crashed within four minutes someone had tweeted about how they had witnessed the crash.  This was done fifteen minutes before the mainstream media had even heard of the story.  This upholds Shiry’s argument showing that everyone has the possibility to become a news outlet even beating the traditional press to the story.  Although it doesn’t stop with just breaking the story, soon after the first tweet many photos were uploaded to twitter showing the miraculous landing.  These images were circulated through blogs and played on national news media that used both photos and videos of the crash when covering the story. This upholds Shirky's ideas of mainstream media covering topics that have originated in other places than traditional media.  Shirky claim of the web creating a new ecosystem is also proven in this example.  The ability to quickly capture events as they unfold has placed more power in the hands of the amateurs and also has allowed for a new way for stories to be brought to the attention of the world. 

Noble Amateur revised edition

In the reading of the Cult of the Amateur, by Andrew Keen, he makes the argument against what he calls the “noble amateur.”  Keen argues that the noble amateur posses the threat of “killing our culture” by increasing democratic participation of hobbyists with no formal education on the subject they are covering. Keen argues that this would lead to a decline in beneficial information.  Keen is concerned that amateurs undermine the professionals and the institutions that educate them. 

            Keen provides many examples to elaborate on his argument such as the problems with citizen journalism and Wikipedia.  While Keen sees any form of amateurism as being detrimental to the culture, that is not always the case.  The Ushahidi application is a great example of how amateurism can benefit the culture.  The application originally was started as a blog of citizen journalism, and evolved into a system that greatly enriched the culture.  The application was originally a blog called the Kenyan Pundit, which was crafted by Ory Okolloh, a citizen journalist, to provide information on the violence occurring in Kenya during political unrest that had shut down the printed press. 

            The Ushahidi system is a mapping application that allows fellow amateurs to upload points on a map where civil unrest is taking place.  Two programmers who read Okolloh’s blog and wanted to help developed the mapping technology.  This shows that Keen’s ideas on amateurs being a threat to undermining the culture, when in reality these amateurs are providing the culture with a new and influential program.  This citizen journalism in this situation doesn’t pose a threat to professional institutions but instead developed a now worldwide system of mapping crisis.  In fact, Ushahidi actually works together with professionals such as media organization and international humanitarian bodies. By providing the areas of violence, news organizations can get there faster and report on the story.  This program wasn’t just confounded to Kenya and instead provides areas throughout the world with crisis information and locations on google maps, for instance places with severe droughts use Ushahidi to coordinate relief efforts.  This goes against Keen’s concern on amateur’s posting false or poor information, in reality amateurs actually seem to enjoy benefiting the community, rather than attempting to harm it.