Rock the Internet Blues! (Part 3/3)
A critical view of the evolution of the Internet from civil society
Daniel Pimienta & Luis Germán Rodríguez Leal, June 2020
pimienta@funredes.org & luisger.rodl@gmail.com
This article is dedicated to the members of the virtual community MISTICA, which disappeared from cyberspace in 2007, and to Michael Gurstein who dedicated his life to empowering citizens in community networks and with whom we shared parts of that reflection in the corridors of a meeting shortly before of his physical disappearance in October 2017.
ABSTRACT:
Starting from an analysis of the differences between virtual communities and social networks, a critical description is developed of how the Internet has evolved in the last 20 years towards a situation marked by the end of dialogue and the obsessive promotion of visions centered on egocentric interests. The historical singularity from which this situation was triggered is identified in Google’s decision, in the early 2000s, to make advertising the focus of its business strategy and how it transformed, with the help of others Technology Giants (TG), users in user-products and then agents of their own marketing, with the use of their egomation. The paper investigates the role played by civil society specialized in global information society issues, where it has presented little resistance to the changes that have arisen along the way. In addition to representing a divorce with the shared initial utopias, this evolution is a threat with important repercussions in the non-virtual world, including the weakening of the democratic foundations of our societies. After showing some dystopian perspectives, some concrete guidelines are proposed to change course, highlighting the most important measure: that of declaring a digital emergency that contemplates massive education programs to insert citizens in the ethical challenges, the potentialities and risks of the global knowledge society and especially in what information literacy means.
Keywords: Internet, virtual community, social network, technological giants, digital emergency, information literacy, global knowledge society, information ethics, multi-stakeholder, egomation.
Contents
Abstract
Introduction
The end of dialogue
The way we get here
The opinion society and the “social contamination” via the Internet
The role of civil society
Governments ot TG: the cognitive bias
The digital emergency
Conclusions
References
(This part of the article covers the titles indicated in bold)
The digital emergency
We are faced with the urgency of building a new paradigm focused on quality education to harmoniously integrate a digital culture with an environment where there is an overwhelming amount of information circulating without the majority of users being endowed with the capacity required to assess it. It is a complex environment where simplistic views, such as the cause-effect model, fall short to address the volatility, ambiguity and uncertainty (VUCA[1]) that is thrown on the inhabitants of the global knowledge society.
The effects of neglecting information literacy go beyond the mere functioning of the digital world. Its repercussions infect public spaces, introducing distortions such as those generated by the manipulation of the information collected by the TGs and non democratic governments without the consent of the citizens.
Why do we consider this need so acute? Because the situation tends to get worse. A field study (see Ref. [3]) reveals that the level of information literacy of young students is decreasing over time, a seriously concern for the future. One thing for new generations is to show skills in the use of digital tools[2], and another is the process of metabolizing information and transforming it into knowledge. Today’s citizens, and young people even more, are subjected to the flow of unprecedented volumes of information while the ability to discern the true from the false, the validation of sources and the appreciation to detect manipulations requires competencies which are not included in the academic curricula of formal educational systems; a very damaging situation for humanity.
In one of the cited articles (see Ref. [4]), we talk about paradigmatic divide to explain the difficulties that decision-makers have in the digital sphere to understand that we are not facing merely technical problems but rather changes in the representation of a world redefined from a digital context that manages another reality (other spaces, other times, another interactivity, another participative modality, etc.) In this new paradigm the triangular relationship governments (global, national and local) — civil society — private sector and the disruptive and innovative models for socially appropriating technology are of a different nature and failure to identify and take it into account leads to incorrect decisions.
The bottom line of the strategy involves reaching all citizens in their respective and diverse roles and giving them an attractive proposal to adopt disruptive behaviors that allow creating an alternative digital culture. Clearly, the formal educational system[3] must be props in a change of approach where the task is to understand the threats that face our environment and disarticulate ethically harmful elements. It involves appropriate curricular interventions at all levels, from pre-school to higher through the various degrees of professional training. Obviously, it is not a trivial task and it does require dedication to build the necessary consensus.
In a recent work (see Ref. [7]) we develop in more detail the risks that exist due to the fact that the national, regional, international, multilateral and global bureaucratic bodies that are currently in charge of promoting and assimilating technological developments mainly collect optimistic and complacent trends, with little or no intention of making visible the issues that are already being noticed by various sectors of society and for which it is recommended to take prompt action. The initiative to declare a Digital Emergency would serve to promote a broader understanding of AI-based resources, stripping them of that impregnable character with which they are presented. It would promote a disruptive educational scheme to humanize the global knowledge society throughout life.
An educational effort of the aforementioned magnitude concerns many social actors, but in the first place it is the responsibility of those responsible for public policies who must ensure the well-being of their citizens and the proper functioning of the organizations under their management. Secondly, it is the responsibility of the ICT and information professionals to ensure that the quality of the services made available to citizens comply with the ethical and transparency standards that guarantee the rights of information and expression, without subjecting them to pecuniary or subordinate interests[4].
Greater responsibility must be demanded of technology companies of all sizes and particularly of the developers of the components of the digital platform that surrounds us. It is time to ask them to explain the logical models that underlie the algorithms that they implement in their tools. Users have the right to demand the transparency of these algorithms in order to check for biases and safeguard the right to veto conceptualizations that include, for example, racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist, or hate speech perspectives. On the business side, they must demand that they make explicit the use of the information they capture from users, particularly those they take from social networks.
A primary aspect that requires specific attention is that of the leadership of the technicians and technologists who underpin developments in the digital world. They have managed to establish themselves as a separate category within civil society and do not want to let go of control even though the problems are not primarily technical. Along with this demand to the developers, ethical mechanisms must be created to combat anonymity in the networks that allows to hide the attacks of all kinds of criminals and slanderers who are protected under this figure.
Information literacy also involves, of course, influencing the culture of the public official, the politician, the businessman, the entrepreneur and the ordinary citizen. In rethinking the relationship of each one with the other social actors to clean up a dynamic that is consolidating serious anomalies and asymmetries. It’s getting late.
Conclusion
The 4th. Industrial Revolution is marked by an unprecedented technological convergence where ICTs come together with nanotechnology, biotechnology and cognitive sciences, creating a framework that makes it possible for the people, sooner rather than later, to be cybernetically integrated into what we call the Internet of Things[5]. The characteristics adopted by the TG, with the approval and contributions of governments and civil society, to influence citizens’ behavior describe a route towards surveillance capitalism that seems unstoppable and that presents enormous ethical challenges.
The technological fabric has intricate dependencies with the productive and military apparatuses of the countries that dominate the world economy. Hence, it seems very complex to radically change a prevailing business model that is based on user-products targeted by digital marketing strategies. However, we believe that theories such as chaos, when acting on such complex systems, can uncover surprises capable of ending what seems irreversible today; the necessary condition for such chaotic changes being however the existence of a citizenship duly educated about what is at stake.
Google initially, and then other TG followed, fueled the massive trend of making customer information its top product. Users bit the hook and have flooded digital platforms with elements to strengthen that business scheme. The egomation circulates in abundance and with it has diminished the dialogue and the collaborative construction of knowledge that so many expectations had created around the Internet in its beginnings.
To a large extent, the scope achieved in the development of surveillance capitalism is based on the logic of the technological business imposed from that “original sin” of Google that was later institutionalized in the field of the other TG and the wide world of digital applications. It was the advertising payment scheme, placing results from the sites that pay higher in search results and, later, first presenting the sites that generate the greatest advertising benefits. The economic performance distorted the initial objective of the search engines and after it the other services and applications left. Dialogue, interaction between users to collaborate and generate new knowledge was sacrificed. The “popularity” of the contents was privileged and was put above the quality. Those who market themselves the best are rewarded: buzz, a word qualifying at the origin of a parasitic noise in sound equipment and virality, an extremely pathological contagion, are today considered the two supreme virtues of that toxic planetary marketing and the north of the new avatar of homo sapiens, homo marketens. Studies are needed addressing both the potential increase of the total entropy of the Web and the narrowing of the window of the Web the average user has access, as a consequence of being locked in small niches by the most used application.
Little interest has been shown by the user-products in leaving the guideline imposed by civil society itself has tended to continue battling against regulations from governments and has let its guard down in being critical of other actors involved in the multi-stakeholder governance mechanisms. And the caravan follows its path.
Finally, we believe that organized civil society should review and change its operating paradigm in the face of the evolution of the global knowledge society, even more so when the consequences of private sector decisions have more impact on reality than those policies. It is inconvenient to focus only on monitoring public policies that shape the behavior of our digital environments. Considering eventual alliances with governments is a valid way of inducing or forcing ethical behavior in the private sector or international organizations.
The great impact of the 4th. Industrial Revolution on the global knowledge society is beyond the reach of local or national public policies and demands widely concerted efforts, without imposition by any of the parties. Hence, our main recommendation is to highlight the urgency of addressing comprehensive awareness and education strategies for digital citizens with a solid informational culture. In other words, we believe in a strategy that must be taken from now on a call to declare a Digital Emergency, similar to the one existing with respect to climate change. The time to recompose the charges and attack the asymmetries is running out. Lack of action favors undesirable effects.
NOTES:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility,_uncertainty,_complexity_and_ambiguity
[2] Which should not be surprising since its design focused on intuition for easy adoption.
[3] Students, teachers, representatives and managers of public policies in education.
[4] In this sense, there are advanced experiences promoted from the public sector to help citizens combat fake news. An example is the one that has been going on in Finland since 2014 and that CNN reviewed in https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/
[5]To give an example, it is not science fiction to fear a scenario where within 10 to 20 years augmented reality glasses are complemented by brain sensors that allow GT to capture and interpret brain information. With the subconscious of the user-products within the reach of the business world, the ethical consequences will be colossal. See Ref. [8]).
REFERENCES:
[1] — D. Pimienta, “At the Boundaries of Ethics and Cultures: Virtual Communities as an Open Ended Process Carrying the Will for Social Change (the” MISTICA “experience)” in the book “Localizing the Internet. Ethical Issues in Intercultural Perspective”, Capurro, R. & al. (Eds.). Schriftenreihe des ICIE Bd. 4, München: Fink Verlag, 2005
http://funredes.org/mistica/english/cyberlibrary/thematic/icie/
[2] — JG Koomey, “Estimating total power consumption by servers in the US and the world”, Stanford University, Feb. 2007
http://www-sop.inria.fr/mascotte/Contrats/DIMAGREEN/wiki/uploads/Main/svrpwrusecompletefinal.pdf
[3] — Y. Eshet-Alkalai, and E. Chajut, “Change over time in Digital Literacy”, Cyberpsychology & Behavior, Volume 12, Number X, 2009
[4] — D. Pimienta, “Digital divide, social divide, paradigmatic divide”, 1st edition of Journal of ICT and Human Development, 2009.
http://funredes.org/mistica/english/cyberlibrary/thematic/Paradigmatic_Divide.pdf
[5] — Bernard Stiegler, “Le Blues du Net”, 2013, Blog “Réseaux” of the French newspaper Le Monde.
[6] — S. Zuboff, “The secrets of surveillance capitalism”, Frankfurter Allgemeine, March, 2016 — http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-digital-debate/shoshana-zuboff-secrets-of-surveillance-capitalism-14103616-p2.html
[7] — LG Rodríguez Leal. “The Disruption of the Technology Giants — Digital Emergency”, January 2020.
https://www.academia.edu/41701222/La_Disrupcio_n_de_las_Gigantes_Tecnolo_gicas_-_Emergencia_Digital
[8] — H. Chneiweiss, Interview in Recherche №557, Mars 2020, page 70. (in French)
