Response 2 to Sam Jay on Jaron Lanier

In his post regarding Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget, Sam Jay asked the following primary question: How have the structures of the Internet, specifically web 2.0, influenced and affected the autonomy of its users?

Sam makes an apt observation in recognizing that sites such as Facebook and Twitter limit the avenues of expression available to their users. This is a prime example of how web 2.0 has hampered user autonomy. This is to more easily lump users into defined demographics, as the sites will deliver users to advertisers. One must note, however, that these services brought in enormous clusters of new users that likely had little or no web presence beforehand. Those with additional knowledge of the Internet and web development likely had web presences before joining sites like Facebook and Twitter, and such web presences were likely more autonomous and may have included personal websites.

Although sites like Facebook and Twitter limit avenues of user expression, they lower the amount of skills necessary to create an online presence, reducing the required skill level and allowing casual users to create presences. This is a critical point, and the answer to Sam’s primary question rests upon it. It seems as though the structures of the Internet have hampered autonomy for new, less skilled, casual users, but not for more advanced users. Those who had relatively autonomous presences before are likely to still have them on other platforms. Furthermore, some casual users who first create online presences on Facebook or Twitter are likely to expand their skill sets to create more autonomous presences. One could almost consider sites like Facebook and Twitter to be Internet training grounds for casual users. Consider Wordpress, which is popular among casual users who wish to create blogs. Wordpress makes the process incredibly easy, catering to casual users by allowing them to engage in high-level management, selecting from predetermined visual themes and styles when constructing their blogs. However, it also offers more advanced users the ability to engage in lower level blog management, customizing even the tiniest details of their blogs. This directly tempts casual users to learn more about HTML and web development to customize their blogs and thus become more autonomous.

If one is to place value judgments on the lack of autonomy available on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, one must consider the alternative: no web presence for casual users. (Consider the first follow-up question: Is it better to have a web presence plagued with a lack of autonomy or no web presence at all?) It becomes interesting to ponder how Lanier would respond to this question. On page 70, he writes of the models that reduce autonomy. “When we ask people to live their lives through our models, we are potentially reducing life itself. How will we ever know what we might be losing?” Considering the rhetoric of the final sentence of the excerpt Sam selected gives some insight as well: “…using computers to reduce individual expressions is a primitive, retrograde activity, no matter how sophisticated your tools are” (Lanier, 48). Lanier does not consider the alternative, and it seems as though he may side on having no web presence. Sites such as Facebook act to reduce the channels of individual expression, which he condemns.

I would personally disagree with the thought that asking people to live their lives through our models potentially reduces life itself. While it may reduce one’s ability to thoroughly express his or her opinions, it at least provides some means of expression. Thus, returning to the first question, I would argue that a non-autonomous web presence is better than none. The dangers of opting out of web participation are simply too high. When important personal news is increasingly being shared on outlets such as Facebook, one cannot afford to exclude him or herself. This leads to an interesting question regarding the validity of information shared on platforms such as Facebook. (See question three: If the means of expression are inadequate, can the content being shared be deemed acceptable as a faithful personal expression?)

Follow-up questions:
1. Is it better to have a web presence plagued with a lack of autonomy or no web presence at all?
2. What might Lanier’s thoughts be regarding Wordpress, which allows users to both subscribe to existing models and create their own unique frameworks for delivering information?
3. Lanier feels reducing the avenues of individual expression available to users on sites such as Facebook is harmful. If the means of expression are inadequate, can the content being shared be deemed acceptable as a faithful personal expression?

Links
1. http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/12/blogger_doesnt_get_journalists.html
In the spirit of the discussion of investigative blogs, this story in Portland-based The Oregonian addresses whether bloggers are granted journalistic protection. In this case, a court ruled that bloggers are not granted such protection, but that they are subject to punishments for violating journalistic standards.
2. http://www.fox43.com/news/wpmt-facebook-predator-charged-for-fake-facebook-profile-to-have-sex-with-young-girls-20120210,0,5052411.story
While yelling “fire” in a crowded theater may not be subject to free speech protection, the question arises of where an analogous line must be drawn on the Internet. Perhaps this news story will provide some answers. Perhaps the line should be drawn when bodily harm can result (in this case, possible rape).
3. http://www.facebook.com/seattledigitalliteracy
Whether Facebook and other social networking sites reduces digital literacy is a valid question. But what happens when organizations actually use Facebook to promote digital literacy? This non-profit from my hometown is doing just that. With the medium and the message being potentially at odds with one another, what is the end result?

Response 1 to Sam Jay on Jaron Lanier

Reflecting on the discussion and the numerous points Sam laid out in his blog, it seems to me that there is at once a great deal to think about with regard to Lanier’s manifesto. I will try to limit myself to a response centered on Sam’s questions regarding the Arab Spring, and I will pose an unasked but inherent question as well. Recall that Sam wondered what Lanier would have had to say about the Occupy movement’s lack of success, and about the repercussions of an “angry mob” putting the wrong groups in power. To those questions I would add: What problems might Lanier have had with Web 2.0’s so-called pervasiveness in the Arab Spring movements, especially in Egypt?

On the surface, let us acknowledge that the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements are an attractive comparison. While they share casual semblances (and while the Occupy supporters were wont to invoke mantras of the Arab Spring), the two movements highlight cultural differences between America and, well, pretty much everyone else. From an American media perspective, it’s tantalizing to look at the revolution in, say, Egypt, and see the power of social media at work. The reality of the situation, as Lanier might see it, is a difference in conceptualization. To Lanier, Web 2.0 is a tool. To the Egyptian protesters, Web 2.0 is a tool. To us, watching Revolution unfold on Twitter and Facebook and live streams on CNN, Web 2.0 is a triumph, a cultural prophet with the almost-divine ability to galvanize young people around a zeitgeist. For Americans, the Arab Spring was the ascension of Web 2.0: we mystified its properties, and gasped collectively as something material became something holy

Of course, no one bothers to ask how the Arab Spring and subsequent deification of Web 2.0 contributed to Facebook’s $5 billion IPO – the largest in web history - and its estimated worth of between $75 and $100 Billion (with a "B"). Likewise, folks seem to be okay with the ubiquitous dissemination of Western culture to Arab countries via Facebook and Twitter. I am reminded of the passage Sam selected to ground his discussion of the text. In America, Web 2.0 was deified by the Arab Spring, but its promulgation in countries like Egypt can only be seen as an attempt to convert pagan nations to an American religion. Lanier would see this act of Western globalization as an affront to cultural heterogeneity

Lanier’s problem with Web 2.0, I think, boils down to a problem of identity-crafting. In Lanier’s eyes, Web 2.0 locks people in to certain ways of crafting an identity. As Sam wrote, the elements of his Facebook profile may not limit his understanding of himself, but “they are the options I was given to describe who I am and they also allow me to mold my identity into a much more “ideal” me”. Lanier fears that the reductionism and categorization of identity will at some point work both ways. That is, what happens when we begin to conceive of ourselves in terms of a Facebook profile? Right now, we cram ourselves into our social network accounts, but only those parts that there are “boxes” for, and only those parts that comprise our “ideal” selves. What happens, Lanier might wonder, when we begin to see ourselves as a compilation of profiles and boxes for others’ consumption?

At the heart of this problematization is the latent concept that identities are now available for consumption – and not just by the sale of our interests, a la Google, but by other individuals as well. In a literal and metaphorical sense, identity has become currency, and everyone seems to be okay with this because of the ascendancy of Web 2.0. Not only do we have authoritarian control over our material identities, but we also actively try to capitalize on what we’re selling, just as Google has capitalized on who we are.

Of course, the next two things I’m going to do once I post this blog will be to check my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Does that make me a hypocrite? Yeah, probably. 

In addition to the question I posed in the first paragraph of this response, I’d like to ask: What would Frances Dyson, writing from a post-humanist, non-dualist perspective, have to say about the mystification and immersive qualities of Web 2.0?

I've linked an article that criticizes Facebook's structure for being non-democratic while positioning itself as a democratizing force.

Consider as well an article by Thomas Friedman that suggests Web 2.0 is "inverting the power pyramid".

What was that about anonymity?

Sam Jay on Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget

How have the structures of the internet, specifically web 2.0, influenced and affected the autonomy of its users?

“Something like missionary reductionism has happened to the internet with the rise of web 2.0. The strangeness is being leached away by the mush-making process. Individual web pages as they first appeared in the early 1990s had the flavor of personhood. MySpace preserved some of the flavor, though a process of regularized formatting had begun. Facebook went further, organizing people into multiple-choice identities, while Wikipedia seeks to erase point of view entirely.

If a church or government were doing these things, it would feel authoritarian but when technologies are the culprits, we seem hip, fresh, and inventive. People will accept ideas presented in technological form that would be abhorrent in any other form. It is utterly strange to hear my many old friends in the world of digital culture claim to be the true sons of the Renaissance without realizing that using computers to reduce individual expressions is a primitive, retrograde activity, no matter how sophisticated your tools are” (Lanier 48).

Lanier is making two significant moves in this quote: 1. He is highlighting the way web 2.0, specifically through programs like Facebook and Twitter, is fragmenting identities so that users can be more easily organized, controlled, and guided to create; and 2. He is making a comparison between the contemporary usages of web 2.0 and devices of authority we usually associate with more oppressive, i.e. non-democratic societies.

The “missionary reductionism” is one step in the colonization of the mind that Lanier fears is happening in the contemporary interactions between humans and computers. In the case of Facebook, Twitter, and many other social networking sites, users are given categories that influence their understandings of the self and their realities as these understandings are molded to fit into these rather specific categories. For example, according to my Facebook profile I am “married to Catherine Jay,” I “work at Regis University,” and I “study at the University of Denver.” These fragments of my identity are not how I understand myself, but they are the options I was given to describe who I am and they also allow me to mold my identity into a much more “ideal” me. Therefore, this may not be the “real” me, but this is the “Samuel Jay” that other Facebook users are able to consume.

It seems that Lanier is reticent to say this fragmentation is simply for economic purposes. It is the adage that Facebook is squeezing us into groups so that advertisers who will eventually use the site to market directly to our friends and us. This is yet to take off and Lanier does not see it happening on any earth-shattering scale. However, he does recognize that this move towards fragmentation is limiting creativity and forcing users to express themselves in a very specific way. Thus, while the splitting of identities into bytes of information might lead to a universal consciousness that we might be able to plug into, it is limiting the ways we are able to create and criticize. When the templates for art and the templates for analysis are handed to us, there are certain forms our creativity must take.

Lanier is also highlighting the hypocrisy inherent in viewing web 2.0 as a tool of liberation, especially in the ways it is being used at the moment. Web 2.0 and the programs making up its structure is taking up the same techniques of control that we tend to believe only exist in oppressive societies. People are fragmented into bits that come to define who they are, not necessarily to themselves or to those who have daily interactions with them, but to the system of control. Thus, I am not “Samuel Jay,” but rather a profile made up of likes and dislikes, hobbies and friends. This process of fragmentation not only allows people to be treated as objects (cogs in the system), but also allows people to be organized into controllable herds. Once this organization occurs we begin to think and create as a group rather than as autonomous entities, and our expressions are then much easier to mold.

Both of Lanier’s observations reaffirm the thesis of the first half of his book: that web 2.0 and the current state of the internet are beginning to fulfill the desires of cybernetic totalism and digital Maoism, thus leading towards a shared consciousness where creativity and criticism are structured by the system and autonomy is superficial. Lanier’s issue with the desire for shared consciousness is that it is driven by two beliefs: 1. Knowledge is finite and, 2. A complete truth can be known. These believers in technological utopia see us plugging in, combining what we know, and coming to a complete understanding of the world. This sounds great in theory, but what happens when you do not agree with the collective or when group-think trumps actual facts? Criticism becomes impossible and in a similar way, so does creativity.

Expressing one’s self becomes impossible in web 2.0 as it has drifted far from the collective dreams Lanier and his cohorts had for the internet during the 1980s and 1990s. If there is one thread that connects Lanier’s anecdotes and examples throughout the first half of the book it is that the collective is great in theory, but once the software (both figurative and literal) begins to lock us in, it becomes impossible to actually practice.

In trying to find a cultural artifact that might work against Lanier’s argument I am drawn to the “Arab Spring” and the role social media and Wikileaks played as catalysts in the uprising. In this situation it would appear that web 2.0 was being used in a collective and progressive ways, changing and advancing entire nations. Here hashtags, TweetPics, Wikileak information, and similar fragments were assembled by protesters and used for a mobilization that would eventually play significant roles in overthrowing the governments of Egypt and Libya.

In regards to this situation, I ask two questions:

1. If similar uses of fragmented information can be found in the “Occupy Movement” here in the United States, how might Lanier explain the lack of success it has had?

2. In his section “How to Use a Crowd Well” (56-59) Lanier argues that the collective can become an angry mob rather quickly allowing for change that comes too fast that puts the wrong people in power. What sort of affects could similar change have in these Arab Spring countries?

It was recently uncovered by a RealityTea.com, celebrity gossip blog using information from a collection of contributors, that a scene from E!’s Kim and Kourtney Take New York in which Kim Kardashian and her mother Kris are talking about Kim’s relationship with husband Kris Humphries was not shot in Dubai, where the daughter and mother were vacationing prior to the Kardashian-Humphries divorce, but was actually shot after the divorce in hopes of getting more sympathy for Kim when the season finale aired a few weeks ago.

The backlash has yet to coalesce, but in terms of Lanier’s work, the situation poses some interesting questions:

1. How does this situation reaffirm Lanier’s disdain for collective intelligence and networking? What might he say about a group coming together to crack popular culture mysteries rather than working towards more beneficial progress?

2. How could this event have repercussions for reality TV and if the backlash does happen, how might it change the media landscape in a way Lanier might actually support?

Data Claim Warrant

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/mwollaeger/cdw.htm