Claws to the Weak: internet and rights

Mathias Klang @klang67

George Orwell: You and the Atomic Bomb (1945)

Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon--so long as there is no answer to it--gives claws to the weak.

Killer app 1415

Killer app 1455

Chokehold on printers

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Killer app 1710

Universal declaration of human rights (1948)

Killer app 1948

Law

democracy

Killer app 1960

Is teleportation legal?

Law

Contextual & programmed social

rules

Architecture

Only technology(spot the ethical dilemma?)

Telecoms revolution

Swedish telephone c:a 1896

Graham Bell was awarded a patent for the electric telephone in March 1876

Ludicrously brief history of computers

hollerith

Generation 3 (1964-72)

The digital is the original & everything is copy

Killer apps 1995: Browser wars

Everything is miscellaneous

91 % Access to the Internet at home83 % Access to broadband at home7 % Never used a computer

Source: Sweden Statistics 2011 (*Individuals aged 16-74)

Voltaire’s dream? The theoretically possible

becomes the inevitable

DigitalizationConnectivityDevicesStorage

Blog

ger 1

999

Goog

le 1

999

End of communications monopoly

Normalizing the abnormal

Control

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

John Gilmor (TIME magazine December 1993)

The other control

Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

Technology makes society

personalization

A Squirrel Dying In Your Front Yard May Be More Relevant To

Your Interests Right Now Than People

Dying In AfricaMark Zuckerberg

It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them. Eric Schmidt, Google

The internet is shows us what it thinks that we want to see – not what we need to see Eli Pariser

Identity & Information junk food.

Freedom of Speech

iTunes censor fail

The Facebook Elbowbreast

privacy

The Right to Privacy

The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world…solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress…

Warren and Brandeis The Right to Privacy, 4 Harvard Law Review 193 (1890)

"You have zero privacy anyway.

Get over it."

Scott McNealy (Wired 1999)

“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity”

Mark Zuckerberg (2010)

We leak information

Surveillance: gaze from above

Protection from the outer gaze

Autoveillance: performance lifestyle

Compartmentalization

Peerview: social control

“friends”

End of privacy?

The Hive-mind

If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear

The memory hole

"We have found your account is directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies. As such, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed and any open orders have been cancelled. Please understand that the closure of an account is a permanent action. Any subsequent accounts that are opened will be closed as well. Thank you for your understanding with our decision."

Closing thoughts

Orwell or Huxley?

The illusion of simplicity

The keepers of algorithms know

We have (theoretical) control over Big Brother

Regulation of technology is the regulation of democracy

The social construction of claws

THANKS!

Mathias Klang klang@ituniv.se or @klang67

www.digital-rights.net

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