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from the not-what-we-expected-but-is-it-bad? dept.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/is-the-internet-a-failed-utopia/
LONDON—At Shoreditch Town Hall on Thursday, at an event hosted by Intelligence Squared and Vanity Fair, the longevous British broadcaster Jeremy Paxman of University Challenge fame asked the audience of few hundred: "Is the Internet a failed utopia?" He asked us to vote on the matter by raising our hands. About two-thirds of the audience disagreed with the statement, a fair few (including myself) were undecided, and only a smattering of people actually thought the Internet was a failed utopia.
It was then the turn of four panellists, in the style of an electoral hustings or stump speech, to change our minds. In the failed-utopia camp were Andrew Keen and Frank Pasquale; in the not-a-failed-utopia faction were Peter Barron and Beth Noveck. They took it in turns to deliver quite rousing speeches.
The naysayers obviously had the harder job from the outset—we were at an event that was specifically tailored for fans of the Internet, after all—but they did a good job of reminding us that the Internet, as it stands, is not the elysium that we were all promised at its inception. Keen warned us that, while we think the Internet is an idyllic plateau where everyone is on an even footing, where two guys in a garage can compete with the monolithic, infrastructure-owning giants, we're all deluding ourselves: just like the real world, the Internet is now ruled by big corporations.
The utopian speakers, Barron and Noveck, mostly focused on all of the cool things that wouldn't have been possible before the Internet and World Wide Web were created. Noveck, who was a driving force behind President Obama's Open Government Initiative, reminded us that, with a smartphone in your pocket, you have access to more information than the president of the United States did 25 years ago. Barron, who is a public affairs bod at Google, spoke about the equality of opportunity on the Internet—and of course, about all the free services that we get to enjoy.
What does SN think?
Original Submission
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @07:23AM
Introduce Mom to NoScript, Cookie Blocking, and Ad Aware! Once you understand how the internet works, you can send all kind of clicks to you favorite charity, but none to doubleclick or micro$erf or even Google anal! I love it! Internet, going Commando! (Hey, what ever happened to Commando? That was a good file management program!)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday June 16 2015, @07:35AM
"Say Mom, did you see that TenFourFox I just installed."
"Oh, yes. I won't touch it!" (She figures I need it for my work.)
"No Mom, I installed it for you."
After several weeks of struggling to convince her that she should stop using Safari, I finally gave up.
What's really odd is that, because my father had a Top Secret security clearance, Mom is quite cautious in her handling of anything made out of paper. But Dad never really used computers in his work for the Navy because "Whenever we install a new computer, we have to wait six months for someone to fly out from Washington, at which time he takes an entire month to bless it."
No doubt he was referring to an NSA TEMPEST technician but he was not at liberty to confirm nor deny that.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]