Stories

Net religion vs Organized religion

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Net religion bumped into real, organized religion again at the Berkman Center’s Votes, Bits Bytes conference today, held at Harvard University’s Law School. The subject couldn’t be more topical. In the recent elections, church-based groups got out the vote. Despite the view that a blogger’s vote is worth ten ordinary votes, real religion triumphed Internet … Read more

Netizens: white, wealthy and middle class (and full of it)

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Diversity in action: bloggers

“The Internet is becoming more and more widespread and will increasingly represent a scientific random sample of the population,” claims ICANN’s newest board member, Joi Ito. Quite what scientific experiments he will wish to perform, once the desired sample size has been reached, remains a mystery. But like many people who spend too long in front of their computers, he’s talking about a Platonic ideal rather than the real world.

A survey by the US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration shows that the internet has entrenched the divide between rich and poor, and the races. Statistics reveal an internet that’s overwhelmingly white, wealthy and urban. And the net’s best days may even be behind it. The pace of internet adoption has tapered off to a trickle, with a substantial part of the population not interested in the internet at any price.

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Does US politics need a Nerd Party?

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A newspaper columnist has called for the old-fashioned, “left wing” Democratic Party to be replaced by a new, emergent party of computer nerds.

Dan Gillmor of Silicon Valley’s San Jose Mercury urges the Democrats to abandon “old, discredited politics”, while an “increasingly radical middle” needs a new party with some “creative thinking”. From where will this come? In a column published the same day, he tells us.

Writing before the outcome was known, Gillmor enthuses about “the most exciting development … the new world of cyber-politics,” where the “expanded horizons” on offer should cancel out the groupthink, which he briefly acknowledges, and lead to greater accountability and participation.

Such settler rhetoric – “new world”, “horizons” – is familiar stuff from techno utopians. So too is the hope, amongst many intelligent, impatient people with a reluctance to develop their social skills, that we must be able to do better. (Bill Gates doesn’t have the patience or inclination to watch TV, and many internet activists don’t have the patience or inclination to persuade a stranger, which is a lot more difficult and unrewarding.)

We briefly heard about “Emergent Democracy” last Spring, although it disappeared in about the time it takes you to say “Second Superpower”. But we’re sure to hear more about this itchy, push-button, “interactive” version of democracy, a kind of thumbs down at the Roman Coliseum, in the future. Maybe Dan will become its Arthur Schlesinger.

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Hungover CNET wakes up next to MP3.com

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What a night out that was. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time… On Friday morning CNET woke up to find it was sharing a bed with MP3.com, and couldn’t quite recollect how the pair of them had got there. We’ve all had nights like this, but yesterday CNET staffers were … Read more

One blogger is worth ten votes – Harvard man

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Working in his secret laboratory at Harvard University, a Fellow of the prestigious institution has come up with a formula that rocks electoral maths to its core.

Former software developer Dave Winer has worked out that one weblogger is worth ten ordinary voters, and he revealed the results of his complex calculations to Wired this week.

Normally we avoid ten-a-penny Internet cranks. The gaffe-prone former software developer has put his foot in his mouth so many times it probably qualifies for a residential parking permit.

But we did the maths ourselves – and were confounded. His work could indeed have far-reaching social consequences.

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Chris Anderson makes me a bet

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“Or the arrival of the Web browser, which blew millions of minds, making a mouseclick feel like teleportation.” Chris Anderson, Wired I was really calling the editor of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson, to check up on which weird and interesting drugs he was taking when he wrote the sentence you see above you. [* answer … Read more

Anti-war slogan coined, repurposed and Googlewashed … in 42 days

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This year marks the 100th anniversary of George Orwell’s birth, and the writer who best explained the power of language on politics would be amazed what can be done with the Internet.
Second Superpower
On February 17 [2003] a front page news analysis in the New York Times bylined by Patrick Tyler described the global anti-war protests as the emergence of “the second superpower”.

Tyler wrote:

“…the huge anti-war demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.”

This potent phrase spread rapidly.

Anti-war campaigners, peace groups and NGOs took to describing the global popular protest as “the second superpower”. And in less than a month, the phrase was being used by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. .

And a week ago, a Google search for the phrase would have shown the vigorous propagation of this ‘meme’.

Rub out the word

Then came this. Entitled The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head, by James F Moore, it was accompanied by a brand new blog. The details need not detain us for very long, because the consequences of this piece are much more important than its anodyne contents.

It’s a plea for net users to organize themselves as a “superpower”, and represents a class of techno-utopian literature that John Perry Barlow has been promoting – the same sappy stuff, but not as well written – for the past ten years.

Only note how this example is sprinkled with trigger words for progressives, liberals and NPR listeners. It concludes – if you can find your way through this mound of feel-good styrofoam peanuts –

“we do not have to create a world where differences are resolved by war. It is not our destiny to live in a world of destruction, tedium, and tragedy. We will create a world of peace”.

In common with the genre, there’s no social or political context, although the author offers a single specific instruction that is very jarring in the surrounding blandness: we must co-operate with The World Bank. Huh?

It’s politics with the politics taken out: in short, it’s “revolution lite”.

Now here’s the important bit. Look what the phrase “Second Superpower” produces on Google now. Try it! Moore’s essay is right there at the top. And not just first, but it already occupies all but three of the first thirty spots.

The bashful Moore writes: “It was nice of Dave Winer [weblog tools vendor] and Doc Searls [advertising consultant] to pick up on it, even if it’s not really ready for much exposure.” No matter, Moore is an overnight A-list blogging superstar, at his very first attempt.

Although it took millions of people around the world to compel the Gray Lady to describe the anti-war movement as a “Second Superpower”, it took only a handful of webloggers to spin the alternative meaning to manufacture sufficient PageRank™ to flood Google with Moore’s alternative, neutered definition.

Indeed, if you were wearing your Google-goggles, and the search engine was your primary view of the world, you would have a hard time believing that the phrase “Second Superpower” ever meant anything else.

To all intents and purposes, the original meaning has been erased. Obliterated, in just seven weeks.

You’re especially susceptible to this if you subscribe to the view that Google’s PageRank™ is “inherently democratic,” which is how Google, Inc. describes it.

And this Googlewash took just 42 days.

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“This MS Antitrust story was created by a computer program”

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Google’s News service is remarkable: and the most astonishing thing about it is that it is generated automatically.

” The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program,” says a note at the foot of each page.

But why stop there? Why not use Perl scripts to generate the copy, too? You don’t need messy human wetware – foul drunken journalists – and it’s much more of an “end-to-end” solution, whatever that may be. It could revolutionize the industry, because once you’ve done away with journalists, there’s no need to employ expensive PRs to buy them drinks (or in Apple’s case, “decline to comment”.)

We’ve been secretly testing our own story generator, and here we shall reveal exactly how it works. Google keeps its algorithms and weighting secret – but we’re delighted to share them with the world. But be patient: it’s a work in progress.

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Physics hoaxers discover Quantum Bogosity?

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The physics establishment appears to be unable to decide whether papers submitted by two former French TV presenters are a scientific breakthrough or an elaborate hoax. The debunking to date has been done on Usenet groups and informally, over the Internet. The pranksters evaded the rigorous peer review process employed by scientific journals, and have … Read more