Author: David Newhoff

David is an author, communications professional, and copyright advocate. After more than 20 years providing creative services and consulting in corporate communications, he shifted his attention to law and policy, beginning with advocacy of copyright and the value of creative professionals to America’s economy, core principles, and culture.

It’s Guy Fawkes Day and Anonymous thinks that means something.

Forget that tomorrow is Election Day in the U.S. or that many of our fellow Americans are still digging out of the damage done by Hurricane Sandy. It’s Guy Fawkes Day, and the hacktivist group Anonymous wants to you focus on, well, them. At the risk of being targeted myself, I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge the fact that, in honor of Guy Fawkes Day, Anonymous has already begun a series of what it claims will be massive hacking and Wikileaks-style data dumps as a global protest against the forces of censorship, corporate and government control, and the usual litany of conspiracy theorizing that is frankly too tedious to repeat. Having apparently begun activities in Australia with attacks on PayPal, Symantec, and the Australian government, the loosely knit group of hackers claims that this is the beginning of a campaign leading up to a December event they call Project Mayhem 2012. Promising to pick up where Wikileaks failed to deliver, Project Mayhem aims to effect a massive leak of secrets and whatever other data Anonymous deems worthy of exposure to rid the world of oppressive government and corporate-controlled forces. If this all sounds like self-aggrandizing, pseudo-revolutionary bluster from a bunch of basement-dwelling super trolls, it could well be; but the group’s hacking skills should not be underestimated, and neither should the message they send to a world gone more than a little conspiracy-crazy in the last decade. In fact, this CNN article about the level of paranoia is aptly timed.

Maybe it’s because I began grade school in the wake of Dr. King’s murder and can still remember the atmosphere of that time, but I find it impossible not to think of a modern-day activist railing against generalized, corporate oppression, hiding behind a mask, and lurking in the shadows of Web code as anything but a coward and a hypocrite. Sure there’s corruption in the world that ought to be exposed, and it frequently is exposed by individuals willing to sign their names to the work they do, whether it’s journalism, a protest song, a poem, a play, a movie, or any other form of speaking truth to power. But what are we to make of a group that will anonymously invade privacy and seek to silence speech in order to protect privacy and speech? The journalist or the artist who speaks out not only puts himself or herself out there for the record, but also gives the reader, listener, or viewer a choice to consider what’s being presented and to come to his own conclusions. But the hacker (like the terrorist or anarchist) presumes to make the moral decision for us, choosing the target he considers an enemy, taking justice into his own hands.

Anonymous may pose as cousins of the Black Panthers providing services to their communities and speaking out against very real threats to civil liberties, but they are more reminiscent of the spoiled white kids in the Weather Underground vainly making bombs in a Manhattan apartment. The truth is, of course, that Anonymous could as easily be a corporate-funded operation as anything else. How do we know, for instance, that they’re not a small team of programmers working for Google or some other Silicon Valley firm? Is this possibility any more farfetched than the conspiracies they themselves promote? Last I checked, Silicon Valley is full of money, mega-corporations, computer programmers, and anti-establishment libertarians. We see Anonymous attack media companies but have yet to see them assail the Web or consumer electronics industries for the millions they spend on lobbying or other forms of political influence. Why do those special interests get the Anonymous seal of approval? Most likely, Anonymous is not corporate-backed, but as we’re dabbling in conspiracy theory, it’s as reasonable an explanation as any other. No?

I may well be inviting a cyberattack on myself here; but if so, that would only prove the point that any private citizen should abhor this juvenile approach to political dissent. Among the promises of the digital age is that we ordinary folks can more easily speak up, lend our voices, our names, our creativity, and yes even our real faces to the cause of social justice worldwide. In short, the Web is already ours, and we don’t need Anonymous or anyone else to plant their flag in it and hand it to us. But of course, we live in volatile and difficult times as the CNN article points out — a trust-vacuum if you will, and where vacuums form extremists find purchase and seek to fill the void. Wherever there is disillusionment, distrust, and disappointment that wants progressive dialogue among sane people, some clown in one theatrical mask or another invariably shows up to set things on fire. In this context, Anonymous is lobbing digital molotov cocktails.

For Whom the Search Trolls

Photo by Ross Williamson

One of my main topics of interest with regard to the Internet is the notion of what my friend, the writer Jeff Turrentine, calls “epistemic closure.” Let’s face it:  when it comes to information, it’s all too easy to find evidence out there for just about any bias or belief we can name; and I am far from the only person to ask what effect this has on our political process.

It seems self-evident that an environment like Facebook is generally an echo chamber when it comes to socio-political issues, and I do believe this plays a role in maintaining, if not increasing, balkanization.  After all, it’s hard to find a more potent ideological brew than a peer group armed with quips and clips that favor one’s established politics.  Additionally, social media tends to increase the number of headlines we see without necessarily increasing the volume of in-depth reporting we read.  While this may not matter much in a macro view (i.e. whether we’ll vote democrat or republican), it does matter a lot more in the day-to-day micro complexities of governance; and I would not be surprised if the 140-character attention span we’re fostering aggravates the tendency to adopt associative political positions. The fact that any given issue can generally be placed in either a blue or red column is not necessarily good for us citizens, but it is a boon to most marketers, especially now that news and entertainment have irrevocably mated to produce a mutant child as yet unnamed. And that brings us to the matter of search engines.

This video from the founders of an alternative search tool called DuckDuckGo touts a small study they’ve done indicating that Google’s personalized search can have a negative impact on our democratic process, precisely by providing the aforementioned epistemic closure. In other words, their initial research shows that Google has enough data about each of us to tailor results on a polarizing term, say abortion, to deliver what we most likely want to find.  Of course, DuckDuckGo has something to sell, but that doesn’t make the question they raise invalid.

This article by Gregory Ferenstein at TechCrunch addresses the issue dispassionately, concluding that more research is required to determine whether personalized search really has any effect on people choosing to seek out information they need, regardless of whether or not it’s what they want to hear. Scientifically, I’d have to agree with Ferenstein; but anecdotally, my instincts lean toward the hypothesis offered by DuckDuckGo.  Multiple times a day, both conservative and liberal friends post articles from news aggregators that sound just a little too spot-on to be taken at face value; and in fact many of these stories are full of holes and editorial hyperbole.  Stepping back and watching the posts roll by, I am reminded to consider the question of who benefits from all these collisions that seem to cancel one another out like particles and anti-particles.

And so, the big-picture concern is this:  a very tiny consortium of corporations, much smaller than the consolidated media conglomerates, own the revenue streams generated by our online activity. In fact, for now, one corporation owns almost all of search and ad service on the Web. So, if it is in the interest of advertisers to narrow rather than broaden our paths through cyberspace, and this winnowing can be made to look like a service to us users, are we in danger of having our perspectives constricted while being sold the promise of limitless access?

Keep in mind that as users we may want the world at our fingertips but that the brass ring for marketers is the targeted advertisement.  While there’s no question that a search for a local merchant or restaurant is more convenient when Google uses contextual data to second-guess what I’m looking for, there are other circumstances in which sorting based on my profile feels just a tad invasive and manipulative.

On Letting Foxes Mind Chicken Coops

Photo by Global IP

One thesis I have continually proposed since the death of SOPA is that thinking citizens are going to have to stop giving Internet companies a blank check on policy positions, or we’re going to regret it.  So far, it looks a lot like there isn’t a piece of legislation, a trade agreement, a civil action, or any other policy initiative that is not going to be labeled a ”threat to freedom” by these companies, their lobbyists, and their PR groups. The first sane question anyone should ask when any industry makes such a claim is, “Do you mean a threat to my freedom or your cash flow?”

The new battle brewing that has the potential to rival SOPA is one over the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).  As US exports include a lot of intellectual property, one should not be surprised to find patent and copyright protections on the table in these negotiations. Nevertheless, the usual tech-funded suspects are blasting away at the TPP using many of the same tactics we saw with SOPA, causing one to wonder whether these diplomatic negotiations are really so insidious; or are these Web-based organizations simply determined to create a digital world without any copyright protections, without laws against child pornography, without security, and with some very twisted definitions of privacy?

The grassroots petition site StopTheTrap.net smacks you in the face with this headline:  You could have to pay a fine for simply clicking the wrong link.  I don’t have to read anything about the TPP to know that this isn’t true, and you know why?  Math. Who exactly is monitoring trillions of clicks?  The government? Media conglomerates? All with their magically endless resources to spy on our every mouse move?  Headlines like this should make anyone stop and consider the motivations of the people or companies promoting them.  Similarly, the first sentence on this post by the EFF stating that the TPP is “secretive” is very strange in light of the fact that the EFF itself has been in attendance at TPP events along with other stakeholders, and with the same opportunity as other organizations to speak to delegates.

The point is, I’m not an expert in international trade, but then neither are most people.  This is, in fact, why we have a representative government. Sure leaders make mistakes or decisions we don’t like, but are we seriously going to migrate toward this bizarrely hysterical, global referendum on every complex law, agreement, or treaty?  Or, more to the point, are our new representatives going to be the proverbial foxes watching the chicken coop?  When it comes to international trade like this, shall we invest no faith in our elected president — the USTR serves at the pleasure of the president — and instead place that faith in the hands of people who work for the Internet industry, people like Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, who is among those leading the protest against the TPP?

And then there’s the question as to exactly what freedoms are being threatened?  Perhaps there are some worth discussing, but I’m not sure someone like Ohanian is the ideal spokesman, particularly in the wake of the Violentacrez story. It turns out Reddit gave an award to a guy named Michael Brutsch, a 49 year-old Internet troll who created a forum called “Jailbait” along with multiple subforums with names like “Rapebait,” “Incest,” “Pics of Dead Kids,” and “Choke a Bitch.”  You get the idea.

Trolling under the name Violentacrez, Brutsch was recently outed by Gawker, and you can watch an interview with him here on Anderson Cooper 360.  In the interview, Brutsch seems to be anything but apologetic to the young women whose photos he posted in violation of their personal privacy and, quite possibly, child pornography laws.    Instead, he responds the way an adolescent would when caught doing something stupid — he blames the medium and his fans for his actions.  While this man’s choices are indeed his own responsibility, the reality is that Brutsch’s idiotic, offensive, and, if nothing else, useless posts generated an estimated 800,000 subscribers according to CNN. And that’s why Reddit rewarded Brutsch with a little gold-plated statuette of the company’s alien logo.  Okay, they didn’t give him a bag full of money, but watch the interview, and you understand that what the troll wants most is attention, which becomes its own kind of currency in this environment.

So, what does Michael Brutsch have to do with international trade agreements?  Not a thing. But stories like his are exactly why I do chuckle every time I hear that it’s our copyright protections that stifle some cultural motherlode yearning to burst forth on the Internet; or that legalizing child pornography is the only rational choice in this era; or that it’s the government chomping at the bit to invade my privacy.  Indeed, where would the world be if such inconvenient concepts as law, diplomacy, and global trade were to in any way dampen the crucible of creative energy exemplified by a middle-age troll spending hours of his life denigrating young women for fun?

If you want to learn about the TPP, by all means it’s your right to do so.  But speaking personally, if I don’t have time to dig into the complexities of this agreement, I’m choosing to trust President Obama’s office to seek balance rather than the multi-millionaires in the Web industry.