Turning Digital Pirates into Youth Legislators, a possible solution?
Comments: 2 - Date: October 21st, 2008 - Categories: Piracy
I remember coming across a post a while ago by our friends at Global Voices about the way in which Hong Kong was fighting piracy in the country. In 2006, the state enlisted Youth Ambassadors to monitor the web and report offenses. Soon after this army of “teenage internet spies” was released into cyberspace, more than three-fifths of the offending postings were deleted.
It was an interesting approach to say the least. Although, I must admit that there’s something incredibly unnerving about boy scouts, girl guides, and other uniformed youths between the ages 9-25 being armed and honored as a youth brigade that sounds like it came out of a George Orwell novel.
So if the solution to the problem of piracy among digital natives is not implementing a teen spy program, what is it? As Diana wrote, “how should the black line between right and wrong be enforced?” Born Digital provides helpful starting points for what parents, teachers, technologists, and law makers need to work together on to accomplish. The two I found most important were to use the law to encourage Digital Natives’ creativity rather than stunt it, and also to educate DNs about what the laws are in a way that they will understand and appreciate – something which the Creative Commons project has been doing great work on.
Although I’m not not a fan of Youth Ambassadors and teen spies as a solution, I do believe it would be beneficial to have Youth Legislators. If this is an issue affecting, and arising primarily from, the Digital Native community, it is those that should be made a crucial part of the law-making process. As John Palfrey and Urs Gasser note in Born Digital, “In an environment where almost everything is possible, but not necessarily legal, it’s crucial that we teach Digital Natives about their responsibilities, as well as about their rights.” If we want young people to be engaged and interested in civics and their rights, and if we want them to believe they can make a difference in how those rights are dictated, we need to allow them to be active, vocal participants in the dialogue on where that “black line” should be drawn and how to effectively enforce it.
Comment by Tim Barrus - October 28, 2008 @ 9:00 am
I run an art school for “at-risk” boys. We are saturated with all the traditional art stuff: painting, sketching, sculpture, poetry, dance, music, performance art, photography, and then there is the Internet. Sometimes I wish there was no Internet. Our twelve-year-olds are quite prolific in mash. I KNOW all the finger-waving naughty, naughties around what kids do with what materials they run across. I also know that there’s a case to be made for such abstractions as SATIRE and that satire is protected speech. No one wants to explore that. “How can I make fun of something if I am not allowed to use an image of it,” is a question I am so tired of being asked — I now just ignore the mash. Arrest me. “Everyone’s doing it.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am caught between this place where very, very hip kids are going to do what their peers are doing, and the choices around allowing that (let alone facilitating it) when the real issue is the INCLUSION of kids who have failed everywhere else in life — especially school — renders failure as a social phenomena hardly limited to school; you can’t do this and not conclude that it is the idea of FAMILY that has failed THEM. Mashing a video they put to music is the least of my problems. Often, they’re suicidal, they have HIV, they’ve lived on the street as whores, and they’re junkies. So now the moral police are going to “get” them on the Internet. Oh, please. My eyes to the sky. This is such an upper middle-class white problem. Come down from the lofty computer heights of Digital Olympus and get a whiff of the real world. They’re defiant, pissed off, addicted, severely depressed, parentless, abused, educational failures, and most of the culture has washed its hands of them. Because they’re disposable. Because this is a class society, and access to technology is an issue of CLASS. Vocal participants in the dialogue on where that “black line” should be drawn so it can be effectively enforced reminds me that the technocratic aristocracy has NO CLUE. What they’re going to be on the Internet, what they going to do with it — is be subversive. The moral police are everywhere. Most of them have already sold their bodies on the Internet. They can use the Internet at the public library as a tool of prostitution, or to buy and sell drugs; it’s a tool of organized crime. Do you really think that as Digital Natives they’re going to care about teen goodiegoodie spy programs. It’s laughable. As a teacher, I was once ignorant enough or naive enough to want to believe that my job as a teacher was to show them that art could have a dramatic impact on their lives. Pure bullshit. My job is to help keep them alive. The “responsibilities” of Digital Natives sounds like prep school rhetoric. You want young people to be engaged. I want them to make it through the day in one piece: not wounded by violence, admitted through an ER for pneumocystis, overdosed, or hanging from a rope. Worrying about piracy would be a luxury I cannot even begin to imagine. Your world and their world exist in two very separate universes. One is the universe of privilege. One is the universe of survival. And I’m teaching them art? If I even begin to explain to them the ideas behind — youth legislators — I’ll be laughed out of the room. How should the black line between right and wrong be enforced? You might want to begin with an understanding that the issues you are articulating belong to a CLASS of adolescent and not the one that has been typically deconstructed by a culture that works for some kids but not everyone from day one.
Comment by Amina W. - October 28, 2008 @ 10:39 am
Tim,
Thank you for the reminder. I admire and deeply respect the work you do everyday… the kids i’m sure you help despite feeling that the foundations of your work are “pure bullshit.” And I agree with you, for the most part. I agree that such a program will not make sense to those whose circumstances divide their world between the privileged and the ones who are trying to survive day to day. I agree also that our culture unfortunately tends to encourage this division. I agree that this program seems like an upper-middle class whte goodiegoodie spy program. Let alone my friends on the South Side of Chicago, my friends from war-torn countries like Iraq – who have seen loved-ones shot in the street and are in awe that they are still alive – would not simply find such a program amusing, but incredibly bizaare and completely incomprehensible.
However, this post was meant to neither undermine nor ignore the struggles that youth across social, class demographics are experiencing. It was meant to explore and brainstorm a question that, despite existing in the online sphere, one too, that shouldn’t be ignored, because it has the possibility of stunting youth creativity – an idea which as an educator, and especially one who runs an art-school, I’m sure you understand. You’re right – access to technology is an issue of class. But I think you’re misguided when you say this “technocratic aristocracy” has “no clue.” There are many organizations, projects, and people that are passionately engaged in questions of how to deal with this participation gap, how to close the digital divide – not just in places like Africa, but down the street.
So, although I agree with you that piracy is not at the top of the priorities list when compared to other issues youth are experiencing, I disagree with your belief that we should ignore ways to get them engaged (on anything) simply because we’re arguing about what’s YOUR problem and what’s MY problem. This may not have been the brightest idea, but at least it was that – an idea – one that I hope not only leads to a dialogue about building youth leadership and engagement, but action.