The Web Difference

The probability is 0.989 that you will enjoy hearing Clay Shirky talk tonight about his new book: 6:00 PM, Austin West Classroom, Austin Hall.

I just sent the following to the class members via email, but figured I’d post it here, too:

For the next class, you’re assigned to read one of several Wikipedia articles, especially its discussion pages. That’s because I want us to be able to talk about what sorts of issues can be settled and which ones can’t. Do we think there is a single knowledge about these issues that can be discovered and known once and for all?

But some of those articles are long, and the discussion pages can be endless. So, don’t feel obligated to read all of them. Find a few juicy discussions that seem to bear on the question of what we can know.

Also, I get shy about talking about what I’ve written, so please treat the readings in my two books as optional.

Sorry to change things at the last moment. I’m new to this. Well, new-ish.

Finally, I hope the connection to the question of perfection will be clear. Is knowledge perfectable? Is the Web making us stupider by throwing up more and more bad info, and distracting us from the path of truth? Or is truth not so much a path as, well, you tell me…

See you on Monday.

– David Weinberger

An Irish tax inspector conducted an audit using information from Facebook, Xing, and LinkedIn. A spokesperson for the Irish Revenue Commissioners commented that auditors will use any public sources of information available to them. Could the IRS do the same thing here in the States? Why does this seem more strange than using old media information like a newspaper article?

As someone remarked in class, it was suspicious that Comcast and Verizon had such a vocal cheering section. But perhaps this explains it.

I think they would’ve been more believable, though, had the group not sat all in the same section, and perhaps also hissed some of the more strident pro-network neutrality applause lines.

Heard this story on O & A this morning (unfortunately there is nothing better to listen to in the morning nowadays). Did this teacher actually want to get caught, or are so many people still completely unaware that IM conversations can be recorded and traced back to the writer?

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=10&aid=78794

Many thanks to Kevin for the live blog. This bizjournal article paints a rather rosey picture of the hearing yesterday (in terms of net neutrality), stating:

Markey, chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications and Internet, and coordinator of the FCC hearing, spoke to an FCC generally supportive of developing and enforcing standards that would prohibit Internet providers from blocking or slowing down content from particular peer-to-peer content sharing sites. Several commissioners proposed regulations that would encourage competition among service providers and create an “Internet Bill of Rights” ensuring free access to all content and legal applications.

However, this is not exactly what I came away from the hearing thinking. I thought that we were left wondering what the next steps would be in addressing Comcast’s claim that “its actions fall under the umbrella of ‘reasonable network management’ the FCC excepts from its regulations prohibiting carriers to block access to content.” (same article.)

A post on Slashdot more is closer to what I came away with:

The FCC held its hearing on network neutrality and Comcast today at Harvard. One commentator not afraid to predict what will come of it is O’Reilly’s Andy Orem, who writes:
“The mere announcement of an FCC hearing on ‘broadband network management practices’ was a notch in the gun of network neutrality advocates. Yet to a large extent, the panelists and speakers were like petitioners who are denied access to the king and can only bring their complaints to the gardeners who decorate the paths outside his gate. What we’ll end up getting is a formal endorsement of non-discrimination as a policy that Internet providers must follow, leading to continual FCC review of current practices by telecom and cable companies.”

I feel that these hearings are (obviously?) just the start of what will be a very long process. I think it will take a long time (years?) before any test or rule is articulated by courts or congress that will govern net neutrality effectively.

I assume most of you have read online today about the picture of Barack Obama in traditional Somali dress.  Most of the news reporting about the picture credits The Drudge Report with driving the story. See here (The Politico) and here (AP). The picture itself seems to have been passed around by e-mail before arriving on Drudge’s doorstep. How much of a web difference do you think there is in a story like this? Would this story have still emerged? What about in how both campaigns reacted?

Thanks Kevin for the liveblog!

I found an article that described some of the tense moments during today’s hearing. I particularly like the part when Prof Tim Wu said, “Let me translate what he [Cohen] just said: Comcast is blocking BitTorrent and that’s the end of the story!”

Prof Tim Wu referred to FCC’s 2005 statement on broadband internet access. I guess most of the debate concerning the second principle that consumers would be able to run applications and use services of their choice.

Some speakers also referred to Japan’s and Korea’s policies. There is another article which describes these countries’ approaches. There appears to be much more competition amongst network providers in these countries.

4:39 - P. Clark: This isn’t a short term problem. The last mile to the home is always going to be expensive.

C. Adelstein: Where is the line between good and bad discrimination?

BT: I know it when I see it, and Comcast is bad.

P. Bennett: There wasn’t any data from Comcast. But, discrimination might be ok when the network is crowded, but it isn’t ok when it isn’t crowded.

P. Clark: If the network is spoofing packets that look they come from somewhere else that seems particularly troublesome.

Smyers: When there is industry consensus on a solution we don’t need to look any deeper. But when solutions don’t comply with industry standards then it needs a deeper look.

4:22 - C. Cobb: We don’t even have the questions, so how can we have the answers?

C. Martin: If we do not have enough information, should we not take any action? P. Clark: Some disclosure might be good and start a dialog with industry. We also do know enough about the current actions to decide if they violate the IPS or not.

C. Adelstein: Are our network management practices having an impact on innovation here? A: There is a lot going on in Asia now.

P. Clark: The networks today contain ways of regulating traffic. The Comcast response is a very nuanced response to traffic. The network today allows me to go really fast when nobody else is there (this is good), but then when lots of people are there I need to slow down. The question is thus how should we slow down when we have to b/c it isn’t feasible to build a network where we can all always go at full speed.

__(’Read the rest of this entry »’)