Hardly Strictly Information

[Fade in on Marcus and Ange out in the storm, John calling out to them from the hexayurt.]

JOHN (jovially)

Look at what the storm blew in. Better hose ’em off before you bring ’em over here, John, those two’ve got half the playa in their ears. Let’s get you cleaned up. Shoes first, thanks.

[action on-screen]

Can I get you two something to wear? We can beat the dust out of your clothes once the wind dies down.

[Marcus hesitates, his thoughts turning to the USB stick in his pocket.]

ANGE

That’d be so awesome. Thank you.

[Marcus relents wordlessly.]

JOHN

Come on and meet the rest.

[Fades to black.]

[Fades in. Marcus and Ange are leaving the hexayurt, reflecting on the chance meeting with the EFF founders. They walk along one of the concentric rings.]

MARCUS

Unbelievable! Who would’ve thought that we’d run into the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation at Burning Man, of all places!? I guess if there’s anywhere those guys could relax free of prying eyes, it would definitely be here…

ANGE

Yeah, they’re probably glad to get the break. And not just from surveillance, but all the legal action. Violations of privacy committed by the government mount by the day. Even if the EFF could put up a good fight against tenuous infractions, like the gait-detectors back in school, there’d just be too many.

MARCUS

Do you suppose they ever feel that they’re in any danger? I mean, my friends and I just got picked up atrandom after the bridge bombing in San Francisco. Those guys would have to have pretty big targets on their backs.

ANGE

Yeah, but I seriously doubt whether they’re in any danger here and now. Plus, the EFF is one of the most prominent advocacy organizations in the country. The government wouldn’t dare.

MARCUS

Hm.

[Camera zooms out, then rushes back along the path MARCUS and ANGE have been walking, back to the hexayurt. Momentary pause.]

JOHN

Come on in, stranger, weather the storm inside. Can I getcha any-

[Thudding noise.]

CARRIE (evilly)

Just fine right now, Gilmore. Thanks, anyhow. Take him away, and grab the others.

[Camera zooms back along the same path to where MARCUS and ANGE are walking.]

MARCUS

How different do you think things would be without the EFF? Bad as they are, I mean.

ANGE

Oh, radically, I suppose. Imagine the impression an agency as big as the government could make on future generations with an unchecked online presence. I’ll say this much, Marcus — without the EFF, the Department of Homeland Security might have snatched you from the womb.

[Nervous laughter.]

MARCUS

I suppose that’s true. Without the EFF, by the time of the terrorist attack, I’d probably already be in a much deeper pile of–

[ANGE casts a telling glance. MARCUS pauses.]

–um…poop.

[Fades out.]

[Fade in on a bright overhead light. Wooziness and fog.]

CARRIE (slowly)

Awake already, are we, John?

[Fades out again.]

The second half of Doctorow’s tale of civil disobedience completes the story arc; efforts to secure Xnet cryptographically are met later with the knowledge that the network has been infiltrated by DHS-sympathetic data miners seeking out M1k3y’s true identity. In the physical realm, too, Marcus’ alter-ego as the so-called leader of the Xnet movement becomes known to a number of folks. He finds himself at odds with classmates and teachers at school, resulting in his ultimate suspension. It is unclear exactly whom he can trust throughout the final ten chapters, even failing to reveal his online identity to his parents whilst spilling the beans concerning his initial stint in captivity. Marcus’ capture marks the climax of the story, but the subsequent dissolution of the DHS presence in California follows as a result of his confidence in the freedom of press.

One can’t help but feel that a longer, well-fleshed out version of this story would be a really good read. Unfortunately, the brevity of Doctorow’s conclusion leaves a trite taste in my mouth. I’m left wanting to know more about the political wheels that have been put in action in California, and to know more about the underpinnings of the DHS activities in the area. I feel that narration from the perspective of another character or two — maybe a DHS affiliate (even if not totally sympathetic, like Masha) and Marcus’ parents — would make this a more worthwhile read, even though the focus of the story is resistance by a younger generation (for a younger generation).

Still, Doctorow’s central theme of civil disobedience as integral to the health of democracy is valuable to consider, and maybe more importantly, his introduction of the Internet as a viable medium for it. In his view, technological literacy and political engagement are nothing short of inseparable for future generations. Especially since American lawmakers are beginning to grasp the idea that the Internet might require regulation (all notions of monitoring aside for now, we’re constantly watched by cookies — “little dogs following you around, sniffing at everything you do on the Internet”). As a medium for discourse and organization, the digital realm remains an invaluable asset to any interest group, one that ought not be monopolized by governments or corporations. We will have to be wary of setting dangerous cyber-law precedents and in retaining the ability to manage our own privacy moving forward. Doctorow wants us to recognize the as-of-now uncharted territory he depicts, if we come to it someday.

My name is Marcus Yallow, but back when this story starts, I was going by w1n5t0n. Pronounced “Winston.”

Not pronounced “Doubleyouoneennfiveteezeroenn” unless you’re a clueless disciplinary officer who’s far enough behind the curve that you still call the Internet “the information superhighway.”

Journalist, blogger, and science fiction author Cody Doctorow‘s freely distributed novel, Little Brother, tells the story of tech-savvy 17 year-old Marcus Yallow in a quasi-futuristic San Francisco. The first ten chapters detail a rapid succession of events in which Marcus and his Harajuku Fun Madness team are accosted by the Department of Homeland Security following a terrorist attack, and continuously surveiled by the San Francisco Police Department thereafter.

Cody Doctorow. Source: St. Louis Country Library Foundation

Marcus, for (legitimate) fear of his online activity being traced, establishes an underground network of devices called Xnet, that permits secure web traffic. After distributing Xnet discs amongst his peer group, Marcus quickly learns that the network has grown exponentially, more swiftly than anticipated — and worse, spies have infiltrated Xnet, and are seeking out real-life user identities.

Doctorow’s writing style is highly informal, making extensive use of Internet slang and leet-speak. While this meshes with the subject material on which Doctorow explicates, it is slightly confounding and interspersed artificially. Furthermore, his discussions of privacy are ultra-thinly veiled, even so much as to be…clunky? Primarily on this account do I assume this novel targets young adults.

The quasi-philosophical issues surrounding privacy and surveillance that are raised by Doctorow are maybe a little tired and explored. His brand of pseudo-dystopia is made shallow by the fact that his characters are all 12, but apparently brighter than everybody else. He mishandles an attempt to portray public fear and groupthink in action by making it too unbelievable, and too transparent. Which is, of course, not to strip all of his work of it’s merit — it’s easy to be a critic. I just think that, against all the odds, Tom Clancy’s Net Force manages to balance technological explication and authorship more effectively than Doctorow in this effort. I’d like to read some of his other material before I pass judgment on his style of writing too hastily. And further, I think he has an argument to make, just based on the TED video below — he just needs some help making it.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAGjNe1YhMA

In an excerpt from This Machine Kills Secrets: How Wikileakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World’s Information, Forbes reporter Andy Greenberg details a short stint at ‘Chaos Communication Camp’, the setting for security-testing of the WikiLeaks spinoff, OpenLeaks. For those who don’t know, WikiLeaks is in the business of declassifying sensitive information, primarily by it gathering from inside sources and distributing it over the Internet — a practice that has been the focus of legal concern as of late. The OpenLeaks project, intended as a secure, open-source successor to WikiLeaks, is spearheaded by German technology activist Daniel Domscheit-Berg — though since 2011 , the project has not made progress.

Greenberg tells the story of the failure of OpenLeaks to launch for testing at the Chaos Communication Camp in a neat observational fashion. It comes to pass that the group of hackers balk at Domscheit-Berg’s sequestration of the OpenLeaks code that has been touted as open-source, and at the purported link between OpenLeaks and the German Privacy Association — an organization that couldpossibly have ties to ‘the spooks’. Most problematic, though, is that the site simply won’t go online, so Greenberg argues.

The difficult problem of information liberation is largely ignored by Greenberg in this small excerpt, though. I doubt his intent is to do so — more likely, it’s just not really essential to this short segment of the book. However, it seems as if there is no moral quandary to be had based on Greenberg’s writing; his style…hero-izes, maybe?…the hackers who are the subject of this reading by not calling into question the ethical implications of WikiLeaks Pt. II. While the purpose of WikiLeaks was primarily to release government documents that might result in public awareness, i.e. detention policies for domestic and international federal prisons, the precedent is then set for anyone to do the same, and maybe for more sensitive information. Greenberg’s lack of focus on the ethical aspect of the problem under consideration is a bit tough for me to swallow, since I hardly know where I stand on it. I’d like to know more about the bits of information released by WikiLeaks and Openleaks (if it ever launches), before I’m totally comfortable with the hacker guerrilla-style environment detailed by Greenberg.

In a short article titled “Information Pollution”, usability consultant and human-computer interaction specialist Jakob Nielsen discusses the problem posed by excessive or extraneous content in both the cyberspace and material world. Nielsen motivates his argument by first citing several instances of information pollution he’s encountered whilst traveling — one such example is that of a sign in the John F. Kennedy International Airport, which cycles through four messages that convey the same meaning (“For your information and convenience” / “the monitor underneath will” / “indicate the schedules of all” / “airlines at JFK airport.”) as a distilled single-frame version (“Schedules for all JFK flights.”). After some equally mundane vignettes, he delivers the punchline:

Each little piece of useless chatter is relatively innocent, and only robs us of a few seconds. The cumulative effect, however, is much worse: we assume that most communication is equally useless and tune it out, thus missing important information that’s sometimes embedded in the mess.

Nielsen advocates a ‘less is more, more is hazardous’ design approach — and the implications in the age of information are clear. Given the deluge of information available on any given website, let alone the web as a whole, we may all well be guilty of “packing the forest with cardboard rabbits,” as he puts it. Nielsen is even willing to suggest we’re guilty of attention theft — a tad extreme.

Interestingly, the piece was published in 2003, well before I considered the Internet ‘polluted’, even to the point that it exists as something of an anachronism. The rate at which cyberspace is flooded with erroneous information has increased dramatically, such that the Internet of 2003 compares to the present much in the same way a pond compares to an ocean. Nielsen, though, is a business consultant; his advice is (maybe) not directed at a general audience. Even so, the portion of his argument devoted to attention theft hinges on user victimization:

The Web is a procrastination apparatus: It can absorb as much time as is required to ensure that you won’t get any real work done.

He talks of web content as though it has some malicious sentience, seeking to sap our productivity. In a BBC article on information pollution published in 2003, he states:

It’s where it stops being a burden and becomes an impediment to your ability to get work done.

I don’t know that I buy what Nielsen is selling. Not that the Internet isn’t a perfectly good vector for procrastination — but to regulate content in the interest of shielding seemingly defenseless users from information pollution? It reminds me in a distinct fashion of recent legislation against the maximum salable size of sugary drink in New York City, in that the problem lies with the consumer and not the producer, but it is being legislated as though the converse is true. In the same BBC article, Nielsen proposes penalties for perennial polluters — is there truly a clear and present need? I’m not convinced.

To the point of the guidelines offered by Nielsen, I think they’re beginning to show their age. The face of the web has changed drastically since he first offered these tips and templates, so much so that I found it difficult to find a really poorly organized site. It was necessary to move back into pages that exist as Web 2.0 holdouts (like Nielsen’s) to find something, since so many sites have embraced a blog-like front page.

GOOD — OregonLive, a news website dedicated to happenings in the grand old state of Oregon. Maybe not the most attractive, but definitely exemplifies the importance of headings and brief sentences.

BAD — SuperVideo, an electronics “information” website. This truly sucks. It took me a couple of scans to understand the purpose of the site. Also, the background is unbelievably distracting.

Oof. Nothing about this makes me want to read it.

In Nine Propositions Towards a Cultural Theory of YouTube, Henry Jenkins, professor of communication, journalism, and cinematic arts at the University of Southern California and self-proclaimed ‘aca-fan’ (“a hybrid creature which is part fan and part academic”), provides a list of nine original conceptions of the cultural mechanics of YouTube circa 2007. As a “walking, talking oxymoron — a humanist from MIT”, Jenkins’ aim is to deconstruct social media in the hope of developing an understanding of the impact of participatory culture on facets of material life. He’s bitten off quite the chunk in attempting to distill these thoughts into nine propositions; in some sense, he does a good job of keeping each fairly general whilst providing a semi-specific example for each.

One I found interesting, given that we’re actually in the midst of a presidential campaign, was #6: “YouTube may embody a particular opportunity for translating participatory culture into civic engagement.” In some sense, he’s right, except that the vast majority of the political discourse on YouTube is generated by a young generation, for a young generation. In an earlier post on participatory political culture, he references The Legendary K.O., a Houston hip-hop group that expressed their disappointment in the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina relief through song (titled “George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People”) — and it seems to me that the brand of participation hasn’t much changed. Consider as an example the video I choose for today’s blog post below, “The Real Mitt Romney”, a mashup of Romney quips set to Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady”.

Disclaimer: If you’re offended by the use of the word “masturbate”, two things. One: I just used it, apologies. Two: probably shouldn’t watch the video.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxch-yi14BE

Participatory political culture is less a discourse than it ought to be. The present culture is founded on being clever and acting on popular belief — in the case of The Real Mitt Romney, YouTuber Hugh Atkin has highlighted Romney’s apparent inability to remain consistent, or provide a straight answer on a question of policy. While I don’t disagree with Atkin’s view, I can’t help but feel that YouTube won’t be the home to serious political discourse until the late-80s and 90s generation grows up. For now, many of us embrace Colbert Report-style news, which appeals to our sardonic sensibilities. Maybe a more pointed way of putting it: YouTube isn’t the home to terribly useful political discourse, in part because it seems as though we (the younger generation) dominate the “created” (versus recorded) content. It’s not as sinister as the “waves of racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry” expected by Jenkins, but until a more holistic YouTube user population is present and willing to participate, it seems unlikely that Proposition #6 will come to fruition.

BETTER, CONTRADICTORY EXAMPLE (I admit I focused far too much on presidential campaigns in my original post. This is a well-constructed example of YouTube political advocacy.):

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc

“Neither social media nor its users are colorblind simply because technology is present. The internet mirrors and magnifies everyday life, making visible many of the issues we hoped would disappear, including race and class-based social divisions in American society,” concludes danah boyd, eccentric scholar and author of White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook. No doubt about it, that’s a powerful and quasi-disturbing thought, especially considering we are only in the very early stages of a burgeoning academic study of the Internet and our interactions on it.

Those of us born in the 1990s have lived with a semi-modern form of the Internet since the moment we’ve been capable of using it (back when dial-up still made that neat noise, that sounded like a transmission from an alien civilization), and yet I’d posit that we take for granted how impacted our lives are. I certainly still think of it as a supplement to 21st century life, something that facilitates most of our daily transgressions, and often even a plaything, void of serious implications or consequences. Already, I see that perspective may be antiquated, since I find myself among those who hold the “techno-utopian belief that the Internet will once and for all eradicate inequality and social divisions,” (boyd 36) as boyd puts it.

A patchwork of references and supporting examples litter boyd’s main argument, which hinges on the migration of MySpace users to Facebook as a modern analogue to white flight from the cities to the suburbs in the post-World War II era. Facebook users are perceived as the sleek, educated, cultured crowd, whereas MySpace users are perceived as blingy and gaudy. boyd reserves little in exploring pervasive stereotypes by way of a number of quips derived from interviews with teenagers, illuminating language used to disparage MySpace as full of racial and class-referential undertones.

To some extent, I believe her argument holds water because she restricts it to social media. I stated earlier that I fit into a group that believes in “techno-utopia”; that’s likely because I’m a part of the discussion forum and online gaming micro-generation, where anonymity was just a matter of being able to write properly. Before social media profiles, improper grammar and poor spelling were perceived as a function of carelessness, or possibly, stupidity. But transparency was limited — forums allowed the use of a number of proprietary avatars rather than webcam photos as part of one’s profile, for example. For the most part, there was no interest in maintaining any kind of image or upholding a reputation, rather it was just a matter of conversation. The foundation of boyd’s argument doesn’t rest well on turn-of-the-century style web activity, which is probably the source of the techno-utopian viewpoint.

The typical user profile has changed drastically since the early 2000s, though. Even on discussion forums that used to adhere to anonymity as a general principle, there is far greater encouragement to share personal information. It’s easy to fall victim to stereotypes when a poorly-worded status update, coupled with a profile photo of a cute girl with a fake tan or a guy slouching under the weight of the gold chains draped around his neck apparently validates our suspicions. In that case, not only do I agree with boyd, but it seems…obvious? That said, I doubt many techno-utopians would stick by their guns in 2012, since social media has totally redefined the purposes of the Internet. As our online presence becomes more closely allied with our material persona, the inherent social problems we don’t yet credit web society with will likely become more apparent because they depend on that material persona. We’re not reinventing anything except the geographic nature of problems of racism or class.

Andrew Keen, unflatteringly relayed in Lawrence Lessig’s Remix as a “failed Internet entrepreneur” (Lessig 90) and author of Digital Vertigo, could be succinctly described as a “.com libertarian”; he and Lessig (arguably the “.com socialist”) fall on approximately opposite sides of the social creativity and transparency spectrum. Keen considers the problem of progress*, in the face of those who’d prefer not to be swept up by it, pondering the following binary opposition:

If, as the fictional Sean Parker argues in The Social Network, our future will be lived on the network, I thought to myself, what would be the fate of the dissenters, of those who don’t update? What, I wondered, in a world in which we all exist on the Internet, will become of those who want to protect our privacy, who pride themselves on their illegibility, who — in the timeless words of Brandeis and Warren — just want to be let alone?

Will they be alive, I wondered, or will they be dead? (Keen 12-13)

Although dramatic, Keen arrives at an important hanging question, and one that rarely garners careful consideration by our generation: how long before abstaining from the social network equates with virtual suicide? His refusal to participate in the social networking revolution, but apparent willingness to entertain a number of Internet business ventures does the credibility of his concern some damage; the price of sensationalism is an invitation to criticism, as in the case of Open Source activist Tim O’Reilly:

“I find, Andrew Keen’s, his whole pitch, I think he was just pure and simple looking for an angle, to create some controversy to sell a book, I don’t think there’s any substance whatever to his rants.” (The Truth According to Wikipedia)

Still, though, it’s not hard to imagine a future like The Matrix — something which will be a common reference for this particular reading, I’m sure. Disregard the whole machine war (mere subplot, I tell you!), and just imagine living life plugged in. It’s actually not hard to conceive of, especially when one considers just how many practices and institutions are moving online. For example, a recent trend — and one that I think much will come of in 5 years — is the movement of higher education to cyberspace. I suspect components of K-12 education will follow suit, in the face of expanded student populations and constant or reduced resource pools. The fact of the matter is that cyberspace is cheap real estate — no subsidized lunches, no air conditioning or plumbing, no property taxes, and one teacher (on one salary) might manage a class of hundreds or thousands easily. There might even be a part-time physical attendance requirement to make the transition more palatable, which would afford students the opportunity to physically interact. And that’s just one possible scenario; there are plenty of other possible outcomes. Keyword: possible.

The most important message Keen has to offer, in doomsayer fashion**, is one he does not (primarily because it doesn’t serve the purpose of making a point as well as obscuring emotional appeals or intimidating factoids, though to be fair, this is only his introduction, meant to draw a reader in). He writes as though massive wheels churn outside the fabric of human activity, deciding the fate of modern society indiscriminately and mercilessly. We are not bound to any fate. As a society of human beings, we are still in charge of our own destiny. It seems unlikely we might do anything to compromise that destiny, especially if it means shedding our humanity — five senses and physical presences — in order to do so.

Reverend Jim Jones, of the Jonestown Massacre. Image courtesy of http://jonestownapologistsalert.blogspot.com/

* excuse the positive connotation.

** also, excuse the dark reference.

Cyberculture at work:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/fashion/for-college-students-social-media-tops-the-bar-scene.html

Harvard law professor and “copyright warrior” Lawrence Lessig in his (free-of-charge!) book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, advocates for the relaxation of copyright and intellectual property laws on the grounds that they strangle the development of creative culture. The primary focus of Part I is an exposition on Lessig’s conception of ‘Read-Only (RO)’ culture versus ‘Read-Write (RW)’ culture — the difference between the two succinctly described as social and legal permission of the remix. In RO culture, stringent intellectual property laws prevent reasonable and creative reuse of copyrighted material, regardless of the scope of distribution or possible profit, whereas in RW culture, Lessig envisions an active community of modern citizens characterized by their reuse of digital media to make something new. The potential benefits to a society engaged in RW culture are easily realized in a number of illustrative examples and in simple terms, which sort of ‘gives away’ Lessig’s intent to reach a wide, non-academic audience; he is trying to engage the public in a discussion that, up until recently, has mostly consisted of the efforts of RO advocates to halt the RW shift.

I live with a jazz musician — one who performs and records in an effort to begin a career — with whom I’ve had the conversation about Internet piracy. [ASIDE: Go see her.] It’s a difficult discourse, to be sure; not only are the financial rewards unhappy for 97% of performing artists, but with a high failure rate and hours of marketing and practice, it’s easy to imagine her frustration at the availability of digital content. If one person buys a CD from her, technology makes possible a scenario in which she makes no other sales — why buy, when P2P will suffice? And while the compact disc is a poor symbol of the immense artistic effort required to produce music, a digital copy devalues the work even further. This, I get.

My perspective has always been that our model for content distribution is twisted and monopolistic, but we’ve grown used to it. I believe in the possibly contentious notion that artists are a community that has been throttled by American business enterprise, deluded into thinking the economic value of their work is any greater than your average plumber. For every musician that “makes it big”, there are plenty who don’t — only because their work doesn’t have popular appeal as judged by EMI or Sony Entertainment. The plight of the “unsung” (hah, it’s a pun!) artist, then, is to languish with no major outlet for distribution, having bought fully into the system that record labels are selling.

The truth of the matter is, like Lessig says, change is coming. The end of analog media means the beginning of a social Renaissance. Lawmakers and big businesses have long set the price of admission for culture, and soon, they’ll be experiencing competition by way of a true free market: the Internet. A frightening prospect, to be sure. What if anyone could be an artist? Even the part-timers? I guess, then, the view of music and movies as economic goods, a view which has been forced on artists and appreciators, would start to unravel. It’s unclear to me what that means in terms of the state of the art; for example, how do we pay artists? Given that uncertainty, could we expect an influx of artists or an exodus in favor of career prospects? I, for one, am a big fan of the open music model (OMM), i.e. something like Spotify, but with a more robust financial foundation for artists. They, after all, have a career to think of.

In the first chapter of An Introduction to Cybercultures and New Media, author and English professor Pramod Nayar argues that a ‘cyberculture’ — the “electronic environment where various technologies and media forms converge” (Nayar 2) — is inalienable from our material world structurally speaking, despite the apparent disconnect between the physical and the virtual. In light of this, Nayar likens cybercultural studies to traditional cultural studies by highlighting social phenomena which are evidently linked in the physical and virtual worlds; for example, financial disparity inhibits access to the Internet, and so the development of and contribution to cyberculture is stunted within real-world communities that lack access, which proliferates material inequality (especially seeing as the Internet is a major marketplace, a la Amazon, and a significant source of corporate tax revenue, a la Silicon Valley). Nayar expounds on several major components of cybercultures which may be used as lens through which the enrichment, extension, or augmentation of physical culture could be analyzed, and re-elucidates the purpose of this analysis:

…cybercultures cannot be treated as simply virtual worlds created by computers but as a formation linked to, rooted in, affected by, and impacting upon the material and the real. This formation is the consequence of many structures, artifacts, systems (economic, legal, political, social, and cultural), ideas, and ideologies coming together: political economy, information, global finance, capitalism, the logic of the market, the structures of cables and wires, monitors, and SIM cards. It has argued that cybercultures must be treated as embedded in and connected to the real and the material world, where questions of economy, race/class/gender identities, politics, and power are crucial.

It is evident that cybercultures and physical cultures are inseparable in my mind. Especially in the respects Nayar documents, it is not hard to see that virtual happenings are increasingly important as our earthly routines move into cyberspace. This is something I think Nayar ought to say explicitly — that cyberculture not only informs, but absorbs elements of material culture. Take, for example, one’s reputation in the public eye (a good old leading example, which I bring up because I have some familiarity with Internet privacy policy). Before cities, reputation was of paramount importance in the immediate community — consider the American colony. Making waves could result in serious social consequences, and in fringe cases, even more dire outcomes.

Those “dire outcomes” of reputation to which I refer.

The cultural confluence characterized by cities reduced the importance of a neighborhood reputation substantially, new media — especially local news and television — took on some of the burden of a good name. For some time now, the best way to besmirch one’s good name has been to appear on area news for criminal offenses. One of my K-12 classmates has just committed this cardinal sin, which is probably the reason I bring it up.

Now, though, in the most connected continent at 69% Internet penetration (Nayar 9), North American society is developing a new reputation vector — the online persona. Our generation maintains a number of unregulated, unchecked information outlets including Facebook, Last.fm, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so forth. Increasingly, these sources of information are used by our friends or acquaintances to form a picture of who we are as people. Maybe a more concrete though somewhat weak (because it is not personally maintained) example is that of RateMyProfessor.com. In using the website, our intention is not bad, certainly; but RateMyProfessor is a source of unregulated and severely limited information, often an easy reservation to dismiss when a bunch of blue emoticons, mouths upturned, are staring back at you hopelessly. Even worse, it’s possible to jump to harsh conclusions about the personality of the professor being rated, even though the intention of RateMyProfessor is to provide a semblance of classroom demeanor.

In a similar fashion, we can commit suicide in this early age of Internet reputation. A politically incorrect status update, an exposing About Me section, or a taste for country music can lead Facebook friends or social media surfers to pass swift judgment. Especially since one of your “friends” may post a compromising content, photos, or screenshots on Reddit without a second thought, it is important to remember that change is coming. What happens on the Internet, ends up on Reddit, or 4chan, or imgur. In this way, cyberculture is absorbing the brunt of the work necessary to maintain a good reputation. It is worth noting that there are agencies who foresee the extent to which online reputation will matter, and are working to establish a way to manage it. Privacy musings by a well-informed and active participant in the Internet privacy community, can be found here.

REFERENCES:

1. Nayar, Pramod. An Introduction to New Media and Cybercultures. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.