Harknell's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the the-importance-of-a-free-and-open-internet dept
Hi Everyone, my name is James Harknell and I, along with my wife Onezumi, run the lifestyle blog Onezumiverse.com, have a new haunted attraction web series, and run a yearly internet focused convention called Intervention (which Mike graciously allowed us to post about last year). As you can expect from all of what we do, we have a very vested interest in making sure that the internet remains free and open. I've been a long time reader of Techdirt because it is one of the best places to quickly find information and analysis on the current (and sadly extended future) issues that could take this freedom and openness from us all. With this in mind I do find it a bit strange to pick my "favorite" posts in regard to this (in much the same way as "liking" a Facebook post about something unfortunate), but I'll point out the posts this week that affected me the most.
One of the biggest threats to the internet comes from trying to apply legacy rules to what is a brand new medium and method for communication. There is an unfortunate ongoing attempt by different groups to bind and shackle online sites by misunderstanding the rules that are in play, such as what was reported on in regard to the new lawsuit against Yelp by a group of reviewers. The internet has enabled a very wide range of participation by people who previously would never have been able to have their voices heard. In some cases, this is through services that allow for aggregating content from a wide range of users, such as reviews. The important element is this is elective -- if you don't want to participate you don't have to. If you feel a benefit from freely adding your opinion online then that's a personal choice. To then retroactively define what work you freely did as "slavery" is absurd. While the service benefits from your actions, you also benefited by exposure, experience, or the joy of seeing your words appear online. You can always make your own service since it's obviously so easy (so why don't we see that too often?)
It's also always interesting to see how those in control often don't realize that they in fact don't control as much as they'd like, in this case the UK's David Cameron who is now threatening to clamp down on The Guardian over it's Snowden releases. Exactly how shutting down a "local paper" will somehow prevent worldwide release of information is obviously not clear, or why they would imagine that this could work. The scary thing is that this will obviously prompt them to consider even more repressive methods to attempt to control the information they don't want revealed, thus killing the internet itself.
At the same time it's also somewhat depressing to realize that the outrage being expressed by non-US countries is really just a cover for what is now a worldwide level of hypocrisy about spying and the desire for population control among our world governments.
To continue the problem -- if the NSA can spy on Google and Yahoo, what can regular citizens and online artists do to protect their privacy and work? It's alarming how quickly things seem to be degenerating into a totalitarian minded world view by our (and most other) governments. It's also enlightening to know that those in control literally don't seem to understand why this is a concern. Of course it's pretty obvious they hate when their own secrets get out, but their righteous belief in their own authority means they are Right (with a capital R), and we are all criminals or traitors just waiting to act. They can't even really bother to try to cover it up any more.
Some of the only glimmers of hope come from the fact that the big tech firms have suddenly realized that they need to be more active about the situation or they will be dumped by their users for betraying their trust.
It really feels like we are in a very precarious time--it's only through continued vigilance that we can stand up to these threats to our freedoms. I know I'll be following Techdirt and other sources to see what I can do to help continue the fight, I hope you will too.
Too much trouble, Just make money...
Already Long Established By Pete Abrams
Inversion of the Situation?
The problem right now is it's always in the best interest of the cloud service to try to keep both--they are businesses trying to make money.
Without it our event would be nothing
Most important quote
Creeps who do stupid things need to realize that they will be paying a cost for their stupidity--and the community does a great job of making that happen--way better than a legal method.
Re:
Take The Good With The Bad
I wanted to thank Mike for giving us the ability to get the word out about our event.
I think we can all tell which commenters on this thread need the real Intervention. For the rest of you who actually like to discuss things using logic, evidence, and analysis we'd love to see you at our event this year to continue the discussion on the difficult road ahead for all online creative people.
Inconsistent Approval Process
The reviewer disqualified our app update until this was "fixed". Obviously this wasn't part of our app, it was their website--but we asked them to remove the donation link for a week. After the approval they put the link back up.
In our case it was obvious that the reviewer had no idea how IOS works, or how it's programmed. But it's sadly typical of some of the arbitrary ways you can interpret their rules on this area.
Look, we all know Apple wants to get paid, but they do have a major issue if their own people don't understand how this "should" work.
Did they not read the Apple Developer docs?
So the only thing that can be thought in this case is they did this with the desire to use it as a protest against Apple's policy. They weren't wronged since they knew the rules going in--they just ignored that.
It's a silly issue with no one being wronged, just a disagreement which can easily be fixed by the developer pulling their app from the store (which is their right and can be done literally with one click on the developer website with no interaction on Apple's part needed for approval).
The web is the web
Why not have a "market place" that points out you can read different websites on your iPhone...like Techdirt. Now that would be just as useful.
Non-scarce goods issue
While on a conceptual basis some things might be true, in the real world this is problematic.
Job Security
Any relation to Videos/Movies?
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by harknell.
Submit a story now.
Tools & Services
TwitterFacebook
RSS
Podcast
Research & Reports
Company
About UsAdvertising Policies
Privacy
Contact
Help & FeedbackMedia Kit
Sponsor/Advertise
Submit a Story
More
Copia InstituteInsider Shop
Support Techdirt