partly on the question of whether bloggers should have the same rights as established journalists

if everybody gets it, it stops being precious. ?

to understand how we treat information in the United States, 1) remember we live in a democracy. (this is not socialism. people don’t get information equally.) and 2) consider supply and demand. (if they just give us the information freely, we’ll stop wanting it.)

PL “most people don’t even want information unless it effects them anyway–free or not. in fact, disinformation occurs more often and more readily available cos those who are in charge of dispensing information have personal motive–money, power (politics), etc. people also distort information unwittingly–colored by emotion or misinterpretation, or false memory.”

(added 12/2/08) New York Times article Google’s Gatekeepers:

“the development of new media technologies has always altered the way we think about threats to free speech….Today the Web might seem like a free-speech panacea: it has given anyone with Internet access the potential to reach a global audience.”

“As more and more speech migrates online, to blogs and social-networking sites and the like, the ultimate power to decide who has an opportunity to be heard, and what we may say, lies increasingly with Internet service providers, search engines and other Internet companies”

“‘If stuff is clearly illegal, we take that down, but if it’s on the edge, you might push a country a little bit,’ Wong told me. ‘Free-speech law is always built on the edge, and in each country, the question is: Can you define what the edge is?’”

“‘That dynamic is tiny compared to what people fear about Google. They have enormous control over a platform of all the world’s data, and everything they do is designed to improve their control of the underlying data. If your whole game is to increase market share, it’s hard to do good, and to gather data in ways that don’t raise privacy concerns or that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.’” (Lessig)

“Given their clashing and sometimes self-contradictory missions — to obey local laws, repressive or not, and to ensure that information knows no bounds; to do no evil and to be everywhere in a sometimes evil world — Wong and her colleagues at Google seem to be working impressively to put the company’s long-term commitment to free expression above its short-term financial interests.”

This entry was posted on February 1, 2008 and is filed under topics.