"call for blogging code of conduct"
Dear nettimers, I wonder how many of you follow the 'Kathy Sierra' case and what you make of it. My first response was that this scandal was the final chapter of the A-list, the presumed consensus culture of prominent US-bloggers that got famous by linking to each other in the time when blogging was still (relatively) new. It was a cozy scene, an elite in the true sense of mainly conservative techno-libertarians that were in the unique position to have opinions. As one could expect, some were lefty-liberal whereas others supported George W. Bush. So far nothing to write home about. When blogs got hip and hot, around 2002-2003, this culturally homogeneous group lifted each other up during the growth era of what a little later Tim O'Reilly coined Web 2.0. It may sound inward looking but the good side of this self-referentiality was that there was social control, some 'culture' and a 'community' to take of certain rules. Over the past two years, with global blog numbers rising to 100 milllion, the A-list core fell apart with the Sierra cyberbullying case as a late manifestation of this trend. Another reading is one that Kathy Sierra has given over the past days. There are tons of stalkers, and always have been on the Internet. Receiving death threats is probably as old as the medium email. Male geek culture that preaches freedom and does not believe in regulation can't respond very well to cyberbullying and rather not like to talk about it. But this is also old news, at least for nettimers. So what other interpretations are there? Shocklogs finally arriving in the USA? An Iraq war that escalates within US borders, four years late? Geert -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6502643.stm Call for blogging code of conduct Kathy Sierra went public on her fears in her blog The support for a blogger hounded by death threats has intensified with some high profile web experts calling for a code of conduct in the blogosphere. The female blogger at the centre of the row has been shocked to discover that hers is not an isolated incident. It has led her and others to question some of the unwritten rules of blogging. It could force a re-examination of the way the tight-knit blogging community behaves. Among those calling for a bloggers' code of conduct is Tim O'Reilly - one of the web's most influential thinkers. "The fact that there's all these really messed-up people on the internet is not a statement about the internet." He told BBC Radio Five Live that it could be time to formalise blogging behaviour. "I do think we need some code of conduct around what is acceptable behaviour, I would hope that it doesn't come through any kind of [legal/government] regulation it would come through self-regulation." While condemning the bloggers who issued the threats, Mr O'Reilly was keen that the whole blogosphere should not be tarred with the same brush. "The fact that there's all these really messed-up people on the internet is not a statement about the internet. It is a statement about those people and what they do and we need to basically say that you guys are doing something unacceptable and not generalise it into a comment about this is what's happening to the blogosphere." Cyber-bullying rife Ms Sierrra has personally witnessed the usually harmless feuding that is part and parcel of blogging take on an altogether more sinister tone, with threats of a violent and sexual nature gathering pace over the last month. She agonised over whether to publicise what had happened to her, she told the BBC News website. Since describing the campaign against her, she has been shocked to discover that cyber-bullying is widespread. "As well as around 900 comments on my blog and hundreds of comments on other blogs, I have received around 300 personal e-mails and about 70% of them say they have been through a similar thing," she told the BBC News website. Among the messages is one from a blogger Ms Sierra described as "far more prominent than me" who has been avoiding industry conferences because of persistent online threats. Ms Sierra herself pulled out of a planned appearance at ETech in San Diego this week. She believes it is time the technology blogging community sat up and took notice. "I think there is a culture of looking the other way. When other prominent people look the other way it is creating an environment that allows this type of behaviour," she said. She also thinks it could be time to re-examine whether the blogosphere needs to be completely uncensored. "There is an unwritten rule in the blogosphere that it is wrong to delete nasty comments. It suggests that you can't take criticism but now there is a sense that this is nonsense," she said. Tough on women Denise Howell, a US lawyer and blogger, believes that the blogosphere is no place for legal requirements. "The tools of the Live Web have made it easier than ever for ordinary people to communicate and express views in their individual capacities,
Re: "call for blogging code of conduct"
I only followed this only very tangentially, but from what I can gather, I think Geert is right. In many ways, this is old news. It's a classic case of a community where all members used to have all the rules internalized, i.e. they were 'voluntarily' adhering to them, thus there was no need to enforce them. As the community grows, people join who do not repress in the same way their ideosynractic urges. Now, the community comes under stress how to deal with them. The illusion of voluntary consensus has been shattered. They have to find a way how to transform their "undifferentiated openness" into something structured without killing off the community dynamics. One might call this "sustainable openness". We've seen that with usenet, email lists, online forums, and now blogging. Pretty similar issues, including misogyny. However, it's not a simple re-run in all respects. There's also something that is definitely different from the earlier cases. Blogging has become so big that it's not only attracting destructive energies but it begins to matter in a main-stream way (usenet, email lists, online forums never did). At least in the hypersensitive US political scene, "a-list" bloggers wield considerable influence (or at least, political operatives believe this). As a consequence, these bloggers have to decide how to deal with their growing power and the politics than come with it. In other words, they are slowly being transformed from observers into actors, from being independent, honest commentators to becoming part of the inner circle. Almost all candidates in the US presidential race are trying to enlist bloggers in their campaigns, as paid staff members. Even those bloggers who remain nominally independent suddenly have their postings examined under strategic considerations, ie. readers and other bloggers are beginning to wonder if there are hidden preferences and secret deals. And even these bloggers who remain truly independent have to watch out what they say, otherwise some "provocative" posting will come back to haunt them should they decide to become full-time political consultants at a later point. This just happened to two bloggers who had to resign from the Edwards campaign. This, actually, strikes me as much more critical than some people spewing hate in easy-to-control comment sections. Monitoring comments is a task that can be accomplished easily and cheaply. Slashdot has done that years ago. The real issue with respect to political blogging is this: how to exert real mainstream influence without becoming subsumed under the existing logic of power? Quite difficult to pull off. My hunch is that political bloggers will turn into affiliated advocates more or less aligning with the current power (and counter-power) structures. Running a successfull blog is the ticket to enter the establishment (be it the political or media one, if one cares to differentiate between them). Felix --- http://felix.openflows.com - out now: *|Manuel Castells and the Theory of the Network Society. Polity, 2006 *|Open Cultures and the Nature of Networks. Ed. Futura/Revolver, 2005 # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: "call for blogging code of conduct"
Geert Lovink wrote: > Dear nettimers, > > I wonder how many of you follow the 'Kathy Sierra' case and what you > make of it. I wrote this reply to her, but apparently she didn't see my comment on her blog or doesn't care about autonomous community initiatives to try to create change in techno culture. Maybe since our event wasn't making any headlines, since the main sites like boingboing.net and slashdot refused to acknowledge it, it wasn't worth kathy's time either. /// my response is here, as well as in the comments of her blog: http://deletetheborder.org/node/2077 Wow. I'm so, so sorry that this has happened to you and it just fuels me even more to continue fighting sexism and misogyny in techno culture. You've probably never heard of me, but this past weekend I helped organize freEtech in San Diego, in response to the exclusivity, sexism and racism inherent in Etech and in the fact that it costs $1500. At freEtech we talked a lot about how sexism and racism function in techno culture and what can be done about it. Cory Doctorow, who's an editor of boingboing.net and is on the etech board, refused to post freEtech because it was too critical of Oreilly and he basically denied that there is a problem with sexism in techno culture, callimg our claims "baseless". You can read about freEtech, read my emails to cory and read his replies here: http://deletetheborder.org/node/2053 http://deletetheborder.org/node/2057 http://deletetheborder.org/node/2065 Hopefully we can all work together to make this culture more what we want to see, with less sexism, racism and homophobia. I hope that you can eventually find the strength and courage to continue engaging with this community, especially now that you've seen its problems. No wonder we have a huge problem with sexism in techno culture when the most famous people in that culture refuse to admit that there's a problem. Maybe next year you can come to freEtech and give a talk there. /// Basically, it seems that all the problems of celebrity and centralization are on display in "blogger culture" and the marginalization of community efforts at change and dissenting voices is a clear example of that problem, just as the targeting of "well known bloggers" for sick misogynist fantasies is another example of that problem operating in concert with the patriarchical tendencies of United States. What we're seeing here is meatspace structuring cyberspace and taking away its utopian or liberatory potential. -- blog: http://deletetheborder.org/lotu5 gpg: 0x5B459C11 // encrypted email preferred gaim: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
RE: "call for blogging code of conduct"
categories: reviews | blogs | death threats | Sierra http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6502643.stm About Kathy Sierra's blog death threats, it highlights one of my problems with blogs and my overall lack of surprise about the matter. Blogs, in and of themselves have fewer homeostatic mechanisms than forums or listservs. They are primarily a voluntary push medium with the ability to respond. I have never felt like I have been part of a conversation as part of a blog; only as a journalist or lecturer. They have never made me feel "part" of anything, they have only made me feel part of an audience, and it is this belonging that is special to networked conversation. Conversely, while there are 10% or so active on any list, maybe more on a forum, there is usually an unspoken rule of community conduct, or at least heated debate then abuse comes about. This tends to regulate the conversation by either mandating partial moderation at times or the community pushing the abuser to the background, which I (usually) approve of to some extent. While there are some really warped people on the Net, I find that the larger component are still decent people who are eager to share. This leads me to two or three points. First, am I surprised that Kathy Sierra got the threats that she did? Not really. I have students in my classes who jovially muse about being homicidal maniacs who kill three people and have sex with their entrails before breakfast during class. At least in America, we have a culture in which this sort of banter is considered "funny" in many places, and that cyber-rape is no big deal, because "it's not real". But then, the same students complain about "Super Columbine Massacre RPG" as going too far over the line. Why? Just depicting real events doesn't make it real, does it, kids? While I am most definitely no prude, I often wonder what the infoculture, of all its diversity (I prefer not to say 'good' and 'bad') is doing in shaping culture in its continual pressing of taboo and shock. Personally, I'm not shocked, I'm bored - I think about what people like Vannevar Bush, Licklider, and Englebart were thinking about when envisioning computation as an extension of human evolution, and the result includes "Shaved Pumped Pussies" and the game "Ethnic Cleansing", as well as the millions of human-hours involved in virtual slaughter. It's not shocking, it's just inane - the sweaty-palmed 18-year old with the toilet training disorder has been lionized for too long. I love the quote I got from a Bukkake (porn practice in which women are subjected to having semen shot all over their faces) site operator in Second Life self-righteously inform me that "Communism killed far more people than porn ever has"... I was brought there (later, I find, by a person who had been using painkillers and acting quite erratically) to resolve a harassment dispute. Of course, I left fairly quickly. Next, how do we regulate this sort of behavior? Shut down comments on blogs? I don't see that as a solution at all. That puts the wall up higher in the age in which enough walls are being built. It's like MySpace - delete the comments, and understand that blogging leaves you partially vulnerable to attacks. Conversely, forums and lists would punish the abuser soundly via flamewar and by community. IMO, blogs have this particular flaw of leaving one vulnerable to attack, and I feel that regulating blogs opens up free speech issues on the Net (which actually has no real enforceable laws regarding same, as most assume the US 1st Amendment as global writ, which is not the case). Personally, I think that Ms. Sierra is probably at little risk, and that her case is merely a high-profile case of relatively common practices, but not at her level of privilege. Should she be scared? Not enough to cancel her lecturing schedule. Should she be disturbed? Absolutely, because she sees a larger component than just her supportive community, and I, for one, am bored by the aggressive, adolescent subcultures of the Net. And if media are the collective unconscious of a society, I wonder what the "see only what I want", "do whatever I want as long as it isn't 'real'", culture's dreams of mayhem, aggression, and degradation create on larger scales are creating on a larger scale. Sure, I exaggerate, but probably not by much. Kathy Sierra should be disturbed, but not surprised, and wary, but not scared. Welcome to the Net, Kathy. I'm sorry that you have to see this sort of thing. I hope you will use your experience to create a constructive dialogue about web conduct rather than reacting in fear. We need people like you to take up that conversation. Patrick Lichty - Interactive Arts & Media Columbia College, Chicago - Editor-In-Chief Intelligent Agent Magazine http://www.intelligentagent.com 225 288 5813 [EMAIL PROTECTED] "It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a
ODIHR, e-voting & i-voting
ODIHR is the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (http://www.osce.org/odihr/) It was invited by the Dutch government to observe the working of the last parliamentary elections (of november 2006) against a background of mounting criticism regarding the near-universal use of voting computers in the Netherlands. This critique was largely spawned and fueled by the group (now a foundation) We Do Not Trust Voting Computers (http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/English). The following is a translation of the item about ODIHR in the group's last newsletter. (http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/Nieuwsbrief_Nr._25_-_30_ maart_2007) (in Dutch) Oh Dear The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has as acronym ODIHR, usually pronouced "Oh Dear", and one of its activities it carries for the 53 member states of the OSCE is to observe elections and oversee the fairness and correctness of electoral procedures. Quite understandably, the emphasis is on so-called 'new democracies' where those in power have a tendency to be somewhat creative with the democratic process if they possibly can get away with it. We have written in a previous newsletter about the rather critical report ODIHR's Election Assessment Mission had submitted about the last Dutch parliamentary elections. ODIHR has now observed a number of elections where voting took place with voting computers or over the Internet. As the organisation now realises that e-voting nd i-voting may potentially present grave problems as far as the controlability of the election process is concerned, it convened a working meeting with representatives of countries, electoral observers teams and external experts. This took place on March 22-23, and Rop Gonggrijp attended it for the 'wedonottrustvotingcomputers' foundation. "It was quite a learning experience to come to know people who are familiar with the election process of so many countries. A number of participants were apparently still on the track that e-voting without a paper trail is perfectly controlable - if you go by the documentation accompanying certification papers and that sort of things. But in backroom discussions it appeared that the realisation is dawning that black box e-voting could be a boon for some big shots in some 'new democracies', saving them the inconveniance of dead journalists, banged-up opposition candidates and 'disapeared' ballot boxes - and that they might discover this rather sooner than later;" The meeting's discussion focused on a document that mainly attempts to establish a check-list of sorts for observation teams to use when monitoring e-voting systems. Introduction of a paper trail is mentioned as one of the measures that might lead to a better controlability. Our group has requested that paper trail be given a more prominent and separate place and to define and distinguish two categories of e-voting. We do hope that the discussion will continue inside ODIHR, and that what has come out of this study will translate in new, additional directives. Q&D translation by patrice riemens # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
