Akademy: Freedom and the internet

Mathias Klang opened this year's Akademy with a keynote look at freedom and the internet. It was something of a cautionary tale that outlined the promises that technology brings, while noting that the dangers are often being overlooked. Klang comes from an academic and legal background—he is currently a researcher and senior lecturer at the University of Göteborg in Sweden—which gives him something of a different perspective on technology issues.

Klang's talk was titled "Expressions in Code and Freedom", but he came up with a different title the night before the talk: The TiVo-ization of everyday life. That title is "silly", but it does reflect some of the dangers he sees. He noted that he is not a programmer, but is surrounded by them, and they "put up with my stupidity". His background in the law means that he "likes reading licenses" and thinks everyone should. His current research is looking into social media, particularly in the area of control by the providers.

There have been multiple revolutions in communication over the years, with writing only coming about 6000 years ago or so. Punctuation did not arise until 200 BC and putting spaces between words is only 1000 years old. Gutenberg (who Klang called "The Steve Jobs of his day") revolutionized writing once again with the printing press, but the digitization of information was arguably the biggest revolution.

Once information has been digitized we can start connecting up the devices that store that data, which leads to the internet. The internet is not a bad thing, per se, but it is set up for control. The promise of the open web ("so wonderfully open, so wonderfully free") is great, but that openness invites people to come in and start closing it down in various ways.

The web started as an open platform, but that "wild web" is becoming an endangered species. For example, he said, we don't actually publish our own links anymore, instead we use various social media services to send each other links. That leaves us more and more dependent on the people who collect and store our data. It is becoming rare for people to create their own permanent web sites to store their data as it is largely being stored under the control of social media service providers.

"What would newspapers write about if we didn't have Facebook?", Klang asked. Perhaps they would write about the euro crisis instead, he joked. More seriously, social change is happening and much of it is being brought about by technology.

For example, he noted that online Scrabble games are all the rage right now. Two years ago, you wouldn't go to the pub and brag about playing Scrabble. But in Sweden (at least), people are constantly posting their high scores and such to Facebook.

Social media is set up to "create a performance lifestyle", he said. The whole idea behind it is to have an audience, but the tools used to reach that audience are controlled by the providers. Another example is Klang's Facebook post of a picture of his morning coffee as "my amazing coffee". He gets comments from people all over the world who are "lurking around my digital life". It is a bit creepy, overall. The things he routinely does online today would have been considered stalking ten years ago, but "now I'm Facebooking".

The walled gardens and information silos that typify many internet services are a threat. The service providers ensure that they "keep us entertained so we will supply them more data", he said. But, without access to the underlying code and data, we are totally at their mercy.

Klang gave more examples of how technology, social media in particular, is worming its way into everyday life. "People say that if you want to start a revolution, use Facebook", he said, and they generally point to the recent events in Egypt as an example. In Sweden, educators are asking "should we be teaching Facebook in school?" and "how do I use Facebook" as an educational tool?

Beyond that, even police departments are going online. The Swedish police now have a Facebook presence and have even had crimes reported to them via that mechanism. There was recently a "wonderful or sad" twitter message (i.e. "tweet") about a man lying unconscious in Göteborg. Klang does not think that's a good way to report such things, "but the police think it is and that's sad".

Certainly social media sites increase our ability to talk to one another, which is good. But much of that communication is being forced into these walled gardens, he said, "and that's scary".

"It's only technology" is something that is heard a lot, but that's something of a slippery slope. As an example, he pointed to tubular anti-homeless benches in Tokyo. Instead of passing a law against sleeping in parks or putting up a sign, the benches make it almost impossible to sleep on them. This is an example of TiVo-ization in real life, he said. If we create a law against sleeping on benches, there will be complaints about human rights, but creating a technological measure avoids those problems. "Design choices have consequences", Klang said.

"The more technology we embed into our lives, the less freedom we have", he said. We should all "love technology", but recognize that every piece of it has an effect on our lives. That includes all kinds of technology, not just gadgets and web sites, but things like chairs, desks, and carpets as well.

One of the problems is that the educational system teaches students how to use technology, "but we don't teach them code", Klang said. Sweden, for example, has been focusing on the use of various gadgets in schools, but you don't have to be "vaguely technical to use an iPhone or iPad". Educators are asking how to use the iPad in the classroom, rather than asking whether they should use the device.

He referenced Douglas Adams's notion of "digital natives", that those under a certain age (15, say) natively understand technology changes while those over a certain age (e.g. 35) will always be immigrants and lack that understanding. Klang would like to see everyone become a digital native so that the understanding of technology and the consequences of technological change become widespread.

He had several suggestions toward that goal. To begin with, we should all try to "hack society for openness". Our infrastructure remains open, so far, but much of what runs atop it isn't. Richard Stallman, was "not being friendly" when he started the free software movement; "he was being right", Klang said.

"Be that guy", he suggested, and tell people what their information habits are doing to their (and other people's) lives. He likened it to getting a PhD, where you do research that "you and four other people in the world care about", but when people ask, you explain what it is and why it's important. In this case, it is necessary to make people aware of the problems that arise when "going from an information deficit to an information circus", which is what we have seen over the last decade or more. He also said that we should read all of the end-user license agreements (EULAs) and terms of service that are presented to us, but "I know you won't".

He closed with the idea that developers should at least think about what their code does, and "how you are affecting other people". All of the different gadgets out there "manipulate lives", but who decides how they do that, he asked. Everything we do with technology has effects on others, so he encouraged developers to think about those effects. He was clear that he wasn't advocating not building new devices and technologies, only asking that developers think about how those technologies might be used—or abused.

[ The author would like to thank KDE e.V. for travel assistance to Tallinn for Akademy. ]