Part: One Rumor and Reputation in a Digital World
Chapter 2: How the Free Flow of Information Liberates and Constrains Us
The Internet allows information to flow more freely than ever before. We can communicate and share ideas in unprecedented ways. These developments are revolutionizing our self-expression and enhancing our freedom.
But there's a problem. We're heading toward a world where an extensive trail of information fragments about us will be forever preserved on the Internet, displayed instantly in a Google search. We will be forced to live with a detailed record beginning with childhood that will stay with us for life wherever we go, searchable and accessible from anywhere in the world. This data can often be of dubious reliability; it can be false and defamatory; or it can be true but deeply humiliating or discrediting. We may find it increasingly difficult to have a fresh start, a second chance, or a clean slate. We might find it harder to engage in self-exploration if every false step and foolish act is chronicled forever in a permanent record. This record will affect our ability to define our identities, to obtain jobs, to participate in public life, and more. Ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet might impede our freedom. How and why is this happening? How can the free flow of information make us more free yet less free as well?
Movable type: the fifteenth century
THE BIRTH OF THE BLOG
Movable Type: Then and Now
For centuries, books had to be painstakingly copied by hand, but in the mid-fifteenth century, Johann Gutenberg's printing press revolutionized the distribution of information. [1] The printing press worked through movable type, characters and letters that could be moved into different positions. The impact of this invention was astounding.
In more recent times we have witnessed the development of new forms of media, from the radio to the television, each ushering in profound changes in the way we communicate and receive information. Along with these technological innovations, the media have grown in dramatic fashion. Even with the printing press, printed matter was still for the elites, as most people were illiterate. But as literacy became more common, and as the costs of printed material declined, the print media underwent a dramatic revolution. In the United States before the Civil War, newspapers were scarce. In 1850 about one hundred papers had eight hundred thousand readers. By 1890 nine hundred papers served more than eight million readers -- an increase of 900 percent. [2]
Movable Type: the twenty-first century. "Movable Type" and the Movable Type logo are trademarks of Six Apart, Ltd.
Today, the media's size and scope are even more vast. Hundreds of magazines are published on nearly every topic imaginable. We can choose from a smorgasbord of twenty-four-hour television news networks and copious news magazine shows such as Dateline, Primetime, 20/20, 60 Minutes, and more. But only a select few can utilize the mainstream media to express themselves. Ordinary people might be able to get a letter to the editor in the newspaper, but few can routinely have their thoughts printed in the papers. Most people can't appear on CNN whenever they have something to say.
On the Internet, anybody can now communicate his or her thoughts to the entire world. Individuals are taking advantage of this new breathtaking ability through blogs and other websites where they can express themselves. So we're back to movable type again, but of a different sort: one of the blogging services today is named Movable Type. We're living in the next media revolution. This time, we are the media. [3]
Blogging Hits Primetime
Blogging is the rage these days. We all can be pundits now, sharing our thoughts and pictures with a worldwide audience. Bloggers pride themselves in being different from the mainstream media. Unlike the mainstream media, blogs are more interactive. Readers of blogs can post comments and have discussions. Debates occur between different blogs. In short, blogs are more akin to an ongoing conversation than to a mainstream media publication or broadcast. As the professors and popular bloggers Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell observe: "Blogging as an activity is almost exclusively a part-time, voluntary enterprise. The median income generated by a weblog is zero dollars; the number of individuals in the United States that earn their living from blogging is less than twenty. Despite these constraints, blogs appear to play an increasingly important role as a forum of public debate, with knock-on consequences for the media and for politics." [4]
Blogs are more egalitarian than the mainstream media. You don't need connections to editorial page editors to get heard. If you have something interesting to say, then you can say it. Many popular blogs are created not by celebrities or professional writers but by everyday people. And bloggers have served as a critical voice to the media, uncovering blunders and omissions in many mainstream media stories. [5] Drezner and Farrell note that "there is strong evidence that media elites -- editors, publishers, reporters, and columnists -- consume political blogs." Editors at major newspapers say (confess) that they read blogs. Drezner and Farrell explain that the media is paying attention to blogs because bloggers can provide special expertise on certain issues, blogs can be an inspiration for story ideas, and bloggers often get their opinions out faster than the mainstream media pundits. [6]
Blogging 101: How to Become a Blogger in Less than Three Minutes
Do you want to become a blogger? Well, you're in luck. You don't need to apply anywhere. You don't need to pay anything. Nobody can turn you down. All you need to do is go to one of the popular blogging websites, and you can set up an account for free (or at most, a few bucks per month). Some popular blogging websites include Blogger or TypePad. To set up your blog, you merely need to choose a name for it and a template for its look and style. In less than three minutes, you'll become a blogger, and with the click of a mouse, you can broadcast your thoughts live to the entire planet.
I still can't contain my amazement about these developments. Never before in history have ordinary people been able to reach out and communicate to so many around the globe. Of course, just because you now have the power to reach a worldwide audience doesn't mean that anybody will be reading. You need to attract some attention. To do that, you must have something interesting to say so others start blogging about it.
Each entry you write in your blog is called a "post." To post on your blog, you log in and write whatever you want. You can add pictures too. You then hit the publish button, and in a magic instant, your thoughts travel from your computer to the vast expanses of cyberspace. Each post is displayed chronologically on the website, with the most recent post appearing first.
Google's Blogger.com, which enables anyone to create a blog for free
You also can permit readers to add comments to your post. If you allow comments, readers' reactions to your post will appear below your text. A blog post can inspire some fascinating discussions. I really enjoy reading the comments to my posts and hearing people's responses. It is a form of instant feedback I rarely receive when I publish an article.
Bloggers, Bloggers Everywhere
It seems as though everybody's blogging these days. The person you're dating might be blogging a running commentary about your relationship. Your spouse might have a blog. Your employees might have one too -- or your boss. Your child might have a blog. Maybe even your dog. According to one estimate, about 20 percent of teens with Internet access have blogs. [7]
The entire universe of blogs is collectively referred to as the blogosphere. The blogosphere is big. There were about 50 blogs in 1999, a few thousand in 2000, more than 10 million in 2004, and more than 30 million in 2005. [8] By the end of July 2006 there were approximately 50 million blogs. [9] According to Technorati, a website that tracks blogs, each day brings 175,000 new blogs and 1.6 million new blog posts. [10]
Blogs in All Sizes, Shapes, and Colors
This chart from Technorati illustrates the increase in blog postings
Blogs range from the profound to the frivolous and cover nearly every topic, from music to celebrities to politics to sex to health to law. Among the more colorful blogs, The Daily Rotten covers "news you cannot possibly use." [11]
Wonkette dishes on inside-the-beltway gossip. [12] Gawker reports celebrity gossip from Manhattan. [13] Overheard in New York supplies snippets of dialogue that bloggers overhear during the day. [14] The Superficial posts paparazzi photos of celebrities, including shots of celebrities caught in the nude. [15] And then there are blogs that are downright bizarre. One blog has a section called "Steve, Don't Eat It," in which a blogger discusses his experiences trying such unusual foods as pickled pork rinds, Beggin' Strips for dogs, breast milk, and fermented soybeans. [16] There's a blog with videos of people crying while eating. [17] If these blogs are too odd for you, there's a blog called The Dullest Blog in the World with posts entitled "scratching my knee," "looking at a wall," "moving an item from one place to another," and "turning off a light." [18]
Beyond topical blogs, many keep blogs about the various events in their lives. A high-priced London call girl created a blog called Belle de Jour chronicling her life. She parlayed it into a book deal, and her blog will be made into a television drama. [19] People are starting blogs about coping with various illnesses, such as HIV and cancer. [20] Soldiers in Iraq are blogging about their experiences. A blog called DotMoms features the experiences of motherhood by a group of women. [21] At least one blogger chronicles his entire sexual history, with details about his more than two dozen sexual partners. [22] Other bloggers write about their daily activities and whatever thoughts are buzzing in their brains at the moment.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities, blogs enabled survivors to post information about lost family members so that people could reconnect and find loved ones. [23] Blogs have even helped solve crimes. In one chilling instance, a blogger helped catch his own murderer. In a May 2005 post written just minutes before he was killed, the blogger wrote:
Anyway today has been weird, at 3 some guy ringed the bell. I went down and recognized it was my sister's former boyfriend. He told me he wants to get his fishing poles back. I told him to wait downstair [sic] while I get them for him. While I was searching them, he is already in the house. He is still here right now, smoking, walking all around the house with his shoes on which btw I just washed the floor 2 days ago! Hopefully he will leave soon. [24]
The man didn't leave soon; instead, he stabbed the blogger and his sister repeatedly with a butcher knife. The police located the murderer by reading one victim's final blog post. [25]
Blogs are blossoming across the Internet. They are increasingly being woven into the fabric of society, and they are starting to play a profound role in our lives.
Journalists or Diarists?
By enabling virtually anybody with a computer to disclose information to world, the Internet is dissolving the boundaries between professional journalists and amateurs. Glenn Reynolds, a law professor and author of the very popular blog Instapundit, extols the virtues of the amateur journalist in his book, An Army of Davids. With the growth of blogs, he observes, "power once concentrated in the hands of a professional few has been redistributed into the hands of the amateur many." Known as The Blogfather because he created one of the first blogs, Reynolds argues that "technology has made it possible for individuals to become not merely pamphleteers, but vital sources of news and opinion that rival large metropolitan publishers in audience and influence." For Reynolds, these developments are marvelous: "I don't think that weblogs and flash media will replace Big Media any time soon. But I keep seeing evidence that they're doing a better and better job of supplementing, and challenging, Big Media coverage. I think that's a wonderful thing, and it's one reason why I'm such an evangelist for the spread of enabling technologies like Web video and cheap digital cameras."
"The end result of the blog revolution," Reynolds continues, "is to create what blogger Jim Teacher calls 'we-dia.' News and reporting used to be something 'they' did. Now it's something that we all do." [26] Indeed, some bloggers even received media credentials to report on the 2004 Democratic national convention. [27] U.S. senators are beginning to hold press conferences with bloggers. [28] Reynolds views blogging as a development that enhances the freedom of the little guy: "We're likely to see an army of Davids taking the place of those slow, shuffling Goliaths." [29]
But who's David? Glenn's vision of the blogger is rather romantic. The average blogger, however, isn't a journalist. According to one estimate, more than 50 percent of blogs are written by children and teenagers under age nineteen. [30] The most common blogger is "a teenage girl who uses the medium primarily to communicate with five to ten friends." [31] Many blogs are more akin to diaries than news articles, op-ed columns, or scholarship. According to one survey, bloggers most commonly write about their personal experiences (37 percent), while only 11 percent blog about politics. [32] In other words, David is more of a diarist than a journalist. And that's why there's a problem. In lieu of diaries, people are blogging. And bloggers are getting younger and younger. One news article reports that even seven-year-old children now have blogs. [33] As people chronicle the minutia of their daily lives from childhood onward in blog entries, online conversations, photographs, and videos, they are forever altering their futures -- and those of their friends, relatives, and others.
SOCIAL NETWORK WEB SITES
In addition to blogs, social network websites are emerging as a way people are sharing personal information online. These websites allow users to post a profile of themselves and link to the profiles of friends. The first social network websites emerged in the mid-1990s. Today there are more than two hundred social network websites. [34] Popular sites include My5pace, Facebook, Xanga, LiveJournal, and Friendster.
Cartoon by Jim Borgman, © King Features Syndicate, reprinted with permission
Social network websites are designed around the concept of social networks. A social network is a web of connections, such as a group of people who associate together. [35] Although we often cluster together in groups, our social circles are nor isolated. Some of the people we know are likely w be friendly with people in a different social circle. We're all connected in some way to each other. If I don't know you personally, there's still a good chance that at least one of my friends knows one of your friends.
In 1967 a psychologist named Stanley Milgram carried our a fascinating experiment w determine just how connected two strangers might be w each other. He selected a target person in Boston and gave letters to some randomly selected people in Nebraska. The letters were to go to the target in Boston, but each person could forward the letter only to people he or she knew personally. Surprisingly, it only took an average of six steps for the letter to get from the randomly selected recipients to the target person in Boston. [36]
This phenomenon has been described with the phrase "six degrees of separation," which originated in a play by John Guare in 1990. A character in the play observes: "Everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on the planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice .... It's not just the big names. It's anyone. A native in a rain forest. A Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people." [37]
Social network sites attempt to embody these concepts. Through them, networks of friends and acquaintances can interlink their profiles, share personal information, and communicate with each other. MySpace, currently the most popular social network website, was created in 2003. MySpace profiles can contain a ton of data, including phone numbers, email addresses, hobbies, religion, sexual orientation, political views, favorite television shows, and more. People can post photos and videos on their profiles. Each user has space for a blog, including a section where friends post comments. People often use their real names for their MySpace profiles.
To create a profile, a user must claim to be fourteen years of age or older. The profiles of users under age sixteen are private, but those older than sixteen can make their profiles available to the public. MySpace skyrocketed in popularity in part because it gave users a wide range of choices about how to develop their profiles. People create elaborate designs for their pages, decorating them with graphics and giving each a distinctive look and style. As one student said: "MySpace gives you more freedom to express yourself." [38]
In just a few short years, MySpace has expanded exponentially. By August 2006 MySpace had surpassed 100 million profiles. [39] It is growing by 230,000 new members each day. [40] With its viral growth and astounding size, My- Space was sold to media titan Rupert Murdock in 2005 for about $580 million. [41]
The social network component to MySpace involves the way people can link their profiles to those of their friends. There is a place on a person's profile called "Friend Space," which contains links to the profiles of a person's "friends" and often a picture of each friend. At the top of the Friend Space section is a tally of the total number of friends in the person's network. A "friend" on a social network site is not necessarily a close friend, as many people try to inflate the number of their friends by adding total strangers to the list. [42]
In realspace social networks, people have different kinds of ties with others. "Strong ties" are close connections (very close friends and relatives); "weak ties" are looser connections (acquaintances and others with whom people might have marginal contact). But according to the computer scientist Ralph Gross and the economist Alessandro Acquisti, social network websites "often reduce these nuanced connections to simplistic binary relations." [43] Few social network sites allow users to distinguish between close friends and mere acquaintances. [44]
The researchers Judith Donath and danah boyd question the quality of one's ties in social network sites; they argue that "the number of strong ties an individual can maintain may not be greatly increased by communication technology ... [but] the number of weak ties one can form and maintain may be able to increase substantially." [45] As Gross and Acquisti note, people's online social networks may be only an "imaginary" community because "thousands of users may be classified as friends of friends of an individual and become able to access her personal information, while, at the same time, the threshold to qualify as a friend on somebody's network is low." [46] Although MySpace allows users to keep their profile private or share it only with a few friends, most have their profile set to be fully accessible to the public. Profiles also appear in Google search results.
Another popular social network site is Facebook, used primarily by high school and college students. Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard University student, and its popularity fueled phenomenal growth. Just a few weeks after Facebook was launched, more than half the undergraduates at Harvard had created an account. Facebook soon began allowing students at other schools to sign up, and by the end of 2004 more than a million students had accounts. [47] Facebook continued to expand in 2005, adding thousands of colleges from around the world and more than twenty-five thousand high schools. By the end of 2005 it had more than eleven million accounts. [48] About twenty thousand new Facebook accounts are being created each day. In one study, more than 80 percent of college freshman signed up for Facebook accounts before the first day of school. [49] At many schools where Facebook is available, almost every student has an account. [50]
As on MySpace, Facebook users create profiles with personal information. According to one study of Facebook users at a particular school, the profiles "provide an astonishing amount of information: 90.8 percent of profiles contain an image, 87.8 percent of users reveal their birth date, 39.9 percent list a phone number ... and 50.8 percent list their current residence." [51] Moreover, "Facebook profiles tend to be fully identified with each participant's first and last names." [52] Facebook profiles have a feature called "Photo Albums," where users can post photos. Friends can post photos on each other's profiles. According to a study of users at one university, over the course of eight weeks, the total number of pictures grew from about ten thousand to eighty thousand, averaging more than twenty pictures per person. [53]
Social network websites are fast becoming a worldwide phenomenon. The social network website Orkut, for example, is immensely popular in Brazil. Named after its creator, the Google software engineer Orkut Buyukkokten, Orkut attracted more than eleven million Brazilian users as of mid-2006. [54] Although Orkut is run by Google in the United States, the majority of its users are in Brazil. To become a member of Orkut, a person originally had to be invited by an existing member, but Orkut later dropped the invitation requirement. [55] Orkut states that its "mission" is to "help you create a closer, more intimate network of friends" and "put you on a path to social bliss." [56] Orkut allows users to form various "communities" -- special forums for users with similar interests -- and it lets people rank their friends based on familiarity, trustworthiness, coolness, and sexiness. Orkut is also very popular in India, where about four million people have accounts, constituting more than 11 percent of Internet users in the country. [57] Social networking is taking off in India, which has a rapidly growing number of people online and many widely used sites, such as Fropper, Jhoom, Minglebox, and more. [58] In Canada the networking sites Piczo and Nexopia are widely used. [59] Launched in Spain, the site Adoos has been spreading quickly in South America. [60]
In Europe, Passado is one of the more popular sites, providing users with "ways to interact with one another such as blogging, photosharing, forums and broadcasts." Based in London, Passado has become widely used in Germany, Spain, and Italy, where it has more than five million members. [61] In the United Kingdom, the social network website Bebo has become very trendy. As of late 2006 it had more than twenty-two million users. [62] And in 2006, along with MySpace, Bebo was one of the most frequently searched words in Google. [63]
In Asia several social network websites are hugely popular. In Japan, Mixi (meaning "I mix") has attracted 6.5 million member as of late 2006, making it one of the most visited websites in the country. [64] In China the popular sites are Mop and Cuspace. [65] In South Korea, Cyworld reigns supreme, with an astonishing 92 percent of people in their twenties having an account, as well as 30 percent of the total population. [66] Cyworld encourages its users to place their personal information online: "Upload your photos, drawings and images -- we give you unlimited storage so you can save and display as many as you want." [67] Cyworld also has websites in China, Japan, and Taiwan. When Cyworld became available in China, one million people joined within six months. [68] By the end of 2006 Cyworld had about nineteen million Korean accounts and three million Chinese accounts. [69] Frequent users of Cyworld are referred to as "Cyholics." [70]
In short, there are social network sites in all shapes and sizes, and they are sprouting up around the globe. There are social network sites for Dogs (Dogster) as well as for Cats (Catster). [71] And not to be left out of the fun, even hamsters have their own social network website. [72]
INFORMATION EVERYWHERE
With blogs and social network sites, personal information is being posted online at a staggering rate. Given the ease at which information can be recorded and spread, there will be more instances when information we want to keep on a short leash will escape from our control. There are a number of well-known instances where people have had the misfortune of sending an email to the wrong people. One such email gained Internet infamy in 2003. A law student was working for a powerful New York law firm as a summer associate, a rather cushy job where firms try to recruit future attorneys by indulging them with expensive food and drink. One afternoon, after a nice long lunch, the student fired off this email to his friend:
I'm busy doing jack shit. Went to a nice 2hr sushi lunch today at Sushi Zen. Nice place. Spent the rest of the day typing emails and bullshitting with people. Unfortunately, I actually have work to do -- I'm on some corp finance deal, under the global head of corp finance, which means I should really peruse these materials and not be a fuckup ....
So yeah, Corporate Love hasn't worn off yet. ... But just give me time.
At the bottom was his name and his contact information. Another email followed a few hours later:
An apology
I am writing you in regard to an e-mail you received from me earlier today.
As I am aware that you opened the message, you probably saw that it was a personal communication that was inadvertently forwarded to the underwriting mailing list. Before it was retracted, it was received by approximately 40 people inside the Firm, about half of whom are partners.
I am thoroughly and utterly ashamed and embarrassed not only by my behavior, but by the implicit reflection such behavior could have on the Firm.
The email goes on for several more painful paragraphs. This incident demonstrates how easy it is for private communications to find their way into the wrong inboxes. But if this wasn't enough embarrassment, the email and the apology soon became the toast of the Internet. They were reproduced in all their glory, with the person's full name included, on numerous websites. The incident became so well known that the New Yorker ran a story about it. [73] If you run a Google search on the person's name, you can still pull up the emails in an instant.
Of course, it is easy to say that the student should have been more careful. But we're accustomed to living at a hyper pace these days, launching emails at breakneck speed. Leaks and miscues are bound to happen. Sometimes information winds up online because we put it there intentionally; sometimes it is accidental; and other times, it is put there without our knowledge and consent.