Teaching the Internet and Web to forget (and forgive)?

“As humans we have the capacity to remember – and to forget. For millennia remembering was hard, and forgetting easy. By default, we would forget. Digital technology has inverted this. Today, with affordable storage, effortless retrieval and global access remembering has become the default, for us individually and for society as a whole. We store our digital photos irrespective of whether they are good or not – because even choosing which to throw away is too time-consuming, and keep different versions of the documents we work on, just in case we ever need to go back to an earlier one. Google saves every search query, and millions of video surveillance cameras retain our movements. In this article I analyze this shift and link it to technological innovation and information economics. Then I suggest why we may want to worry about the shift, and call for what I term data ecology. In contrast to others I do not call for comprehensive new laws or constitutional adjudication. Instead I propose a simple rule that reinstates the default of forgetting our societies have experienced for millennia, and I show how a combination of law and technology can achieve this shift.”

This abstract of a paper by a Professor at Harvard brings to light what we often tend to forget whenever we put up a self-depreciating or risqué video, a photo or a story on a social networking site such as Facebook or send it around via email – the Internet and web don’t easily forget. The consequences of such material available for years on end after we initially post them can range from mildly embarrassing to extremely serious.

Should the Net forget? is a recent post that examines the darker side of information in the public domain that is erroneous and yet continues to affect the lives of those connected with the story.

Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing ends with a fascinating proposal – introduction the art of forgetting to information architectures such as the Internet, the web and what is increasingly called the cloud – ubiquitous, always-on information generation, dissemination and archival systems.

I propose that we shift the default when storing personal information back to where it has been for millennia, from remembering forever to forgetting over time. I suggest that we achieve this reversal with a combination of law and software. The primary role of law in my proposal is to mandate that those who create software that collects and stores data build into their code not only the ability to forget with time, but make such forgetting the default.

Recent cases involving Facebook suggest not just concerns of the invasion of privacy, but also the dangers of information that reside on the servers of commercial corporations with incredible definitions of privacy and more dangerously, are used by many who simply don’t understand the perils of putting information only meant for close friends and relations for public display on the web.

This raises some interesting design considerations for web and Internet architectures in support of peacebuilding and reconciliation. How does one build in forgetfulness into these systems? Technically, this would far less a challenge than selling a “forgetful” system to stakeholders in a peace process, conditioned by a Google-mentality to believe that information must be stored for eternity. Does a “forgetful” system aid or impede reconciliation? If systems are made to forget, can we make them remember on demand? And if so, what would be the purpose of making the system forget in the first instance – is it just to make it harder for people to access information after a given period of time?

As Nicholas Carr avers:

So if we are programming the Web to remember, should we also be programming it to forget – not by expunging information, but by encouraging certain information to drift, so to speak, to the back of the Web’s mind?

Technorati Tags: ICT4Peace, Web design, SEO, Google

“Protecting social order” by policing the net?

“It is our duty to wipe out information that does public harm and disrupts social order,” the newspaper quoted the bureau’s deputy chief of Internet surveillance, Zhao Hongzhi, as saying.

He said the virtual police officers would protect “netizens” from harm.

Users will be able to click on the icons to connect to the bureau’s Internet Surveillance Centre, where they can report illegal activities, Mr Zhao said.

A story on BBC has an interesting twist to China’s reprehensible censorship of the Internet and web. The argument does not hold water – a State interested in strengthening human security (by protecting its citizens from harm) should in fact endorse the free flow of information.

Restrictions on information, such as the unofficial censorship of Tamilnet in Sri Lanka, only serve to raise the profile of the website so banned and point to a larger, systemic problem of a regime that seeks to control what it’s citizens should and should not think, consume and believe.

See also:
Citizen Journalism and humanitarian aid: Bane or boon?
Web censorship growing: Cause for alarm?
The limits of online freedom and activism?

Launch of ICT4Peace inventory wiki: A global database ICT in crisis management, humanitarian aid and peacebuilding

27th August 2007, Geneva, Switzerland: The ICT4Peace Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of its ICT4Peace Inventory Wiki, accessible immediately from http://www.ict4peace.org/inventory-1.html.

The ICT4Peace inventory wiki is one of three key foci of the ICT4Peace Foundation. It will be updated regularly and highlight emerging best practices from the field, significant research initiatives and well-grounded examples of ICT4Peace as defined in the Foundation’s mandate. This will include cataloguing at least 100 existing ICT tools and mechanisms – operational, legal and conceptual – geared towards conflict mitigation. The inventorisation will include initiatives identified by the report on ICT4peace by the ICT4Peace Foundation published in 2005, along with more recent examples from around the world in the use of ICT for conflict mitigation using PC’s, mobile phones, the web and the Internet.

“This tool provides a comprehensive overview of the many ways in which ICT is already used in crisis management.” said Daniel Stauffacher, Chairman of the ICT4Peace Foundation on the occasion of the launch of the launch of the ICT4Peace Inventory Wiki. He went on to say that “Over time, it will be an invaluable resource for policy makers, academia as well a practitioners in the field to share and learn from best practices and examples of ICT4Peace across the world.”

The ICT4Peace process spearheaded by the Foundation aims to enhance the performance of the international community in crisis management through the application of information and Communications Technology (ICT) – technologies that can facilitate effective and sustained communication between peoples, communities and stakeholders involved in crisis management, humanitarian aid and peacebuilding. Crisis management is defined, for the purposes of this process, as civilian and/or military intervention in a crisis that may be a violent or non-violent with the intention of preventing a further escalation of the crisis and facilitating its resolution.

Two other key foci of the Foundation are to enhance the performance of the international community in crisis management through ICT and develop templates for ICT, media and communications in conflict management. From 2007 – 2008, key partners in ICT4Peace will work with the United Nations, bilateral and multilateral donors, international NGOs, civil society organizations, academia and Universities as well as global business to establish ICT4Peace as integral to their approach to and understanding of crisis management. ICT4Peace will establish broad principles derived from operational best practices, integrate them into UN processes and make ICT part of UN evaluation exercises.

For more details on ICT4Peace and the Foundation’s work, please read our mission statement – http://www.ict4peace.org/mission-1.html. The Foundation also has a growing library of content related to ICT4Peace and a list of events that can be accessed through its library and events database respectively. Please visit our website for more information – http://www.ict4peace.org.

We encourage you to get in touch with the Foundation with details of your work and to find out more about the ICT4Peace process. Please email Mr. Daniel Stauffacher, Chairman of the ICT4Peace Foundation, at danielstauffacher@ict4peace.org.

Technology, Context and Culture – The gap between intention and reality

The New York Times today has a story written by a mother trying to keep tabs on her family’s activities. Her travails with online calendering, group (in this case, her family) scheduling and information sharing are deeply resonant to anyone who has experienced the very same challenges in humanitarian aid and peacebuilding contexts.

Michelle finds that the best solutions in the web fail to convince her family to share information. Each member has a different priority and little time to learn or share information with no reciprocal gain. It is only when the hint of an unpleasant family meeting is mooted that everyone rushes to share information, but then too in a haphazard fashion that overwhelmed the system with information not really central to the outcome desired.

Any of this sound familiar? The author’s solution is a revealing lesson for those who design systems for complex humanitarian aid and peacebuilding processes.

Read more here.

Community Media Over the Next Five Years

The Media Justice Fund of the Funding Exchange explores the changing landscape in its new journal, Imagining the (UN)Thinkable: Community Media Over the Next Five Years. This collection of essays pushes the boundaries of current research on media policy and provides critical information on the potential power of the internet, radio, and community-access TV to enhance social justice movements. Written from perspectives of people of color, low-income people, women and other marginalized communities, the report offers useful tools and strategies for media justice advocates.

An extremely US-centric publication, but it does have some interesting thoughts on the use of the internet and web for social activism. Download the full report here.

Continuous partial attention? Switch off!

Ken Yarmosh has a thought-provoking post titled Unplug.me.

“Always on connectivity seems to create a strange predilection to always know (”know” is relative to the thought above because the quality of what we “know” is questionable). For example, a mobile phone compels us to always be available or at least sets the expectation that we always should be. Friends and family become frustrated when they cannot immediately reach us, even in non-emergency situations, they call us several times in-a-row or quickly remind us that we did not call them back in a day’s time.”

Ken’s post reminded me of a post I read a long time ago on “continuous partial attention“, a phrase coined by Linda Stone, a former researcher at Microsoft.

On another note, Ken points out Andrew Keen’s new book and says that “…we become wrapped up in worlds we create; we often create mindless, unintellectual worlds closed to viewpoints other than our own.” Carte blanche statements like that make for good soundbites, but hold little value in a more rigorous analysis on social networking and citizen journalism.