> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of Marvin Long, Jr.
[snip]
> Although he doesn't address the issue of mass media credibility in detail
> (it's not his primary topic for what must be a short essay), he does
> at least acknowledge the problem, as I mentioned above. He does not
> present an either-or case of Internet vs. mass media. It's a case of
> Internet *as* mass-media being misued and misunderstood.
I've heard that idea elsewhere, but I don't hear it from Friedman. And it
is flawed; if the Internet is mass media, then the definition of mass media
has changed considerably. It is a many-to-many medium, particularly in the
context in which Friedman is discussing it. The people in Indonesia are
learning thing -- things that obviously are not all true -- from new
sources.
> Friedman's point is not that Indonesia's elite 5% are ignorant. It's that
> a sufficiently dangerous number of them are willing to encourage the
> masses' hatred of Jews and Americans, using the 'Net's ostensible
> credibility as a bulwark against normal skepticism. It's that without
> education and access themselves, the masses are largely helpless in the
> face of such manipulation.
That's elitism. They are not helpless. They're waking up to the fact that
people are trying to manipulate them. They suspected that western media was
doing so; they'll figure out that people use the Internet to do the same.
One thing you can be sure of -- with 5 percent of the population wired,
alternative points of view are *available*, which was not so true
previously.
> The situation in Indonesia is just as static: a tiny elite controlling
> what the people have a right to know.
It's not static! Friedman is pointing out a change that the Internet has
brought about.
> The problem Friedman points out is
> that the Internet cannot redress that inequity if the masses of people
> don't have access to it. What the Internet can do is exacerbate the
> problem by lending authority to lies that certain elites choose to spread.
> I'd argue that if the wired 5% are not tearing each other's throats out in
> competition for power, then there is sufficient organization there for
> them to act as a biased filter of knowledge for their masses. Even if
they
> are tearing each other's throats out, it's still quite possible -- and
> apparently the case -- that there's sufficient consensus about a given
> issue ("Islam good, Judaism evil") for that consensus to be presented to
> the masses as incontrovertible truth.
None of this fits with Friedman's description of the Internet as
"unfiltered." Why do you imagine he used that word, if he isn't advocating
filtering of some kind? I doubt if he'd advocate outright censorship, but
I'm fairly certain he's advocating the kind of filtering that western mass
media applies to information. He doesn't say a word about increasing
Internet access in Indonesia or anywhere else. I have a hard time imagining
that this article would lead anyone to believe that Internet access is a
good thing. Who roots for more open sewers in their neighborhood?
What he's saying about Indonesia today is pretty much exactly the kind of
thing that people were saying about the west a few years ago when the
Internet first exploded. Reading something in print on the net gives it an
aura of credibility, etc. But in the space of a few years, people learned
to become skeptical again. And that has done far more good than any kind of
filtering system, particularly the one at work in the mass media (which
filters according to what sells advertising, of course).
> Saying that, you sound as though all masses are created equal with respect
> to the opportunity for knowledge, or as though Friedman think so. They're
> not, and there's nothing in Friedman's article to suggest that Friedman
> thinks they are.
People do have equal ability to learn. I'd argue that they don't learn from
the homogenized point of view of mass media. The "5 percent" represents a
huge and rapid increase. The expansion of points of view brought by the
Internet will do a great deal to provoke learning -- not "book learning" so
much as learning about liberty. Friedman doesn't care to see that; he's
expressing a preference for preventing the dissemination of points of view
that he thinks are harmful (sewage). That's what "filtering" means in this
essay, in my opinion.
> The problem Friedman presents is not that people cannot
> be trusted to make up their own minds; it's that a certain class of people
> aren't being given the opportunity to make up their own minds, and it's
> that the existence of the Internet can't solve that problem if it only
> belongs to a privileged few.
There's just no way that's what he's saying. If it were, he'd have called
for greater Internet access in Indonesia.
> I think he's also arguing that the Internet,
> by itself, will never be a sufficient solution to the problems of
> hatred that already exist. Again, the solutions he presents are not that
> people should watch more TV; it's that people need to meet more and know
> more about different peoples in personal, human to human contact.
I doubt it anyone regards it as a solution. And I think you're making my
case with the last sentence. I have no doubt that the Internet allows
people to see more points of view. Sometimes those points of view are not
in our interest, but that doesn't mean that it should be filtered to remove
them.
You could argue that Friedman wants the "filters" to be in the minds of the
people using the Internet. But he argues mostly against content -- scenes
"designed to inflame passions," producing only anger, making the world less
tolerant, less understanding, "an open sewer: an electronic conduit for
untreated, unfiltered information." That's not about educating people, it's
paternalism, passing judgment on content.
Would he really use the sewer metaphor if he didn't think that it needed to
be cleaned up?
Again, I'll argue that this is elitism -- he wants to give Indonesia a
"safe" Internet, scrubbed clean of what he regards as "sewage." And who is
he or any of the rest of us to make that judgment?
The fact that people become angry because of rumors spread via the Internet
is *encouraging*, as far as I'm concerned. It means that a real alternative
communications channel is opening up. Friedman might see a sewer, I see
fertilizer.
Nick
