Mike Gurstein wrote:
> http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/is-facebook-a-human-right-egypt-and-tunisia-transform-social-media/
>
> Something a bit provocative from my blog.
>
> Comments/critique sincerely welcomed...
I'm pretty much with you down to the last sentence.
If we see human rights as seamlessly encompassing activities and
associations in both physical and virtual environments perhaps
then we must begin to look at the virtual world which to this time
has been seen by many as a normless wild west rather as one where
the kinds of protections and regulatory frameworks (including
existing human rights legislation) would apply equally to online
as off-line behaviours and owners of platforms such as Facebook,
Twitter and YouTube should be seen not as owners of the space and
behaviours being manifest through their systems but rather as
proprietors of virtual venues where these behaviours are taking
place.
The *users* of such digital venues should be regarded as doing in
cyberspace the same sort of thing that they do in the town square
where freedom of assembly, association, speech etc. apply and so a
government should not excavate or barricade the digital town square or
sweep it with metaphorical gunfire.
But Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are not town squares. They're in
some sense the new agora but they are private property, owned by
for-profit corporate entities. So we have a situation kinda like a
town where the public common has been built over by a giant shopping
mall. The mall has (and advertises) a "public" space, typically the
"food court" where people can meet, chat and hang out. But what if
some little controversy arises? One that directly affects the trade
and profit of the mall and its businesses; one that causes one of the
town fathers to drop by for some quiet conversation about the
vulnerability of the mall's licenses and services? Right away the
"public space" is very much private property and (in the US, armed)
security guys will tell you what you can and can't do.
This reflects the whole reason for the existence of democratic
governments in place of feudal fiefdoms. It shows up in the debate
over net neutrality. The major owners of glass & copper don't like
the notion that people should do as they please with their privately
owned but effectively public infobahn. Facebook won't like being told
that they're the civic agora and that users, not the corporate entity,
can to as they please.
> Comments/critique sincerely welcomed...
Please take this as a comment, not a criticism. It spins off from my
last post [1] about Sen. Lyons. I don't have, just now anyhow, a clear
alternative to what you wrote.
- Mike
[1] Where I seem to have omitted a couple of words. Should read:
We contrived corporate personhood, inflicted it upon ourselves and
continue to nourish its exfoliation.
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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