Hello Dmitry, I remember having talked to you at Unlike Us about how maybe the terms "Client" and "Server" should be exchanged<http://blog.projectdanube.org/2010/07/clients-and-servers/>, just like according to Marx "Arbeitnehmer" and "Arbeitgeber" are the wrong way round.
I don't know much about political theory, so I won't try to argue on this basis, but here's a little story: One month ago I was at the European Identity Conference, a very corporate kind of event trying to figure out what various identity/cloud topics mean for business. And guess what, there was a lot of talk about decentralized systems. One keynote speaker even mentioned that client/server was really just a nice way of saying slave/master. I talked a bit about the FreedomBox there, and people were genuinely interested. At a different conference (Internet Identity Workshop) I explained FreedomBox to someone from the World Economic Forum (not exactly a communist organization), and he LOVED it. See here<http://blog.projectdanube.org/2012/04/freedombox-at-the-european-identity-conference/>and here<http://blog.projectdanube.org/2012/05/freedombox-at-the-internet-identity-workshop/>for my blog posts about the 2 conferences. So I guess what I am saying is, maybe not all things are as black and white as they seem.. And maybe a hybrid model involving both centralized and decentralized components would be better than either one of the two extremes. Markus -- Project Danube: http://projectdanube.org Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium: http://personaldataecosystem.org/ On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 3:12 AM, Yosem Companys <[email protected]>wrote: > http://www.dmytri.info/privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/ > > Privacy, Moglen, @ioerror, #rp12 > > I gave a talk with Jacob Applebaum at last week's Re:publica conference in > Berlin. > > It seems it had fallen to us to break a little bad news. Here it is. > > - We are not progressing from a primitive era of centralized social media > to an emerging era of decentralized social media, the reverse is happening. > > - Surveillance and control of users is not some sort of unintended > consequence of social media platforms, it is the reason they exist. > > - Privacy is not simply a consumer choice, it is a matter of power and > privilege. > > Earlier at Re:publica, Eben Moglen, the brilliant and tireless legal > council of the Free Software Foundation and founder of the FreedomBox > Foundation, gave a characteristically excellent speech. > > However, in his enthusiasm, he makes makes a claim that seems very wrong. > > Moglen, claims that Facebook's days as a dominant platform are numbered, > because we will soon have decentralized social platforms, based on projects > such as FreedomBox, users will operate their own federated platforms and > form collective social platforms based on their own hardware, retain > control of their own data, etc. > > I can understand and share Moglen's enthusiasm for such a vision, however > this is not the observable history of our communications platforms, not the > obvious direction they seem to be headed, and there is no clear reason to > believe this will change. > > The trajectory that Moglen is using has centralized social media as the > starting point and distributed social media as the place we are moving > toward. But in actual fact, distributed social media is where we started, > and centralized platforms are where we have arrived. > > The Internet is a distributed social media platform. The classic internet > platforms that existed before the commercialization of the web provided all > the features of modern social media monopolies. > > Platforms like Usenet, Email, IRC and Finger allowed us to do everything > we do now with Facebook and friends. We could post status updates, share > pictures, send messages, etc. Yet, these platforms have been more or less > abandoned. So the question we need to address is not so much how we can > invent a distributed social platform, but how and why we started from a > fully distributed social platform and replaced it with centralized social > media monopolies. > > The answer is quite simple. The early internet was not significantly > capitalist funded, the change in application topology came along with > commercialization, and it is a consequence of the business models required > by capitalist investors to capture profit. > > The business model of social media platforms is surveillance and > behavioral control. The internet's original protocols and architecture made > surveillance and behavioral control more difficult. Once capital became the > dominant source of financing it directed investment toward centralized > platforms, which are better at providing such surveillance and control, the > original platforms were starved of financing. The centralized platforms > grew and the decentralized platforms submerged beneath the rising tides of > the capitalist web. > > This is nothing new. This was the same business model that capital devised > for media in general, such as network television. The customer of network > television is not the viewer, rather the viewer is the product, the > "audience commodity." The real customer is the advertisers and lobby groups > that want to control this audience. > > Network Television didn't provide the surveillance part, so advertisers > needed to employ market research and ratings firms such as Neielson for > that bit. This was a major advantage of social media, richer data from > better surveillance allowed for more effective behavioral control than ever > before possible, using tracking, targeting, machine learning, behavioral > retargeting, among many techniques made possible by the deep pool of data > companies like Facebook and Google have available. > > This is not a choice that capitalist made, this is the only way that > profit-driven organizations can provide a public good like a communication > platform. Capitalist investors must capture profit or lose their capital. > If their platforms can not capture profit, they vanish. > > So, if capitalism will not fund free, federated social platforms, what > will? For Moglen's optimistic trajectory to pan out, this implies that > funds can come from the public sector, or from volunteers/donators etc? But > if these sectors where capable of turning the tide on social media > monopolies, wouldn't they have already done so? After all, the internet > started out as a decentralized platform, so it's not like they had to play > catch-up, they had a significant head start. Yet, you could fill many a > curio case with technologies dreamed up and abandoned because they where > unable to be sustained without financing. > > http://www.dmytri.info/**privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/<http://www.dmytri.info/privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/> > > Give the continuous march of neoliberal public sector retrenchment, the > austerity craze and the ever increasing precariousness of most communities, > it seems unlikely the public or voluntary sectors will be the source of > such a dramatic turnaround. Given the general tendency of capitalist > economies toward accumulation and consolidation, such a turnaround seems > even less likely. > > Thus, there is no real reason to believe Moglen's trajectory will come > about. The obstacle to decentralized social media is not that it has not > been invented, but the profit-motive itself. Thus to reverse this > trajectory back towards decentralization, requires not so much technical > initiative, but political struggle. > > So long as we maintain the social choice to provision our communication > systems according to the profit motive, we will only get communications > platforms that allow for the capture of profit. Free, open systems, that > neither surveil, nor control, nor exclude, will not be funded, as they do > not provide the mechanisms required to capture profit. > > Facebook is worth billions precisely because of it's capacity for > surveillance and control. Same with Google. > > Thus, like the struggle for other public goods, like education, child > care, and health care, free communication platforms for the masses can only > come from collective political struggle to achieve such platforms. > > In the meantime, we have many clever and dedicated people contributing to > inventing alternative platforms, and these platforms can be very important > and worthwhile for the minority that will ever use them, but we do not have > the social will nor capacity to bring these platforms to the masses, and > given the dominance of capital in our society, it's not clear where such > capacity will come from. > > As surveillance and control is enforced by the powerful interests of > capital, privacy and autonomy become a question of power and privilege, not > just consumer choice. > > It's not simply a question of choosing to use certain platforms over > others, it's not a question of openness and visibility being the new way > people live in a networked society. Rather it's a fact that our platforms > are financed for the purpose of watching people and pushing them to behave > in ways that benefit the operators of the platform and their real > customers, the advertisers, and the industrial and political lobbies. The > platform exists to shape society according to the interests of these > advertisers and lobbies. > > As such, how coercive these platforms are largely depend on the degree to > which your behaviour is aligned with the platform-operators' profit-driven > objectives, and thus privacy and autonomy is not just a feature any given > platforms my or may not offer, but determine the possibility of resistance, > determine our ability to work against powerful interests' efforts to shape > society in ways we disagree with. As Jake said at our talk "We can't have > post-privacy until we are post-privilege" > > http://www.**dmytri.info/privacy-moglen-**ioerror-rp12/<http://www.dmytri.info/privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/> > > Eliminating privilege is a political struggle, not a technical one. > > I'll be at Stammtisch as usual around 9pm, please come by, anybody still > hanging around after #rp12 is more than welcome to join us. You can find us > here: http://bit.ly/buchhandlung > > A sharable version of this text can be found here: > > http://www.dmytri.info/**privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/<http://www.dmytri.info/privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/> > > -- > Dmytri Kleiner > Venture Communist > > > _______________________________________________ > liberationtech mailing list > [email protected] > > Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: > > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech > > If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click > above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily > digest?" > > You will need the user name and password you receive from the list > moderator in monthly reminders. 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