The Coming Government Showdown over Live Video Streaming
http://lauren.vortex.com/2016/07/the-coming-government-showdown-over-live-video-streaming
Over the last few days, we've dramatically seen the force of Internet
live video streaming, and the obvious hints of policy battles to come
regarding this powerful technology are clearly emerging.
Beyond the tragic images of a man shot to death by police in his car,
and then a sniper in Dallas who ultimately killed five officers, we've
already seen other ugly shadows of what might become the new normal,
including a streamed rape and suicide -- both streamed by the
perpetrators themselves for maximal publicity.
And yes, this is only the beginning. For while it has been possible to
stream live video from portable devices since years ago, only now has
the concept reached a critical mass, an "inflection" point where it is
likely to have enormous impact on society at large.
While most of the attention to date has been on Facebook's video
streaming app, Google and other firms also have live streaming
services, and that number can only be expected to grow for the
foreseeable future, around the world.
Notably, these streaming systems typically include the means for
viewers to comment live back to the video originators during the
streams themselves, to do everything from expressing admiration or
condemnation, to "simply" urging them on.
The positive public interest and probative value in the streaming of
many public events is fairly obvious in most cases.
But even in the public space the associated dilemmas are vast.
Unfortunately, large audiences can bring out the worst in some people,
and there is an enormous range of potential abuse for this technology
in an ecosystem of unfiltered live streaming -- in terms of
risk-taking behavior to please your streaming audience, encouraging
violence (either explicitly or implicitly), privacy attacks, and other
abuses.
Even when no harm is actually intended, the mere fact of a live
streamed dramatic event with a significant viewership will in some
situations lead to potentially dangerous "flash crowds" as nearby
viewers rush to participate in person.
And while these risks exist aplenty even with streaming from public
places, the potential problems likely multiple by orders of magnitude
when we consider live video streaming from private homes or
businesses, perhaps by surreptitious means.
The bottom line is that live video streaming is a quintessential tool.
It can be used for enormous good that could greatly enhance public
knowledge and participatory democracy. It can also provide a morbid
audience and incentive for hideous monsters (including both
individuals and groups) whose real world streamed depravities could
make fictional "torture porn" films pale by comparison.
So we find ourselves facing a familiar dilemma. If live video
streaming firms don't do the hard policy work required to provide
reasonable controls over and filtering of this content, we can be sure
that governments around the world -- both of their own volition and
pressured by their citizens -- will move forcefully to enact control
and censorship regimes to meet their perceived agendas.
And history tells us that once that kind of censorship takes hold,
it's extremely difficult to stop from spreading in all directions.
This makes it more imperative than ever that we move forward toward
establishing best practices and policies to harness this uber-powerful
technology in a reasonable manner, before governments move in with
possibly knee-jerk "solutions" that will almost certainly make matters
worse, not better.
I don't claim to have any magic wands available for addressing these
complicated issues, though my gut feeling is that we should be able to
harness the enormous crowdsourcing power of the Net to rapidly
categorize streams in real time and trigger filtering or other actions
as appropriate.
But just sitting on our hands about this is not a viable option. That
is, unless our goal is to see an incredibly useful technology being
branded as "the enemy" just as it's really beginning to flower.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently
doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone.
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