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August 14, 2007
Control is (still) out of control
When everyone is a publisher, a broadcaster or a community organizer, the remaining few who cling to withering models of control and censorship may as well put themselves on the endangered species list.
That's why when they suddenly appear, we stop and stare as if they've just been run over on a busy downtown street.
Like the wreck created by this producer of technology events. It threatened to ban journalists and bloggers from their events if they hosted their own post-event party or gathering.
All because David Berlind at ZDNet wanted to host his own after-party with computers and wifi (and free food and drinks) so company exhibitors and journalists could meet, talk and get more info for their stories, including photos and video. All, basically, that would promote the event.
After the company issued its threat, Berlind retorted with a scathing blog post calling on tech journalists to boycott future events. A competitor, ShowStoppers, recognized the opportunity and issued an open invitation for Berlind to organize any gathering he would like after their events. Touche.
As Berlind says, "With the blogosphere and the Net operating on a need for speed basis, [ShowStoppers founder Steve Leon] understands how perfectly complementary a physical social networking event... would be to his events."
Then there's the story of a little-known organization called Morality in Media, a conservative religious group that the New York Times says has been hired by the U.S. government to harvest and review complaints about "obscene matter" on the Internets for possible prosecution. A congressional earmark funds the group's existence, another one of those head-shaking government funding stories.
Other than collect names (and money), Morality in Media has had zero effect. How could it? With over a billion world citizens online, message control or content evaluations imposed by the government, big corporations or just about anyone else has never been weaker. Like ShowStoppers, the blogs and video-sharing sites merely scoot around anything that bows to censorship pressure.
Control has been redirected to the people, no matter how wrong or dangerous that seems to the remaining few.
(Hat tip to Darin Velin for telling us about David Berlind.)
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"Control has been redirected to the people, no matter how wrong or dangerous that seems to the remaining few."
Unfortunately, the "few" I need to understand that, never will.
I'm guessing they will get it eventually Jeanne.
"That's why when they suddenly appear, we stop and stare as if they've just been run over on a busy downtown street."
Doesn't this point more toward the need to redefine what is meant corporately (within community) by "control"?
Even in a society where we have freedom of speech and freedom of the press, there must be some amount of control. The classic example is yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre. I fear that we have too many people yelling "fire" on the web, but we have no means to figure out who these people are. Often, the best means to determine the validity of people's claims is by association. When a reporter works for a respected newspaper, his work if trusted more than when he works for a supermarket tabloid. On the internet, people are independent, but they can associate together and through that association their work gains the validity of the group. For this to work, there must be some control within the group or the whole group suffers. Call this censorship if you like, but it is a type of censorship that is beneficial to those who are censored.
"Control has been redirected to the people, no matter how wrong or dangerous that seems to the remaining few." Unfortunately, many real estate professionals I deal with daily have not been told that, without a doubt, "Control has been redirected to the people ..."
Great post!
