Notes from an Emergency [video]
youtube.com> Regulate ads to target content, not users.
This. 1000x.
At it's core this is essentially like sponsorship. Anecdote : I've always found sponsored content more useful than the ads that ad networks show me and they are also not creepy like traditional ads. Eg- I search for strawberries on google, click through a few links. Separately I visit a tech blog to learn about how to monitor a VPS, guess what shows up on a site about servers and software? Strawberries! Creepy as f*uck and completely out of place.
Do you think an ad network that focuses on targeting content rather than users will work? Are there any such networks already? If not, it's time to build one.
What's your selling point to advertisers though? That you're a worse-targeted version of the big guys? You could say you're more user-friendly, but I don't think that's a premium most advertisers are willing to subsidize.
If this were a good opportunity for an ad network, then we wouldn't need any regulation to force it.
This is why it's a regulatory argument, not a business argument. Without a regulatory floor, it's a race to the bottom.
People will always respond better to novel forms of advertising, and it takes bad actors some time to figure out how to game new kinds of online advertising. The result is ever more invasive surveillance and tracking techniques, in a Red Queen's race.
Maybe the selling point is "we place your ads where they will be relevant and users won't be so inclined to block them" and back that up with statistics.
It's ethical, so it won't backfire with the increasing share of savvy users. You'll probably have to ask for a lower price, but keep reading.
For sites you tell that it's ethical, like above, and that users won't block it because it's cached at your own server (you can do that because you don't track users). That may compensate for the smaller price. If it doesn't now, it will once more people start blocking ads.
For users you tell that it won't harm them, so they don't need to look into blockers (it will work if you take some effort to avoid malware too), and if they start blocking this kind of ad, you won't have any competitive advantage so harmful ads will win.
The selling point so advertisers would be click-through rates, engagement rates, proportion of ads blocked etc. But those numbers are kind of hard to predict. You would actually need to collect those numbers somewhere and compare them to numbers other advertising networks publish.
Typical 'idlewords :). Lots of good points intermingled with unwarranted jabs at Elon Musk, X-risk and anti-aging efforts. I suppose the latter are just signalling, but they do detract from the point he's making.
The points about tech running amok with the surveillance capitalism are spot on. I do have some doubts about other parts though; here are they in somewhat random order:
-- Problem solving.
I'm not buying this villifying of tech world for trying to avoid the "dirty political work". In fact, I believe it's a good approach. Turning a problem into a political issue pretty much guarantees that it won't be solved as people take sides and then invent arguments to rationalize their positions. Just look at the climate change - since it became politicized, it's close to impossible to do anything in the area (Trump's election in the US is not helping either). The only way to address it now is by ignoring the democratic process altogether - by doing research, developing new technologies, and hoping for the market forces to sort things out.
Moreover, why does the tech industry is always blamed for trying to avoid political work? Like, are there no human beings who don't work in tech industry that could try a different approach? Why is tech industry expected to do everything, and then at the same time gets called out for hubris?
Related, on tech and life extension efforts. I call the Comet King principle - "somebody has to and no one else will". Why is nobody else besides tech billionaires interested in putting serious resources into solving that problem?
-- Poland.
Is it an evil surveillance state now? I live there and I haven't noticed it.
-- Trump.
I'm starting to get a feeling that some people on anti-Trump side are just sore losers, and can't accept that he won democratic elections; no, it must be some conspiracy. I'm not endorsing what Trump is doing, but the facts on the ground are that many people did vote for him, and denying them agency makes it more difficult to notice the problems those people face in their lives.
"Lots of good points intermingled with unwarranted jabs at Elon Musk, X-risk and anti-aging efforts. I suppose the latter are just signalling, but they do detract from the point he's making."
They actually don't. These people are throwing billions of dollars at the wrong problems. There are problems solvable with a fraction of that affecting Americans across the board. If they want people to live longer, patent reform (eg reducing patent length) devaluing cancer drugs/equipment followed by buying them and non-profit manufacturing (i.e. low margin) would save lots of lives or improve those who otherwise would mortgage a house. Likewise, hitting both copyright and patent law in a way to allow clean-slate clones of software like Oracle would fight lock-in. They could fund use of the courts plus tech-assisted cooperation on so many local issues that happen all over the place like gerrymandering or water supplies being poisoned. They might even build a new Tier 1 or Tier 3 ISP as a public benefit company w/ privacy and net neutrality in its charter plus a range of services from gigabit for businesses to wireless mesh for poor areas built on consumer routers. Edit to add investment into those lego-like, pre-fab houses and apartments that are dirt cheap vs traditional homes might make it easier to get more people affordable homes or reduce homelessness.
All kinds of existing problems can be solved with focused efforts by millionaires or billionaires. Instead, they're going to Mars, trying to live forever, or some other stuff while worrying about fantasy problems.
> These people are throwing billions of dollars at the wrong problems.
That's your (and idlewords's) opinion, but other people may disagree. In particular, I don't understand the desire to pick on Elon's work on the Mars program, when it pushes forward an industry with huge knock-on effects that are very beneficial to society[0], while he's also one of the few people doing high-impact work in fighting climate change. Tell me that's a "wrong" problem to solve.
You mention a bunch of other problems, but the thing is, most of them are problems that should be solved by our democratic governments. Who is a SV billionaire to tell us how copyright law should work? Not to mention, some of those problems are such that those billionaires could put all their wealth into solving them and in the end have little to show for it. Take gerrymandering - this is not something you can solve by just throwing money at it; the money will get stolen by the same people who perpetuate the problem.
Also, if you want billionaires to work on problems you deem to be "right", you should encourage them instead of mocking each one that choses to do some good instead of buying a new yacht. Or, if you prefer a less consequentialist approach, let's focus on insulting all the other rich people, both within and outside of tech industry, who don't help solve social problems.
> They might even build a new Tier 1 or Tier 3 ISP as a public benefit company w/ privacy and net neutrality in its charter plus a range of services from gigabit for businesses to wireless mesh for poor areas built on consumer routers.
SpaceX is actually on its way to do that with their LEO Internet satellites program.
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When I talk about "unwarranted jabs", I mean things like the whole "Irreality" chapter of the talk, which is one long mix of ad-hominems and mocking people that disagree with him. So Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are suddenly trying to cause "the collapse of representative government". OpenAI is a cult now[1]. And anti-aging is obviously meant to ensure "that our big idea men don’t expire before the world has been received the full measure of their genius".
This is stuff that I'd expect to hear from John Oliver, who's running a comedy show. Not from someone who attempts to discuss serious issues.
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[0] - For starters, I'll refer you to WTFNasa, existence of GPS and the impact satellites have on global agriculture, healthcare, logistics and disease management.
[1] - his reasoning is explaioned more by his previous talk of AI; I'll leave discussing that particular talk to Scott Alexander - http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/01/g-k-chesterton-on-ai-ri....
"In particular, I don't understand the desire to pick on Elon's work on the Mars program, when it pushes forward an industry with huge knock-on effects that are very beneficial to society[0]"
So does fixing housing, media, universities, medical, copyright/patent law, and so on. They'll have immediate benefit to all kinds of people on a massive level. If anything, those ripple effects will likely be superior to a Mars project even creating more Elon Musks as opportunities and capabilities increase with critical costs decreasing.
Meanwhile, as technocrati screw around like they are, the real elites that own this country continue doing the reverse of what I suggest controlling more and more doing more and more damage to the benefit of the tiniest few. Those elites are focusing on all the critical areas with wide impact. Just with perverse incentives that lead to harm. The Elon Musks should do the same with more benevolent stance to act as a balance against them plus create opportunities instead of remove them. So, far the only large, tech companies lobbying Washington and working at those levels are the most harmful or selfish ones. The rest are just rich people parasiting on a system actual elites control. Too bad as the people need benevolent elites these days.
You completely lost me by calling a sizable majority of voters anti-democratic sore losers.
I didn't call them that - you did, by asserting that the sore losers I identified actually form the majority of the voting population.
EDIT:
Also, "you lost me" kool kid dismissal is supposed to be used with things mentioned early in the piece of writing, not with literally the last two sentences of the post. You admitted that you read everything, so no points for style :P.
You very much did. Go reread your comment.
You lost me is me telling you that I was entertaining your argument up to the point where you called the majority who voted for someone else sore losers.
The 'kool kid' slur seems pretty unnecessary. What value does that add to your argument?
Let me quote directly from my comment:
"I'm starting to get a feeling that some people on anti-Trump side are just sore losers, and can't accept that he won democratic elections; no, it must be some conspiracy."
Note the key word "some" here. I didn't call the majority of voters (or even of those not voting for Trump) "sore losers". Most people who didn't want Trump to win are sad about the outcome - that's normal. But there's a huge difference between being sad your side lost, and going around talking all the time about how the other side could not possibly have won (and it must be some kind of evil conspiracy).
The "wrong" side won, but the real question isn't how, it's why. As for answering it, 'idlewords says it's a "bug in the operating system of our democracy, one of the many ways that slavery still casts its shadow over American politics". Personally, I disagree. I think this is democracy working as designed, and the whole situation should be a sad lesson about a) what you get when lots of people feel they are treated unfairly, and b) that general population is kind of dumb in aggregate, and nationalism is unfortunately the default state (in-group/out-group).
That, and c) what you get when you let media spin the "Muslim == terrorism" narrative ad nauseam for close to two decades now.
Majority, sure. But I wouldn't call 54% (the percentage of voters who voted for somebody other than Trump) a "sizeable majority".
This paper, Natural Monopoly and Its Regulation Richard A. Posner (1968) gives a really good overview of how (and why) this might play out. http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...
Text version here: http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm
Ceglowski wants internet companies to be brought under stronger regulatory authority of local European governments, to protect societies and elections from pernicious forces in those companies and on the internet generally. He hopes there's a spillover benefit to people in other countries.
"Regulate, regulate, regulate!", Maciej urges.
Erdogan of Turkey says, "OK, Maciej!" – blocking Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, & Wikipedia in the name of social order.
Putin of Russia says, "OK, Maciej!" – running the Zuckerberg-of-Russia (Durov) out of the country, blocking protest websites, and moving Russia towards a Chinese model of internet content control.
Newly-elected Macron of France says, "OK, Maciej!" – following previous French initiatives to fine Google for failing to delete truthful news worldwide under EU 'Right to be Forgotten' rules, and to ban 'terrorist' websites by administrative decree, Macron pledges further regulations to "stop fake news".
Theresa May of the UK says, "OK, Maciej!" – unveiling a manifesto to make Britain "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet", penalizing internet companies that "direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm".
Obviously there is good and bad regulation. I go into specifics about what I want in the text version of this talk, and here:
But how often are snarky but otherwise mild-mannered technocrats like yourself able to set the agenda for internet regulation, as opposed to actual demagogues like (in varying degrees) Macron, May, Erdogan, and Putin?
Your "regulate, regulate, regulate" chant about the evil influences of the American internet will in practice drive more censorship then privacy protection – even when, as with the Tories' new internet-regulation manifesto, the censorship is itself dressed up in "data protection" guise.
Despots gonna despot regardless of what idlewords (or anyone else) does
What makes you think you'll get the regulation you want, vs. the regulation that whatever politician who picks up this cause wants?
If you want implementation of the six fixes you list there (which in general I think are pretty reasonable), you need to be out there beating that list specifically into peoples' heads, over and over again. You can't just call for blanket regulation, which will be interpreted in whatever self-serving way the politician who enacts it wants. Those six fixes need to be a meme in their own right in public consciousness, such that failure to implement them and only them will doom a politician in elections.
I promise that's what I'm out there doing.
Regarding the "right to go offline", I see an increasing trend of non-networking software that inexplicably "requires" the user to have an internet connection.
This trend may have the effect of coercing users to stay connected. (Even if the "requirement" is not truly a requirement but merely a suggestion or recommendation disguised as a directive.)
As such, users with the "right to go offline" may not do so because a company is telling them they must stay connected in order for some (non-networking) software to work.
There are many examples of such software, and at the risk of annoying some people, I will provide some.
But the nature of my question arises from the simple idea that sometimes software can accomplish it purpose without an internet connection, as will be familar to anyone who used such software before internet connections were inexpensive, "always on" or fast.
This a broad concept. It applies to all software.
Random example 1: Professional/hobbyist audio recording, editing software
Random example 2: Unnamed operating system setting world records for number of "updates"
"Office suite" software, e.g., word processor, spreadsheet, etc.
Can a user record and edit audio without having an internet connection?
Can a user read, create, edit a document or spreadsheet while being disconnected from the internet?
There are reasons that companies want users to stay connected.
However users are not always given full details on those reasons.
Obviously leaving computers connected poses risks for the user.
Users have to weight those risks. Should users be entitled to the full details? (Without having to use a program like "Little Snitch".)
The first question to ask is: Can a given program accomplish it purpose without using the network?
If yes, then the next question is: Why does a company "require" a user to have a working internet connection for the use of this software?
Free use of a user's internet connection by a company enables collecting user data and potentially generating revenue from user data, e.g., through advertising.
But should users give away their network bandwidth to companies to use however they see fit?
Even more, should users give away their RAM as if it was an inexpensive, infinite resource?
Software programs that generate revenue routinely increase "minimum RAM requirements" year by year but many times users receive no details on why the increases are needed.
The reasons could be legitimate however they might also be questionable. Without consideration of the undisclosed details, how can users make informed decisions?
The reasons are not legitimate, as evidenced by the very fact such software worked just fine "before internet connections were inexpensive".
The reason behind software forcing you to be on-line are quite simple: greater control and money-making potential.
- SaaS model makes a shit ton of money on the Internet; it makes deployment orders of magnitude cheaper (especially as it's cross-platform deployment), but it opens the possibility of (as the name suggests) turning what should be a product into a service - so now you get billed continuously for what you'd rather buy once, and this is ultimately possible because you can't pirate other people's servers.
- Entrepreneurs, seeing success of SaaS model, are trying to shove it everywhere. On the one hand, a lot of software that should stay native is moving into the web. On the other hand, there is this idiotic push of turning hardware into SaaS by connecting it to the cloud.
- If you're not aiming at renting your software away for money, there's at least possibility of money-making by selling data it collects.
And while I think a lot of permanently-connected software is simply designed with malicious intent, there's also developer laziness. Too lazy to learn anything but JavaScript? Let's make an Electron app. Too lazy to learn how to build native software? Let's host everything on our side and make an "embedded browser" mobile app. Too lazy to actually go out and ask users what are their problems? Let's hide "analytics" in the app[0]. And the "dev laziness" argument also explains why our applications still do mostly the same things they did 10 years ago, but max-out our current CPUs.
This all should be opposed, but I don't see it happening - the commercial and laziness incentives are all turning everything into cloud-first SaaS solutions.
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you are building a caricature of his argument, painting it with facism, and then knocking it down.
in other words: a straw man.
nothing you mention is advocated by the presenter.
It's not what Ceglowski advocates, but it's what this "regulate, regulate, regulate" chant, aimed against the evil-American-internet-giants, will more often achieve.
It's what those independent European politicians are already pushing. They couldn't care less about a little technocratic tweak like "only target ads based on content". They want rules, fines, and discretion that lets them bend internet media to match their ideologies and establishments. (Not to advance the progressive aims Ceglowski prefers.)
Maybe in a future presentation Ceglowski can explain the specific regulations he wants – how they can win enactment & then achieve good results. But he didn't even get to them in his time here, and even in the full transcript they're just superficial bullet points. That makes them seem like perfunctory afterthoughts – not at all ready to appear on the agenda, compared to the actual, rapidly-advancing internet-censorship regulations that Europe is already pushing.
Celgowski got one of the most original and accurate view of the world. He see the big picture.
I think that the phenomenon of rich people investing in life extension technology is inescapable - it's the one thing that having a billion dollars still can't fix right now, rich people die just the same as everyone else... But I agree with the sentiment that the world doesn't really need an immortal Larry Ellisson ;)
"Now some dopey kids in Palo Alto get to decide the political future of the European Union based on some coding bootcamp that they went to. This doesn't seem right."
Summary?
Here's a transcript of the talk: http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm
"The emergency I want to talk about is the rise of a vigorous ethnic nationalism in Europe and America. This nationalism makes skillful use of online tools, tools that we believed inherently promoted freedom, to advance an authoritarian agenda. ...
There are five Internet companies — Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. Together they have a market capitalization just under 3 trillion dollars.
And please regulate, regulate, regulate this industry, while you can."
The trouble for calling for regulation is that what you get is Theresa May's version.[1] Or the Great Firewall of China.
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...
The trouble with not regulating is what we currently have, unfettered data collection and retention. There obviously need to be rules around all the digital gold these companies are amassing.
The Chinese and Theresa May want what currently the tech giants have which is unregulated access to data. Except instead of it being in the current sandboxes they want to build their own.
Both are equally incorrect and stem from unregulated data access and lack of rules around data aggregation and the ecosystems that the data props up.
A simple workaround is to regulate the collection, storage and use of personally identifiable information.
There's nothing especially horrifying about Facebook not being allowed to use demographic profile information to target advertising.
How do we regulate in a way that limits the power of the big five without also hurting small businesses? Otherwise, the end result will almost certainly be to bolster Google and Facebook.
I honestly don't care if regulation that protects consumers ends up hurting small businesses.
Perhaps something else would also need to be done about Google and Facebook having too much power, but continuing to screw over everyone else to help small businesses isn't really on my personal radar.
Regulating adtech will really only hurt Google and Facebook, who are capturing all of the revenue growth.
Most kinds of limits on data retention should have no effect on small business (like the kind I run!).
By creating strong regulations to curb the worst practices of ad company tracking, then dismantling these monopolies the same way we did with Microsoft in the 90s.
The regulation of Microsoft is what got us where we are today in terms of loss of privacy.
The Microsoft model was:
1) Money from selling useful software that people buy
2) The web as an information source. Apps are actually software that is (paid for and) installed
3) The PC as hub for the user's digital Life
Instead, with help from the DOJ, Microsoft lost, and now we have the Google model
1) Software and services given away as enticement for user data which is then sold to advertisers.
2) Primacy of the web app over installed apps.
3) A central service as the hub of a user's digital life.
These together have eroded privacy and user's control over their data.
That's an interesting point. How do you think we should go after Google and company then?
"The Microsoft model was:
1) Money from selling useful software that people buy
2) The web as an information source. Apps are actually software that is (paid for and) installed
3) The PC as hub for the user's digital Life"
That is not what got Microsoft where they were. Microsoft cut deals with monopoly and oligopoly providers to make their stuff defaults. They used all kinds of shady techniques to create network effects such as getting OEM's to use them by default instead of competition (consumers rarely switch). Then, their lockin due to obscure data formats and protocols made transitioning or interoperability very difficult. Like IBM and Oracle, they kept patenting things (artificial monopolies) to use to sue or force acquisitions of opponents. For open standards, they practiced "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish." These kind of techniques created a situation where customers were essentially forced to stay on or acquire their products to be part of the ecosystem which was 90% of the market or something. This got them billions of dollars plus a lot of antitrust action.
"Instead, with help from the DOJ, Microsoft lost, and now we have the Google model"
Microsoft is still one of the richest companies in existence along with IBM and Apple. These still use the old models (licensing software and suing w/ patents) plus offer stuff with the new model. It didn't go away due to regulation. There's tons of proprietary apps out there.
"1) Software and services given away as enticement for user data which is then sold to advertisers.
2) Primacy of the web app over installed apps."
Web primacy wasn't due to antitrust or anything like that. Web apps have no installation, work across devices (in theory), and update automatically. The reason native apps didn't is because of greedy companies in private sector fighting with each other more than helping each other. A regulation making a standard might have actually helped just because there would be a deployment target. The ad-driven model came from market demand where they consistently and massively chose ad-funded sites over stuff they paid for. This combined with VC money, copyright/patent monopolies, and sometimes Wall St requirements post-IPO created with private sector bribes to politicians turned that into new oligopolies of companies that are dominating certain areas such as search, email, e-commerce, payment, and social media.
So, a combination of foolish demand by markets, choices by VC's, founders wanting to be rich, CEO's doing as much monopolistic practice as possible, companies fighting instead of working on common ground, and corrupt politicians collectively led to this situation. It was improved a little bit on a few occasions by regulation but overall its impact pales in comparison to other factors.
I'm not at all confident that the Microsoft antitrust moves really did much to erode their dominance on the desktop -- rather, the desktop becoming less relevant has done that.
If anyone won from those actions, it was Google...
Talking about the great firewall, didn't Bono of all people praise it as a demonstration that filtering the net was possible? His statement was in the context of unlicensed copying (aka piracy).
And frankly if they want to deal with the rise of nationalism, they need to have a long hard look at the financial market and their destructive behavior.
What is needed is for the big finance houses to fall, and for the Euro zone to drop the whole austerity insanity.
Until then the left have no proper counterpoint to the rising nationalism, as said nationalism is largely feeding off anti-austerity, and thus anti-EU, opinions.