Why the Internet is a Just a Myth

The internet as powerful as it is, also has a double edge. Not only does the internet make the truth easy to find, it simultaneously hides that truth in a massive rollicking sea of myth. To characterize it another way think of it like this, "the truth" (of whatever is in question) is not known by all users at all times. Since all users don't know everything they are quite free, and often expected, to spout out half truths, myths, and political musings; this is usually dependent upon the group to which the user's chose to associate with online.

Now all of these small myths can and quite often do add up into larger myths, legends, or urban legends. The most famous example that I can think of is that of the "Rocket Car." It was that all too good (or too awful) to believe. Yet this example shows just what the accelerated telephonic nature of the internet can do to an otherwise innocuous or joking remark, some individual somewhere will see a kernel of truth whether it is there or not.

Weather or not there is indeed kernel of truth has become a bit of a cottage industry, where the stakes are high. It has even spawned a mainstream media "truth-testing" shows (MythBusters, Decoded et al). Such truth seeking entities also have found a place in the political sphere, rising up around the discredited mythos of the mainstream paper and publishing industry.

The problem grows beyond any one nation's mainstream. It is becoming more and more common for those who are not citizens of a country to have strong opinions on legislation in countries other then their own. There is understandably a large amount of truth about the functions and applications of laws that surely escape these commentators.

This mythic ignorance even extends to a nations own citizens. Ask any person on the street what the laws of their nation are and you will get very broad answers. These individuals have only limited knowledge of the specifics and thus substitute this knowledge gap with myth and story. And now the internet makes that myth easy to post spread and sell!  

The smaller myths grow out of individual to individual and individual to group discussions and they result in the growth of a conglomerated myth. This myth can be many things but above all it is a story that at its heart has no intrinsic truth. These myths can serve group leaders and group influencers very well.  These myths build upon on another and as we have seen they can result in such myths as the Rocket Car. 

The Conglomerated Myth is often co-opted by the leaders of a group and thus the group only needs marginal involvement from these leaders (think, Osama Bin Laden). At its heart, there is an idea that myth serves mainly to motive individuals, often for strictly political ends.

Here is a graphical representation of the two parallel processes. These two processes act on each other through the individual. In this representation we can see the cycle of these processes. Each individual's nature, off-line associates, and choices affects how much one might believe a myth over the truth or a portion of one to a portion of the another.

Truth and Myth are very real forces that play on any individual who logs onto the internet, just as they would in any regular society. The only thing that the two forces have in common is the fact that these forces act on the on individual at a distance. The Conversations and content online are only echoes of the larger forces at work on individuals in larger society.

Anonymous's Shaky view on DDOS

Anonymous issues warning to UK government.

Anonymous is on shaky ground with this. Their view is that,

the use of Distributed Denial of Service (DdoS) attacks is simply the technological equivalent to blocking access to a building in a traditional form of protest. It said that it was “irrelevant” where the infrastructure was located, either in the real world or in cyberspace.

This claim is made in ignorance of the power of botnets. Thus in my view this undercuts Anonymous's claim to the technological high ground. The case that I cited previously refutes the point against such errant thinking. A sit in or protest requires a phyiscial presense while a DDOS can effect one computer "sitting" in multiple seats. There is a great deal of fairness lacking in anonymouss' analogy.

This is aside the fact that Governing actors, such as Egypt, would be quick to adopt such idea's in the spirit of the DOS, as they have done so recently.

Is this really Durkhiem's Utopia? Conglomeration vs. Definton.

I have been giving thought to a distinction made my Durkheim in his second preface to The Division of Labor in Society. This is a drawn from the quote I cited a few days ago.

instead of the corporation remaining a conglomerate body lacking unity, it must become, or rather become once more, a well defined, organised, group

In the analysis of the internet I feel that we can elucidate social network interaction if we define the differences between Conglomerate and Well Defined.

Why does this distinction matter? I would like to point attention to the thoughts and idea's of the modern security & intelligence analysts. John Robb in his first book Brave New War, illuminates the patchwork organization of the Iraqi insurgency, a mix of both loosely affiliated and non-affiliated groups fighting both against a common enemy (The United States) and at the same time fighting for their own interests (sectarian violence). Robb terms this state Open Source Warfare.

In our analysis we are trying to examine more closely identify and define the functional online relations between groups: just as these  insurgents are using the same tools available to anyone with an internet connection. In aggregate the groups that practice Open Source War, just as any other online grouping, are only a conglomerate and not a defined corporate body. In a way this is the perverse reality of the information age; yes groups with similar thoughts and feeling are brought together, however at the same time the different factions and sub-cults within that very same group also becomes apparent. This is even more exacerbated when these people share a similar jurisdiction.

This idea of function as part of online group behavior is probably going to be the most vexing problem to define. In fact it has baffled many and will continue to do so. Individuals have different habits of use. In fact the internet has pushed things to such an abstract level that such a functional definition of groups is practically impossible without having information that is only available to someone who is inside the group in question.

This reality should give the national security experts pause. Essentially the only way to accurately predict the behavior of any of the coming mobs is to have somebody on the ground there to serve a reporter of that mobs' actions. Given the cuts in the defense industry, the overstretch of the state, the spiraling debts and countless other problems for the state such a demand seems virtually impossible. Yet if Human Intelligence isn't developed, and quickly, then there is no accurate way to predict another Tunisia. Such is the sad truth of the any age, you need the right information, not more of it.       

The internet has made it so easy for people to express themselves that there has been a complete loss of the all process of adjudication and moderation. As I've said before there are very few barriers to entry. It is no surprise that the security experts are now worried about the next mob. Given the glut of information such mobs can effectively mask themselves in plain-sight.

So I think that in some instances the internet represents Durkheim's Utopia, yet I must add a large caveat, that his ideals do not extend to all instances online. In fact the very idea of a misshaped conglomerated body plays an important part in his work. We must, as the security experts already have, heed this warning and seek to find ways to seek definition and not content ourselves to be happy with mere conglomeration .

Lawful Limits to Netizen Behavior, Early Precednet.

Ga. man awarded $404,000 for libelous Internet postings

This is a good example of something that I believe will become more common, at least amongst netzien's that share the same physical jurisdictions.

I am sure most people will agree that letting the defendant continue simply because she was acting through her netizen persona would be deeply unfair to the aggreived party. Given this is fairly egraious tort, and I am doubtful that such similar actions at lower levels will be able to be brought into the sphere of lawful oversite. But this case sets a good precednet.

Was the defendants right to privacy violated? Definitively No. A judge weighed the case and found that the actions of the  netizen persona had brought enough harm to an innocent man that he felt obligated to issue a subpoena. There is no telling how this could have gone if the defendant were masking her IP or taking otherwise evasive actions. This is the great danger of over-extending the right to privacy. We could inadvertently create a system that protects criminal behavior at the expense of the innocent. 

Is there a fair standard of treatment amongst netizens? Doesn't everyone have the right to the truth? No matter who you are? This case is tied very much to its local. So I am not sure how this would have been played out if this grew beyond just one small jurisdiction. We can be thankful that this was a local case, or else there might not have been one.

All in all, it is very telling of the power of a single individual. I could quote Spider Man here, but I will spare you the cliche no matter how true it might be. The internet is a powerful social tool. It is always deeply unfortunate when someone levels that social power against someone in such a menacing way. 

Could this case have happened without the internet? I think we can tentatively answer yes; in a small town environment such events can, and unfortunately, do occur. The real power of the internet shows when we see the accused take on multiple different persona creating a lot of smoke when there might not be a fire. We must keep in mind the fact that most of our actions online (aside from Transactions) are our strictly rhetorical and theatrical in nature. That rhetorical power only actualizes when people agree. The great misfortune here is that this allowed this one person to pursue a vendetta, and to appear as a group to those who didn't know her secret. 
  

Salvaging the Stronger Threads

I have been continuing my reading of The Division of Labor and Society. Durkheim was very keen on the idea that like minded professional workers should form collective and mutually supportive organizations. One of Durkheim's most emphatic and repeated points is that morality arises from this corporative and communal behavior,

For a professional morality and code of law to become established within the various professions in the economy, instead of the corporation remaining a conglomerate body lacking unity, it must become, or rather become once more, a well defined, organised, group -- in short, a public institution. (The Division of Labor in Society, pg xxxvi)

Durkheim could not imagine how such corporations could grow into such powerful actors. This is despite the history of anti-trust actions by governing actors, some happening even in Durkheim's own time (see: Sherman Act of 1890). Durkheim in his work seems most concerned with the possible over-reach of the State and how should corporate entities relate to the governing authority.

Durkheim was unable to see what problems might would arise from the growing size of corporations and the individuals who captained them. He could not imagine the singular nature and the possible distortions that they would eventually encompass. One of the best example of this distortion is expressed in a candid shareholder question to Rupert Murdoch,

STOCKHOLDER: And going forward, then, would you be willing to have greater disclosure to shareholders around political contributions, both the policies and the actual dollar amounts? It’s particularly troubling to shareholders that, in particular, the U.S. Chamber contribution was only learned of by shareholders because of a leak to the press. Would the board consider much broader disclosure around shareholder — around political spending?

MURDOCH: We’ve considered it from time to time. I don’t believe we’ll [inaudible] it again, but we’ll see.

STOCKHOLDER: Would you be willing to engage shareholders in that process?

MURDOCH: No. Sorry, you have the right to vote us off the board if you don’t like that.

We all know that Rupert said this with the smug satisfaction that the shareholders really have no control at all over "his" corporation. Surely Durkheim would have pointed to this example as a distortion of the corporate body as he envisions in his work. However the separation of the rarefied and endowed "Froth" from the liquid body of the corporation seems to be a continual problem that Durkheim does not wish to acknowledge. Even though such separations seem to occur often enough throughout history.

This oversight, glaring as it might be,  is really of no import to us. We are most interested in the idea that morality grows out of corporative behavior, not necessarily corporations themselves (this distinction will be very important to our analysis later). 

Durkheim viewed corporative behavior and corporations as a refugee of moral value. This idea should be readily apparent to any netizen who has found like minded people online. Anyone who has been part of any social or online group knows that the "rules" or the "morals" differ slightly from one to the next. In fact, in the age of the internet we no longer need just like minded workers forming communities. Anyone can form their own grouping, now instead of just workers we have separate sub-cultures forming. Each of these groups has their own values and each is communing in the corporative behavior pushed by Durkheim.

Durkheim could never imagine the idea of people actually organizing without meeting face to face. This is the exciting social revolution that is the internet. Just what does this very fact encompass? Obviously though people are engaging in corporative behavior. But the jury still seems to be out of just what exactly this entails. Is this expression a "meta-expression?" The clashing of so many individual entities all at once makes these groups fluid in a way unfathomable to those past. In a way this reminds me of many of the connections between the Goo Balls that we see in The World of Goo. Some links are movable, others only work in certain situations or accomplish only specialized tasks for a specified period of time.

Such seems to be the nature of the internet, a version of Durkheim's own Utopia of moral corporative behavior expressed through the heights of individual interest. Unfortunate he was unable to visualize such possibility, otherwise history might remember him very very differently.  

The Problems, In No Particular Order

Here, very briefly, are the various topics that I would like to explore further. They are in no particular order, and to my mind, none is more pressing then any other. These are just the start as I am sure many more will grow out of these.  

- Person to Person interactions
     - How does lack of true knowledge of the other participants affect interaction?
     - How familiar should we expect people to be with those they interact with?
          - New visitor protocols, Troll identifiers....
     - How does the variable of privacy interact with social engagement?  

- Mass or Group Interactions
     - Standards of Use: is there even a standard? 
     - How susceptible are niche groups to groupthink? Is this even a problem?
     - Should their be outside (lawful) moderation?
     - How much wisdom can be gleaned from an undirected crowd?
     - How self-selection leads to the calcification of ideas
     - Independence, what are the social costs for breaking ranks with the group?

- Online Terrain vs. Physical Terrain
    - There is an infinite amount of "terrain" (domain space) online
    - However, Websites are still in many respects "property" of the payee
    - What does this "Ownership" entail in the Information Age?
         - Are there additional responsibilities for the domain owners?
   - How does physical local affect online solidarity?
   - Social or Informational Feudalism. 

- Transactional Relationships
    - What is expected of common law in these situations?
    - How should transactions be regulated? Should they be?
    - Should corporate bodies have different standards then individual users?

- Relations with Governing Actors
    - Physical location and access issues
    - Do people have an inalienable right to access?
    - If so, then how can we make that a reality?
 

Revaluation

I read the introduction/ translator's forward to The Division of Labor in Society yesterday. After doing so I am not sure that Durkheim has much explanatory value beyond his short chapters that deal with the "actual" state of the Labor Market. I still intend to read though The Division of Labor in Society but some of his contentions (such as, Mechanical Solidarity: Organic Solidarity :: Primitive Society: Modern Society) have already been well refuted by modern Anthropology.

Perhaps those who are already so informed can laugh at my ignorance, yet I still believe that Durkheim's writing serve as a good start point for explanations of the current state of society.

This talk of "society" begs the question, what society? This is why I believe that "anomie" is such a powerful concept for modern times. We are examining a new and wonderfully powerful social tool termed the internet. The internet does not discriminate. It even allows individuals to assume multiple different persona at absolutely no individual cost. There is really only one barrier to participation, that of language. And given the widespread use of English this barrier is only a partial one.

Logically, if taken all together, this leaves us with a large egalitarian construct. With the costs of long distance & complex communication reduced to almost nil it should be no surprise that outsourcing should become the norm. The elusive thought of solidarity that Durkheim chased in his time has become even more elusive now.

The society we seek to define is a large and encompassing one. Indeed some people see the web as a sort of meta-state unto itself. One where self-selected members advance their own views. The idea of an unaffiliated, stateless, netizen is, ironically enough, an older one from almost twenty years ago, yet this concept is bound to have profound impacts on our modern way of life.

This is why I find Durkheim's idea of "anomie" so compelling. Traditional divisions of labor, which are always in flux, are breaking down. The birth of the netizen has thrown traditional structures of governance into disarray (Wiki-leaks, Tunisa... pick your event).

It is also worth noting that ironically enough a person's two or more persona may be at odds with them themselves. "John Doe" the citizen might like the pay afforded by his office job and not much else. "John Doe" may have an alternate netizen persona, "Awesome Joe" and this expression of Joe may dislike the working conditions in India even more. This sincere dislike of working conditions, if shared by others at his location might make his employer uncomfortable. The company as well, is sure to be keen on the collective criticism levied against it by the netizen persona. This could then very well lead to the outsourcing of John Doe's good job to India, as the company seeks to appease online collective criticism. Complex perhaps, but this has been happening already for decades.

"Chaos" is too broad a description for this; however, "anomie" captures the essence of the woes of the job market and implies correctly that the future will very much be determined by a redefinition "solidarity" within the context of the choices of the individual. 

Anomie?

So what exactly is an "Anomie?" The term is drawn from the works of Emile Durkheim. To Durkheim "anomie" was a condition of general unsettling when the market does not provide enough institutions that are close enough to one another. To Durkheim, institutional closeness provides stability and perhaps more important solidarity. Durkheim elucidates, in an addendum to his dissertation, a social division where people and their disciplines have become specialized to the point of isolation. I feel these thoughts on the divisions of labor foreshadow the very real "niche" oriented overly specialized web of today. I have plans to develop this approach much more in the future.

To be clear I just discovered Durkheim recently after testing the conceptions held by many technology podcasters. I feel that most technology podcasters, like most experts online really, are suffering from their over-specializations. They have lost sight of the larger social picture whilst they press their own ideas. I plan to provide much more in this vein later. But suffice it to say that I am interested in Durkheim's demand for someone to serve as a linkage and connector among multiple specialties.        

This is a new venture for me. I am currently unemployed despite my efforts and I have needed to occupy my time. I have been trying to study the social nature of the internet and  keep myself busy between filling out applications, going to tests or interviews, and drilling for the Army Reserve. This blog is my attempt to add to this exciting and still developing discussion.

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