Several years have passed since Ippolita insisted on the need to distinguish the opening to 'free market' economy advocated by the gurus of open source from the freedoms that the free software movement continues to pose as basis for its vision of the digital worlds (1) . "Free software is a matter of freedom, not price" (2). Open source dedicated exclusively to define, for an entirely internal to the logic of the market, what are the best ways to distribute a product in an open manner, ie open. The playful attitude of hacker peer sharing was co-opted in a logic of work and time use for profit and not welfare, sterilization experienced the revolutionary potential and identified by Richard Stallman, 'Freedom 3: Freedom to Contribute to the community. "
The subsequent analysis of Google, a clearly hegemonic attempt to "organize all knowledge of the world", moved in the same vein (3). That is, show how the open logic, combined with the philosophy of academic excellence in California, found in the motto "Do not be evil" an excuse to let themselves be co-opted in the service of capitalism abundance of turbo illusion of unlimited growth. The fable is that more, bigger, faster is always better. Tomorrow is another day, and will be a better day, because in the background hatching faith embodied in the mirage on the button "I'm feeling lucky": a technique for good definition, the daughter of a disinterested scientific research, will meet all our needs and desires, immediately and effortlessly, with a simple click of the mouse.
Unfortunately, this claim of informational totalitarianism is less ridiculous than it might appear. Found that there is nothing to produce, and above all that unlimited growth is a chimera, even in the digital world, the race for the next useless shiny gadgets and strictly touch screen could falter, the crisis of growth should be around the corner. A minimum of awareness about our world should blow exhausted: instead of running to the growing chasm with headphones blaring we might begin to look around, look at each other, talk, to exchange what we need, imagine and build together something meaningful .
 The net cast
But no. Set up this giant machine made up of data-center technology, first-class brain and codes open promptly limited by NDA (Non-Disclosures Agreements) and the like, gotta fill it with something. Whatever. Can spend as little as possible, or better yet, free. Industrial production had to grow anything under vacuum, at no cost and with fabulous profits for the usual suspects, but how?
The network was already cast. Slowly, the broadband connections have made less asymmetrical (mainly due to investment incentives and a loss of the public sector to 'connect' and bridge the digital divide...), rates are down (but still unjustifiably high), the upload capacity is increased. And here reveal the solution to every problem: dump the contents of online users. What they have on their computers, cell phones, cameras, etc. Here is the ripe fruit opening to 'free market' means the ability to publish for everyone! And the best part, for the ideology of unlimited growth, is that the margin is huge, the process of "webbizzation" has just started and the prospects are excellent. In fact, for now it is mostly of metadata (tags, profiling, etc..), The "cloud" of cloud computing can increase by many orders of magnitude, since the tools to manage online documents (Gdocs, Facebook Doc with Microsoft Fuselabs, etc..) are still little used. One of the most effective weapons of mass distraction (4) ever developed: pantry satisfaction among users of different services so-called "web 2.0", which can not wait to post, tag, comment, link their photos, their video, Twitter, "texts" and those of their "friends" in the great mare nostrum of social networks (and why should it be "our", if you are in someone else's home, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter, Netlog, Youtube, or whatever his name?). Happy and excited to have on the table and in the pocket the last expensive tool for self-denunciation from the bottom, always connected and complete with integrated GPS, with which we will soon forget the shopping credit card, because those who should know always know what we are interested in and what we like, where we are, what we buy, what we do, with whom, etc.. etc.. And because the devices are getting smaller and less capacious, it is easy to foresee an explosion of the storage of personal data online.
And we got at today. Unlike when Ippolita crying in the wilderness geek enthusiasm that perhaps there was no need to put "everything on Google," by mail and over, because the delegation (including semi-unconscious) marks the beginning of the domain (in this case , technocratic), today many voices are raised against the social network, accused of violating the privacy of users. To be the result of mock revolutionary ideology, because the Internet is also a social movement, but as elitist and contradictory! (5) In particular, Facebook, say some commentators, is a project based on the ideology of 'radical transparency' (6), so it's in his nature to tend to publish everything indiscriminately, as evidenced by his latest moves (7) . We should also remember that investors on Facebook come from Paypal Mafia who are intertwined with the civilian and military intelligence services, say politicians of the libertarian American far right (people who thought Bush senior was a "moderate", so to speak) (8). Someone dares even to notice, from the privileged observatory of Harvard, that perhaps there is a bubble of social media, even from the economic point of view, since no one has yet shown that these social media make it possible to sell more products through custom targeted advertising (9). Even supporters are beginning to fear the ambitions of Facebook (10).
Beyond the specific proposals, rather unrealistic (The suicide machine on Facebook; Diaspora and Lorea to rebuild a social network 'free' complaints and petitions to the various Authority and the various guarantors also unable to guarantee themselves, etc..) someone begins to put his finger on the problem. The public (11). How 'open' code does not mean "make it free", then 'published' content does not mean making it "public". On the contrary. Continuing with the example for convenience of Facebook? just the opposite: everything that is posted becomes the sole property of the company, just read the TOS (Terms of Service). Why, was not published? It was not public? Oh no, published does not mean public. In almost all cases of "web 2.0" means, on the contrary, private, owned by a corporation or otherwise of a private company. Have you worked for them for free, then those who seek to capitalize on your skin using the advertising that you infect more and more. Then do not complain that you did not know.
Imagine your future
 Exactly. The situation is critical. But this story did not begin yesterday, there happened to be in this situation. Following discussions on the technological world, the iPhone iPad, from Android to Windows7, from Facebook to Chatroulette, to laugh for the ingenuity of gurus, passionate, simple user: a bitter laugh, Italy (which belongs to us at least as a way of thinking), a videocracy against our will where it is clear that not always will be the so-called democratic institutions to guarantee our rights, nor the machinery of a multinational voted with the goodness and progress for all to give us free of charge open-minded and freedom.
Rather, what was true yesterday is true today, and we are certainly not the first to support: one must be able to imagine their future in order to understand the present. Recalling his past, and creating a collective story, because memory is a collective, nothing is ever repeated, but the differences are similar, and the insipid soup of yesterday, a little adulterated, may be dished up as a radical innovation for tomorrow . If the imagination is the advertising, television or of another type, and are reflected in the "freedom of choice" of seventy applications for the iPhone (if you have nothing to do, and try to ten days, you'll have to next twenty years) or the possibility of having more than five hundred "friends" on Facebook (one dinner each, barely able to cross them all once every two years), well, maybe we have too little insisted on the need and desire to think of anything better.
The issue of networks
This is what we've written so far, and obviously we have to keep writing. Maybe not useless, but it is very pleasant and enjoyable, it makes us feel good even if it is an activity full of misunderstandings, difficulties and fatigue, once stolen from the need to make a living otherwise. We like to think of escape routes, and try to tell, imagine and build tools to achieve our desires. Make them available to an audience that is made by people, not to publish through the private megaphone of an intrusive Bulletin board of a corporation.
We are many in the same condition, to not cooperating, not wanting to participate in the crowdsourcing of the masses of social media. But we have nothing to do with the multitude, nor with the Empire: These categories are good for the hegemonic thinking, which identifies the alleged classes and interests and organize the fight, which ends however with the oppressed and the oppressors. It is not difficult to draw a parallel between the analysis of the network as host and the theory of NetWare. Fascio-liberist theorists of NetWar (John Arquilla in particular) are not far from the left-inspired negriana scholars of social networks: the basic idea is that you must win the hegemony. From the right or left, look at the issue of networks, space lattice, in a spirit of students of warfare, war of conquest apparently opposite, they think the same way (12). In the analysis of networks, including social, terminology is itself heavily militarized. On the other hand, returning to the material in the strict sense, the computers themselves are made with minerals of semi-conductors extracted from areas for this constantly at war (Central Africa, etc.).. On the other hand, the globalization of goods, especially the globalization of exploitation: our cool and ergonomic tools are produced by masses of workers in Asia, particularly China, to which you declare in the contract that you do not commit suicide at the factory. Thanks, guys. Meanwhile, we, as we gain the latest technological nonsense, can we be happy that some stunted tree was planted to offset emissions of CO2, but the green capitalism remains a folly as every productivist ideology. No one is pure, we are all involved.
But despite being immersed in this technological world, we'd like to take the distances, to write a sort of ethnography of social media. Not how they work (and there are how-to manuals for that), but why we are in this situation and how to influence it, by injecting diversity, chaos, the seeds of independence. We compromised and involved, but this does not mean we accept everything uncritically. Starting from the collective findings may be individual, in a process of alienation that proceed from the inside out, rather than the familiar from the extremity as happens in classical ethnographic observations. The savages are us, and we need to look decidedly subjective, not the supposed objectivity of an outside observer. And then, fortunately, the myth of scientific objectivity survives only in the worst clichés. It is more than a century that the hard sciences have taken the path of relativism, which is now also the "human sciences" to do so decisively. We need radical relativism, to distance ourselves, to observe from outside, to understand what we are doing, to make concrete our business and thus be able to communicate in a public space that must be preserved, and manufactured continuously renegotiated. Using the terminology of Harendt (13), we need to develop a discourse that becomes aware of our research activities.
Does anyone have any idea? We have some, let us know!
 Ippolita
info@ippolita.net
Translation by Enrico Massetti ("The other Fabrizio")
We of Ippolita
IThe research team Ippolita has coagulated in 2004 around the drafting of the essay "Open is not free - Digital Communities between ethical hackers and global market" (Eleuthera, 2005). Merge with different skills, from hacking to journalism, from philosophy to design. A multiple, complex and constantly evolving. Hippolyta is an old aunt to whom we owe so much, our vocation queer, but also the name of the server ippolita.net, a machine that is hosting writing projects. Collaborative writing of essays in shared scientific communication, especially in the digital world, but also writing computer code, that is, programs, software, bridges that can connect and relate the virtual worlds and the real worlds. Development of tools and methodologies to write together. Writing for building networks that are organized quite self-managed, writing to present to others what we do and who we are. Writing as a way to radically change the surrounding world, to influence radically. To build non-hierarchical spaces of interaction, that is, communication that reflects our needs and achieve our desires.
In 2006, circulated the idea of writing about the digital transition in the worlds ontology epistemology. Now it seemed clear that the "what" (what you know, epistemology) was quickly replaced by the 'who' (who you are, what access privileges to the data you have, what kind of world are you doing?): Management becomes of management and construction of knowledge. But it was not possible to write such a book, and because we were not able, either because it was extremely boring and had a very small audience, both those because they are not academics or celebrities, we could not get the funding or resources to devote to such a project.
So we looked around and noticed Google. It was impossible not to see it! The actor most massive in the field, the search engine more widely known, used and versatile. His goal (mission, touted by 'evangelists'): organize all knowledge of the world. A dream of totalitarian control, as the Enlightenment mold. But Google was and still is just one example of the drift in place: the alarming spread of a practice of delegating to an entity of its own hegemonic "intentions of research." These mechanisms of delegation in respect of digital tools are clearly represented by the well known Google button, "I feel lucky 'one click, and my desires and makes them want a technocratic subject. We do not care how he does, but that leads us immediately to what we want. But the research is a path, a building. But here it comes to finding, not searching. And he knows what we want to find even better than we do! Because we know well, since we are willing to leave all our messages online, email, personal photos, of our favorite places as well as traces of our research.
Google takes advantage of the huge mass of data in its possession for accurate profiling is needed to provide contextual advertising, tailored to our research but also the content of our emails. Millions of small advertisers pay to advertise their products fairly directly to people potentially affected, as identified by the keywords contained in their mail in their online browsing. So Google's free, because we are the money: what we write, search, find, people we know, all our movements online.
The question was not to avoid using Google, demonizing the search giant, but simply to understand, through a common example, how technology is changing our relationship with the world and with others. The Internet is an open window from which to explore, but also an open door on our own world. Being trained in the use of digital instruments becomes increasingly necessary, not to surrender completely to the technocratic domain. This research has become a sage, lights and shadows of Google - past and future of the metadata (Feltrinelli, 2007), also published in French (La face cachée de Google, et Rivages Payot, 2008) and Spanish (El lado oscuro de Google, Virus Editorial, 2010), available in English translation (The dark side of Google). Like all the works of Ippolita, is distributed under a copyleft license, which transforms the copyright permission of the author. So not only it isn't a criminal offense to photocopy it and circulate it (in Italy, copyright is protected through criminal law!), But you can also download for free from
http://ippolita.net/google.
And we got to today. For some time, Ippolita is studying the social networks - and how could we avoid it? Over five million users on Facebook, hundreds of millions on Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, etc.. sharing messages, photos, data of all kinds, are a phenomenon that affects us even if we do not directly use these platforms. It happens to be "tagged" on Facebook, maybe photographed at a party and end up immediately online, with name and surname. The situation is complicated. We decided to write something. The following article is the first in a series that aims to analyze the phenomenon of "online social networks" from different perspectives: socio-historical, philosophical, technical, economic, anthropological, psychological. Each article will be translated into several languages and circulated, the reactions received will be built on the basis of a chapter to each, so you have an image as complete as possible from different points of view. It will be a starting point for code projects. So any suggestion or criticism (constructive) is welcome, and who is able and willing to come forward to translate!
info@ippolita.net |
ADDENDA method:
industrial vs search friendly research.
Any research must be translated into a textual product (to overcome logocentrism ...), otherwise would remain a solitary game, intern to the research team. But the imperative of production is an end in itself, the perversion of the economy in economy, which justifies the means of hierarchical production, authoritarian and corrupt. Much of the scientific research is useless, for example, when wastes resources perpetuating academic baronies, or even harmful, typically when it is perverted by military funding for the development of armaments. Curiosity and a desire to learn are often castrated by grim profitability criteria that govern public and private funding.
In theory, if the search does not produce technological artifacts that can generate immediate income, it is not interesting. This is the main argument to penalize the basic research. But then, in practice, even the most insipid lyrics search - that basically have nothing - can produce revenue. Think of the millions commissioned expert advice that "explain" how to act in a crisis situation: a convenient way to distribute favors and "run the economy."
This research, which we call the industry, is easily identifiable. Even on public occasions, including non-experts, love to express themselves abstruse and incomprehensible to most people, helping to dig the gap between common people and experts. Yet these experts are financed in substantial ways by a plethora of public funds, often transferred to private projects. In terms of textual production, the bulk of research publications (papers, conference proceedings, guidelines, etc..) is inaccessible to the general public, and often leads to frustration in the same basic researchers, who perform most of the work but see deprived of any recognition by the hierarchical mechanism of attribution of authorship. When the funds are managed in an opaque manner and patronage, when it counts the most seniority gets the credit, who does research seriously is forced against his will to accept the status quo, effectively making them complicit in a hierarchical system of self-exploitation skills. Public or private, the music does not change.
Above all, this type of research produces texts immediately secreted through the interplay between unhealthy copyright, non-disclosure agreements and patent system. In this way the discourse of power you technocracy through the accumulation of technological knowledge, the exact opposite of community sharing, self-management in the discussion and mediation between individuals. The criterion of productivity as an end in itself of research (more publications, more money, more knowledge accumulated) should be set aside in favor of conviviality, a craft that justifies the end of individual freedom. If the search-friendly from the bottom is a utopian horizon for which to strive, writing is a friendly practice of revolt, which directs the collaboration within a research group at that horizon.
The collaborative writing becomes friendly when they imagine and create anything from an autonomous space that is pushing for the creation of additional autonomous spaces. This space is the text, an object that you want to achieve the aims of the individual authors, and delivering to readers the results of their individual/collective path is a way to reflect and experiment in writing. Adapting the classic definition of Ivan Illich, we can say that the friendliness in writing is individual freedom realized in the ratio of textual production within a group that has effective tools (14).
It is not always possible to make convivial a search through records. It typically takes several steps of translation-betrayal because a particularly sophisticated scientific research becomes a shared heritage and communicable to a wide audience. Provide the public with adequate methods and tools to manage their own research intentions and their social relationships is even more difficult. But the difficulty of the undertaking is a further stimulus to find experts willing to share their knowledge, to imagine the most effective ways to make public, multiplying the degree of autonomy. For those who do not want to obey either command.
Note
- Ippolita, Open non è free – comunità digitali fra etica hacker e libero mercato, Elèuthera, Milano, 2005 free copyleft download http://ippolita.net/onf.
- La filosofia del Free Software: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free–sw.it.html.
- Ippolita, Luci e ombre di Google – futuro e passato dell’industria dei metadati, Feltrinelli, Milano, 2007 free copyleft download http://ippolita.net/google.
- Un’idea del CAE, Critical Art Ensemble, http://critical-art.net.
- Editoriale della rivista newyorkese N+1 http://nplusonemag.com/internet-as-social-movement.
- Danah Boyd, «Facebook and radical transparency» (a rant),
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/05/14/facebook-and-radical-transparency-a-rant.html.
- Si veda l’evoluzione della privacy su Facebook nelle grafiche di http://www.mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy.
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook.
- Umair Haque, «The Social Media Bubble», http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2010/03/the_social_media_bubble.html.
- Robert Scoble, «Facebook’s Ambition», Scobleizer, http://scobleizer.com/2010/04/22/facebook-ambition.
- Confusing «a» public with «the» public, http://www.buzzmachine.com/2010/05/08/confusing-a-public-with-the-public.
- Un primo abbozzo è tracciato da Alexander Galloway, Eugene Thacker, The Exploit, 2007.
- Hannah Arendt, Vita Activa, Bompiani, Milano, 1994, p. 134.
- Ivan Illich, La convivialità. Una proposta libertaria per una politica dei limiti allo sviluppo, Boroli Editore, 2005, p. 37: «La convivialità è la libertà individuale realizzata nel rapporto di produzione in seno a una società dotata di strumenti efficaci. Quando una società, qualunque essa sia, reprime la convivialità al di sotto di un certo livello, diventa preda della carenza; infatti nessuna ipertrofia della produttività riuscirà mai a soddisfare i bisogni creati e moltiplicati a gara». http://www.altraofficina.it/ivanillich/Libri/Convivialità/convivialità.htm.
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