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The IFTF Blog
Welcome to Digital Mobs
A husband writes an impassioned letter on one of the popular Internet bulletin boards denouncing a college student he suspects of having an affair with his wife. Immediately, throngs of people join in the attack, and within days the numbers grow to tens of thousands, with “teams of strangers hunting down the student, hounding him out of his university, and causing the family to barricade themselves inside the home." www.nytimes.com/2006/06/03/.
Artist and computer scientist Jaron Lanier publishes an essay titled Digital Maosim: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism criticizing some of the ways in which Wikipedia and many other online works based on collective efforts of thousands anonymous contributors are being used. Within minutes responses appear, and not only from those who actually read the essay and offer on the whole thoughtful responses. As the essay and responses to it get referenced and aggregated around the web, the online throngs go on the attack, accusing the author of everything from elitism to complete misunderstanding of the nature of collective intelligence, collective action, dynamics of collaboration, etc. The intensity of the attacks is such that one of the sites posts a further explanation from Lanier: “I did not make that accusation against the Wikipedia -or against social cooperation on the net, which is something I was an early true believer in…I specifically exempted many internet gatherings from my criticism, including the Wikipedia, Boing Boing, Google, Cool Tools...” www.boingboing.net
One incident in post-Maoist China, the other in the freewheeling Silicon Valley. Both, however, made possible or heightened by the same medium, the Internet, and with remarkably similar results—a mob turning on an individual. In one case,the mob action spills into the physical world; in the other, the mob assembles digitally.
While the New York Times piece may lead one to wonder about the dangers of “mob mentality” in China, mob mentality is an everyday reality of life on the Internet. At its best it results in things like Wikipedia and scores of other remarkably creative projects that harness the creativity, hobbyist spirit, and knowledge of thousands. At its worst, it creates a kind of a feeding frenzy—a comment on a comment to a comment to a posting in response to… From blog to blog, comment to comment, permalink to permalink, all parts of a food chain feeding on an idea, an article, a posting. And when turned on the very heroes of digital culture, they produce surprising results. Jaron Lanier having to defend his credentials as an early proponent of online cooperation. Tim O’Reilly, the icon of the hacker culture, being taken aback by the intensity and vitriol of the blogosphere’sresponse to a trademark controversy around his Web 2.0 conference. Founders of BoingBoing having to respond to thousands of comments about "unpublishing" of old posts boingboing. “I used to bristle when members of the mainstream press wagged their fingers at the unprofessionalism of bloggers,” wrote O’Reilly in his lengthy explanation of the complex issues involved in the Web 2.0 controversy, “I looked around at all the bloggers who are, to my mind, practicing great journalism, and wrote off the MSM (mainstreammedia) criticism as fear of the new medium. But now I'm not so sure. The flap about the Web 2.0 Conference trademark has shaken my faith in the collective intelligence of the blogosphere. Of all the hundreds of people who commented on this issue, only a few touched base to do a bit of fact checking.” radar.oreilly.com
The only thing that is surprising is Tim O’Reilly’s surprise. The ability to energize mobs, for better or worse,is as much an integral part of life on the Internet as its ability to reach mass audiences within seconds. Neither should we be surprised by people operating on bite-sized second-hand information and opinions contained in many blog posts. We live in a world of “partial attention,” scanning rather than reading deeply, too often reacting rather than thinking. Who has time for details or deep analysis when we have to stay in the “flow” of the latest discussions in the blogosphere, where what was posted yesterday seems so…well... so yesterday today.
In his prescient novel «The Machine Stops» published in 1920’s, E.M. Forster foreshadowed this dark side of constant connectivity by conjuring up a civilization in which people live underground and have no physical contact with each other. Yet, they are constantly connected and extremely busy--having conversations, lectures, debates, discussions with each other without ever leaving their underground rooms. They lead frenzied lives in their one room dwellings and are comfortable only when operating not in the world of direct observation or experience but in the world of second-hand ideas. "Beware of first- hand ideas!" declares one of the most “advanced” representatives of this civilization in his “online” lecture delivered through the machine in a kind of a manifesto for this civilization:
“Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element - direct observation. Do not learn anything about this subject of mine- the French Revolution. Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon thought Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought Lafcadio Hearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French Revolution…But be sure that the intermediates are many and varied, for in history one authority exists to counteract another…You who listen to me are in a better position to judge about the French Revolution than I am. Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be added to the chain. “
Is there a better way to describe the blogosphere today? Everyone an expert, everyone with an opportunity to comment, everyone a better commentator having had the benefit of reading all the previous comments, cacophony of voices, frenzy of discussion, most far removed from direct observation or experience. From blog to blog, permalink to permalink, one byte at a time in a boundless web of comment upon comment. For better and worse, welcome to our digital world. Let the comments begin.