Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!isishq!doug From: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Who Controls the Network? Message-ID: <927.23A026C5@isishq.FIDONET.ORG> Date: 9 Dec 88 23:06:05 GMT Organization: International Student Information Service -- Headquarters Lines: 203 Who controls the network? Is it possible that no one controls it, and furthermore that no one *can* control it? Perhaps we are living in an historical anomaly, but it's pretty clear to me that *this* network (usnet), at *this* time is not subject to much in the way of control. Each machine is controlled by its owner/operator, and there are technical rules that have to be followed for it to work at all, but I think it would be virtually impossible to bar anyone from the net, if that "anyone" were even slightly determined. In a way the phone company controls the network, because many links use telephone lines, but the phone company is not usually interested in what you send over the line unless its illegal. If you or I were communicating something that was defined as illegal, then the courts could order taps on our phone lines, analyse the data, and use it as evidence for prosecution. Say we were using the net to organize a drug smuggling ring? That use could be controlled in exactly the same manner our use of voice telephone for that purpose could be controlled. The control is the same, control of the phone line. Perhaps people are thinking of other kinds of control? Commercial monopolies controlling networking so as to squeeze small companies out of the market, maintain prices at monopolistically high levels? Well, Western Union and Ma Bell provide examples, as does the British and German post office, etc. I'm going to quote some comments by nick@cs.hw.ac.uk (Nick Taylor) >> In article <2367@ficc.uu.net>>, jeffd@ficc.uu.net (Jeff Daiell) writes : >> >>In article <2062@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>>, nick@cs.hw.ac.uk (Nick Taylor) >>once again drags out the tired old canard that our only choices (in >>this case, on computer network provision), are Big Brother and Big >>Business. I submit that the needs of computerdom would better be >>served by small firms, competing and/or cooperating as dictated by >>their interests. >I submit that small businesses are just as likely >(if not moreso) to see it as in their best interests to accept >megabucks from Big Brother as Big Business is. I would further submit >that Big Business might well see it as in their best interests to take >over these small businesses. Who, if anyone, will be able to stop >them? Oh no, we're back with Big Brother again! Every epoch of recorded history tells a story of centralization and monopolization of power, generally only limited by geographic restraints or other imperial centres. Various powerful groups struggle with each other for control of anything deemed to be worth controlling; anything that could produce wealth, military might, etc. Feudalism, which preceded the era of Democracy in the West, saw Europe riddled with wars between landowners. Those petty conflicts were replaced by grander and grander conflicts as organizing power increased. Whole nation states became organized under strong central governments by virtue of *public* popularity or support for a democratic government. Mass media, specifically the printing press, made public opinion into the decisive force in Western politics. Public opinion, of course, exercises its force through popular (usually elected) governments, and all the "Big Brother" and "media manipulation" apparatus which surrounds modern popular democracies. >Jeff seems to regard >it as axiomatic that the government of the USA equals Big Brother. Well, in one way it is. Any modern Western democracy has aspects of Orwell's "Big Brother", in terms of direct surveillance of individuals and in terms of society-wide pressures to conformity. Big Business and Big Government are usually, in my experience, almost indistinguishable at points, but nowhere has the marriage been more fully consumated than in America. Big governmnet is the creature of public opinion, and recent North American elections have demonstrated the triumph of PR over rational decision-making with renewed urgency. Public opinion scarcely exists at all without mass media. Mass media and mass marketing strolled onto the field of human history hand in hand, and have enjoyed a largely trouble-free marriage for 400 years now. You can't have a mass market without mass media. You can't have mass production without a mass market. Most mass media derive 50% to 100% of their total revenue from selling advertising. The advertiser, in a real way, is the employer, sole customer and boss of the communication medium. The same devices which can build a mass market for Chevrolets can readily be turned to create a masss movement (or a 2% shift in "public opinion") for a certain choice on a ballot. Remember, a 2% shift in public opinion, whether it involves which brand to buy or which brand to vote for can be decisive! So control can be said to belong to Big Government or Big Brother, whatever you want to call it, but Big Government is subject to public pressure which derives from public opinion which is subject to influence by the mass media access to which which is certainly dominated by Big Business. Therefore Big Business controls Big Government. While "we, the people" certainly have a say, minority opinions have a hard time getting heard in modern democracies. The major parties dominate election debates, media covereage is focussed on them, and corporate campaign donations go to those with a decent chance of winning power. It's a more civilized way of designating a king than a feudal war but it rarely involves extensive and decisive public discussion of real issues. Even where extensive public debate results in a decisive majority for an issue, consitutional and electoral ideosyncracies are seeing the Canadian government forcing through a bill which 55% of the population clearly opposes! On another matter, constitutional ideosyncracies seem to be resulting in a measure that is very popular being defeated by the opposition in one minonrity provincial government! (in a small province even) In the US election last month, less than half of eligible voters bothered to show up, less than a dozen members of the legislature seeking re-election were defeated (I guess the US must have unusually excellent legislators) and few were elected with more than 25% of eligible voters having selected them. The Democratic ideal of "majority rule" is probably a rare exception. Instead we have, usually, consensus rule and a very real, very raw power struggle with very elaborate rules. Tiny shifts in "public opinion" can be decisive and mass media is capable of generating those shifts. Thus the power struggle replaces the knigts of medieval chivalry with advertising executives, the sword and lance have been replaced with sound bytes and glossy photos. The aristocracy which could produce food and fighting men has been replaced by Big Business which can train advertising people and salesmen, and cough up the megabucks needed for widespread ad campaigns. While government can be seen to sometimes act in the public interest, and even respond to major shifts in public opinion over time, government can also been seen to rarely bite the hand that feeds it, big business. Just as government generally identifies the interests of big business as its own, that large slice of the public which works for big business often does that too. >Why? Is it perhaps to do with Watergate, Irangate, etc? Do not permit >the open manner in which these scandals were investigated to blind you >to the fact that the business community is composed of the same type >of people only they are much more loath to do their dirty washing in >public! How many small businesses were involved in the Irangate >affair? I think the pessimism about Big Government derives in part from the 1972 US election in which Richard Nixon won, even though his complicity in Watergate was plainly apparent before voting day, and in part from the 1988 election in which George Bush was elected without ever even having to deny involvement in Irangate, making his complicity in appear virtually certaint. These things don't matter, it seems. >seem to add up to an indictment of democracy in the USA. I am certainly *not* a libertarian, but as I've just shown, an indictment of Democracy as experienced in North America is not too difficult to generate. >Is this >really what he feels? How many others feel this way? Now the really >awkward question : What are you doing about it? It is my feeling that "who controls the network" is the same question as "who controls the world", or at least will be the same question within 50 years. I think we are already seeing signs of a fracturing in the monolithic fabric of public opinion. Computer networks have the possibility of vastly increasing the number of information sources available to the user, thus reducing the relative audience size for any one source. Computer networks will make control of public opinion more difficult in the long run I think, unless the aforementioned biggies can effectively limit the ability of you and I and everyone else to be information sources. Mass media is subject to the "lowest common denominator function". Every medium must seek the largest audience possible for each message, thus those messages must appeal to something shared by many people. This medium, on the other hand, is just as happy informing a few hundred people as a few hundred million. This permits more diverse sources of more specialized information. An underlying reason for that is cost. It is much cheaper to exchange ideas with this medium than by printing this on paper and mailing it, broadcasting it, etc. Faster modems and cheaper hardware is reducing that cost steadily. I'll predict that in 50 years one instument in the home will make available to you films, sound recordings, newspapers, electronic mail and conferences like this, as well as a huge array of small, special interest "publications", and that the dominance of television and newspapers in the total "media environment" will be vastly reduced. This same instrument, I think, will let *you* make information available to anyone else. -- Doug Thompson - via FidoNet node 1:221/162 UUCP: ...!watmath!isishq!doug Internet: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG