The problem with the CJR presenting themselves as neutral is that they are an interest group, and their idea of "honest" and the "public interest" is their business model being promoted.
And that's not peculiar to journalists. Virtually every corporation thinks they're doing a public good, since people are voluntarily buying their product or service.
But here they omit facts relevant to their claims, and the omissions distort the history they're presenting:
> In the US, radio began as a free-market free-for-all.
It did begin that way, but in 1934 the FCC was formed and explicitly regulated speech via the Mayflower and Fairness doctrines.[1][2]
It was then revoked under Reagan[2#Revocation], much to the chagrin of special interest groups like the CJR, and political radio exploded.
When political radio was deregulated, consumers got options outside of traditional media groups who lost subscribers and influence.
An honest recounting of the history is that the US has had regulations in the name of "fairness" and those regulations do in fact quash a lot of speech.
"Fairness" in that sort of political context is rarely about fairness as it would be in real life interactions, but about allowing entrenched interests (or special interest groups in general) being artificially propped up by their political connections.
I think this article is high-minded and moralistic. I feel conflicted after reading it because while I sympathize with the plight that journalists face, I also just see so many problems with this author’s analysis and questions.
There is a fundamental distinction between the internet and radio/broadcast television in that the usable spectrum of airwaves is a finite public resource. If I’m broadcasting on 700 AM then you’re not. The licensing and regulatory structure that is (debatably) appropriate for public broadcast has no application to the internet. There is room for everyone to publish what they want.
The advertising model is not broken. The wealth of information and services available to users at zero monetary cost is a miracle of the “free-market free-for-all” and is most beneficial to those with the least amount of disposable income. Coining “surveillance capitalism” as a pejorative term to describe the success of this model is ridiculous.
> While it’s true that public service media like Wikipedia have had to share the landscape with increasingly sophisticated commercial companies, it’s also true that they fill a void in the marketplace.
Wikipedia is not a “public service” media organization. The author uses the same term to describe the BBC. If that were the case, then the sale of every internet-connected device would be taxed to fund Wikipedia and the organization would be run by the government. Instead Wikipedia is funded by voluntary donations from millions of individuals. The fact that it fills a void in the marketplace is a testament to the success of the free market approach to the internet.
> We’ve grown so used to the idea that social media is damaging our democracies that we’ve thought very little about how we might build new networks to strengthen societies.
Built into this is the assumption that social media is doing more damage than or is more susceptible to malevolent influence than state-run news organizations or the monopolistic broadcast and print publications of the 20th century and I reject that. If you don’t like Twitter and Facebook, then stop using them. Asking the government to get involved is the least productive thing anyone can do. Increased regulation will only serve to further cement the current crop of companies in their dominant position and we don’t need any more Quaeros. [The alternatives](https://readup.com) are out there, you just have to be willing to put in the effort to find them and be an active participant instead of passive consumer.
>Built into this is the assumption that social media is doing more damage than or is more susceptible to malevolent influence than state-run news organizations or the monopolistic broadcast and print publications of the 20th century and I reject that. If you don’t like Twitter and Facebook, then stop using them.
This is a really great point that I have not really considered strongly, and have not heard talked about very often.
I am very much on the anti-social-media bandwagon, but it's true that criticisms of social media often rely too much on a revisionist picture of some "golden days" of media where tough, honest reporters did the public a service. That image is definitely rooted in the truth, but it's also true that the media has always had some major flaws related to how their business model works.
>Asking the government to get involved is the least productive thing anyone can do.
You win the Internet today as far as I'm concerned.
I wish our culture wasn't so focused on rebooting existing things. People should spend their time creating some new, in their image, and put it out into the world. The fight should be removing barriers for entry.
Well said. Creating something new of course takes an enormous amount of time and energy. It makes sense that not everyone would be willing or afforded the ability to take on such a task. I agree that removing or lowering any barriers to allow for further, more distributed experimentation would benefit society as a whole.
> Coining “surveillance capitalism” as a pejorative term to describe the success of this model is ridiculous.
How is it ridiculous? The business model is entirely the monetization of data obtained through surveillance and spying (I define "spying" as surveillance that is taking place without the target's informed consent). "Surveillance capitalism" seems a perfectly apt description of this.
I think it's ridiculous because it seems to me to be a term that was invented for the sole purpose of re-framing the online advertising business model in a negative light, as opposed to say describing some new phenomenon for which there wasn't already an adequately description word or phrase.
I think we'd probably disagree on the appropriate level of informed consent required for the use of free online services that no one is legally required to sign up for. I don't think it comes anywhere close to the standard established for health care or other industries or situations where that concept is generally used.
> describing some new phenomenon for which there wasn't already an adequately description word or phrase.
I think it does exactly that, though.
> I think we'd probably disagree on the appropriate level of informed consent required for the use of free online services that no one is legally required to sign up for.
We might not disagree as much as you expect on this. I'm less concerned about this sort of thing -- my concern is all the spying that takes place outside of such services. It's essentially impossible to function in society these days without being spied on due to surveillance capitalism. Even staying completely off the internet won't do it.
I'm honestly curious: what has changed? Ads and cookies have been a thing on the web since the very beginning and the terms of service are generally available for the curious. Is it just the scale with which it is happening today?
> ...my concern is all the spying that takes place outside of such services.
Are you talking about government surveillance here? If so I'm definitely with you on that. I think the extent to which private companies can be leveraged and compelled by the government to turn over information is very disconcerting. I see that as a problem of abusive state authorities though, not anything to do with capitalism.
Big Data. Ads and cookies have not always been around, but they've been around for a long time now. Tracking as much as possible of what you do on the net and in real life, and combining that data into large databases for mining, is relatively new.
> Are you talking about government surveillance here?
I'm talking primarily about surveillance by marketers, although government surveillance is also a concern.
> Recently, President Trump referenced a widely discredited study to make the absurd claim that Google manipulated search results in order to swing the 2016 presidential election toward Hillary Clinton. Though Trump’s claim is incorrect (and was widely shared with his massive following on Twitter, demonstrating the untrustworthiness of social media), it rests atop some uncomfortable facts.
Okay. No links to the original study, the repudiations, or the defense of said study. That's bad enough, but then they follow that sentence immediately with this one:
> Research conducted by Facebook in 2013 demonstrated that it may indeed be possible for the platform to affect election turnout.
Thank goodness we're relying on research conducted by Facebook.
And that's not peculiar to journalists. Virtually every corporation thinks they're doing a public good, since people are voluntarily buying their product or service.
But here they omit facts relevant to their claims, and the omissions distort the history they're presenting:
> In the US, radio began as a free-market free-for-all.
It did begin that way, but in 1934 the FCC was formed and explicitly regulated speech via the Mayflower and Fairness doctrines.[1][2]
It was then revoked under Reagan[2#Revocation], much to the chagrin of special interest groups like the CJR, and political radio exploded.
When political radio was deregulated, consumers got options outside of traditional media groups who lost subscribers and influence.
An honest recounting of the history is that the US has had regulations in the name of "fairness" and those regulations do in fact quash a lot of speech.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_doctrine
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine