Lawrence Lessig Reviews The Social Network 223
Hugh Pickens writes "Lawrence Lessig — author, Harvard law professor, co-founder of Creative Commons — reviews The Social Network in The New Republic. Although Lessig says the movie is an 'intelligent, beautiful, and compelling film,' he adds that as a story about Facebook, it is deeply, deeply flawed because the movie fails to even mention the real magic behind the Facebook story, and while everyone walking out out of the movie will think they understand the genius of the internet, almost none of them will have seen the real ethic of internet creativity that makes success stories like Facebook possible. 'Because the platform of the Internet is open and free, or in the language of the day, because it is a "neutral network," a billion Mark Zuckerbergs have the opportunity to invent for the platform,' writes Lessig. 'And that is tragedy because just at the moment when we celebrate the product of these two wonders — Zuckerberg and the Internet — working together, policymakers are conspiring ferociously with old world powers to remove the conditions for this success. As "network neutrality" gets bargained away — to add insult to injury, by an administration that was elected with the promise to defend it — the opportunities for the Zuckerbergs of tomorrow will shrink.' Lessig laments that the creators of the movie didn't understand the ethic of Internet creativity and thought that the real story was the invention of Facebook not the platform that made such democratic innovation possible. 'Zuckerberg is a rightful hero of our time,' concludes Lessig. 'As I looked around at the packed theater of teens and twenty-somethings, there was no doubt who was in the right, however geeky and clumsy and sad. That generation will judge this new world. If, that is, we allow that new world to continue to flourish.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"the real magic behind the Facebook story..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"the real magic behind the Facebook story..." (Score:4, Interesting)
Truly insightful. There really isn't anything such as a free lunch. There is always a price paid for it by someone, somewhere. Most people don't realize this because they've been made to believe there is such a thing- and that they don't have to pay anything in. There are things that are worth burning a bit of your privacy on to get something in return. Sadly, many people's thresholds for that sort of thing are kind-of low because they don't know just how valuable it really is.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One, as you rightly point out, is that services such as Facebook have to be underwritten somehow. They're commercial ventures, pure and simple. So if they seem to be free, it's only because you haven't found the catch.
The
Re: (Score:2)
...is that anyone can write apps that will suck the remaining privacy we have out of us and sell it to the highest bidder.
Nobody wants to suck my privacy out of me :(
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Have you tried wearing this [fotosearch.com]?
Re: (Score:2)
Has everyone forgotten... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, but at Harvard Business School, I think they call that a "Free Market Economy." He must have been doing some advanced reading before dropping out to pursue a rewarding career as a douche bag.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, everyone has a price. What's yours?
Re: (Score:2)
25 million pounds Sterling, and protection from extradition. The last part is probably more important than the actual payout.
Re:Has everyone forgotten... (Score:4, Funny)
Fucking pronouns, how do they work?
Re:Has everyone forgotten... (Score:5, Insightful)
and:
I don't know the particulars (if the code was part of a work for hire, then Zuckerberg would be guilty of copyright infringement for his subsequent use of it... but that doesn't appear to be what is alleged), but assuming Lessig's account of the facts is correct, then Zuckerberg didn't "steal" anything. At least, he didn't break any laws. He may have appropriated other's ideas without credit, but plagiarism itself isn't illegal.
However I do disagree with Lessig's suggestion that we should admire Zuckerberg. It seems to me that, even if he stayed within the bounds of the law, he built-up Facebook by being mean, cut-throat, and ruthless. That makes him a bad person, regardless of the grand things he has was able to legally deploy with his tactics.
Re: (Score:2)
"he built-up Facebook by being mean, cut-throat, and ruthless."
This is the ideal hero of the free market and its god, The Invisible Hand.
Re: (Score:2)
I think a lot of people would trade being a good person for a massive pile of cash. A clear conscience and five bucks will buy you a cup of coffee.
Re: (Score:2)
Being a horribly evil person gets you laid. Being a good person doesn't even get you satisfying sex; girls are honestly freaked out by guys that seem to care too much. There's a line between being "sweet" and being "in love," and you'll see girls date the same guy for 3 years and talk about how awesome he is only to suddenly decide he's "really creepy and obsessive" when he starts "giving too much" or something. Too clingy. Whatever it is, suddenly you crossed the creep factor and the level of appropria
Re: (Score:2)
I thought that was the American Dream 2.0 ? :p
Re: (Score:2)
That and he is seriously a complete douchebag and has no feelings of pity or regret over his actions. You can read some of his logs. Hell the guy apparently used his powers of running facebook to break into individual accounts. Scary dude.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh snap, you can always tell it's on when a Penny Arcade strip is referenced!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The flaw is .... (Score:4, Insightful)
that there exist people that want to see the movie in the first place....
Narcissism (Score:2, Interesting)
never under estimate how many went to that movie and "saw" bits of themselves in the various characters, trying to justify their behavior to themselves. From the beyond college student dialog to their dress and the speed it appears they act. Oh yeah, I can see where they found people to go see the film
Re:Narcissism (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is it "narcissism" to "see" bits of ourselves in characters we read about, or see in film?
Audience identification with characters in artistic works is as old as the media those artistic works have been presented in. Those works with the most timeless, universal themes are generally considered to be some of the best, most durable & long-lasting works - in other words, the ones which MANY people can "see" bits of themselves in.
Empathetic characters are nothing to be scared of or ashamed of. Do you really want films & books about nothing but outsized caricatures of humanity as characters, or filled with people who we are so utterly incapable of identifying with that they might as well be aliens from a civilization antithetical to our own? Because those types of stories might be fun one-trick ponies, but the thought of them doesn't hold much appeal for me.
Re:Narcissism (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really want films & books about nothing but outsized caricatures of humanity as characters, or filled with people who we are so utterly incapable of identifying with that they might as well be aliens from a civilization antithetical to our own?
We call that Atlas Shrugged.
Re: (Score:2)
And what's the general consensus on the quality of Atlas Shrugged around here again? :)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oddly enough given my comment (what's life without some self deprectation?) I actually quite enjoyed some of Ayn Rand's work. Take out the 80-page soliloquy at the end of Atlas and I thought it was a pretty solid book.
The characters are rather outsized and undersized though! Interestingly enough, I read that Rand had intended to include a priest character--a sympathetic character, somebody who was on the side of good, yet sided with the "looters" for misguided reasons. Rand apparently felt the character was
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, and Rand's goal with Atlas Shrugged was to portray 'romantically ideal' heroes and heroines... and I thought it was an all right story, though I could have done without being bludgeoned over the head with her philosophy quite so much - subtle she wasn't. You know you're supposed to hate Jim Taggart, Wesley Mouch, Orren Boyle, et. al. from the moment you meet them in the book, and you know you're supposed to see John Galt, Dagny, and Hank Rearden as heroic from the moment they're introduced. Francisc
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
how can you tell the difference between a library and a bathroom? the bathroom is where the ayn rand books are located.
Re: (Score:2)
Or maybe you just personally dislike someone involved with the film to the point that you wish anyone who doesn't shouldn't even exist. And that's the exact type of thinking I really wish d
Right.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course! Every movie having anything to do with the internet should be an op-ed piece supporting net neutrality. That'll work.
Re-title article: (Score:2)
"Zuckerberg is a rightful hero of our time" (Score:2)
Re:"Zuckerberg is a rightful hero of our time" (Score:5, Insightful)
"In the U.S., morality is praised over quick wit."
You new here or something?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's ironic that you chose Prometheus as the dubious divinity because he's been adopted by our culture as the patron saint of progress. You'll find his image everywhere that human ingenuity is celebrated, from the famous statue in the Rockefeller Center to Ayn Rand's paean to Prometheus in Atlas Shrugged. As a god he celebrates the best part in all of us, the cleverness that separates us from the animals.
Nothing gets a Monday started like a great joke. Thanks
Re: (Score:2)
FWIW, you're missing the fundamental core of Western moral hypocrisy. Borrowing from Hamlet, rigid blue-nosed "morality" is "...a custom More honor'd in the breach than the observance...".
We praise public virtue to the heavens. We rant and rave when we see someone succeeding while flouting it. But in truth, "morality" is a trait we insist on in everyone else but ourselves. It's only cheating if the other guy is doing it.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, does Zuckerburg care whether he's praised or not? He can always stuff a few million $$$ in his ears to drown out the sound of the angry, wheezing nerd-mob.
Summary (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You should see the website of what the movie is about.
Zuckerberg hasn't built a free/open platform (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook may be the next Windows -- a dominant, proprietary platform on which everyone else's apps run. Add the absence of end-user control of the applications and data (including privacy), and it's antithetical to the free, open, and end-user controlled Internet on which it's built. How will the next Zuckerberg build his application? Not so easily, since he'll be dependent on the closed, proprietary systems and data of Facebook, doing only the things that they permit and only when, where, and how they want it.
Mozilla helped save us from a closed, proprietary web browser (one reason Facebook could blossom). With that battle won and a proliferation of browsers and Microsoft adopting open standards, they are struggling a bit to find a mission. I wish they would turn to their attention to the next issue of the open Internet, a free and open social network.
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook may be the next Windows -- a dominant, proprietary platform on which everyone else's apps run. Add the absence of end-user control of the applications and data (including privacy), and it's antithetical to the free, open, and end-user controlled Internet on which it's built. How will the next Zuckerberg build his application? Not so easily, since he'll be dependent on the closed, proprietary systems and data of Facebook, doing only the things that they permit and only when, where, and how they want it.
Mozilla helped save us from a closed, proprietary web browser (one reason Facebook could blossom). With that battle won and a proliferation of browsers and Microsoft adopting open standards, they are struggling a bit to find a mission. I wish they would turn to their attention to the next issue of the open Internet, a free and open social network.
Ugh, they said the same thing about google and apple and they co-exist with windows just fine. Netscape used to be the only proprietary browser until IE came along (unless you liked lynx). I expect facebook to become yesterdays news in a couple of year when the next big thing comes rolling along.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish they would turn to their attention to the next issue of the open Internet, a free and open social network.
Here you go:
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/ [appleseedproject.org]
What's the big deal? (Score:2)
Granted I havent paid much attention to this movie but what's the big deal about yet another rags to richers internet story? Bill Gates? The napster guy? Mark Cuban? Google founders? Many people have become billionaires from internet ideas.. what's so special about this one?
Re: (Score:2)
You know Bill Gates was a trust fund baby from Ivy League, lawyer parents and grand parents and wasn't going to be poor even if MS didn't take off, right? His is more of a story of 1000-thread-count linen to most-expensive-silk-from-China.
Re: (Score:2)
As I understand it, Zuckenberg did not exactly come from "rags" either.
Re: (Score:2)
This was a movie about the genius that made teh Facebook!
It's got a guaranteed audience on n(facebook users), 99.9% of which are too shallow to have any problem with what a epitome of douchebaggery the main character is.
This is the moneies in the bank, man!1!!
Zuckerberg made a walled garden (Score:5, Insightful)
He used the open internet and tools to make a walled garden. Not exactly a triumph of openness.
Re: (Score:2)
For better or worse, people find the consistency of proprietary platforms preferable to the confusion that can come with open platforms. Part of 'ope
It's a movie. (Score:2, Informative)
Was Zuckenberg's portrayal supposed to flattering? (Score:5, Interesting)
Zuckenberg was portrayed as a "hero" ?
When I left the movie, I had the impression that Zunkenberg was portrayed as a thieving, condescending, misogynistic, little twerp. He stole everybody else's ideas, idolized a child molesting drug abuser, and betrayed his best (only?) friend. His only redeeming value is that he was a talented programmer.
Not my idea of a hero, but then, I don't idolize Bill Gates either.
Re: (Score:2)
Gates has gained a few redeeming qualities in his later years. Zuckerberg is still little more than a skillful, lucky douche bag.
I saw him as neither a hero nor a saint (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the great thing about this movie as a work of art. The characters were complex and no one was a perfect hero or perfect villain. They were real people, real people with real personality issues and real quirks and real greed. I think that's the key thing here.
Mark Zuckerberg - dick, computer geek, had some vision to make something cool
Eric Parker - dick, computer geek, thinks he's awesome but when confronted he scampers like a scared mouse and then uses paranoid delusions to explain what went wrong
Re: (Score:2)
Mark Zuckerberg - dick, computer geek, had some vision to make something cool
Did he have some great vision? Or did he steal the visions of other people, and then connive those people out of their fair share? What great original idea did mark have?
I read some movie review that said Mark was characterized more like a marketing major than a comp. sci. major.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
According to the movie, Mark was characterized as a comp sci guy who saw beyond what the Winklevoss twins had in mind. And just so it's understood, the Winklevoss's idea was no revolutionary idea nor was it original. The movie even mentioned Friendster and Myspace and someone (I forget who and how) basically asks how would this be better than those two. The Eric Parker character goes on to elaborate how Facebook "is cool." I think that's what the movie is trying to portray.
I'm not agreeing with these po
Re: (Score:2)
The movie didn't seem to be a hatchet-job on Zuckerberg as the media (and trailers) made it out to be. I mean the character certainly has flaws, but he was portrayed similarly to a tragic figure in a greek tragedy: he had good intentions, though insensitive and oblivious to others' feelings, and was easily manipulated by scoundrels like Parker. At the very least, the characterization of Zuckerberg is a realistic portrayal of many talente
Re: (Score:2)
When I left the movie, I had the impression that Zunkenberg was portrayed as a thieving, condescending, misogynistic, little twerp. He stole everybody else's ideas, idolized a child molesting drug abuser, and betrayed his best (only?) friend.
I agree, they went pretty easy on him.
Re: (Score:2)
...and really, $100M for schools is not an incredibly nice thing for a billionaire to do. It's enough to make him look good, but it's pocket change to him.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Be fair, though. However he earned his money, Bill Gates as an individual has done at least eight metric shit-tons more good in the world than Mark Zuckerberg ever has.
Gates has also done at least eight metric shit-tons more harm in the world than Mark Zuckerberg ever has.
But then, Zuckerberg is a lot younger.
Lawrence Lessig on a soapbox (Score:4, Insightful)
The openness and magical qualities of the internet was not the plot of the story. The [fictional] movie was about friendship, betrayal, and the abrasive personality of Mark Zuckerberg. Rating the film down because it was lacking an explaination of the internet is stupid, and it seems more like an opportunity to talk about something Lessig cares about.
It was an interesting movie btw. After watching it I went home and Google'd Sean Parker info because I didn't know he had a hand in facebook. I also wanted to find out whether he was as big a douchebag as they played him out to be on the movie.
Re:Lawrence Lessig on a soapbox (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a movie...based off a an actual event but injected with LOTS of fiction and creative juicy bits to make the story interesting and dramatic. The movie isn't flawed because it fails to mention the "magic behind the facebook story," as most people watching the movie don't give a shit about that stuff! It would be nonsense that distracts from the movie.
Yes, it's Hollywood. Don't expect realism. For those of us here in Silicon Valley, the amazing thing was Zuckerman finding, on a low budget, a house in Palo Alto a few blocks from the Stanford campus, with a pool.
There is, after all, plenty of "geek" stuff in the film. The sequence where Zuckerman writes screen scrapers to get all the Harvard house face books into his system even has valid Perl code shown on screen. Lessig has a point, though. It's getting harder to launch something like that as "the Internet" is divided into a series of walled gardens, run by Facebook, Comcast, Apple, and Google. It's not impossible. But there are more "gatekeepers" now.
I looked at Zuckerman's page on Facebook to see if he liked the movie, but he hasn't posted anything yet.
Re:Lawrence Lessig on a soapbox (Score:5, Insightful)
I admire Lessig, appreciate his political arguments, and recommend his books to others frequently. However, I've got to say, this seems like an instance of Lessig using a topical event to talk about what he wants to talk about, which is almost completely unrelated to the initial topic.
Also, I can't see the point of praising Zuckerberg so strongly. He designed a social media site that was slightly less crappy than the other competing social media sites that existed when he introduced it. Most of the work of promoting social media sites is done by their users; in the case of Facebook, there's also the constant spam from crappy games by the egregiously manipulative Zynga. There are lots of smart, hard-working, but unscrupulous and greedy entrepreneurs; Zuckerberg is simply luckier than most of them. I don't see how Zuckerberg deserves any praise.
It seems to me it weakens Lessig's message to praise Zuckerberg.
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Genius overblown, evil underrepresented (Score:3, Insightful)
Since about 1995, it's not a big deal to score 1600 on the SAT--a good fraction of 1% of test-takers manages this. In prior years, with different scoring adjustments in place, only a handful in a million would score so high.
None of the programming Zuckerberg was portrayed as having done in the movie required great ability, except perhaps to do it while drunk. The programming required to produce facemash was minimal, however.
The movie omits other Zuckerberg evil antics.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-and-privacy-crimes-2010-3
Erm (Score:4, Interesting)
"...(they) thought that the real story was the invention of Facebook..."
Perhaps the makers of the movie knew what their "real story" was, while some internet talking head (hey! I'm "internet famous!") is simply flogging his personal dead horse?
actually what I took away was... (Score:2, Insightful)
you can't put a price on cool. Damn I miss the .com days. So sick of business getting cheap.
Lawrence Lessig is right! (Score:3, Interesting)
I know I was angry when the Lord of the Ring movies didn't at all explain how Tolkien's orcs and elves were inspired by other stories and folk lore! Where was the explanation of how he created Elvish? These films were completely impossible to enjoy without all this background information that gives context on how it was possible for the books to have been written!
A lot of time bashing Facebook... (Score:2)
Seriously, every time there's a Facebook story on /. so many hours of potential productivity are lost to bitching. Why not use that time actively helping an alternative to what so many of you apparently despise? And if you don't care about or use social networks at all, rest assured that the millions who do by and large don't care about your sanctimonious complaints.
Re:My concerns about network neutrality. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You mean like ESPN360 / ESPN3, or whatever they're calling it now?
Re: (Score:2)
You can talk about ESPN3 all you want...but I want "The Ocho"!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50jVa25gmWs [youtube.com]
-JJS
Re: (Score:2)
Just imagine such orderly world... [www.kyon.pl]
Re:So the solution is to doom everyone to the slow (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no problem with tiered bandwidth plans. I play online games and stream movies and TV shows over Hulu and Netflix so I gladly pay for the top tier service to have the most available bandwidth. My parents check email and read the news online so they have the basic tier. There's no need for everyone to have a 30/10 Internet connection.
To quote SaveTheInternet.com
"Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination....The free and open Internet brings with it the revolutionary possibility that any Internet site could have the reach of a TV or radio station. The loss of Net Neutrality would end this unparalleled opportunity for freedom of expression."
Since you cite Comcast as the example, they just bought NBC. Without Network Neutrality, what's to stop Comcast from throttling the ABC and CBS websites unless they pay for top tier service? The lack of neutrality undermines competition and traps us in a system where a few powerful corporations control the content we see and hear. When was the last time you heard independent music on a radio station that wasn't in a college town? ClearChannel decides what music you want to hear and then puts it on repeat.
The success of the Internet itself and the countless success stories that have arisen from the Internet are because of the unfettered access it gives you to the rest of the world. Anyone can create something and share it with everyone without a corporation deciding to charge them or even prevent them from sharing because it doesn't agree with the corporation's viewpoint.
Re:My concerns about network neutrality. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is part of the problem with the network neutrality debate. It actually got started after CEO of some big American telco whose name I forget said things like "Why should Google make money by using my pipes? I paid for those pipes, they should share the costs", ignoring the fact that he was already being paid by his customers. ISPs charging companies for priority access to customers purely on the basis of wanting more profit would clearly be both new and bad, thus network neutrality was born.
Somewhere along the way the debate seems to have got hijacked by those you describe, aka "people wanting free stuff", and somehow bandwidth shaping got lumped in too (sometimes). ISPs controlling how their customers use limited, overcommitted bandwidth isn't new nor particularly alarming, as you point out it can even be seen as a feature by others who aren't sitting on BitTorrent 24/7 and want fast access. Also, anyone can buy dedicated, non-overcommitted bandwidth if they want it by renting a leased line from various providers, so it's not even a matter of lacking choice.
The result is quite a mess. The original principles are sound but what the debate morphed into no longer bears much resemblence to them.
Re: (Score:2)
The result is quite a mess. The original principles are sound but what the debate morphed into no longer bears much resemblence to them.
Kind of like every political movement ever.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Somewhere along the way the debate seems to have got hijacked by those you describe, aka "people wanting free stuff", and somehow bandwidth shaping got lumped in too (sometimes).... The original principles are sound but what the debate morphed into no longer bears much resemblence to them.
The debate has not been 'hijacked by people wanting free stuff', the telcos are deliberately muddying the waters in order to prevent the public from clearly understanding what is at stake, and preventing the government from playing his role regulating the industry.
The people you cite as hijackers are not the one controlling the PR firms and the lobby money. Follow the money.
Hard not to mod you as a troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Good one, claim you are not a troll when trolling.
Guns are only wanted by criminals.
Cars are only wanted by speeders.
The article links net neutrality to Facebook. You link it to copyright infringement, completly ignoring the case of Lessig.
Net neutrality means ANYONE, no matter their status has the same access to the web. That means that if I start a website tomorrow, it will be transported around the web with the same speed as Facebook, the ISP's own home page, Apples iTunes, CNN or someone's homepage.
This means I get the same breaks. This is REVOLUTIONARY about the web. BEFORE the web, the only way to be published big was to publish big. ONLY the largest newspapers could afford to distribute cross country, nevermind distribute globally. With the internet, MY website can be accessed ANYWHERE!
This allows me to compete. Imagine if Myspace had simply been able to buy special access. If ISP's could demand of every website a fee to be distributed like with Cable TV. Can't pay the fee? Then you don't get on their network. How was Facebook to startup then? How can you start a new tv network without millions in backing and the lockin that brings?
How CAN I start a new news network that broadcasts to every home independent of the powers that be if I need the powers that be to pay for the access?
If you don't get this, if you think it is about copyright infringement then you are the person who wanted presses banned because it allowed books to be owned by poor people. Either you are too stupid to get freedom, or you hate freedom.
There is no middle ground in this. You can't put restrictions on who can access a media and expect everyone to be able to use it. Unless of course you think only those with enough money should have a voice.
What the press did for political freedom, the internet is doing a thousand times over. But then, if you take your freedom for granted, or worse are willing to sell it, then I suppose none of this means anything.
Perhaps you are not a troll after all. There are worse things then trolls. People who do not value freedom. A willing slave.
Re:My concerns about network neutrality. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mind you, there's another aspect to this as well, which is the whole "double dipping" problem. Because what I, you, and every other ISP subscriber out there are paying for is (at least used to be) a connection that would deliver whatever we requested at the speed we paid for. We're still doing that, but the providers are trying to take a cut from the people on the other side of the connection as well, and that's where we get into problems. See, if I want to go to "watchingpaintdry.com" and stream it 24 hours a day, I should be able to use just as much bandwidth as if I were watching Hulu. Because I paid for it. Because it's good for competition. Because if my ISP limits watchingpaintdry.com to a lower bandwidth in an attempt to extort them into paying them off, they degrade the utility and quality of the service I paid for.
Like Lessig said, the beauty of the platform is its openness. All the ISPs have to do is route bits to your home at the rate you paid for. And because those bits can come from anybody, the platform is incredibly useful as a multi-purpose tool. Except if all they're doing is routing bits, they lose all those money-making goodies like advertisements and service add-ons, and they don't want that. It's greed, pure and simple.
Re: (Score:2)
As a non-hard techie with only a cursory understanding of the issue
I'm glad you voiced you ignorance first. It puts me in "educator mode" instead of "hostile reader".
My real concern is that the proponents of network neutrality just want to be able to have unabated access to download music and movies and porn without paying for them - that there's no real "freedom" issues at hand; it's just people wanting free stuff.
This is an assumption stemming from your ignorance. I don't listen to music except via radio or Pandora (usually only once a week at most). I do own one music CD I bought from a local band, but I don't know where it is. I enjoy playing music, but listening is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. I pay to watch movies, or watch them on TV. I'm not interested in unabated access to download music and movies
Re: (Score:2)
You pay for movies, so you're not downloading porn and music, but you're worried about them disabling BT? In best Beavis impression : "Liar...liar...liar..."
Because no one on /. downloads Linux isos via BT. I can see why you posted anon: you knew you were being stupid. You don't seem to believe that I don't want what your media masters want me to want.
However, I am not a lawyer nor do I understand the telco business, and am thus totally ignorant in most matters (except setting up SSH), but like any Slashdot poster, feel I can wing it and contribute to the intelligence of this discussion.
I'm glad you described yourself by pretending I said something that I didn't. Too bad you think knowing how to use SSH means you're a programmer.
As soon as net neutrality hits, all innovation on the web will be crushed, and we will be at a standstill, like what happened with the railroad and auto industry once these were monopolies.
This statement doesn't make any sense. First, they're not monopolies. Second, innovation in those fields hasn't stagnated. Third, networks _are_ close to monopolies
Re: (Score:2)
You are wrong across the board.
The people who just want free stuff aren't generally aware enough to know about the network neutrality issue. The proponents of network neutrality are concerned about censorship and about companies colluding to harm consumers and stifle innovation in order to defend their own slice of the market.
And also: wtf are you doing on slashdot with internet habits like those? Smells like astroturf.
Re: (Score:2)
I mostly get the network neutrality argument now, at least from the proponent side.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, you've just not heard from Google and others...
Net Neutrality is about not dinking with traffic- just deliver it.
Net Neutrality is about not interfering with bittorrent traffic- I don't pirate, I get Linux distributions and other things that're a LEGITIMATE use of that protocol.
Net Neutrality is about not interfering with SIP traffic from a competing telecom interest so that the ISP can sell their own SIP or h.323 service.
Net Neutrality is about not interfering with HTTP traffic going to/from Google and
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean illegal downloads, not "free stuff". Youtube is free last time I checked. Net neutrality has little to do with copyright violations, and everything to do with normal websites.
Imagine that now a new (completely legal) Netflix competitor appears that you actually prefer over Netflix. It has more features, or a better selection of certain movies, or cheaper prices.
Yet, if you try to use it your experience will be shitty (slow streaming, high latency) because Netflix has an established player has the m
Re:My concerns about network neutrality. (Score:4, Insightful)
Network neutrality is not about "free stuff" at all, it's about no discrimination based on source and destination. If a cartel of major ISPs is paid to promote YouTube, say, at the expense of everyone else's video site, small businesses everywhere will feel the sting. And the other big thing here is censorship. Without network neutrality, a Christian lobby, for example, may be able to block or throttle down A LOT of stuff. And, considering how much money they have, you can be sure that the network content will become more similar to the day-time cable.
Your point about wanting to access movies and music without paying for it is without merit. We are all paying for data transfer, and without network neutrality in place, even the free-as-in-freedom content which artists created with the intention of sharing freely will be marginalized, because it will compete with a handful of extremely well-funded commercial offerings.
A car analogy really works here, I think. The internet is kind of like the road system: it is designed from the ground up so that any host can communicate with any other host, as long as they pay for data transfer. Just like the roads are designed so that anyone in the USA can travel anywhere in the USA, as long as they have a car or can afford a bus. Imagine that almost all good roads in the USA are private and that there is no law which amounts to "road neutrality". The road barons would be able to isolate whole states and prevent the workforce from moving to a place with better employment opportunities. In this context, your opposition is similar to saying that we don't need road neutrality because some people would use it to drive to a titty bar. Who cares, there is much, much more at stake: our freedom to express ourselves, to educate ourselves, and our economic freedom.
Re: (Score:2)
"If a cartel of major ISPs is paid to promote YouTube, say, at the expense of everyone else's video site, small businesses everywhere will feel the sting." - Should we outlaw Akamai then? I think what you've described is precisely what they're doing, with edge servers closer to the user, and dedicated racks in major ISPs.
Re:My concerns about network neutrality. (Score:5, Insightful)
My real concern is that the proponents of network neutrality just want to be able to have unabated access to download music and movies and porn without paying for them - that there's no real "freedom" issues at hand; it's just people wanting free stuff.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. (H. L. Mencken)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I guess the affect for someone like me is that most of my internet viewing is something like youtube, netflix, hulu, etc, and whether or not the cost of streaming media should be passed on to me as the end user.
For me the big deal is that my local monopoly is comcast. I can go on hulu and watch a show for free, or I can pay 99 cents to get it on demand. I have a vonage phone that I pay $15 a month for, or I can pay comcast $40 per month for their VOIP phone. I can pay 8.95 per month for netflix, and be able to stream movies and shows on my terms, or I can pay comcast $LARGE_AMOUNT for slightly better TV service ($45 for digital, plus $6 for DVR/HD, plus extra for premium channels).
So, the question is, with all the
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As for filesharing, that will happen whether or not net neutrality is allowed. Destroying the open internet in an attempt to reduce filesharing is dangerously naive.
The group of people supporting network neutrality and the group of scumbag leechers you referred to may overlap a little, but they are by no means the same.
How would you feel if your ISP decides to restrict or entirely block Google in favor of Bing? Now how would you feel if part of that deal was to filter out search results havi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This post is wrong but useful. Since it shows what many "non-techies" (including politicians) think net neutrality is.
Re: (Score:2)
"but I honestly WANT some of those people to have more restricted access."
That's very interesting considering the fact that after reading your poorly constructed comment, I want you to have more "restricted access."
Re: (Score:2)
This [dvice.com] is what net neutrality is all about. (Direct image link here. [dvice.com]
Re: (Score:2)
How can you make profits to pay it, if your traffic can't even reach the consumers because your already established competitors have paid the ISPs?
If all the companies started at the same time, that would be true - the better wins. But after that, the already established company will always win over the startups even if it's worse, simply because it already has money.
In EU law, at least, it's prohibited
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If nothing else he's a little bit obsessed. Not every motion picture about WWII is about the Holocaust. That doesn't make those movies crashing rhetorical failures, it just means they had a different subject.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well said. Every review I've seen coming down on the film for not understanding its subject, seems to come from a reviewer who didn't understand the film.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Blowhard? Who modded that "insightful", someone from the BSA? rather than a "blowhard", he has passionately defended the public space, even as a lawyer before the Supreme Court (too bad he lost the case).
Blowhards have little or nothing to say. Lessig has a lot to say, all of it important. Nobody but one of his enemies would call him a "blowhard". interesting how it's an AC calling Lessig a blowhard, isn't it? Even more interesting how the AC's uninsightful and plain-assed incorrect comment was modded up?
Od
OK. He's a Drama Queen. Feel Better Now? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, come on. It was everything I could do to keep the Star-Spangled Banner from playing spontaneously through my speakers when I read that summary. I appreciate that he is an advocate for Freedom with a capital "F" and all that good stuff, but Christ Almighty, Lessig, learn to pick your spots. It's a movie review!
Re:Facebook is a lame site (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I wonder why someone would use popularity as a guide to choose a social network.