Monday, September 17th, 2012

Where Do They Get All Those US Flags?

Answer me this…

Where the hell do the various protesters get all those American Flags to burn?

I swear I went looking before July 4th – Independence Day in the Unites States and I had trouble finding one!

Don’t worry – this isn’t a political diatribe – nor is it a religious screed – not even a thinly veiled politically correct rant…

My real question is about Freedom of Speech and the exponential effect that instant immediate access of digital channels brings to the fore.

I am passionate on this subject and have written about it before.

I fully believe that Freedom of anything demands accountability in return. Speech is no different. And while words might not kill – they can wound – and sadly we know that they can incite to suicide, murder and mayhem.

Which begs the question – which words then are restricted; what actions need to be curtailed; where do I have the right to limit your ability of expression and at the end of the day what is my right of reaction.

In my opinion – when I invade your privacy – as we have seen so often – I have no right of freedom to share or otherwise disseminate that information. And if I do and I cause you serious anguish – even onto death I must suffer the consequences and accept accountability – not hide behind some lame interpretation of open Internet.

And although the corollary might seem trite given the sad and horrific deaths in Libya and elsewhere – but the young royal couple of England are fighting the same battle.

By the same token I have no right to incite anyone against you because I don’t like your religion, race or creed. This goes across the board. And there are no excuses.

Lord knows I don’t have to agree with you; I don’t have to like you or what you stand for – but I will fight for your right to credibly and respectfully express yourself.

On the other hand – racists and bigots and fanatics have no right of expression. Sheer baseless hatred has no place in our global society and we as citizens of Generation World need to be vigilant in our own evangelizing of the values we cherish and share.

I leave it to you to decide if a poorly made and written movie with an ignorant basis, that has ignited way more than burned flags – leaving death and destruction is protected or not.

Perhaps Salman Rushdie gives us a clue – as he suffered serious personal consequences of the same question.

Will we have to limit Sacha Baron Cohen? Ricky Gervais or any of hundreds of comics who poke fun at us all – regardless of race, religion or creed?

Will we become so politically correct that we will lose our ability to have real dialogue and discussion?

And will we become frightened to express ourselves; to laugh; to cry; to share because the consequences become no longer legal but violent.

Frankly we have the obligation to speak out when Freedom of Speech is being abused. It is our accountability as part of Generation World – it is the price we have to pay for the openness and the connectivity we enjoy and for all the good and great it has brought our world.

And that obligation crosses all boarders and all boundaries – none of us get a free pass to insult the other.

And there can be no recourse to violence simply because I feel insulted – where does that ever end?

Listen:

“Because if you don’t stand up for the stuff you don’t like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you’ve already lost.”  Neil Gaiman

And there you have it – we need to be sensitive. We need to stand up for the right to be confronted with what we don’t like – because if we don’t soon we will be bereft of all expression….and the consequences of that scenario are too frightening..

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” George Washington

And as I said – with it all comes the accountability for what you say…

One last thought…

“Freedom of speech does not protect you from the consequences of saying stupid shit.” Jim C. Hines

What do you think?

And by the way – WHERE DO THEY GET ALL THOSE FLAGS!

 

Posted by David on 09/17 at 12:51 PM
  • Complicated issue. Nicely articulated in NY Times by Somini Sengupt — "One of the challenges of the digital age, as the YouTube case shows, is that speech articulated in one part of the world can spark mayhem in another. Can the companies that run those speech platforms predict what words and images might set off carnage elsewhere? Whoever builds that ...
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    Posted by lianna on 2012-09-24 05:07:10
  • very true... very well written, liked the brain behind it...
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    Posted by Haider on 2012-09-18 11:52:49
  • Thansk David, Another great topic, seems like an endless debate, freedom vs. accountability. If we look at the real world we find all of these laws that govern us and decitate the way we live, it's not to take our freedom but rather protect it, we are not living in a "perfect" society yet and untill then we should ...
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    Posted by Munther on 2012-09-18 06:56:25
Monday, April 30th, 2012

Making Money from Scoops

Here is an ethical question.

Can a news source make money from its scoops – beyond the obvious – and will I keep reading the source if they continue to scoop?

The question is raised by Felix Salmon, the finance blogger on Reuters – somewhat facetiously I thought…until I thought about it and read the comments posted around his own posting.

Read on:
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/04/24/could-the-nyt-make-money-from-its-scoops/

Bottom line – companies pay for access to information. In today’s world they pay for access to ever more relevant and ever more instant sources. If I hired a research company to unearth that same information few would argue that I don’t have the right to benefit from it. But a news source? A storied institution like the New York Times? Don’t they have a compact with the public? Don’t all credible news institutions have that same sense of accountability?

Yet already I can pay the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others to get digital access to their news and thus get it faster and before the print edition is even composed. And, if I go back in time – isn’t buying a daily subscription the same thing? I get it early in the morning – read it with my coffee and muffin and get a jump on the guy who picks it up on the way in. In fact I remember stories of people who would wait outside the printing plants to get the first copy of a given newspaper in the old days.

So – it would seem, at first glance, that in our digital world there is no additional ethical or moral issue – like most things it’s just an evolution and adaptation of understood and accepted behavior.

Or is it? HMMMMMMM….

Read the posts and tell me what you think.

My going in view was much the same as one of the contributors – a trusted news source has to be held to a different standard than a scandal rag – and I might be tempted to add that in a world where credibility, relevance and trust are becoming blurred subjects, I might feel even more strongly about that point and hope that they hew to a more rigorous interpretation of their charter.

In fact I might argue that if they fall prey to the temptation it actually lowers their future competitive advantage.

Last point – notice all the anonymity in the postings – my position on that has never changed – unless you are in a country where you fear for your life the opportunity to misuse hiding behind a curtain is too tempting for too many…and adds to the danger of having no credible sources left for benchmarking information and, yes, even behavior.

Listen:

“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”
Samuel Johnson

I think this about sums it up. Interestingly, many weighed in on this, from the Greek and Roman philosophers to Benjamin Franklin to many of today’s most famous pundits.

Not a problem created by our age but one still very relevant and very much on people’s minds.

What do you think?

Posted by David on 04/30 at 06:43 PM
  • It is interesting how many sites are now making the move from freeview into pay for content models - most recently was the Times UK. I guess most people expect that the publications online should be free, whilst paper copies should not - however a business is a business and any profit made off the back of covering operating costs ...
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    Posted by Suzanne Donovan on 2012-05-07 04:36:56
Monday, April 23rd, 2012

“Do No Evil”?

Anyone remember this Japanese parable?

Known as the three wise monkeys, they embody—“speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil.”

Occasionally they are pictured with a fourth monkey with crossed arms representing “do no evil.”

There is a certain simplicity to the notion, and one that carries virtue in its practice – imagine if some of our anonymous digital bloggers and such practiced the “speak” and “do” portions….

Yet growing up, there was a view that the very simplicity of this proverb was in itself dangerous and could lead to a society of people who shut out reality and looked the other way when faced with injustice—as portrayed by this famously historic political cartoon:

All of which leads me to “Don’t Be Evil,” the (now becoming) infamous motto of Google, going back to their founding days.

When they first took on Microsoft, the line seemed a byword of the new digital generation and was a challenge and frankly a forced upon positioning to an (even by then) older and more traditional high-tech company that had long ago passed the stage of scrappy start-up.

Yet today “Don’t Be Evil” rings rather hollow when we discover that in the process of creating the amazing Street View, Google was also reading our private data (including passwords) as their digital photo units passed by our homes. Not to mention the role reversal, with Microsoft now looking like the pounded-upon and persecuted child.

Crazily—in my personal opinion—we seem to be making excuses for the corporate malfeasance of what we view as “new-age digital corporations,” giving them a pass for the kind of behavior that would cause us to bury an older, seemingly more “traditional” (how I hate that meaningless moniker…) company.

Google can read our mail, Amazon can sell our data, Apple can exploit poor workers, and all can do it in the name of bettering our lives and society.

I encourage you to read the following piece by Quentin Hardy, “Don’t Be Evil, But Don’t Miss The Train.” The questions laid out are critical, I believe, to the future of society:

Do unarguably phenomenally successful entrepreneurs have the right to dictate social change beyond the changes we ourselves are driving with the very products they have created?

And yes – while it is fair to argue that the changes brought about by the automobile and the airplane, not to mention Gutenberg and the printing press, took generations to develop while in today’s world we drive change in minutes – would we have wanted, would we have allowed Henry Ford to determine the social structure of a country because he was successful and had vision – you tell me….

Bottom line – I am concerned. Concerned when we look the other way, concerned when we make excuses, concerned when we don’t hold people in power accountable, and concerned when we allow analysts and others who have vested interests to cover our eyes, ears and mouths.

Let’s be clear – I don’t believe that Google is evil…but I do believe that we are all asleep at the switch. If we give people a pass—without any accountability—because they tell us that they are changing the world, where does it stop? Worse, just look back in history to get an idea of where it can go….

Perhaps it’s as my daughters would say – my pathetic wannabe aging hippy sensibility – or maybe because I recently bought a new children’s version of these lyrics in book form and taught my two grandsons (5 and 2) how to sing the words – but do listen:

“How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn’t see….the answer my friend is blowing in the wind….” Bob Dylan

I also encourage you to listen to all the words – if you have forgotten them and even more so if you don’t know them – and all are invited to join Henry, Teddy and me next time we sing…

What do you think? The answer is blowing in the wind….

 

Posted by David on 04/23 at 04:20 PM
  • Michael Ramistella, what about all the patent war? is that just an accident to which they should apologize? Im pretty confident that there is no "evil" purpose behind all this data (and even patents) but the post has a really good point: if we just accept it, when will we know when/if the switch fiips? It made me think of ...
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    Posted by Marcelo Perrone on 2012-04-23 20:55:54
  • Did Google screw up with taking our information? Yes. Am I mad? Not really. Why? Because I don't think anyone at Google is dying to know the inane banter that goes on between my friends and I on our free time or what our plans to meet up for dinner after work are. Could they use that for who to ...
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    Posted by Michael Ramistella on 2012-04-23 17:12:52