{"id":702,"date":"2010-12-06T08:58:18","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T12:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=702"},"modified":"2011-05-20T15:19:22","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T19:19:22","slug":"should-information-always-be-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2010\/12\/06\/should-information-always-be-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Information Always be Free?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The way in which information is shared in the digital age is headlining the news around many different issues. WikiLeaks is distributing\u00a0thousands of classified State Department documents; the FFC Chairman is attempting to preserve net neutrality (i.e., the dictum that Internet service providers cannot limit the rate that users access different kinds of legal content); Facebook users are sharing more and more private details of their lives online.\u00a0 Arguably, the same cultural debate is playing out in all of these cases: Is society best served when all information is free, or are we better off if some information remains private?<\/p>\n

Silicon Valley has become a magnet for evangelists of the “information wants to be free<\/a>” movement, what has come to be known\u00a0as “cyberlibertarianism.”\u00a0 Supporters often argue that the free flow of information is fundamental to democracy.\u00a0 This is, in fact, the justification behind WikiLeaks’ distribution of confidential, proprietary, or otherwise secret information.<\/p>\n

However, it is important to note that many of the most high-profile supporters of a\u00a0transparent\u00a0society, where information is free, are Internet companies, like Facebook and Google, that seek profit by collecting and sharing information about their users.\u00a0Alternatively, companies who would benefit from restricting the flow of information (ISPs like, Comcast and Verizon) tend to oppose the principle that information should be free.<\/p>\n

Cyberlibertarianism has range of other critics.\u00a0 Clearly, the government has argued that state interests are threatened by the leaking of information.\u00a0On a more micro level, many sociologists (including the authors of this post) are concerned that the pressure to constantly share more, and more personal information can be detrimental to individual users of Google, Facebook, and other social-networking sites.<\/p>\n

Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has stated<\/a>,<\/p>\n

Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, Google CEO Eric Schmidt\u00a0has stated<\/a>,<\/p>\n

If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Building a culture where openness is prized creates problems particularly acute for members of groups that fall outside of society’s privileged categories (e.g., non-whites, women, LGBT persons, or those with disabilities).\u00a0For instance, earlier this year Facebook made one’s friend-list and “likes” public overnight, effectively “outing” many users who wanted to keep their sexual\u00a0orientation\u00a0more private.\u00a0 As one blogger discussed<\/a>, Google’s\u00a0decision to make public information about those with whom you email most (in their Buzz service) was especially harmful to a woman with an abusive ex-husband.\u00a0 Similarly, danah boyd, in a blog post titled “Transparency Is Not Enough,”<\/a> describes the potentially harmful consequences of “open government” when\u00a0 sex offender information is misused.<\/p>\n

Against the notion of “information wants to be free” as a universal good, we should also consider the continuing importance of secrecy<\/a>, especially for those most vulnerable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The way in which information is shared in the digital age is headlining the news around many different issues. WikiLeaks is distributing\u00a0thousands of classified State Department documents; the FFC Chairman is attempting to preserve net neutrality (i.e., the dictum that Internet service providers cannot limit the rate that users access different kinds of legal content); […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":563,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[10166,2558,8497,10168,3153,10164,10167,800,8511],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-cyberlibertarianism","tag-danah-boyd","tag-information","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-net-neutrality","tag-secrecy","tag-silicon-valley","tag-transparency","tag-wikileaks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/563"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":737,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions\/737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}