Re: <nettime> .another internet is possible!_ [2x Morlock Elloi; Rob Myers]

[nettime's internet digest <nettime@kein.org>]

----- Forwarded message from Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@yahoo.com> -----

From: Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> .another internet is possible!_
Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 17:12:04 -0700 (PDT)
To: "nettime-l@kein.org" <nettime-l@kein.org>

Here is the first easy first step in weaning off telescreens:

- use Lynx for all your browsing needs. If you can't see it in lynx, it's not information.





----- Forwarded message from Rob Myers <rob@robmyers.org> -----

From: Rob Myers <rob@robmyers.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> .another internet is
 possible!_ [3x : mp, Rob Myers, Jaime Magiera]
Date: Tue, 04 May 2010 06:50:53 -0400
To: <nettime-l@kein.org>

On Mon, 03 May 2010 12:04:33 +0200, Heiko Recktenwald
<heikorecktenwald@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> From: Rob Myers <rob@robmyers.org>
>> Your Facebook identity can be used to fire, convict, harrass or
>> discriminate against you.
>
> Oh, thats the trivial part of the internet. Insofar EVERYTHING you
> published in the net can be used against you. Usenet etc. Thats not
> your identity, but your actions. That you may have connected with your
> name. So it is easy for people to see that you wrote nice things about
> the Taliban and bad things about the "international community" or
> whatever.

I would argue that the important part there is the "you". That "you" is
your presence in the medium and is for at least some senses of the word an
"identity" as seen by others. It's not an identity in the sense of an
internal self but in the sense of identifying oneself to others and being
identified by them.

That (attempted) change in the meaning of identity to something reified
and external can be seen in the push for database-stored and managed
government biometric (etc.) "identity" schemes.

Jaron Lanier's "You Are Not A Gadget" raises the problem of web 2.0
identity but ends up trapped in a false dichotomy between a capitalist
materialism and a reactionary mysticism.

> I was speaking of facebook networks. Facebook "friends" and other
> hidden data. Maybe there are cases where those networks are real,
> academic networks in the US etc, but in most cases those networks of
> "friends" are more or less random and dont reflect your real life.

I think that online networks are generally more real, and real-world
social networks less real, than one might think. Danah Boyd has some good
papers about this.

> IMHO it is the real person that counts, for advertisers too.

In reaction to the demand that we be ever more authentic in our reified
social relations so that they can be more efficiently exploited, perhaps we
should resurrect the identity play of the early internet.

- Rob.






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