We've all sat in a hot, stuffy room, uncomfortable, and know the
amazing feeling of a brief gust of wind blowing fresh air into the
room, cutting through the muggy feel just briefly before subsiding,
leaving us craving more. Last night's Democratic debate felt that way.
CNN opened a window -- brief, limited, controlled -- but they opened it,
and the refreshing feel of the outside air tasted so delicious.
I had the opportunity to attend last night's South Carolina Democratic
debate in person. The room looked and felt like any other produced,
managed television event. The candidates started out rehearsed, giving
their prepared sound bites in response to each question. But the
questions were real, as were the questioners, and as the debate went
on, the candidates changed. Not radically, but they began to respond
more directly to the questions. They started talking to the
questioners. They resisted when Anderson Cooper tried to force them to
discuss trivialities like whether they have chartered campaign planes
instead of the real issues of global warming. While of the campaign
videos followed tired old campaign commercial patterns, a few were
funny and felt genuine.
Television still dominates politics and candidates still speak in a
way that will play on TV. Last night was one debate, but cable news
continues to fill tens of thousands of hours with content controlled
by a small group of journalists. Still, last night, we could see a
glimmer of a better way where candidates speak to citizens. Briefly, a
gust of fresh air was swirling through that large auditorium. The
Internet is blowing this fresh air through the rooms of our politics,
our economy, and our culture. Anyone can blog, or sell their own
t-shirts, or release their own music.
To some, however, this open economy is scary and dangerous. How can we
know which books are good without Barnes and Noble to select them? How
can we avoid buying shoddy jewelry or fake silver without the controls
retailers have in place? And what will happen to a civilized centrist
political consensus when just anyone gets to speak their opinions? To
some, the gust of air is chilly and brings in the salty smell of the
sea and a whiff of garbage. Maybe conditioned air is best. Maybe we
should leave it to the professional HVAC technicians to manage our
air.
In the early days of the Internet, you could sign up for access
through a service like AOL, Prodigy, or CompuServe, which resembled
shopping malls. Each piece of content was carefully selected by
editors. Or, you could get direct Internet access, which had
enormously more content to read, communities to join, and products to
buy, but it also carried spam and other dangers, fooling people into
buying worthless penny stocks or giving their bank account numbers to
Nigerian scammers. More content and community, because nobody had to
ask AOL for permission to be on the Internet. Spam, because even the
spammers didn't have to ask permission.
Most of our communications networks work more like AOL than the
Internet. Television and cable professionals decide what you see on
TV. The cable companies decide what channels to offer. Radio managers
choose shows for their stations. And Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and
T-Mobile determine which phones to offer and in many cases what
applications you are allowed to install on those phones. They want to
keep the air clean (according to their standards). You can choose
between AT&T and Sprint, between NBC and CBS, and they do compete
vigorously, but within a professionally selected range of offerings.
Nothing unpredictable, but little participation from citizens and
limited innovation from entrepreneurs.
Without the openness of the Internet, we wouldn't be experiencing the
tremendous growth of citizen involvement in politics. Without it, we
couldn't learn about nearly any subject instantly from Wikipedia --
even if the information hasn't been vetted by gatekeeping Britannica
editors. Without it, we couldn't buy all the many hard-to-find
products on eBay from around the world -- even if they don't come with
corporate guarantees of quality. Without it, millions of people
wouldn't be finding love on dating sites -- though they occasionally
meet sketchy people as well. The market chose the freewheeling
Internet model over AOL's controlled "walled garden". Internet access
boomed while the managed online services went out of business.
Clearly, citizens are willing to be unpredictable and take advantage
of open systems. And I believe citizens are able and willing to be
their own gatekeepers, which has worked on sites like Craigslist and
Digg.
Many of the former gatekeepers are opening up to the idea of opening
up, even if begrudgingly. Newspapers are blogging to remain relevant
as subscriptions decline. Candidates are competing for supporters on
Facebook and MySpace. And CNN is letting citizens write the debate
questions. Meanwhile, others are fighting the trend. Many pundits and
commentators attack bloggers. Books about the Internet "href="http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Amateur-Internet-killing-culture/dp/0385520808">killing
our culture" get widespread attention and href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/books/29book.html?ex=1185422400&en=a196bb857abbe1c6&ei=5070">praising
reviews in the New York Times. The RIAA, according to Rolling
Stone, is facing
obsolescence because it refused to try to work with the Internet
constructively.
So far, the telephone and cable companies are choosing to hold on to
old, closed business models. An upcoming auction of new wireless
spectrum could follow href="http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1104">"open access"
principles to create a new wireless network more like the
Internet, but Verizon and AT&T so far oppose this. We should give
consumers this choice between the current networks and an open one.
Net Neutrality is about preserving the ability to choose an open
network as new fiber-optic networks replace today's DSL and dial-up
modems.
The fresh air of creative citizen participation is starting to blow
into Presidential politics through the window CNN opened. And this
week, we have an opportunity to open the window in telecommunications
as well. Senator Dick Durbin is conducting a href="http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=318">series of
discussions on OpenLeft.com to make policy by talking to citizens.
The question we ask ourselves when choosing a President is what kind
of America we want. The question we must ask ourselves and Senator
Durbin is the same -- what kind of network do we want? Should we leave
it to the professionals to decide what applications we use and what
content we see? Or do we want the Internet to keep being open, so
anyone can blog or sell products or create the next Amazon or Facebook
without permission? Do we want to expand that openness to mobile
technology? Or do we want to return to the tight control of the AOL
era, or Presidential questions being written by a small panel of
Washington elites? I hope Senator Durbin will open the windows. It's
awfully stuffy in here.