Zittrain's 'The Future of the Internet' ... Generative Spheres of Netizens
Alas, it's time for the final class-related post on Jonathan Zittrain's The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It (Yale, 2008).
Right off the bat, the title on the book's cover stunned me like a cold, unexpected slap from nowhere. Rather, it was specifically the subtitle that caught my eye: ... And How to Stop It. I thought to myself, this guy must be out of his mind. Who on earth would want to get rid of the Internet? You can't go back. That's crazy!
Alas, I only needed to peer between the covers to get at Zittrain's point. The history of the rise of the Internet has taken place through two different modalities of computing machine - the appliance (Hollerith and subsequently IBM's tabulating and word processing machines) and the PC/personal computer (Jobs' Apple II and Windows-based machines). Appliances exemplify closed-system computing. They serve preset functions very limited in scope, are safe and secure, and allow little or no flexibility to their users (and manufacturers for that matter) with regard to changing or adding to their functionality. By contrast, the personal computer could be symbolized by an open book whose story waits to be finished or even written by its users. It exemplifies open, generative computing. PCs possess few preset functions by their manufacturers and are open to the addition of new, often yet-to-be discovered functions by their users. This openness to tinkering by its users both blesses and curses the PC, for it endows it with its generative capacity and its large vulnerability (in comparison to appliances) to breeches in security. Without this generative capacity, Zittrain contends, the Internet would not have developed into the wondrous socio-econo-technological phenomenon it is today.
Yet, at the same time, it is this crucial feature of generative capacity that lies under an enormous threat. The flexibility and freedom to create enabled by the generative capacity of a technology also leaves it wide open to corruption and abuse. According to Zittrain, it will take only a 9/11-like watershed security breech (unlikely but possible) or a "death of a thousand cuts" (the "creeper scenario," much more likely) to lock down our PCs (and the Internet) and turn them into sterile, unimaginative, highly restricted appliances and humanity will effectively enter the next socio-technological Dark Age (p. 51). Hence, there we find the reason for the book's alarmist subtitle. It is this wholly plausible fate - the lockdown of the Internet - against which Zittrain inveighs.
Speaking of inveighing against things (enter my not-so-subtle segue into an entirely new point that doesn't bore you with summarizing any more of the book), I have a confession to make about one of the model technologies Zittrain highlights as an example of successful generative technology: yes, that's right, Wikipedia. Librarians and info professionals, as the story normally goes, have historically been quick to inveigh against Wikipedia, because it represents a shortcut in good research and critical thinking, or so they/we would say. After reading chapter 6, "The Lessons of Wikipedia," I have to say that I have been convinced that this opinion no longer holds an "absolute truth," much less is it entirely correct. Sure, I agree that Wikipedia should not be one's sole source of information, especially with regard to projects that require serious, thorough research (e.g., academic papers). I would say the same for the use of any encyclopedia, for that matter. It can serve as an excellent starting point, a place to help brainstorm ideas on a topic (i.e., discovery tool), a source for background information on nearly any topic. However, as I always strive to impress upon all the student researchers I encounter, it should not turn into one's one-stop, all-in-one destination for research. You have to expand your horizons beyond what is found there. That's what the references are for!
That being said, Zittrain has opened my eyes to the reason Wikipedia encompasses more than just an online encyclopedia. Despite its many ups and downs (but mainly, they have been ups), Wikipedia stands head and shoulders above the competition, because it embodies the essence of generative technology:
Wikipedia's success ... is attributable to a messy combination of constantly updated technical tools and social conventions that elicit and reflect personal commitments from a critical mass of editors to engage in argument and debate about topics they care about. Together these tools and conventions facilitate a notion of "netizenship": belonging to an Internet project that includes other people, rather than relating to the Internet as a deterministic information location and transmission tool or as a cash-and-carry service offered by a separate vendor responsible for its content. (Zittrain, p. 142)
In this passage, Zittrain conceptualizes Wikipedia using the language of Lawrence Lessig, namely the "four constraints" of regulation in Ch. 7, "What Things Regulate," of Code v. 2.0. They are:
These four constraints are better understood in tandem, interdependent parts of a dynamic system of regulation imposed on the "dot" (in this case, generative technology or Wikipedia). Changes in one often affect changes in one or more other constraints. Therefore, as Lessig argues in Code 2.0, a complete view takes into account all four modalities together (p. 123). Regarding each constraint in isolation generates an incomplete and potentially misleading picture. Thus, for example, architecture applies to hardware of the Internet and servers that are used to host Wikipedia as well as the software that allows its contributors to generate entries. This architecture is in turn shaped by Wikipedian's norms or set of community-generated rules - which among other things require that anyone with access to the Web can become a Wikipedia contributor, an enormous openness to public involvement (FotI, p. 146) - and laws - which Wikipedia honors and upholds, such as laws on copyright and defamation.
Given Lessig's 4-sided paradigm, we can appreciate the power and complexity of Wikipedia as a generative technology, an almost organic, living entity, an ever-dynamic "work in progress" (FotI, p. 142), a representation of "semiotic democracy" (FotI, p. 147) that owes its very existence to its community of dedicated creator-participants, the netizens. On this last part, I will close by saying that, explicitly and implicitly, I believe that Zittrain regards netizens and their actions (or lack thereof) as a major key in preserving the Internet as a generative technology and prevent it from suffering a sad fate of being reduced to mere appliance. If you and I value generativity and believe its benefits are worth the very real and significant risks that it entails, as responsible netizens, we must be proactive and vocal in our support and protection of it. Now is not the time for slacktivism!











