I was settling into my office/study in the Institute this morning when my next door neighbour Tom popped in to say hello and we ended up talking for an hour or two. He used to be in the RCMP and we were talking about how pedophiles have managed to exploit the blogosphere, a Washington Post article about aliens mining humans for monatomic gold (of which more tomorrow), decision support, knowledge management and other subjects. Its really nice to be in once place with colleagues for an extended period of time - the first time in five years.
The way he explained it (I am dealing with the pedophiles here), is that we used to live in villages, and each village had an idiot but everyone knew who they were and kept an eye on them. Now the village idiots are all connected over the web and no one knows who they are. He also told me the depressing news that when arrested it is now common for a pedophile to claim that they are a persecuted minority, which despite my liberal upbringing and revolutionary past is going too far.
However as we talked I realised that one of the negative sides of blogs is that they allow like to cluster with like, and in effect create cults in which views are legitimised because they are never challenged. Also status is achieved by being more rather than less extreme. I’ve seen this in some blogs, and also in list serves. The environment clusters like minded people from around the world and unless they actively encourage dissent, someone coming into the space and saying something different is subject to a white blood cell attack to repel the invader.
It could be an irony of the connected age, that we increase social fragmentation rather than decrease it. Of course it doesn’t have to be like that but it takes effort. On the positive side I was chatting on Skype with Euan who thinks he has learnt more about me from under a week of blogs than in the years we have met and talked at various conferences, Starbucks and cafes.
Comments (5)
Thing is we still know the idiots in our own villages and now we get to deal with the ones elsewhere as well. The web doesn't make people the way they are it reveals them.
We do all need to take responsibility for not getting stuck in echo chambers but then that is nothing new either. People used to describe themselves as Telegraph readers or Guardian readers and join the conservative club or the local miners welfare.
Clustering around prejudice is not new but again on the web at least I can be more aware of it happening. Google can unearth most of the conversations and connections people I engage with have had online and I can get a better handle on where they are coming from.
Posted by Euan Semple | August 1, 2006 3:53 PM
Posted on August 1, 2006 15:53
Guardian readers still met Telegraph readers when they were walking to the conservative club. You are right though - in a virtual world you get to know the village idiots, the trouble is that there are a lot of them!
Posted by Dave Snowden | August 2, 2006 1:21 AM
Posted on August 2, 2006 01:21
The like-cluster-with-like issue is frequently talked about as the "echo chamber." It is possibly amplified on the web, but the web isn't the only place where it happens. Politics, news media, radio talk shows...
And, like Euan, I get to learn more about you this way than through the more formal interactions at ACT-KM or AOK or your academic writings. Didn't know you had a revolutionary past, for example. Is that good or bad?
Posted by Jack Vinson | August 2, 2006 5:33 AM
Posted on August 2, 2006 05:33
Good point Jack - I'll pick up on the Press and Media in a posting later in the week so look out for "Echo Chamber"
As to the revolutionary past - I went to University in the 70's and was one of the "Lancaster 25" who got expelled and then reinstated when we proved the University guilty of a breach of Natural Justice. My first paper was on Catholic Marxism building on Liberation Theology.
My mother was the same, fought her way out a working class environment in Cardiff through a scholarship and was active politically for the rest of her life right up to her untimely death from lung cancer two years ago (as a result of secondary smoking while a teacher we think). Interestingly when I was clearing her effects a few weeks ago I discovered the one thing she had kept as a memorial of my University days was the letter from the University expelling me ....
Posted by Dave Snowden | August 2, 2006 5:54 AM
Posted on August 2, 2006 05:54
Village idiots and all of that.
Euan,
You made the comments that "The web doesn't make people the way they are it reveals them.". I tend to disagree - rather strongly. In the case of pedophiles, they have changed the way they are - and it is because of the net. Previously, they could not find each other easily and could not communicate, except with the utmost difficulty and then coverty. Now they can find each other around the world in a matter of moments. What is critical to note here (IMHO) is that now that the communication link is formed easily, they are validating and confirming each others behaviours. Perviously, they may have thought to themselves that there was not wrong with their behaviour, but when caught, they behaved as though they were guility. Now, with the group validation that they have through the net, when caught many of them exhibit aggressive behaviour, claiming that they are being persecuted for being a minority. They also believe that their situation is just like that of black slaves in North America or women who are oppressed. Soon, they believe, their point of view will be accpeted and everyone will see that there is nothing wrong with being a pedophile, it is just another form of behaviour.
Did the net make them pedophiles? No, most likley not! Did the net enable to change the way they view themselves and operate? Most likley yes!
BTW, newpapers and other forms of media did not allow this to happen. Very hard to troll a newspaper for like minded pedophiles.
Then there is the jihadists on the net - but that is a whole other story (my actual area of expertise is jihadism).
tom
Posted by tom | August 4, 2006 12:31 AM
Posted on August 4, 2006 00:31