Beware False equivalencies - Breitbart and its kind are NOT news

I was reading another ZDNet article this time showing how fake news and siloed information was a danger to U.S. democracy.  The long-winded article went into a treatise, complete with spiffy chart of where on the political spectrum all the various "news" organizations fell.

CNN, AP and Reuters were considered middle of the road, mainstream with Huffington Post and Fox News occupying the left and right of them respectively.  Of course the middle is always under attack as being too liberal by somebody.

Seems the past decade has spawned an outcry for a more "balanced" media view bringing forth what is laughably called Fox "news" and ultimately lending legitimacy to far right wing "journalism" like that purveyed by the likes of Breitbart news (a known proponent of Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist ideologies.)

Folks,  the past 8 years have taught us what happens to a country caught up in in siloed rhetoric.  Men of otherwise good intent are prisoners of the polls and fearful of a vocal minority.  A minority that grows into an immovable majority on both sides sown only with the seeds of propaganda.

We're literally too stupid and too lazy to know any better.

We cherry pick that which we agree with and discard the rest.  You can't help it, the bias is so great, the vitriol so thick that it's nearly impossible to find common ground.

This is not the function of journalism.  Opinions belong on the editorial page not the front page.  But in a world of information overload we don't have time for opposing views especially when they come from those who care to know nothing but their own.

Those who refuse to recognize or even acknowledge the lessons and warnings of history are the real danger.  Degrees don't make you intelligent, being aware of your world does...

"We aren't a democracy - say the Pledge of Allegiance and realize this.  Democracy, as in the Roman Empire, is rule by the mob.  Heaven help us if we get there, as the Roman Empire didn't last as long as the U.S. has."

I'd like to say I made that quote up but I can't.  He's off by at least 300 years and doesn't care to realize it.

So much for "No Child Left Behind."

That quote, by the way, is from the comment section of the same article and sadly it's not alone.  I see it far too often and when the obvious oversight is called out instead of thoughtful reflection there is instead an attack.

Libtard, Butt-Hurt, Elitist.

These are the retorts.  These are the product of faux journalism and if nothing else we need to read the signs.

Is it so hard to form an opinion based on your own views instead of someone else's?

Is that NOT what this grand democracy is supposed to be?

Rhetoric is not governance, it's a campaign and campaigns are about wars.  Warriors are about conquering.  To conquer is easy, governing is hard.

Just ask a Roman...

Unlinking from LinkedIn

I find zero value in LinkedIn...

The concept isn't even original.  It's been called a glorified Facebook for business professionals and LinkedIn doesn't deny it.

As I poke around my own profile I'm inundated with prompts to "upgrade" my membership to enjoy all those "premium" features like being able to actually get useful search results (instead of "professional at xyz") or send a colleague an "in-mail" message on the site.  

Screw it, I'll just text them...

But you have to ask yourself, Why? 

Why would I pay a subscription fee to get even more email from people I don't know?  What most people consider spam, Linkedin considers a "feature."

I know, I know, these are supposed "business contacts" and "networking opportunities" not Viagra ads but that's rarely the case.  For example, I've gotten more requests to "join someone's network" from cold calling "staffing specialists"  (resume stackers)  than anyone I've ever had an actual professional relationship with.

In other words, you'd get less spam from a Monster.com account than from an active LinkedIn profile.  In fact, Monster.com is more useful which is something I never thought I would say.  Yeah, they want a paid subscription too but at least the search function works!

LinkedIn has been having an identity crisis for at least the past 5 years with most looking at it as a job search site while others look at it as an expanded CV while still others bought into that whole Facebook thing.

I sincerely hope nobody is pinning all their hopes on the job listings.  Most of them are out of date and/or list jobs that have little to nothing to do with your own skills.

If you do find something, expect to run into the service's many roadblocks including blocking the ability to share the position with anyone who doesn't happen to use the service.  Worse, many ISP's consider email messages from LinkedIn as ACTUAL Spam so your friend probably wouldn't get them anyway...

If you think it works for you chances are you already had a deep contact list without LinkedIn's help.

Meaning that those at the top of the heap likely get deluged with "connection" requests from complete strangers unless they choose to block such communication.

Which kind of defeats the purpose...

I admit, I do check in now and again just to see who got fired.  If you have enough information you can piece together just how flaky any given corporation's management is by watching how often different names show up under the same job title. 

So I guess it's good for something but not for what it professes to be. 

If you think LinkedIn is doing great things for your career you're just not giving yourself enough credit.

Yay! you reproduced!

The greatest thing you can do for the world is add to its population...

Or at least that's the message I've been getting.

It shows up in all those "Awww" moments when the talking heads on the morning news feel compelled  to share the baby pics.

Or the defiant rhetoric of the far right proclaiming it's most solemn duty is to protect the sanctity of marriage by limiting it to those with opposing genitalia.  Seemingly to ensure procreation of course...

Even the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage can't escape it.  Those folks want a gaggle of kids too even if the biology of the situation makes the whole thing somewhat difficult.

It seems the endless drumbeat to perpetuate the species is intertwined with the culture.  The bulk of your population may be living in the streets but nothing is more critical to a society than ensuring its numbers continue to grow.  

As though all ills would solved by simply creating more generations.  

Which of course is ridiculous.  More of anything is just more of the same condition.

Hey, I'm not against kids but I admit I don't have any so I suppose that shining moment of achievement will forever be lost on me.  It seems most parents have a belief that whatever personal failures they've had in their own lives will somehow be rectified by their offspring.

Or perhaps it's much simpler than that.  

Paris Hilton

Let's face it, unless you're one of the fortunate few who enjoys a lifestyle of fame and/or fortune there isn't much to compare to participating in the creation of life.  

I mean, c'mon now!  How can you deny the most tangible of mortal accomplishments!  We are no closer to god than when we create a child...

Right?

A point of view I both understand and recoil from.  Sadly, regardless of your religious indoctrination the reaction is purely biological.  Arguably no different than a mother housecat's reaction to her litter of newborn kittens. 

And by the way...Some of you are actually having "litters."  19 and counting?  For such devout piety it seems like you're in competition with the cat.  Supremacy of all those lower creatures is kind of taking a beating here. 

I'm not so arrogant as to believe that reproduction is any great feat.  As the song goes, "Birds do it, Bees do it" etc. etc.  In fact I'd suggest that for humans, it mostly happens by accident.  Once it does, however, somebody's got to step up to the plate at least until junior or little miss gets through college.  

An event that signals to society that a contractual requirement has been fulfilled.  You are now free to die having accomplished successful procreation and taxpayer replacement.
.....

I don't mean to be flippant about parenting or imply that the rearing of a human child is easy.  In fact I'm cognizant of the fact that I'm probably not the best candidate to participate in the practice.  I like kids, I like talking to them, teaching them but then I like to send them home.

I guess I'd be a pretty good grandparent then except for the whole "Parent" prerequisite that is.

But the truth of the matter is that after many millennia of human generations we still judge people on the color of their skin, social station and who they choose to sleep with among other trivialities. 

So much for "fruitful and multiply" being the cure for all our evils.

Ah ha! you say, The children are our future!


No they're not.  In fact I despise that phrase for all its selfish baggage.  Their future is their own and you've got nothing to say about it aside from how badly you screw them up with your own insecurities.

Our children can be nothing but a reflection of ourselves.  Even if they reject most of what you try to teach them, at their core they have you to thank for who they are.  Not just that they...are.

So I'd submit that the only way to ensure succeeding generations be better than their progenitors is to admit that there's nothing divine or particularly unique about having children.  

Until we drop all this religious and cultural pretense, we as a species will never rise above the petty concerns of 30 second sound bite sensationalism.

Saddling  our kids with dogma and ignorance does nothing for the species.  Want to give your kids a brighter future?  Stop thinking the greatest gift you gave them was existence.  Stop falling back on the cop out of ancient religious dogma and prejudice and prove that humanity is more than just the sum of its biology.

That or start scoping out caves, clubs and bearskin boxers.

Is anybody out there?

What do I have to do?

I don't get it...

Or at least I think I don't get it...

I'm not the social media butterfly that many are but you will find active accounts in places like Facebook, Twitter, Google plus and even about.me among others.  All are maintained and updated frequently.

I've got 4 active YouTube channels and accounts on two game streaming services (TWITCH and HITBOX).  I've been published online over 100 times on (former) news sites like Technorati and Kupeesh! and even had an article or two mentioned on Leo Laporte's TWIT.

I've branded my work in hopes that the brand will follow the creator.  I've taken great pains to try to  provide quality content in easily digestible and searchable formats.  I've torn down a YouTube channel only to reconstitute the content into separate more focused channels because someone told me viewers like it better that way.  

I'm still waiting for proof of that.  I've gone from being able to at least make a few bucks a year to virtually nothing since the change.

Which has led me to the realization that contrary to YouTube's advice, I don't believe most people who use YouTube could give a damn about the channel organization.

Hey, you do a Google search and Boom!  Content is served up regardless of the portal it resides on.  That's both the beauty and the Achilles heel of services like YouTube. 

Even being owned by a search giant can't guarantee visibility of your content.  

So I've done all of that stuff I'm supposed to do and still I'm lucky to make pennies a day.  

So how bad is it?  

It's been almost a year since I've had an adsense payment and never received a dime from my Amazon "partnership." 

BTW The threshold for a payout from Google Adsense is $100.

So I guess I just suck then? 

Content not interesting enough? 

I've seen much worse do far better so I don't think that's it.

Perhaps it has more to do with those who do well online being at the right place at the right time for their niche. 

I think it's far more likely, however, that online success is simply a byproduct of success elsewhere. 

Silky smooth radio voice or not would Leo Laporte have ever gotten TWIT off the ground without a stint in television and a long career in radio?  I doubt it.  I've heard better content elsewhere that struggles to match a fraction of the revenue.  

Want more evidence?  Simply look who's consistently hitting the top 20 in online media.  Personalities  like Adam Carolla and Marc Maron, News organizations like NPR and the Huffington Post not to mention tabloid TV like TMZ with the balance consisting of celebrity and fluff sites.   In short, we knew about them (or at least some incarnation of them) long before the Internet.*

It  doesn't mean their content is any better.  They're just leveraging a traditional media presence online.

So how fair is that?

For me it seems an online presence is less the great equalizer and more just adding to the noise.

I admit, being a bit older than most online dwellers there may be a generational bias that I'm at least in part struggling to overcome.

For example, when I write about gaming I'm not going to be anyone's fanboy.  Nobody's paying me to talk them up and if they did you could be sure I'd let you know about it.  

I wouldn't promote anything I didn't like so no worries there.

Still, I've been critical of the antics of the publishers like EA, Activision and Ubisoft.  I could care less about gussied up game trailers and technical demos.  I'll put it to you this way.  Battlefield 4's demo was awesome, the final product...notsomuch.  There's a lot of people who agree with that but I'm not seeing them around here.

Thing is, just like everything else those that pander to the hype seem to get the lion's share of views.

I don't just write about gaming either (obviously...) I'll tackle current events, politics and anything else that sparks a point of view. In fact that's what this particular blog is for.  That's why it's tagline is:

"Uncategorized reading for the randomized mind"

Perhaps that's the problem.  Nobody can identify with me.

I've been called overly negative, a troll not to mention any number of profanities.  I dunno, I just call 'em like I see 'em but it seems that if you don't buy into the prevailing online fads you're somehow a deviant.

Which to me signals the final evolution of online culture.  It's become as commercial and shallow as anything Hollywood could come up with.  It seems online success comes only to those either willing to put aside critical thinking or who've already made their mark elsewhere.  

Now before anyone runs off claiming my problem stems from being an arrogant a-hole with an overactive troll complex I'll simply give you this statistic.

I've written close to 500 articles in 4.5 years on a variety of topics.  Of those approximately 12 of them have proven the most popular with over 5K views each. 

All of them were critical of TWIT.  Meaning what people seem to like the most is a more critical point of view.  

Which implies that....
If you write an article about Leo's penis pics you can guarantee 5K views.  Write about a good book you read and you see 12.

Yeah, so take that you...you...troll!   

But seriously, the most popular stuff I ever wrote I never really wanted to write.  That being, the downfall and slow disintegration of someone I once held up as role model.

So I guess negativity isn't the problem. If I was as big an ass as some have made me out to be I'd have a lot larger  readership from the numbers I see.  

So the real question is, what kind of posts do you really want to see?

What do you think folks?   Glass half full or half empty?

I'll publish your answers in an upcoming article.

...Of which there will be none if I don't get any.

Up to you. <drops microphone>

*sources
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/blogs
http://podbay.fm/browse/top

Jodi Arias: No Blood for Blood

11 to 1... 

That was the vote that determined whether Jodi Arias' life would run the remainder of its course behind bars or come to a less natural end.  She was guilty as far as the law was concerned and of that there was no further deliberation necessary.  It was the last word on what seemed like a never ending trial that  took years for jurors to come the conclusion...that they could not come to a conclusion.

Luckily for Arias, Arizona only gives prosecutors 2 runs at the death sentence.  If 2 juries can't come to a verdict during the sentencing phase of a murder trial it's automatically a life sentence.

So justice is done and we can all go on with our lives.

Except...

What happened after the verdict..

Arizona's good at a lot of things: Superbowls, sunshine and cheap labor.  It's often celebrated as a land of rugged individualists who believe in freedom and self determination.  That is, so long as it's ok with your bible and you don't offend the wrong people. 

It's a place that would outlaw smoking but allow firearms in public buildings.  It's both nanny state and anarchist which often leads to a cognitive dissonance seen nowhere else in the country.

So with the end of a 7 year spectacle we finally know the outcome of Jodi Arias.  But that wasn't enough for the victim's family or for the other 11 jurors.  They wanted blood for blood and it was denied.  For them there is no justice.

Frontier justice, that is...

Arizonans seem to think they're living in a Louis L'Amour novel where convicts wear leg irons and sleep in tents no matter what the weather or the offense.  So I suppose it should be no surprise that jurors in a murder trial act like a lynch mob.

A stunning example of Arizona sensibilities was on display when the jurors delivered a prepared statement.  They offered condolences and apologies to the victim's family for not delivering what they wanted.  When asked how it felt to not deliver the death penalty the response was, "...we felt like we failed. " and " I had a knot in my stomach."

Failed? 

Where does this bloodlust come from?  To hear the statements of the 11 jurors who wanted the death penalty you'd think that jury deliberations were nothing more than a formality on the way to the hangman's noose.  

By the way, since when do jurors get press conferences? 

Hang 'em High! I suppose and sell the book rights later...

Afterward news outlets chased after the 1 dissenting juror demanding a statement and when they didn't get it they trotted out the non sequitur.

Everything from "suspicious" Facebook likes to questioning of her character.  Local news stations have stopped just short of accusing her of being an Arias shill.  I guess they've never heard of voir dire.  If this juror was a problem she would have been removed long ago as a number of others had been throughout the trial.  True to form instead of balancing their coverage, local news outlets chose to instead deliver more statements from the Gang of 11. 

"We tried to tell the judge she was biased" and "She kept to herself and wouldn't budge"

Is this really in the public interest or are the ratings better when they get another pound of flesh.  The talking heads are sensationalist whores, that we know.  What's disturbing is that they have to preach to the choir and in Arizona the choir wants blood.

Arizona, you need to admit that you really don't care much for the rule of law when it doesn't suit you.  From governors waving fingers at presidents who happen to be the wrong complexion to starving education funding it seems the Grand Canyon State is always inching closer to falling off the edge.

If there's any saving grace in this whole mess it's that the default judgment wasn't the death penalty.  At least there's some civility in that.

This isn't an indictment of captial punishment, however.  It's an indictment of the bloodlust it nurtures.

Pop Culture is no longer popular or culture

There's no accounting for taste...

Well at least not on the Internet.  Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man but all these new creative outlets have left popular culture in chaos.  What else can explain over 2 million YouTube views of a flatulent dog let alone that Miley Cyrus gets even one ITunes download. 

Even commercials are senseless.  I mean c'mon, 80's hair metal to sell a Honda Minivan?  I may be old enough to remember what MTV was like before Rap music but even I'm not that lame.  The rise of Reality TV in the last century certainly didn't help either.  Maybe it's the cause of all of this. 

It's got to be tough to be a TV writer these days.  The opportunities are few and far between when the big networks are crowded with such "gems" as Survivor and Big Brother.  

I guess we didn't know how good we had it when we were wondering who shot JR or whether Fonzie was going to make it over that shark. 

Maybe that's when popular culture jumped the shark.  Oh yeah, in case you don't know, the Happy Days episode where Fonzie jumps a shark on water skis is commonly regarded as the point where the series finally lost popularity with viewers.

It seems that was also the point where popular culture developed a severe case of ADD.  Take a look at your local TV schedule these days and you'll soon find that if you want something other than reality TV or infomercials there's going to be a monthly charge attached.

Ok, ok I know.  Ol' Grandpa hates that evil rock and roll and Elvis is corrupting our youth and you can get pregnant from sitting on a public toilet. 

Though before you judge me too harshly, let's look at a few examples of popular music  from the past few decades.  I happen to believe an era's music says more about its popular culture than any other medium.

1960's - Let's spend the night together, The Rolling Stones.   Risqué for its time but harmless.

1970's - Go Your OwnWay,  Fleetwood Mac.  At least we were thinking above the belt on this one.

1980's - I Still Haven't  found what I'm looking for, U2.   Maybe a bit cerebral ,not that it's a bad thing.

1990's - Smells likeTeen Spirit, Nirvana  A Ha!, there it is, I mean with a chorus of ...

Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us

Hey, it's a great song and all but it might as well be the ADHD anthem.  Soon to be followed by a pop  culture confused by its own identity or a lack thereof.  Gender bending pop-stars pushing limits nobody cares about anymore and talentless hacks that even their peers can't stand.  I'm lookin' at you Bieber...

I'm not even going to bother with the 2000's, they're part of the problem with so-called popular tracks like "Poker Face" and "Give it 2 u" which never get above the bikini line let alone the belt...

Oh but the great equalizer that is the Internet, where anyone with a YouTube channel can be "discovered."  It's led to gushing pundits proclaiming the end of the "gatekeepers" and "curated" entertainment.  Evidenced by 2.7 million views of a bad fart joke.

Funny thing is that you're never going to see anyone get a Grammy or an Oscar based on YouTube views or ITunes downloads.

Maybe we need the gatekeepers.  For all their rumblings over piracy and copyright their real problem is that they  don't know how to read the public anymore.  It's true that business  concerns should never trump talent but we've gone too far in the other direction.  The entertainment industry has become  more flaky than a Wall Street broker with oil futures.

However, it's still a fact that nobody becomes successful without the blessings of the gatekeepers no matter how fickle  they are.  Some of them have even moved into the "New Media" space but in the end the new media is really just an extension of the same old construct.

That's a problem, because the gatekeepers have lost their focus by trying to entice a popular culture that doesn't know what it wants.  The result is a product only marginally better than YouTube fare.  It caters to the lowest common denominator and that part of the equation has gotten lower.

We're literally awash in cat videos, Jackass wannabes and bad movie trailers.  Hollywood is clueless, stuck in an endless cycle of formula sequels and kid friendly animation that would be better suited going straight to video.  They've become so bereft of creativity that any recent list of the top ten movies will undoubtedly include films based on either comic books or games.  

The rest usually involve vampires, werewolves or somebody's organs violently being removed from their body.  Let's not forget the new trend of "reboots" that Started with J.J. Abrams "Star Trek" and has moved on to 80's slasher flicks.    

Maybe I am too old but it seems I've managed to find a lot of things to like about every generation of popular culture.  Even those I wasn't around for. 

Something's different now.

Even with the overwhelming quantity of content it seems the quality has become insignificant.  Make no mistake, every era has had crap.  Face it, there was good reason why most of the hair metal bands didn't  manage to get past their first album.

Now imagine if all those bands were still around clogging up Pandora or Spotify.  You'd waste a lot of time wading through crap just to hear what you like. 

Art needs curation and entertainment deals with artists.  Pop culture is inextricably intertwined with art.   That means there needs to be some level of quality control.  Even if it runs against the whole "free and open" argument . 

Imagine the alternative. 

Would any museum be worth visiting if any hack with a paintbrush could throw up their paint by numbers portrait of Elvis?

Your Anonymity is showing

There is no anonymity, at least not on the Internet.  Or at least that's how Google and Facebook want it.  It's likely that just like me you have multiple Google accounts and now the parent company of anything that matters on the Internet wants to you to come clean.

Log into YouTube and you're constantly prodded to use your real name on your YouTube channel.  Want to log in using your channel alias?  Forget it, they want the email address you used to sign up with.  Just like Facebook, Google Plus doesn't allow aliases either.  In fact they want more information than I provided the bank to finance my car. 

Want to start a Facebook page for your business?  Be prepared to provide everything short of your articles of incorporation and 5 years of tax returns to do it. 

Contingent on using any of these services is the requirement to reveal more information about yourself than anyone should be comfortable with.  Thing is, for most, it's no big deal.  For the generations that came after mine it's nothing to "Broadcast Yourself" for all the world to see.  As some have found, to their own peril when that party video posted to your Facebook page gets in front of a potential employer.

It's gotten so easy to lay ourselves bare (in some cases literally) that many don't even think about the consequences of our cavalier attitude toward online privacy.   That is, until something happens that makes you regret clicking "I Agree" to the 10000 word terms of service.

It's not simply a question of privacy, for the most part that's gone if you leave your house.  It's a question of giving away the power of your own predestination.  I have no doubt that being a private investigator is no longer as lucrative as it once was.  What used to take them weeks is offered up freely under the guise of being "social"

Just ask the unfaithful spouse who found out just how much power they'd given away when their Facebook exploits were admitted as evidence in the legal proceedings that followed.

You may feel that it's a good thing that it's harder for those with something to hide to retreat behind anonymity.  Well Mr. Public Parts, we all have something to hide even if we haven't broken any laws.  Nobody should demand we reveal it just to be online.

What happens, for example,  when an author can no longer write under a pen name?  What about the  corporate whistle blower exposed by a change in some online service's privacy policy?  Should they have to sacrifice a career because an entire industry can now blackball them for it?

If you're Jeff Jarvis I suppose everything's a Public Part so it shouldn't matter what gets revealed.  In the real world where people can't afford to have their every action judged it becomes a problem.  I'm not in favor of the merging of private and public and stay off of services like Facebook and increasingly Google because of it.

Now, I may be running contrary to the Internet punditry proclaiming the glories of the new social construct that's arisen out of our constant connectivity in what I'm about to say. 

In short, I think it's Bull. 

I'd rather not be sitting in a job interview at 40 years of age having to explain something stupid I did in my teens to a potential employer.  It'd be nice if the world was populated only by the open minded with no personal agendas but that's just not how it works.  Experience has taught me the better parts of human nature rarely come into play in a job interview.

Think about the now common practice of job applicants having to submit to a credit check at the application stage.  I usually give them the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" response in which I agree to allow the check only if I can have the same information from every member of the executive staff and the board. 

People usually just think I'm being a wiseacre and look at me as though I should be wearing a straightjacket when they find out I'm being serious.  Funny, I feel the same about them.

I think more people need to do that, actually.  In fact, I suggest it be the basis of a new movement.  A friend of mine is fond of saying corporations will keep pushing the boundaries until someone pushes back.  This can be where it starts.  After all, nobody has any right to know how timely I pay my debts unless they're loaning me money or I'm in charge of the keys to the bank vault.

It's exactly because of how the world works that we need to retain control of our own personas.  Making your new job contingent on a good credit score is just one symptom of the problem.

Look at it this way.  Do I really want to find out that my trusted mechanic of decades is a cross dresser on the weekends? 

Now I can care less if he is or not but some people might which could have consequences to his livelihood. 

The reality is that it's not critical information to know if he's just fixing my car.  If you think it is you're just being nosy and bigoted.    

That's what I mean by public and private.  I don't want to know any more about you than I need to know and what I need to know has limits. 

Say my mechanic is going to get married soon, I'd fully expect his potential bride (or groom) may want to know about such things but I don't.  If he's installing a supercharger on my Mustang, I could care less about his fashion adventures.

He shouldn't be required to expose that information and I shouldn't have the opportunity to pass any judgment on anything not directly related to him fixing my car.

That also means he should have the freedom to indulge in a private online existence apart from his public one.   Being online shouldn't have to mean that you abdicate your right to withhold information people don't need to know about you. 

In fact, knowing too much about a person can lead to even more discrimination simply because it becomes easier to apply our own personal biases based on irrelevant information.   Even if what we find has nothing to do with why we were interested in the first place the damage is done and our world grows a little colder.

We're all so concerned about safety these days and it's sure to come up whenever someone's abdicating the requirement to vomit up even more private information.  

Someone will always bring up the child molester, terrorist or bank robber that might have been stopped if we just had more information about them earlier.  Perhaps so but is it worth the whole of humanity living under a microscope to prevent it?  At what point does civilized society fall victim to Orwell's "thoughtcrime" ?

 The question you have to ask is if everyone's going to eventually be required to lay themselves bare online then who's qualified to sit in ultimate judgment of your actions?  You're tried, convicted and sentenced before you even realize you've done something wrong.

That sounds a bit "Minority Report" to me.

Consider your perception

Perception...

It's an interesting word and about as ambiguous as they come.  If you've ever heard the old phrase about "rose colored glasses" then you've got the general idea.  Our perceptions color our world and help form our personal biases. 

Let's try an example.

Say you're sitting at a table at your favorite lunch spot when a rather large burly man walks through the door.  He's dressed in biker gear, has a few tattoos and looks like he's been on the road for days.  Other than his appearance he offers no clue to his intentions outside of the possible desire to have lunch.

What's the first thing that comes to your mind?  For most  it would probably be a little fear followed by a mental note to find a new lunch spot.  In the end our opinion probably leans toward a less than favorable view of our hungry friend. 

So what if I told you our burly biker guy was actually an esteemed Superior Court judge who happens to be a motorcycle enthusiast...

Your perceptions are affected by societal norms and anything that goes against them causes us alarm.  Depending on how conservative or liberal your social views are will have a direct relationship to your world view.

The problem with perception is that it's based on faulty logic.  We first apply whatever we accept as societal norms, then our own personal biases and with very little additional information render judgment.  And that's where it gets dangerous. 

Marketing is all about perception whether it's trying to convince you that Coke tastes better than Pepsi or one political view is superior to another.    Create a popular enough advertising campaign and you can effect a change in what society finds acceptable with virtually no credible information to support it.

Remember the Romney presidential campaign and all the rhetoric that swirled around about the "takers?"  Into that group went anyone deemed unworthy due to their reliance on public assistance of any kind.  The circumstance that landed you in that position was irrelevant, only the perception mattered.  For the true believers it was black and white and anything in a gray area was considered black. 

Create a label and you're on your way to influencing perception.  Repeat the label enough and it gains power even if it contains no substance.  So if a message could be crafted to sway public opinion against those branded with your new label you could disenfranchise an entire swath of the population.   Especially useful in silencing groups that expose the flaws in your point of view.

Our lives are cluttered with irrelevant noise.  Even the news isn't particularly informative anymore since it's become an entertainment medium.  Entire nations may be plagued by hunger and disease.  Civil rights curtailed by corporate influence and the efforts of many now benefit a privileged few. 

Hey, who cares?  None of that is as interesting as the latest celebrity gossip or news about an upcoming mobile device.  Rampant consumerism and distilled information rule the day.  Our perception of normal has been co-opted and corrupted with nonsense and it extends to more than just our consumer habits.

And there's the danger.  It's easier to consume than to deliberate, especially with so many seemingly important demands for your attention.  We allow someone else's version of reality to dictate our own without even realizing it. 

So the next time you make a snap judgment take a moment to really consider where your opinion comes from.  You may find a truly uncomfortable truth.  One that could alter your perception.

It's about the content

In this age of digital media  the experts will tell you it's all about the content.  After almost two decades the novelty of the Internet has worn off and what was revolutionary is now the mundane.  Truth be told,  nobody promotes themselves as being online anymore, it's just expected that you are.   

And it seems everybody is.  From your grandmother to multinational corporations the Internet is awash in content.  It happened fast, so fast that traditional media can't keep up with the pace.  Content is no longer limited to a newspaper on your doorstep, a movie in a theater or a program on television.  A fact that the NBC Universals and Disney's of the world can't stand. 

In the 80's the advent of the VCR sent the Motion picture industry into a panic with then MPAA president Jack Valenti proclaiming, "Their (VCR manufacturers) only single mission, their primary mission is to copy coyrighted material that belongs to other people."

 The late 90's saw the music industry decrying the evils of digital music players.  Most notably the case of the RIAA versus DIamond Multimedia.  The RIAA asserted that the simple act of copying music to an MP3 player like the Diamond Rio even when restricted to personal use was a violation of copyright.  Fortunately the courts found it wasn't but the decision wasn't based on a rapidly outmoded copyright law but rather what comprised a recording device.

Succeeding years found both organizations  repeatedly claiming that new consumer friendly technologies threatened the fortunes of the entire entertainment industry. 

Of course history shows that it hasn't but not before decades of legislation had weakened consumer rights and made the whole concept of copyright law deliberately ambiguous. 

The result is an entertainment industry who views the public first as thieves and second as customers.  The concept of "Fair Use" frequently finds itself at odds with the entertainment industry who views any use not explicitly controlled by them as an infringement of copyright. 

For the uninitiated the doctrine of Fair Use is not so much a right (at least in the U.S.) as it is a defense when accused of copyright violation.  It's basically a four step criteria to measure whether use of copyrighted work is eligible for exemption from copyright law.  Generally the rule is that Fair Use applies to non-commercial or educational uses or commercial uses that can be shown to not diminish the original work.  There's more than enough room for interpretation, however, and that's frequently decided in favor of the copyright holder.

Which translates to a virtual flip of the coin any time your use of alleged copyrighted material strays into new territory. 

For example, upload a family holiday video to YouTube and you could find yourself on the receiving end of a copyright complaint if ol' Blue Eyes(Frank Sinatra) happens to be belting out  Silent Night in the background.  Even if you make the video private and accessible only to your family and not the general public you can still be considered in violation of copyright.

What's the definition of original content anyway?

 You may do a weekly video podcast but if anything in your video displays an element someone claims as copyrighted material you've suddenly lost your right to monetization under YouTube's rules at the least.   At the worst you can find your video removed and receive a "copyright strike." Too many of those and YouTube will close your account.

More than just an annoyance the entertainment industry has engaged in legal intimidation in an effort to protect an outdated content model.  Is there really a threat to a copyright holder's interest if someone uses a clip from their content in an entirely unrelated work?

What if you just want to make fun of copyrighted but publicly available content?  If so is it considered a parody or a satire?  Hint: One is covered by "Fair Use" the other isn't.   Most people don't even know there's  a difference but under copyright law there is. 

Even the alleged "New Media" succumbs to the pressure of the old guard.  When the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)was signed into law in 1998 savvy ISP's lobbied for some degree of immunity by way of the "safe harbor."

They saw a future rife with litigation for simply operating a medium and wanted no part of it.  Safe Harbor holds ISP's and later content hosting services like YouTube  harmless in any copyright infringement claim.  So long as they don't actively participate in the infringement they get a pass.  Unfortunately content creators who run afoul of the DMCA have no such protections and have to rely on Fair Use defenses.

Now a bewildered public is forced to learn about words like "transformative"," derivative" and "Fair Use." 

And to think that all you wanted to do was to share a holiday memory with grandma on YouTube.

These are questions we shouldn't have to answer in a creative society.  The history of mankind is built upon the creative output of those that came before.  Without the wheel, for instance, there would be no automobiles  and transportation on the whole would be a very different if not inefficient proposition.

So should someone have patented the concept of a cylindrical object for the purpose of rotating around an axis ?   Perhaps but it should never have been expected to exist in perpetuity.  If such a patent existed it's entirely possible, for example, that we'd be controlling the direction of our cars with levers instead of that familiar direction control device we know as a steering wheel. 

The holder of the patent (or copyright) could prevent any use not explicitly under their control which would include anything that resembled or made reference to the wheel product.

That sounds ridiculous but is exactly what is happening with copyright law now.  No reasonable person would deny anyone the right to profit from their efforts .  The problem arises when protection of those rights subverts the very innovation that copyright sought to protect. 

Even if you never run afoul of someone else's copyright you still suffer the consequences. 

Why, for example, in an age of almost instantaneous access to information do we still have artificial limits placed on how we consume media?  The entertainment industry would argue that there's a minimum period of time necessary to protect their revenue potential.

That argument ignores the revenue potential afforded by alternate modes of content delivery.  A friend of mine recently posed a question to me.  He said, " Why do I have to wait months for a new movie to be available somewhere other than a movie theater?"

You know, I have to agree.  He brought up the fact that many people have home theater systems that could offer an excellent viewing experience.  To me, I'd rather see a new movie in the theater and I'm sure I'm not alone.  Nonetheless, I shouldn't be denied the option.

Seeing a movie in a theater is a "premium" experience and I'm willing to pay more for it.  However,  I'm not willing to support a business model rooted in the middle of the last century to get it.  There was a time when the only way to see a  first run movie was at a theater.  That's hasn't been the case for a decade now.  It's not about the technology it's about revenue.

There are very few cases where a 50 year old business model is relevant to contemporary markets but the industry doesn't it see it that way.

In some cases new entertainment content will go straight to online sources like YouTube, direct to DVD or even services like NetFlix.  So with alternate delivery mechanisms available do we really need so many theaters?

Should we be limiting our entertainment options based on nothing more than propping up an industry that refuses to respond to a new market dynamic?

I'd rather have a few really great theaters offering a superior experience than a lesser one from a business model that's groaning under its own weight. 

Remember we're still  talking about restricting content here.  In some cases, your content if someone deems it a threat to their copyright.  We're also talking about restricting your choices.  The least of which is your opportunity to use content  any way you wish

I've never been a fan of change for its own sake but when it comes to copyrights I don't have to betray that rule because change desperately needs to happen.