PublicSpaces / Conference

What's wrong with the internet?

March 11 11:15 - 12:45

Language: Dutch.

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What is wrong with the internet?

How can public organisations reclaim the internet as a public space and offer their audiences services whose ethical values they subscribe to?

In the programme, we will explore the problems with current systems, share knowledge about the alternatives and best practices, and discuss the opportunities and challenges of transitioning to fair systems; the public stack.

Central to the conversation are 3 questions:

  1. What is wrong with the current offering?
  2. What is needed to transition to a public internet?
  3. What actions are needed to make a public internet a reality?

Speakers

Moderator

Geert-Jan Bogaerts (PublicSpaces and VPRO Innovation and Digital Media)

Article

Read the article 'User-friendliness is fine, audience-friendliness is better' that journalist Marjolein van Trigt wrote about this session here.

Summary

Warning Minister Slob about Google and how they collect and use data in education. Jet was involved in this and argued why Google had received this warning. Teachers and students should own their own data, not Google. Ruben: Because there is a rat race over news, principles are thrown overboard and the quality of news goes down very much. Nu.nl is very concerned with getting the news first, so there is not much time for fact-checking, for example. In addition to fact-checking, there should also be argument-checking, because while the facts may be correct, the facts can still be misused I arguments.

José: We have had a paradigm shift from institutional to corporate spaces (from offline to online). Since this has happened so fast, it is not embedded in our institutions and regulated by our laws. We should not focus on how we algorithms determine our internet, but on how we bring institutional values back into these public spaces. Jet: If you want to know what does this world look like in which digitisation dominates our lives, last year gave a good picture of that and we don't think it is. So we need to get started.

Isabel: social media platforms also offer a lot of benefits for things like the Dutch film festivals

Dennis (founder of the Good Cloud): he started this because there was no alternative to the big cloud services, and during a project for a hospital it became clear that special personal data was not sufficiently secured on these existing platforms.

Jet: SURF has quite some power to ensure that things like autonomy, privacy and security are respected. Microsoft adjusted their terms and conditions at SURF's request. There should not be a monopoly position, so it is important to support open source alternatives and to use different services and not pump all the money into one company. This will also allow more choice for users.

José: It is not a question of one choice between different values and approaches, it is a question of and, and, and. We need to work together on privacy, autonomy, open source alternatives, etc. Only the combination works.

Jaap-Henk: no one is taken responsible for their technologies, only efficiency and low price are considered, but other values are not taken into account. He would like to see more ambition of his own, because universities have so much knowledge and it is possible to build better tools, yet we switch en masse to Zoom.

Jet: that Microsoft and Google abide by the law is indeed only the bare minimum, and we should indeed be more ambitious, but this is the starting point.

José: user-convenience and efficiency is considered too important at the moment.

Ruben: The problem is more fundamental; people don't know any better. It is also down to citizens' voting behaviour: who pays, decides. Human rights are not taken into account when making internet protocols. So the government needs to make itself stronger in guaranteeing human rights in internet protocols.

Dennis: There are quite a few alternatives to the big platforms that are open source, but that is often a step too far. There is no outreach and awareness for these public alternatives (e.g. using OpenID instead of Facebook to log in everywhere). There is too little awareness about the negatives of, for example, Whatsapp. Microsoft's marketing budget is 20 billion a year.

Jet: There are, however, more and more users who find this a problem and bother to switch from Whatsapp to Signal. So we need to capitalise on that. SURF would like to provide a set of services where the user no longer has to think whether it is correct or not. Dennis: This is still only because this was discussed in the media. So social media plays a role again.

Isabel: what also plays a role is that services like Google seem free, and we as humans pay the price with our data.

"Participation of citizens makes them feel that they are seen and they trust the media more."

Ruben brave

Ruben: Make media great again works with citizen participation and the annotation protocol. Citizen participation makes them feel that they are seen and makes them trust the media more. We cannot fact-check everything, but we can focus on mainstream media. And so we need to build public trust in the media. We see the efforts of the people who make comments (critical thinkers) and we want to capitalise those skills and get more people working as annotators (through credits at university). This will help improve information on the media. Annotators include domain experts but also the people who are not experts but work with a gut feeling that something is wrong. So it's about knowledge and also the intuition to know what you don't know. Adding diverse perspectives outside your comfort zone is very difficult in the media. Pricipes of reflection are not embedded in the internet.

Jaap-Henk: open protocols and interoperability is fundamental. The only thing that is still somewhat open like in the early days of the internet is email. Those mechanisms that hold that back have to be broken down. The alternatives out there do work from a technical perspective, but they are not easy to use.

But too much usability also leads to unwanted side effects like addiction. So user-friendliness should not go too far. The reason the big companies have become so big is also because their products are so good. They are very reliable, and that leaves something to be desired among the alternatives.

What is needed to make open source more possible? José: To make really good alternatives, clear choices need to be made for them from institutions such as SURF and governments. Then more money will be pumped into it and then it will also be seen as more reliable from the public.

Should we talk about public-friendly instead of user-friendly? Isabel: I really like that and that's mainly seen from organisations. But people don't think like that, they want something "cool". But people are not always aware of what they want, so that needs to be taken into account from providers as well.

Jet: We don't need to go back to a pre-digital era. It is also not necessarily the intention to withdraw digitally, but you have to (be able to) make conscious choices about which digital services you want to use. And cultural institutions and governments can contribute to this.

What do you recommend?

Jet: For you personally, it is important to be conscious about what you use. And as an organisation, it is important to think about what you buy in and make it clear how is your data being used, what are you providing to your employees? Make a checklist and you'll probably be shocked.

Jaap-Henk: Totally agree with Jet. As an individual, you can't do much about it, but as a company and organisation, you do have power over that. As a government, you can also encourage that.

Ruben: When adopting open source, you want to involve as many people as possible. And for that, inclusive and diverse language is very important. To make open source successful, you also have to take responsibility as a community and facilitate inclusive language use. Teach people not to use unnecessary language, even in code.

José: making public organisations aware of taking public values central to building public spaces.

Isabel: shortening the time between talking and doing. And thinking carefully about what products you buy as an organisation.

Dennis: there are many opportunities to collaborate between organisations. And you also have quite a lot of power as a consumer, because together we determine which services we use and which organisations become great.

Main points:

  • For you personally, it is important to be conscious about what you use. And as an organisation, it is important to think about what you buy in and making it clear how is your data being used, what are you providing to your employees?
  • as adoption of open source, you want to involve as many people as possible. And for that, inclusive and diverse language is very important. To make open source successful, you also have to take responsibility as a community and facilitate inclusive language. Teach people not to use unnecessary language, even in code.
  • we have had a paradigm shift from institutional to corporate spaces (from offline to online). Since this has happened so fast, it is not embedded in our institutions and regulated by our laws. We should not focus on how we algorithms determine our internet, but on how we bring institutional values back into these public spaces.