[Chapter-delegates] PEW Research on the Future of the Internet

[Michael Snell]

Thanks so much for this, Glenn!

Engaging summary... diving into the full report now...

Mike


On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 12:20 PM, Glenn McKnight <mcknight.glenn at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/07/03/326965653/the-future-internet-is-not-so-free-or-open-in-pews-new-survey
>
> What we know as the World Wide Web — the main way by which most of us
> access the Internet — just turned 25 this year
> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/27/282965383/the-web-at-25-hugely-popular-and-viewed-as-a-positive-force>.
> Its existence has allowed for all kinds of learning and free expression,
> coding and making, rule-breaking and platform-making. One American
> researcher even links the Internet to a decline in religious affiliation
> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/21/303375159/americas-less-religious-study-puts-some-blame-on-the-internet>
> .
>
> An estimated 5 billion of us are expected to have Internet access in the
> next decade, but what will the Internet look like then? How easily will we
> be able to get, share and create with it?
>
> The Pew Research Center reached out to more than 1,400 tech industry
> leaders and academics, asking about the basic way the Internet will
> function come 2025. In the Pew report
> <http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/07/03/net-threats/>, the threats they
> see are geopolitical, economic and socially relevant. A lot of the
> Internet's "future" is already expressed in the current. A few key themes:
>
> *1) Control means less freedom:* Actions by nation-states to maintain
> security and political control will lead to more blocking, filtering,
> segmentation and balkanization of the Internet.
>
> Already, China is known for its "Great Firewall," and social media
> crackdowns in Turkey and Pakistan lately show a global trend toward
> regulation of the Internet by certain regimes. And that's without
> mentioning stepped-up surveillance.
>  [image: A 1992 copy of the world's first Web page. British physicist Tim
> Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989.]
> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/27/282965383/the-web-at-25-hugely-popular-and-viewed-as-a-positive-force>
> All Tech Considered <http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/> The Web
> At 25: Hugely Popular, And Viewed As A Positive Force
> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/27/282965383/the-web-at-25-hugely-popular-and-viewed-as-a-positive-force>
> [image: Person using a tablet.]
> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/21/303375159/americas-less-religious-study-puts-some-blame-on-the-internet>
> All Tech Considered <http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/> America's
> Less Religious: Study Puts Some Blame On The Internet
> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/21/303375159/americas-less-religious-study-puts-some-blame-on-the-internet>
> [image: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was angered by reports that the
> National Security Agency was spying on her. She has called for giving
> individual countries greater control over the Internet.]
> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/10/16/232181204/are-we-moving-to-a-world-with-more-online-surveillance>
> Parallels <http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/> Are We Moving To A World
> With More Online Surveillance?
> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/10/16/232181204/are-we-moving-to-a-world-with-more-online-surveillance>
>
> "Surveillance ... at the minimum chills communications and at the maximum
> facilitates industrial espionage[;] it does not have very much to do with
> security," said Christopher Wilkinson, a retired European Union official
> and board member for EURid.eu.
>
> *2)* *Trust is evaporating:* "The next few years are going to be about
> control," said danah boyd, noted Internet thinker and a researcher at
> Microsoft. Survey respondents told Pew that trust in open communications
> technologies will continue to evaporate in the wake of revelations about
> government and corporate surveillance. We've reported on the U.S./China
> "Cool War"
> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/06/06/318788569/the-cool-war-with-china-is-unseen-but-comes-with-consequences> that
> reignited because of Chinese fears of American corporate surveillance; it's
> just one flashpoint in a larger theme.
>
> *3)* *The lure of money endangers openness:* There's a serious worry that
> commercial pressures will affect everything from Internet architecture to
> the flow of information and more deeply endanger the open structure of
> online life.
>
> This isn't limited to prioritization for some content over others, which
> is the debate over net neutrality. Experts also expect that commercial
> pressures that preserve copyrights and patents mean the free flow of
> information will suffer. Leah Lievrouw, a professor at the University of
> California, Los Angeles, has a sense of hopelessness about it:
>
>  "There are too many institutional players interested in restricting,
> controlling, and directing 'ordinary' people's ability to make, access, and
> share knowledge and creative works online — intellectual property rights
> holders, law enforcement and security agencies, religious and cultural
> censors, political movements and parties, etc. For a long time I've felt
> that the utopianism, libertarianism, and sheer technological skill of both
> professional and amateur programmers and engineers would remain the
> strongest counterbalance to these restrictive institutional pressures, but
> I'm increasingly unsure as the technologists themselves and their skills
> are being increasingly restricted, marginalized, and even criminalized."
>
> There is more in the full report
> <http://www.pewinternet.org/files/2014/07/Future-of-the-Internet_Net-Threats_070314.pdf>,
> such as the respondents' take on what to do — and what companies will do —
> to help clear the clutter of content overload. (Hint: Some folks are
> concerned algorithms and other solutions will overcompensate ...)
>
> Glenn McKnight
> mcknight.glenn at gmail.com
> skype  gmcknight
> twitter gmcknight
> .
>
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