276 pages
English language
Published Jan. 5, 2014 by Metropolitan Books.
From a cutting-edge cultural commentator and documentary filmmaker, this work is a bold and brilliant challenge to cherished notions of the Internet as the great democratizing force of our age. The Internet has been hailed as a place where all can be heard and everyone can participate equally. But how true is this claim? In this seminal dismantling of techno-utopian visions, the author argues that for all that we "tweet" and "like" and "share," the Internet in fact reflects and amplifies real-world inequities at least as much as it ameliorates them. Online, just as off-line, attention and influence largely accrue to those who already have plenty of both. What we have seen so far, she says, has been not a revolution but a rearrangement. Silicon Valley tycoons now coexist with Hollywood moguls; a handful of giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook remain the gatekeepers. And the worst habits of …
From a cutting-edge cultural commentator and documentary filmmaker, this work is a bold and brilliant challenge to cherished notions of the Internet as the great democratizing force of our age. The Internet has been hailed as a place where all can be heard and everyone can participate equally. But how true is this claim? In this seminal dismantling of techno-utopian visions, the author argues that for all that we "tweet" and "like" and "share," the Internet in fact reflects and amplifies real-world inequities at least as much as it ameliorates them. Online, just as off-line, attention and influence largely accrue to those who already have plenty of both. What we have seen so far, she says, has been not a revolution but a rearrangement. Silicon Valley tycoons now coexist with Hollywood moguls; a handful of giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook remain the gatekeepers. And the worst habits of the old media model, the pressure to seek easy celebrity, to be quick and sensational above all, have proliferated online, where "aggregating" the work of others is the surest way to attract eyeballs and ad revenue. When culture is "free," creative work has diminishing value and advertising fuels the system. The new order looks suspiciously like the old one. We can do better, the author insists. The online world does offer an unprecedented opportunity, but a democratic culture that supports diverse voices, work of lasting value, and equitable business practices will not appear as a consequence of technology alone. If we want the Internet to truly be a people's platform, we will have to make it so.-- Publisher information.
Excellent. Clear, interesting, and concise discussion of how the internet won't automatically solve problems of democracy, inequality, creativity - in fact it mirrors and exacerbates existing problems if we don't make different (political) choices
Rather than a deliberate, even-handed analysis of internet labour, the book often seems a rallying cry for Taylor’s Occupy comrades.
Possibly the biggest weakness of Taylor’s analysis, one common to many critiques of the internet, is its neglect of the role of the most essential creative labour force of the internet—the lowly software developer.
Full review at The Literary Review of Canada: Occupy the Internet!
It was interesting to read this book after reading Alice Marwick's Status Update, an ehtnogrpahic study of the cool kids who brought us social media while harwiring their values into it. Taylor's book is not based on fieldwork but is a sustained argument for separating culture and cultural production from the business model of the Internet, which (as Bruce Schneier has accurately said) is ubiquitous surveillance. Almost all of the book is an exploration of what's gone wrong in the shift from an old information economy to a new one which largely is fed by cultural production donated in exchange for attention, all in the service of gathering personal information that can be aggregated, resold, and mined. In the process she raises good questions, but also sometimes unfairly characterizes opponents. She has what seems to me an unaccountably uncharitable view of Lawrence Lessig in particular and the free culture …
It was interesting to read this book after reading Alice Marwick's Status Update, an ehtnogrpahic study of the cool kids who brought us social media while harwiring their values into it. Taylor's book is not based on fieldwork but is a sustained argument for separating culture and cultural production from the business model of the Internet, which (as Bruce Schneier has accurately said) is ubiquitous surveillance. Almost all of the book is an exploration of what's gone wrong in the shift from an old information economy to a new one which largely is fed by cultural production donated in exchange for attention, all in the service of gathering personal information that can be aggregated, resold, and mined. In the process she raises good questions, but also sometimes unfairly characterizes opponents. She has what seems to me an unaccountably uncharitable view of Lawrence Lessig in particular and the free culture movement generally, which I think she gets wrong, The book concludes with a "defense of the commons" that draws a distinction between "free" culture (which she feels is either deceptive advertising, exploitation of artists, or both) and "fair" culture - seeking a "fair trade" movement that will reward labor appropriately. She draws on the scholarship of Elinor Ostrom to imagine a cultural commons that (like the functioning commons Ostrom studied) is carefully regulated and balanced for sustainability. returnreturnBeyond that general call for action - to reject Silicon Valley's business model for the Internet and to oppose commodification of culture and the concentration of media ownership - she hasn't got many concrete suggestions. That may not be surprising,as the problem she's addressing is devilishly hard, but I was hoping for more specific ideas beyond using fair trade and local food movements as possible models. There are projects out there that have found ways to sustain neat things. There are even some social institutions that have defended these values for a long time - cough, libraries cough. Taylor is good at exposing the problems with assuming the Internet will set us free, though at times flings the tar on her brush a bit indiscriminately, but I would have liked to hear more about the alternatives. A handful of closely-read case studies of alternative approaches would be welcome. As it is, phrases in the title - "the people's platform" and "taking back power and culture" - turn out to be unfulfilled promises. To borrow another book's title, when will there be good news?
