“Technologies”: Public Talk with Géraldine Delacroix, Marcel Mars, Fabienne Riener, Spideralex

“Technologies”: Public Talk with Géraldine Delacroix, Marcel Mars, Fabienne Riener, Spideralex

Lecture Nenad Romic aka Marcel Mars, Maastricht: „Learning by Google“

Field of Research:
– increasing privatization of space: public/private binary -> open/close
– finding similarities and differences of internet innovations and technological/business innovations

GFAeB:
– GFAeB (Google, Facebook, Amazon, eBay) = digital natives of business world -> stronger than before -> monopolies
– their activities: digitizing, trading, building clouds, selling ad space (Google AdWords), friendships, recommendations, reliability –> makes them the ruling class of digital world

Why Google?
– free software/open source
– platforms for collective communication
– financial support for Firefox and Ubuntu
– free web services (Mail, Docs, Groups, Calendar)
-> Google as a big actor who provides services people want
– before: radio station used to be a broadcasting station instead of a both way communication
– Google’s position now: paid huge amount of money to advocate allocation to the privatization of a free, digital spectrum

Understanding Google:
– Google transforms attention time into rent of advertisement land -> time is transferred into space -> Google rents that space for advertising (not more).
– same as media that sells their land to advertisers
– Google is no media because no content production but works in the same way
= power of abstraction

Many say: Google is not human, because they use algorithms, so we are scared of algorithms.

How Google works:
1. page rank: search result
2. MapReduce framework
3. AdWords auction: distribution of ad placement

General Developments:
– personal computer -> revolution -> almost everyone bought it
– free software (1984) -> infrastructure -> businesses built on top of free software -> privatization
– internet -> network of computers, reduced prices for computers
– latest trends: 95% of start-ups are based on free software, they gamble if they‘ll be bought by big companies

->Amazon affects every selling branch
->Google affects everyone in intellectual field
->every industry is scared of one of these actors: Google, Amazon or Apple

Discussion:
– Is a return to the time of building free software in 1984 possible?
-> More than 600 companies work collaboratively on open source (Linux)
– Does Facebook have a political impact?
-> when we change the way we are using Facebook (as replacement for media/newspaper like TV), it will destroy the dreams of the CIA
– Problem of filter bubble: news are prefiltered by Google
-> outsourcing brain power to computer power isn‘t that bad

Presentation and discussion of best practice cases

Géraldine Delacroix, Paris (Mediapart)

– journalist and community leader of Mediapart.fr
– news website & social network since 2008
– 62.000 subscribers, 100.000 readers daily
– 2011: revealed big L‘Oreal scandal -> number of readers increased

Fabienne Riener, Berlin (Sourcefabric)

– COO at Sourcefabric.org, which was founded 2 years ago
– Sourcefabric provides news/media organisations, universities and book publishers with open source software (online, print, air) across the globe
– products: Airtime, Booktype, Newscoop (CMS), Superdesk
– project examples: ecojournalism, Yemen Times, TS Press (Georgia), West Africa Democracy Radio, Tages Woche (Switzerland), Brazil 247
– Solving journalistic issues: local news – global audience, independence, stability, security, sustainability
– open source: no license fees, free download, open for developers
– project funders: NGOs, UN, EU initiatives

Spideralex, Barcelona (Lorea)

– hacker and cyber activist at Lorea collective
– Lorea.org: free, federated, secured, self-managed, social networks for civil society since 2008
– providing tools for groups (organizing, documentation,…)
– tasks: connecting civil societies with resources, establishing technological sovereignty, doing workshops about privacy and social networks
– applying logic of slow/organic food movements to technology
– idea: Lorea = flower (Basque), Social Networks = seeds -> flowers, all flowers = garden of shared knowledge
– privacy options of network: https, install software on own server, no data selling, digital suicide is possible, no commercials, no sexism, culture of nicks and avatars

Discussion:
– Why build a new Facebook? Facebook is used as a megaphone and networks like Lorea or Secushare are used for conspiracy work, organisation in groups, documentation
– Role of media? Only news or also helping to organize?
– always need for same tools: mailing list, blog, wiki,… – all brought together in one network is better than different websites
– users demand ways for collaborative writing

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