In a recent entry, solderpunk wrote about walled gardens and Internet
communities[1]. solderpunk's thesis is that some of these services which
require membership are "bad" or "evil", while others are not. There is
an argument to be made that some of these services are evil because they
(or the entities that run them) are ethically poor, actively malicious,
or detrimental to some of the people who engage with them. However, I'd
like to investigate the concept of the walled garden itself to arrive at
the "more nuanced understanding" that solderpunk is looking for. I aim
to understand this in terms of whether the expectations of different
communication channels are upheld.
Any communication can be thought of as being, to a varying degree,
private or public. Private communication is communication we engage in
with certain, selected individuals. A conversation had at home, or a
phone call to a friend is intended as private. Public communication is
communication where we send messages with the expectation that many
people can receive them, and that we cannot not generally control who
these people are. A blog post, or calling talkback radio, or publishing
a book, is intended as public--the intent is for anyone to be able to
read or listen. Between private and public communication is in-group
communication: While a group of people (who you have not necessarily
selected) can receive your messages, you can have reasonable
expectations that these people meet certain criteria. Instances of
in-group communication would include discussing staffing issues at a
managers' meeting, or performing a stand-up comedy show at an R18 venue.
To continue solderpunk's example, SDF provides tools for all three types
of communication, including notes and email for private communication,
com and bboard for in-group communication, and http and gopher for
public communication. Private communication can take place both with
group members (e.g., notes) and non-group members (e.g., email). There
are two important factors here which distinguish this service, which (we
argue) is not evil, from others, which (I shall argue) are. Firstly,
group membership is required of the interlocutor or recipient only if
you wish to communicate specifically with group members. Secondly, the
level of privacy or publicity provided by each communication channel is
robust.
Private communication channels are not robust if the expectation of
privacy (that is, the ability to select one's recipients) is not upheld.
In-group communication channels are not robust if the expectation of
group membership (that is, that recipients meet certain criteria) is not
upheld. Public communication channels are not robust if the expectation
of publicity (that is, the ability for any recipient to receive your
message) is not upheld. A walled garden (or in fact, any communication
service) becomes evil (unethical, malicious, and/or detrimental) if it
violates any of these expectations.
The most common (or at least most salient) violation of communication
expectations is the violation of privacy. This happens when a third
party (such as the communication service provider) gains access to and
makes use of a message intended for a different recipient. An example of
this is Skype, where the company itself makes use of messages sent
through the communication channels it provides but that are intended for
other recipients. (The fact that Skype makes note of this violation does
not mean that it is not a violation, as users arguably intend their
messages to be private.)
Private communication is not a form of in-group communication, as there
is no expectation that recipients must be members of a certain group,
only that they be selected by the message sender. Therefore, I argue
that the expectations of private communication can also be violated if
group membership is additionally required for communicating with
certain, selected individuals. The public telephone network does not
violate this expectation: Although I must be a member of a group (by
subscribing to a phone company), I can exchange messages with people who
are not members of this group (I can make calls to people who subscribe
to different phone companies). In contrast, for example, Verizon's email
service violates this expectation as it rejects certain communication
from non-group members (specifically, messages from users of some other
email providers). In relation to Internet communication, this can be
seen as a class of violation of Net Neutrality.
Violation of in-group communication occurs when non-group members are
able to access messages intended only for group members. As with private
communication, this may be violated when a third party gains access to
messages not intended for them. However, it may also be violated, for
example, when the requirement for group membership is not upheld or not
clear, such as the oversharing that can result from Facebook's confusing
(and highly criticised) "privacy controls".
The expectation of publicity is violated when restrictions (in the form
of group membership requirements) are imposed on recipients of
communication that is intended as public. If I wish to publish documents
on a Web site or Gopher space, I need to be a member of some group which
provides an appropriate hosting service (or alternatively provide this
service myself). However, people can access these documents without
being members of the same service. A service which violates this
expectation is Dropbox, which, while purportedly allowing members to
send computer files to other people over the Internet, makes receiving
these files unnecessarily difficult for people who are not in-group.
We have considered a walled garden here as an entity that provides
communication services and has membership requirements. Such barriers to
entry are not inherently evil, but a walled garden can become evil in
any of these ways if it violates its users' expectations about the
services it provides.
[1]
gopher://sdf.org/0/users/solderpunk/phlog/two-walls-good-four-walls-bad.txt
