Future of the Internet Symposium: The Difficulty in Identifying Open v. Closed Systems
posted by Danielle Citron
In his post, Adam Thierer presses on the question of whether we can distinguish open and closed systems. He suggests that Zittrain overstates the problem, noting that many networks and appliances combine features of generativity and tetheredness and that consumers can always choose products and networks with characteristics that they like.
To be sure, it can be difficult to identify the degree of openness/generativity of systems, but not just because appliances and networks combine them seamlessly. Confusion may arise because providers fail to articulate their positions clearly and transparently regarding certain third party activities. This surely explains some of the examples of contingent generativity that Zittrain highlights: one minute the app you wrote is there, the next it is not, or postings at the content layer appear and then are gone. In the face of vague policies, consumers may have difficulty making informed choices, especially when providers embed decisions into architecture.
Part of Zittrain’s plan to preserve innovation online is to enlist netizens to combat harmful activities that prompt providers to lock down their devices. A commitment to transparency about unacceptable third-party activities can advance that important agenda. For instance, social media providers often prohibit “hateful” speech in their Terms of Service or Community Guidelines without defining it with specificity. Without explaining the terms of, and harms to be prevented by, hate speech policies as well as the consequences of policy violations, users may lack the tools necessary to engage as responsible netizens. Some social media providers inform users when content violating their Terms of Service has been taken down, a valuable step in educating communities about the limits to openness. Users of Facebook can see, for instance, that the Kill a Jew Day group once appeared and has now been removed. This sort of transparency is a first step in an important journey of allowing consumers to make educated choices about the services/appliances/networks they use and to garner change through soft forms of regulation.
September 8, 2010 at 10:34 am
Posted in: Architecture, Symposium (Future of Internet)
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Responses (1)
Jamie - September 8, 2010 at 12:35 pm
It may well be that there are many shades of gray, overlap, and unexpected dimensions of generativity.
There are, however, some clear-cut examples of closed systems that are easy to spot. These typically take the form of excluding technologies that lend themselves to being employed to aims deemed undesirable by the system’s creators. Many are easy to spot in current cell phones, for instance.
A more subtle, but I think important, example is in place in Apple’s ecosystem: no applications that embed a user-accessible interpreter are allowed. This excludes the single most flexible form of allowing users to get things done that were not anticipated by the designer. Examples of explosively useful user scriptability opening up new realms for users that were previously difficult to impossible: GNU Emacs, Microsoft Excel, PHP, Hypercard, the Unix shell.
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