Web 2.0's 'digital mobs' attacked

Lanier singled out Wikipedia's anonymous contributors for criticism
The latest phase of internet - web 2.0 - has been attacked by a leading author and digital pioneer for its "mob" mentality, describing it as "digital Maoism".

Jaron Lanier, who popularised the virtual reality concept in the early 1980s, said that in rush to forge a new age of collectivism, we risk losing individual identities and dumbing down our understanding of the world.

He told BBC World Service's Culture Shock that his main problem is that in places like the blogosphere or the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, people no longer treat or respect each other as individuals.

"We have these designs on the internet where a whole bunch of people work together anonymously - a mob, in my opinion - in order to do something," he said.

"They actually take on the emotional quality of a mob - they become mean, they tend to insult each other a lot more than they would if they knew who each other were. In my opinion, this is an example of a design that isn't so great."

Mass opinions

Lanier is among a small group leading a backlash against web 2.0 - the term coined to describe the latest internet era, in which collective ideas and participation take over from individual authorship.

Jaron Lanier
Lanier led the introduction of the "virtual reality" idea in the 1980s
Lanier singled out Wikipedia for particular criticism, saying that because those who participate do so anonymously, " you have no idea what knowledge any of them have".

"Essentially they lose themselves; they become a mob," he added.

He coined the term "digital Maoism" in a recent article, and explained that it was not meant entirely as an insult, but a reference to the notion that individual variations between people are negative and that "somehow, the masses of people will always be right".

And he said that there is currently an "avalanche" of new companies being funded by investors in Silicon Valley that are designed to harvest the wisdom of the collective.

He criticised in particular news aggregator sites, in which millions anonymously review a newspaper article, and a newspaper is created on the basis of the mass opinions of these people.

"The problem with that is that if you look at the result, you end up with trivial but amusing news stories as the headlines," he said.

"For instance, a college student winning an ice cream-eating contest and getting a horrible headache and having to go to the hospital.

"But some of the more important headlines, about politics or science, are either missing or obscure. This is a natural reaction, because of course people want to be amused, but I think the more valuable source of news brings them news that isn't always the best."

Web 3.0

But trend expert Lauren Parijs, director of the Flanders District of Creativity in Brussels, said that while Lanier's view an "anti-movement gaining momentum," it remains very small.

"It's natural - every new medium has its opposition," he added.

And he countered that while there is a sense of individuality being lost in some areas, other sites are attempting to counter this.

"You also see a lot of initiatives springing up on the web that actually combine the two things, letting people contribute but also meet up," he said.

"There is a networking initiative called E-Academy, and what they do is let people connect projects on the net that do the same thing, but also arrange for people to meet face to face within their community.

"So you see this blend taking place - and I think that's where web 3.0 will head towards."

Wikipedia founder takes on Google

Wikipedia founder takes on Google

By Matt Wells BBC News, New York

Jimmy Wales helped drive the information society

Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has helped transform the way people use the net to seek out information and now the founder Jimmy Wales is hoping to do the same in the search field.

The bearded and softly-spoken founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, describes himself as "pathologically optimistic".

Bearing in mind that he recently revealed the development of a new "open source" search engine to compete for eyeballs with the mighty Google, he is going to need every ounce of optimism he can get.

"Search has become a fundamental part of the infrastructure of society," said the 40-year-old, talking to a group of mainly media professionals at a recent event in downtown Manhattan, organised by The Glasshouse, a trans-Atlantic entrepreneurs' support group.

"The way that things are sorted and ranked and presented to us, really does shape our view of the world.

"I think it is important that we say, there really should be an alternative that is completely open and transparent," he added, before going on to criticise the culture of secrecy surrounding the cloistered algorithms of the leading search empires.

There is a paradox surrounding Wales's position in the first-rank of internet movers and shakers, which he freely acknowledges.

The Wiki boss has often said that his free, not-for-profit online encyclopaedia - that now gets seven billion page views each month with in-excess of five million multiple-language entries - was either the "smartest thing, or the dumbest thing that I ever did".

Extraordinary statistic

The total number of Wikipedia employees is five; an extraordinary statistic when you consider that it is the 10th most visited site in the world.

He told a wry anecdote about being offered a recent ride in the Google jet as the online superstars converged on the World Economic Forum in Davos - since at this point, there is no Wiki-jet.

But his cultural-hero status as the man who aims to bundle all the world's knowledge together and give it away free, is formidable.

The new "transparent" search venture is in its early infancy, and also a project that is being shepherded by the very much for-profit sister company of Wikipedia, Wikia.

His idea is to Wiki-fy the process of internet search, so that human beings decide openly how to rank and organise information, not the huge private servers of Google and Yahoo.

In an online message at the end of the year, Wales labelled the project "Search Wikia" and referred to it as an attempt to create "the search engine that changes everything".

'People powered'

He went on to ask for volunteers to step forward in the name of "people-powered" search, to help move the project forward. There was no mention of any possible profit-sharing.

Far from seeking to confront Google in conventional business terms, Wales - ever the optimist - believes that there may be ways of working with what he calls the "second tier search players" on the web.

Google has between 40 and 50% search market share, according to analysts

"(Google) have hired all the geniuses... they're saying, 'gee, if this alternative could succeed, and make good quality search results a commodity, then we can compete on other things... on vertical search, on brand, on user-interface'."

His philosophical approach to challenging Google, has drawn some criticism inside the blogosphere.

The web veteran Dave Taylor, who writes The Intuitive Life Business Blog, wrote a sceptical post, questioning Wales's ability to influence the search market on any level.

"My belief - based on talking to thousands of internet users - is that the only time someone switches search engines is when their current system begins to fail them," he wrote.

"Far from being able to steal market-share from Google, the reality will be that it will be only if Google fails to produce good search results that another firm will even have a ghost of a chance of succeeding."

Wales describes his politics as "libertarian with a small i" and having become used to travelling the world to meet Wikipedia's amateur army of administrators and contributors, he says he no longer cares who wins the next presidential election in the US.

'Open societies'

"Within the broad framework of open societies, of liberal democracies, things aren't so horrible, right?"

He added: "There are horrible places in the world - these are much more important - corruption in Africa, and things like that."

Wikipedia's idealism, that some would argue is essentially flawed in that verifiability and not "objective" truthfulness is the standard by which entries are judged, has been heavily lampooned on American television in the last few months, by the satirist Stephen Colbert.

In his persona as a polemical and bombastic news anchorman, Colbert lampooned the idea of allowing enthusiasts to form a consensus amongst themselves on what is fact, or not, coining the word "Wikiality".

It has become a running joke, and the site's administrators have intervened to stop some of the show's fans from altering entries.

Unphased

Wales himself is unfazed by how easy it is for unregistered readers to make instant changes on Wikipedia - sometimes for the good, but often out of mischief. Constant upheaval and occasional "vandalism" of the site, is a price worth paying, he believes.

"If you have a web environment where the software assumes everyone's going to do something bad, and where the community isn't given the tools to make corrections... you actually encourage hostile behaviours."

He is convinced that Wikipedia's success is down to simple software and mutual respect, combined with the minimum amount of censorship and policing possible.

Ultimately however, some wonder whether the collectivist world of Wiki, might not become more and more untrustworthy and cultish as the web expands. It is a danger that Wales himself seems to be aware of.

Speaking at the University of Pennsylvania in June last year, he reportedly said that Wikipedia should not be used by college students to conduct serious research, and if students continue to believe in the objectivity of Wikipedia, they only have themselves to blame.