Private parts
February 28, 2010
Interesting piece today in the New York Times on the differences in privacy laws between Europe and the US. It forecasts a significant show-down over privacy rights vs. free-flow of online information.
The article zeros in on Google/YouTube’s current Italian legal woes; the court has given prison sentences to Google execs for failing to protect a boy’s privacy. It’s caused waves of shocked incredulity in the online world but demonstrates what “localization” experts understand through painful experience: The global playing field only LOOKS level. In reality, global transactions often paint a thin veneer of universality over a whole bunch of cultural chasms.
Backstory on the case: Someone posted a video on YouTube, showing brutal harassment of an Italian boy with Down’s Syndrome. As is its policy, YouTube reviewed and removed the video in response to a formal complaint, but the Italian courts said that wasn’t enough; by permitting the video to be shown at all, YouTube had ripped this boy’s privacy to shreds. And, BTW, this wasn’t just a civil case; three Google executives received prison sentences (suspended). Google has said it plans to appeal.
In the US, we err on the side of disclosure–if you have a good reason, right-to-know trumps right-to-privacy. There’s a much greater emphasis on individual privacy in continental Europe, but it wasn’t really a problem for US businesses until the Web.
Up till now, the biggest online communities and information centers have been US-based, and their information policies are built on US First Amendment-style notions: Post now, pay later. Don’t blame the online provider for delivering the gun; it’s the membership that actually shot someone with it.
Members can post anything from libel to tutorials for committing illegal acts; as long as the provider can show he wasn’t selectively editing or actively soliciting such content, US courts (mostly) won’t hold him responsible. Many online forums simply couldn’t exist without that protection, and I’m not sure search engines would have gotten very far, either.
That just flat-out doesn’t jibe with old European notions of privacy (ironic, coming from a country that invented the term paparazzi). In their world, no gun=no problem. That’s a notion that sets my geek and journalistic teeth on edge, even as the private me applauds.
US or Europe, freedom of expression doesn’t mean freedom of responsibility for that expression, which is why YouTube did remove the video. The big question is not whether you protect privacy but when. Google and other online providers, despite facing a growing number of privacy lawsuits in Europe (and elsewhere), seem to be dismissing that question as Stone Age thinking.
Personally, I’m not so sure. Given the swiftness of viral information spread once something gets online, the US’ “remove and repair” policy seems more than a little old-fashioned.
I am (and always have been) a strident supporter of First Amendment rights; I’m equally passionate about the right to privacy. Content folk continually work to balance both sides, but I’m beginning to wonder if technology has shifted that balance.
I have no idea how you suppress–or even adequately define–damaging content that shouldn’t be allowed online. Technically, and morally, it’s a really hard problem. A few more decisions like the Italian courts’ and I suspect we will find out exactly how hard it is.
Sow’s ear
February 26, 2010
Got into one of those interminable art vs. craft debates once that wound up in my usual “Medium is irrelevant–you can make art out of butter” declaration. Not an hour later I ran into a picture on YouTube, made out of soft drink cans. Not sure that they’re all my kinda art, but they kinda make the point: Not just anything is art, but art can be made from anything.
So…the soft drink cans first:
And, actually, YouTube is full of this stuff. There’s the guy who sketches with french fries:
And the fellows who make halftone-ish portraits out of dice (whoever thought that up had waaaaay too much time on his hands):
Or the guys who build portraits with paint chips from the hardware store. (Why the heck do all these folks need to accompany their videos with obnoxious music?)
You can make art out of coffee:
Or, from a LOT of coffee:
But my favorite? Of course–the lady who makes art…with butter.
Support me. Please.
February 24, 2010
Companies, if you support me, I’ll support you.
I will go out of my way to buy from you. Even if you cost a bit more, I will buy from you. All you have to do is support me.
Please.
Was reading today about the drop in Dell’s stock price, and my first thought was, “Serves ‘em right.”
Pancakes in Coos Bay
February 21, 2010
You know you’re in Oregon when you walk into a dockside pancake shack and the sign on the wall says, “Gluten-free pancakes with organic chai tea.”
I’m down in Coos Bay this weekend, about five hours south of Portland, working through a casting problem* with Hugh McKay of Cast Glass Forms. Hugh’s in Port Orford; Gigi the iPhone led me a merry GPS dance through cow pastures and abandoned farmland to get here.
“Geeeez, that’s hours out of the way,” said Hugh, “Don’t you computer people ever look at a map?”
Back to work!!
February 17, 2010
I’m SUPPOSED to be working. Instead, I’m petting crystal, which either means I’m a glassist who’s finally gone over the edge…or that the nice delivery man just dropped off a big honkin’ Gaffer shipment.
Lordee, these things are gorgeous. How are you supposed to chop them up?
Dayjobs, realjobs
February 16, 2010
She was about as far from my mental image of a wildlife painter as you can get, the classic nerd-in-glasses. Her work called to mind tramping up mountains, crampons in one hand, paintbrush in the other. Where else were you going to see the mountain goats she painted?
“Bighorn sheep,” she corrected idly, “Although I suppose they’re pretty closely related.” Her work glowed with life but was only a cherished hobby. In real life, she designs quality control processes for embedded operating systems.
In other words, world-class nerd. And she set me to thinking about people who only get in bed with their art at night, when they get home from work.
Dick Francis: Thanks, old friend
February 14, 2010
I will sorely miss Dick Francis.
Mr. Francis, who died this week at the age of 89, was a legendary British jockey turned sportswriter turned detective novelist. He wrote about the world he knew best, racetracks and horses and jockeys and trainers and grifters. I’ve been reading his books since I discovered them as a child.
They weren’t high-minded tomes on weighty subjects but simply detective novels. I’m not a huge fan of the genre, but Mr. Francis’ were different. His protagonists were usually modest, hardworking men with a penchant for understatement and a habit of getting the job done. Minimal gore, maximum thought and if the good guy wasn’t exactly a superhero he still seemed like the kind of guy you’d want living next door.
If you haven’t read one, you should.
Weekwhacker
February 13, 2010
Why does there seem to be so little time when you’re facing the future, and so much when you’re looking back?
It’s mid-February already? How did that happen? Eeek. I’ve got to get on the ball. Now. I’ve got a show at Guardino’s in late March/April and another, OGG’s Spring Glass Gallery, at the end of April, and I’m not nearly ready.
Chessboxing
February 12, 2010
I am NOT making this up. Chessboxing is an up-and-coming new sport, alternately known as “the thinking person’s contact sport,” or ”the strategic violence game.” And there’s talk of making it an Olympic contest.
Whodathunkit?
Chessboxing is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: Rounds of chess alternated with rounds of, well, punching. Lest you have visions of nerd-bespectacled Bobby Fisher duking it out with a grimacing Kasparov, the guys who do it are more athletic, if not actually boxers.
It started in 2003 after Europeans read an account of chessboxing in a comic book (why am I not surprised?), and decided it sounded like fun. From what I’ve seen so far, the boxing definitely loses ground to the chess–you need to be a rated chess master to play, which does kinda cut into your gym time–but I suppose they’ll get better with time.
And there’s an interesting strategy here: If your opponent is getting too close to your queen, whack him in the head a few times. Maybe he’ll forget all about it.
Toadbutt
February 10, 2010
Yesterday a girl ran headlong down the aisle at the Container Store, skidding to a halt about five inches from my belly.
She was maybe 17, a blue-eyed brunette dressed like a tree. (Typical glasslander costume: Nondescript fabric in grey, brown and moss, none too clean, shaggy so you’re not quite sure there’s a girl in there and a couple of holes thrown in for spice.) She took a deep breath and opened her mouth all the way back to her tonsils.