The document discusses the relationship between technology and human rights from historical and philosophical perspectives. It explores how weapons have empowered both the strong and weak over time. Simple weapons like rifles gave individuals power, while complex weapons amplified the power of authorities. The document also examines how the internet has both enabled free expression but also introduced new methods of censorship, surveillance, and lack of privacy. It questions whether we are heading toward an Orwellian or Huxleyan future as technology shapes society.

1. Claws to the Weak: internet and
rights
Mathias Klang @klang67

2. George Orwell: You and the Atomic
Bomb (1945)
Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and
bombing planes are inherently tyrannical
weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows
and hand-grenades are inherently
democratic weapons. A complex weapon
makes the strong stronger, while a simple
weapon--so long as there is no answer to it--
gives claws to the weak.

3. Killer app 1415

5. Killer app 1455

6. Chokehold on printers

7. I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to
the death your right to say it.

8. Killer app 1710

9. Universal declaration of human rights (1948)

10. Killer app 1948

11. Law
democrac
y

12. Killer app 1960

13. Is teleportation legal?

14. Law
Contextual &
programmed social
rules
Architecture

15. Only technology
(spot the ethical dilemma?)

16. Telecoms revolution

17. Swedish telephone
c:a 1896
Graham Bell was
awarded a patent for
the electric telephone
in March 1876

18. Ludicrously brief history of
computers

19. hollerith

20. Generation 3 (1964-72)

22. The digital is the original
& everything is copy

23. Killer apps 1995: Browser wars

24. Everything is miscellaneous

25. 91 % Access to the Internet at home
83 % Access to broadband at home
7 % Never used a computer
Source: Sweden Statistics 2011 (*Individuals aged 16-74)

26. Voltaire’s dream? The theoretically
possible
becomes the inevitable
Digitalization
Connectivity
Devices
Storage

27. Blogger1999Google1999
End of communications monopoly

28. Normalizing the abnormal

30. Control

31. The Net interprets censorship as
damage and routes around it.
John Gilmor (TIME magazine December 1993)

33. The other control

34. Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

35. Technology makes society

36. personalization

37. A Squirrel Dying In
Your Front Yard May
Be More Relevant To
Your Interests Right
Now Than People
Dying In Africa
Mark Zuckerberg

38. It will be very hard for
people to watch or
consume something
that has not in some
sense been tailored for
them. Eric Schmidt, Google

39. The internet is shows us what it thinks that we
want to see – not what we need to see Eli Pariser

40. Identity & Information junk food.

41. Freedom of Speech

42. iTunes censor fail

43. The Facebook
Elbowbreast

46. privacy

47. The Right to Privacy
The intensity and complexity of life,
attendant upon advancing civilization,
have rendered necessary some retreat
from the world…solitude and privacy
have become more essential to the
individual; but modern enterprise and
invention have, through invasions upon
his privacy, subjected him to mental pain
and distress…
Warren and Brandeis The Right to Privacy,
4 Harvard Law Review 193 (1890)

48. "You have
zero privacy anyway.
Get over it."
Scott McNealy (Wired 1999)

49. “Having two identities for yourself
is an example of a lack of integrity”
Mark Zuckerberg (2010)

50. We leak information

51. Surveillance: gaze from above

53. Protection from
the outer gaze

54. Autoveillance:
performance lifestyle

55. Compartmentalization

56. Peerview: social control

57. “friends”

58. End of privacy?

59. The Hive-mind

60. If you have done nothing wrong,
you have nothing to fear

62. The memory hole

63. "We have found your account is directly related to another
which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies.
As such, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed and
any open orders have been cancelled. Please understand
that the closure of an account is a permanent action. Any
subsequent accounts that are opened will be closed as
well. Thank you for your understanding with our decision."

64. Closing thoughts

65. Orwell or Huxley?

66. The illusion of simplicity

67. The keepers of algorithms know

68. We have (theoretical) control over
Big Brother

69. Regulation of technology
is the regulation of
democracy

70. The social construction of claws

71. THANKS!

72. Mathias Klang
klang@ituniv.se or @klang67
www.digital-rights.net
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