[liberationtech] Jacob Appelbaum's 29C3 keynote

[Shava Nerad]

On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 6:57 PM, hellekin <hellekin at cepheide.org> wrote:

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> On 12/31/2012 08:41 PM, André Rebentisch wrote:
> >
> > What do you think about F2F networking models?
> >
> *** In the GNU/consensus Manifesto[1], I wrote the following:
>
> Social Networking
>
> "Some people conflate social networks, which are the aggregate of
> relationships that humans have, with online social network services
> such as Facebook and, arguably, G+"
> ? Howard Rheingold
>
> Too often, the term social network is used interchangeably with social
> network services, implying that the services themselves provide the
> social network. But that's plain wrong: the social network is a human
> cultural phenomenon, and a network service can at best facilitate it.
>

The Oxford Dictionary is the only one I can find who still uses the
sociological definition as the first entry (American and Brit/World
editions both).  They tend to look from the ivory tower out.  The rest look
from the popular media in.

I think that branding war has been lost.  It's like trying to explain to
people outside of computer security why when I say "anonymity" in regard to
Tor it means something other than someone posting anonymously on a web
forum, and it has nothing to do with Anonymous.  If you try to be
insistent, you are going to be a bar to communications in general, and our
job is to facilitate them.

I think we sometimes have to look back to our foolish sages on terms of
art:  Lewis Carol, pseudonymous bard, gave us Humpty Dumpty's "A word means
what I *want* it to mean!" which Alice found quite silly.  A language is a
living document, and the words mean what people say they do.

We do struggle for hearts and minds, and I would be the last one to say
that words are unimportant -- but we need to pick our battles and stresses.
:)

Happy New Year all!  May it bring more peace and engagement where
appropriate. ;)
-- 

Shava Nerad
shava23 at gmail.com
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