Among all the current trends that are presently shaping the future of the Internet – the copyright revolution, the redefinition of cybercriminality, the dilemma of privacy on social networks, to name a few- there is one that has been underestimated and should be thoroughly reconsidered: the revolution of content. The ongoing euphoria towards social networks (Mark Zuckerberg has just become Time Magazine’s 2010 Man Of The Year) and the recent global trauma caused by Cablegate have played against the exposure of other major trends of New Media that really deserves equal attention.

The revolution of content is clearly one of those.

There is much to say about it but the case of Google speaks volume about the discomfort and concern characterizing the debate about how mass info is and will be apprehended by the system.

The One Trillionth Page Syndrom: When Quantity Prevails Over Quality

In 2008, Google announced it had indexed its one-trillionth page, and that was not going to stop. The new record indexation was presented as a positive evolution, the rationale behind it being that each new page indexed was a new step towards progress . However, though they presented the indexation of their trillionth page as a success, Google engineers themselves realized how monstrous the web had become.

In fact, in its blog, the web search giant claimed its engineers “stopped in awe” when they realized how big the web had become, after the index hit the trillion mark, with the web growing by several billion every day.

« This graph of one trillion URLs is similar to a map made up of one trillion intersections. So multiple times every day, we do the computational equivalent of fully exploring every intersection of every road in the United States,” Google software engineers Jesse Alpert and Nissan Hajaj wrote in the blog.

Going a step further, the same engineers also recognized that the number of pages they had indexed and keep indexing is probably not the best yardstick by which the progress of the Internet should be measured. The idea is quite simple: indexing new pages does not reflect any improvement since that is an intrinsic characteristic of the system where pages- with no regard to the quality of their content- add up mechanically.

« So how many unique pages does the web really contain? We don’t know; we don’t have time to look at them all. Strictly speaking, the number of pages out there is infinite — for example, web calendars may have a “next day” link, and we could follow that link forever, each time finding a new page. »

So, why has Google boasted about that indexation if among the best engineers working for the company, some overtly expressed their concern about it claiming the link between quality and quantity was not proven at all? As Vinton Gray Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the Internet and the inventor of the  TCP/IP Protocal put it once in a famous metaphore, the good news about the Internet is that “the kid is growing” and the bad news about the Internet is that the “kid is growing”.

At the same time that the Internet grows, it Achilles’ Heel gets more exposed too. Therefore, the fact that the Internet is growing is neither good news, nor bad news. That’s purely factual. But what is inauspicious is to realize that the creator has lost control over its creature and that is threatening quality on the web.

“Ninety-five percent of the universe is stuff we don’t understand,” Cerf told WebProNews anchor Abby Prince Johnson.

Is the dice cast? Has the breakpoint been reached already or is it still possible to regain control on content?

To answer this question, the study of how access to music (songs and tunes being the content) has evolved since the far-west style of the democratization of the access shed some light and should certainly be set as an example of what should be done in the future to perpetuate good content and avoid poor ones in other fields.

How Music Content Has Survived The Napster Era:  learning from our mistakes.

I remember the 1998-2002 period when, at that time, the big thing for teenangers and more generally Internet users was the possibility through peer-to-peer opportunities and pirate interfaces to download tons  of music for free. I was impressed.

That was a revolution. It seemed like a new era of freedom had started. Music choices would never be burdenned by economic constraints anymore. I fully took advantage of it, and so did everyone around me.

However, what first seemed to be an incredible step further for the democratization of arts & cultures soon became a nightmare for the music lover I had always been. People would see music quantitatively.  A sentence I still remember hearing over and over again was: “how many tunes do you have?” or “how many weeks of music do you have?” That was the idea, the more music you had the cooler you were.

It didn’t  matter if you could realistically think of  hearing all that music in your lifetime. It didn’t matter if you could list all the music you had. All that mattered was “how many”. And what had to happen just happened.

After a few months,  people around me started to have wild music libraries with hundreds of thousands of untamed playlists . A non-negligible portion of those tunes had not been properly downloaded and became amputated songs. Another significant number of those were untitled or just labeled “song 1”, “title 7”.

Not to mention the poor-quality of almost all the songs, due to the alteration caused by peer-to-peer liaisons. What is more, it was not surprising to find in one’s own library unknown songs that had nonetheless been downloaded.

This era of disillusioned freedom should have given the alert to a system where quantity and easy access started to prevail over quality and selectivity. Artists were not powerful enough to have the tide reversed but collectively, with the help of their majors, they started the change.  Governments followed suit.

Through huge media campaigns and legal packages, it indeed started to change. People realized how detrimental to music incommensurate and illegal downloading could be, and eventually came to the idea that having all the music one wants in a legal framework provided the payment of a small fee had, at least, three major positive consequences: first, it would protect the music industry which, in turn would keep producing talents; second, the downloaded music would be of high-quality and third, it would force them to really select what they really want.

First-In First-Out, The music industry was definitely the very first place where content were threatened and then rescued.

Offering someone free water at home for one’s lifetime should not be an incentive to leave the tap open 24/7. Free water doesn’t mean drinking water and people should underdstand that it is always better to pay a small charge for clean and drinking water rathen than have it for free at any quality.

According to a report on BBC, Openleaks is planning to allow newspapers and other organizations to have more editorial decisions.

“Unlike Wikileaks, Openleaks will not publish or verify material; leaving that role to newspapers, ‘NGOs, labour unions and other interested entities.’

‘We are trying to build a community of various organisations that need or have use for anonymously submitted information,’ former Wikileaks member Herbert Snorrason told the BBC.

Mr. Domscheit-Berg, said the decision to be a “conduit” rather than publisher was made because of the team’s experience at Wikileaks.”

Specifically, Domscheit-Berg states that the technology can be embedded on any site, allowing for anonymous data leaks to go to the whomever the whistle-blowers choose. This addresses many of the problems with Wikileaks, including “too much concentration of power…in one organisation,” said Domscheit-Berg.

Additionally, Openleaks plans to give legal advice on dealing with and publishing such sensitive material.

The new founder emphasizes that Openleaks is not to be about faces or egos, and that he feels that Wikileaks became more about the project than the mission. “We’re not aiming for any front pages. If anything at all, this organisation is to enable others to do that,” Domscheit-Berg says in the BBC report. Though he claims that the two sites will be different because of the opposing approaches, it will undoubtedly be a rivalry that will be interesting to watch as it develops.

More importantly, Columbia SIPA students now have something new to write about.

Arguments span from accusations that Assange is a terrorist who belongs in jail, to the idea that can free the world from lies and conflict.

Sadly, few seem to argue for the middle path.

Why we need Wikileaks

As the past decade has shown us we do need organizations like Wikileaks. When democratic leaders go to war on false grounds and keep vital information hidden from the public, then, clearly, there is a democratic win in having an organization that can notify the public the way Wikileaks does.

Through its disclosure of classified documents, Wikileaks has given citizens important insights into state secrets and helped fight the trend to over classify government information.

“Wikileaks is enabling people to improve democratic accountability. That’s valuable to a democracy,” says Quint Hendler, staff writer for Columbia Journalism Review.

His opinion is supported by Alexander Hotz, who is Digital Media Associate at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism:

“Even in the US, sources are not entirely safe from outing or prosecution. Wikileaks provides a leaking platform, which is safe, secure and anonymous. I think that’s nothing short of revolutionary.”

… And a Critical Mindset

Yet it seems that caution and healthy skepticism towards Wikileaks may also be beneficial.

Although a democracy needs someone to blow the whistle on governments, it also needs for people to be critical when an organization, whose main objective is to promote transparency, is itself an extremely closed system.

“We are watching seismic events prompted by information from unknown sources, selected by unknown curators, paid for by unknown funders,” says Anne Nelson, Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Her opinion is supported by Hendler who adds:

“It would be nice if Wikileaks were a better run and more transparent organization. At the moment, there is room for improvement.”

Further querying the methods of Wikileaks is the fact that the organization relies on framing to shape people’s perception of the material it discloses.

An obvious example of this is the military video “Collateral Murder,” disclosed in April, showing soldiers killing civilian Iraqis. Although the video certainly qualified to be a matter of public interest, Wikileaks was criticized for editorializing by adding a value-laden description of the content, focusing on a limited part of the video and giving it a very subjective title.

“It was definitely intended to be viewed in a certain way,” says Hendler. However, he does believe that Wikileaks subsequently toned down the editorializing effort.

Still, the organization does not refrain from giving its own opinion on the documents it releases.

“Much of Assange’s rhetoric suggests that Wikileaks has an agenda. The organization is clearly anti-Iraq war and hostile to US foreign policy. That bias – even if you agree with it – is a reason for skepticism,” warns Hotz.

A Powerful Underdog

The increased influence Wikileaks calls for a more nuanced view of the organization. In addition to being an advocate of openness, Wikileaks is also a gatekeeper because the organization single-handedly chooses what information to publish and how.

According to Nielson this is problematic because Wikileaks does not provide us with the same transparency and fact-checking ability as the press.

“The legal framework and safeguards for the print media have been built up over several hundred years,” she says, “Now the Internet presents us with a ‘Wild West’ where we don’t always understand the long-range implications of rapidly evolving events as they occur,” she says.

“The public shouldn’t trust anything Wikileaks releases as gospel unless the information is fact checked by journalists or academics,” Hotz notes, “To Wikileaks’ credit, nothing it has published has proven false.”

Wikileaks is trying to promote a world with total transparency. However, in its attempt to do so, it reproduces the exact same practices it’s trying to fight: Though promoting transparency, the organization itself is secretive about its operations and to expose governmental manipulation, it relies on editorializing information.

Nevertheless, this does not justify any attempt to prevent Wikileaks from leaking information that can strengthen democracy.

Similarly, the increased power of Wikileaks’ does not reduce our need for the organization. It does, however, highlight the need for us to assess Wikileaks critically.

With the organization’s multiple roles as transparency advocate, gatekeeper and powerful agenda setter, the question arises; who is to blow the whistle on Wikileaks?

Within minutes, @Gizmodo, and probably the other two sites, managed to gain control and delete the messages sent out. But according to the now-deleted tweets from Gizmodo, as acquired from my Tweetdeck:

Can’t be good news.

You can follow real-time updates on Twitter (via search: @Gizmodo, for example) or on Google real-time updates.

EDIT: Most recently…

I was so surprised to read that the Obama administration (and Obama himself !) called Wikileaks a criminal organization. Logically speaking, if Wikileaks is a criminal organization, then the New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and The Guardian are too (they have been working with criminals) and should be blamed for complicity. Is this relevant or just ludicrous ? The problem here is not WikiLeaks, it is about the “politics of naming” that should force those who lead those policies to be consistent from the beginning to the end. Amateurism…

I was surprised to hear that the US State Department has required all its staff and employees not to read the disclosed documents. Not only does this information sound like a revival of old forms of conscience censorship, but it is also so ridiculous given that the State Department still call those documents “confidential” and “Top Secret”.

I was surprised by French Minister of Telecommunications Eric Besson saying this week-end that he wants to take action to try and block Wikileaks from being hosted by French Server/Host Owni on the Internet. The Internet is so liquid and volatile that any attempt to block a website’s content from being hosted by another website could only be  a waste of time: if Besson succeeds, no wonder then that Wikileaks would always manage to  be hosted by another guy.

Why are our officials so incompetently appointed? The problem here is not WikiLeaks but the lack of though and judgment of some people applying “real life” measures to what should be once and for all understood as a complex new digital age.

I was very surprised to receive an e-mail email from OSA (Office of Students Affairs) sent to SIPA’s entire body warning students not to discuss the wikileaks fiasco in any online forum, lest students interested in pursuing careers within the State Department would put their future in jeopardy. This directive seems odd considering that last year, the head of the State Department’s new e-Diplomacy was talking at SIPA. It was about need-to-share and transparency policies…

My only consolation last week came from T.Friedman’s new Op-Ed in the New York Times. The author wrote a fiction piece called « From Wiki China » where he imagines : « What if China had a WikiLeaker and we could see what its embassy in Washington was reporting about America? ».

A Must Read. Enjoy !

The organization that revealed secret details of allied military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, twitted last week: “Next release is 7x the size of the Iraq War Logs. Intense pressure over it for months. Keep us strong.” But the size of the documents to be released is not the most important thing. According to WikiLeaks, the new documents to be published contain information that will redefine global history and in particular, the diplomatic relations of the US and the countries listed above plus, Turkey, Iceland and South Africa, among others.

Some news organizations have begun to speculate what kind of documents and secret information will now be available. Some, believe that WikiLeaks new hit is related with diplomatic files and cables containing information about the relationship of the US with other countries. This would include a harsh US criticism of South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela.

Other media outlets believe that the new files will provide more information on the war that is being fought in Afghanistan.

The reality is that the British Government has issued a DA-Notice (defence advisory), warning newspapers that publishing the secrets could compromise national security.

According to the AFP, US diplomats have briefed governments including the UK, Israel, Turkey, Denmark and Norway about the damaging secrets which had been contained in cables, including classified messages sent to Washington from the American embassy in London.

“They contain sensitive information and reveal sources of information that impact our national interests and those of other countries.” said the US State Department, according to the International Business Times.

WikiLeaks has informed that it already gave access to the documents to Der Spiegel, The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde and El País, and that the media organizations have already analysed them.
It’s a matter of days before be can find out what kind of information and the impact it will have in the dynamics of the world affairs.

Meanwhile, the harassment over Assange will persist. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton declared to the Daily Mail that they are keeping an eye on him. “This is enormously embarrassing to the US. The CIA have Assange under total surveillance”.

Shouldn’t Assange be treated as a journalist? Can you imagine the controversy of such a declaration if the one under surveillance was a reporter from the NYT? What is the difference between Assange and his team and the traditional journalists?

The leak once again raises debate about WikiLeaks with opponents finding the organization a threat to national security and proponents considering it a safeguard of democracy. According to WikiLeaks, the site is necessary to create governmental transparency.

“We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies,” reads the WikiLeaks Web site. The site operates from servers in countries where national laws protect its disclosures.

According to the US Defense Department the disclosures of WikiLeaks “put risk to the lives of American troops.” In an official response to the new leaks, the Defense Department states: “We deplore WikiLeaks for inducing individuals to break the law, leak classified documents and then cavalierly share that secret information with the world, including our enemies.”

Julian Assange, who is the founder of WikiLeaks, has responded to the criticism by stating that there is no evidence that American soldiers have been killed as a result of the leaked documents.

Following the leaks, American army intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, has been arrested and accused of leaking the documents.

From Fastcompany:

According to Slashdot, Wikileaks has announced a plan to create a leak “uploader” feature that news orgs can embed in their Web sites. The uploader will allow quick and anonymous submission of leaked material that journalists can use exclusively for a window of time–before Wikileaks pulls the information into its publicly available database…

…The upload feature should give anonymous sources a safer, easier way to disclose sensitive information. It will also transfer legal responsibility for the material away from a given journalist and onto Wikileaks itself, a site that has proven very difficult for lawyers to thwart.

ITWorld fills in the details:

The upload system will give potential whistle blowers around the world the ability to leak sensitive documents to an organization or journalist they trust over a secure connection, while giving the receiver legal protection they might not otherwise enjoy.

“We will take the burden of protecting the source and the legal risks associated with publishing the document,” said Julien Assange, an advisory board member at Wikileaks, in an interview at the Hack In The Box security conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Once Wikileaks confirms the uploaded material is real, it will be handed over to the Web site that encouraged the submission for a period of time. This embargo period gives the journalist or rights group time to write a news story or report based on the material.