Tecchie Ethics and Other Conspiracies

There is a lot of talk about Corporate Social Responsibility these days. Beyond the obvious warm and fuzzy feeling we get when a Megacorp’s actions closely align with our own individual values, companies are ever more enshrined as both individuals in law and communities of individuals in theory. They therefore need to appear as both responsible neighbours and upright citizens. The threat being that if consumers grow fed up with a corporation’s unsavoury profit-seeking, they will take their choices elsewhere. At the forefront of the CSR movement sits the internet’s various corporate citizens. With the advent of Google’s “you can make money without being evil” edict (apart of a larger ten-point socio-economic manifesto) and the increasing technophile dominance of the World Economic Forum at Davos, every mention of the internet, social networking, new media or Web 2.0 comes neatly wrapped in the language of “tecchie ethics”.

So one could imagine the furore which has met Google’s recent threats to censure China’s, and by implication, its own, censorship practices. Various pundits, from Human Rights Watch to Harvard Academics, have interpreted Google’s threat to leave as a clarion call to arms in the fight for free information. After all, every totalitarian regime, from Cuba to Iran, has one thing in common: strong surveillance apparati.

Guardian Technology Editor Charles Arthur’s take on Google’s late-arriving ethical stance is typical of the virtual Free Info! movement. For Arthur, any company that makes information available to everyone aids in rooting out “corruption, lies, and misinformation” and helps “bring down tyrants.” “The medium”, according to Joe Trippi, “also demands authenticity.” It is no wonder some describe pro-internet forces as evangelists and their house, the internet, a broad church.

Others like Evgeny Morozov, who gave a recent talk at POLIS Journalism and Society, prefer their Kool Aid watered down. According to Morozov, “Internet activism so often fails to convert online activity into any meaningful action in the real world.” The battle rages.

If you pull the thread…

True to their name, evangelists, on either side, believe in the primacy of one god. The ‘Google Affair’ to them is just another novel example of his work. What they may be missing is the evolutionary geo-political retelling of an older world-historical saga.

It’s characters are familiar. China, however augmented, plays the role of the rising roguish state. The US cast as itself. Google, the globalised business.

Within the narrative are several recurring themes. For one, the rogue state is indirectly accused of cyber terrorism – making the case not simply a discrepancy between a state and an international corporation but something of import for the entire world. There is also much talk about walls, transposed here from Berlin to China, and how no country should be so paternally protectionist. Attendant to the issue of walls, is the people behind them. Like in Eastern Europe, past human rights abuses and freedom of speech infringements are taken as equivalent.

The US, in turn, is forced to respond in the name of freedom – in this case, freedom of the internet. The company, Google, and the state, US, are now aligned.

On the other side, the phraseology of privacy, morality, and sovereignty is China’s catchword defence for real human rights abuses.

The Gulf of Tonkin awaits.

And Other Conspiracies

For some, neither account suffices.

Google is a business after all. Why then would it abandon a potentially huge market in the name of ideals? Don’t they have a responsibility, first and foremost, to their investors?

It could be that Google is simply playing the CSR trump card. Lest we forget that beyond a bunch of big talk, nothing has actually happened. With consumer memories notoriously short, Google could be wagering that it can both look good and act bad without anyone really noticing. Others remain sceptical about the timing of the proposed move. Surely if Google had reservations about doing business in China, it would never have entered in the first place.

That having been said, devising a complex PR strategy only goes so far in explaining why a company would presumably flail the interests of its investors. Unless, that is, the intent is to improve business prospects long-term. Maybe what is really at stake are those pesky little things called borders. It seems the internet is a bit like the old world and Google, the East India Company. In that rather nightmarish scenario, like in the past, borders, controls, sanctions (resistance of any kind) are irresolutely bad for business.

Which brings us back to the internet social contract. The fact that the web can act as a springboard for such real world discussions is an undeniably good thing. What isn’t so good is believing that either it(as a medium) or Google(as a company) have supernatural qualities. After all, if it were a real man, it would stay and fight.

Excuse me, it’s pronounced ‘Faux’ News

Speaking of feel good stories, especially if you subscribe to the Onion, Fox News has enlisted Sarah Palin as its newest family value, value-free political commentator. One guesses nothing says ‘screw you liberal media’ more than a little I- don’t-think-that’s-what-Karl-Popper-meant- by-transparent, presidential candidacy launching punditry. One also guesses that Pat Robertson was unavailable.

To beat a dead, buried and rotten horse, isn’t it about time Fox News dropped the whole fair and balanced shtick? It seems broadcast media could learn a thing or two from their cyber cousins.


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