tags:: [[%tie]] #nosec #notcat [[m46]] [[internet is fragile]] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ # Notes - Internet's evolution may not play out the same way again. Architecture is a function designers who did not have a lot of money to invest, and did not intend to make money from it (distinct constraint and distinct freedom) - "Internet was mortar, anyone could lay bricks" - > This absence of central control, or even easy central monitoring, has long been celebrated as an instrument of grassroots democracy and freedom. It’s not trivial to censor a network as organic and decentralized as the internet. But more recently, these features have been understood to facilitate vectors for individual harassment and societal destabilization, with no easy gating points through which to remove or label malicious work not under the umbrellas of the major social-media platforms, or to quickly identify their sources. - Preservation - No 'librarians' to preserve digital content unlike for notable physical documents. Incentives for creating physical/paper counterparts have plummeted - Links don't have permanence. *They work until they don't.* - Quoted examples: 50% of links embedded in US SC opinions since 1996 no longer worked (in 2014). 25% of deeplinks on NYTimes (since 1996) do not work. From 1998, 72% are dead. The older the article, lower the likelihood of the link working - > six researchers created a data set of more than 3.5 million scholarly articles about science, technology, and medicine, and determined that [one in five](https://perma.cc/66MA-JLM5) no longer points to its originally intended source. In 2016, an analysis with the same data set [found that 75 percent of all references](https://perma.cc/Q54B-XHJV) had drifted. - > Of course, there’s a keenly related problem of permanency for much of what’s online. People communicate in ways that feel ephemeral and let their guard down commensurately, only to find that a Facebook comment can stick around forever. The upshot is the worst of both worlds: Some information sticks around when it shouldn’t, while other information vanishes when it should remain. ### On libraries - > Into that gap has entered material that’s born digital, offered by the same publishers that would previously have been selling on printed matter. But there’s a catch: These officially sanctioned digital manifestations of material have an asterisk next to their permanence. - > Libraries in these scenarios are no longer custodians for the ages of anything, whether tangible or intangible, but rather poolers of funding to pay for fleeting access to knowledge elsewhere. ### Retrospective Changes - Digital books are not owned but accessed (example of Amazon deleting copies of 1984) - Information can also be updated (example of Nook updating all instances of Kindle in War and Peace) - Retrospective malleability to censorship (Elin Hilderbrand removing a paragraph from digital versions of a book after social media criticism) - *guidance towards the end* > A technical infrastructure through which authors and publishers can preserve the links they draw on is a necessary start. But the problem of digital malleability extends beyond the technical. The law should hesitate before allowing the scope of remedies for claimed infringements of rights—whether economic ones such as copyright or more personal, dignitary ones such as defamation—to expand naturally as the ease of changing what’s already been published increases. - Retroactive changes must generally be publicly available. Even if not (eg. Right to be forgotten), they should be available to researchers. Refers to his 'poisoned cabinets' paper. - Lumen - > thanks to the site’s record-keeping both of deletions and of the source and text of demands for removals, the law professor Eugene Volokh was able to identify a number of removal requests made [with fraudulent documentation](https://perma.cc/5ZC2-P4JM)—nearly 200 out of 700 “court orders” submitted to Google that he reviewed turned out to have been apparently Photoshopped from whole cloth. - Kindle books and Screenshots mean people don't trade links. > Which brings us full circle to the fact that long-term writing, including official documents, might often need to point to short-term, noncanonical sources to establish what they mean to say—and the means of doing that is disintegrating before our eyes (or worse, entirely unnoticed). And even long-term, canonical sources such as books and scholarly journals are in fugacious configurations—usually to support digital subscription models that require scarcity—that preclude ready long-term linking, even as their physical counterparts evaporate. # Further References 1. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/DqohpOCVEeuiiPu1d9evcw "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > A technical infrastructure through which authors and publishers can preserve the links they draw on is a necessary start. But the problem of digital malleability extends beyond the technical. The law should hesitate before allowing the scope of remedies for claimed infringements of rights—whether economic ones such as copyright or more personal, dignitary ones such as defamation—to expand naturally as the ease of changing what’s already been published increases. [](https://hyp.is/DqohpOCVEeuiiPu1d9evcw/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 2. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/KE8JZOCTEeuD0wPfzQwT8A "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > Again, the stunning success of the improbable, eccentric architecture of our internet came about because of a wise decision to favor the good over the perfect and the general over the specific. [](https://hyp.is/KE8JZOCTEeuD0wPfzQwT8A/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 3. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/AohUpuCTEeuS7Wuy5T27KA "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > Which brings us full circle to the fact that long-term writing, including official documents, might often need to point to short-term, noncanonical sources to establish what they mean to say—and the means of doing that is disintegrating before our eyes (or worse, entirely unnoticed). And even long-term, canonical sources such as books and scholarly journals are in fugacious configurations—usually to support digital subscription models that require scarcity—that preclude ready long-term linking, even as their physical counterparts evaporate. [](https://hyp.is/AohUpuCTEeuS7Wuy5T27KA/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 4. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/OgTlOuCSEeuj2w8FMTQv3Q "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > It is only a matter of time before the retroactive malleability of these forms of publishing becomes a new area of pressure and regulation for content censorship. [](https://hyp.is/OgTlOuCSEeuj2w8FMTQv3Q/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 5. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/_f5uMOCREeuNLe-1Is3h5A "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > Not only can information be removed, but it also can be changed. [](https://hyp.is/_f5uMOCREeuNLe-1Is3h5A/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 6. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/uXSfRuCREeuPfK-QNll8ww "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > The internet’s distinct architecture arose from a distinct constraint and a distinct freedom: First, its academically minded designers didn’t have or expect to raise massive amounts of capital to build the network; and second, they didn’t want or expect to make money from their invention. Link to Elettra Bietti's Genealogy of Digital Platform Governance [](https://hyp.is/uXSfRuCREeuPfK-QNll8ww/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 7. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/pN0bOuCREeuvNV-1n3Fdrw "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > Underpinning our vast and simple-seeming digital networks are technologies that, if they hadn’t already been invented, probably wouldn’t unfold the same way again. They are artifacts of a very particular circumstance, and it’s unlikely that in an alternate timeline they would have been designed the same way. [](https://hyp.is/pN0bOuCREeuvNV-1n3Fdrw/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 8. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/gu_TvuCREeuS5h-_7_oqjQ "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > “Aren’t you glad you didn’t cite to this webpage … If you had, like Justice Alito did, the original content would have long since disappeared and someone else might have come along and purchased the domain in order to make a comment about the transience of linked information in the internet age.” [](https://hyp.is/gu_TvuCREeuS5h-_7_oqjQ/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 9. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/elW6UuCREeuKIefWlYYmVA "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > The New York Times, I was able to analyze approximately 2 million externally facing links found in articles at nytimes.com since its inception in 1996. We found that 25 percent of deep links have rotted. (Deep links are links to specific content—think theatlantic.com/article, as opposed to just theatlantic.com.) The older the article, the less likely it is that the links work. If you go back to 1998, 72 percent of the links are dead. [](https://hyp.is/elW6UuCREeuKIefWlYYmVA/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 10. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/aXd88uCREeuhWbfwwdXKvA "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > We found that 50 percent of the links embedded in Court opinions since 1996, when the first hyperlink was used, no longer worked. And 75 percent of the links in the Harvard Law Review no longer worked. The first study, with Kendra Albert and Larry Lessig, focused on documents meant to endure indefinitely: links within scholarly papers, as found in the Harvard Law Review, and judicial opinions of the Supreme Court. [](https://hyp.is/aXd88uCREeuhWbfwwdXKvA/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 11. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/UvpzlOCREeuYaveVr1GRVA "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > Because information is so readily placed online, the incentives for creating paper counterparts, and storing them in the traditional ways, declined slowly at first and have since plummeted. [](https://hyp.is/UvpzlOCREeuYaveVr1GRVA/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 12. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/QMWwROCREeuKHs-TdZniaw "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > Into that gap has entered material that’s born digital, offered by the same publishers that would previously have been selling on printed matter. But there’s a catch: These officially sanctioned digital manifestations of material have an asterisk next to their permanence. [](https://hyp.is/QMWwROCREeuKHs-TdZniaw/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 13. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/NzepGuCREeurP6daiGq7QA "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > Once the error was noted, Amazon—in something of a panic—reached into every Kindle that had downloaded the book and deleted it. The book was, fittingly enough, George Orwell’s 1984. [](https://hyp.is/NzepGuCREeurP6daiGq7QA/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 14. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/LXQYvuCREeuKHd_z9Ga3gg "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > Libraries in these scenarios are no longer custodians for the ages of anything, whether tangible or intangible, but rather poolers of funding to pay for fleeting access to knowledge elsewhere. [](https://hyp.is/LXQYvuCREeuKHd_z9Ga3gg/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 15. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/JqG9UuCREeuj2cNbiTPhYA "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > Deletion isn’t the only issue. [](https://hyp.is/JqG9UuCREeuj2cNbiTPhYA/www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/ "Visit annotation in context")[](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre# "Share this annotation") 16. [prateekwaghre](https://hypothes.is/users/prateekwaghre "username")[09 Jul 2021](https://hypothes.is/a/UxXJouCPEeuycIOwPN3oiw "date") [in MDM-Private](https://hypothes.is/groups/aEvRPDXG/mdm-private "group") > Of course, there’s a keenly related problem of permanency for much of what’s online. People communicate in ways that feel ephemeral and let their guard down commensurately, only to find that a Facebook comment can stick around forever. The upshot is the worst of both worlds: Some information sticks around when it shouldn’t, while other information vanishes when it should remain. Contradiction between transience/ephemerality and permanence/discoverability Contrasting view on https://newbooksnetwork.com/architects-of-memory-1? (To listen)