Any Colour if it is Black

It might be too premature to celebrate the democratic dream of inclusion that participatory technologies promise,but our world is changing at an unprecedented pace. And yet,in the face of these extraordinary changes that have changed systems of administration and empowered people,there has been a resistance by governments to contain the power of internets which supersede governmental control. From the obvious examples like the Great Firewall of China that still seeks to control the information that Chinese users can access,to the blunderous decisions made by the Indian government to contain subversive and alternative voices and practices from the social web,we have seen an unexpected rise in curbing the very ideas of freedom that fuel the web.

These battles for a demand for the freedom of speech and expression in a less regulated web are significant because they affect our everyday practices on the web. And yet,there has been a growing apathy when it comes to finding people who care enough to fight against these spaces that are quickly losing their potential to be the free spaces that Berner-Lee had first envisioned. The digital natives have already moved away from the idea of “free” as enshrined in the earlier imaginations of the web,and have replaced this with the idea of “choice”.

One of the most defining characteristic of the Web 2.0 — which is largely a revolution orchestrated by the corporate sectors — is this replacement of freedom with choice. For the early users of the internet,their role was not limited to consumption of online services. Usually,a user was also a producer,not only of content but of code,of algorithms,of languages and spaces that could build stronger and more robust networks of connectivity. It is this hands-on experience of the digital that defined their relationship with the online world,spawning geek and hacker cultures that shaped the early days of the internet. But with digital natives,the first interaction with digital realms is through gadgets and interfaces that are designed and produced by a private sector.

In this world,the individual is at the centre of the technological revolution. However,the role of the individual is limited to consumption and production of information and content. The original new age Ninja Hacker who was supposed to harness the power of the digital technologies to directly address problems of our information age has been reduced into a prosumer who has no control over the code,the hardware or the software that we use in our new social webs. Our relationships are all defined through fields that Facebook develops. Our information is curtailed by the interfaces and constrained by the limitations that Twitter imposes. How we see our data is predefined by the user-generated content sites and their processes of contributing data. And even with this data,we lose all control when it comes to who sees it,who owns it,who distributes it and for what purpose.

This complete lack of freedom — freedom to choose open software and platforms,freedom to define our reality in our own language and idiom,freedom to build spaces that relate to our everyday life — has been replaced by endless choice. There is an overwhelming customisation that gives us the illusion of how these technologies listen to our needs and create an experience that has been crafted specially for us. But beneath this surface,series of customisations,hides the unpleasant truth that we have traded our freedom for better user-interfaces and convenience. It is like going to a chain coffee shops,where you can make 11 different choices for your beverage,making you believe your coffee is uniquely made for you,forgetting that the minute you entered that shop,the only thing you could do is to buy that coffee. It also resonates with the famous line by Henry Ford,who,when he was asked,what colour the new car should be,said,“It can be any colour as long as it is black.”

digitalnative@expressindia.com