Rethinking Web 2.0

There’s a video making the rounds that was made by Michael Wesch, an assistant Cultural Anthropology Professor at Kansas State University. It’s an inspiring look at the wonders of Web 2.0. In one particular scene, he discusses a few things that we will need to rethink in light of this revolution: copyright, authorship, identity, ethics, governance, privacy, commerce, etc.

He’s entirely right.  And the time to do that is now.

Throughout the history of computing, and perhaps of human history itself, we’ve had opposing forces–power vs. security, connectivity vs. trust. A new tool comes out, and it increases our ability to do something–say, automate tasks in a word processor or connect to people in a new way. People quickly learn how to use this tool for malicious purposes, and then rules get put in place to keep people from using it maliciously.

The Internet is a relatively new tool that has been widely used for malicious purposes, but it’s not something as simple as using a word processor. People access the Internet with countless common protocols and countless applications for each, with more appearing every day.

The main component of security is that trust must be earned. People establish credentials, or you get to know them, before you let them at your personal and financial data–things that could be used against you for malicious purposes. Most people don’t truly understand how to use a computer, much less know how to verify credentials. And then there are those who are so excited by the opportunity to connect that they don’t even bother to try. (How many of you MySpace users have people on your friends’ list that you’ve never met in person or even had an entire conversation with?)

What we have now is power far beyond most people’s abilities or desire to comprehend. It’s reaching a critical point where that ignorance can not only cost you your reputation, but also your money and your freedom. This message just isn’t reaching the people who need to hear it: the ones who are least apt to understand how to protect themselves, the people who are unlikely to be reading these technically oriented articles.

It’s when we can rethink the message enough to get it put on the back of cereal boxes that we’ll actually make a difference in this situation. When we can make this simple and compelling enough to explain it to a six-year-old, as Richard Feynman might have said, we can look forward to a decrease in the malicious use of the Internet.