Blog: Politics

The Bush administration has been remarkably successful at spreading false information simply by repeating it over and over. And according to a few recent psychological studies reported in the Washington Post, even if the false information is being labeled false on a flyer or being debunked by a public official, just repeating the statement to rebut it can actually reinforce it in people's minds.

In a nation built on free speech, and where civil libertarians are fond of saying that "the solution to bad speech is more speech," these findings illuminate the difficulty of fighting misinformation. Appropriately, two days ago the Yale Law Journal ran a set of online articles discussing ways to fight Internet harassment such as the defamatory material on AutoAdmit.com that roiled the law school community last year.

Most of the Yale Law Journal articles suggest regulation such as imposing notice-and-takedown rules on search engines, but none of the proposed solutions would really fix the problem, and James Grimmelmann argues against censoring search engines, effectively and rightly in my opinion. The Post article suggests a few better ways to argue without repeating the false information, like "Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11" rather than "Saddam Hussein did not attack us, Bin Laden did", but acknowledges that such transformations may not be possible.

In both cases, we're still stuck with the problem that it's easier to anonymously defame someone than for the victim to clear his or her name, and it's easier to mislead the American public than to stand up for the truth.

At the recent Yearly Kos convention, Laughing Liberally comedians reprised their role from last year opening for the keynote speakers. But the best moment for Laughing Liberally's comedians was at the Barack Obama breakout session after the candidate forum, when Baratunde was called on to ask a question (about coal; Baratunde was disappointed by the answer), introduced himself and his Laughing Liberally affiliation to huge cheers and applause from the room, and afterward, met the Senator, who said, "Apparently, you’re somebody I need to know."

I wish I'd taken this picture. I especially love the person taking the same picture with their cameraphone at the bottom of the frame.

It is traditional to describe politics as a "spectrum," from extremists on the left to extremists on the right, with the population spread out in between and politicians located at various points based on their policy positions. Using this model, game theory would recommend politicians running in national elections try to position themselves close to the center.

This is just like a classic game theory example (PDF, scroll to bottom of page 58): two vendors are selling ice cream on a long beach, and can choose where to place their carts. Everyone will go to the closest vendor, so the two vendors have an incentive to move closer and closer to each other (to capture more of the beachgoers in between) until they end up right next to each other in the center of the beach - giving each half the beach, but forcing customers to walk much farther than if they simply located themselves farther apart.

Game theory leads to some poor outcomes for beach vendors, but even worse for politicians, because the whole metaphor of a political spectrum is a false one, as George Lakoff argues in a recent article. Instead, he describes two "systems of values and modes of thought," the progressive and conservative worldviews. Many people mix and match viewpoints between the two, but that doesn't mean they are in the "center" - a person who is liberal on social issues and conservative on trade would be just as far away from a social authoritarian and economic populist as a pure progressive is from a pure conservative. And the universe of positions isn't limited to just two issues.

Lakoff describes the people who split their positions as "biconceptuals," and the way for a Democrat to appeal to a biconceptual isn't to "move right" or adopt conservative values, but rather to speak about the class of issues where the biconceptual is in agreement with the progressive viewpoint, which most voters hold on the majority of issues. The DLC, which has made a habit of attacking other Democrats as extremist and sparked a lively debate recently through an op-ed which generated rebuttal op-eds, eloquent responses online, and a debate on Meet the Press, recommends precisely the wrong approach, accepting more conservative policies on more issues, mostly issues where the American people in fact largely agree with the progressive viewpoints. When viewed through the lens of biconceptuals, this strategy makes no sense. It only seems logical in the false metaphor of a single political spectrum.

Freakonomics blog has an interview with hedge fund manager Neil Barsky, and I was surprised at the progressiveness of his answers. He's not an enemy of hedge funds, of course (nor am I), but does lament the social problems inherent in a system that rewards money managers so handsomely and out of proportion to other jobs like teachers or even doctors. Nothing he says is crazy or even very unusual, but I'm so used to dogmatic defense of the market at all costs from so many people in finance and economics blogs that it's a surprise to see someone take a more thoughtful, nuanced view.

Update: fixed link.

A tornado has transported you to a magical land, where a jubilant throng of midgets greets you as liberator. They direct you toward a road paved with yellow bricks. We'll start with you, Mayor Giuliani. Would you consider capturing one of these exotic creatures and subjecting him or her to enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding and electric shock, if it means extracting vital information that will determine whether the yellow route leads home—or into a trap?

More at Slate.

We've all sat in a hot, stuffy room, uncomfortable, and know the amazing feeling of a brief gust of wind blowing fresh air into the room, cutting through the muggy feel just briefly before subsiding, leaving us craving more. Last night's Democratic debate felt that way. CNN opened a window - brief, limited, controlled - but they opened it, and the refreshing feel of the outside air tasted so delicious.

I had the opportunity to attend last night's South Carolina Democratic debate in person. The room looked and felt like any other produced, managed television event. The candidates started out rehearsed, giving their prepared sound bites in response to each question. But the questions were real, as were the questioners, and as the debate went on, the candidates changed. Not radically, but they began to respond more directly to the questions. They started talking to the questioners. They resisted when Anderson Cooper tried to force them to discuss trivialities like whether they have chartered campaign planes instead of the real issues of global warming. While of the campaign videos followed tired old campaign commercial patterns, a few were funny and felt genuine.

Television still dominates politics and candidates still speak in a way that will play on TV. Last night was one debate, but cable news continues to fill tens of thousands of hours with content controlled by a small group of journalists. Still, last night, we could see a glimmer of a better way where candidates speak to citizens. Briefly, a gust of fresh air was swirling through that large auditorium. The Internet is blowing this fresh air through the rooms of our politics, our economy, and our culture. Anyone can blog, or sell their own t-shirts, or release their own music.

To some, however, this open economy is scary and dangerous. How can we know which books are good without Barnes and Noble to select them? How can we avoid buying shoddy jewelry or fake silver without the controls retailers have in place? And what will happen to a civilized centrist political consensus when just anyone gets to speak their opinions? To some, the gust of air is chilly and brings in the salty smell of the sea and a whiff of garbage. Maybe conditioned air is best. Maybe we should leave it to the professional HVAC technicians to manage our air.

In the early days of the Internet, you could sign up for access through a service like AOL, Prodigy, or CompuServe, which resembled shopping malls. Each piece of content was carefully selected by editors. Or, you could get direct Internet access, which had enormously more content to read, communities to join, and products to buy, but it also carried spam and other dangers, fooling people into buying worthless penny stocks or giving their bank account numbers to Nigerian scammers. More content and community, because nobody had to ask AOL for permission to be on the Internet. Spam, because even the spammers didn't have to ask permission.

Most of our communications networks work more like AOL than the Internet. Television and cable professionals decide what you see on TV. The cable companies decide what channels to offer. Radio managers choose shows for their stations. And Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile determine which phones to offer and in many cases what applications you are allowed to install on those phones. They want to keep the air clean (according to their standards). You can choose between AT&T and Sprint, between NBC and CBS, and they do compete vigorously, but within a professionally selected range of offerings. Nothing unpredictable, but little participation from citizens and limited innovation from entrepreneurs.

Without the openness of the Internet, we wouldn't be experiencing the tremendous growth of citizen involvement in politics. Without it, we couldn't learn about nearly any subject instantly from Wikipedia – even if the information hasn’t been vetted by gatekeeping Britannica editors. Without it, we couldn't buy all the many hard-to-find products on eBay from around the world – even if they don’t come with corporate guarantees of quality. Without it, millions of people wouldn't be finding love on dating sites – though they occasionally meet sketchy people as well. The market chose the freewheeling Internet model over AOL's controlled "walled garden". Internet access boomed while the managed online services went out of business. Clearly, citizens are willing to be unpredictable and take advantage of open systems. And I believe citizens are able and willing to be their own gatekeepers, which has worked on sites like Craigslist and Digg.

Many of the former gatekeepers are opening up to the idea of opening up, even if begrudgingly. Newspapers are blogging to remain relevant as subscriptions decline. Candidates are competing for supporters on Facebook and MySpace. And CNN is letting citizens write the debate questions. Meanwhile, others are fighting the trend. Many pundits and commentators attack bloggers. Books about the Internet "killing our culture" get widespread attention and praising reviews in the New York Times. The RIAA, according to Rolling Stone, is facing obsolescence because it refused to try to work with the Internet constructively.

So far, the telephone and cable companies are choosing to hold on to old, closed business models. An upcoming auction of new wireless spectrum could follow "open access" principles to create a new wireless network more like the Internet, but Verizon and AT&T so far oppose this. We should give consumers this choice between the current networks and an open one. Net Neutrality is about preserving the ability to choose an open network as new fiber-optic networks replace today's DSL and dial-up modems.

The fresh air of creative citizen participation is starting to blow into Presidential politics through the window CNN opened. And this week, we have an opportunity to open the window in telecommunications as well. Senator Dick Durbin is conducting a series of discussions on OpenLeft.com to make policy by talking to citizens.

The question we ask ourselves when choosing a President is what kind of America we want. The question we must ask ourselves and Senator Durbin is the same - what kind of network do we want? Should we leave it to the professionals to decide what applications we use and what content we see? Or do we want the Internet to keep being open, so anyone can blog or sell products or create the next Amazon or Facebook without permission? Do we want to expand that openness to mobile technology? Or do we want to return to the tight control of the AOL era, or Presidential questions being written by a small panel of Washington elites? I hope Senator Durbin will open the windows. It's awfully stuffy in here.

The field of computer science, at base, is about efficiency. Algorithms are evaluated based on the time they take to run - "big O notation", using formulas like O(n²) or O(n log n) telling how much time it takes to accomplish a task based on the size of the input. Programmers love to optimize systems, to make them run faster and better and more reliably. And one of the great joys of computer engineering, unlike, say, architecture or bridge building, is that if something doesn't work optimally, it's often not that expensive to simply rewrite it.

It's easy to think government ought to work the same way. After all, government is simply a social construct, governed by a set of rules (laws) just as a computer program governs a machine's behavior. (Larry Lessig famously wrote how "code is law".) If some aspect of government isn't working, why can't we just reprogram it?

Unfortunately, government is not just a socially programmed system executing a set of legal instructions, but it's a complex one with lots of dependencies. In software, you might choose to simply rewrite your code, but you may be running it on an operating system you didn't write, with an application server you didn't write, accessing a database you didn't write. (If they're open source, you can try to submit patches, but they won't always be accepted). Or maybe your client needs you to integrate your code with some legacy system written decades ago on an IBM mainframe in FORTRAN.

When dealing with a system we can't fix, we try sending it data and seeing what it will do. If I call this function, this happens. If I put that data there, that happens. Software engineers start acting like biochemists - if the cell's concentration of ions is such-and-such, then the cell will exhibit so-and-so behavior. You can complain about the cell or curse the people who wrote the FORTRAN code, but you can't reason with these systems and explain to them why they're wrong.

To get results, we must treat government similarly. Think of Congress as a black box that reacts to various stimuli. Send them ten thousand letters from citizens in their districts about an issue, and they'll pay attention. Get a lot of people to give money to their challenger, and they'll think long and hard before voting against your point of view. Make it clear that voters care about an issue, and they'll care, too.

People on Capitol Hill like to think they're impartial stewards of the country, thinking dispassionately about the Right Thing to Do. But usually there's no consensus on what that right thing is. And when people in Congress do the wrong thing, it's easy to get frustrated about their backward thinking. Ed Felten, a terrific advocate for engineers, wrote a clever post rightly excoriating Rep. Howard Berman for saying he'd consulted "all the interested parties" on patent reform legislation when in truth he'd only consulted all of the Beltway lobbying groups, not citizens. Many commenters chimed in that politicians only listen to the groups that give them money and "know which master they are serving."

Back when Berman was appointed chair of the House IP Subcommittee, Larry Lessig wrote a scathing critique of the Democrats, newly in the majority. "'Radical' changes in Washington always have this Charlie Brown/Lucy-like character (remember Lucy holding the football?): it doesn't take long before you realize how little really ever changes in DC. Message to the Net from the newly Democratic House? Go to hell." Lessig saw Berman's appointment as a rejection of the blogs and activist groups on the Net that regained them the majority.

Felten is right that Berman wasn't considering the public interest. Lessig was right that the leadership wasn't considering Net activists' concerns when appointing him in the first place. But simply saying that on a blog is like saying that a cancerous cell shouldn't be dividing so darn much. True, but we don't just talk about it, we develop chemotherapy and radiation and drugs to stop it. Instead of just blogging or whining on comments, we need to be developing antibodies to the special interest groups. The ordinary citizens, who Congress isn't listening to, need to make themselves heard, by writing letters, making phone calls, signing petitions, giving money, and voting.

We know it works. Just look at Net Neutrality, an issue that most people still don't understand. But a coalition of groups from Free Press to MoveOn to the Christian Coalition worked together and didn't just talk, they bombarded Congress with advocacy. And it got results. Several major Presidential candidates and the Congressional leadership came out in support of Net Neutrality. The stimulus was strong enough, and the response meaningful. That fight is far from over, but it shows what citizens can do when they take action.

Next time you read about the latest assault on Internet freedom, don't just blog about it. To Lessig, Felten, Cory Doctorow, and all the other great bloggers, don't just write about how much it sucks, direct people to get involved to fix it. Encourage them to join or give to groups like Save the Internet, Free Press, Public Knowledge, EFF, or the political action commitee I founded, IPac, as well as many more.

For a long time everyone complained bitterly about Microsoft's monopolistic behavior and its operating system dominance. Then some hackers got together, enlisted more hackers, and created an alternative so good that most Web sites don't run on Microsoft software and (coupled with several more innovations) some people say "Microsoft is dead." We can make the IP extremists' and the information gatekeepers' positions dead in Washington, too.

I have an article in TomPaine.com, the progressive journal of ideas, talking about Drinking Liberally and its many sister projects and how they draw people into greater political activism, in a tradition dating back to George Washington, Sam Adams, John Hancock, and the site's inspiration, Tom Paine.

Seth Godin is an amazing speaker who spreads simple, revolutionary ideas about marketing in the modern age. He speaks in a staccato with informative and often funny slides going while he speaks. In that spirit, here are some of his statements, occasionally paraphrased.

Ideas that spread, win.

The old world of TV marketing: I have money, I can interrupt whoever I want, whenever I want, with whatever message I want, even if it's not true.

The TV industrial complex: buy ads, use those ads to get more donations, get elected, raise money, use that money to buy more ads.

Now the world is filled with noise, and it's easy to ignore anything you don't want to hear. People have become very good at ignoring you. The TV model is broken.

Tiffany is giving the jewelry away; it's the box you pay for. Everyone is in the fashion business now.

10,000 years ago everyone was a hunter. Then the only animals were dead or really good at hiding. Farming came along and humanity was saved, except the politicians and the marketers. At election time, they go out and try to hit voters. Except the voters have become very good at hiding.

People like to do what other people are doing. Why did everyone do the Macarena? It's not because it's a good song! It's because when you would go to a wedding, everyone would make you do it. So why do politicians focus on private events with donors? Create movements and organizations where people can connect.

Targeting is a hunting term. Don't target, work the grapevine.

Don't look at the world as a funnel where you put ads in the top and hope a few votes come out of the bottom. Turn it into a megaphone and give it to the people. You're giving up some control but getting conversation, a current of support.

The new fashion permission complex: Be remarkable. Tell a story to your sneezers. They spread the word. You get people's permission to reach them.