a methodology for internal web ethics
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A methodology for internal Web ethics. M. Vafopoulos , P . Stefaneas , I. Anagnostopoulos , K. O'Hara Philoweb , WWW2012 WSSC : “ webscience.org/2010/E.4.3 Ethics in the Web”. Research questions . what changes need to be incorporated in the Web to best serve humanity ? - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
A methodology for internal Web ethics
M. Vafopoulos, P. Stefaneas, I. Anagnostopoulos, K. O'Hara
Philoweb, WWW2012WSSC: “webscience.org/2010/E.4.3 Ethics in the Web”
Research questions what changes need to be incorporated in the Web to best serve humanity?
Can philosophy help in this direction? How?
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Outline ① Hypotheses ② Being, space & time in the Web③ Hayek’s freedom ④ 3-level analysis– The Technological Web– The Contextualized Web– The Economic Web
⑤ Results & discussion 3
Hypotheses Web:• ethically-relevant social machine• magma of Users and code
start from the Web assume a self-contained Web orthe “manna from heaven” hypothesis(internal ethics analysis)
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“manna from heaven” hypothesis
• Web is the only existing system • human beings are communicating &
working solely through it • a compassionate ‘God’ provides the
necessary quantity of ‘manna’, fulfilling all human needs, with no cost & effort
• Web being, space & time
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Being, space & time in the Web
• A being exists if and only if there is a communication channel linking to it
• Web beings communicated through the Web
• Web space: the Web being’s URI, incoming & outgoing links
• Web time: visiting durations 6
URIminimal description of invariant elements
in communication through the Webborderline, interlocutor & fingerprint of
Web beingenables transformation from digital to Webdirectly connected to existence (birth,
access, navigate, edit & death of a Web being)
other characteristics of Web beings may change in time
a change in URI means the death of existing & birth of a new Web being 7
The Web space• a division of position & place created by
the links among Web beings • each Web being occupies a specific locus
in the Web network • a 3d “geographic coordinate system” • heterogeneous• many “gravity” & relative “distance”
metrics• Pagerank initially build on Web space
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The Web time• a series of choices (visits) in the Web
space (Bergsonian durations) • visiting selections attach semantic
meaning • casual relationships among Web
beings• counting: Log file as a generic common
property & co-operation in the Web
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The Web timeDurations are becoming: Discoverable, Observable, Traceable Processable, Massive
increases material dimension of networks
enables reconstruction of consciousness & memory of Users
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How to analyze the Web as an ethical space?
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Freedom Io the source of values o“freedom-coercion” tradeoff –more options to solve problems collectively & innovate, but –some of these options may be used in ways that cause coercion
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Freedom II• Theories:how to construct a system that selects, with minimum social cost which positive options to sacrifice in order to minimize coercion (or the dual problem) • start with Hayek’s approach
because confronts with most Web characteristics
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Hayek’s freedom I • State posses the monopoly to
enforce coercive power through General Rules
• Personal Sphere & Property counterweight state power
• General Rules are enforced equally & describe the borderlines between State & Personal Sphere
• Property is a basic realization of General Rules
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Hayek’s freedom II • Competition is possible by the
dispersion of Property• Mutually advantageous collaboration
is based on Competition in service provision
• effective anti-monopolistic policy: require from the monopolist (including the state) to treat all customers alike
• Individuals should be responsible & accountable for their actions 15
3-level analysisApply theory of freedom according to Web’s evolution from plain s/w to ecosystem
• The Technological Web– Internet infrastructure & Web software
• The Contextualized Web– Sets of rules enforced through trust
• The Economic Web– Economic contexts 16
The Web as a space of FreedomFreedom
free access & inter-connection of any compatible software/device
freely navigate, create and update Web Beings and links universality, openness & separation of layers in engineering, editing, searching & navigating
establish specific contexts in order to form beliefs that some Users/Web beings are trustworthy
no barriers to economize
Coercion badware applications (e.g. computer-zombies) traffic censorship (e.g.“Snooping”)inadequate quality of transmission
badware-infected Web Beings central control & censoring of traffic“walled gardens” in SN (privacy threats & fragmentation) manipulation of indexing & searching (e.g. spamdexing)un-trustworthy technologies, business & governments badware & malicious representations
concentration of power in a minority of Users inability of some people to benefit from the Web economy
Internet
Web software
Contextualized Web
Economic Web
Personal sphereIP address: can only be processed for certain reasons oWeb: log file common ownership by
design (admin & navigator) o architectural element of co-operation
oAdmin: direct access oNavigator: not straightforward
o not proper practices for collecting traffic
oshould be further analyzed
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General rulesTreating all Internet Users, Web Navigators & Editors equally • profile customization • open technological standards• efficient business incentives
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The contextualized Web• Web 2.5: not only User-
Generated Content, but context • communication is central to
establishing trust (Habermas) • rich connectivity of the Web is
bound into its function • antitrust & coercion= the prices
for widespread & beneficial trust 20
The contextualized Webinternal Web ethics: • ensure not that antitrust
happens, but • that it is outweighed by
beneficial trust to as great a degree as possible consistent with Hayekian notions of freedom
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Challenges in the economic Web I
obtain the right balance between: • open access and processing of
online information (e.g. socially aware cloud storage, g-work)
& • provision of incentives to
produce content & to develop network infrastructure
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Challenges in the economic Web II
• accelerate socio-economic development by facilitating life-critical functions in the developing world (e.g. W3F)• enable transparency &
participation in the developed world (e.g. Open Data)
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Challenges in the economic Web III
o“Link economy” o“App economy” oexcessive market power in
Search Engine market
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Results I • centralization of traffic & data
control • rights on visiting log file • custom User profiles • interplay among function,
structure & moral values
are directly connected to the quality of freedom in the Web 25
Results II
issues about freedom in lower levels of the Web (i.e. technology) have crucial impact on the subsequent levels of higher complexity (i.e. context, economy)
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Next stepso involve more theories & disciplineso relax assumptionso connect to engineering issues (e.g.
TAG)o Webizing humanity & humanizing Web
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Webizing humanity & humanizing Web
Web: • emerged not as a business project with
hierarchical structures but • as a creative & open space of volunteers
outside traditional market and pricing• markets would have never invested such
amounts in labor costs to develop it • temporal disconnection between effort &
rewards • symbiosis between non-financial and
financial incentives 28
Webizing humanity – humanizing web
In economyo incorporate in the entire economy, the best
of the symbiosis between virtues and economic incentives in the Web
o the Web has still many lessons to take from the long-living market mechanisms on how to best orchestrate effort and reward in society
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Role of philosophy
What society can learn from the Web?
What can teach it in order to become more useful?
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Thank you!
• More in vafopoulos.orgReferences• Being, space and time in the Web.
Metaphilosophy (forthcoming).• The Web economy: goods, users,
models and policies. Foundations and Trends in Web science (forthcoming).
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appendix
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The Web time“time of social systems” is • indeterministic,• Heterogeneous • irreversible • built on the Einsteinian time of
physical systems.
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The case of Net Neutrality
• QoS issues• Technological approach (e.g.
Flow-Aware Networking) • generic freedom-coercion trade-
offs are useful in framing the feasibility space but incomplete in treating more specific cases in practice (like NN)
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Flow-Aware NetworkingFAN may ensure neutrality along with the awareness of QoS create an occurrence, upon which the implicit separation will be performed solely based on the current link status (e.g. dataflow congestion, traffic bottleneck etc.). Therefore, all datagrams are forwarded unconditionally in the pipeline, but they are also “equal”, subject to be separated or even dropped when the network tolerance demands it. The main advantage of FAN-based architectures is that they differentiate the data flow, taking into account only the traffic characteristics of the currently transmitted information. Hence, apart from data discrimination, it is not possible to comprehensively discriminate certain applications, services and end-Users.
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