There's been some discussion recently in places I can't link to about the Purpose of Blogging, and whether it's really appropriate to be using the medium to exchange silly pictures of cats. Ethan Zuckerman made an important point about the utility of banality (that link 404's at the moment, but I assume Ethan will eventually fix it. Hint, hint. The post is still on the front page, though):
So while Flickr should be used for displaying pictures of cute cats, it’s also proved an effective tool for avoiding keyword filtering. Activists in China are using Flickr to disseminate images that contain words that get blocked by keyword filters - a simple tool built by Zhang Erning allows a photo of Einstein at a blackboard to be annotated with arbitrary text that won’t be blocked by the Chinese firewall. You can post videos of the Star Wars kid on YouTube… but you can also post videos of Zimbabwean labor activists being beated by government thugs. Twitter lets Robert Scoble tell me what he’s doing 200 freaking times a day… but it also lets me know whether Egyptian activists have been released from the police station when they go in for questioning.
It’s important that these tools are generally used for banal purposes. If internet entrepreneurs created “Protestr” as a web 2.0 tool for activists, no repressive goverment would leave it unblocked. But blocking a tool that is mostly used for amusement or communication between friends has consequences - the users looking for cute cat videos get annoyed that YouTube is blocked… and learn about their government’s willingness to constrain speech. This cost doesn’t mean that governments won’t choose to block these tools, but it makes the calculus more complicated.
So, while it may seem ridiculous that we have access to the greatest communication system in the history of human culture, and use it for sending dopey pictures of domestic animals around, it turns out that all the LOLcattery serves a greater good.
So here's a message from the dog:
(The Queen of Niskayuna has too much dignity to resort to cat-like spelling...)
Comments
Actually, what that picture say to me is "O' noes! Master hogs photoz boxs. Waz my turn."
Oh, and it is encouraging to hear that LOLling accidentally is beneficial. Not that we actually need more encouragement, of course. :-P
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | July 22, 2007 11:11 AM
'Master?' You've got to be kidding :P
Posted by: MartinM | July 23, 2007 5:53 AM
Besides, in a just order in which protesters did not *need* the Internet for dangerous and serious tasks, we'd be making LOLcats pictures because, bemusingly, they are fun. We had best not postpone joy until after the revolution.
Posted by: clew | July 23, 2007 6:11 PM
Besides, in a just order in which protesters did not *need* the Internet for dangerous and serious tasks, we'd be making LOLcats pictures because, bemusingly, they are fun. We had best not postpone joy until after the revolution.
Posted by: clew | July 23, 2007 6:11 PM
What's wikipedia access like from inside of China?
Posted by: Coin | July 23, 2007 7:46 PM
hello doggy!!!!1
Posted by: matthew | July 23, 2007 10:57 PM
I've made a LOL image for science promotion: LOL scientists. The fellow shown here is Oswald Avery, who worked mostly in disease research but also proved that DNA was the stuff that carried genetic information, back when people weren't sure what that goop actually did.
Posted by: Monado | July 23, 2007 11:19 PM