The Tangled Web We Weave

August 15, 2020
Expansive look back at fissures and missed opportunities in the evolution of "who wields power and who keeps it in check on the internet." As the special projects editor of the Guardian, Ball shared a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Edward Snowden revelations. Now the global editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the author confidently assembles a critical history of the technology, politics, and business of online life, arguing that its appealing spontaneity invited unforeseen consequences, from financial malfeasance to authoritarianism. He keeps this sprawling account lucid, with eight chapters devoted to "The Architects," "The Money Men," "The Rulemakers," "The Resistance," and so forth. Ball begins with the internet's birth via the academic-military collaboration of DARPA; its insular, improvised nature led to persistent ambiguities regarding control and security. Though these infrastructural issues were literally written on napkins, "the protocol they developed is of course the one still in use across the internet today." Regarding the more recent web 2.0, the author argues that "the core of the internet's harvesting of data is its business model." This lies at the heart of today's social unrest, from privacy erosions to accelerating disinformation. "The internet giants are viewed with mistrust, accused of playing a role in spreading misinformation, enforcing censorship and avoiding taxes," writes the author. "Its billionaires are scrutinized and condemned for their working practices. Residents around the palaces of Silicon Valley have come to resent their corporate neighbours. Has the internet and the people running it changed so much in such a short time?" Ball captures the perspectives and backgrounds of a variety of significant players, from tech pioneers to privacy advocates; one venture capitalist suggests that time is running out to avoid a dystopia of class strife. In discussing online advertising, the author navigates the jargon to suggest that "when everything is data-driven, the advantages go to whoever has the biggest scale, and so the richest data." A rueful, engaging discussion of the internet's problematic centrality to these difficult times.

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October 26, 2020
Journalist Ball (Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World) examines “the architecture of the internet—who built it, who governs it, how it works, and who owns it” in this knowledgeable yet lackluster account. Ball’s familiar history of the internet, from its beginnings as a collaboration between research universities and the U.S. Department of Defense to the advent of programmatic advertising, features interviews with “power brokers” including Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales, former Comcast public relations executive Frank Eliason, venture capitalist John Borthwick, and former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. Though Ball notes that the people who have shaped the internet are “overwhelmingly Western and overwhelmingly male,” he only brushes on the ramifications of that fact, and allows his interview subjects to hype their achievements without providing much fact-checking. Ball lucidly explains the mechanics of networks, servers, and programmatic advertising, but blames media companies for “hastening their demise by participating in the data-driven ad world” without fully acknowledging the lack of choices they have. Skeptical of government intervention, he favors small policy changes such as “new contracts and worker protections” for tech industry employees and “requir algorithms to be independently tested and vetted for systemic inequality or biases.” This would-be exposé misses the mark.