Politics |The Semantic Puzzle

Ethics – the new killer-app?

April 28, 2009 by Marion Fuglewicz-Bren, Category: Politics, Privacy & Information Ethics

Sometimes I hate marketing. Most often you can feel it in your heart whether issues are authentic or not. Whatever medium you are consuming these days – the web, the newspapers or your mailbox – anyone seems to discover a new killer-application called ethics. This seems to be everyone´s cure – be it a seminar, a conference or a book: Ethics is hype.

That´s more than annoying for me who´s been trying for years to establish ethical aspects in my work as a journalist, as a pr-person (believe it or not!) – as a human-being. Being sensitive for the special challenges connected with discussing ethical issues in a diverse global economy I´ve always been trying to publish and talk about the philosophical approach to these matters.

Therefore I ´m happy to come across Tim Berners Lee´s request at the current International World Wide Web Conference in Madrid: Clean the web! He – which is not at all surprising – is claiming a clean web. The user has to know which data he can trust and may pass on. Also privacy must be protected he postulates one more time. All these arguments deal authentically with ethics. But not only. They concern the future. The future of us all.

Keep the Semantic Web trusty

March 13, 2009 by Thomas Thurner, Category: Corporate Semantic Web, Mashups & Web services, Politics, Privacy & Information Ethics, Text Mining

: Image via Wikipedia

In recent days – here at Semantic Web Company – we have had a lot of discussions on how the future of the Semantic Web (name it Web3.0 if you like) will develop. Several stakeholders on the future of the Semantic Web see already, that also a potential danger will come along with the technical realisation of the web3.0: This is the present possibility to create applications and mashups with semantic technologies that are a real drain on privacy and information ethics. Without an underpinning discussion about the ethical framework within technolgies like linked data, text-mining, biometric-systems and geo-systems in combination with the web of data, the whole domain is in danger to be doomed like genetic engineering some years ago.

It’s crucial for the public opinion on the Semantic Web, to adress the immanent risks regarding privacy and ethics. In this context I’ll see also Tim Berners-Lee‘s statement yesterday: “W3C wants to help make sure data use is appropriate,” he said. Berners-Lee, who is director of W3C, said in an interview on Wednesday that the teams working on the Semantic Web project are making sure that privacy principles are included in its architecture: “The Semantic Web project is developing systems which will answer where data came from and where it’s going to — the system will be architectured for a set of appropriate uses.”

Maybe it’s an important step in keeping the further development of Semantic Web trusty in the eyes of public opinion, that the W3C has privacy and information ethics on their agenda and persons like Berners-Lee stand with their reputation for it. But it is also crucial to build this awareness on the corporate side. Only if everyone within the domain follows a common ethic understanding we have a public opinion, which is on the future potential of the Semantic Web, and not in fear of the same.

Exploring and discussing the values of netizens

January 26, 2009 by Tassilo Pellegrini, Category: Internet & Media, Politics, Privacy & Information Ethics, Semantics & Philosophy

Prof. Rafael Capurro, one of the world’s most renowned experts of Information Ethics, together with his colleagues Max Senges (Ex-Google Researcher) and Michael Nagenborg (Robotics & Privacy Expert) has set up a collaborative project to “explore and discuss the values of netizens”. Please participate by contributing to their survey! (See below, I simply copied the email text.)

Dear all

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Rafael Capurro and Michael Nagenborg both experts in Informationethics. Following a podcast interview i held with Rafael (available @ archive.org ), we pursued his suggestion to initiate a dialogue about what underlying values users care about in their online lifes?

We have developed a short questionnaire which we invite you to fill out and spread amongst your network @ http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/node/63

This survey is meant as first step to gather some empirical data so we can (a) deliberate and discuss these themes further in the forum (where we have setup a dedicated discussion thread @ http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/node/64 and (b) strategize & formulate our project (and funding) proposals based on empirical evidence.

Again, please invite your friends and peers to contribute to this exploration of what user really care about when online.

Looking forward to discuss with you
Rafael, Michael and Max

The Times They Are A-Changin … yes, we can

January 22, 2009 by Marion Fuglewicz-Bren, Category: Internet & Media, Politics

: Image by William WM via Flickr

One of the many ways that the election of Barack Obama as president has echoed that of John F. Kennedy is his use of a new medium that will forever change politics. For Mr. Kennedy, it was television. For Mr. Obama, it is the Internet. Obama´s Internet Campaign Changed Politics. “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post.

America´s new president Barack Obama didn’t go out and recruit on facebook, they came to him at first. Did the internet make Obama’s natural “viralness” quicker and more transparent? Obama’s huge victory on Tuesday night was celebrated in Austria and Germany, as it was around the world: German Press on Obama Victory: “The Dream is Alive“. Der Spiegel‘s Gabor Steingart – who for months dismissed the notion that Obama had a real chance for the White House – writes about the Resurrection of the American Dream: “His base note is conciliatory, his overtone is exalted and the harmony is finely balanced. If anyone out there still doubted that the American dream was alive, he called out to his supporters in Chicago, “tonight is your answer.”

However things will happen or not and however the „Change has come to America“: The president´s new official website is online www.whitehouse.gov. And here users are really being involved. We all are involved. Obama means change. Let´s see in what ways this will concern the future of the internet.

	if not otherwise specified