Tell us about yourself? What are you working on and why are you at Internetdagarna?
Working at the Library with an interest in inclusion and introducing people outside of the digital society to the web.
I am here for inspiration for how people see the future centered around the next high tech innovations of the web.
When did something related to the internet last make you hopefull or happy?
Free knowledge, free space for people to interact and talk to each. Make society more effective and simplify a lot of things.
I work with a lot of elderly people that have little to none knowledge about the web. I like to see the joy of people that they have a way to talk to their family and friends in a totally different way that has been possible before. Seeing more people getting in touch.
When did something related to the internet last make you upset, afraid or angry?
Breaches of integrity, big corporations that are perhaps a bit too crazy for their own good.
People always find a way to abuse the internet for their own selfish needs. The more free the internet is the more ways people will have ways to abuse it. Which is a bit disturbing.
We had a lot of people at internetdagarna who came back to this about working with people to do very “basic” stuff online. I’m not sure how it’s tied into the Next Generation Internet plan to make sure that the digital divide doesn’t become even wider. I guess we need more @erik_lonroth in the world, although I feel there might have to be a consolidated effort.
You are doing noble work. For seniors who live far away from their grandchildren and kids, FaceTime is nothing short of a revelation.
Hugi raises a good point about NGI and its priorities. I see a lot of focus on privacy, but little about basic accessibility and basic UI. One would think that UI design would be more settled in a way than it is now, but that is a kind of pipe dream I guess because it is too easy for a rank amateur to make a website. And all too often some smooth talking salesperson will sell a big institution on their design when it has not been vetted at all for good UI. I see a version of this almost every day. and speaking of seniors, I take care of my 94 year old mother and my mother-in-law is 90. To get them help and care and such, we have to use a lot of institutional websites. So many of them are just lousy designs. Often I feel sorry for the solo senior with poor eyesight and slight grasp of the underlying design having to navigate some of those sites…
When did something related to the internet last make you upset, afraid or angry?
Breaches of integrity, big corporations that are perhaps a bit too crazy for their own good.
People always find a way to abuse the internet for their own selfish needs. The more free the internet is the more ways people will have ways to abuse it. Which is a bit disturbing.
This is in my view a bit too dystopian - there are many more examples of this not being the case than this being the case. And the internet has never been entirely “free” of traditions - e.g. Lessig or Boyle as far back as the 1990s.
There was a discussion raised by Open Rights Group a few years ago about the relative political weakness of the “web giants” (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Apple). Namely, that we attribute to them enormous power because they are services that we and many other global citizens recognise as brand names, but that in fact they lose most of the policy fights they are drawn into. Telecommunications operators are in much the same situation. There are diminishingly few examples of “internet” generation entities winning either political battles or legal battles against more traditional entities (like copyright industries, security services, etc.), so in reality power is still where it has always been.
An astute observation. Thank you. I think you are right about their relative lack of political power. Makes me wonder just now how much of that kind of power the auto industry had in its days of more singular dominance. At least here in the USA they consistently resisted safety,emission and fuel economy standards for decades and lost.