The O-town Scene

Growing pains of information sharing Last week's visit by U.K. Attorney General Dominic Grieve to my cam- pus here at City University London was nicely timed — if only because I happened to be in the middle of read- ing James Gleick's fantastic new book, "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood." In a combined lecture and question- and-answer session, Grieve talked mainly about what he considers to be the "balancing act" of measuring freedoms of the press against the best interests of a fair justice system. Along with focusing on the problems commonly associated with print newspapers publishing speculative sto- ries or creating negative media frenzies about major trials in progress, Grieve turned his stern (albeit, it must be said, well-meaning) gaze to the Internet. In- stead of pointing fingers at any blogger or web journalist in particular, he threw a verbal punch intended to blanket them all for some perceived lack of common sense. "I'm not here to act as some arbiter of morals," he said, acting as an arbiter of morals, "but it seems clear to me that, unlike major news organizations, which generally act in a responsible manner, online users don't seem to respect the laws of libel." Which is just a wonderfully dated, boneheaded, shortsighted statement to make to a bunch of students of the digi- tal information age. Most of all, it's one that, although Grieve is a pretty healthy looking middle-aged guy with a nice, cartoonishly square chin, shows him to be just another dinosaur waiting to be buried by the social media meteor. Living Long and Prospering |by Sam Spokony Gleick's book is so great, and per- The attempt to throw some societal stiff-arm in the face of the flow of information has been equally hopeless within each passing generation. fectly applicable in the case of poor Mr. Grieve, because it proves that contem- porary point by grounding it in the mas- sively complex history of information theory, as well as further introducing its practical developments and greatest minds. From Plato's first tense reser- vations about the invention of writing ("It destroys memory and weakens the mind!") to the hurdles scientists of all fields had to jump in order to wrap their minds around things like genes and memes, "The Informa- tion" is itself an impor- tant and timely link in the meta- historical chain of ideas. One thing I can't help but take away from that long trail of success and failure, of perpetually evolving language and detail, is that the attempt to throw some societal stiff-arm in the face of the flow of information has been equally hopeless within each passing generation. It's nothing new. Nor, with Grieve's grievance in mind, is that fear of wily humans becoming somehow morally unbound by the apparent omnipotence of their new technological tools. The only way to get past the stiffness of the old guard is, as it always has been, to keep writing, computing, telegraph- ing, radioing or blogging until atti- tudes — and laws — have in their own convoluted ways evolved. When Grieve, as he addresses students, journalists and peers from behind a podium, talks about the need for creators of online content to adapt to existing socio- political mores, we should listen to him, although not for his own reasons; he's not the figure of authority, but a child learning to walk by trip- ping over his own feet. He may learn to ride the wave and put one foot in front of the other, and he may choose instead to continue to crawl forever, but his expressed tension in this case — a barely suppressed anger against the increasingly fluid nature of informa- tion and its uses — is an important thing to witness; that sentiment, along with the blogs and the ideas them- selves, have their own special place on the developmental cusp. The sight of men in suits talking about regulating things will never cease to amuse me. I can only hope that some other people in crowded, stuffy audi- toriums across the world feel the same way. Maybe they're only there for the free wine, too. Maybe not. Maybe they didn't put one of the bottles of wine in their shoulder bag on the way out. Maybe I did. So the attorney general, speaking to a crowd of hundreds who are all instantly broadcasting his every breath alongside the eve- ning's suggested hashtag of #cityattorney, declares a warning — that we "shouldn't underestimate the possibility of a tweet going viral!" You can ask for his opinion on some aspect of the Contempt of Court Act, and nod until the skin of your neck becomes thin and breaks under its own weight. Or you can smile and notice that small, millennia-old breeze brush- ing at your shoulders: one carrying a faint conversation in code, an unprov- able truth, or, maybe, just a knowing grin. Sam Spokony is a senior majoring in Eng- lish and music industry at SUNY Oneonta. He is spending the fall semester studying abroad in London. Dec. 8, 2011 O-Town Scene 5

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