| Paste number 56891: | Why Large Scale Published Logging Is Wrong |
| Pasted by: | Em |
| 5 months, 3 weeks ago | |
| None | |
| Paste contents: |
| I believe that third-party corporate logging of IRC channels is wrong. It is creepy at best and unethical at worst. I hope to present the reasons why I feel this way here, so that I can be understood, and so that others who feel the same might refer to it. First let me say that I am not opposed to individuals making a log for their own personal use. That could never be prevented and is probably fair and reasonable use anyhow. In any event, a log made by an individual will not have the profile that a corporate published log like IRSeek has -- It is not as likely to be easily found now or in the future. So I am really opposed to the large scale corporate logs such as is represented by IRSeek. And now I will try to explain why: (1) A chat is best thought of as a form of conversation. The best analogy between chat and something we are familiar with off-line is to think of chat as being like a meeting of members of some club. Clearly it is easy to join an IRC channel and so this is a club that is easy to join. Still, the information shared at the meetings is understood to be for those who have bothered to join the club. By broadcasting shared conversations to everyone outside of the club and for all time, you are putting everyone who has joined the club under glass. This is not a fair position to be in. This is not a comfortable environment for carrying out what chat is supposed to be -- a conversation. When I make a post on Google Groups (Usenet) I may very well take the entire day making sure that what I am going to post is something I can live with for the rest of my life. This is obviously a ridiculous burden to place on a dynamic, real-time, and social medium like chat. Although I can't 'know' everyone in an IRC channel, I can at least know they are people who have joined an IRC channel like me. Publishing logs means I no longer control who I am associating with. It means I can never know who I am speaking to. It means I can never make any informed decision about who might be listening. Publishing logs changes the dynamic from being an exchange among people in the same boat into a 1984-like environment where Big-Brother is watching. It is creepy. (2) But there is another reason I am against IRSeek (and IRSeek-like) published logging. In most of the channels that I frequent there are always several very talented people who have voluntarily shared a great deal of their expertise with the rest of us in the channel. It does not sit well with me that the IRSeek corporation deems to take the content of these generous volunteers and publish it for IRSeek's financial gain. In fact, even if you are not one of the experts it is still wrong for IRSeek to be stealing your content. I am not an expert but I do take my writing seriously. It is a fact that the author of a work has an automatic claim to the copyright of that work. If I post something on Google Groups I still own my own writing. It will still be wrong if someone chooses to plagiarize me or use my writing for commercial purposes that I did not endorse. IRSeek is a malicious and deceptive corporation that I do not want to associate with at all. I positively do not give them any authorization to publish anything I have written. I don't think anyone else ought to either. Answers to common objections: * "But IRC channels are public so you should just accept it". Reply: This is not quite true, or at least it's an equivocation on the word 'public'. An IRC channel is not public in any obvious relevant sense. It certainly is not public in the same way that a public square or a public library are public. For example, IRC sits on a private server and the channels are controlled by ops. It is common and expected that ops of IRC channels can tell people what they may or may not say. Nothing like that would be acceptable if IRC channels were actually public (ops cannot tell me what I may or may not say in a public square). And none of this argues against the creepiness aspect of since it would never be tolerable to record a conversation held among people at a public library and then publish that conversation for corporate profit. To be fair, IRC channels are 'public' in the very limited sense that they are easy for people to join. That's true, but not relevant. It is easy to join. That makes IRC chat like being part of a club that's easy to join. It's still reasonable to expect that people actually bothered to join to share the information available to members and generated by members. Likewise, in this limited sense, my private home could be considered 'public' if I have an open house. But my tolerance for letting people visit my home in no way means everyone outside my home should have access to everything we do on the inside. * "But Google publishes others content and you don't seem to mind" Reply: (1) Google publishes web pages which presumably a person wants to have seen by as many people as possible. That's not how it is when you are having a conversation. In a conversation you want exactly the number of people in the conversation to hear you. Also, (2) it is very easy to design your web page so that the Google bots do not record you. That cannot be said about the IRSeek bots. I hope that you will read and consider what I have written here carefully. IRSeek was forced by Freenode to give the ops of channels the ability to 'opt-in' or 'opt-out'. IRSeek only agreed to this provision after it was caught deceptively spying on channels covertly. If you frequent a channel with ops who have chosen to allow IRSeek (or similar agency) to monitor you, please express your displeasure with that decision and feel free to direct anyone to this essay. |
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| Annotation number 1: | addendum |
| Pasted by: | Em |
| 5 months, 2 weeks ago | |
| Paste contents: |
| Since publishing the original essay, another reason that this sort of logging is objectionable occurred to me. (3) It is often said that logging the channels is a service for others to find information, but I doubt it is really very useful for that purpose. Whenever I search for information relevant to channels that IRSeek logs, I invariably get forums and not IRC channels. This is not a surprise. Forums are high profile and tend to have self-selecting mechanisms for concentrating the good content. This is not true in a chat room which is effectively just a conversation. Anyone could say any junk in an IRC channel and they often do. To archive all of that noise for public use under the pretext that it's for education is somewhat laughable if IRSeek (and its ilk) were not so creepy. Given the fact that IRSeek and IRSeek-like agencies creep out so many people, and seem to add no value to anyone, it is confusing why so many channel operators are still welcoming these sleazy corporations when they have the ability to opt-out any time they like. *note: It is important for people to know a little bit of history about IRSeek. IRSeek had been covertly monitoring channels and literally spying on users without their knowledge. It was only after Freenode discovered this dishonest activity and put some pressure on IRSeek that IRSeek began giving channel ops the ability to 'opt-in' and 'opt-out'. This is important for two reasons: (1) It shows what a slimy and disreputable corporation IRSeek is. And (2) It highlights the fact that if IRSeek is monitoring the users of any channel, the ops of that channel are welcoming it, and could end that welcome at any time they like. |