Category: Weblogging

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Six Apart has posted a page describing their TypeKey installation, and it is a centralized authentication system. Only one word can describe this design idea: bad.

With a centralized authentication system for comments, a person can be tracked by their comments wherever they go, even if they don’t want to be so tracked. Six Apart says they would never share this information with anyone. I don’t care – the potential for abuse is there.

Now, just imagine someone cracking into the TypeKey system – what kind of information about you can be found? What kind of havoc can occur when comments are managed in such a centralized way? Especially when this system transcends weblogging tools?

From a performance standpoint, how many times do you get a failure when you ping weblogs.com or blo.gs or even movabletype.org? Blogspot or TypePad users, have any problems accessing your service? Have you all tried to ping two Trackback-enabled TypePad weblog posts with the same entry, and found it has failed? How about you folks that link to Amazon or Google or Sitemeter or blogrolling.com on your pages – ever notice how slow your page loads?

All of these are dependent on centralized systems, and as we have found in every single instance of centralization and weblogs, they don’t scale. Every single instance.

Now imagine trying to comment at someone’s page, and you can’t because TypeKey is currently overloaded. What is the reason for having your own weblog installation if you clutter it up with all these centralized bits?

And who asked for authentication? We asked for better management of comment spam, and a better method to delete comment spam. We were willing to tolerate a comment registration system for this, but no one asked for a centralized authentication system.

No one.

Authentication is not a solution for comment spam – it’s a way of cutting out those individuals who might be more comfortable commenting anonymously, or without attaching a URL or email address. And sometimes it is these people who provide the most honest feedback, even though the feedback may be ‘negative’, disagreeing with what we say.

The page at TypeKey says that the identity can be protected, but what happens if someone complains about a person and their comments – is Ben and Mena going to set up behavior standards for every one to follow with what they write? This is a private service: they can set up any standard they want, and once you’re tied into the service, you’re stuck. What if they define you as an ‘abuser’?

Yo! All you Howard Stern fans! Ding, ding, ding! Ring any bells?

If we’re so afraid of openness, why have comments? Why not just turn comments off? Better yet, put your weblog behind a firewall and only give the key to entry to those friends who have sworn a blood oath with you.

And less we think only Movable Type weblogs or TypePad weblogs will be tied into this vendor controlled solution, think again: Six Apart will be kind enough to provide this for everyone to use with their weblogs, regardless of software. Though the service is free, it does tie the weblogging community tightly into dependency on Six Apart, and this is not a good thing. Want me to enumerate other problems that have occurred because of dependency on a single entity?

Well, I have a hint for you: I will never register with a centralized authentication system. So if you want comments from me, forget it. Know something else? There’s going to be a whole lot of people right there with me.

I’ve been told that, supposedly, civilized people only use positive means to criticize each other. And after all, TypeKey is from Ben and Mena – we all know Ben and Mena. They’re part of us.

Well, sorry, this doesn’t wash anymore. Six Apart is no longer the baby squirrels; it’s a growing VC-funded company that just opened offices in Japan. And there is no ‘positive’ way to say this – TypeKey is a bad idea.

And when I published this, Movable Type gave me the following error:

Ping ‘http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2′ failed: Ping error: Can’t accept the ping because the weblog hasn’t changed.

Update

A second essay on TypeKey can be read here based on newer information. My response to the release of the TypeKey FAQ can be read here.

Articles are now appearing that the FCC is going to be going after stations carrying the nation’s shock jocks, including Howard Stern. In fact, he is going to be the organization’s number one target, which isn’t surprising because he is the number one rated shock jock in the nation.

The FCC is also lobbying for setting higher fines, a move that the Public Relations Society of America believes could impact on First Amendment’s freedom of speech unless the FCC also provides more explicit guidelines about what is ‘obscenity’:

“The problem is that the FCC never has spelled out what’s permissible and what’s not permissible,” said Reed Bolton Byrum, APR, immediate past president of PRSA. “‘When in doubt, leave it out’ cannot be an acceptable policy in a democracy that depends on free and open discussion. And, if we start losing small, independent broadcasters because they can’t afford the risk of getting fined on some arbitrary application of a vague standard, all we’ll have left are a few big media companies. And the fewer entities there are, the easier it will be to control them.” “As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once observed, ‘Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself,’” Byrum added.

To underscore the vagueness of the FCC regulations, PRSA pointed to the widely publicized use of the “F” word by rock star Bono in a live broadcast on an awards program. The FCC ruled that was not obscene because it was just an epithet and not a reference to a sexual act and did not impose a fine. In the wake of the recent imbroglio, FCC Chairman Powell says he thinks the commission erred in that decision.

Unlike Canada’s Broadcast Standards, which provide specific detailed information about what is and is not permissible (such as derogatory material based on race or sex), the FCC’s guidelines have been kept deliberately vague, relying on each community to determine what is or is not obscene in their area. The only law specified is the following:

Obscene speech is not protected by the First Amendment and cannot be broadcast at any time. To be obscene, material must meet a three-prong test:

An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;

The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and

The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

The average person in this country doesn’t even know what prurient means, much less have the ability to objectively define the artistic value of any given material. However, this definition was not derived by the FCC–it is from two rulings by the Supreme court based on landmark cases: Roth v. United States and Miller v. California. It is the second case where the three-prong approach to judging obscenity arose; a measure to allow individual communities to set their own standards, but unfortunately, leaving a great deal of vagueness in the interpretation. (More at the First Amendment Center.)

(As a side note, I don’t agree with the new FCC fines and feel they are an election year gambit, and that they are going to adversely impact on broadcast television and radio. However, by taking such a foolishly extreme measure, I think this action will backfire and eventually this issue will most likely appear back in the Supreme Court, primarily because of the vagueness of the wording, and the extreme nature of the penalities. In addition, this is further complicated by the FCC allowing mergers that are putting most of the broadcast media into the control of large media corporations. Personally, I think this is a greater violation of the public’s right to an unfettered and free media than the obscenity laws.)

As coincidence would have it, Howard Stern’s movie Body Parts was on cable last night and I watched it. It was an interesting flick and I liked how the movie managed the seque between scenes. It also provides some insight into Howard Stern’s head. He at one point decided that he was going to say whatever he wanted to say on the air, regardless of the consequences. As he told it, he was going to be completely honest on the air.

One can admire a person who wants to be honest on the air. However, the movie also showed a Howard Stern who betrayed confidences of friends and family, manipulated people to his own ends, and who valued being on the air, the larger the market, the better, above all else. Additionally, his movie, like his broadcasts, seems to imply that he just can’t understand why people are offended at what he says, and it isn’t his fault if they are. This plaint of “it’s not my fault” and “nobody understands me” reminded me forcibly of the new Bush ad Safer, Stronger with its implications of a whiney President going “It’s not my fault the country is so fucked up.”

In some ways Stern is a champion of free speech, but from the movie and all I’ve read, he’s really interested only in his own free speech, and could care less about anyone else’s. In fact, Stern’s main interest in the First Amendment is as a silent but key player in his act.

As I’ve said before, this puts me into a quandary. On the one hand, I believe that speech should be protected, even speech that I find offensive. On the other hand, I dislike having to protect something I value so much, freedom of speech, by supporting someone who values it so little. Still, the measure of a belief occurs when that belief is challenged to an extreme, and if Howard Stern’s Constitutionally protected free speech is abrogated, I would have to support him.

But it is not.

All the FCC can do is levy fines on radio stations that carry material deemed obscene. It cannot imprison or force off the air any one person. In addition, the FCC’s jurisdiction ends at the end of the public broadcast airwaves. In other words, it has no say in what appears on cable, satellite, in print, or on the Internet. Why? Because these means of communication must be deliberately invited into a person’s home; they are not carried as part of a open signal that can’t be blocked. In fact, it is because these signals can’t be blocked that an organization like the FCC was originally created. Long, long ago.

If Stern’s stations can no longer afford to carry him, then he can move to cable or satellite, book or print, or even the Internet. However, and this is a key factor, he may lose income in this move; he’ll definitely lose some audience in this move. But, the First Amendment does not guarantee that everyone have equal access to the airwaves, or that a person’s income is protected–it only concerns free speech.

As much as free speech does interest me, Howard Stern does not so why am I returning to this topic? Because of a phenomena I’ve noticed in weblogging this week, and a scene in Body Parts that seems to provide some explanation for it.

In the scene, an NBC employee is telling the NBC Program Manager who had been trying to force Howard Stern off the air that Stern’s audience spent more time listening to him than listeners of other radio shows. Paraphrasing because I don’t have the exact words, on average a person listens to only 15 minutes of an typical broadcast; however Stern’s fans would listen to over an hour of his broadcast.

“Why”, said the Program Manager.

“Because they want to hear what Howard will say next.”

“Yeah, but what about the people who don’t like Stern”, asks the Program Manager.

“They listen on an average of over two hours per broadcast.”

The incredulous Program Manager asks why.

“Because they want to hear what Howard will say next.”

I got a chuckle out of this because I’ve been following, with fascination, Jeff Jarvis rather histrionic support of Howard Stern in his daily Howard Stern updates. With each, his readers repeat the same arguments I have also given. More so, many ask why he keeps repeating Howard Stern posts daily–why doesn’t he move on?

But look Jarvis’ posts. Look at the comment count for each. For most of the posts, he gets on average less than 10 comments. However, with a typical Stern post the comment count is usually over 50 comments. Or more. Most disagreeing with Jarvis, and most repeating the same argument over and over.