Good information tends to be shared online. Bad information tends to be discredited and discarded. This should make us optimistic about the viability and vitality of a truly free marketplace for ideas.
Joseph Kennedy told his boys John, Robert, and Edward not to write down anything they would not want to see on the front page of The New York Times the next morning. Even if the Times may be going out of style, Joe Kennedy’s advice is not.
David Petraeus—director of the CIA and one of the most powerful men in the world—was recently undone by Gmail. Threatening e-screeds led the FBI from a Florida socialite to General David Petraeus’ biographer. Its monitoring easily connected the biographer to the CIA director. And if he was vulnerable, we certainly are.
Our real concern is not with the technology itself, but how its novel uses might make us more vulnerable. Most people can’t resist using cheap, powerful computing devices that channel nearly all the world’s information. Can we count on those people to use these tools in the service of truth, justice, and freedom?
The Cloud
Life in The Cloud can be as whimsical and convenient as it sounds. After a long day of work, I tapped out ideas for this piece, including this sentence, on my phone to revise a Google document I created soon after the Freeman’s editor accepted my pitch via Facebook. Later I confirmed the topic on Facebook via SMS.
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