Greetings, Future Tensers,
Feeling a bit lost today after Gray Thursday, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Sofa Sunday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday? Well, lucky for you it’s Future Tense Newsletter Wednesday! (It’ll catch on eventually.)
And though you may still be stuffed from Thanksgiving, we’ve still got a feast of Future Tense pieces for you. To start, we’re wrapping up November with the final installments of our Futurography course on who owns the internet. In honor of the American holiday, we suggest starting with Irish writer Maria Farrell’s take on how other countries feel about the U.S.’s dominance of the net. Short answer: not great! Especially if you’re a nation that doesn’t share America’s democracy-building, business, or surveillance interests. Or perhaps the internet isn’t really controlled by countries after all—it’s companies that rule online now. Omnes cives Googlani sumus.
Speaking of the World Wide Web, it really is worldwide—or at least the idea of it, as Martyn Williams chronicled for us in his article about how the internet “works” in North Korea.
Though technology may not be changing much in the lives of repressed residents of Pyongyang, it certainly seems to be changing the future of law enforcement here. Ahead of our Law and Order Circa 2050 event today, we’ve published pieces on the complications of police-worn body cameras (what happens if they come with facial recognition software? what can they tell us about the future of law enforcement technology?), what happens when local law enforcement joins the feds in the hacking game, and how predictive policing is less about the future and more about the past.
Here are some other things we read while taking a break from browsing the best of the Trump Make America Great Again red cap collectible ornament Amazon reviews:
- Just a Bit of Spying: The land that gave us the Magna Carta and 1984 just enshrined “what can only be called the first full-on surveillance state among Western democracies,” writes ASU’s Dan Gillmor. But could something like the U.K.’s “Snoopers’ Charter” be headed to our shores?
- “You Hacked”: Tens of thousands in San Francisco got free rides last week when hackers downed the city’s transit ticketing system and demanded a ransom. Though the machines are up and running again, Slate’s Henry Grabar points out that future infrastructure hacks—from traffic lights to the electrical grid—could have more serious consequences.
- Banned From Twitter: Earlier this month, Twitter announced new policies on harassment and abuse—and quickly bounced some “alt-right” figures from the site. But without being more transparent about its rationale, Will Oremus explains, it will be difficult for the company to claim the high ground as it tries to tackle hateful conduct.
Events:
- TODAY: Future Tense is convening experts in Washington, D.C., to speculate how new technologies might change the way law enforcement prevents and fights crime. Stream the conversation here, and follow the conversation online using #LawAndOrder.
- RESCHEDULED: Will the internet always be American? On Tuesday, Jan. 24, Future Tense will host a live event in Washington, D.C., to explore the internet’s nationality and the extent to which it’s an expression of American culture—and how that may be changing. You can RSVP to attend in person or watch online here.
Shaping the internet,
Kirsten Berg
for Future Tense
Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.
