Digital Tailspin: Ten Rules for the Internet After Snowden

118 Pages·2015·2.57 MB·English

by  Michael Seemann

Privacy, copyright, classified documents and state secrets, but also
spontaneous network phenomena like flash mobs and hashtag
revolutions, reveal one thing – we lost control over the digital world. We
experience a digital tailspin, or as Michael Seemann calls it in this essay: a
loss of control or Kontrollverlust. Data we never knew existed is finding
paths that were not intended and reveals information that we would never
have thought of on our own.
Traditional institutions and concepts of freedom are threatened by this
digital tailspin. But that doesn’t mean we are lost. A new game emerges,
where a different set of rules applies. To take part, we need to embrace a
new way of thinking and a radical new ethics – we need to search for
freedom in completely different places. While the Old Game depended
upon top-down hierarchies and a trust in the protective power of state
justice systems, the New Game asks you to let go of all these certainties.
Strategies to play the game of digital tailspin rely on flexibility, openness,
transparency and what is dubbed ‘antifragility’. In Digital Tailspin: Ten
Rules for the Internet After Snowden Michael Seemann examines which
strategies are most appropriate in the New Game and why.
Michael Seemann studied Applied Cultural Studies in Lüneburg. Since
2005 he is active on the internet with various projects. He founded
twitkrit.de and Twitterlesung.de (‘reading Twitter’), organized various
events and runs the popular podcast wir.muessenreden.de. In 2010 he
began the blog CTRL-verlust, about the loss of control over data on the
internet. In 2014 he published Das neue Spiel after a successful
crowdfunding campaign. Now he blogs at mspr0.de and writes for various
media like Rolling Stone, TIME online, SPEX, Spiegel Online, c't and the
DU magazine. He gives lectures on whistleblowing, privacy, copyright,
internet culture and the crisis of institutions in times of Kontrollverlust.
Colophon
Network Notebook #09
Michael Seemann, Digital Tailspin: Ten Rules for the Internet After Snowden
This text is a translated and updated excerpt of Das Neue Spiel: Strategien für die Welt nach dem
digitalen Kontrollverlust, Freiburg: Orange Press, 2014. Translated from the German by Anwen
Roberts
Network Notebooks editors: Geert Lovink and Miriam Rasch
Design: Medamo, Rotterdam
EPUB development: André Castro
Copy-editing: Margarita Osipian
Printer: Printvisie
Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam
Supported by: Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool van Amsterdam),
Amsterdam Creative Industries Publishing, Stichting Democratie en Media
If you want to order copies please contact:
Institute of Network Cultures, Hogeschool van Amsterdam
http://www.networkcultures.org
[email protected]
t: [phone]
EPUB and PDF editions of this publication are freely downloadable from:
http://www.networkcultures.org/publications
License: WTFPDL – Do What the Fuck You Want to Public Digital License, http://wtfpdl.net/
Amsterdam, March 2015
ISBN 978-90-822345-8-9 (print)
ISBN 978-90-822345-9-6 (EPUB)

Network Notebook Series
The Network Notebooks series presents new media research commissioned by the INC.
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Rule 0: Everything Stays Different
Rule 1: You Can't Fight Kontrollverlust
Rule 2: Surveillance is Part of the Game
Rule 3: Knowing Is Asking the Right Questions
Rule 4: Organization and Conflict for Free
Rule 5: You Are the Freedom of the Other
Rule 6: Platform Control Is Power
Rule 7: The State Is Part of the Problem, Not of the
Solution
Rule 8: Data Control Creates Hegemony
Rule 9: And the Final Boss Is... Us!
References
Acknowledgements
Many of the ideas presented here were developed over a number of years
and in constant exchange with others on the net. More so, the entire
project rests on the shoulders of many, as it was realized with a
crowdfunding campaign. The writing of this book would have never been
possible without the help of a number of people.
I’d like to thank Geert Lovink, Miriam Rasch, and the Institute of Network
Cultures in Amsterdam, for allowing me to publish an international
version of my thoughts.
Many thanks to my translator, Anwen Roberts, for rendering my work into
concise English and to my editor Valie Djordjevic, who has repeatedly
nudged me back onto the track of legibility. It has been a great
collaboration.
A big thank you to the ‘beta readers’ who endured – and improved – my
half-baked notes and outlines, especially Leonhard Dobusch, Caspar
Clemens Mierau, and Jürgen Geuter.
Sincere thanks to Mark Wirblich and Maria Thaens, who afforded me
shelter in their agency Bytes Brigade; the most beautiful office in
Neukölln. Special thanks to Jörg Leupold, who in the past six months of
madness spent those rare moments of spare time with me, and helped me
to regenerate.
My gratitude to everyone who supported me in setting up the
crowdfunding campaign and helped with the campaign video. I would
particularly like to thank Mate Steinforth (camera), Gerlinde Schrön
(editing), and Mark Wirblich for the original cover design.
(editing), and Mark Wirblich for the original cover design.
And last but not least, my heartfelt thanks to all the crowdfunders who
donated their money and trust, and without whom this text would not
have been possible at all.
Introduction
Yet as we unleash living forces into our created machines, we lose control of
them.
Kevin Kelly
In 2008, although I had been an active blogger for three years, I had only
quite recently joined the online messaging service Twitter. It was a time of
discovery and experimentation with new forms of social communication
on the internet. In the German-speaking world in particular, the number
of people prepared to discuss personal matters online and share their
opinions on a larger scale was still very low. To me, the possibilities were
inspiring and at the same time rather scary.
I was aware that data protection was important, and I was seriously
concerned about privacy online. The reasons were twofold. For one, I was
making a living from web programming at the time, so I had to deal with
databases and data models on a daily basis. This had given me some idea
of how powerful they were. I was becoming more and more involved with
what is now probably best described as the German internet movement: a
loose network of hackers, bloggers, and activists, who saw the internet
primarily as a political space, a zone of freedom that was worth preserving.
In the tech scene, there was never any doubt that privacy was a valuable
good that needed extra protection.
At that time I wrote an article about the perils of Twitter.1 Two incidents
had inspired me. One was that Twitter user Matthias Bauer (@moeffju)
would regularly tweet something like ‘So that’s that. #Feierabend’ as soon
as he finished work. (Feierabend being the German word for closing time,