Tweet Tweet Twit (Library of Congress)
Very recently, the Library of Congress announced that it has plans to archive the entire Twitter archive dating back from it’s beginning in 2006. Original article here. And I worry very much about it, because I wonder, what exactly are they planning to do with it, for now and in the future? Who exactly is holding the copyrights and intellectual property rights for the entire database?
Because Library of Congress is seen as merely an archival database, people believe that their conscience is clear. Library of Congress announced that they planned to archive tweets so that they could sift through the information for anthropological reasons: to study the human behaviour in the 21st century. Years later, the people of the future will be able to view and understand how life was like in the 21st century, in a much much better way than we can understand how life was like in the 20th century, the 19th century, and so on.
I’m not saying that the Library of Congress is evil, or out to get us in any way. Perhaps that wasn’t their intentions, perhaps their intentions are good. They want to be able to have access to invaluable data that would contribute to society, in terms of knowledge, in terms of understanding and in terms of betterment of society. But the idea that somewhere out there, a huge database of tweets remains, perfectly archived, means that they may fall into the hands of people with lesser-than-good intentions.
Like, people of corporate companies, perhaps?
Corporate websites like Google and Twitter are info or data-based, they thrive on data. Without information, Google would not exist as a search engine to help people filter through the content that others have put up on the Internet. If there were no people to contribute to content, Twitter would not exist as a microblogging service devoted to allowing people all over the world to read messages known as Tweets.
What happens if these corporate websites are looking for money? The true role of all companies are to generate money and cashflow, they’re all interested in the bottom line. How do they generate cashflow? By seeking advertisers. How do they get more advertisers? By offering the advertisers an idea of what they think people will buy. How will they know what people want? By getting more data.
In 2003, Google acquired Blogger.com, popular blog-hosting service, and later Picasa later in 2004. Why? Why are they interested in acquiring Blogger and Picasa in the first place? Because they recognize it as a means to make money through advertisements?
Partly yes, but more so because they want to gain the rights of content from millions of people all over the world. The more content they have, the more information they have to sell to advertisers. Do you earn? No. Do they earn? Why yes, they do.
Wait, why? you may ask.
Well, who owns the copyrights? They do, remember?
This gives new meaning to
All Your Base Are Belong To Us
Because all your content are belong-ing to them.
So in the same way that Google quietly takes control, I fear the future of what might happen to the billions of tweets stocked in the archived databases of the Library of Congress. Apparently, there are “50 million tweets per day and the total number of tweets already number well into the billions.” That’s a lot of info.
I think if one extremely wealthy corporate person were to buy over Facebook and Twitter, he’d be unstoppable. Imagine the amount of content he’d have intellectual property rights over! Imagine the amount of data he can generate for marketing and advertising purposes. Imagine the amount of data he controls. Unstoppable!
Perhaps Rupert Murdoch might like to acquire your tweets. Then he’ll have a better idea of what the people of this century are talking about, and what they like. What they eat and drink, where they go, what they like to do, and the celebrities they like to worship. And he will go back to News Corporation and pitch advertisement spots to companies accordingly, to buy advertisement space. After all, then he’ll know exactly what you eat and drink, where you go, what you like and which celebrities you worship. And he’ll be able to pitch to companies accordingly, to get them to buy advertisement space from him to reach the people he has read about. And in this way, he’ll get rich. Very rich. Thanks to you. All because of something you mentioned in passing, years ago.
Globalised
You wake up in the morning, feeling fresh. You brush your teeth with your newly bought Colgate toothpaste, noticing the tingling sensations it produces, something your old toothpaste didn’t have. You meet up with a friend (let’s call him/her H), and spend a few minutes arguing where to eat. Ramen or Kimchi? You both eventually settle on sushi. After that, you both just wander around aimlessly, looking into shops like Braun Buffel, Zara, and Giordano. H hears some Black Eyed Peas playing on the sound system, and starts singing along. You hurry H along, till you both hear Pitbull, which you very much prefer. H, though, has never heard Pitbull before. “Who the hell doesn’t know who’s Pitbull??” you think to yourself.
Sex and the City 2 is showing in cinemas, so you go watch that. As the characters fly off to Abu Dhabi for a holiday, you both marvel the scenery, the fashion, the culture. And envy the characters perhaps just a little for their fortunes – till drama ensues, and you both start laughing. After the movie, H wants some spaghetti while you crave for some prata. You both end up at Macdonalds instead (how that happens, neither of you are sure). And off to Starbucks for some coffee before you both call it a day.
Seems like a pretty normal day? It is pretty normal… but things are happening around you whether you’re realising it or not. Globalisation is occuring right under your nose in every single activity you’re indulging in.
What the hell is globalisation?
It’s when countries are interconnecting with each other. We are all coming together to share ideas. Through migration, through technology, through communication. Our society is no longer ’just Singapore’, we’re also connected to people all over the world. A friend could be in Australia but you could still talk to her through MSN. A cousin could be in Denmark but you can catch up with him through Facebook. Globalisation is something that occurs all the time, constantly.
And globalisation makes a bigger mark than you may realise. Almost everything in the above two paragraphs has some connection back to globalisation. The Colgate toothpaste? Made in America. Actually, probably made in China, stamped in America then shipped to your neighbourhood mama shop. Ramen, kimchi, sushi, spaghetti and prata wouldn’t be in our shores if the world wasn’t global. We might just be eating Singapore food. What on earth is local food anyway? Certainly not Hainanese Chicken Rice or hor fun. Maybe fish, since Singapore was a fishing kampong.
Braun Buffel, Zara and Giordano are certainly not shops created by Singapore. If globalisation never happened, maybe we’d only have Creative and Jia Jia Lang Teh. And another thing that globalisation produced is: Celebrities. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know who’s Britney Spears, George Clooney, and not understand who Darth Vader is.
(Darth Vader meets Hello Kitty…)
Sex and the City 2 features cultures/lifestyles from both America and Abu Dhabi. And without globalisation, the movie would never have reached our tiny island’s shores. Without globalisation, we wouldn’t have transportation like planes to take us to other countries, anyway.
Branding is important for every company. Macdonalds and Starbucks are no exception. These two are big big brands worldwide, in every continent and in almost every country. Globalisation has definitely helped these two companies gain worldwide recognition.
Sounds exhausting? We’ve just scratched the surface. Almost everything around you ties back to globalisation, from who made the car your parents drive, where your furniture came from, the differnt countries your local news is reporting about, to which brand of computer/laptop/iPad you’re using to read this right now. Globalisation’s got good effects, but it’s definitely got lots of backlash too.
So… what’s happened with globalisation?
Better communication
The good: When it comes to technology, everything is made possible (or at least, easier). Email, SMS, MSN, social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, and even BBM (Blackberry Messaging) is making life easier for many many people around the world to stay in touch. Not only do you get to keep in touch with people you love on the other side of the world, you can keep in touch with that friend living not that far away but you both have trouble meeting up. And communication between countries has definitely been beneficial, with sharing of ideas.
The bad: With everything going on, one language emerges from everywhere. English is the adopted medium that everyone uses, be it the Internet, media, conversations. Why? Why is it that if your countrymen aren’t fluent in English, it automatically means you’re not as forward as everyone else? China has many people who don’t speak fluent English but they are expanding at the craziest rate with China people in almost every country. And with such a big country, if they unite…. they can probably take on the rest of the world.
This leads to…
Cultural exchange
The good: Just like how the Sex and the City 2 characters learnt about life in Abu Dhabi, everyone is more exposed to the different cultures. This leads to cultural tolerance. You’re more okay with people of different races than you, different backgrounds, you’re alright with people decked out in tattoos because you know they’re sweet people and not murdering gangsters.
The bad: Cultural imperialism. The threat of people adopting another culture instead of their own. As people look to the West for ideas and inspiration, people begin dressing like them, eating the food they eat, and even talking like them (or at least trying to. And failing!). This is a huge huge issue, because this phenomenon called Westernisation is slowly taking over in every country. We’re throwing away our own cultures (that we deem old-fashioned) and adopt the American culture becuase we think it’s “better” or “cooler”. Media is perpetuating these ideas, that people should look like those ang mohs in Sex and the City, and act like them too. And the world begins to subscribe to one culture: Materialism.
More products.
The good: Definite win, otherwise we wouldn’t have electronics, medicine, education, and coke.
The bad: We’re looking at a more materialistic culture, where money is everything. And while you get more things, you still want more things. Globalisation isn’t just selling you stuff, it’s selling you a certain kind of lifestyle that you believe you must have, whether you can afford it or not. Are we creating social problems, issues that previously did not use to exist?
Developing countries
The good: Third world countries like Africa are getting worldwide help, in terms of financial aid, shelter, health, education, and technology. They’re slowing able to catch up and other countries are helping them fulfill their basic needs like food, water and shelter.
The bad: While Africa is slowing catching up, so is the rest of the world (catching up to the U.S.). Worse still, the US is also progressing much faster than anyone else, such as 3D TV and other advancements. How is Africa going to catch up?!
Worse still, is the problem of exploitation. Poorer countries have resources, and people. And some countries are accused of things like creating sweatshops where poor people work under bad conditions and paid low wages to produce products (like shoes) to ship to richer countries for richer people to buy.
Outsourcing
The good: With more countries to look at, we can start outsourcing to other countries. Admin jobs doesn’t have to be done by a local, the necessary files can be emailed to someone far off and the person will just do the work and email it back. This could be cheaper, which is music to any company’s ears.
The bad: This might mean loss in jobs for some people, as talent is sourced somewhere else. And are we stopping the search for local talent, instead preferring to look elsewhere? Are we overlooking what we already have in the first place?
Giving a voice to everyone
The good: The Internet is really powerful. On the virtual web, everyone can be connected with anyone. And if you’ve got something to share, one click of a mouse and you could share what you have with hundreds and thousands of people. If you’re not happy with the BP oil spill or Katy Perry’s fashion sense, all you have to do is upload a video of your comments and it’ll be up on Youtube in no time. And there is no limit to the number of voices that can be put up. We’d have different opinions on how is global warming affecting you, we’d learn much more about what we think love is, we know about how school is affecting different people. On the web, everyone has a voice.
The bad: Yes, we’re giving everyone a chance to speak up. But who is REALLY ruling the world? There are people in the sidelines, but don’t be fooled: they are the true masterminds.
There are many media corporations around the world, but only a few are the dominant companies. News Corp. Disney. Time Warner (Warner Bros). AOL. Vivendi-Universal. Bertelsmann (the one that brought us American Idol). Viacom. Big, big companies. And in the whole wide world, there are only 6 biggest players? What are the problems here? What if they’re just interested in making money, and start pushing things to us and forcing us to accept them? Not everything in the media is true and trusted. But how will you know what’s real and what’s not, if all 6 companies keep pushing one particular thing? Who’s REALLY ruling the world?
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