Republic.com 2.0

sdedeo writes "Republic.com 2.0 is an updated and reworked version of Cass Sunstein's Republic.com, which was reviewed on slashdot back in April 2001. That earlier version was written before blogger was purchased by google, before wikipedia broke "10,000th most popular" on alexa, and — most importantly for Cass — before the terrorist attacks of September 11th unleashed a torrent of political blogging that has yet to peak." Read on for the rest of Simon's review

Republic.com 2.0
author	Cass R. Sunstein
pages	251
publisher	Princeton University Press
rating	8
reviewer	Simon DeDeo
ISBN	978-0-691-13356-0
summary	Provocative but flawed

Cass is one of the few people in the world who holds a senior faculty position in jurisprudence at a law school and yet can be expected to understand crucial notions of internet content creation such as versioning control, trackbacks and google juice.

I was first introduced to Cass in his 2003 book, Why Societies Need Dissent. One of the reasons for his appeal among the geek community is not only his content — he's hardly the first person to write about the internet — but also his reliance on provocative thought experiments. Notably, in Dissent, he uses one to explain why you should be suspicious of group-signed letters — an argument he modifies for Republic.com 2.0, so you won't miss it. You may dispute his applications of such arguments to the real world, but it's certainly the case that they're both new and non-trivial.

Cass is not one to beat around the bush, and one of the first things you'll encounter in Chapter One is the assertion that "the view that free speech is an 'absolute'" is "utterly implausible." I think he does himself a disservice by highlighting this and leaving the explanation to a much later chapter; Cass is opposed to "viewpoint discrimination" by the government, for example, and he's far more mild than you'd expect.

The central argument in Republic.com 2.0 is unchanged: greater control over, and filtering of, the content one receives may have adverse consequences for democracy. By this time, most slashdot readers are familiar with the basic idea — when they're not complaining about troll-ratings and slashdot group-think.

It goes like this: increasingly popular software tools allow you to filter to an unprecedented extent not only the kind of information you receive, but also its political or ideological slant. Fans of a particular idea ("open source is good", "affirmative action is anti-American", "a conservative cabal runs the United States for the benefit of corporations") can choose their news sites and blogcircles so that they will rarely, if ever, encounter the opposition except at second hand and in caricature. This is bad.

Before engaging this idea, it's worth stepping back. The internet — and the software on top of it — has often been referred to as the Platonic ideal of participatory democracy. One of Cass's points is the extent to which it's a half-truth: not every feature is faithfully reproduced, and one crucial one — the "public forum", which he uses in a technical, legal sense — is gone.

I grew up in London, and Hyde Park's Speaker's Corner was for me a touchstone of what democracy should be. Supreme Courts the world over agree, and the "public forum" — a geographical location — emerged as a space where courts could not interfere with public expressive activity. The internet is, of course, awash with such things (an unmoderated comment stream is not hard to find), but the crucial difference is that one need never see them while, in the real world, "public forums" — at least in the United States — include the streets and parks we use every day.

For Cass, the public forum extends to what he refers to as "general interest intermediaries" (GIIs): massive circulation sources that, while not granting the same rights-of-access to the public that a park does, provide regular encounters with facts and points-of-view that can be counted on to surprise the reader. My own view — one echoed by the blogosphere both right and left — is that since 9/11, more and more of these GIIs have failed us. Time after time, outlets such as the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, the New Republic and Time Magazine have not only marginalized legitimate views, but also misreported crucial facts.

While Cass provides fascinating psychological studies of how we turn towards the news that flatters us, I think that one of the reasons for the explosive growth of online communities and online reporting is not that we are polarizing ourselves in a positive-feedback runaway, but rather that more and more people are becoming aware of the structural failures of the GII.

A classic example that friends of mine on the left cite is the "cocktail party" atmosphere of the Washington journalism circuit, where criticizing too aggressively the Bush administration led to a freeze-out on interviews and insider information. (Friends on the right complain to me more often about particular arguments being frozen out.)

Cass pays insufficient attention, in my mind, to these arguments, and his view of the blogosphere is jaundiced at best. For Cass, the blogosphere is the source of urban legends, not their debunking, whereas any glance at the front page of political blogs, slashdot (or, more charmingly, snopes) will reveal plenty of debunking being done on the GII in the comments.

His evidence that blogs — and not just controlled psychological experiments — actually do elicit group polarization is disappointingly thin, and relies on over interpreted linkage studies and anecdotal evidence that show major "hubs" in the political blogging world, like instapundit, Atrios, and talkingpointsmemo, acting as strong filters that reinforce the party line. Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller (also a close friend) have done a more detailed study of linkage patterns and come to very different conclusions.

There are problems with Cass's arguments, and in the end I don't think his snapshot of the internet in 2007 holds up. He's frustrating at times and, ironically, when he frustrates the most he reminds me of a blowhard blogger. The provocative nature of his thought experiments is worth the price of admission alone, however, and his legal-historical background on the nature of free speech in deliberative democracy is fascinating reading. Pundits of the blogosphere would be remiss in not reading his book.

Simon DeDeo is a astrophysicist and literary critic. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

---

You can purchase Republic.com 2.0 from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Absolute free speech

[morgan_greywolf]

Constitutionally speaking, your right to free speech ends where it steps on someone else's right. Just like my right to swing my arm ends before it connects with your nose.

The classic example is why you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre -- the real reason is that it intrudes on the private property owner's rights to operate his business in a peaceful manner.

Re:Absolute free speech

[davetd02]

The classic example is why you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre -- the real reason is that it intrudes on the private property owner's rights to operate his business in a peaceful manner.

I thought it was actually about the danger of imminent bodily harm to those who would be trampled in a stampede. It's perfectly legal to use speech to attempt to bring down somebody's business -- that's what boycotts, protests and pickets are all about -- but not to cause a risk of a stampede.

There are only a few cases that have held that a legislature can place a citizen's right to receive the benefits of a business in peace above the First Amendment. These cases are usually based around hospitals and abortion clinics, where the strong need for peace and quiet while receiving medical services overcomes the interest of the protesters. You can argue whether the Supreme Court (in deciding that state legislatures can place the interest in quiet ahead of the First Amendment) and the states (in actually doing so in some cases) got that one right or wrong, but it's the law of our country for the time being.

The rest of the "quiet enjoyment" cases usually revolve around homes, not businesses. It's constitutional for a state government to outlaw me standing outside your house with a megaphone at 6 am (and, again, the cases usually start with abortion protesters).

Re:

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

And of course, his "freedom of speech" defense won't hold up for one second in court.
Unless, of course there really is a fire.

Re:

[Stephan Schulz]

The classic example is why you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre -- the real reason is that it intrudes on the private property owner's rights to operate his business in a peaceful manner.

I thought it was actually about the danger of imminent bodily harm to those who would be trampled in a stampede. It's perfectly legal to use speech to attempt to bring down somebody's business -- that's what boycotts, protests and pickets are all about -- but not to cause a risk of a stampede.

The depressing thi

Re:

[Graff]

Constitutionally speaking, your right to free speech ends where it steps on someone else's right. Just like my right to swing my arm ends before it connects with your nose.

The classic example is why you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre -- the real reason is that it intrudes on the private property owner's rights to operate his business in a peaceful manner.

Ahh no, the real reason is because shouting "fire" in a crowded theater [wikipedia.org] was judged to be an imminent lawless action [wikipedia.org]. The act of shouting about a nonexistent fire in a crowded area is likely to cause a riot and damage to property and people. In that case it would not be considered free speech but would instead be treated as a crime.

You can shout whatever you want on private property, unless you are threatening violence or performing some other lawless action all the property owner can do is ask you to lea

Re:

[Gospodin]

...the real reason is that it intrudes on the private property owner's rights to operate his business in a peaceful manner.

Which part of the Constitution covers this right, exactly?

The real real reason is that yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater is likely to cause injury as people storm for the exits. It's the same reason why you can fire a gun at a target in a shooting range, but not at a target on the outside of the building across the street.

Re:

[Jeek Elemental]

actually yelling fire in a theater will cause everyone to discuss the constitution.

any stampede will be lawyers entering to pick up work.

It Ends Long Before That.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Constitutionally speaking, your right to free speech ends where it steps on someone else's right. Just like my right to swing my arm ends before it connects with your nose.

You'll be gagged and bound long before you ever get to that point.

The western world nowadays pays only lip service to free speech, if it ever paid it any mind at all. Your free speech is subject to "public opinion" approving of what you have to say, and by "public opinion", we generally mean the mainstream press opinion of what public opi

Re:

[davetd02]

Want to swear . . . in public?
Well then sorry pal, you're shit out of luck.

Didn't you just prove yourself wrong there?

Your free speech is subject to "public opinion" approving of what you have to say

Oh, please. The Supreme Court just held that high school students have a constitutional right to hold up a sign reading "Bong Hits for Jesus". I'm really not sure what part of the supposed majority believes in that position, but they have a right to say it none the less.

If "public opinion" doesn't agree then

Re:

[tbonius]

Oh, please. The Supreme Court just held that high school students have a constitutional right to hold up a sign reading "Bong Hits for Jesus". I'm really not sure what part of the supposed majority believes in that position, but they have a right to say it none the less

I am not sure what case you think you are referring to, but I think I recall the U.S Supreme Court ruling *AGAINST* the student's right to wave the "Bong Hits for Jesus" banner. http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/06/25/free.speech/index.html [cnn.com]

Re:

[Original Replica]

Both the parent and the GP are occasionally correct. I see some very non-PC protests/soapbox rants on a regular basis. I also see the police moving someone along or relocating a very legit protest when they are instructed to do so. I think the problems that the GP states are real only in that the right to do those things is not a hard and fast rule, but more of a usually tolerated concession. It's not uncommon for war protesters to be relocated away from the press covering some State event. But usually it's

Re:

[lgarner]

Your specific points may be valid (with just a little imagination), but your conclusion isn't.

Your right to speak does not imply my obligation to listen, or to publish your rants. You are, as far as I can tell, free to do so yourself.

It also seems to me that all those groups who "close in and snuff you out" are exercising their right to free speech as well.

Re:

[Merusdraconis]

The entire parent post somehow reminds me of the manatees that write Family Guy.

Re:

[OakDragon]

You are just wrong on most of these.

Want to support a rebel group labeled as a terrorist organization?
Define "support." Verbal advocacy is one thing, but those who do so are often found to materially support terrorist groups as well.

Want to show a picture of Mohamed?
No one is stopping you.

Want to eat dog meat?
Not really speech, is it? Anyway, you probably could get away with it in the US provided you didn't butcher the dog yourself. Also, my dog would like a word with you.

Want to criticize y

Re:I actually think ppl SHOULD be able to yell FIR

[sumdumass]

You know, years ago, fire was a very real threat in a building. They didn't have all the protections we have now like firebreaks built into the walls to help slow the spread, we didn't use fire retardent materials in building, sometimes the glues holding the carpet to the floor contained accelerators that could be a key component to rocket fuel and a number of other things like lighting that used natural gas or kerosene.

Things have changed since them. In todays environment, if a building catches fire, you h

Re:

[ConceptJunkie]

More importantly, while you have the Constitutional right to Free Speech, you don't, in fact, have the Constitutional right to Be Heard. I think a lot of people forget this.

Of course, speech is meant to be heard, and I can (and do) rant on my blog till the cows come home, which is free available to anyone on the planet with a computer and an Internet connection. However, no one is required to look at it, for that I must rely on any merit of what I happen to say to attract readers.

Ultimately, the miracle a

Re:

[Swift2001]

That expression always made me wonder, what to you do if the theater's on fire? Not yelling "fire" is not being helpful. The other thing that I think about this is that it is a case appealing the conviction of Gene Debs, given a ten year's sentence for giving a speech about the First World War, in which he was entirely correct.

Re:

[sumdumass]

I don't know who Gene Debs is so I won't address that. But the idea behind shouting fire in a crowded theater is that there isn't a fire and any chaos, fear, injuries or death would have been because you did something not because people had to flee for their lives. If there actually is a fire, you pull the fire alarm to notify others of the fire and in the absence of an alarm, you shout fire. Some people might not know what the alarm going off is so you could shout fire anyways.

When we are in danger, we are

This is new?

[taustin]

His premise is that people avoid reading stuff that they disagree with? And he thinks this is a new idea?

Re:

[kevmatic]

No, its not new, but if you think about it, its really quite bad. Leftists only watch leftist media (to avoid critism/trolling, I make no examples), while rightists only watch rightist media. The result is that everyone only gets their own opinions reinforced, and not challenged. This pushes them away from the opposite side. Biased media, while legal, is bad because it has a polarizing effect. The individual Media outlets are biased one way or another (especially in the US), meaning it, as a whole, just

Re:This is new?

[taustin]

No, its not new,

The reviewed believes otherwise, and says so:

You may dispute his applications of such arguments to the real world, but it's certainly the case that they're both new and non-trivial.

The reviewer apparently lives in a cave, far from civilization.

but if you think about it, its really quite bad. Leftists only watch leftist media (to avoid critism/trolling, I make no examples), while rightists only watch rightist media. The result is that everyone only gets their own opinions reinforced, and not challenged. This pushes them away from the opposite side. Biased media, while legal, is bad because it has a polarizing effect. The individual Media outlets are biased one way or another (especially in the US), meaning it, as a whole, just kinda pushes everyone away from the moderate position. Thus, its not really a matter of it making people liberal or conservative, but less moderate. If the number of left media outlets matches the number of right is equal, the result is NOT unbiased media, but rather one biased against moderation.

How is the different from any other point in recorded human history?

please actually read my review, it's not that long

[sdedeo]

I live in Chicago, but coming from New York it sometimes feels that way.

Do read my review, instead of cherrypicking quotes out of context. This is "new" (Cass claims) because of technology that allows one to bypass the usual routes to encountering views and opinions different from your own: the public forum (e.g., speaker's corner) and the "general interest intermediaries" -- places like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal or CBS, &c..

Re:please actually read my review, it's not that l

[kevmatic]

I actually did a report on that for school. There's nothing keeping you from completely isolating you from the dissent anymore. You can only visit the sites you like, only watch the shows you like... We did a survey for several hundred people and found they do just that.

But I still don't think that's all that different in the past. You're gonna get it from discussions and blow over from other people, flipping through the channels. But, thanks partially to the fact that there's only 2 political systems in th

Re:

[Original Replica]

There's nothing keeping you from completely isolating you from the dissent anymore.

I tried to participate in TownHall for awhile, both to expose myself to different opinions and to offer a dissenting view in a rather one sided forum. Eventually I left because their format is so piss poor that it is near impossible to have a coherent discussion as all comments seem to be posted sequentially, without the ability to reply specifically to an earlier comment. I had hopes that Globaltics.net would possibly fil

Re:

[OakDragon]

Does anyone know of a Conservative/Republican forum that allows for branching discussions?

As a Conservative/Republican, I am ashamed to say that I know of none. Generally any conservative forum I have found is either representing the worst of the conservative and/or Republican mindset ("Illegal immigrants are coming to unplug our dead ladies!"), or they are trolled into oblivion. Little Green Footballs [littlegreenfootballs.com] is a good blog (from a conservative POV, of course), but they don't thread reader comments. Is there so

Re:

[sdedeo]

What do you think of RedState [redstate.com]? I'm a liberal, but I found their discussions quite interesting to join in. They are pretty strict about trolling, but on the other hand I was able to join the discussion as long as I was careful and uberpolite about disagreements. (I stopped visiting because my account was deactivated, and while part of my paranoia assumed it was because of my POV, I think actually it was just technical incompetence.)

This was a few years ago, however, and stopping back in it seems they've d

Re:

[taustin]

You (or perhaps Cass) seem to be claiming that, in the past, people were not allowed to simply walk by "the speaker's corner," that they were somehow held against their will and forced to listen to the latest bampot's ranting. You (or perhaps Cass) seem to be claiming that people could simply decline to buy the NYT or WSJ, but rather, if they failed to renew their subscriptions, their doors would be kicked in and they would be forced to read such with guns to their heads.

You (or perhaps Cass) seem to be a f

Re:

[sdedeo]

No, neither of us claim that. In the past, if you wanted to get your news about subject X, you did so through a GII and were thus also exposed to news about subject Y and opinions Z and not-Z about X. You could certainly prevent exposure to the GII, but you would do so at the cost of most, if not all, of your news. That's Cass's argument, and I think it carries a lot of weight.

Re:This is new?

[davetd02]

How is the different from any other point in recorded human history?

Because the speed at which people now move away from the middle has increased. It's always been happening, from the dawn of the printing press until today, but it's happening faster than ever before. The Internet has a tremendous ability to allow self-segregation along political lines.

Sure, people have always had friends with similar interests and political tastes. But it wasn't that long ago that there were only 3 TV channels that showed news programs: ABC, CBS, NBC. If you wanted news you had to watch one of those few channels. Each of the channels tried to grab as much of an audience as possible by staying moderately centrist. The cable revolution destroyed this model. Now you can watch CNN, Fox News, ABC, MSNBC, or whatever else you want.

Same thing for newspapers. In Washington DC there was once the Washington Post and the Washington Times. If you wanted print news you read one of the two major rags and that was that. They definitely had their slants -- Post to the left and Times to the right -- but didn't slant too far. Now, I can read DailyKos or LGF or Drudge. I can even read IndyMedia if I think DailyKos is too centrist.

It used to be that we all -- using "we all" to mean "US residents", apologies to the rest of the world -- shared at least some of the same news. Maybe two ideological opponents would see the same story on 60 Minutes. They might have a different take on the story -- one might see US presence in Vietnam as bad, the other as good -- but they saw the same images and events to form their opinions. They could rationally talk to each other since they agreed on the underlying facts and could debate the interpretation from common ground.

Now they don't share the same news at all. The right-winger might read about the Hillary fundraising scandal, and the left-winger might read about some Halliburtin hijinks. It's no longer possible to have a dialog: Neither side shares the same facts so there's no way to debate. They see such distorted views about the world that informed democracy may break down.

That's his argument, at least -- you can debate whether it's right or not, but it's definitely "different from any other point in recorded human history."

Re:

[general_re]

No, its not new, but if you think about it, its really quite bad.

Leftists only watch leftist media (to avoid critism/trolling, I make no examples), while rightists only watch rightist media.

The result is that everyone only gets their own opinions reinforced, and not challenged. This pushes them away from the opposite side.

IIRC from the first edition, his notion of a fix was something akin to an equal-time requirement, whereby bloggers et. al. would be required to present opposing viewpoints in the name of fairness and exposure to same. Wonderful idea, on its face, until you start considering the consequences - such a principle can't possibly be applied merely to the folks you disagree with, requiring them to present views you do agree with. It has to apply to everyone, and where on earth does that end? Do we really want

Terrorists using bittorrent?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"before the terrorist attacks of September 11th unleashed a torrent"

It took me a couple reads before I realized that "torrent" has other possible meanings unrelated to file-sharing. It must be from all the Cheetohs and dampness in my parents' basement - it's a breeding ground for disease and lethargy.

edition, not version

[kisrael]

That earlier version was written before blogger was purchased by google

Heh. It took me clicking on the Read More to realized "Republic 2.0" is not blogging software.

The term for books is, I think "edition" rather than "version".

(Wasn't there late-90s publishing software called Frontier or something? i may have been influenced by thinking of that.)

Re:edition, not version

[glwtta]

The term for books is, I think "edition" rather than "version".

No, you don't understand, this one's 2.0 - it's totally, like, interweb-age and about the blagosphere... It's on the information SUPERHIGHWAY!!!

Seriously, I propose a new rule: Calling something "Foo 2.0", where "Foo" is not a piece of software, is an automatic punch in the face. (doesn't have to be hard even, just to make a point)

Re:

[gEvil (beta)]

Seriously, I propose a new rule: Calling something "Foo 2.0", where "Foo" is not a piece of software, is an automatic punch in the face. (doesn't have to be hard even, just to make a point)

Man, Jon Blake Cusack 2.0 [cnn.com] isn't gonna go for that one... : p

Still dunno why all the fuss about blogs...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I've been using the Internet since 1993 or so. So far, I've yet to find a blog-oriented site that I find interesting or useful enough to come back to a second time. I still find my value in sites that aggregate the opinions of many (including Slashdot and traditional media).

Pundits of the blogosphere would be remiss in not reading his book.

If it's so good and so applicable, why doesn't he just post the content on his blog and let those who care find it there? (Why a "book"?)

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"So far, I've yet to find a blog-oriented site that I find interesting or useful enough to come back to a second time."

What do you think slashdot is? It's pretty much the Editors blog and they let the viewers submit topics.

Re:

[tehcyder]

What do you think slashdot is? It's pretty much the Editors blog and they let the viewers submit topics.

slashdot has Editors?

Re:

[Quiet_Desperation]

Why a "book"? Yeah! What's all this piffle about people wanting "income" to buy "food" and a "roof over their heads", and all that nonsense that pales in comparison to information's ***WILL*** to be free!

Re:

[G Fab]

The most successful blogs serve the same purpose. If you check Instapundit, you will see dozens of short posts. It's a quick way to get a bunch of stories. Daily Kos is more of a community than a blog, but similarly is a great way to get to a bunch of news stories. That's the filter hub effect Cass is complaining about.

Anyway, you probably are just annoyed at political bias rather than annoyed that blogs don't aggregate news well, as some really aim specifically to do that.

Re:

[foniksonik]

He obviously wants to monetize it now, not at some undeterminable time in the future when Google Adsense decides to pay him for the traffic generated (or whatever form of statistics based ROI he may be able to use). Physical goods (even licensed ones) are still better at generating income than virtual product (clicks/views/hits/unique visitors)

quick message from the author of the review

[sdedeo]

A sentence was inadvertently taken out from the above review; it contains a reference and link to a detailed study of blog linkage patterns done by Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller. Here's the paragraph in full (I've e-mailed the eds to fix, but they may be too busy.)

His evidence that blogs — and not just controlled psychological experiments — actually do elicit group polarization is disappointingly thin, and relies on overinterpreted linkage studies and anecdotal evidence that show major "hubs" in the political blogging world, like instapundit, Atrios, and talkingpointsmemo, acting as strong filters that reinforce the party line. Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller (also a close friend) have done a more detailed study [newpolitics.net] of linkage patterns and come to very different conclusions.

Thanks folks for reading.

So...

[Quiet_Desperation]

before the terrorist attacks of September 11th unleashed a torrent of political blogging that has yet to peak."

So... the terrorists won? ;-)

I've yet to find a political blog that isn't just cut and paste of some Party platform or ideological manifesto or just flat out kookery. And I'm FAR from a prude, but you have the word "fuck" seventeen times in your first paragraph, I'm not going to take you very seriously.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to flee. The Bush controlled Skull & Bones hit squad of ille

Re:

[Repossessed]

I've yet to find a political blog that isn't just cut and paste of some Party platform or ideological manifesto or just flat out kookery. And I'm FAR from a prude, but you have the word "fuck" seventeen times in your first paragraph, I'm not going to take you very seriously.

So create your own, I did. (well, technically mine was (it's quite gone now) a copy of the party platform, but since I'm the only one in the party, I think it counts for your purposes).

Of course, getting attention for a blog that doesn't follow a party/pre-existing ideology is rather hard. Since you have no way to get the existing party line blogs to link to you, which I think is a big part of what the problem the book describes is. Noy only is it going to be near impossible to come across different (an

Re:

[Quiet_Desperation]

>>> So create your own

I've actually tried now and then, but politics and ideology bore me so completely I wander into something like pondering about where the character Angel on Dexter gets those awesome hats.

I suppose I could start and anti-politics blog. I could take apart various other political blogs and show where they wander between true critical thinking and ideological zerothink. That might be fun.

Or I could start a fan site for Angel's hats.

hmmm, sounds like drivel

[Dimble ThriceFoon]

if your review is in any way representative of the book itself then i shall not bother.