Blurts

Public education by definition is a political process so those interested in education must consider the views of political candidates. The Democrats have recently sponsored a forum allowing Presidential candidates to express their views on education. The archive of this forum is available on YouTube.

I have been an advocate of the Brave browser and ecosystem and I have written multiple posts explaining what I see as the security and content rewards values of Brave (here, here, and here). I try to offer a fair account of the strengths and weaknesses of services so I thought it fair I summarize this complaint.

As I understand the complaint, the issue is that Brave with the consent of a user does display ads itself, but Brave also controls when users will see these ads. The case argued to be most onerous is the situation in which the user has allowed ads, but the content creator of a specific site has not made use of ads. Hence, the user is not blocking ads through ads, but is now exposed to ads when not supported by the content creator. It is true that Brave will show ads associated with your content even when you as a content creator have not included ads yourself. So, if you don’t sign up with Brave as a content creator, you receive nothing when Brave shows ads associated with your content even when you intended no ads to be displayed.

I had not considered this issue and then considered when it would apply. I would think it would mostly occur when you as a content creator paid for your own server and internet access. The free services for content creators usually include ads that compensate the service providers. Most free services add ads to support their infrastructure.

Educational institutions would be an example of a large enough organization that offers content and foots the bill for infrastructure costs (server, Internet connection, and maintenance). These hosts and content providers could object to ads appearing that might be associated with their content especially because they are unlikely to apply for compensation from Brave and may simply object to the use of ads. Ads pop up in Brave at random intervals a few times an hour and are not really part of the content being displayed, but more accurately appear as a notification. Ads occur at random and not each time a given page is viewed. It is kind of a stretch to assume the viewer would see the ad as part of the content. I would think most would understand how the Brave ecosystem works and understand that ads are not the responsibility of the content creator.

Given this interrelated issues related to content creator compensation, viewer privacy, and host compensation issues, I don’t see the concern expressed in this complaint a serious problem. It is an accurately described limitation, but does not offer a solution to what I see are rightful compensations expectations for content creators and infrastructure providers.

The negative comment on Brave also mentions the focus on cryptocurrency. I admit that I don’t understand the necessity of cryptocurrency unless it is to hide the identity of individuals involved in transactions. I did not think the claim that the BAT (the currency) you accumulate could not be converted to cash, but this seems to be the claim in this article. As a content creator, ad viewer, and viewer willing to pay for the content I view, I pay out more than I take in so I have not tried to take money out.

I am not certain Brave will survive, but I do see the company as influencing the online experience. The surveillance capitalism approach has pushed the use of personal data beyond an acceptable point and Brave offers a reasonable alternative. If anything, I see major players having to compensate content creators rather than keeping the funds generated from user information to themselves.

Surveillance capitalism is the phrase Shoshana Zuboff coined to describe the business model of collecting personal information online and using these data as a way to generate revenue. Her entire model is explained in her book of the same name. Understanding surveillance capitalism is the answer to the question “Why are they providing me this service for free”? The topic is about collecting online user data to target ads, but also about the effort to increase time spent online in order to collect more information. So the concerns are not only with the collection of information, but also with the techniques used to increase the commitment of time including gamification techniques and a focus on emotion rather than careful facts.

I highly recommend her book, but in case you don’t want to commit to a lengthy read or purchase a book, the TWIT network Triangulation program offers an hour-long interview with Shoshana and a free way to listen to most of her core arguments.

I encountered this resource by accident, but thought some who follow this blog might find it useful. Wikiversity is a side project of the Wikipedia foundation and is an attempt to organize OER resources appropriate for higher education.

The link I provide takes you to an wiki entry describing the history of wikiversity and the categories of resources provided.

I must admit to having mixed feelings about OER resources and the multiple efforts to organize them. Regarding the organization issue I remember a discussion I had after a conference presentation with the Dept. of Education official announcing the OER effort association with the Office of Educational Technology. My suggestion was based on my experience with similar efforts (e.g., MERLOT) that had not impressed me. My suggestion was that instead of duplicating existing efforts, the federal edtech people invest money they had available in grants to content developers arguing that what was needed was a focus on the content and not another delivery system. I guess this made no sense, but I would argue that most of you probably have never used an content resource provided through this effort.

The related issue I have is that quality work should be compensated. Unless there is a way to compensate content developers, I just don’t see the hodge-podge of OER resources ever offering a serious, systematic challenge to the content generated by companies focused on educational content.