e pur si muove

It’s been a long, long time since I wrote about science. I’ve been wading in it for so long, it took me this long just to get out of the deep end.

First up is a UK computer science professor, James Anderson at the University of Reading, who has claimed to have solved the problem of dividing by zero. Apparently all you have to do is call it a fancy Greek letter, ignoring mathematical axioms about fields and indeterminate forms. Mark Chu-Carroll’s blog appears to have the most informed comments on this topic. And to top it off, Dr. Anderson’s personal website shows many of the classic signs of quackery, as measured by John Baez’s crackpot index. If you are really, really bored, why not download his papers on “transreal arithmetic” and try to figure it out…

Here’s an xkcd.com comic to introduce the next topic:

Courtesy of the Improbable Research blog and the Times of India, we now know that failure rates of condom usage are about 10 times higher than normal (20% instead of 2%), because international standard-sized condoms are too big. Not only that, the Indian Council of Medical Research almost commissioned the use of a complex automated system at IIT Delhi where “an image of the penis would be taken and the computer would interpret different dimensions.” The Times of India reported that “this was later discarded for a simple paper-tape that was found to be more practical.” Two things immediately spring to mind here:

1. Simplify, simplify.
2. Can you imagine having to test the computerized system? I bet if it happened in the US, the graduate students would be too busy making size jokes and cracking up to do any real research…

I was going to write about something else, but I’ve managed to gross myself out. I need to go sit in a corner and wheeze for a while.
Read the rest of this entry »

“It shows an essential misunderstanding of what the blogosphere is about.” - Jeff Jarvis, on the UK Press Complaints Commission’s proposed voluntary ‘code of practice’. See postscript.

Legal counsel Dharmendra Yadav wrote an article in TODAY (cross-posted on his blog) suggesting that the “blogging community pre-emptively introduce some form of self-regulation”. The argument goes like this: because Singaporeans are beginning to view blogs “as trustworthy as mainstream media”, the authorities will eventually have to take blogs “seriously”, if they don’t do so already. Since current laws must apply also to online material, blogs are also subject to Singapore laws; in particular, to Singapore’s “zero tolerance policy on negative ethnic and religious content”. It is therefore in bloggers’ best interests to “evolve their own self-regulating code” to avoid getting into trouble. Furthermore, there should be an official organization to represent the interests of bloggers, and (perhaps more importantly) enforce the aforementioned ethical code amongst bloggers in a “more formal” fashion.

There are many inconsistencies here; I will just confine myself to point out the implicit assumptions made in this argument, and present my reasons for believing why these assumptions are fallacious.

1. Perhaps the most poorly substantiated aspect of this argument is in the non sequitur presented regarding the need for regulation. Dharmendra argues that some modicum of authority must be present, self-imposed or otherwise, for order to exist; if not, the Singapore¹ blogosphere will degenerate into unregulated chaos. But there is no evidence for this dichotomy throughout the entire history of the blogosphere’s existence. Lack of regulation did not result in the random, wanton growth of the Singapore blogosphere; on the contrary, it has become the vibrant, organic realm of discourse precisely because of the lack of regulation.² It is because there is no central authority that well-known blogs have credibility, because the sole metric of value in the blogosphere is fame. Fame can be measured by proxy using metrics such as the number of links (cross-references) made from other blogs, much like how reputable academic articles are determined by tallying up the number of citations since they were published. While there are no axiomatic rules to obey in the Singapore blogosphere, there nonetheless exists order (if not harmony). Famous blogs like mrbrown’s are not famous by Higher Decree; no central body proclaimed that blogs A, B and C the famous ones and all the rest are detritus in the ether. Likewise, Singapore blogs spontaneously choose to obey the law because their authors decide (for whatever reason) that they want to, not because some authority figures are breathing down their backs, watching their every move and delivering instant and painful punishment if they don’t.³
2. The notion of a bloggers’ association belies another assumption that the Singapore blogosphere is a cohesive entity where everyone knows each other. Without this assumption there is no premise for Dharmendra’s hypothetical self-regulating institution, since there is no way to enforce the proposed code of ethics without knowing who everybody is and having a way to contact each blogger. But this assumption is not true: the term “Singapore blogosphere” at best describes the transient, nebulous association of cross-referenced, internetworked blogs that nominally claim some affiliation with Singapore; like all emergent phenomena, there is an inalienable quality of intangiblility and ineffablility to the very concept of a blogosphere. In addition, we have no method of verifying a priori if the denizens of the Singapore blogosphere are really Singaporeans, apart from either voluntary declarations of the truth, or from information from the relevant authorities.
3. Dharmendra’s cautionary suggestion is perhaps excusable in the light of his legal background. But there is evidence to suggest that current enforcement mechanisms are already sufficient to cover any violations of Singapore laws that occur online. Earlier this year, the authorities managed to prosecute three participants for racist content published in the Singapore blogosphere under the existing Sedition Act.⁴ In this case, the consensus view among bloggers was that the content was almost certainly undesirable, and the only concerns were the choice of the laws used to prosecute the offenders. However this should not be an issue for bloggers to address; it is the job of legislators to determine what laws Singapore should have, even as citizens should have a say as to what laws Singapore should
4. The cases of the seditious netizens also serve to illustrate the existing peer review mechanisms already present in the Singapore blogosphere. When news of such scandals erupted, bloggers were quick to form opinions; opinions on more famous blogs were generally considered to be more authoritative, especially when substantiated with facts, arguments, and other evidence of reasoned, logical thought. Scandals propagate through the blogosphere with great ferocity and speed; “Tammy nyp” and Wee Shu Min are but two of many other examples that come to mind. It is now an accepted phenomenon that scandals in the Singaporean circles can dominate blog search engines such as Technorati. While one can take the pessimistic view that this merely serves to illustrate how nothing travels faster than bad news⁵, it is also true that scandal does not survive the exposure to collective scrutiny for very long. The long list of defunct blogs - Wee Shu Min, Chua Zheng Zhan, and an anonymous single mother are but three examples - bear testimony to how the blogosphere self-regulates, with authors routinely excising their controversial, false and/or scandalous content to avoid further examination, which is often evidenced by the plethora of scathing opinions written on other blogs.⁶ There is no evidence to suggest that any explicit Hand of Law was necessary to force blogs to shut down; bloggers do it themselves. One could even go as far as to claim that the blogosphere has its own zero-tolerance policy toward scandal and untruth.
5. There is yet another tacit assumption that the law is clear and exact on its stipulations in the regulations of the online media. Yet to the best of my knowledge, there is currently no Singapore legislation that specifically targets blogs or their multimedia relations (vlogs, moblogs, etc.).
   1. Even in the United States, which Dharmedra refers to several times, suggesting that the US bloggers are Doing It Right, there is hardly any legal or civil consensus over what laws apply to bloggers, and what don’t.⁷ The US blogosphere was recently embroiled in a heated argument over whether bloggers should be awarded the same rights as journalists, in particular the right to keep one’s sources secret. With specific reference to potential defamation cases such as the AcidFlask episode, the comparison with the US is fallacious since the laws proscribing defamation, libel and slander are significantly different. The First Amendment to the US constitution also guarantees the freedom of speech to members of the public, with many states having additional laws encouraging public debate.⁸
   2. Another glaring loophole is the issue of jurisdiction. Consider a hypothetical situation where a blogger physically located in country X creates a blog post on a computer server which is physically located in country Y. A reader accesses the webpage on another computer in country Z and feels that the content he had just read is illegal. The authorities of country Z are called in to investigate. So which country’s laws should apply? Should it be country Z, where the offending content was accessible? Should it be country X, where the creator of the offending content currently resides? Or should it be country Y, since the equipment responsible for propagating the offending content is located there? And if country Y is the correct example, then how about the laws of country W, which hosts the infrastructure that connects the two computers in countries Y and Z? Since the data physically flows through the cables and interconnects there, should W’s laws also apply? I am not aware of any definitive legal opinion which addresses this hypothetical situation, which engages the very controversial issue of legal enforcement across sovereign boundaries. Without too much difficulty, one can construct further examples which the collective body of law cannot yet address satisfactorily.⁹

Contrary to Dharmendra’s argument, there already exist sufficiently powerful mechanisms for regulation, both internally and from enforcement of existing laws, in excising inappropriate online content. Any attempt to formalize and institutionalize the self-regulating nature of the Singapore blogosphere will be an exercise in futility owing to the diffuse nature of the blogosphere and potential difficulties in enforcement.

Disclaimer: IANAL. TINLA. This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of other contributors to Singapore Angle.

This article had been submitted to Singapore Angle. Thanks to the editors at Singapore Angle for insightful comments, corrections and suggestions. I have had a very pleasant time working with their feedback.

P.S. The scope of this article is deliberately narrow; in particular, it refrains from a comparative analysis for and against the establishment of a bloggers’ association in general. At this time, I am aware of two other blogs that have commented on this aspect of the issue. Bernard Leong argues that a bloggers’ association, had it existed at the time, would have been able to mediate any dispute involving a blogger and a second party. He cites the AcidFlask case as a possible example. However, he also raises concerns that forming such an association would form a central pool of biodata about Singapore bloggers, and that paradoxically, the act of attempting to describe the Singapore blogosphere by enumerating its members would trigger a Rumpelstiltskin effect, destroying the cohesion that characterizes the loose association of blogs that exists today. Aaron Ng supports the idea of self-regulation, particularly to prevent bloggers from incriminating themselves out of ignorance. He also argues that a bloggers’ association could create something analogous to a trade union, where bloggers could use collective bargaining power to negotiate pro-blogging legislation.

P.P.S. It is also instructive to poke around and see what UK bloggers have said about the UK Press Complaints Commission’s proposal of a voluntary “code of practice”, the incident that sparked Dharmendra’s article. (BBC, Voluntary code for blogs ‘needed’, 28 Nov 2006.) The English-speaking blogosphere, predictably, has responded with a resounding ‘no’. (For insightful reviews, you may be interested in the following links: Chicken Yoghurt, Code breaking, 29 Nov 2006; Jason Lee Miller, webpronews.com, Bloggers Say ‘No’ To Proposed Code Of Conduct, 1 Dec 2006; Adam Haigh, You just don’t get it do you, 3 Dec 2006; Iain Dale, Channel 4 News, Labour Blog Crackdown [mp3])

Footnotes
1. Presumably one could make a similar analysis of the state of affairs in Malaysia, considering how intertwined our blogosphere is with theirs, but I don’t know enough to make any qualified statements. Perhaps someone else would like to comment on this.↩
2. Perhaps the Singapore blogosphere is more vibrant than it would have been otherwise because the current authorities purport to take blogs less seriously than the mainstream media. Supporting this hypothesis is the issue mrbrown’s little episode with TODAY, MICA, and K. Bhavani. The response to the mrbrown incident also suggests that taking into account self-imposed regulations in addition to OB markers, the rule of Singapore law and the like could overly constrain the quantity and tone of discussion that could be allowed.↩
3. The apparent paradox of order without authority is a classic manifestation of a well-documented physical phenomenon known as emergence, the exposition of which is beyond the scope of this article. As emergent phenomena form a new, interdisciplinary field of study across the mathematical sciences, it is exceedingly difficult to give a good reference that is accessible to the educated layperson. Wikipedia’s article gets enough of the idea across that it could be useful. The interested reader may want to follow up with readings from this list of works on emergence and self-organizing systems [pdf], particularly the works of F. A. Hayek.↩
4. Readers may want to review the case of Benjamin Koh and Nicholas Lim [pdf], and of Gan Huai Shi as summarized in this Straits Times article dated June 2, 2006 [pdf].↩
5. prompting Douglas Adams to quip “Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which follows its own laws”.↩
6. Whether or not the voraciousness of these opinions are justified remains an unaddressed issue.↩
7. And what should and shouldn’t, but that’s another story.↩
8. Contrary to what is often believed, the First Amendment does not guarantee the right to free speech without limit or retribution. Otherwise, slander or libel would not be constitutionally offensive, to cite the most obvious counterexamples. This is why anti-SLAPP legislation exists.↩
9. To say nothing of enforcement across jurisdictions. The existence of these legal grey areas should not be taken as endorsement of bloggers taking advantage of them; however, their existence does bring up important limitations in attempting to state a definitive opinion from the legal point of view.↩