The video above shines a light on an important topic. It may seem like a purely lexical trick – referring to women as ‘women’ rather than ‘girls’ – but it is so much more. Considering females constitute more than half of the world population and that in the western world at least, the female work force is both better educated and more skilled than the male counterpart, referring to them in a manner that properly indicates their age and maturity is vital.

But the issue goes much deeper than that: Even though many consider womens’ lib to be a thing of the past and feminism to be dead, women are still not treated as equal to men. This manifests itself in lower wages, lower positions and lower overall value in the work force. And this is especially true in the tech sector.

Why it is so is a mystery to me, but it is likely rooted in two main predispositions:

1. Men don’t see women as equal
2. Women don’t see themselves as valuable

Both of these ideas are fatally flawed and rooted in biasses that belong in the 17th century, not 2011. And to rid ourselves of them we all need to start thinking differently about gender in the workplace.

Consider James Chartrand – famed writer for Copyblogger and other online publications. When he published the article “Why James Chartrand wears women’s underpants” in 2009 it created a furore. James announced he was actually a she and was writing under a male pseudonym to gain respect. Her (yes, it’s confusing) claim was that as a man she had an easier time finding work and was paid more than as a woman.

Panzer Feminists and women’s lib (and anti-lib) opinionators world wide went ballistic on James for a variety of reasons. That itself was not a surprise. However, there were a group of arguments coming usually from women that really stuck out to me. I like to call them the head-burried-in-the-sand arguments. They came in two varieties:

1. James is doing the women of the world a disservice by pretending to be a man. In fact, she is furthering the gender bias and worsening the situation. James should have her woMan card revoked.
2. James is delusional. There is no gender bias in tech. Her woes were caused by her inferior writing and obvious self-loathing.

Both of these claims are, in my opinion, ludicrous. James did not do women a disservice or damage womens’ lib or feminism by doing what she did. In fact, by pretending to be a man she proved beyond any doubt there is a severe gender bias in the tech world. And by going public she made it impossible to ignore. And to the claim that there is no gender bias in tech? Get real. Of course there is. And it’s worse than most other industries. Don’t believe me? Check out this piece from Redit posted some 5 months ago entitled ”I regularly hire woman for 65% to 75% of what males make“. A sobering piece of hard reality right there.

This last piece also highlights that often overlooked women devaluing themselves issue I mentioned earlier: Women, through cultural bias and lack of inbred arrogance will often sell themselves short either because they think they’re not worth more or because they think they’re not skilled enough. Men on the other hand will almost invariably oversell both their value and their skills. As a result there is an artificial gap created by honesty vs bravado. The only way to get past that dear oestrogen enriched human entities, is to start demanding what you deserve. Otherwise you’re just playing weak cards in an attempt to be well liked. And just like in poker, that won’t work if you have any plans of winning.

So what do we do now?

Inequality for women or between the sexes is nothing new. The sad thing is it continues today. So we have to do something about it. And bizarre as it may sound, it starts with the language we use. Just like you would never refer to me as a ‘boy’, you should never refer to a female over the age of 18 as a ‘girl’. She is a ‘woman’. And that goes for all you other women out there. I know  you think it’s cute to call yourselves ‘girls’, but you’re not girls, and by doing so you are selling yourselves short. Girls are females between the ages of 0 and about what… 14? 16?. Anything older than that and they are either ‘young women’ or ‘women’ proper.

Try applying this simple rule: When referring to a female, if she were a male, would you call her a “boy” or a “man”? If ‘boy’, go with ‘girl’. If ‘man’, go with ‘woman’. That’s what this linguistic differential is for: to distinguish based on age as well as gender.

Once that’s settled, let’s start talking about not referring to people based on their gender but rather their skill set. But that’s a whole different argument.

The biggest danger facing a movement like #occupy or the many uprisings in the Arab world is that rather than changing the world for the better they are just replacing one oppressive system for another. Political change should never happen through force of one group against another but rather consensus and pragmatic discussion. We have an opportunity here to do something together to make a more viable future for everyone. But that requires that everyone participate, whether they are the 99%, the 1% or somewhere in between.

In an earlier part of my life I was a politician. I had ideas, ideals and a strong will to enact social change on my community, my country and the world. And to some small extent I like to think I did. But more importantly my time as a politician taught me some hard lessons about how the world works and how to go about enacting change in the world. And though frustrating, ideologically challenging and often counter-intuitive, these lessons should be the very corner stone of any social movement wanting to make a difference in the world.

They are:

1. Work from Within
2. Speak the Language of Your Oppressor
3. Know that Your Views are Extreme
4. Strong leadership is vital
5. Create a political platform
6. Be pragmatic and think long term

Just before I continue I must warn you what I am about to say will probably make you angry. That’s part of the problem, and can also be part of the solution.

Lesson 1: Work from within

The first and most important lesson is the one hardest to swallow: If you want to make a fundamental change to a system you have to work from within that system and make the changes using its own methods and procedures. This is usually contrary both to the agenda of social movements and also to their premise. Even so it is the hard and honest truth. Save for armed revolt or intentional widespread sabotage this is the only way of enacting large scale systemic change.

To use the #occupy movement as an example: If you want to change laws governing banks, corporations or even electoral systems you must first be in a position to make changes to those laws. This can be done either by electing officials who are willing and able to make these changes or by working your way into the system so you can make those changes yourself. Simply saying the system is flawed and demanding a change will do nothing unless you also have the power to enact this change. This is of course problematic if the root of your complaint is the political system itself, but the cure is the same: If you don’t like the current political system, you must either team up with current politicians or become a politician yourself so you can make the changes necessary.

Call to action: Vote in general elections, vote for the people who share your beliefs, join a political party, set the agenda for your political party.

Lesson 2: Speak the language of your oppressor

This lesson comes from basic marketing: If you want someone to change their mind about something they have to first understand what you’re saying. And I’m not talking about English here; I’m talking about ensuring you are actually talking about the same thing. One of the key problems of radical social movements is that they use language that either doesn’t resonate with or register at all in the minds of their target audience.

A good example of this (and one I get in trouble for bringing up) is feminism. I am a feminist myself (and yes, I’m a guy) but even I have a hard time accepting the vitriolic polemic presented by many in the feminist movement. The reason is much of what is said is rooted in anger, bitterness and all out attacks on “the other”. This creates a chasm between the oppressed (women) and their oppressor (men) and makes it hard for the oppressor to cross over and see the world from the oppressed point of view. The key to winning the war on gender inequality lies in making men see and understand the world from women’s perspective. Only when the oppressor empathises with the one he oppresses can he see his own faults. But this requires that the feminist movement speaks the language of their oppressors and meets them at their level. And that goes against the very nature of the movement, and most movements, which states that the oppressor should understand that they are in the wrong because they are in the wrong.

If you were selling a product this would be crystal clear: To make people feel they have to by the latest and greatest you have to speak their language. The same is true for social movements: Unless you communicate your message in a way your target audience – the people who are doing you wrong – understand, they won’t buy it and they’ll simply ignore you.

Call to Action: Learn the language of your oppressor, speak to them on their terms, use their own language, methods and data to make them empathise with your cause and see that they are the cause of your problems.

Lesson 3: Know that your views are extreme

Social movements almost always hold extreme ideals, largely because it is the people with the most extreme views that feel the most left out and thus feel the strongest need to be heard. This is why terms like “the lunatic fringe” and “the loudest voice in the room” are often attributed to social movements as a reason to ignore them. But even if the social movement itself is extreme, many people will sympathise with most of what the movement has to say, just in a less extreme way. Therein lies the problem:

If a social movement insists on being extreme and ignores more moderate views and approaches it will invariably alienate the large group of people who agree and sympathise with the overall message. As a result the movement will be marginalized because it is not willing to make concessions and the message is never taken seriously.

The only way to ensure wide spread support is to adopt a moderate version of the general ideals of the movement. By taking the moderate route you ensure that a larger group of people will want to join and you keep the overall goal of social change in focus. This usually results in the most extreme end of the spectrum cutting lose and starting its own group denouncing the main group as traitorous. Be that as it may: The end result will be a social movement with clout that people can actually identify with. The bottom line is simple: If you are too extreme, only people who are just as extreme as you will join. And most people are not extreme.

Call to Action: Imagine a scale from 1 (not extreme) to 100 (absolute extreme) and plant your policies somewhere between the 65 and 85 mark, ensure that the leadership of the group is not dominated by extreme elements on one end or the other, include the extreme elements but only as a minority, pursue a moderate message at all times.

Lesson 4: Strong leadership is vital

This is another difficult lesson, especially for left wing movements: Without strong and cohesive leadership your group is doomed to failure. The reasons are many:

• The movement must have a clear voice – and that voice can only be communicated by a leadership group. If there is no leadership media and others will ask the general population of the group for information and that information will invariably be diluted and incorrect. A clear and concise message communicated by leaders is paramount.
• Without leadership it will be impossible to formulate a goal and move towards it because fractions and individuals will adopt their own special version of the overall goal and pursue it instead.
• People need someone to look up to. Without a charismatic leader that people trust and look up to the group will not have a focus and will start breaking into fractions.
• Leaders are accountable. A group without a leader is hard to address, and internally it is impossible to decide who makes decisions and who is accountable when something doesn’t go according to plan. A democratically elected leader can both ensure that the movement as a whole moves towards their common objective and be held accountable when things don’t go the right way.

The problem with social movements, and left leaning social movements in particular, is that they tend to see leadership as a pathway to corruption. This is often a key part of their gripe as is the case with the #occupy movement. The goal of the group is therefore often a move towards absolute or direct democracy. Though this looks good on paper it is a recipe for disaster. Absolute democracy – where everyone votes on everything and there is no leadership – is doomed to failure even in small groups because not every member has the time, capacity nor knowledge to make an informed decision on everything. Furthermore the group will be faced with countless decisions that have to be made on the fly, something that is impossible to do if everyone is to be consulted.

The only way to ensure that the group remains cohesive and moves towards its stated goal is to create a democratically elected leadership committee that is left in charge. This committee has to have a platform on which to base its decisions (lesson 5) and must be held accountable to that platform. To ensure accountability remains the group should introduce set election periods at which time the entire committee is dissolved and re-elected.

Call to Action: Hold elections for a leadership committee, set down firm election periods, hold leadership accountable through elections.

Lesson 5: Create a political platform

For the movement to have an impact clear goals must be formulated and acted on. Only with clear goals in the form of a political platform can a plan be created on how to enact the change demanded by the group. Once a political platform is created outsiders can see what the group is about and decide to join and outside elements like other political organizations, the media and others can get a firm understanding of what the group wants and whether or not its goals are acceptable and something that should be supported. In addition, with a political platform as a base the movement can hold their leaders accountable and individual members of the movement can refer to the platform when in doubt about what to do next.

The creation of a political platform is generally done at a general assembly. The overall process is as follows:

1. Everyone proposes policies
2. Policies are grouped into defined sub-sections
3. Committees are democratically elected to deal with defined sub-sections
4. Committees look over all proposals in their section and conform them into a set of proposals
5. All proposals are taken to a vote on an individual basis by the general assembly
6. Political platform is defined based on proposals that are voted in

The movement can decide how often to revise their political platform. This should be done on a time basis (every 6 months, every year etc) to give the elected leadership committee time to enact the policies.

Call to Action: Hold general assembly, open the floor for policy proposals, create sub-committees to organize proposals, vote on individual proposals and political platform.

Lesson 6: Be pragmatic and think long term

The final lesson is both obvious and infuriating: If you want to enact large scale social change you need to be pragmatic and think long term. Unless you are planning an armed uprising things will not happen over night, nor should they. Rapidly implemented social restructuring always ends in chaos.

When I say “be pragmatic” I mean that you have to accept that the general population needs time to understand your demands, think about how they will affect their lives and decide whether or not they support them. You also have to take a step back and turn a critical eye to your own demands to see if they are reasonable or if you are demanding too much. Finally you have to seek consensus with your opponents and aim for acceptable compromises. This is hard to do when you have set ideas about how things should be, but getting 50% there is better than getting nowhere.

This links directly to the thinking long term part: If you have a pragmatic long term approach and seek consensus along the way you are more likely to succeed in implementing your goals. But more importantly you’ll have a chance to test out your policies and see if they are really as great as you firs envisioned. The irrevocable truth about political revolutions is that they never end up the way originally intended because our ideals do not correspond with reality. And due to our lack of a crystal ball and a working time machine we can’t actually see the future result of political change. Slow steady change gives us a method for constant course correction and a better chance of getting things right.

Call to Action: Be critical of your own ideals, seek consensus, set out long term goals and stick to them.

Epilogue

We are all in this mess together, and it is only together we can change it for the better. Together is our only option.

In my view the #Occupy movement is at its core about one thing: Democracy. And though the issues focused on may and should differ from country to country, the one persistent message is clear: Every man, woman and child has a voice and has an equal right to speak, be heard, and be part of society. The problem is that right now, especially in North America, only the rich and powerful get heard while the vast majority get overlooked or ignored.

Occupy Canada – issues for Canadians

One of the dangers of the #Occupy movement is that it may try to transplant issues from one country to another. This will not only erode the cause itself but make the movement seem ill informed. This is especially important as #Occupy events are ramping up in Canada. So if you plan on taking part in the events starting on October 15th in Canada, take up the cause of democratic issues we all face in Canada.

To help with this I’ve created three posters focusing on three important Canadian democratic issues: Electoral reform, control of telecommunications and cross-media ownership. I’ve also attached a short blurb about each of the issues so you can see why they matter and why you should make one of them (or all) your slogan as you #Occupy your city.

Proportional Representation Now!

Canada has an electoral system that has been referred to as a “sham democracy”. The first-past-the-post system does not reflect the popular vote but stacks parliament based on artificial electoral districts and simple majority rules. The result is that parliamentary composition rarely reflects the popular vote.

Case in point, the current Harper government. Whereas the Conservatives have a Parliamentary majority of 54.2% they only got 39.6% of the popular vote. In other words, based on popular vote the Canadian government would be a coalition of the NDP, Liberals and the Bloc with the Conservatives as official opposition. So when Harper claims he has a “strong majority mandate” he is really talking about an artificially inflated mandate based on an antiquated and undemocratic electoral system. Needless to say something must be done about this.

The solution is some form of proportional representation, employed by most western nations in the world. This would ensure that the popular vote is represented in parliament.

Download the poster in PDF format. JPEG version on Flickr.

Reform the CRTC

The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ) is the government watchdog and regulatory body for all radio, television and telecommunications in Canada. In other words they are the ones that decide who and what can be aired or sent over the internet and by whom this information is carried. The CRTC regulates the four big Canadian telecoms (Shaw, Telus, Bell and Rogers) who collectively stand for nearly 100% of all broadcasting and telecommunications.

The problem with the CRTC is that unlike in other western countries (the USA excluded) their mandate does not include the Canadian people nor consumer rights. The job of the CRTC is to protect the big telecoms from each other. This becomes problematic when you learn that the board of the CRTC is stacked with former heads of the four big telecoms.

Because of the weird mandate of the CRTC the four big telecoms can agree among each other to ramp up prices, cut services and lock competition out as long as all of them agree. As a result you, the consumer, gets screwed ever time. Ever wonder why your cell phone bill or cable bill is so high or why you don’t have the same streaming video services they have in other countries? The CRTC is to blame.

To solve this and make the telecoms act fairly and treat consumers with respect the mandate of the CRTC must be reformed to include consumer rights.

Download the poster in PDF format. JPEG version on Flickr.

Cross Media Ownership Kills the Free Word

On the topic of the four big telecoms, did you know that almost all Canadian broadcasters are owned by the same telecoms that provide the cable signal in your house? Or that most Canadian news outlets are owned by the same big corporations? In Vancouver, both the major news papers The Vancouver Sun and The Vancouver Province are owned by the same company.

The result of such cross-media ownership is that the free word is quashed in favour of corporate interests. When one or a few corporations control the media entirely, the corporate philosophies and political views become the predominant voice in the media landscape. This is further complicated when the broadcasters are owned by the same companies that bring the broadcast signal to your home.

The bottom line is that cross-media ownership results in censorship of opinion and the free word. You see the result in the USA, especially with FOX News, but also in general with the media blackout over the #Occupy movement. And Canada is just inches away from being in that same situation unless the Government starts cracking down on cross-media ownership and passes legislation to prevent it from spreading.

Download the poster in PDF format. JPEG version on Flickr.

Final words

If you’re going to one of the #Occupy protests keep this in mind: If you want someone to change their mind you have to make them understand your case first. If you just shout at them, or try to force them, you will get nowhere. Communication is the key to everything.

Pictures on the web should be autonomous units that can act and be acted on in their own right independently of what you do.

Though this sounds scary it is a good principle upon which to base your publishing of images on the web.

Read the whole piece over at the Vancouver Sun.

Related: My reaction on the day of the attacs: Together is our only option and my ongoing Norway Q&A.

There is also a serious problem with translation. Norwegian is a notoriously complicated language with many dialects and two official and very different written languages. It is also a language that relies heavily on reference. Many words and sentences taken out of context lose their meaning completely and auto translation solutions like Google Translate often have a hard time making heads or tails of them. In addition there is a cultural translation barrier. Many words, when translated, turn into words with a different reference. And when that happens meaning is lost.

In an effort to help non-norwegians understand what is happening over there in my home country I will answer questions and find reference materials and links for anyone interested right here on this site. If you have a question, if you are looking for information or if you are confused about something, leave a comment below and I will make every effort to answer you. I’ll post all the questions and answers in this post as a running log so come back as it gets updated. I’ll also do the same for all questions asked through social media including Twitter (@mor10), Facebook and Google+ (gplus.to/morten). You can also send me a question directly through the contact form.

*Updated from the top*

Q: Do you think he wrote his “manifesto” himself? Is Roid Rage being talked about in the Norwegian press at all?

A: From reports it sounds like the manifesto is a patchwork of different content. In the preface he also says something to that effect. It is heavily littered with quotations from published authors and bloggers, some of it cut and paste, some in edited format. There is also a section, referred to as a “diary” that is clearly his own work. The last entry there is on July 22nd a few hours before the attacks. Some experts have said it is impossible that he could have written it all himself but I think it is the work of one person. As for roid rage there hasn’t been too much talk about it. Though he did take steroids he doesn’t look big enough to have gotten to that stage IMHO.

Q: What kind of camp took place on Utøya exactly?

A: The AUF summer camp is not a camp in the sense that most North Americans think of camps. It is a gathering of the regional members of the AUF (youth branch of the Norwegian Labour Party) to discuss and formulate policies. It is not as some have suggested an indoctrination camp run by the Labour Party to fill young minds with political propaganda. The Utøya camp is run by and for the members of the AUF and the AUF actually owns the island. A point of interest: Many of the policies and opinions held by the AUF and its members do not correspond to those of the parent Labour Party. There are often quarrels between the two and the AUF in general tends to be more radical and left wing than the Labour Party.

Questions by Cord Jefferson in preparation for his excellent article Why the Norway Shooter May End Up Serving a Life Sentence:

Q: As I understand it, Norwegian law says that nobody, regardless of crime, will be sentenced to longer than 21 years in prison

A: “Life in prison” in Norway is 21 years with a possibility of parole after half the sentence is served. However there is a discussion taking place that the terrorist will be tried for Crimes Against Humanity, paragraph 102, for which the maximum sentence is 30 years in jail. If he receives this maximum sentence he will be released after 30 years unless something changes.

An alternative is to send him into what is called “forvaring” or “containment”. This has a maximum length of 10 years but after this the courts can extend the containment in 5 year increments indefinitely.

The one thing that is a certainty is that there will be no reintroduction of the death penalty. Norwegians don’t consider the death penalty an actual penalty.

Q: Are you comfortable with the idea the perpetrator might only receive 21 years, or would you like to see something more severe? What is justice to you?

A: I am a strong believer in the Norwegian legal and penal system. The system focuses on rehabilitation and restoration, not just punishment and retaliation. Many a murderer has served his or her sentence and is now free to roam and contribute to society. And in all but the most unusual cases these people get on with their lives and are not a continuing problem. In an extreme case like this however I don’t see a future in which the legal system will let the accused out. I imagine they will find some way of keeping him locked up indefinitely under the current legal statute.

Am I satisfied with this? Assuming he is held until the end of his life at age 80, yes. This guy should be made an example of. He should sit in jail, preferably in solitude, and serve as proof that even though he committed the worst crime against the country since World War II, and even though he treated his victims inhumanely, we, the society, will still treat him as a human being. He should be held without visitation rights, without access to news, letters or anything else from the outside. He should be left to spend the next 40 years contemplating the fact that his actions didn’t lead to the outcome he wanted.

I think in all of this the key is that last sentence. We, as a society, have to make sure the acts of this man do not produce the results he was looking for. And to do that we need to treat him as the cowardly criminal he is: with humanity. I pity him for his lack of understanding of the human condition.

Is this the world we live in?
Can this really happen?
This cannot happen.
This will not happen.

While the families of the countless victims of the worst terrorist attack in the history of Norway try to cope with their loss it is up to us to take stock. What is this world we live in where people kill? What have we become that makes us capable of such atrocities? What has our society become that the massacre of human lives seems just in the pursuit of an ideological goal?

We have lost our way. Not from God or Allah or Marx or Rand. We have lost our way from humanity. We have forgotten who we are and what we can do. We, the people, the only people, have the capacity for greatness. Yet we resort to petty quarrels over ideology, territory and possession. We have become greedy. Self righteous. Self absorbed. We have lost our way.

I am drawing a line in the sand. And I hope you will stand with me. This ends now.

From this day forth I will do my part to make things better, to make us better. I will speak up against violence. I will speak up against oppression. I will speak up against injustice. I will  speak up against indifference. And I will speak up against those who use division and antagonism to pit one against the other, that use words like “us” and “them”, who draw the world in black and white. And I will help them see that division makes us half of a whole. That we are all in this together. No situation has a single cause and no cause has a single effect. In all our actions, no matter how small, wel play our part. And if we all make that part a positive one, one without prejudice, ideology or personal gain, we will all be better for it.

This is not a political manifesto, not a religious doctrine, not a moral dogma. This is humanity, pure and simple: Race, colour or creed we are all sisters and brothers, born of our mothers. We are in this together and together we must make it work.

Together is our only option.

NB: There is a memorial planned for anyone who wants to gather about this event at the Scandinavian Community Centre in Burnaby on Sunday July 24th at 12:30pm.

Scan­di­na­vian Com­mu­nity Cen­tre
6540 Thomas St
Burn­aby, BC
V5B 4P9

I am confused about the CRTCs role in Canadian society. You are said to be a watchdog, but to me it seems the only parties you are watching over are the 4 big telecommunication companies in Canada and their monopoly on everything from television transmission to internet services and mobile networks. This impression has been with me for a long time but recent decisions on Usage Based Billing and unlocking of cell phones for a price have made me put serious questions to whether the CRTC is put in place to ensure fairness or if it’s actually just a government appointed body that protects a monopoly.

Usage Based Billing is not fair for anyone

The debate over Usage Based Billing is limited to a debate over whether or not the big telecoms should be allowed to impose billing practices on their 3rd party resellers. The arguments against this practice largely focuses on two points:

1. Limiting bandwidth to users prevents them from using new more data heavy applications and stifles innovation.
2. The argument that heavy users should pay for their keep makes little sense seeing as the difference in cost to the supplier of transmitting 1GB vs 100GB is minimal. The cost imposed is grossly exaggerated.

First of all, these arguments apply just as well to the main telecoms as to the resellers, so if the ruling is overturned (as it should be) it begs a revisiting of the regulations regarding the main telecoms and their capping of services.

More importantly however is an issue not addressed at all: That the big telecoms have a vested interest in capping their services, not to preserve bandwidth but to block out competition and force the public to use only services provided by the big telecoms.

The simplest example is Netflix, but it is far from the only one. With caps on internet traffic users will be hard pressed to use streaming audio, video and imaging services without having to pay huge overages. This forces them to use only services provided by the big telecoms.

Thus it can be argued that the capping of internet services by the big telecoms is actually a move against competitors to push them out of the market, and an unfair one at that because these same telecoms have a monopoly, imposed by the CRTC, on bandwidth in Canada.

Such a policy enacted by a company in any other industry would be considered questionable, and it reeks of activity normally reserved for criminal cartels.

Capping of internet services is bad for communication, bad for investment, bad for the industry and bad for consumers. The only party that benefits from it is the big telecoms. If they are allowed to continue this practice, the CRTC needs to break the monopoly and allow other actors into the market to create a fair market.

I work in the web industry and we are in the process of developing an application that requires a lot of bandwidth from the users. It’s a free service that will help them get more out of their photos online. With internet caps these types of services are doomed to failure, not because they are too bandwidth heavy but because the big telecoms and the governing bodies that mandate them are not thinking forward but trying to anchor us firmly in the past.

Unlocking of Cell Phones: If I own it I should be able to use it

Yesterday it was announced that the CRTC will be imposing on the big telecoms to allow unlocking of all fully paid cell phones so that the users can use the network of their choice. This is a practice that has been in place in most other western countries for over 10 years and is only fair. After all, if you own a product outright you should be allowed to use it in any way you want.

The problem is that the CRTC is letting the telecoms charge a fee for unlocking the phones. Reportedly Telus will be charging $50 for the unlocking of a phone. This is tantamount to a ransom and is unacceptable.

When a consumer purchases a full price cell phone or buys out their contract, they are paying full price plus a markup on the cell phone just like they would if they bought a vacuum cleaner, an MP3 player or a car. It is only fair to assume then that seeing as the company that sells the cell phone has no vested interest in it and is in fact turning a profit, the consumer should be able to use the cell phone in any way they see fit. Until now this has been impossible because the telecoms have asked the cell phone manufacturers to lock the phones so they can only be used on their networks. This is a simple software key and it can easily be unlocked with the right code, but the code has so far been hard to obtain.

Now with this new rule in place, the telecoms have to unlock the phones upon request, but they are allowed to charge for that unlocking. And they are charging $50 which is $30 more than what the same unlocking would cost on eBay.

The problem here is that a) the locking is done at the request of the telecom, b) the unlock procedure costs the telecom nothing and c) when fully paid the phone is the sole property of the consumer and should be fully functional.

Forcing the telecoms to permit unlocking is the only correct thing to do here. Allowing them to charge for this service on the other hand is unacceptable. Just like any car owner is allowed to buy gasoline from the vendor of their choice, so should a cell phone owner be allowed to buy cell phone services from a provider of their choice. This is basic free market theory. What we have at present is closer to cartel or even mafia practices.

What is your role and who protects my consumer rights?

I am left wondering what the role of the CRTC is. Based on these recent decisions and others before it I find it hard to imagine it can be protecting anyone but the telecommunication companies the body is set out to be a watchdog over. If it is to protect consumers the body has utterly failed and it would be time to revisit its mandate.

But more importanly, who is protecting my rights as a consumer? I am from Norway, a country where consumer rights are valued. What I see happening in the telecom industry in Canada could never happen in my home country because it is unfair and puts the consumer at a permanent disadvantage. To put it plainly, if not the CRTC then who is protecting Canadians from being screwed over?

I would very much like to hear your thoughts on this because as of right now I see no rhyme nor reason in the decisions made by the CRTC.

Yours truly,

Morten Rand-Hendriksen

1. Go to http://stopthemeter.ca and sign the petition
2. Send all your friends, family, frenemies, school aquaintences and your neighbour’s cat to the same site and get them to sign the petition (well, maybe not the cat)
3. Share the link on Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else you think someone may see it
4. Go to OpenMedia.ca and educate yourself on this very important issue.
5. Contact your local and government representatives and demand that the CRTC start protecting the rights of consumers, not just the rights of corporations
6. Call your Internet Service Provider and tell them point blank you are not happy with what they are doing and that you want your internet to remain free, clear and uncapped
7. Tell your friends about this issue and get them involved

And here’s why:

You may have heard some of your geeky friends talk about the major internet service providers in Canada pushing for new legislation to allow them to cap internet use and demand pay for “overages”. And you may have heard the CRTC – the decision making body put in place to ensure fair trade and practice in the communications space – has made some decisions in this regard that in no way favour consumers. What you may not know is that this move is the first step in what could become a stifling of the internet, a blockage of services and you ending up with a web that just isn’t what it used to be.

Why it matters to you

The crux of the situation is this: Up until the last few weeks your cable internet connection has been open meaning you pay the same if you download 5kb or 300 GB per month. The Internet Service Providers (Bell, Rogers, Telus and Shaw) don’t like this. They want to charge you a base fee for a capped service (say 20GB per month) and then charge you overages (say $1 per GB) when you exceed that cap. That may sound fair but in reality it’s not. And what’s worse, it may just be the first step in an attempt to stifle the web and force you to use paid services rather than the free ones that are currently available.

Although it might not seem like such a big deal right now, capping the web will become a very big deal very soon. New services like Netflix and other streaming media are popping up everywhere, and with them come new ways of using the web. No longer can you only surf web sites. You can download or stream movies and TV when you want where you want, you can use Skype to have video conversations with multiple people at the same time, you can stream music from a myriad of services. And as quality and compression improves these services put more and more loads on your connection. As a result, whereas right now you may only use 5GB per month and get your movies at the local video rental shop, a year from now you may use 60GB per month and watch your favourite TV shows and movies from a streaming service like Netflix, XBOX Live or iTunes. And if you do, your Internet Service Provider will stuff it’s big hands deep into  your pockets and pull out all your cash.

Here’s Strombo explaining it:

But isn’t that fair? Shouldn’t we pay for what we use?

This may sound fair, but in reality it’s not. As Netflix points out the actual cost of a GB of data transfer over wired lines is about 1¢, not $1 like they want to charge. And there is no real reason to cap downloads because the capacity is there. This is just a good old fashioned moneygrab. But there may also be a more sinister reason behind it, and it relates to the Net Neutrality debate that has been raging in the US.

The Internet Service Providers have a not-so-hidden agenda – to force you to keep using their services. It’s simple really: All the major Canadian ISPs also offer TV and video-on-demand services through their cable boxes. But now companies like Netflix infringe on this market. Why watch a pay-per-view movie on Shaw for $3.99 when you can watch all the movies you want on Netflix for $8.99 per month? The trick here is to make Netflix unavailable, or too expensive, so that people are forced to stick with the old content providers. It’s as simple as that.

Net Neutrality at risk

But there’s more to it than simply trying to force people to stick with their old cable plan. This move may be the first step in an all out attack on Net Neutrality. And that’s worrysome to say the least. Net Neutrality simply means that you pay the same price regardless of what type of content you download. So reading your email, checking updates on Facebook, downloading documents from work and watching videos on YouTube and Netflix are all bundled into your internet package. In short you pay for the use of the web, not its services. In the world ISPs wants you pay based on what services you use. So if you want to use just email and facebook you pay one fee, but if you want to watch streaming video on YouTube or use your internet connection for gaming you have to pay an extra fee. And when it comes to music, TV and video the many services out there are simply blocked and you are forced to use the services authorized by the cable providers.

Sounds insane, right? Well, it’s excatly what the ISPs in the US tried to do. And it’s exactly what the ISPs here in Canada will try to do if they get the chance. The bottom line is they want to make money, and the free and open internet is preventing them from doing so so they want to shut it down. Disturbing, right? Well, it gets worse!

(To see a great exlanation of Net Neutrality go to www.theopeninter.net)

The CRTC is not here to help you (!?!?)

Last year I reported Shaw Cablesystems to the CRTC for willfully crippling HD broadcasts on their regular cable. My argument was simple: You can get CBC, CTV, Global, CityTV and Omni in HD for free if you attach a clothes hanger to a cable and hang it out your windiw. But if you have Shaw cable you get a cropped SD version of these same channels and you have to pay for an expensive HD box to get access to the free HD signal. Furthermore this was around the same time the cable companies were trying to force these same over-the-air channels to pay for the privilege of being broadcast on the cable systems. You may remember it as the “Save Local” campaign and it was one ugly piece of corporate greed, willful misinformation and outright lies on both sides.

Anyway, I contacted the CRTC and after a lot of back and forth I got one of their representatives on the phone. What he told me was truly mindboggling: When I asked him why the CRTC was not acting in the best interest of the consumers he told me point blank “That’s not our job.” He went on to tell me, and I’m paraphrasing here, that the job of the CRTC is to ensure that the cable providers follow Canadian law and act in a fair way in the market. In other words that they don’t enter into price gouging and undercutting against each other. “So you’re saying if they all just agree to raise prices to an insane level, stifle service and generally screw over the consumers, the CRTC is OK with that?” I asked. And his reply? “Yes”.

The reality is that unless I was misinformed by this CRTC employee and I’m unaware of some other government entity that has oversight over this, the Canadian consumers are not being protected from price fixing by four companies who are basically allowed to run the show on their own. It’s kind of like the mafia really. And taking this into account things really start to make sense: Why our cell phone services are crappy and more expensive than anywhere else on the planet, why we pay more for cable than our neighbours to the south, why we can’t get Netflix, Zune Marketplace, Hulu and a whole pile of other services in Canada and why we, the consumers, are being screwed over again and again without anyone standing up and saying something about it.

Time for action

Not to be blunt or anything, but this bullshit has got to stop. Canadians are far too polite when it comes to issues like this, and the big corporations take advantage of that compliance. This is one of those cases where unless you stand up, let your voice be heard and tell your elected officials they are screwing things up for everyone, we are all going to pay for it down the road. Unfortunately I’m a mere resident of this country and I have no right to vote so I’m at the mercy of those with the power of citizenship in the matter. So here’s what you should do, right now:

1. Go to http://stopthemeter.ca and sign the petition
2. Send all your friends, family, frenemies, school aquaintences and your neighbour’s cat to the same site and get them to sign the petition (well, maybe not the cat)
3. Share the link on Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else you think someone may see it
4. Go to OpenMedia.ca and educate yourself on this very important issue.
5. Contact your local and government representatives and demand that the CRTC start protecting the rights of consumers, not just the rights of corporations
6. Call your Internet Service Provider and tell them point blank you are not happy with what they are doing and that you want your internet to remain free, clear and uncapped
7. Tell your friends about this issue and get them involved

We are at a turning point in time. Up until now the internet has been free, clear and uncapped and as a result we have seen a massive emergence of new companies, new services and new ways of communicating, sharing and enjoying content. If the ISPs get their way, those days will soon be over and we’ll be moving backwards. That’s not acceptable. Stand up for your rights and take action!

The problem begins with content control

It may seem like the publishers have been sleeping at the wheel where the whole ebook phenomenon is concerned. Nothing could be further from the truth. Publishers have not only been aware of ebooks as an emerging technology; in many cases they have been driving it. In spite of appearances cutting out the middle man and getting a book from the author to the reader in a couple of weeks rather than a couple of months is something that would benefit the publisher as well. That is if they could control the content.

The inherent problem with ebooks and digital publishing in general is that the second the work exists in a digital format it is ripe for illegal duplication and distribution. And while music and movies have been fairly easy to duplicate ever since they started appearing on CDs and DVDs, books have, by nature, been well shielded from this problem: Scanning hundreds or even thousands of pages manually is just too much work. Not so with the ebook: Since it is by nature a text document it is very easy to copy and distribute.

To curb this problem before it becomes a problem, publishers, distributors and 3rd parties are all working furiously to come up with the perfect copy protection method. Unfortunately this has led to yet another format war with two main rivals.

ePub vs. Kindle – yet another idiotic format war

You can join the ebook revolution right now by buying your very own e-reader or e-reader app. Just be warned: Whether you choose ePub or Kindle as your preferred technology it may end up like Betamax or HD-DVD. You see, behind the scenes in the ebook universe there is a fierce battle raging – one that is hard to spot on the surface. In the western trenches you have Amazon and it’s Kindle. In the eastern trenches you have the open ePub format supported by the US Nook (Barnes & Noble), Canadian Kobo (Chapters / Indigo), Sony Reader, North American public libraries and most European book publishers.

Based on the description one would think the Kindle was already drowning in mud. But it isn’t because Amazon is too big (in North America at least). Amazon’s market share and enormous sales volume means publishers can’t ignore the Kindle. So even though they may support the ePub format, they will also make a Kindle version of the books to reach the Amazon customers. As a result Amazon has a huge advantage. In truth, if it wasn’t for the growing library of free Public Domain ePub material and the fact that library ebooks can’t be read on the Kindle I don’t think there would be a format war at all – Kindle would already have won.

As it stands North American consumers looking to buy an e-reader currently have to make a choice: Do you want access to Amazon’s seemingly limitless ebooks library and buy exclusively from Amazon or do you want to buy books from another retailer and also have access to Public Domain libraries and ebooks from the library? If you want to go with Amazon, you buy the Kindle. If you want the other option you buy one of the several e-readers on the market and cross your fingers that Amazon won’t kill it. Or you wait. Like with every other format war the only real casualty here is the consumer.

…and then there’s the issue of distribution

The past couple of years have seen the shocking decline of print media. It seems if trends continue the way they are now newspapers, magazines and even books printed on paper might be a thing of the past sooner than we expect. It could be attributed to a natural progression; spoken word becomes hand written scrolls becomes printed paper becomes e-ink; but the forces at play here are much greater and more convoluted. Let’s not dwell on the “why” just now. Instead, let’s look at the “what happens next” part.

The truly great thing about the printed word, and the reason it was so revolutionary, was low cost and easy distribution. You can buy a book for under $10, read it as many times as you like and give it to someone else to read. If the book is lucky it may change hands hundreds of times and be read by all sorts of people. This is the very nature of the book – you can share it and it lasts forever.

But what happens when the book goes digital? Yes, the book – or file – itself will remain cheap, but accessing the book is no longer as easy. To read a printed book all you need is a light source. To read an ebook you require a device on which to display the book and electricity. It’s a whole new level of technological sophistication, and one that is not readily available to the majority of people living on this planet.

It has been said that the internet is the true democratization of information. But it has also cut a big chasm in society between those that have access and those that don’t. And with the ebook that chasm will grow larger.

Is the ebook a threat to the democratization of information?

Right now I can go to a book store, buy a book on any topic I please, put it in an envelope and send it to a friend anywhere in the world. The recipient, even if she lives in a place with no artificial light, no power and no computerized devices of any sort, can read the book and retrieve the information therein. If the book were not available in print but only in a digital format, my friend would never be able to read it.

“But that’s not going to be a problem” you might say. “The publishers will still print books for less technologically advanced regions, and in time the technology will become ubiquitous.” That last part may be true, in 50 – 100 years, but the first part not so much. Consider this: You are a publisher of books. One day you realize you can cut costs by 80% and increase your earnings at the same time by cutting the print department all together and just push everything out digitally. Why on earth would you not do this? That day is coming my friends.

The key question here is who cares about who reads the book? An author always wants her work to reach as many eyes as possible, but for the publisher it’s all about profit. In other words, a publisher may easily argue that if moving to ebooks and scrapping print means a loss in readership it is more or less irrelevant if the bottom line keeps moving up. Of course this will vary depending on the publisher and its mandate, but it’s a fairly obvious conclusion and one that will sound solid for shareholders and investors.

The problem is the second a book is released in digital-only, the reader base is reduced substantially, not just in numbers but also socio-economically and geographically. So even though it may be good for the bottom line, and it pushes the evolution of the printed word forward, in the process it is leaving a lot of people in the digital dust. In the end it becomes a question for the author: Do I care who reads my book? And if so, do I care if my book will be available for people who can’t access a digital version?

Ebooks for the wealthy, print-to-order for the rest?

Let’s perform a simple thought experiment here (we philosophers love thought experiments): Let’s assume that 10 years from now all major publishers have abandoned print altogether in place of ebooks and that smaller publishers are being edged out of the market due to ever increasing printing overhead costs. We are now in a satiation where if you don’t have the means to acquire a device that can read an ebook and you are not connected to the internet, you will have a hard time accessing new written materials.

In this imagined world a new type of service would likely emerge: That of licenced print-to-order businesses. You’ll already find the prototype of this industry at universities around the world. There either the university itself or the students have set up Copy Co-ops that reproduce compendiums of out-of-print books and selected articles that have been licenced to them. Without this service much of the required reading materials would be inaccessible to the students either due to availability or price. In this imagined world a larger version of the Copy Co-op would likely emerge from which the non-connected, non-e-reader carrying populace could order and get printed hardcopies of their chosen books.

The question here is how expensive will this be, will it even be allowed by publishers and also just importantly what happens to censorship. We already know several countries, including the United States of America, censor the availability and distribution of books that are deemed undesirable, be it for religious, ethical or political reasons (Catcher In The Rye is but one mindboggling example). In this imagined world such censorship would likely become more prevalent as the Copy Co-ops could be punished by having their licences revoked if they reproduced “undesirable” materials. I shudder at the thought.

Ebooks – status quo

What’s outlined above is speculation on my part. But the questions posed, and the scenarios outlined are important aspects of this discussion and shed a different light on the discussion. True, ebooks are revolutionizing the publishing and distribution process and making the written word accessible in new and exciting ways. But they also carry with them serious problems that are being overlooked or brushed under the carpet by publishers and fans alike. It is in times of rapid change we have to take a step back and look at the wider ramifications of our actions so we can see not only the shiny new future but also what happens in the shadowlands.