The Digital Mystique, and ICANN Transitions –– Talking Tech w/ Sarah Granger & Matthew Shears
Host Brian Wesolowski brings in Sarah Granger, a nationally recognized expert on online culture and social technology, to discuss how digital media is shaping our lives in real time – everything from how we raise children, communicate in love & partnerships, support causes, or establish friendships & trust.<br><br>Then we chat with CDT's Matthew Shears, all the way from Costa Rica, to highlight ICANN's official transition on Oct. 1. Matthew dispels some of the headlines that circulated in the run-up and outlines the future for us.<br><br>More info on "The Digital Mystique": http://bit.ly/sgrangertdm<br>More on the ICANN transition here: http://bit.ly/IANAtrans<br><br>More info on our host, Brian: http://bit.ly/cdtbrian<br><br>Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.
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Transcript
Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye.
CT. Tea.
Welcome to CDT's Tech Talk where we dish on tech and Internet policy while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. I'm Brian Wasilowski, and it's time to talk tech. Today, we'll talk to the author of the digital mystique who will help anyone from the most tech savvy to a social media newbie think through how to navigate the complex digital world and how to get the most out of being online. We'll also jump into the world of Internet governance. October 1 marked the first day that that ICANN had stewardship of the so called IANA functions. Some called it The US giving away the Internet. Is this really the case? And should you expect any changes in your online experience? If you wanna take charge of your digital life, then this is the right segment for you. No doubt, even the most tech savvy individual has had moments of angst online. Whether it's trying to decide how to best present their professional profile or attempt to help their kids navigate an online homework assignment. Our guest today, author, blogger and entrepreneur, Sarah Granger, has quickly become a go to for thoughts on how technology is impacting incredibly positive way as well. Thanks so much for coming to Tech Talk, Sarah. It's great to have you and great to have a fellow a fellow Michigan alum here with us. Go blue. Go blue. Thanks for having me. Of Michigan alum here with us. Go blue. Go blue. Thanks for having me. Of course. So your book, which is wonderful, The Digital Mystique, it's packed with tips for techies and also those reluctant to embrace tech. What would you say is some of your, you know, straightforward basic effect advice for everyone when it comes to how to kind of curate your your profile online, whether you're a techie or a non techie? Well, I would start with trying to keep it simple and think about
the presence that you wanna create and how you want people to look at you. What are the things that are important to you? What do you want others to to know that that, you are comfortable sharing? Because everyone has a different level of comfort and I tend to when people are are reticent about sharing online, I I tend to advise them to just take it slowly at first and see what what you're comfortable with at first and and then move on. But the you know, be have fun with it. Show a little bit of flavor about your personality, not just sharing articles and these are things, you know, of interest today. Have a little
give it some flavor so that you can meet other people that way. So you, actually one of my favorite parts of your book was when you talked about community in it and how, you know, one of the biggest benefits of the Internet and the connected world is these kind of communities and relationships you can form online. But I've also seen a lot of kind of negative lately about, like, online harassment and, you know, communities that are a little too siloed and not listening to others. You know, what is kind of what are your thoughts on online communities? Obviously, you think the net positive thing. But how can we make sure that they are more positive experience especially in this kind of divided landscape that we have? Sure. Yeah.
That was actually I'm glad you liked that chapter because it's my favorite also. And I well, and it that to me is the essence of the Internet and why it's so powerful. And I got online when I was nine and, first realized that, you know, there is power in being able to connect to people without having to go anywhere. And then I started my first online community when I was 14 when it was the bulletin boards. And so for me, community and Internet and technology are all kind of wrapped up together in one. And, yeah, we we have to take the good with the bad, but we have great communities in real life. And, you know, you don't wanna go down the back alley by yourself, but you definitely, when you go out and you meet new people, it's a can be a wonderful experience. So we just have to be careful. And that doesn't mean that I don't think there are really critical things that we need to be doing about, dealing with trolls and and other problems online. But the experiences that I've had personally and and those that I've seen for other people, particularly those with, special needs or health problems or, you know, concerns or constraints in their lives and they need to connect with others and they're sort of stuck. People or whatever challenges they might be going through, just being able to find other people like themselves and connect with them is that's really the power of,
the technology that we have available now. Yeah. One of the things that really resonated me, I thought, in reading some of your book of my great aunt who was one of the very, very first, adopters of the Internet in my family. And she, you know, had a disability, was, bed bound at the end of her life. And, but was on the internet and connected to these communities. You also had some great tips for seniors. We had, we've never had anyone on the show talk about that. What are some of, what's some of your advice to seniors reluctant to engage online if they wanna have a positive experience?
Well, seniors are pretty much on email now and a lot of them are on Facebook because of their families. And so I I start with the point of connection where their interests are. If they're they wanna get in touch with their grandkids, find make it easy to get in touch with their interests, find make it easy for them. You know, they're at least one weekend a month, my husband and I are are busy doing tech support for our parents online. And that's just that's part of the but, you know, being able to the benefit then is when we can do FaceTime with my mother and my daughter together or, when we can share photos from events and and they appreciate that. And I think a lot of seniors are also lurkers online. And there's this lurker category where there are people who they'll just watch what everybody else is doing and it's like the town gossip, you know. But it but at the same time, the the benefit is that they they they do feel more connected that way even if they may not feel comfortable sharing themselves. At least that's a step in the right direction and they're getting out there and then you can help them, comment. Like, the there was my I had to help my mom the other day. She had a typo in a comment she made on one of my public posts on Facebook. And I knew because she's a she she actually was one of the best editors of my book. She caught every little typo. And so I knew she would be very upset to have a typo and so I was sending her this text stream of exactly
what steps to take on on Facebook to go in and edit her comments so that, you know Isn't it so great that Facebook lets you correct those? Yes. Twitter doesn't. Yes. So Twitter, if anyone from Twitter is listening, please make it so you can edit at least grammatically. That would be wonderful. Yes. I've had so many sweets I've had to delete, especially when I'm doing them from my phone. You brought up your daughter and you had some great advice in the book for parents, you know, in in terms of how to help their kids navigate the digital world. What's what's some of your your top lessons for parents?
Oh, that's the hardest one. It really is. And even for someone like me who's a digital native, it's still scary as a parent to, have your kids online. But, you know, the thing that I have really learned is that kids are pretty smart and they'll figure it out and just be there for them. And the other thing that I don't think that I put in my book that I that I wish I had put in later was just find out why they're doing what they're doing online. Don't just ask them what they're doing. Find out why. Why do you like Minecraft? Why are you using Snapchat to talk to your friends? Because that's when you really discover what it is that is important to them them and and their community. And then if they're doing something that is bordering on dangerous or something that is concerning, then you can steer them to another vehicle that's safer because you understand what's behind
one of the other things you talk about in here, which I'm interested in, is social media overuse, you know, kind of addiction to technology or social media. How can you tell if you have a problem? And if you do, what should you be doing about it?
Yeah. Well, I'm a trained techie, not a trained psychologist. But but, what I have seen through some of the programs, luckily, there are a lot more people addressing this issue now, but I put it at the end of the book for a reason because it's something that concerns all of us and we really, everyone I know struggles with this. And I think that you just have to to take breaks and step back and, just keep constantly assessing. Like, am I looking at my phone constantly? How are other people responding? Look around at the social norms. I live in Silicon Valley. Everyone's, like, attached at the hip to their phone like it's an extension of your arm and but, you know, I come to DC and and it's a different etiquette here. People put some down We're doing better here. This is good. Okay. Well, it's just different. I think there are other challenges here like the fear of email because everyone's a lawyer. But Good point. But, but, in in terms of the time, try to set limits for yourself. And, I mean, social media is is the infinite time suck. So you can you can there is no limit to how much time you can spend on social media. So just try and like, I have really even email, like, it has taught me, using social media and having the overuse issues with that has taught me to really curb my email use. And so I don't check it constantly because used to check it constantly, but now I've got other things thrown at me constantly with Facebook Messenger and Twitter DMs and auto alerts and everything. And and if you sat there and read all of your alerts all day, you never get any actual work done. So just prioritizing and There are those people out there that are so good at hitting you with every single one of them. You're like, how did you figure out how to hit me on Twitter, on Facebook, via LinkedIn, and via email. So But I think yeah. I think comprising little chunks of time and saying I'm reserving this hour for this and then I'm moving on. Like, that's the the same thing that I've seen that tends to work for people. Good advice.
And so your book now, it's been out for a couple of years. What are some of the things you've already had to think about updating if you haven't done it or if you're, you know, gonna write a next book? Because, I mean, obviously, tech just moves so fast. As a techie, you know this. What are some some new advice that might or new advice you'd have that wouldn't be in your book? Well, when I wrote it, I knew that,
things move quickly. So I purposely didn't say, like, here's how you update your Facebook privacy settings because that changes every, you know, month or two. So I focused on general principles for for using social media. And so it's all still pretty current. The only things that have changed are the the adoption of some of the specific technologies like Uber, for example, was pretty new when the book came out. And so I would maybe add a little bit about more of these, services. And, like, now I've become a regular user of Instacart and that was something that was pretty new back then. But really in general, the principles haven't changed. But when I actually started writing this book, it came from what I originally was gonna write about digital politics, social change, digital government, a lot of the things that CDT works on policy. And, and I was told, no, these are two sort of nuanced subjects at the time. Right? This was when I first wanted to write a book. It was like more than ten years ago. And, so I ended up sort of broadening the topic and bringing it to all the different aspects of our digital lives. So I would kind of like to go back to my roots and write a little bit more about some of the meatier topics,
in my next book. Oh, that's a good one. I look forward to that one then. So you're in town for, remind me again, I know it's for women in tech. Tell me a bit about that because I know you're beyond being the guru on these issues. You're doing about 10,000,000,000 other things, it looks like. So why don't you share a little bit about the other things you have going on and maybe focus on your work with other women in tech. Sure. Yeah. Well, I like to
say that I work in the intersection of technology, media, and society and and the different ways that we can use these things together. And for social good, one of the projects I'm working on is a program called tech women that's, run through the state department. And we just finished yesterday with our annual program, and we had, 90 women from 19 countries come to The United States. And they had internships companies like Twitter, organizations like Lawrence Berkeley Lab, some of the older companies in Silicon Valley as well. And so they they spent three weeks working very closely with these companies and learning learning about the tech industry. And then they came out here and talked to some of the government leaders, to learn about what we're doing about problems for women in technology and and addressing some of those things. So now they go back home. I was an impact adviser and one and each of us worked with a different country. And so they'll go back home and put in place these different programs in in their home countries to help, move the needle just a little bit, you know, for for advancement of mostly women and girls in tech but just in their communities and at large. It's not just about the women.
Very, very cool. Well, glad that we got to have you on Tech Talk. Welcome again to DC and hope to have you back again soon, Sarah. Thank you very much. Be sure to check out her book, The Digital Mystique. The United States gave away the Internet on October 1. Well, that's what some senators and attorneys general would have you believe. In reality, the contract for the naming and numbering function of the Internet known as the IANA functions was operationally transition to the nonprofit ICANN by The US Department Of Commerce. With the transition of the IANA functions now behind us, our very own Matthew Sheras joins Tech Talk to take a look back on what really happened and to look forward on what this means for the future of the Internet. Welcome, Matthew. Thanks, Brian. It's a pleasure to be back. Thanks so much for taking the call from Costa Rica, Matthew. So leading up to October 1, there was a lot of headlines. People giving away the Internet, all that sort of stuff. What was it like having to counter
since, you know, we've been working on this since March 2014. And, much of the time, there's been a good multi stakeholder consensus in the work that was underway, and it was we really got our heads down and and worked our way through both the accountability proposal and the IANA transition proposals. But it wasn't I guess, we've always had the thoughts in the back of our minds that there would be some challenges because the, the timeline slipped, and it would start to bump up against the election. But I guess we hadn't really anticipated some of the, the claims that were being made by by, senator Cruz and others, and particularly the the the bumper sticker that The US was giving up the Internet. And, you know, this is unfortunately, it's it's just so far from the truth. I mean, The US has committed to privatizing and making the something that should be transitioned over to the the community, the Internet community, since 1998. So this is nothing new. The notion that it's giving up the Internet and that it's giving it it away to, Russia or China, they tended to be the two countries that were most often mentioned, is just not true. The the Internet is actually continuing to being managed by those same entities that have managed it since 1998. It's not, there's nothing really that's changed in that dynamic. So there's still a significant US business interest. The US government is still involved through the governmental advisory committee. US civil society entities are still involved. And it's the same, group of experts and professionals who have managed the DNS through ICANN since '98. So giving it up, bit of an exaggeration.
Yeah. I definitely feel as though you hear China and Russia all the time if someone wants to imply that something bad is going to happen. But on a more positive note, one of the best headlines I read was the Internet finally belongs to everyone. Does that sound about right to you?
You know, it's it's a really interesting point that had it's a really interesting headline now because the Internet always belong to everyone. So what what we've done in this transition is effectively, made the very, if you want to call it, clerical functions of the DNS, really belong to the community, the Internet community. So in a way, you could certainly argue that the Internet finally belongs to everyone, but it's always belonged to everyone. This kind of is the the last step, if you will, where the, where the US government has stepped back. And, now the community yes, the headline sounds right, but, in a way, it's it's really that it's always belonged and this is this this commitment to this transition has always been there. So, yes, it's kind of the the final part in that, in that trajectory, if you will. Great. So now, functionally, we've you know, ICANN has had the stewardship of these functions for a few weeks.
If you're an average Internet user, should you have noticed any change? You know, I get this question all the time. What what will I notice that's different? And I I say nothing. But is that the case?
Well, you know, that's a that's a great question because so, you know, this is a very difficult subject to, talk about with friends and family. But what what was really interesting was that I just kind of, you know, here and there would ask over the weekend when the transition happened, have you noticed anything different on the Internet? Have you have you felt you know, have has the performance changed? Has well, whatever. I mean and, everybody was looking at me as if I was, you know, slightly crazy. So it's good to see. It's good to know that, you know, all along, one of the core principles that we had was that, we were working to preserve the resiliency and stability of the Internet. And, nothing changed in that sense. You know, the businesses continue to use the Internet. You know, the the traffic slowed. People were able to access their website. So in a sense, that's, in fact, a real, something that we were really trying to achieve. And we're very I think we're very pleased with the
pleased as a community that that that it did transition without any any hiccups. Yeah. I haven't noticed any. So great job. Is there any chance that this could be reversed? I mean, is the is the battle over? Can we have another rogue senator kind of step up and say, you know, I'm gonna get that contract back? Or are we moved past that completely now?
Well, you know, we're in that period of time, obviously, with the elections and other, you know, where things could still be, a little bit of a surprise. I think at this point in time, there will always we always have to anticipate that those who fought very much against transitioning, the INA functions to the community. I think that they will try, to either delay or or not necessarily delay, but try and put some put to take some efforts to make some efforts to actually try and impede it in some way. I would suspect there may be some lawsuits. But I think that the community very much has this in hand now and is, is progressing well. And I think for so long as there are no obvious changes in that and for so long as no none of these rather outrageous claims are actually realized, I think that we can anticipate that things will continue as normal. That's great. So I know that this is it's not completely done. There's a little more work for the community to do certainly to make sure that this continues to progress in a positive way. What's kind of the next steps for for, everyone working on this? Yeah. Well, that's a it's a great question because a number of times in the run up to the transition, there were claims made that, there were many outstanding elements that should have been resolved before the transition. But, you know, when we started this two years ago, we made a a a very con explicit decision to say, okay. There's a certain amount of things that we need to achieve before the transition from an operational perspective, and those we absolutely need to do. And we know that those would probably take quite a long time to to work through. Mhmm. And then we decided, well, there are some items that we can, move till after the transition, which will build upon things that were undertaken as part of the transition. So now we're transition working on some outstanding issues. And some of those are related to, for example, the accountability of the community. We've worked very hard to improve the accountability of ICANN, ICANN, the organization. And now it's time to look at the various parts of the community and see what their accountabilities are and what their roles and responsibilities are. So that's one aspect. There are some leftover issues that we're working on related to jurisdiction, which has always, been a a thorny issue in terms of, ICANN's role and space and where it's headquartered, etcetera. But the one the kind of thing that's good is that in the transition, we agreed that, ICANN should continue to be headquartered in California, in The United States. So these are more jurisdiction issues related to contracts that ICANN may have and what applicable laws it may be subject to in different parts of the world where it operates. So these are some of the the important but, but post transition issues that we're working through at the moment. And and I think there's an expectation that those will probably take another, you know, up to six to nine months probably to work out fully. Ongoing work.
Well, great job, Matthew. Thanks for your incredible leadership on it. And, you know, this truly seems like quite the accomplishment and, you know, great global example of how multi stakeholderism, which is a a term that we throw around here a lot, can really
work. That that's absolutely right, Brian. And I and just on that point, I think, you know, the what the the this is an incredible achievement for that model. I mean, granted, it's taken two years. It's taken huge resources, financial and personal, the number of emails, the number of calls and meetings and everything else. But at the end of the day, you know, that's that's how these things work when you bring all these diverse stakeholders around the table and get them to agree on something. It doesn't happen overnight. But, this is by far the most, the biggest and probably the the one the one, event and one process that will that's had the most impact in terms of the multi stakeholder,
model going forward. Well, congratulations again, and thank you for being on Check Talk.
It's a pleasure. Thanks so much, Brian.
That's it for this episode of Tech Talk. But with the US election a little more than a week away, I would like to remind everyone to get out there and vote. Democracy doesn't work if you don't exercise that fundamental right. I'm Brian Wasilowski. Thanks so much for listening.
