But the fact that apps must routinely face approval masks how extraordinary the situation is: tech companies are in the business of approving, one by one, the text, images, and sounds that we are permitted to find and experience on our most common portals to the networked world. Why would we possibly want this to be how the world of ideas works, and why would we think that merely having competing tech companies—each of which is empowered to censor—solves the problem?

A slightly different rhythm, but the same drum Zittrain's been banging for a while now.

Comments

[Bill Yaner]

Coincidence to this post, my iGoogle, i.e. customized, default page on my iPad browser is being rerouted today to a standard Google page which "wants" me to sign up for something called Google+.

The pitch: "Enter profile information. Your profile and +1's appear publicly in search, on ads, and across the web."

Not liking the sound of all that so trying to bypass the "invitation" and go peacefully along to my iGoogle page - only its not letting me do that so far. Must pass through this toll booth or I'm not getting onto my own driveway.

Not liking this at all.

[Billy Jones]

And I've got this crazy thing going on today with Chrome trying to take control of my Firefox browser... And I've never installed Chrome on this computer.

[justcorbly]

Zittrain says " We counted on computers to be open platforms…"

That's just nuts. The only people who worried about open platfroms were Linux, et al, people. That's like, what, three or four percent of the market.

He's right about the service thing -- what can you do for me today? -- but he's way wrong about the importance of operating systems because they determine what services the platform can deliver.

[Ed Cone]

Not nuts. He doesn't mean open as in "open source," but (to use his own frequently-bandied term) "generative." He gives a thumbnail explanation in the interview I did with him at the second link above.