Interview Debrief with Timothy Karr
Cameron Glass, Cameron Krakowiak, Nissim Hershkovits, River Magee
During our interview with Timothy Karr we gained some in insight to some important topics like, a decentralized internet, net neutrality, communication conglomerates, rights to encryption, rights as a journalist, and computer and media privacy.
Timothy explained how he had travled to Vietnam as a journalist during the war. He would write articles speculating on the war and would publish them, but before was allowed to publish he would have to go through brutal censorship and refinement before it would be open to the public. This was because of the strict free speech legislation pertaining to Vietnam. He was restricted from showing his personal views of the war. After the war he returned to the united states, but was surprised to see that his once free country was now a fraction of its previous stature.
Timothy Karr also touched upon how the number of phones in the world are equivalent to the amount of people in the world. Hypothetically, this means that any one in the world has the power to be a journalist. With the touch of a finger, we can take videos and record our everyday lives and the events we live through.
During our interview, a man by the na”me of David Isenburg stopped to talk to us. He explained that he was working for AT&T durning the 90’s. This was when they were a monopoly of multiple other phone companies. He wrote a book called the, “The Rise Of The Stupid Networks,” prompting him to be fired from AT&T. This piece of writing can be found here at, http://www.isen.com/stupid.html. This book went over the way they did work and how they had most of the power over people’s phones.
This hints at an important topic such as decentralized internet. With one carrier company holding the majority of peoples private information, such as calls, texts e.t.c, they have control over that and have the ability to dictate what happens to it. If a large company, like AT&T, decides to give that information over to a third party, or even the NSA, that means that their customers are now being unlawfully surveilled and recorded with out there consent. To stop this, we must keep the internet diverse so that major companies don’t expose our private lives. Even better, we can switch to encrypted chats and communications so we can truly keep our private lives private.
Timothy Karr’s organization currently has one million followers. Free Press sends emails regarding events that are going on in the world, hoping to spark inspiration to those followers. Organizations like his are advocating for our rights and without them, our world could change for the worse. You can sign up on the Free Press website to learn more about this organization and to join the email list.
