WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.778
(Cory Doctorow) Thank you very much

00:00:01.066 --> 00:00:05.420
So I'd like to start with something of a
benediction or permission.

00:00:05.420 --> 00:00:07.740
I am one of nature's fast talkers

00:00:07.740 --> 00:00:10.620
and many of you are not 
native English speakers, or

00:00:10.620 --> 00:00:12.919
maybe not accustomed 
to my harsh Canadian accent

00:00:12.919 --> 00:00:15.919
in addition I've just come in 
from Australia

00:00:15.919 --> 00:00:19.166
and so like many of you I am horribly
jetlagged and have drunkenough coffee

00:00:19.166 --> 00:00:20.736
this morning to kill a rhino.

00:00:22.112 --> 00:00:23.587
When I used to be at the United Nations

00:00:23.587 --> 00:00:27.023
I was known as the scourge of the
simultaneous translation core

00:00:27.157 --> 00:00:29.528
I would stand up and speak 
as slowly as I could

00:00:29.576 --> 00:00:32.229
and turn around, and there they
would be in their boots doing this

00:00:32.229 --> 00:00:35.136
(laughter)
When I start to speak too fast,

00:00:35.136 --> 00:00:37.557
this is the universal symbol --
my wife invented it --

00:00:37.557 --> 00:00:41.518
for "Cory, you are talking too fast".
Please, don't be shy.

00:00:42.078 --> 00:00:45.790
So, I'm a parent , like many of you 
and I'm like I'm sure all of you

00:00:45.790 --> 00:00:48.850
who are parents, parenting takes my ass 
all the time.

00:00:50.030 --> 00:00:54.820
And there are many regrets I have
about the mere seven and half years

00:00:54.820 --> 00:00:57.284
that I've been a parent 
but none ares so keenly felt

00:00:57.784 --> 00:01:00.878
as my regrets over what's happened 
when I've been wandering

00:01:00.878 --> 00:01:04.766
around the house and seen my
daughter working on something

00:01:04.766 --> 00:01:08.697
that was beyond her abilities, that was 
right at the edge of what she could do

00:01:08.697 --> 00:01:12.759
and where she was doing something 
that she didn't have competence in yet

00:01:12.759 --> 00:01:17.019
and you know it's that amazing thing 
to see that frowning concentration,

00:01:17.019 --> 00:01:20.038
tongue stuck out: as a parent, your
heart swells with pride

00:01:20.038 --> 00:01:21.332
and you can't help but go over

00:01:21.332 --> 00:01:23.280
and sort of peer over their shoulder
what they are doing

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and those of you who are parents know 
what happens when you look too closely

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at someone who is working 
beyond the age of their competence.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They go back to doing something
they're already good at.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You interrupt a moment 
of genuine learning

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and you replace it with 
a kind of embarrassment

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
about what you're good at 
and what you're not.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, it matters a lot that our schools are
increasingly surveilled environments,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
environments in which everything that 
our kids do is watched and recorded.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because when you do that, you interfere
with those moments of real learning.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Our ability to do things that we are not 
good at yet, that we are not proud of yet,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is negatively impacted 
by that kind of scrutiny.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And that scrutiny comes 
from a strange place.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We have decided that there are 
some programmatic means

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by which we can find all the web page
children shouldn't look at

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we will filter our networks
to be sure that they don't see them.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Anyone who has ever paid attention
knows that this doesn't work.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There are more web pages 
that kids shouldn't look at

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than can ever be cataloged, 
and any attempt to catalog them

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
will always catch pages that kids
must be looking at.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Any of you who have ever taught 
a unit on reproductive health

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
know the frustration of trying 
to get round a school network.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, this is done in the name of
digital protection

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it flies in the face of digital
literacy and of real learning.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because the only way to stop kids 
from looking at web pages

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they shouldn't be looking at

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is to take all of the clicks that they 
make, all of the messages that they send,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
all of their online activity 
and offshore it to a firm

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that has some nonsensically arrived at
list of the bad pages.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so, what we are doing is that we're 
exfiltrating all of our students' data

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to unknown third parties.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, most of these firms, 
their primary business is

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in serving the education sector.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Most of them service 
the government sector.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The primarily service governments in
repressive autocratic regimes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They help them make sure that 
their citizens aren't looking at

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Amnesty International web pages.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They repackage those tools 
and sell them to our educators.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So we are offshoring our children's clicks
to war criminals.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And what our kids do, we know,
is they just get around it,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because it's not hard to get around it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You know, never underestimate the power
of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to get around our 
technological blockades.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But when they do this, they don't acquire
the kind of digital literacy

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that we want them to do, they don't 
acquire real digital agency

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and moreover, they risk exclusion 
and in extreme cases,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they risk criminal prosecution.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So what if instead, those of us who are
trapped in this system of teaching kids

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where we're required to subject them
to this kind of surveillance

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that flies in the face 
of their real learning,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what if instead, we invented 
curricular units

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that made them real first class
digital citizens,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in charge of trying to influence
real digital problems?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like what if we said to them: 
"We want you to catalog the web pages

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that this vendor lets through 
that you shouldn't be seeing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We want you to catalog those pages that 
you should be seeing, that are blocked.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We want you to go and interview 
every teacher in the school

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
about all those lesson plans that were
carefully laid out before lunch

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with a video and a web page, 
and over lunch,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the unaccountable distance center
blocked these critical resources

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and left them handing out photographed 
worksheets in the afternoon

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
instead of the unit they prepared.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We want you to learn how to do the Freedom
of Information Act's requests

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and find out what your 
school authority is spending

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to censor your internet access 
and surveil your activity.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We want you to learn to use the internet 
to research these companies and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we want you to present this 
to your parent-teacher association,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to your school authority,
to your local newspaper."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because that's the kind 
of digital literacy

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that makes kids into first-class
digital citizens,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that prepares them for a future 
in which they can participate fully

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in a world that's changing. (5:18)