The It Crowd Internet In A Box

[Saustin Grody]

Bothof these themes, coincidentally enough, have been in the news recently as social media giants like Twitter and Instagram ponder a tricky problem: their products are mature and successful, but in ways that feel harmful to their users.

Our identity and self-image is highly wrapped up in our personal space, and we do not like when others invade it. When your neighbour buys a new car, or someone tells a joke at your expense, or a petitioner rings your doorbell unexpectedly, we often experience a violent reaction of disgust and panic: a feeling that the boundaries of your personality have been violated.

The satisfaction of being higher in rank than others does not compensate for the loss of freedom of movement. Man petrifies and darkens in the distances he has created. He drags at the burden of them, but cannot move. He forgets that it is self-inflicted, and longs for liberation. But how, alone, can he free himself? Whatever he does, and however determined he is, he will always find himself among others who thwart his efforts. So long as they hold fast to their distances, he can never come any nearer to them.

Only together can men free themselves from their burdens of distance; and this, precisely, is what happens in a crowd. During the discharge distinctions are thrown off and all feel equal. In that density, where there is scarcely any space between, and body presses against body, each man is as near the other as he is to himself; and an immense feeling of relief ensues. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when no-one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd.

A global technology outage caused by a faulty software update grounded flights, knocked media outlets offline, and disrupted hospitals, small businesses and government offices on Friday, highlighting the fragility of a digitized world dependent on just a handful of providers.

A spokesperson at Mass General Brigham, the largest health care system in Massachusetts, said the outage had resulted in all scheduled nonurgent surgeries, procedures and medical visits being canceled for Friday. Emergency departments remained open.

United and some other airlines issued waivers to let customers change travel plans. The overnight outage was blamed on a software update that cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike sent to Microsoft computers of its corporate customers, including many airlines.

She had been waiting for almost three hours Friday with no indication of when and where her flight would be rebooked. With lines stretched back the entire of length of her terminal, she stood in line with an injured ankle and used a cane to prop herself up.

More than 70 flights were canceled by 7 a.m. at Los Angeles International Airport and passengers were stuck in hours-long waits to get through security or to try to rebook their flights, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A Canadian citizen steps past a border marker and walks into the Peace Arch Historical State Park in the U.S., Sunday, Dec. 20, 2020, in Blaine, Wash. Canadians have routinely been walking across the ditch to meet with sweethearts, friends and family in the U.S. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System posted on X that some of its employees who live in Tijuana, Mexico, were unable to get to work Friday. The agency said the disruption may affect its service and encouraged riders to check for delays or detours.

An employee helps a customer at a departure area for Spirit Airlines at LaGuardia Airport in New York on Friday, July 19, 2024, after a faulty CrowdStrike update caused a major internet outage for computers running Microsoft Windows. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A spokesperson for the Massachusetts judiciary said about half of its workstations were down while court transcription recording systems were not operating in a number of courthouses, resulting in delays in some court sessions.

At John Wayne Airport in Orange County, there were a dozen reported cancellations and at least 40 delays, but flights were taking off Friday morning, said AnnaSophia Servin, an airport spokesperson. The airport averages about 260 arrivals and departures each day.

Customers wait at a departure area for Spirit Airlines at LaGuardia Airport in New York on Friday, July 19, 2024, after a faulty CrowdStrike update caused a major internet outage for computers running Microsoft Windows. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Flight boards show delayed or canceled flights at Minneapolis/St. Paul International airport after software issues delayed flights globally, Friday, July 19, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)

United Airlines said earlier that the outage was affecting its computer systems and warned customers of potential flight delays. The carrier said some flights are resuming and it is issuing waivers to make it easier to change travel plans within its website.

In Los Angeles, the Cedars-Sinai Health System remained open and continued to provide care. Spokesperson Christina Elston said the system was affected by the outage but that they were working to address the issue and limit its impact.

A spokesperson for the Cleveland Clinic said patient care has not been affected by the outage, but it was affecting some technology the clinic uses. She said the health system is providing care at all locations.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center said it was pausing the start of any procedures that require anesthesia. The New York-based care provider said it was dealing with systems issues related to the technology disruption.

Her father was expecting surgery after he received a call from his doctor on Wednesday saying he had eight blockages and an aneurysm. But the family was told the operation had to be postponed due to the outage.

Bradesco, one of the main banks in Brazil, notified its users via its app that digital services were unstable because of a global cyber outage, but its ATMs were working normally. Bradesco has more than 100 million clients.

KSHB-TV in Kansas City, Missouri, aired national news network Scripps News instead of local news until about 5:35 a.m., the stations said on its website. IT teams and engineers worked through the night to resolve the glitch, the station said.

Janice Bruce of St. Joseph, Missouri, was among many waiting for flights at Kansas City International Airport. Bruce was headed on a mission trip to Mexico with members of her Baptist church, but their flight to Houston was delayed.

Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company at the heart of the global outage, was founded in 2012 by George Kurtz, Dmitri Alerovitch and Gregg Marston, according to its website. It says it is the most advanced cloud-based security technology provider.

CrowdStrike listed on the Nasdaq exchange five years ago. It reported last month that its revenue rose 33% in the last quarter from the previous quarter and that logged a net profit of $42.8 million, up from $491,000 in the first quarter of this year.

In Virginia, the City of Fairfax Police Department said on social media that it was experiencing technical difficulties with its phone systems, including 911. The department shared a non-emergency number for callers and said 911 could still be used, but calls would not go directly to the dispatch center.

Germany: Eurowings says it had to cancel German domestic flights as well as services to and from the U.K. on Friday. The budget subsidiary of Lufthansa said that its check-in and boarding processes were impaired by the computer disruption. The airline called on people traveling inside Germany to book a train ticket and submit it for reimbursement.

U.S.: United Airlines said the outage was impacting its computer systems and warned customers of potential flight delays. The carrier said some flights are resuming and it is issuing waivers to make it easier to change travel plans within its website.

Hospital clerk Timmy Lo, 29, said that he and his girlfriend had been in the queue for more than two hours waiting to check in for their flight. The delay meant they could only arrive at their hotel in Tokyo in the early hours of Saturday amid infrequent public transportation services.

NHS England said in a statement said the glitch was hitting the appointment and patient record system used across the public health system. The state-funded NHS treats the vast majority of people in the U.K.

The Obama and Trump elections might be read as the bookends of a story about the impact of the internet on society. How do we size up the nearly ten years between 2008 and 2016? How do we understand what happened on the internet during that time, and the ripple effect it had on the public sphere?

We can tell this story through investments, companies, and acquisitions, and the threading together of the worlds of technology and the media. But doing so might miss the forest for the trees. We would miss the fact that ideology is embedded in code, and that there is a deeper story about the aspirations of the internet at the end of the first decade of the 21st century.

One critical anchor point is the centrality of the wisdom of the crowd to the intellectual firmament of Web 2.0: the idea that the broad freedom to communicate enabled by the internet tends to produce beneficial outcomes for society. This position celebrated user-generated content, encouraged platforms for collective participation, and advocated the openness of data.

First, the wisdom of the crowd assumes that each member of the crowd will sift through information to make independent observations and contributions. If not, it hopes that at least a majority will, such that a competitive marketplace of ideas will be able to arrive at the best result.

This assumption deeply underestimated the speed at which a stream of data becomes overwhelming, and the resulting demand for intermediation among users. It also missed the mark as to how platforms would resolve this: by moving away from human moderators and towards automated systems of sorting like the Facebook Newsfeed. This has shifted the power of decision-making from the crowd to the controllers of the platform, distorting the free play of contribution and collaboration that was a critical ingredient for collective intelligence to function.

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