What A Tangled Web Weave

The Tangled Web We Weave

We all see what the internet does and increasingly don't like it, but do we know how and more importantly who makes it work that way? That's where the real power lays... The internet was supposed to be a thing of revolutions. As that dream curdles, there is no shortage of villains to blame--from tech giants to Russian bot farms. But what if the problem is not an issue of bad actors ruining a good thing? What if the hazards of the internet are built into the system itself? That's what journalist James Ball argues as he takes us to the root of the problem, from the very establishment of the internet's earliest protocols to the cables that wire it together. He shows us how the seemingly abstract and pervasive phenomenon is built on a very real set of materials and rules that are owned, financed, designed and regulated by very real people. In this urgent and necessary book, Ball reveals that the internet is not a neutral force but a massive infrastructure that reflects the society that created it. And making it work for--and not against--us must be an endeavor of the people as well.

The Tangled Web They Weave

Ivan L. Preston, recognized as a preeminent scholar of the legal dimensions of American advertising, has written The Tangled Web They Weave for the ordinary consumer as well as for advertisers and trade regulators. His frank aim is to demonstrate how advertising can better serve its audience. Advertising, Preston points out, is full of falsity that is quite legal. Indeed, clever presentation of lies can make advertising entertaining to consumers, and Preston provides lively examples and anecdotes of such cases. The problem with falsity in advertising, he argues, is not so much with the bald lie as it is with deception. It is in this thicket of implied claims that he shows us the dangers and indicates the need for regulatory adjustment. Preston takes us down the slippery slope, from the high ground of honest product claims to the unscrupulous bottom-of-the-barrel claims that are wholly false. Along the way he documents the subtle misrepresentations, half and lesser truths, and exploitations of our gullibility that abound in contemporary advertising. The cases he describes are sometimes comic and sometimes shocking and infuriating. Preston's agenda is not merely to cry Foul! He sees advertising as performing not only a legitimate but an important public service. It is in all our interests, therefore, to perfect and not just pillory. As he concludes, "It is the time to see a way to serve society by creating a standard of personal and corporate credibility under which all advertisers, regulators, and consumers should want to live."

The Complete Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott