33 Facts About Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky was born on 1964 and is an American pundit, writer, and consultant on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies and journalism.

Clay Shirky is an associate professor at the Arthur L Carter Journalism Institute and Associate Arts Professor at the Tisch School of the Arts' Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Clay Shirky has written and been interviewed about the Internet since 1996.

Clay Shirky is a member of the Wikimedia Foundation's advisory board.

Clay Shirky appeared as an expert witness on cyberculture in Shea v Reno, a case cited in the US Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Communications Decency Act in 1996.

Clay Shirky was the first Professor of New Media in the Media Studies department at Hunter College, where he developed the MFA in Integrated Media Arts program.

Clay Shirky uses the phrase "the Internet runs on love" to describe the nature of such collaborations.

Clay Shirky calls this mass amateurization of filtering a forced move.

Clay Shirky uses the Portland Pattern Repository, which introduced the wiki concept that inspired Wikipedia, as an example of this new marriage of mass content creation and mass filtering.

In 2010 Clay Shirky published Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age which expands on themes introduced in Here Comes Everybody.

Clay Shirky introduces Cognitive Surplus as a continuation of his work in Here Comes Everybody.

Clay Shirky has written about "algorithmic authority," which describes the process through which unverified information is vetted for its trustworthiness through multiple sources.

In July 2005, Clay Shirky gave a talk titled "Institutions vs collaboration" as a part of TEDGlobal 2005.

Clay Shirky closes by stating that the migration from institutions to self-organizing, collaborative groups will be incomplete and will not end in a utopian society.

The second difference between the twentieth and twenty-first century communication revolution, Clay Shirky states, is all media is digitized.

The populace as a whole, Clay Shirky claims, is a force much harder to control than a handful of professional news sources.

Clay Shirky compares the "Great Firewall of China" to the Maginot Line as both were built to protect from external threats but that is not where the majority of content is being created in this new media landscape.

In June 2010, Clay Shirky participated in TED@Cannes wherein he spoke about cognitive surplus and its role furthering communal and civic value.

Digital technology has allowed human generosity and "the world's free time and talents," which Clay Shirky calls cognitive surplus, to combine and create a new form of creative expression.

Understanding where the economic or contractual motivation of a situation ends and where the social part begins, Clay Shirky claims is key when designing to maximize generosity.

Clay Shirky wrote an essay about the aspects of online community building through broadcast media.

Clay Shirky suggests five different things to think about when dealing with broadcast media outlets: Audiences are built.

In March 2011, Clay Shirky responded to questions raised by Evgeny Morozov about consulting he had done for the Libyan government.

Morozov tweeted "With Clay Shirky consulting the Libyan govt, it's now clear why dictators are so smart about the Web".

Clay Shirky explained he had been invited in 2007 to speak in Boston to Libya's IT Minister.

Clay Shirky identifies the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 as a law that was able to delineate between sharing with your friends as being legal and selling for commercial gain as illegal.

Unsatisfied, media companies, Clay Shirky claims, continued to push government to create more sweeping legislation which would hinder any form of sharing.

On June 29,2012, Clay Shirky participated in Session 12: Public Sphere of TEDGlobal 2012.

Clay Shirky made the observation that many of the technological advancements in communication throughout history, from the printing press to the television, were heralded as harbingers of world peace yet ended up creating greater dissent.

Clay Shirky cites "The Invisible College" as an example of a group that was able to utilize this effect created by the printing press, via the scientific journal, to help launch the Scientific Revolution.

DVCS allows for "cooperation without coordination" which Clay Shirky states is "the big change".

Clay Shirky cites Open Legislation, a listing of legislative information from the New York State Senate and Assembly, as an early step in that direction.

The talk culminates with Clay Shirky posing the open question of whether or not government will transition from striving towards one-way transparency to mutual collaboration and suggests if it does, there is already a "new form of arguing" centered around DVCS to aid the transition.