For some reason, today everyone seems to be talking about what's wrong with the Internet. It started when Peg Syverson kindly forwarded me this Andrew Keen's piece in the Weekly Standard, in which Keen essentially argues that Web 2.0 is a terrible idea because it allows anyone to generate and distribute content. When there's no bar for entry, Keen argues, you get a bunch of amateurs producing music, video, political analyses, and so forth, and the organizations that are responsible for gatekeeping, filtering, and developing talent will collapse. Keen cites Plato's Republic in his argument for a more elitist media, which is not surprising, since Plato was quite elitist: not only did he want to kick poets out of the Republic, he also wanted to bar democracy. After all, when there's no bar for entry into government, you get a bunch of amateurs producing policy, laws, political analyses, and so forth.

Jeff Jarvis responds with a blistering critique of the article, pointing out the recurrent problem of elitism: that it always seems to hew to the standards and interests of the elites, no matter how much they claim that it's for the good of the people. I don't think that Jarvis has read Latour's critique of the Gorgias, but if he did, he'd probably find himself nodding in agreement.

Along the same lines, Andrew Sullivan picks up the theme by pointing out two articles predicting doom for the blogosphere. Again, the criticism seems to be focusing on the idea that when everyone has an outlet, the resulting noise becomes intolerable. Sullivan, of course, thinks that the idea is ludicrous: most writing is transient, and what's wrong with that?

In keeping with the theme, OpinionJournal's Brian Carney interviews Newt Gingrich, whose newest idea is just blogtastic in its effort to leverage the Internet for collective decision making:

"They should change the House rules so that any conference report that comes back is automatically filed on the Thomas system [the Web site where congressional actions are logged and made publicly available] and is not voted on for 72 hours so that every blogger in the country can go in and read it. That would immediately cut down on the most outrageous stuff because you wouldn't be able to pass it."

These stories all reminded me of a great article that was published on Suck.com almost exactly seven years ago. It begins:

Want to know the only band that matters anymore? You won't find it in the Billboard 200. You won't find it on MTV or in the pages of Spin or XXL or URB. And it's certainly not at Tower or Sam Goody's. But enough with this less-than-suspenseful suspense - after all, you already know what the answer is, right? The only band that matters is Big Poo Generator. Or Gox Blamp. Or Poingly. Or any of the thousands of other bands now offering their music for free at MP3.com.

The rest of the article is stunningly un-prophetic: the author contends that it's impractical to try to sell music online because so many middling bands are giving it away for free. But then again,

Sample a dozen random tracks from MP3.com and you'll quickly realize that the model doesn't really work; someone has to filter the music for you, and whether it's Interscope, Tower Records, KROQ, GoodNoise, or Rolling Stone that ends up fulfilling this function online, the reward for such service will be the temporary rent of our eyeballs and eardrums.

In other words, the model that the author proposes is to regard songs as commercials for the actual product: the band. And the gatekeepers can remain the same elite as long as they embrace that model. Seven years later, it looks like other gatekeepers have taken over. To put it bluntly, the gatekeepers have lost our trust; now we don't "give" our trust to institutions and personalities, we regard it as an ongoing achievement, and we want to poll as many people as possible (ratings systems) or get detailed personal accounts. Why on earth would I trust Interscope to filter my music choices? Why would I trust CBS News to select and vet my news, given their track record?

Keen wants our trust. Let's meet him partway, borrowing from one of the Weekly Standard's favorite people: Trust, but verify.