Technology – Pike & Hurricane

The Politics of Video Games

Filip Zahariev — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 17:11:01 +0000

Many in the gaming industry have gone to great lengths to declare their products “apolitical”. A strangely reactive defense of a genre that has long sought to be accepted as an art form—few would deny that novels, movies, photography, all other art forms are inherently political. It’s not impossible to make art that is apolitical, of course; the result is most often bad art.

Doublethink

The great irony is, political statements are evident by the content of the games that most ardently push for an apolitical label. Look no further than Ubisoft’s The Division 2, a game about the socio-political fracture of the USA to the point of a second civil war (sound familiar?) that somehow “is not a game about politics,” according to creative director Terry Spier. Earlier in 2018, the same publisher had released Far Cry 5, another game about US society breaking down, this time in the state of Montana, and under the strain of religious fundamentalism. In the link above, PC Gamer had aptly described it as “ultimately toothless”; one imagines this a direct consequence of an unwillingness to examine any one political ideology for fear that it might alienate parts of its player base.

But then, Ubisoft’s development teams and the company’s management seem two very different beasts trapped in the same body. The company’s track in the politics of sexual harassment is even murkier, as became apparent over the summer of 2020, when some of the highest-positioned management staff were embroiled in a string of sexual misconduct reports; later, a survey at the company revealed that as much as 25% of employees at the French publisher had experienced some form of workplace misconduct. Industry critic Jim Sterling covered at length the extent of protection the company extended to these executives—for years prior to the breaking of the story.

Profit Trumps All

No one aware of it could forget Activision Blizzard’s kowtowing before the interests of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) when the company severely censured and punished Blitzchung, a champion player of their digital card game, Hearthstone. When the latter showed support for the 2019 Hong Kong protests going on at the time, he was banned from taking part in any Hearthstone championships for a year, and his championship prize of $10,000 rescinded. Blizzard’s explanation? Blitzchung’s statement had violated a tournament rule, which prohibits the player from engaging in any activity that “brings [them] into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image [sic].” If they only knew the amount of damage that move would cost them in that most valuable of intangible resources, reputation. The reaction was so fervent, it caused a rare bipartisan rebuke from members of US Congress in addition of turning large swathes of the Blizzard community against the company.

Yet, one cannot help but consider the dotted line—like any Triple-A company in the gaming industry, Activision Blizzard is eager to tap into the enormous gaming market that China has to offer; a market strictly regulated by the CCP, whose propaganda offices are all too happy to deny access to any studio that gives offence to the party. Though the revenue stream Activision Blizzard currently receives from the entire Asia Pacific region is dwarfed by both the Americas and the EMEA(Europe/Middle Eastern Area), it’s no petty cash by any means.

Ubisoft’s reason for claiming that apolitical label for games whose content is blatantly political in nature is similar—committing to one side of any political debate risks offending half the player base at a time of great political polarization.

What developers seem to struggle with is the notion that pointing a finger at a piece of art and proclaiming it apolitical does not automatically minimise the political thought inherent in that piece of art.

The latest offenders

Two topics have commanded the news cycle more than all others during these early months of 2021: COVID-19 and the insurgency at Washington DC in January. Certain game developers have managed to show remarkable aloofness in dealing with both topics. SCS Software, the developer behind Euro Truck Simulator 2 released a press announcement, which originally read “We Do Not Take A Stand Neither For Or Against Vaccines”. Later chalked up to a mistake in translation (the corrected statement read “No matter if you stand for vaccines or against them, these truckers still have to work really hard and we wanted to give them their well-deserved 15 minutes of fame”), this message was met with consternation by many—why would a medium-sized European studio feel the need to make so blatant a non-statement of political conformity? The answer can only be guessed at.

On the other side of the coin rests Six Days in Fallujah, a video game that portrays the Second Battle of Fallujah. It is also not political, if you believe Peter Tamte, head of the game’s publisher, Victura. Despite the game aiming to be a faithful representation of the fiercest battle of the Iraqi War, Tamte claims:

For us as a team, it is really about helping players understand the complexity of urban combat. It’s about the experiences of that individual that is now there because of political decisions. And we do want to show how choices that are made by policymakers affect the choices that [a Marine] needs to make on the battlefield. Just as that [Marine] cannot second-guess the choices by the policymakers, we’re not trying to make a political commentary about whether or not the war itself was a good or a bad idea.

The complexity of urban combat, one might suppose, itself has a great deal of political weight behind it. “Helping players understand” it in 2021 brings particular connotations to the fore, especially after what the world witnessed happening in the United States’ Capitol on January 6. Tamte exhibits the same wilful ignorance towards the wider context of politics as other executives do, a context which rests well outside of what is enacted by “policymakers”.

Politics reach further than well-kempt parliamentary buildings and senate floors. In an age where more and more issues are politicized, to be apolitical might seem a tempting prospect, a siren call to those too tired of the polarized climate across the public sphere. But attempting to faithfully render blatantly political situations in the format of a video game, only to stand apart from the messages that come with these is nothing if not dishonest and cowardly—and worth condemning.

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A game of chess at the Greek-Turkish border

Photo credits:

Wiki-background by Prachatai on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Hearthstone at Gamescom 2013 by Sergey Galyonkin on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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The Clash of the Titans – Public Figures against the Tech Giants

Julia Kavanto — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 20:17:53 +0000

President Donald Trump of the United States of America became the first president to achieve many things. He was the first US president to be impeached twice, and his administration was the first to declare that China was committing genocide on Uighurs, but now I am talking about Trump being the first world leader to be permanently suspended from Twitter.

Trump supporters stormed the halls of the United States Capitol on January 6th, and their agenda was to stop the inauguration of Joe Biden. Soon after the coup, Trump’s Twitter account was first suspended for twelve hours, and then for good, as he continued to violate the community rules of the platform.

Multiple social media platforms followed Twitter’s example and suspended Trump’s accounts. We are having this discussion because permanently suspending a person of authority is considered a threat to the freedom of speech. The concern is valid. The common social media platforms, especially Twitter, are crucial to the hectic politics of the modern world; it is there where the political debate is the most heated. So, is it right to suspend a political leader permanently?

What is freedom of speech? What is it not?

Freedom of speech essentially means that any individual should have the right to express their thoughts and feelings without fear of sanctions. The right is universal, so it applies to everyone regardless of status, race, religion et cetera. There is a limitation to it, though. Freedom of speech should not be exercised to harm. A very important question to this is that who decides when someone or something has been harmed. One would think that the person who is harmed decides if they have been harmed, but then there is the question of people who cannot reply or, for example, non-human entities like nature. Who decides for them?

Twitter decided for the people who were injured in the coup of Capitol. Five people died in the attack, and Twitter understood President Trump’s tweet on the 8th of January about not joining President Biden’s inauguration was an invitation for his supporters to be violent. Trump’s use of words was interpreted as violating the platform’s glorification of violence policy.

Yes, Twitter can decide, and they did right to protect American citizens from further acts of violence. However, this does not mean that there should not be a more democratic way to decide. The board of Twitter who presumably called the shot to suspend Trump’s account was not selected democratically, and should not, therefore, have the right to take away the freedom of expression, even from Donald Trump.

On the other hand…

The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny travelled back to his home country from Berlin where he was treated after having been poisoned in August 2020. Navalny was immediately detained upon his arrival on the 17th of January, and he soon posted a video on Twitter where he urged his supporters to “take it to the streets” because of his jailing. The protests were unauthorized, but successful, as the demonstration was organized in 100 Russian cities and there were 40,000 participants only in Moscow.

It is no surprise, then, that someone got hurt in the protests; Navalny must have known that the riots were unauthorized and would be met with violence. Videos show how the police are dragging people and using batons relentlessly. For the western democrat, it seems obvious that Navalny, Putin’s arch-rival, would not be banned for social media. That would be a victory for tyranny. But essentially, Navalny and Trump used Twitter for the same: for rallying supporters to protest against the government. It can be that Navalny’s tweets were not seen “to incite violence”, as Trump’s tweets were, according to Twitter’s blog post on Trump’s suspension. That, though, is problematic, that there is no universal guideline to fall back on.

Of course, Trump was not banned solely because of the tweet to join him on the 6th, but also because of the countless times he posted fake news on the platform. A certain president of Russia would argue that Navalny has also posted fake news, as the opposition leader recently uploaded a video to Twitter exposing Putin’s palace of corruption. Putin denies that the palace is his or any of his close relatives. The media in the United States seems to have agreed that Trump often tweeted lies. The same could be said about the Russian media breaking the news of Navalny’s accusations, as Pravda and Russia Today repeat Putin denying that the palace is his. American media agrees that Trump posted lies, and Russian media that Navalny posted lies, but the reception is very different.

There needs to be a universal guideline for social media usage, which states when a person has crossed the line of what is accepted. The board of directors of tech giants should not be the ones who decide who has the right to be heard. There are many questions regarding the universal guideline for social media that I am suggesting, such as who should be trusted to tell the truth i.e. who says what is “fake news”. Russian media argues against Navalny’s allegations of Putin’s Palace, but the allegations are still not put down by Twitter as lies.

Navalny joined the suspension discussion

Navalny himself responded to the suspension of President Trump negatively by saying that it “is an unacceptable act of censorship”. He says that Twitter’s decision to suspend Trump is based on personal political views. Therefore it can be said that the decision was not democratic. But does it even have to be in a private company? I think so, as they carry so much power in the public speech arena where freedom of speech is exercised. It is a slippery slope that Twitter has entered, as with permanently suspending Trump they open the possibility to suspend other people who do not follow the prevailing ideology. Silencing people is too great a power for any company to have.

No matter how much I disagree with Trump’s views, he, too, has the right to be heard. Imagine if Navalny was suspended. How radically would the Western world react to silencing the one figure who is against the all-mighty Vladimir Putin? In a democratic world, everyone needs to be heard, regardless of views. In a democratic world, everyone is treated equally, and with the universal guideline of social media usage, the same rules would be applied to everyone, regardless of power they possess.

Related articles:

Delusive Donald

The Social Network of Ethnic Conflict

Photo credits:

Tech/Book Special NRC Handelsblad, by Jenna Arts, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Freedom of Speech, by Vladan Nikolic, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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A Society of Control: The actuality of Gilles Deleuze’s thoughts in the 21st century

Franziska Fink — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 18:19:33 +0000

Eighty-eight years ago, in 1932, Aldous Huxley wrote his infamous dystopian novel, Brave New World. Huxley tells the story of a futuristic World State in which all citizens are constantly happy, as well as content with the social order. They have been conditioned from birth by an overarching powerful state apparatus to accept the role they have been assigned to. Injustices such as owning less than others or having to do dull work are thus not perceived as discriminatory, but rather joyfully accepted. Moreover, the citizens’ entire perception of reality and truth is generated and controlled by the state. Of course, the mechanisms of control are hidden away from the general public and are only known by a small elite of so-called World Controllers. They govern, respectively dictate, with the best intent, namely for the purpose of creating social stability by brainwashing everyone into happiness: “Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.”

Huxley’s World State shares many features with what Michel Foucault has termed a “disciplinary society”. Initiated by the systemic organization of vast spaces of enclosure, members of disciplinary societies can be constantly controlled as they move in between easily observable locations: from their home to school, to factories, possibly to hospitals and prison—all institutions that are placed under the state’s surveillance and, thus, subjects within those become easy targets to control. Foucault placed this kind of society in the 18th and 19th century, during a simpler time, when an ordinary person’s life probably did not entail more than going to school and later in life to work in a factory.

“I imagine Foucault terrified if he saw what kind of society we are living in nowadays.”

To people that have been brought up in a liberal democracy which cherishes plurality of opinions and ideas, this form of societal and political organization seems, unsurprisingly, repellent in its entirety. Not being able to express, not even being given the chance to develop, one’s own understanding and opinion of how our society should look, appears a drastic deprivation of fundamental rights.

I imagine Foucault terrified if he saw what kind of society we are living in nowadays. A society so complex and so intertwined with technology, yet nonetheless so young in regard to the proliferation of that technological hegemony, that there are simply no mechanisms in place that has the capacity to control these novelties. Yet, quite the opposite seems to be the case: We live in a society of technological control, so far-reaching that not even the godfather of this theory, Gilles Deleuze, could have imagined it.

“In contrast to Huxley’s World State members, people in our post-modern society of control are not controlled through psychologically conditioned beliefs, but rather trough the mechanisms of the “bubble” in which they move.”

While the individual in a disciplinary society was placed in different institutions of control, the contemporary individual living in a control society is in constant modulation, Deleuze states. With our phones, laptops, and tablets always within a short distance, we are constantly coerced in various forms of communication. On the one hand, this has triggered a new form of global interconnectedness and awareness. The revolution in information and communication technology spread power to the masses by creating a unique global space for human development. Local events can now instantly trigger global consequences, grassroots movements like Fridays for Future are only one telling example. Nevertheless, this new space can also be used for destruction.

In contrast to Huxley’s World State members, people in our post-modern society of control are not controlled through psychologically conditioned beliefs but rather through the mechanisms of the “bubble” in which they move. These are characterized and nourished by determinants such as our social environment, socioeconomic status and educational background, but also by our virtual interactions.

Our own personal truth and material reality is subsequently generated by algorithms which constantly provide us with the type of news we would like to see; disinformation and fake news determine election outcomes and people become more prone to conspiracy theories and dangerous movements.

“What is already clear, is that we will not end up with the benefits which the members of Huxley’s World State enjoy.”

What is unique about our contemporary society of technological control is that it appears as if there is no all-encompassing political agenda behind all of this. Of course, the technology is used by different political groups to realize their interests, whether this is done through the spreading of fake news about their opponents or through the hacking of foreign elections. But the ones who essentially developed—and are in charge of managing powerful and influential platforms like Facebook or Twitter—the actual puppet-players, seemingly have commercial benefits as their basis of interest, in contrast to sound political goals. The World Controllers imagined by Huxley or the ruling elites of disciplinary societies, exercised control predominantly for control’s sake. Yet, nowadays, thanks to the egalitarian mechanisms of the internet, everyone has the potential to become a powerful player and to use this control in their own interests. This automatically creates a kind of virtual anarchy, in which the means for control does not resonate with its ends.

Since this development is still so young, it is too early to predict how it will unfold. What is already clear, is that we will not end up with the benefits which the members of Huxley’s World State enjoy. Facilitated by a totalitarian state, they gain social stability, a great sense of community and a strong group identity. But they nonetheless pay for it with their rights of individual development and active political participation. In contrast, the post-modern version of Deleuze’s society of (technological) control in which we find ourselves, accelerated exactly these facets; it also makes us pay for it, in turn, with data, privacy and the complete dependency on our phones and laptops.

Neither of these alternatives sound too attractive to live with. What to do? After having discovered the perversion of the system in which he lives, one of the protagonists of Brave New World dealt with his newly gained knowledge by leaving civilization behind and fleeing into the woods. Sounds intriguing? Yes, but let’s all promise not to do a live-Instagram story of the beautiful sunsets we will find.

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Photo credits

Artificial Intelligence – Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Artificial Intelligence 2 – Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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The Risks of Space Trash

Gerard Rodon — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 19:14:18 +0000

Have you ever wondered what the earth will look like from space in 100 years?

Perhaps you imagine a Pale Blue Dot, or an Earthrise. I would bet that for most of us, the Earth looks pretty much as it is today. The solitary home of all humankind, half suspended in the darkness of it’s own shadow.

I bet you don’t imagine it will look like a house-of-mirrors version of Saturn, with rings made of supersonic space trash spinning on different axes around our collective home. But according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), this may be the Earth’s fate.

In fact, the world is already beginning to look like this. There are 4857 satellites in Earth’s orbit according the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (probably the coolest UN department on the planet. (pun very much intended)). Of these 4857 satellites, 2877 are now non-operational. And therein lies the issue. There are 2877 large and extremely expensive pieces of trash going roughly 7 kilometers per second around the earth.

The only reason you can read this is because of the ever growing network of satellites, whizzing miles above your head and making the modern world of Emojis, GPS, time zones, and talk shows possible. The underlying infrastructure of the digital world just so happens to be suspended in space where it might just crash into now defunct parts of itself. What’s worse, when it does inevitably crash, it makes a real mess.

Thousands of tiny particles of ex-satellite go off in every direction and continue to move at supersonic speeds. This summer, an astronaut aboard on the International Space Station (ISS) had to plug a hole that was created by small particles of space debris from leaking air with his finger before using more advanced methods involving duct tape.

Growing Interest and Risk

The number of satellites launched each year keep increasing. But the good news is that there has been research and legislation on this problem for decades. NASA has recognized this as far back as 1995 when it published the first Orbital debris mitigation guidelines. This led to some governmental interest first by the US, then other countries like Japan, Russia and France, and the European Space Agency, eventually leading to adoption of protocols on debris mitigation by the UN in 2008. These days any states or companies that want to launch a satellite have to have a plan for bringing down the satellite within 25 years. But all the while, space is getting more profitable as private companies see huge opportunities. Investment in the sector totalled $8 Billion between 2012 & 2017.

Smaller states like Laos, Ghana, and Finland are also joining the party. Space launches are a source of international prestige, as well as a good way of fostering interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. So as demand for satellites keeps going up, supply of available space keeps getting smaller. Before 2009, all recorded orbital collisions had been between satellites and these small pieces of debris, but then a deactivated Russian Military Satellite crashed into an active US communications satellite above Siberia, creating 2000 new pieces of debris to fly off into random orbits. Even small particles can cause a lot of damage when they move at 7 kilometers per second. And collisions only create more particles, which create more collisions…you see where I’m going with this.

So along with those 2877 intact but defunct satellites, there are 21,000 objects measuring 10cm in length, and half a million particles less than a centimeter in length. None of this you want to touch anything valuable or expensive, like a functioning satellite. It is a wonder of engineering, navigation, and luck that we can get anything at all off the ground and into space through this terrifying killer cloud of space trash. The problem is only going to get worse as more satellites are launched into an increasingly congested and perilous place for satellites to be, making the likelihood of collisions ever higher. This problem was given a name back in 1978; Kessler Syndrome. The increase of objects sharing low earth orbit could eventually reach a threshold that sparks a domino effect of orbital collisions.

Worst case scenario: we trap ourselves on earth, unable to safely launch anything into space, not to mention collectively finding ourselves suddenly back in 1959, technologically speaking. The implications are hard to even imagine, a sudden collapse of the global communications system could ignite who-knows-what kinds of geopolitical trouble.

Space Trash Disposal

Currently, disposal happens by nudging defunct satellites back down towards earth which either burn up in the process or land in the satellite graveyard, a remote area of the South Pacific in between New Zealand and Chile. Alternatively, satellites can be pushed higher up into an unused orbit. But this only deals with the intact satellites that can be remotely controlled. We still need to deal with the cloud of deadly particles, so scientists are thinking up solutions to clean up space, involving all the most science-y stuff (Lazers, magnets, Space harpoons…).

Orbital Weapons systems, like those promoted by Reagan and Trump are also a terrible idea if you want to keep space tidy due to their enormous size. It is also pretty obvious that if we started a shooting war above the atmosphere, it would make a big mess. In 2007 China drew international condemnation by creating thousands of pieces of debris by blowing up one of its own satellites to demonstrate its anti-satellite weapon system. With the likely growth of space tourism within a decade, it is becoming evident in the infant private space sector that it is in everyone’s interest to have space be safe and debris free.

Space has always given me a childlike excitement. I share the hopes of the late great Stephen Hawking that humanity can, and must, spread out from its home. Going into the unknown, achieving more and creating a better future. This is the has been the hope at the edge of all frontiers. But time and again it has been short sightedness, tribalism, and the tragic greed that lead to failure, cruelty, and injustice.

If space is too deadly or expensive or big to explore, I wont mind. But if we lock ourselves on earth by basically littering, then it’s just too sad to be funny.

by Gerard Rodan

Photo Credits

NASA Johnson, iss046e043433: CC BY-NC 2.0

NASA

iss027e008683, NASA Johnson, CC BY-NC 2.0

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What’s that app doing?

Ryan Campbell — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 15:59:22 +0000

Fake news is prevalent in our society today and we find it on almost every platform, from social media, to television news, to presidential campaigns, and most of the time it seems harmless. But what if it is not? What if a text message you have received has the potential to be dangerous, or even lethal? What would you do with that message? How would you react? Would you kill?

The Trust Issue

When information originates from trusted sources such as a family member, a friend, or even government officials, it becomes hard to question its validity, as you trust its source. This is especially true when the information we receive validates our opinions, prejudices, or even the fears we may hold about a particular group within or aspect of our society. We seek to confirm our biases and it provides us comfort in knowing that we are not alone in what we are thinking about or noticing in our communities.

This trust, this satisfaction we find in the information we choose to consume, makes the dissemination of information, and even misinformation, an easy task across social media platforms, where an immense amount of information congregates. Fake news can often be harmless, such as a video showing a commercial airliner doing a barrel roll during a typhoon, or a shark which appears in almost every hurricane, to the more disturbing such as the allegation that a Washington D.C. based pizza restaurant was a front for a child sex ring ran by Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats. Fake news, however, can be a lot more dangerous, even deadly.

The Rumors

Over the past few months, mobs, driven by misinformation spread on the popular messaging service WhatsApp, have killed multiple people in states across the Republic of India. The communications in question targets the fears people of any community hold: suspicion of outsiders and that of having your children taken. The rumors spreading on WhatsApp alerted people to the fabricated threat of outsiders entering their area with the intention of abducting children, killing people, or even harvesting organs.

The popular messaging app, with over two-hundred million users just within India, allows for messages and video/audio clips to be shared without any indication as to its authenticity or origin. India is WhatsApp’s largest market and with the price of smartphones and internet data decreasing annually, that market is only going to expand. The rumors even spread from WhatsApp to local media stations where they took on a life of their own. This, alongside the ease and pace as to which information can be shared, and with the general lack of education about the dangers of sharing false information, contributes to the problem India finds themselves in today.

So What Happened?

In May, a family of five was driving in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to visit a temple; they were lost however, and asked for directions. This raised the suspicion of the locals, suspecting them of being child traffickers, and eventually the family were greeted by a mob who took them out of their car, stripped them naked, and beat them. Soon, sixty-five year old Rukmani was dead, the others close to it, and forty-six people were arrested.

This story is not unique. Nearly two-dozen people have been killed, and many more injured in this manner across India over the past few months, and these killings are not just limited to villages, attacks have even happened in major tech hubs and cities, such as one example in India’s third largest city Bangalore.

Some of the messages attributed to the killings were videos, one of which appeared to show a man on a scooter kidnapping a child. From the outside, the video appears to be exactly what the rumors have been describing: a man abducting a child in a public street. However, this video originates from a Pakistani public service announcement about the dangers of child abduction. The video ends with a message stating that in Karachi, Pakistan, three-thousand children go missing annually and urges parents to be vigilant to ensure the safety of their children.

The version found on WhatsApp however, was edited to remove the concluding message and leaving only the video of the mock kidnapping. Without the clarifying message at the end it is easy to mistake the depicted event as an actual kidnapping and when the video is shared with a message indicating that this is happening nearby it can be persuasive. The messages and clips that are received, may or may not reflect reality, and with no safeguards within the app to determine the credibility of information received, not much can be done to determine the authenticity of the message.

What Can be Done?

Discovering the origin of these false and potentially dangerous messages is no simple task. The end-to-end encryption that WhatsApp was built on makes it difficult for authorities to determine where these messages originate. If authorities join WhatsApp groups, such as was the case in Balaghat, a district in the state of Madhya Pradesh, they may be able to determine who broadcasts such messages and make arrests. But often, this is not the norm.

In an attempt to counteract the spread of dangerous misinformation, WhatsApp have taken a number of steps aimed at educating the public and limiting the spread of false information. Two blog posts from July, posted on WhatsApp’s website, indicate two tools that the company has implemented to help curb this issue: limitations on forwarded messages and indicators on forwarded messages stating that the messages you received were indeed forwarded. This is done to urge users to consider the validity of the message before sharing it with others. WhatsApp also removed the “quick-forward” button that would appear next to messages containing any form of media. This is expected to help curb the spread of fake news as users in India forward more messages than users in any other country.

Authorities in India are doing their best to educate the public about how to discern what is false from what is true. Police have been taking to the streets, handing out flyers, holding town meetings, and even speaking to students, all in an effort to urge the public to be skeptical of what they may come across online. WhatsApp themselves recently have taken out informational ads in leading Indian newspapers both in Hindi and English. In some areas, the Indian government even shut down the internet at times in attempts to quell the flow of misinformation and WhatsApp even offered a $50,000 USD reward to anyone who can come up with a solution for this problem.

However, these are all just temporary fixes to a larger problem. While many things can be done to improve the app, it is not fair to place all the blame for these events on WhatsApp, for on the other side of these messages are real people who decide to create and distribute this information. This points to a larger societal problem that cannot be changed by some alterations to the app’s policies or code. Change needs to occur which dissuades people from wanting to produce misinformation in the first place, before it is spread. If those people are reached, then WhatsApp, Indian officials, and the general public have a chance at preventing its spread. In the meantime, think before you share a post.

By Ryan Campbell

Photo Credits

WhatsApp, Senado Federal (CC BY 2.0)

Angry Mob, Dalibor Levíček (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Screenshot WhatsApp, Ryan Campbell

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The Social Network of Ethnic Conflict

Nikhil Gupta — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 15:59:14 +0000

Social media is a place where you will find anything ranging from a passively nihilistic moth meme– to rallying people into committing violence. The latter is slightly more concerning. How does one go about drawing a line here? Surely, social media platforms extend a certain responsibility when it comes to controlling hostile and potentially life threatening content…right? Let’s take a closer look at how the use of Facebook can be a dangerous prospect in some countries.

The Coveted Torch of Information

In a typically democratic and well-developed country- the responsibility of filtering and distributing information is bestowed onto the industry of traditional journalism. Clearly, such a responsibility is no joke and there are conventional standards set to uphold the integrity of this industry. The journalist is, for instance, required to be objective and unbiased. In this regard the press is referred to as the 4th estate, and its freedom is essential to maintain democracy. The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) substantiates this through statistical research and have found that a freer press is an integral part of freedom.

Such a status quo has encountered a post-millennial, generation Z problem. The press has been using long-established, traditional media platforms such as TV broadcasts, radio and newspapers. However, the world is changing. Social media platforms have been – either knowingly or unwittingly – competing with these traditional media platforms over the coveted torch of information. The former makes the audience its nucleus, whereas the latter puts the audience in a passive position- Nobody likes being told what’s what!

Information Rivers and Floods

An exponential rise of social media platforms has accelerated the flow of information in the world. A vast amount of information is available to us at our utmost convenience. The catch here is that its independence means that there are no conventional standards of filtering this information. Consequently, the combination of an information overload and convenience can be disastrous. This is mainly because the traditional media has been heavily undermined by the so-called fake news epidemic. The gimmick here is that people don’t like being told what’s what on the one hand – but ironically on the other hand resort to dubious sources of information that confirm their pre-existing biases. This can be observed in the watershed cases of the presidential elections in the US, and Brexit.

If the impact of misinformation via social media on countries with an established political structure and a 4th estate is this high, then what about misinformation in countries without such a system? In the cases of Myanmar and South Sudan, misinformation and hate speech spread across Facebook have contributed to ethnic conflict.

Dark Side of the Coin

I remember being immensely fascinated and inspired by my friend who participated in the Egyptian Revolution. People – in absolute solidarity – rose up against a despot in a revolution that inspired its neighbors to muster the courage and follow suit. The role of Facebook for Egyptians evolved from a place to vent into a platform to organize protests and rallies. However, Facebook was a mere tool used by Egyptians in a cause that was already echoed in the country. In the words of Professor Henry Jenkins, “We do not live on platforms, we live across platforms. We choose the right tools for the right job.” The dark side of the coin here is that false information circulating around Facebook can be misinterpreted as truth.

In Myanmar, for instance, Facebook is often seen as ‘the internet’. This is unsurprising when you realize that half a decade ago, Myanmar was one of the least connected countries in the world. In 2012, only 1.1% of its population had access to the internet. However, in 2013, the price of mobile SIM cards dropped from over $200 to $2 due to the deregulation of telecommunications. This led to a majority of the population to purchase SIM cards with internet access. Around this time, Facebook went viral and soon was considered a status symbol. In essence, people resorted to this social media platform for daily information.

The flipside is manifested in Buddhist extremists that circulate hate speech against Rohingya muslims. In 2014, a Muslim man was rumoured to have raped a Buddhist woman, and this information spread like wildfire on Facebook. Upon reading this on extremist Buddhist monk- Ashin Wirathu’s public page, people did not question the legitimacy of the information by searching for evidence. Instead, it resulted in a riot of people that ultimately ended with two people dying.

Facebook and ‘the Enemy’

Myanmar has, in recent times, been scrutinized by the international community over cases of multiple human rights violations against the Rohingyas. According to Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), casualties are a shattering 10,000 deaths. Facebook is used as a tool by influential individuals to paint a picture of ¨an enemy¨ according to their arbitrary bidding. They have no journalistic responsibility to relay an unbiased truth. Instead, misinformation is used for the pursuit of power by the manipulation of a vulnerable people. I know, sometimes, the truth hurts.

Feeling unnerved yet? Well, it gets darker. It seems political vulnerability and Facebook’s openness have more in common than you thought, as a similar dynamic can be seen in other countries. South Sudan’s on and off civil war has left its 4th estate in shambles. Information isn’t relayed through the metric of objectivity, but as a tool to rally for the war effort. Berlin based researcher Stephen Kovats notes, “Linkages between social media, and word of mouth, and ending up with a gun in the hand or a machete, those are fairly clear.”

The logic is painfully straightforward. Unity is good for the cause and anger is a powerful fuel that unites. Someone finds a gruesome image of people killed in an unrelated war. Regardless of its truth, it is spread around Facebook with the claim that the enemy had a hand in it. The resulting anger creates a larger divide between the two factions and in the case of South Sudan, takes a racial context. In 2016, a UN report concluded that “social media has been used by partisans on all sides, including some senior government officials, to exaggerate incidents, spread falsehoods and veiled threats, or post outright messages of incitement.”

Accountability to the people

So how did this come to be? Surely Facebook must have a protocol to deal with hate speech and life threatening misinformation. The truth is that it heavily relies on users reporting the hate speech for it to be flagged and ultimately removed. However, there exists a massive problem in translation. The main languages of both South Sudan and Myanmar are in a different text and Facebook is severely understaffed in both countries to have the resources to deal with these intricacies.

In the case of South Sudan, Facebook is not equipped to recognize certain offensive discourses and there are several terms used commonly in South Sudan that go under the radar. For instance, the term ‘kokoro’ is a derogatory term used to describe people that eat too much. However, in a social context it is used to refer to the Dinka tribe in an offensive manner. Similarly, the term ‘ber’ is used to address people who do not associate with either tribes and must, therefore, be killed. In Myanmar, discourses such as ¨if its kalar, get rid of the whole race¨, and ¨just feed them to the pigs¨ are circulated on Facebook.

The truth hurts because Facebook has it all backwards. While Mark Zuckerberg has officially acknowledged these concerns, attempts to rectify this are frankly not enough because countries like Myanmar and South Sudan are nowhere near Facebook’s list of priorities.

What now?

So in a nutshell, Facebook’s prioritization of incessant expansion abroad has left the social media platform vulnerable to being a breeding ground for violence. In an attempt to expand their business, they managed to become ever-present in countries where its omnipotence has, albeit as a bi-product, resulted in a monopoly of information. This monopoly is unfortunately used for misinformation.

What can be done to change this? The main focus should be raising awareness to people in these countries about misinformation. I believe that this is a calling for the industry of journalism to evolve from the use of not only mass media, but also to be equally active and prevalent in social media. If people are -from a position of convenience i.e. social media-made aware of legitimate sources of information, it could save lives.

Related articles:

Ashin Wirathu: One Man Triggering Ethnic Conflict

Lessons Learned from Chapel Hill

Photo Credits

Ayeyarwady Bagan, Yoshitaka Ando (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Facebook Translations, Marco Bardus (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Information, Rosalyn Davis (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Myanmar: Urgent Humanitarin Needs in Rakhine State, EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Myanmar’s Rakhine State: different realites of displaced, confined and resettled communities, EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

South Sudan, Steve Evans (CC BY-NC 2.0)

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Information Overload

Eligija Rukšytė — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 15:58:21 +0000

Lying and misinterpretation. These are the things you think of first when you hear the concept of misinformation. However, if you take a different approach it could be said that misinformation does not come from being dishonest, but rather from an excessive amount of information.

Media Expansion

A few decades ago the main sources of information were written papers, radio and television, but over the years, the concept of news has expanded. Now they involve new media creating content and new meanings. Not only is there traditional literacy, but digital too. All information that is present can be digital at any time. People are becoming more involved in creating literacy, which can be a source of information for others.

Since the earlier days when the printing press was the dominant medium, only those who had access to it had the power of the written word, but now most people can spread their ideas freely. Today, organizations, politicians and other important people have social media accounts which gives citizens an opportunity to ask them questions directly, and to complain or share their concerns. Through this new open space of discussion, more opinions are put out without restriction or fact check. Moreover, with visual language being involved even more information is being provided. An infographic from WebDAM states that posts with added gifs, pictures, videos or even emojis get higher engagement than text-only posts. Overall, with the speed of life that society is functioning in nowadays, everyone is a participant of this information culture.

The whole concept of using different methods to communicate and share ideas on the internet has its own definition called netspeak. Cambridge Dictionary describes netspeak as “the words, abbreviations, etc. that people use when communicating on the internet”. With the help of new media technologies, there are more and more people who create literate content on social media, blogs, chats, comments, and articles every day.

How do we select useful information?

All the information we consume comes from various sources and in different forms and with even more comments and ideas attached to them. Back in 1990, Professors Michael McKenna and Richard Robinson introduced a concept of Content Literacy, which means the ‘ability to use reading and writing for the acquisition of new content in a given discipline’. This skill allows to provide material for the world daily. A study done by Dr. Martin Hilbert and his team at the University of Southern California shows that now, with 24-hour television, internet, and mobile phones, we receive five times more information every day than in 1986. Due to this, people could get easily misled. The only way not to get caught up with this information madness is to be knowledgeable about it.

Paul Gilster, the author of the book “Digital Literacy”, has said in an interview that digital literacy must be more than the ability to use digital sources effectively; it is a special kind of mindset or thinking. Literacy affected by new media could have multiple meanings behind it. Now that literacy also involves visual aspects, there are endless possibilities to understand text. People can interpret content transferred through technologies (TV, films, magazines, newspapers, games, internet, mobile phones, etc.) however they want to.

It can be hard to keep up with all information if we do not choose to analyze what we read. Political parties or high profile politicians usually use the help of professional writers to make their official statements, while some make ordinary post on social media. That way, after you read it or hear it, you might think the way it was purposely intended for you to think. Thus, it is really important to identify what information people can be relying on, otherwise choices could be influenced by the authorities. Over the years, the same concept of content literacy has changed and Professor Barbara Moss describes it as ‘Content area literacy is a cognitive and social practice involving the ability and desire to read, comprehend, critique and write about multiple forms of print ’. Therefore, content literacy is the ability to create information, but also a knowledge of how to find different meanings, intentions behind it which is a way to select useful material and not to get caught up with too much information.

Digital natives and digital immigrants

This digital era, which brings us a massive amount of information daily, is not new for everyone. Digital natives, or people who were born in an age of technology, are already closely familiar with new media and digital literacy. They are already able to use different media channels, create content, understand meanings behind different text and has skills on writing in digital world. However, there are digital immigrants to whom all these new ways of viewing content was brought up as they were older, which means they are still adapting, learning to have essential skills in order to create the right content or select useful information. Since more people are born in the technology world, the generation gap between these groups is decreasing.

Since new ways of receiving information are created every day, for new generations, it could still become difficult to stay updated. As a result, there is a possibility to have a big generation gap which prevents technologies from developing and that would stop new media and literacy from processing, because new mediums would not be created. In a case like this, misinformation could develop another concept which comes from the generation gap.

Mastering the (Mis)Information Overload

Information and the audience who are reacting to it, are a powerful tool which can change opinions or even actions. This means that with this big amount of content that we receive daily it is essential to be digitally literate and to understand news your own way. In order to progress and to be more open to the world, we should not be trying to stop ourselves from receiving information but rather gain abilities to recognize different meanings and intentions behind it. Misinformation or information overload only happens when certain knowledge, skills are not applied.

By Eligija Rukšytė

Pictures

by Freepik

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Mis(sed) Information: Who killed Father Christmas? We Did!

Julia Glatthaar — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 15:58:00 +0000

Did you know that Christmas was banned in Berlin in 2013? And have you heard about that time when immigrants looted a Christmas tree in a Western shopping center? No? But surely you must know about the Swedish law that bans Christmas lights to avoid angering Muslim refugees. Still not ringing any Christmas bells? No? That is because all of these bizarre headlines constitute a part of the fake news that are cursing the internet and our minds. However, fake news and alternative facts are not the only way in which misinformation spreads.

Today when you are enjoying the beginning autumn, and the first Christmas ads are popping up in the stores, we will discuss how news get to us, and why every one of us is affected by misinformation. This article is not about weird Christmas headlines, but about the headlines we don’t read.

Net neutrality

In order to talk about missed information, we need to clarify, how certain topics reach us. And net neutrality, a lovely alliteration, is the means which should provide us, the internet users, with neutral and unbiased search results. However, search algorithms are shaped by and based upon our personal search history. Therefore, it often happens that some information, and not only cat videos but at times very relevant information, slips through the world wide web.

So, when we look something up, different websites are ranked by both google search algorithms as well as by our personal preferences. And, as all of us know, nobody looks up the search hits on page 36, right? Moreover, more and more people use social media as their primary news source. Since you actively shape for instance your facebook news feed, you actually end up with narrow and single-minded stories. Hence, a lot of information will never reach you.

Prioritisation and Missed Information

The same goes for TV news and newspapers, since they need to prioritise the news in order to cover what they deem to be the most important information. Different shows and newspapers are made for a specific audience, catering towards their backgrounds and political preferences. That way the same event is reported in different ways, or events are not reported at all.

Additionally, a study by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) on local newspapers claims that the vast majority of the news was essentially repetitive with less than 20 percent of all news actually containing new information. And even if you do look at a variety of sources, your personal bias influences the types of news you look out for, actively remember and act upon. For instance our so called “negative bias“ makes us hear and remember mainly bad news.

Father Christmas Is Still Alive

Everytime fake news that made their round on public or social media are debunked, there is an outcry of indignation. Who could have known that no Christmas tree has been set ablaze on purpose? Who could have known that Christmas is still legal? We should have bought some decoration after all! And why would anybody knowingly spread these lies in the first place? What can we do? Yet, as you know now, there are much more subtle mechanisms through which bias is introduced into our daily news consumption. And Father Christmas might be still alive after all and is waiting on page 36 of google.

By Julia Glathaar

Photo Credits

Wanted: Santa Claus, Kevin Dooley (CC BY 2.0)

Net Neutrality, Free Press Action Fund (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

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Call of Duty: Reality Edition—Is It Easier to Kill with Drones?

Nina Kolarzik — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 13:49:20 +0000

Morality and ethics have always played a major role in human history, especially when it comes to fighting for survival. How far would you go to survive—what actions are justified? The questions remain the same over time, but the emergence of new technologies, such as drones, leads to new ethical considerations in warfare. In medieval times the use of crossbows was banned (against Christians), because it was not considered to be knightly or honourable to kill that easily from a distance. A similar discussion emerged in recent years over the use of drones. An independent researcher and wing commander for the Indian Air Force, Dr. U.C. Jha wrote in his book Drone Wars –The Ethical, Legal and Strategic Implications that, “[the] killing of a selected individual or a group through the use of drones while sitting in a safe zone […] is against the principle of chivalry”.

Multiple Critics of Drones

Drones are seen not only as a big technological step, but also as big change for legal and ethical considerations, as the British academic in security questions, Shima D. Keene, describes in Michelle Holloway’s edited book Drone Warfare: Ethical Explorations. From an ethical perspective, there exist many critical aspects on the use of drones in warfare. Dr. Jha discusses a plenitude of them, including the physical and emotional separation of the operator and the battlefield, the question of responsibility and collateral damage, and the peculiar aspect of drones; the target will never be able to see the operator of the weapon.

Keene describes, how some people make their judgement depending on whether the consequences of using drones are better or worse than with conventional weapons. Others see them as generally bad. One of the main criticisms asserts that the use of drones is morally reprehensible because of the (emotional) distance between the operator and the battlefield. This issue which is surrounded by an international moral and legal debate will be the target of this article and most likely, of many more discussions to come.

Warfare as Video Game?

According to Keene, the critical point is the so-called “push button warfare” or “PlayStation mentality”. It relates to the psychological consideration on how the physical distance from the battlefield influences the operators’ psyche and behaviour. That includes the willingness to take risks but also the making use of the weapons. Some even say, that the mutual threat to the lives of combatants gives them some equality in the use violence. However, this does not exist with drone pilots, as Dr. Jha points out.

The main problem that this article looks at (and that Keene and Dr. Jha dealt with) is how war becomes impersonal: the distance of the operator makes them target an enemy quicker, as it is easier to see the opponents not as humans but only as targets. The drone pilots do not experience the real situation, but rather only have a digital image of it, which can desensitise and physically and emotionally disconnect the pilots from the full impact of their actions.

This disconnection can make violence and moral misjudgements more likely. The operator is in a situation that is too similar to playing a war-themed computer game which is why it is feared that they would also kill as easily as people do in video games. A drone pilot admitted, as cited in Holloway’s book, that hunting of a target with a drone “can get a little bloodthirsty. But it’s … cool.” Other pilots deny strongly that flying a drone would feel like playing a game and say that they are very aware of the impact of their actions.

Dr. Jha mentions another aspect of the problem, in terms of employment: since the most important thing for operating a drone is technical proficiency, it is feared that civilians who are not trained according to the military code which involves moral guidelines, get increasingly employed. They could act in a “PlayStation mentality” manner, as they would not have a soldier’s experience when it comes to the possible impact they may have.

Deadly Consequences

In Pakistan, a giant art installation in the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa [see the artwork here] attracted attention. The installation portrays a girl from the region, who became an orphan when her parents were killed in a drone attack. It lays on a field to be best seen from an aerial perspective—a perspective through which drone operators see the land, too. The intention behind the artwork is to raise the awareness and empathy of the operators towards all the victims, survivors and the attacked regions. Drone strikes lead to a variety of civilian casualties, many of them avoidable. In Pakistan alone, more than 1000 civilians were killed by drone strikes, over 300 of them were children.

A common critique of drones regarding the morality of their use in warfare is that through the physical distance the drone pilot also develops an emotional distance to the events, as if he or she played a real-life computer game. This affects the pilot’s moral judgement and decision-making. By looking at the long history of warfare, drones can be said to still be a new practice. We will have to see how the discussion develops in time. Some drones are already flying without an operator—not armed ones, but who knows when that time will come. To push this problem off from the wrong course, we need to participate in the moral discussion from today onwards.

By Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credits

Photo 1: Soldiers learning how to operate the Skylark drone, by Cpl. Zev Marmorstein, CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo 2: “Predator Drone”, by Marc Buehler, CC BY-NC 2.0

Photo 3: “Drone-007”, by Ville de Nevers, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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Masters of War—Bypassing Morality

Merle Emrich — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 08:25:47 +0000

Rheinmetall—a German arms producer, bound by regulations of the German state and international agreements. In theory, arms deals and moral values are balanced out. Yet, the devil is in the details.

Built to Destroy

Let us leave aside the question if military production and arms deals can ever be morally right. Let us assume that a balance between humanitarian values and arms deals can be achieved through (inter)national regulations, and that that is as good as it gets. Now, let us take a look at Rheinmetall and how these regulations are supposed to work.

Rheinmetall is a German, internationally active company which, aside from car parts, produces military equipment. In Germany, arms exports need to be permitted by the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA), and in special political cases even by the Federal Security Council, which limits Rheinmetall’s export options. Usually, weapon exports to countries that are involved in conflict, or that are likely to be involved in a conflict soon, will not be approved. Through these regulations exports, especially to countries in the Middle East, are supposed to be limited if not prevented entirely. But how come bombs produced by Rheinmetall are used in Yemen’s civil war? How come the UN had to stop a Rheinmetall export to Iran?

Running Gun Blues

What would a regulation be without any loopholes to bypass that very regulation? In the case of Rheinmetall, the loophole takes on the form of production abroad. Having production locations in, for example, Italy (RWM Italia) and South Africa (Rheinmetall Denel Munition), allows Rheinmetall to sell military equipment to countries that the German government does not permit exports to.

In regions with high unemployment rates, such as Domusnovas on Sardinia, Rheinmetall’s subsidiary company RWM Italia is a welcomed source of employment irrespective of possible moral considerations. In October 2016, organisations, such as Human Rights Watch, reported that Saudi Arabia had used MK 83 bombs in Yemen. These bombs had been produced in Italy by RWM Italia. Even though it is questionable whether the export of bombs to Saudi Arabia is reconcilable with Italian law, RWM Italia was able to go through with the deal due to an unclear allocation of responsibility. While Germany sees the responsibility for export controls on Italy as it is the country of production, the Italians argue that RWM Italia is Germany’s responsibility since it is part of Rheinmetall, a German company.

In South Africa, the situation is a similar one. Since 2008, Rheinmetall has a joint venture (RDM) with Denel, a South African aerospace and defence technology company. Rheinmetall profits from South Africa’s less strict export regulations and can thus bypass German export controls. In 2017, Denel planned to sell surface-to-air missiles to Iran that supports the opposition fighting Yemen’s government which is supported by Saudi Arabia. The propelling charges for these missiles are produced by RDM. Had the UN Security Council not stopped the export, Rheinmetall would have been part of arms deals with two opposing parties in the civil war in Yemen.

Through subsidiary companies and joint ventures abroad, Rheinmetall is able to bypass German regulations on arms exports. This way, military equipment produced in, for instance, Italy or South Africa reappears in countries such as Saudi Arabia which is involved in the civil war in Yemen. It is thus not merely national restrictions that are bypassed, but regulations that have a specific, and very important, purpose: the prevention of weapons being delivered to conflict zones and to governments with a disregard for human rights. All legal considerations aside, this is a matter which is highly morally questionable.

A Matter of Habit

Arms production and the following arms deals always drag along moral questions. They are a balancing act on a thin rope between humanitarian values and profit, and not only profit of the weapons producer but in form of increasing employment through arms companies. Countries such as Germany try not to fall off this metaphorical rope by placing restrictions on military exports—even though some decisions regarding arms deals remain controversial. And yet, companies such as Rheinmetall are able to bypass these regulations—to bypass morality, one might say—by moving production locations abroad where there are less restrictions or where responsibilities are not clearly defined. Thereby, they turn the moral balancing act into a one-legged spectacle that, while being profitable, is hardly going to de-escalate conflicts.

By Merle Emrich

Photo Credit:

Panzerhaubitze 2000, Tobias Nordhausen CC BY 2.0

Child in Ruins, Felton Davis CC BY 2.0

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