41st Edition – (Mis)Information – Pike & Hurricane

Hitting the (Pay)wall

Maya Diekmann — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 16:00:22 +0000

Everyone loves Spotify. And how could you not? The concept of listening to whatever music you feel like, whenever you feel like it and however much you want to for a fixed monthly fee has become so popular that the number of worldwide subscribers has skyrocketed over the past few years – from 15 million paying subscribers in the beginning of 2015 to almost 83 million subscribers as of June 2018. Spotify is just one of many popular content players that show the willingness of consumers to pay for quality content – something that many newspapers have been struggling with over the last few years in their attempts of making digital profitable.

Building a Wall

With a decrease in advertising revenues, newspapers are forced to reform their digital framework. Offering online articles for free is no longer an option, yet the alternative of charging monthly or annual fees doesn’t seem too appealing to the readers. And how can you blame them? Ever since the first newspapers started publishing online, almost all articles could be accessed free of charge. Absurdly enough, people have no problem paying to buy a printed newspaper but paywalls usually cause dissent if not anger among readers. The alteration from freely accessible to paywall protected articles does not necessarily make it easier for newspapers to consolidate their position in the digital business.

Paragon New York Times

One of the forerunners regarding profitable transition from print to digital and the implementation of paywalls online is the New York Times (NYT). Out of their 3.8 million subscribers, 2.9 are digital only. The newspaper’s digital success can be traced back, among other factors, to a high level of engagement with their audience. Using customer data, the NYT strives for a better understanding of potential subscribers and their behavior towards the newspaper. With what frequency do readers visit the website? What articles do they read and what measures can be taken to make them more engaged to ultimately become paying subscribers?

A series of studies conducted by the Media Inside Project reveals readers’ motives for becoming subscribers. Among the findings is the relevance for certain preconditions that will eventually lead to subscription, such as a degree of interest in news and even more so the accuracy of news that social media often fail to provide. The final ‘hop’ over the paywall is prompted by so-called ‘trigger factors’ which can be a certain incident – a famous example is the ‘Trump-bump’ – but more commonly a promotion or a free trial.

Measuring audience engagement is at its core simple and effective, especially on the highly competitive news market. Newspapers can no longer rely on the readers coming to them but they have to meet them—three quarters of the way. Overall, focusing on subscribers certainly is a more sustainable approach to making digital profitable than trying to maximize clicks—a concept with the inherent risk of the proliferation of headline sensationalization. However, a marketing concept based on circulation revenue also entails risk, especially with regards to newspaper content.

Creating Content

Said risk comes with applying analytics to create popular content. If customer data shows a high popularity of sport articles, a strategy to increasingly cover sports is not far-fetched. Yet, such a direct response can be tricky. According to a 2017 article of the Guardian, the newspaper’s most popular article since 2010 with nearly 4,000,000 clicks deals with Edward Snowden’s activities as an NSA whistleblower. In 2017, the Economist’s third most popular article revolved around the world’s most dangerous cities and the New Yorker’s most popular piece was on the sexual assault accusations against Harvey Weinstein.

This should not in any way imply that coverage of these topics is unimportant. However, a general trend of the popularity of articles related to politics, crime, and celebrities and a following ‘over-coverage’ can be observed. Rather than letting customer data dictate topic coverage, analytics should be used by newspapers to allocate resources to content which is not as popular to make it attractive to more readers.

Quid Pro Quotability

Readers traditionally hold a key position when it comes to the success of newspapers. This makes sense: as a journalist you can invest an immense amount of time and money into researching and writing an article but in the end, if no one is buying the finished product, you will not survive in your profession.

Perhaps the most important aspect to consider in the newspapers’ ongoing struggle for digital profitability is not to grant too much power to the reader. There is no doubt that subscribers play a vital role in the fight for survival, but rather than making the audience a content tyrant, newspaper-reader relations should be a symbiosis where in return for keeping the industry alive, newspapers provide authentic content with an added value that is worth paying for. The added value to be received are the factors of professionality and truth – something of great importance in a world of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’.

Busting the Paywall

Content-wise Spotify and online newspapers are two entirely different worlds, yet their marketing concept is pretty much identical. However, while the music streaming service seems to be perceived as the invention of the century, which listeners are more than happy to invest their money into, newspapers are struggling to gain a foothold in the world of subscriptions. For now, paywalls act more than anything as a deterrent. But the human being is a creature of habit, and time will tell whether subscription based news is a sustainable concept for digital newspapers. In the end it all comes down to people’s willingness to award the same value to authentic news as they do to good music.

By Maya Diekmann

Photo Credits

Paywall, Sofiya Ballin

new york times, samchills, CC BY 2.0

Newspaper readers, Dmitry Dzhus, CC BY 2.0

Related articles:

Information Overload

Online Advertisement – an Outdated Business Model?

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A Stark Case of Propaganda

Merle Emrich — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 16:00:20 +0000

When we think of propaganda, we often think of posters urging the nation’s citizens to join the war efforts, or we picture it as a manipulating instrument of totalitarian regimes. But what if propaganda is James Bond’s oldest gadget? What if it is a glitch in Iron Man’s suit?

The lights flicker, then die, and the curtains open. The darkness of the screen is illuminated by the headlights of a car. The image is blurred by falling snow but slowly a dark figure emerges. He waves and the car stops. Two men get out. “Are you the guys from Washington?”, they are asked. They begin to walk away from the car, discussing a huge object that has been discovered in the ice. Once they have reached the site and cut a hole in the surface of the buried object it is ready to be explored from the inside. The blue-tinged light of torches flashes over snow and metal. Then one of the explorers’ torch light falls on something else. He kneels down, wipes away the snow and the frost. And there, under a layer of ice, wearing stars and stripes lies what – or rather who – is described by some, such as director Luc Besson, as a perfect example of modern US propaganda.

It’s A One-Way Street

But before we unleash the argument of whether the pop culture we so love is propaganda, let’s clarify what propaganda is. Usually, the term ‘propaganda’ evokes images of an authoritarian or totalitarian regime, such as the Third Reich, the USSR or North Korea, manipulating its people. Yet, this association is like a film trailer that shows you all the best scenes leaves you with a sensation of disappointment as you walk out of the cinema. It is not entirely wrong, but neither does it show the whole picture. While totalitarianism is, more often than not, accompanied by propaganda, it is by no means a necessary requirement for the use of propagandistic strategies.

Propaganda, in a nutshell, is biased or misleading, if not entirely false, information that is systematically spread to promote a political doctrine, aim or world view. Whether it comes in the form of posters, propaganda films, fake news or memes, propaganda is often aimed at leading the audience into a one-way street of information, or towards one particular opinion that is produced and reproduced again and again through creating a ‘funnel of information’.

How Bowie Brought Down the Berlin Wall

New York Times columnist David Brooks expressed his conviction that art can bring about social and political change through ‘deep spiritual and emotional understanding’, and that the world can be changed ‘by changing people’s hearts and imaginations’. And surely, anybody who ever felt inspired or moved by a novel or a film will agree that pop culture can have a mimetic effect on its audience, and that it is therefore plausible that our entertainment media can provide fertile ground for propaganda of varying subtlety. Yet, while almost everything we do is in some way political or has an effect on politics, not all of our actions are based on political intentions. It is true, there are political elements to the stories of Star Wars, Captain America and the like. But are they a form of propaganda, or is it merely entertainment that borrows from political reality? Well, we will get to that later.

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate pop culture’s propagandistic merit and political impact is by pressing rewind to rewatch the Cold War. The Cold War was without doubt an ideological conflict. Due to its nature it seeped into almost every aspect of life, including books, film and music, enabling culture to be used as an ideological instrument. Sergei Eisenstein’s films burst with Communist propaganda, while Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels propagate anti-Communist ideology and the films, according to novelist and former spy John le Carré, promote Capitalist ‘consumer goods ethic’, and portray the comfort and prosperity of the West in contrast to the debt-infested Soviet Union.

During the 1950s and the 1960s the CIA sponsored artists such as Pollock, Rothko and de Kooning to showcase Capitalism’s freedom and creativity, and the BBC’s adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four was applauded by a number of MPs as a commendable effort of bringing ‘home to the British people the logical and soul-drenching consequences of the surrender of their freedom’. Meanwhile, Whitehall convinced the BBC not to broadcast The War Game, a film about the aftermath of a nuclear attack that showed scenes of British soldiers burning corpses and people clashing with the police during food riots.

Towards the end of the Cold War Western pop culture, and in particular British music had become a symbol of freedom, fun, self-expression and modernity. One event that illustrates this, is a concert that took place in West Berlin in 1987. During a three-day rock festival David Bowie played on a stage right next to the Berlin Wall. Rumor has it that some of the speakers were deliberately turned towards East Berlin. If this is true, we do not know, yet, what we do know, is that during an interview in 2003 Bowie remembered that there ‘were thousands on the other side that had come close to the wall. (…) And we could hear them cheering and chanting from the other side’. In the middle of the concert he addressed the people in East Berlin, saying : ‘We send our best wishes to all our friends who are on the other side of the wall’ which was followed by ‘Heroes’, the birthplace of which was the divided Berlin. Meanwhile, many of the East Berliners had begun to chant ‘The Wall must fall!’. It was the first of many riots of a heightened level of intensity and led to more than 200 arrests.

A Marvel-ous Example of Propaganda

Let’s leave the past in the past, and resume our story. Not long ago director Luc Besson criticised the Marvel and DC franchise of being US propaganda. He depicted Captain America as a tool to show the US’s supremacy and greatness. And while Besson’s assessment was met with a thunder of criticism of Asgardian proportion, it is undeniable that the origin of Captain America resides in the propagandistic endeavour to bolster US support and morale during World War Two. And this is only the prequel to the debate if Marvel and DC are the mouthpiece of propaganda.

It is not uncommon for the Pentagon to support pro-military blockbusters. The opportunity to rent military equipment is given on the condition that the Pentagon approves of the film script, or even has influence over it. Naturally, the films receiving the Pentagon’s support portray the military in a positive light. Among these are all Iron Man films, about which Air Force captain Christian Hodge said that upon release the ‘Air Force is going to come off looking like rock stars’. The Avengers, on the other hand, were considered too silly to be eligible for the privilege to rent equipment from the army, in addition to the Pentagon not approving of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Yet, both in the production but in the story of Iron Man itself we can find content that makes it difficult to dismiss offhand the claim that there is propaganda within the Marvel and DC universe. Not only do we find the creation of an enemy image – in the 1960s Vietnamese Communists, nowadays Middle Eastern terrorists but a fascinatingly consistent reversal of actions that creates a contrast between fiction and reality.

On screen we can watch Tony Stark being captured by members of an Islamist organisation who try to force him to build weapons for them. Tony Stark, however builds an armour suit that allows him to escape and return to the US where he perfects the suit and teams up with the military to beat the evil that threatens the US’s freedom and security. Yet, it was actually the US military that captured al-Qaeda and Taliban members in Afghanistan and exposed them to ‘harsh interrogation techniques’.

Iron Man. That’s kind of catchy.

While the prequel to the discussion about propaganda in the Marvel and DC franchise is still in the making, and the debate continues whether our beloved and admired superheroes are mouthpieces of propaganda or mere innocent pop culture, we cannot dismiss the linkage between pop culture and politics. No matter if pop culture borrows from political reality, acts as social and political criticism, or is (mis)used as propaganda: whether it functions as mimesis and catharsis, or purely is entertainment, we cannot refute its usefulness in passing on propagandistic doctrines, as well as in making moral claims and holding a mirror up to nature. And just as we perhaps should carefully evaluate what we call propaganda, we should approach the entertainment served to us with a sharp and critical mind.

By Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Propaganda, DocChewbacca (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

IRON MAN… or is it?, Chris Blakely (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Iron Man 2 Trailer 2 – 00242, Daniel Sempértegui (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Captain America, Sara Zizza (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

L’Odéon, Alexandre Chassignon (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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The Box (Poem)

Amanda Bujac — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 15:59:36 +0000

Hello there! We’re glad to see you,Make yourselves comfortable, folks,

It’s us, your old and trusted friends,

The voices from the box.

Together, we’ve been through a lot,

Those football nights and tears of joy,

Your children love the magic box,

So does that silly wife of yours!

It’s been a long day, it’s alright,

Worked at that shitty job till late,

You hate it from the depth of heart,

But those bills ain’t paying themselves.

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The telescreen.

Please calm down your exaltation!

You will never again struggle with finding your remote,

‘cause there is only one channel, and you just can’t turn it off! ♫ ♫

We have so much news for you,

Brought from all over the globe,

You don’t have to leave your house,

Just free your mind and listen close:

The world is a dangerous place,

We have foes and we have friends.

Friends have money, foes have bombs,

And sometimes they change their roles.

Our president is best

at explaining who is who,

As he says,“no one knows

the game better than I do”

“China we love. Israel we support.

There is no Iraq, it’s not a country at all.

With Russia we’re cool. North Korea beware.

They keep doing threats on us,

I bomb the hell out of them.

Mexico is not our friend.

Mexico is killing us.

Mexico is raping us.

Therefore I should build a wall,

It better be f***ing tall.

And don’t worry, ‘cause, you see,

No one builds walls better than me.

I’m concerned about the country.

The country simply goes to hell.

The American Dream is dead,

I’m lifting it from the grave.

Know that I will bring it back,

Stronger than it’s ever been,

The country will rebuild itself

So fast your poor heads will spin.

See,

no one is better at the military than I am,

No one knows the system better than me,

No one knows taxes better than me,

No one knows trade better than me,

No one is stronger than me—

We are,

We, people,

We are

–

Knowledge is power.

You have your eyes to see.

Preserve clearness of mind.

Turn off your TV.

By Amanda Bujac

Illustrations

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For Whom the Bell Tolls

Vladislav Kaim — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 15:59:31 +0000

September 2018 marked the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers that triggered the most destructive financial and economic crisis of the last 80 years. One of the most powerful US investment banks at the time collapsed in a handful of days. Meanwhile, not long before its filing for insolvency on September 14, leading credit rating agencies confirmed AAA rating for it. In fact, they attributed top rating to a walking corpse, whose assets were well overrated.

Digging a Grave for the Banking Corpse

Two people knew about the real state of affairs : Ben Bernanke -then head of Federal Reserve System – and Jimmie Dymon – CEO of JP Morgan – who was offered to take over the bank with so many problems. They preferred not to provoke panic but also had no option other than to bury this banking corpse. As Bernanke himself recognized, being already a fellow at Brookings Institute, saving Lehman Brothers on behalf of Fed either wouldn’t be legal or feasible economically.

However, a majority of the population didn’t bother to analyze what was happening to the investment bank. Living in an economic upturn that lasted without break since the end of recession in 2001, they were busy investing in main sources of wealth available to them – their houses. Two giants in the mortgage sphere – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – were creating new financial products that made houses available for those who in normal conditions would never allow a mortgage themselves. To cover the risks, they started issuing new bonds – credit default swaps (where seller assures the buyer that the latter will be paid in event of a default) and collateralized debt obligations (where in a event of the default holder of the obligation was given the collateral – house – as compensation). House prices were soaring. Not a single bank in the US collapsed in 2006-2007. Meanwhile, the most important “consumer” of new financial instruments was the bloating balance sheet of Lehman Brothers.

Professional market participants didn’t know where all this conjuncture would lead. Watching growth in all the most important indicators, they were unable to detect any ‘canaries in the wharf’, which led to a phenomenon called procyclical bias. Basically, banks and regulators were fooling themselves into thinking that the upturn in economic cycle would be here for long, and investment opportunities would be available for many. The choice of many was investing mainly in real estate. And no one bothered to ask themselves how they would repay the loans or how their bank would avoid collapse because of high exposure to new opaque bonds once house prices would start to fall.

The Great Recession

Everything changed on September 14, 2008 (in fact, though, first alarms were triggered in autumn of 2007). Six years of reckless credit expansion followed, which was an unstoppable destruction of wealth, called the Great Recession. Anger and anxiety of the people who realized they had been fooled about their future started spilling over the world, because the lies didn’t stop there.

On both parts of the Atlantic, states predictably were under significant pressure to save the ‘command heights’ of their economies i.e. main financial institutions and industrial giants. Special strain was put on Eurozone economies significantly dependant on foreign capital inflows and growth of construction industry – Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. Their debt-to-GDP ratio skyrocketed, and the trust of markets eroded which was reflected onto higher yields . Soon the moment of reckoning came, and they had no one to appeal for an effective bailout rather than IMF, ECB and European Commission.

What followed remains the most egregious episode in the history of economic misinformation in the EU. In 2009, the then head of Greek Statistical Agency Andreas Georgiou refused to breach European best practices in the field by refusing to present inaccurate data of the Greek economy to the public and the European Commission. The politically appointed board of the institution insisted on submitting lies in order not to provoke fear of markets and the people. Georgiou was dismissed. The data was presented. However, the authorities were caught lying anyway.

Ironically enough, soon after trying to use manipulative data to show their (in fact, inexistent) strength, the Greek government used Georgiou’s accurate accounts to ask for a bailout from the Troika (ECB, IMF, EC) in 2012. Yet, in return, the statistician himself received a conviction for breach of trust, upheld by Greece’s highest court. This episode shocked the markets and European authorities, showing how shaky the foundation of trust in the Eurozone was in times of turmoil as in 2009-2012.

To the Grassroots of the Issue

More and more people are reconsidering their political allegiances in favor of populist parties because of their unresolved economic anxieties. What can we, then, make of the fact that governments are reporting with fanfare about exiting the recession and accelerating growth? Why is it not felt at the grassroots level? The most probable response to that, is that current metrics to present the state of national wellbeing are becoming more irrelevant and thus misinforming.

GDP was a great invention that in the time of the catastrophe of 1930s simplified economic discourse for the general public. But with growing economic and social inequality, and growing importance of factors other than material wellbeing it is time to reconsider. Stubbornly sticking to traditional toolkit of communication of economic data to the people will be met at least with indifference, if not with anger. Policymakers need to realize that just stating that the economy is growing is not enough if people don’t feel it in their pockets. Thus, publishing data on how the fruits of this growth are distributed among income quintiles would be prudent. As soon as scientists have more access to government data, they would be able to make the necessary conclusions and present them faster to the public.

In a post-GDP world, the indicators that would matter the most would be fairness of distribution, availability of jobs, progress in healthcare etc. People want to be sure that their children will live better lives than them, but this is not the case momentarily. Being fooled with false promises during both economic upturn, and Great Recession, they are perfectly right to demand new evidence, new measures and new accountability. The price of kicking the can down the road is the bell that tolls for democracy itself – plunging the world in a second iteration of ‘brown plague’ of neo-fascists born with disdain towards any evidence-based policy- and decision making.

By Vladislav Kaim

Photo Credits

Graph With Stacks of Coins, Ken Teegardin (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Historic Moment: the Fall of an Empire – 25 SEP. 2008, Alane Golden (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Huge Euro Symbol – Frankfurt, Germany, Chris Goldberg, (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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Lost in Translation

Nina Kolarzik — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 15:57:42 +0000

Walking through Malmö, you can hear a mix of different languages. The same counts for international congresses, parliaments, round tables, etc. Did you ever think about the information you miss out on because you do not understand the people’s native language. Of course there is the possibility of translation, but what if information and meaning gets lost on the way?

Lost in Translation – What does “I am Groot” mean?

Imagine you live in a country with a centuries-old arch enemy as your neighbour. There exists no open conflict, but they are not far away from that. Then, at a conference, diplomats exchange some highly sensitive sentences. It is a fine line to walk on because they want to appear strong, but not aggressive. The problem is that depending on the context, different translations exist for most words.

Thus, to a certain extent, there is always an interpretation that comes with the translation. What can happen is that one diplomat hears from his interpreter a translation, where a critique sounds more like an insult, intentionally or not. And suddenly the two countries are at war.

It sounds like an over-exaggerated script of a bad movie, but I can imagine it becoming reality. It shows the responsibility and power of translation. We all know of examples in the political history of the world, where few words had a significant impact. If you nail it down, words are the essence of politics. And since international politics takes place in dozens of different languages, one may wonder how much the differences between those languages matter. Some words cannot be exactly translated into other languages. Some meanings might be slightly different. Sometimes the translator might not understand the exact intention of the speaker.

Unnoticed, but Decisive

Because we all are simple human beings, mistakes may happen when translating. And just as a snowball can become an avalanche, one incorrect translation or transcription could make a big difference. For example, some historians argue that the slight changes Bismarck made when he gave the Ems Dispatch to the press were responsible for the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.

Usually, the translators and interpreters who work in high positions of politics are not really visible. Their work happens during and in between an international discussion or negotiation. Their task is to enable negotiations and not to record them. The task of translators and interpreters in government services is to equip diplomats with the ability to communicate, negotiate, as well as pass on information to all parts of the world. As an outsider you do not notice the huge significance their job has. But the significance is undeniable since in today’s world politics people with hundreds of different native tongues come together to communicate.

The difference between a translator and an interpreter in this context is, that a translator works with documents that they translate after they are produced, while an interpreter translates simultaneously during a negotiation, so that participants can follow a debate in real time.

Putin, Trump and the third person in the room

It was a politically remarkable meeting of the Presidents Putin and Trump in Helsinki in July this year. It was an unusual situation, that the two state leaders met for more than two hours without anyone else in the room. Usually, when there is a meeting on this level of importance, with this special relationship, there are always some other persons present: aides and official note takers, etc. This time, there were only the two state leaders and their translators in the room, which puts public attention and a level of importance on the translators that they may not have experienced before and triggered some debate about the value, responsibility and right of information.

Since Trump is not exactly known for giving out trustworthy information, many American politicians see the only chance to get reliable insights on what happened in the meeting in the US interpreter Marina Gross . US Congressionals requested her to testify concerning what the two state leaders were really talking about for hours. That caused a loud outcry and fierce debate about what the duties and the rights of translators are.

Tinker Tailor Translator Spy?

The whole community of translators and interpreters got worried about their status as an apolitical “extension of the principal”; somebody who is just there to give the possibility for the politicians to speak to each other as they would if they spoke the same language. Humaira Peroz, an International Relations student of MAU and UF Head Program Coordination, who works as a translator for Språkservice and Tolkresurs, explains the ethical code of the Swedish Kammarkollegiet she has to follow: “We basically have no individual presence during our working hours and are supposed to be a “tool” with no human reaction or emotions”. This ethical code includes that translators are: “‘bound by the strictest secrecy” when they are hired on a high political level, “which must be observed towards all persons and with regards to all information disclosed in the course of the practice of the profession at any gathering not open to the public’” (article 2 of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) Code of Professional Ethics for interpreters in diplomatic roles). They compare themselves to doctors or priests, who also vow to treat the information they receive confidentially. Some call them “James Bonds of the linguistic world” to show their secretive importance.

If Marina Gross testifies it could be used as a precedence and no statesmen would ever use an interpreter at that level again, when they know that the confidential information they are dealing with could be revealed. That is what Republicans argue for. It is feared, that diplomacy in itself would be threatened. However, Democrats point out that the public has the right to know, what the meeting was truly about. So far the state department and the justice department protected translators in legal cases from having to testify. But it has also never happened before that in such a meeting no official note-taker was present which makes the situation new and difficult for everyone.

As the New York Times formulates it, the origin for the politicisation of the translator’s is the mistrust in President Trump. Eventually they were able to agree on at least revealing Gross’ notes from the meeting. Despite the ethical questions, the practical issue is that interpreters’ notes are taken for simultaneous translating and not for keeping record. They are taken in a personal shorthand for the short-term memory of translating something in the situation of the moment—they are useless for anyone else and interpreters often cannot make sense of their own notes later anymore. Their ethical code can limit translators “from taking actions in situations where you normally would take a stand”, says Humaira Peroz, “but while one is working it is difficult to know what’s appropriately right or wrong”.

So, what does “I am Groot” mean? – It’s up to you…

What do we conclude from that? That a big deal in world politics is about knowledge. About knowing the truth. That this is not an easy thing to figure out. Many of the stages, information goes through, we do not even see or notice. And we can barely reveal all the influences, that alters information before it reaches us. Think about the news, about when you cannot understand the original because the news interpreter talks over it: how does the image of a situation change through the translation people hear? How differently do we judge happenings depending on the amount and type of information we get? How differently do we understand things within a conversation, on the basis of our different native tongues. How much can meanings be altered through translations?

All these are questions we do not ask ourselves often but the issue has a bigger importance than we might think. So this is my message for you: question and trace back the information you get!

By Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credits

“Flags at the UN”, by http://www.worldislandinfo.com/ (CC BY 2.0)

“Language, Learning, Books” by Oli Lynch (CC0 1.0 Universal)

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China and all things ungood

Oliver Ösmark — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 14:57:21 +0000

Something is amiss in China. It has become a place that is the proof every paranoiac dreams of. Flocks of robotic doves surveil, and concentrate over, regions home to suppressed minorities. One of China’s most prominent movie stars is missing since 1 July after allegations of tax evasion as well as earning a 0 out of 100 on an annual “Social Responsibility Report”. Abusive crackdowns on religious practices have intensified and declarations that religions in China need to be “Sinicized” and have their foreign influence purged have been put into action; Muslims are banned from letting their children attend religious activities and are being forced—an estimated 1 million people—into “reeducation” camps; Catholic churches have been forcibly vacated and leveled by bulldozers; authorities have put up QR codes on homes in minority communities and employ high-tech mass surveillance systems, such as biometrics, artificial intelligence, phone spy ware and big data, and encourage people to spy and report on each other.

Chinese democracy

In 2014, China’s State Council formulated a plan for the implementation of a Social Credit System. This system is set to be fully standardized by 2020. The system is set to assess citizens’ and businesses’ economic and social reputation, or “credit”, where the score is based on a combination of factors drawn from thousands of items of information collected from nearly 100 government agencies—among these are medical, financial and legal records.

Ant Financial, the finance arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba, launched a product called Sesame Credit in 2015 that was China’s first effective credit scoring system functioning as a loyalty program but also as a social credit scheme. Scores are increased by so-called “positive acts”, such as paying bills on time, engaging in charities, separating and recycling rubbish, obeying traffic rules and, in some places, donating blood. A wide assortment of benefits can be reaped with a high Sesame Credit score—ranging from 350 to 950—such as no-deposit apartments, bicycle rentals, favorable rates on bank loans, free gym facilities, cheaper public transport, shorter wait times in hospitals, more matches on dating websites.

The government has clearly taken an interest in this. For example, the Chinese Supreme court shares a “blacklist” of debt defaulters and punishes them by lowering their Sesame credit scores. The courts can also introduce a recorded message on mobile phone numbers to strongarm them into paying their fines; when someone calls one of the debtors they first hear a recorded message telling them that the person they are calling has been put on a blacklist.

The harsh consequences of a low credit score are vast and serious. Millions of people have already been blocked from buying tickets for domestic flights. People who have refused to carry out military service have been barred from enrolling in higher education. People who buy too many, and spend too much time playing, video games; engage in excessive splurging or posting on social media; or—unknowingly or deliberately—spread “fake news”, can all have their internet speeds throttled. Public shaming of blacklisted citizens is also a common practice online, with several provinces taking this to the next level by using TV and LCD screens in public places to expose people. This “IT-backed authoritarianism” is unlike anything seen before.

The stories we [they] tell ourselves

Today, access to inexhaustible amounts of information has made it difficult to know where to turn to for credible news. A survey conducted in 2017 showed that 67% of Americans reported that they get at least some of their news on social media; with 20% doing so often. Of these, 45% get their news from Facebook. Facebook is known for categorizing users by political preference. Such data has been used to manipulate people and tip the scales in elections and referendums by specifically targeting people with misinformation customized to fit their profile; Cambridge Analytica was reportedly involved with the pro-Brexit campaign and Trump’s 2016 US presidential campaign. And it works.

Almost all aspects of people’s lives in China are monitored and recorded by the State. No one, who is a registered citizen, is anonymous and content is spun so that it falls in line with the sensibilities of the Communist Party. Much like how the news feeds of Facebook are personalized based on a person’s past clicks and like-behavior—effectively tailoring news stories to your biases and political leanings—China streamlines information by elimination, and this goes beyond online social media and into everyday life.

With the Chinese State’s monopoly on media distribution, it has become a case of where the exclusion of diverse sources of information and perspectives is the standard. Where liberty is concerned, disobedience and public dissent are constitutive. The freedom of the press and the state of a functioning free democracy are known to be strongly correlated. When dissidence and access to free, reliable media are heavily suppressed, the resulting vacuum becomes breeding ground for propaganda, falsehoods and hearsay.

The Agonist

George Orwell wrote in his essay “The Freedom of the Press” from 1945, “The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.” If one doesn’t know, or can’t know, what one doesn’t know, how susceptible do we become to the whims of those who would abuse their power? The glaring and perhaps demoralizing response to this can be met with yet another question: Who, then, is best equipped to carry the burden of proof? With the proliferation of misleading or completely fabricated information disguised as news distributed and shared on a mass scale, the role of the independent news institutions becomes even more important. If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. Even if it’s dangerous.

Related articles:

Your Privacy on Sale – the Commercial Spyware Market

Photo Credits:

Surveillance Cameras, Jay Phagan (CC BY 2.0)

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