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The Wrong Way To Weaponize Social Media
BorgiaPope writes "NYU's Clay Shirky, in the new issue of Foreign Affairs, calls the US government's approach to social media 'dangerous' and 'almost certainly wrong,' as in its favoring Haystack over Freegate. The Political Power of Social Media claims that the freedom of online assembly — via texting, photo sharing, Facebook, Twitter, humble email — is more important even than access to information via an uncensored Internet. Countering Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker, Shirky looks at recent uprisings in the Philippines, Moldova, and Spain to make his point that, instead of emphasizing anti-censorship tools, the US should be fighting Egypt's recent mandatory licensing of group-oriented text-messaging services." Only part of Shirky's piece is available for non-subscribers, but Gladwell's New Yorker piece is all online.
What are we going to do, make fun of the Taliban until they all go emo and commit suicide?
Borgiapope's summary misses the point of both articles. In fact, the two authors are largely in agreement- it takes a well organized and disciplined group to organize change. Social media isn't enough by itself, although it might be useful as one tool among many in such an organization and it might be able to create an environment in which such an organization can flourish. If you accept these conclusions then you pretty much have to agree with Shirky that a policy focused on the short term exploitation of social media to effect quick change isn't the smartest strategy for US foreign policy. I don't think that Gladwell would disagree with that at all.
Well, there are limits to this for good reason. Less because of reality, more because of how people work and think.
If I go ahead and spread, anonymously or pseudo-anonymously (by pretending to be someone or inventing a few people), lies about you, slander you and ruin your reputation, while at the same time cross-referencing it all to myself (my alter-egos) to make it appear credible, I can essentially and quite successfully ruin you. "igreaterthanu is a pedo". Let's repeat that a billion times for the next month or two, make sure your neighbors get copies of your face with that allegation, drop your name into the various hysteria spreading pages that don't even bother to check once whether any allegation is true and reference to that page... I bet your rep is down the loo quite fast.
I with the solution was just to educate people to not believe every bull and hype they run across, but I guess neither media nor government would have any interesting in that kind of education, so I'd guess it's a bit of a lost cause.
If you have any idea how to prevent this from happening, I am all for total anonymity. Also because I essentially agree with you, if it wasn't for the slander problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Doesn't have to be the government, even. Social stigma or private organisations can be oppressive too. Would you like to openly advocate for a cause, if it meant the risk of protestors setting up outside your house or harassing you and your family? Or your employer deeming you an embarassment to the company and fireing you?
I work in a school. Chances are I'll work in another school. I even used to work in a catholic school, and may do so again - finding work is hard, I won't turn down a position just because I don't agree with the school's religion.
I hate the catholic church, believe all religion is just a mixture of superstition and obsolete social codes, enjoy pornography and advocate for abortion rights and the use of contraception online.
I value my future employment, and know that employers like to google on candidates. I'll use my real name when that church's hell freezes over.
And if you are in the south all it will take is ONE preacher in the right place to say "bennomatic is a baby killing bastard!" to not only completely destroy your business, by making sure not a single person in the community will do business with you, but if there are any fundies that are say...a few bubbles off of plumb? Well lets just say I hope you own a gun or are able to throw away everything you have worked for and start anew somewhere else.
It is NEVER the popular speech that we need freedom of speech for, it is the unpopular. By tying everyone's words that they say online to an individual you have just "Disneyfied" speech on the Internet, because to dare to speak out or advocate anything that is any any way unpopular would simply be too risky.
For a perfect and topical example, look at the "pro pedo" Amazon book. The man who wrote it is currently sitting in prison for writing a book. Sure it is a tasteless book, but it is still just a collection of thoughts on paper and as such no more offensive than Mein Kampf or Mao's little red book, which I would actually classify those two as more offensive seeing is how we can attribute 80 million plus dead to those. What amazed me was the discussions I saw were VERY heavily in favor of free speech, pointing out that it is ALWAYS the speech the public does not agree with that needs to be defended, less ALL speech be degraded into nothing but a chorus of the masses.
But how many of those would have actually came out for free speech if tomorrow there would be a sign at work that says "John is for protecting a kiddy fiddler!". You can be rest assured with the mob mentality going on now anyone who said anything but "string him up!" WILL lose their job, and could even be faced with violence. Or look at how the librarians had to fight to protect the right to check out books with anonymity, because some feds decided "Cather in the rye" equaled "terrorist that needs investigating"? Do you REALLY want a USA where you can not be an advocate for anything without wearing it on a T-shirt?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.