DEAR INTERNET: IT’S TIME TO FIX THIS MESS YOU MADE

http://www.wired.com/2016/08/open-letter-to-the-internet/

• AUTHOR: WIRED STAFF.WIRED STAFF CULTURE

• DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08.24.16.08.24.16

• TIME OF PUBLICATION: 9:30 PM.9:30 PM

DEAR INTERNET, IT’S been a while, right? We here at WIRED talk about you a lot (mostly good things!), and we’ll admit it feels a little weird to address you directly. But we need to have a talk. And yeah, no, this is not going to be a fun one. Because things aren’t great, Internet. Actually, scratch that: they’re awful.

You were supposed to be the blossoming of a million voices. We were all going to democratize access to information together. But some of your users have taken that freedom as a license to victimize others. This is not fine.

Are we talking about Leslie Jones? Sure. Today. But we should’ve mentioned something to you Monday when some of you went after the woman running Ireland’s Twitter account. Or earlier this summer when anti-Semitic trolls started crowing about their nested-parentheses bat-signal. Last year, it was the assumption that of course we should have a pro-Gamergate panel at SXSW. Or two years ago, when some of you hacked Jennifer Lawrence and a slew of other folks in that ugly display known as—this is as gross to type as it is to read—the Fappening.

Did you know 40 percent of Internet-using adults have experienced online harassment? Do you know how many Internet-using people commit harassment? Us neither. It’s not many. But that minority is literally the worst. And they’re screwing it up for the rest of us.

When you were born 25 years ago, people were so overjoyed that they just wanted to talk with each other. Then they wanted to spend money. Great! Except the companies that rushed to fill that void figured something out: For anyone trying to spend money, odds are there’s someone else trying to take it. They added fraud protections to protect people and themselves.

But that didn’t protect anyone against what people said to each other. As you got bigger and stronger, more people wanted to talk—but some of them were jerks, or worse. Remember flame wars? You had no immune system, and you started to rot. Now that rot has turned to blight. And here we are.

The networks we use to talk to each other have managers, and they don’t seem to know what to do about it. We don’t either. We don’t know how to make you a place where information is still free but people are safe, too. We only know that silence is unacceptable.

You had no immune system, and you started to rot. Now that rot has turned to blight. And here we are.

Here’s what a Twitter spokesperson said when we asked about the problem of abuse on its platform: “We don’t comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons.” After a hate mob drove Leslie Jones off Twitter last month, Jack Dorsey appealed to bureaucracy: “Our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others.” There are rules? Well. As long as there are rules.

Except, you know what’s not making a difference, Internet? Rules. Do you know what happens when people talk to usabout how to stop harassment? They get harassed! Threatened. Other people email them their home addresses and name their family members!

And do you know what happens when we highlight how people respond to hate with love? Just read the replies.

Internet, it has to stop. And since you are this enormous, limitless beast with many heads and hearts and faces, the best way we know to get your attention is to talk to the companies and people who form your backbone and your bloodstream.

So. Companies that created the tools that let us communicate: no more passes. You have the ability to help people feel safe in their daily online lives. You havesophisticated tools to fight spam, and you take down content that infringes on copyright in the blink of an eye. This is a call to action. And a plea. You can’t say “we suck at dealing with abuse,” promise to do something, and then drag your feet. Because it’s starting to look like you care more about your next earnings call than the people who actually use your sites.

Maybe you’re not a company! Maybe you’re a hacker who can come up with some solutions to this problem. Go get ‘em, White Hats. And companies who pay hackers andresearchers to poke holes in the Internet, how about putting a bounty on fixing this enormous hole at the heart of the Internet? Help some people out.
 

If you’re someone who organizes, executes, or fuels abuse and hate crimes online, then let us be blunt: You are not our people. We trust you can find the door.

And if you’re someone who organizes, executes, or fuels abuse and hate crimes online, then let us be blunt: You are not our people. We see you dominating the comments on our Facebook posts. We see you shouting louder than anyone else in the comments of our stories, and in our Twitter timeline. Stop. Just don’t. You’re an embarrassment to the sites you frequent. We trust you can find the door.

Back to you, Internet. After all, we’re stuck with each other. You’re how we live our lives, and you’re how we’re going to continue to live them. We wouldn’t trade that for the world. We just want to make sure we work together—with you, and the people who built you and maintain you and depend on you—to become the place you were supposed to be, and be better than you are.
 
Love,
WIRED

The Fiction of Non-Fiction

Historically, libraries have divided books into two broad categories; fiction and non-fiction. Examples of fiction are stories, fables and fantasies. The rest is non-fiction, widely considered as fact.

Merriam-Webster defines it as:

"writing that is about facts or real events: all writing that is not fiction."

The digital world has inherited that default definition for non-fiction and is suffering for it. 

The first of many problems is that the fiction or non-fiction classification is bestowed by the author. A written piece about traveling to the moon in a basket carried by geese could be speculative non-fiction on alternative methods of spaceflight or a fictional fairy-tale. There is no objective measure which way it is classified. As a result, there are non-fiction writings about  how the Holocaust did not happen, genetic superiority or how the government is controlling people through microwave towers, among various other nonsense. 

If people just laughed, and some do, that would be fine. However, the ignorant and manipulative people point out that these writings are non-fiction, therefore true and irrefutable. By the assumption of truth and delegation to the category of non-fiction, these falsehoods become defictionalized. They are now free to permeate reality and distort politics, history, science and society.

We need to abandon the old classifications for written material. The writer's desire to portray their work as fiction or non-fiction is irrelevant. What is important is understanding what is true or speculation; what stands up to examination and what is intentional distortion. 

Literature and journalistic classification that categorizes writing, imply no degree of validity would be a start. A letter classification (1) Subject (2) Postulation (3) Position. Historic (H) Opinion (O) Critical (C) for example. It would then be up to the writer to support and defend what they espouse  rather than simply assigning an implication of truth.

Free speech is not about saying anything without being criticized or not having to defend a position.   Free speech is about debate, discourse; embracing good ideas and rejection of flawed, malicious or bad ideas.

David Duke, David Irving, Willis Carto, William Piece, Ben Klassen, Ernst Zundel and George Rockwell for example have all written works of malicious fiction which are classified and tragically accepted as non-fiction.

If we want to avoid drowning in the noise of presumed and unsupported alleged facts, then something must be done. 

We Are All Journalists

So many of us are journalists, storytellers, relaters of experience. Blogging, vlogging and micro-blogging. Some hoping to be the next Drudge or Huffington, others just needing to speak. Not since the Instamatic camera has our existence been chronicled so richly.

There are all kinds of journalists. Career journalists, science journalists, entertainment journalists and foremost, citizen  journalists. All are important and valuable, but a mixed bag. Some career journalists are amateurs and some citizen journalists are professionals. The difference between professionals and amateurs is not a matter of experience. It is a matter of dedication to journalistic standards, ethics and practices. Not everyone has that dedication.

The problem is dedication and commitment are great attributes, but not a great shield from abuse. More and more, as we citizen journalists, we need a shield or two.  In this election year we have seen just how badly  professional journalists can be abused for seemingly innocuous reasons. The reality is, citizen journalists have been subject to this level of abuse and worse for years.

Professional journalists have some level of support in place, from their colleagues to their publishers. Citizen journalists have no such support network. In many cases intelligent, well-meaning people have been harassed and driven off the internet because their opinions displease some people. We are not talking about radicals, racists or extremists. Can anyone honestly say that reasonable people, even if unpopular, should be abused into silence?

Blogging, vlogging, Tweeting and whatever comes next, should not put users at inordinate risk. It is counter to the concept of a free press. When writers meet basic journalistic standards they should be afforded the same respect and protection as any professional reporter.

As a species we are storytellers. If we don't protect the ways we have to tell our stories, we start becoming less.

The Sightless Still See Hate

Many online service platforms have long advocated user initiated local blocking as a preferred method for fighting hateful content.  As much as I appreciate the problems faced by the companies, simply having users block hate from their feeds is a bit like stopping the bleeding,  but leaving in the bullet.  The problem is still there, and will fester.

Think of a hearing impaired person, walking down the street, followed by someone screaming obscenities, abuse and taunts at them. Just because the victim can't hear the abuse does not mean they are not being abused.

When hate is directed at a person,  or a group, or is posted in a place where the person or members of the group are likely to encounter it, that's wrong, inappropriate, uncivilized. Even if blocked from the victims view, it is seen and used by collaborative haters. It feeds the destructive environment.

User experience controls are a useful feature, but they do not combat cyberhate.

Let's be real. I can't recall ever seeing benevolent hate. Hate is meant to be harmful, offensive, marginalizing, degrading and malicious. The purveyors of hate have always worked very hard to get around filters, policies and blocks. They try to assure that their messages do the damage they intended.

Cyber Civil War

We often talk about the internet as being borderless, as if it were a country. Maybe it is.

Even countries predicated on the grand concept of the internet can have problems.

What happens if/when the EU enacts laws which allows victims of terrorism or racism to sue the platform, ISP or hosting company connected to the transmission of the hate or terrorism. Think of the Ford Motor Company being sued because their cars were used as  in a robbery or a bombing.  When faced with untold millions of dollars in lawsuits and court costs, what would a  company do? One answer is to leave Europe.

What would happen if Google, Facebook or Twitter suddenly closed all their offices in Europe and decided to take their chances as solely US entities, responsible solely to US law? Not happening? Already is. Wikipedia, has no offices outside the US..This is a conscience move to protect their content. For all their massive info source, on a world of topics, they are not beholding to any law other than the US. North Korean law does not apply,  EU law does not apply, only US domestic law.

This is only possible because Wikipedia is a foundation. They weren't created to make money, just luckily happens sometimes. But if the major online services were faced with a profit gutting threat, how hard would it be for them to rationalize retreating behind the first amendment?

What would happen? Would countries in Europe and Asia start blocking US IP addresses? Possibly. France threatened to block all of Yahoo and Amazon if the companies didn't better manage their content to reflect French law.  Would Twitter or Facebook refuse to accept traffic and users French IP addresses? Who knows.

It is all starting to sound like an all-out war with embargoes, espionage and attacks and counter attacks. Except that a war in our new internet based boarderless country is simply a civil war. Civil wars though, are always painful, wasteful and rarely end well.

Auschwitz Game Highlights Serious Holes in Google’s Review Process

http://forward.com/news/343344/auschwitz-game-highlights-serious-holes-in-googles-review-process/

Drew Gerber | June 23, 2016

Controversy raged this week over news that the Google Play store had allowed a free mobile game that promised players could “live like a real Jew” at Auschwitz.

For the second time in a month, Google’s review process was brought into serious question. But now, the game’s creators have come forward to say that was the point of the game.

TRINIT, a vocational school teaching video game design in Zaragoza, Spain, asked their students to design games that would test the strength of Google’s policy on hateful speech and inappropriate imagery during the review process, the institute told The Forward in an email.

“Surprisingly, Google denied almost all of the test apps, but [the Auschwitz game] was approved,” the institute said.

TRINIT said it pulled the game, which it said was nonfunctional and only included a start page, on Sunday night after realizing it had sparked media controversy. The institute said it received a notice from Google later that night notifying it that the app had been reported several times. Google confirmed to the Forward that the app was pulled from its store on Monday.

In addition to its Auschwitz game, TRINIT said it chose to pull other test apps from Google Play, including apps named “Gay Buttons” and “Kamasutra Dices.”

The school said it instructed students to test Google’s app policy by specifically testing themes corresponding to questions on a Google survey used in the app approval process. One question on the survey, shared with the Forward by TRINIT, asks whether the app under review contains symbols or references to Nazis.

Although the school said it replied yes to the survey question, Google still approved the submission.

A Google spokesperson said, “While we don’t comment on specific apps, we can confirm that our policies are designed to provide a great experience for users and developers.”

“This clearly indicates that Google needs to be more vigilant about its review process,” said Jonathan Vick, assistant director of the Anti-Defamation League’s cyberhate response team.

However, Vick also finds blame with the way TRINIT conducted its experiment and remains skeptical of the app’s true purpose. Vick told the Forward it concerns him that the school felt it was sufficient to take down the offensive app without issuing a statement, and he called on the school to explain itself in public.

“Review is a human process and any time people are injected into the equation, the margin for error increases,” Vick said. “Since the Google review process isn’t transparent, we don’t know where in the review chain someone approved the app, but it means more training might be needed for Google employees,” he said.

“If real, the experiment speaks for itself,” Vick said.

Google launched a new app review process last year with the goal of catching apps that violate its policies on hateful speech before they reach the Google Play store, including both machine and human review elements. However, the company is still in the process of fine-tuning the process and relies heavily upon community reporting to review the millions of game submissions it receives.

Cyberhate Arms Race - Making Better Haters

Cyberhate is only getting worse. More vicious, insidious, malicious and more technologically driven.

Online hate, either combating it or perpetuating it, requires the participants to continually escalate their position in an attempt to out-maneuver the opponent. An endless cycle of  anti-hate and more hate.

At the same time as we oppose haters online, we also make them better at hating. The numerous times David Duke's websites and YouTube channels have been taken down has served to teach him how better to evade the rules of the various platforms. The haters also make the anti-hate community larger, stronger and more innovative.

Cybrehate predates the internet. Active hate communities existed on pre-internet dial-up networks. Bigots, racists and misogynists have always invaded new digital technology as quickly as possible. Technology platforms have a checkered past when it comes to responding to hate, but the public and community organizations have been responding from the earliest days. ADL's first report on cyberhate was produced in 1985.

Unfortunately the cyberhate arms race often has the same  result as any arms race; someone loses control and shooting begins. James von Braun, Frazier Glenn Miller and many others who committed murder sprees were veteran protagonists in the cyberhate arms race.

When most of us lose a debate or an argument we do not pick-up guns. However, in a culture where people increasingly refuse to take responsibility for their own failures, winning the cyberhate arms race is important and not without responsibility.