Appeasing Online Extremism - A tradition of failure

Jonathan Vick, North American Representative, International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH)

When the Internet puts appeasement and profit over principles you get insurrectionists storming the US capital.

In the early days of the internet, emerging platforms had a few simple imperatives; rely on “the greater good” succeeding, attract as many users as you can, and don’t alienate them if possible.

From a business perspective this worked very well, from a human perspective, it did not.

Yes, the internet provided marginalized communities a place online. The pioneering platforms also discovered they were enabling hate, racism, and abuse. As it turned out, there was a lot more business to be gained indulging hate and paranoia than indulging those looking to uplift, champion and ally.  

The internet’s forerunners were not the first to deploy appeasement as mode of business. They were not the first to discover the immediate benefits. They were certainly not the first to prove the disastrous consequences of appeasement. Just maybe, they should have been the ones to put an end to it, but they were not.

In the formative years of the internet, hate speech was conveniently considered just speech, just words. What happened online was not considered connected to offline behavior unless a connection to a specific real-world crime could be explicitly proved.

That practice soon became policy.  

Hateful, racist, conspiratorial, anti-Semitic, anti-government, xenophobic organizations could participate on almost every platform, and make networks of connections, as long as they did not express their violent anti-social ethos on the platform itself.  The result of tolerating hate, and appeasing hate groups so they would draw an audience, facilitated the creation of a foundation and acceptance of false information, just like the information that led to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on 6 January.

The internet enabled those events. Many of the policies which allowed highly destructive content were made more restrictive months or years ago, but the damage was done. The channels for caustic, corrosive, destructive falsehoods moved into their own spheres of information. Distorted information, supported by self-validating disinformation and incomplete logic, were now the life blood of the groups who had matured on the major platforms.

Many companies that are now respectable hosting services, Internet Service Providers, or Domain Name Services, got their start providing services to the worst groups on the internet under the camouflage of free-speech or a willful ignorance of those group’s objectives.

Since the 2016 election interference scandal, and certainly since the Charlottesville riot, many companies have instituted policies which reflect an awareness and dedication to addressing the harm that destructive forces on the internet can cause. However, in every single case, the platforms were warned years in advance about these groups. Respectable, credible anti-racism, anti-Semitism, anti-xenophobia groups provided volumes of evidence that these groups and ideologies were dangerous and vicious.  However, before 2016, many companies managed to rationalize practices which avoid antagonizing groups now widely considered part of the network which supported domestic terror tactics.

We all know the axiom about getting the toothpaste back in the tube or the worms back in the can. The new, recent policies enacted by the internet platforms, as important as they are, do nothing to repair the damage the previous lack of regard caused. The industry giants now have the experience, and opportunity, to clearly declare their support for truth online, and opposing intentionally destructive manipulated information.  They can make a stand against appeasement and tolerance for hate, exploitation and manipulation.

There will always be marginally moral and exploitive internet platforms and groups. Perhaps there always should be. These people and places must know that they do not have the support of a majority of the industry or the internet community. The public must know that the internet industry has their backs and is concerned with their safety and society overall. That would be a start toward repairing the internet’s legacy of appeasing and enabling our worst selves.  

The Internet’s New Chance at Redemption

Jonathan Vick, North American Representative, 

International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH)

The promise of the threat posed by unbridled internet content has come to fruition. As a member of the internet safety community, along with many colleagues, this has not come as a surprise.  We alerted the platforms that comment sections and public forums showed warning signs of exploitation and dangerous abuse more than 10 years ago.  Despite outcries over Donald Trump’s hate-enabling rhetoric and dog-whistle propaganda from irresponsible media outlets who were focused on ratings, actions against this nascent, yet obvious hate speech, never happened in most corners of the internet.  Let us call it opportunistic negligence by leading internet industry leaders.  Too many companies followed their example and too few companies voiced outrage.

After the attempted coup of 1/6/2021, belatedly, sadly, some things have finally happened.  

The internet’s opportunity at redemption may have arrived. Will it be embraced?

I am not talking about censorship, government oversight, or laws allowing crippling lawsuits. I am talking about the internet industry acting as a cohesive group where primary standards are discussed and agreed. Where the impact of content is studied openly. The protection of marginalized communities and the good of society should be enshrined as industry policy, not as an advertising slogan.

We have seen powerful, and evil people abuse a powerful medium for their own ends. This should not have happened. It can be prevented from happening again, but only if the internet industry is brave enough to seek redemption and commit to it.  

Borderless Hate Counter Offensive

Jonathan Vick, International Network Against Cyber Hate, North American Representative 

Hate spreads. It has been famously and accurately described as a virus. Like polio, smallpox, or covid, responding to hate cannot be a local challenge if we expect to succeed. Without a borderless approach to stopping hate, as with any contagious disease, we cannot hope to stop its reemergence and resurgence.

Prior to World War 2 there was a thriving American Nazi Party. It was based on National Socialism, the ideology of Hitler’s  Nazi Party and Third Reich. National Socialism and Nazism was presumed to have been extinguished with the defeat of Germany in 1945. National Socialism  had been resoundingly declared anti-democratic, racist and authoritarian long before the downfall of the Nazi regime. But, in early 1959, a disgruntled and dishonorably discharged Navy Commander re-established the American Nazi Party.

Nazism had remained dormant for less than 15 years after its worldwide refutation.

Today the ideological descendants of National Socialism, the KKK, and an array of White Supremacist and Nationalist ideologies continue an ongoing cycle spread, retreat, hide, and re-emerge to reinfect the society.

Hate is terribly unlimited. It is an International enterprise. The Klu Klux Klan, which was strictly American organization, now has chapters in a several other countries. Combat 18, a British neo-Nazi group, is now a worldwide organization.  These hate groups follow the template that is well established by terrorist organizations for a system of building borderless networks and operations. They exchange information, propaganda, tactics, reading lists within their own group internationally, and with other hate groups. They cross borders, continents, and ideologies.  None of this is new information.

 There are woefully few international anti-hate organizations sufficiently equipped and ideologically   broad enough to currently approach this challenge. Many organizations are limited by geography, audience, community or founding philosophy. Until the anti-hate world can act as borderlessly as the world of haters, this battle may never be won.

Our first assessment of any threat is the immediacy, personal impact, and its proximity to us. This is, of course, rooted in our survival instinct. It is why, for most people, local news is often more popular than world or international events. Our minds even amplify our response to direct or local threats beyond that of more seemingly less significant threats. Even if those seemingly less significant threats ultimately have more dangerous implications.  

Best Screaming Pillows of 2020

 

If you do not need a good screaming pillow, you either have not been actively present, or you may need to consult a doctor. Regardless of where any individual stands socially, economically, or politically, I cannot imagine anyone who does not need a good scream about now. Perhaps many of us have needed a good scream for a few years.

Screaming pillows occupy a time-honored place in society. Likely they have existed as long as bedding has been a thing.

When choosing your screaming pillow you should consider several factors: comfort you desire, scream suppression qualities, your living situation, and nature of your screaming.

Traditional feather and foam pillows have long been the mainstay of screaming pillows. Modern material like memory foam and air-cell products have grown in screaming pillow popularity as their use has increased.

Each option has its advantages. Ultimately, it is a matter of the user’s preference.

Your best bet is to try several pillows around your house. You may find the perfect screaming pillow is right under your nose.

Another option is not using a screaming pillow at all. A full throated, blood curdling, primal howl to the sky, may be just the ticket.

 My ultimate recommendation is work out your options as soon as possible. In the coming days, weeks, and months, there will probably be a lot of need for therapeutic screaming.

Facebook’s Policy Banning Holocaust Denial. Progress Not Victory.

 Jonathan Vick, International Network Against Cyber Hate, North American Representative 

Facebook has announced it is banning Holocaust denial in an apparent extension of its ongoing policy adjustments regarding hate speech and anti-Semitism.  Not surprisingly, a number of organizations who have been lobbying Facebook, each for varying lengths of time, are claiming credit for influencing Facebook’s actions.   Every success in advancing action against hate speech and destructive distortions is progress against hate.  This victory however, lives within a saga of failures.

After years of lobbying, debating, arguing with internet platforms, it is gratifying to have seen many platforms take positions against civil corrosion. It is critical to remember that Facebook’s actions, like Twitter, YouTube, and others, are only the actions of individual platforms. These antihate policies are often characterized by critics as a capitulation to the existing power structures, government, media, banking, or culture. This unfairly throws into question what are genuine efforts to confront a thorny issue.

Ultimately the only commonality for platforms comes from people moving between them to change jobs.   The industry’s lack of a cohesive humanitarian-based baseline set of standards is unquestionably used to exploit the internet for hateful purposes.

Our intuition that the democracy of the internet would create a self-correcting system led us to seemingly reasonable, but ultimately false assumptions. Part of that fallacy is that the internet was the ultimate competitive environment. No need for oversight, regulation, or coordination of any sort. That did not work exactly as planned. The power of truth is real. But supporting the truth is not a spectator sport, and the internet is overwhelmingly a spectator environment. Equally, hate is not spectator pursuit, but it is obvious that a lot more people are willing to play at hate than at truth.

Rather than marshalling the armies of reviewers, acting in collaboration, or accepting some notion of responsibility, everyone’s big bet was technology. Filtering, machine learning and artificial intelligence would allow impartial review, flagging and removal of blatant hate content. Our aspirations for technology are still way ahead of reality. Technology only multiplies human efforts. It does not yet replace them. Massive resources have been diverted to the development of AI and machine learning while the problems and damage from cyber hate continued.

Just as each platform’s efforts are an isolated approach to the issue, so are the definitions, terminologies and measurements applied by each of them. We rarely agree what is defined as hate.  Each faction usually insist their specific interpretation of hate is correct.

There are endless volumes of incredibly useful,  intelligent, relevant documents, studies, and civil society declarations. These are often dismissed  out of political, economic, or business expediency. Often we have seen competing priorities reflecting only the priorities of the stakeholders in the room at any one moment in time.  When looking to take credit or serving a specific agenda is the motivating factor, the result only send a limited message and may only be a limited success.

Holocaust denial will not be disappearing from Facebook, or any platform, any time soon. Facebook correctly points out that it will take time to adjust its processes to achieve any progress in banning Holocaust denial.  Hate is highly adaptive. Chasing hate terminology, including Holocaust denial,  may be an endless job. The real-world impact of reducing anti-Semitism through Facebook’s change may well be marginal. Online hate, once posted, is quickly shared. Once that happens, even if its removal on one platform cannot stop the poisonous content, links and ideas from propagating. Facebook’s commitment and efforts to address Holocaust denial is largely a victory for Facebook.  

With each incomplete effort, even when each effort may indeed represent good progress, there is the reality that time, energy, resources, and hope are left on the table. Every time.

The Holocaust happened. Denying it does not improve our understanding of it. The same is true of racism, bias and xenophobia of all kinds. Until we accept that no group is innocent of hate, or safe from being hated, only then we can begin to scrape the rust off our ideals. Banning Holocaust denial on Facebook is a start, but only a start. Only one facet of much larger questions.

When Zombie Chickens Come Home to Roost

 

Mary Shelley warned us in Frankenstein.  Ralph Ellison told us in the Invisible Man. So often we create our own monsters, but we do not always realize it at the time.

Even before the exploitation of the internet, the toxic rhetoric of the 2016 election, the alarming rally in Charlottesville or a president who spreads more poison than policy,  the mold was cast for all that grief,  and more to come by letting seemingly small bad things find a home, and a place to accumulate.

This road was not paved or monsters created  by any one person, company, organization, or government. Equally, once the problem became obvious, it was not possible for any single entity to address the problem. Deftly, those seeking to undermine the credibility of facts presented to the public, quickly coordinated domestically, internationally, and across agendas to share their own best practices. They exploited the competitive nature of business practices in the internet industry and that anti-hate groups were in their own similarly competitive mode for sponsorship. As a result, early in the internet age, extremist communities became more coordinated and strategic while civil society and industry entities prevaricated.  The mindless and all-consuming zombie chickens of hate had infected each other, flown the coop, were on the loose, contagious, and breeding.

Zombie chickens would seem a ridiculous choice of allusion to illustrate a serious problem.  Chickens are not terribly threatening. Zombie chickens are practically laughable, but not if you were counting on trying to eat one or get any eggs.

Conspiracy theories and the people who spread them were likewise not taken seriously.  Regardless of who decided conspiracy theories, or their advocates were harmless, that phenomenon began an erosion of our faith in information sources and fed our worse fears. The internet, until very recently, did not elevate the truth, it infected it with a virulent malady.

Now, those apparently harmless chickens we created have come home to roost. Those chickens, like our information channels, which were once a reliable source of enrichment, are now questionable and even dangerous.

The critical mass of stakeholders needed to develop industry wide hate management technology goals, standards, policies, and public education mechanisms did not begin to materialize for almost 20 years.  We can all see the damage that delay has caused. Once the choice was made to not get ahead of the problem of corrosive content, catching up became the only alternative.  Have you even tried catching a chicken? Like catching up with online hate, no simple matter.

Jonathan Vick

Schrödinger’s Internet

Cliffy died in 2010, but I did not know that until last week. Until then he was still alive to me.  I liked him, had not heard from him in many years and, as I have done so many times before, went looking for him online.  The adage holds true, be careful what you ask for. I want to add, be careful what you look for.

I am the North American representative for INACH (International Network Against Cyber Hate),  an accomplished internet investigator and researcher, and usually find what I am looking for - eventually.  We have all searched for people from our past who mean something to us. Helping others in this way, and with other online challenges, is extremely rewarding. When all the digging through endless piles of online manure is done, we sometimes find a pony, sometimes a rhinoceros, and sometimes tears.

People disappear for any number of reasons. There is no way to totally disappear, but with a little effort and time, you can get close. When someone does not want to be found, you should respect that. When they have disappeared, not by choice, you must respect that.  There are always exceptions, but they all come at a price.

Until last week, Cliffy was both alive and dead. Something called superposition.  That is the essence of the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment. When I found Cliffy, opened the reality of things on the internet, the reality of the two possibilities collapsed. Cliffy was indeed dead.

The internet acts like Schrödinger’s box, holding the truth of different realities but requiring an act of will to open it up and find the reality.

I do not think Schrödinger liked cats. I do not think he gave much thought to the cat. It was all about the box and the experiment.

I do not think the internet industry likes us. It historically has not given much thought to the people inside the internet. Internet users have, for far too long, been secondary to the internet itself and the experiment of all the stuff inside. The internet companies own the boxes on the internet and can decide to collapse the possibilities of information and help determine the reality, if they are brave enough.

This is the great conundrum of science and commerce. What comes first, the experiment or the cat; the totality of possibilities of information or the reality.  

Schrödinger’s cat is not a real cat. Schrödinger’s box is not a real box. It was never meant to be left closed. Superposition may be real, but it is not reality. You only get reality when you open the box and feed the cat or bury it.

I do not like that Cliffy is gone, but that is the reality. To change reality is to fictionalize it.