Every day, corporations are connecting the dots about our personal behaviorsilently scrutinizing clues left behind by our work habits and Internet use. The data compiled and portraits created are incredibly detailed, to the point of being invasive. But who connects the dots about what firms are doing with this information? The Black Box Society argues that we all need to be able to do soand to set limits on how big data affects our lives. Hidden algorithms can make (or ruin) reputations, decide the destiny of entrepreneurs, or even devastate an entire economy. Shrouded in secrecy and complexity, decisions at major Silicon Valley and Wall Street firms were long assumed to be neutral and technical. But leaks, whistleblowers, and legal disputes have shed new light on automated judgment. Self-serving and reckless behavior is surprisingly common, and easy to hide in code protected by legal and real secrecy. Even after billions of dollars of fines have been levied, underfunded regulators may have only scratched the surface of this troubling behavior. Frank Pasquale exposes how powerful interests abuse secrecy for profit and explains ways to rein them in. Demanding transparency is only the first step. An intelligible society would assure that key decisions of its most important firms are fair, nondiscriminatory, and open to criticism. Silicon Valley and Wall Street need to accept as much accountability as they impose on others.

The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information

Based on a survey of participants in Egypt’s Tahrir Square protests, we demonstrate that social media in general, and Facebook in particular, provided new sources of information the regime could not easily control and were crucial in shaping how citizens made individual decisions about participating in protests, the logistics of protest, and the likelihood of success. We demonstrate that people learned about the protests primarily through interpersonal communication using Facebook, phone contact, or face-to-face conversation. Controlling for other factors, social media use greatly increased the odds that a respondent attended protests on the first day. Half of those surveyed produced and disseminated visuals from the demonstrations, mainly through Facebook.

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Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest: Observations From Tahrir Square

Tweets and the Streets analyses the culture of the new protest movements of the 21st century. From the Arab Spring to the "indignados" protests in Spain and the Occupy movement, Paolo Gerbaudo examines the relationship between the rise of social media and the emergence of new forms of protest. Gerbaudo argues that activists' use of Twitter and Facebook does not fit with the image of a "cyberspace" detached from physical reality. Instead, social media is used as part of a project of re-appropriation of public space, which involves the assembling of different groups around "occupied" places such as Cairo's Tahrir Square or New York's Zuccotti Park. An exciting and invigorating journey through the new politics of dissent, Tweets and the Streets points both to the creative possibilities and to the risks of political evanescence which new media brings to the contemporary protest experience.

http://www.tacticalmediafiles.net/mmbase/attachments/5000/Tweets__the_Streets_Introduction.pdf

Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism

Copyright © 2011 (Gilad Lotan, giladlotan@gmail.com; Erhardt Graeff, erhardt@webecologyproject.org; Mike Ananny, mananny@microsoft.com; Devin Gaffney, devin@webeconologyproject.org; Ian Pearce, ian@webeconologyproject.org; danah boyd, dmb@microsoft.com). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org. The Revolutions Were Tweeted: Information Flows During the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions

The Revolutions Were Tweeted: Information Flows During the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions

The “Arab Spring” has proven astonishing and exhilarating to Middle East analysts and activists alike. Starting in Tunisia and spreading quickly to Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Syria and beyond, a wave of political protest, unprecedented in scope and ambition, swept the region in 2011. In short order, two deeply entrenched authoritarian rulers were jettisoned from office, and by early summer the leaders of at least three other Arab regimes appeared to be in grave jeopardy. In the wake of this wave, nearly every authoritarian regime in the region scrambled to concoct the “right” mix of repression and cooptation in the hope of stemming the protest. And even authoritarian regimes as distant as China took nervous notice of developments in the region. For Middle East specialists, the events of the Arab Spring proved especially jarring, even if welcomed, because of their extensive investment in analyzing the underpinnings of authoritarian persistence, long the region’s political hallmark. The empirical surprise of 2011 raises a pressing question—do we need to rethink the logic of authoritarianism in the Arab world or, even more broadly, authoritarian persistence writ large? What follows is a reconsideration of the “robustness of authoritarianism” in the Arab world and beyond. The surprises of the Arab Spring, and especially the internal variation within the region, suggest new theoretical insights as well as new empirical realities that govern the dynamics of authoritarianism in the twenty-first century. At the same time, recent events confirm some long-held truisms about the dynamics of authoritarian durability. In addition, the events of the Arab Spring suggest insights into a host of other issues, including the dynamics of military defection; the logic of social mobilization; the complementary roles of structure, agency, intention, and contingency in complex political phenomena such as political uprisings (and, consequently, the limits

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Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Lessons from the Arab Spring

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov New York: Public Affairs, 2011 409 pages $16.99 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In January 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a highly touted speech on Internet freedom in which she stated, "The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate. Once you're on the Internet, you don't need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society." Evgeny Morozov, in his book The Net Delusion, takes great issue with the implication, however, that the so-called "Arab Spring" and "Twitter Revolution" were caused by unfettered access to the Internet. Instead, Morozov, a research academic, provides a cautionary tale about what he argues is any attempt to establish a monocausal relationship to meaningful political change (especially when that single focus is information technology). The book opens with a discussion of cyber-utopianism and Internet-centrism--mind-sets that focus on the positive "emancipatory" aspects of Internet communication while ignoring the downsides. The argument throughout centers on nation-state policy, or lack thereof, that attacks the "wicked" problem of authoritarianism by, as a colleague of mine has dubbed it, "wiring the world." Morozov, expectantly, but importantly, cites the hedonistic world portrayed by Huxley and the "Big Brother" world of Orwell to consider both the proactive and reactive approaches to Internet freedom by authoritarian regimes. Interestingly, he notes that there is often a mix of both. Such regimes certainly use the anonymity and openness of the Internet to spy on their people and shutdown undesirable sites. But there is also a subtle approach that belies the jackboot on the keyboard methodology. While China may be known more for suppressing the Internet and for employing the masses to counter antiregime rhetoric, Russia imposes no formal Internet censorship. It relies on entertainment (porn is specifically cited) to soothe the masses, assuming that given options for political discourse and anything else, most opt for "anything else." Hitler would understand. And in nations where freedom is not widely understood from a western perspective, any bit of additional mindless diversion may be viewed as liberty by the populace. Perhaps most importantly, Morozov rails against social media determinism as driving the end of authoritarianism, labeling it "an intellectually impoverished, lazy way to study the past, understand the present, and predict the future." He does not dismiss the value of Facebook and Twitter to quickly mobilize like-minded individuals. He notes as well that the development of that very like-mindedness is complex and potentially can be manipulated by authoritarian governments using the same Internet freedom. …

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom

Two years ago, the Lincoln Group, a government contractor, sold unattributed pro-United States stories to Iraqi newspapers in an effort to win the war of ideas and counter negative images of the US-led coalition. The mainstream American press, members of Congress, and other government leaders immediately and loudly condemned these actions as "propaganda" and contrary to the democratic ideals of a free press. (1) A Pentagon investigation, however, found that no laws were broken or policies violated. Nor was the term propaganda ever used by the Lincoln Group or US military in its efforts to apply the information element of power in a war in which the center of gravity (in Clausewitzian terms) is defined as "extremist ideology." (2) Which begs the question: How do you fight a battle of ideas with one hand tied behind your back? The ways and means of winning that battle are both informed and ultimately restricted by an innate US culture that struggles with democratic ideals seemingly at odds with the use of information to win over hearts and minds even while the enemy maintains no such inhibitions. Propaganda is "any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly."(3) Certainly propaganda has been used from time immemorial as a tool in warfare. But it is only since the US experience of World War I that this rather innocuously defined term has become pejorative in the national psyche. A review of recent history is necessary to examine the challenges of today and open a window to understanding the dilemma of balancing principles of a free, democratic society with the need to counter lies and half-truths in an effort to establish trust and credibility. A look through this historical lens allows focus on the requirement for strong national leadership capable of driving the procedural and cultural changes necessary to ultimately win the generational ideological struggle the United States currently faces. Propaganda and the Two World Wars: Shaping American Attitudes The US experience employing information as an element of power during both World Wars still colors the way Americans view the federal government's foreign and domestic information programs. America's collective experience with what may be called government propaganda--a term that the US government eschewed from the start--has been mixed. This reflects the tensions between the branches of government, and also the resistance of the national media to any restraints on their operations. Congress, from the beginning, developed a wariness of organizations that publicized the personality and role of the President to overseas audiences. Media became skeptical of "canned" government information releases that reflected the administration's perspective and were provided as news. When the United States finally entered the World War in April 1917 it had already been the target of propaganda efforts for two and a half years. The British influence operation based at Wellington House in London used several means, including the Reuters news agency, to reach target audiences worldwide. Sir Gilbert Parker, who had wide familiarity with America, directed the work targeted at the United States. His technique was aptly characterized by James Squires as being a "gentle courtship" versus a "violent wooing."(4) It was subtle, understated, and highly effective. Specific British disinformation programs were also aimed directly at Germany. These included efforts to incite anti-American feelings there through false "news" items such as reports of the seizure of German seamen, shipping, and other property before the United States entered the war. (5) Despite each side's efforts to sell its cause, the United States remained officially neutral while carrying on substantial trade, including armaments, with Britain. …

https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2383&context=parameters

Propaganda: Can a Word Decide a War?

: Strategic communication in the Department of Defense clearly has moved forward under the tutelage of Secretary Robert Gates. In a far-ranging speech at the University of Kansas in November 2007, Dr. Gates bemoaned the inability of the United States to "communicate to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture." Had the discussion ended there, a legitimate impression may have been conveyed that senior officials in the national security and foreign affairs sectors of the US government still were sorting out how to apply the principles of strategic communication. But on 17 September 2008, Dr. Gates announced a new policy of apologizing for Afghan civilian casualties and offering compensation to survivors even before all the facts were known. There were obvious downfalls to this decision, not the least of which is that the wrong people might be compensated. But perhaps Dr. Gates is demonstrating that he understands the value of a rapid, compassionate response. The policy aim had much less to do with compensation and everything to do with sending a message that the United States cares about the Afghan people. So the Secretary's action closed a proverbial "say-do" gap and made inroads in the elusive battle of ideas. It was a first but important step in this ongoing and generational ideological struggle. Secretary Gates then changed commanders and strategy in Afghanistan, recognizing the importance, in large part, of the perceptions of the Afghan people regarding American military actions and presence.

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Dennis M. Murphy

Papers

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom

Propaganda: Can a Word Decide a War?

In Search of the Art and Science of Strategic Communication