By Mike D.
Story 1
A young English-Israeli student cracks her knuckles and begins typing: I think we should discuss whether the Israeli State is justified in using so much force in response to the much smaller, poorer, and weaker force of Palestine.
She sits back in her chair, has a sip of coffee and waits for the replies to her post. A few of her followers are the first to respond within an hour. One with: I think responding to a Molotov cocktail thrown by a teenager doesn’t warrant shelling an entire Palestinian neighbourhood.
This was the sort of discussion she had been hoping to generate from her forum post. But before she can even crack a smile, there are more replies. And rather negative ones. Some are simply rubbish and say things like: ur a faggot. Or You’re mum gay.
She ignores these, but is dismayed to find that she’s deeply offended another young Israeli woman with her post:
How dare you criticize the state? This is blatant Antisemitism from the right.
With tears in her eyes, she begins one of many frantic replies, trying to explain how criticizing a state for their action is not the same as harbouring hate for a race of people. What she doesn’t know is that the ‘young Israeli woman’ she has deeply offended, is in fact a 21-year old Caucasian man with no Jewish heritage at all, but does harbour a hatred for Jews.
Resorting to name-calling for simply raising a question? One of her followers responds to a particularly nasty comment: that’s just encredabaly ignorant and stupid.
Shortly after, another reply follows: Lol. Criticizing someone for being stupid, but can’t spell ‘incredibly’…
An hour later, some of her followers with legitimate Jewish background have also begun criticizing her for even raising the topic. Her post now has 53 replies that she is desperately trying to manage. Some people have begun comparing her and each other to Hitler. The word Nazi has now been used 11 times throughout the discussion, as pointed out by someone else. Her post has now also been linked to several other websites and subforums so that they too can express an opinion anywhere from the well-read, to the inane, to the surreal, or simply to watch the shit-show as it unfolds.
Realising that the discussion has degenerated into hundreds of angry diverging branches in a seemingly forever growing screaming tree; far, far away from the topic of her original post, the young English-Israeli student decides to post one more comment, addressing several of the issues that have been raised, including: whether she is a Nazi, whether she is an SJW with nothing better to do, whether she hates Israel, whether she hates Jews, whether she hates Muslims, and of course, her original question as to whether the Israeli State uses justified force in response to aggression from Palestine…
By 11:34pm, she is physically tired and emotionally drained, but she has done it! At last. It only took her 4 hours, but she has finally finished her reply; addressing every political issue raised, and every attack on her character, and all complete with citations from academics, newspapers and other reputable sources. The perfect reply. And very concise for 5 pages.
Deciding not to waste any more of her time, which she too concedes to have done, she posts her response and promptly goes to bed where she spends the next hour lying awake thinking about every post and divergence she’d seen today. And whether her responses missed any potential avenues or holes that could further be used to attack her. And did she address the issue of ‘western destabilisation in the east’ well enough? Did she spell dehumanisation wrong in that one paragraph?!
Eventually she falls asleep where she dreams about being strangled by tree branches made of words.
The next morning, still exhausted, and before opening her computer, she wonders whether it is even worth logging in… How many more replies are there going to be? How many more books is she going to have to wade through to find the citations she needs now? How many more obscenities will she be called? Eventually, she plucks up the courage to check her messages… There is only one reply to her essay of a final post from the night before:
Wow. You must have been really triggered to write all that.
***
Social media and political discussions
Now none of that tale was true, of course. But there is a strong possibility that somewhere, even at this very moment, there is a discussion taking place online that bears a close resemblance to the events in this story.
Across the world, and especially in the west, use of the internet in some way shape or form has become arguably guaranteed on a daily basis: we use it for banking, to watch TV, on our phones and on our laptops. Our homes router hubs have their own AES encrypted networks by default that seamlessly integrate all our devices and smart products together under one roof.
Huge developments in broadband, fibre, satellite technology, and networking as a whole mean that we can now communicate in real-time with people on the other side of the planet. We even have our own Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to and from our workplaces to access our files remotely and securely. The list goes on and on and on.
Comparing this to the networking we had even 20 years ago, that used dial-up modems that disconnected if somebody else picked up the phone and took several minutes to load a picture (if you were lucky), it’s a huge achievement and a testament to humanity’s creative ingenuity, ability to invent and adapt. In just a few millennia humanity has come an incredibly long way.
In more recent years, social media has become a hugely influential part of our culture, both online and offline.
Be it Twitter, or Facebook, or Reddit, or Snapchat, or Instagram, YouTube or LinkedIn, etc… They have all become tools that we’re familiar with for communicating with people across the world. And now these platforms are so widely used as methods of communicating to a large audience, that not even our politicians can ignore their usefulness in that respect: A huge number of political figures, parties and groups now have their own social media accounts that they use to voice their opinions on matters as they develop, capable of reaching hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people at once. And as such, social media has become paramount for the organisation of political events as well: allowing groups to quickly rally support and recognition for all number of political and social issues.
The internet is now ubiquitous and arguably has more benefits for humanity than deficits. But the internet, does have its limitations that should be recognised – especially regarding political discourse…
Manipulation of Information
“Ninety percent of everything is crap” – Sturgeon’s Law.
And while even that statement is deliberately false, there is a certain truth to it. Misinformation, or fake news, as it’s so often called, has become a big problem in recent years as a result of the ability to quickly spread masses of information to a vast number of people through social media – regardless of its authenticity. This has already been highlighted many times, including reports of the US Presidential election being deliberately manipulated with the use of misinformation. It has also played a part in the resurgent recognition of things like the anti-vaccination movements, and even flat-earth societies.
Another aspect of manipulation comes from the use of filtering algorithms, commonly used in social media, by means of which user clicks, searches, and ‘likes’ are all logged, so that they can be shown further topics related to their search, as well as targeted advertisements. As it is now known, this can eventually create a kind of filter bubble in which a user is far more likely to be shown only that information which has a similarity to their own views. This effect of this, as we saw, was total surprise when it came to the results of events like the Brexit vote and the US presidential elections, in which a lot mainstream media were wrong about the expected outcomes, and partly because the filtering of social media platforms like Facebook, made it difficult to predict voter intent.
The issue of these ‘social media bubbles’ combined with ‘fake news’ has arguably already had an enormous effect on society and has influenced political results. Facebook has now been fined by the UK government for its failure to police their site (and separately for its involvement in the Cambridge Analytica Scandal), and in 2018 began an advertising campaign to counter the negative media attention they had received, citing “Fake News is not our friend.” This attempt to remedy the situation included shutting down accounts and groups involved in the dissemination of fake articles and extreme politics. But this harsh policing of their site is ultimately unwinnable:
‘Deep-fake’ is a new term that describes media in which its authenticity becomes extremely hard to prove or disprove. And this is likely to become a much worse problem in coming years in which a situation could occur where nobody can really be sure that what they see online is true or false. An example of this is seen in this ‘TED Talk’ showing the AI created by Supasorn Suwajanakorn which can allow mouth movements of a recorded person to be superimposed over other videos. This means it will soon be possible to see a ‘real’ video of someone saying something…which they didn’t actually say. Another example is the Lyrebird AI which can be used to mimic a person’s voice with convincing precision – even if only a small amount of a given person’s voice is analysed.
While these technologies are still in their infancy, they will most likely become a serious danger when these have developed further and especially if, or when, their use becomes widespread. In that event anyone, including politicians, can be made to say absolutely anything a person wants them to say, further distorting political debate and direction.
Use of bots is another danger to online political discourse on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Most notably are the stories surrounding bots that have been linked to Russian ‘Troll Farms’ responsible for meddling in the US Elections and promoting religious hatred in the UK. The problem of social media as a platform, even for sites like Facebook that claim to promote interaction between family and friends, is that it provides a level of anonymity for its users, so there is no real way of knowing if an profile, or group, or page is bot-controlled or not, or even if the person of an account harbours the views that they claim to.
Ultimately, if digital information can be so easily manipulated, then so too can its audience. And this takes us to the next point regarding political debates online.
Inability to Identify Intent
Without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the parodied views – Poe’s Law.
Aside from bots and Fake News being used to influence politics, ‘trolls’ and shills (someone paid to have an opinion) are also likely to be a unresolvable ongoing problem for social media sites. The anonymity of the internet allows anybody to say whatever they want, regardless of truth, and often with little consequence, if any. And there is simply no way of knowing if what has been written is the legitimate view of the author (yes, even this article should be subject to scrutiny in that regard). Some people do this simply for fun, or to anger or confuse another party (there could be any number of reasons a person decides to do this), but regardless of why, this ‘trolling’ nearly always has the affect of redirecting whatever discussion is at hand.
Online Political Discourse cannot be chaired
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 – Godwin’s Law.
And while that internet adage is again tongue-in-cheek, it does make a valuable point about online discourse, especially regarding gradual deterioration of a topic at hand. And this is an unfortunate eventuality, simply resulting from the limitations of the platform itself when something as serious as politics is discussed, in what is essentially an unmanaged, untimed, and undirected environment. A platform that fundamentally allows anybody to speak at any given time is something that simply won’t work in the real world, and wouldn’t happen offline – and what’s more, it wouldn’t be called a discussion if it did.
In conclusion, if online media can be drastically manipulated; requiring a huge amount of fact-checking to ascertain credibility – something that most people lack the time to do… If political discussion can be constricted by algorithms, and redirected by trolls, and fake news… And if tackling these issues is an never-ending and ultimately unwinnable battle for these online social platforms, then it must be recognised that political discourse can only be valued and taken seriously when offline, in order to maintain credibility, order, and maintenance of the topic at hand.
And despite the often shady business practices some of these online platforms employ; with use of filter algorithms, use of web-tracking tools that follow users around the internet in order to place targeted advertising (and sometimes complying with NSA surveillance used to spy on millions of innocent users), online social platforms like Twitter, and Facebook are here to stay, it seems.
The problems with regards to political discussion on these platforms must be recognised by society and especially by labour movement activists: that they are tools that have been, can be, and will continue to be used – be it accidental, or by a rogue troll, or a corrupt government body – to manipulate political ideas in a population. We have to acknowledge that online debate is both endless and uncoordinated; paling in comparison to properly-chaired meetings taking place offline. The use of social media as a tool for rallying action and debate has become dominant and useful… We’ve seen massive protests organised effectively in a short time; from anti-austerity demonstrations, to unionisation, to strike struggles, but it is critical that it is recognised to be for the importance of political rallying action taking place in the real world, and not for political debate online.
However, the truth is that political discussion on these platforms is likely to continue. As the world becomes more politicised by ever-growing austerity and inequality, it is only natural that politics becomes a regular topic of conversation. And the all-pervasiveness of social media in our daily lives means that its discussion will naturally occur on these platforms. In truth, sitting within the comfort of your own home with a nice cup of coffee and venting a political opinion online, despite its ineffectiveness, is far more convenient (currently) for most people than attending an offline actual political discussion group.
Real-life meetings, providing that they are organised and chaired efficiently, eliminate all the issues that social media faces when concerning the discussion of politics. Simply put: it is extremely difficult to ‘troll’ a real meeting offline, or to make personal attacks, or to be disruptive without consequence.
Political discourse on social media is the equivalent to an infinite number of people in a pitch black room endlessly arguing at full volume about the best kind of lightbulb.
***
Story 2
A young English-Israeli student is asked to speak:
“I think we should discuss”, she says, rising from her seat, “whether the Israeli State is justified in using so much force in response to the much smaller, poorer, and weaker force of Palestine.”
A man shouts “How dare you criticize the State? This is blatant Antisemit…“
But the chair interrupts him, telling him to let the young student argue her point. And that he will have his turn to speak later on. The man continues shouting, and eventually the chair tells him that he will have to leave if he continues to disrupt the meeting. He looks around the room at the other participants. They look at him angrily. Some tell him to shut up and sit down. He does.
Suddenly another man wearing a cooking pot on his head, and tinfoil wrapped around his arms jumps up from the back of the room onto his chair. He points at the young student. “You’re a faggot!” he yells, laughing hysterically. Everyone is rather confused by the strange turn of events, and eventually a few burly workmen, using the persuasion of force, eject the strange man from the venue, and escort him from the premises. He does not return.
The situation quickly settles down again, and the meeting gets back on track. The student continues her speech concisely and succinctly. Once she finishes, it’s time for others to give their thoughts on the matter. Those that wish to speak raise their hands and the chair selects them one by one, allowing them to voice their opinion. Some are critical, but others are in agreement: “I think responding to a Molotov cocktail thrown by a teenager doesn’t warrant shelling an entire Palestinian neighbourhood.”
January 17, 2019
