tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/civic-tech-13206/articlesCivic tech – The Conversation2021-02-22T13:46:23Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1531192021-02-22T13:46:23Z2021-02-22T13:46:23ZFacebook’s free speech myth is dead – and regulators should take notice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385404/original/file-20210221-19-18q8ra9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C4479%2C2775&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/facebook-logo-seen-on-the-smartphone-and-blurred-australian-flag-on-the-background-screen-concept-stafford-united-kingdom-february-18-2021-image405794748.html?pv=1&stamp=2&imageid=8C906DAB-C458-4A6D-90AB-AD9DBE690C0C&p=1396470&n=0&orientation=0&pn=1&searchtype=0&IsFromSearch=1&srch=foo%3dbar%26st%3d0%26pn%3d1%26ps%3d100%26sortby%3d2%26resultview%3dsortbyPopular%26npgs%3d0%26qt%3dfacebook%2520australia%26qt_raw%3dfacebook%2520australia%26lic%3d3%26mr%3d0%26pr%3d0%26ot%3d0%26creative%3d%26ag%3d0%26hc%3d0%26pc%3d%26blackwhite%3d%26cutout%3d%26tbar%3d1%26et%3d0x000000000000000000000%26vp%3d0%26loc%3d0%26imgt%3d0%26dtfr%3d%26dtto%3d%26size%3d0xFF%26archive%3d1%26groupid%3d%26pseudoid%3d%26a%3d%26cdid%3d%26cdsrt%3d%26name%3d%26qn%3d%26apalib%3d%26apalic%3d%26lightbox%3d%26gname%3d%26gtype%3d%26xstx%3d0%26simid%3d%26saveQry%3d%26editorial%3d%26nu%3d%26t%3d%26edoptin%3d%26customgeoip%3dGB%26cap%3d1%26cbstore%3d1%26vd%3d0%26lb%3d%26fi%3d2%26edrf%3d0%26ispremium%3d1%26flip%3d0%26pl%3d">mundissima/Alamy Stock Photo</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Facebook’s recent decision to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/facebook-blocks-australia-news-access-fed95e78e8bf30f167eb1a2d893ac89c">block its Australian users</a> from sharing or viewing news content provoked a worldwide backlash and accusations of hubris and bullying. Although the company has now reversed its decision following an agreement with the Australian government, the row has exposed the fragility of Facebook’s founding myth: that Mark Zuckerberg’s brainchild is a force for good, providing a public space for people to connect, converse and cooperate.</p>
<p>An inclusive public space in the good times, Facebook has yet again proved willing to eject and exclude in the bad times – as a private firm ultimately has the right to do. Facebook seems to be a bastion of free speech up to and until the moment its revenue is endangered. At that point, as in the case of the Australian news ban, it defaults to a private space.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/10603/9549">My recent paper</a> explores social media’s spatial hybridity, arguing that we must stop seeing companies like Facebook as public spaces and “platforms” for free speech. Equally, given their ubiquity and dominance, we shouldn’t see them solely as private spaces, either. Instead, these companies should be defined as “corpo-civic” spaces – a mixture of the two – and regulated as such: by internal guidelines as well as external laws.</p>
<p>Facebook’s disagreement with the Australian government was over a <a href="https://www.crn.com.au/news/accc-warns-google-facebook-laws-are-just-the-start-559690">new set of laws</a> drawn up there to counter big tech’s monopoly power. The law in question responds to news companies’ complaints that they are losing advertising revenue to dominant content-sharing platforms such as Facebook and Google. <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/ems/r6652_ems_2fe103c0-0f60-480b-b878-1c8e96cf51d2/upload_pdf/JC000725.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">The law</a> compels Facebook to agree a fee with news companies in an effort to reimburse them for the advertising revenue they lose to Facebook.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385401/original/file-20210221-19-xbv39x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph showing how Facebook have a growing share of display advertising in Australia" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385401/original/file-20210221-19-xbv39x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385401/original/file-20210221-19-xbv39x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385401/original/file-20210221-19-xbv39x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385401/original/file-20210221-19-xbv39x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385401/original/file-20210221-19-xbv39x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385401/original/file-20210221-19-xbv39x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385401/original/file-20210221-19-xbv39x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Facebook’s growing share of display advertising revenue in Australia is one reason for the new law.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/ACCC%20Digital%20Platforms%20Service%20Inquiry%20-%20September%202020%20interim%20report.pdf">ACC Digital Platforms Services Inquiry: Interim report, September 2020</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Despite threatening to withdraw from Australia, Google eventually chose to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/technology/facebook-google-australia-news.html">agree to those fees</a>. Facebook didn’t follow suit. Instead, as if by the flick of a switch, the company turned off the news in Australia. Caught in the crossfire and also finding themselves blocked on Facebook were <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/18/facebook-blocked-charity-and-state-health-pages-in-australia-news-ban.html">charities and government organisations</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/19/facebooks-australia-ban-threatens-to-leave-pacific-without-key-news-source">Pacific communities</a> outside of Australian jurisdiction. </p>
<p>The news block has played poorly for Facebook. Having claimed impotence in the face of growing disinformation for years, Facebook’s new-found iron fist <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-australia-rupert-murdoch">has raised eyebrows</a>. But this apparent inconsistency can be explained – though perhaps not justified – when we see Facebook as a public space with private interests.</p>
<p>Social media firms aren’t the only organisations straddled between the private and the public. Shopping centres are a common example in the offline world. So are some apparently public spaces like New York’s Zuccotti Park where, in 2011, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/blog/2011/nov/25/occupy-wall-street-eviction-inevitable">Occupy Wall Street protesters</a> found themselves evicted both by police and by the park’s private owners, Brookfield Properties.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A busy shopping centre with many people walking around, some blurred" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385531/original/file-20210222-17-tmyhqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385531/original/file-20210222-17-tmyhqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385531/original/file-20210222-17-tmyhqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385531/original/file-20210222-17-tmyhqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385531/original/file-20210222-17-tmyhqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385531/original/file-20210222-17-tmyhqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385531/original/file-20210222-17-tmyhqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shopping centres are a common example of spaces that are both public and private.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/shopping-198234164">estherpoon/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Social media platforms operate similarly. Just as a shopping centre relies on footfall, Facebook profits from active users on its platform. For Facebook, this profit is generated <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/what-facebooks-revenue-breakdown-2019-03-28-0">almost entirely</a> via the revenue provided by online advertising. </p>
<p>It shouldn’t surprise us that, when confronted with a law that could force Facebook to part with an unspecified amount of its revenue, the company showed resistance – even if that deprived Australian users of news content and a <a href="https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/2852/protecting-civic-spaces">civic space to share and discuss it</a>. </p>
<h2>Nazis and nipples</h2>
<p>Facebook’s brief Australian news block is the latest example of a social media company falling short of its own principles. Governed by “community standards” that are <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/70035/the-republic-of-facebook/">effectively in-platform laws</a>, platforms such as Facebook have a history of enforcing their rules on an ad-hoc basis. For years, researchers have <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444809342738?journalCode=nmsa">argued</a> that this system is inadequate, inconsistent and open to abuse.</p>
<p>Most glaring is social media’s inconsistent enforcement of its own community standards. Facebook and Instagram’s moderation has previously targeted <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2020.1783805?journalCode=rfms20">women’s nipples</a> and has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-50222380">forced sex workers offline</a>, while self-professed Nazis were only forced from Facebook after their participation in the US Capitol riots on January 6 2021.</p>
<p>During the run-up to the US election in 2020, Mark Zuckerberg actually <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-facebook-aspen-zuckerberg-regulation-20190626-story.html">invited regulation from the government</a>, which seemed to be an admission that Facebook had grown beyond its ability to regulate itself. Yet, as we’ve seen with events in Australia, the corporate half of these online civic spaces baulks at any external regulation that might be bad for business.</p>
<h2>Corpo-civic spaces</h2>
<p>So how should we regulate these hybrid spaces with competing and sometimes contradictory interests? My recent paper turns to “<a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803103943995">third space theory</a>” for answers. Third space theory has been used to understand spatially ambiguous places, like when people’s homes become their workplaces, or when people feel a tension between their <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40647476">ancestral and adopted homes</a>.</p>
<p>When applied to ambiguous spaces between the “corporate” and the “civic”, third space theory can help us better understand the unique regulatory challenges associated with social media companies. Facebook, for instance, is neither a wholly corporate nor a wholly civic space: it’s a corpo-civic one.</p>
<p>A corpo-civic governance approach would recognise that to heavily penalise and restrict social media companies would be to risk dismantling valuable civic spaces. At the same time, to see Facebook solely as a platform for free speech gives it licence to place maximising profits above ethics and human rights. </p>
<p>Instead, a corpo-civic governance model could apply international human rights standards to content moderation, putting the protection of people above the protection of profits. This is not dissimilar from the standards we expect of shopping centres, which may have their own private security policies but which must nevertheless abide by state law. </p>
<p>Because social media platforms are global and not local like shopping centres, it will be important for the laws that govern them to be transnational. Facebook may have briefly blocked the news for Australians, but it wouldn’t make the same decision for hundreds of millions of users across several different countries.</p>
<p>Australia might be “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/09/australia-google-regulation-internet-big-tech-silicon-valley-media/">Ground Zero</a>” for laws aimed at reining in big tech, but it’s certainly not the only country drafting them. Having those state regulators work together on transnational policies will be crucial. In the meantime, events in Australia are a warning for tech companies and state regulators alike about social media’s hybrid nature, and the tension between people and profits that emerge from corpo-civic spaces.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on February 23 2021 after Facebook agreed a compromise with the Australian government to reverse the news block.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153119/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolina Are does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Facebook’s choice of profits over the people is difficult to reconcile with its commitment to free speech.Carolina Are, Researcher and visiting lecturer, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1450232020-09-11T04:47:12Z2020-09-11T04:47:12ZHacking the pandemic: how Taiwan’s digital democracy holds COVID-19 at bay<p>Taiwan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been among the world’s best. With a population almost the size of Australia’s, the island nation has <a href="https://www.cdc.gov.tw/En/Bulletin/Detail/F1YY_hNuYEzY32IxyPBr4w?typeid=158">reported</a> only 496 confirmed cases of the disease and no locally acquired infections for months. </p>
<p>The unlikely heroes of Taiwan’s success are “civic tech hacktivists”: coders and activists who the country’s <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/how-taiwans-unlikely-digital-minister-hacked-the-pandemic/">celebrity</a> digital minister <a href="https://twitter.com/audreyt">Audrey Tang</a> describes as the “nobodies” who “hack democracy”.</p>
<p>What began with the hackers of the “open source, open government” movement <a href="https://g0v.tw/en-US/">g0v</a> and student protesters has grown into an experiment in radical democracy that is yielding astonishing results.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/another-day-another-hotel-quarantine-fail-so-what-can-australia-learn-from-other-countries-144804">Another day, another hotel quarantine fail. So what can Australia learn from other countries?</a>
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<h2>‘Fast, fair and fun’</h2>
<p>While the notion of “<a href="https://sk.sagepub.com/books/digital-democracy">digital democracy</a>” is as old as the internet, few countries have really tried to find out how to practice democracy in digital spheres. In Taiwan, however, there is a strong collective narrative of digital democracy, and government and civil society work together in online spaces to build public trust. </p>
<p>The growth of civic hacking in Taiwan <a href="http://techpresident.com/news/wegov/25339/sunflower-movement-g0v-taiwan-open-government">has its roots</a> in the so-called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunflower_Student_Movement">Sunflower Movement</a>, a stream of protests in 2014 against a trade agreement with China.</p>
<p>The pillars of Taiwan’s approach to digital democracy are “fast, fair and fun”. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1252588694147457026"}"></div></p>
<p>Taiwan was among the first countries in the world to <a href="https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202004170016">detect and respond</a> to the virus, thanks to crowd-sourced, collective intelligence through online bulletin boards. Warnings of the virus were first noted in December 31 2019, when a senior health official spotted a heavily “up-voted” post on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTT_Bulletin_Board_System">PTT</a> bulletin board.</p>
<p>Before long, civic tech hackers were working on open data projects for citizens to interact with <a href="https://mask.pdis.nat.gov.tw/">live maps</a>, distributed ledger technology and chat bots to find the nearest pharmacy to claim free masks, with stock levels updated in real time to stop panic buying. Audrey Tang dubbed this rapid, iterative, bottom-up process – as opposed to a top-down government-led distribution system – “<a href="https://rightscon.course.tc/2020/events/democracy-2030-what-should-it-look-like-rancUbPEqtyWYijgxHu93F">reverse procurement</a>”. </p>
<p>A “humour over rumour” strategy has also been very successful to combat misinformation, fake news and disinformation. Taiwan is <a href="https://www.frstrategie.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/autres/2020/Interview%20Audrey%20Tang.pdf">engineering memes</a> to spread public awareness of positive behaviours through the virality of social media algorithms. </p>
<p>Government departments are responsible for addressing disinformation by providing a “memetic” response according to the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0uR4_dctTg&t=143s">2-2-2</a>”: a response in 20 minutes, in 200 words or less, with 2 images. </p>
<p>Alongside <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mohw.gov.tw/photos/a.484593545040402/1495041613995585/?type=3">dog memes</a> and <a href="https://vosizneias.com/2020/04/16/pink-is-not-just-for-girls-taiwanese-officials-wear-pink-face-masks-to-encourage-males-to-don-them/">pink face masks</a>, one of the most successful is a rapid response to halt runs on toilet paper. This featured a <a href="https://chinapost.nownews.com/20200305-1091475">cartoon video</a> of Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang shaking his backside with a caption saying “We only have one pair of buttocks”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356482/original/file-20200904-14-1qf8abe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356482/original/file-20200904-14-1qf8abe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356482/original/file-20200904-14-1qf8abe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356482/original/file-20200904-14-1qf8abe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356482/original/file-20200904-14-1qf8abe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356482/original/file-20200904-14-1qf8abe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356482/original/file-20200904-14-1qf8abe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Meme of television presenters obvserving Premier Su Tseng-chang’s figure with the slogan ‘We only have one pair of buttocks’.</span>
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<h2>How hacktivists reached the halls of power</h2>
<p>How has the mindset and culture of hacktivism been cultivated to motivate civic hackers to participate in Taiwan’s digital democracy? </p>
<p>First, a figurehead and a manifesto. Audrey Tang is the figurehead, and her manifesto <a href="https://medium.com/@audrey.tang/on-utopia-for-public-action-b4e5b2c816a9">On Utopia for Public Action</a> espouses post-party politics, free speech and deliberation, all enabled through thoughtful and experimental application of digital infrastructure. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A screenshot of text reading 'When we see 'internet of things', let’s make it an internet of beings. When we see 'virtual reality', let’s make it a shared reality. When we see 'machine learning', let’s make it collaborative learning.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356484/original/file-20200904-24-n7cfcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356484/original/file-20200904-24-n7cfcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=116&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356484/original/file-20200904-24-n7cfcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356484/original/file-20200904-24-n7cfcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=116&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356484/original/file-20200904-24-n7cfcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=145&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356484/original/file-20200904-24-n7cfcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=145&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356484/original/file-20200904-24-n7cfcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=145&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Audrey Tang’s ‘prayer’ at the Open Source, Open Society 2016 conference.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxMxg4ct-D8">YouTube</a></span>
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<p>Second, a suite of <a href="https://blog.pol.is/digital-tools-open-up-taiwans-democratic-imaginations-d8f80432305c">smart digital tools</a> enable discussion, survey and online “telepresence”. These include the <a href="https://vtaiwan.tw/">vTaiwan</a> and the <a href="https://join.gov.tw/">Join</a> platforms for public policy participation.</p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/digital-democracy-lets-you-write-your-own-laws-21483">Digital democracy lets you write your own laws</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Third, inviting participation, listening to community voices, and taking action as a result. Taiwan’s culture of civic participation <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/event/conversation-audrey-tang">follows</a> the model of open source software communities. This means working from the bottom up, sharing information, improving on the work of others, mutual benefit and participatory collective action.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356483/original/file-20200904-18-ltbhjx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356483/original/file-20200904-18-ltbhjx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356483/original/file-20200904-18-ltbhjx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356483/original/file-20200904-18-ltbhjx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356483/original/file-20200904-18-ltbhjx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356483/original/file-20200904-18-ltbhjx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356483/original/file-20200904-18-ltbhjx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">g0v.asia is a ‘decentralized civic tech community from Taiwan’.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Underlying these initiatives and digital infrastructures, is two-way trust. In the words of <a href="https://medium.com/g0v-tw/can-technology-improve-democracy-answers-from-g0v-summit-2016-db51a126e110">Yun Chen</a>, a member of the “decentralized civic tech community” g0v:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The first key is trust … it was the trust that made government officers take open data as performance instead of troubles, which led government to initiate open data and be willing to accept tech assistance from civic tech communities. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite <a href="https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=2249">low overall trust</a> in government and leadership in Taiwan, recent <a href="https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2020-03-26/381872">polling</a> suggests 91% of citizens are satisfied with the Central Epidemic Command Centre. Tang has <a href="https://rightscon.course.tc/2020/events/democracy-2030-what-should-it-look-like-rancUbPEqtyWYijgxHu93F">said</a> “the government needs to fully trust the citizens”, and that this trust is reciprocated.</p>
<h2>A small experiment</h2>
<p>With all of this enthusiasm, I wanted to try participating in digital democracy myself. I had heard Tang quote some statistics on increased public trust in several interviews, but I couldn’t find the source. At the suggestion of my Taiwanese compatriot Chih Cheng Liang, I simply asked Tang for the source on Twitter.</p>
<p>Tang’s response was extremely impressive: in less than 5 minutes, she replied with a link to the relevant Taiwanese poll. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1288382994873348101"}"></div></p>
<h2>A radical experiment</h2>
<p>In many countries, policy makers don’t fully <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-covidsafe-app-was-just-one-contact-tracing-option-these-alternatives-guarantee-more-privacy-137400">understand</a> the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2757369">technical and governance dynamics</a> of the digital realm. In Taiwan, we are seeing what can happen when they do: bringing “hacker” tools and methods into the institutions of government to increase public participation in democracy.</p>
<p>It’s a vast change. Digital infrastructures are inherently <a href="https://medium.com/@kelsie.nabben/a-politics-of-digital-infrastructure-de784067e5cc">political</a>, or spheres for <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0894439302238975">political engagement</a>. They emerge out of the interaction between technology and society, and are influenced and constrained by human agents. </p>
<p>Radical democracy is <a href="https://medium.com/@aelcenganda/how-open-source-communities-being-politicized-to-change-civil-participation-from-taiwan-b139a4dea613">essentially radical</a>. Tang also sits on the board of of American economist Glen Weyl’s <a href="https://www.radicalxchange.org/">Radical Xchange</a> initiative, which aims at “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets-Uprooting-Capitalism-Democracy/dp/0691196060">uprooting capitalism and democracy for a just society</a>”. </p>
<p>There is now <a href="https://blog.radicalxchange.org/blog/posts/2019-06-27-9ph1dk/">talk</a> of trying out the collective decision making system known as “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_voting">quadratic voting</a>”, and other experimental crowd-sourcing mechanisms that have surfaced from the Ethereum blockchain community.</p>
<p>Other countries are free to pick up both lessons and digital innovations from Taiwan’s innovations. Many tools and models have been made available on an open-source basis at <a href="https://www.taiwancanhelp.us">Taiwancanhelp.us</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356485/original/file-20200904-14-1gtolhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356485/original/file-20200904-14-1gtolhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356485/original/file-20200904-14-1gtolhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356485/original/file-20200904-14-1gtolhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356485/original/file-20200904-14-1gtolhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356485/original/file-20200904-14-1gtolhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356485/original/file-20200904-14-1gtolhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image from g0v.tw illustrates the movement’s goal of radical democracy.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-coronavirus-success-of-taiwan-and-iceland-has-in-common-140455">What coronavirus success of Taiwan and Iceland has in common</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145023/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelsie Nabben does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Taiwan has a population of over 20 million people and no new cases of coronavirus since mid-April. Embracing ‘digital democracy’ and ‘hacktivism’ have been the keys to their success.Kelsie Nabben, Researcher / PhD Candidate, RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub / Digital Ethnography Research Centre, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1297472020-01-21T14:10:46Z2020-01-21T14:10:46ZOne Ring to rule them all: Surveillance ‘smart’ tech won’t make Canadian cities safer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310585/original/file-20200116-72788-1dz4yh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C0%2C3609%2C2285&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amazon says it has considered adding facial recognition technology to its Ring doorbell cameras. Some politicians are concerned Ring's video-sharing partnerships with police departments encroach on people's privacy and civil liberties. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Jessica Hill</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last fall, Drew Dilkens, the mayor of Windsor, Ont., set out to <a href="https://www.iheartradio.ca/am800/news/mayor-dilkens-pushing-for-windsor-to-join-safety-app-1.10000294">make the city the first Canadian urban centre</a> to connect to the Amazon Ring network, which the company calls “<a href="https://shop.ring.com/pages/neighbors">the new neighbourhood watch</a>.” </p>
<p>Ring promises to <a href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/keeping-more-neighborhoods-safe">keep more neighbourhoods safe</a>, but will smart surveillance systems really make Canada safer? Only if the safety priority is our Amazon packages.</p>
<p>Ring is a suite of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ring-video-doorbell-amazon-sale-2018-7">“smart” home security devices from Amazon</a>, based around video doorbells and an app called Neighbors. The system allows Ring customers to post and view footage from their front doors and report suspicious activity. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tdStku5BQ8g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Saskatoon police arrested two so-called “porch pirates” who were caught on video stealing boxes containing $5,000 in crucial medical supplies for a two-year-old boy. Police were able to find the suspects and return the packages after the video was shared on social media. CBC.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Customers pay monthly fees to be part of the security network. They can also purchase connected indoor security systems, <a href="https://blog.ring.com/2020/01/06/ces-2020-ring-unveils-new-devices-and-gives-sneak-preview-of-what-is-to-come-this-year/">smart lighting</a> and <a href="https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003247146-Amazon-Echo-Integration-With-Ring-Devices-through-Amazon-Alexa">an integration with Amazon’s Alexa</a>, a smart-home device. </p>
<p>Framed as a way to crack down on “<a href="https://www.cnet.com/how-to/package-theft-solutions-porch-pirates-are-no-match-for-these-smart-home-devices/">porch pirates</a>” stealing packages from doorsteps, the Ring system not only makes money for Amazon, it — conveniently — <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/12/20802325/amazon-ring-ecommerce-package-theft">saves the company from losses</a> on stolen deliveries. Amazon’s “Key” feature even allows smart system users <a href="https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=17735409011">to grant remote keyless entry to their homes, garages or cars </a> to Amazon delivery drivers, so no package need ever go astray.</p>
<p>Amazon’s all-seeing eye of passwords, access and surveillance infiltrating into communities is not solely a corporate system; it is increasingly connected to civic power. At the annual CES (formerly Consumer Electronic Show) conference in 2020, Amazon announced that <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/ces-2020-amazon-defends-ring-police-partnerships/">at least 400 police departments in the United States</a> had partnered with Amazon Ring in the previous year. </p>
<p>When a crime is reported, police can ask for footage from Ring homes within a radius, bypassing warrants if Ring owners comply. At least one law enforcement agency, Florida’s Lakeland Police department, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mb88za/amazon-requires-police-to-shill-surveillance-cameras-in-secret-agreement">appears to have been contractually obliged </a> to promote doorbells as a result of the partnership.</p>
<h2>What does this mean for citizens and safety?</h2>
<p>Beyond the company’s own <a href="https://tv.ring.com/category/videos/crime-prevention">cheery anecdotes</a>, there is minimal data <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612307/video-doorbell-firm-ring-says-its-devices-slash-crimebut-the-evidence-looks-flimsy/">proving Ring’s effectiveness</a>. There is <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2016/03/24/ring-cut-burglaries-by-half-in-l-a-neighborhood.html">one positive 2016 report from Los Angeles</a> that predates Amazon’s acquisition of Ring; the methodology of that report has not been made public. </p>
<p>Still, as the pioneering urbanist <a href="http://www.janejacobswalk.org/about-jane-jacobs-walk/meet-jane-jacobs">Jane Jacobs</a> — or anyone from a small town — could tell you, additional <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2013/07/new-way-understanding-eyes-street/6276/">eyes on a street</a> <em>can</em> serve to deter crime. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310999/original/file-20200120-69555-tzvir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310999/original/file-20200120-69555-tzvir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310999/original/file-20200120-69555-tzvir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310999/original/file-20200120-69555-tzvir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310999/original/file-20200120-69555-tzvir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310999/original/file-20200120-69555-tzvir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310999/original/file-20200120-69555-tzvir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The evolution from community surveillance with a personal touch to mass digital surveillance of cities is troubling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Your uncle Bob peering out the window, however, is not the same as Ring. Actually knowing and looking out for your neighbours is not the same as a surveillance network. Ring represents an emerging governance system that, once established, we can neither vote for nor pull the curtains against. Framing Ring as a simple safety app fails to paint an accurate picture of the dangers of a makeshift corporate surveillance infrastructure.</p>
<p>People may assume there’s no risk to them, so long as <a href="https://www.amnesty.ca/blog/7-reasons-why-%E2%80%98i%E2%80%99ve-got-nothing-to-hide%E2%80%99-is-the-wrong-response-to-mass-surveillance">they have nothing to hide</a>. Regardless, surveillance of this kind still creates risks. At the societal level, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2013.10">the ocean of datafication</a> created by pervasive smart technologies blurs the boundaries between <a href="https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/12913">financial, consumer and governmental systems</a>. The datafication of our personal information ultimately reduces citizens to a collection of data points, open to misinterpretation, manipulation and <a href="https://www.prweb.com/releases/ncpdp_experian_health_announce_100_of_the_u_s_population_has_a_universal_patient_identifier_powered_by_experian_health_uim_and_ncpdp_standards/prweb16798860.htm">monetization</a>. </p>
<p>Do we want a societal surveillance system where public crime data is owned by a corporate entity? Amazon’s interests are in profits and prevention of package loss, not in protecting citizen rights.</p>
<p>All smart systems create safety risks, not only of criminals hacking in but <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/01/10/amazon-ring-security-camera/">also for customers</a>. <a href="https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/investigations/ethical-hacker-shows-us-how-easily-smart-devices-can-be-hacked-and-give-access-to-your-personal-info">Recent news</a> has been full of stories of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episodes/archives/home-hack-how-safe-are-your-high-tech-security-devices">smart tech</a> and <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/amazon-listens-to-conversations-through-alexa-qh328jlw0">Amazon security lapses</a>, including a hacker who accessed the camera and speaker of a Ring security system in the bedroom of an eight-year-old Mississippi girl and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/tech/2019/12/13/ring-security-camera-hacker-vpx.hln">told her he was Santa Claus</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to hacking, user <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/30/21042974/wyze-server-breach-cybersecurity-smart-home-security-camera">data leaks</a> are becoming commonplace with cybersecurity systems. Notably, Ring’s December 2019 leak of thousands of customer passwords <a href="https://www.pymnts.com/news/security-and-risk/2019/thousands-of-amazon-ring-passwords-leaked-on-dark-web/">was denied by the company</a>. </p>
<h2>More safety or more problems?</h2>
<p>Amazon has indicated — publicly and in leaked documents — that it’s interested in building out <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/11/26/amazon-ring-home-security-facial-recognition/">the facial recognition possibilities of Ring</a>. According to documents reviewed by the <em>Intercept</em>, the system would notify Ring owners any time an established “suspicious person” appeared on their property.</p>
<p>Some citizens would bear the brunt of that perceived risk more than others. Along with Ring, companies like NextDoor and Citizen show that <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/7/18528014/fear-social-media-nextdoor-citizen-amazon-ring-neighbors">fear-based neighbourhood social media</a> is already on the rise. Notifications about so-called suspicious persons <a href="https://theappeal.org/spotlight-neighborhood-crime-apps-stoke-fears-reinforce-racist-stereotypes-and-dont-prevent-crime/">feed race and class biases</a> and <a href="https://popula.com/2018/09/10/vigilantes-next-door/">encourage vigilante behaviours</a>. </p>
<p>And even minor misdemeanors like egging cars <a href="https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/01/caught-in-the-spotlight/">can seem like a reason to call the police</a> if there’s video on hand.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ujYMjO1Ybcg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In the 1990s, deadly terrorist bombings prompted British officials to adopt the widespread use of closed-circuit television cameras throughout London and beyond. This extensive surveillance system helped solve the deadly bombings of 2005 but has also led to questions about whether these practices constitute a violation of personal privacy. (National Geographic)</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Worse, facial recognition technology is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/technology/facial-recognition-race-artificial-intelligence.html">particularly poor</a> at correctly identifying the faces of women and people of colour. <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvyvzd/amazons-home-security-company-is-turning-everyone-into-cops">Innocent brown and Black community members</a> stand to be mistakenly harassed and even hurt. </p>
<p>U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey wrote an open letter to Amazon in September 2019, expressing concerned that Ring facial recognition has serious potential to “<a href="https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Ring%20Law%20Enforcement%202019.pdf">catalyze racial profiling and harm people of colour</a>.” As <a href="https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/local/woman-accuses-halifax-police-of-racial-profiling-after-violent-walmart-arrest-399171">Canadian cities</a> grapple with racism, classism and discrimination, tools like Ring will only undermine efforts towards breaking down bias. </p>
<p>In the long run, we all stand to be harmed by the happenstance creation of an integrated police-Ring surveillance network. The smart tech promise gets safety backwards. Civil and civic rights matter, and we shouldn’t abandon Canada’s <a href="https://courts.findlaw.ca/article/police-surveillance-when-is-it-legal/">stringent police surveillance regulations</a> for a shiny new version of property security. A society where people are less important than packages is no society at all. </p>
<p>Windsor — and Canada — would be wise to say “no” to Amazon Ring.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bonnie Stewart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Amazon says it’s the “new neighbourhood watch” but Ring may just be another technology that gives police too much data and lets neighbourhoods double down on their biases.Bonnie Stewart, Assistant Professor, Online Pedagogy & Workplace Learning, University of WindsorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/618162016-08-28T18:16:08Z2016-08-28T18:16:08ZTechnology can boost active citizenship – if it’s chosen well<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128820/original/image-20160630-30635-1u7pdoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">However powerful technologies may seem, choices are made by people – not the machines they invent.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Legnan Koula/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemontgomery/2015/06/24/why-civic-tech-is-the-next-big-thing/#355794fce24b">Civic technology</a> initiatives are on the rise. They are using new information and communication technologies to improve transparency, accountability and governance – faster and more cheaply than before.</p>
<p>In Taiwan, for instance, tech activists have built online databases to <a href="http://techpresident.com/news/wegov/25339/sunflower-movement-g0v-taiwan-open-government">track political contributions</a> and create channels for public participation in parliamentary debates. In South Africa, anti-corruption organisation <a href="http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/about-us/who-we-are/about-corruption-watch/">Corruption Watch</a> has used online and mobile platforms to <a href="http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/bua-mzansi-the-importance-of-the-public-protector/">gather public votes</a> for Public Protector candidates. </p>
<p>But <a href="http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/publication/six-rules-thumb-select-tools-transparency-accountability-project">research</a> I recently completed with <a href="https://www.theengineroom.org">partners</a> in Africa and Europe suggests that few of these organisations may be choosing the right technological tools to make their initiatives work. </p>
<p>We interviewed people in Kenya and South Africa who are responsible for choosing technologies when implementing transparency and accountability initiatives. In many cases, they’re <a href="http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/publication/six-rules-thumb-select-tools-transparency-accountability-project">not choosing their tech well</a>. They often only recognised in retrospect how important their technology choices were. Most would have chosen differently if they were put in the same position again.</p>
<p>Our findings challenge a common mantra which holds that technological failures are usually caused by people or strategies rather than technologies. It’s certainly true that human agency matters. However powerful technologies may seem, choices are made by people – not the machines they invent. But our research supports the idea that technology isn’t neutral. It suggests that sometimes the problem really <em>is</em> the tech. </p>
<h2>Code is law</h2>
<p>This isn’t a new discovery. As the technology historian <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3105385?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Melvin Kranzberg</a> put it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>US legal professor <a href="http://www.lessig.org/about/">Lawrence Lessig</a> made a similar case when he argued that <a href="http://harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law-html">“Code is Law”</a>. </p>
<p>Lessig pointed out that software – along with laws, social norms and markets —- can regulate individual and social behaviour. Laws can make it compulsory to use a seat belt. But car design can make it difficult or impossible to start a car without a seat belt on.</p>
<p>Our study examined initiatives with a wide array of purposes. Some focused on mobile or online corruption reporting, others on public service monitoring, open government data publishing, complaints systems or public data mapping and budget tracking. </p>
<p>They also used a range of different technological tools. These included “off-the-shelf” software; open-source software developed within the civic tech community; bespoke software created specifically for the initiatives; and popular social media platforms.</p>
<p>Less than one-quarter of the organisations were happy with the tools they’d chosen. They often encountered technical issues that made the tool hard to use. Half the organisations we surveyed discovered that their intended users did not use the tools to the extent that they had hoped. This trend was often linked to the tools’ specific attributes.</p>
<p>For instance: if an initiative uses <a href="https://www.whatsapp.com/about/">WhatsApp</a> as a channel for citizens to report corruption, the messages will be strongly <a href="https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000618/end-to-end-encryption">“end-to-end” encrypted</a>. This security limits the behaviour of governments or other actors if they seek to read those messages. If <a href="https://www.facebook.com/help/237721796268379">Facebook Messenger</a> is used instead, content will not be encrypted in the same way. Such decisions could affect the risks users face and influence their willingness to use a particular tool.</p>
<p>Other applications, like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/">YouTube</a> and <a href="https://vimeo.com/about">Vimeo</a>, may differ in their consumption of data. One may be more expensive than the other for users. Organisations will need to consider this when choosing their primary platform.</p>
<p>It’s not always easy to choose between the many available technologies. Differences are not transparent. The effects of those differences and their relevance to an initiative’s aims may be uncertain. Many of the people we spoke to had very limited technical knowledge, experience or skills. This limited their ability to understand the differences between options.</p>
<p>One of the most common frustrations interviewees reported was that the intended users didn’t use the tool they had developed. This uptake failure is not only common in the civic tech fields we examined. It has been noted <a href="https://wiki.cc.gatech.edu/ccg/_media/people/dan/quals/if_we_build_it.pdf">since at least the 1990s</a> in the worlds of business and development.</p>
<p>Large corporations’ IT departments introduced “change management” techniques in answer to this problem. They changed employees’ work practices to adapt to the introduction of new technologies. In civic tech, the users are rarely employees who can be instructed or even trained. Tech choices need to be adapted for the intended users, not for a structured organisation.</p>
<h2>Try before you buy</h2>
<p>So what should those working in civic technology do about improving tool selection? From our research, we developed <a href="https://toolselect.theengineroom.org/page/rules-of-thumb">six “rules” for better tool choices</a>. These are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>first work out what you don’t know;</p></li>
<li><p>think twice before building a new tool;</p></li>
<li><p>get a second opinion;</p></li>
<li><p>try it before you buy it;</p></li>
<li><p>plan for failure; and</p></li>
<li><p>share what you learn.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Possibly the most important of these recommendations is to try or “trial” technologies before making a final selection. This might seem obvious. But it was rarely done in our sample. </p>
<p>Testing in the field is a chance to explore how a specific technology and a specific group of people interact. It often brings issues to the surface that are initially far from obvious. It exposes explicit or implicit assumptions about a technology and its intended users. </p>
<p>Failure can be OK. Silicon Valley’s leading tech organisations fail regularly. But if transparency and accountability initiatives are going to improve their use of technology, they are going to need to learn from this and from <a href="http://digitalprinciples.org">other research</a> – and from their own experiences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61816/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Indra de Lanerolle receives funding for this research from Making All Voices Count, a challenge fund for innovation in accountability and governance supported by UK Aid (DFID), USAID and Omidyar Network. He leads the Network Society Lab at the University of Witwatersrand and is a member of the World Internet Project, a network of Internet researchers in more than 20 countries. </span></em></p>Very few organisations in the field of civic technology are choosing the right tools for the job.Indra de Lanerolle, Visiting Researcher, Network Society Lab, Journalism and Media Programme, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/570062016-03-31T12:07:50Z2016-03-31T12:07:50ZImagine if Google or Facebook took a line on the EU referendum<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116933/original/image-20160331-9712-qphr3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rawpixel.com/shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine if on June 23 this year British citizens looking at google.co.uk found the words #VoteIn towards the bottom of the search page. Perhaps they would ignore it and go about their business, or perhaps it would remind them that they had not yet voted and ought to before it was too late. Whatever their views on the EU referendum, such an expression of partisanship may surprise them. </p>
<p>Why? Because most of us still think of Google – and the services of other tech giants such as Facebook or Twitter – as a neutral platform, driven by algorithms and serving only as an unopinionated conduit between users and the information they seek. But tech giants are not neutral, nor are they simply conduits. In fact my <a href="http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/policy-institute/CMCP/Tech-Giants-and-Civic-Power.pdf">new study</a> suggests they are increasingly taking on civic roles, raising questions about their societal responsibilities – responsibilities beyond those to their customers or shareholders. </p>
<p>Billions of people worldwide use Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or Apple’s services: as a newswire, to join or start campaigns, co-ordinate collective action, or show solidarity. Civil rights campaigners upload videos of human rights abuse to YouTube, voters alert their social network to the fact that they have voted, survivors let followers know they are alive after an attack or natural disaster.</p>
<p>These organisations have empowered people through the tools they provide. Sociologist <a href="http://www.sociology.cam.ac.uk/people/academic-staff/mcastells">Manuel Castells</a> has <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/communication-power-9780199567041?cc=us&lang=en&#">written</a> that the “expansion of mass self-communication” they and others have enabled has “supported an unexpected, extraordinary broadening of the ability of individual and social actors to challenge the power of the state”. Simultaneously, these same organisations gain power as more of us use their services: the power to amplify or obscure campaigns, to filter the news that finds its way into your newsfeed, to activate safety or privacy services or not activate them.</p>
<p>For example, Facebook turned on its Safety Check after the recent attacks in Brussels and Lahore, and the Paris attacks in November last year. But it chose not to enable the feature, which allows people to find out quickly if loved ones are safe, following the bombings in Beirut earlier the same month (Facebook subsequently changed its policy). This, as <a href="https://www.ted.com/speakers/zeynep_tufekci">techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci</a> has <a href="https://medium.com/message/the-politics-of-empathy-and-the-politics-technology-664437b6427">said</a>, “demonstrates the profoundly political nature of the choices made by major internet platforms”.</p>
<p>The power of these organisations to control these services, who uses them, and how they are used, would be less of an issue for civic society were they not so big. Apple, Google and Microsoft were three of the four most valuable companies at the end of 2015. In the same year Facebook had almost <a href="http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-NJ5DZ/0x0x842064/619A417E-5E3E-496C-B125-987FA25A0570/FB_Q215EarningsSlides.pdf">as many active users</a> as <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/">there are Muslims worldwide</a> (around 1.5 billion). More than <a href="http://www.statista.com/statistics/266136/global-market-share-held-by-smartphone-operating-systems/">nine in ten smartphones</a> sold globally in 2015 used either the Android (Google) or iOS (Apple) operating system. </p>
<p>Their size and dominance, when combined with the benefits of the network effect (where the value of a service increases the more people use it), suppress effective digital competition and undermine the corrective ability of the market. The level of infrastructure investment required to compete is already out of reach of all but the largest corporations or governments. For example, to run its services Facebook has built four data centres in the US and a fifth in Lulea, Sweden, at a cost of <a href="https://gigaom.com/2013/04/23/data-center-rivals-facebook-and-google-pump-700m-in-new-construction-into-iowa/">more than US$300m each</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116934/original/image-20160331-15137-1av98vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116934/original/image-20160331-15137-1av98vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116934/original/image-20160331-15137-1av98vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116934/original/image-20160331-15137-1av98vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116934/original/image-20160331-15137-1av98vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116934/original/image-20160331-15137-1av98vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116934/original/image-20160331-15137-1av98vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We need a democratic response towards the growing role tech is playing in civic society.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/backbone_campaign/16466471030">Backbone Campaign</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The scale and reach of the tech giants and the growing civic roles they play make it inevitable that governments – democratic and otherwise – will respond. Some already have. In April last year the European Commission <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-years-of-talk-a-regulator-is-willing-to-take-on-google-40861">launched an antitrust action against Google</a>, claiming it had abused its dominant position in the search market to ‘<a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4780_en.htm">systematically favour its own comparison shopping product</a> in its general search results pages’.</p>
<p>Yet most of these responses are destined to fail. This is for three reasons: democratic governments have not yet adequately defined the problem with these tech giants that they are trying to solve. They are using legislation and policy approaches unsuited to dealing with these tech organisations and their products. And they do not have a vision of where they would like a future digital society to end up.</p>
<p>It’s urgent we figure out what sort of digital societies we want to live in, and what role the tech giants ought to play. As each week goes by the services provided by these organisations evolve and grow, and become more and more integral to the lives of billions of us. From August 2014 to September 2015 Facebook’s WhatsApp added more users worldwide than the populations of Germany, France, Italy and the UK combined (adding about <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/4245/whatsapp-user-growth/">300m users</a>). At the same time the tech corporations expand the civic services they offer, from Facebook Instant Articles and Twitter Alerts to Apple News and YouTube’s Human Rights Channel. </p>
<p>The idea of Google encouraging British citizens to vote in or out of Europe in the referendum may seem unlikely, but it is certainly not fanciful, nor would it be unprecedented. On May 22 last year, the day of the Irish referendum on gay marriage, towards the bottom of the home page of google.ie were the words “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuaDPZINJc4">VoteYes</a>”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57006/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tech companies play a growing civic role in how we operate as a society. We need to be sure we’re happy with that.Martin Moore, Senior Research Fellow, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/328522014-10-29T09:38:20Z2014-10-29T09:38:20ZInvesting in people not tools: how to fulfill the promise of ‘civic tech’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63046/original/9btgn5hf-1414513457.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">No tech here...</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&searchterm=people%20power&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=180191942">Stack of hands image via shutterstock.com </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>Foundation essay</strong>: <em>This article is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and analysis articles and take a wider look at key issues affecting society.</em></p>
<p>Can the internet be used to improve how democracy is practiced around the world? </p>
<p><a href="http://personaldemocracy.com/about-us#micah">Micah Sifry</a>, founder of the <a href="http://personaldemocracy.com/">Personal Democracy Forum</a>, issued the latest salvo in this lively debate with his provocative book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Disconnect-Internet-Transformed/dp/1939293502">The Big Disconnect: Why the Internet Hasn’t Transformed Politics (Yet)</a>. He argues that despite optimistic predictions at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the internet has failed to transform politics and shift power to ordinary citizens. Meanwhile, thousands of social activists around the world–from <a href="https://www.loomio.org/">Loomio</a> to <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/">SeeClickFix</a> to <a href="http://www.actionpath.gr/?lang=en">ActionPath</a> to <a href="https://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>–are trying to develop what they call “civic tech,” or internet tools that enable citizens to more easily influence the public arena.</p>
<p>Missing from many of these conversations about civic tech is a fundamental truth about the tools that do enable change. Tools are at their most powerful when they transform people’s agency, or their capacity to act to achieve their goals. Having this capacity depends on a complex mix of competence, motivation, and autonomy: people have to know how to act on their goals, want to act on them, and have the space to be able to do so. </p>
<p>Too many of the civic tech tools available today simply enable participation by lowering the costs of engagement for people who already have the capacity to act. They do nothing to build that capacity among people who do not yet have it. Civic tech, therefore, is limited in its reach. Why does does this matter? Three stories from the world of business, health, and politics, illustrate the importance of transforming people’s capacity to act.</p>
<h2>Why are some companies more profitable than others?</h2>
<p>In 1982, Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. first published their book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Search-Excellence-Americas-Best-Run-Companies/dp/0060548789/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=">In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies</a>. The book became an immediate best-seller, and has since been named “one of the top three business books of the century” by NPR, one of the “greatest business books of all time” by Bloomsbury UK, and was republished in a new edition in 2004. </p>
<p>The book distills lessons Peters and Waterman learned from studying forty-three of the most successful for-profit companies in America. What did they learn? At the heart of their argument was the notion that the most successful companies invested in developing the capacity of their workers. These companies would “foster many leaders and many innovators throughout the organization,” and “treat the rank and file as the root source of quality and productivity gain.” These companies succeeded, in other words, by transforming their employees’ capacity to act: they worked to create happy environments, to give employees voice throughout the organization, and to equip them with the skills to develop their own strategy. By developing the competence, motivation, and autonomy of their employees, these businesses improved their bottom line.</p>
<h2>How do HIV-positive individuals learn to manage their illness?</h2>
<p>For the past several years, sociologist <a href="http://www.celestewatkinshayes.com/">Celeste Watkins-Hayes</a> at Northwestern University has been studying a racially and economically diverse group of HIV-positive women in the Chicago area to understand how they manage both their health and economic situations. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.hhrstrategies.org/">Among one group of thirty HIV-positive African American women</a>, she finds that they learned to transition from a sense that they were “dying from” AIDS to the sense that they were “living with” HIV. The crucial factor in making this transition Watkins-Hayes argues, is the existence of organizational ties that helped them develop their capacity to cope with their illness.</p>
<p>Many of the women in Watkins-Hayes’ study had struggled with homelessness, joblessness, and other deprivation in their lives. For them an HIV-diagnosis “was not the worst thing that had ever happened to me.” In fact, ironically, it was the HIV diagnosis that enabled them to turn their lives around and develop previously elusive stability. </p>
<p>Three-fourths of the women in Watkins-Hayes’ study reported “not only surviving but thriving despite being HIV positive.” Their HIV diagnosis made these women eligible for a host of institutional supports – bus passes to get around the city, housing communities for people with terminal illness, health support to manage diet and addition – that gave them the skills and autonomy they had previously lacked. Women who had previously lived in unstable neighborhoods moved into more stable environments and learned to manage their health. These institutional supports, in other words, helped these women develop the skills, motivation, and autonomy they needed to manage their own health.</p>
<h2>Why are some organizations able to develop more activists than others?</h2>
<p>The lessons learned from Peters and Waterman’s study of business or Watkins-Hayes’ study of health translate to politics as well. </p>
<p>In my recent book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Organizations-Develop-Activists-Associations/dp/0199336776/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1SNCZ84DKSV0K0XCKNW7">How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century</a>, I discuss the results of a study comparing the organizations in the United States best at getting people involved in health and environmental politics to those that are not as good. </p>
<p>Some people would argue that inspiring activism depends on having a charismatic leader, a catchy message, or better capabilities to harness big data and technology to target likely activists. While all these things matter, I found what really differentiated the high-engagement organizations from their low-engagement counterparts was their ability to transform people’s motivations and capacities for engaging in activism. </p>
<p>In the same vein of inquiry, <a href="http://elizabethmckenna.org/bio/">Elizabeth McKenna</a> and I <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199394601/ref=s9_newr_gw_d0_g14_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1HPCGGD6QJRKBN6EPTCC&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846">wrote a book</a> examining why the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns were able to engage more people in their campaign than any other in history. </p>
<p>What we found was that the Obama campaign, unlike those that had preceded it, invested in developing the leadership of volunteers who were interested in getting involved. Thus, in the months leading up the election, the campaign did not just hold its organizers responsible for the number of doors they knocked or voters they called. Organizers also had to attest to the number of people they recruited to leadership positions and the number of people they trained. </p>
<p>Whether we are talking about a campaign to elect the president, or the effort to build a social movement around climate change, what united these political organizations was their ability to transform the motivations, skills, and capacities of their activists.</p>
<h2>So what?</h2>
<p>Whether you want to build a successful business, improve people’s health, or engage people in activism, a fundamental truth about people emerges: people are more likely to succeed when they have the tools that develop their agency or their capacity to act on their goals. </p>
<p>Stated so simply, the truth seems self-evident, but civic tech often underestimates its importance. In the age of big data, it is often more efficient to find people who already have agency – because they grew up in politically active families, because they had role models, because they are part of other transformative organizations – than it is to do the hard work of developing that capacity in people. </p>
<p>For civic tech to transform politics in the way that many hoped at the dawn of the twenty-first century, it will have to learn how to develop tools that develop people’s agency in the same way that successful organizations in business, health, and politics have.</p>
<p>It turns out that, regardless of the tools we use or the sectors within which we work, people are people are people. </p>
<p>Civic tech would be well served to invest not only in developing the tools themselves, but also the people who use those tools.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32852/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hahrie Han does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Foundation essay: This article is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and analysis articles and take a wider look…Hahrie Han, Associate Professor of Political Science, Wellesley CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.