tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/political-activism-44129/articlesPolitical activism – The Conversation2024-03-11T12:24:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2251262024-03-11T12:24:14Z2024-03-11T12:24:14ZI’m a political scientist, and the Alabama Supreme Court’s IVF ruling turned me into a reproductive-rights refugee<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580509/original/file-20240307-26-mc43ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1095%2C1199%2C1403%2C1892&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spencer and Gabby Goidel hadn't planned to become activists.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Spencer and Gabby Goidel</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The day before the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alabama-supreme-court-from-embryos-161390f0758b04a7638e2ddea20df7ca">frozen embryos created and used for in vitro fertilization</a> are children, my wife, Gabby, and I were greenlighted by our doctors to begin the IVF process. We live in Alabama.</p>
<p>That Friday evening, Feb. 16, 2024, unaware of the ruling, Gabby started taking her stimulation medications, worth roughly US$4,000 in total. We didn’t hear about the decision until Sunday morning, Feb. 18. By then, she had taken four injections – or two doses – of each of the stimulation medications.</p>
<p>For those who don’t know, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-ivf-a-nurse-explains-the-evolving-science-and-legality-of-in-vitro-fertilization-224476">IVF process is a winding journey</a> full of tests, bloodwork and bills. An IVF patient takes hormones for eight to 14 days to stimulate their ovaries to produce many mature eggs. The mature eggs are then retrieved via a minor surgical procedure and fertilized with sperm in a lab. The newly created embryos are monitored, sometimes biopsied and frozen for genetic testing, and then implanted, usually one at a time, in the uterus. From injection to implantation, one round of IVF takes four to eight weeks. </p>
<p>IVF can be as stressful as it is exciting. However, the potential of having a successful pregnancy and our own child at the end of the process, we hoped, would make it all worth it. The decision by the Alabama Supreme Court threw our dreams up in the air.</p>
<p>I <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ow6DhIQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">study politics</a> – I don’t practice it. I’m not involved in state or local government. I’m a scholar, not an activist or an advocate. But now one of the most intimate, personal events of our lives had been turned into a political event by the state’s highest court. As a result, I became something else, too, which I had not been before: an activist.</p>
<h2>Making sense of the ruling</h2>
<p>Throughout the process of creating, growing and testing embryos in a lab, as many as <a href="https://www.illumefertility.com/fertility-blog/ivf-attrition-rate">50% to 70%</a> of embryos <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-human-embryos-naturally-die-after-conception-restrictive-abortion-laws-fail-to-take-this-embryo-loss-into-account-187904">can be lost</a>. Similarly, in the preimplantation stage of natural pregnancies, <a href="https://doi.org/10.12688%2Ff1000research.22655.1">many embryos don’t survive</a>.</p>
<p>If embryos are children, as the court ruled, then fertility clinics and patients would be exposed to an immense amount of potential legal liability. Under this new framework, patients would be able to bring wrongful death suits against doctors for the normal failures of embryos in the testing or implantation phase. Doctors would either have to charge more for an already expensive procedure to cover massive legal-insurance costs or avoid IVF altogether.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screen shows a microscope's view of a needle and cells." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.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"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lab staff at an in vitro fertilization lab extract cells from embryos that are then checked for viability.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FrozenEmbryos/ebbb52ebd68b4ab691798f90b3319f05/photo">AP Photo/Michael Wyke</a></span>
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<p>The decision and its implication – that IVF could not continue in the state of Alabama – felt like a personal affront to us. We were infuriated to have this uncertainty injected into the process three days into injecting IVF medication. </p>
<p>While the decision clearly imperiled the future of IVF in Alabama, it was not clear to us whether we would be allowed to continue the process we had begun. We were left completely in the dark for the next four days. Gabby and I had no choice but to continue daily life and IVF as though nothing was happening. </p>
<p>For me, that meant teaching my <a href="https://bulletin.auburn.edu/coursesofinstruction/poli/">political participation course at Auburn University</a>.</p>
<h2>Teaching politics when it gets personal</h2>
<p>I’ll never forget walking into class on Monday, Feb. 19, and telling the students about the court’s ruling and how it – maybe? – was going to jeopardize Gabby’s and my IVF process. </p>
<p>Before starting IVF, Gabby and I had gone through three miscarriages together.</p>
<p>IVF doesn’t always work. Approximately <a href="https://nccd.cdc.gov/drh_art/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=DRH_ART.ClinicInfo&rdRequestForward=True&ClinicId=9999&ShowNational=1">55% of IVF patients</a> under the age of 35 – Gabby is 26 – have a successful pregnancy after one egg retrieval. We couldn’t imagine the pain of telling friends and family that our attempt at having a child had once again failed. So we had agreed we were going to tell as few people as possible about starting IVF. </p>
<p>Yet, here I was now, telling my entire class what we were going through and how the Alabama Supreme Court ruling could affect us. </p>
<p>I wasn’t alone in sharing our story. The night before my Monday morning class, Gabby published an <a href="https://www.al.com/opinion/2024/02/guest-opinion-alabama-supreme-court-embryo-ruling-may-make-it-difficult-for-us-to-have-children.html">opinion column</a> on our local news site about the ruling and our resulting fears and anxieties, which really resonated with people.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Clear batches of containers of eggs and embryos in a large, frozen circular container" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Cryopreservation gives prospective parents more time to pursue pregnancy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/frozen-embryos-and-eggs-in-nitrogen-cooled-royalty-free-image/520157312">Ted Horowitz Photography/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>I was, that day and throughout the next few weeks, fixated on the conceptual gulf between the court’s ruling and public opinion. I wondered aloud, “Who’s against IVF? Surely, only 5% to 10% of the public agrees with this ruling.”</p>
<p>The actual numbers aren’t far off my in-class guess. <a href="https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_XLG2Z6p.pdf">Only 8% of Americans</a> say that IVF is immoral or should be illegal. But the story is more nuanced than that. Approximately <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2024-02/Axios%20Ipsos%20Alabama%20IVF%20Topline%20PDF%202.28.24.pdf">31% of Americans and 49% of Republicans</a> support “considering frozen embryos as people and holding those who destroy them legally responsible.” </p>
<p>In an attempt to tie our personal political experience into the class topic, I remarked that this court decision was a surefire way to get people involved in politics. I had no clue at the time how prophetic my comment would be.</p>
<h2>Fleeing to Texas for reproductive rights?</h2>
<p>On Wednesday, Feb. 21, the <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2024/02/uab-pauses-in-vitro-fertilization-due-to-fear-of-prosecution-officials-say.html">University of Alabama Birmingham’s fertility clinic</a> paused IVF treatments. That wasn’t our clinic, but the move sent us into a total panic. Our clinic’s closure seemed inevitable – and within 24 hours <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/university-alabama-pauses-ivf-services-court-rules-embryos-are-childre-rcna139846">it had paused IVF treatments as well</a>. </p>
<p>We didn’t know what we were going to do, but we knew we were likely leaving the state to continue IVF. I needed to tell my department chair what was going on.</p>
<p>I was walking out of my department chair’s office when my phone rang. Gabby told me, “We got in, we’re going to Temple.” I ran back into my department chair’s office, told her we were going to Temple, Texas, and then rushed home. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/22/us/alabama-embryos-ruling-ivf-treatment-leaving-state/index.html">A reporter from CNN</a> beat me there. It was one of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/02/24/alabama-ivf-treatment-ruling-abortion/">several</a> <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/ivf-doctors-patients-fearful-alabama-court-rules-embryos-are-children-rcna139636">interviews</a> with <a href="https://apnews.com/video/alabama-assisted-reproductive-technology-courts-legislation-gabby-goidel-8990ee5efaab450b940da1e6a39bf8d1">major</a> <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/katy-tur/watch/-thoughtless-ivf-patients-speak-out-on-alabama-embryo-decision-204655173631">media</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/22/alabama-fertility-pause-ivf-embryo-ruling">outlets</a> Gabby did in the wake of her opinion column. After the interview, we threw clothes in a suitcase, dropped our dogs off at the vet and drove to the Atlanta airport. We flew to Texas that night.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">One of the Goidels’ many media interviews in the wake of the Alabama ruling.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The thought of not completing the egg retrieval never seriously entered our minds. We were confident that we could get in with another IVF clinic somewhere, anywhere. But we’re affluent. We’re privileged. What if we weren’t so well off? We wouldn’t have wanted to give up, but we wouldn’t have been able to afford the fight.</p>
<p>We spent exactly one week at my parents’ house in Texas. Thankfully, my parents live an hour and a half away from the Temple clinic. We met our new doctor, <a href="https://www.bswhealth.com/physician/gordon-bates">Dr. Gordon Wright Bates</a>, and were immediately reassured. His cool expertise and confidence were calming to a stressed-out couple. The Alabama Supreme Court may have upended our lives, but we felt weirdly lucky to be in such a comfortable place.</p>
<p>The egg retrieval was Wednesday morning, Feb. 28. By all indications, it went well. IVF, however, is full of uncertainties. Now we are waiting on the results from preimplantation genetic testing. After that, there’s implantation and hoping the embryo continues to grow. We’re not in the clear: IVF is a stressful process even without a state court getting in the way. But today we are in a situation more like an average couple going through IVF than we have been in the past few weeks.</p>
<p>Late Wednesday night, March 6, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/us/politics/alabama-ivf-law.html">Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law a bill</a> providing legal protection to IVF clinics in the state. Gabby and I rejoiced at the news. Hopefully, we’re the last Alabamian couple to flee the state for IVF.</p>
<h2>A mobilizing moment</h2>
<p>When state politics directly interferes with your life, it feels like a gut punch, as if the community that you love is saying you’re not loved back. It’s easy to see how such an experience could either discourage or motivate you. Research shows that traumatic events, for the most part, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055422001010">depress voter turnout</a> in the following presidential election. By contrast, families and friends of 9/11 victims <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1315043110">became and remained more politically engaged</a> than their peers. </p>
<p>In this case, the Alabama Supreme Court ruling mobilized Gabby and <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/4/alabama_ivf_patients_warning_to_others">other</a> <a href="https://www.today.com/health/news/alabama-ivf-ruling-embryo-transfer-canceled-rcna140029">women</a> going through the IVF process. For better or worse, the women, couples and families mobilized by this decision will likely always be more engaged because of it.</p>
<p>“Oh, God,” I remarked to my dad, “we’re going to be activists now, aren’t we?”</p>
<p>“So?” he asked.</p>
<p>“No one likes activists,” I responded in jest. But if we’re going to have and raise the family we want, this is just the first of many decisions we’re going to make that someone’s not going to like.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Spencer Goidel 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>I’m a scholar, not an activist or an advocate. But now one of the most intimate, personal events of our lives had been turned into a political event by the state’s highest court.Spencer Goidel, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Auburn UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2235522024-02-15T02:49:22Z2024-02-15T02:49:22ZThe Jewish creatives’ WhatsApp leak was more whistleblowing than doxing. Here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575762/original/file-20240215-30-wzbohm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C35%2C5829%2C3952&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-in-white-shirt-holding-black-iphone-4-VGmgsDsck58">Miquel Parera/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Debate around doxing is raging in Australia after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/doxing-or-in-the-public-interest-free-speech-cancelling-and-the-ethics-of-the-jewish-creatives-whatsapp-group-leak-223323">leak of a WhatsApp chat group</a> called “Jewish Australian creatives and academics”. While the group was formed as a supportive space, some of its conversations focused on challenging media critiques of Israel.</p>
<p>The leakers have <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C3MIOyySAfM/?hl=en&img_index=1">stated they acted in the public interest</a>, because they claim the chat group was coordinating actions to target pro-Palestinian activists.</p>
<p>The Australian government has reacted to this episode with a move to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-13/federal-government-to-criminalise-doxxing/103458052">criminalise doxing</a> and introduce jail terms for culprits. </p>
<p>But was this leak actually <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/industry/tech-trends-and-challenges/doxing">doxing</a>? Terms like this are always up for debate, but the government’s own definition throws up questions about this case. </p>
<h2>Personal information</h2>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-13/federal-government-to-criminalise-doxxing/103458052">Prime Minister Anthony Albanese</a> and <a href="https://ministers.ag.gov.au/media-centre/transcripts/media-conference-parliament-house-13-02-2024">Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus</a>, doxing is the “malicious release” of someone’s personal information without their consent.</p>
<p>The first question here is one of personal information. Was any personal information actually leaked? </p>
<p>Early <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/hundreds-of-jewish-creatives-have-names-details-taken-in-leak-published-online-20240208-p5f3if.html">media reports stated</a> the leak contained a transcript of chat discussions. A separate spreadsheet was reportedly circulated that contained a list of the group members’ names, workplaces, social media accounts, as well as people’s photographs.</p>
<p>Those who released the information <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C3MIOyySAfM/?hl=en&img_index=5">say they scrubbed any details</a> that could be used to track people down, such as phone numbers and email addresses. They also say no private photographs were released, nor any photos of children. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-doxing-and-how-can-you-protect-yourself-223428">What is doxing, and how can you protect yourself?</a>
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<p>This is very different to other high-profile doxing events. For example, in 2018, men’s rights activists ran a campaign called #ThotAudit in which they tried to report online sex workers to the US Internal Revenue Service.</p>
<p>Some participants <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/gy7wyw/thotaudit-databases-of-sex-workers-and-reporting-them-to-paypal">compiled a detailed database of sex workers</a>, containing more than 166,000 entries, which included full names, locations, links to wish lists, types of payment processors and bios. This campaign <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18119688/thotaudit-sex-work-irs-online-harassment">was part of a long history</a> of sex workers being publicly exposed, and resulted in significant, personalised harassment of those on the list. </p>
<p>Some will say that releasing a list of names is itself doxing. But this is very murky. If participants need to be anonymous to join a cause – for example, for their own safety – there might be a case. But many of the participants in this WhatsApp chat were already high-profile people. </p>
<p>Therefore, the WhatsApp chat leak seems less like a case of doxing, and more like a leak of how groups organise around their political agendas. Similar leaks have exposed the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-26/secret-recordings-show-one-nation-staffers-seeking-nra-donations/10936052">links between Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party</a> and the US National Rifle Association, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-morrison-government-change-the-relationship-between-religion-and-politics-in-australia-190650">connections between Pentecostal Christian churches and politicians</a>.</p>
<p>I would argue this action was more in line with whistleblowing, not doxing. Whistleblowing is the release of information revealing activities that are deemed to be illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent.</p>
<p>These terms are also very much up for debate, but the publishers of this list believed the activity within to be immoral, and therefore within the public interest.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/doxing-or-in-the-public-interest-free-speech-cancelling-and-the-ethics-of-the-jewish-creatives-whatsapp-group-leak-223323">Doxing or in the public interest? Free speech, 'cancelling' and the ethics of the Jewish creatives' WhatsApp group leak</a>
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<h2>Malicious intent</h2>
<p>This leads to the second question, which is one of intent. The government claims the leak was done <a href="https://ministers.ag.gov.au/media-centre/transcripts/media-conference-parliament-house-13-02-2024">with malicious intent</a>, and this claim has been <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-drive/one-third-of-australian-children-can-t-read-properly/103457018">backed by the opposition</a> and organisations such as <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/doxxing-laws-to-be-brought-forward-after-jewish-whatsapp-leak-20240212-p5f4cc.html">the Executive Council of Australian Jewry</a>. </p>
<p>Yet the malicious intent is also up for debate. The release of this chat cannot be isolated from its content. This was, by and large, not simply a group of people having friendly conversations.</p>
<p>Some people in the group were high-profile supporters of Israel in Australia. Members also used the chat to organise politically, with some conversations allegedly centred on ways to target pro-Palestinian activists.</p>
<p>This creates a clear political reason for the release of the information. There is of course a reasonable debate here as to which private discussions of political issues are fair game, and everyone will have a different view.</p>
<p>But the political nature of the chat moves this incident closer to being a political leak or whistleblowing rather than doxing. </p>
<p>This does not mean the leakers are immune to criticism, either. There were harms associated with their actions. Members of the WhatsApp chat <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/09/josh-burns-jewish-whatsapp-group-channel-publication-israel-palestine-clementine-ford">have reported</a> they have been subjected to harassment, including death threats. This includes some who <a href="https://twitter.com/GingerGorman/status/1754680956760543247">were not actively participating</a> in the chat, and have since disowned the group’s conversations.</p>
<p>This fallout can and should be pursued by authorities under current anti-harassment legislation. Yet we must be careful about blaming those who leak material for this behaviour.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-wants-to-criminalise-doxing-it-may-not-work-to-stamp-out-bad-behaviour-online-223546">The government wants to criminalise doxing. It may not work to stamp out bad behaviour online</a>
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<p>Other examples of politically charged doxing help to illustrate this point. In the wake of the 2017 white supremacist Charlottesville riots in the United States, many anti-fascist organisers <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/150159/doxx-racist">tracked down and released</a> the names and details of participants using photographic evidence. In some instances this included details of where participants lived or worked. </p>
<p>This clearly meets the first part of the government’s definition of doxing. But it is debatable whether the anti-facist campaign was malicious or not.</p>
<p>While there were problems with this campaign, particularly as some people were wrongly identified, there is an ethical case to be made: people participating in violent white supremacist riots should be exposed so their community is aware of their actions. This made the Charlottesville leak political, rather than personally malicious.</p>
<p>This is where the risk lies in banning doxing if the definition of what that means is left too broad. By the government’s current definition, the WhatsApp leak seems more like an act of whistleblowing.</p>
<p>A legislative ban could therefore have a much broader impact than criminalising the release of personal information. Instead, it could result in further crackdowns on political activities, and serve to weaken the accountability of people with power. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-is-in-desperate-need-of-a-whistleblower-protection-authority-heres-what-it-should-look-like-223295">Australia is in desperate need of a Whistleblower Protection Authority. Here's what it should look like</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p><em>Correction: This article has been amended to clarify that there were two separate reported instances of information being released about the chat group and its participants.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223552/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Copland has signed a statement of solidarity with Palestine from academics in Australian universities.</span></em></p>If doxing is the malicious release of someone’s personal information without their consent, publicising politically charged discussions in a private chat group may not qualify.Simon Copland, Honorary Fellow in Sociology, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2053762023-05-17T18:15:29Z2023-05-17T18:15:29Z‘Mistaken, misread, misquoted, mislabeled, and mis-spoken’ – what Woody Guthrie wrote about the national debt debate in Congress during the Depression<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526336/original/file-20230515-38447-uevzio.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C564%2C347&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Guthrie questioned whether politicians really cared about the public interest -- such as the welfare of these veterans demonstrating in front of Congress in 1932.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/image/bonus_marchers.htm">Senate Historical Office</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The debt ceiling debate between the House GOP and President Joe Biden could, if not solved, lead to economic chaos and destruction – so it might seem strangely lighthearted to wonder what a Great Depression-era singer and activist would think about this particular political moment. </p>
<p>Certainly, in all the research I did in putting together my book “<a href="https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/P/Prophet-Singer">Prophet Singer: The Voice and Vision of Woody Guthrie</a>,” I never came across any comment Woody Guthrie made about the debt ceiling. </p>
<p>But he lived through the Great Depression and its aftermath. He also stood witness to legislators struggling to correct the direction that the nation was headed in during the 1930s and early ‘40s.</p>
<p>He had a lot to say about Congress in general and how it handled the national debt in particular.</p>
<p>He once made a folksy joke that suggests his feelings about this supposedly august body. </p>
<p>“The Housewives of the country are always afraid at nite, afraid they’s a Robber in the House. Nope, Milady most of em is in the Senate,” he wrote <a href="https://www.peopleslight.org/whats-on/archive/2017-2018-season/woody-sez/dramaturgy-note/">in his regular column for The People’s Daily, called “Woody Sez.”</a></p>
<p>Guthrie constantly railed against politicians, both Republican and Democrat, who he thought represented their own selfish interests rather than those of deserving working men and women. </p>
<p>What if he could survey today’s America? Would his comments on the state of the nation in the past suggest that he would have something to say in 2023?</p>
<p>In fact, some of his observations sound as if they were written about this political moment – rather than his own. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526310/original/file-20230515-31621-ummfq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with a hat playing a guitar with a sticker attached that says, 'This Machine Kills Fascists.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526310/original/file-20230515-31621-ummfq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526310/original/file-20230515-31621-ummfq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526310/original/file-20230515-31621-ummfq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526310/original/file-20230515-31621-ummfq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526310/original/file-20230515-31621-ummfq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526310/original/file-20230515-31621-ummfq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526310/original/file-20230515-31621-ummfq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guthrie, who was known as ‘the Dust Bowl troubador’ for his songs about the Dust Bowl and the Depression.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.74705/">Library of Congress, World Telegram photo by Al Aumuller</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>'Hearin’ the hens a cacklin’</h2>
<p>When Guthrie visited Washington, D.C., in 1940, he managed to hear some Senate debates and provided his thoughts on their effectiveness.</p>
<p>“I gawthered the Reactionary Republicans was in love with the Reactionary Republicans; also that the Liberal Democrats was in love with th’ Liberal Demacrats. Each presented a brief case of statistics proving that the other brief cases of statistics, was mistaken, misread, misquoted, mislabeled, and mis-spoken,” he wrote in his column. </p>
<p>And just what were politicians arguing over then? The national debt.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gop-debt-ceiling-trump-presidency/">Bipartisan legislative efforts</a> raised the debt ceiling three times under President Donald Trump. Now, House Republicans are <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/biden-mccarthy-start-debt-ceiling-talks-clock-ticks-default-2023-05-09/">balking unless certain conditions are met</a>, while the Democrats are demanding a clean bill with no restrictions. </p>
<p>Guthrie witnessed much the same situation in his era. During his visit to Washington, D.C., he listened to “senators a making speeches – on every conceivable subject under the sun, an’ though the manner in which they brought forth their arguments, their polished wit, and subtle maneuvers, were all very entertaining, I come out of it as empty handed as I went in,” he wrote in “Woody Sez.” </p>
<p>He then compared their debates to “hearin’ the hens a cacklin’ – and a runnin’ out to th barn.” Despite the scene’s being “loud, noisy, and plenty entertaining,” the result was “no eggs.” </p>
<p>There’s a lot of noise coming from Congress today also – but no results.</p>
<p>What could happen if the two sides cannot agree? A telling example occurred in 2011, when the bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-debt-ceiling-crises-and-the-political-chaos-theyve-unleashed-205178">came so late that Standard & Poor’s downgraded</a> the country’s credit rating – which hiked the interest that needed to be paid on the U.S. debt.</p>
<p>But if an agreement does not happen, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that such a crisis would bring on “<a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1470">economic and financial catastrophe</a>” on a national and global scale. </p>
<p>Guthrie would find this kind of brinkmanship troubling. Not because he was a political operative, with merely an intellectual understanding of the risks. Instead, he was driven by a personal knowledge of the day-to-day hardships, the human toll of such momentous political decisions. His family had fallen from middle-class safety into abject poverty even before the onset of the Great Depression. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526325/original/file-20230515-21691-mvvckf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A family on the road, standing next to a rickety truck with their belongings. Two boys in overalls are wearing no shirts." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526325/original/file-20230515-21691-mvvckf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526325/original/file-20230515-21691-mvvckf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526325/original/file-20230515-21691-mvvckf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526325/original/file-20230515-21691-mvvckf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526325/original/file-20230515-21691-mvvckf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526325/original/file-20230515-21691-mvvckf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526325/original/file-20230515-21691-mvvckf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guthrie knew and sang about the needs of America’s poor, such as this Depression-era impoverished family of nine on a New Mexico highway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/cph/3c30000/3c30000/3c30900/3c30926v.jpg">Dorothea Lange, photographer; Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because of falling agricultural prices in the aftermath of World War I and his father’s real estate speculation in some small farms surrounding their hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma, the Guthries could not keep up with their mortgages. They were forced into foreclosure. </p>
<p>Guthrie joked that his father “was the only man in the world that <a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5853376M/American_folksong_Woody_Guthrie.">lost a farm a day</a> for thirty days.” </p>
<p>Foreclosures would likely be just one of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/debt-ceiling-hurt-your-finances/">the ruinous effects of default</a> now, along with interest rates hikes, slashing of social programs, unemployment spikes and decimation of pension plans. All are negative results, but they are certain to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/14/1176062297/how-a-default-on-the-debt-ceiling-would-affect-the-average-american">hit the poor and working class</a> the hardest.</p>
<p>Those are the people whom Woody Guthrie advocated for throughout his career. Those are the people whose hardships he lamented in such songs as <a href="https://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/I_Aint_Got_No_Home.htm">“I Ain’t Got No Home”</a> and “<a href="https://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Dust_Bowl_Refugee.htm">Dust Bowl Refugee</a>.” </p>
<p>But he also expressed optimism about the power of those same people to make a positive change, such as in “<a href="https://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Union_Maid.htm">Union Maid</a>” and “<a href="https://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Better_World.htm">Better World A-Comin’</a>.” Individual and collective action was necessary, according to Guthrie, and he celebrated both. The union maid would “always get her way when she asked for better pay,” and in “Better World” he sings, “we’ll all be union and we’ll all be free.”</p>
<p>Perhaps his best-known comments about the nation appear in “<a href="https://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/This_Land.htm">This Land Is Your Land</a>,” with the popular version praising the American landscape. But in his early version of that song, he ended it with his narrator surveying a line of hungry people lined up “by the relief office” and then asked, “Was this land made for you and me?”</p>
<p>That question could rise again in 2023: If congressional leaders debating over the debt ceiling fail to find common ground for the nation’s greater good, perhaps someone will challenge them and ask if the politicians are in office for the American people, or for themselves – just as Woody Guthrie would have.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205376/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Allan Jackson 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>Folk singer and activist Woody Guthrie actually had thoughts about the national debt – and politicians in general. They’re remarkably apt today.Mark Allan Jackson, Professor of English, Middle Tennessee State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1980642023-02-19T19:09:36Z2023-02-19T19:09:36ZLong before the Voice vote, the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association called for parliamentary representation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508005/original/file-20230203-19611-85lvkb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=113%2C11%2C3778%2C1982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Maynard</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and/or images of deceased people.</em></p>
<p>The most startling point on the referendum for a Voice to parliament is the fact the majority of people in this country have no idea of history. And I mean both Black and white people. </p>
<p>Australian history, as written for nearly two thirds of the 20th century, glorified discoverers, explorers, settlers, and Gallipoli. We as Aboriginal people had been conveniently erased from the historical landscape and memory. Most Australians gave Aboriginal people little or no consideration.
The majority of Aboriginal people were trapped in a historical vacuum through the fact that great numbers of our people had been confined to heavily congested and controlled missions and reserves.</p>
<p>As part of this confinement, we were encouraged to forget our past. Everyday decisions were removed from people; they were told what to eat, what to wear, who you could marry, and their movement was severely restricted. There was a process of historical erasure and memory. </p>
<p>We were to be severed from any sense of past or inspiration. We could not participate in ceremonies, speak our language, tell our stories, practice songs and dances or conduct our everyday hunting and living experiences. Over time our people could only remember the controlled life on the reserve. It became the pattern of misery.</p>
<p>In his 1968 Boyer lecture, <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C695416">After the Dreaming</a>, anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner exposed Australia’s failure to regard, record or acknowledge Aboriginal people in the country’s history. Australian history, he said, had been constructed with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a view from a window which had been carefully placed to exclude a whole quadrant of the landscape.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is critically important in history understanding is that the call for a Voice to parliament is not a new initiative. Aboriginal activists nearly 100 years ago first called for a voice to parliament as part of their political platform and demands during the 1920s.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1410897711633616898"}"></div></p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-1881-maloga-petition-a-call-for-self-determination-and-a-key-moment-on-the-path-to-the-voice-197796">The 1881 Maloga petition: a call for self-determination and a key moment on the path to the Voice</a>
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<h2>The Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association</h2>
<p>The first Aboriginal political organisation, the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/formation-of-the-aapa">Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association</a> (AAPA), was formed in Sydney in 1924 and led by my grandfather Fred Maynard. </p>
<p>It advocated several key demands in protecting the rights of Aboriginal people, centring on:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a national land rights agenda</p></li>
<li><p>protecting Aboriginal children from being taken from their families</p></li>
<li><p>a call for genuine Aboriginal self-determination</p></li>
<li><p>citizenship in our own country</p></li>
<li><p>defending a distinct Aboriginal cultural identity</p></li>
<li><p>and the insistence Aboriginal people be placed in charge of Aboriginal affairs. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The call for Aboriginal rights to land was explicit. Leader Fred Maynard <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24046334">declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The request made by this association for sufficient land for each eligible family is justly based. The Australian people are the original owners of the land and have a prior right over all other people in this respect.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The association’s conference in Sydney was front page news in the Sydney Daily Guardian. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C263%2C1914%2C931&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C263%2C1914%2C931&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507778/original/file-20230202-5920-1iaiaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The AAPA’s first conference front page news in Sydney.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image supplied by John Maynard.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over 200 Aboriginal people attended this conference held at St David’s Church and Hall in Riley Street, Surry Hills.</p>
<p>In the space of six short months the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association had expanded to 13 branches, four sub-branches and a membership in excess of 600.</p>
<p>Its established offices in Crown Street, Sydney and a state-wide network of information regarding Aboriginal people.</p>
<h2>Calls for direct representation in parliament</h2>
<p>Late in October 1925, the association held a second conference in Kempsey, New South Wales. It ran over three days with over 700 Aboriginal people in attendance. </p>
<p>It was noted in press coverage of the conference that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>pleas were entered for direct representation in parliament.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Two years later in 1927, the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association produced a manifesto. It was delivered to all sections of government – both state and federal – and published widely across NSW, South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland.</p>
<p>One of the significant points was for an Aboriginal board to be established under the Commonwealth government, and for state control over Aboriginal lives be abolished. It envisioned:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The control of Aboriginal affairs, apart from common law rights shall be vested in a board of management comprised of capable educated Aboriginals under a chairman to be appointed by the government.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This board would not be comprised of government-selected or handpicked individuals but would be Aboriginal elected officers. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"867677727121326080"}"></div></p>
<p>This push for an Aboriginal board or place in parliament continued in 1929, when Fred Maynard spoke to the Chatswood Willoughby Labour League in NSW on Aboriginal issues. A report in the The Labor Daily newspaper in February that year mentioned his call for:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aboriginal representative in the federal parliament, or failing it, to have an [A]boriginal ambassador appointed to live in Canberra to watch over his people’s interests and advise the federal authorities.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Surveillance, threats, intimidation, abuse</h2>
<p>The Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association disappeared from public view in late 1929. </p>
<p>There is strong <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24046334">evidence</a> the organisation was effectively broken up through the combined efforts of the NSW Aborigines Protection Board, missionaries, and the police. </p>
<p>The state government and the Protection Board had been embarrassed by the exposure of their unjust policies in the media and wanted the organisation broken up.</p>
<p>Fred Maynard, in a newspaper interview in late 1927 in The Newcastle Sun revealed the level of surveillance, threat, intimidation, and abuse he and the other Aboriginal activists were subjected to. The report noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He said that he had been warned on many occasions that the doors of Long Bay were opening for him. He would cheerfully go to jail for the remainder of his life, he declared if, by so doing he could make the people of Australia realise the truly frightful administration of the Aborigines Act. He knew cases where children had been torn from their mothers and sent into absolute slavery.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When one ponders upon the legacy of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association the sad reality is that if the demands of these early activists had been met nearly a century ago, we would not be suffering the severe disadvantage that hovers over Aboriginal lives still today.</p>
<p>Imagine if enough land for each and every Aboriginal family to build their own economic independence had been granted.</p>
<p>Or that we would not have suffered another five decades of Aboriginal child removal and the shocking impact of that policy on generations of Aboriginal lives. </p>
<p>If the demand to protect a distinct Aboriginal cultural identity had been taken up, we would not today be working to piece together the shattered cultural pieces of language, stories, songs, and dances. </p>
<p>And finally, if Aboriginal people had been placed in a position to oversee Aboriginal policy and needs, the history of our people would have been vastly different. </p>
<p>The reality today is we continue to fight for the demands that the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association established nearly 100 years ago.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/capturing-the-lived-history-of-the-aborigines-protection-board-while-we-still-can-46259">Capturing the lived history of the Aborigines Protection Board while we still can</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Maynard received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) grants program examining Aboriginal political protest back in 2003-2010.</span></em></p>The sad reality is that if the demands of these early activists had been met nearly a century ago, we would not be suffering the severe disadvantage that hovers over Aboriginal lives still today.John Maynard, Director/Chair of Aboriginal History - The Wollotuka Institute, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1937142022-12-25T20:41:57Z2022-12-25T20:41:57ZIs there a ‘right to disobey’? From the Vietnam War to today’s climate protests<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499733/original/file-20221208-20-hhz31u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A rally to free John Zarb, December 1968.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Search Foundation and the State Library of New South Wales</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the first moves of the newly elected Whitlam Labour government in December 1972 was to free seven men <a href="https://www.whitlam.org/whitlam-legacy-human-rights#:%7E:text=The%20first%20act%20of%20the,to%20Australia%20within%20three%20weeks.">imprisoned for their beliefs</a>. Their crime had been refusal to comply with the National Service Act, a so-called “lottery of death” that sent some 15,300 young Australians to fight in Vietnam. Two hundred of them <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/vietnam/statistics">never came home</a>. </p>
<p>The issue of national service – often dubbed “the draft” following American vernacular – was perhaps the most powerful in the anti-war movement’s arsenal. “Draft resisters” mobilised public sentiment with their heroic stands, respectable mothers campaigned to “<a href="https://publishing.monash.edu/product/save-our-sons/">Save our Sons</a>” and, as I explore in a newly published <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526159557/">book chapter</a>, the Australian wing of Amnesty International classed these men as “prisoners of conscience”.</p>
<p>Today, Australia grapples again with the question of criminalising conscience. Laws in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/22/australia-climate-protesters-rights-violated">several Australian states</a> impose harsh penalties on the use of “direct action” by climate change activists. Fifty years ago, similar questions of a right to disobey sparked fierce debates: where should the legal limits of conscience lie?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499705/original/file-20221208-17-h93l7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499705/original/file-20221208-17-h93l7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499705/original/file-20221208-17-h93l7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499705/original/file-20221208-17-h93l7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499705/original/file-20221208-17-h93l7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499705/original/file-20221208-17-h93l7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499705/original/file-20221208-17-h93l7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">University students protest the National Service Act outside the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Search Foundation and State Library of New South Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>In Australia, it is a crime not to kill</h2>
<p>National service was re-introduced in Australia in 1964, with a previous scheme having quietly ended in 1959. The first “nashos” were committed to Vietnam in 1966. The scheme was <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajph.12720">highly selective</a> – by its end some 800,000 20-year-olds had registered and less than 10% had been “called up”. </p>
<p>Opposition to national service emerged almost immediately, through such groups as the Youth Campaign Against Conscription. In November 1966, Sydney schoolteacher <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/brave-enough-to-say-no-william-white/">Bill White</a> became the first person imprisoned for failure to comply with the act. He had applied for conscientious objector status almost a year earlier, but been denied because he did not fit the strict criteria.</p>
<p>Public outrage played a part in White’s early release in December 1966, but over time penalties became more harsh. <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ARTV03070">John Zarb</a>, a part-time postman, received a two-year sentence in October 1968 for refusing to comply with his call-up notice. His opposition to the Vietnam war only, rather than war in general, made him ineligible for objector status.</p>
<p>These moral-political stances encouraged further opposition. As well as releasing jailed objectors, Whitlam’s incoming government threw out cases against 350 individuals. For the anti-war movement, these cases demonstrated the conflict’s contradictions. As one <a href="https://digital.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/nodes/view/4004">activist leaflet</a> put it: “In Australia, it is a crime not to kill.” </p>
<h2>The politics of conscience</h2>
<p>To a nascent human rights movement, however, the issue was not as clear-cut. Amnesty International, founded by the British lawyer <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/who-we-are/">Peter Benenson</a> in 1961, established an early foothold in Australia. A Victorian section was founded in March 1962, and groups in other states soon followed. </p>
<p>One of the group’s appeals was its rejection of “Cold War” politics. By adopting “prisoners of consciences” from the first, second and third worlds, they could claim impartiality, while the use of letter writing as a tactic invoked the power of global opinion. </p>
<p>Yet the definition of a prisoner of conscience in the group’s early years proved controversial. To meet Amnesty’s definition, a prisoner needed to have been jailed for crimes of opinion and have not advocated violence. Infamously, this definition excluded <a href="https://academic.oup.com/minnesota-scholarship-online/book/16223/chapter-abstract/171292057?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Nelson Mandela</a>. For Amnesty, the question of whether objectors like White or Zarb should be considered prisoners of conscience divided the Victorian and New South Wales sections. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499717/original/file-20221208-23-k8glwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499717/original/file-20221208-23-k8glwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499717/original/file-20221208-23-k8glwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499717/original/file-20221208-23-k8glwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499717/original/file-20221208-23-k8glwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499717/original/file-20221208-23-k8glwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499717/original/file-20221208-23-k8glwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Draft Resisters Union meeting, 1972.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Search Foundation and State Library of New South Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Victorians believed those who “register for national service and apply for exemption”, but whose “applications fail either through some apparent miscarriage of justice or because the law does not presently encompass their objections […] are prima facie eligible for adoption”. However, those who “basically refuse to co-operate with the National Service Act” merely “maintain a right to disobey a law which they believe to be immoral” – and adopting them would “seriously damage […] our high repute”. </p>
<p>The New South Wales section condemned this “legalistic interpretation”. Instead, it insisted “the Non-Complier in gaol for conscientiously held […] views suffers no less than one who has tried in vain to act ‘according to the law’ ”. The Victorians’ belief that Amnesty should accept some degree of compulsion in democratic societies was also challenged: conscription was in fact a universal problem that occurred on both sides of the “Iron Curtain”. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1599881226789486592"}"></div></p>
<h2>Is it right to resist?</h2>
<p>In the end, the views of the New South Wales section won out. Amnesty sections around the world adopted Australian non-compliers. </p>
<p>This clash of principles reminds us that human rights have never been straightforward. Rather, these ideas have long been open to contest and reinterpretation. From today’s vantage point, it also seems the Victorian section’s belief that the right to disobey could be limited was wildly optimistic. </p>
<p>Indeed, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/13/climate-activist-deanna-violet-coco-freed-from-prison-while-she-appeals-15-month-jail-sentence">sentencing of climate protester</a> Deanna “Violet” Coco to 15 months in jail for the crime of disrupting traffic in New South Wales shows that the questions posed by Amnesty in the 1960s are very much still with us. The climate emergency is in many ways the Vietnam of today’s young people. The 50th anniversary of the release of resisters to that conflict should give today’s decision-makers pause for thought.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Piccini 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>The climate emergency is in many ways the Vietnam of today’s young people. The 50th anniversary of the release of resisters to that conflict should give today’s decision-makers pause for thought.Jon Piccini, Lecturer in History, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1927912022-11-09T14:13:42Z2022-11-09T14:13:42ZDigital activism: study shows the internet has helped women in urban Ghana and Nigeria raise their voices<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491369/original/file-20221024-6143-daep55.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women in rural areas have limited access to the internet. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Information technology and the internet have proven to be a strong force for building collective action groups and mobilising communities of protesters. Among the main advantages of digital and online activism are its increasing accessibility (relatively low-cost and easy to use), its speed, and the ability to reach large numbers of people around the world. </p>
<p>Digital activists can protest and advance their cause using a variety of digital tools. They include websites for online petitions (such as Change.org and Avaaz.org), social networks (Facebook, YouTube, Myspace), blogs (as a form of citizen journalism), micro-blogging (Twitter), mobile phones and proxy servers. </p>
<p>These digital platforms can connect with a large community and at both local and international levels. The interconnected nature of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook makes it easy to share information. Activists can post messages, slogans, photos and instructions more easily than using the traditional street protests or door-to-door mobilisation strategies. </p>
<p>The drawback of digital campaigning, however, is that the same tools can be used for hate speech and misinformation. This has sometimes endangered the goals of such campaigns.</p>
<p>Women’s rights groups in Nigeria and Ghana are among social movements that have these tools at their disposal. Groups like Female in Nigeria and Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana seek to empower women economically and politically. They also advocate for women’s rights to education, respect, social justice and inclusion in political leadership. They protest against violence and victimisation and call attention to inequalities.</p>
<p>As a scholar of social media and society, I carried out a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17405904.2021.1999287">study</a> to investigate women advocacy action groups in Nigeria and Ghana and how digital communication may have enhanced or limited their actions and objectives.</p>
<p>My findings show that social media give women advocacy groups a voice, allowing them to speak more freely in a context of traditional patriarchy. This shows the importance of technology in shaping social life. Women in these countries are demanding change – and change is happening. But the groups’ reach is limited mostly to urban areas because access to the internet is constrained in rural areas. </p>
<h2>A safe space</h2>
<p>For my study, I drew on the websites of women advocacy groups in Nigeria and Ghana and posts on their social media platforms. I used computer-mediated discourse analysis, a method of analysing online interactions and their implications for society. The analysis considers information about the people interacting online, their relationship with one another, their purposes for communicating, what they are communicating about and the kind of language they use.</p>
<p>The groups I looked at were the <a href="https://nigerianwomentrustfund.org/">Nigerian Women Trust Fund</a>, Nigerian League of Women Voters, Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (<a href="https://kind.org/">KIND</a>), <a href="https://genced.org/">Gender Centre For Empowering Development</a> and <a href="https://landportal.org/fr/organization/network-women%E2%80%99s-rights-ghana#:%7E:text=The%20Network%20for%20Women's%20Rights,to%20strengthen%20women's%20human%20rights.">Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana</a>. </p>
<p>These groups have been very active for some time. They target public audiences, including the government and other interest groups. </p>
<p>My focus was on campaigns for political empowerment rather than access to economic and material resources.</p>
<p>These groups’ websites were notably non-confrontational in style. They promoted group activities, created public awareness, and sought feedback and involvement. Mostly the language was used to inform, report and claim, and to describe events and processes. Sometimes it was used to give direction, such as appealing for and inviting certain actions.</p>
<p>English was the language used for most of the website content.</p>
<p>The groups were not only active via their websites but also on their social media platforms, particularly Twitter and Facebook. Campaign messages on these platforms were different from those on the websites. They celebrated successful female politicians and expressed resistance and hope. They showed solidarity with inspiring women parliamentarians and other role models, and mobilised support for women running for political office.</p>
<p>Messages on social media called for members to participate in rallies and offline protests, demand change and reject the marginalisation and victimisation of female politicians.</p>
<p>The messages did not explicitly challenge male authority, but asked for a fair chance for women to decide on issues that affect their lives. </p>
<p>Other campaign messages were about group activities such as webinars and training for women aspiring to political office. </p>
<p>The language used tended to be encouraging towards women, and not hostile to men.</p>
<h2>Room for improvement</h2>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership-and-political-participation">backing</a> of the United Nations and the African Union, women in African countries are achieving progress. Rwanda, for example, has the <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/best-countries-women-in-politics-equality/">world’s highest level</a> of female representation in government, at 61%. </p>
<p>The number of women in government in sub-Saharan Africa <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2019-july-2019/african-women-politics-miles-go-parity-achieved#:%7E:text=(812%20out%20of%203922).,Map%20of%20Women%20in%20Politics.">grew to a regional average</a> of 23.7% in 2018. In Ghana, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1244930/share-of-female-seats-in-parliament-in-ghana/">14% of seats in parliament</a> are held by women after the election in 2020. <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/528219-low-number-of-women-in-politics-bane-of-nigerias-development-minister.html">In Nigeria</a>, the House of Representatives has 18 female members (5%) out of 360 while the Senate has eight women (7%) out of 109 members. </p>
<p>Further progress will depend in part on the challenges that online activism faces. These problems are not particularly related to the content and character of online communication, but rather to access to technology. Urban women have an advantage over women in rural areas because of their access to the internet. </p>
<p>In Ghana and Nigeria, the internet doesn’t reach rural areas due to perceived low revenues and steep investment cost. Technology companies don’t invest where the population is small or sparsely distributed.</p>
<p>So it is difficult for people in rural areas to access online-based advocacy forums and training. </p>
<p>While online activism of the women’s empowerment advocates is effective, it is limited to a small percentage of the population. Women are still grossly underrepresented in Nigeria and Ghana.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192791/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Innocent Chiluwa 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>Only a small percentage of women in rural areas have access to the Internet, so participation in online activism is limited to urban centres.Innocent Chiluwa, Professor, Language and Media/Digital Communications, Covenant UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1936992022-11-04T16:21:21Z2022-11-04T16:21:21ZWhat’s at stake this Election Day – 7 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493337/original/file-20221103-13-5pz4zm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People volunteer at a Native Alaskan voting station on Nov. 2, 2022 in Anchorage. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/people-participate-in-voting-in-the-upcoming-midterm-elections-at-a-picture-id1244447058?s=612x612">Spencer Platt/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Election Day closes in, uncertainty and concern about potential chaos – from violence at polling sites to candidates refusing to accept defeat – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63494618">continue to rise</a>. </p>
<p>Problems that have historically plagued the U.S. electoral and political system – like voter intimidation – are cropping up ahead of the midterms. But so, too, are less familiar issues, like how previously run-of-the-mill state election positions are becoming opportunities for political activism.</p>
<p>Here are seven key issues that affect the midterm elections, drawn from stories in The Conversation’s archive.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white older man in a dark blue suit stands next to two American flags, and a third very large flag over a blue backdrop. A Black man in a suit stands on the other side of the American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.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"></a>
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<span class="caption">President Joe Biden spoke on Nov. 2, 2022, warning of the need to preserve and protect democracy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/president-joe-biden-arrives-to-deliver-remarks-on-preserving-and-as-picture-id1244440371?s=612x612">Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>1. Who is voting</h2>
<p>Voter participation during midterm elections is typically low – though <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/11/01/turnout-in-u-s-has-soared-in-recent-elections-but-by-some-measures-still-trails-that-of-many-other-countries/">some experts say</a> that there could be heavy turnout this year. But the question of who actually heads to the polls will also be critical, as races in key <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/">swing states tighten</a>. </p>
<p>Young voters are much less likely to vote during midterms than older people, as opposed to their higher turnouts during presidential elections, American University government scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1XMWY78AAAAJ&hl=en">Jan Leighley</a> wrote. Young voters are also more likely to identify as Democrats. </p>
<p>“So if younger voters are underrepresented in the November 2022 elections, more Republicans may be elected, as well as candidates less likely to reflect younger citizens’ views on key issues,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/young-voters-are-more-likely-to-skip-midterm-elections-than-presidential-races-192314">Leighley wrote.</a> </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/young-voters-are-more-likely-to-skip-midterm-elections-than-presidential-races-192314">Young voters are more likely to skip midterm elections than presidential races</a>
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<p>This year, meanwhile, record numbers of Latinos are also expected to turn out to vote. In 2020, most Latinos voted for President Joe Biden – but increasing numbers of Latino voters are also supporting GOP candidates, including former president Donald Trump, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gop-made-gains-among-latino-voters-in-2020-but-democrats-remain-the-party-of-choice-for-upcoming-midterms-192679">wrote University of Tennessee social work</a> scholar <a href="https://experts.utk.edu/experts/mary-lehman-held/">Mary Lehman Held.</a></p>
<p>One reason is that Latino voters have different backgrounds, values and priorities. And not all would be turned off by Republican candidates’ restrictive immigration politics. </p>
<p>“Immigration policies only affect a subset of Latinos, most notably Mexicans, followed by Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans,” Lehman Held explained.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gop-made-gains-among-latino-voters-in-2020-but-democrats-remain-the-party-of-choice-for-upcoming-midterms-192679">The GOP made gains among Latino voters in 2020 but Democrats remain the party of choice for upcoming midterms</a>
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<h2>2. What voters want</h2>
<p>It’s the economy, stupid, <a href="https://politicaldictionary.com/words/its-the-economy-stupid/">as the famous</a> 1992 political adage about voters’ top concern goes. </p>
<p>Soaring inflation <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-inflation-will-likely-stay-sky-high-regardless-of-which-party-wins-the-midterms-193416">rates top voters’</a> concerns this year, even though neither political party has been found particularly more effective at tackling the issue and bringing down inflation, as Texas State University finance scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eP0xZ1kAAAAJ&hl=en">William Chittenden wrote.</a></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-inflation-will-likely-stay-sky-high-regardless-of-which-party-wins-the-midterms-193416">Why inflation will likely stay sky-high regardless of which party wins the midterms</a>
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<p>There was a flurry of political activism around the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18">Roe v. Wade</a> in June 2022, undoing the federal right to an abortion. But just four months later, men and women both say that abortion politics are not bringing them to the polls, according to Harvard Kennedy School and Northwestern University social science scholars <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vUKLlG4AAAAJ&hl=en">Matthew A. Baum</a>, <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/alaunasafarpour/home">Alauna Safarpour</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=P_3neYQAAAAJ&hl=en">Jonathan Schulman</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0JH3YoUAAAAJ&hl=en">Kristin Lunz Trujillo</a>. </p>
<p>“The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision may have initially mobilized some voters in June and July, particularly women, but its effects appear to have diminished when we asked Americans about their intentions to vote again in August and October,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/abortion-is-not-influencing-most-voters-as-the-midterms-approach-economic-issues-are-predominating-in-new-survey-191836">they wrote.</a></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/abortion-is-not-influencing-most-voters-as-the-midterms-approach-economic-issues-are-predominating-in-new-survey-191836">Abortion is not influencing most voters as the midterms approach – economic issues are predominating in new survey</a>
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<h2>3. Elections aren’t what they used to be</h2>
<p>Gone are the days when election administrators were considered low profile, conducting essential – but not flashy – work, like organizing voter lists, staffing polling places and counting election results. </p>
<p>Overall mistrust in elections is high in the U.S. following the 2020 elections – and former President Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat. It’s a new era in politics, where it is not necessarily a given that “elections happen, votes are counted, the winners are declared and democracy moves on,” wrote Arizona State University’s <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FdltMX4AAAAJ&hl=en">Thom Reilly</a>, a public governance scholar and former state election official. </p>
<p>One complicating factor is that the U.S. is the only democracy that elects many of its election officials, and high-ranking members of the Republican or Democratic parties usually oversee elections at the state level. </p>
<p>“That partisan system largely worked until now because, in essence, each party checked the other party’s ability to influence election outcomes. As long as states were politically diverse, members of the two major parties acted in good faith, and this model functioned – albeit imperfectly,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/good-faith-and-the-honor-of-partisan-election-officials-used-to-be-enough-to-ensure-trust-in-voting-results-but-not-anymore-189510">wrote Reilly</a>. </p>
<p>But there’s already evidence that newly minted and highly partisan poll workers and election observers plan to disrupt the elections, potentially diminishing public faith in this essential democratic institution and weakening democracy itself. And a high number of candidates running for state election administration roles are election deniers. If they win, wrote Reilly, that will further erode public confidence in election integrity. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large white sign says 'Vote!' People walk past the sign outside, in what appears to be a green campus with trees." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young people pass a voting information sign on the Emory University campus in Atlanta on Oct. 14, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/young-people-pass-a-voting-information-sign-on-the-emory-university-picture-id1244204492?s=612x612">Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/good-faith-and-the-honor-of-partisan-election-officials-used-to-be-enough-to-ensure-trust-in-voting-results-but-not-anymore-189510">Good faith and the honor of partisan election officials used to be enough to ensure trust in voting results – but not anymore</a>
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<h2>4. Black voters face possible intimidation</h2>
<p>Amid warnings from the Department of Homeland Security about political violence on Election Day – which University of Maryland, Baltimore County security researcher <a href="https://cybersecurity.umbc.edu/richard-forno/">Richard Forno</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-violence-in-america-isnt-going-away-anytime-soon-193597">recently explored</a> – there’s an increased risk that polling sites will become yet another place for political violence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/political-violence-in-america-isnt-going-away-anytime-soon-193597">Political violence in America isn't going away anytime soon</a>
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<p>The threat brings to mind <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/voting-rights-for-african-americans/">long-standing efforts</a> by white supremacists to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/10/27/voter-intimidation-surging-2020-protect-minority-voters-column/6043955002/">intimidate and</a> threaten Black voters. </p>
<p>Georgia is one place with a long history of voter intimidation that is rolling out election reform laws, making it actually harder for voters – especially people of color – to vote. One part of this new law, called SB 202, removes some voting drop boxes, which people of color predominantly use. This comes as Black voters gain number and power in Georgia – and the tightened voting rules are reminiscent of the 1940s and other times when white conservatives cracked down on voting rights in response to rising Black political strength.</p>
<p>“The almost immediate passage of new election laws at a time of growing Black political strength suggests the persistence of a white backlash in Georgia,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/georgias-gop-overhauled-the-states-election-laws-in-2021-and-critics-argue-the-target-was-black-voter-turnout-not-election-fraud-192000">wrote</a> Emory University <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard-Doner-2">political science scholar Richard Doner</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/georgias-gop-overhauled-the-states-election-laws-in-2021-and-critics-argue-the-target-was-black-voter-turnout-not-election-fraud-192000">Georgia's GOP overhauled the state's election laws in 2021 – and critics argue the target was Black voter turnout, not election fraud</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Voter demographics and policy priorities are two recurrent, big issues on Election Day – but shifts in election administration and voting laws are new challenges influencing the midterms.Amy Lieberman, Politics + Society Editor, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1908362022-09-27T20:10:03Z2022-09-27T20:10:03Z‘Protestware’ is on the rise, with programmers self-sabotaging their own code. Should we be worried?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486674/original/file-20220927-21-j7bai9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C153%2C6024%2C3589&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/KgLtFCgfC28">Alexander Sinn/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In March 2022, the author of <a href="http://riaevangelist.github.io/node-ipc/">node-ipc</a>, a software library with <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-ipc">over a million weekly downloads</a>, deliberately <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/27/protestware-code-sabotage/">broke their code</a>. If the code discovers it is running within Russia or Belarus, it attempts to replace the contents of every file on the user’s computer with a heart emoji.</p>
<p>A software library is a collection of code other programmers can use for their purposes. The library node-ipc is used by <a href="https://vuejs.org/">Vue.js</a>, a framework that powers millions of websites for businesses such as Google, Facebook, and Netflix.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2022-23812">critical security vulnerability</a> is just one example of a <a href="https://research.unimelb.edu.au/research-updates/the-emergence-of-political-protestware-in-the-software-ecosystem">growing trend</a> of programmers self-sabotaging their own code for political purposes. When programmers protest through their code – a phenomenon known as “protestware” – it can have consequences for the people and businesses who rely on the code they create.</p>
<h2>Different forms of protest</h2>
<p>My colleague <a href="https://raux.github.io/">Raula Gaikovina Kula</a> and I <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.01393">have identified</a> three main types of protestware.</p>
<p><strong>Malignant protestware</strong> is software that intentionally damages or takes control of a user’s device without their knowledge or consent.</p>
<p><strong>Benign protestware</strong> is software created to raise awareness about a social or political issue, but does not damage or take control of a user’s device.</p>
<p><strong>Developer sanctions</strong> are instances of programmers’ accounts being <a href="https://www.jessesquires.com/blog/2022/04/19/github-suspending-russian-accounts/">suspended</a> by the <a href="https://github.com/">internet hosting service</a> that provides them with a space to store their code and collaborate with others.</p>
<p>Modern software systems are prone to vulnerabilities because they rely on third-party libraries. These libraries are made of code that performs particular functions, created by someone else. Using this code lets programmers add existing functions into their own software without having to “<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.12574">reinvent the wheel</a>”.</p>
<p>The use of third-party libraries <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.10165">is common</a> among programmers – it speeds up the development process and reduces costs. For example, libraries listed in the popular <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/">NPM registry</a>, which contains more than 1 million libraries, rely on an average of <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.13231">five to six</a> other libraries from the same <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-13-7099-1_6">ecosystem</a>. It’s like a car manufacturer who uses parts from other manufacturers to complete their vehicles.</p>
<p>These libraries are typically maintained by one or a handful of volunteers and made available to other programmers for free under an open-source software license.</p>
<p>The success of a third-party library is based on its reputation among programmers. A library builds its reputation over time, as programmers gain trust in its capabilities and the responsiveness of its maintainers to reported defects and feature requests.</p>
<p>If third-party library weaknesses are exploited, it could give attackers access to a software system. For example, a <a href="https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=cve-2021-44228">critical security vulnerability</a> was recently discovered in the popular <a href="https://logging.apache.org/log4j/">Log4j</a> library. This flaw could allow a remote attacker to access sensitive information that was logged by applications using Log4j – such as passwords or other sensitive data.</p>
<p>What if vulnerabilities are not created by an attacker looking for passwords, but by the programmer themselves with the intention to make users of their library aware of a political opinion? The emergence of protestware is giving rise to such questions, and responses are mixed.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-log4j-a-cybersecurity-expert-explains-the-latest-internet-vulnerability-how-bad-it-is-and-whats-at-stake-173896">What is Log4j? A cybersecurity expert explains the latest internet vulnerability, how bad it is and what's at stake</a>
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<h2>Ethical questions abound</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://blog.opensource.org/open-source-protestware-harms-open-source/">blog post</a> on the <a href="https://opensource.org/">Open Source Initiative site</a> responds to the rise of protestware stating “protest is an important element of free speech that should be protected” but concludes with a warning:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The downsides of vandalising open source projects far outweigh any possible benefit, and the blowback will ultimately damage the projects and contributors responsible.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is the main ethical question behind protestware? Is it ethical to make something worse in order to make a point? The answer to this question largely depends on the individual’s personal ethical beliefs.</p>
<p>Some people may see the impact of the software on its users and argue protestware is unethical if it’s designed to make life more difficult for them. Others may argue that if the software is designed to make a point or raise awareness about an issue, it may be seen as more ethically acceptable.</p>
<p>From a utilitarian perspective, one might argue that if a form of protestware is effective in bringing about a greater good (such as political change), then it can be morally justified.</p>
<p>From a technical standpoint, we are developing ways to automatically detect and counteract protestware. Protestware would be an <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.01943">unusual</a> or <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.07363">surprising</a> event in the change history of a third-party library. Mitigation is possible through redundancies – for example, code that is similar or identical to other code in the same or different libraries.</p>
<p>The rise of protestware is a symptom of a larger social problem. When people feel they are not being heard, they may resort to different measures to get their message across. In the case of programmers, they have the unique ability to protest through their code.</p>
<p>While protestware may be a new phenomenon, it is likely here to stay. We need to be aware of the ethical implications of this trend and take steps to ensure software development remains a stable and secure field.</p>
<p>We rely on software to run our businesses and our lives. But every time we use software, we’re putting our trust in the people who wrote it. The emergence of protestware threatens to destabilise this trust if we don’t take action.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-optus-data-breach-mean-for-you-and-how-can-you-protect-yourself-a-step-by-step-guide-191332">What does the Optus data breach mean for you and how can you protect yourself? A step-by-step guide</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190836/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christoph Treude 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>Major companies around the world rely on third-party code. What happens when a programmer has a political point to make?Christoph Treude, Senior Lecturer in Software Engineering, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1868022022-07-15T12:18:04Z2022-07-15T12:18:04ZMore young voters could come out to vote in November, sparked by abortion and other hot political issues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473948/original/file-20220713-9360-2l5kus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=263%2C95%2C3712%2C2502&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Abortion-rights activists gather in front of the Supreme Court in May 2022 ahead of the Dobbs decision. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/prochoice-demonstrators-gather-in-front-of-the-us-supreme-court-in-picture-id1240609506?s=2048x2048">Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Supreme Court’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">decision to overturn</a> the constitutional right to abortion has far-reaching personal and political implications and may help decide the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/upshot/poll-2022-midterms-congress.html">midterm elections</a> in November 2022.</p>
<p>That influence extends to young people’s election participation. People ages 18 to 29 have <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/our-research/broadening-youth-voting">historically been less likely to vote than older adults</a>. But in recent years, they have been spurred to organize and vote by major national controversies, like school shootings and police violence against Black people.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/">researcher with more than 20 years of experience</a> tracking youth voting and examining young people’s political views and engagement, I believe that the fight over abortion rights now taking place in states has strong potential to motivate and mobilize young voters on both sides of the issue – and that their participation could be decisive in key races around the country.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sign says 'I voted' in a voting room, with one young man walking holding a ballot" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Voters cast their ballots at Santa Monica College in September 2021 to vote on whether California Gov. Gavin Newsom should remain in office.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/students-staff-and-nearby-residents-cast-their-ballots-at-ucla-union-picture-id1235261789?s=2048x2048">Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Young people are supportive of abortion rights</h2>
<p>About <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courts-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/">62% of Americans</a> support abortion’s being legal in all or most cases, according to Pew Research polling from July 2022. But that view is even more widely held among people ages 18 to 29 – 70% of people in that age group support legal abortion.</p>
<p>Other recent polling puts young people’s support for abortion even higher – a CBS/YouGov survey conducted in June 2022, shortly after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, found that <a href="https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/hrccnn75ps/cbsnews_20220626_recontact.pdf">78% of young people favor legal abortion</a>.</p>
<p>Young people are also the most likely age group to disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courts-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/">Sixty-nine percent of young people disapprove of the ruling</a>, compared with 60% of adults ages 30 to 49 and half of Americans older than 49. </p>
<p>Women and people of color across all age groups – especially Black and Asian Americans – are also more likely than men and white people to disapprove of the Supreme Court’s ruling.</p>
<p>That’s notable because young women and young women of color, in particular, have led civic and electoral participation in recent years. <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/2020-youth-voter-turnout-raceethnicity-and-gender">Young women voted at a higher rate than young men in 2020</a>. <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/young-women-color-continue-lead-civic-and-political-engagement">Young women of color were more likely</a> to talk to their peers about politics, attend demonstrations and register others to vote than young white women.</p>
<p>Nearly half of young women said that they supported or were active participants in the reproductive rights movement, <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/young-womens-political-engagement-elections-and-beyond">according to my 2018 survey</a> of people ages 18 to 24. Women of color were more likely to be involved in the reproductive rights movement than young white women, our survey found. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young white people hold up signs bearing slogans such as 'Roe is dead' outside the Supreme Court building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.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"></a>
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<span class="caption">Anti-abortion protesters demonstrate outside the Supreme Court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/prolife-supporters-celebrate-outside-the-us-supreme-court-in-dc-on-picture-id1241500916?s=2048x2048">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Many young people want action on abortion</h2>
<p>For some young people, political engagement goes beyond abortion, as <a href="https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/spring-2022-harvard-youth-poll">a spring 2022 Harvard poll</a> found that about half of young people think the country is on the wrong track. </p>
<p>And 41% of 18-to-29-year-olds surveyed in another poll <a href="https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/hrccnn75ps/cbsnews_20220626_recontact.pdf">say the Dobbs decision</a> makes them more likely to vote in the midterms. In the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courts-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/">Pew Research survey mentioned above</a>, over two-thirds of those under 30 reported at least somewhat disapproving of the court decision. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/change-research-midterms-vibe-check">Other surveys</a> suggest that specific policies and laws to protect abortion access are top priorities to young voters.</p>
<p>When young people want action on issues they care about, like abortion, they can feel motivated to push political leaders. Their <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2022/06/13/biden-approval-rating-young-voters-decline/">disappointment or disillusionment with particular politicians</a> does not necessarily mean they’re disillusioned about their own political power. On the other hand, those who oppose abortion rights may now harbor positive feelings about politics: 19% of young people in the CBS/YouGov survey said they felt “happy” about the recent decision.</p>
<p>In 2018, my survey of young people before that year’s midterm election found that feeling more disappointed or cynical about politics actually <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/ahead-2018-midterms-new-generation-finds-its-political-voice">led to a higher, not lower, likelihood to vote</a>. </p>
<p>According to my estimates, the percentage of young people who voted more than doubled from the 2014 midterm election to the 2018 midterms – <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/28-young-people-voted-2018">rising from 13% to 28%</a>. My research group’s analyses suggest multiple reasons for this jump, including many groups’ starting voter registration much earlier in the year, and the <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/gun-violence-prevention-movement-fueled-youth-engagement-2018-election">youth-led activism after the Parkland school shooting</a>.</p>
<p>In 2020 a similar dynamic played out nationally following the murder of George Floyd, who was killed by police officers in Minneapolis. <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/poll-young-people-believe-they-can-lead-change-unprecedented-election-cycle">In a CIRCLE pre-election survey</a>, young people ranked racism as the second-biggest issue that would influence their vote for president, just behind the environment and climate change. About 50% of youths voted during the 2020 election, compared with 39% of young people who <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/half-youth-voted-2020-11-point-increase-2016">did so in 2016</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two young women wear blue shirts and face masks and hold clipboards." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two young political activists try to register college students at Auraria Campus, home to three universities, in Denver, Colo., in September 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/nicole-hensel-left-and-raegan-cotton-of-new-era-colorado-are-trying-picture-id1275521582?s=2048x2048">Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Youths can swing elections in key states</h2>
<p>The youth vote can decisively shape election results at every level. In 2020, for example, young people <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/election-week-2020#young-voters-and-youth-of-color-powered-biden-victory">cast hundreds of thousands of votes in key battleground states</a> like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia, helping President Joe Biden win all three states and Democratic senators win in Arizona and Georgia. </p>
<p>Now that states are deciding on their own abortion laws, young voters’ ballots in gubernatorial and other state and local races may be especially critical in such places as <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Pennsylvania_gubernatorial_and_lieutenant_gubernatorial_election,_2022">Pennsylvania</a> and <a href="https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/07/07/battleground-ballot-box-georgia-reacts-supreme-court-abortion-decision">Georgia</a>, where new abortion restrictions are a possibility depending on election results. </p>
<p>The potential for impact is there – not just for the majority of young people who support abortion, but for the significant minority who oppose it – 32% of people ages 18 to 29 in the CBS/YouGov poll said they approve of the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion.</p>
<p>Nevada, Maryland and Maine rank among the top 10 states where young people could decide governor races, <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/yesi2022">according to my research</a>. All three states have abortion protections in place, which could motivate young people to vote for candidates who share their position on abortion, whether for or against abortion rights.</p>
<p><em>CIRCLE team members Ruby Belle Booth, Megan Lam and Alberto Medina contributed to this analysis.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186802/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abby has worked on research projects funded by private foundations including: the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, Youth Engagement Fund, the Democracy Fund, the Spencer Foundation, Ford Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, MacArthur Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Knight Foundation, Tides Foundation, the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Foundation. She is affiliated with Rock the Vote's Democracy Class (Advisory Council), Generation Citizen/Vote16USA (Advisory Board), and the Rural Youth Catalyst Project's Changing the Outcomes for Rural Youth Working Group.</span></em></p>As many as 80% of young people want abortion to be legal, and most disagree with the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs v. Jackson ruling. This could lead to high youth voting rates in the 2022 midterms.Abby Kiesa, Deputy Director at CIRCLE, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1654282021-11-29T16:18:51Z2021-11-29T16:18:51ZYoung children all find politics engaging but by 15 this has changed – new research shows why<p>At age 11, children from poorly educated families are as interested in politics as children from well-educated ones. But by the time they turn 15, children with well-educated parents are 10% more interested in politics than those with poorly educated parents.</p>
<p>The social gap in political engagement is one of the most <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abb4912">persistent</a> problems in western democracies. It leads to disadvantaged people having less say in the democratic process. And it <a href="https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8454069/Levinson+The+Civic+Empowerment+Gap.pdf?sequence=1">skews</a> electoral results towards the interests of privileged groups in society. </p>
<p>Compared with much of Europe, the UK <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137489753">has the largest gap</a> in voting between young adults from middle-class and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-labour-failed-to-connect-with-the-british-working-class-128082">working-class</a> backgrounds. In a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sf/advance-article/doi/10.1093/sf/soab112/6369004">recent study</a> we sought to determine at what age the gap becomes apparent and whether it persists into adulthood. What determines how <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-must-seize-this-chance-to-bring-young-people-into-the-heart-of-british-democracy-62756">politically aware and active</a> a child will be?</p>
<h2>Youth engagement</h2>
<p>In 2020, we set out to explore the development of <a href="https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/project/post-16-educational-trajectories-and-social-inequalities-in-political-engagement">political engagement</a> between ages 11 and 25. We analysed data from the British Household Panel Study and its successor, <a href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/">Understanding Society</a>, the longest-running study of the UK population. </p>
<p>We relied on the question: “How interested would you say you are in politics?” to gauge political interest. And we used the education levels of parents and their political engagement as indicators of class background. </p>
<p>We found that, at age 11, children from the most and least educated families share a broadly similar level of interest in politics. In fact, children from less-educated families actually show a slightly higher level of interest. </p>
<p>However, by age 15 the political interest of children from the most educated parents has hardly changed: they remain as interested in politics as they were when they were 11. But for the least educated families, however, the level of interest children show in politics has markedly declined. After age 15, political interest rises steadily among both groups but the difference between them stays the same.</p>
<p>We also looked at <a href="https://theconversation.com/underpaid-overworked-and-drowning-in-debt-you-wonder-why-young-people-are-voting-again-85298">voting intentions</a>, which is an <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315725222-11/intention-vote-reported-vote-validated-vote-1-christopher-achen-andr%C3%A9-blais">important predictor</a> of voting behaviour. We measured this with a question that asked young people which party they would vote for as adults. We used the response options, “none” and “don’t know”, to signal a lack of intention. </p>
<p>As with political interest, we find a growing social gap on this indicator of political engagement. At age 11 there is no difference between children from well- and less well-educated families in their voting intentions. </p>
<p>As they grow older, both groups become more interested in voting for a particular party. However, this growth is stronger among children from well-educated families. </p>
<p>By age 15, these children express a much greater willingness to vote than their peers from disadvantaged backgrounds and this difference remains stable in the years thereafter. These patterns, therefore, suggest that early adolescence is a crucial stage for social differences in political engagement to emerge. </p>
<h2>Parental input</h2>
<p>The degree to which parents are politically engaged themselves seems to matter, too – and from an early age. We already see a large gap at age 11 between children from politically active families and those from disengaged ones, in terms of how interested they are in politics and whether they intend to vote. </p>
<p>This gap further widens during early adolescence. Children of parents who are not actively engaged in the political process are even less likely to be interested in becoming so by the time they’re 15.</p>
<p>After age 16, the gap stabilises. So, while early childhood seems to be the crucial phase for politically engaged parents to pass their preferences on to their children, early adolescence is the key phase when the education of parents begins to matter.</p>
<p>Our findings show that parents have a lasting influence on their children’s political development. Once established during childhood, social differences in political engagement continue into adulthood. These differences highlight how political inequality is transmitted through the generations. An important task of future research is to examine how exactly educated and engaged parents make their children become more politically engaged.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Germen Janmaat receives funding from The Nuffield Foundation. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryony Louise Hoskins receives funding from The Nuffield Foundation. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation.</span></em></p>Understanding how early on in childhood political interest is sparked –– and what sparks it –– is crucial to giving more people a voiceJan Germen Janmaat, Professor of political socialization, Department of Education, Practice and Society, UCL Institute of Education, UCLBryony Louise Hoskins, Professor of Comparative Social Science, University of RoehamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1646422021-07-16T16:17:28Z2021-07-16T16:17:28ZSilenced in China: the COVID ‘truth-tellers’ and political dissent<p>Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan in early 2020, one focus of international reporting has been the Chinese authorities’ handling of the story. The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-55355401">BBC</a>, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/02/asia/china-wuhan-covid-truthtellers-intl-hnk-dst/">CNN</a>, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/technology/china-coronavirus-censorship.html">New York Times</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-beijing-only-on-ap-epidemics-media-122b73e134b780919cc1808f3f6f16e8">AP</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/dfrlab/new-report-traces-the-history-of-conspiracy-theories-claiming-covid-19-is-a-bioweapon-49903924182e">among</a> others, have investigated the attempt to construct an official narrative of the pandemic domestically and internationally.</p>
<p>These reports cite a number of Chinese whistleblowers – citizen journalists and archivists who save and republish articles deleted from websites and social media by the government – who have tried to expose the government’s campaign of censorship over the outbreak in Wuhan. </p>
<p>Though rapidly suppressed, these “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/02/asia/china-wuhan-covid-truthtellers-intl-hnk-dst/">COVID truth-tellers</a>” as they became known, provide a window through which to glimpse the nature of political dissent in China today, as well as the increasingly repressive nature of Xi Jinping’s regime.</p>
<p>As China is poised to overtake the US to become the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-55454146">world’s largest economy</a>, while simultaneously projecting an increasingly ambitious and often rhetorically confrontational “<a href="https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/interpreting-chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomacy/">wolf warrior</a>” foreign policy stance, it is crucial to understand the sources of this internal dissent and potential opposition.</p>
<p>While scholars still debate the nature of civil activism in China, it’s hard to deny the fundamental social shifts and growing objection to state control among many Chinese. US-based scholars <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/yang14420">Guobin Yang</a> and <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674025448">Merle Goldman</a> and Paris-based <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/minjian/9780231191401">Sebastian Veg</a> have all documented various forms of online activism, pro-democracy and environmental NGOs, rights activists and grassroots intellectuals in the past three decades. One demographic – young and educated urban activists – have become key players.</p>
<p>The “COVID truth-tellers” – mostly lawyers, journalists or NGO workers in their 20s or 30s – emerged from this constituency. Their reports and online posts are not isolated acts of single-issue activism, but broader signs of a melting of the “<a href="https://chinachange.org/2015/10/04/fear-of-losing-control-why-china-is-implementing-an-internet-security-law/">ice age</a>” of political dissent in China. </p>
<p>A range of values, challenging to the party’s official ideology, motivate the dissent of these activists: Christian belief, pre-communist Republican intellectual heritage and a liberal or democratic human rights stance. Such beliefs and values, distinct but overlapping in many ways, have resurfaced since China’s “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24356571">open-door</a>” policy ushered in an era of engagement with the rest of the world. </p>
<h2>Christianity and political dissent</h2>
<p>Zhang Zhan is a citizen journalist with a distinctly Christian stance. A former lawyer, her legal licence was <a href="https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/ql2-11262019100654.html">revoked</a> due to her involvement in “rights defence” activities. Zhang’s posts on <a href="https://twitter.com/consultorzhang">Twitter</a> and videos on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcDFRY2EXCc">Youtube</a> – independently reporting on the outbreak in Wuhan – are accompanied by demands for freedom of speech alongside prayer for the redemption of the regime and intercession for its victims. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1547402X13Z.00000000017">study</a> by Lian Xi of Duke University in the US suggests, this is typical of how significant numbers of public intellectuals in China have, since the turn of the century, “discovered in their newfound Protestant faith, a sacred ground upon which they stand in opposition to the arbitrary powers of the Party-state”. </p>
<p>Lian also places China’s most prominent dissident, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1547402X13Z.00000000017">Liu Xiaobo</a>, among these “cultural Christians”. Liu’s book <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072329">No Enemies, No Hatred</a> demonstrates the link between Christianity and his belief in non-violent struggle for democracy. Liu was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2009 and died of liver cancer in jail in 2017 at the age of 61.</p>
<p>More recently, Xu Zhiyong, the leader of <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/civilresistance/contentious-politics-of-chinas-new-citizens-movement/">New Citizen Movement</a> – a network of civil rights activists – has cited Christianity as a source of inspiration for peaceful civil activism in his book <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/To_Build_a_Free_China_A_Citizen_s_Journey">To Build a Free China: A Citizen’s Journey</a>. The movement’s slogan, “Free, Righteous, Loving”, captures the spirituality underpinning Zhang Zhan’s courageous reporting of the Wuhan outbreak. Xu <a href="https://pen.org/advocacy-case/xu-zhiyong/">was detained in 2020</a> and charged with “subversion of state power”. He faces life in prison if convicted.</p>
<h2>Republican liberties</h2>
<p>Two other citizen journalists – Chen Qiushi, a lawyer, and Li Zehua, a vlogger – demonstrate a different source of political dissent in their accounts of the Wuhan outbreak. Chen’s <a href="https://twitter.com/chenqiushi404/status/1334143289964994560">Tik-tok videos</a>, reposted on Twitter, and Li’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np8ZOQATLGY">YouTube</a> video showing his pursuit by police in Wuhan, both cite influential Republican intellectual figures – from the period after the last Emperor abdicated in 1912 to the foundation of the People’s Republic in 1949 – as the “spine” of the nation. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/np8ZOQATLGY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>This enthusiasm for pre-Communist cultural icons is linked to what Cambridge University scholars Zhang Qiang and Robert Weatherley call “Republican fever”. Their <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0920203X13500458">study</a> explores how the Chinese Communist Party’s calculated move since the 1980s to relax control of the discussion on the Republican period to enhance its own legitimacy has backfired.</p>
<p>Chen and Li are among the many who developed an appreciation of the civil liberties of the Republican period and began to see a Republican national identity as an alternative to the propagandised PRC national identity. Chen is <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127786/wuhan-citizen-journalist-chen-qiushi-under-surveillance-may">under house arrest</a>, while Li hasn’t been seen since he uploaded a video to his <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/china-covid-citizen-journalists/a-57409694">YouTube channel</a> in April 2020.</p>
<h2>Battling for free speech</h2>
<p>Archivists Chen Mei and Cai Wei have preserved COVID information that had been deleted from Chinese websites and social media sites by the authorities. Although not so visible on social media, their opposition to official media censorship is supported by their commitment to human rights and civil liberty. </p>
<p>In an email exchange with Chen Kun, Chen Mei’s brother who is in exile in France, he told me that Chen Mei’s archival activism began in 2017 during his involvement in a New Citizen Movement action to help migrant workers in Beijing targeted by a campaign of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/27/china-ruthless-campaign-evict-beijings-migrant-workers-condemned">government eviction</a>. </p>
<p>Chen and Cai both adopted liberal values from <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2057047316666085">Li Ren</a>, an independent educational organisation – <a href="https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/rural-library-chain-closes-citing-tremendous-pressure/">now shut down</a> – associated with “cultural Christianity”. Both are <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/07/22/silenced-china-archivists">in custody and awaiting trial</a>.</p>
<p>The COVID truth tellers, then, are motivated by various issues, but share a passion for freedom of speech and democracy. Their dedication to truth-telling and a peaceful transition to constitutionalism in China has led to severe punishment. </p>
<p>The ruthlessness of this suppression, as veteran China observer Andrew Nathan points out in his <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-anxious-100th-birthday-for-chinas-communist-party-11624635205">article</a> on the CCP’s 100th anniversary, derives from the CCP’s anxiety over maintaining a monopoly on power. According to Nathan: “The CCP has made sure that there is no organised political alternative, so many Chinese believe that the party’s collapse would mean chaos.”</p>
<p>This – and the fate of those who dare to question the official narrative presented by the CCP – demonstrates the deep incompatibility between liberal democratic values and China’s one-party regime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tao Zhang 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>A new wave of political dissenters is emerging in China – and being repressed.Tao Zhang, Senior Lecturer, School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1555562021-02-24T08:02:51Z2021-02-24T08:02:51ZHow TikTok can be the new platform for political activism: lessons from Southeast Asia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385716/original/file-20210223-13-1ol2z3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4013%2C3017&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">TikTok has enabled young protesters in Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar to amplify their voices.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Franck/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Southeast Asia, TikTok has shown its potential as the next platform for political activism. </p>
<p>In Indonesia, young users strategically used TikTok to protest the <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2020/10/07/omnibus-law-biggest-big-bang-reform-ever.html">controversial amendment of the labour law</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@widimoets/video/6880871473989307650?lang=en&is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6896825797416928769">One viral TikTok video</a> showing street protests in Semarang, Central Java, has gained 1.2 million likes and 8.6 million views. The video has also received over 11,000 comments and been shared over 14,000 times. Many of the comments showed support for the protesters, including from Malaysian TikTok users. </p>
<p>Similarly, in Thailand and Myanmar, TikTok has helped amplify young protesters’ voices. They call for democracy and demand the end of military dictatorships. </p>
<p>My latest case study in Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar has concluded that TikTok has helped distribute political content and increase awareness among global TikTok users of what is happening in Southeast Asia.</p>
<h2>Unique algorithm</h2>
<p>I conducted my study from January 15 to February 15 by scraping data on TikTok. Using a snowball technique, I use straightforward keywords like “omnibuslaw”, “thaiprotest” and “myanmarprotest” to find videos related to these keywords. I manually scraped trending hashtags on highly viewed videos to identify other trending hashtags.</p>
<p>I chose this technique because, so far, no available tool has been specifically developed to scrape data on TikTok, unlike other social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Reddit. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385134/original/file-20210218-28-1ck7an0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385134/original/file-20210218-28-1ck7an0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385134/original/file-20210218-28-1ck7an0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385134/original/file-20210218-28-1ck7an0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385134/original/file-20210218-28-1ck7an0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385134/original/file-20210218-28-1ck7an0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385134/original/file-20210218-28-1ck7an0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385134/original/file-20210218-28-1ck7an0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nuurrianti Jalli (2021)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From my study, I found TikTok has a unique algorithm, which enables many views through its organic content promotion. This algorithm has allowed TikTok to become a tool for political activism. </p>
<p>The algorithm also allows for a wider audience range beyond Southeast Asia to engage with popular content with many interactions and likes on TikTok’s “for you page”, commonly known as fyp. </p>
<p>As a result, political content shared by Southeast Asian TikTokers attracted comments not only from users in the region but also other users, including from European countries and the Americas. </p>
<p>I have seen comments like “What is happening in Thailand?” and “What is happening in Indonesia?” when protest videos shared on TikTok landed on my fyp page. </p>
<p>TikTok users’ fyp pages follow a unique “pattern” <a href="https://blog.hootsuite.com/tiktok-algorithm/">based on their viewing and liking trends on TikTok</a>. This allows political content generated in Southeast Asia that made it to users’ fyp page to receive a greater number of views from TikTok users regardless of their geographical locations as long as the users had viewed or liked similar or related content in the past.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385126/original/file-20210218-28-18x4c7g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385126/original/file-20210218-28-18x4c7g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385126/original/file-20210218-28-18x4c7g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385126/original/file-20210218-28-18x4c7g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385126/original/file-20210218-28-18x4c7g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385126/original/file-20210218-28-18x4c7g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385126/original/file-20210218-28-18x4c7g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385126/original/file-20210218-28-18x4c7g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An example of how a protest video in Thailand shared by protesters was picked up by another content creator in Latin America.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">@dreamsbls via TikTok</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Based on my observations, other social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube recorded the same phenomena, but none has provided more reach than TikTok. </p>
<p>I believe TikTok’s unique algorithm, which pushes content based on user interaction, preference and exploration on the app, contributed to higher viral traction than its competitors. </p>
<h2>Popular among the young and old</h2>
<p>Close to five years since its first launch in September 2016, TikTok has become one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. It had about <a href="https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2020-global-digital-overview">800 million</a> users worldwide as of January 2020. </p>
<p>In Southeast Asia, the popularity of TikTok can be seen from the rapid increase in new users this year. </p>
<p>In a region with a population of about <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tiktok-southeastasia-idUSKBN25O033">658 million people, the application had been downloaded over 360 million times</a> as of August 2020. TikTok is extremely popular among <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/07/what-the-rise-of-tiktok-says-about-generation-z/?sh=178e8065490b">among Gen Z</a> and <a href="https://www.ypulse.com/article/2020/02/19/tiktoks-massive-growth-among-gen-z-millennials-in-3-charts/">millennials</a>.</p>
<p>Older audiences have also started to join the app, including politicians and government ministries in Southeast Asia. </p>
<p>For example, Malaysia’s former prime minister, Mahathir Mohammad, <a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2020/08/05/at-95-dr-mahathir-has-joined-tiktok">created a TikTok account</a> to reach younger audiences. </p>
<p>In Indonesia, the Ministry of Public Relations Bureau <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/02/20/banned-and-adored-tiktok-in-a-nutshell.html">created a TikTok account</a> in March 2019 with the same intent, reaching out to the youth.</p>
<p>As TikTok continues to gain popularity in Southeast Asia, scholars are becoming more interested in looking at the TikTok phenomenon and its impacts on the region’s political scene. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5s0NlxFNdXQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Myanmar TikToker @whoops.its.lilly, based in the UK, is using the platform to educate viewers on what is happening in Myanmar using the hashtag #savemymyanmar.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>TikTok as <em>the</em> platform for political activism</h2>
<p>Given its immense popularity and extensive usage in Southeast Asia, TikTok has proven itself as <em>the</em> current platform for political activism in the region, at least for the younger generations, especially among Gen Z. </p>
<p>The high potential of TikTok as a space for political conversations and activism can also be seen in other parts of the world. This includes the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html">famous case</a> involving Kpop <a href="https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/g34150611/tiktok-slang-words/?slide=15">stans</a> versus then President Donald Trump in 2020. </p>
<p>The case indicates that, if used strategically, TikTok has great potential to boost grassroots political activism, not only in the US but even in regions where freedom of expression is limited. </p>
<p>We can also see the increased TikTok content distribution on other social media apps like Facebook and Twitter. News outlets and global media have been extracting content from TikTok as a part of the material they publish.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/29/tiktok-privacy-antitrust-china/">scepticism about the Chinese app</a> soon after its global release in 2017, today TikTok has proven itself as the current social media powerhouse, not only for fun dancing videos but also for providing its global users’ with new space for political expression. Although, ironically, not for its own people in China.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nuurrianti Jalli tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>TikTok has a high aptitude as a booster for grassroot political activism, even in regions where freedom of expression is limited.Nuurrianti Jalli, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies College of Arts and Sciences Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication Studies, Northern State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1511182020-12-18T11:37:37Z2020-12-18T11:37:37ZInquiry into undercover police who had sexual relationships with their targets is finally underway – but can their actions ever be justified?<p>When <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/29/helen-steel-relationship-undercover-police-feel-violated">Helen Steel</a> was a young environmental activist in England in the 1990s, she was deliberately manipulated and deceived into having an intimate relationship with a man she knew as John Barker. Steel says she believed she was part of a loving relationship, but shortly after Barker told Steel that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, he disappeared. </p>
<p>Steel spent 18 years searching for him and was shocked to discover the man she loved was not the person she thought him to be. John Barker was the name of a deceased child, used as a cover name by serving Metropolitan Police officer John Dines. Dines was an undercover officer, working to infiltrate protest groups pursuing social, political and environmental causes.</p>
<p>Over the past decade, we’ve learned more and more about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/undercover-police-and-policing">undercover policing practices</a>. Much of it reveals a shocking lack of adherence to the fundamental principle of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policing-by-consent/definition-of-policing-by-consent">policing by consent</a>. It should give all citizens pause to realise how ordinary members of the public, like Steel, exercising their democratic rights were subjected to abusive and inhumane treatment under the aegis of the British state’s paranoia about social and political activism at that time.</p>
<h2>Public inquiry</h2>
<p>In 2014, the government announced a judge-led <a href="https://www.ucpi.org.uk/">public inquiry</a> into undercover policing in England and Wales. This was in response to the allegations of sexual relationships as well as disturbing disclosures that undercover officers had infiltrated the campaign group launched in the wake of the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.</p>
<p>After many delays, the inquiry only started hearing live evidence in November 2020. Many participants have expressed a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/undercover-policing-inquiry_uk_5ab24bd5e4b008c9e5f3132b">lack of faith in the inquiry</a>.</p>
<p>Steel is part of a group of <a href="https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/20201026-Opening_Statement-CAT_H_Birnbergs-PKQC-AMENDED_09.11.20.pdf">women</a> who were manipulated into long-term sexual relationships with undercover police officers. Some of these officers even fathered children while infiltrating activist groups. Financial compensation and opaquely worded apologies are not enough. The women, harmed by their own state’s activities, deserve the truth.</p>
<p>The police have sought to convince the inquiry of their commitment to a “<a href="https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/20201022-Opening_Statement-MPS_CL.pdf">frank and full investigation of these matters</a>”. In theory, this all sounds good. In practice, however, their words and actions are somewhat incongruous.</p>
<p>The police have been reluctant to release essential information into the public domain. In the early stages of the inquiry, the police sought to prevent the disclosure of cover names used by the undercover officers. Reassuringly for the women involved, the inquiry rejected these requests and insisted the cover names be made public, which they since have.</p>
<p>There are, of course, circumstances where it is in the public interest not to release sensitive information. However, the release of cover names at the very least is essential to the truth. That the police give the privacy of the officers concerned more weight than that of the women affected is perplexing and obstructive. There may be more women like Steel who have had intimate relationships with undercover officers. <a href="https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/20201109-ucpi_opening_statements_transcript.pdf">Without knowing their cover name</a>, they will never be able to come forward. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ucpi.org.uk/2017/11/14/generic-evidence-in-support-of-anonymity-applications/">rationale</a> for this reluctance is laden with doublespeak about the risks to the security and psychological wellbeing of officers and the potential problems it might cause for future recruitment of undercover officers. Perhaps the biggest paradox here is just how much information the police themselves have put <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/how-undercover-officer-infiltrated-brought-12158627">into the public domain</a> that openly discloses undercover tactics and methodologies. In just one example, when giving a statements to the media about an undercover operation in Manchester, senior police officers openly disclosed how undercover officers were able to infiltrate criminal gangs. </p>
<h2>Legitimate function in society</h2>
<p>By its very nature, undercover policing is intrusive and complicated. It is fundamentally a human activity and is therefore predisposed to errors and failures. There is no dispute that it has saved lives and, in the right circumstances, can be a vital tactic to combat crime and keep the public safe. Selected <a href="https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/20201022-Opening_Statement-MPS_CL.pdf">examples</a> of this being the case have been provided to the inquiry. These examples are persuasive and lend support to the proposition that undercover policing, within an appropriate legal and ethical framework, has a legitimate function in our society.</p>
<p>Truth, not sophistry, should characterise everything disclosed by the police to the inquiry. The women manipulated by the undercover officers in these cases fear the truth will evade them. And at this point, even if it didn’t, it’s hard to see how any explanation for could justify the destruction wrought on their lives in the name of investigating campaign groups in a democratic society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul McFarlane 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>Even after years of delay, the arguments continue about what should be made public about this scandal.Paul McFarlane, Lecturer in Security and Crime Science, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1482132020-10-29T16:50:39Z2020-10-29T16:50:39ZThis Halloween, witches are casting spells to defeat Trump and #WitchTheVote in the U.S. election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366296/original/file-20201028-13-1ckudj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3671%2C2442&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Witch-identified folks are sharing spells online in an act of magical resistance in advance of the U.S. election.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This Halloween, the witches are coming — to the ballot box.</p>
<p>Using the hashtag #WitchTheVote, witch-identified folks are encouraging others who have an interest in the occult to get informed about political candidates and cast their vote in the U.S. presidential election Nov. 3. </p>
<p>Originally launched by a group of witches from Salem, Mass., during the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections, <a href="https://www.witchthevote.com">#WitchTheVote</a> is a cross-media initiative that identifies and promotes — as one witch tells us — “witch-worthy” political candidates: those who are progressive and social justice oriented. It’s fitting political activism in a <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/10/30/16560092/salem-witch-trials-magic-halloween-witchcraft-arthur-miller-crucible-past">town known for the Salem witch trials and contemporary witch tourism</a>.</p>
<h2>Witching movements</h2>
<p>More than a hashtag, #WitchTheVote is also, according to the group, a “collective intersectional effort to direct our magic towards electing candidates who will push our country and our planet forward into the witch utopia we all envision.” </p>
<p>Here, intersectional feminist politics work alongside magic and creative media production to engage in political activism that includes advocacy around issues like affordable housing, reproductive rights and #BlackLivesMatter. #WitchTheVote runs a regular <a href="https://www.witchthevote.com/podcast">podcast</a> and has also made and distributed zines with information for prospective voters, including how to register to vote and how to check to ensure your mail-in ballot was received. </p>
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<p>This collective effort illustrates the ways in which “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/6/20/15830312/magicresistance-restance-witches-magic-spell-to-bind-donald-trump-mememagic">magical resistance</a>” has become a popular, women-led form of mediated, political activism since the election of Donald Trump in 2016.</p>
<h2>The resurgence of the witch</h2>
<p>#WitchTheVote is situated within a resurgence of witches in popular culture over the past four years. Between Netflix’s teen drama <em>The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina</em>, beauty retailer Sephora’s Starter Witch Kit (which was eventually removed due to backlash), the revival of the cult classics teen witch movie <em>The Craft</em> and <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/witchcraft-tiktok">TikTok spell trends</a>, the witch is having a cultural moment. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dressed-to-kill-6-ways-horror-folklore-is-fashioned-in-the-movies-147835">Dressed to kill: 6 ways horror folklore is fashioned in the movies</a>
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<p>Books such as Pam Grossman’s <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Waking-the-Witch/Pam-Grossman/9781982100704"><em>Waking the Witch</em></a> (2019) have attracted widespread media attention, while <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/astrology-tarot-cards-mental-health_l_5df7b210e4b03aed50f25c30">public interest in astrology and tarot readings has also grown</a>. </p>
<p>Esthetically, witchcraft and mysticism circulate easily on visual social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, where colourful crystals and elaborate altars make for beautiful photos and videos. From a branding perspective, the witch’s popularity makes sense within a larger cultural interest in spirituality, wellness and mysticism.</p>
<p>But there is also a case to be made for the very political nature of the witch. The archetype of the witch has a historical relationship with feminist activism. As an unruly figure and threat to the patriarchy, the witch is resistant, and has been used in <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/43gd8p/wicked-witch-60s-feminist-protestors-hexed-patriarchy">feminist protest since the 1960s</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sirens-hags-and-rebels-halloween-witches-draw-on-the-history-of-womens-power-149110">Sirens, hags and rebels: Halloween witches draw on the history of women’s power</a>
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<p>At a moment of regressive politics marked by a resurgence of white supremacy, xenophobia and anti-feminist sentiments, coupled with the uncertainty of a global pandemic and the looming climate crisis, it is unsurprising that women and other marginalized folks are turning to witchcraft as a way to make sense of — and act upon — our current political, social and economic milieu. </p>
<h2>The digital coven</h2>
<p>It is perhaps the collectivist sentiment of contemporary witchcraft — belonging to something bigger, together — that is appealing. Indeed, #WitchTheVote’s mandate as a “collective intersectional effort” suggests the force of doing something together, yet attuned to the different experiences, including those related to race, class, sexuality, age and ability, that participants may face. </p>
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<p>And while not the only tool for mobilizing a collective, technology has become a significant connector for covens in recent years. Social media platforms, in particular, provide what some witches refer to as “<a href="https://hauswitchstore.com/blogs/community/tech-spells">globally accessible magic</a>.” </p>
<p>By embracing technology while recognizing its limitations and inherent oppressions, witches are engaging in new rituals with the intent of keeping their channels clear for maximum revolutionary power on an individual and collective level. </p>
<p>For example, upon Donald Trump’s election in 2016, witches began a monthly ritual of <a href="https://medium.com/defiant/use-this-spell-to-bind-trump-and-his-cronies-a5b6298f5c69">casting a spell to “bind” Trump</a>, preventing him from pursuing his agenda that many witches believe to be harmful. Some witches used platforms such as Facebook Messenger and Twitter to connect with other spell-casting witches at a designated time each month, ensuring that the “mass energy of the participants” is harnessed. </p>
<h2>Spells and rites</h2>
<p>Historically, spells often required very little in terms of commercial goods. Instead, witches relied on basic household items like candles and feminized rituals such as sweeping to engage in witchcraft. #WitchTheVote’s “<a href="https://www.witchthevote.com/spells/2020/3/31/a-multi-tasking-spell-for-mutual-aid-during-covid-19">A Multi-tasking Spell for Mutual Aid During COVID-19</a>” lists a pen, paper and “anything else that makes you feel like a witch” as necessary materials. Other spells recommend candles of any size and colour and dirt from your backyard. </p>
<p>The emphasis is not on the materials themselves, but instead engaging with rituals that help witches feel empowered through practices that provide a sense of routine, stability and purpose in unpredictable times.</p>
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<p>In the digital age, using the Internet as another avenue to practice witchcraft seems like a natural extension to the tradition of making do with the resources available to you. We may even think of emojis, shares, likes and retweets as possible technologies of magic when used with energetic intention to manifest social change. </p>
<p>And these practices are extensions of activist use of technologies such as feminist listservs, e-zines, chatrooms, homepages, feminist blogs and now, social media.</p>
<h2>Casting spells and votes</h2>
<p>In a political, cultural and economic moment in which many people feel a sense of hopelessness about the future, #WitchTheVote encourages activists to ground themselves through ritual and magical resistance. </p>
<p>They remind us of girls’ and women’s lengthy history in subverting repressive politics through focused collective action. In casting their votes along with their digital coven on Nov. 3, Salem’s activist witches hope to #WitchTheVote, one ballot at a time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148213/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessalynn Keller receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alora Paulsen Mulvey 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>As the U.S. election approaches, various groups have mobilized to vote. But witches have taken it a little further, organizing online spellcasting meet-ups to engage in magical resistance.Jessalynn Keller, Associate Professor in Critical Media Studies, University of CalgaryAlora Paulsen Mulvey, PhD Student, Department of Communication, Media and Film, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1412662020-06-30T16:00:25Z2020-06-30T16:00:25ZTikTok teens and the Trump campaign: How social media amplifies political activism and threatens election integrity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344649/original/file-20200629-155303-h4esrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C5168%2C3437&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla. had thousands of empty seats, thanks at least in part to the actions of teenagers who mobilized on the social media platform TikTok.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Trump/d0e10e8a467a499fbe9b81bed6414e5e/51/0">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The lower-than-expected attendance at President Trump’s rally in Tulsa on June 20 was attributed, at least in part, to an online army of K-pop fans who used the social network <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/en/">TikTok</a> to organize and reserve tickets for the rally as a means of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/arts/music/k-pop-fans-trump-politics.html">pranking the campaign</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, the historically unprecedented scale of the George Floyd protests can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-pandemic-changed-social-media-and-george-floyds-death-created-a-collective-conscience-140104">attributed in part</a> to social media. By some estimates <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/todays-protest-movements-are-as-big-as-the-1960s/613207/">25 million Americans participated</a> at protests. </p>
<p>Social media has proven itself as a <a href="https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2020/05/14/1379701/social-media-giving-voice-to-online-activists">tool for political activism</a>, from online boycotts to offline gatherings. It also has implications for how political campaigns operate. Social media can aid campaigns with <a href="https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/jf/IF-ASONAM19.pdf">voter targeting efforts</a>, but it can also make the electoral process <a href="https://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/app/uploads/2020/01/f035dd8e-kaf_kacedda_report_2019_web.pdf">vulnerable to misinformation and manipulation</a>, including from foreign actors.</p>
<h2>Hijacking hashtags</h2>
<p>Social media has <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24461703">enabled protests and meaningful political action</a> by capturing public attention, and by its decentralized nature, which makes it easier for activists to evade censorship and coordinate actions. K-pop fans’ action through TikTok spanned more than a week and stayed off the radar of mainstream media. </p>
<p>TikTok teens and K-pop fans took over anti-Black Lives Matter hashtags such as #WhiteLivesMatter and drowned out the anti-Black Lives Matter messages with GIFs and memes. When people on social media platforms look for these hashtags, they’re met with seemingly unending <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/us/kpop-bts-blackpink-fans-black-lives-matter-trnd/index.html">images and fan videos of popular K-pop groups</a> such as Twice and EXO. </p>
<p>This, in turn, leads algorithms on social media platforms to classify <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/06/22/twitter-categorizes-whitelivesmatter-as-k-pop-trend-as-fans-flood-it-with-gifs-memes/#2796296613d1">such trending hashtags as K-pop</a> trends rather than political trends, thwarting the anti-Black Lives Matter activists who tried to use the hashtags to promote their messages.</p>
<p>K-pop fans likewise <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/after-trump-rally-falls-flat-tiktok-teens-take-victory-lap-n1231675">responded to a call</a> from the Dallas Police Department, who were trying to collect information about Black Lives Matter protesters from social media, and bombarded them with images and videos of their favorite K-pop stars.</p>
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<h2>Influencers and like-minded connections</h2>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JpFHYKcAAAAJ&hl=en">My own research</a> shows that there are <a href="https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/isre.1100.0339">two mechanisms</a> that make social media influential in digital activism. </p>
<p>First, social media gives <a href="https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/isre.1100.0339">an opinion-making role</a> to a few influencers – people who have extensive social media networks. The furor companies such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/30/deleteuber-how-social-media-turned-on-uber">Uber</a> and <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/united-continental-backlash-wont-die-down-newunitedairlinesmottos-2017-04-11">United Airlines</a> aroused on social media for misbehaving was initiated <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-social-media-turned-uniteds-pr-flub-into-a-firestorm-76210">by a handful of individuals</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Second, on social media people engage with like-minded people, a <a href="https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/isre.1100.0339">phenomenon called homophily</a>. </p>
<p>Together, these mechanisms provide a wide audience to both influencers and their followers who are enmeshed in densely connected online networks. As my research shows, once a meme, hashtag or video goes viral, <a href="https://www.jmis-web.org/articles/1281">passive sharing can turn into active broadcasting</a> of the trending idea. </p>
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<p>For example, when celebrity Jane tweets in support of a viral hashtag such as #BlackOutTuesday, if fan Alyssa retweets this, it is more likely to be retweeted by people like Alyssa. Jane’s influence is magnified by Alyssa’s ability to influence her social connections. The resulting activism spirals into a large-scale online movement that is hard to ignore. </p>
<h2>Social media and political campaigning</h2>
<p>Social media’s opinion-making power and preference for like-minded connections also lead to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble">online filter bubbles</a>, echo chambers that amplify information people are predisposed to agree with and filter out information that contradicts people’s points of view. Recent elections in the U.S. and the Brexit vote in the U.K. might have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/22/social-media-election-facebook-filter-bubbles">influenced by filter bubbles</a>.</p>
<p>Social media also makes it easier to narrowly target classes of voters. In 2016 Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign significantly outspent Donald Trump’s campaign, and the effectiveness of the Trump campaign has been attributed to its <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/">ability to target specific groups</a> of Clinton voters with negative ads. </p>
<p>With online advertising in general, and with the ability to <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90318247/users-need-to-play-a-role-in-how-we-regulate-tech-giants">micro-target voters</a> via social media based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-begins-to-shift-from-being-a-free-and-open-platform-into-a-responsible-public-utility-101577">detailed demographic data</a>, social media can both help and hinder political campaigns’ ability to target their voters. </p>
<p>Also, political campaigns need good data to create models of likely voters, which they use to get voters to turn out and persuade likely voters to vote for their candidates. It looks like TikTok users <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/22/tiktok-users-kpop-stans-deluge-trump-campaign-bad-data/">produced a deluge of bad data</a> for the Trump campaign. This kind of activity forces campaigns to spend time and money cleaning up their data.</p>
<h2>Social media and election integrity</h2>
<p>The power of social media also poses a challenge for election integrity. An entity linked to the Russian government was reportedly <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-russian-government-used-disinformation-and-cyber-warfare-in-2016-election-an-ethical-hacker-explains-99989">responsible for spreading a massive disinformation campaign</a> that likely influenced the 2016 elections. A Senate committee <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf">concluded that</a> “these operatives used targeted advertisements, intentionally falsified news articles, self-generated content, and social media platform tools” to intentionally manipulate the perceptions of millions of Americans. </p>
<p>Likewise, the Tulsa phenomenon underscores that if it’s this easy for a group of teens to influence turnout in a campaign rally, how easy would it be for a foreign actor to interfere in the election process? The election process, including how campaigns and observers gather political information, is vulnerable to misinformation and coordinated trolling. </p>
<p>Social media amplifies both the reach and range of actions available to well-organized, engaged and networked political actors, whatever their intentions. With the pandemic significantly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/07/technology/coronavirus-internet-use.html">increasing society’s dependence on the internet</a>, these concerns are likely to increase. The question is, when combined with algorithmic filters and disinformation, how will these forces shape the politics of protest and democratic action in the years ahead?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141266/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anjana Susarla 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>If teenagers organizing on social media can hamper a presidential campaign rally, how challenging is it to manipulate elections?Anjana Susarla, Associate Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1044292018-10-19T10:42:58Z2018-10-19T10:42:58ZAnti-fracking activists released on appeal – but criminalisation of nonviolent protest is new norm<p>Three men who were imprisoned after blocking access to a fracking site in Lancashire have been released <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/17/court-quashes-excessive-sentences-of-fracking-protesters">after an appeal</a>, a decision met with joyous relief by campaigners. These anti-fracking activists initially received lengthy prison sentences for “causing a public nuisance” – prompting 1,500 academics to sign a critical <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScmXGgV93AycjcfbWmWBQ_7eYxbI69n5PIQhM_0B9kF1qMSaA/viewform">open letter</a> in response. Their sentences were quashed as “excessive” by the Court of Appeal on October 17. </p>
<p>But it’s wrong to frame this case as an aberration followed by a simple victory for common sense. In fact, the harsh treatment of these activists fits into a larger pattern through which non-violent protest has been criminalised in the UK. </p>
<p>According to a 2017 government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-and-climate-change-public-attitudes-tracker-wave-22">survey</a>, only 16% of the public support fracking – the fracturing of underground rocks, to access oil and gas. Many view it as a high-risk, low-reward practice – and scientific research suggests a link between fracking and <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-fracking-cause-bigger-more-frequent-earthquakes-16056?sr=3">earthquakes</a>, as well as risks of <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaar5982">water shortages</a> and damage to the <a href="https://cdn.friendsoftheearth.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/HMW%20REPORT%20FINAL.pdf">countryside</a>. Environmentalists highlight the bigger issues of climate change and the desperate need to adopt alternatives to fossil fuels. </p>
<p>For these reasons, the protesters peacefully <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-45652464">blocked a convoy</a> in July 2017 bringing equipment into Preston New Road fracking site in Lancashire. They did this by sitting on top of lorries. Green Party MP Caroline Lucas <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/26/jailing-fracking-protesters-fight-caroline-lucas">described</a> the crackdown, which entailed severe 15 to 16-month custodial sentences given to three of the protesters, as “an act of desperation from the fracking industry and the government”. Since then protesters have adopted <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2018/oct/15/fracking-protesters-attempt-blockade-lancashire-site-video-report">similar tactics</a> at the site, as fracking started in the UK again on October 15 for the first time since 2011. </p>
<p>Fracking activists often face state repression on the ground. <a href="http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/3140/">Research</a> carried out at the Barton Moss anti-fracking camp in Greater Manchester between 2013-14 found that despite an overwhelmingly peaceful campaign, the scale and in some instances violent nature of the policing operation undermined the right to peaceful protest. But police incursions into the rights of protesters have extended further.</p>
<h2>Spy cops</h2>
<p>In recent years, evidence has come to light of abuse by undercover officers who have infiltrated the environmentalist and other social movements since 1968, including the Stephen Lawrence Justice Campaign. A recently published <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2018/oct/15/uk-political-groups-spied-on-undercover-police-list">database</a> documents the scale, scope and character of the undercover surveillance of political activism. The abuse uncovered so far by activists, independent researchers such as the <a href="http://undercoverresearch.net/">Undercover Research Group</a> and journalists including The Guardian’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/robevans">Rob Evans</a>, demonstrates the criminalisation of protest through intimate state surveillance. </p>
<p>Some officers had sexual relationships with their targets in order to seem more trustworthy, a tactic one activist “Jacqui” described as like having been “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/24/undercover-police-spy-girlfriend-child">raped by the state</a>”. Undercover officer Bob Lambert fathered a child with “Jacqui”, before disappearing from her life without explanation.</p>
<p>Another common tactic was adopting dead babies’ identities to build a believable “paper trail” should targets become suspicious. This is something that has horrified and hurt the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/24/we-had-fond-memories-of-our-brother-but-the-police-have-made-them-dirty">families of these children</a>. A myriad of other practices have been identified, ranging from officers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/20/police-admit-officers-role-in-mass-release-of-mink-by-protesters">breaking the law</a> while undercover, to appearing in court under a <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/undercover-police-bob-lambert-exclusive">false identity</a>. These practices have resulted in a number of possible miscarriages of justice. It is suspected that more than <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14742837.2018.1480934">1,000 groups were affected</a>. </p>
<p>A key question in the undercover policing case has been how much senior officers knew about or encouraged the most troubling tactics of these officers. Activists have denounced the government-ordered, yet slow-moving, <a href="https://www.ucpi.org.uk/about-the-inquiry/">Undercover Policing Inquiry</a>, calling for the resignation of its chair, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43487941">John Mitting</a>. Critics allege the lack of transparency, particularly around the anonymity of the police officers during the inquiry, fits into this pattern of state repression. </p>
<p>An Investigatory Powers Tribunal in a case brought by Kate Wilson, an activist deceived into a long-term sexual relationship by undercover officer Mark Kennedy, has been presented with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/21/met-bosses-knew-of-relationship-deception-by-police-spy-mark-kennedy">new evidence</a> in recent months that Kennedy’s commanding officers knew of his relationship with Wilson and did not intervene. This adds weight to the belief that a lack of concern for the human rights of protesters is institutionally or culturally endemic in the police.</p>
<h2>Strike rights curtailed</h2>
<p>Patterns of criminalisation also exist elsewhere. The 2016 <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/15/contents/enacted">Trade Union Act</a> dramatically <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ilj/article/45/3/299/1750051">curtails</a> labour rights in Britain. It imposes new higher strike ballot thresholds, including a double threshold for “important public services” such as teachers and energy workers, making it much more difficult to go on strike legally. It also requires unions to give police the names of “picket supervisors”, and makes it easier for employers to use courts to stop strikes.</p>
<p>The 2017 <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/594788/Code_of_Practice_on_Picketing.pdf">Code of Practice</a> on picketing asks unions to ensure that “no more than six people” are present per workplace entrance, as any more would give rise to “fear and resentment”. These policies were introduced despite the fact that fewer days than ever were <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/labourdisputesintheuk2016">lost to industrial action in 2016</a>. This is another way in which the right to nonviolent protest has been eroded.</p>
<p>The privatisation of public space is another means through which rights have been curtailed. The large-scale selling off of public land, and growing prevalence of pseudo-public space, has been condemned by public figures including Labour leader <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/25/corbyn-joins-calls-reclaim-uk-public-space-from-corporate-owners">Jeremy Corbyn and Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable</a>. The use of private security, as well as so-called “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-44794429">civil injunctions</a>” by private companies who find themselves the focus of activism, shows the way that private firms can exploit the system to their own advantage, installing what effectively amount to protest exclusion zones within communities.</p>
<p>The vocal criticism of the verdict and subsequent release of the Lancashire fracking protesters does suggest that opposition is growing. </p>
<p>The ongoing case of the so-called <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-45724040">Stansted 15</a> will add to the overall picture, whatever the result. The defendants allegedly prevented a Home Office charter plane from taking off in March 2017 in order to stop the migrants on board from being deported. They are standing trial <a href="https://www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/live-stansted-15-trial-updates-2064632">on terror charges</a> under the Aviation and Maritime Security Act and could face potentially lengthy jail sentences if convicted. </p>
<p>It’s time we acknowledged this pattern of creeping criminalisation of protest – in the courts and in the streets – as a serious threat to our freedom and democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104429/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Stephens-Griffin 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>The criminalisation of fracking protesters is not the exception, it has become the rule.Nathan Stephens-Griffin, Lecturer in Criminology, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/994572018-07-06T15:34:15Z2018-07-06T15:34:15ZBanning sex work advertising online will put sex workers in danger<p>Just months after the US government introduced an outright ban on advertising for sexual services, an unlikely coalition of politicians fronted by the Labour MP Sarah Champion <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44685056">held a House of Commons debate</a> calling for similar measures in Britain. Following a <a href="https://appgprostitution.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Behind-closed-doors-APPG-on-Prostitution.pdf">report</a> from Champion and her colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group for prostitution, the debate took aim at websites and online adult platforms offering sexual services. </p>
<p>Yet the majority of sex work experts argue that, as <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/craigslist-erotic-services-platform-3eab46092717/">research has demonstrated</a>, banning online sites would drive commercial sex work underground or back onto the streets, increasing the dangers sex workers face and making it harder to detect and prevent crimes against them. More importantly, this is also <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-prostitutes-warn-that-criminalising-clients-would-reduce-safety-a6877816.html">the view of sex workers themselves</a> – as voiced at a spirited demonstration outside parliament during the MP’s Westminster Hall debate.</p>
<p>It happens that the <a href="https://www.bcu.ac.uk/social-sciences/criminology/british-society-of-criminology-conference-2018">British Society of Criminology Conference</a> was underway in Birmingham just as this debate opened. One session on Rights, Victimisation and Sex Work warned that the US legislation (known as <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/4/13/17172762/fosta-sesta-backpage-230-internet-freedom">FOSTA and SESTA</a>) introduced in March 2018 has already had consequences. There have been reports of assaults on sex workers, <a href="http://titsandsass.com/on-the-death-of-backpage/">and even deaths</a>, and it has affected sex workers’ rights of association. Organisers cancelled the famous three-yearly <a href="http://desireealliance.org/conference/">Desiree Alliance sex worker congress</a>, stating “we cannot put our organisation and our attendees at risk”. Sexual health, training and support have been put in jeopardy owing to fears of being criminalised in the new climate.</p>
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<h2>The facts of the matter</h2>
<p>Regardless of the stock photos of women on street corners, in Britain most commercial sex is advertised and negotiated online. Most advertisements are from adult sex workers working as independent escorts, or from agencies working with a number of women. </p>
<p>Contrary to Champion’s <a href="https://labourlist.org/2018/07/sarah-champion-dont-legitimise-violence-against-women-adopt-the-nordic-model/">confident but unsupported assertions</a>, findings from <a href="https://www.beyond-the-gaze.com/">Beyond the Gaze</a> – the largest research project on the online sex industry in the UK – have shown that websites allow sex workers to keep themselves safer. They enable more control over bookings, facilitate online interactions with potential customers, and reveal warning signs of problematic behaviour. Sex workers using the internet experience lower levels of serious crimes than others, while arranging commercial sex online leaves a digital footprint which can be used to trace violent or offending clients, or those involved in trafficking and modern slavery offences.</p>
<p>Sex workers share information with each other online to reduce the risks they face from potentially dangerous clients. Operations such as the National Ugly Mugs reporting scheme are supported by adult services websites, and <a href="https://uknswp.org/um/about/what-happens-to-your-reports">feed information to the police to tackle crime</a>. Only through the visibility of online sex work can exploitation and crimes be easily identified. </p>
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<p><strong><em>Listen to our podcast on the future of sex work in <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-22-sex-91797">The Anthill 22: Sex</a></em></strong></p>
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<h2>The impact of an advertising ban</h2>
<p>One effect of banning sex work advertising and online platforms particularly would be to criminalise people who do sex work for a short time in their lives, for example students or single parents. These and others often use the same platforms, not to meet up in person but to sell pictures, videos, or live camera sessions with their clients. Surveys <a href="http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/17962">conducted for the UK Office for National Statistics</a> make clear how providers mix and match between in-person and other services. But Champion does not differentiate between these, and this skews the debate.</p>
<p>A ban would divert policing resources away from genuine harms such as trafficking and sexual exploitation, to be spent instead on closing down sites used by consenting adults. A blanket ban makes it harder for people to exit sex work, as some women run websites, assist, or rent space to others in the process of leaving the industry. </p>
<p>Criminalisation would increase the stigma around sex work, leading to more sex workers ending up with a criminal record, making it harder for them to get a job outside the industry. It would amplify the hostile environment for migrant and LGBT+ sex workers, when false assumptions are made as to their status. Campaign groups seeking to criminalise sex work frequently regard any non-British sex worker as trafficked, and this deliberate indistinction allows for <a href="http://fliphtml5.com/dwhd/nndv/basic">wildly inflated statistics</a>.</p>
<p>The all-party group’s report appears to follow suit, talking of “potential victims” as being Romanian or other non-UK nationals. It does not clarify what a “potential victim” is, nor how it differs from someone who is not, in fact, a victim, but an uncoerced woman who happens to be foreign. </p>
<p>Some years ago the former MP for Rotherham, Denis McShane, used such statistics to argue for the de-facto criminalisation of sex work before being <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtaEdI3aiwg">called to account by sex workers on national television</a>. Proceeding under the same hysterical reaction, two nationwide police operations, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails">Pentameter I and II</a>, raided over 500 premises and found fewer than 0.01% and 0.021% of sex workers they encountered had been trafficked. McShane’s time might have been better spent fighting for the protection of girls in care homes, and against the grooming gangs in his constituency – Champion, having replaced him as MP for Rotherham, should take note.</p>
<p>The issue of criminal gangs, of coercion, trafficking and organised prostitution is something that must be tackled. But further criminalisation will not help.</p>
<h2>Uneasy bedfellows</h2>
<p>Champion’s move is supported in some quarters, including by the <a href="http://bit.ly/2zmyzeW">hardline Democratic Unionist Party</a> in Northern Ireland, and this will not necessarily come as a surprise to those aware of the provocative attitudes of the all-party parliamentary group on prostitution. Under strong influence from religious members such as MPs Gavin Shuker and Fiona Bruce, their report is completely at odds with the previous coalition government’s policies, under which a Home Office <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97778/responding-to-prostitution.pdf">review</a> concluded priorities should be the safety of sex workers, support for migrant sex workers, and an investigative focus on grooming.</p>
<p>Instead, politicians should call for a compulsory rollout of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-24520849/merseyside-model-for-tackling-crime-against-sex-workers">Merseyside+ Model</a> to all police forces, a multi-agency approach to support sex workers and combat crimes against them and the community. They might look to other cross-party work, such as that convened by Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell MP in a <a href="http://prostitutescollective.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Online-Symposium-Report.pdf">report published with the English Collective of Prostitutes</a>. Or to the Liberal Democrats’ <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/libdems/pages/13634/attachments/original/1487157911/Sex_Work_Policy_Paper_(Clear_Print).pdf?1487157911">policy</a>, developed with evidence from experts and sex workers, which calls for <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/fact-check/94086/the-truth-about-decriminalising-prostitution">decriminalisation of consensual sex work as a harm reduction measure</a>, refocusing police activity on fighting coercion, defined broadly as fear, force, or fraud, and to support those seeking to exit. </p>
<p>A rational approach to harm reduction for sex workers is commended by health professionals, such as in an <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k2687">expert view published in the British Medical Journal</a>. There is no appetite for dangerous laws that misdirect scarce resources toward the wrong targets. Academics have always offered their expertise and research to politicians to help build policies on evidence, not dogma; it is time they heard it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Belinda Brooks-Gordon has received funding from the ESRC and ONS. She is a member of the Liberal Democrat Party.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Teela Sanders receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/M007324/2)</span></em></p>Sex work using the internet is safer for sex workers and easier to police – why would MPs want to change that?Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Reader in Psychology and Social Policy, Birkbeck, University of LondonTeela Sanders, Professor in Criminology, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/986842018-06-21T10:27:15Z2018-06-21T10:27:15ZCorporate CEOs’ political voice growing louder as they criticize Trump policies like separating migrant children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224135/original/file-20180621-137741-1d0kkco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children wait at a private charity after being released by Customs and Border Protection.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Eric Gay</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>America’s CEOs have become increasingly active on political issues that they would have shunned in prior years.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-20/american-asks-u-s-not-to-put-detained-children-on-its-flights">latest example</a> came in response to the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” border enforcement policy that led to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/breaking-up-families-america-looks-like-a-dickens-novel-98660">forced separation</a> of several thousand immigrant children from their <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-migration-from-central-america-5-essential-reads-98600">detained parents</a>. United Continental CEO Oscar Munoz called the policy “in deep conflict with our company’s values.” </p>
<p>United and fellow airlines <a href="http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2018/Statement-on-Recent-Reports-of-Separated-Families/default.aspx">American</a>, Southwest and <a href="https://twitter.com/FlyFrontier/status/1009488027985596416">Frontier</a> each indicated they didn’t want the government to use their planes to fly separated children. President Donald Trump hoped to quell the furor over the issue by signing an executive order <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/politics/trump-immigration-children-executive-order.html">ending the separations</a>.</p>
<p>It’s certainly not the first time corporate CEOs took a stand against a Trump policy or his words. After the president’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-press-conference-charlottesville.html">contentious response</a> to violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, CEO resignations and <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/08/17/ceos-trump-charlottesville-criticized">denunciations</a> led to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2017/08/16/after-wave-of-ceo-departures-trump-ends-business-and-manufacturing-councils/">dissolution</a> of two White House advisory councils.</p>
<p>While Trump’s actions likely sparked this increase in political activism by corporate CEOs, its roots run deeper and will survive beyond the end of the current administration.</p>
<h2>From custom abiders to bullies</h2>
<p>When I first began studying the interactions between social movements and corporations in the 1990s, it was rare to see business take a public stand on social issues. Yet today we see organizations ranging from General Electric to the NCAA <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/major-corporations-join-fight-against-north-carolina-s-bathroom-bill-n605976">weighing in</a> on, for example, transgender rights, something hard to imagine even a decade ago.</p>
<p>Traditionally, corporations aimed to be scrupulously neutral on social issues. No one doubted that corporations exercised power, but it was over bread-and-butter economic issues like trade and taxes, not social issues. There seemed little to be gained by activism on potentially divisive issues, particularly for consumer brands. </p>
<p>A watershed of the civil rights movement, for example, was the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095077">1960 sit-in protest by students that began at a segregated lunch counter</a> in a Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and spread across the South. Woolworth’s corporate policy had been to “abide by local custom” and keep black and white patrons separated. By supporting the status quo, Woolworth and others like it stood in the way of progress.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139327/original/image-20160926-31842-15nz195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139327/original/image-20160926-31842-15nz195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139327/original/image-20160926-31842-15nz195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139327/original/image-20160926-31842-15nz195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139327/original/image-20160926-31842-15nz195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139327/original/image-20160926-31842-15nz195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139327/original/image-20160926-31842-15nz195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When the Greensboro Four launched their sit-in protest, companies tended to stay neutral on social issues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A%26T_four_statue_2000.jpg">Cewatkin via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>But negative publicity led to substantial lost business, and Woolworth eventually relented. In July, four months after the protest started – and after the students had gone home for the summer – the manager of the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/the-greensboro-sit-in">Greensboro store</a> quietly integrated his lunch counter.</p>
<p>In general, companies were more worried about the costs of taking a more liberal stand on such issues, a point basketball legend and Nike pitchman Michael Jordan made succinctly in 1990. Asked to support Democrat Harvey Gantt’s campaign to replace segregationist incumbent Jesse Helms as a North Carolina senator, Jordan declined, reportedly saying “<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2016/07/did_michael_jordan_really_say_republicans_buy_sneakers_too.html">Republicans buy sneakers, too</a>.”</p>
<p>And companies presumed that taking controversial positions would lead to boycotts by those on the other side. That’s what happened to Walt Disney in 1996 as a result of its early support for gay rights, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Days_at_Walt_Disney_World">“Gay Day”</a> at its theme parks. Its stand prompted groups including America’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptists, to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/US/9706/18/baptists.disney/">launch a boycott</a>, calling Disney’s support for gay rights an “anti-Christian and anti-family direction.” The <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8318263/ns/us_news/t/southern-baptists-end--year-disney-boycott/">eight-year boycott</a>, however, was notably ineffective at changing Disney policy. It turns out that too few parents had the heart to deny their children Disney products to make a boycott effective. </p>
<p>Since then, some of the biggest U.S. companies have taken similar stands, in spite of the reaction from conservatives. For example, when the Arkansas legislature passed a bill in March 2015 that would have enabled LGBT discrimination on the grounds of “religious freedom,” <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-walmart-arkansas-analysis-idUSKBN0MT13E20150402">the CEO of Walmart urged the governor to veto the bill</a>. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, given Walmart’s status in the state and the corporate backlash that accompanied a similar law in Indiana, the <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/01/govt-and-business-leaders-object-to-ark-religion-bill/70757942/">governor obliged</a> and eventually signed a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/31/politics/arkansas-religious-freedom-anti-lgbt-bill/">modified bill</a>. That didn’t sit well with former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, however, who <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/opinion/bobby-jindal-im-holding-firm-against-gay-marriage.html">argued in The New York Times</a> that companies in those states were joining “left-wing activists to bully elected officials into backing away from strong protections for religious liberty.” He warned companies against “bullying” Louisiana.</p>
<p>Why have corporations shifted from “abiding local custom” around segregation and other divisive social issues to “bullying elected officials” to support LGBT rights?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183830/original/file-20170829-6653-za65f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183830/original/file-20170829-6653-za65f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183830/original/file-20170829-6653-za65f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183830/original/file-20170829-6653-za65f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183830/original/file-20170829-6653-za65f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183830/original/file-20170829-6653-za65f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183830/original/file-20170829-6653-za65f9.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">
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<span class="caption">Merck CEO Ken Frazier, seated next to Trump, was the first to resign from a manufacturing council after Charlottesville.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Changing environment</h2>
<p>In my view, there are two broad changes responsible for this increased corporate social activism.</p>
<p>First, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Changing-Your-Company-Inside-Intrapreneurs/dp/1422185095/ref=asap_bc">social media and the web have changed the environment for business</a> by making it cheaper and easier for activists to join together to voice their opinions and by making corporate activities more transparent. </p>
<p>The rapid spread of the Occupy movement in the fall of 2011, from Zuccotti Park in New York to encampments across the country, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/occupy-wall-street-social-media_n_999178.html">illustrates</a> how social media can enable groups with a compelling message to scale up quickly. Sometimes even online-only movements can be highly effective.</p>
<p>When the Susan G. Komen Foundation cut off funds to Planned Parenthood that were aimed at supporting breast cancer screenings for low-income women, a pop-up social movement arose: Facebook and Twitter exploded with <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/us/komen-foundation-urged-to-restore-planned-parenthood-funds.html">millions of posts and tweets voicing opposition</a>. Within days the policy was walked back.</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/04/what-matters-about-mozilla-employees-led-the-coup/">Mozilla’s appointment of a new CEO</a> who had supported a California ballot proposal banning same-sex marriage also generated outrage online, both inside and outside the organization. He was gone within two weeks. </p>
<p>In each case, social media allowed like-minded “clicktivists” to draw attention to an issue and demonstrate their support for change, quickly and at very little cost. It’s never been cheaper to assemble a virtual protest group, and sometimes (as in the massive <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/womens-march.html?mcubz=1&_r=0">Women’s March</a> that took place in cities around the world the day after Trump’s inauguration) online tools enable real-world protest. As such, activism is likely to be a constant for corporations in the future.</p>
<h2>Millennials don’t like puffery</h2>
<p>A second change is that millennials, as consumers and workers, <a href="http://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_new_face_of_corporate_activism">are highly attuned</a> to a company’s “social value proposition.” </p>
<p>Companies targeting the sensibilities of the young often tout their social missions. <a href="http://www.toms.com/improving-lives">Tom’s Shoes</a> and <a href="https://www.warbyparker.com/buy-a-pair-give-a-pair">Warby Parker</a> both have “buy a pair, give a pair” programs. Chipotle highlights its <a href="https://chipotle.com/food-with-integrity">sustainability efforts</a>. And Starbucks has promoted fair trade coffee, marriage equality and racial justice <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3046890/the-inside-story-of-starbuckss-race-together-campaign-no-foam">more or less successfully</a>. In each case, transparency about corporate practices serves as a check on puffery. </p>
<p>Social mission is even more important when it comes to recruiting. At business school recruiting events, it is almost obligatory that <a href="http://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_new_face_of_corporate_activism">companies describe</a> their LEED-certified workplaces, LGBT-friendly human resource practices and community outreach efforts. </p>
<p>Moreover, our employer signals something about our identity. Value alignment is part of why people stay at their job, and among many millennials, socially progressive values – particularly around LGBT issues – are almost a given.</p>
<p>In this situation, corporate activism may be the sensible course of action, at least when it comes to LGBT issues. According to the <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2016/05/12/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/">Pew Research Center</a>, for example, support for same-sex marriage has doubled from 31 percent in 2004 to 62 percent in 2017, and there is little reason to expect a reversal. </p>
<h2>Red and blue companies?</h2>
<p>While prominent companies like Starbucks and Target have taken stances associated with liberal causes, some businesses have gone the other direction. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mo-chick-fil-a-gay-20120718-story.html">Chick-fil-A aimed to implement</a> “biblical values” and supported anti-gay groups in the 2000s. Those groups returned the favor by encouraging like-minded people to dine there on “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/us-news-blog/2012/aug/01/chick-fil-a-appreciation-day">Chick-fil-A appreciation day</a>.”</p>
<p>Hobby Lobby <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/07/10/after-hobby-lobby-ruling-hhs-announces-birth-control-workaround">famously sought to abstain</a> from providing funding for birth control for employees on religious grounds. Koch Industries, overseen by the famous Koch brothers, <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/4/1/1288957/-Sign-the-pledge-Don-t-buy-these-Koch-products">has long been a lightning rod</a> for boycotts due to the right-wing proclivities of its dominant owners. And small businesses across the country are not always shy in advertising their conservative political orientations. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9030.html">states have seemingly divided</a> into red (for conservative) and blue (for liberal), might we expect the same thing from corporations, as consumers and employees drift toward the brands that best represent their views – red companies and blue companies? </p>
<p><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php">It is already easy to look up</a> political contributions by companies and their employees. For example, Bloomberg, Alphabet and the Pritzker Group lean Democratic; Oracle, Chevron and AT&T tend Republican. </p>
<p>In the current electoral climate, it is not hard to imagine this continuing. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-did-che-guevara-become-ceo-the-roots-of-the-new-corporate-activism-64203">article originally published</a> on Sept. 27, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jerry Davis 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>United’s CEO called the Trump policy ‘in deep conflict’ with his company’s values, the latest example of a corporate leader speaking out on a political issue, something almost unheard of a few decades ago.Jerry Davis, Professor of Management and Sociology, Ross School of Business, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/937882018-04-12T19:54:16Z2018-04-12T19:54:16ZNew electoral law could still hobble charities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214425/original/file-20180412-584-57hw0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charities are unclear about how they can engage in democracy because the terms in the proposed bill are unclear.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has released its <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/ELAEFDRBill2017/Advisory_Report">report</a> into the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=s1117">Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017</a>.</p>
<p>The bill seeks to ban foreign donations to political parties and their “<a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/financial_disclosure/guides/associated-entities/index.htm">associated entities</a>”. But it also seeks to capture organisations, including charities, that undertake public advocacy on policy issues.</p>
<p>While much of the <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/inquiry-set-to-back-foreign-donation-ban/news-story/d299458ec90c259ba51b1c74b669d296">media attention</a> has focused on the foreign donation ban, the bill also introduces a new <a href="https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2018/01/electoral-disclosure-funding-reform-explainer/">compliance framework</a> for such actors. This applies irrespective of whether they receive foreign donations or not.</p>
<p>The inquiry received over <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/ELAEFDRBill2017/Submissions">200 submissions</a> from a diverse range of charities, not-for-profit organisations, think tanks and legal experts. Most expressed major concerns about the complex and burdensome nature of the proposed compliance framework, and the “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/chilling-effect-charities-slam-foreign-donations-ban-20171205-gzyyc0.html">chilling effect</a>” it could have on advocacy by charities in particular.</p>
<p>The committee made <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/ELAEFDRBill2017/Advisory_Report/section?id=committees%2freportjnt%2f024153%2f25956">15 recommendations</a> in its report, released on Monday. It provided in-principle support for the bill’s passage, subject to the recommendations being adopted. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ban-on-foreign-political-donations-is-both-too-broad-and-too-narrow-and-wont-fix-our-system-88567">Ban on foreign political donations is both too broad and too narrow, and won't fix our system</a>
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<p>The recommendations are a step in the right direction, responding to many of the concerns raised in the inquiry. But they are light on detail, and much will depend on how the government responds to them.</p>
<p>Contrary to what the chair of the committee, Senator Linda Reynolds, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/09/coalition-told-to-rewrite-foreign-donations-bill-in-unanimous-report">stated</a>, a number of the recommended changes are complex. This is particularly the case with redefining “political expenditure”, a key term that underpins almost the entire bill.</p>
<h2>What is ‘political expenditure’?</h2>
<p>If a charity or other organisation incurs “political expenditure” above $13,500, then it becomes subject to the bill’s compliance framework. Additional requirements are imposed for those incurring more than $100,000, but the committee recommended this level be reviewed.</p>
<p>The definition of this term is unclear. It’s also potentially very broad. It includes any expenditure on the public expression of views on an issue that is “likely to be before electors in an election”, regardless of whether an election has been called. This could include activities such as publishing reports advocating for changes to government policies, media engagement, advertising and potentially even paying staff to do this work.</p>
<p>A big problem is that the bill provides no guidance on the specific types of activities that are captured, nor how a charity is meant to look into the future and predict whether an issue is “likely to be before electors in an election”.</p>
<p>This makes it almost impossible for a charity to know with any certainty whether it’s complying with the definition.</p>
<p>The Australian Electoral Commission provided a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=7beebdf0-532f-45f7-9e58-0dbeaa2240df&subId=563593">supplementary submission</a> to the inquiry, setting out the seven steps it uses to interpret the definition.</p>
<p>But it’s complicated and unworkable, and involves looking at different party platforms to assess how topical an issue may be. A leading constitutional law expert, Professor Anne Twomey, has <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=43ebeda0-9672-48b3-b676-6b7ca6d2b5d0&subId=562439">extensively critiqued it</a>.</p>
<p>It’s therefore not surprising that the committee recommended the definition be amended to make it more precise. The aim would be to ensure it applies only to:</p>
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<p>expenditure undertaken to influence voters to take specific action as voters, so as not to capture non-political issue advocacy. </p>
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<p>However, this will be no simple task, as the line between the two is not clear.</p>
<p>For example, if a charity produces a document outlining the positions of different political parties on the issue of homelessness, how would that be defined? Arguably, it is just providing information to voters, rather than influencing them to “take specific action as voters”.</p>
<h2>What should be done?</h2>
<p>Although the committee made a laudable attempt to address the various flaws in the bill, there is no quick fix.</p>
<p>Given the key term underpinning the bill is flawed and cannot be easily redrafted, the best outcome would be for it to be withdrawn.</p>
<p>This would allow for more public consultation and the preparation of a comprehensive regulatory impact statement. This would quantify compliance costs and consider alternative policy options.</p>
<p>If the government won’t withdraw the bill, it at least needs to act on each of the committee’s recommendations. In doing so, it should undertake public consultation on the detail of any amendments and seek a genuine outcome that ensures advocacy by charities and other organisations isn’t stifled.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-governments-foreign-donations-bill-is-flawed-and-needs-to-be-redrafted-92586">Federal government's foreign donations bill is flawed and needs to be redrafted</a>
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<p>More broadly, it’s arguable that the entire premise for increased regulation of non-political party actors such as charities and other organisations is flawed. </p>
<p>Few would argue against the need for some basic disclosure requirements regarding their direct electioneering activities, to provide transparency about the origin of the funds used for these activities. But these requirements <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/financial_disclosure/guides/third-parties/index.htm">already exist</a>.</p>
<p>It’s not clear why a new compliance framework is needed to further burden these organisations, made up of people coming together to participate in our democratic processes. This is something explored in a US context in the book <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7030.html">Unfree Speech</a>. It argues against increased regulation because it restricts the free exchange of views, which is meant to be a cornerstone of democracy.</p>
<p>The argument for increased regulation of charities, including banning them from receiving donations from international philanthropy for use towards “political expenditure”, is particularly weak. By their very nature, charities exist for the public benefit. They are not permitted to have politically partisan purposes under the <a href="http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/num_act/ca2013104/s11.html#disqualifying_purpose">Charities Act 2013</a>.</p>
<p>There is no evidence that international philanthropy is using Australian charities to subvert our democracy. On the contrary, the support it provides helps charities advocate on important issues such as the role of <a href="https://australianaid.org/">Australian aid</a>.</p>
<p>Regulation can have benefits, but it can also have costs. If this bill becomes law, the cost could be a less vibrant democracy, with fewer voices willing to debate the policies that will shape our nation’s future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Krystian Seibert is affiliated with Philanthropy Australia, an organisation which made submissions to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Inquiry into the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017. In his previous role as Philanthropy Australia's Advocacy & Insight Manager, he gave evidence before a public hearing of the Committee.</span></em></p>A parliamentary committee has identified major flaws in the Australian government’s proposed changes to electoral law, which have big implications for charities.Krystian Seibert, Industry Fellow, Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/850052017-10-10T14:59:09Z2017-10-10T14:59:09ZKhanya College: a South African story of decolonisation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188547/original/file-20171003-18144-u1w8bp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Khanya College thought differently about its students and its curriculum.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/decolonising-research-methodology-must-include-undoing-its-dirty-history-83912">Decolonisation</a> and Africanisation may appear to be new ideas on South Africa’s higher education landscape. But a tertiary college established nearly 30 years ago shows that this is not the case. The story of Khanya College proves that decolonised learning – rooted in Africa but infused with global influences – is entirely possible. </p>
<p>Khanya College didn’t use the words “decolonisation” or “Africanisation”, but these were strong themes in its work. It gave students confidence and aimed to empower them by strengthening their identity of where they came from based in part on their African history, language and traditions. This can be labelled “powerful knowledge”. </p>
<p>The institution also taught students “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Bringing-Knowledge-Back-In-From-Social-Constructivism-to-Social-Realism/Young/p/book/9780415321211">knowledge of the powerful</a>”. This was needed for the graduates to be able to act and adapt within a white, elite, English educational system. It taught them to recognise – and challenge – the implicit rules.</p>
<p><a href="https://khanyacollege.org.za/">Khanya</a> still exists today, though in recent years it has become a non-governmental organisation rather than a formal college. Its history as a college that opened the doors of white universities to black students during apartheid holds three key lessons for higher education in South Africa today. These relate to empowering students through an African and global curriculum; encouraging critical thinking; and transforming universities and society.</p>
<h2>Empowerment through an African curriculum</h2>
<p>Khanya College was established in 1986, when the apartheid system was <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/state-emergency-1985">starting to unravel</a>. The South African Committee of Higher Education, led by renowned educationalist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dr-neville-edward-alexander">Neville Alexander</a>, established the college to address the limitations of apartheid’s educational system. </p>
<p>Khanya College allowed students who were classified as “black” by apartheid legislation the chance to gain access to universities classified as “white”. Its campuses, in Johannesburg and Cape Town, primarily targeted young black South Africans. In the first three years of its existence, more than <a href="https://global.iu.edu/blog/africa/2013/08/28/ius-south-african-connections-run-deep/">400 students</a> completed the Khanya course of study. </p>
<p>Staff were also drawn from across “race” groups. Professor Rajani Naidoo, one of the authors of this article, was involved in Khanya’s programme from its launch until 1991.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188532/original/file-20171003-3782-1b36ttw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188532/original/file-20171003-3782-1b36ttw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188532/original/file-20171003-3782-1b36ttw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188532/original/file-20171003-3782-1b36ttw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188532/original/file-20171003-3782-1b36ttw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188532/original/file-20171003-3782-1b36ttw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188532/original/file-20171003-3782-1b36ttw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188532/original/file-20171003-3782-1b36ttw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some of the students and staff at Khanya College in the late 1980s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of Khanya’s big goals was to act as a model for the transformation of all universities in South Africa. It employed a strategy of knowledge for liberation. This work was an attempt to facilitate students’ access to powerful knowledge held by dominant groups in society. </p>
<p>The college wanted to break away from apartheid education’s emphasis on mainly Afrikaner history and the sole study of Europe as world history. Instead, the emphasis included oral African literature and African history taught from a critical perspective. </p>
<p>The teaching philosophy was twofold: first, it aimed to give students confidence and empower them by strengthening their identity of where they came from based in part on their African history, language, traditions and social class. The staff wanted to create an environment in which students acknowledged and were proud of their own identity. This was the first, crucial step to support students in understanding how to navigate their way through a dominant culture.</p>
<p>Secondly, it taught students the curriculum they needed to know how to succeed in a white, elite university. The students were introduced to the dominant discourses and practices within elite universities; they were taught to understand and evaluate these practices. Then they were supported in finding the tools to challenge such practices. </p>
<p>In contrast to some proponents of Africanisation today, Khanya College did not disregard so-called Western knowledge. Instead it drew the best from critical thinkers worldwide to develop students’ own critical insights. Some students were political activists who were accepted on the basis of their community involvement rather than strictly academic results. At Khanya, their political work was linked to more formal modes of critical analysis.</p>
<p>For example, the African literature course included formal text analysis. Students learned about the social, economic and political conditions of production of the text and its real world implications, including insights for their own organisations and community groups. Pamphlets were created to raise popular awareness about apartheid and students developed strategies towards alternative higher education systems.</p>
<p>This work, rooted in Brazilian theorist <a href="http://www.freire.org/paulo-freire/">Paulo Freire’s</a> principle of education for liberation, was designed to transform universities – and, in the long term, to help Khanya’s students contribute to transforming South African society.</p>
<h2>The lessons</h2>
<p>Apartheid rendered the divisions based on “race” and disadvantage extremely visible. We would suggest, then, that apartheid South Africa was an extreme case of the social fault lines that divide many societies today – both in the Global North and in the Global South. </p>
<p>The story of Khanya College has important lessons to offer that remain relevant today. Its approach was developed in a different time and societal context, but can contribute a great deal to contemporary debates about decolonising and transforming universities worldwide.</p>
<p>For instance, it shows how a curriculum can be Africanised without essentialising what it means to be African and what African knowledge is. It also shines a light on how crucial it is to understand the importance of access to the knowledge of the powerful, what aspects of this are valuable and how it can be critiqued.</p>
<p>Finally, by using these classic virtues of the university – constructive criticism and dissent – Khanya College contributed to the skills students needed to constructively transform the university and, ultimately, society. </p>
<p><em>This article is adapted from a chapter in the book <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=LLThCgAAQBAJ&dq=chapter+10+higher+education+and+capacity+building+africa+khanya&source=gbs_navlinks_s&hl=en">Higher Education and Capacity Building in Africa</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85005/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Khanya College’s curriculum was quite different from the one taught at other universities of the time. Its students studied oral African literature and history alongside Western literature.Hanne Kirstine Adriansen, Associate Professor, School of Education, Aarhus UniversityLene Møller Madsen, Associate professor in Science Education, University of CopenhagenRajani Naidoo, Professor and Director, International Centre for Higher Education Management, School of Management, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.