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Creative Psiphon Advertisement: Internet Censorship - Yaratıcı Psiphon Reklamı: Internet'te Sansür

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The Great Firewall of China

Wait WHAT?! People in China don’t have Facebook?!… or Twitter... Instagram... Snapchat… not even Tumblr?! How do they live?!

I guess that’s very “Western” of me to say… apparently they get on just fine with plenty of substitute social media sites that do exactly the same thing. So what are they missing?

In late 2012, the Chinese Government reinforced an internet firewall attempting to block users from politically sensitive information. In other words, their social media is heavily censored according to what the government believes is politically appropriate - if they don’t agree, you don’t get to see it. 

However this hasn’t deterred users from their social media, as according to Statistica 2018, the amount of users in millions has increased by 99.8 million in just 4 years! These substitute platforms must be pretty damn good. Maybe we’re the ones missing out? 

However this heavy surveillance raises some serious concerns about freedom of speech and opinion in the Chinese community. They couldn’t even liken their President to universally loved Winnie The Pooh without getting Winnie banned from all social media. 

Yet not even this could deter the Chinese from their social media. According to Chiu, Lin, D & Silverman 2012, 95% of people living in tier 1, 2 or 3 cities are register on a social media site. Although they lack a trust in formal institutions, this has only encouraged more peer-to-peer interaction via online means. They’re all in the same boat. 

The Chinese have created their own online world, with a completely different set of social norms and forms of communication. The government can’t stop users from interacting, but I’m sure this isn’t what they’re trying to do anyway. Maybe you could say that the Chinese are sheltered by the online censorship laws, or maybe they’re better off than the rest of us? You’d think there’d be more community protest against the government if this was the case, but instead they seem to be thriving. 

I guess it’s hard to understand how it all works when I’ve never been myself, nor do I know anyone who has been. It seems a shame to have what in my mind should be a private, safe space for people to come together so heavily monitored by government forces, but I guess even we too are monitored by forces we don’t even known. Maybe like it does for me, the fear of surveillance is only ever brief - the internet is just too good not to be a part of, even if it comes at a cost.

References:

Chiu, C, Lin, D & Silverman, A 2012, ‘China’s social-media boom’, McKinsey & Company, 1 May.

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The Great FireWall of China

Most of y'all know that China have blocked most western media and social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and most recently, Tumblr. As well as the search engine Google. Usually, we used VPNs to bypass and get access to our lovely “unmonitored” (although the NSA is sure looking at our shit. So if my American followers repost this, HI GUYS!) compared to the Chinese social media equivalents which are SUPER MONITORED. If you post anything the government doesn’t like, they delete it before it is uploaded to their internet. I know, maddening. Well! China has done it again! This time, with the VPNs, they will be banned by 2018. Already, I have noticing trouble connecting with the ones I have and haven’t been able to download anything new 😓. Even the VPN routers are being blocked…Which leaves me to wonder, what will people come up with to bypass the blocking of VPNs…WhatsApp was another social platform which has been noticing some messages getting deleted and video and images being unable to send. Anyways….y'all will be seeing less of me as the months go by. And that sucks.

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Gamer Communities

I definitely don’t identify myself as a “gamer”, unless my undeniable love for the occasional Mario Kart sesh counts? However I know plenty of people who are gamers, and that the games they play, and the digital communities they are part of, form a huge part of their everyday lives. 

Gamers ‘play’ their games to be involved in a human / machine symbiosis, whether it through competition, chance, stimulation or vertigo types of gaming. When looking specifically at the mimicry type of gaming, such as World of WarCraft or Second Life, we see that players can escape themselves and become virtual characters. The user becomes not only a player, but a new personality, and yet their same embodied person all in one (Zwart & Hymphreys 2014). I’d assume these are the types of games that provoke gaming addiction, as it is so easy for the user to lose themselves in their own virtual world. 

What I wonder is, do gamers become gamers because they want to be something / someone different than they are in real life, or do they simply just play for fun? 

I’m sure there’s a bit of both. 

I don’t want to sound mean, as though I’m looking down on gamers as insecure individuals looking for an escape or something, but isn’t that what fantasy games are for? One could sit in front of a computer screen for hours and hours, completely absorbed in their virtual life. 

Like a lot of things I’ve talked about over the period of my blogging life, the internet changed gaming, enabling gamers to communicate with one another via their virtual personalities. When connected to wifi, the gaming world opens up literally, to the world. People from opposite ends of the earth can come together at the exact same point in time - there are no time or barriers in gaming, just like there isn’t in the internet. 

It’s easy to see how gaming is not just a lifestyle, but a community that continues to grow and evolve as technology and the internet strengthens too. Within these communities are underlying social norms and rules developed by the gamers. So not only is gaming itself a community, but the individual games themselves create their own communities!

Gaming is a fascinating part of the upcoming generation, and I’m sure it will continue to be. I know I haven’t done it justice, but I also acknowledge that gaming isn’t my forte. Yet I do recognise the major role it plays behind closed doors - providing an escape for users. 

References:

Sivan, Y 2013, ‘Legal and Governance Challenges’, Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, Vol. 6, No. 3. 

Zwart, M & Humphreys, S 2014, ‘The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online’, Cultural Studies Review, Vol. 20, No. 1.

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God bless the internet 🙌

When the internet and social media first became available to us, I don’t think anyone could have predicted it’s sustainability, nor it’s prevalence in our every-day lives. Nowadays, we use the internet for everything - and I mean EVERYTHING. We use it to communicate with each other, watch television, write, read, and now to self-diagnose our illnesses when we can’t be bothered to call our GP. The internet is a convenience, a gift to man kind! 

Looking specifically at the role that social media and the internet plays in the promotion of wellbeing and health campaigns, it addresses some of the limitations in traditional health communication. Social media ultimately increases accessibility, interaction and engagement between users and patients (Levac & O’Sullivan 2010). 

However its ability to share this information faster and farther than ever before is both a pro and a con for the medical industry, as it raises issues regarding the credibility of online medical sources (Burgess, Cassidy & Light 2014). Anyone who has access to the internet not only has the ability to find information, but to create it as well, allowing non-experts to share information just as rapidly as health agencies (Dosemagen & Aase 2017). 

When you have symptoms that you can’t explain, you’re in a vulnerable, anxious position as a patient. Furthermore, you won’t question a found illness on the internet if it matches your current situation. How are you supposed to know whether this information is even reliable? 

Some scholars even believe that Dr Google has led to lazy doctors! According to Stein 2011, health professionals need to teach patients how to use the technology so they can decipher what information online is reliable and what is not. He argues that social media should be used to supplement clinical care, research, teaching or management - not replace it!  

Despite the negatives, social media has introduced “patient-to-patient” support networks, providing a safe place for those affected by illnesses to feel as though they’re not alone (Dosemagen & Aase). They can share experiences with one another, possibly making the illness itself seem more bearable with the support of people who understand what they’re going through. 

Let’s be real though, we’ve all googled our symptoms before. But how many times have you actually followed up on your diagnosis? We mustn’t forget we have medical professionals for a reason - you can’t trust everything you read online. 

Don’t think I’m dissing the many benefits that social media provide us; plentiful medical information and a high speed at which we can find and receive this information. At least Dr Google doesn’t make us wait 2 weeks for an appointment...  

References: 

Burgess, J, Cassidy, E & Light, B 2014, ‘Deeply Superficial Digital Media Engagement? The Case of Twitter and November 2013’, the 15th Annual Meeting of Associated of Internet Researchers, 22-24 October. 

Dosemagen, S & Aase, L 2017, ‘How Social Media Is Shaking Up Public Health and Healthcare’, Huffpost, 27 January, viewed 23 April 2018, <https://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannon-dosemagen-/how-social-media-is-shaki_b_9090102.html>. 

Levac, J & O’Sullivan, T 2010, ‘Social Media and its Use in Health Promotion’, Interdisciplinary Journal of Health Sciences, Vol. 1, No. 1. 

Stein, A 2011, ‘Dr Google or Dr Lazy’, QJM: An Unintentional Journal of Medicine, Vol. 104, pp. 373-377. 

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Every. Single. Time.

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Crowdsourcing in Times of Crisis

Similarly to ‘activism’, the concept of crowdsourcing has been in existence long before the internet. People gathering together to obtain information is not unheard of, yet the internet has provided crowdsourcing a new platform to act from. These platforms enable people to organise themselves more quickly, and work together to provide “powerful sources of information” (Ford 2012 pp. 33). Crowdsourcing, in broader terms, provides opportunities to help and support ordinary people in terms of crisis (pp. 39.) 

There is no doubting that crowdsourcing, like activism, is an extremely powerful, and mostly successful means of communication through online measures. However this means that social media sites themselves must cater for this phenomenon.

Facebook’s safety check is just one example of how social media sites have afforded crowdsourcing, having introduced the feature in 2014. Using the location services on your device to detect if you're in an area of crisis, Facebook will ask you to notify your friends if you are safe or not. Despite it’s success, it raises questions such as what defines a ‘crisis’, or even a ‘national disaster’? 

There is clear distinction between a crisis and a disaster. A disaster is defined as a sudden accident or natural catastrophe, whereas a crisis is merely described as a time of intense difficulty. Yet in my mind, whether something “bad” happens suddenly or not, this shouldn’t affect the level of devastation it’s caused or the level of support the affected should receive. 

As I’ve mentioned in one of my previous posts, the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015 were nothing short of a disaster. Yet this was the first time that Facebook activated their safety feature for an act of terrorism, rather than a natural disaster such as an earthquake or tsunami (Time 2015). Without undermining the seriousness and desolation of the attacks on Paris, what makes them of more national importance than attacks that occur in Syria for example? Facebook of course received heavy criticism for this, but argued that the feature was only originally intended for natural disasters anyway. 

Crowdsourcing itself too receives heavy scepticism regarding information published during emergencies (Posetti 2012 pp. 38). As anyone online can jump on the bandwagon, taking to Twitter for example, whose to say their information is reliable? But really, we all know it’s impossible to monitor what goes on in our deep, dark web; emergency services still use radio communication for a reason…

All in all, like anything that happens online, everyone wants to be a part of it. Useful or not, users always have to have their say. Crowdsourcing enables this inclusion, as its ultimate goal is to get people engaged with their community in the midst of an emergency (Posetti 2012 pp. 36).

We just have to be careful not to lose ourselves in the thread when there are people in need of urgent help. Simply posting your support is useless compared to vital information that could save lives. So in that case, maybe we’re best to just leave it to the professionals? 

References:

Ford, H 2012, ‘Crowd Wisdom’, Index on Censorship.

Time 2015, Tech Time: How Facebook’s Safety Check Is Evolving | Time, 3 December, viewed 27 April 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B48zRqcHiBk>. 

Posetti, J 2012, ‘The Twitterisation of ABC’s Emergency and Disaster Communication’, The Australian Journal of Emergency Management, Vol. 27, No. 1.

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When it comes to connecting online, there are several different terms used to describe these connections; the most consistent being ‘friends’. This can’t be a coincidence; Facebook wants us to play nice. So in that case, why do we add strangers, or people we don’t even like? They are NOT friends. Come on guys, lets do Facebook (and ourselves) a favour and keep the essence of the word ‘friends’, pure. As Boyd 2016 pp. 152 says, we can’t shelter ourselves from all types of meanness, but we can be more resilient in the face of it. This, in my opinion, begins with limiting our virtual social circles to our actual friends.  

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If Facebook is a high school popularity contest, then Twitter is a school yard run by bullies.

Jason Hannan & @celiessocialworld 

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Enough is enough...

Social media trolling and conflict seem to flood our news feeds day after day. Although it does provide significant entertainment when we’re not directly involved, where’s the line between a bit of banter and cyberbullying? Is there a point when us bystanders should stand up and say enough is enough, or do we fear copping the heat more then standing up for innocent victims? 

It sounds like I’m overdramatising it I know, but s*** is well and truly starting to hit the fan online. 

As digital citizens, it could be said we have a responsibility to participate in society online, responsibly. This doesn’t mean sheltering ourselves from every bit of meanness in society, but simply being aware of what’s going on in our digital community. 

The act of bullying has been around much longer than the internet, however social media has given it a new platform, hence the term ‘cyberbullying’. Bullying on its own “a practice in which someone of differential physical or social power subjects another person to repeated psychological, physical or social aggression", the key term here being differential (Boyd 2014 pp. 131). Whether the bullying occurs face-to-face, or cowardly via online means, the core of bullying remains the same. 

However Boyd 2014 pp. 133 believes that social media has allowed visibility to bullying, enabling larger audiences to witness acts of it. In a lot of ways, this is very true. If a thread of trolling begins via a Facebook post (in particular) by a user of popular attention, it’s very easy for people to sit back, eat some popcorn, and watch the drama unfold on their screens. Yet conflict isn’t limited to Facebook, but every single social media platform in existence. Still, just because something is visible to the public doesn’t mean they’ll actual do anything about it, nor to stop it. 

On the contrary, I believe the issue is mainly what is not publicly visible (McCosker 2016 pp. 9), and there’s plenty of it. What about all of those private messages we only hear about once the damage is already done, the instances where there are no bystanders to step in? 

This is where the Australian Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act, 2014 comes into play; it’s goal, to get harmful cyberbullying material down fast from large social media services. Although it acknowledges the “risks” involved in social media usage (McCosker 2016 pp. 7), how does it monitor the bullying that goes on behind closed doors? To what extent can bullying / trolling even be monitored? I have so many questions, all for which I think I’ll struggle to find the answers I want to hear. In the end, how much can a safety act really make a difference to victims of online harassment?

Boyd 2014 pp. 152 believes we cannot protect the youth from all forms of bullying, but that we can encourage them to strengthen their resilience. But what bugs me is that we shouldn’t have to teach kids to take it on the chin when we have acts in place that claim to have the power to dampen the bullying act in the first place. 

Should we blame the “content contributors” themselves (McCosker 2016 pp. 2), or the platforms from which they contribute to? 

Well, that’s a toughie. Although social media sites allow for the behaviour to occur, it’s still the users doing the bullying. But if you were to take away the platform, would the bullying still be as intense? 

I will conclude with an earlier argument I’ve made; the bigger issue is in what is not visible to the public. This is the kind of bullying that needs regulation, but how can it even be monitored? With all of the privacy stuff going on with our big social media companies at the moment (*cough* Facebook *cough*), I doubt anyone would be able to justify a loss of privacy for better bullying regulation. So in that case, it’s time that we as digital citizens step up, put down the popcorn. I vote no more bystanding, because if the Government can’t regulate what we’re doing online, we better start doing it for ourselves. 

References:

Boyd, D 2014, the social lives of networked teens, Yale University Press, United States. 

McCosker, A 2016, Negotiating Digital Citizenship: Control, Contest and Culture, Managing Digital Citizenship: Cyber Safety as Three Layers of Control, Rowan & Littlefield Int, London.

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Here’s your daily reminder to stop arguing with those who benefit from your oppression online.

They do not care.

You will not change their minds.

They are accomplishing their goal of wasting your time and energy.

Don’t. Feed. The. Trolls.

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#SocialActivism

The act of protesting has been around long before the internet; people coming together to fight for the things they believe in. However the idea of activism, in my mind, has been heavily influenced by the internet, and wouldn’t be as powerful as it has become without it. 

It is hard not to see how the use of social media platforms have assisted activism, in being able to  spread messages faster and farther than ever before. Not only this, but it has also introduced the idea of citizen journalism, and the concept of users as ‘produsers’; a hybrid of both a user and producer (Bruns 2008).

‘Produsers’, despite being a relatively new term, summarises online activists in many ways. From first being users of their respective platforms, activists have now become producers too, creating, sharing and spreading their beliefs through their content. Furthermore, social media serves the goals of these activists, or “revolutionaries” as Youmans & York 2012 pp. 315 would describe them. They argue that such platforms have served and continue to serve as venues for “collective action”, a term which I believe refers to how these activists have come together, building their own type of platform from which they can express their views. 

The internet has also collapsed time and space barriers, meaning that activists can now come together at a global level. This has been demonstrated in countless campaigns such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MarriageEquality, #IStandWithAhmed, and many many more. Notice all of these are hashtags?

Some people believe that the internet has only introduced “slacktivism” to activism, arguing that the internet has caused us to ignore the “deeper historical roots of rebellion in the pre-internet era” (Youmans & York 2012 pp. 316). Although the physical form of rebellion may have made a slight shift from face-to-face contact to sitting behind a technological device sharing hashtags, the central root of protesting has always remained the same. Not to mention, social media is still constantly evolving, creating endless opportunities for activists to learn from previous campaigns and make their’s bigger, and more successful than before. (Sigal & Biddle 2015 pp. 288). 

I can see why people would think that simply sharing a hashtag doesn’t make a difference to an overall campaign, yet that’s not the point. The point, I believe, is to raise awareness and spread a global message. In that way, it makes a humungous difference, as the overall aim of every activist is to raise an awareness and start discussion. 

When looking specifically at the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015, the hashtag #PrayForParis was created in order to raise awareness of the incidents going on in France. That hashtag, according to Morrison 2015, was used over 7 million times, accompanied by pictures featuring the French Flag or the Eiffel Tower peace symbol drawing. Since then, this number of shares would have undoubtably increased, despite there not having been any recent attacks on the city. 

In short, the internet has not changed activism, but simply lifted it to a whole new dimension. Activism and protest can now occur on a global scale, being much more powerful, and also more successful. Whether it comes in the form of a hashtag, or a physical march with banners, using the internet has become the core of activism success, as without it, how could you gather so many people together to rally for the same thing? 

References:

Bruns, A 2008, Educating produsers produsing education: produsage and the academy, Peter Lang, New York.

Gerbaudo, P 2011, ‘Tweets and the Streets’, Social Media and Contemporary Activism, Pluto Press, London. 

Morrison, K 2015, ‘2015’s Top 5 Social Activism Campaigns: #BlackLivesMatter, #LoveWins & More’, Adweek, 28 December, viewed 17 April 2018, <http://www.adweek.com/digital/2015s-top-5-social-activism-campaigns-blacklivesmatter-lovewins-more/>.

Sigal, I & Biddle, E 2015, ‘Entanglements - Activism and Technology’, The Fibreculture Journal, no. 1449-1443, pp. 287-293.

Youmans, W & York, J 2012, ‘Social Media and Activist Toolkit: User Agreements, Corporate Interests, and the Information Infrastructure of Modern Social Movements’, Journal of Communication, pp. 315-329. 

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Slacktivism or Activism?