#im not using those tags to 'skew' the results

[tht1personuwishwldnoticeu]

*medically or genetically etc

[girlbob-boypants]

I use my likes as a bookmark function so I like personal posts to show people support and then unlike said posts a few days later so that's the context otherwise this might come off as more random. anyways. thinking of what you've said about toxic positivity and I have to say being in those circles, it does also get to the point where it feels like you cant even talk about the things you do like and why, because the mentality of just of "if you dont have the same views 1:1 to me then it's a personal attack" so it's more of a personal anecdote but those spaces are severely allergic to any serious discussion even if its positive criticism and analysis lmao

Listen I've got ADHD. "This might seem random but" is about how I start 90% of tangents.

As for the actual discussion, 500% yeah. While I mostly rant about toxic positivity cause it's most of what I deal with, toxic negativity can be just as prevalent. It's the main reason I even mentioned reddit in the tags of the post I think you're talking about. When the changes for the daily system in my current mmo came out, anyone who talked about the good things got accused of "forcing positivity" for the act of not making yet another post about how awful the bad parts of the system were (which they were but also the good parts were just as good as the had parts were bad. Its a fascinating duality)

But honestly go onto any internet connected multiplayer game reddit after a change and you'll see what I'm talking about. Criticism skews towards hateful and positivity is accused of being forced.

I just find that small fandoms within tumblr tend towards being very insular groups that expect positivity. Like to the point where someone in my main mmo apologized for saying "hey do not buy this because charging $20+ for this is downright predatory" because it was "negativity." The act of letting people know a business is trying to steal money with a pretty cosmetic you'll never see for more than 3 seconds at a time being considered negativity in a fandom is insane to me, frankly.

Which if I wanted to argue a cause with nothing but anecdotes, I'd say it likely comes from the way criticism of big name fans within small fandoms will often be met with a response of "Ugh I don't need this negativity in my happy place" regardless of the context or validity.

At the same time tho I 100% know what you mean by pushback against positive criticism even within those same spaces that I find toxic positivity to be prevalent in. Just look at the fact that "im a hater" posts get so many notes. No post about a personal belief can be rb'd on tumblr without easily influenced people altering their personas to fit it here (see: the way funny bitchy posts between friends getting popular and resulting in being rude to strangers). Saying you like something thats (fandom) universally accepted to be bad can be grounds for mockery etc.

At the end of the day it does boil down to what you said at the end, people hate any serious discussion of their favorite media, regardless of whether it's positive or negative. And any variance from the (perceived) fandom universal belief will result in pushback of some kind.

[fruitsilly]

redoing this poll sorry for being annoying and doing this again but i skewed the data by voting on a choice myself.

also im adding an other/show results button as for me to see the numbers but also if you wanna send an ask with a suggestion i am open to that as well i think that'd be fun :3

poll is open for a week to give as much time for suggestions to come in, and to hopefully avoid a tie again

reasons for the options:

#aj rambles - ive kept the initials "A.J." consistently for the past few years but have changed what those initials stand for (in terms of my internet name) quite a lot, plus im more used to being called A.J.

#apple rambles - sounds cute and in the words of @skeyeseb "like a dessert" and i love that so <3 also imo it just sounds better from a language standpoint, it has a pleasing sound a rhythm to it

if you wanna suggest an other tag, some ideas i had for a more creative talk tag were maybe a shakespeare quote (related to words/talking?) to compliment my blog title.

[calpops]

Waitttt okay so for that dates with Calum thing, can you imagine our soft boi having a dream about his future with his girl? Like I’m talking the whole nine yards - proposal, marriage, kids, growing old together. And maybe he wakes up in a sweat(?) because he wasn’t expecting that type of dream and he sees her sleeping next to him and his heart just explodes and he literally wakes her up to talk about it and idk if you are still doing this thread but this idea hit me and yeah

Calum falls asleep with you next to him in the new house. The home is new but the routine is old. Every night starts in the same ways, climbing in bed together, whispering while limbs are entangled and heads rest against chests and heartbeats are counted and kept in time with each other. Calum is surprised at the ease of routine, the heavy eyelids that accompany comfortable positions and soft words that either mean the world or amount to nothing more than hearing each other’s voices.

Calum had dreamt of you before; usually flickering images of the day previous floating through his unconscious mind. He could dream your smile and the blush that stained your cheeks, he could dream the giggle that escaped you in breathy wisps and wake with the noise still ringing in his ears. But all those dreams were just floating memories, time spent with you replaying in flashes as he slept. Tonight is different. His slumber is deeper, dreams more vivid and lifelike. His perception of reality momentarily becomes skewed as you become the center of his dreams. They’re flashes, just like usual, but it’s not the past that befalls his mind, not this time. This time it’s a life he has not yet lived that filters in; it’s his hopes painted in watercolor dreams that grace him through the dark night.

He sees you backlit by a halo of light, a smile he’s all too familiar with playing timidly at the corners of your lips. It’s a shy smile but the sparkle in your eyes and the way your hand reaches for his speaks comfort. It’s not until his dream self looks down that he catches the gleam of a ring on your finger and he realizes he’s poised on one knee, looking up at the love of his life; the person he intends to marry. His sweetheart. And although the thought of marriage once rattled him he’s taken away with ease to the next flickering image of you.

You’re in the backyard of your shared home and Calum finds nothing unordinary in the ever shifting dream. The flowers are in bloom, the sun shines on you in beautiful beams. Calum’s dream self surmises it’s afternoon, shadows dance along the backyard and colors shift and swirl and the mundane vision becomes extraordinary. You’re suddenly in his arms, adorned in white and Mrs. Hood falls from his lips in a tilted and excited way. It’s new but feels natural, it’s filled with sparks and your reaction—soft eyes and nod of acknowledgement at the new last name—sends him leaning forward, trying in vain to capture dream you in a kiss.

It’s at that very moment the world around him changes once more. The only constant in the ever shifting dreamscape is you. You always come into his line of vision, the dark fading away as your light shines through. This time you’re standing, leaning against the kitchen counter with a small chocolate bar dipped in peanut butter in your clutches. It’s not strange to him; the combination among your favorite indulgences. But when his eyes wander down and finds your free hand cradling a baby bump his heart leaps. He’d thought of kids but he’d always written it off to a maybe or a someday or his usual maybe someday. Not with you though. Now he’s sure. He knows he wants someday to come and there’s a part of him that hopes maybe someday might be soon.

The next flicker drives you away. He’s not sure where you’ve gone; if the dream has shifted and taken you from his unconscious mind. It’s not until he realizes the weight in his arms and looks down. He finds you in the features of your child together. A beautiful baby with his eyes and your nose. He knows he’s dreaming but this maybe someday has him wrapped around a tiny pinky. Your baby giggles, just like you, and grabs Calum’s thumb and his heart. In what feels like split seconds he watches your two lives become three and then four. A son and a daughter. He sees you raising children together and perhaps it’s a bit idyllic but white picket fences and swing sets build visions of the future. Fences and swing sets turn to porch swings and sunsets, old ages not separating you as he saw your lives play out together and wrinkled hands reach for each other, the ring he dropped to one knee to give you still graces your finger.

Calum wakes with a start, a sheen of sweat coats his forehead and though the dreams had been peaceful his heart hammers in his chest. He’s sat bolt upright as he chances a look at you painted by moonlight. His heart calms as he takes in your sleeping form, the way your lips slightly part and the tousled hair splayed across the pillow case that will result in bed head come morning. He can’t bite back a grin as he shifts and leans down to you—the trepidation and heart racing wake up call melting away as he remembers flashes of a life he wants to live. He presses a kiss to your forehead, gently tucks a strand of hair behind your ear and murmurs a soft sweetheart in the hopes of waking you with ease. He has to tell you about his dream. He needs you to know all that he saw. He needs to know if you can picture the same.

“Cal?” You grumble, voice weak with exhaustion from the chaos of moving. For a moment he feels bad for waking you, rational mind reckoning he could have waited until morning. But your small smile as your eyes flutter open and meet his tells him it’s okay. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know sweetheart,” Calum answers, realizing he hadn’t checked a clock, only the moon still being in the sky giving him any sense of time. “Late.”

“What’s wrong?” You wonder as his gaze settles on your hand that clutches the comforter.

“Had a dream,” he begins, finding it hard to put it all into words. His cadence is slow as you furrow your brows and await more explanation; having never been woken by Calum because of a dream.

“Was it a nightmare?” You ask as he continues to collect the words.

He quickly shakes his head ‘no’. “It was about us. Our lives. It was everything I want.”

Calum welcomes you as you maneuver to be in his hold, head resting against his chest to listen to his words and the rhythmic thrum of his heartbeat. His arms are strong yet soft around you and he presses his chin to the top of your head.

“Everything?” You ask hesitantly, teeth sinking into your lower lip at the end of the question.

“Everything. You wore my ring, you had my last name, we had children and a picket fence and a porch swing. We had each other, we had everything.”

“I want all of that too,” you whisper and Calum’s heart soars at the confirmation.

“Mostly I just want you,” Calum adds on, knowing that fences and porch swings and accessories to life would be meaningless without you in the picture. “I love you, sweetheart.”

You tap his chest three times; right in time with his heart beat and he knows it means you love him too. He falls asleep once more, this time with dreams of certainty that you want everything with him. That being together is everything.

***

If you’d like to be added to my tag list for one shots/long blurbs just let me know! <3

Copyright © 2019 calpops. All rights reserved. This work is not allowed to be uploaded by anyone else in any format (translations included).

Tagged: @rosecolouredash @irwinkitten @who-do-you-love-5sos @caswinchester2000 @wildflowergrae @empathycth @cuddlemecalx @calumsmermaid @babylon-corgis @outerspaceisbetterthannothing @xhaileyreneex @dammitbands @gosh-im-short @feliznavidaddycal @loveroflrh @findingliam-o

[setsfiretohistory]

ORIGINAL → EDITED

gif making process

thank you so so much to the lovely and talented @pridesobright and @supportivehusbands for tagging me :’) reading about your processes was so interesting!!

LEFT: cropped, resized (height 300px; width 540px), unedited, unsharpened, frame delay set to 0.05

RIGHT: cropped, resized (height 300px; width 540px), edited, sharpened, frame delay set to 0.05

ideally, 1080p is what i’d use for everything, but sometimes you just have to settle for what you can get (and if you’re cursed…………. you have to battle with less than 480p……….. im looking at you, miss ‘now kiss me you fool’ footage). for this post, i made gifs from ten separate videos to illustrate how even though your source materials are wildly different from each other, the resulting gifs can still be stylistically similar. this is why it’s so upsetting to see people steal gifs like it’s nothing. we put so much thought and care and time into our posts and i can’t even put into words how discouraging it is to see people act like crediting gif makers is a hardship.

i have a note filled with ideas for lyric sets, parallels, etc etc that i work from, but sometimes i’ll just sit down and pick a random video and play around with whatever idea i have in the moment. (that’s how this set came to be!)

after i’ve imported the footage to photoshop (i use cc 2019, although i first started out using cs5 and it’ll always have a soft spot in my heart), removed any redundant frames, and cropped it, i’ll resize it (to 540px more often than not), and set the frame delay to 0.05. when all that’s done, i can colour.

i colour every gifset from scratch — i’ve never had much success with using the same psd on other gifs. it totally works for gifs from the same source, but when you’re using like six different videos for the one gifset, you have to take much more care in making them all correspond to the aesthetic you’re planning for the post. i tend to choose a dominant theme or colour to work from, like blue, green, magenta, pastels, rainbow, etc.

i usually begin with curves and levels until im happy with the brightness. then i’ll move on to either selective colour or colour balance or vibrance, depending on the original colours of the footage. i almost always skew my gifs towards blues and cyans and magentas rather than yellows and greens (i lean more towards coolness or neutrals rather than warmth). and im just really fond of blue, which is apparent if you’ve ever seen anything i’ve made lmao especially if louis’ eyes are involved. this is definitely where i spend the most time messing around with different settings (like increasing cyans and blues and blacks in general / increasing cyans in whites if i want the sky to look more blue / decreasing the blacks in whites for contrast / decreasing the cyans in reds to make them really red / decreasing the yellows across the board, but most definitely in blues and cyans / decreasing magentas in greens if i want Very Bright greens). sometimes i lose my mind a little and i end up with like twelve selective colour layers and im like This Is Fine . skdjfskjf anyways, when everything looks as vibrant and colourful as i want it, i’ll go back to curves or levels or add a contrast layer to make everything look stronger. i also might go back to selective colour or vibrance with incremental changes at the end, just as a final touch. [tl;dr: curves > levels > colour balance > vibrance > selective colour > contrast > go back for any little amendments] for black and white gifs, i’ll start with a gradient map and then continue with curves, levels, etc. after all that’s done, i’ll convert to video timeline > select all layers > filter for smart objects > either sharpen with this action or use these smart sharpen settings > add text if the post calls for it (if it’s a concept/lyric gifset, i like to play around with the settings — although century gothic is my favourite font for this — and if it’s a captioned gifset my standard is arial bold italic / drop shadow to 140 degrees / grey stroke / adjust font pt according to the size of the gif) > export > save for web. et voilà!! one gif down, probably nine to go sdkfksjdfhsjdf

the double edged sword of making gifs for one direction fandom is the sheer volume of footage available to you: on the one hand, you have a whole decade’s worth of moments to gif (and that’s incredible!!!), and on the other, it’s so difficult and time consuming to colour all of these separate moments in a cohesive way that hopefully expresses your own unique creative style. so sometimes it’s frankly impossible to make certain things look the way you want them to. maybe you can’t find high quality footage (the absolute BANES of my existence are the rtl footage where they reacted to themselves playing football at boston common and the louis is loud……loud……….and……..loud footage where you can see harry’s face close up. it’s a TRAVESTY that they don’t exist in 1080p and i WILL scream it from the rooftops), or the moments you want to gif simply refuse to look good next to each other because they’re so wildly dissimilar in hue that no matter what you do, they look strange and disjointed when juxtaposed (in those moments i do tend to either give up or choose to make them black and white). but honestly? the obstacles i’ve come across while making gifs for this fandom have been amazing learning opportunities for me. i’ve grown into and experimented with my style way more than i ever did anywhere else, and i continue to feel inspired by this fandom every day, so thank you to every single creator for your ingenuity and hard work!! 💖💖💖💖

i think y’all have been tagged or done this already, so im just going to tag everyone i admire to say you’re legends and i love your content very much a lot!! @caparius @sunflowrsix @jimmytfallon @stylex @tmlnsn @cuddlerlouis @2tiedships2 @moonshinelouis @ltpolari @itsastorm @finelinee @ltwalls2020 @half-lightl @fallenwalls @tomlinsun @louisbravado @tattooedlovers@lordtomlinson @livehabit @halosboat @thepeacering @alinok

[fatphrodite]

I'm 10000% with you on thin people calling themselves fat/bbw/bhm when the clearly aren't. "Omg im so fat" and there just a puffgut annoys me.

okay you know… im going to break this down for the people who don’t actually get what I was saying and those of us who maybe don’t understand our own feelings.

the problem is people looking at fatness purely through the lens of kink and nothing else, and therefore think im just being petty. and then I tried to help solve the discomfort by using the same kink lens. when you only look at fatness like that, your perspective is skewed. its all fantasy and rainbows and peepee hard and no one wants to discuss the reality of fatphobia.

so let me get uncomfortably real. it is a bit of an inexplicable feeling that manifests as something like annoyance/discomfort/disgust/upset but maybe you don’t exactly know why, like a reflex. i think its the result of the really shitty side of fat reality. I feel like I cant quite pinpoint the exact reason myself, but ive got a few relevant factors. 

its frustrating when people want to try and reap the “positives” of fatness while never having to face the shitty aspects. those shitty aspects range from small annoyances like not finding clothes in your size, to giant problems like abuse and discrimination. theres a level of frustration that people feel ENTITLED to my identity, to treat as a fun toy to play with and then put away when done. then theres also a level of like… childish feeling of unfairness (resulting in a feeling of ANNOYANCE), which adds to the possessiveness of the identity, like why do YOU get to have all the fun with none of the consequences, its not fair, you only DESERVE the benefits if youre faced with the risk of suffering. and I know that sounds, like, *nasty* but I know that darkness is there. part of it is a bit beautiful/positive, because there is a level of euphoria when you come out the other side of fatphobia, into kink or just general fat positive communities, it puts fat positivity/fat admiration into stark relief, and fetish becomes subversive, and punk rock, and a middle finger to the society that thinks fat people are grotesque, which you cant *really* comprehend the power of when you’ve never experienced the negatives, the reality. but I also know theres jealousy there too, the jealous monkey in my brain saying, “i wish i didnt have to experience the shitty parts, it sucks that i have to continue to, and its unfair to see people claim my identity without having to deal with any of the shitty parts.” 

combine that with the invalidation (in my opinion) of actual effort + work + money people put into massively changing their bodies (who then also are now faced with those shitty aspects because THEY can no longer put that toy away). like in terms of kink weight gain isn’t a mursuit you can put away when youre bored with it. self explanatory I think. 

lets add visually invoking pr*/a/na imagery (we have ALL seen what this looks like and actual pr/o/-E*D images are all over the “fat” tag), and the gravity of that whether you’ve experienced ED yourself (and the messy levels that come with that as specifically a fat person with a disorder) or you just know how that community has vilified fatness and it triggers an inflammatory response on sight; its not their fault these people are invoking that imagery of course, but I do think it adds to the negative reflexive response some of us have. 

im sure theres further aspects too. and im sure many of those people who didn’t get it before, will write all of it off as stupid because its all still just fantasy to them. its not that deep to them. but even if i convince no one, its important for me to reflect on why I have the feelings I have for me personally to try to fully understand them myself. thanks for coming to my ted talk. 

[angelinuhh]

you seem really knowledgeable about race-related issues w/ the rpc so i thought i'd ask: is it just me, or does the rpc seem to have a problem w/ actually acknowledging and using japanese fcs?

ty ! but when it comes to race issues, i genuinely have a lot to learn.

 to answer your question—— i do believe the rpc has a problem acknowledging and using japanese fcs. but– in the same way the rpc has a problem engaging with most types of poc. however, if you (or anyone else) feels differently, please enlighten me. i would love to know. 

in the meanwhile, i did some… statistics and analysis for you below the cut. thank you to the 21 roleplays from which I used their taken character information. 

A STUDY IN THE USAGE OF JAPANESE FCS (a la the RPC 2019)

for a fuller and better understanding of your question, i decided to do a little research. i wanted to see which japanese fcs were being used, how often japanese fcs were being used, compare this to real-life numbers and more. 

STEP 1. GATHERING DATA 

trawling the tags, i came up with a list of rps. from there, i excluded any rp with under 20 muses— though i do note that none of the rps under 20 muses had more than one japanese fc. and then, i noted every single time i saw a japanese fc being used and the frequency of japanese fcs in the rp. i also went ahead and identified what country’s entertainment industry they were in (western/american, japanese, korean) and if they were of mixed descent.  

STEP 2. RESULTS

Based on these 21 RPs, the AVERAGE % of Japanese FCs is 1.53%.

OF NOTE, if there is any japanese fcs in an rp, the average is boosted to around 2.59%. With the exception of 2 RPs, every single RP that had any japanese fcs in it was within .2% of this score… aka, while there are some failures in our sampling (non-random), all of the members of our sample were fairly similar in terms of % of japanese fcs. 

The most popular fcs to see were RYAN POTTER (½ japanese and a western fc), NANA KOMATSU (full japanese, in the japanese industry ), & KAYLEE BRYANT (¼ japanese and a western fc). 

nearly all the fcs with multiple occurrences were mixed fcs from western entertainment. in addition, nearly all the fcs from western entertainment were mixed while the ones from eastern industries were full-blooded.  

STEP 3. INTERPRETATION. 

according to worldometers, the actual percentage of japanese people in the world is equivalent to 1.64%. the census shows that the percentage of japanese people in the us is 0.4%

so yeah. based on my crappy data, we’re doing okay. 

and tbh. im actually. really shocked and impressed by that. 

on one hand, it makes sense. while i would love to see more japanese fcs used (catch me… making gif icons of chiharu okunugi and saila kunikida in my free time all day), i’ve never noticed anything egregious abt japanese fcs in particular and this does back up the argument. 

 but… on the other, you’re right. i feel you 100% on the fact that we have a problem. as someone who is asian and in the rpc, i feel like it is important to emphasize that we need to and we CAN DO so much better. my data, as presented thus far, is skewed heavily in favor of “everyone’s doing the right thing! and everyone’s writing these people as japanese!”– when really that’s not the case at all.

for one, just because the percentages show that japanese fcs are being played, this does not guarantee good portrayal.

secondly, changing the definition of japanese… will change the results extensively. for example, this dataset includes people who are less than ½ japanese (booboo and fivel stewart (japanese, chinese, korean, ½ white + claims of blackfoot), ming lee simmons and kaylee bryant (¼ japanese) ) while they are still japanese, they ARE also mixed. and it’s hard. to make that decision. whether they should count as japanese portrayal and representation. 

i’ve also noticed that not all these characters are even played as japanese. in particular, kaylee bryant’s japanese heritage is sometimes ignored and she will be used to play played a white character, while booboo stewart is usually either native or just… ambiguously asian. neither of these things are good. 

and thus… if i stop giving people the benefit of the doubt and actually look for japanese portrayal instead of just … any japanese fc, this will put us  BELOW average.   

WHY WE MIGHT FEEL THAT PEOPLE ARE NOT USING OR ACKNOWLEDGING JAPANESE FCS (also WHY WE R VALID TO)

mixed fcs have privilege. and while we can love and support them and validate their identity, it is sometimes hard to see ourselves in them or to immediately identify them and acknowledge them as representation. sure, ryan potter is great. but even he’s spoken at length about how being hapa/hafu benefits him. 

other races (cough… just white people and maybe kpop fcs) seem to have a lot more variety in terms of fc choices. there’s a hundred different white fcs in use. in contrast, when there is japanese representation, it is usually the same people. if you go to ten rps and they each have one japanese fc, that’s dope. but if each of those ten rps just use nana komatsu… then you’re going to feel like. people don’t use japanese fcs. 

people might be writing shitty japanese stereotypes or portrayals. 

regardless if… all or none of the above is what you think, if you feel like an ethnicity is being slept on in the rpc. you are not wrong. you are also not alone. this is not the only group that feels this way. a big reason i run @vietrpc is for similar reasons. i wanted to see more viet faces. i wanted to see more diversity. but— lbr, the frequency of just lana condor in an rp will probably equal to the frequency of vietnamese people in the world. even though, lana condor is the only viet person ppl play (s/o to jessica vu, hyulari + karrueche for trying tho). 

i’ve seen black muns do similar things when they say that people don’t play black muses. while most rps i’ve seen do have some sort of black characters in it. they just happen to be… the most ‘passable’, the most ‘acceptable’. we all love zendaya, but when she’s the only black person that ever gets used in the rpc– that’s not great. it is so easy to feel like… because these are token fcs, that they don’t count. 

( note: i haven’t done the math. but i would probably put money down on that people don’t play black muses… to a level that’s beyond what asians in the rpc face. and there’s a lot more going on with this issue than there is w/ viet or japanese representation. i just wanted to reference it, because it is a similar topic.)

look. the rpc sleeps on poc. we know that. even if they use our faces. they still suck at doing it right. 

part of it is most of the rpc is western. and… lbr… there’s really not that many asians in western media. people just don’t like using fcs they’re unfamiliar with. and they’re not willing to immerse themself in the japanese entertainment industry or whatever.  that’s just going to be a thing. 

part of it is. cough. racism. wow, look at the time. 

.

.

lastly. 

ok ngl that was… more work than i expected but it was really rewarding to see the data like that. if anyone enjoyed reading that or seeing that and wanted to see more, lmk. you could even help out tbh. i think it would be interesting to do this for other races. 

my lab reports always include my errors, so, if i had to redo this, i would have a larger sample and choose a random sample of 20 from it. i would do all my data in excel so i could see how my data was affected by removing people who were less than ½ japanese. i would also maybe include… a poll on how people write their characters. inclusive of the following questions.

what is your race? (you may answer with non-japanese/japanese or your specific race)

what do you do to write this character? what references do you draw upon?

is your character japanese

this would weed out the white-washing ppl n ppl who just don’t play a multiracial character in that way. 

if your fc was changed to that of another ethnicity, would your backstory change? 

would the way you play your character change?

on a scale of 1-4 with 1 being not important at all to 4 being very important, how important is your fc’s ethnicity when it comes to writing and developing your muse?

these open-ended questions would help me understand the portrayal of japanese characters in the rpc

if you can contribute anything to this conversation, my inbox is always open. i’m glad to hear it. 

[inky-anemone]

RULES

BASIC: >This is a Semi-Selective and Mutuals only/Private RP blog. I will answer any followers ask but I will only carry threads with those I follow; I will however actively reach out to people who don’t yet follow me if I am interested in writing with them. If you would like to have a thread with me and I don’t follow you, just leave me an ask or send me an IM. I am not that scary. **In regards to my side blogs this rule applies. If I follow you on my main blog and you follow one or more of my listed side blogs then interactions are a go** >I am a very anxious and socially awkward person. I can take a little long to trust people sometimes due to past experiences over the years, and I am nervous at first in getting involved with larger groups. This is nothing against new people who approach me to add me to a group; this is just me being once bitten twice shy about everything. Please understand this. >Please read my About page so you understand the Mun here behind the blog. I appreciate people understanding a bit of how I work. >OOC statements from me will be within [[ ]] ’s. >My instant messenger (IM) chats are completely OOC. I will not RP in the IM chats. I prefer to use it as a source of communication mun to mun while doing a thread with someone.

>I WILL NOT by any means RP with a blog whose MUSE is a REAL PERSON. [ex. Arin (Egoraptor), Jon (Jontron), Mark (Markiplier), etc.] I just personally find it to be in the realm of bad taste. I mean no offense to anyone with this. It’s just that pretending to be a real person you are not as compared to a fictional character are two different things. (And many of these people request that you don’t RP with them as a muse anyways!)

>I WILL NOT RP EXPLICIT NSFW CONTENT WITH UNDERAGE WRITERS. Sorry kids, but if you’re under the age of 18 I am not going to write anything with you when it comes to anything related to unsafe explicit content. The NSFW content that will never be brought around under age writers is anything of a sexual nature. Content however of horror, gore, and anything else NSFW that falls under the non-sexual nature is fair game. Remember Kids, I’ll respect you as long as you show you have the maturity and give at least a portion of that respect back. >The Mun =/= The Muse **Though you may notice parallels between myself and my character do not skew this line. I am not my character and my character is not me. Just the same this means a judgment on your character should not be taken as a judgment on you personally.** >I come off as incredibly blunt with my statements. My brand of honesty isn’t easy to handle and I do what I can to lessen the blow of it. You have been warned. >In correlation with the above rule COMMUNICATION is a must if you wish to interact with my character or myself. This means tell me if I am doing something wrong and don’t take offense when I mention criticism for you from my end. My statements can be blunt but I do try to be kind with them.

>This is a guilt tripping free zone. I will not be harassed nor will I dole out that sort of treatment to people. **Just the same I will not tolerate that term being thrown as a label on anyone willy nilly when it is clear the term is not understood by the person pointing the finger.** >This is also a bullying free zone. I will not stand for being bullied or seeing someone else I know being bullied by individual(s). I have seen enough and been on the receiving end enough of this treatment to know the damages it can cause. **Please remember that Tumblr has options in place to report for this sort of stuff.** >In regards to Anon asks. If you make an opinion on how to tell me to run my blog on anon you will get an equally impersonal response. You want to have a personal response you talk to me on IM. Repeat offending anons will be IP BLOCKED. 

>I am obviously OC friendly for any OC’s. Just as I have have made a clear bio page though, I will check to see if you have a backstory posted in easy access for your character as well before I consider interactions. As always, I NEED SUBSTANCE to work. (It should be noted that I don’t follow self insert OC’s if the mun denies them being a self insert. I prefer the knowing honesty from the mun about their creation over the withheld information) >I RP for fun here folks. Though I prefer some longer threads I can enjoy short ones given there is an enjoyable interaction to be had. Just keep the sass down and the friendliness up and we will get along fine. ROLEPLAYING: >ABSOLUTELY NO GOD MODDING! Examples of God modding include:

Controlling another persons character or the outcome of events within a thread. This is the fastest way to lose any partner.

Breaking the forth wall with a character having knowledge they should not have from any source. This can be done humorously with commentary like Deadpool and his awareness of an audience or being a character. Know the difference between it being used as humor compared to plot convenience.

Having your character have god-like or straight out God abilities. Some characters are gods but often the root issue of this sort of character done wrong is them having “Convenient Omnipotence” (Links to Breaking the Forth Wall for plot convenience). This also includes the character referencing information from another characters backstory that has not been directly shared with them. Don’t do this; it can make people behind the writing uncomfortable.

Having your character be completely untouchable. Some characters are known to be adept at dodging but they can’t dodge everything. When you control a character like this you force people to have to match their level. You have no right to complain about them ‘God Modding". Be fair.

Starting a fight in OOC until the IC interactions are forced in the direction you want for your character. Though this sounds indirect this is another example of God Modding as it involves manipulating events and other peoples characters to your whims. Do not go making someone feel intimidated with threatening actions to get what you want. Just don’t do this.

Over-writing what is seen or available in a setting provided to you. Unless you wrote the starter/setting for the interaction do not add things that were not described or attempt to change the setting entirely. This is more of a writing issue but it is still an insult if someone went through of the trouble of making a setting for you only to have you try and change it.

>I am NSFW friendly. If you want to do something NSFW you need to be a mutual, or someone I am interacting with and over 18. NO EXCEPTIONS! Anything sensitive to this nature will be under a read more in writing. Any images however will be on a separate side-blog. >If you find I have an RP post with a TRIGGER THAT NEEDS A SPECIAL TAG for you to know to IGNORE IT, just let me know.

>I am comfortable doing PG-13 RP’s, but I am also fine with more M rated topics, I however will put anything just outside of PG-13 under a read more if the scene is too violent.

>I am comfortable with RPing but not limited to:

Gore/Violence

Battle/Action

Horror

Mystery/Suspense

Slice of life

Romance

Cross-over

Post-Apocalypse/Fallout

Sci-fi

Action/Adventure

Fantasy

PTSD inducing backstory adventures

Plots referencing sexual abuse and Rape **WITH PROPER CONSENT**

Bondage/BDSM **WITH PROPER CONSENT**

>I reserve the right like anyone else to drop a thread I feel uncomfortable in continuing. Be it due to a lack of inspiration or something that just rubs both me and my muse the wrong way. I will communicate the reason with you regardless. >REBLOGGING THREADS YOU ARE NOT INVOLVED IN WILL RESULT IN ONE WARNING FOR RP BLOGS AND INSTANT BLOCK FOR PERSONALS. Just please, don’t reblog a thread you aren’t part of. It mucks up my activity log and ruins my reply tracking something awful. >I have a personal rule when it comes to replies. If you haven’t let me know ahead of time about anything preventing your reply I will remind you within 10-20 days time with a link to the last response post I made on a thread. If it has been 10-20 days since I have replied to your response you are free to let me know in an IM.**If you read this and don’t like being reminded and have proven to have read my rules; PLEASE TELL ME BEFORE WE START A THREAD. I do not enjoy offending or upsetting people**

SHIPPING: >DO NOT FORCE A SHIP. I do not force ships on anyone and I expect that others return this respect. I ship based on character chemistry. >I DON’T JUST SHIP ROMANTICALLY. I don’t mind having ships that link to simple friendships, adoptive family ties, and even enemies in some special cases. I’m not after having my character romantically involved with everyone. Any ship is fun as long as there is a type of enjoyable character chemistry going on in the interactions. >I am MULTI-VERSE AND MULTI-SHIP. This means unless otherwise specified on my Verses & Relations page every ship happens in it’s own verse separate from the others. This means she is not cheating on your character and doesn’t view your other ships as cheating on her. >Every interaction, unless specified, from my character is in a verse where she is single/alone. If you have a similar set up for your character I would appreciate the same respect to do such. I don’t enjoy going into a first interaction with another multiverse/ship blog to have them force me into one of their existing verses with a known ship. **Shipping takes interactions, time and character chemistry. I go into every new interaction unless otherwise specified with my character being single as she is multiverse; if you are multiverse as well I expect that same sort of respect. Don’t force a scenario that prevents even an attempt at character chemistry in a romantic sense down the road. Communicate things first please.** >Anemone is Demi-Romantic and Demi-sexual. This information is stated on her bio. She is open to SOME polyamorous relationships but anyone wishing to do this will need to put forward a great deal of effort in communication for it to work. >If you are singleverse but multiship and want to ship with me I am willing to make it work where we can within reason. However we will need to regularly communicate OOC. Shipping any sort of relationship, especially if multiple connections are involved, needs a lot of communication. A ship that my character does have with a Singleverse character will be, by default, Open Poly-amorous and will not in any way bind the characters to being exclusive to one another. TRIGGERS: >I have a few mild triggers. These triggers are fairly simple and straight forward.

>Suicide - I will not define this properly as people should already understand it’s meaning. A character fighting off suicidal tendencies is fine; it shows growth. A character trying to commit suicide for the sake of getting attention is not fine; threatening to or trying to kill ones self to get everyone to look at you is not okay. If you understand what it is to be suicidal truly you don’t declare you’re going to kill yourself to everyone; you simply commit the act in silence in your own suffering. **Please understand the difference between attention seeking and actual suicidal tendencies. There are a few exceptions to this but the vast majority of people who commit suicide do not announce the thought or threat of it regularly to have people talk them down from it. The ones who do that are looking for people to validate them; they aren’t looking for an escape from a depression/stress in their life.** >Incest - Sibling on Sibling action is not something I like seeing. I can let a few instances of it pass by but if it’s a frequent thing in someones reblog feed I will likely unfollow. It’s something that makes me sick to my stomach. Two family members getting involved in a romantic situation when they are siblings, even adopted, rubs me the wrong way. When you view someone as a brother or sister I find it is not right to fantasize or act on sexual/romantic advances with that individual. Be it by blood or by a family bond through adoption, incest is something that I personally find very disgusting; so please tag it appropriately. **NOTE: Incest that involves Sexual relations with purpose to produce a child is actually under the term of Inbreeding. Just the same I personally find the talk of the practice upsetting to my stomach** >Underage drinking - I don’t like seeing it, don’t like hearing about it don’t like reading about it. It’s a topic that leaves me uncomfortable and annoyed because I find it to be a personally unacceptable thing to encourage. I don’t care if it is in fiction, the act of underage drinking is not something I support encouraging, even if there is an ‘adult’ present to monitor the child. Alcohol has negative effects on a young developing mind and body and isn’t something that should be encouraged for consumption for a child before that development is complete. I apologize if these main rules seem at all harsh or pressing. I’m fairly easy-going, if not a little awkward, and I have my standards laid out here. These rules are here for other muns to understand my bottom line about things; whether or not your character agrees is not my concern. The only thing that matters to me is if the writer understands what I have here, just as much as I work to accept and respect theirs.

**If you have read my rules please send in the password “Can I get a Booyah?!” ** **If you’re not the sort to send in passwords then you can just like THIS POST instead.** Thank you for reading my rules.

[endenogatai]

Europe eyeing bot IDs, ad transparency and blockchain to fight fakes

European Union lawmakers want online platforms to come up with their own systems to identify bot accounts.

This is as part of a voluntary Code of Practice the European Commission now wants platforms to develop and apply — by this summer — as part of a wider package of proposals it’s put out which are generally aimed at tackling the problematic spread and impact of disinformation online.

The proposals follow an EC-commissioned report last month, by its High-Level Expert Group, which recommended more transparency from online platforms to help combat the spread of false information online — and also called for urgent investment in media and information literacy education, and strategies to empower journalists and foster a diverse and sustainable news media ecosystem.

Bots, fake accounts, political ads, filter bubbles

In an announcement on Friday the Commission said it wants platforms to establish “clear marking systems and rules for bots” in order to ensure “their activities cannot be confused with human interactions”. It does not go into a greater level of detail on how that might be achieved. Clearly it’s intending platforms to have to come up with relevant methodologies.

Identifying bots is not an exact science — as academics conducting research into how information spreads online could tell you. The current tools that exist for trying to spot bots typically involve rating accounts across a range of criteria to give a score of how likely an account is to be algorithmically controlled vs human controlled. But platforms do at least have a perfect view into their own systems, whereas academics have had to rely on the variable level of access platforms are willing to give them.

Another factor here is that given the sophisticated nature of some online disinformation campaigns — the state-sponsored and heavily resourced efforts by Kremlin backed entities such as Russia’s Internet Research Agency, for example — if the focus ends up being algorithmically controlled bots vs IDing bots that might have human agents helping or controlling them, plenty of more insidious disinformation agents could easily slip through the cracks.

That said, other measures in the EC’s proposals for platforms include stepping up their existing efforts to shutter fake accounts and being able to demonstrate the “effectiveness” of such efforts — so greater transparency around how fake accounts are identified and the proportion being removed (which could help surface more sophisticated human-controlled bot activity on platforms too).

Another measure from the package: The EC says it wants to see “significantly” improved scrutiny of ad placements — with a focus on trying to reduce revenue opportunities for disinformation purveyors.

Restricting targeting options for political advertising is another component. “Ensure transparency about sponsored content relating to electoral and policy-making processes,” is one of the listed objectives on its fact sheet — and ad transparency is something Facebook has said it’s prioritizing since revelations about the extent of Kremlin disinformation on its platform during the 2016 US presidential election, with expanded tools due this summer.

The Commission also says generally that it wants platforms to provide “greater clarity about the functioning of algorithms” and enable third-party verification — though there’s no greater level of detail being provided at this point to indicate how much algorithmic accountability it’s after from platforms.

We’ve asked for more on its thinking here and will update this story with any response. It looks to be seeking to test the water to see how much of the workings of platforms’ algorithmic blackboxes can be coaxed from them voluntarily — such as via measures targeting bots and fake accounts — in an attempt to stave off formal and more fulsome regulations down the line.

Filter bubbles also appear to be informing the Commission’s thinking, as it says it wants platforms to make it easier for users to “discover and access different news sources representing alternative viewpoints” — via tools that let users customize and interact with the online experience to “facilitate content discovery and access to different news sources”.

Though another stated objective is for platforms to “improve access to trustworthy information” — so there are questions about how those two aims can be balanced, i.e. without efforts towards one undermining the other. 

On trustworthiness, the EC says it wants platforms to help users assess whether content is reliable using “indicators of the trustworthiness of content sources”, as well as by providing “easily accessible tools to report disinformation”.

In one of several steps Facebook has taken since 2016 to try to tackle the problem of fake content being spread on its platform the company experimented with putting ‘disputed’ labels or red flags on potentially untrustworthy information. However the company discontinued this in December after research suggested negative labels could entrench deeply held beliefs, rather than helping to debunk fake stories.

Instead it started showing related stories — containing content it had verified as coming from news outlets its network of fact checkers considered reputable — as an alternative way to debunk potential fakes.

The Commission’s approach looks to be aligning with Facebook’s rethought approach — with the subjective question of how to make judgements on what is (and therefore what isn’t) a trustworthy source likely being handed off to third parties, given that another strand of the code is focused on “enabling fact-checkers, researchers and public authorities to continuously monitor online disinformation”.

Since 2016 Facebook has been leaning heavily on a network of local third party ‘partner’ fact-checkers to help identify and mitigate the spread of fakes in different markets — including checkers for written content and also photos and videos, the latter in an effort to combat fake memes before they have a chance to go viral and skew perceptions.

In parallel Google has also been working with external fact checkers, such as on initiatives such as highlighting fact-checked articles in Google News and search. 

The Commission clearly approves of the companies reaching out to a wider network of third party experts. But it is also encouraging work on innovative tech-powered fixes to the complex problem of disinformation — describing AI (“subject to appropriate human oversight”) as set to play a “crucial” role for “verifying, identifying and tagging disinformation”, and pointing to blockchain as having promise for content validation.

Specifically it reckons blockchain technology could play a role by, for instance, being combined with the use of “trustworthy electronic identification, authentication and verified pseudonyms” to preserve the integrity of content and validate “information and/or its sources, enable transparency and traceability, and promote trust in news displayed on the Internet”.

It’s one of a handful of nascent technologies the executive flags as potentially useful for fighting fake news, and whose development it says it intends to support via an existing EU research funding vehicle: The Horizon 2020 Work Program.

It says it will use this program to support research activities on “tools and technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain that can contribute to a better online space, increasing cybersecurity and trust in online services”.

It also flags “cognitive algorithms that handle contextually-relevant information, including the accuracy and the quality of data sources” as a promising tech to “improve the relevance and reliability of search results”.

The Commission is giving platforms until July to develop and apply the Code of Practice — and is using the possibility that it could still draw up new laws if it feels the voluntary measures fail as a mechanism to encourage companies to put the sweat in.

It is also proposing a range of other measures to tackle the online disinformation issue — including:

An independent European network of fact-checkers: The Commission says this will establish “common working methods, exchange best practices, and work to achieve the broadest possible coverage of factual corrections across the EU”; and says they will be selected from the EU members of the International Fact Checking Network which it notes follows “a strict International Fact Checking NetworkCode of Principles”

A secure European online platform on disinformation to support the network of fact-checkers and relevant academic researchers with “cross-border data collection and analysis”, as well as benefitting from access to EU-wide data

Enhancing media literacy: On this it says a higher level of media literacy will “help Europeans to identify online disinformation and approach online content with a critical eye”. So it says it will encourage fact-checkers and civil society organisations to provide educational material to schools and educators, and organise a European Week of Media Literacy

Support for Member States in ensuring the resilience of elections against what it dubs “increasingly complex cyber threats” including online disinformation and cyber attacks. Stated measures here include encouraging national authorities to identify best practices for the identification, mitigation and management of risks in time for the 2019 European Parliament elections. It also notes work by a Cooperation Group, saying “Member States have started to map existing European initiatives on cybersecurity of network and information systems used for electoral processes, with the aim of developing voluntary guidance” by the end of the year.  It also says it will also organise a high-level conference with Member States on cyber-enabled threats to elections in late 2018

Promotion of voluntary online identification systems with the stated aim of improving the “traceability and identification of suppliers of information” and promoting “more trust and reliability in online interactions and in information and its sources”. This includes support for related research activities in technologies such as blockchain, as noted above. The Commission also says it will “explore the feasibility of setting up voluntary systems to allow greater accountability based on electronic identification and authentication scheme” — as a measure to tackle fake accounts. “Together with others actions aimed at improving traceability online (improving the functioning, availability and accuracy of information on IP and domain names in the WHOIS system and promoting the uptake of the IPv6 protocol), this would also contribute to limiting cyberattacks,” it adds

Support for quality and diversified information: The Commission is calling on Member States to scale up their support of quality journalism to ensure a pluralistic, diverse and sustainable media environment. The Commission says it will launch a call for proposals in 2018 for “the production and dissemination of quality news content on EU affairs through data-driven news media”

It says it will aim to co-ordinate its strategic comms policy to try to counter “false narratives about Europe” — which makes you wonder whether debunking the output of certain UK tabloid newspapers might fall under that new EC strategy — and also more broadly to tackle disinformation “within and outside the EU”.

Commenting on the proposals in a statement, the Commission’s VP for the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, said: “Disinformation is not new as an instrument of political influence. New technologies, especially digital, have expanded its reach via the online environment to undermine our democracy and society. Since online trust is easy to break but difficult to rebuild, industry needs to work together with us on this issue. Online platforms have an important role to play in fighting disinformation campaigns organised by individuals and countries who aim to threaten our democracy.”

The EC’s next steps now will be bringing the relevant parties together — including platforms, the ad industry and “major advertisers” — in a forum to work on greasing cooperation and getting them to apply themselves to what are still, at this stage, voluntary measures.

“The forum’s first output should be an EU–wide Code of Practice on Disinformation to be published by July 2018, with a view to having a measurable impact by October 2018,” says the Commission. 

The first progress report will be published in December 2018. “The report will also examine the need for further action to ensure the continuous monitoring and evaluation of the outlined actions,” it warns.

And if self-regulation fails…

In a fact sheet further fleshing out its plans, the Commission states: “Should the self-regulatory approach fail, the Commission may propose further actions, including regulatory ones targeted at a few platforms.”

And for “a few” read: Mainstream social platforms — so likely the big tech players in the social digital arena: Facebook, Google, Twitter.

For potential regulatory actions tech giants only need look to Germany, where a 2017 social media hate speech law has introduced fines of up to €50M for platforms that fail to comply with valid takedown requests within 24 hours for simple cases, for an example of the kind of scary EU-wide law that could come rushing down the pipe at them if the Commission and EU states decide its necessary to legislate.

Though justice and consumer affairs commissioner, Vera Jourova, signaled in January that her preference on hate speech at least was to continue pursuing the voluntary approach — though she also said some Member State’s ministers are open to a new EU-level law should the voluntary approach fail.

In Germany the so-called NetzDG law has faced criticism for pushing platforms towards risk aversion-based censorship of online content. And the Commission is clearly keen to avoid such charges being leveled at its proposals, stressing that if regulation were to be deemed necessary “such [regulatory] actions should in any case strictly respect freedom of expression”.

Commenting on the Code of Practice proposals, a Facebook spokesperson told us: “People want accurate information on Facebook – and that’s what we want too. We have invested in heavily in fighting false news on Facebook by disrupting the economic incentives for the spread of false news, building new products and working with third-party fact checkers.”

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on the Commission’s proposals but flagged contributions he said the company is already making to support media literacy — including an event last week at its EMEA HQ.

At the time of writing Google had not responded to a request for comment.

Last month the Commission did further tighten the screw on platforms over terrorist content specifically —  saying it wants them to get this taken down within an hour of a report as a general rule. Though it still hasn’t taken the step to cement that hour ‘rule’ into legislation, also preferring to see how much action it can voluntarily squeeze out of platforms via a self-regulation route.

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[sheminecrafts]

Europe eyeing bot IDs, ad transparency and blockchain to fight fakes

European Union lawmakers want online platforms to come up with their own systems to identify bot accounts.

This is as part of a voluntary Code of Practice the European Commission now wants platforms to develop and apply — by this summer — as part of a wider package of proposals it’s put out which are generally aimed at tackling the problematic spread and impact of disinformation online.

The proposals follow an EC-commissioned report last month, by its High-Level Expert Group, which recommended more transparency from online platforms to help combat the spread of false information online — and also called for urgent investment in media and information literacy education, and strategies to empower journalists and foster a diverse and sustainable news media ecosystem.

Bots, fake accounts, political ads, filter bubbles

In an announcement on Friday the Commission said it wants platforms to establish “clear marking systems and rules for bots” in order to ensure “their activities cannot be confused with human interactions”. It does not go into a greater level of detail on how that might be achieved. Clearly it’s intending platforms to have to come up with relevant methodologies.

Identifying bots is not an exact science — as academics conducting research into how information spreads online could tell you. The current tools that exist for trying to spot bots typically involve rating accounts across a range of criteria to give a score of how likely an account is to be algorithmically controlled vs human controlled. But platforms do at least have a perfect view into their own systems, whereas academics have had to rely on the variable level of access platforms are willing to give them.

Another factor here is that given the sophisticated nature of some online disinformation campaigns — the state-sponsored and heavily resourced efforts by Kremlin backed entities such as Russia’s Internet Research Agency, for example — if the focus ends up being algorithmically controlled bots vs IDing bots that might have human agents helping or controlling them, plenty of more insidious disinformation agents could easily slip through the cracks.

That said, other measures in the EC’s proposals for platforms include stepping up their existing efforts to shutter fake accounts and being able to demonstrate the “effectiveness” of such efforts — so greater transparency around how fake accounts are identified and the proportion being removed (which could help surface more sophisticated human-controlled bot activity on platforms too).

Another measure from the package: The EC says it wants to see “significantly” improved scrutiny of ad placements — with a focus on trying to reduce revenue opportunities for disinformation purveyors.

Restricting targeting options for political advertising is another component. “Ensure transparency about sponsored content relating to electoral and policy-making processes,” is one of the listed objectives on its fact sheet — and ad transparency is something Facebook has said it’s prioritizing since revelations about the extent of Kremlin disinformation on its platform during the 2016 US presidential election, with expanded tools due this summer.

The Commission also says generally that it wants platforms to provide “greater clarity about the functioning of algorithms” and enable third-party verification — though there’s no greater level of detail being provided at this point to indicate how much algorithmic accountability it’s after from platforms.

We’ve asked for more on its thinking here and will update this story with any response. It looks to be seeking to test the water to see how much of the workings of platforms’ algorithmic blackboxes can be coaxed from them voluntarily — such as via measures targeting bots and fake accounts — in an attempt to stave off formal and more fulsome regulations down the line.

Filter bubbles also appear to be informing the Commission’s thinking, as it says it wants platforms to make it easier for users to “discover and access different news sources representing alternative viewpoints” — via tools that let users customize and interact with the online experience to “facilitate content discovery and access to different news sources”.

Though another stated objective is for platforms to “improve access to trustworthy information” — so there are questions about how those two aims can be balanced, i.e. without efforts towards one undermining the other. 

On trustworthiness, the EC says it wants platforms to help users assess whether content is reliable using “indicators of the trustworthiness of content sources”, as well as by providing “easily accessible tools to report disinformation”.

In one of several steps Facebook has taken since 2016 to try to tackle the problem of fake content being spread on its platform the company experimented with putting ‘disputed’ labels or red flags on potentially untrustworthy information. However the company discontinued this in December after research suggested negative labels could entrench deeply held beliefs, rather than helping to debunk fake stories.

Instead it started showing related stories — containing content it had verified as coming from news outlets its network of fact checkers considered reputable — as an alternative way to debunk potential fakes.

The Commission’s approach looks to be aligning with Facebook’s rethought approach — with the subjective question of how to make judgements on what is (and therefore what isn’t) a trustworthy source likely being handed off to third parties, given that another strand of the code is focused on “enabling fact-checkers, researchers and public authorities to continuously monitor online disinformation”.

Since 2016 Facebook has been leaning heavily on a network of local third party ‘partner’ fact-checkers to help identify and mitigate the spread of fakes in different markets — including checkers for written content and also photos and videos, the latter in an effort to combat fake memes before they have a chance to go viral and skew perceptions.

In parallel Google has also been working with external fact checkers, such as on initiatives such as highlighting fact-checked articles in Google News and search. 

The Commission clearly approves of the companies reaching out to a wider network of third party experts. But it is also encouraging work on innovative tech-powered fixes to the complex problem of disinformation — describing AI (“subject to appropriate human oversight”) as set to play a “crucial” role for “verifying, identifying and tagging disinformation”, and pointing to blockchain as having promise for content validation.

Specifically it reckons blockchain technology could play a role by, for instance, being combined with the use of “trustworthy electronic identification, authentication and verified pseudonyms” to preserve the integrity of content and validate “information and/or its sources, enable transparency and traceability, and promote trust in news displayed on the Internet”.

It’s one of a handful of nascent technologies the executive flags as potentially useful for fighting fake news, and whose development it says it intends to support via an existing EU research funding vehicle: The Horizon 2020 Work Program.

It says it will use this program to support research activities on “tools and technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain that can contribute to a better online space, increasing cybersecurity and trust in online services”.

It also flags “cognitive algorithms that handle contextually-relevant information, including the accuracy and the quality of data sources” as a promising tech to “improve the relevance and reliability of search results”.

The Commission is giving platforms until July to develop and apply the Code of Practice — and is using the possibility that it could still draw up new laws if it feels the voluntary measures fail as a mechanism to encourage companies to put the sweat in.

It is also proposing a range of other measures to tackle the online disinformation issue — including:

An independent European network of fact-checkers: The Commission says this will establish “common working methods, exchange best practices, and work to achieve the broadest possible coverage of factual corrections across the EU”; and says they will be selected from the EU members of the International Fact Checking Network which it notes follows “a strict International Fact Checking NetworkCode of Principles”

A secure European online platform on disinformation to support the network of fact-checkers and relevant academic researchers with “cross-border data collection and analysis”, as well as benefitting from access to EU-wide data

Enhancing media literacy: On this it says a higher level of media literacy will “help Europeans to identify online disinformation and approach online content with a critical eye”. So it says it will encourage fact-checkers and civil society organisations to provide educational material to schools and educators, and organise a European Week of Media Literacy

Support for Member States in ensuring the resilience of elections against what it dubs “increasingly complex cyber threats” including online disinformation and cyber attacks. Stated measures here include encouraging national authorities to identify best practices for the identification, mitigation and management of risks in time for the 2019 European Parliament elections. It also notes work by a Cooperation Group, saying “Member States have started to map existing European initiatives on cybersecurity of network and information systems used for electoral processes, with the aim of developing voluntary guidance” by the end of the year.  It also says it will also organise a high-level conference with Member States on cyber-enabled threats to elections in late 2018

Promotion of voluntary online identification systems with the stated aim of improving the “traceability and identification of suppliers of information” and promoting “more trust and reliability in online interactions and in information and its sources”. This includes support for related research activities in technologies such as blockchain, as noted above. The Commission also says it will “explore the feasibility of setting up voluntary systems to allow greater accountability based on electronic identification and authentication scheme” — as a measure to tackle fake accounts. “Together with others actions aimed at improving traceability online (improving the functioning, availability and accuracy of information on IP and domain names in the WHOIS system and promoting the uptake of the IPv6 protocol), this would also contribute to limiting cyberattacks,” it adds

Support for quality and diversified information: The Commission is calling on Member States to scale up their support of quality journalism to ensure a pluralistic, diverse and sustainable media environment. The Commission says it will launch a call for proposals in 2018 for “the production and dissemination of quality news content on EU affairs through data-driven news media”

It says it will aim to co-ordinate its strategic comms policy to try to counter “false narratives about Europe” — which makes you wonder whether debunking the output of certain UK tabloid newspapers might fall under that new EC strategy — and also more broadly to tackle disinformation “within and outside the EU”.

Commenting on the proposals in a statement, the Commission’s VP for the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, said: “Disinformation is not new as an instrument of political influence. New technologies, especially digital, have expanded its reach via the online environment to undermine our democracy and society. Since online trust is easy to break but difficult to rebuild, industry needs to work together with us on this issue. Online platforms have an important role to play in fighting disinformation campaigns organised by individuals and countries who aim to threaten our democracy.”

The EC’s next steps now will be bringing the relevant parties together — including platforms, the ad industry and “major advertisers” — in a forum to work on greasing cooperation and getting them to apply themselves to what are still, at this stage, voluntary measures.

“The forum’s first output should be an EU–wide Code of Practice on Disinformation to be published by July 2018, with a view to having a measurable impact by October 2018,” says the Commission. 

The first progress report will be published in December 2018. “The report will also examine the need for further action to ensure the continuous monitoring and evaluation of the outlined actions,” it warns.

And if self-regulation fails…

In a fact sheet further fleshing out its plans, the Commission states: “Should the self-regulatory approach fail, the Commission may propose further actions, including regulatory ones targeted at a few platforms.”

And for “a few” read: Mainstream social platforms — so likely the big tech players in the social digital arena: Facebook, Google, Twitter.

For potential regulatory actions tech giants only need look to Germany, where a 2017 social media hate speech law has introduced fines of up to €50M for platforms that fail to comply with valid takedown requests within 24 hours for simple cases, for an example of the kind of scary EU-wide law that could come rushing down the pipe at them if the Commission and EU states decide its necessary to legislate.

Though justice and consumer affairs commissioner, Vera Jourova, signaled in January that her preference on hate speech at least was to continue pursuing the voluntary approach — though she also said some Member State’s ministers are open to a new EU-level law should the voluntary approach fail.

In Germany the so-called NetzDG law has faced criticism for pushing platforms towards risk aversion-based censorship of online content. And the Commission is clearly keen to avoid such charges being leveled at its proposals, stressing that if regulation were to be deemed necessary “such [regulatory] actions should in any case strictly respect freedom of expression”.

Commenting on the Code of Practice proposals, a Facebook spokesperson told us: “People want accurate information on Facebook – and that’s what we want too. We have invested in heavily in fighting false news on Facebook by disrupting the economic incentives for the spread of false news, building new products and working with third-party fact checkers.”

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on the Commission’s proposals but flagged contributions he said the company is already making to support media literacy — including an event last week at its EMEA HQ.

At the time of writing Google had not responded to a request for comment.

Last month the Commission did further tighten the screw on platforms over terrorist content specifically —  saying it wants them to get this taken down within an hour of a report as a general rule. Though it still hasn’t taken the step to cement that hour ‘rule’ into legislation, also preferring to see how much action it can voluntarily squeeze out of platforms via a self-regulation route.

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