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Trusting Wikipedia

Anyone who had computers around while they were in school likely heard a teacher say “Wikipedia is not a trustworthy source,”. Wikipedia isn’t any less trustworthy than the average source and does the best it can to spread information.

There are three different types of sources, primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary sources are sources generated by the events being discussed directly. Primary sources can include original paintings and poems, reports, letters, diaries, and more. Secondary sources look at the primary sources and explain them. Textbooks are a form of secondary sources. They also include reviews, analysis, and commentaries. Finally we have tertiary sources. Out of all three types of sources tertiary stands farthest away from first hand information. Tertiary sources digest other sources and organize them, turn them into abstracts, or just compile them. Some types of writing, like encyclopedias and biographies, can fit under both secondary and tertiary sources. Wikipedia on the other hand is clearly a tertiary source. 

Teacher’s dislike for Wikipedia might stem from the fact that it’s a tertiary source. When researching people are advised to stick to primary and secondary sources. Without tertiary sources research would be much more difficult. People use tertiary sources to better understand the information in other sources. Dictionaries get used to define unfamiliar words. Encyclopedias provide background information on events. Factbooks fill in gaps left by what some assumed was common knowledge. Research would become much more time consuming if we couldn’t use tertiary sources.

The nature of Wikipedia also lends to the common belief it can not be trusted. Wikipedia is a wiki. Wiki is a website format where the users create the content. The audience of the wiki creates and edits pages. Often the page prioritizes making it easier to correct mistakes made on a page than preventing the mistakes in the first place. On top of that users can add links that lead to malware infested websites to infect other computers.

There have been times when someone edited a Wikipedia page with false information. A story appeared on social media where someone claimed to change a page to win an argument. Off the top of my head I can think of one specific time. The users of Tumblr banded together to create a fake film. “Goncharov”, tumblr’s fake film, had it all, a year of release, a general theme, in depth reviews, a plot, charters, and an unwilling director. At the time tumblr users frequently went to the Wikipedia page of Martin Scorsese to add “Goncharov '' to the list of films he worked on. Each time an editor quickly corrected the page.

Wikipedia does it’s best to remain transparent to combat these problems. To see how the editing process works for myself. I went to Wikipedia’s page on the novel. The novel page defines the genre and discusses the history surrounding it from as early as the medieval era to the twenty-first century. 

Under the line under the title of the page and on the right hand side of the pages sits a blue link titled view history. Opening this link brings you to a page featuring a list of the changes made on the page. The list includes the date the change happened, who created a change, a summary of why the change was made, the username of the person who made the change, and more. 

The entries on the history page don’t list what changes are made. Half of the entries on the history for the novel page don’t have a change summary. The entries that do have a summary don’t really tell the user what changed. Some entries list which subheading the change occurred under. Others mention that they changed spelling, added punctuation, or removed an unnecessary word but don’t say where they did that. Wikipedia does have a feature that lets a user see exactly what changed. Selecting the bubble next to an entry can open up a new page comparing the most recent version of the page. There’s also a link that compares each version to the previous version. The comparison shows the sections with differences side by side. The line number of the sections appears next to the sections and the actual changes are highlighted.

The history page can seem confusing. Each entry looks like a string of numbers and words. There’s another link on the history page, “Help:Page History”. “Help:Page History” explains how the history page works. It also breaks the entries down and explains the separate part. On the “Help:Page History” page there’s another link that boils the string of words and numbers to their meanings. These pages make the history page accessible to those who don’t use Wikipedia often. Wikipedia is collaborative and it wouldn’t make sense for even amateurs to have difficulty navigating the site.

The history page also mentions if the changes made are minor changes. If an edit is minor it means that the change doesn't affect the meaning of the article. Things like fixing the reference section and clarifying a sentence count as minor edits. All non-minor edits should get reviewed by all editors concerned with that specific page. About fifty percent of the edits made on Wikipedia’s novel page got marked as minor.

The history page informs the viewer which user made the changes. Often tertiary sources aren’t credited to an author but the history page credits each editor with their individual contributions. Even if the author uses an anonymous user name they’re not anonymous the way that most fear when talking about the dangers of relying on Wikipedia. Clicking on a user name brings the user to the page of the editor in question. The page can show badges awarded by Wikipedia that show how long a person has worked with the organization. Some users also give brief descriptions of their interests and their professions. Clicking over to talk brings up conversations the editor has had over the website in the past. Most editors who worked on the novel page have a page like this. On the novel page roughly 34 editors responsible for the last 500 changes didn’t have  Even when the editor does not have the page the users can still see what they’ve contributed to Wikipedia ove user er the years by clicking “contribs” shortly after the user name. All of this gives users the ability to assess the credibility of those who wrote the article.

Looking at the contributors’ pages also offers a better understanding of how Wikipedia itself works. Editors who have worked on Wikipedia for a significant amount of time have awarded badges pinned to their page. Not all the badges proclaim the individuals to be editors, some claim different positions. There are also communications directly from Wikipedia. One one user the first communication with Wikipedia to show up thanks that particular user for significant contributions to a literature page. Other users received warnings from Wikipedia. One warning was for engaging in an editing war. Editing war refers to when editors undo the same change more than once.  The warning clarified what an editing war ment, provided the appropriate steps for a user to engage in if someone edited over something incorrectly, starting with communicating directly with the individual. The fact that each article is the result of multiple people banding together matters to Wikipedia. The step after working directly with the other person in the disagreement had been to reach out to other members for assistance. The warning finished by mentioning that if it becomes necessary the page can temporarily be locked, making it clear that the organization is willing to intervene for the sake of accurate information. 

Another user received a warning about links they had added to a Wikipedia page in the past. It goes over what is acceptable for a Wikipedia page. Links can’t lead to personal pages or advertisers. Wikipedia exists to inform people, meaning they don’t want anyone trying to use the site to sell people things.

Wikipedia didn’t just offer warnings or thanks, it also offered advice. One editor tried something that ended up not working well. Wikipedia suggested that the user tries out an idea on a separate page next time and not the main page. They provided links for the user to look at for tips on how to format articles. There was no interest in discouraging this user from posting again, just providing resources for them to do so better in the future and suggestions on how to try something without interfering with the average person looking for information. The point of using a wiki format for the website is to get multiple people to participate in the final product. It makes sense for Wikipedia to do what they can to improve writing.

Two tabs sit right under the title of the article. Article sits on the left and is already selected. The other tab is “Talk”. This tab features a space to talk about improvements that editors can make towards the article. At the very top of the page Wikipedia establishes the behavior they expect participants to have towards other participants. It also explains that any information offered must come with a source.

There are some noticeable trends in the conversations that occur when looking through the talk page for the novel page. Multiple discussions occur about creating separate pages for topics addressed in the article. Sometimes action is taken, sometimes it is not. The oldest discussion on the novel page discusses adding a separate page featuring a bibliography of the history of the novel to help students who want to research the topic. No one ever replied to the original poster. As far as I can tell the separate bibliography did not get created. Later on some suggested that the history of the novel should be given its own section. In this discussion we saw some back and forth on the issue. Some thought the parts of the article focused on history had become too long and needed a page of its own. Others claimed that the only thing the history section needs is more structure. The discussion eventually reached the conclusion that while separating the history section would make sense for some articles it was a necessary part of this article. The third mention of a separate article came about the amount that the fiction novel by Snoopy from Peanuts came up in the article. The participants agreed that Snoopy’s fiction novel had little to do with the rest of the article. Now there is not a single mention of Snoopy in the novel article.

Participants discuss whether or not something would be considered a novel in a few different conversations. This makes sense considering that novel is a loosely defined classification. The article defines novels as fiction narratives that are relatively long or include incidents that are uncommon or marvelous. That definition leaves a lot open to interpretation. People bring in their understanding of novels and what constitutes a novel. This is the point of a wiki, different people bringing in and compiling ideas. There are viewpoints that aren’t readily available to us due to the way we’ve been taught, or raised. Problems occur when people not only bring their interpretations, but their rigid understanding. Novels are a wide topic but some people narrow it down, unknowingly excluding parts. With multiple people doing this, or even just one person adding a narrow definition, the article can end up contradicting itself. This does happen more than once as indicated by the talk page. Each time users discussed and resolved the issue.

Different problems that boiled down to making the article easier to understand came up often. The participants talked about whether something fit in the place it currently was. Problems with organization came up. They talked about overuse of images distracting from the article contents. Even the mention of adding sections to another page would be considered attempts to make the article simpler to understand. Many of the people working to edit Wikipedia pages are just passionate about what they’re discussing and want to share what they know. They understand they need to say it in a way that other people can understand. The edit history reflects the desire to make things more comprehensible. There are edits that have a summary claiming clarification, adding missing words and spaces, and fixing grammar all for the sake of being understood.

People act as if Wikipedia can not be trusted under any circumstance. Others act as if Wikipedia is the end all be all of sources. Neither group is correct. People can add things that are incorrect to a page either out of misinformation or on purpose. Different editors could get into fights on the page itself. Wikipedia does the best it can to avoid these fights but they do still happen from time to time.

Wikipedia has many strong points. The site's flexibility means outdated information won’t plague it the same way it fills old encyclopedias. Multiple people take responsibility, meaning two things. First off, multiple points of view are taken into consideration. This provides better information on subjective categories like the novel. Multiple voices can be very useful in learning, that’s why in class discussions are frequently utilized by teachers. In less subjective topics it provides the ability to spot sentences and phrases that don’t transfer well culturally. The second part is that multiple eyes go over the facts. These eyes can confirm facts, fix incorrect common knowledge, and add sources for facts that were mistakenly considered common knowledge. Wikipedia also requires sources to be listed. 

Wikipedia can be utilized for projects but readers need to be critical of what they’re reading. People should always be critical of what they’re reading, whether they’re reading a primary source or Wikipedia. Wikipedia provides everything a person needs to critically examine what they are reading.

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This week we read the first chapter of Daniel J. Solove’s book, The Future of Reputation.  The first chapter starts with the story of a young woman in South Korea. Her dog pooped on a train and she didn’t clean up after it. A fellow passenger took her photo. The photo ended up on the internet and in no time at all everyone knew her name. The bullying and shaming got so intense she dropped out of school. Solove uses this story to demonstrate how the internet allows people to spread information that they may have no right to spread and the damages unique to spreading it on the internet. 

The internet gives people the ability to express their freedom of speech to a wider audience. Many have discussed the difficulties of preventing people from shaming people on an electronic platform without interfering with their freedoms. Solove points this out himself. He mentioned that due to the internet people aren’t free of past mistakes. All anyone needs to do to find out past missteps, dumb teenagehood decisions, or mistakes made in the heat of the moment is enter a name in the google search bar. This situation reminds me of a quote, “My right to swing my arms ends at your nose,” U.S. Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.. We have the right to freedom of speech so long as we aren’t hurting anyone. Being harassed to the point that you have to leave your education definitely counts as harm. 

The story at the beginning of The Future of Reputation and “It Takes a Village to Find a Phone”, an article that we read at the beginning of the semester, have similar events. Someone with time and resources spreads the story of the wrongs committed by a young woman on the internet. Some people view these stories as the same, justice received through public shaming, but they are different. The New York girl in “It Takes a Village to Find a Phone” refused to return a 300 dollar phone the Korean girl for The Future of Reputation merely failed to pick up after her dog. This girl responded to the corrections of her behavior by telling others to mind their own business. Other sources on the event back in 2005 indicate that she didn’t respond until after another person yelled at her. The New Yorker, on the other hand, devolved into insults immediately and then threats. 

In the case in  “It Takes a Village to Find a Phone” they weren’t just trying to shame the girl into returning property that didn’t belong to her. They also made an effort to shame the police into taking action. The police had been contacted on the matter but they refused to do anything. People shared advice to force the hands of the New York Police Department and put pressure on the department to act. In The Future of Reputation the only person they wanted to affect had been the girl in question. No one made an effort to take legal action, they went straight to vigilante justice.

It would be difficult to turn around a story spreading on the internet of this nature. Containing a story would be difficult. Discrediting the person spreading the information would make a good first step. Someone with a false story circulating the internet should post a correction. Of course it is likely that the public would not believe the story, if the story even reaches everyone the fake one did. If the stories are correct the person should publicly admit they were wrong and privately apologize to the wronged party. I would suggest stating your intention to apologize publicly but not making your apology public. Many people view public apologies as fake and insecure. 

A person might manage to repair some of the damage done but the stain would remain. The victim could prove their innocence, the source could tell people they posted something wrong, but people could see the damaging information without the correction. Once information is out there there’s no way to get rid of it. 

At this moment I think the best way to avoid damage to your reputation is to avoid posting any personal information that can be used to identify yourself. That would include school, age, any photographs featuring your face, any mention of your hometown, and other things. If you behave in a way that people would try to shame you on the internet it would be more difficult for people to identify you if you keep the information available to the public sparse. If you are behaving in a manner that could get you shamed in online spaces that will be tied to the accounts you behaved that way on. The best way to avoid total destruction of your online reputation would be to keep your accounts completely separate. If you unknowingly cross a norm and you can’t interact with others the way you once did then at least you have other social media accounts unaffected by this. 

Even keeping anonymous online doesn’t guarantee one action won’t follow you across the internet. Most people have heard the term doxing nowadays. Doxing is when someone reveals identifying information on a person, typically on the internet. Before the internet, newspapers used to publish the names of KKK members so they couldn’t hide behind their anonymity to hurt people of color. Now people can use it to harass people they don’t agree with. In the process of doxing people revealed personal information that can be used to connect an anonymous user with a real life person. Often it’s not limited to one account, but every account a person uses. 

On the internet it can be easy to find yourself in a negative light. Only one person needs to see a questionable post and bring the moral flaw to the attention of many. I have had a post that I was concerned would reflect negatively on me. I don’t post on social media frequently but I have a personal tumblr account. On this account I post short stories and respond to prompts other tumblr users have posted. One day I responded to a prompt that involved a natural disaster. Around this time Turkey was recovering from a severe earthquake, like the one in the prompt. It did not end up casting me in a negative light because few people actually see my account but that concern still existed.

Many people forsake privacy on the internet. In an environment that retains every bit of information that is very concerning. People can connect you with choices you made when you were ignorant or young. If someone sees someone else mess up in public then they move on or offer help. After the incident the person can move on and no one has to know they did whatever got them noticed in public. If someone records the incident and posts it online then it just takes one person going “hey, that’s so-and-so” for it to get attached to their name. Legislation on privacy on the internet needs to be reviewed, but for now we should approach situations with empathy.

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This week we watched a video from Channel Four News on Cambridge Analytica. Channel Four sent a team undercover to contract Cambridge Analytica for help with an election. Cambridge Analytica is no longer operational. It closed in 2018, after the Facebook scandal, two years after Channel Four News released the video.

Cambridge Analytica was an organization that specialized in assisting electoral candidates get elected. They did this by collecting personal data to identify swing voters, voters whose actions in the polls aren’t predictable. After they had identified the swing voters Cambridge Analytica looked for what these voters hoped for and what they were afraid of. Representatives from Cambridge Analytica said that they target hopes and fears people didn’t even realize they had. They also said that facts don’t matter. With this in mind Cambridge Analytica creates a whole campaign for their client. They’ve worked in elections in India, Nigeria, the United States of America, and more. 

People have speculated that Cambridge Analytica has a hand in widespread fake news during campaigns they participate in. They had helped during the Trump election, during which fake news became a huge problem in the United States. They also assisted in an election in Kenya. During the election in Kenya videos of an apocalyptic Kenya under the opponent’s leadership spread online. In a survey 90% of Kenyains reported that they saw or heard fake news regarding the election. There’s no proof indicating who circulated the videos. Cambridge Analytica denied these speculations.

Channel Four News’ people finally got a chance to talk face to face with Cambridge Analytica’s at the time CEO, Alexander Nix. At this meeting Nix suggested some underhanded tactics to get elected. In a previous meeting Cambridge representatives said they would subcontract private organizations that employ former members of organizations such as MI6 to gather dirt on any opponent. Nix went beyond suggesting spies. Nix claimed that Cambridge Analytica would send girls to seduce opponents or offer bribes to check them in the act of accepting bribes. When this exchange became public Cambridge Analytica released a statement claiming that their suggestions had been part of a test on Cambridge’s part to determine if clients have any sort of corruption. 

Cambridge Analytica claimed that it had no dirty dealings. They denied having a hand in the fake news plaguing elections with their involvement. They insisted everything they admitted they would be willing to do on film had just been tests and not an actual reflection on Cambridge’s methodology. Yet if they have nothing to hide why do they hide their involvement? Cambridge Analytica Channel Four News’ team was told by Cambridge Analytical that their involvement can be covered up.  They claimed they could under sell their involvement in the campaign, or the more heavily suggested course of action, they could go by a fake name. Nobody would know they were there. The extremes Cambridge was willing to go to cover up their involvement in an election campaign should tell you everything you need about Cambridge Analytica’s morality. 

Even after Channel Four’s story some still don’t believe that Cambridge Analytical behaved in a manner that deserves the amount of attention generated. Some people said that Cambridge Analytica is simply a public relation company that lets rumors run wild to better attract big clients, that the news simply dramatized the situation. Others only have concern for their involvement in the Kenyan elections in 2013 and 2017, either saying Cambridge Analytical shouldn’t have involved itself in corrupt African politics or worrying about European or American powers influencing African politics after so many African countries fought to remove them. Neither of these issues have anything to do with the topic at hand, they just distract from the real problem. 

Vito Laterza briefly addressed articles downplaying Cambridge Analytica in his own article, Cambridge Analytica, independent research and the national interest. The article focuses on the ethical responsibilities of academics brought up by Cambridge Analytica’s actions. It starts by addressing the other articles. The first article being from an anthropologist by the name Chris Kavanagh. Kavanagh claimed there was little evidence of Cambridge’s actions having significant effect on the result of the US presidential election or Brexit. How the campaign is handled affects its results, that’s why people spend so much money on a campaign. To say a company that plans out entire campaigns had little effect on the results of an election or other vote they participated in is ludicrous.  He also said that they were not the only company to take advantage of Facebook’s unsecured data. The problem with Cambridge Analytica using private data is not that they are the only ones using this data, it’s that people are using it and they’re one of them. Every group that commits a crime is guilty of committing that crime. Kavanagh ignored the issue where they could and downplayed its existence when they couldn’t. 

Next Laterza directs the reader’s attention to an article by a trio of political scientist, Gabrielle Lynch, Justin Willis, and Nic Cheeseman. They released their article after Channel Four News did the video on Cambridge, focusing on the involvement the company had in the 2017 Kenyan election. Unfortunately they focused entirely on the company’s facebook ads. Cambridge Analytica played a part in every part of the election campaign. Focusing on one factor leaves much of their actions unreviewed. The article from the political scientist also points out that a minority of Kenyans use Facebook, but fail to mention that Kenya has the highest use of internet and social media in Africa. 

Laterza pointed out that academics have an interest in preserving Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica worked closely with departments in the University of Cambridge. Although the working relationship between the two groups was never formalized, the connection remains.

Berta García-Orosa further discusses the effect Cambridge Analytica had on the political environment in her article Disinformation, social media, bots, and astroturfing: the fourth wave of digital democracy. García-Orosa starts by talking about what happens when technology and politics meet, not even touching the politics surrounding technology. Much of democracy relies on communication. Without communication the public wouldn’t know what candidates stand for. They wouldn’t know what candidates would be running in an election, the public wouldn’t even be aware there was an election going on most of the time. Technology makes communication much quicker. People went from letters that took months to telegrams that would make it to their recipient before the day was up. The invention of the internet made this communication take mere seconds and it kept getting faster. Instead of waiting to open up a computer to read an email most people only need to open up their cell phone. Most cell phones even alert their owner when they receive an email. Compared to the slow moving communication of the world pre internet it’s practically liquid. It changes so quickly that a complex structure will likely be needed to study it. There has been an increase in the past seven years in regards to research on the impact social media has on politics.

García-Orosa moves on to define the four waves of digital political communication. The first wave started in the 1990’s. Home computers started picking up in popularity over the previous decade. At this time organizations like political parties and media released their first websites. People had emails with more frequency. These changes altered the flow of communication, even if they had yet to become widespread. Think of it like a river, it may start out small with only a little amount of water flowing through. The water moving through carries away dirt making the path bigger. More water comes through and moves more dirt and before you know it you have the Grand Canyon. 

Local governments viewed this new technology as a new way to offer its citizens various services, but it wasn’t much else in this phase. Smaller parties started to stand out in this new environment. The technology still wasn’t spread out widely. The communication only went one way, leaving the message little more than propaganda. Still, it all had to start somewhere, politicians started expressing an interest in establishing a presence on the new platform over establishing a fixed identity.

The second wave started in 2004, the beginning marked by Facebook’s launch, and continued up to 2008. Facebook isn’t the only big social media site to come out of this wave. The second wave also brought about Twitter and YouTube. These sites allowed the average person to communicate with lots of people instantly and spread their own political opinions. People spreading ideas amongst each other has always played a part in spreading messages. At this wave politicians are unable to adapt their content for the social networks available. Even with this struggle things could still go viral, reaching a world wide audience that most could only dream of.

The second wave also saw changes outside of communication. Things previously had to be done in person or by mail allowed online options. Online government services started to be developed. This wave also saw the start of online voting.

Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008 started the third wave of digital politics. Former US President Barack Obama showed a previously unseen use of technology. He communicated with supporters and swing voters on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. These sites allow for a wide audience that can be similar to news media with the added ability to interact with the audience. He had people subscribe to email lists and text chains. Text message subscription was even how he announced his running mate. Obama showed himself to be the most tech savvy of all the presidential candidates. After the huge success of his campaign other politicians started to follow in his footsteps. 

The third wave also saw the rise in studies about electronic communication by academics. They studied the way different tools took regular media and transformed it into hypermedia, that is an extension of hypertext that includes things such as videos and audio. There were also studies exploring the ethics of the use of technology. The public did not pay much attention to the ethical issues brought up by these studies leading to situations like Cambridge Analytica in our current wave.

Electronic political communication is now in the fourth wave. At the start of the fourth wave, in 2016, we see the pro-brexit campaign, something Cambridge has been suspected of being behind, and the actions of Cambridge Analytica. At this point digital platforms have gained political authority. Every stage of communication interacts with them in some way, be it a social media account, a website, or an email. We’re seeing a rise in the use of AI. 

Other parts defining this wave threaten democracy as we know it. Creating fake news is common and becoming easier. People will no longer need to be skilled at photoshop to fake a photo to support their story soon, they will just need an art AI. Even before this point fake news played a major part of this wave. Trump ran for president in 2016. Fake news ran wild during this election, confusing voters. No one could trust the communication meaning everyone was voting without the normal level of understanding. Voters could have believed something fake that changed their perspective or they could have refused to believe something important because there was so much uncertainty. While there is no proof that fake news won Trump the election it’s undeniable that it had an effect on election results. 

Echo chambers play a part in this as well. Most people have probably heard of echo chambers before. They occur frequently on the internet. It’s when everything a person encounters on the internet backs up their ideals and they never see something that challenges. This happens because people interact more with posts that match their beliefs. Algorithms note this interaction and give them more posts matching the ones they interacted with. It can happen on sites without algorithms, like Tumblr. People follow other people who they think the same things they do until it’s the only thing they see. Democracy is about having choices, people trapped in echo chambers don’t realize that the other choices exist, not really.

Bubble filters are similar to echo chambers. Like echo chambers, bubble filters are selective acknowledgments of information based on user information. Unlike echo chambers, bubble filters happen when the user actively seeks information. Bubble filters use location, past searches, and past clicks to select search results it thinks they want to see. It provides the same problems as Echo chambers with information the user probably didn’t notice they were giving used to limit their knowledge.

Finally we have astroturfing. More than 60% of the studies done on astroturfing by 2021 were done over the previous five years. Astroturfing is when the originator of a message is concealed to make it appear as if someone else sent it. Usually the fake persona is someone with authority on the subject or its multiple people to seem like the public holds the message in high regards. It’s possible to give the appearance of a much wider following by utilizing bots. Bots are social media accounts created to look like real people operated by a computer. Bots gain their life-like appearance by stealing pictures from real accounts. Companies and influences alike use bots to make their accounts seem more popular. Given that democracy is controlled by popular vote, a single person impersonating the people can cause problems. This falsehood is perpetrated by stolen information.

Some of these are the underhanded tactics that Cambridge Analytica have been accused of using. Many of these use data collected from users to some degree. Even fake news is heading that direction with the stolen photos being used to train art AIs that can create fake compromising photographs of public figures faster than an artist with experience in photo editing software. How they obtained this information is covered in the introduction of an article by Hagar Afriat, Shira Dvir-Gvirsman, Keren Tsuriel, and Lidor Ivan, This is capitalism. It is not illegal. 

Global Science Research partnered with Cambridge Analytica to create a Facebook app known as This Is Your Digital Life. They released it in 2014. Cambridge Analytica and Global Science Research paid users to take a personality test in the app and let them track the data. The users consented to the data tracking so it shouldn’t be a surprise their data was used but they didn’t know everything. These users didn’t know their data would be handed off to a third party, and they definitely didn’t know it wasn’t just their data being tracked. At the time Cambridge Analytica and Global Science Research could collect information about the friends of the participants in the personality survey unless they changed their privacy settings. Only 270,000 people downloaded This Is Your Digital Life and took the personality test. Cambridge Analytica and Global Science Research collected data from 87 million people. That’s well over 86 million people who had their information collected without any form of consent. 

In 2018 this all came out. Facebook received a fine for mishandling personal data and Cambridge Analytica shut down. Some people might have had accounts compromised without even realizing they knew someone who took This Is Your Digital Life’s survey at the time it came out. At the time Facebook had over 1.52 billion users. 

Hagar Afriat, Shira Dvir-Gvirsman, Keren Tsuriel, and Lidor Ivan conducted a series of interviews with multiple age groups. The interviews focused on the interviewees' feelings on privacy after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Many felt that there was nothing wrong with Facebook’s data collecting ways. While there were some that felt like Facebook violated their trust they focused on individual events, like how Facebook listens to your conversations after they gave it permission to use the mic for in-app activities, instead of the data gathered from their posting and interacting.  Many of the people interviewed expressed the belief that the Facebook user should be aware that Facebook tracks their data and should act accordingly. It is the users fault if they do not know that Facebook tracks their data. 

The lack of institutional privacy had become normal. Institutional privacy is the privacy a person has with banks, business, and the government. Some of the interviewees framed the leak as a social privacy situation that took advantage of an institutional privacy leak. Cambridge Analytica and Global Science Research are both institutions. They’re the ones who paid people to let them track their data. Cambridge Analytica and Global Science Research simply worked through Facebook, another institution. It’s not unheard of for institutions to share information, like two doctors might share files when a patient transfers or needs a specialist. But this does not happen without the express permission of the person the data refers to or someone in a position of power that allows them to. Unfortunately trusted institutions misuse information entrusted to them.

Some of the earlier mentioned interviewees mentioned that it is the users responsibility to understand that Facebook collects their data. The users shouldn’t have been trusted with this responsibility. The original target audience for Facebook had been college kids. Companies frequently take advantage of college kids. The average college kid is old enough to make decisions, like signing up for a credit card, but don’t have much in the way of life experience making it easy to take advantage of them. 

After Facebook spread to a wider demographic, kids even younger than 18 created their own accounts. The minimum age to create an account is 13. Of course having a social media account is considered cool so kids younger than that lie about their age to create an account. 13 year olds aren’t even trusted with the decision to get a tattoo, should they really be trusted to guard themselves appropriately against a site that monitors their every action, even when they close the site. There have even been reports of Facebook keeping the information after an account is deleted. 

Facebook came out in a transitional time. In 2004 a majority of households had a home computer. This majority was a small majority and only came about after a very quick increase. Very few people grew up with a computer in their home. More people probably spent their childhoods being told computers were nothing more than a fad, or had no idea that computers were something a normal person could own. Very few people probably realize how much information Facebook could gather from their behavior. They probably didn’t realize that Facebook could monitor their behavior when they’re not logged in to their website. Most people probably didn’t realize that there was any reason to monitor their behavior. During this gap Facebook spread its influence. Like some interviewees said in This is capitalism. It is not illegal, Facebook made itself necessary for many people.

People are responsible for taking reasonable steps to protect their own information online. Most people have seen a picture of someone excitedly showing off  their new credit card accidently giving out all the information someone needs to make a purchase at least second hand. Then the person is surprised when their card has purchases they didn’t make. Obviously that wouldn’t have happened if they had treated their information with more care. 

Facebook is responsible for creating an online environment that reasonable steps aren’t enough to keep people, weather organization or individual, from finding information. Facebook created the norm for social media sites. All other sites are merely following their lead. Facebook started tracking user behavior. Facebook created the algorithm that creates echo chambers at an accelerated rate to increase user activity. Facebook started tracking users when off their website, even when the app was closed or the website logged off. Cambridge Analytica used personal data they had no business possessing to their own end but wouldn’t have gotten their hands on it if it wasn’t for Facebook.

Sources:

Afriat, Hagar; Dvir-Gvirsman, Shira; Tsuriel, Keren; Ivan, Lidor. Information Society. Mar/Apr2021, Vol. 37 Issue 2, p115-127. 13p. 1 Chart. DOI: 10.1080/01972243.2020.1870596

García-Orosa, Berta. El Profesional de la Información. Nov/Dec2021, Vol. 30 Issue 6, p1-9. 9p. DOI: 10.3145/epi.2021.nov.03.

Laterza, Vito. Anthropology Today. Jun2018, Vol. 34 Issue 3, p1-2. 2p. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8322.12430.

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Facebook

This week in COMM 440 we learned about Facebook. We read three articles about the social media site as well as watched a two part special from PBS. 

One Name to Rule Them All: Facebook's Identity Problem, the most recent of the articles came out in 2014. While the internet environment can change quickly the article brings up a belief still held by some on the internet. One Name to Rule Them All starts by talking about Facebook’s apology to drag queens who had their accounts suspended. The drag queens’ accounts got suspended for failing to use their “real names”. Facebook claimed that these actions were a part of an effort to cut down on anonymous harassment and other underhanded behavior. Others claim that Facebook wants accounts condensed to one account under one real name to better gather data on the account holder.  

I’ll get back to the data tracking later, right now I want to focus on multiple accounts. There are multiple reasons why someone would have multiple accounts on the same website. They might want an account separate from their real names so employers can’t judge how they behave outside of a professional setting. Others might be setting up a project of some kind and want to prevent it from getting buried under personal posts, or burying personal posts. Or they could simply want to devote a single account to a single topic that would otherwise overshadow everything else. I have two tumblr blogs myself, this one for COMM 440 and a personal account.

Despite having valid reasons for having multiple accounts Facebook is still against it. Some might say not using your real identity on the internet is dishonest, and that it makes it easier to cause problems. One Name to Rule Them All offers a simple solution to Facebook’s problems identifying perpetrators and still let people have their anonymity, by linking accounts together in a way that only Facebook can see. Given that no effort has been made to preserve anonymity it can be assumed that Facebook implemented the “real name” rule to monitor account holders.

The next two articles are linked, The Atlantic's Is Facebook Making us Lonely? and Slate’s Facebook isn’t Making us Lonely. Both articles were released in April of 2012. Slate’s article is a response to the Atlantic’s article. 

 Is Facebook Making us Lonely? starts with the story of an actress who died alone in her home in front of a computer. The woman went so long without discovery her body was mummified by the time someone came around. The article goes through studies that they use to prove an increased sense of loneliness amongst Americans. 

Facebook isn’t Making us Lonely opens with books about loneliness that rested amongst the best-sellers. They proceed to make the claim that fantasy built the new sense of  loneliness. Facebook isn’t Making us Lonely quotes experts, tears apart studies, and breaks down facts that  Is Facebook Making us Lonely? misrepresented. 

I think that social media does make people lonely, just not in the way the articles insinuate. The claim  Is Facebook Making us Lonely? makes is that people are lonelier because they’re supplementing relationships with relationships on social media. Facebook isn’t Making us Lonely refutes that by pointing out that the increasing loneliness presented in the older generation instead of the younger generation, who had been using Facebook more frequently. Social media leaves those not in the electronic loop out more effectively than any other technological advancement. 

One day I was sitting in an English class. The teacher announces that there’s an event through the English Honors Society coming up and that we should follow the honor society’s Twitter to keep up to date on events, especially those who wish to join. I didn’t have a Twitter account at the time, I still don’t have an account. I joined the English Honors Society and participated in a few events, but I felt disconnected from the group. I was less aware of the events and didn’t know other members well. Several times I have been asked by classmates for social media accounts to coordinate meetups. When I tell them I don’t have an account with whichever social media site they mentioned they either change the plan or they keep me in the loop but don’t make any effort to include me in discussions.

There are plenty of reasons someone might not get a social media account. It could be that they aren’t computer savvy. Dealing with computers or figuring out superfluous programs could sound greatly unpleasant to them. Or they could oppose extra electronic time because they spend much of their time at work staring at screens and don’t want to look at them when they get home. They might lack consistent access to the internet making social media impractical. They might not know the right sight. Myspace used to be all the rage and now it’s dead. Facebook used to be where all the young people hung out. Nowadays young people avoid it because that’s what parents use. There could be a simple mistrust of the companies incharge of the social media sites. If someone meets any of these situations they’re left with limited social interactions because so many have moved to a quicker, easier system.

The two part special, The Facebook Dilemma, talks about the company behind the social media site. In 2005 Facebook functioned as a directory for college kids. Pretty soon nearly every college student in the United States had an account. From there Facebook focused on growth. To encourage growth Facebook made some changes, one of which being the newsfeed.

 I have never been on Facebook so I will explain their newsfeed based on what others have said. The newsfeed works off an algorithm to determine what you would like to see. The feed contains advertisements, articles, and fellow facebook users posts. The algorithm works off what’s popular and what you as an individual like. If you disagree with something it’s unlikely to show up on your feed. You end up with what many refer to as an echo chamber, where everything you see reaffirms your belfie whether you’re in the right or not. This echo chamber makes the unchecked fake news much more dangerous.

Fake news is news that’s completely made up or at least presented in a misleading way. The algorithm makes sure that the people who want to believe the fake news come across it. They then give it traction and suck in those who were on the fence on the topic. 

The algorithm works by collecting data on a person. Any company that makes third party apps for Facebook can access this data on users. These companies only need to make one app for Facebook to get access to this data. Anyone could have made an app for Facebook. Facebook wasn’t through with their vetting process. 

What excuse did Facebook give for these errors? It grew too fast. The growth was unchecked and they didn’t foresee the problems before they grew into mountains. They were the ones pushing the growth.

This video was posted yesterday, half a decade after The Facebook Dilemma came out. Facebook has created a way to be more transparent with their ads. It tells what behavior prompted them to show particular ads. It also gives the user the option to respond to an ad.

The ability to respond to the ads is a trick to give companies more information. If you tell them that an ad is too targeted they now know their algorithm is working and that those are the kind of things you like. If you tell them the ad isn’t relevant they know their software needs some fine tuning and you don’t like it. Either way the company now knows more about you.

When we access social media sites we pay for it by watching or looking at ads. Companies make the ads worth more by targeting them to certain users. They create an environment where people want to share more information so they can better target ads. This situation needs to be addressed because social media isn’t going away and the longer these problems persist the harder they’ll be to fix.

[zoela23]

The Future of Work Summary and Thoughts

This week I watched The Future of Work: A VICE News Special Report. It’s a nearly hour long report on how advancing technology affects job availability. A few different job occupations were discussed. After that the special talked about people’s response to the changes occurring.

Technology is referred to as an equal opportunity disrupter. That means that technology affects skilled and unskilled workers alike. However, that’s not what’s shown in  The Future of Work. The least skilled job replaced had been retail jobs lost to Amazon. The retail jobs lost feel less like robots replacing people and more like a large chain bullying smaller stores out of their area. That’s been happening since the first superstore opened, it’s not unique to Amazon. 

They showed truck drivers first. Most people probably wouldn’t think of truck driving as skilled work. Driving a car is such a common skill that most people find it odd if you can’t, but driving a truck is different.  Krishna Andavolu sat around a table with a handful of truckers and a man trying to make their job obsolete. The drivers asked intelligent questions. They asked about reaction time to sudden changes, weight, and wind. Chances are that there will never be self driving trucks without a human present to act as a failsafe. Those jobs will continue to exist but because a computer deals with all the skilled work, dealing with high weight and wind, they can hire workers without those skills. This technology makes the people more replaceable, but humans no less need.

At Caliburger they’ve replaced the cook with a robot. Cooking is a skill. Not everyone can cook. They still have people in, doing simple tasks that the robot lacks the dexterity to accomplish. The CEO of Cali Group talked about a goal to be like Amazon. There have been multiple complaints of unethical treatment of employees from Amazon, bringing more attention to another statement from the CEO. The CEO spoke of employees getting trained and then leaving, meaning they had a high turnover rate. High turnover rates can be a red flag for anyone interested in applying. High turnover rates could indicate that the job does not provide a stable quality of life, that the pay does not reflect the work done, or the work environment is toxic. The human employee spoke fondly of her job but given that she was at work and one of the few employees at the store they filmed at it is reasonable to assume her boss knew who talked with VICE so anything she said should be taken with a grain of salt. 

Andavolu takes the viewers to Amazon next. Amazon has used robotics since 2012. At the time of the report they had little robots that stood under shelves and brought the employee shelves with whatever the employee was told to pack. The employee would then scan the object and place it in a container, the same mechanics as a cashier with a simpler system. These employees have jobs because machines can’t grab things the same way humans can. Scientists have tried for decades and Amazon funds research on this. Amazon makes up 50 % of the electronic economy but tries to have as few employees as possible. Andavolu spoke to one of the employees outside Amazon's watchful eyes. An employee named Jav mentioned that he felt like he worked for the machine, not the other way around. Andavolu had made a similar comment at the warehouse. Jav also mentioned being constantly monitored. Technology means the workers need less training, meaning the company doesn't need to invest much in individual employees. This makes employees more replaceable and gives Amazon more power to create a toxic work environment.  

Tech is coming for recognized skilled labor too. The examples given in the special had been lawyers, but artists are now competing against AI. Authors may soon join them. You may not be aware but AI art comes closer and closer to the real thing. At the moment people can still tell authentic from AI but sometimes the viewer needs to look closely. As stated in the report, people excited for AI advancement aren’t the people who are affected by the advancement. The AI art makes it clear that they don’t care for the people affected either. The art AI works by stealing art posted online and combining pieces because it can’t actually create anything new. Artists have to jump through hoops to keep AI from using their art without their permission on the few sites that let them block the bots.

Covid hit and many people thought it would have helped the economy if more things had been automated. Unfortunately the technology to automate the job with the most exposure simply doesn’t exist. Covid did make it easier for Amazon to push other companies out of the way. Due to the restrictions on going out fewer people shopped at local stores. Between panic buying and problems in the distribution chain local stores were less likely to have what a customer wanted when they did go out. People turned to Amazon and local businesses closed down. 

Covid forced a lot of jobs out of in person environments. However, none of them automated and many of them didn’t go fully online. The closest to being fully online would likely be the craftsmen. Many of the fairs and events they would have sold their products at would have closed during the pandemic or at the very least greatly shrunk. They’re already returning to in person environments. Many independent sellers take every opportunity they have to keep a foot in a world that large companies control with automation. 

The video ended talking about retraining. By retraining they mean teaching people whose jobs are being replaced by machines. The companies doing the replacing are doing the retraining. How can we trust a company that has already shown that they will replace you with a machine to save some money? Especially when you consider that scientists are trying to teach machines to do it.

We also must consider the social and mental impacts of these changes. Malls had been a place outside of school for teens to congregate. Amazon makes malls obsolete, leaving teens no place to hang out. As it came up several times, jobs give people a sense of identity and a sense of purpose. Taking their work away, even if they manage to obtain a different job, will create a mental blow to a person.

Technology can be a wonderful thing. The medical field shows that perfectly. Unlike every other field shown it grew when technology advanced. Automation can make work lighter and safer. In the hands of people who don’t care for anything but profit, who look at the human experience as something to be monetized, technology appears to be a terrifying monster trying to destroy us all.

[zoela23]

The above videos feature Henry Jenkins.

In his video about transmedia Jenkins explains what transmedia is. It’s mentioned that stories are brought to every possible form of media in a way that complements other forms without the story becoming repetitive. It also talks about how the increase of digital media brings more power to people who didn’t previously have power. In the interview clips Jenkins covers a wide variety of the effects society and technology influence each other.

In the video on copyright Jenkins tells a short story about an American show getting pirated in China. The show got pirated because the show would not come to China for years because it would take at least a year for proper channels to translate the work and political situations further delay it. Jenkins states that people would go through legal means if they’re available, so pirating can indicate potential profits for companies when they can reach that audience. That plays into what Jenkins said during the interview clips about how you can predict trends based off of what people were doing when it was more difficult. It also plays into the idea of people who didn’t have power gaining it mentioned in the trans media video.

This week in COMM-440 we read the first chapter of Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, “It Takes a Village to Find a Phone”. “It Takes a Village to Find a Phone” tells the story of a lost phone and the quest to get it back. 

Ivanna’s phone got left in the back of a taxi one day in 2006. She went to her friend Evan to offer a reward to whoever found it. The finder didn’t respond, but the pair got her identity when Ivanna got a replacement that copied information. The sixteen year old girl now in possession of the phone was contacted directly. The girl responded to the request for the phone with insults and threats of violence. 

Evan posted the story online. The online presence of the story got the phone back. The girl didn’t think Evan would get the phone back. Evan and Ivanna weren’t likely to come to Queens to get the phone. Her family and her friends backed her up, providing stories on how the phone came into her possession and threats. The police were unlikely to involve themselves. The phone only cost 300 dollars so it really wouldn’t be worth too much effort.

The effort didn’t come from a single source. The story spread online and plenty of people offered what help they could. Some provided legal advice, but most merely put pressure on the NYPD and the girl. 

Humans at their cores are social beings. We’ve made it this far through shared efforts. When someone behaves immorally it creates a perceived threat to the group efforts. Even didn’t present the story as a quest to return stolen property but as a quest to right a wrong. With the girl’s threats and rude behavior she undermined the shared efforts even if the people who reached out to help would never actually meet or work with her. Technology allows groups to form quicker, larger, and over longer distances.

[zoela23]

This week in COMM-440 we read the first chapter of Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, “It Takes a Village to Find a Phone”. “It Takes a Village to Find a Phone” tells the story of a lost phone and the quest to get it back. 

Ivanna’s phone got left in the back of a taxi one day in 2006. She went to her friend Evan to offer a reward to whoever found it. The finder didn’t respond, but the pair got her identity when Ivanna got a replacement that copied information. The sixteen year old girl now in possession of the phone was contacted directly. The girl responded to the request for the phone with insults and threats of violence. 

Evan posted the story online. The online presence of the story got the phone back. The girl didn’t think Evan would get the phone back. Evan and Ivanna weren’t likely to come to Queens to get the phone. Her family and her friends backed her up, providing stories on how the phone came into her possession and threats. The police were unlikely to involve themselves. The phone only cost 300 dollars so it really wouldn’t be worth too much effort.

The effort didn’t come from a single source. The story spread online and plenty of people offered what help they could. Some provided legal advice, but most merely put pressure on the NYPD and the girl. 

Humans at their cores are social beings. We’ve made it this far through shared efforts. When someone behaves immorally it creates a perceived threat to the group efforts. Even didn’t present the story as a quest to return stolen property but as a quest to right a wrong. With the girl’s threats and rude behavior she undermined the shared efforts even if the people who reached out to help would never actually meet or work with her. Technology allows groups to form quicker, larger, and over longer distances.