Just the other day a robot guard came along a corridor in a special digital prison, consulted his flatscreen embedded on its wrist and then pressed his thumb on a door, which sprang open.

For the fourth time, I was being released from Facebook prison having served a term of imprisonment imposed upon me by Great Algorithm Machine which we lags shorten to GAM.

Self-sustaining and completely devoid of any human intervention, GAM has deemed me to be a serial hate speech offender. I am absolutely not, but my protests were not only pointless, there was no one listening or reading them.

Again, with no human hand involved at any point, I was hauled off to solitary inside the Mark Zuckerberg Institution for Global Speech Control.

Now, living in Aotearoa and having our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern create the Paris Call, a powerful new weapon to end online hate speech, it is my patriotic duty to support it.

But lately I have become collateral damage to her Paris Call, and a nagging thought is growing that there may be many other casualties too. Stopping the nutters, the terrorists, the bad guys might additionally include GAM wiping out any one expressing any kind of opinion.

Especially opinions that a human reader — rather than a machine — would immediately recognise as arguments opposed to opinions advanced by bad guys.

Silence save the banal
Algorithms will silence all, except the banal, the bland, the boring and the pointless.

As GAM will run all my words through its system, I am going to avoid using the commonly accepted abbreviation for the National Socialist German Workers Party. Nor will I mention its leader; that’s a fast ticket back to a Menlo Park prison.

After some trepidation, I present a summary of my rap sheet:

October 11, 2021: I made a small posting based on a clipping from New Zealand Paper’s Past, a significant historical online collection of the nation’s newspapers. I posted a little story from the Bay of Plenty Times in 1941 which reported that people in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa were raising money to buy Spitfires in order to defeat the previously mentioned German Workers Party and its leader. I was prevented from any posting or commenting for three weeks.

February 18, 2022: As an anti-covid “freedom convoy” rattled around the country, I posted a meme showing the Workers Party leader in front of the Eiffel Tower, saying he was on a freedom convoy. Locked up again.

May 26, 2022: I posted a link to US CBS News on some new arms non-control measure and commented: “The continued stupidity of (Redacted, insert nationality of a people between Canada and Mexico) bewilders the world.” This got me a big “Hate Speech” stamp, a ban and a declaration that my future posts would be lower in people’s news feeds.

September 13, 2022: I asked why accused woman beater Meli Banimarama and convicted killer Francis Kean were using the “ratu” title. Banned again.

No human review
It was immediately apparent from the formatted notice issue to me, that while GAM had processed the thing, no human in Facebook had. Generously they tell the victim that there is a review system and to fill out a submission.

Dutifully, this gullible fellow did, pressed send and got an instant message back from GAM which said, in effect, that due to covid there were no available humans to read my submission. So, the sentence, imposed entirely by machine, stands every time.

It doesn’t matter what you say; no one is listening.

Facebook’s GAM is lying at this point: Covid has nothing to do with the removal of their humans. They are deliberately sacking them, due to Wall Street demands for more profit.

At one stage I discovered email addresses for assorted Facebook functionaries in Australia and New Zealand. That did no good. They ignored me, if they even existed.

Despite all this, I have been something of a Facebook fan. With Sue Ahearn, I co-manage The Pacific Newsroom with its 60,000 plus followers. The fact that I was in the digital slammer meant that group did not get serviced in the way they normally would.

Facebook plainly does not care.

My worry now is what is all this doing to free speech. At first blush, yes it’s a good idea that something like Mein Kampf cannot be trotted out on Facebook. But wouldn’t it be a good idea for some one or ten to read it and warn us all of what is in it?

Digital trip wires
Currently GAM is looking you up, digitally speaking if certain trip wires are touched in the algorithm.

Paris Call’s GAM model has no space, or ability, to deal with satire, cynicism or sarcasm. Many would say that is, of course, a good thing. Ban them. But they have long been part of human discourse, indeed vital.

And it will silence Paper’s Past! A national treasure now defined by GAM as a gathering of hate speech.

What else do we have to give up to keep evil from exploiting public conversation?

How will we learn the new rules, other than with a spell in the digital penitentiary? Perhaps there will soon be an app, in which The Machine checks each sentence, prior to use, for social acceptability.

Is social media creating a world in which speech can only be made, after The Machine has deemed it acceptable?

Michael Field is an independent journalist and author, and co-manager of The Pacific Newsroom. This article is republished with his permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

We call for a world in which technology is built in service of humanity and where our global public square protects human rights above profits.

Right now, the huge potential of technology to advance our societies has been undermined by the business model and design of the dominant online platforms.

But we remind all those in power that true human progress comes from harnessing technology to advance rights and freedoms for all, not sacrificing them for the wealth and power of a few.

We urge rights-respecting democracies to wake up to the existential threat of information ecosystems being distorted by a Big Tech business model fixated on harvesting people’s data and attention, even as it undermines serious journalism and polarises debate in society and political life.

When facts become optional and trust disappears, we will no longer be able to hold power to account. We need a public sphere where fostering trust with a healthy exchange of ideas is valued more highly than corporate profits and where rigorous journalism can cut through the noise.

Many governments around the world have exploited these platforms’ greed to grab and consolidate power. That is why they also attack and muzzle the free press.

Clearly, these governments cannot be trusted to address this crisis. But nor should we put our rights in the hands of technology companies’ intent on sustaining a broken business model that actively promotes disinformation, hate speech and abuse.

The resulting toxic information ecosystem is not inevitable. Those in power must do their part to build a world that puts human rights, dignity, and security first, including by safeguarding scientific and journalistic methods and tested knowledge. To build that world, we must:

Bring an end to the surveillance-for-profit business model

The invisible “editors” of today’s information ecosystem are the opaque algorithms and recommender systems built by tech companies that track and target us. They amplify misogyny, racism, hate, junk science and disinformation — weaponising every societal fault line with relentless surveillance to maximise “engagement”.

This surveillance-for-profit business model is built on the con of our supposed consent. But forcing us to choose between allowing platforms and data brokers to feast on our personal data or being shut out from the benefits of the modern world is simply no choice at all.

The vast machinery of corporate surveillance not only abuses our right to privacy, but allows our data to be used against us, undermining our freedoms and enabling discrimination.

This unethical business model must be reined in globally, including by bringing an end to surveillance advertising that people never asked for and of which they are often unaware.

Europe has made a start, with the Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts. Now these must be enforced in ways that compel platforms to de-risk their design, detox their algorithms and give users real control.

Privacy and data rights, to date largely notional, must also be properly enforced. And advertisers must use their money and influence to protect their customers against a tech industry that is actively harming people.

What an incredible, hopeful time in Oslo! Thank you for the dreams and the laughter, dear friends! #CourageON @NobelPeaceOslo https://t.co/zfvuHwWFxp

— Maria Ressa (@mariaressa) September 4, 2022

End tech discrimination and treat people everywhere equally
Global tech companies afford people unequal rights and protection depending on their status, power, nationality, and language. We have seen the painful and destructive consequences of tech companies’ failure to prioritise the safety of all people everywhere equally.

Companies must be legally required to rigorously assess human rights risks in every country they seek to expand in, ensuring proportionate language and cultural competency. They must also be forced to bring their closed-door decisions on content moderation and algorithm changes into the light and end all special exemptions for those with the most power and reach.

These safety, design, and product choices that affect billions of people cannot be left to corporations to decide. Transparency and accountability rules are an essential first step to reclaiming the internet for the public good.

Rebuild independent journalism as the antidote to tyranny
Big tech platforms have unleashed forces that are devastating independent media by swallowing up online advertising while simultaneously enabling a tech-fueled tsunami of lies and hate that drown out facts.

For facts to stand a chance, we must end the amplification of disinformation by tech platforms. But this alone is not enough. Just 13 percent of the world’s population can currently access a free press.

If we are to hold power to account and protect journalists, we need unparalleled investment in a truly independent media persevering in situ or working in exile that ensures its sustainability while incentivising compliance with ethical norms in journalism.

21st century newsrooms must also forge a new, distinct path, recognising that to advance justice and rights, they must represent the diversity of the communities they serve. Governments must ensure the safety and independence of journalists who are increasingly being attacked, imprisoned, or killed on the frontlines of this war on facts.

We, as Nobel Laureates, from across the world, send a united message: together we can end this corporate and technological assault on our lives and liberties, but we must act now.

It is time to implement the solutions we already have to rebuild journalism and reclaim the technological architecture of global conversation for all humanity.

We call on all rights-respecting democratic governments to:

1. Require tech companies to carry out independent human rights impact assessments that must be made public as well as demand transparency on all aspects of their business — from content moderation to algorithm impacts to data processing to integrity policies.

2. Protect citizens’ right to privacy with robust data protection laws.

3. Publicly condemn abuses against the free press and journalists globally and commit funding and assistance to independent media and journalists under attack.

We call on the EU to:

4. Be ambitious in enforcing the Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts so these laws amount to more than just “new paperwork” for the companies and instead force them to make changes to their business model, such as ending algorithmic amplification that threatens fundamental rights and spreads disinformation and hate, including in cases where the risks originate outside EU borders.

5. Urgently propose legislation to ban surveillance advertising, recognizing this practice is fundamentally incompatible with human rights.

6. Properly enforce the EU General Data Protection Regulation so that people’s data rights are finally made reality.

7. Include strong safeguards for journalists’ safety, media sustainability and democratic guarantees in the digital space in the forthcoming European Media Freedom Act.

8. Protect media freedom by cutting off disinformation upstream. This means there should be no special exemptions or carve-outs for any organisation or individual in any new technology or media legislation. With globalised information flows, this would give a blank check to those governments and non-state actors who produce industrial scale disinformation to harm democracies and polarize societies everywhere.

9. Challenge the extraordinary lobbying machinery, the astroturfing campaigns and recruitment revolving door between big tech companies and European government institutions.

We call on the UN to:

10. Create a special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General focused on the Safety of Journalists (SESJ) who would challenge the current status quo and finally raise the cost of crimes against journalists.

Presented by 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureates Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov at the Freedom of Expression Conference, Nobel Peace Center, Oslo, Norway, on September 2, 2022. Republished from Rappler with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has delivered the highly regarded Harvard Commencement address, calling out social media as a threat to modern day democracy.

She was also awarded an honorary doctorate from the university.

The Commencement is steeped in history with Ardern’s predecessors including Winston Churchill, JFK, Angela Merkel — and topically for today’s speech — Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Capping off her day, Ardern confirmed to media afterwards that she would meet US President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday (Wednesday NZ time).

She invoked the memory of the late Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim country, and to give birth while in office with Ardern being the second.

Seven months after the two women met Bhutto was assassinated, Ardern said.

‘Path carved still relevant’
“The path she carved as a woman feels as relevant today as it was decades ago, and so too is the message she shared here.

“She said part way through her speech in 1989 the following: ‘We must realise that democracy… can be fragile’.

“… while the reasons that gave rise for her words then were vastly different, they still ring true. Democracy can be fragile.”

Ardern told her audience of thousands that because of the speed of social media, disinformation is creating an ever increasing risk.

Watch the address

The Harvard Commencement address.    Video: RNZ News

“Social media platforms were born offering the promise of connection and reconnection. We logged on in our billions, forming tribes and subtribes.”

While it started as a place to experience “new ways of thinking and to celebrate our difference” it was now often used for neither of those things, she said.

However, just two days after the massacre in a school in Texas that saw 19 students and two teachers killed, the biggest response she got from the audience was when she referred to changes to firearms law.

Standing ovation over guns stance
She received a standing ovation when she said the government had succeeded in banning military style semi-automatics and assault rifles, in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks.

“On the 15th of March 2019, 51 people were killed in a terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The entire brutal act was livestreamed on social media. The royal commission that followed found that the terrorist responsible was radicalised online,” she said.

“In the aftermath of New Zealand’s experience, we felt a sense of responsibility. We knew we needed significant gun reform, and so that is what we did.”

She went on to say that if genuine solutions were to be found to the issue of violent extremism online, “it would take government, civil society and the tech companies themselves to change the landscape. The result was the Christchurch Call to Action.

“And while much has changed as a result, important things haven’t.”

Ardern called on social media companies to recognise their power and act on it and acknowledge the role they play in shaping online environments.

“That algorithmic processes make choices and decisions for us — what we see and where we are directed — and that at best this means the user experience is personalised and at worst it means it can be radicalised.

‘Pressing and urgent need’
“It means, that there is a pressing and urgent need for responsible algorithm development and deployment.”

She said the forums were available for the tech companies to work alongside society and governments to find solutions to the issues.

She encouraged her audience to realise that their individual actions were also important.

“In a disinformation age, we need to learn to analyse and critique information. That doesn’t mean teaching ‘mistrust’, but rather as my old history teacher, Mr Fountain extolled: ‘to understand the limitations of a single piece of information, and that there is always a range of perspectives on events and decisions’.”

While the prime minister’s US trip was planned around the Harvard Commencement, there is a trade and tourism focus, but also a chance to check in with some of the tech giants at whom she delivered her message, in particular around the Christchurch Call, during the next few days.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Pacific Media Centre has protested to Facebook over censorship of a West Papuan media freedom news item in what its director, Professor David Robie, has described as an Orwellian example of the “tyranny of algorithms”.

The news item, published by the International Federation of Journalists on its Asia-Pacific website, reported the content of the latest edition of Pacific Journalism Review, saying that it “highlights the growing need to address media freedom in the region, particularly in Vanuatu, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and West Papua”.

IFJ added a rider saying it was “concerned about the ongoing media repression and urges governments across the region to uphold journalist rights”.

READ MORE: The Ben Bohane photo that Facebook censored on an article about Indonesia

Dr Robie attempted to share this item with several Facebook media groups, including The Pacific Newsroom with about 9000 followers, but each time immediately received a blocking message from Facebook declaring:

“Your post goes against our community standards on nudity or sexual activity.

“Only people who manage Pacific Media Centre can see this post. We have standards because some audiences are sensitive to different things when it comes to nudity.”

The algorithm-dictated objection to “nudity” apparently was because IFJ had published a photo from last year’s “Papua Uprising” in the Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua in response to a racist attack on students in the central Java city of Surabaya. Two of the male protesters were partly naked according to Papuan highlands tradition.

Orwellian action
In a message to the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders media freedom advocacy watchdog, Dr Robie said the Facebook action was Orwellian and an example of the random “tyranny of algorithms”.

“Anybody with common sense would see that the photograph in question was not ’nudity’ in the community standards sense of Facebook’s guidelines.

“This was a media freedom item and the news agency picture shows a student protest against racism in Jayapura on August 19, 2019. Two apparently naked men are wearing traditional koteka (penis gourds) as normally worn in the Papuan highlands.

“It is a strong cultural protest against Indonesian repression and crackdowns on media. Clearly the Facebook algorithms are arbitrary and lacking in cultural balance.”

Dr Robie attempted three times to file a challenge over this “arbitrary” decision on August 7, but received no reply and his Facebook page still carries a standards breach “warning” that will remain in force “for a year”.

“This is absurd. The challenge process is a farce – merely a button with no field to enter specific reasons,” he told Pacific Media Watch.

“All I got was an automated message saying that ‘we usually offer the chance to request a review, and follow up if we got decisions wrong’. However, it added that ‘we have fewer reviewers available right now because of the coronavirus (covid-19) outbreak’.”

It was bizarre in that the original IFJ item on Facebook was apparently not blocked, just the PMC shared versions, he said.

Another censored photo
In April 2018, Facebook censored a West Papua photo by Vanuatu-based photographer Ben Bohane that also showed traditional koteka.

In response to this latest example of “community” censorship, Bohane wrote on social media: “Facebook happily keeps taking Indonesian money for disinformation ads on West Papua, so no surprises they try to block legitimate news and photos from there…”

Nick Chesterfield of West Papua Media said this incident came just months after Facebook was “skull dragged into removing thousands of Indonesian intelligence agency bot accounts that were used for trolling, harassing and threatening journalists and human rights defenders, and posting fake news”.

He accused the Facebook team of “once again using their opaque, toxic and racist ‘community standards’ censorship machine” to support the Indonesian occupation of West Papua.

The Pacific Media Centre has protested to the Facebook policy director for Australia and New Zealand, Mia Garlick, but at the time of publication had yet to receive a reply.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz