06 Nov 18 | About Index, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship magazine gave the following speech at Eurozine’s 29th European Meeting of Cultural Journals. This year, the meeting was entitled ‘Mind the gap: Illiberal democracy and the crisis of representation’. Panels discussed the rise of the populist right as result of a failure of institutional politics and the role of the liberal media in the dynamics of polarisation.
As you know, we British are very fond of tea. Today, I am going to look at three Ts:
- Transparency
- Trust
- And why terms and conditions apply.
The over-arching questions here are what is the democracy we want and what is the technology we want to achieve that?
In other words, how can we make it happen?
Long, long ago sometime in the 1990s I went to the BT Lab in Ipswich where they were developing the house of the future, where the washing machine talked to you and you could talk to everything. Then the lab guys said, it will be great, we’ll know what you are wanting to buy and when it’s on sale or you are out of it someone will phone you and tell you.
Ugh, that sounds creepy, I said. No, they said, it will be great.
And so it came to pass, only it wasn’t the phone that called but social media and the internet that knew what I wanted and the phone call was a pop-up ad. And I still think it is creepy.
Because the only person I want to know whether I am out of milk, or I want to buy a new bed, is ME.
One friend even told me that Google knew he had Multiple Sclerosis before he did. As ads for the MS Society keep popping up when he was online, and after a while he began to wonder why.
Right now Google is hoovering up our data, who we email, what we search for, what we want to buy. Not just Google, but Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and entertainment companies like Netflix and the BBC line up a list of programmes they know we want to watch even though we haven’t even heard of them yet.
They are offering to take decisions away from us, by letting them do it. It’s tough out there, so may we choose you a book, a film, a life, a friend who agrees with you, and pretty soon you won’t realise other choices have been taken away.
But actually in many ways this is nothing new. In 2006-10 I worked for a think tank that was pretty close to the government of the time, and it was well known that when Number 10 wanted to know what people were thinking, buying, feeling, —– a societal snapshot if you will —– they talked to the supermarkets, because back then the supermarkets were seen as the leaders in data collection. They knew if more people were buying rom coms, spending less on the weekly shop or stocking up on tins because they thought there might be a crisis.
Back then, and now, supermarkets were gathering data from loyalty cards, then Google, Facebook and others realised we would give loads of information about ourselves to them for free, if they created something we wanted. So they did.
It was our choice. We chose free email, when paid was an option. Other alternatives were, and are available. We choose a search engine that tracks our data. We chose to add our date of birth, photos, and holiday details to Facebook. Handing it over without question.
Do you remember reading one of those terms and conditions apply documents for the first time, and realising you were giving an app the opportunity to read your emails and look at your photos? I do. But people happily signed up and got stuff for free. And the deal was on.
And why is this a democratic issue? The thing is in a democracy we had and have a responsibility to make decisions, as well as to be informed and to be represented.
And in democracies we need to decide more, rather than have decisions thrust upon us. In giving away our data we didn’t realise that all that information would be collated into huge data banks, where people could work out things, like this person with a car is far more likely to vote for Trump than this person who uses public transport. And from there, all those people with cars would be targeted with messages before the US election. And all this data analysis about what people did with their lives would be used to target people with messages in the run up to the Brexit referendum.
Transparency in a democracy means what the impact of our decisions are. I also want to know what the government is doing on my behalf. And I want transparency from companies operating in my country that may have impact on my democracy. I want to trust that the political system is working, and that is not being driven by shadowy figures and ideas that are hidden from view.
So transparency of who we ALLOW to access our data, and having a personal contract with companies saying what they can and can’t do MUST be part of our future democracies.
We also need more transparency about what political parties in an election period are saying to voters. In previous decades we knew what arguments were being made to different parts of the electorate because we saw the billboards or the TV ads or the newspapers advertising, or the interviews.
But what we are seeing increasingly used in the run up to elections is hidden messages, hidden politicking.
The electoral bodies need to catch up with those digital leaps and make some changes to what is allowed in election periods. I am going to argue that each campaign — needs to lodge one example of each message/campaign with them, whether they are on Facebook or on the side of the road, so those that don’t receive them know about them, and are able to discuss and debate whether there is any truth or value in them. In the UK the Electoral Commission needs to make changes so parties can not use hidden tactics. There will be hurdles and opposition, but a system needs to work, in the same way, we used to be able to see an ad, we should then be able to access at least on the Electoral Commission, for instance, each major campaign that a party is running, giving others the chance to fact check or oppose it.
Because a democracy should be a noisy, open society where there is disagreement and argument and there is space to do so.
Transparency breeds more trust, and that’s something that politicians and political systems need in order to operate. If no one believes in the system then it fails.
Democracy must supply its own terms and conditions, ones that create structure for rights and responsibilities, both for its citizens and for corporations operating within it.
These include paying tax, living within the laws of the land, and supporting its essential freedoms.
We do not want to hand over the right to choose what we are allowed to see or read or hear to unelected Silicon Valley corporations. We should not be happy with governments that try to do just that, and suggest that massive California-based companies should be selecting news or views for us. We should make those choices ourselves.
At Index, we have already heard of videos being taken down showing Rohinga Muslims being persecuted, after pressure from the Burmese government — what this does is attempts to undermine evidence gathering by human rights organisations. We hear of numerous issues where the Chinese government attempts to stop its citizens from having access to books and articles and news items on the internet, often by pressurising digital media from publishing them. These are governments pressurising social media and digital companies to censor or restrict access, but in other nations governments seem to want to hand over those decisions to social media, rather than reviewing the law and going through a democratic process.
And back to those terms and conditions that come with apps and other tools, sometimes these run to as many as 30,000 words — the size of a small book — that is not a document designed for people to read or understand. Simple, straightforward contracts need to replace this culture of hidden meanings, designed to mystify and mislead.
We should know what we are signing up for, with our new era of democracy and the technology that goes with it.
We need tech that works to help us be informed, be curious, to connect, and of course we should remember that these tools do exist for good, but they can also be misused to surveil and suppress.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1541429193469-bf25f4e9-3ba3-6″ taxonomies=”5641″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
03 Oct 18 | Event Reports, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”103062″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“Critical thinking is important, but we should also be teaching scientific literacy and political literacy so we know what knowledge claims to trust,” said Keith Kahn-Harris, author of Denial: The Unspeakable Truth, at a panel debate during the launch of the autumn 2018 edition of Index on Censorship.
The theme of this quarter’s magazine, The Age of Unreason, looks at censorship in scientific research and whether our emotions are blurring the lines between fact and fiction. From Mexico to Turkey, Hungary to China, a whole range of countries from around the globe were covered for this special report, featuring articles from the likes of Julian Baggini and David Ulin. For the launch, a selection of journalists, authors and academics shared their thoughts on how to have better arguments when emotions are high, while exploring concerns surrounding science and censorship in the current global climate.
Aptly taking place at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the historical home of scientific research for 14 Nobel Prize winners, Kahn-Harris was joined by BBC Radio 4 presenter Timandra Harkness and New Scientist writer Graham Lawton. The discussion was chaired by Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship magazine.
“Academics and experts are being undermined all over the world,” said Jolley, setting the stage for a riveting conversation between panellists and the audience. “Is this something new or something that has happened throughout history?”
When Jolley asked why science is often the first target of an authoritarian government, Lawton proposed that the value of science is that it is evidence-based and subsequently “kryptonite” to what rigid establishments want to portray. He added: “They depend extremely heavily on telling people half-truths or lies.”[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”103066″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Harkness led a workshop highlighting the importance of applying critical thinking skills when deconstructing arguments, using footage of real-life debates, past and present, to investigate such ideas. Whether it was the first televised contest between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, or a dispute between Indian civilians over LGBT rights earlier this year, a wide variety of topics and discussions were analysed.
Examining a debate between 2016 presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, Harkness asked an audience member his thoughts. Focusing on Trump’s approach, he said: “He’s put up a totally false premise which is quite a conventional tactic; you put up something that is not what the other person said, and then you proceed to knock it down quite reasonably because it’s unreasonable in the first place.” Harkness agreed. “It’s the straw man tactic”, she said, “where you build something up and then attack it.”
Panellists began discussing how to argue with say those who deny climate change, with Kahn-Harris contending that science has become enormously specialised over the past centuries, which means people cannot always debunk uncertain claims since they are not specialists. He said: “There’s something tremendously smug about the post-enlightenment world.”
Harkness said “robust challenges” should be sought-after rather than silencing those who share different views, while Lawton added that “storytelling and appealing to emotions are perfectly valid ways of arguing.”
For more information on the autumn issue, click here. The issue includes an article on how fact and fiction come together in the age of unreason, why Indian journalism is under threat, Nobel prize-winning novelist Herta Müller on censorship in Romania, and an exclusive short story from bestselling crime writer Ian Rankin. Listen to our podcast here. Or, try our quiz that decides how prone to bullshit you are…[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1538584887174-432e9410-24f0-4″ taxonomies=”8957″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
10 Jul 18 | Event Reports, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Additional reporting by Shreya Parjan and Sandra Oseifri.
“When you hold the mirror up to […] a totalitarian regime, it recognises it and attempts to stamp it out,” said Tony Howard, a Warwick University professor, discussing how Shakespeare can be used to slip controversial ideas into public spaces under the eyes of the censors.
Howard was part of a discussion held at London’s Globe theatre looking at how censorship is used against theatres and how playwrights can sometimes get around it.
The Shakespeare Under The Radar debate was held as part of a series marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the UK Theatres’ Act in 1968. Until then the Lord Chamberlain had the power to stop plays going on stage, or mark sections of the script to be taken out.
The panel also featured Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley, Memet Ali Alabora, the exiled Turkish actor, and Zoe Lafferty, theatre director and producer. It was chaired by Samira Ahmed, the award-winning journalist and broadcaster.
“Turkey is one of the rarest countries where the persecution of artists has never ended,” Alabora told the audience in the Sam Wanamaker theatre, named after an actor who was blacklisted in the USA during McCarthyism. “When you’ve got a state of emergency the law gives you the right to ban material because it is unsafe,” added Alabora.
Alabora talked about his personal experience as director and actor in the 2012 play Mi Minör. The play was set in Pinima, a fictional country where the president decides anything. Amid the wave of demonstrations and civil unrest during the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey, the play was condemned by governmental and pro-governmental agencies, as an attempt to “rehearse” the protests. The threats against Alabora and his creative team forced them to leave the country because of fears for their safety.
Jolley said theatre can be a medium for social change, even in the face of censorship. “Theatre can do things in a way that is more radical or challenging because censors are more attuned to film and TV,” she said. She talked about how memes are used in China to get around censorship: “Everybody can use that form of communication to talk about things that are not allowed.”
Lafferty’s work, which includes Queens of Syria, the story of female Syrian refugees, focuses on conflict areas such as Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon and Haiti. Her plays are dedicated to giving life to stories that might otherwise be inaccessible due to conflict, military occupation or censorship. “In the nine or ten years I’ve been involved with Palestine, the censorship, in lots of different ways, has been very brutal, including imprisonment and death,” she says.
However, it could be difficult to pinpoint exactly who does the censoring, she said. “It’s hard to get into all of the layers. There is the military occupation, the Palestinian authorities, the taboos of society, etc.” As Lafferty’s experience illustrates, there are also more insidious ways to silence: “There is a huge visa process which is a massive form of censorship.”
Despite the obstacles put in their way, Alabora and Lafferty have no intention of backing down from their theatrical work. Alabora directed Meltem Arikan’s play Enough is Enough, which highlights issues around incest, child abuse and violence against women. Meanwhile, Lafferty directed the play And Here I Am, which is based on the life story of Ahmed Tobasi, who went from being a member of Palestine’s Islamic Jihad to an actor.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1531488724804-26d39abd-64f9-5″ taxonomies=”8146, 8175″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
