Five reasons ‘technological solutions’ are a distraction from the Irish border problem

by Helen Margetts 21/02/2019

Discussing the focus on ‘technological solutions’ in the context of the Irish border debate.

by Helen Margetts 21/02/2019

Technology is increasingly touted as an alternative to the Irish backstop, especially in light of the government’s difficulty to find a Brexit strategy that can command a majority in the House of Commons. As academics, we have been following the debate around the role of technology in monitoring the border with interest, but also scepticism and frustration. Technology can foster government innovation in countless ways and digital technologies, in particular, have the potential to transform the way in which the government makes policy and designs public services. Yet, in the context of the Irish border debate, the focus on ‘technological solutions’ is becoming a red herring and distracts from the political choices ahead. Technology cannot solve the Irish border problem and it is time to face the facts. 1: Technology cannot ensure a ‘frictionless border’ Any legal or regulatory restrictions on the movement of goods or people between the UK and the Republic of Ireland post-Brexit will make border-related friction inevitable. Setting the restrictions is a matter of political agreements. Technology can help enforce the legal or regulatory restrictions, but it cannot prevent the introduction of friction compared to the status quo. For example, technology may speed up documentation, processing, and inspections, but it cannot eliminate the need for these procedures, whose existence will mean new burdens on those undergoing them. 2: There will be a need for new infrastructure at or near the border Technology may make it possible for some checks to be carried out away from the border. For example, machine learning algorithms can assist in identifying suspicious vehicles and police forces can stop and inspect them away from the border. Regardless of where the relevant inspections are carried out, however, there will be a need for new infrastructure at or near the border, such as camera systems that record the identity of the vehicles crossing the frontier. The amount of new infrastructure needed will depend on…

Politics & Government

Stormzy 1: The Sun 0—Three Reasons Why #GE2017 Was the Real Social Media Election

by Helen Margetts 15/06/2017

It could be the first election where the right wing tabloids finally ceded their influence to new media.

by Helen Margetts 15/06/2017

After its initial appearance as a cynical but safe device by Teresa May to ratchet up the Conservative majority, the UK general election of 2017 turned out to be one of the most exciting and unexpected of all time. One of the many things for which it will be remembered is as the first election where it was the social media campaigns that really made the difference to the relative fortunes of the parties, rather than traditional media. And it could be the first election where the right wing tabloids finally ceded their influence to new media, their power over politics broken according to some. Social media have been part of the UK electoral landscape for a while. In 2015, many of us attributed the Conservative success in part to their massive expenditure on targeted Facebook advertising, 10 times more than Labour, whose ‘bottom-up’ Twitter campaign seemed mainly to have preached to the converted. Social media advertising was used more successfully by Leave.EU than Remain in the referendum (although some of us cautioned against blaming social media for Brexit). But in both these campaigns, the relentless attack of the tabloid press was able to strike at the heart of the Labour and Remain campaigns and was widely credited for having influenced the result, as in so many elections from the 1930s onwards. However, in 2017 Labour’s campaign was widely regarded as having made a huge positive difference to the party’s share of the vote—unexpectedly rising by 10 percentage points on 2015—in the face of a typically sustained and viscious attack by the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express. Why? There are (at least) three reasons. First, increased turnout of young people is widely regarded to have driven Labour’s improved share of the vote—and young people do not in general read newspapers not even online. Instead, they spend increasing proportions of their time on social media platforms on mobile…

Politics & Government

Of course social media is transforming politics. But it’s not to blame for Brexit and Trump

by Helen Margetts 09/01/2017

Mark Zuckerberg has responded with the strange claim that his company does not influence people’s decisions. So what role did social media play in the political events of 2016?

by Helen Margetts 09/01/2017

After Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, 2016 will be remembered as the year of cataclysmic democratic events on both sides of the Atlantic. Social media has been implicated in the wave of populism that led to both these developments. Attention has focused on echo chambers, with many arguing that social media users exist in ideological filter bubbles, narrowly focused on their own preferences, prey to fake news and political bots, reinforcing polarisation and leading voters to turn away from the mainstream. Mark Zuckerberg has responded with the strange claim that his company (built on $5 billion of advertising revenue) does not influence people’s decisions. So what role did social media play in the political events of 2016? Political turbulence and the new populism There is no doubt that social media has brought change to politics. From the waves of protest and unrest in response to the 2008 financial crisis, to the Arab spring of 2011, there has been a generalised feeling that political mobilisation is on the rise, and that social media had something to do with it. Our book investigating the relationship between social media and collective action, Political Turbulence, focuses on how social media allows new, “tiny acts” of political participation (liking, tweeting, viewing, following, signing petitions and so on), which turn social movement theory around. Rather than identifying with issues, forming collective identity and then acting to support the interests of that identity—or voting for a political party that supports it—in a social media world, people act first, and think about it, or identify with others later, if at all. These tiny acts of participation can scale up to large-scale mobilisations, such as demonstrations, protests or campaigns for policy change. But they almost always don’t. The overwhelming majority (99.99%) of petitions to the UK or US governments fail to get the 100,000 signatures required for a parliamentary debate (UK) or an official response (US). The very few that…

Politics & Government

Don’t Shoot the Messenger! What part did social media play in 2016 US election?

by Helen Margetts 15/11/2016

We should appreciate how social media can provide a wealth of valuable data to understand the anger and despair that the polls missed, and to analyse political behaviour and opinion in the times ahead.

by Helen Margetts 15/11/2016

Young activists gather at Lafayette Park in protest at the presidential campaign of presumptive Republican nominee Donald J. Trump. By Stephen Melkisethian (Flickr).

Commentators have been quick to ‘blame social media’ for ‘ruining’ the 2016 election in putting Mr Donald Trump in the White House. Just as was the case in the campaign for Brexit, people argue that social media has driven us to a ‘post-truth’ world of polarisation and echo chambers. Is this really the case? At first glance, the ingredients of the Trump victory — as for Brexit — seem remarkably traditional. The Trump campaign spent more on physical souvenirs than on field data, more on Make America Great Again hats (made in China) than on polling. The Daily Mail characterisation of judges as Enemies of the People after their ruling that the triggering of Article 50 must be discussed in parliament seemed reminiscent of the 1930s. Likewise, US crowds chanting ‘Lock her up’, like lynch mobs, seemed like ghastly reminders of a pre-democratic era. Clearly social media were a big part of the 2016 election, used heavily by the candidates themselves, and generating 8.8 billion posts, likes and commentson Facebook alone. Social media also make visible what in an earlier era could remain a country’s dark secret — hatred of women (through death and rape threats and trolling of female politicians in both the UK and US), and rampant racism. This visibility, society’s new self-awareness, brings change to political behaviour. Social media provide social information about what other people are doing: viewing, following, liking, sharing, tweeting, joining, supporting and so on. This social information is the driver behind the political turbulence that characterises politics today. Those rustbelt Democrats feeling abandoned by the system saw on social media that they were not alone — that other people felt the same way, and that Trump was viable as a candidate. For a woman drawn towards the Trump agenda but feeling tentative, the hashtag #WomenForTrump could reassure her that there were like-minded people she could identify with. Decades of social science research shows information about the behaviour of others influences how groups behave and now it is driving the unpredictability of politics,…

Politics & Government

Brexit, voting, and political turbulence

by Helen Margetts 18/08/2016

Explaining why many political mobilisations of our times seem to come from nowhere.

by Helen Margetts 18/08/2016

Cross-posted from the Princeton University Press blog. The authors of Political Turbulence discuss how the explosive rise, non-normal distribution and lack of organisation that characterises contemporary politics as a chaotic system, can explain why many political mobilisations of our times seem to come from nowhere.

On 23rd June 2016, a majority of the British public voted in a referendum on whether to leave the European Union. The Leave or so-called #Brexit option was victorious, with a margin of 52% to 48% across the country, although Scotland, Northern Ireland, London and some towns voted to remain. The result was a shock to both leave and remain supporters alike. US readers might note that when the polls closed, the odds on futures markets of Brexit (15%) were longer than those of Trump being elected President. Political scientists are reeling with the sheer volume of politics that has been packed into the month after the result. From the Prime Minister’s morning-after resignation on 24th June the country was mired in political chaos, with almost every political institution challenged and under question in the aftermath of the vote, including both Conservative and Labour parties and the existence of the United Kingdom itself, given Scotland’s resistance to leaving the EU. The eventual formation of a government under a new prime minister, Teresa May, has brought some stability. But she was not elected and her government has a tiny majority of only 12 Members of Parliament. A cartoon by Matt in the Telegraph on July 2nd (which would work for almost any day) showed two students, one of them saying ‘I’m studying politics. The course covers the period from 8am on Thursday to lunchtime on Friday.’ All these events—the campaigns to remain or leave, the post-referendum turmoil, resignations, sackings and appointments—were played out on social media; the speed of change and the unpredictability of events being far too great for conventional media to keep pace. So our book, Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective Action, can provide a way to think about the past weeks. The book focuses on how social media allow new, ‘tiny acts’ of political participation (liking, tweeting, viewing, following, signing petitions and so on), which turn social movement theory…

Politics & Government

Back to the bad old days, as civil service infighting threatens UK’s only hope for digital government

by Helen Margetts 10/08/2016

The Government Digital Service (GDS) isn’t perfect, but to erase the progress it has put in place would be a terrible loss.

by Helen Margetts 10/08/2016

Technology and the public sector have rarely been happy bedfellows in the UK, where every government technology project seems doomed to arrive late, unperform and come in over budget. The Government Digital Service (GDS) was created to drag the civil service into the 21st century, making services “digital by default”, cheaper, faster, and easier to use. It quickly won accolades for its approach and early cost savings. But then its leadership departed, not once or twice but three times—the latter two within the last few months. The largest government departments have begun to reassert their authority over GDS expert advice, and digital government looks likely to be dragged back towards the deeply dysfunctional old ways of doing things. GDS isn’t perfect, but to erase the progress it has put in place would be a terrible loss. The UK government’s use of technology has previously lagged far behind other countries. Low usage of digital services rendered them expensive and inefficient. Digital operations were often handicapped by complex networks of legacy systems, some dating right back to the 1970s. The development of the long-promised “digital era governance” was mired in a series of mega contracts: huge in terms of cost, scope and timescale, bigger than any attempted by other governments worldwide, and to be delivered by the same handful of giant global computer consulting firms that rarely saw any challenge to their grip on public contracts. Departmental silos ensured there were no economies of scale, shared services failed, and the Treasury negotiated with 24 departments individually for their IT expenditure. Some commentators (including this one) were a little sceptical on our first encounter with GDS. We had seen it before: the Office of the e-Envoy set up by Tony Blair in 1999, superseded by the E-government Unit (2004-7), and then Directgov until 2010. Successes and failures In many ways GDS has been a success story, with former prime minister David Cameron calling it one of the “great unsung triumphs…

Ethics, Politics & Government, Social Data Science

Alan Turing Institute and OII: Summit on Data Science for Government and Policy Making

by Helen Margetts 31/05/2016

Leading policy makers, data scientists and academics came together to discuss how the ATI and government could work together to develop data science for the public good.

by Helen Margetts 31/05/2016

The benefits of big data and data science for the private sector are well recognised. So far, considerably less attention has been paid to the power and potential of the growing field of data science for policy-making and public services. On Monday 14th March 2016 the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and the Alan Turing Institute (ATI) hosted a Summit on Data Science for Government and Policy Making, funded by the EPSRC. Leading policy makers, data scientists and academics came together to discuss how the ATI and government could work together to develop data science for the public good. The convenors of the Summit, Professors Helen Margetts (OII) and Tom Melham (Computer Science), report on the day’s proceedings. The Alan Turing Institute will build on the UK’s existing academic strengths in the analysis and application of big data and algorithm research to place the UK at the forefront of world-wide research in data science. The University of Oxford is one of five university partners, and the OII is the only partnering department in the social sciences. The aim of the summit on Data Science for Government and Policy-Making was to understand how government can make better use of big data and the ATI—with the academic partners in listening mode. We hoped that the participants would bring forward their own stories, hopes and fears regarding data science for the public good. Crucially, we wanted to work out a roadmap for how different stakeholders can work together on the distinct challenges facing government, as opposed to commercial organisations. At the same time, data science research and development has much to gain from the policy-making community. Some of the things that government does—collect tax from the whole population, or give money away at scale, or possess the legitimate use of force—it does by virtue of being government. So the sources of data and some of the data science challenges that public agencies face are…

Politics & Government, Social Data Science

Digital Disconnect: Parties, Pollsters and Political Analysis in #GE2015

by Helen Margetts 11/05/2015

The Oxford Internet Institute undertook some live analysis of social media data over the night of the 2015 UK General Election.

by Helen Margetts 11/05/2015

‘Congratulations to my friend @Messina2012 on his role in the resounding Conservative victory in Britain’ tweeted David Axelrod, campaign advisor to Miliband, to his former colleague Jim Messina, Cameron’s strategy adviser, on May 8th. The former was Obama’s communications director and the latter campaign manager of Obama’s 2012 campaign. Along with other consultants and advisors and large-scale data management platforms from Obama’s hugely successful digital campaigns, Conservative and Labour used an arsenal of social media and digital tools to interact with voters throughout, as did all the parties competing for seats in the 2015 election. The parties ran very different kinds of digital campaigns. The Conservatives used advanced data science techniques borrowed from the US campaigns to understand how their policy announcements were being received and to target groups of individuals. They spent ten times as much as Labour on Facebook, using ads targeted at Facebook users according to their activities on the platform, geo-location and demographics. This was a top down strategy that involved working out was happening on social media and responding with targeted advertising, particularly for marginal seats. It was supplemented by the mainstream media, such as the Telegraph for example, which contacted its database of readers and subscribers to services such as Telegraph Money, urging them to vote Conservative. As Andrew Cooper tweeted after the election, ‘Big data, micro-targeting and social media campaigns just thrashed “5 million conversations” and “community organising”’. He has a point. Labour took a different approach to social media. Widely acknowledged to have the most boots on the real ground, knocking on doors, they took a similar ‘ground war’ approach to social media in local campaigns. Our own analysis at the Oxford Internet Institute shows that of the 450K tweets sent by candidates of the six largest parties in the month leading up to the general election, Labour party candidates sent over 120,000 while the Conservatives sent only 80,000, no more than…

Politics & Government

Technological innovation and disruption was a big theme of the WEF 2014 in Davos: but where was government?

by Helen Margetts 30/01/2014

The World Economic Forum engages business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

by Helen Margetts 30/01/2014

Last week, I was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the first time that the Oxford Internet Institute has been represented there. Being closeted in a Swiss ski resort with 2,500 of the great, the good and the super-rich provided me with a good chance to see what the global elite are thinking about technological change and its role in ‘The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business’, the stated focus of the WEF Annual Meeting in 2014. What follows are those impressions that relate to public policy and the internet, and reflect only my own experience there. Outside the official programme there are whole hierarchies of breakfasts, lunches, dinners and other events, most of which a newcomer to Davos finds it difficult to discover and some of which require one to be at least a president of a small to medium-sized state—or Matt Damon. There was much talk of hyperconnectivity, spirals of innovation, S-curves and exponential growth of technological diffusion, digitalisation and disruption. As you might expect, the pace of these was emphasised most by those participants from the technology industry. The future of work in the face of leaps forward in robotics was a key theme, drawing on the new book by Eric Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, which is just out in the US. There were several sessions on digital health and the eventual fruition of decades of pilots in telehealth (a banned term now, apparently), as applications based on mobile technologies start to be used more widely. Indeed, all delegates were presented with a ‘Jawbone’ bracelet which tracks the wearer’s exercise and sleep patterns (7,801 steps so far today). And of course there was much talk about the possibilities afforded by big data, if not quite as much as I expected. The University of Oxford was represented in an…

Politics & Government, Social Data Science

Five recommendations for maximising the relevance of social science research for public policy-making in the big data era

by Helen Margetts 04/11/2013 1 Comment

How can social scientists help policy-makers in this changed environment, ensuring that social science research remains relevant?

by Helen Margetts 04/11/2013 1 Comment

As I discussed in a previous post on the promises and threats of big data for public policy-making, public policy making has entered a period of dramatic change. Widespread use of digital technologies, the Internet and social media means citizens and governments leave digital traces that can be harvested to generate big data. This increasingly rich data environment poses both promises and threats to policy-makers. So how can social scientists help policy-makers in this changed environment, ensuring that social science research remains relevant? Social scientists have a good record on having policy influence, indeed in the UK better than other academic fields, including medicine, as recent research from the LSE Public Policy group has shown. Big data hold major promise for social science, which should enable us to further extend our record in policy research. We have access to a cornucopia of data of a kind which is more like that traditionally associated with so-called ‘hard’ science. Rather than being dependent on surveys, the traditional data staple of empirical social science, social media such as Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Search present us with the opportunity to scrape, generate, analyse and archive comparative data of unprecedented quantity. For example, at the OII over the last four years we have been generating a dataset of all petition signing in the UK and US, which contains the joining rate (updated every hour) for the 30,000 petitions created in the last three years. As a political scientist, I am very excited by this kind of data (up to now, we have had big data like this only for voting, and that only at election time), which will allow us to create a complete ecology of petition signing, one of the more popular acts of political participation in the UK. Likewise, we can look at the entire transaction history of online organisations like Wikipedia, or map the link structure of government’s online presence. But…