Articles from Policy & Internet, Collective Action, Governance & Security

Is crowdfunding at risk of being weaponized for extremist causes?

by Dr Matthew Wade, Assoc. Prof. Michael Walsh, Dr Stephanie Baker 15/04/2024

How do crowdfunding sites maintain their legitimacy as ‘open’ platforms while avoiding complicity with divisive, injurious, or even outright violent campaigns?

by Dr Matthew Wade, Assoc. Prof. Michael Walsh, Dr Stephanie Baker 15/04/2024

In recent years, far-right and other extremist causes have typically found it difficult to fundraise through online donations. This is largely due to deplatforming efforts, particularly after the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, during which a white supremacist killed a young woman. In response, digital platforms and infrastructure companies made concerted efforts to deny extremists access to fundraising tools. Several retaliatory but short‐lived crowdfunding sites were created, such as the antisemitic GoyFundMe and Hatreon (pronounced hate¬reon). These intentionally antagonistic platforms soon became defunct, usually after payment processors and hosting providers refused services. But what about fundraising campaigns where underlying extremist motives are more difficult to discern? Or where a crowdfunding platform stakes its reputation not on careful stewardship of content to avoid complicity in extremist harms but rather on their refusal to make such determinations, instead privileging ‘free speech’ above all other concerns? These dilemmas arose during the 2022 Freedom Convoy, a month-long occupation of downtown Ottawa where hundreds of truck drivers and other participants created blockades that brought the city to a standstill. Though ostensibly assembled to protest vaccine mandates for truckers crossing the Canada‐US border, the protests rapidly evolved into a broader movement against all COVID‐19 mandates. Concerns were heightened by the organizers’ close association with far‐right interests. As the occupiers swelled into the thousands, fears grew that violence could erupt in ways comparable with the January 6 US Capitol insurrection. The Freedom Convoy was supported via crowdfunding, with campaigns on GoFundMe and GiveSendGo raising enormous sums and attracting donors worldwide. Amid criticisms of their complicity in aiding extremism, GoFundMe and GiveSendGo adopted radically different stances, reflecting a growing and concerning divide between ‘Big Tech’ and ‘Alt Tech’ platforms. In our study, ‘Crowdfunding platforms as conduits for ‘ideological struggle and extremism’, we addressed the following questions: How do crowdfunding sites maintain their legitimacy as ‘open’ platforms while avoiding complicity with divisive, injurious, or even outright violent…

Governance & Security

How to Decolonise the State of Policy in the Digital Space

by Professor John Hartley 07/12/2023

In his latest editorial for Policy and Internet, John Hartley argues that a whole-of-humanity effort to meet the challenges of the ‘digital information space’ is impossible, unless we draw from those who have experienced colonialism.

by Professor John Hartley 07/12/2023

In November 2023, the OECD convened a conference in Paris to ‘identify effective policy responses to the urgent challenges’ member countries face in the ‘information space’. It warned: Today, less than a quarter of citizens say they trust their news media and a majority worry that journalists, governments and political leaders purposely mislead them. In this context, the instantaneous and global spread of information, targeted disinformation campaigns that deceive and confuse the public, and rapidly changing media markets pose a fundamental threat to democracies. As the OECD recognises, ‘a new governance model is needed to establish a whole-of-society approach to fight mis- and disinformation and preserve freedom of speech.’ However, as I argued in a Policy and Internet editorial, a whole-of-humanity effort to meet these challenges is impossible to achieve through incumbent political arrangements. This quagmire is the result of the ‘information space’ of the Internet being riven by enmities and conflict. Purposeful opposition to this digital ‘New World’ is treated as criminal gangsterism. Anyone who is not one of ‘us’ must be one of ‘them’ – an enemy. As per Ronfeldt and Arquilla, there are plenty: China, Russia, Iran, Wikileaks, criminal cartels (hacking, fraud, ransom), along with religious and nationalist ‘terrorists’ (Palestinians, Kurds, or Kashmiri but not Israel, Türkiye, or India). Andreessen adds accelerationist activists for libertarian sovereignty, while Marwick and others include far-right populists and populism. However, an additional challenge impedes on universally-inclusive efforts. Namely, the privileged status of OECD countries and their nations that is currently being challenged. According to Frydl, people in OECD countries like to think of themselves as affluent, advanced, and mostly white. However, I argue, as life becomes increasing digitalised, these very people are beginning to learn what it feels like to be messed around, their lives harmed and resources farmed by unaccountable external agents that owe no allegiance to anyone. That is, citizens in OECD countries are somewhat learning what colonialism is through challenges to sovereignty and security delivered via the digital ‘information…

Economics, Governance & Security, Mapping, Social Data Science

Mapping Fentanyl Trades on the Darknet

by Mark Graham 16/10/2017

The US accounts for almost 40% of global darknet trade, with Canada and Australia at 15% and 12%, respectively.

by Mark Graham 16/10/2017

My colleagues Joss Wright, Martin Dittus and I have been scraping the world’s largest darknet marketplaces over the last few months, as part of our darknet mapping project. The data we collected allow us to explore a wide range of trading activities, including the trade in the synthetic opioid Fentanyl, one of the drugs blamed for the rapid rise in overdose deaths and widespread opioid addiction in the US. The map shows the global distribution of the Fentanyl trade on the darknet. The US accounts for almost 40% of global darknet trade, with Canada and Australia at 15% and 12%, respectively. The UK and Germany are the largest sellers in Europe with 9% and 5% of sales. While China is often mentioned as an important source of the drug, it accounts for only 4% of darknet sales. However, this does not necessarily mean that China is not the ultimate site of production. Many of the sellers in places like the US, Canada, and Western Europe are likely intermediaries rather than producers themselves. In the next few months, we’ll be sharing more visualisations of the economic geographies of products on the darknet. In the meantime you can find out more about our work by Exploring the Darknet in Five Easy Questions. Follow the project here: https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/economic-geog-darknet/ Twitter: @OiiDarknet

Ethics, Governance & Security, Interviews

Censorship or rumour management? How Weibo constructs “truth” around crisis events

by David Sutcliffe 03/10/2017

Examining the content moderation strategies of Sina Weibo, China’s largest microblogging platform, in regulating discussion of rumours following the 2015 Tianjin blasts.

by David Sutcliffe 03/10/2017

On 12 August 2015, a series of explosions killed 173 people and injured hundreds at a container storage station at the Port of Tianjin. Tianjin Port by Matthias Catón (Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

As social media become increasingly important as a source of news and information for citizens, there is a growing concern over the impacts of social media platforms on information quality—as evidenced by the furore over the impact of “fake news”. Driven in part by the apparently substantial impact of social media on the outcomes of Brexit and the US Presidential election, various attempts have been made to hold social media platforms to account for presiding over misinformation, with recent efforts to improve fact-checking. There is a large and growing body of research examining rumour management on social media platforms. However, most of these studies treat it as a technical matter, and little attention has been paid to the social and political aspects of rumour. In their Policy & Internet article “How Social Media Construct ‘Truth’ Around Crisis Events: Weibo’s Rumor Management Strategies after the 2015 Tianjin Blasts”, Jing Zeng, Chung-hong Chan and King-wa Fu examine the content moderation strategies of Sina Weibo, China’s largest microblogging platform, in regulating discussion of rumours following the 2015 Tianjin blasts. Studying rumour communication in relation to the manipulation of social media platforms is particularly important in the context of China. In China, Internet companies are licensed by the state, and their businesses must therefore be compliant with Chinese law and collaborate with the government in monitoring and censoring politically sensitive topics. Given most Chinese citizens rely heavily on Chinese social media services as alternative information sources or as grassroots “truth”, the anti-rumour policies have raised widespread concern over the implications for China’s online sphere. As there is virtually no transparency in rumour management on Chinese social media, it is an important task for researchers to investigate how Internet platforms engage with rumour content and any associated impact on public discussion. We caught up with the authors to discuss their findings: Ed.: “Fake news” is currently a very hot issue, with Twitter and Facebook both…

Economics, Governance & Security, Interviews

Digital platforms are governing systems—so it’s time we examined them in more detail

by David Sutcliffe 29/08/2017

It’s important that we take a multi-perspective view of the role of digital platforms in contemporary society.

by David Sutcliffe 29/08/2017

Digital platforms strongly determine the structure of local interactions with users; essentially representing a totalitarian form of control. Image: Bruno Cordioli (Flickr CC BY 2.0).

Digital platforms are not just software-based media, they are governing systems that control, interact, and accumulate. As surfaces on which social action takes place, digital platforms mediate—and to a considerable extent, dictate—economic relationships and social action. By automating market exchanges they solidify relationships into material infrastructure, lend a degree of immutability and traceability to engagements, and render what previously would have been informal exchanges into much more formalised rules. In his Policy & Internet article “Platform Logic: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Platform-based Economy”, Jonas Andersson Schwarz argues that digital platforms enact a twofold logic of micro-level technocentric control and macro-level geopolitical domination, while supporting a range of generative outcomes between the two levels. Technology isn’t ‘neutral’, and what designers want may clash with what users want: so it’s important that we take a multi-perspective view of the role of digital platforms in contemporary society. For example, if we only consider the technical, we’ll notice modularity, compatibility, compliance, flexibility, mutual subsistence, and cross-subsidisation. By contrast, if we consider ownership and organisational control, we’ll observe issues of consolidation, privatisation, enclosure, financialisation and protectionism. When focusing on local interactions (e.g. with users), the digital nature of platforms is seen to strongly determine structure; essentially representing an absolute or totalitarian form of control. When we focus on geopolitical power arrangements in the “platform society”, patterns can be observed that are worryingly suggestive of market dominance, colonisation, and consolidation. Concerns have been expressed that these (overwhelmingly US-biased) platform giants are not only enacting hegemony, but are on a road to “usurpation through tech—a worry that these companies could grow so large and become so deeply entrenched in world economies that they could effectively make their own laws.” We caught up with Jonas to discuss his findings: Ed.: You say that there are lots of different ways of considering “platforms”: what (briefly) are some of these different approaches, and why should they be linked up…

Governance & Security, Interviews, Methods

How policy makers can extract meaningful public opinion data from social media to inform their actions

by David Sutcliffe 07/07/2017

Examining how the information available on social media can support the actions of politicians and bureaucrats along the policy cycle.

by David Sutcliffe 07/07/2017

Social media analysis can provide insight into the mobilisation processes of stakeholders in response to government actions. Image of No-TAV protestors by Darren Johnson (Flickr: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

The role of social media in fostering the transparency of governments and strengthening the interaction between citizens and public administrations has been widely studied. Scholars have highlighted how online citizen-government and citizen-citizen interactions favour debates on social and political matters, and positively affect citizens’ interest in political processes, like elections, policy agenda setting, and policy implementation. However, while top-down social media communication between public administrations and citizens has been widely examined, the bottom-up side of this interaction has been largely overlooked. In their Policy & Internet article “The ‘Social Side’ of Public Policy: Monitoring Online Public Opinion and Its Mobilisation During the Policy Cycle,” Andrea Ceron and Fedra Negri aim to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice, by examining how the information available on social media can support the actions of politicians and bureaucrats along the policy cycle. Policymakers, particularly politicians, have always been interested in knowing citizens’ preferences, in measuring their satisfaction and in receiving feedback on their activities. Using the technique of Supervised Aggregated Sentiment Analysis, the authors show that meaningful information on public services, programmes, and policies can be extracted from the unsolicited comments posted by social media users, particularly those posted on Twitter. They use this technique to extract and analyse citizen opinion on two major public policies (on labour market reform and school reform) that drove the agenda of the Matteo Renzi cabinet in Italy between 2014 and 2015. They show how online public opinion reacted to the different policy alternatives formulated and discussed during the adoption of the policies. They also demonstrate how social media analysis allows monitoring of the mobilisation and de-mobilisation processes of rival stakeholders in response to the various amendments adopted by the government, with results comparable to those of a survey and a public consultation that were undertaken by the government. We caught up with the authors to discuss their findings: Ed.: You say that this form of opinion…

Governance & Security, Interviews

What are the barriers to big data analytics in local government?

by David Sutcliffe 28/06/2017

Examining the extent to which local governments in the UK are using intelligence from big data, in light of the structural barriers they face when trying to exploit it.

by David Sutcliffe 28/06/2017

Many local governments have reams of data (both hard data and soft data) on local inhabitants and local businesses. Image: Chris Dawkins (Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

The concept of Big Data has become very popular over the last decade, with many large technology companies successfully building their business models around its exploitation. The UK’s public sector has tried to follow suit, with local governments in particular trying to introduce new models of service delivery based on the routine extraction of information from their own big data. These attempts have been hailed as the beginning of a new era for the public sector, with some commentators suggesting that it could help local governments transition toward a model of service delivery where the quantity and quality of commissioned services is underpinned by data intelligence on users and their current and future needs. In their Policy & Internet article “Data Intelligence for Local Government? Assessing the Benefits and Barriers to Use of Big Data in the Public Sector”, Fola Malomo and Vania Sena examine the extent to which local governments in the UK are indeed using intelligence from big data, in light of the structural barriers they face when trying to exploit it. Their analysis suggests that the ambitions around the development of big data capabilities in local government are not reflected in actual use. Indeed, these methods have mostly been employed to develop new digital channels for service delivery, and even if the financial benefits of these initiatives are documented, very little is known about the benefits generated by them for the local communities. While this is slowly changing as councils start to develop their big data capability, the overall impression gained from even a cursory overview is that the full potential of big data is yet to be exploited. We caught up with the authors to discuss their findings: Ed.: So what actually is “the full potential” that local government is supposed to be aiming for? What exactly is the promise of “big data” in this context? Fola / Vania: Local governments seek to improve service delivery…

Governance & Security, Interviews

Should adverts for social casino games be covered by gambling regulations?

by David Sutcliffe 24/05/2017

Notably, nearly 90 percent of the advertisements contained no responsible or problem gambling language, despite the gambling-like content.

by David Sutcliffe 24/05/2017

Lord of the Rings slot machines at the Flamingo, image by jenneze (Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0). Unlike gambling played for real money, “social casino games” generally have no monetary prizes.

Social casino gaming, which simulates gambling games on a social platform such as Facebook, is a nascent but rapidly growing industry—social casino game revenues grew 97 percent between 2012 and 2013, with a USD$3.5 billion market size by the end of 2015. Unlike gambling played for real money, social casino games generally have no monetary prizes and are free-to-play, although they may include some optional monetised features. The size of the market and users’ demonstrated interest in gambling-themed activities mean that social casino gamers are an attractive market for many gambling operators, and several large international gambling companies have merged with social casino game operators. Some operators consider the games to be a source of additional revenue in jurisdictions where online gambling is largely illegal, or a way to attract new customers to a land-based gambling venue. Hybrid models are also emerging, with the potential for tangible rewards for playing social casino games. This merging of gaming and gambling means that many previously established boundaries are becoming blurred, and at many points, the two are indistinguishable. However, content analysis of game content and advertising can help researchers, industry, and policymakers better understand how the two entertainment forms overlap. In their Policy & Internet article “Gambling Games on Social Platforms: How Do Advertisements for Social Casino Games Target Young Adults?”, Brett Abarbanel, Sally M. Gainsbury, Daniel King, Nerilee Hing, and Paul H. Delfabbro undertake a content analysis of 115 social casino gaming advertisements captured by young adults during their regular Internet use. They find advertisement imagery typically features images likely to appeal to young adults, with message themes including a glamorising and normalisation of gambling. Notably, nearly 90 percent of the advertisements contained no responsible or problem gambling language, despite the gambling-like content. Gambling advertisements currently face much stricter restrictions on exposure and distribution than do social casino game advertisements: despite the latter containing much gambling-themed content designed to attract consumers.…

Governance & Security, Interviews

We aren’t “rational actors” when it comes to privacy—and we need protecting

by David Sutcliffe 05/05/2017

The popularity of technologies and services that reveal insights about our daily lives paints a picture of a public that is voluntarily offering itself up to increasingly invasive forms of surveillance.

by David Sutcliffe 05/05/2017

We are increasingly exposed to new practices of data collection. Image by ijclark (Flickr CC BY 2.0).

As digital technologies and platforms are increasingly incorporated into our lives, we are exposed to new practices of data creation and collection—and there is evidence that American citizens are deeply concerned about the consequences of these practices. But despite these concerns, the public has not abandoned technologies that produce data and collect personal information. In fact, the popularity of technologies and services that reveal insights about our health, fitness, medical conditions, and family histories in exchange for extensive monitoring and tracking paints a picture of a public that is voluntarily offering itself up to increasingly invasive forms of surveillance. This seeming inconsistency between intent and behaviour is routinely explained with reference to the “privacy paradox”. Advertisers, retailers, and others with a vested interest in avoiding the regulation of digital data collection have pointed to this so-called paradox as an argument against government intervention. By phrasing privacy as a choice between involvement in (or isolation from) various social and economic communities, they frame information disclosure as a strategic decision made by informed consumers. Indeed, discussions on digital privacy have been dominated by the idea of the “empowered consumer” or “privacy pragmatist”—an autonomous individual who makes informed decisions about the disclosure of their personal information. But there is increasing evidence that “control” is a problematic framework through which to operationalize privacy. In her Policy & Internet article “From Privacy Pragmatist to Privacy Resigned: Challenging Narratives of Rational Choice in Digital Privacy Debates,” Nora A. Draper examines how the figure of the “privacy pragmatist” developed by the prominent privacy researcher Alan Westin has been used to frame privacy within a typology of personal preference—a framework that persists in academic, regulatory, and commercial discourses in the United States. Those in the pragmatist group are wary about the safety and security of their personal information, but make supposedly rational decisions about the conditions under which they are comfortable with disclosure, logically calculating the costs and…

Governance & Security, Interviews

How do we encourage greater public inclusion in Internet governance debates?

by David Sutcliffe 03/05/2017

The Internet is neither purely public nor private, but combines public and private networks, platforms, and interests. Given its complexity and global importance, there is clearly a public interest in how it is governed.

by David Sutcliffe 03/05/2017

Reading of the NetMundial outcome document, by mikiwoz (Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Internet is neither purely public nor private, but combines public and private networks, platforms, and interests. Given its complexity and global importance, there is clearly a public interest in how it is governed, and role of the public in Internet governance debates is a critical issue for policymaking. The current dominant mechanism for public inclusion is the multistakeholder approach, i.e. one that includes governments, industry and civil society in governance debates. Despite at times being used as a shorthand for public inclusion, multistakeholder governance is implemented in many different ways and has faced criticism, with some arguing that multistakeholder discussions serve as a cover for the growth of state dominance over the Web, and enables oligarchic domination of discourses that are ostensibly open and democratic. In her Policy & Internet article “Searching for the Public in Internet Governance: Examining Infrastructures of Participation at NETmundial”, Sarah Myers West examines the role of the public in Internet governance debates, with reference to public inclusion at the 2014 Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (NETmundial). NETmundial emerged at a point when public legitimacy was a particular concern for the Internet governance community, so finding ways to include the rapidly growing, and increasingly diverse group of stakeholders in the governance debate was especially important for the meeting’s success. This is particularly significant as the Internet governance community faces problems of increasing complexity and diversity of views. The growth of the Internet has made the public central to Internet governance—but introduces problems around the growing number of stakeholders speaking different languages, with different technical backgrounds, and different perspectives on the future of the Internet. However, the article suggests that rather than attempting to unify behind a single institution or achieve public consensus through a single, deliberative forum, the NETmundial example suggests that the Internet community may further fragment into multiple publics, further redistributing into a more networked and “agonistic” model. This…