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The author is complaining that "encryption would render
everything conveniently impenetrable"; whether that is for the
government or the platform itself is immaterial.
In fact, I'd say there is *no difference* whether communication
is monitored by governments or by platforms like Google and
Facebook - because information obtained and kept by the platforms
can be subpoenaed, and all data held by American surveillance
capitalist enterprises should be considered and treated as already
in the possession of the US government.
However, without going too far into that: The author complains
that encryption means citizen's conversations can't be monitored -
i.e., he contends that citizens of democratic nations should be
seen and treated as children that need adult supervision.
That was the part of the article that I was objecting to - and
I'd like to repeat myself while clarifying a little: "There *are*
problems with WhatsApp politics, but I'm not sure more
surveillance (be it by governments or platforms) is the answer."
Best
Carsten
On 5/22/19 6:44 AM, Future Tense wrote:
Curious—the article doesn’t ever call for government
surveillance. It does call for transparency, but the government
(or government factions) is expressly called out as the source
of bad actors. Transparency allows people to see how the bad
actors are operating.
Making the leap that public transparency is the same
as “government surveillance” is akin to saying that open source
software is somehow less secure, simply because bad actors can
examine the code as well....
-S
Sent from ProtonMail Mobile
On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 1:51 AM, Carsten Agger <[email protected]>
wrote:
However, his
point of view seems to be, among other things, that the
problem is that if people ("the children") are allowed to
communicate in
private so the government or the platforms on behalf of the
government
("the adults") can't monitor them, all kinds of havoc will
ensue. What
we need is for the government to monitor us.
That's a very dangerous way of thinking. There *are* problems
with
WhatsApp politics, but I'm not sure more government surveillance
is the
answer.
On 5/13/19 8:54 AM, Patrice Riemens wrote:
>
> Nice key-word: 'hyper-politics' ...
>
>
> Original to:
>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/13/big-tech-whatsapp-democracy-india
>
>
>
> Is India the frontline in big tech’s assault on democracy?
> John Harris, The Guardian, Mon 13 May 2019
>
>
> Social media such as WhatsApp may enable voters, but
encrypted
> messaging polarises them and blocks public scrutiny
>
> In 10 days’ time, two political dramas will reach their
denouement,
> thanks to the votes of a combined total of about 1.3
billion people.
> At the heart of both will be a mess of questions about
democracy in
> the online age, and how – or even if – we can act to
preserve it.
>
> Elections to the European parliament will begin on 23 May,
and offer
> an illuminating test of the rightwing populism that has
swept across
> the continent. In the UK, they will mark the decisive
arrival of Nigel
> Farage’s Brexit party, whose packed rallies are serving
notice of a
> politics brimming with bile and rage, masterminded by
people with
> plenty of campaigning nous. The same day will see the
result of the
> Indian election, a watershed moment for the ruling Hindu
nationalist
> prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his Bharatiya Janata
party, or BJP.
> Whatever the outcomes, both contests will highlight
something
> inescapable: that the politics of polarisation, anger and
what
> political cliche calls “fake news” is going to be around
for a long
> time to come.
>
> WhatsApp has more than 300 million Indian users, and it is
Modi and
> his supporters who have made the most of it
>
> In Facebook’s European headquarters in Dublin, journalists
have been
> shown the alleged wonders of the “war room” where staff are
charged
> with monitoring European campaigning – in 24 languages –
and somehow
> minimising hate speech and misinformation put around by
“bad actors”.
> But this is as nothing compared with what is afoot in the
world’s
> largest democracy, and a story centred on WhatsApp, the
platform Mark
> Zuckerberg’s company acquired in 2014 for $22bn, whose
messages are
> end-to-end encrypted and thus beyond the reach of would-be
moderators.
> WhatsApp is thought to have more than 300 million Indian
users, and
> though it is central to political campaigning on all sides,
it is Modi
> and his supporters who have made the most of it. The
political aspects
> of this blur into incidents of murder and violence traced
to rumours
> spread via WhatsApp groups – last week, the Financial Times
quoted one
> Indian political source claiming that WhatsApp was “the
echo chamber
> of all unmitigated lies, fakes and crap in India”.
>
> When I spoke to the UK-based Indian academic Indrajit Roy
last week he
> acknowledged India’s “dangerous discourse” but emphasised
how the
> online world had given a voice to people who were once
outsiders. He
> talked about small, regional parties live-streaming rallies
in “remote
> parts of north India”; memes that satirised “how idiotic
and
> self-obsessed [Modi] is”; and people using the internet to
loudly ask
> why India’s caste hierarchies held them back so much. But
then came
> the flipside. In that context, he said, it was perhaps not
surprising
> that Modi was now leading “an elite revolt against the kind
of
> advances that have happened in the past five or six
decades, whether
> it’s the rights of minorities, so-called lower castes, or
women”. The
> fact that he and the BJP are using the most modern means of
> communication to do so is an irony evident in the rise of
> conservatives and nationalists just about everywhere.
>
> This, then, is an Indian story, but it chimes with what is
happening
> all over the planet. With the help of as many as 900,000
WhatsApp
> activists, the BJP has reportedly collected reams of
detailed data
> about individual voters and used it to precisely target
messages
> through innumerable WhatsApp groups. A huge and belligerent
online
> community known as the Internet Hindus maintains a shrill
conversation
> about the things that its members think are standing in the
way of
> their utopia: Muslims, “libtards”, secularists. There are
highly
> charged online arguments about Indian history, often led by
the kind
> of propagandists who never stand for office and thus put
themselves
> beyond any accountability. Thanks to the Indian equivalent
of
> birtherism, there are also claims that the Nehru-Gandhi
family, who
> still dominate the opposition Congress party, have been
secret
> followers of Islam, a claim made with the aid of fake
family trees and
> doctored photographs.
>
> Partly because forwarded messages contain no information
about their
> original source, it is by no means clear where the division
between
> formal party messaging and unauthorised material lies, so
Modi and his
> people have complete deniability. They benefit, moreover,
from the way
> that the online world seems to ensure that everything is
ramped up and
> divided. To quote Subir Sinha, an Indian analyst of society
and
> politics based at London’s School of African and Oriental
Studies:
> ”You can’t just be a nationalist; you’ve got to be an
> ultra-nationalist. You can’t just be upset by Pakistan’s
actions;
> you’ve got to be outraged.” He calls this “hyper-politics”,
and says
> that its international lines of communication have led some
to some
> remarkable things. “Tommy Robinson is extremely popular
among Modi
> supporters,” he told me. “You will find mega-influencers of
the Indian
> right who will approvingly post Tommy Robinson material in
WhatsApp
> groups, or on Twitter.”
>
> Yes, the internet is still replete with possibilities of
emancipation
> and pluralism, but herein lie the basic features of the
global 21st
> century: disagreements that have always been there in
politics, both
> democratic and otherwise, now seem to have been rendered
unstoppable
> by technology. Significant parts of society are kept in a
constant
> state of tension and polarisation, a state exacerbated by
the
> algorithms that privilege outrage over nuance, and
platforms that
> threaten to be ungovernable. Though the old-fashioned media
maintains
> the pretence that electioneering is the preserve of
parties, campaigns
> around elections (and referendums) are actually loose and
open-ended –
> often mired in hate and division and full of allegations of
corruption
> and betrayal. We are seeing the constant hardening-up of
political
> tribes – religious communities, liberals, conservatives,
nationalists,
> socialists, cults built around supposedly charismatic
leaders – with
> victory going to the forces that can most successfully
manipulate the
> online ferment.
>
> Modi is a dab hand at this. So are the forces behind the
Brazilian
> president, Jair Bolsonaro. Important Brexiteers are expert
in the same
> techniques; as evidenced by his Twitter presidency, the
same is true
> of Donald Trump. On the left, too, there are clear
manifestations of a
> politics transformed by the way we now communicate – not
least in and
> around Corbynism, which represents both sides of the new
reality:
> simultaneously the most serious threat to established
thinking for
> decades and a long-overdue push against inequality and the
lunacies of
> the free market, and also the focus of a shrill,
all-or-nothing,
> sometimes truth-bending online discourse.
>
> Whether the platforms at the heart of this new world might
eventually
> start to get to grips with the downsides of what they have
created is
> a question obscured at present by unconvincing
half-measures, and the
> kind of flimsy PR embodied by a recent WhatsApp advertising
campaign
> that encouraged its users in India to “Share joy, not
rumours”.
>
> The reality of where we are headed was perhaps highlighted
only a few
> months ago, when Zuckerberg announced a new vision for
Facebook, built
> around the mantra “The future is private”, and a proposal
to make his
> most successful invention much more like WhatsApp – an
attempt, as
> some people saw it, to start a journey towards Facebook
having no
> responsibility for the content of its networks because
encryption
> would render everything conveniently impenetrable. In that
sense, the
> Indian experience may not be any kind of outlier but a
pointer to all
> our futures. If that turns out to be true, what are we
going to do
> about it?
>
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