21 May 2014 | Magazine
Rafal Rohozinski, co-founder of cyber-research thinktank SecDev Group (Photo: Frontline Club)
What is the future of journalism? The innovation report leaked from the New York Times this week highlights the need for change to keep up with fast-moving technology. How do news gatherers and publishers adapt to the volume of online content produced every day? In Syria, the combined duration of wartime YouTube footage now outweighs the realtime number of hours since the conflict began. Rafal Rohozinski, co-founder of cyber-research thinktank SecDev Group, spoke at London’s Frontline Club on Tuesday about redefining news. Here we round-up five of his key points – affecting everyone from readers to citizen journalists to the world’s biggest media organisations.
“Verification is key”
The Boston bombings were one of the most tweeted about events in history, generating seven million tweets – yet 60% were deemed to include false information. We are now swamped with data, but the successful operators will be the ones that know how to interpret it and validate it. “The expert isn’t the algorithm; it’s the human being in the loop,” says Rohozinski. We will see the rise of the “virtual bureau” – which tap into streams of knowledge coming up from the ground, but will be manned by “super journalists”, who understand the local language, politics, way of life etc. These well-trained individuals are able to work their way around both the data and the subject.
“Focus on one platform at your own peril”
Technology is fickle; it will change. “Imagine,” says Rohozinski, “if the BBC had focused only on MySpace.” Twitter is not the one and only route to the truth. Firstly, because it has a bias towards a particular type of user; secondly, because local platforms can often offer as much – or potentially even more – insight. Weibo in China is one example, but little-known localised platforms also exist in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan … Why are they popular? Because they are more accessible (having been developed for a specific group in their native language) and they are often linked to local telecommunications companies, so they are less expensive to access on mobiles. The internet of the future will cut across more platforms and try to link them.
“Syria is the first war being fought in the full glare of cyberspace”
At start of the Syrian war, there were 14 million mobile-phone users (in a population of 20 million). As people have fled, the number of in-country mobile-phone users has grown; there are now 500,000 more. This has done a great deal to empower citizens, but data can also be manipulated. Thousands of seemingly genuine pro-Assad posts – apparently backed up with pictures of houses and children – turned out to be entirely artificial when analysed by an algorithm. It was more subtle than propaganda; it was created to imply an act of discourse among a community. Twitter didn’t pick up that; field reports wouldn’t pick up on that.
“The social contracts that were formed over decades are now completely up in the air.”
News agencies and intelligence agencies are facing the same problems. Both are trying to answer questions that ultimately depend on people. Both are dependent on cyberspace. Do we use metadata? How much do we reveal? How much do we collect? The Snowden revelations have brought a lot of this to light. Biometric data collection is forcing change in social contracts between individuals and state. The rules are grey and undefined. In Syria, doctors are being arrested, because their phones contain details of gun-shot victims. Journalists and intelligence agencies need to look to new ways to protect their sources.
“Facebook and Google have big ambitions, but they are necessarily realities.”
Although Facebook and Google have been buying drone companies to further their reach, Rohozinski predicts complications: “Ultimately, the internet is based on a physical infrastructure of connectivity. When Facebook says they will use their own fibre optic cables so they aren’t subject to control, they are kind of wrong because at some stage the government will step in and say, ‘You are now a telecommunications company, regulation applies.’ Ambitions for becoming common carriers with a physical embodiment, as opposed to simply a virtual overlay, means they will be subject to much more regulation than they have been in the past.”
Rafal Rohozinski co-developed Psiphon, a software application that allows people in closed societies to access censored information. He has worked across the world, including in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and Africa.
The next issue of Index On Censorship magazine – out in early June – explores citizen journalism and data-tracking in Syria. Subscribe from just £18 per year and find out about hard-hitting journalism under fire around the world.
28 Mar 2014 | News, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture, United Kingdom, Young Writers / Artists Programme
(Illustration: Shutterstock)
“The media tells you what to think!”
That’s a basic criticism of Western journalism, whether it’s of the “CNN controls your mind” or “Left Liberal Elites have monopolised the agenda” variety. Most people reject this, rightly, as a straw-man. We pride ourselves on our ability to sift information, reject weak arguments and come to our own points of view.
A more worrying criticism is that the news directs what you think about. Decisions to give Story X prominence and headlines, and to bury or spike Story Y, mean most of us can only encounter X. Newsworthy stories become obscure if drowned out by others or omitted entirely. We’re denied investigation or campaigning on vital issues because nobody knows they exist.
In Britain this is not what we typically mean by ‘censorship’, not the recourse of despots or prudes. Nevertheless, self-censorship with market and readership in mind denies all but the most devout news-addict important stories. And without the news we can’t have comment pieces, columns, Twitter debates and opinion blogs.
Consider the EuroMaidan protests in Kiev through spring. Coverage gave the impression of a pro-EU crowd led by a heavyweight champion, with a worrying fringe of violent nationalists – Svoboda and Right Sector. This followed the ‘mainstream-extremist’ simplification presented in Egypt, Syria and Libya. Other crucial groups were ignored: LGBT activists set up the protest’s hotlines, feminists ran the makeshift hospitals, Afghan war veterans defended them.
The world’s focus on Kiev and Crimea drove other issues from the spotlight. The Syrian civil war has hardly featured recently, but that conflict has far more casualties, worse upheaval and more immediate consequences for Britain. Refugees are currently en route to claim asylum – this is the last we heard. Similarly, the Philippines dominated the winter’s news after Typhoon Haiyan. Now it’s forgotten in favour of flight MH370 despite the catastrophic ongoing humanitarian crisis, again with more lives at stake.
The Arab Spring is itself a good example of one narrative deafening public consciousness. How many of us knew that at the same time as protests ignited Yemen and Syria in July 2011, Malaysia’s government gassed peaceful crowds and arrested 1,400 protesters after tens of thousands marched for electoral reform? It’s tempting to wonder whether greater coverage, and greater international pressure, could have supported the democratic reforms demanded.
Closer to home, consider the brief uproar caused by the 2013 UK policing bill, drafted to outlaw ‘annoyance and nuisance’ and give police arbitrary powers to ban groups from protest areas. Although the drafts were publicly available, and campaign groups voiced outrage swiftly, left-wing papers took notice only after the bill had passed the Commons. The bill was softened, not by popular pressure or national debate, but by a few conscientious Lords.
Readers could forgive the media for prioritising other stories if they are more pressing. When headlines are crowded by non-events, however, this seems a poor excuse. The British news spectrum was recently obsessed with Labour politicians Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt, who worked for the National Council for Civil Liberties (now ‘Liberty’) in the 1970s. That council granted affiliate status to the now-banned Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). The Daily Mail made a huge splash about its PIE investigation in February, despite uncovering no new information. That paper alone had reported the same story in 1983, 2009, 2012 and 2013. Eventually the BBC, online world and print media all covered the controversy, meaning more worthy issues lost precedence.
Madeleine McCann has dominated countless front pages, reporters chewing over the barest scraps of Portuguese police leaks. No real progress has been made for years. Pundits admit the story retains prominence largely because the McCanns are photogenic, and similar stories would have fallen off the agenda. There are hundreds of similar unsolved child disappearances, just from the UK. Drug scares, MMR vaccine hysteria, celeb gossip and royal gaffes (not to mention Diana conspiracies) complete the non-story roster.
If this seems regrettable but harmless, consider sexual violence. Teacher-child abuse, violent assaults and gang attacks deserve coverage, but their sheer news monopoly perpetuates the public’s false idea of ‘real rape’. Most sexual abuse is between couples or acquaintances: campaigners have shown the myth that ‘real rape’ must involve a violent stranger impedes both prosecution and victim support.
There is no silver bullet, just as no one news organisation can really be blamed for censorship by omission. Few people want or need constant updates on upheaval in South Sudan or Somalia – but we could be reminded they’re happening at all. Editors will always reflect on what is vogue, what will sell, and a diverse free press ensures a broad range of stories. Perhaps the rise of online citizen-reporting can bridge the gap. Nevertheless, the danger of noteworthy events falling into obscurity should niggle at the back of the mind – for those who know enough to think about it.
This article was posted on March 28, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
28 Feb 2014 | About Index, Campaigns
Index’s editorial intern and recent graduate, Alice Kirkland, returned to her old university to speak to journalism students about the real world of work and how to stand out and get noticed in a fast-paced and changing media industry.
21 Feb 2014 | News
To: All Governments
From: Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship here. We’ve noticed some you have had trouble telling the difference between terrorists and journalist lately (yes, you too Barack: put the BlackBerry down). So we thought as people with some experience of the journalism thing, we could offer you a few handy tips to refer to the next time you find yourself asking: journalist or terrorist?
Have a look at your suspect. Is he carrying a) a notebook with weird squiggly lines on it, or b) an RPG-7. If the latter, odds on he’s a terrorist. The former? Most likely a journalist. Those squiggly lines are called “shorthand” – it’s what reporters do when they’re writing things down for, er, reporting. It might look a bit like Arabic, but it’s not, and even if it was, that wouldn’t be a good enough reason to lock the guy up.
A journalist
Still not clear? Let’s move on to the questioning part.
Questioning can be difficult. Your modern terrorist will be highly committed, and trained to withstand even your steeliest glare (and whatever other tactics you might use, eh? LOL! Winky Smiley!). So it may be difficult to establish for certain whether he or she is in fact a terrorist by simply asking them. They might even say they are a journalist, when actually they are terrorists! Sneaky! But there are some ways of getting past this deviousness.
Does your suspect have strong feelings about unpaid internships and their effect on the industry? Or “paywalls” and profit models? Your journalist will pounce on these question in a way that may be quite scary to watch, and keep you there talking about it long after you’ve told her she’s free to go. Your terrorist is not as bothered by these issues, generally, though may accept that it is very difficult for kids to get on the terror ladder these days and nepotism is not an ideal way to run a global bombing campaign.
A terrorist
Ask your suspect if he spends too much time on Twitter: If he gets defensive and says something along the lines of “Yes, but the fact is it’s justified. Stories break on Twitter. It’s not just all hashtag games and…” (again, this could go on for several hours, and will most likely end up being all about hashtag games), then he’s a journalist. [Note: If your suspects seem to spend a lot of time getting into Twitter spats with the Israel Defence Force, they may be a bit terroristy].
Does your suspect look stressed? Like, really, really stressed? Probably a journalist.
Finally, just try saying the phrase “below the line”. If you get a slightly confused look, you’ve probably got a terrorist. If there is actual wailing and gnashing of teeth, journalist.
Now let’s go over why you might be making this mix up. This is where a lot of people get confused, so we’ll be as clear as possible, but do keep up.
Terrorists generally hold quite extreme views which, it’s fair to say, most of us probably do not agree with. However, this does not mean that anyone you disagree with is a terrorist. Or, importantly, that someone who’s spoke to someone who you disagree with is a terrorist.
We understand that this can be quite a difficult point to get your head around, so here’s an example: If, say, a large, international news organisation reports on things you’d rather they didn’t, in a way you don’t like, this does NOT make them a “terrorist organisation”. The people working for them are NOT terrorists “broadcasting false news that harms national security”.
Sometimes, journalists will cover the activities of terrorist organisations, like al-Qaeda. This, however, does not automatically make them their “media man”. Get this — you can even interview members of a terrorist organisation without actually being a terrorist yourself.
Similarly, if someone has something that you want back, that doesn’t mean you get to use terrorism laws to get it, even if you think that thing is very, very important. And yes, even if they intend to use that thing to write stories about you.
Keep these basic ideas in mind and we can almost guarantee you’ll never make the embarrassing mistake of calling journalists terrorists again. Any doubts? Call us. We’re here to help.
The Index team
This article was posted on 21 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
