The 196th Block: Loosely linked

Loooooonger editions moving forward

Feb 05, 2024

This week…

Your reading time is about 7 minutes. Let’s start.

The reading length is not my problem. (Image made with Bing Image Creator.)

I am making a minor format update to TSB. While maintaining the three featured stories each week, I am now including links to loosely connected stories that I would have edited out of the newsletter in the past.

I read a lot of news—and lately, because of my current role, I am also watching many news documentaries. A lot of those don’t make it into the newsletter, which is a shame, because they are links I would DM you if you were a news nerd like me! On Threads, I share a lot more freely, but here in Canada, Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, blocked the news (see: #170), so many of the links I share cannot be discovered by Canadians.

So, there will be almost double the number of links per issue moving forward, and I hope it fills your evening with plenty to read and digest. Often, these stories are from publications with some level of Western credibility. I understand how that‘s paradoxical to TSB’s goal of observing tech and media beyond the Anglosphere, but many media outlets that may be credible in South America, Asia, or Africa are not necessarily familiar sources to the majority of TSB readers. It is an acceptable compromise to encourage readers to pay attention to stories that matter beyond their circle. Plus, we can incentivise Western outlets to cover international stories through a global lens. More importantly, I try my best to share links that are not behind a paywall.

And now, a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.

ICYMI: The Previous Block did not romantise diseases but shared stories about information warfare from the U.S. to Uganda to Ukraine, and somehow managed to make a small plea for more Stromae fan edits. CORRECTION NOTICE: None notified.

HATE SPEECH EXTREMISM

Deepfakes, trolls and cybertroopers: how social media could sway elections in 2024

Heidi Ledford for Nature:

In Indonesia, which will hold a general election on 14 February, a swarm of buzzers — people paid to post large volumes of material on social media — is in full swing. Their aim: to sway the electorate. Amid the digital noise, Ika Idris, a social scientist at Monash University’s Jakarta campus, and her colleagues are trying to track changes in hate speech, as well as the influence of misinformation — such as an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated ‘deepfake’ video, that shows a presidential candidate speaking Chinese, —which would suggest a close alliance with China — on voters.
Previously, Idris had free access to data from X (formerly Twitter), but last year, the social-media platform ended its policy of free data access for academic researchers, and she cannot afford the fees. Now, Idris must ask collaborators in wealthier countries to share their data with her during the run-up to the election, giving her less room to experiment with search parameters.

Pakistan (8 February) and Indonesia (14 February) are the two biggest elections this month, in terms of population size. Loosely linked:

Indonesian Islamists’ pragmatic pivot in 2024 by Nava Nuraniyah for New Mandala.
Don’t cover Imran Khan’s PTI: Pakistan’s media told to censor popular ex-PM by Abid Hussain for Al Jazeera.
El Salvador’s Bukele has everyone’s attention as he seeks reelection in spite of the constitution by Megan Janetsky for AP.
Ban the AfD or fight it? Germany grapples over how to counter the far-right by Andreas Rinke and Sarah Marsh for Reuters.
As Meloni embraces Africa, Europe holds its breath by Hannah Roberts for Politico.

FOREIGN INTERFERENCE

Misinformation spreads in China on ‘civil war’ in Texas

Kerry Allen for BBC:

Media messaging has made the idea of civil war more believable, as Chinese state media have regularly suggested that political divisions in the US are now so polarised that the country has reached the brink of internal conflict.
The phrase “civil war” has been used repeatedly in Chinese newspapers since the January 2021 Capitol Hill riot.
While foreign media is largely blocked in China, content from foreign media is often cherry-picked to stoke suggestions of US internal divisions.
Social media users in China on Friday, for example, were able to read reports that Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis is sending up to 1,000 members of the National Guard to Texas.
China often publishes such reports as a response to Western governments issuing critical comments on China’s handling of issues in Xinjiang, Hong Kong or Taiwan. It’s a way of saying: focus on your own backyard, instead of telling us how to run our country.

Censorship also makes it difficult for Chinese users to fact-check. Loosely linked:

Russia amplifies calls for civil war in the U.S. by Caroline Orr Bueno for Weaponized.
Singaporeans slam U.S. senator’s grilling of TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi’s nationality, links to China: ‘pure ignorance’ by Kimberly Lim for SCMP.
How Taiwan beat back disinformation and preserved the integrity of its election by David Klepper and Huizhong Wu for AP.
Amazon’s Expats series not available in Hong Kong, where it is set by Helen Davidson for The Guardian.
Canada a ‘high-priority’ target for Chinese interference, CSIS doc tells Hogue inquiry by Catharine Tunney for CBC.

LANGUAGE AND DIGITAL LITERACY

Cybercrime victims who aren’t proficient in English are undercounted – and poorly protected

Fawn Ngo (University of South Florida) for The Conversation:

In the United States, the Internet Crime Complaint Center serves as a critical component in the FBI’s efforts to combat cybercrime. The center’s website provides educational resources to help individuals and businesses protect themselves from cyberthreats and also allows them to report their victimization by submitting complaints related to internet crimes. The Internet Crime Complaint Center also publishes annual reports summarizing the current state of internet crime, trends and notable cases.
However, the information and resources, including the reporting form, posted on the center’s website are only available in English. This excludes a substantial number of internet users and victims of cybercrime: people with limited English proficiency. In addition to leaving out many people who are more vulnerable to cyberthreats, one consequence is that the Internet Crime Complaint Center’s annual Internet Crime Reports are incomplete and inaccurate.

Translation alone isn’t sufficient, terms like ‘phishing’ and ‘encryption,’ even if translated, still mean nothing if you don’t grasp the concept. Loosely linked:

Lie about your birthday by Sisi Wei for The Markup.
Why ‘Singlish me’ feels different to ‘Aussie-English me’ by Simeon Neo for SBS.
This AI learnt language by seeing the world through a baby’s eyes by Elizabeth Gibney for Nature.

What I read, listen, and watch…

I’m reading The Mathematics of Love (2015) by Hannah Fry. A short read on the numerical patterns behind online dating, mainly (but not only).
I’m listening to the pig butchering episode on Darknet Diaries by Jack Rhysider.
I’m watching a DW documentary on Asia’s cyber slavery scam factory.
I’m also watching R.AGE’s 2019 story on Pulau Bidong, the Malaysian island that became a safe haven for Vietnamese asylum seekers in the late 1970s to the 1990s. Meant to accommodate 4,500 refugees at a given time, the population of the refugee camp peaked at 40,000. It is estimated that 250,000 Vietnamese refugees passed through this island until its closure. Former refugees returned to the island decades after leaving and resettling in third countries.

Chart of the week

Uh, happy 20th birthday to Facebook, I guess. Meta reported 3.07 billion monthly active users, up 3 per cent from a year ago, as shown by Statista’s Felix Richter.