The 213th Block: Election fever and cyber insecurity
Plus, low quality and unequal content
This week…
Your reading time is about 8 minutes. Let’s start.
We’re mid-way through 2024 and too many things happened. Just to catch you up on them, here’s a non-exhaustive list:
January 13 - Lai Ching-te of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party won the Taiwanese presidential election with 40% of the vote.
January 26 - The UN’s International Court of Justice rules that Israel must take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza.
February 8 – Independent candidates, mostly members of the banned Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, won 93 seats in the National Assembly of Pakistan after the general election, with 31.17 per cent of the popular vote. The Pakistan Muslim League(N) formed government with 114 seats and a 23.64 per cent popular vote.
February 14 – Prabowo Subianto won the Indonesian presidential election, and the centre-to-centre-left Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan won the most votes in the legislative election.
March 10 – Portugal’s Democratic Alliance won just enough seats to form a minority government after the Portuguese legislative election amid losses by the incumbent Socialist Party and major gains by the right-wing Chega party.
March 13 – The European Union passed the Artificial Intelligence Act, which EU lawmakers said is the first comprehensive legal and regulatory framework for AI.
March 17 – Russian president Vladimir Putin was re-elected for a fifth term.
March 25 – The UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
April 10 – South Korea’s Democratic Party and Democratic Alliance won 176 seats after the legislative election. President Yoon Suk Yeol’s People Power and People Future won 108 seats.
May 10 – The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution to grant the State of Palestine the right to be seated among member states alphabetically. This will go into effect at the next UN General Assembly session on 10 September.
May 15 – Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore since 2004, was succeeded by former deputy Lawrence Wong as prime minister. The next general election is to be held by 2025.
May 15 – Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was injured in a shooting after a government meeting.
May 19 – Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, as well as several other officials, died when their helicopter crashed in East Azerbaijan.
May 20 – The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader over alleged war crimes.
May 24 – The ICJ ruled that Israel must halt its military offensive in Rafah.
May 29 – After the South African general election, the ANC party failed to win a majority vote for the first time in the country’s democratic history.
May 30 – Former United States President Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 counts in his hush money trial, the first time any American president has been found guilty of a crime.
June 1 – The 2024 Indian general election, which began on April 19, concluded.
And now, a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.
ICYMI: The Previous Block got nothing one. FWIW:
Don't Google it by Stephen Moore for Trend Mill.
CORRECTION NOTICE: None notified.ELECTION FEVER
Digital campaigning is a huge part of elections now – but going viral isn’t everything
Matt Walsh (Cardiff University) for The Conversation:
Political parties themselves also risk falling victim to the belief that social media is everything. While the power of the press is no longer what it once was, there are still moments when broadcasters and newspapers can set the agenda, such as during the televised debates. And while younger people may be more prolific users of social media, they are also the demographic least likely to vote.
In the 2017 and 2019 election campaigns, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party demonstrated its prowess in digital communication, using videos and memes to amass millions of views. However, in 2019, the party had its worst result since the 1930s. Online popularity does not always match up with voters’ actual views.
After the 2019 election, a comprehensive report commissioned by the party from the thinktank Labour Together heavily criticised its digital approach. The report said Labour’s supporters online “spent too much of the campaign talking to themselves rather than reaching out to convince swing voters”.
Loosely linked:
Influencers are using TikTok to encourage voting in South Africa by Shukri Hassan for Rest of World.
Hate speech and disinformation in South Africa’s elections: big tech make it tough to monitor by Guy Berger (Rhodes University) for The Conversation.
Fighting for votes in the world’s biggest data mine by Meryl Sebastian for BBC.
From fan to Indian PM’s most formidable critic by Alishan Jafri for Al Jazeera.
Indonesia rushed out a vote-counting app for this year’s election. It did not go well by Michelle Anindya for Rest of World.
Mexico’s next president is likely to be this scientist — but researchers are split in their support by Humberto Basilio for Nature.
CYBER INSECURITY
China turns to private hackers as it cracks down on online activists on Tiananmen Square anniversary
Christopher K. Tong (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) for The Conversation:
Every year ahead of the June 4 commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese government tightens online censorship to suppress domestic discussion of the event.
Critics, dissidents and international groups anticipate an uptick in cyber activity ranging from emails with malicious links to network attacks in the days and weeks leading up to the anniversary.
Much of this cyber activity by Beijing is done covertly. But a recent restructuring of China’s cyberforce and a document leak exposing the activities of Chinese tech firm i-Soon have shed some light on how Beijing goes about the business of hacking.
Loosely linked:
Google confirms leaked Search documents are real by Mia Sato for The Verge.
Winnipeg man caught in scam after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was legitimate by Vera-Lynn Kubinec and Caroline Barghout for CBC.
Tech brain drain fuels Philippines’ cybersecurity skills gap by Mariejo Ramos for Context.
Using dating apps for public health messaging is an ethical dilemma by Jaime Garcia Iglesias (University of Edinburgh), Brian Heaphy (University of Manchester), and Maurice Nagington (University of Manchester) for The Conversation.
How your data ends up in AI training sets by Niamh McIntyre for TBIJ.
QUALITY CONTENT
What is ‘All eyes on Rafah’? Decoding a viral social trend
Sarah Shamim for Al Jazeera:
The image has caught more attention than many photos of Rafah or Gaza. This could be because the image is being shared using Instagram’s “Add Yours” feature, which allows users to repost it in seconds without having to search for images.
Precisely because the image is AI-generated, it appears to have escaped any censorship based on keywords, helping with its explosive spread. “The AI-generated template seems to have passed keyword detection or text-based censorship,” [Ameera Kawash, a UK-based Palestinian-Iraqi-American artist and researcher] said.
It is also an easy way for celebrities and influencers to talk about a war many of them have not spoken about previously, she said.
But there could be another reason, too, some experts said: The AI image might be more palatable to some viewers than real photos of Gaza, which are graphic and often show blood, dead bodies and violence.
Loosely linked:
The new generation of online culture curators by Kyle Chayka for The New Yorker. (Archive link.)
Why everyone wants to be the internet’s librarian by Ochuko Akpovbovbo for As Seen On.
The “egg theory” of AI agents by Rex Woodbury for Digital Native.
Supersharers of fake news on Twitter by Sahar Baribi-Bartov, Briony Swire-Thompson, and Nir Grinberg for Science.
What I read, listen, and watch…
I’m reading Artificial Unintelligence (2018) by Meredith Broussard, a guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology.
I’m listening to WNYC Studios’ On The Media on how tech journalists fuel the AI hype machine.
I’m watching the SBS Dateline episode inside Romania’s sex cam industry.
Other curious links, including en español et français:
What’s with the rise of “fact-based journalism”? by Philip M. Napoli and Asa Royal for Nieman Lab.
Changing global news coverage of Africa is about acknowledging the continent’s rightful place in the world by Ruth Omondi for Open Society Foundations.
Washing machine chime scandal shows how absurd YouTube copyright abuse can get by Ashely Belanger for Ars Technica.
He found the American dream on China’s TikTok, the reality was more complicated by April Xu for Documented & The Markup.
Their names are frequently autocorrected. This campaign wants tech companies to change that by Abby Hughes for CBC.
The obscure federal intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right by Dylan Matthews for Vox.
At 10, I fled the Nazis to live starving and alone in the woods. For two years, detection meant death by Chris Godfrey for The Guardian.
Doctor X, el médico español que aconseja sobre drogas en la 'dark web' y logró esquivar al FBI por Pol Pareja en elDiario.es.
La Policía española ya usa en sus investigaciones un sistema automático de reconocimiento facial por Manuel G. Pascual en El País.
El ingeniero español que ha llenado de fotos la Wikipedia por Natalia Ponjoan en El País.
Wikipédia supprime la page d’un parti politique français en pleine campagne des européennes par Aurore Gayte dans Numerama.
Un journaliste peut-il écrire une fiction pour mieux raconter la réalité ? par Mathieu Deslandes dans La revue des médias.
« Streamers 4 Palestinians » : sur Twitch, des vidéastes se mobilisent dans l’urgence par Aurélien Defer et Louise Mohammedi dans Le Monde.
Chart of the week
In a new Reuters Institute report authored by Richard Fletcher and Rasmus Nielsen, averaging across six countries (Argentina, France, Denmark, Japan, the UK, and the US), young people are significantly more likely to say they are comfortable with using news produced in whole or in part by AI.
Yes, I know, 213th* not 213rd. My mistake.