civil disobedience

Corporations often lose in Social Media

Many companies want to be part of the “new” “trendy” world of social media but they are not prepared to accept the realities of the world in which they enter. Often the campaigns just get lost, they are a failure in silence but occasionally they turn into magnificent failures that make your job drop in amazement – what were they thinking?

In January 2012 it was McDonalds who attempted to create buzz by asking people to tweet their cosy moments under the hashtag #McDStories. They were obviously expecting plenty of nice little tales of happy customers enjoying advertising like moments but – of course – this was not the only thing that happened. Forbes published a story on the campaign #McDStories: When A Hashtag Becomes A Bashtag which included examples such as

One time I walked into McDonalds and I could smell Type 2 diabetes floating in the air and I threw up.

Hardly a brilliant piece of marketing.

In a more difficult situation the oil company shell has been the “victim” of an interesting Internet anti-campaign by Greenpeace. Greenpeace set up a copy of the Shell site and asked people to automatically generate advertising posters for their (Shell’s) arctic oil. Huffington post writes:

Since June, Visitors to the site arcticready.com were treated to a spoof mimicking Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s website, a collaborative effort by Greenpeace and The Yes Men, a pair of activists known to imitate companies they dislike.

The results were obvious

According to design consulting firm, PSFK, the public was ready to believe that Arctic Ready was a legitimate marketing campaign. “It is entirely plausible Shell might have been reckless enough to crowd-source adverts using its ‘Let’s Go’ line, and that the crowd-sourced efforts had included gems such as ‘This fox will murder you unless we kill it first. Let’s Go’”

Greenpeace soon released a statement claiming responsibility for the campaign…

When it comes to Social Media dialogues corporate budgets are inadequate when dealing with the sheer numbers of responses capable of being generated by individuals using social media. Any responses left for the corporations (such as suing for copyright violation or defamation) are more likely than not going to generate even bigger PR failures. What is a poor multi-billion dollar corporation to do?

Posted on by mklang

Regulation is everything, or power abhors a vacuum

Can we really control the Internet? This is question has been around long enough to be deemed a golden oldie. But like a fungal infection it keeps coming back…

The early battle lines were drawn up in 1996. In an age where cyberspace was both a cool and correct term lawyers like Johnson & Post wrote “Law And Borders: The Rise of Law in Cyberspace” and activists like John Perry Barlow wrote his epic “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace“.These were the cool and heady days of the cyberlibertarians vs cyberpaternalists. The libs believed that the web should & could not be regulated while the pats meant that it could and should. (I covered this in my thesis pdf here) Since then the terminology has changed but sentiments remain the same.

I miss the term cyberspace. But more to the point the “could/should” control argument continues. Nicklas has written an interesting point on the could part:

Fast forward twenty years. Bandwidth has doubled once, twice, three times. Devices capable of setting up ad hoc networks – large ones – are everywhere. Encrypted protocols are of state-defying strength and available to everyone. Tech savvy generations have grown up to expect access to the Internet not only as a given, but as unassailable. Networks like Anonymous has iterated, several times, and found topologies, communication practices and collaboration methods that defy tracking. The once expensive bottleneck technologies have become cheaper, the cost of building a network slowly approaching zero. The Internet has become a Internet that can be re-instantiated for a large swath of geography by a single individual.

So far so good. Not one internet but personal portable sharable spaces. The inability to control will lead to a free internet. But something feels wrong. Maybe its a cynical sadness of having heard this all before and seeing it all go wrong? From his text I get images of Johnny Mnemonic and The Matrix basically the hacker hero gunslinger fighting the anonymous faceless oppressive society. Its cool, but is it true?

The technology is (on some level) uncontrollable (without great oppression) but the point is that it does not have to be completely controlled. The control in society via technology is not about having 100% surveillance and pure systems which cannot be hacked. Control is about having reasonable amounts of failure in the system (System failures allow dissidents to believe they are winning).

The issue I have with pinning my hopes on the unregulatable internets is that they are – in social terms – an end to themselves. Who will connect to these nets? Obviously those who are in the know. You will connect when you know where & how to connect. This is a vital goal in itself but presents a problem for using these nets in wider social change. Getting information across to a broader section of the population.

Civil disobedience is a fantastic tool. But if the goal is disobedience in itself it is hardly justifiable in a group. If the goal is to bring about social change: ie. the goal is for a minority to convince a majority then the minority must communicate with the majority. If the nets are going to work we need to find ways for the majority to connect to them. If the majority can connect to them then so can the oppressive forces of regulation.

On the field of pats & libs I think I am what is a cynical libertarian. I am convinced of the power, value, social & individual power of non-regulation of technology but I don’t believe that politicians and lobbyists will leave technology alone. It’s an unfortunate truth: power hates a vacuum.

Posted on by mklang

The end of Hitler parodies…

Picking the strongest internet meme is impossible – but if there was such a list the Hitler bunker scene remix must be one of the most recurring. Check out this short list of examples from YouTube.

Unfortunately TechCrunch reports that Constantin Film, the German film company, who made the movie has begun removing the parodies. Attempting to see them on YouTube often results in the text:

“This video contains content from Constantin Film, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.“

The amount of files will rapidly disappear once YouTube’s smart content system begins to locate and remove the clips. The question is not whether Constantin has the legal right to act the way they do but the effect of the action. TechCrunch again:

Downfall is a great movie, but it’s also in German which sadly means that many people outside that country will never watch it. But I’d bet these clips have sparked an interest in the film beyond what any type of traditional marketing could have done.

One could also ask what damage the making of the clips has. The clips don’t make less people see the movie or affect sales in any way. Are the clips creating a negative image of the serious movie? This is a doubtful argument as anyone watching the movie will realize the enormous difference between the comedy and the tragedy.

Constantin Film has acted with questionable legality (parodies are within the law) and have definitely not helped in promoting creativity.

Naturally I fully expect someone to create a Hitler parody to express the outrage we all feel at the loss of this important social commentary!

Update: Read the commentary from EFF Everyone Who’s Made a Hitler Parody Video, Leave the Room

Posted on by mklang

The Resistance of the Monks

From Human Rights Watch comes this fascinating report on the monks resistance in Burma and its aftermath.

This 99-page report written by longtime Burma watcher Bertil Lintner, describes the repression Burma’s monks experienced after they led demonstrations against the government in September 2007. The report tells the stories of individual monks who were arrested, beaten and detained. Two years after Buddhist monks marched down the street of the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, hundreds of monks are in prison and thousands remain fearful of military repression. Many have left their monasteries and returned to their villages or sought refuge abroad, while those who remained in their monasteries live under constant surveillance.

Posted on by mklang

Enforcing dress codes

In case anyone missed it President Sarkozy recently decided to attack the Burka

In our country we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,” Mr Sarkozy said to applause in the parliament’s ceremonial Versailles home. The burka is not a religious sign. It is a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement,” he added. “It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic.”

So ok the man has a point. Equality cannot be achieved in a society when one group has the power to enforce dress codes on another group. The intentions behind forcing a sub-group to behave or dress in a special manner is irrelevant. As the saying goes: “the road to hell is paved with good intentions…”

Photo: Stencils Oslo May 2009 by svennevenn (CC BY-NC-SA)

So even we can agree with Sarkozy what can be done? Sarkozy seems to be attempting to regulate the wearing of a specific style of clothes in public. This is not the same as refusing to allow different types of clothes inside public buildings such as schools or courts. Attempting to enforce such a rule would in itself be a form of denial of freedom. Can you imagine police arresting burka wearing women on the street? This would hardly strengthen the image of France as a democracy.

Another question is what other forms of dress would be prohibited? Are we to focus on the fully dressed aspect then maybe wearing hoods, scarves and masks would be considered wrong. On the other hand if we were to see the lack of individual freedom as an important aspect then wouldn’t all the slaves to fashion be violating the intent of the law?

Times Online has a list of dress related regulation:

— In France a law was passed in 2004 banning pupils from wearing “conspicuous” religious symbols at state schools, a move widely interpreted as aimed at the Muslim headscarf

— In Turkey where 99 per cent of the population is Muslim, all forms of Muslim headscarf have been banned in universities for decades under the secular government. In June 2008 the country’s Consitutional Court overruled government attempts to lift the ban, prompting protests

— In Britain guidelines say that the full Islamic veil should not be worn in courts, but the final decision is up to judges. Schools may forge their own dress codes and in 2006, courts upheld the suspension of Aishah Azmi, a Muslim teaching assistant who refused to remove her veil in class

— German states have the option of choosing to ban teachers and other government employees from wearing Muslim headscarves; four have done so

—The Italian parliament in July 2005 approved anti-terrorist laws that make hiding one’s features from the public — including through wearing the burla — an offence

— Tunisia, a Muslim country, has banned Islamic headscarves in public places since 1981. In 2006 authorities began a campaign against the headscarves and began strictly enforcing the ban

— The Dutch Government said in 2007 that it was drawing up legislation to ban burkas, but it was defeated in elections in November and the new centrist coalition said it had no plans to implement a ban

Posted on by mklang

Brilliant protest

Bit late but what a great idea!

A woman in Paris holds condoms with a picture of Pope Benedict XVI. This condoms were released to mock the pope after he rejected condoms as a weapon against AIDS during his African trip.

From the Guardian.

Posted on by mklang

Shooting Back

Providing cameras and video cameras to different groups is not an uncommon method which allows the subjects to bring their own lives into focus without the direct mediation of the “outsider” camera/filmmaker. Naturally all uses of technology contain risks of bias and slanted views – nobody still believes that the camera never lies? Even if many still believe that fashion images are “real”.

In January 2007, B’Tselem launched Shooting Back, a video advocacy project focusing on the Occupied Territories. We provide Palestinians living in high-conflict areas with video cameras, with the goal of bringing the reality of their lives under occupation to the attention of the Israeli and international public, exposing and seeking redress for violations of human rights.

In projects such as these technology in the form of the cameras and Internet as a distribution medium can be used to empower those involved in a conflict while still providing a preaceful alternative way of coping with everyday violence.

Posted on by mklang

Prosectution for calling Scientologi a cult

In Sweden politicians often complain that the young are not politically active – this is just wrong and reflects the way in which acceptable political action is defined. Bu this is not really the purpose of this post.

A 15-year-old was taking part in a peaceful protest against Scientology when a policewoman told him to stop holding up a sign he had made with a text describing Scientology as a cult. The policewoman quoted from section five of the Public Order Act which prohibits signs which have representations or words which are threatening, abusive or insulting.

Apparently the teenager refused and referred to a 1984 high court ruling which described Scientology as a “cult” which was “corrupt, sinister and dangerous”. This act of civil courage ended when the policewoman removed his sign and handed him a court summons.

read full article in the Guardian.

Posted on by mklang

Digital Billboard Liberation

The higher philosophy behind billboard liberation is the re-appropriation of public space. It is a reaction against the commercialization of the world in which we live where there is a virtual monopoly on the right to broadcast messages into the public sphere. Individuals and organizations (for example the Billboard Liberation Front) carry out acts of adbusting in order to show that culture jamming is a way in which protest is possible.

In a rare example of digital billboard liberation a hacker known as Skullphone has hacked ten of Clear Channel Communications’ digital billboards in Los Angeles. The to achieve this billboard liberation Skullphone had to hack into the Clear Channel network and insert his trademark skullphone between the commercial messages shown on the billboards.

Update: Fresh information suggests that this was not a hack at all but a paid commercial approved by Clear Channel. More information will be presented as soon as it is available.

(via Supertouch who also has more pictures)

Posted on by mklang