Announcements and Fact checking 'Data for Public Good'
Announcements and Fact checking 'Data for Public Good'
In this month's newsletter, I have two bits of self-indulgent news to share and some thoughts on the world post-Covid.
Firstly I am very excited to say I will be a mentor on ExRe’s 2022 program, helping a student/graduate in the field of Speculative Design. If that sounds like something you want to get involved in, feel free to apply to be a Mentee here. Secondly, although it’s been in the works for a while, I’m happy to announce that a project I am part of, ‘Fix the Code’, has been selected for a Mozilla grant. ‘Fix the Code’ will be a project that explores young people’s desires, fears and expectations concerning data, social media and technology. Promise to share more as the project develops.
Although it seems the pandemic is far from over, I wanted to talk about two things that have become more entrenched and accepted in our lives. Namely, ‘Data sharing for public good’ and ‘Fact-checking.
I can only really speak from my experience living in Germany throughout the pandemic, but in many other contexts, the idea that we would be showing a QR code on my phone at the threshold of every bar/venue/cafe would be seen as dystopian. This notion of QR codes going mainstream for one is crazy, but the need to have a digital identity for a seamless experience in the physical world being so accepted, surprised me. However, it seems in Europe we are generally willing to give up a little ‘privacy’, to share our data, for the public good. Luckily, the Covid App that most European country uses is very privacy-focused and I think is a great example of how this tech should be implemented. However, I wonder how many people actually worried about the privacy implications of these systems or downloaded the app to both make their lives easier and to do their part to help tackle the pandemic?
In the near future described by Dave Eggers in the book ‘The Circle’, everyone has the ability to share almost every action of their life with the world on a social media app. One interesting idea he brings up is that people in this world start to believe it is selfish to not share your life (data) with the world. I can’t find the quote but I clearly remember a question posed by a Tech evangelist in the book, ‘If you climb a mountain and don’t stream it live, are you depriving a disabled person of experiencing a moment they will never be able to experience?’ I suppose you could equally ask, is it selfish to want privacy if your data could fight climate change, stop child pornography or improve parking? I keep thinking about this and haven’t really settled on an answer, but as usual my heart tells me we should have shut down the internet before we had to deal with questions like this.
As a quick side note, I am also surprised how many right-wing politicians are in favour of Voter ID laws but disapprove of Vaccine passports. It seems to me at least that both sacrifice some notion of ‘freedom and privacy’ for some other notion of ‘public good’, and a side of power consolidation. As with all conversations of government power, I think it's important to remember that the tools created by a government you like, will be used and repurposed by one you don't.
One controversial topic down, one to go...
The other thing that seems here to stay is Fact-checking, which seems to be one of the key tools the internet has chosen to tackle dis n’ mis -information. Just to do a quick Twitter-Esque caveat, ‘fake news’ that divides, silos and radicalise people is bad and a cause for serious concern. However, I feel the rise of Fact-Checking will do little to reduce this, may in fact exacerbate the problem and has the potential to become a powerful tool of control. The cynic inside me is asking questions like, “What news stories are chosen to be Fact-checked?” Are these the stories that are believed to be dangerous, the ones that attack capital or simply the ones that go against the most widely held beliefs? It seems there is a great deal of power in this editorial aspect of Fact-Cchecking. Equally, “If you believed some crazy news story from an alternative media source, would you believe a traditional news source’s Fact check?” Are we alienating the very people we want to bring back into the fold? Also, “Is it bad to believe untrue and non-impactful things? Do these beliefs always trickle over into dangerous areas?”, After all, many people in the world believe many different religions, should they be Fact-checked?
Lastly, I worry that by deputising our Fact-checking to governments, media outlets or even AI systems(ew), we will become less good at critiquing information ourselves. Kind of like how it feels that we are all worse at navigation because we have given up that aspect of our brain to Google Maps. We learn to trust, rather than learn to understand and end up panicking when our phone runs out of battery on the other side of town.
I suppose my views on Fact-checking largely boil down to I believe it’s a patronising notion that institutions can solve the world's divisions by denouncing something as false. It seems like conversation and understanding have to be the basis of bringing groups together and Fact-Checking gives us a licence to ignore and isolate others as irrational. To me, it seems rather than constantly othering these people, we should instead look at why they feel so alienated by traditional media, whether more transparent models in our societal structures would lead to more trust, or even whether there should be more onus on our education systems to encourage independent thinking and debate?
As you can probably tell I am still very undecided on these topics, I really want to see this from both sides and not just be contrary for the sake of contrariness. Luckily, I am hoping that the ‘Fix The Code’ project will be an amazing space to hear other points of view on these kinds of topics.
That’s all from me, feel free to reach out if you have thoughts and hope you have a great month.
Fred
p.s. A project I did on Fact-checking a couple years ago
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My Website: https://www.fredwordie.com
My Book: https://www.bigdatagirl.com
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